Neill McKee's Finding Myself in Borneo; Sojourns in Sabah - book tour and giveaway

Finding Myself in Borneo is an honest and buoyant chronicle of a young Canadian man's adventures during 1968-70, while teaching secondary school as a CUSO volunteer in Sabah, Malaysia (North Borneo). Travel with Neill McKee on his unique journey through vibrant Asian cultures as he learns the craft of teaching, the Malay language and local customs, and gains many friends in his small community. He climbs the highest peak in Southeast Asia—Mount Kinabalu, has a love affair, and navigates Borneo's backwaters to make his first of many documentary films. McKee travels by freighter to Indonesia, where he discovers the scars of that country's recent genocide, a contrast to his hilarious motorcycle journeys in Sabah with his American Peace Corps buddy. They make a hallucinogenic discovery—North Borneo is, indeed, J. R. R. Tolkien's famed Middle-Earth of The Lord of the Rings! The enterprising duo establish the North Borneo Frodo Society, an organization Tolkien joins.
McKee's second Sabah sojourn and other return trips offer the reader the opportunity to match the early anecdotes to what in fact happened to the land and people who touched his life, and he theirs.

Paperback: 260 pages
Publisher: Nbfs Creations LLC (January 8, 2019)
ISBN-10: 1732945705
ISBN-13: 978-1732945708

Finding Myself in Borneo: Sojourns in Sabah is now available to purchase on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and IndieBound.  

Book Giveaway Contest!
To win a copy of the book Finding Myself in Borneo: Sojourns in Sabah by Neill McKee, please enter via Rafflecopter at the bottom of this post. Giveaway ends on February 4th at 12 AM EST. We will announce the winner the same day on the Rafflecopter widget. Good luck!

About the Author: 

Neill McKee is a creative nonfiction writer based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. McKee, who holds a B.A. Degree from the University of Calgary and a Masters in Communication from Florida State University, lived and worked internationally for 45 years and became an expert in communication for social change. He directed and produced of a number of award-winning documentary films/videos and multi-media initiatives and authored numerous articles and books on development communication. During his international career, McKee worked for Canadian University Service Overseas (CUSO), the International Development Ressearch Centre (IDRC), Canada, UNICEF, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore; Academy for Educational Development, Washington, D.C. and FHI 360, Washington, D.C. He worked and lived in Malaysia, Bangladesh, Kenya, Uganda and Russia for a total of 18 years and traveled to over 80 countries on short-term assignments.

Finding Myself in Borneo: Sojourns in Sabah is Neill's first Memoir.

Find Neill Online:

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1839945.Neill_McKee

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MckeeNeill

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neill-mckee-b9971b65/

Website: https://www.neillmckeeauthor.com/

Interview by Crystal J. Casavant-Otto

WOW: Thank you so much for the opportunity to read and help promote this exciting memoir!

When was Finding Myself in Borneo born and what prompted you to not only write this book but publish it and share it with the masses?

Neill: Actually, I wrote a draft of Chapter 6, Going Native, sometime in the 1990s. But as an international filmmaker, media producer, and author of more technical books and articles on communication for development, I had little time to focus on my own formative years and experiences in Sabah, Malaysia (formerly British North Borneo). It was only in 2013, after a 45-year career, beginning in Borneo, that I began to write this book. But for two years I also did research and writing on my family’s history and never settled down to full-time writing of Finding Myself in Borneo until September 2015, just after we moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico. I had many stories in my head about my sojourns in Sabah, but had not organized my thoughts. I took a graduate seminar at the University of New Mexico (UNM) in creative non-fiction, studying under Professor Daniel Thiel. This really set me in motion. From that experience, getting excellent critique from Prof. Thiel and fellow students, I felt I had great stories to tell.

WOW: Well, I certainly agree you have stories to tell! Thank goodness for a great group of supporters. Speaking of which, who has been your biggest supporter and how so?

