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My next novel is in final drafts. It’s called MY BOAT IS SO SMALL.

The source of the title is the poem:

“Dear Lord, Be good to me.
Your sea is so wide,
and my boat is so small.��

-Mariner’s Prayer

What is it about? A middle-aged woman, distressed by divorce, retreats to Sweden

Here’s my draft summary:

Sonia’s life is falling apart in the midst of divorce. She’s forty-nine and feels her chances for happiness just imploded. Her Swedish friend Inge invites her to come to Sweden and help care for her mother Eleanor, who is ill and despondent. Her job is to talk and draw out her interest in living.

Eleanor asks Sonia to tell her the truth about her life -- the secrets. As in Scheherazade, Sonia staves off her depression with stories and personal revelations, at the same time recalling her difficulties as a woman.

Inge’s brother Ammon comes to check on his mother. He’s dubious about Sonia’s influence and topics. An accident changes their relationship.

They solve a family secret that has bothered Eleanor her whole life. Meanwhile Sonia’s ex Ben tries to pull her back.

Once emotionally buried, Sonia lets go of disabling negativity and comes to a new frame of mind and a new family.

In MY BOAT IS SO SMALL, my character Sonia, living in the Washington D.C. area, is allowed to take a leave of absence from work because of her mental distress. She answers an invitation to visit her Swedish friend Inge. Where in Sweden?

I shopped for places I want to go, because I knew there will be the FUN of discovery and imagining the place. On a tour of Scandinavia a while ago, I took a ferry that left Stockholm and went through the archipelago of Sweden. These are a zillion islands in the Baltic Sea between Sweden and Finland and the Baltic countries.

Google it and find a Wikipedia description, and under “images�� find the scenery. For example,

The Swedish archipelago is awesome. There are islands of all sizes in a grand array. Ingmar Berman lived on an island called Faro, with a population under 600. Yes, it’s romantic. Not the Caribbean. Colder. But remote, quiet, FABULOUSLY beautiful. You can see what I mean, reading about Faro:

Of course, even though I wanted to visit his island, I could not use it in the book, because it’s taken by the Bergman biography and mystique. I checked out other islands. There were some considerations: I wanted my character to work in Stockholm, so a city looking out over the Archipelago was better. Ideally it had bus service!

I searched Google maps, looking up various cities that were in a “working�� radius of Stockholm. Low and behold, the city of Nortallje landed in my imagination. See

It’s an ancient fishing port, so Inge’s father could be a Swedish fisherman, and they could look out on the sea from the farmhouse, surrounded by views of water.

My family lived in Seattle. The San Juan Islands are nearby, forming an archipelago on a smaller scale. There you get the smell of the sea air, sea breezes, the call of seagulls overhead, vast expanses of water with an island here and there.

Yes, there’s a bus. I googled “bus from stockholm to norrtalje�� and found the exact schedule, which makes it feasible for my purposes. My character makes that journey. You can even find a picture of the bus online.