Dive into a powerful conversation about grief, storytelling, and healing after loss with Highlander Press founder Deborah Kevin. We unpack the deeply personal journey of writing the novel The Five Widows Club and the profound impact of sharing your truth. Whether you are facing a widower’s grief or seeking advice on starting life over, Deborah illuminates how embracing your voice and finding community is essential for healing after loss and finding joy amidst sorrow. Learn the secrets to author success and why the act of writing your story can be the most healing experience you ever have.

I am sharing my experience of loving the same man for 32 years, a mother to two adult children, a retired military officer, a breast cancer survivor, and my connections with others.  

Anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts should reach out to a suicide hotline or local emergency number in their country: Psychology Today Suicide Hotlines and Prevention Resources Around the World.

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The Five Widows Club: Dr. Tina Fornwald & Deborah Kevin On Grief, Storytelling, And Healing After Loss

Introduction Of Deborah Kevin And The Five Widows Club

Welcome, Widowhood. This episode is incredibly special to me because this conversation is not just about a book. It’s about the person who helped guide me through this journey of bringing The Five Widows Club to the world. Our guest is Deborah Keven, the founder of Highlander Press, a bestselling author of Shelf Life: A Field Guide to Long-Term Author Success, a speaker, an editor, a storyteller, and someone who has become a meaningful part of my publishing journey.

Deborah has dedicated her work to helping authors move beyond fear, own their voices, and understand that their story matters. Because Deborah probably knows The Five Woodles Club almost as deeply as anyone else besides me, she was the right person to have this conversation. I’ll begin interviewing Deborah, and then we’re going to flip it, and she’s going to interview me. Let’s get into this conversation now because we’re talking about The Five Widows Club. The book is released, and this conversation is for you.

Mrs. Kevin, welcome to the Widowhood.

Thank you for having me, Dr. Tina.

I know. When you hear “Welcome to the Widowhood,” what comes to mind for you? If the ticker tape was in the back of your mind?

It is interesting. I would think my life has changed dramatically and at this point unexpectedly, and I would think this is a group of women who only they would really understand what I am going through.

I love that you keyed into the woman part because I will just let you share your passion for working with women and what that means to you.

I love men. I have a wonderful husband whom I would be devastated to lose, and I realized that we are in a time and space in our evolution as human beings where women really get to own their voices. It is so important that we recognize that our stories matter, that each of our lived experiences really is a foundation for families, country, and world development. I heard someone say once, and I honestly cannot remember who it was, that we do not need a seat at the table. We get to build our own table. I love that energy. That is really one of the reasons that I just feel really strongly about elevating women’s voices.

Thank you for helping me elevate mine. If I have it correctly, you have a term that you use for people. Stop being waiters and start being writers. What do you think holds most people up from transitioning from being a waiter to a writer?

Honestly, I think it is something that Brené Brown calls art scars. I think somewhere along the line, people feel judged about their writing because what I hear the most is, “I would love to write a book someday, but I’m not a writer.” What I want everyone to understand is that the act of writing is what makes one a writer. The act of physically putting pen to paper, fingers on the keyboard, you are a writer. We are all writers. It is a skill that can always be improved by practice.

You say that with such elegance, but there is a lot of education and a lot of experience behind you to be here and say something so simple like that. Share with us your road to becoming this Highlander Press, and where you are with things, and your purpose behind that.

I will give you the abbreviated version. I did life a little bit differently. I was emancipated at sixteen. I worked for eight years before I could afford to go to college. I put myself through college while working full-time. I did not graduate from my undergraduate degree until I was 30. Actually, it worked out perfectly for me because I was the oldest person in the school. I also had lived experience that others did not. That made me a pretty cool resource, and I had a different perspective. I went and got a degree, the first person in my family to go to college, in accounting.

I was a CPA. I worked for a couple of the Big Six, now the Big Four accounting firms, as an auditor. People always came to me to edit what they were working on. “Can you make this email sound better? Can you edit my report? Would you write the company newsletter? Would you help my presentation sound better?” I was editing all along, but I did not have enough confidence to know that I could pursue a literary life. Flash forward, I had worked for 30 years. I have a young son who is diagnosed with autism, and I have taken a leave of absence.