Neill: There was no strongest supporter. I got feedback on drafts from 18 people I acknowledge in the book, including writers, friends with international experiences, my family and my spouse, Elizabeth. They all encouraged me to publish. The feedback required many revisions, at least 50 in all. I got advice on reorganization and where to add more or less detail. I also hired a literary editor, Pamela Yenser, an Albuquerque poet and writer, who provided many ideas. She asked for more detail, more dialogue, and pushed me to reflect and reveal more about myself in the stories. She often wrote new sentences which I then put into my own words. She asked for more poetic writing and I took another graduate seminar in poetry under Diane Thiel, and then revised and revised again and again. After about eight rejections from publishers and two funny offers which involved them reworking my book yet again and then keeping most of the royalties, while putting very little into marketing, I decided to set up a company and do my own publishing. I hired a great designer, Sara DeHaan, and we decided to publish through IngramSpark.com, which allows me to reach potential readers around the world.

WOW: That story is very inspirational! What advice would you give other writers who may want to follow in your footsteps?

Neill: Be prepared for a lot of work, especially if you are getting into creative writing after another main career. It is not easy to transition from more academic forms of writing but it is certainly a lot of fun. Listening to or reading other memoirs and creative nonfiction works is a great help as well.

WOW: How do you celebrate your professional successes?

Neill: I held an open house with great Malaysian cuisine cooked and arranged my Elizabeth and invited friends to come and enjoy—buy the book if they wanted to. It is too early to celebrate “success”—have to sell books first. For that I hired publicity people to help and to teach me how to push the book on social media. I am still in the process of rolling this out. At the end of 2019, I may be able to celebrate some professional success in my new career.

WOW: No doubt the best is yet to come! 2019 is definitely going to be an exciting year for you - I can feel it!

Are you part of a writing or critique group, why or why not? What advice can you give others when it comes to feedback regarding their writing?

Neill: The graduate seminars I attended at UNM were my first critique groups. Then I shared drafts with the contacts mentioned above. I never joined a separate critique group but now have two creative writers who are providing this essential function. You cannot do it alone. You can write for yourself, sure, but potential readers may not care about it. What’s the purpose in writing if you don’t communicate? My whole career has been about communicating well in various media, usually involving a lot of research, including feedback from potential audiences.

WOW: What would your current self say to your younger self when it comes to writing and life?

Neill: I guess it would have been useful to keep a better diary. I am lucky to have a good memory still, copies of letters I wrote to friends, and letters to my family which my mother returned to me before I died. I also kept my old photo albums and a file on the North Borneo Frodo Society. These records helped a lot. If I had kept a diary of some sort it would have been easier, probably. However, creative nonfiction is not a regurgitation of chronological events, so maybe it would have been harder to see the forest for the trees. The records I did have in my possession triggered so many memories, and that was the key to completing a literary memoir.

WOW: If this book were turned into a movie, what theme song would be appropriate and why?

Neill: In fact, the first movie I ever made was about our group of CUSO volunteers in Borneo Malaysia. For the theme song I chose something that was incongruous with living in Borneo but which was in all of the heads of us North American volunteers through the albums and tapes we bought and listened to at the time: “Sometimes in Winter” by Blood, Sweat & Tears. I set it to the final sequence of going up the Rajang River in Sarawak to visit a longhouse, documenting the lives of the people, and the human skulls that hung in baskets from their rafters—prizes of their head hunter ancestors. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3nu-qmxM0w

WOW: What do you know now that you wish you had known before writing and publishing Finding Myself in Borneo ?

Neill: I now know how much work it is to write well for a broad audience, as well as the key elements of success – finding good technical help and input. It took a lot more time and resources to complete and publish this book than I had expected.

WOW: Beyond the celebrations and success that will most definitely happen this year, what's next for you?

Neill: I’ve completed the draft of a childhood and youth memoir that is about my life in the industrially polluted small town I grew up in. Each chapter is about a different mode of escape. It is written in a “tongue in cheek” way for entertainment and audience interest. The last two chapters are about my university years, my indecision about what I want to do with my life and then my departure for Borneo. I expect this book to come out later in 2019. I’ve also completed about half of the draft of a travel memoir on searching for the stories of my ancestor in Canada and the United States. It’s a major piece writing which will take the reader back through most of the wars and conflicts in North America, ending with those of the Pilgrims in New England. I plan for this one to come out in 2020 at the time of the 400th year anniversary celebration of landing of the Mayflower on New England’s coast.

WOW: I'm looking forward to this book tour and hearing from other readers, as I'm sure you are too!

