Bookpleasures.com welcomesas our guest Sallie H. Weissinger whose recent novel, Yes, Again:(Mis)adventures of a Wishful Thinker, is being published on October 26, 2021.

Sallie H. Weissinger is a native of New Orleans and was raised as a military brat away from the South (Germany, New Mexico, Ohio, Japan, and Michigan). Every summer, she and her family returned to visit her mother’s relatives in New Orleans and her father’s family in a small Alabama town. She has lived most of her life in the Bay Area and also in New Orleans. These days, “home” includes not only New Orleans and Berkeley, but also Portland, Oregon, where she lives most of the time with her husband, Bart McMullan, a retired internal medicine doctor and health care executive, and their three dogs.

A retired executive herself, she now teaches Spanish and does medical interpreting for non-profit organizations in Central America and the Dominican Republic. Weissinger is a passionate member of the Berkeley Rotary Club and has served on the boards of Berkeley Rotary, the Aurora Theatre in Berkeley, and the East Bay (formerly Oakland) SPCA. You can find out more on her website, https://www.yesagainmemoir.com/.

Welcome Sallie and thank you for taking part in our interview.

Bee: When did you decide to write ‘Yes, Again’?  Had you been thinking about it for awhile or did it just pop into your head one day?  

Sallie:  I’ve always written for work, for non-profit websites, and for my friends.  As corporate communications specialist for the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, I wrote for employees and management –that was reporting, not real writing for a general readership.   I recall being in high school and college and dreaming about writing a book without knowing when I would do it, what I would write about, or whether it would be fiction or non-fiction.  The desire has lurked for decades in the back of my mind. And now, what started as a vague dream has morphed into a book.   

Bee: What was the process like for writing it, from concept to fruition?

Sallie:  It was hard and lonely.  It took almost five years, but there were weeks and even months when I didn’t write.  Then there were times I was at my computer by mid-morning and worked till after 9 pm, forgetting to eat meals.  Some nights, looking up at the clock, I realized it was past midnight.  

I don’t recommend doing it my way.  Most writers suggest following a set schedule, writing in the morning and leaving afternoons free for other daily activities – exercising, seeing friends, having appointments, and doing chores.  They set goals of writing a certain number of pages or working a set number of hours each day. I wish I could be that disciplined.

Bee: Can you tell us more about the issues you encountered with getting back in the dating game as a “late in life widow”?

Sallie:  Oh, my goodness, how do I start?   All through my sixties and into my early seventies, I had a mixed bag of online dating adventures at coffee shops in broad daylight. I probably met 110-125 men.

Typically, I knew within five minutes there was no chemistry with men who were nice enough, but that nothing special was going to develop.

Even so, I engaged in conversations, often awkward and labored, for forty-five minutes or an hour, holding on to a coffee cup for moral support.  I was stunned at how many men talked about themselves without asking me a thing.

I met two men who wanted to borrow money (one asked me to lend him $25,000 and gave me his bank routing number).  Two men had convictions in court records I found on Google.

There were two men I liked who weren’t attracted to me and some very nice men I dated for several months to see if there was any mutual zing. 

Yes, chemistry still counts at age seventy.  Some of the encounters were amusing, including one with a man who kicked off our first meeting providing details of his recent hemorrhoid operation.  My book features the good, the bad, the humorous, and – ultimately- the wonderful.  

Bee:  Which actress would you like to see playing yourself, if the book were to be made into a movie or television series?  What actor for Bart?

Sallie:  I’ve given a lot of thought to this question because my editor, Courtney Flavin, is a script writer.  We’ve talked about casting issues for the past year.  

I’d like Meryl Streep to play me as I am now and her daughter Mamie Gummer to play my younger self. 

Or Kate Winslet with the American accent she nailed in Mare of Easttown, but I don’t know who’d play the younger version. 

As for Bart, I see a combination of Henry Fonda and Jimmy Stewart, but they’re not around anymore.  David Strathairn would be ideal if he were light-haired and blue-eyed.  It needs to be someone tall, slim, and luminous with a Mississippi accent.  

Bee: If you could time travel 30 years back to your younger self, what advice would you give?

Sallie:  I’d say, “No matter how you prepare for your future, it won’t work out that way.  Still and all, forge ahead with a Plan A and a back-up Plan B, knowing you may have to develop a Plan XYZ or Plan Purple. 

Second, give up thoughts of trying to be perfect.  Just do the very best you can.  Third, you’ll have to deal with unpredictable disappointments, so be prepared for that.  That’s the bad news.  There will also be unanticipated delights and serendipitous surprises.  That’s the good news.” 

Bee: What book/s are you reading at present?

Sallie:  Right now, I’m reading memoirs and books about writing memoirs. 

I just finished Mary Karr’s Liars’ Club for the second time and Courtenay Hameister’s memoir, Okay, Fine, Whatever.

I’ve also just read Karr’s The Art of Memoir and Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. 

I need to read a good mystery –something by Louise Penny or James Lee Burke - but may stay on my memoir kick with Tobias Wolfe’s This Boy’s Life and Sherry Turkle’s The Empathy Diaries.  They’re both on my bookshelf.  

Bee: If you could meet three people living, dead, or fictional, who would they be? Why?

Sallie:  First would be larger-than-life Winston Churchill.  I’ve read books about him, walked the beaches of Normandy, visited the Churchill War Rooms in London twice, and been to Chartwell, his country home in southeast England. 

I’m gob smacked by his indomitable temperament and unflappable tenacity in steering his country- and the Allies- through the darkest of times.

Secondly, Paul Newman because he was so much more than a movie star.  He was an entrepreneur, a philanthropist, an activist for sustainable water solutions, and founder of summer programs for children with serious illnesses. 

He used his celebrity to promote the common good. He was gorgeous in every way. 

Who else?  Meryl Streep for her choice of roles and incredible acting talent, balanced by her political activism, modesty, refusal to play the traditional Hollywood game, and support of public theater and female empowerment. 

Like Paul Newman, she has used her celebrity card to make the world a better place.  I’ve reached my limit of three but am going to squeeze in one more: 

Jorge Mario Bergoglio, better known as Pope Francis.  His positions on immigration, inclusivity, climate change, concern for the poor, and interreligious tolerance touch me to the core, even though I have no religious affiliation other than with the Church of the Golden Rule. 

Bee: If you could spend a day with a popular author, who would it be? 

Sallie: While there are lots of writers I’d be delighted to meet, my first choice would be Anne Lamott.  Rereading her Bird by Bird as I wrote Yes.

Again, I soaked up her wise and witty instructions about writing and her self-deprecating tales about trying to overcome writer’s block and fight perfectionistic tendencies. 

I’d love to hang out with her over dinner, take walks with her, and become her friend. 

When I asked her to blurb my book, she said she couldn’t but made my day by responding, “Both you and your book sound lovely, but for many reasons I can’t.  I send you all my good wishes and God’s most show-off blessings on you and your book.”  I thanked her for her rejection note. 

Bee: Where can our readers find out more about you?

Sallie: My Website

Bee: Thanks again and good luck with Yes, Again!

Sallie:  Thanks, Bee. This was fun!

Follow Here To Read Bee's Review of Yes, Again:(Mis)adventures of a Wishful Thinker