The Biographical Marriage Memoir: A New Literary Genre Created by Author Katherine Batsis, And Exactly What You Need to Know About It. (Part II)

    GREENFIELD, MA, August 28, 2019 /24-7PressRelease/ -- ***THIS IS THE CONTINUED INTERVIEW (FROM PART I)***

Katherine Batsis, an author, publisher, biographer, and the beloved wife of the late Dr. Andrew Batsis, is pleased to announce that she will launch a book titled, Dr. Andrew Batsis, Husband! Dentist! Kiwanian! Santa Claus? The upcoming book lovingly labored over by Dr. Batsis' widow is composed of a poignant and entertaining account of their life together. Additionally, the author also focuses on her late husband's vast success as a dentist, as well as an influential pillar of his community. The manuscript serves as a marriage memoir, a biography, a family epic, and a veritable compendium of the life's work of not just one man, but an entire family.

While it is not unusual for a loving wife to honor her husband's memory, Katherine Batsis goes the extra mile. She has utilized the written word in hopes of capturing his essence, as well as reaching a wide audience. Her now finished, soon to be published biography of Dr. Batsis also reads as a stirring journal of their marriage to one another; a heartwarming "sweetheart piece" which provides wisdom, entertainment, and comfort to all those who choose to commit to this biographical marriage memoir; a unique term reserved exclusively for this new, exciting genre of literature. The prospect of this manuscript is now at a fever pitch, perhaps becoming one of the most anticipated non-fiction literature works of recent years.

Recently, TSR News Group sat down for an exclusive interview with arguably the most fascinating up and coming author of the new decade. Ms. Batsis was more than happy to illuminate us on her process, her setbacks, her goals, and so much more. The first half of this interview can be found in Part I of this article, or on her official website where you can read it in its entirety.

Editor's Note: Author, Katherine Batsis, unexpectedly decided to provide an entertaining, eye-opening, at times even poetic procedural to an otherwise straightforward question. The author, interviewers and editors of this piece all agree the answer not only warrants its own second article, it also deserves to be appreciated as a completely unique piece of writing based on merit alone. Believe it or not, this answer was actually cut from a much longer version of the piece!

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Okay, Kathi, let's continue. Here's a question we're sure everyone who knows you has wondered at some time or another: How in the world do you find the time to eat supper, much less write a book?! You're famously active. Tell us about what your average day is like, and how you found the time to write and revise a modern masterpiece.

I awake naturally — no alarm clock. After I'm dressed, I stretch out under the door jamb. While stretching I count to 20 in Greek. I practice more numbers in Greek while bringing my arms down slowly. Then I stretch again for 20 seconds, which I count in Spanish. I count shoulder shrugs in French; head shakes in German; head nods in Italian; head rotations in Korean. I change shoes for the remaining yoga-type exercises counting in a number of languages that include Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Romanian, and Esperanto.

On weekdays, I blend a bottle of vegetables and fruit, that I drink and consume my supplements. Then I go to breakfast.

After breakfast, I make my bed except for Wednesdays when Housekeeping staff washes the bed linens and makes the bed with clean linens. I feed the birds outside my bedroom windows. If there's time, I go to my computer for e-mails and for keying in the minutes of the resident council monthly meeting and/or the Greenfield Republican Town Council monthly meeting. If there's time I'll participate or occasionally lead the exercise class.

A few times a week, I go to my sister-in-law's house to use her exercise equipment, then I visit a good friend who's residing in a care center. Once a week, I play balloon volley ball in the activity room followed by an early supper.

During the week, I lead the Arbors Chorus rehearsals. We enjoy singing and we put on an annual concert sometime in November/December. Occasionally, I go to a Yasou shop that is concerned with skin care. Occasionally, I play piano duets with a very talented resident. We also play recorder duets. There are times I work on French homework assignments until it's time for supper. On the second Tuesday of the month my friend and I travel to the Cushman Library to participate in a French conversation group.