I swear that leave of absence actually saved my life. I was on the road to big-time burnout, hustling for my worth, working all kinds of crazy hours, prioritizing my family, but at the risk of my own health. I realized I just could not go back. In 2010, I left the corporate world and really focused on my family. For the first time, I had not worked since I was sixteen years old. I had to re-identify with who I was. I took a couple of writing classes and thought, “I’ve always wanted to write. I’ve always loved writing,” and was dabbling around with some of that.

I got invited to submit a story to Stanford University’s Creative Writing Program. Talk about alignment. I did not have a book. I had an idea of a book. I submitted it, and when you read that idea of a book, it is so poorly written. I am embarrassed, but they saw potential, and I was admitted out of almost 400 students into a cohort of 35, and of that 35, 12 of us graduated two years later. I had completed a novel. We all did, we all had to have a completed at least first really good strong draft. I still was not going to do that for a living.

I started a company, and I started creating websites for authors and then doing copywriting marketing for authors. Somebody came to me and said, “I self-published this book, and I’m so embarrassed by it. Can you help me?” I said, “I read a lot of books. I know a lot about books. I’ve written my own book. If you’re willing to take a chance on me, I’m happy to help you.” I realized that I loved the process. I love taking raw material and turning it into something that people use when they open it and see their book for the first time, which you have experience of.

I get emotional even talking about it, like just having, knowing that experience is out there and that I can see things differently because I am an author. I also have mad project management skills. I see the gaps in how people get to become authors, and not just authors who have a book, but an author who wants to make a purpose, just like you, with your book. You have a very clear goal with what you want your book to do and why you wrote it as a novel as opposed to nonfiction. That is the long-winded version of an abbreviated story.

It is. There is so much time packed there, and the question that comes to mind as it relates to my audience, people who are starting their lives over, from something profound, their spouse most likely has stopped breathing, they have died. What fits before does not fit in this version of their life. You had to start your life over. For someone needing to do that, are there any big recommendations that you have learned that could be helpful for them?

Advice On Starting Life Over

I learned some things the hard way. I came from a very hustle-for-my-worth mindset. I worked in a very male-dominated industry where I was often the only woman in the room, and I am sure that you can relate, coming from a military background. I had a lot of masculine hustle energy. There was a term in the company that I worked for, multiple companies use this term. By the way, it was something that translated to me. “If you want it done, give it to Debbie. It will be Debbie done.” It is not healthy. That is a lot of pressure.

I was thinking, “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

When I left that, I did not know who I was. I did not know who I was just as a human being. My advice is to breathe. Focus on self-care, whatever that means for you, and you may not know at this moment, I started walking a lot, and it ultimately ended up being part of one of my passions in life. I reconnected to something that I grew up doing, hiking. I had stopped hiking, and I am like, “I can do this with my young kids. It’s great. We’re in nature, and it fueled me.” I would say, rediscover some things, get out of your house, but do things mindfully. If you are curious about painting, take a painting class. If you are feeling lonely, go visit someone you do not know in a nursing home. Get outside yourself and breathe.

I like curiosity. It lowers the expectations. “I have not committed to do this, but I’m curious.” You may be curious about a lot of different things, and as your curiosity is fed, you may find the thing that feeds your soul. The permission we have to give ourselves to be curious, to find out what our interests are. I like that. That is fitting because there is already too much pressure on. Now, you wrote a book. Make sure I say this right.

Shelf Life. Tell us about that. I know for me, reading it as someone who is still trying to come to terms with “I am now an author” and reading all the information that you share, I feel like somebody who is thinking, “Do I want to work with Deborah or Debbie to guide me?” This is a really good introduction to understand who you are, the knowledge, and the wisdom that you provide. What was your takeaway that you wanted readers to have from reading Shelf Life?

I am really grateful that you have that experience. Thank you for that validation. I wanted authors and writers to feel empowered, that it is not outside of their abilities to do these things, and they do not need to do everything all at once, but that they can. I structured it as a field guide specifically because if you are like, “This month I really want to work on getting more reviews.” Specifically, I want to get more reviews on Amazon.

There is a section on how to ask for reviews and some little tips and tricks that I have learned for asking for reviews, because it is great when somebody comes up to you in the grocery store and says, “Tina, I read your book. It was so good, and I really resonated with Trish, and oh my gosh, I really loved her character and her arc.” You can feel all of that yumminess and say, “Thank you so much. This means so much to me. Would it be okay with you if I wrote down what you said, what I heard you say, and sent it to you so that you can post that review on Amazon?” You have taken the fear of writing for a writer away.

