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Six Writer/Friends Complete Book For Dying Author

Six Writer­friends Complete Book for a Dying Author/Friend

When Elizabeth Aleshire was hospitalized after suffering a heart attack last
summer, she fully expected to recover and complete her book, 101 Ways You Can
Help: How To Offer Comfort and Support To Those Who Are Grieving. But that
was not to be. A second heart attack dimmed the prospect of recovery, and Ms.
Aleshire expired at the age of 59 with a third of her book unwritten.

While still in the hospital, Ms. Aleshire received daily visits from six writer-
friends, all of whom had met over the years at the International Women’s Writing
Guild’s annual “Remember the Magic” summer conference at Skidmore College in
Saratoga Springs, New York, where Ms. Aleshire had taught in each of the past 25
years.

When it became clear that Ms. Aleshire would not recover, the six writer-friends
offered to complete her manuscript posthumously. Permission was granted by both
the author and her publisher, Sourcebooks, and the team went into “emergency
mode” to write the unwritten chapters in time to meet the book’s publication
deadline.

The book, 101 ways You Can Help: How To Offer Comfort And Support To Those
Who Are Grieving, will be in bookstores by the end of April.

On Sunday, April 19, the six friends and co-authors—Kathy Barach, Marsha
Browne, Zita Christian, Judy Huge, Paula Scardemalia and Anne Walradt—will
tell the story of completing their friend and teacher’s book as part of the
International Women’s Writing Guild’s 57th Big Apple Conference’s “Meet the
Authors” Open House at the Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue (near 38th
Street) in New York City.

The “Meet the Authors” Open House will be followed in the afternoon by a “Meet
the Agents” Open House where writers have the opportunity to briefly discuss their
work with literary agents.

“Many writers have found their agents at this event,” says Hannelore Hahn, the
IWWG’s Executive Director who founded the nonprofit organization in 1976.
“Actually, some 4,000 books have been published by IWWG members since we
started more than 30 years ago.

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This entry was posted on Friday, March 27th, 2009 at 12:36 am and is filed under Industry News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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