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Interview with Tama Kieves, This Time I Dance! By Barbara Stahura Tama Kieves had her mid-life crisis way early. When she was 25, everyone thought she had it all: she was an attorney educated at Harvard Law, already making six figures working for one of Denver's top law firms, and surrounded by all the exterior trappings of the supposed good life. But she felt lost and desperate. Raised in an Orthodox Jewish family who had insisted she study something "practical," Kieves had put her dream of being a writer in a box and shoved it under a rock. Ignoring her dream left her not merely unhappy but sometimes suicidal. So in 1986, she escaped for a week to figure out what to do. Sitting on a Pacific Ocean beach, eating a cinnamon-raisin bagel, and journaling, she had her epiphany. Maybe she didn't have to spend the rest of her life working in a job she hated. Maybe she could make it financially even if she didn't make millions. Maybe she could even create work she loved and be happy. With these thoughts came the first peace she had felt in years. Soon after that, she left the law firm to "fumble around" as she tried to figure out what to do. For a time, she followed the time-honored creative tradition of waiting tables. She even did legal research for a time because it paid better than waitressing. She did some freelance writing. She then began teaching writing and the spiritual program "A Course in Miracles." She started coaching in 1990, even before "coaching" existed. And for nearly this entire time, she worked on her book. In 2002, Kieves self-published This Time I Dance! Trusting the Journey of Creating the Work You Love: How One Harvard Lawyer Left It All to Have It All, a combination memoir/self-help book. It became a local best-seller in Denver, and she drew enthusiastic groups to workshops where she taught the book's lessons. In a great stroke of synchronicity, someone formerly in the publishing industry discovered the book and took it to Joel Fotinos, vice president and publisher at Tarcher/Penguin. Impressed, Fotinos published it in hardback in 2003, making hardly any changes to Kieves' words or the cover design of an exuberant dancer. The paperback edition followed in 2004. And in September 2006-- twenty years after the epiphany on the beach-- Tarcher/Penguin released the second softcover edition, with a new cover, foreword, and reader resources, and a shorter title, This Time I Dance! Creating the Work You Love. Kieves is still a sought-after speaker, giving workshops at places like Canyon Ranch Resort, Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, and the Omega Institute, as well as at churches, conferences, and other venues around the country. She's working on her second book, about what she calls a "nonlinear way to success." She also offers private coaching and online workshops in creative writing and creating the work you love. Her website is www.awakeningartistry.com. Why did Tarcher/Penguin decide to publish your book again? That's remarkable in today's publishing climate. Joel said they wanted to republish the book because "we love it" and because this edition was a "grand experiment." He believes the book never hit the mark it was meant to hit. Partly, also, I think that the title This Time I Dance! and a dancer on the (earlier) cover was misleading. If you were in a bookstore and just saw that really quickly, you would think that book's about dancing. I don't know what it means that there's a gorgeous flower on it now, but at least it's not a dancer. They wanted it to look like a different kind of book, more suggestive of what it was. He had some instinct all along, and they just wanted to try to repackage it and see if that would hit a different mark. Several agents have told me this never happens, but I believe this is a manifestation of my own belief that the book is important and my diehard consistency with it. You've never had a big marketing machine or expensive publicity behind your book, yet it has sold steadily. What have you done to get the word out? Word-of-mouth has been the driving force in everything I've ever done. I haven't always had access to the bigger channels, haven't had someone footing a major tour or publicity or a write-up in USA Today or whatever. What I have learned personally is that if I can get up in front of people, it sells itself. So I'm just doing what I can that way. And I've set up my own tour. I'm going to different cities and speaking at bookstores or offering workshops. And I've noticed that even if it's a smaller event, when I can get the book into people's hands or if I can speak to people about it, it usually has some kind of ripple effect. My personal marketing plan is literally to love the [people] in front of me as much as I can, every time I'm in front of anyone, to be really living my message, and helping them find what inspires them, helping them to discover and trust their true calling because so far, it's been my staying true to the work that moves the work. It's the only thing I can do. I've driven myself crazy, thinking oh, it's unfair, or if only I had money-- you know, the usual victim thoughts-- I've driven myself nuts with that, so the one thing I've been focusing on is: what's the one thing I can do? I just set up events wherever I can or speak wherever I can, write articles wherever I can. Just get it into the stream, however I can. I've had a tremendous history of people who have taken a class with me, or been a client, or seen me speak, coming