Author Commentary

Karen Wright
May Day --

My earliest remembrance of May Day was at the age of seven. My family was living in a cul de sac of houses in Fullerton, CA. Every household in the neighborhood worked for Disneyland. We had a mermaid and a guerilla living directly across the street from us. Our nearest neighbors to our left had a house filled with seven children, ranging in age from four to seventeen. A Hawaiian dancer lived four houses down from us. It was a wonderful neighborhood to grow up in.

On May 1st, the year I was seven, someone left a basket of candies, chocolates, flowers, and ribbons on our doorstep. This tradition of the ancient Roman and Druid holiday of May Day has endured for centuries. Although it represents the turning of spring into summer and is celebrated around the world, it was a new tradition for us.

How, you might ask, does May Day and a basket of flowers, a promise of summer relate to our May’s Featured Author. Good question and one where connecting the dots might seem odd at first, but hang in there with me.

My earliest remembrance of Karen Wright was what her voice told me about her in our very first phone conversation. Her voice reveals more about who she is than any other person I’ve ever heard. It’s like hearing someone’s words, but it’s the sounds making the words that reveal the most. Her voice tells you that she’s strong, but vulnerable; educated, but not academic; articulate, but not verbose; and profound in her ordinary tongue of story-telling style conversation. She is a wordsmith with wisdom.

Her ability to tell a story of life’s transformative events in the mundane of life’s "stuff" equates to the surprise of receiving a May Day basket -- it’s a promise of fruition. She tells you right up front that a Sequoia seed, the size of a flake of oatmeal can survive the ravages of fire to grow into a mighty Sequoia tree, then so can you! The initial delight of reading her work for the first time never leaves you. Karen’s aim at bridging the mundane foibles of her life into a universal tongue of profound understanding for the reader is her truest gift -- her May Day basket.

"If you know your Self, you know every other human on the planet." I don’t know who said that, but I do believe it. And Karen’s book reveals that she believes it too: her bite-sized stories openly examine and gauge her life’s process to know self.

Go ahead, step in, and journey with this woman on a course to discover your own strengths. You might be surprised and find a May Day basket hanging on your front door, reminding you that seeds do take root and grow into a mighty presence, just like the Sequoia seed.

It is with great pleasure that I feature Karen Wright as the Featured Author for May and encourage you to read The Sequoia Seed -- or as I refer to it, the little book that can.

Toni Dianne Holm, Publisher
May 2009

Karen Wright , author
"The Sequoia Seed:
Remembering the Truth of Who You Are"

< Back to Featured Author