Artist and author Patricia Barkman, who holds a PhD in rhetoric, has completed her second and third books, which she will formally launch on Tuesday, November 28 (snow date November 29), at 7 pm, during a program in the meeting room of C.H. Booth Library, 25 Main Street.

The new writing follows the release four years ago of the Newtown resident's first book, Lieber, published by Granny Pat's Identity Press (November 2013), which was the biographic story of her late husband, Leon.

Her second book is set in Newtown and recounts Dr Barkman's experiences as a dating septuagenarian. One of her dates asked her to write a book about him, so she did. The result is .My Chocolate Lover and Septuagenarian Dating

Letters To A Lover's Daughter is her third and most recent autobiographical account.

"A friend pointed out that I like to put Lover in my titles," Dr Barkman said.

According to a recent press release, "A little historic fiction, a little European history, a little Newtown history, a little of everything" is included in her writing.

The subject in My Chocolate Lover "was a character," she said. She had dated him several years ago. The book is "anecdotal, a memoir."

The book took on a life of its own, she said. The main character kept playing the song, "A Love Of Your Own," by the Average White Band. In the music, "a love of your own" changes to "a love of my own." Dr Barkman said, "Love and life are locked into each other."

"Umpteen friends" had helped with her editing process, she said. The last were Sophfronia Scott and Pauly Brody, both local writers and authors.

Letters To A Lover's Daughter, the most recently completed title, is fiction based on a true story. The main plot is that of a fictionalized 18-year-old girl who seeks independence by traveling to Europe. She exchanges e-mails with a woman who was once her father's lover.

While talking about her recent work, Dr Barkman said, "The true story is someone I have been. This happened. A young girl wrote to me after reading Lieber."

Through e-mail, the girl explains, "her parents don't know she is writing, and that I was her father's lover, which the girl discovered after reading Lieber."

The book's plot is described as a curiosity between the two characters "about what makes the other tick, the two correspondents discuss their loves, their ancestors' influence on their parents, particularly how each grandfather influenced their mothers. The older character includes a few true details of what it was like in the late 1800s when her great-grandparents build their home on the prairies. The younger character includes the plight of her grandfather's immigration after imprisonment during WW II," as explained in a recent press release.

"The young woman writes of her experiences in Europe today. In contrast, the older character recalls her trip in the mid-sixties. Compliments and contrasts between youth and age, between painting and writing, between the exhilaration of falling in love and the pleasant reflection of it - abound," the release states.

Dr Barkman's release continues, "I had excellent editorial advice from friends. The book gained 10,000 words, then lost them, gained another 8,000 and kept them. It yo-yoed in length often. Each edit helped."

Writing And Editing Advice

Dr Barkman said writing and editing advice from Sophfronia Scott "has encouraged me to develop main characters each with an arc, i.e., they have to change. When characters have an arc, the writer has had to have 'arc'ed.'

"Example - my mother - when I was a child - told me in detail of her troubles. I felt terribly sorry for her," Dr Barkman continued. "Little empathy from mother to daughter was returned. The empathy well dries if it's not refilled by reciprocation. Resentment results."

At age 75, however, "there's little room for resentment and a lot of room for forgiveness," said Dr Barkman. "Research helps develop understanding. Maturity brings compassion. Compassion brings empathy that freely flows. I hope that arc works because it's in the book."

Regarding My Chocolate Lover, Dr Barkman said that one question raised at a reading event she participated in was, What do you find easier, autobiographical or fiction?

"Many people found fiction was easier, but I was the opposite," she commented.

She said, "In my mind I can't stop writing, I think the most recent is the best, guess it's the way it is."

Naming some of the writing tips she picked along the way, Ms Barkman learned: "Paring down excess words improves all writing. Transitional words are often better left out: Instead of using 'and,' 'but,' or 'although,' let the reader fill in a transition. Strong segues are important. Lots of action helps. Dialogue makes a scene come alive. Editor Natalie Schriefer encouraged lots of dialogue in specific places in both my recent books.

"Once you start writing, you're writing most of the time, thinking of analogies, dialogue," she said. "Dialogue really helps a book come alive.

"My mind questions what to write throughout the day - especially when I first wake. That's when my best thoughts develop," Dr Barkman shared. Her latest book "is almost all dialogue," she said, and has "lots of action."

She believes a book should "finish with a zing and a short pithy sentence," she said.

Copies of Pat Barkman's new books will be on sale online at Amazon.com, in paperback and for electronic readers.