People hear that, and they go, “What difference does it make if I get reviews on Amazon?”

The books that last the longest and have the greatest shelf life have thousands upon thousands of reviews. I love using The Runaway Bunny or Goodnight Moon. These are children’s books, but the number of reviews that they have still makes them perennial favorites. You are going to give those to your grandkids and great-grandkids and maybe your best friend’s daughter, because they are classics, but people still take the time to write reviews. Reviews actually are how a lot of people find books.

I think it is underestimated. Let me say this. Making your information available to broad spaces on social media is necessary, but the power of having that grassroots effort. What do you think people underestimate with that?

Grassroots, a lot of people automatically go to, “If I’m going to publish a book, I want to spend money on ads.” That’s great as long as you know how to do ads or you find an expert to work with. The most important ways that people find out about a new book are from a friend, family member, or an author whom they already know, love, and trust. Ninety-three percent of book recommendations come in that way. That is why the grassroots movement is so powerful.

Thank you. I am not sure if this is a fair question, but I am going to ask it. I want you to share a caveat of all those things that you help someone with, from bringing their book to fruition. The different ways that you have the site where we get education, the little workshops you have, the groups, the writing, because I do not want someone to say, “She helped Tina write a book,” but I want them to understand, like I did not know what I was doing.

When you talked about that writing contest, when you started with this raw piece of information. We are going to get to that when we flip this, but that is me. I do not want them to think, no, I need them to know that the way you hold an author’s hand through this process and why they are missing an opportunity if they do not choose to work with you.

First of all, I just want to say thank you for that affirmation because that is fuel for my spirit. That is my goal is I want you to feel held throughout the entire process because sharing, writing a book is, first of all, daunting, as you well know. Especially your first one, you do not know what you do not know. You do the best you can with what you have got, and you did a remarkable job. You did. When we look back, we had some work to do together, but we did it. We did the work. None of it was rocket science.

There was, like, if I may just use your book as an example, you actually chose a very complex book structure. Five main characters, well, really six main characters, because the facilitator was also a character. Six characters, five widows who each had a different way that they came to widowhood at different ages and different ethnicities, different locations, different backstories, and different ways that they were dealing with their grief. That is a very complex story. To weave all of those stories and keep them straight, one of the first things we did was like, I created an Excel spreadsheet, which, for the two of us as project managers, is like, “This is sexy.”

Did you see an Excel spreadsheet?

I’m getting warm.

Exactly. I love a good spreadsheet. In our first meeting, we were talking about an organization like that, and you were like, “Yeah, this is going to work,” because that was just that initial call.

I love that because it sets an expectation, but it also creates a framework for success. There is a balance. Of having too much information and being flexible versus, “Here’s what the next step is going to be.” Also, knowing what the next steps are going to be, but let us just focus right here, right now. You came with a first full draft, and we deconstructed it, and we made it stronger, I hope. I mean, I feel like we did that. You did the work. I gave the advice and very specifically where to do that.

Some of the feedback will inform your second book because you have a trilogy in you. That is really where we start that developmental piece. You do not have to be an expert. That is where having someone who has that, either novel and nonfiction, both, the ability to see what is being said, what is not being said, and then the education piece through it is, I think, one of the strongest foundations. Is that fair? That is a very strong pillar of the process because I want our authors and you to understand why we’re doing certain things. Our authors are curious people, and they like to learn, and they’re my people.

Indeed. How would one contact you? Where do they find you hanging out in this social media world?

Highlanderpressbooks.com is our website, and I am on there. The most fun place that people can find me is on Substack. I actually have a very active Substack. I publish Monday through Friday, and I have been doing it for a year and four months. I am currently writing about a little Colorado town that is full of authors with all their problems and how they show up, and it is called Inkford. Every author who is reading it is like, “I see myself in this person,” and “This is a different way.” Without being like, “If you’re feeling this, you’re not alone. Let’s figure it out together.” There is always a lesson, of course, at the end of the week. Super fun. Substack, it is Debbie Kevin. You just search for me, and you will find it.

I want to give the audience, because one thing I have learned in supporting the bereaved is that there are a lot of stories. There are a lot of people who want to share their story, and they may say, “I do not know if anybody ever wants to read this,” or “This was too painful to go back and revisit to create a story.” Can you share what the first call conversation they can anticipate with you? Sometimes, when you’re dealing with profound grief, the unknown makes it really scary to step out and do something even though you have a desire to do it.

