HuffPost Memoir Contest. The prize: Publication by Simon & Schuster. I didn't think I had a chance, but went ahead anyway. Then I actually forgot about the contest as months and months went by, until one hot afternoon in July, when I received an email from Rita Wilson that sent me over the moon. You are a top ten finalist out of 2400! Submit a complete manuscript of no more than 50,000 words by December 15th, the email went on. My manuscript was 80,000 words. So now I needed

On this Independence Day weekend, I thought about a trip to the beach, a round of golf, a BBQ. We are 241 years old, if you count from July 4, 1776, when we declared independence from Britain. We are a free country. Plans to celebrate our country’s freedom are only as limited as our imagination. What is freedom anyway? Lack of restriction? Yes, but we all have some restrictions, so in that sense no one is truly free. However, we do have the freedom to dream, and our dreams ar