Late Bloomer Living with Yvonne Marchese
A sixth-grade teacher told Patricia Lee Lewis her story “could never have happened.” She stopped writing creatively until she was in her forties. At 88, she just published her debut historical novel, Thorns of the Mesquite — 15 years in the making.
In this conversation we talk about the writing workshop that cracked her open in her mid-forties, why treating your pain as fiction can set you free, what curiosity looks like at 88, and why she believes community is our most powerful tool right now.
Patricia Lee Lewis is an award-winning poet, writing retreat leader, and co-founder of the Straw Dog Writers Guild. All profits from her novel go to organizations supporting domestic violence victims and civil rights.
Because it’s never too late to bloom like you mean it.
Interview with the Daily Hampshire Gazette
Readers & Writers Live: Patricia Lee Lewis and Melenie Freedom Flynn
Writers Patricia Lee Lewis and Melenie Freedom Flynn will read and discuss their work in the premier event of the Readers and Writers Live series! Lewis will be reading from her historical novel, Thorns of the Mesquite (a Wild West story set in the 1930s, of racism, sexism and love, told from a feminist point of view, currently seeking a publisher). Flynn will be reading from her memoir manuscript-in-progress, Broken White Lines Flying. This event was recorded on February 12, 2025.
People and Their Poems - A Visit with Patricia Lee Lewis - Writer, Educator, Poet
Patricia Lee Lewis has led more than 70 creative writing and yoga retreats in 10 countries and hundreds of creative writing workshops and retreats in the US–mostly at Patchwork Farm Retreat on a little mountain in Westhampton, Massachusetts. Patricia holds a BA from Smith College and an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts in Poetry. She has published an award-winning chapbook of poems, A Kind of Yellow, as well as High Lonesome, a full book of poems. Other publications include a variety of feature articles and photographs on “inner and outer” experiences as a traveler and individual poems in a variety of journals and anthologies over the years. Patricia says, “I’ve lived a long and active life in grass roots politics, advocating for civil rights, women’s rights, peace, social justice.”