Rhode Island Author Expo Spotlight – Debbie Tillinghast

This post was originally posted on Martha Reynold’s blog and has been reposted here with author permission, minor revisions have been made.

Changing Seasons

The wind has shifted overnight, hurling itself across the bay from the Northwest. Gone are the gentle summer breezes, replaced by winds with winter’s bite lurking on the edges. The temperature hovers near forty and the air is crisp and invigorating as I begin my morning walk. The tide is high and waves are breaking over the rocks; one small dinghy rolls on the swells as they dash towards the shore. The waves are the only sound I hear this morning, and if birds are singing, they are drowned out by the relentless pounding of the surf. A seagull perches on a rock that is peeking from the water, and he shrieks his morning thoughts. I wonder if he is sad to see the summer end, taking the visitors who might leave behind an occasional stray quahog, or happy to have solitude return and the bay to himself. Again I listen for the morning calls of resident song birds, but all I hear is the wind and one solitary crow.

My life began on this small island in Narragansett Bay, called Prudence, where daily existence was guided by the changing seasons and the tides. Summer meant the opening of my dad’s general store which kept both my parents busy, as Prudence was predominantly a summer colony. My family lived here year round, but the winter population dwindled to about fifty, and the rhythm of life changed after Labor Day. The ferry now runs daily, and the schedule makes year round commuting a possibility, so the island seems less remote even in the winter.

I’m here on Prudence to help my friend Judy close her summer house for the season. We are always reluctant to say goodbye to the carefree island summer days, and sometimes the warm October sun tempts us to linger for one last swim and postpone this task a little longer. The wisdom of the decision to close is reinforced, when the frosty night reminds us that winter will soon embrace this little island and, without heat or insulation, the disaster of frozen pipes will be real if the winterizing is not complete.

When Judy and I board the ferry in the late afternoon, her house is all tucked in for the winter. I know it will be waiting when balmy spring days entice us to return to Prudence Island, and the bay beckons us for our first chilly swim of the year. Perhaps because of my island childhood, my senses are tuned to the change in seasons and as each begins, it becomes my favorite. Though I will delight in snowy winter days, I will anticipate the time when the song birds serenade my morning walks once more.

Debbie Kaiman Tillinghast is the author of The Ferry Home, a memoir about her childhood on Prudence Island, Rhode Island. Her book is available in local gift shops and bookstores and online at Indigo River Publishing and  Amazon. Visit her on Facebook.

Rhode Island Author Expo Spotlight – Becky MacDonell-Yilmaz

This post was originally posted on Martha Reynold’s blog and has been reposted here with author permission, minor revisions have been made.

I wasn’t quite sure how to dress up for my fourth-grade Career Day. I had borrowed multiple books from my elementary school’s library in an attempt to research exactly how one goes about becoming an author, but most of the information I uncovered related to finding work as a freelance writer and lacked the step-by-step instructions and list of appropriate tools and attire that I had hoped to find. So I settled on an outfit that made me happy: my favorite pink shirt, a pair of comfortable pants, and my white Keds, with a cloth-covered journal – one of several from my collection – and pen my only real props.

Years later, after drastically altering my career path and enrolling in medical school, it was that same principle, doing what made me happy, that brought me back to writing. As fascinated as I was by my studies in anatomy and physiology, by the end of my first year I full of facts but empty as a person. When I learned of an opportunity to incorporate an independent writing project into my medical curriculum, I felt a surge of excitement, which was quickly washed away by abiding apprehension. I waited until the night before the deadline to submit my application. In truth, I spent half of that night trying to convince myself that I might actually have something to say.

When I was accepted to the program and awarded a fellowship to help support my efforts, words began to flow from my fingers into my journal, onto my laptop, onto any scrap of paper within my reach. What I had dismissed during my pre-medical studies as a childhood hobby suddenly emerged as an integral ingredient in my efforts to survive medical school and eventually to thrive as a physician. I filled the blank pages of journals that had sat on my bedroom shelves for so long, untouched yet unable to be parted with. And I finally recalled the sentiment that had first sparked my interest in medicine: the desire to understand, to bear witness to, and to offer a hand to hold throughout patients’ stories as they unfold.

Becky MacDonell-Yilmaz earned her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Public Health from Dartmouth College and her Doctor of Medicine from Stony Brook University School of Medicine. She completed a residency in pediatrics at Brown University/Hasbro Children’s Hospital. Her work has been published in Pediatrics, Annals of Internal Medicine, The New Physician, The Writers Circle, and Paumanok II, an anthology of poetry and photography by Long Islanders. Her first chapbook of poetry, Tools for Survival, was published in 2015 by Finishing Line Press. You can explore more of her writing at  The Growth Curve: ruminations of a pediatrician in training. She lives in Providence, RI, with her husband and son.