Synergy between Life and Art by M. Lee Prescott

Sometimes there is a lovely synergy between fiction and life, the imagination and reality, art and what lies right in front of us. I am not the first writer to draw heavily from life for my art, for the stories pulled from the subconscious, the visceral life experiences that then become fiction as I tap away.

Life – or a number of deeply lived experiences – gave me a title and a pivotal event in my latest novel, The Labyrinth Walk: Book One of the Mapletree Club Murders (currently with my copyeditor, fall release date TBD).  I write contemporary romances and mysteries. While The Labyrinth Walk is a technically a mystery, there are sufficient romantic elements and situations throughout the narrative leading me to conclude that it is an acceptable blog offering to “Romancing the Genres.”

Over the last two decades, I have traveled annually (at least once sometimes more) to Kripalu Yoga Center, a deeply spiritual place for me and so many others nestled in the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts. I’ve participated in countless workshops, retreats, weekend and weeklong programs as well as days of pure rest and relaxation. No matter what the reason for my visits, one thing I never miss is daily walks through Kripalu’s labyrinth set on a rise overlooking the Berkshires. As I walk, I pause often and sigh as I gaze out at a view that holds so much of my heart, long before I discovered Kripalu or its labyrinth. 

I spent my high school years in the Berkshires, at a boarding school I thought would be nirvana, but which turned out to be the most wrenching transitional experience of my life as I adjusted to the cold, noisy world of institutional living after fifteen years in a warm, loving home. My only solace those first terrible months were the days we “broke free” and traveled to the surrounding mountains, the sights, smells, and sounds soothing my frayed, homesick emotions. Standing on the labyrinth at Kripalu brings it all back. I realize each time with the clarity of the years that I’m a survivor, so much stronger and heartful in the present because of those experiences.

I.e. I lived to tell the tale. Once the homesickness gave way to daily life and friends, I learned to be happy again. That process of healing comes back to me every time I walk the Kripalu labyrinth, enveloped and embraced by rich, doleful setting. When I began writing The Labyrinth Walk, I knew I wanted to bring the essence of that recurring experience to the narrative, somehow conveying that learning to be happy is a lifelong gift.

I first visited Kripalu’s labyrinth two years after its creation. My closest friend and I attended a workshop on labyrinths given by one of the creators, Sudha Carolyn Lundeen. As she told us about its creation and the work of herself and Grounds Supervisor, Kevin “Moose” Foran, we were eager to experience the walk. At that time, the beautiful seven-path labyrinth, was surrounded by wildflowers at its perimeter as well as along the path. Unlike mazes, with their many twists, turns and dead ends (multicursal design), a true labyrinth has only one path (unicursal design).

My fictional labyrinth must, to be a true one, have only one path to its heart. It should also be filled with flowers as Kripalu’s was years ago. All my books have at their heart, a deep sense of community so the writing The Labyrinth Walk was a labor of love and one more celebration of the power of community.  

A week after The Labyrinth Walk went to my copyeditor, I traveled to the Berkshires with another dear friend. Unfamiliar with labyrinths, he nonetheless agreed to a stop at Kripalu so that I could walk theirs. It was a coming home, as it always is, but also a revelation that my fictional creation now surpassed the beauty of the original. Heady stuff for a writer. The synergy of life and fiction playing out on a warm summer day with incredible blue sky and extraordinary puffy white clouds. Very, very cool!

I’m a hybrid author of mysteries, romances, and women’s fiction. I have 46 published books (fiction and nonfiction), two popular romance series and two beloved mystery series. The Mapletree Club Murders begins a fifth series. Now writing full-time, I’m professor emerita at Wheaton College in Massachusetts and have published numerous professional articles and books in my field of literacy. My primary focus at present is my fiction and I am currently working on two new contemporary romances, #9 in one series (Morgan’s Fire, New England coastal setting) and #17 in the other (Morgan’s Run, western setting).

Enjoy these lazy, hazy days. I will say goodbye with the words of James Crow, from his poem, “Neighbors.”

“…kindness is what keeps us alive.”

Happy reading!

M. Lee

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