Thank you for your time and for sharing your story with us today.

----------Blog Tour Dates

Monday, January 28th (Today) @ The Muffin
Neill McKee launches his tour of Finding Myself in Borneo: Sojourns in Sabah with an interview and giveaway at the Muffin!
http://muffin.wow-womenonwriting.com/

Tuesday, January 29th @ Selling Books
Learn more about Neill McKee as he is interviewed by Cathy Stucker at Selling Books. You won't want to miss this insightful interview about McKee and his memoir Finding Myself in Borneo: Sojourns in Sabah. 
https://www.sellingbooks.com/

Wednesday, January 30th @ Bring on Lemons with Crystal Otto
Crystal Otto couldn't wait to get her hands on Neill McKee's memoir about his travels and finding himself! This busy farmer seldom leaves the farm and enjoyed every moment she experienced reading Finding Myself in Borneo: Sojourns in Sabah. Find out more in her book review at Bring on Lemons today!
http://bringonlemons.blogspot.com/

Thursday, January 31st @ Breakeven Books
Don't miss a very honest book review about Neill McKee's Finding Myself in Borneo: Sojourns in Sabah.
https://breakevenbooks.com/

Friday, February 1st @ Fiona Ingram
Fellow author Fiona Ingram reviews the adventures story of Neill McKee's journey in Sabah and his experiences h in Finding Myself in Borneo. Readers won't be disappointed in Ingram's review or McKee's memoir!
http://fionaingramauthor.blogspot.com/

Monday, February 4th @ Author Anthony Avina
Author Anthony Avina reads and reviews Finding Myself in Borneo: Sojourns in Sabah - by Neill McKee. Readers won't want to miss this adventurous and soul searching memoir! https://authoranthonyavinablog.com/

Wednesday, February 6th @ The World of My Imagination
Nicole hosts a special feature with author Neill McKee about his memoir Finding Myself in Borneo: Sojourns in Sabah. 
https://theworldofmyimagination.blogspot.com/

Friday, February 8th @ Choices with Madeline Sharples
Fellow memoirist Madeline Sharples hosts Neill McKee today as he pens today's guest post titled: Living in and learning about a very different culture”. Find out more about McKee and his memoir Finding Myself in Borneo: Sojourns in Sabah. 
http://madelinesharples.com/

Monday, February 11th @ Bring on Lemons with Elizabeth Hansen
Young reader and reviewer Elizabeth Hansen shares her thoughts after reading about Neill McKee's memoir Finding Myself in Borneo; Sojourns in Sabah.
http://bringonlemons.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, February 13th @ To Write or Not to Write with Sreevarsha
Shreevarsha reviews the insightful memoir Finding Myself in Borneo: Sojourns in Sabah by Neill McKee. Don't miss the opportunity to learn more about McKee's journey. http://sreevarshasreejith.blogspot.co.at/

Friday, February 15th @ Bring on Lemons with Tricia Schott Baldwin
Avid reader, constant dreamer, and occasional traveler Tricia Schott Baldwin reviews Finding Myself in Borneo: Sojourns in Sabah by Neill McKee. Tricia shares her thoughts with readers at Bring on Lemons - will this be a lemon or sweet sweet lemonade?
http://bringonlemons.blogspot.com/

Saturday, February 16th @ World of My Imagination
Nicole discusses "3 Things on a Saturday" with Neill McKee. Learn more about McKee and his memoir Finding Myself in Borneo: Sojourns in Sabah.
https://theworldofmyimagination.blogspot.com/

Tuesday, February 19th @ Jarry Waxler’s Memoir Revolution
Memoir expert and educator Jerry Waxler pens his review of Finding Myself in Borneo: Sojourns in Sabah by Neill McKee. Readers and memoirists alike won't want to miss this insightful post and review by Waxler.
https://memorywritersnetwork.com/blog/

Thursday, March 7th @ Kathleen Pooler
Neill McKee finds himself penning today’s guest post “Becoming a memoir writer after retiring from another career.” at Kathleen Pooler's Memoir Writer's Journey - don't miss the opportunity to learn more about McKee and his exciting tale Finding Myself in Borneo: Sojourns in Sabah.
https://krpooler.com/

