Tribute to my Muses

Before becoming a writer, I managed Diva careers. So it was natural for me to write them into my character Cassandra.  And now that The Drummer's Widow has been published, I want to pay tribute to Aretha Franklin, Jennifer Holliday, Yvonne Jackson, Etta James, Carole King, Cyndi Lauper, Laurel Massé, Bette Midler, Linda Ronstadt, Amy Winehouse, and of course Lady Gaga who are my Muses. Their voices. Their lyrics. Their herstories. My character Cassandra was drawn from them and she wouldn't exist without them.

How would I have ever gotten through the first chapters of my novel, much less my adolescence, without Aretha demanding that you “gotta respect yourself”? 

How would I have made it through Cassandra’s disastrous love affair without Carole King’s illuminating lyrics “it’s too late" and "something inside has died”? 

And what about Cyndi Lauper’s ‘feminist’ rocker, “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” When I hear her belt out that song, I have to stop my car and get out and dance. 

Or what about Whitney Houston who so often encouraged me with, “I didn’t know my own strength” and “not to break,” and then sadly she did. And Amy Winehouse who said just before her tragic death, “I'm not here to be famous, I just want to challenge myself. If all goes wrong, I'll have my music.” 

There are certainly other spectacular Divas but this is a personal list centered around the singers, including those I worked with, who inspired me with their courage and determination; Divas whose narratives gave me the lines I needed to trigger my own ideas; Divas who fell and got up again, helping me through my own darkest hours. Divas who kept me crying, laughing, and dancing right up to the final written page of The Drummer’s Widow