How it Started:

When I first met Tom, my aunt connected us. They worked together and she said he was threatening to write a book. I laughed but said, “Sure,” and so it began.

We met at his restaurant while it was closed and he started to talk. He had all this energy and it was really exciting. I wasn’t sure where the story was, until he told me about Cheryl. The more we talked about his life, I realized it was his relationships that touched me differently than all the other items he had shared up until that moment. In one breath he could tell you about something crazy that had happened – how he had driven a member of the Village People home one night or how he had a bitter feud with his first dog. In that same breath he would tell me how he just saw a person that had hurt him or how he was going to see an ex he pined for secretly. I quickly realized that Tom didn’t give up on people. He took them how they were, good and bad. I loved that about him right away. Tom gives himself to people and all he asks for is the same kind of acceptance, that to me is a human story worth telling. Plus Tom is so funny, and he has great timing to his stories.

How it took shape:

We met a few more times and agreed on an initial plan of action. We would talk and eat. Tom would get the Italian pastries from the bakery around the corner and we would eat with no apologies. Deliveries for the restaurant would come in, sometimes a repairman would show up, and we would pause, and I’d just take it all in.

Through that setting we still found lots of quiet time to really work, for him to talk and for me to listen. Within a few sessions I came up with an outline. I realized that Tom’s sexual adventures were colorful but they were also heartfelt. I felt that this ability to love transcended labels, identity and all the other boundaries and so we went from focusing on sexuality and putting the focus on love, on how it really plays out in life. Tom was brave to do this, I felt. I also realized that the death of his friend Cheryl was still pretty fresh, and their friendship piqued my interest. Cheryl sounded wild in a good way, and sweet, like a totally wonderful Jersey Girl, one who never apologized for the big hair she had in the 80s. Yet there she was, also completely in touch with the other dimensions of existence, because Cheryl was born a seer. That felt so feminine and real to me, and like finally Cheryl from the other side, wanted other women to experience their own powers free from that fear of being alive. .

Sometimes people ask me what Tom did to warrant writing his memoir, and I usually say, “He survived.” I think something in our culture makes us think that only celebrities and royalty deserve to have their story told, and I think that needs to change.

Working with Tom and Cheryl

As we got deeper into Tom’s stories I understood that we were going to weave together the present and the past in a unique way. The whole thing was going to feel like a kind of conversation where the number one thread was Tom, and all the other threads were those relationships between him and others, almost none of whom were alive. It was a journey through ADHD and New Jersey traffic patterns.

Cheryl was a profoundly gifted individual and yet she struggled with society and expectations around what is normal and allowed, just like Tom did. In our first meeting he mentioned Cheryl, as had my aunt Sandy, before she introduced us. She had told me that Tom had paid Cheryl’s bills, and bought her food. The more I scratched that surface with Tom, about this friendship, the more potent their relationship felt. The more I asked him about the way they spent time, the more I learned about them, and about Cheryl’s knowledge. I was intrigued and felt like I understood Cherl at some level, as a woman.

I understood her fear of the world, of the harshness it doles out to women all the time. I think most women can understand that fear that for one reason or another, you could be either literally or figuratively “burned at the stake.”

Sometimes when we paused our writing session, I would have time to look at the sunlight as it came through the curtains of the restaurant, and I would just feel. I would just purify the energy, say thanks to the Highest Light, and let that feeling of love across all boundaries pour in. I’m sure it looked like I was spacing out but I wasn’t.. This was a really nice project for me, it kept me on my toes!

Tom was open to making Cheryl a really big part of the story of his life. I respected that about him. Once I realized Tom had that openness I felt a lot of freedom and creativity in our collaboration. I’ll never forget when Tom told me that he and Cheryl were going to write about her surviving cancer. I felt like she entered the room at that very moment, like I could feel the room change. The whole thing made sense and it felt like she was part of the reason I was there. From that moment I started to ask Tom to pull cards as we wrote or if we hung out together after a session.

The alchemy of writing with Cheryl and Tom, what do you mean by that?

A writing session with Tom was fun and generally straightforward, but there were times when I needed to do some of the writing alone, that was my role. With Tom I could go back and ask if I got it right and he could correct me, but I had to do the weave of how the whole bunch of stories would flow to became a single story. With Cheryl, I had to go inward to come to Tom again, with deeper questions, with those little details that would make the ground of the story, bringing it full circle.

The same with Tom’s parents – he would tell me his story, give me his insight. Later, I would be responsible for the weave of the story, and so I might bike or drive by a location, or I might ask for some guidance silently. We did visit Tom’s childhood home, where he and his sister and brother were raised. Tom trusted me so much that we went and experienced places and faces from the past. This helped entire scenes come alive and get into the book. The liquor store guys, where Napoleon came from, we would visit them, too. That whole area in Bradley Beach, NJ probably deserves its own series of books, because it is full of small businesses and each one of those is definitely each a story.

How did you come to Auguries and Alchemy?

Intuition led the process for sure. The book had been done for some time and it hadn’t been published. We didn’t want to self publish, at least I didn’t think we should. I wanted to find an ally, someone who would love this story and its real life characters. One day I was in an online writing class, one that I produced with a friend. It’s a meditative writing course tied to the Transcendental Meditation technique and movement. Some of the course participants wanted to know where they could find writing prompts after the course was over and I was looking for some links to share while my friend continued her instruction. Somehow in that process I landed at a website with a blurb about this new press. I followed the link and found that the tone was incredible. The more I read about the founder, Pamona Sparrow, the more excited I became. She was perfect for us. She had a history in using LeNormand decks, which Cheryl loved. She also had a career as a hairstylist and since Tom and Cheryl were also in that business, I felt a kind of “click.” This was it. I sent out an approach letter within an hour or two. When I heard back I felt that magical, natural connection deepen and I said to Tom, “Hey, I think we have our publisher. She’s our third partner in this.” Sure enough, here we are publishing together, and I couldn’t imagine a more caring or professional publisher than Pamona and Auguries and Alchemy.