During the Autumn and Spring semesters, I register for the French class taught by an outstanding professor. For example, to learn and use the future tense of verbs, we became fortune tellers and told the professor what each of us saw in store for her future. What fun that was! This semester we have a conversation class.

I enjoy working on songs the Community Chorus will sing. I find these songs challenging — such as Te deum. Fortunately, we are given links on the computer to hear songs performed by other choruses. Once in a while the link will show the sheet music and play the melody for soprano or alto or tenor (which I am) or bass. That's a great help.

Once a month, I get therapeutic massage and a little Reiki. Later, in the afternoon I go to a nursing home to visit two former Arbors residents, after which it's time for smoothie and supplements!

At the start of the weekend, I catch up on my [paper] mail and work on getting my manuscript ready for the publisher. Then I "bowl": At the Arbors we go to the activity room and set ten plastic pins in a triangular stencil on the floor next to the windows. We place a rectangular light table in front of the piano to protect it. The two pound rubber ball is put on a chair that is placed by the hall door. Some of us use the chair to keep us stable before and during the time we roll the ball towards the pins. We have fun!

Once per weekend, when it gets near time for the concert we go to a nearby school for a "dress" rehearsal. A couple weeks later, we have a pot luck supper where we are able to hear a CD of our performance and we are given the opportunity to purchase it.

In the evening, I take one medicinal tablet, one probiotic capsule, two magnesium lactate capsules, and generally six or seven K - Alkaline capsules.  The medication relaxes me.  The probiotic puts good flora back into my digestive system.  The K - Alkaline capsules are to help balance my body chemistry to read between 6.4 - 7.0. The reason for this is that slightly acidic body absorbs calcium into the bones from the food I eat. I take care of my teeth and gums, say my prayers before getting into bed.

Some evenings we play Upwords, a word game that's similar to Scrabble. The board is smaller and has no premium squares. The letter tiles have no point values, and there is no such tile as a Q; instead the tile is "Qu". Upwords is a three dimensional game; vertical, horizontal, and upwards — up to five tiers of letters. Up to four players can play, but we found a way to have five players play.

Twice a month, I enjoy knitting with the Knit-Wits, my knitting group. We're free to knit whatever we want. The founder of the Knit-Wits knits comfort blankets to give children who have suffered trauma. I've knitted quite a few comfort blankets as I've been doing it for several years. We put the finished comfort blanket in a bag with a stuffed animal and a coloring book and a box of crayons. We distribute these kits to the police department and the fire department.

After knitting we like to get a group together to play Word Round. We set up in the pub, using one or two tables to sit by. Every player gets paper and a pencil. There's a three-minute timer and two piles of cards — the vowel pile and the (bigger) consonant pile. The dealer places three vowel cards upon the table and five consonant cards. When everyone is ready, the timer is activated and each player writes down as many three-letter (or more) words on their paper, using the letters that are showing on the table(s). When the three minutes are up, the dealer starts sharing the words she wrote down. If another or other player(s) have the same word, that word is crossed out. The player to the left of the dealer shares her words the same way. When all the players have had a turn to share their words, it's time to fill in the score sheet. Each player gets a point for each original (not crossed out) word on their list. That constitutes a round. The new dealer (to the left of the first dealer) will begin round two. When all the players have been the dealer, that constitutes a game. Tally the scores, the player with the most points wins. We use the official scrabble dictionary to verify spelling and learn meanings of words like Qat and Kat.

Once a month I attend the Republican Town Committee of Greenfield. I need to be there as I am secretary and I usually bring some veggies and dill dip to share with our members and visitors. Our meetings run for about an hour.

Several times a month, I enjoy a nice hot tub soak. I grab my towels, face cloth, and bath and shower gelee, make sure my room key is in my bathrobe pocket, and make my way upstairs across the hall, and into the tub room. I've clipped my hair braid to the top of my head, and either put a shower cap on, or wrap my hair in another towel, as I don't want my hair to get wet. I like the water when it's 101 or 102 degrees Fahrenheit. I soak for 10 minutes. I massage the bottoms of my feet using the jet stream option. When I get out of the tub, I dry myself, don my robe and slippers, pick up my belongings, and head back to my room. There's time to get into my pajamas and turn down the bed sheet and blankets.