*****BOOK GIVEAWAY*****

To win a copy of the book Finding Myself in Borneo: Sojourns in Sabah by Neill McKee, please enter via Rafflecopter at the bottom of this post. Giveaway ends on February 4th at 12 AM EST. We will announce the winner the same day on the Rafflecopter widget. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Read More »

4 comments blog tour, book blog tour, book tour, finding myself in borneo, memoir, neill mckee, sojourns in sabah, travel book

You Started WHAT after 60? Highpointing across America - blog tour and giveaway

Itching for a challenge when she turned 60, Jane Bertrand set out to reach the highest point of each state. Her strategic mistake was to start with the easiest ones, leaving the most strenuous for the end of this decade-long quest. She recruited over 50 family members, colleagues, and childhood friends to join her in this quest. Ostensibly a book about hiking and climbing, it captures the deep sense of friendship, further strengthened by bear sightings, lack of signage, lost GPS connectivity, muddy trails, snowfields, icy run-off, and tent loss encountered along the way.

Paperback: 284 pages
Publisher: Walnut Park Press (November 16, 2018)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1732847703
ISBN-13: 978-1732847705

You Started WHAT after 60? Highpointing across America is now available to purchase on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and IndieBound.

Book Giveaway Contest!
To win a copy of the book You Started WHAT after 60? Highpointing across America by Jane T. Bertrand, please enter via Rafflecopter at the bottom of this post. Giveaway ends on January 14th at 12 AM EST. We will announce the winner the same day on the Rafflecopter widget. Good luck!

About the Author:
Jane T. Bertrand is a professor at the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, where she splits her time between teaching in New Orleans and managing research on Tulane's family planning projects in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A Maine native, she moved to New Orleans over 40 years ago where she and her husband Bill raised their children, Katy and Jacob. Her recurrent travel to Africa in connection with international family planning work generated many of the frequent flyer miles that made this highpointing pursuit possible.

Find Jane Online:

Twitter: @JaneBertrand8

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JaneBertrandAuthor/

Website: https://www.janebertrand.com/

GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1785116.Jane_T_Bertrand

Interview by Crystal J. Casavant-Otto

WOW: Jane, I have enjoyed your book immensely! Let me begin by thanking your for choosing WOW to help promote and spread the word about You Started WHAT after 60? Highpointing across America! It's always a pleasure meeting an adventurous spirit and having the opportunity for some Q& A. Let's start with what prompted you to share this story and publish it?

Jane: A decade ago when I turned 60, I decided to climb a mountain in every state but didn’t consider the idea of writing it up as a book. Halfway into this 10-year project, as I was about to start a 3-day road trip with my daughter and a friend visiting from the Netherlands, I hit on the idea of a book. Numerous people had and would be joining me, and it would fun to capture these adventures in written form. I wanted to thank each person with a physical copy of the book. Only afterwards did I realize that it might have wider appeal.

WOW: As a reader, I'm very glad you decided to share your story; it's a delightful and empowering read! Who has been your biggest supporter(s) and how so?

Jane: I’d have to name one supporter for the project of hiking the highpoints and another for writing the book.

Photo © Jane Bertrand

My colleague Dr. Julie Hernandez, who climbed four highpoints with me, was a key resource for the project for two reasons. First, she is an experienced mountaineer who as a teenager had been an alpine guide on rescue crews in France and this past summer had trekked in the Himalayas. Second, she and I work very closely together at Tulane University on several family projects in the DR Congo, and as such, Julie knows my professional life better than almost anyone. As the mountains began to escalate in difficulty, I leaned on Julie to provide coaching/company on the highpoints and/or coverage back in the office while I was away seeking summits. The section of the book on Mt Hood captures this relationship, where Julie was back in the office heading up our proposal writing efforts, while I was off in Oregon, preparing for one of the most difficult climbs I’d undertake as part of this project. We’d fit in Skype calls to discuss the proposal, as I prepared for Deep Snow Climbing School. “Julie, let’s trade places. You come out here and do Deep Snow Climbing School, I’ll come back and drink hot coffee while working on the proposal.” Julie fired back: “No playing hooky on Deep Snow Climbing School and no sending another student to take the test.”

