Solivita Writers

Bobbie Hinman

Bobbie Hinman is a new Solivita resident with her husband, Harry, and their two kitties. They have 13 grandchildren. Bobbie has been a guest presenter at numerous bookstores, libraries and book festivals all across the United States and in Canada.

As a former teacher, along with the added experience of reading to her 13 grandchildren, Bobbie feels right at home in the world of children's literature. She loves to create stories that reveal some of the less practical and more magical explanations for life's little mysteries. After all, who better to blame it on than the fairies.

Combining her love for children with her love of literature, Bobbie has created her award-winning fairy books. Her 5 children's picture books have received 28 children's book awards, including the Moonbeam Book Award for "Best Picture Book Series of 2017." She is also the author of "How to Create a Successful Children's Picture Book."

The Fart Fairy
The Freckle Fairy
The Knot Fairy
The Sock Fairy
The Belly Button Fairy

Before creating her children's books, Bobbie authored several cookbooks, including the highly successful Meatless Gourmet series and Burgers 'n Fries 'n Cinnamon Buns. Bobbie shares her journey with aspiring writers in her newest book, How to Create a Successful Children's Picture Book.

Also in demand as an editor, Bobbie specializies in children's picture books. For more information about Bobbie's editing services and purchase one of her books, click HERE for her Home Page.

Shirley Greves

Writing under the pen name Rosemary Vaughn, Shirley Greves is the author of two novels, her award-winning debut novel Love on the Misty isles and its currently released sequel/prequel Penny for Your Thoughts. Born and raised on the Canadian prairies, her creative imagination was evident early in elementary school when the numbers in addition columns became characters around which she imagined stories as she did her sums. After becoming a high school English teacher, marrying her high school sweetheart Doug Greves, and having their two children, Shirley and her family immigrated from Canada to the balmier North Dakota in 1977.

Eventually attaining her PhD, Shirley became a professor of teacher education at the University of North Dakota, thus her early published works were focused on academics. She, however, continued to feed her creative impulses by writing skits and puppet plays for church and community use as well as personal poetry and essays.

Now retired, Shirley and Doug spend their summers at their lake home in Minnesota and winters in Florida at Solivita, which allows them time with their daughter’s family in Minneapolis and son’s family in Orlando. These annual transitions have also inspired Shirley to adopt the title Pine to Palm Writer.

Shirley has always considered herself a “Jack-of-all-trades and Master of none” because she’s always had interests in reading, writing, painting, acting, and singing. Solivita has allowed her the opportunity to explore many of these interests. She has taken some art classes, as the Presider started the True North Chapter of the Solivita Book Circle, and attained the role of Vera in the Solivita Theatre Groups’ production of Neil Simon’s female version of “The Odd Couple.” It was her membership with the Solwriters that inspired her to resume her interest in creative writing and her first foray into fiction.

The rugged, pristine beauty of the former Queen Charlotte Islands off the northwest coast of Canada forms the backdrop for three intertwining love stories in Rosemary Vaughn’s debut novel Love on the Misty Isles. Along with their friends, the three strong yet vulnerable heroines form a “family” that crosses cultures, generations, and borders. Readers have said that the strong sense of place, the culture of the proud and talented Haida First Nation, and the familial ties among the characters make the novel complex and real, but it is the many twists and turns of the plot that make it a page-turner. Shirley’s having briefly lived on these remote islands enhances the realism of the book. Having researched all the changes that have taken place in the 40 years since living there, Shirley and her husband returned to the islands, now officially known as Haida Gwaii, in 2017 to see these changes for themselves.

Considering her award-winning debut novel a page-turner, Shirley’s readers urged her for a second book. Since three of the characters in the first novel had originally come from the fictional town of Crocus Plains on the Canadian Prairies, Rosemary Vaughn’s sequel/prequel Penny for Your Thoughts returns to Crocus Plains to follow the life journey of Penny Ryan, beginning with her father’s life during the Depression and WWII. Penny’s life interacts with the three characters from the first novel. She also encounters opportunities for love, but it never lasts. Will her life story reconnect her with early friendships and find true love? Will her story return readers to the Misty Isles? While discovering these answers, readers of our generation are learning about and relating to the similarities and differences in growing up in Canada and the United States.

Even though she has lived in the United States since 1977, Shirley’s settings for her novels are mainly in Canada. I guess you can take the girl out Canada, but you can’t take the Canada out of the girl. Having lived on Haida Gwaii, growing up on the Canadian prairies, and her education background at all levels bring authenticity to her characters’ experiences in both books. She enjoys giving presentations at author events and discussing her novels with book clubs.

Shirley has been retiring in 2020 from being a publication author under her pen name Rosemary Vaughn. She has withdrawn her website and Facebook author page. Her ebooks are no longer available online nor are the printed copies available to order from stores. She still has copies available for residents through Solwriter events or in person by contacting her by email at shirley.greves@gmail.com. She will sell them at reduced rates and especially low for SBC Chapters who want to discuss them, and residents who already have them but would like to get some copies for gifts. She will continue to be involved in other activities in Solivita, including watercolor painting workshops with Fran Bliek, singing with Guys and Dolls, and perhaps acting in another Theatre Group production.

Kathy Glascott

Kathy Joyce Glascott is the author of three published works: Loving Christy, and Elvis Saves a Marriage and Widow’s Weeds, the Note, a novella which is the first of a trilogy.

