Gathering Lights - Softcover

I first visited San Francisco in the mid 1990s at the invitation of my friend, Jeffrey Hartgraves. Together, we explored bookstores, watched the fog over the Pacific, got off buses in new neighborhoods, danced in and out of microclimates and explored the ruins at the Cliff House. We listened intently and respectfully for the ghosts of the City to speak. They never disappointed us.

I continue to return to San Francisco annually--a pilgrimage to my heart-home. Jeffrey has died, and I carry what we experienced with me when I return to his beloved City. I always whisper hello from him. I always hold his hand when I climb the hill in Buena Vista Park or have a coffee at Momi Toby's in Hayes Valley. Our "what if" games continue in my own writing. He made my writing better, and his love of San Francisco helped make this novel. I hope you can hear him whispering in the pages. 

Gathering Lights is a love letter -- not just to San Francisco, but to everyone who has ever found themselves exactly where they needed to be in the most unexpected of ways.

Laraine Herring holds and MFA in creative writing and an MA in counseling psychology. She has developed numerous workshops that use writing as a tool for healing grief and loss. She is the author of three novels: Gathering Lights: A Novel of San Francisco; Into the Garden of Gethsemane, Georgia, and Ghost Swamp Blues. Her books on writing include The Writing Warrior: Discovering the Courage to Free Your True Voice (voted one of the best books for writers from Poets & Writers magazine) and Writing Begins with the Breath: Embodying Your Authentic Voice. She is also the author of Lost Fathers: How Women Can Heal From Adolescent Father Loss and the short story collection Monsoons. Her short stories, poems, and essays have appeared in national and local publications. Her fiction has won the Barbara Deming Award for Women and her nonfiction work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She currently directs the creative writing program at Yavapai College in Prescott, Arizona and she teaches at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Massachusetts.