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Valerie’s current project is WHERE THE HEART IS: Renewing Our Love Affair with Home, with illustrator Ann Arnold (Fanny at Chez Panisse, Fanny in France). Americans spend more time at the office these days than in the kitchen, the bedroom or the living room. What happens to our culture and our character when we no longer know how to be at home? And how does home serves as our sanctuary for our creativity and most significant relationships? And in the digital age, how are we reinventing home as an interactive hive?
Advance Praise:
“WHERE THE HEART IS explores the ancient traditions of caring for the home while considering all the modern challenges of rootlessness, lack of time, and daily stress. The language is sensuous, at times sultry, a paean to the soul’s longing for its true home wherever we can find it.”
–Phil Cousineau, author of The Art of Pilgrimage and The Book of Roads
“Poetic and inspiring, this timely book will make you want to polish a table until it glistens, fill your living room with roses, and thank the house for nurturing your dreams and hopes.”
–Jean Shinoda Bolen, best-selling author, Goddesses in Every Woman and Artemis: The Indomitable Spirit in Every Woman.
Valerie is also the author of A Passion for this Earth (Harper SanFrancisco), essays on our love affair with nature and how to deepen our sense of place, soon to be released in a revised edition. Her first book, The Psychic Power of Running: How the Body can Illuminate the Mysteries of the Mind (Rawson, Wade and Ballantine with foreign editions in England, Italy and Japan) examined the reasons behind the running craze, and how exercise boosts mood and creativity.
With Robert Vetere, Valerie co-authored From Wags to Riches: How Dogs Teach us to Succeed in Business & Life (Ben Bella Books), considering how our relationship with dogs has laid the groundwork for our ideas of collaboration and teamwork. In the wild, there is no permanent alpha dog. Animals change roles based on the task at hand. This book presents a new model of organizational leadership.
With internet pioneer Allan Weis, Valerie wrote The Business of Changing Lives (Greenleaf) about the social entrepreneurs who closed the technology gap.
Valerie’s essays also appear in two volumes edited by Phil Cousineau, Soul: An Anthology – Writing from Socrates to Ray Charles (Harper SanFrancisco) and Coincidence or Destiny? Stories of Synchronicity that Illuminate Our Lives (Conari).
Excerpts from Valerie’s books have appeared in Vogue, New York magazine, People, Anima, Intuition, Common Boundary and The Sun.
View Valerie’s homepage at Amazon