My sister Liz Trowbridge Wild, herself the author of a children’s book published in the 1980s, agreed to review the manuscript and gradually became my invaluable editor. Initially, she limited her comments more to errors: typos, run on sentences, unclear statements. But soon she focused more critically on the substance of the book: the pace of the narrative (“Jane, get yourself up and down that mountain more quickly”), the tone of the writing (Jane, this description left me cold; put some emotion into it”), and the attitude (“Jane, that sentence makes you sound so entitled”). It was a tremendous gift to me that she threw herself into the project, clearly wanting the book to be as good as I could make it and offering her critical opinions with such honesty.

"The sections written soon after completing a highpoint flowed more easily onto the page."

WOW: Sounds like you have a lot of support. I love your sisters advice in particular. Speaking of advice, what advice would you give other writers who may want to follow in your footsteps?

Jane: If I had this to do over again, I would have begun writing the excerpts (or at least keeping a journal) at the time of each climb. Because I’d already visited 16 states before it occurred to me to write the book, I struggled to recall the detail of excursions that took place up to five years earlier. The sections written soon after completing a highpoint flowed more easily onto the page.

Although I edited every section of the book – highpoint by highpoint – multiple times, I wish I’d left more time at the end of the process to consider the space I’d given to different parts of the book. However, time ran out with a very real deadline propelling me to publication. In the final year before publication, my editor sister Liz tossed out the idea: “you should have a big party and invite all the people who accompanied you on the highpoints.” Six months before my 70th birthday, I invited the 63 people whom I’d recruited to hike/highpoint with me to a book launch in New Orleans on my 70th birthday. I then began the race against time: to get the book published a month before the party, so I could send them their copy and they could read up on the other people they would then meet at the party. The book launch gave me a non-negotiable deadline, which did wonders for finalizing the book but didn’t leave as much time as I might have hoped for that reflective review of the final manuscript.

WOW: Great advice - thanks again! Our readers are always looking for new ideas. What do you do to celebrate your professional successes? 

Jane: Whereas this book was written as a hobby, my day job is Professor at Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. For academics, success is measured as a journal article published or a grant proposal accepted for funding. The “celebration” of the article tends to take the form of few emails exchanged, expressing as much relief to have it behind us as satisfaction that it’s in print. For a grant proposal accepted, we might break open a bottle of champagne, with the common refrain, “yes, but now we actually have to do the work that we promised in the proposal.”

The celebration of this book was different. Of the 63 people who accompanied me to one or more highpoints or hikes, 37 joined me for the book launch party in New Orleans. One climber sent in her regrets from the DR Congo, because the World Health Organization had called her to work on the front lines of the Ebola crisis; I considered that an excused absence. After a cocktail party hosted by a good friend/neighbor and a catered dinner for some 50 people, many of my highpointing “recruits” gave a short talk on our adventures. I took a friendly beating for my determination to achieve this goal and the numerous barriers we encountered in the process.

WOW: It takes a village, right? Sounds like you have a fabulous one! Are you part of a writing a critique group, why or why not? 

Jane: Because I wrote this book as a hobby instead of my main line of work, I did not look for this opportunity. I did have the invaluable assistance of my sister who became my editor.

Six months before I needed to have a final version published, I had the good fortune of learning that a colleague from a decade ago was also self-publishing a book (actually several books), and he was facing many of the same questions as I was: who to use as a copy editor, how to get the cover and format of the book designed, what book distribution services to use, how to promote the book on social media – which was unknown territory for both of us. Many an email flew back-and-forth between New Orleans and Albuquerque, as we tried to sort through the many questions related to self-publishing. On what was a very steep learning curve, misery loved company.

My feedback on writing style came from my sister/Editor: Liz Trowbridge Wild, who reviewed what I considered to be the near final draft. She poured hours into this task and provided invaluable feedback. We jokingly wondered if afterwards, we’d still be friends. To the contrary, it was a true “bonding experience.”

"I would have encouraged my younger self to realize earlier in life how restorative hiking is to the soul."

WOW: I'm certainly glad I asked that one - thanks for sharing so much about your process and those who helped you along the way.

What would your current self say to your younger self when it comes to writing and life?