I love playing Scrabble, which I manage to do about once a week. Since Scrabble takes longer than Upwords to play, we usually finish later. We usually have a non-competitive way of playing Scrabble. Blanks can be reused and we can trade letters. For example, if "black" is on the board and I need an "A" for my seven-tiled word, and I have an "O" that I don't need, I can trade the "O" to get the "A" because "block" is a good word too. Then I can put down the word "streams" by attaching the "S" to the end of "block" to make the word "blocks". The seven-tiled word is a "bingo" and gets 50 extra points. We help one another to make the highest points possible. We have fun learning new words.

Friday night is one of my happiest times, as my nephew takes out me and my friend for international folk dancing. There's great music, great dancing , great dancers, great people. We are always learning new dances and trying to keep the "oldies" remembered.

I also take part in contra dancing a few times per month, which I enjoy immensely. Contra dancing is similar to square dancing. You have a partner and — in contra — you have a neighbor, not a corner, because a contra set is two long lines of dancers where everyone faces their partner. The couple closest to the band is the head couple. The couple farthest from the band is situated at the foot of the set.

At the beginning of a dance, the cuer (or caller) directs the dancers to make sets of four (that is two couples to dance together, as in "Hands 4, circle to the left 3 quarters.") Many of the cues are square dance calls, except they are experienced with a neighbor, not a corner. The pattern of the dance always leads the dancers to be repositioned in the line. The number one couples (those nearer the band) progress down the set to the foot. The number two couples (those farther from the band) progress up the set to the head. Once you've danced to the end of the lines, you wait out a turn then begin dancing in the opposite direction, thus the number one couple that has reached the foot of the set will dance up the set toward the head (of the set) as a number two couple; and the number two couple that has reached the head of the set will dance down the set toward the foot (of the set) as a number one couple. Dances can take 6-8 minutes' time.

On a monthly basis, I go to the chiropractor, as I need spine alignment. I purchase some high quality supplements there as well. I also practice Yoga. One week I have a private Yoga lesson for a half hour. I also take part in longer [Yoga] classes, which are one hour and fifteen minutes, but I like the private lessons most.

That's it: that's what my average day is like.

Well, I don't know if there's anything average about that! Wow! I guess it's safe to say you have a routine, but within that routine is a seemingly endless array of interests and activities. That's amazing. Well, it was great chatting with you today, Kathi. Can you give the readers a release date yet for the book? Can you put an actual number on it?

No, I want it to be this year, 2019.

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Even though the book has taken a while longer than expected to publish, the wait for Dr. Andrew Batsis, Husband! Dentist! Kiwanian! Santa Claus? will be well worth it in the end. A wise person once said: All good things to those who wait. The major things Kathi hopes readers will take away from her book are reaffirmations of faith, compassion, honor, and love. While the manuscript originally served to help Kathi feel closer to her husband following his death, now she hopes it will help other people around the world who like to build a healthy marriage, and read a good love story.

Recently, Katherine Batsis launched her official website at www.KathiBatsis.com, in anticipation of her soon-to-be-published book. The site is clean with an uncluttered design, great functionality, and rich content. It provides fast and easy access to essential information about her and her husband, Dr. Batsis.

ABOUT KATHERINE BATSIS & www.KathiBatsis.com

Katherine Batsis is a graduate of Simmons College and Lesley College where she acquired her L.S. and B.Ed. Her training and learned skills lie in library sciences, but she is equally expert in thinking, researching, reading, and writing. During her free time she leads an active, rich life filled with entertainment, good friends, good food, and lots of laughs.

She is a biographer, author, publisher, and the loving wife of the late Dr. Batsis. Kathi has received a great deal of recognition for her literary achievements during various phases of finalizing her debut work, Dr. Andrew Batsis, Husband! Dentist! Kiwanian! Santa Claus?

To learn more, please visit Katherine Batsis' official website.

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