back, literally 14 years later and helping me in some way. I had an e-mail just yesterday from a woman I don't even know-- she took my online course. So she took the second installment of three that I'm running in my ezine (http://www.awakeningartistry.com/resources.ezine.html), and posted it on her blog, with steps about how to order my book on Amazon. But her blog is a big-deal blog. It's in L.A. for screenwriters. That's pretty cool. That's a perfect market for my work. There have been all kinds of little hands like that, spontaneous movements like that. It's guerilla marketing in some ways. Most of these things happened because people did them out of enthusiasm or out of love. It wasn't something I asked for. I wouldn't even know what to ask for. Many people have just shown up out of love for the book or for my work, and that's how it's moving. You're also planning a bit more guerilla marketing for this release. Would you let us in on that? I have a very enthusiastic community of supporters and I've reached out to them with suggestions. Many potential readers don't know about this book or my workshops. Many of them feel very alone in that they don't know anyone who will believe in their dreams. They get discouraged and want to give up, even if they have lots of talent or genius in some field. So I'm letting people who have already read the book know that there are some easy things they can do to get the word out. For instance, they can send my website to five friends or anyone who comes to mind. You never know who they might know, or what connections they have. They can buy three copies to give as Christmas presents. Or buy one to donate to a women's shelter, a library, an outplacement center, a school career center. They can buy a copy or two and leave them on a bus or in a coffee shop or a restroom. Put a sticky note on it, saying something like, "This book changed my life. Enjoy!" Take one to your local bookstore or spiritual center and ask them to stock it. And I've asked for help in setting up workshops or inviting other creative marketing ideas. What advice would you give to other writers who want their book to be published? Trust your own instincts-- always. Trust your own dream and stay in touch with that dream and don't compromise it. When I first started writing, I thought I needed to be practical. I'd never written a book, and so I thought I should do articles and stay safe. But I learned that if you compromise your desire, you compromise your strength. Because I'd get all the rejection slips, and I didn't have the same kind of energy to pursue that as I did to pursue my book. With the book, I really had a very different style of writing. I was crossing genres a lot because it's very personal. It's like a memoir in some ways, but then it's poetic, but then it's self-help. And I would get criticism-- make it self-help or make it autobiography. But my gut instinct was, no, this is what I wanted to write because it's what I wanted to read. It's what I was dying to find when I was looking for a book on career transition or daring to trust my creativity. Nobody else knows what needs to be created like you do. Besides, it's the only thing you really ache to do. Even if I wrote a book that was more "marketable," but it wasn't really from my heart or core, it wouldn't satisfy me in the same way. If you're really writing what you're meant to write, focusing on what your soul needs to do, you'll have the energy to sustain it. I spent twelve years writing the book, and I wouldn't have had the energy to cherish it if it wasn't something I really felt called to do. And same thing now on the marketing leg of this. It's hard. There are so many things that don't come through and so many expectations you have that get busted. But I'm driven by that soul thing-- I love this book and want people to have it. I've seen what it can do for people. I have e-mails from all over the world about how it's changed people's lives. Again, if I wasn't called by my soul, there's no way I would do this. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of energy. In the fall, I'm putting myself on the road and doing this tour, and there's a lot of things that have already happened that were disappointing. We didn't get the bigger venue we wanted; we got the smaller one. Or the airfare went up just as we were going to book it. Stupid things, and you think, am I insane doing this? But just the same, I feel called, or I just feel that inner instinct and it feels right so I'm going to trust it again. Does staying true to one's dream of what a book should be mean that a lot of people will have to self-publish? No, I don't believe that's so. I believe our job as writers is to listen to what we are meant to write, what we long to write, and let it find its rightful form. Stay true to your natural gifts. That's where your pure excellence will be and it will give you the best shot of being successful, whether it's a traditional publishing house or it's self-publishing. If you stay true to your love and calling, you will have a boundless energy to pursue your right path, whatever that is, and the endurance to go through whatever it asks. You'll also have that extra shimmer that moves mountains, beats the odds, and lands you where you need to be. Barbara Stahura is a freelance writer in Tucson, Arizona. She has written for Newsweek.com, Spirituality & Health, The Progressive, and Science of Mind, among others. Her website is http://www.clariticom.com.
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