{"id":23718,"date":"2025-01-23T10:57:03","date_gmt":"2025-01-23T17:57:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/local-authors-novel-to-release-in-february-with-a-national-book-tour-to-follow\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:40:49","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:40:49","slug":"local-authors-novel-to-release-in-february-with-a-national-book-tour-to-follow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/local-authors-novel-to-release-in-february-with-a-national-book-tour-to-follow\/","title":{"rendered":"Local author\u2019s novel to release in February, with a national book tour to follow"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\u201cThe
\u201cThe Shape of What Remains,\u201d a novel by Lisa C. Taylor, will release on Tuesday, Feb. 18. (Lisa C. Taylor\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Local writer and author Lisa C. Taylor\u2019s novel \u201cThe Shape of What Remains\u201d will officially release on Feb. 18. It is already available for preorder on Amazon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Taylor described the book as \u201cone woman\u2019s experience with long grief.\u201d<\/p>\n

The book starts 10 years after Teresa Calvano experienced the \u201cviolent death\u201d of her 6-year-old daughter. To help cope with her ever-present grief, Calvano turns to a monthly book group, the author Chaucer and songwriter Janis Joplin, a love \u201clearned from her long-absent father. Calvano is not only trying to survive her daughter\u2019s death, but coping with her \u201cemotionally unavailable\u201d husband, Luke.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Luke plans to spend a sabbatical semester in Oxford, England, Teresa must decide if she can move away from the physical reminders of her daughter, and the tenuous threads that hold her life together,\u201d Taylor said.<\/p>\n

This book has been 10 years in the making, and Taylor shared that Calvano\u2019s character is someone she\u2019d want to be friends with, if she were real.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really her story,\u201d Taylor previously told The<\/em> Journal<\/em>. \u201cTen years later, she is still mired in grief and depression, and her husband has kind of moved on and doesn\u2019t understand why she\u2019s stuck. The novel is about her journey as she comes back, and her husband\u2019s, as he has never really dealt with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Throughout the writing process, Taylor experienced things that made the book even more personal, such as the death of her neighbor\u2019s daughter (who was the same age as the child in the book) and counseling teenagers who had lost parents.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that helped me write the book and helped me understand the process,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cI very much believe that grief is highly individual, and we do not allow people the time they need. You never really get over the loss of a loved one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Author Richard Hoffman, who wrote the books \u201cHalf the House\u201d and \u201cLove & Fury,\u201d also gave his thoughts on the book.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a novel that engages a reader head and heart as it chronicles ongoingness, which is change, and courage which turns out to be surrender,\u201d Hoffman said. \u201cTaylor is a poet and brings a poet\u2019s precision to this examination of a woman\u2019s heart, a mother\u2019s resilience. I haven\u2019t been so moved by a novel in years.\u201d<\/p>\n

This book is Taylor\u2019s first published novel. Along with this novel, she has also published three collections of poetry, two poetry chapbooks and two collections of short fiction.<\/p>\n

She was also on the selection committee for the Four Corners Writers\u2019 first anthology that was published in 2024.<\/p>\n

Taylor\u2019s national book tour for \u201cThe Shape of What Remains\u201d will include other areas of Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts. The tour will officially begin in April, but Taylor will do local events before the tour.<\/p>\n

Local events include a book launch at Hand in Hand Books and Bottles in Mancos in February, a reading and \u201cbook talk\u201d at the Cortez Public Library, 202 N. Park St., on March 12 from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. and a reading at the Mancos Public Library, 211 W. First St., on March 18 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.<\/p>\n

The detailed schedule can be found on her website<\/a> at www.lisataylor.com. She can be contacted for a book reading, book talk, book club visit or other event at whitewaterwriting@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This<\/em> story<\/em> originally<\/em> had<\/em> Teresa<\/em> Calvano\u2019s<\/em> name<\/em> spelled<\/em> as<\/em> Calvino<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

C. Taylor\u2019s \u2018The Shape of What Remains\u2019 chronicles process of grief<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23719,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[639,21,28,60,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-23718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-book","tag-cortez","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23718"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78231,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23718\/revisions\/78231"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23718"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=23718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}