First, I would say the most important reason to write your story is for yourself. Actually re-going through that challenging time can be one of the most healing experiences that you can ever have. Give yourself that gift, regardless of what you decide to do with it ever again. Here is what I have learned by going through that experience myself, is that you realize that you can survive really difficult things. You may do it, you will do it imperfectly. You will do it in a way that you will have yo-yo experiences, and you will get to realize how strong you are.

You deserve that. That is number one. Do it for yourself. If you are like, “I want to publish this as a memoir,” or whatever, “I want to do an anthology of widows who have survived.” We are going to have a chat about it. You are going to send me your manuscript, or we will talk. What do you want this book to do? Why do you want to share your story? As we talked, Tina, when you were like, “I really want this for this reason.” One of the first questions I asked was, “Is this a novel?” Do you remember?

Yes.

You said?

The Why For Writing A Novel

I read a lot of books, and when I wrote something, I wanted to do something to help people. I could see the value in writing my own memoir, but I podcasted for like four years. I figure at this point, you all know what I am saying. You know my story, you see social media content, and all these different things. I wanted a person reading this to be seen. I wanted them to say, “That is really how that happened.” I also wanted people who were supporting them to be able to read this because they are super afraid to ask the question.

It is like, “I am not going to ask them, but I could read this book and one of these five women, and the facilitator, I believe, is going to resonate with you.” I will say this, not only for people who are widows, but for someone who is experiencing profound loss, to be able to take all these different people’s experiences that I have come to absorb over four years of podcasting. The other thing, when I went into the bookstore, I started with my memoir, then I went to how to support somebody who is grieving.

One of the lessons you have is that you go into the bookstore and look at how things are. The books on how to support a griever are in the back dusty section. I was like, “They are never going to make it back there.” A novel, a very raw, realistic novel that gets to the grit and has an amazing book cover, is going to go, “That’s going up front. We need to read that. We need to look at that. I want to know what that’s about.” The evolution of time to get there took me two years before we ever spoke. It allowed me to unpack my why in this process.

There is such strength in that because what is beautiful about your decision is that it was, “I could share my story, but now I can integrate other people’s stories that I know into these amazing women.” What I love about your book is that it helps anyone who reads it feel that they can come alongside somebody and understand them. You do not have to understand to just be there for somebody. I am not going to give it away, but there was one part of your book with one of the characters and her sister, and I was offended so much on behalf of the character. It really drew such an emotional response from me as a human being. I think that is when you know you have got something spectacular.

Thank you. That was important because people have had that happen, with the concept that her sister thought she was doing her a favor. I do not think people realize how important it is, as you mentioned, to be beside someone. This is not fixable. My person died. There is nothing that you can start doing to fix it. That is what makes it uncomfortable for the people around us who love us. They want to fix this, and they want us to be happy. You have to just be beside me in this process. Being beside me, my middle sister, who literally moved from California and lives next door, we have spent hours not saying anything because there was nothing to say, but her presence made a difference. There is power in that.

It is a priceless gift of nonjudgmental beingness. I actually heard some really great advice about someone who is going through a really difficult time. The worst thing you can say to somebody like that is, “Let me know if you need anything.” They are not even capable, and I heard this explained, and I thought, “This is brilliant advice.” They are not capable. It is better to call them up and say, “I’m going to the store. Look in your refrigerator, tell me what you need.” Very specific, “I will drop it by your house.” It is very, “I’m doing this, I’m including you, exactly what do you need?”

When you are in grief, I remember it feeling like I was wrapped in cotton wool and looking through life happening and continuing, but I was not part of it. It was almost like I was on the other side of a veil, kind of observing through a fuzzy lens. It was just the weirdest feeling. Grief never goes away. It becomes less triggered easily, maybe. It can still come back in a heartbeat. All these years later, you just never know, and it can take us by surprise. We grow around it. I do not think we will get through it. I think we grow around it. That is my personal belief.

I would agree with that. I thought grief was a lot about just being sad, but I learned the neurological impact of grief, how it impacts our body, our brain, and that knowledge became very powerful. I encourage people to get information about what they’re going through because then it’s less of the unknown and the unexpected, and you’re like, “This is normal, and that makes it better.” I am going to turn this part of the conversation over to you, see where we go from here.

