Mary, thank you for your kind comments. Your feedback in our group has made important positive changes in the story and I'm truly grateful.

Thank you John! You are such a loyal fan and your keeping up with my story means so much to me. With your astronomy background I'm hoping you like the spectroscopy reference. Once upon a time long ago I made molecules sing--well, no, actually just their protons--with nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy as part of my work. Years later, I'm still enthralled with the idea that you can sing a particle's vibrations and make it respond. It's really deep when you think about it.

Hi Gretchen, Why, thank you for your eagle eyes, I think you might be right. I tried searching on the name Blanche Sterley and variations like that in the context of Beaufort, SC. I couldn't come up with anything. Even a genealogy database (Family Search) did not have anything like a census report with a name like that. I wish I could find out what happened to the author of this essay. I'll keep searching, and thanks for your help! Holly

Hi Rita, Your kind words warmed my heart so much! You have a beautiful blog too--and a book I see. I had to look! It must help to have dogs, pigs and chickens, too. Every morning I go outside and make an offering. I say, "This is for the greatest good of all." And then, because experience has taught me that truth is often more complex and more beautiful than my preconceptions, I always add, "which I can not picture." Oh, but I would like to! I long to picture where every molecule goes. We can only imagine. Thank you so much for the lovely connection.

Hi Rich, (I'm reposting this from the Emissary Movie thread as I see you posted there too now) I am so sorry your first posts didn't go through. I see Typepad was for whatever reason labeling them as spam and they are obviously not that! We are currently just self-distributing our movie. We want to be really careful about distribution but would love to follow up on that. We have a lot of other creative projects going on that are hijacking our attention (my co-creator Tim is, after 70 patents, is now trying to reinvent an internet that doesn't hurt people, which makes creating a movie seem relatively easy). Maybe if my book is published we will work to revisit distribution. I see you also asked (in another post) about licensing. We are passionate about protecting creative content. We hired a nice entertainment lawyer in Chicago to help ensure we did all the right things. This meant that every place we filmed, every person we filmed, we got permissions and releases signed. All music was either created by my husband (we built a 5-channel surround sound recording studio during production and don't ask how much THAT slowed us down) or we paid for mechanical and recording rights. Every logo and label (Forehead slap at how we filmed in a grocery store and book store and library) that was obvious, we got permission (people generally LOVE to give permission to have their work seen, btw!) or we spent weeks frame by frame blurring the logo when we could not find who to get permission from (thank you very little all the weeks we spent blurring the tiny logo of The Insult Dog on Pat Palmer's hat...) Anyway, I am glad we sweated over those details. It's necessary for distribution, we told ourselves. And it respects the life work of others. Best wishes for your own creative endeavor and thanks for reaching out! Holly

Hi Rich, I am so sorry your first posts didn't go through. I see Typepad was for whatever reason labeling them as spam and they are obviously not that! We are currently just self-distributing our movie. We want to be really careful about distribution but would love to follow up on that. We have a lot of other creative projects going on that are hijacking our attention (my co-creator Tim is, after 70 patents, is now trying to reinvent an internet that doesn't hurt people, which makes creating a movie seem relatively easy). Maybe if my book is published we will work to revisit distribution. I see you also asked (in another post) about licensing. We are passionate about protecting creative content. We hired a nice entertainment lawyer in Chicago to help ensure we did all the right things. This meant that every place we filmed, every person we filmed, we got permissions and releases signed. All music was either created by my husband (we built a 5-channel surround sound recording studio during production and don't ask how much THAT slowed us down) or we paid for mechanical and recording rights. Every logo and label (Forehead slap at how we filmed in a grocery store and book store and library) that was obvious, we got permission (people generally LOVE to give permission to have their work seen, btw!) or we spent weeks frame by frame blurring the logo when we could not find who to get permission from (thank you very little all the weeks we spent blurring the tiny logo of The Insult Dog on Pat Palmer's hat...) Anyway, I am glad we sweated over those details. It's necessary for distribution, we told ourselves. And it respects the life work of others. Best wishes for your own creative endeavor and thanks for reaching out! Holly

Hi James, Thank you for your kind comments about our movie, which was a 5-year labor of love! The book, or books (I've divided one big one into three which are all written) have yet to be published. I've just started to query agents. It's been really helpful for me to get feedback from a wide range of readers, so if you like, I can send you a draft copy. I'll followup with an email. Best, Holly