Ignited Hearts Inspiring Hope, an anthology of transformational stories published by Stories of Women LLC, includes one by Jaine Toth, organizer of the newly formed Robson writers’ workshop, Write On, and columnist for the Eloy Enterprise.
Based in Durango, Colorado, Stories of Women is a collaboration of five women, one of whom is Jaine’s daughter Carla Marie Toth. They describe the book as “a compilation of both heart-warming and heart-wrenching stories from women of diverse backgrounds. Each woman shares a unique experience that has helped her open to loving herself, her life and others. The words of each author are reminders that we are surrounded by opportunities of the heart everywhere we look and in everything we experience.”
The stories are sorted into seven sections, Awakening, Grace, Forgiveness, Trust, Gratitude, Acceptance and Love. A tribute to her mother, Jaine’s story, It’s All in the Attitude, is found under Gratitude. She based it on lessons learned from her mother’s lack of self pity and the absence of complaints through the health issues that engulfed her, as well as the way she faced the knowledge of her imminent death.
Jaine and her husband Don attended the book launch party in Durango on April 24. They couldn’t help but admire the publishers, each of whom spoke about the two and a half year project from the first idea that it would be nice to have a book of inspirational stories, to the suggestion and ultimate decision that they should publish one through the sometimes tedious, often challenging and always exciting process of collaboration, separating out the various tasks necessary to accomplish their goal, developing a business plan, creating a website, soliciting and then reading the submissions, the painful culling of almost half of them, struggling to come up with a title, selecting a cover design and finally seeing the finished product.
The reception drew many more people than they could have hoped for including fourteen of the 43 authors, two of whom traveled from Arizona. After ordering more books than the ladies anticipated selling, they were surprised when all sold out early in the evening. Since then the local book store in Durango sold all the copies they had on hand and had to place another order.
A friend of Jaine’s from California wrote, “It is a wonderful book. I’ve read about 15 stories so far and it’s awe-inspiring. Your story touched my heart and reminded me of my mom who had so much wisdom. It is hard for me to put it down.”
Ignited Hearts Inspiring Hope is available in softcover and for Kindle on Amazon.com.