Wednesday, February 28, 2018

NEW EVENT FOR "WIFE, JUST LET GO" COMING UP!

Los Angeles, here I come. Please save the date for Thursday, April 5, 2018 at 6.30pm at Diesel Bookstore in Brentwood, California.

I hope to reunite with relatives, dear friends and acquaintances and meet many others from the Los Angeles area and other parts of southern California. Let's celebrate the event by honoring Robert Briggs and all he accomplished as a writer, poet, and lover of the written word.

You can keep in touch with me on this blog or on my Facebook page. I look forward to hearing from you and more, seeing you all in person.

Thanks and have a wonderful March and Easter! Diana

Diana Saltoon-Briggs discusses and signs "Wife, Just Let Go"

DIESEL, A Bookstore in Brentwood welcomes Diana Saltoon-Briggs to the store to discuss and sign Wife, Just Let Go: Zen, Alzheimer's, and Love on Thursday, April 5th at 6:30 pm. Please note that this event will take place in the lower outdoor courtyard adjacent to our store.

Diana Saltoon-Briggs at DIESEL, A Bookstore in Brentwood

An extraordinary love story, Wife Just Let Go, are the last words Robert Briggs wrote to his wife before he passed away from Alzheimer's disease. A publisher, literary agent, and author who deeply felt the influence of the Beat era, Robert never stopped writing. Even in his later stages of Alzheimer's, Robert was able to share insights into what he called "the power of aging," and his love of poetry, jazz, and Zen. He continued to write, valiantly, of his younger days and of his stint in the army when he and his platoon witnessed an atomic bomb explosion at Frenchman Flat, Nevada, an experience that forever haunted his imagination. What began as a promise to publish his last works evolved into this duo-memoir. His wife Diana, as his long-time partner and primary caregiver, joined him in this telling, as a way to restore for the reader, and for Robert, the parts of the story he was losing. Her meditative commentary became her solace through her own path of pain and grief as she witnessed the daily, wrenching loss of her husband's memory, and ultimately his death. Poignantly written yet unflinchingly honest, the book navigates not only the waters of grief and loss but also the other side of Alzheimer's: gifts that sustain and inspire loved ones left behind.

Diana Saltoon has traveled extensively, studied yoga, and in the 1970s developed a program that dealt with modern stress. Her interest in Zen led to a study of Chado, The Way of Tea, as a Zen art and received a certificate of Chamei from the Urasenke School in Kyoto, Japan. Diana became a teacher at the Portland Wakai Tea Association in Oregon before moving to New York in 2011. She returned to Portland, Oregon, in 2014. A member of Zen communities in Oregon and New York, Diana continues to give presentations, classes and workshops on the Zen Art of Tea and continues to write. She is affiliated with the Oregon Haiku Society of America as well as the Haiku In English Maui.

Event date:

Thursday, April 5, 2018 - 6:30pm to 7:30pm

Event address:

DIESEL, A Bookstore

225 26th Street

Santa Monica, CA 90402

Wife, Just Let Go: Zen, Alzheimer's, and Love Cover Image

Wife, Just Let Go: Zen, Alzheimer's, and Love (Paperback)

By Robert Briggs, Diana Saltoon

$15.00

ISBN: 9780931191206

Availability: On Our Shelves Now - click to see which location!

Published: Robert Briggs Associates - August 11th, 2017

Saturday, February 17, 2018

INTERVIEW OF 'WIFE, JUST LET GO" WITH HELEN RAPTIS AT KATU TV AM FEBRUARY 15, 2018

Watch the interview of "Wife, Just Let Go," on KATU TV :

http://katu.com/amnw/am-northwest-books-authors/wife-just-let-go-co-author-diana-saltoon

PRESENTING "WIFE, JUST LET GO" AT ANNIE BLOOM'S BOOKS, PORTLAND, OREGON

Thursday, February 15, 2018 at 7pm

(hosted by Robert Briggs & Diana Saltoon and Annie Bloom's Books)

Thanks to all who came to Annie Bloom's onThursday, February 15, 2018, and to Annie Bloom's for hosting this heartfelt occasion. Many thanks to dear friend Stuart Fessant who played cool jazz reminiscent of his time with Robert. Thanks to all who bought acopy of the book and thanks to Carolyn Winkler, Chel and Laura White for their photos of the event!

(Photo by Carolyn Winkler)

(Photo by Chel White)

(Photo by Laura White)

(Photo by Chel White)

((Photo by Chel White)

Diana Saltoon Bio

Diana Saltoon has traveled extensively, studied yoga, and in the 1970s developed a program that dealt with modern stress. Her interest in Zen led to a study of Chado, The Way of Tea, as a Zen art and received a certificate of Chamei from the Urasenke School in Kyoto, Japan. Diana became a teacher at the Portland Wakai Tea Association in Oregon before moving with her husband, Robert Briggs, to New York in 2011. They returned to Portland, Oregon, in 2014. A member of Zen communities in Oregon and New York, Diana continues to give presentations, classes and workshops on the Zen Art of Tea. She is the author of Tea and Ceremony: Experiencing Tranquility (2004), The Common Book of Consciousness (1990), and Four Hands: Green Gulch Poems (1987).

Robert Briggs Bio

Robert Briggs attended Auburn and Columbia Universities and served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. He became a partner in The San Francisco Book Company in 1972 and in 1973 founded Robert Briggs Associates, a group of West Coast consultants to writers and small publishers. The Association was involved in a variety of nonfiction publications including Rolling Thunder by Doug Boyd, Mind as Healer, Mind as Slayer, Kenneth R. Pelletier’s classic book on stress, as well as works by Joseph Campbell, Stanislav Grof, Colin Wilson, and Theodore Roszak. Briggs is also the author of The American Emergency: A Search for Spiritual Renewal in an Age of Materialism, 1986, and Ruined Time: the 1950s and the Beat, 2006. Ruined Time is a cultural autobiography of the Great Depression, World War II and the 1950s. This book sparked various multimedia projects including Jazz and Poetry & Other Reasons, reads written and read by Robert Briggs and accompanied by jazz musicians in performances in Portland, OR. CDs were produced that include Poetry in the 1950s (1999), Someone Said No(2003), My Own Atom Bomb (2005), The Beat Goes On(2008), Love in America (2009) and The Beat Revealed (2011). Robert Briggs was involved in early West Coast jazz and poetry scenes where he performed in San Francisco’s Jazz Cellar. To Briggs, “Jazz is to music, what poetry is to knowing.”