Jane: The idea to highpointing (try to reach the highest point in every state) didn’t occur to me until age 60. And I didn’t take on the truly challenging mountains until late into my 60s. My only regret about this project was my inability to attempt the four most difficult highpoints (in Alaska, Washington, Montana, and Wyoming) that were simply beyond my physical capacity by age 69. I have no illusion that I would ever would have climbed Denali in Alaska, but a younger Jane Bertrand – with some training – might have attempted Rainier, Granite Peak, and Gannett Peak.

As to life in general, I would encourage my younger self to stay in shape and find a balance between my work/academic job/work-related international travel and time on the trails. This is especially true for someone living in Louisiana, where there is no mountain higher than 535 feet. I’d chosen employment and residence in a state didn’t provide the kind of outdoors lifestyle common in Denver, Colorado, or Seattle, Washington. Through highpointing, I was able to make up for lost time, but I would have encouraged that younger self to realize earlier in life how restorative hiking is to the soul.

Photo © Jane Bertrand

WOW: Sounds like great advice - I am always struggling with balance myself!

If You Started WHAT after 60? were turned into a movie what theme song would be appropriate?

Jane: No question, Chariots of Fire. But the audience would walk out over such a clichéd selection.

"I struggled to weigh the advantages of finding a publisher versus self-publishing, at a time that the self-publishing industry was growing exponentially."

WOW:  Oddly enough, I memorized that particular song for my 4th grade piano recital and can still play much of it by memory to this very day! What do you know now that you wished you had known before writing and publishing the book?

Jane: Perhaps there is no way to learn about the publishing business until one becomes part of the process. For three years I’d paid my monthly fee to the website Publisher’s Marketplace, never once using it for any meaningful purpose. Somehow $25/month served to demonstrate that I was committed to eventually publishing a book. When I finally identified a service that I wanted from this resource, I received back an automated message that they didn’t offer it. I discontinued my subscription and got serious about how to get this manuscript published.

I struggled to weigh the advantages of finding a publisher versus self-publishing, at a time that the self-publishing industry was growing exponentially. Even with a few good contacts in the publishing world, I failed to make any inroads. To get a publisher, one needed first to get an agent, which itself seemed a herculean task. As my timeframe shortened, I realized that self-publishing would be the best and possibly only option for me.

I’d read online articles and a book on the topic of publishing, but I was still confused. What did Kindle Exclusive mean? How does one get a book listed on Amazon? What does Ingram do? Is it important to have an ISBN number? How did social media work in promoting a book? Because of my accelerated schedule for publication, I was making decisions based on expediency, not comparative shopping. For the most part, I got lucky.

WOW: I could have written that last paragraph myself - publishing is confusing!

What’s next for you?

Photo © Jane Bertrand

Jane: The title of the book leads people to ask: what is the book You Started WHAT after 70? going to contain? This experience has taught me that that I want to continue to spend time in the great outdoors and explore new corners/new trails to the extent possible. A handful of highpointers go on to climbing the highest mountain in every continent. Others start checking off the 3600+ county highpoints as a new goal to achieve. I’ve had my fun with trying to hit an established target (the 50 highpoints in the U.S.) The next phase will be more about taking advantage of opportunities that continue to keep me physically active and get me into the great outdoors.

I don’t see another book in the offing, but I have dubbed and quantified my determination to stay active as “Eight Outstanding Outdoors Adventures Annually.” I’ll start 2019 with an annual tradition of a three-day cross-country ski trip among the Maine Huts and Trails, with three other women, one of whom was my best friend in kindergarten (now 65 years ago). In March I’ll attend a professional meeting in Katmandu, Nepal, after which I hope to tack on a week of trekking in Nepal, which will be a first for me. In August, I’ll plan to climb Katahdin, the Northern Terminus on the Appalachian Trail, as part of my Maine vacation ritual. That leaves five more; any suggestions?

"Find the person that will level with you to make the final product as good as it can be."

WOW: You most definitely are a busy lady, so I won't keep you any longer, but lastly I need to ask: What advice would you give to others regarding feedback in writing? 

Jane: Seek it out! One advantage to a four-decade career as a professor in the world of “publish or perish,” is the thick skin one develops in receiving feedback on one’s writing. We often joke “if we don’t get critical feedback from your colleagues, it means they haven’t read it.” It’s easy to become enamored with the one’s own words and to think that one’s clever wording is going to be universally understood and appreciated. Find the person that will level with you to make the final product as good as it can be.

