By JULIE CARLE
BG Independent News
Ann Cavera keeps checking boxes on her to-do list.
The woman who co-wrote more than 700 family-life, faith-based, weekly newspaper columns with her husband, Jim, for 14 years and started the “Speeding Past 80” podcast in her 80th year is especially proud of her latest accomplishment.
Her first novel—written with middle-schoolers in mind—was published on March 14 by Elk Lake Publishing of Plymouth, Massachusetts. The book, “Ride a Summer Wind,” took 44 years from start to finish.
It was a project she began when their oldest daughter, five-year-old Katie exhibited a gift for music. Her love of music was the inspiration for Cavera’s first book.
“I started writing it for her. I had a draft in the first few years. I would take it out of the drawer every five years or so to revise it and send it off,” Cavera said about the project.
She started attending writers’ conferences in 2014 to sharpen her skills and make connections. That was also the year her son-in-law passed away from cancer.
“At times like that, mortality really hits you,” Cavera said. “I asked myself, ‘What do you really want to do?’”
Not only did she want to finish the book she started nearly 40 years before, but she also had an idea for another book. “I knew I didn’t have 40 more years for the next book, so I quit my part-time job at St. Aloysius. I sat down and wrote a thousand words a day for 90 days,” she said.
To her relief, with 95,000 words, the first of a trilogy was written. “It still needs work, but not 40 more years,” she said.
In the meantime, life happened. Her husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2018, and she became his caregiver. He passed away in November, but for many years her days were progressively filled with tending to his care. She would squeeze in time at her computer when he napped, but the 40-year-old book was put on the back shelf.
Cavera had the good fortune of attending a writers’ conference as pandemic restrictions were being lifted. An editor was there who turned down a different story pitch the year before.
“I’ve got one more,” Cavera mentioned to the editor. “Send it to me,” was the response. When she sent “Ride a Summer Wind,” Elk Lake Publishing accepted it for publication.
The adventure book for middle-schoolers was inspired by Katie’s love of music, but it is not her life story, Cavera said.
The plot thickens
The book tells the adventures of a shy, young girl who was dumped on her grandfather’s porch when she was six. Named Apple Dumpling at birth by her flower child mother, she was nicknamed “Buddie” by Grandpa Lutie McBride, who refused to call her by her given name, “much to her relief,” Cavera said.
Buddie is 13 years old when the story begins. The school year is about to end, and she wants to give her teacher a gift of appreciation. She finds an old vase and takes it for the teacher’s gift without asking her grandfather’s permission.
He is furious with her, but Buddie has no idea that the vase has any historical value or why her grandfather was so upset. He calms down and explains some of the secrets of the vase, including its ties to Abraham Lincoln.
When she tries to get the vase back, they discover the vase was stolen from the teacher’s locked cupboard. Buddie and her friends spend the summer unraveling the mystery amidst adventure and danger.
“Novelist Ann Cavera brilliantly weaves a stolen vase, Abraham Lincoln, secret caves, a teenage crush, mandolins and banjos and much more together, resulting in a multi-faceted story that kids will love,” wrote Jennifer Grant, award-winning author of children and adult books including “Finding Calm in Nature.”
“I wanted to say some things about life for middle schoolers,” said Cavera, who was a middle school teacher for many years. “I wanted to say ‘Never lose hope. Love is steadfast. Forgiveness is possible. And I wanted to say that no matter what, life goes on.’”
Instead of blatantly offering those messages, Cavera wraps them up in an adventure so the children will read the book for the adventure.
She said the affirmations are rooted in her southern Baptist upbringing. “It’s not heavy religious. It’s like my podcast, where I just slide those positive messages in here and there,” she said.
The book, available on Amazon and on the Elk Lake Publishing website, is dedicated to the nearly three million grandparents in the U.S. who are raising grandchildren alone.
She hopes to present programs in the community to middle school students and grandparents. She is scheduled to be the local author talk at the Wood County District Public Library on Saturday, Oct. 12.
Writing later in life is not for sissies
Cavera has a few more books percolating in various stages that she hopes to get published, including an adult fiction book, currently titled “Verbena Watkins Has Had Enough!”
The idea came to her at a time when she had had enough. The book is about an elderly widowed woman who is fed up with her three, lazy adult daughters. After preparing a Thanksgiving feast and washing all the dishes on her own, “Verbena points her Nash Rambler north and leaves her old life behind,” Cavera said. During her adventurous road trip, she crosses paths with Elvis, Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day and a houseful of hippie drug dealers.
At 81 years old, Cavera is grateful for “whatever the publishers can give,” but she admits that the industry is not especially kind to “gray hairs.”
Many people who say they want to write after they retire are discouraged.
While she was attending a writers’ conference, two different top agents from prestigious publishing companies told the audience, ”We are looking for people we can have a long relationship with,” and then they both turned their heads and looked out a nearby window rather than looking at the audience of mostly older individuals.
“I plan to have a long life,” Cavera boldly told one of the representatives after their presentation.
“If you are going to write later in life, it has to be something that comes from your heart,” she said. “You have to be satisfied with it being published or not.”
One trick of the trade she offered was to think, “What would I do if I was 21 years old?”
Go to conferences to learn the craft and make connections, which is easier today thanks to the internet, she added. She also recommends projecting joy and energy whenever interacting with publishers.
Podcast and writing fit together.
Though writing has been a part of her life for decades, both the writing and the podcast came out of a need to have some kind of connection beyond the house, Cavera said.
She started writing to leave something behind for the kids and grandkids. She added the podcast in 2022. “It made me feel like I had a connection with the world,” she said.
Caregiving is a wonderful purpose, but it is also lonely. Writing and the podcast gave her purpose beyond caregiving.
“I was going to do something in the world, but I found that the world did so much for me,” she said.