Tina, I am so excited. I love asking questions to authors. This book, you have, as I said earlier in our conversation, has five main characters, all five with different experiences. Was there one of these characters that you really identified with, or is there a little bit of you in each one?

My girlfriend, Chris, asked me that. There is a little bit of me in all of them, but I would say even if I were about to answer that between Trish and Monique, there is a little bit of me in both of them. Carmen’s sassiness, I can say that, and then Ava with the child. My children were not that young, but the struggle of something she had to deal with, and finally coming to terms with that by the end, was hard. Some of the widows I know ask, “Am I in the book?” I say a little bit of everybody is because five people being created is a lot. I would say Trish and Monique probably have the potential to be the most of what it looks like for me.

I am sure you probably picked that up, though, already. I could see Trish specifically because she was in the military, and you have a military background. You definitely had insight into that life and that protocol, which was really impactful because I think military families are often neglected in literature. You do not see it or hear about it at all, actually. Having included that, I think, is just another layer of helping people be seen.

That was intentional because I come from a military family. Two of my sisters were in the military. Our father was in the military. My children have been in. When you are in the military, you think the whole world is, but then you step back and go, “We are such a small percentage of the entire population.” When I think of someone being a widow, I think of someone being in the military.

I think of all those different things, and the idea of being seen to make sure I had a same-sex couple in there because when I work with people who have same-sex marriages, they do not feel like when they are grieving, people understand it is validated, and different other ways in which people left this world in the book to validate them to go, “Your grief matters and what you’re going through is important to be able to be seen and to be heard and know that this is painful.”

I love that you very mindfully did that. You created five vastly different women with different backgrounds, and even the sixth, the facilitator, again, a different story, also a story of loss, but not a spouse or a partner, and you did it with such tenderness for each one. I have heard people say that their characters speak to them. Did your characters speak to you?

I would say the facilitator is the most important because that is the space that I show up in now for people. Wanting to be able to be there, but not be the purpose of why we are there. Her ability to help those women, give them space to create their own community, not being tethered to her, is something that is important to me. In all the things that I do, yes, I interact, I engage, but when your spouse stops breathing, the person you have gone to, if it was a good marriage, these answers were a core part of your life.

If it were a bad marriage, what you hoped would have existed. When they stop breathing, you are lost. You are trying to figure out, “I know death is real, but it really came from him or her.” To be able to have someone guide you through that process and healthily connect you with other people who understand your journey, and you’re all different, but walking through that process together, is priceless to me. It is also an honor for people to trust me.

We have a widows’ retreat the first weekend in December in Virginia Beach, a three-story house, an indoor swimming pool, a chef preparing every meal, and I must say he is a little attractive to look at if you did not know. Some of these people are people I have never met before, but have heard and been watching what I have been doing over the years, and it has established trust to be able to support and do that. The facilitator, I think, is the one who spoke to me in navigating that process.

You have also said that part of Monique is you and part of Trish and maybe a little Carmen in there as well, that you are also able to experience it. You have experienced it, but you know other women, and as such, you can hold that space, which is such an important and invaluable gift that you give to the women in your circle. The fact that you have curated a place for them to come and be together and have a little dessert eye candy with their delicious meals is wonderful. How thoughtful

I do my best. Massages, not by eye candy, somebody else. I limit the retreat to ten women because outside of ten, it starts getting complicated, because you are always going to have that person who does not quite feel comfortable speaking. I want to be able to see them. I do not want them to get lost. The intentionality to have something amazingly fun, something healing and restorative, is important. The first widows’ retreat that I went to was life-changing in my journey, to be around other widows and go, “There is a potential for me to find a life that I love.” This is very, not what I wanted, but I am still hearing my story matters. To be able to pay that forward to other women and do that is a gift.

The Importance Of Finding Joy Amidst Sorrow

You hit on something really important is joy. Talk a little bit about that feeling of finding happiness and making it be okay in the midst of sorrow, because I think that’s something that is really misunderstood, and those small pockets of joy that can filter in and allow you to feel good again.

That is important because it is possible for two things to be true. My joy started with my siblings and my friends. Their ability to show up, be intentional, and over the last nine years be a core for me is something that I appreciate. I knew I had good friends, and I knew my siblings were good, but when this happened and the way they showed up, because I talk to so many people who are grieving, and they say they are alone.

