What does it mean to belong to a place, to be truly rooted and grounded in the place you call home? How do you commit to a marriage, to a full partnership with another person, and still maintain your own separate identity? These questions have been central to Susan Wittig Albert's life, and in this beautifully written memoir, she movingly describes how she has experienced place, marriage, and aloneness while creating a home in the Texas Hill Country with her husband and writing partner, Bill Albert.
Together, Alone opens in 1985, as Albert leaves a successful, if rootless, career as a university administrator and begins a new life as a freelance writer, wife, and homesteader on a patch of rural land northwest of Austin. She vividly describes the work of creating a home at Meadow Knoll, a place in which she and Bill raised their own food and animals, while working together and separately on writing projects. Once her sense of home and partnership was firmly established, Albert recalls how she had to find its counterbalance—a place where she could be alone and explore those parts of the self that only emerge in solitude. For her, this place was Lebh Shomea, a silent monastic retreat. In writing about her time at Lebh Shomea, Albert reveals the deep satisfaction she finds in belonging to a community of people who have chosen to be apart and experience silence and solitude.

Together, Alone: A Memoir of Marriage and Place

Biographies & Memoirs

Albert, Susan Wittig

Arts & Literature

University of Texas Press

From Eudora Welty's memoir of childhood to May Sarton's reflections on her seventieth year, writers' journals offer an irresistible opportunity to join a creative thinker in musing on the events—whether in daily life or on a global scale—that shape our lives. In An Extraordinary Year of Ordinary Days, best-selling mystery novelist Susan Wittig Albert invites us to revisit one of the most tumultuous years in recent memory, 2008, through the lens of 365 ordinary days in which her reading, writing, and thinking about issues in the wider world—from wars and economic recession to climate change—caused her to reconsider and reshape daily practices in her personal life.
Albert's journal provides an engaging account of how the business of being a successful working writer blends with her rural life in the Texas Hill Country and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of New Mexico. As her eclectic daily reading ranges across topics from economics, food production, and oil and energy policy to poetry, place, and the writing life, Albert becomes increasingly concerned about the natural world and the threats facing it, especially climate change and resource depletion. Asking herself, "What does it mean? And what ought I do about it?", she determines practical steps to take, such as growing more food in her garden, and also helps us as readers make sense of these issues and consider what our own responses might be.

An Extraordinary Year of Ordinary Days (Southwestern Writers Collection Series, Wittliff Collections at Texas State University)

Together, Alone: A Memoir of Marriage and Place (Southwestern Writers Collection Series, Wittliff Collections at Texas State University)

Professionals & Academics

Nominated for both an Agatha and an Anthony Award, Susan Wittig Albert’s novels featuring ex-lawyer and herb-shop proprietor China Bayles have won acclaim for their rich characterization and witty, suspenseful stories of crime and passion in small-town Texas. Now, when China’s friend Jo dies of an apparent suicide, China looks behind the quaint façade of Pecan Springs and takes a suspicious look at everyone. And though she finds lots of friendly faces, China is sure that one of them hides the heart of a killer.

Thyme of Death (China Bayles 1)

Humor & Entertainment

Humor

BERKLEY

Herb shop owner China Bayles is shocked when Halloween hijinks take a gruesome turn... In a small Texas town, what starts as a little festive Halloween fun ends in a brutal murder. And lawyer-turned-herbalist China Bayles is even more shocked when her friend Ruby, a New Age expert in tarot and astrology, becomes the prime suspect after a minister accuses her of witchcraft. Now it’s up to China to unmask the real killer...

Witches' Bane (China Bayles 2)

Ex-lawyer turned herbalist China Bayles must solve a hair-raising murder in this mystery from New York Times bestselling author Susan Wittig Albert. When a prominent animal researcher is found hanged in the midst of angry protests against his experiments, suspicion falls on biology professor Dottie Riddle. Known as the Cat Lady of Pecan Springs, Dottie's sympathy for strays—and the victim's distaste for them—gives the police reason to think she may be capable of murder. But China doesn't think so. She hires a lawyer for Dottie and starts looking around for clues. But she soon discovers that digging up old evil is a dirty and dangerous business...

Hangman's Root (China Bayles Mystery)

Literature & Fiction

Contemporary

One in a popular series of mystery novels featuring herb shop owner China Bayles finds Bayles consulting a psychic for answers when she discovers a murdered woman in a pick-up truck who bears a disturbing resemblance to herself. By the author of Thyme of Death.

Rosemary Remembered (China Bayles Mysteries)

United States

Berkley Hardcover

Something about the murder of an accountant just doesn't add up in this China Bayles mystery from New York Times bestselling author Susan Wittig Albert. China's herb shop in Pecan Springs wasn't a big business, but it kept her busy. So she brought her taxes to Rosemary Robbins, an accountant who reminded China a bit of her former self—preoccupied, distracted, maybe a bit overstressed. Still, Rosemary always seemed pleasant, and China wished she could get to know her better. Now, though, the chance is gone. Driving out to Rosemary's house on an errand, China discovers her accountant has been murdered. With one abusive ex-husband and plenty of former clients in the picture, there's no shortage of suspects. And with a vengeful ex-convict on the loose, there's plenty for China to worry about. And as the evidence unfolds, she's more determined than ever to make the killer pay...

Rosemary Remembered (China Bayles Mystery)

Genre Fiction

During a supposedly relaxing retreat at a Texas convent, herbalist China Bayles and her friend Maggie, an ex-nun, investigate the seemingly accidental death of the Mother Superior and uncover a deadly conflict within the walls of the cloister.

Rueful Death (China Bayles Mystery)

Herbalist China Bayles must solve a mother of a murder in this mystery from New York Times bestselling author Susan Wittig Albert. In search of respite, China takes off to St. Theresa's Monastery with her friend Maggie, a former nun. The goal is a brief, tranquil retreat—but there's a conflict at the convent. The mother superior has recently died, and a battle over the future of St. Theresa's suggests that her sudden demise might not have been accidental. Now, China's quest for a replenished spirit takes second place to a more earthbound pursuit: catching a killer...

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Albert, Susan Wittig. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Albert, Susan Wittig

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Albert, Susan Wittig. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Together, Alone: A Memoir of Marriage and Place

An Extraordinary Year of Ordinary Days (Southwestern Writers Collection Series, Wittliff Collections at Texas State University)

Together, Alone: A Memoir of Marriage and Place (Southwestern Writers Collection Series, Wittliff Collections at Texas State University)

Thyme of Death (China Bayles 1)

Witches' Bane (China Bayles 2)

Hangman's Root (China Bayles Mystery)

Rosemary Remembered (China Bayles Mysteries)

Rosemary Remembered (China Bayles Mystery)

Rueful Death (China Bayles Mystery)

Rueful Death (China Bayles Mystery)