We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Heather Ebert. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Heather below.
Heather, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
I have written several books over the course of my career, but the most meaningful creative endeavor of my life is a novel called “Troublesome Women.”
My great-grandmother and great-aunt were both committed to Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital, a notorious asylum in Parsippany-Troy Hills, New Jersey. Based on research, my great-grandmother was likely committed in the mid-1920s and her daughter in the early 1940s.
The family kept this secret until 1990, when my aunt found my great-aunt in a nursing home. My great-aunt was 74 years old at the time. She no longer spoke, so there was no way of finding out what had happened. She died a year later. We learned through public records that my great-grandmother had died in 1947 at only 55 years old. No one knew what had become of her because, once committed, her family had acted as if she were dead.
I was a teenager when my mother shared what her father and grandfather had done. Given my struggles with depression, I assumed perhaps these women were put away for the same reason. I eventually discovered it was much more complicated than that. In my 20s, I felt called to explore the emotional truth of their experiences in a novel. Many years later — after perfecting my craft — I launched this literary quest.
Over the years, I’ve made slow but steady headway. Before I began writing the manuscript, I spent more than a year researching the institution and developing the narrative arc and central characters through intuitive free writing. Every step of the way, I have felt a karmic connection to the events and a spiritual connection to everyone involved. They are collaborating with me across the veil to bring the story to light.
This work-in-progress is a family saga about the oppression of strong women, the interpersonal connections that sustain them, and the limits of their resilience. My purpose is to give these women a voice and lift them from obscurity. Research led me to finding my great-grandmother’s unmarked grave in a potter’s field near the now-demolished hospital facilities. A rose granite grave marker will soon honor her memory. This novel will also honor her, along with her daughter and countless other women lost to this institution.
You can download the first three chapters from my website, heatherebert.com.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
When I was 8 years old, my mom took me to buy the newly released Apple Macintosh. At the store, I plopped down before a display model and wrote a short story. The salesman later showed it to prospective buyers to help sell their computers. It’s no surprise that I became a professional writer and published author.
Beginning in 2010, I spent nearly a decade as a freelance writer, the latter half of which I specialized in ghostwriting and book collaboration. I wrote about 10 books, including several page-turner memoirs. My favorite projects include “Sole Survivor: The Inspiring True Story of Coming Face to Face with the Infamous Railroad Killer” with Holly K. Dunn and “Every Grain of Sand: A Memoir” with David Wichman. Both books trace the arc of their personal transformation from tragedy to triumph.
I eventually left freelance publishing and returned to corporate employment so I could focus on writing books of my own. Over the past four years, I’ve worked for a series of technology companies, including Meta, where I wrote hundreds of short stories about small businesses that found success using Facebook, Instagram, and digital advertising.
At the end of 2023, I founded Ebert Creative Enterprises LLC. I host a weekend intensive called You Are the Muse: A Guide to Intuitive Writing for writers who want to better access their inner genius. I’m developing another workshop called The Heroine’s Journey: A Map to Spiritual Awakening for people seeking to alchemize negative experiences into their life purpose. Though I spend most of my time behind a computer screen, I’m also a public speaker on similar topics.
My deepest passion, however, is personal, creative and spiritual development. I’ve spent years healing inner dysfunction and honing my intuition. I offer intuitive guidance to people stepping out of their comfort zones and spiritual mentorship to those leaving behind old beliefs. I’m also a Reiki practitioner and offer remote energy healing sessions. Name any other mystical or magical activity, and I’m probably into it in some form or fashion!
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
Someone once asked the Southern Gothic writer Flannery O’Connor if universities stifled writers, and she responded, “My view is that they don’t stifle enough of them.” How dare the mediocre writer pollute the esteemed literary canon!
My creative writing program at Vanderbilt University taught me what good fiction looked like — literary, like O’Connor’s, and nothing less — and that mine didn’t look like it. My inner critic took that diploma from the chancellor’s hand and tucked it behind countless bottles of wine for the next 15 years.
But the creative impulse cannot be stifled forever. In my mid-30s, I finally embraced my lifelong dream, my very essence, and launched a full-time writing career. I’m grateful to Vanderbilt for teaching me what good narrative writing looked like. I embraced what resonated, left behind their standard, and taught myself what they did not (like how to devise an actual plot).
It took me the better part of 20 years to learn to write in my authentic voice. Even if that voice isn’t music to rarefied ears, it may well be for countless others. Most importantly, it’s music to my own.
Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
During those years of feeling not good enough, I wish I had known the depth of my inner wellspring of creativity and how to tap into it more readily. I have been intuitive since I was a child but without much control over it — insights just hit me out of the blue. We typically think of intuition as more or less gut instinct, the rapid subconscious processing of information. But this innate ability extends beyond the material world. It can serve as a bridge to higher consciousness.
My writing workshop You Are the Muse focuses on discovering the difference between our Zone of Ability and our Zone of Genius. The former constitutes everything we’ve learned and practiced, while the latter is our connection to universal intelligence. While every craft course and page written expands our abilities, true flow and magical insights come from a shift in consciousness from one zone to the other.
I also wish I’d better understood the phases of writing: Madman, Architect, Carpenter and Judge. The madman creates in a flurry of activity without regard for quality or structure. The architect shapes and molds the narrative that emerges. The carpenter puts together the words, lines, paragraphs and chapters. The judge reviews and improves what has been crafted.
Both ability and genius serve each phase, but too often we start with the carpenter and let the judge meddle before the proper time. We have the option to create in freedom first. Our intuition can guide this process much better than our inner critic ever will.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://heatherebert.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heatherebert/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heatherebert.me
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heatherebert/
- Other: Corporate writing portfolio: https://heatherebert.me/
Soul Survivor: https://www.amazon.com/Sole-Survivor-Inspiring-Infamous-Railroad/dp/1682308146
Every Grain of Sand: https://www.amazon.com/Every-Grain-Sand-David-Wichman/dp/1950385132
Image Credits
Headshots: Annette McNamara Photography
Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital: Courtesy of Preserve Greystone