They say that the people in their circle have become tired of hearing their story, or they are doing something, and they know they are going, “Uh-huh,” and they are doing this, and their heart is breaking. I know that I am able to pour out because my cup is full with my family and my friends. When you mentioned, you know, “Pick up some groceries or do something,” I remember one of my coworkers called and said, “What can I do for you?”

I was looking in the backyard, and all the leaves were there. We had this large property, and I had been out just that morning trying to rake the leaves, which was Mark’s job. I was standing there with the rake and the work gloves, crying. I was like, “I know my neighbors are going, ‘she’s lost it, it’s happening right now, we can see it.'” I was like, those leaves are going to be out there, I cannot mess with that, it’s just leaves in the yard. He came and took care of that yard. That was life-giving to me.

Yes, that is love in action, truly, when people are like, “I’m just going to do this.” That is like showing up at the hospital without being asked. We all hope to be that friend, and we are always grateful when we have friends in our corner who are that as well. I love that you use the analogy that you are overflowing because of the people who have poured into you. I love that because it does not mean you have to let yourself get empty to give to others.

It is really important to acknowledge that the way you fill yourself is with your friends and the relationships that fuel you and bring delight and joy, and having these kinds of retreats is a way to fill yourself. Your book is coming out, and you mentioned the cover. We had several covers to choose from. We had several, really, we had several that were like, “It could be any one of these,” but we landed on, I think, one of the most incredible covers that we have ever published. It is gorgeous.

I want to say I thought I had a really good cover when I first came to you. I was like, “This is what I want to have,” and you were like, “Okay, yeah.”

That is a showstopper, girlfriend.

I was like, “I thought I had a good cover.” What I learned, I had a good start. I had a good concept. I had had enough, and I had used the AI tools, I had used Canva, and I had done the things. What I am not is a book cover developer, let us just be clear. Realizing what you are not and working with someone who is, is where, to me, the power move lies. Instead of trying to think you can do all the things and realizing there are people that do this, and when you partner with them, the potential for what you thought was a good idea to be something amazing like this is great.

It is a stunning book cover. When I saw that, I was like, “That’s a power move right there.”

I know you were probably thinking, “She’d better pick that one.”

I usually have strong opinions, and we both landed on the same cover ultimately. It is usually that way. Honestly, I think we may have some discussion back and forth, and we will talk about why one might be better than another. It is a remarkable design for sure.

It speaks to the book perfectly, the five women. All of it together resonates. The way the back cover came together, like with a shadow of them in there, I was like, “Yes.”

Let us talk about this moment. You ordered 300 books. You are not messing around. I saw them being wheeled out to you on your video. You open the book. What does it feel like? What was that moment like for you?

I want to say I printed the books as you were giving me my homework, too, because I could not do that just by looking at a computer. I needed to print it out. I had seen the cover in print, and I was thinking, “I’ve already seen this print.” Opening it and thinking about the feel of the cover and the texture, and like, “This is real. Somebody’s going to read this book, and they’re going to be seen. It’s going to change their grief.” There is power in this, and thinking that I wrote this. That is crazy.

That is you, girl. I mean, you did it.

I did not consider myself an author. When I was an undergrad, I was like, “I want those papers coming,” and different stuff. No one wants to do that, but you do not have to write it all at once. It writes out as I have learned just a lot of different things, but now just seeing this book, and it is just like, “Okay.” I am having this gala. This will air, I want to say, on the 28th of May. We would have already had the gala, but we would have had the book launch. I knew the people coming to the gala wanted to purchase the book in person and do all these things, as I am turning 60. I would have to send it out to podcasters and other things.

I was like, “Just rip the band-aid out.” When I saw those boxes, I was like, “Is that going to fit?” I do not know what I did. With all the different papers and dissertations and different programs that I am in and stuff like that, there is a lot of writing. I am still not a fan of it, but I have already started on the second book. I actually have all five of the profiles for the men. I have a barber who is sort of the middle person. I have seven men who are going to read the profiles to make sure they sound like real men. I was like, “I’m not as scared.” I am not going to do the thing I did before, like there, speaking from a different perspective. I learned that. I am not doing that.

It will be a nice braided book.

For sure. Just doing those profiles and going back, the age, the children, the timeline. I did not do that the first time.