WOW: I'm looking forward to this book tour and hearing from other readers, how about you?  Thank you for your time and for sharing your story with us today.

----------Blog Tour Dates

Monday, January 7th (Today) @ The Muffin
Jane T. Bertrand launches her tour of You Started WHAT After 60? Highpointing Across America with an author interview and giveaway.
http://muffin.wow-womenonwriting.com/

Tuesday, January 8th @ Fiona Ingram
Fellow author Fiona Ingram reviews the adventures story of Jane T. Bertrand's experiences highpointing across America in You Started WHAT After 60. Readers won't be disappointed in Ingram's review or Bertrand's memoir!
http://fionaingramauthor.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, January 9th @ Bring on Lemons w/Crystal Otto
Crystal Otto couldn't wait to get her hands on Jane T. Bertrand's story about highpointing across America! This busy farmer seldom leaves the farm and enjoyed every moment she experienced reading You Started WHAT After 60?. Find out more in her book review at Bring on Lemons today!
http://bringonlemons.blogspot.com/

Thursday, January 10th @ Selling Books with Cathy Stucker
Learn more about Jane T. Bertrand as she is interviewed by Cathy Stucker at Selling Books. You won't want to miss this insightful interview about Bertrand and her memoir You Started What After 60? Highpointing Across America.
https://www.sellingbooks.com/

Friday, January 11th @ Breakeven Books
Don't miss a very honest book review about Jane T. Bertrand's You Started WHAT After 60? Highpointing Across America.
https://breakevenbooks.com/

Monday, January 14th @ Look to the Western Sky with Margo Dill
Author, Editor, and Reviewer Margo Dill shares her thoughts after reading the inspiring memoir You Started WHAT After 60? by Jane T. Bertrand.
http://margoldill.com/

Wednesday, January 16th @ Author Anthony Avina
Author Anthony Avina reads and reviews You Started WHAT After 60? - by Jane T. Bertrand. Readers won't want to miss this adventurous memoir about highpointing across America.
https://authoranthonyavinablog.com/

Friday, January 18th @ BOL w/Michelle DelPonte
Michelle DelPonte offers her point of view after reading You Started WHAT After 60? by Jane T. Bertrand. Find out what this Wisconsin wife, mother, and autism advocate has to say about Bertrand's recount of her adventures!
http://bringonlemons.blogspot.com/

Tuesday, January 22nd @ Book Santa Fe w/Elizabeth Hansen
Description:Young reader and reviewer Elizabeth Hansen shares her thoughts after reading about Jane T. Bertrand's adventures in You Started WHAT After 60? Highpointing Across America.
http://www.booksantafe.info/booksantafeblog

Thursday, January 24th @ Choices with Madeline Sharples
Description:Fellow memoirist Madeline Sharples shares her review of You Started WHAT After 60? by Jane T. Bertrand. Readers at Choices will be thrilled by Bertrand's adventures in highpointing across America!
http://madelinesharples.com/

Wednesday, January 30th @ To Write or Not to Write with Sreevarsha
Sreevarsha reviews the inspirational book You Started WHAT After 60? by Jane T. Bertrand. Don't miss the opportunity to learn more about Bertrand's adventure highpointing across America later in life.
http://sreevarshasreejith.blogspot.co.at/

Tuesday, February 5th @ World of My Imagination with Nicole Pyles
Description:Nicole reviews and shares her thoughts after reading the thrilling account of Jane T. Bertrand's adventures in highpointing across America in You Started WHAT After 60?. Join readers at World of My Imagination and find out more about this great read and inspirational author!
https://theworldofmyimagination.blogspot.com/

*****BOOK GIVEAWAY*****

To win a copy of the book You Started WHAT after 60? by Jane T. Bertrand, please enter via Rafflecopter at the bottom of this post. Giveaway ends on January 14th at 12 AM EST. We will announce the winner the same day on the Rafflecopter widget. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Read More »

7 comments book blog tour, book tour, climbing, highpointing, hiking, jane bertrand, jane t bertrand, storytelling, travel, travel author, travel book, you started what after 60?