A WAY WITH WORDS

NOW AVAILABLE ON CD! $15 with free shipping. Order online with secure payment via PayPal:

...or download a printable order form to mail in. The CD can also be purchased at the following Portsmouth, NH locations: Bullmoose Music, Celtic Crossing, RiverRun Bookstore, Tulips (American Handcrafts).

OUT OF THE DARK is a collection of four short stories written and read by Mary Lou. “Need Deep,” “Circle of Least Confusion,” “The Virginia Grace,” and “Beyond the Pale,” are beautifully wrought stories of four separate journeys through the darkness of disconnection, dislocation, and loss. The listener is drawn into each story, rich in sensory imagery, by Mary Lou’s warm, expressive voice.

Connective threads running through all four include: a reliance on a deep inner source; the discovery of gifts illuminated by the very darkness in which they lay; and, an underlying belief in the resilience of the human spirit. From Nana and her healing dolls to a circle of “imaginary” ladies, the voices of these characters linger long after the stories end -- such is the resonance to be found herein...

“They spring from need and not from want or wish, Sweet Pea.”
                -- from “Need Deep”

Everyone calls me Crazy Caroline. ...
                -- from “Circle of Least Confusion”

... there I sat in shocked silence, choosing not to tell Aunt Virginia Grace that I was home.
                -- from “The Virginia Grace”

Nancy was a virgin in matters of color...
But that was before Angelique introduced her to fire.
                -- from “Beyond The Pale”

Produced by William Dufris of Mind’s Eye Productions
Copyright 2005 by Mary Lou Hamilton Bagley
ISBN 0-9774086-0-4

Mary Lou is featured in the 2007 Twin Farms Anthology.

To order a copy, contact Mary Lou or visit the Triple Tulip Press website.

Mary Lou Hamilton Bagley is an experienced educator (former high school teacher of English & Theater Arts and DCE instructor in Guided Imagery and Self-Hypnosis), an alumna of Molasses Pond Writer’s Conference/Retreats, a seasoned storyteller and a lifelong writer. She is especially attracted to projects which combine her many talents.

In 2001, she wrote and performed Collage: zany bits and some serious stuff, which mixes “original ‘n borrowed songs ‘n stories ‘n such” with her emerging body of artwork.

From “exploring virgin territory,” to “growing up alto,” “recycling,” “grazing,” and learning about love, losses and lifelines, this show touches hearts, souls and funny bones. Add to that a little jazz, a lot of color, a belly dance and some naked leaps off cliffs and you begin to get the idea that is Collage: zany bits and some serious stuff.

Mary Lou is presently at work on a novel entitled Otherwise and is co-authoring a nonfiction book, After-Death Wishes. If you are interested in contributing to this book by filling out a questionnaire, you can download it (Word or PDF file), or contact Mary Lou for more information.

Mary Lou is available for workshops, performances, readings and speaking engagements at libraries, group gatherings, retreats, etc. Please email her for more information.

Short story and novel excerpts

     It wasn’t until I was seven that I heard someone refer to Nana’s dolls as “healing dolls” and to Nana as a “healer.”...

     ... When I was five, I remember asking her to make me a doll to play with like the one she was working on. Her fingers went quiet, hands coming to rest. The grandfather clock in the hall ticked. She lowered her chin to look at me over the tops of her glasses and said, “They spring from need and not from want or wish, Sweet Pea.”

     Everyone calls me Crazy Caroline. It used to make me want to cry. But not anymore. Now I don’t care.
     Aunt Polly and Mrs. Klinka and Mrs. Lemons and Mrs. Juices tell me it’s okay to cry. They say it’s okay to care too. But I don’t. Let everyone laugh and make fun and call me Crazy Caroline if they want to. It’s not sticks and it’s not stones and they can’t break me because I don’t care.

From - “The Virginia Grace”

     She thought she was alone in the house, of course, and I knew I should have left her be. I should have gone down the back stairs and out the kitchen door to my tree house. I should have. But I didn’t. I couldn’t help myself.
     I settled on the stair landing and watched through the spindles of the mahogany banister. I breathed in the oily lemon smell of polished wood and the sicky sweetness of fat white candles burning on the mantelpiece below me in the darkened parlor where the shades were pulled, the drapes drawn. ...

     ... there I sat in shocked silence, choosing not to tell Aunt Virginia Grace that I was home.

     Nancy had seen the flamboyant woman often enough in the halls and lunch room at work, but had never met her. ...

     ...So Nancy looked upon this caricature of a woman with amused indulgence. Poor thing, she thought, always calling attention to herself. Knows no better, of course. Hasn’t been taught that “less is more.”
     Then came the day on the bench in the wind.

     Everyone called him Fester. Not because his name was really Lester and it rhymed. Though it was and it did. And not because his little sister, inclined to chew on her bottom lip, called him "Fester" and got away with it because her cheeks were baby round. Though she did and they were. And not because his initials were L. F. and when he wrote his name, the loop of his F sliced back across the L. Though they were and it did.
     No, everyone called him Fester because they decided early on that it best fit his response to the world.

     “Saw Margaret in town today,” Uncle Otis says.
     Long silence.
     “Now, there’s a puzzler for you!” Mert answers.
     “You got that right. Never seen anyone like her.”
     For a long while there is only the clicking of dominoes on a glass-topped table and the clearing of a throat.
     “Goes through them crossword books like crazy. And always at least three jigsaws going. Once when I was out there upgrading her electrical service she finished out one of the big ones only to find a piece missin’. I near exploded with frustration, but she just said, ‘Well, ain’t that a kick in the head. I been looking for that bit with the green and yellow stripe and it was among the missing all along.’ And she just moved on to the card table in the corner where she always has a big round one going.
     “When she saw me gawpin’ at it, she says, ‘This one’s a matter of finding the piece with the umpteenth gradation of black.’ And she laughs that laugh of hers.”
     “Some say the old girl’s a couple of pieces shy of a jigsaw herself,” Otis says.
     The two laugh uproariously at this.
     “Jacob Pill swears it’s the evil eye she’s got; but I wouldn’t call it that,” Mert says. “Just sees things different from the rest of us. And never done any harm as far as I can see.”
     “Not only sees things different, but sees different things than the rest of us!” Otis adds.