We did it eventually. That was the important thing, so that we could be consistent throughout, and that is not uncommon. I told you I wrote my first novel, I finished it in 2014, and it is still not published because I am still working through my edits, and there are a whole host of reasons for the procrastination. I realized, in re-reading it from start to finish, “I have a map of all these places, but I never had a map of where they lived.” I am talking about there being one telephone. It takes place in the 1970s, but there are two telephones in the book. I am like, “Okay.” I had to go back and realize there is some foundational work I need to do for consistency for myself. It happens. Mine is on the seventh revision.

You may be working on perfection.

I am pretty close, actually. There are a couple of elements that just need to be rewritten, and it will be this summer. It is coming out this year. I am determined. It is a great book, and it has a military family in it.

Nice.

Defining Success Through Empathy And Transformation

Your book, you are coming up, when this airs, your book will have just been launched. What does success look like for you?

Success looks like this for me when I get an email from a book club, and they read this book, and one of the women in that book club was a widow. They have all been friends, but her husband was the first one to die, and people in the book club understand her better now than they could have before.

That just gave me head-to-toe chills.

The woman or the widower who has read this book and they go, “I’m Ava. I have a young child. I’m trying to navigate this space, and I feel like nobody cared and nobody understood my journey.” For the sister of the person who did the thing and goes, “I thought about doing that or something similar, and I know better how to show up for her.” That is what success looks like for me.

I love that, and I can see that being very successful because this book can transform the people who read it. It invites empathy in a whole new way, and it does it by coming alongside people. Your instinct to do this as a novel was brilliant.

Thank you. People go “widow” and think it is this whole sex thing or you are just out here harlicking and romance, and no, this sucks. You need to know this was the most difficult experience in my life. By writing about five women, once again, not putting the spotlight on me, but the people in their journey, and for people to see themselves in that, to me, is where it goes. These are real people having a real-life, gritty experience together.

I love that they did not have perfect marriages. They were not perfect people themselves. They made mistakes, things that they were each ashamed of, things that they learned to lean into. I think that there is a theme of forgiveness of self and others throughout the book, which may not have been intended, but is certainly a through-line that is really powerful.

I did not think of that, but you are right.

What was the most difficult character to write?

Joyce, because I am not her. She was quiet, and back when I went through the second round, I forgot to put her in different places. I was like, “She’s so quiet, Joyce,” and she disappeared. Where is she? She did not say a line. She did not say anything. As I mentioned, my sister, who lives next door, is the quietest of us.

I started putting on my hat to be Yolanka, or paying attention to other people who are extremely quiet around me, but very powerful when they do show up in the way that they present. It does not always require having a lot of words. You can show up with just as much power with a smaller amount of words. Joyce was like because I am writing, then it is like, “You’re not her, so what are we doing here?” in trying to make that work in a way that is realistic. Absolutely, Joyce.

You did a great job. That is my MO. I do not say a lot, but what I say, people tend to listen to in the corporate world. I do not know if that is true in life in general, but that was my thing. I would be the listener and the observer and ask the tough questions or the more pointed questions, but in a kind way. There is power in that, and you did a great job of capturing the essence of a person in that lived experience.

Thank you. Did you resonate with Joyce?

I did resonate with Joyce in many ways, in some ways not. I resonated a little bit with Carmen. A little bit with Carmen, a little bit with Ava, and a little bit with Joyce. Trish, I could recognize because I did grow up in a military family. I am not in the military myself, but my dad was, and all the way back to the Civil War, like great-grand-greats. We definitely have the military family thing going, but yeah. Tease your second book. You mentioned men. What is the second book of the trilogy focused on?

Second Book Focus On Widower’s Grief

The second book is The Five Whittlers Circle. We have had The Five Widows Club, and now we are having five men. In the space of grief, men are under-recognized. I do not know if it is because society has a hard time letting men have an emotional moment that will last for years. These five men have just as different a story as these five women. As I said, I have written out all five of their profiles, and that was a lot, but also I do have a lot of conversations with men who are widowers from different perspectives in which their journey has taken place.

What I learned or what I know to be true, you do not have to make a star talk. You just say, “Would like, da da da, oh, da da da da.” Men, not all men, let me be very clear with that, everybody is not the same, but in general, men are not going to always be the ones flocking to a grief support group. Men are not going to be the ones creating this circle. They will, but that is not always the organic way. The barbershop is where you will find men hanging out. The barber will be the gentleman who knows everybody.

