Season for Tomatoes

Season for Tomatoes: A Journey Story tells the story of Elaine, a forced early retiree. Prompted by a missing neighbor girl, Elaine embarks on an ill-conceived, risky, and improbable quest-unwrapping layers of her malaise and a search for wholeness.

Tomatoes evokes the restless spirit of the movie Nomadland, while embracing unique characters such as: a runway Amish girl; a divorced salesman whose bedroom anxieties parallel Elaine's; a babbling hairdresser with razor-sharp insights; a quirky, backwoods preacher with a troubled past; and an auto repair wizard who analyzes an owner's relationship with their car before opening the hood.

It is a story of relationships, loss, risk taking, and hospitality.

"On a road trip with no destination, the protagonist has bottomed out. . . . Only at rock bottom is she able to see others' stories in her story. . . . Salvation lies in communion." -Robert Wolf, The Writer Within

"An admirable novella. . . . Along the undemanding back roads of the rural Midwest-of beautifully rendered county parks, small town motels, beauty parlors, mechanic shops and bars-Elaine encounters nothing more than hospitality, again and again-until she reaches a dangerous precipice alone-and falls into a surprisingly-odd, but rather amazing grace." - Mary Jane White, poet and author of Dragonfly.