A former teacher, Kathy comes from a long line of storytellers. According to Kathy, “Teaching was my career, but my first love was always writing. I won my first writing contest in third grade and dreamt all my life of being a published author.” She grew up in a family of eight children who were considered to be “hippies” in their traditional Irish-American neighborhood.

Kathy and her late husband Dan moved to Florida from Buffalo, New York in July of 1998, and made a move to Solivita in April of 2001. “When we first moved, we knew almost every one of the 75 people living here back then,” Kathy said.

They retained family ties and many friends back north, and Kathy often says that she “left her heart in Buffalo.” She also claims that her hometown has “the best summer weather anywhere.”

The Glascott’s daughter, Brenda is an English professor and the Director of the Honors College at Portland State University in Oregon.

Kathy is the proud grandmother of five—furry cats.

When not writing, Kathy is trying to please her lovable puppy Sparkle who seems to have taken charge of the household.

This and That,” is her blog which she describes as “a slice of life.” You can read her posts by clicking on kathyglascott.com.

Her play, “First Date,” was presented by the Solivita Theater group and was well received by the community. “What an amazing moment,” Kathy says, “to see my words come to life by being performed on stage!”

Loving Christy, Kathy’s first novel, appeals to people who came of age during the tumultuous 1970's, a time of rapid cultural and economic change. It’s a story of romance and its conflicts and emerging feminist ideals as experienced by many women of the time. The novel is rich with elements of the Celtic humor and conflicts of tightly knit Irish-American communities.

According to Mia Crews, the publisher of Elvis Saves a Marriage and Other Short Stories, Kathy’s second book, “presents a cast of engaging characters, unique settings and surprise endings. These “slice of life” stories cover the gamut of human emotions,” including finding love, getting revenge, reconciliation, and the tragedy of a dying marriage. The last story in the collection, “Henry and Ginny,” is a mash-up of two familiar fairy tales.

Widow’s Weeds—The Note is the first novella in a trilogy that describes the journey of grieving and healing after a woman loses her husband. It is based on Kathy’s real-life experiences of losing her beloved husband in 2012. However, there is a twist in the story which keeps the reader engaged. She was thrilled when a reader told her that, after reading the novella, “I finally get it—I really understand what it means to be a widow now!”

Kathy served the Solivita Book Circle for many years as President, and as Co-chair of the Program Committee. She worked with Jacquie Brunner to bring lifelong learning to our community through Solivita University. An avid advocate for Solivita based writers and authors, Kathy and Jacquie, planned several Author’s Teas—an idea that morphed into the Sol Writers’ Coffee House. The Sol Writers are an important part of Kathy’s life, and she has been an active member of the women’s writing group since it began. She is active in several other clubs as well.

Widow's Weeds

Elvis Saves a Marriage

Loving Christy

Marilyn Shapiro

Today I'm honored to introduce another Voice of Solivita, Marilyn Shapiro.

Marilyn Shapiro will feed your curiosity. What we learn from her short stories is an adventure in discovery. Marilyn’s stories are warm and nostalgic. Readers in Amazon books, Jewish World newspaper, and the Orlando Heritage have been illuminated by her life, travels, and stories.

How would you like to know Marilyn Shapiro? I thought you would so and sent her a few questions to whet your curiosity. Click on the title below for her books and you'll be directed to Amazon.

Let's hear from Marilyn Shapiro

What’s the last book you’ve read?
The last book I read was Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel. I choose this book for Book Babes, our Book Circle group, as it raises interesting questions regarding needs vs. wants; solicitude vs. human interaction; and crime and punishment. As I will be leading the discussion, I read it a second time and found it even more interesting.

What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever done?
In 2013, the editor of the Capital Region, New York’s Jewish World, who knew that I had done public relations for community and educational venues, asked me if I would be interested in writing press releases for them. I declined, asking instead if I could submit personal essays. He agreed to give me a try. My first article, “There Goes My Heart,” was published on August 13, 2013. That one article started my post-retirement writing career. I have had over one hundred articles published in Jewish newspapers and several websites, including the Jewish War Museum, Growing Bolder, and the USA Pickleball Association. I have compiled several of those essays in two books, There Goes My Heart (2016) and Tikkun Olam: Stories of Repairing an Unkind World (2018). Having the courage to ask to write that first article was the coolest-and bravest- thing I’ve ever done.

What does retirement look like to you?
Retirement gives me the opportunity to pursue activities that I didn’t have time for when I was a full-time adult educator and administrator. Solivita offers so many choices, and there are not enough hours in the day to get to all of them.

What been the biggest lesson you’ve learned from writing?
Initially, my writing centered on my life and the experiences of my family. In the past two years, however, I have had the privilege to write down the stories of others: Holocaust survivors, World War Two veterans, cancer survivors, a “Titanic fanatic,” a World War Two orphan who discovered that a picture of his dead father lying in a snow covered Belgium battleground had become one of the iconic pictures of the Battle of the Bulge. I have learned through their narratives that everyone has a story to tell.

What advice would you give someone who wanted to follow in your footsteps?
When I tell people that I have written two books, the first thing many say is “I am going to write a book some day!” My advice is that “some day” only happens if you are willing to sit down and start writing. It can start with a paragraph or a short essay, but it has to start someplace.