Neil Waldman's Blog

SMOKY BLUE is a romance novel based on my lifelong love and friendship with my wife Kath. We've known each other since high school, where we became dear friends. After graduating, we went in different directions. Kath was married after a year of college, eventually returning to school, earning her masters degree in social work, and establishing a career as a freelance psychotherapist. I completed five years of art college, and took off a week after graduation with a one-way ticket to London. After making my way through more than twenty countries and three continents, I returned home. We reconnected at our 20th high school reunion. I quickly fell in love with Kath . . . and our remarkable journey began.

SMOKY BLUE tells the touching story of our long courtship . . . and how, with patience and persistence, I eventually won her over.

It will be available as a paperback and E-book in Spring, 2017.

Memoir writing (or "journaling" as I used to call it, began for me in the first grade. It was September, 1952, and we were learning to red and write. Miss Bogel stood behind her desk, and held up a black and white speckled composition book.
"These are to be your journals," she announced, lifting a stack of them, and passing them to all of us. "Here's your first homework assignment. Write at least one sentence every week . . . about something that really happened. It could be about an ice cream cone that tasted delicious. or a party you enjoyed, or something that made you feel sad. It doesn't matter what it was . . . as long as it really happened."
That evening, my parents got into one of their nasty arguments. I don't remember exactly what it was about, but it brought tears to my eyes. I quickly retreated to my bedroom, and took out my new journal.
"Mommy and Daddy make me sad," I wrote. Then, I tried to describe how my eyes felt, then my throat, and my stomach. When I finished writing, I read those sentences, and I started feeling better . . . so I read them again.
After I'd finished my third reading, the pangs in my stomach began to dissolve. "It's like magic!" I thought to myself.
That journal soon became my constant companion, and my refuge. Whenever I had a "bad day" I'd go to my room, and write. And it worked every time! . . so I kept writing. By the end of first grade, I'd filled three composition books. And when I graduated from high school, I had a carton of secret journals, hidden in the back of my bedroom closet.

This is a memoir - the story of how 3 of 4 Waldman children grew up to become artists. It's filled with many rich memories . . . of how Vincent van Gogh became our guardian angel . . . of days spent walking in the Bronx Zoo with my beloved Grandpa Meyer . . . and how I discovered that a group of ecologists from the Bronx Zoo had saved the buffalo from extinction a century ago.
The narrative begins with my earliest memories - of finger painting at the kitchen table - of sketching with my little brother Brucie - and of how I began telling stories to my little brother, concocting tales of a "Secret Kingdom" under the Bronx, where I was king.
In all, "Out of the Shadows" is the story of the power of art . . .how art enriched the four of us, and illuminated our lives.