Congratulations to Deborah Heimann from Woodstock, Vermont
for her touching nonfiction essay titled:
Spring Training
Check out Deborah's submission, Spring Training as well as all the other winning entries and then stop back here to read Deborah's insightful interview with Crystal J. Casavant-Otto from WOW! Women on Writing.
Deborah's Bio: Deborah Heimann’s essays have been published by
The McNeese Review and
Hippocampus Magazine, among others.
She is currently a writer, freelance editor, and yoga teacher. She has been a theater director and dramaturg, a TV commercial producer, the interim executive director of a small health foundation, and the editorial director of an international web-based communication network. All her life she has collaborated with others in support of communication and storytelling. Most mornings she can be found walking in the woods with her two hound dogs.
Connect with Deborah online:
interview with Crystal J. Casavant-Otto
WOW!: Thank you for writing such a personal essay - what is the take-away you'd like readers to gain from Spring Training?
Deborah: Most of what I write these days spotlights making a choice—when things get challenging or go to shit—to connect rather than disconnect. For me, that is one of the takeaways in this piece: feeling, along with the “you” in the piece, a connection. When I left my mother at the door of her friend’s place, I felt broken, raw; by the time I had finished shoveling that stranger’s walk I was whole again, and fit for whatever happened next. That experience was good “training” for what came when my mother was dying—which took two weeks and, fittingly I suppose, happened in 2025 around the same time baseball teams started their spring training.
WOW!: That was great reasoning - thank you for giving us a little more insight. You’re very talented and great at drawing readers in. Where do you write? What does your space look like? I imagine you come up with a lot of ideas whilst in the woods, but do you have a particular place you put pen to paper?
Deborah: Mainly I put fingers to a keyboard at the same desk where I do my professional freelance editing. In front of me is a huge screen attached to my laptop—so I can blow up the text and these older eyes of mine don’t have to strain. Above that is a bulletin board with quotes and images and notes to myself (“Deb: Get the f**k out of the way!”). Above that is a shelf with books that inspire me: Still Writing by Shapiro; You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Smith; Meander, Spiral, Explode by Alison; The Wrong Way to Save Your Life by Stielstra. I don’t think I’ve ever typed a first draft from start to finish; backspace and delete are key parts of my process. But to get to the heart of what I want to say, I have to step away. I unlock what a piece is truly about when I am walking, letting my mind roam over and through, on the edges and in the corners of what is back at my desk on that screen.
WOW!: What’s next for you? What are your writing goals for the rest of 2025 and beyond?
Deborah: I have an essay collection that I am describing as a year of bite-size life prompts for people who are fed up with vague “wisdom for living” and “affirmations” that end up berating and chastising them for being human. Each piece describes a turning-point moment of human-ness and a choice I faced in my life. At the end of each piece the reader is invited to consider their own choices and decisions. I am fascinated by turning points—mine, yours, theirs, why, when, where, how, how much—choices that change lives. I plan to continue exploring these in my writing while I consider the best way to get my essay collection out into the world.
WOW!: Well, that sounds like something we could all benefit from! Do you have advice for your younger self when it comes to making decisions, believing in yourself, and/or writing? What would your current self say to the younger you?
Deborah: I would say: “Notice what delights you.” There was a point at which I stopped doing that as a younger me. I am fifty-six now, and it is only in the past few years that I have begun to believe (again) that I am a writer. I remember in high school I was nominated for the New England Young Writers’ Conference at Bread Loaf, and I ended up being invited to attend. That was the last time, before now, I allowed myself to consider myself a writer. When I applied to colleges, I was laser focused on theater programs. At the last minute, on a whim and because it made me smile, I applied to Reed College (Portland, Oregon) with a poem as my personal essay, and they accepted me. I wish I still had the poem. I think it was quite good. I know it delighted me. Obviously my life would be different in many ways if I had gone to a small college instead of a huge university (I studied theater at Brown). More to the point, though, I might have given myself more of a chance as a writer when I was younger. Theater and I parted ways almost thirty years ago, and here I am now, compelled once again to write.
WOW!: You have an impressive bio - could you tell us one other strange story about yourself that may surprise us?
Deborah: At age fifteen, I lied and said I was sixteen so I could be a followspot operator for the
Camden Shakespeare Company (you had to be sixteen, for insurance purposes). At the time the Company was a summer gig with a combination of professionals and students and faculty mainly from Penn State University but also from a few other eastern universities and colleges. They performed in the amphitheater behind the library in Camden, Maine—the entire company set up the lights, sets, and audience every afternoon, and broke down the same every night after performances. (There’s now a company called the Camden Shakespeare Festival that does this—I believe it is a different entity altogether.) I met some of the actors in the Company in the park across the street one afternoon—they were in between rehearsals—and when the stage manager wandered over and mentioned they were looking for someone to climb the scaffolding twenty feet in the air to operate the followspot, I volunteered. I had zero experience. I don’t remember what I told my parents, but they allowed me to do it. I would like to (finally) officially apologize here to all of the actors in Macbeth and Dracula that season: To this day I am embarrassed by the number of times I was not able to “find my mark” with that spot!
WOW: Thank you Deborah for the fabulous discussion, and thank you for sharing with us in today's interview! You're a bright light for all of us writers and readers! I look forward to our paths crossing again and until then - keep writing (and smiling)!
Today's post was penned by Crystal J. Casavant-Otto
Crystal Casavant writes. Everything.
If you follow her blog you have likely laid eyes on every thought she has ever had. Her debut novel, It Was Never About Me, Was It? is still a work in progress and shall be fully worthy sometime in 2026...or maybe 2027. She has written for WOW! Women on Writing, Bring on Lemons, and has been featured in several magazines and ezines relating to credit and collections as well as religious collections for confessional Lutherans.
She runs a busy household full of intelligent, recalcitrant, and delightful humans who give her breath and keep her heart beating day after day.
Crystal wears many hats (and not just the one in this photo) and fully believes in being in the moment and doing everything she can to improve the lives of those around her!
The world may never know her name, but she prays that because of her, someone may smile a little brighter. She prides herself on doing nice things - yes, even for strangers! Sometime during 2025 Crystal decided a free moment simply wouldn’t do and she added even more hats! She went back to school to pursue a degree in education at Concordia University and dusted off her vocal chords and joined the local Chorale, singing with the Manitowoc Symphony Orchestra and the historic Capitol Civic Center last Christmas!
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