He knows that these men have lost their wives, and he will be the easy focal point to tether them together. These men will play sports, I mean, I run, I play softball, I do those things, but this is where men tend to bond more, create relationships. Their grief will engage in these interactions. The cookout, the barbecue, doing the different things, and how they unpack that as we learn about what their grief story is, learn about their spouses. There is one gentleman who has a husband, and what the backstory of the relationship is, because that to me, in doing this, was like, “Starting at the moment we did, but still getting to know who the person was.”

I did not quite know for sure how to not start with this whole long story upfront, but how to weave it in. You were very good as far as giving direction because my niece read the book, and she was like, “What went fast, Auntie?” I was like, “I don’t even know.” I was like, “I just project-managed the book.” She was like, “Can we get some more going on here?” The sense of just being in different places and learning that, putting this together in a way that, like I said, having seven men read their profiles because a woman writing about men and the grief perspective is one thing, but making sure these characters are strong men is important. My husband is like, “We’re going to need to look at that,” but he was like, “Yes, I will.”

The Challenge Of Empathy And Forgiving Loved Ones

My husband lost his first wife. We talked about how she was significantly older and died very suddenly. She had been in some poor health, but it was unexpected, and he said the people who showed up for him surprised him. His own brothers did not know how to deal with him losing her because they could not imagine losing their own wives. Forgiving them was a really big deal.

It is, and you said something very important. They could not consider losing their own spouses. So many times, people are making it about themselves. Be prepared to be uncomfortable and show up for somebody. Do you think they wanted to be here? At all, zero. Commonly, the people you least expect often show up versus the people whom you thought would. So many bereaved people are holding anger, malice, and hate for people who did not show up for them when they thought they needed them most.

When I have conversations with people like that, I give them space to feel exactly how they feel. They may ask me, “What do you think about that?” One of the first things I ask is, “What did you know about this experience before it happened to you? Who did you show up for like this before it happened to you?” I know when my husband died, like a Rolodex of all the people I knew, like, “Did I say that? Did I do that to them?” All this stuff is, and they did not know any better. Oftentimes, it is too painful for the people close to you to watch you in this amount of pain that they cannot fix.

You and I are both breast cancer survivors. It was the same thing. I did that Rolodex of, “I had no idea.” It is so common, breast cancer, so common. So many people have it, but what that experience is like until you go through it. You are absolutely right. The people who show up, and also the people we allow to show up.

Being in community with other people who can relate to your journey is people, once they realize, “I do have a tribe out there. Some people understand, and we can do this together.” It may not be the person whom you thought it would be, but celebrate the people that you have.

Lean in, right. I love that, and you hit on something really important. When people say they cannot be close because they visualize, they project their experience or what it could feel like for them, and it is too painful, have some empathy for them because people not showing up for you really has nothing to do with you and your value. It has to do with them and where they are in their lives. Each of us shows up differently, and we are usually doing the best we can with what we know at the time. I would totally agree.

Debbie, thank you for having this conversation with me. We are almost here.

Big celebration. Thank you for inviting me. I am so appreciative of the opportunity to work with you, and I am so proud of the book that you are putting out into the world. It has been my complete honor to be on this journey with you.

Thank you. I like to give my guests an opportunity to wrap up the conversation. Whatever you would like to share, words of advice with them, or maybe something we did not cover, to wrap up this discussion.

I would say if you have lost someone in your life, whether it is a spouse or a partner or a friend or a parent, pick up The Five Widows Club because you will learn how grief shows up in so many different ways and for so many different things. It will actually soften our hearts and enable us to be kinder people to each other and show up for each other in a different way. The more that we can do that, the more we lift each other up.

Thank you.

Important Links

• Deborah Kevin
• Deborah Kevin on LinkedIn
• Deborah Kevin on Facebook
• Deborah Kevin on Instagram
• Deborah Kevin on X
• The Five Widows Club
• Highlander Press
• Shelf Life: A Field Guide to Long-Term Author Success
• The Runaway Bunny
• Goodnight Moon

About Deborah Kevin

Deborah Kevin (pronounced KEY-vin) is the founder of Highlander Press, and bestselling author of Shelf Life: A Field Guide to Long-Term Author Success, and an unapologetic disruptor of the status quo. She’s on a mission to elevate women’s voices and help changemakers share their stories with impact and heart. An adventurer at heart, Debby has trekked the Camino de Santiago and thrives on exploring the world with her family. A magic believer, French Press enthusiast, and master of irreverent humor, she brings warmth, wit, and bold truth-telling to everything she touches.