Good Grief! 58 Ways to Manage Your Life

These fifty-eight essays are taken from Ruth Marcus' seven-year stint as a columnist for the Sequim Gazette on the Olympic Peninsula. She decided to publish this collection to support, educate and inspire individuals and families to better manage their lives when facing challenging times.

Ruth dreamed of experiencing cultures beyond her small-town upbringing in Wisconsin. In 1969, she hitch-hiked to San Francisco with two college friends. Civil rights, women's rights, gay rights, and equal rights have been the focus of her life since that time.
Ruth earned a Masters Degree in Psychology and a Doctorate Degree in Religious Studies. She owned two graphic design businesses, one in San Francisco and the other in Sausalito. She also taught typography to art students at the Academy of Art in San Francisco and partnered to create Scarlet Crane, a mail-order line of outdoor clothing for large size women.

Ruth and her partner moved from Mill Valley to the Olympic Peninsula in 1999 to semi-retire. Her partner died a year later. Where she grieved deeply, a community of newly found friends helped her settle into a new lifestyle in Sequim.
Moved by their kindness, she wrote an essay on grieving and submitted it to the Sequim Gazette, offering it as comfort to others during the holidays. The editor of the Gazette, Sue Ellen Riesau, phoned and asked if she would like to be a columnist.
Ruth never imagined writing monthly columns for the next seven years, but it turned out to be a meaningful entré to the community. Good Grief was the title of her Sequim Gazette column. This Good Grief book is a collection of essays published in the Sequim Gazette and a quarterly publication, Living on the Peninsula.
In addition to being a columnist for seven years, she has published a small gift book titled Inspiration to Open Your Heart, Awaken Your Mind, and Touch Your Soul. Most recently she published a collection of Haiku and original mandala drawings in a hardbound, 4-color book titled Haiku & Mandala: The Wedding of Ancient Art. Her books are available at WideAwake Publishing.com and at various bookstores and Amazon. Her poetry has been published in numerous anthologies, including the 2017 Washington State Poets Anthology. She is currently working on a creative memoir.

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