This is the personal memoir of Michele Cozzens, the story of young couple who gave up their professional jobs in a major city to move to the woods in Wisconsin and run a resort and disc golf course. Written after their first ten years of operation, chapter titles include: "How Did We Do It?" "The Vision;" "The Job;" "Frequently Asked Questions" (questions resort guests ask week after week); "Meet The Neighbors;" "People Can Be Jerks;" "Staff Infection;" and "My So Called Dream Life."

I'm Living Your Dream Life

Biographies & Memoirs

Cozzens, Michele VanOrt

Community & Culture

Sandy Point Resort

Ever wish you could go back and give a better answer when questioned by someone out of the blue? Former newspaper columnist Michele VanOrt Cozzens goes back to columns she wrote in the early 1990s and rebuts them with what she'd say today.

The Things I Wish I'd Said

Literature & Fiction

United States

Can a man and a woman remain friends after each marries someone else? This is the story of a friendship spanning more than twenty years, until the day Noelle Moncada receives a terse, three-line letter from her friend, Joel Rolland, asking her to end all contact. Perplexed and hurt, Noelle recounts the details of her relationship with Joel and tries to determine why he feels the friendship must end. Was it something she did or said? Was it because of his wife, the beautiful Anita Dambra? Or was it because once during a night of passion and release, Noelle and Joel crossed the line between friends? But this is not just Noelle's tale to tell. In alternating chapters, Joel tells his side of the story as well. Ultimately, the reader will decide whether or not Joel and Noelle can or will remain friends.This is author, Michele VanOrt Cozzens' first work of fiction and is the winner of The McKenna Publishing Group Fiction Contest. Her prior books are I'm Living Your Dream Life and The Things I Wish I'd Said.

A Line Between Friends

Contemporary

2006 award winning author of "A Line Between Friends" and rising fiction star Michele Cozzens now brings us "It's Not Your Mother's Bridge Club", the character-driven story of eight women who are middle-aged, middle to upper-middle class, and in the middle of each other's lives. They live in a fictional town in southern Arizona called the Rattlesnake Valley, which is a "picturesque desert dale surrounded by craggy, saguaro-studded mountains." Each month they gather, forming the Snake Eyes Dice Club. They play the dice game known as bunko. It's an eventful year. Friendships are tested and strengthened. True characters are revealed through both light-hearted moments and grave, dark moments as well. The women of The Snake Eyes Dice Club while changed, are renewed with the start of another year together. The women: Shonah Barlett is a soccer mom and newspaper columnist who begins each chapter with a snippet from her column "The Dice Club Chronicles." Brandy Lynn is a conservative cowgirl physical therapist, who has a foul mouth and five kids. Sylvia Ostrander is a wealthy philanthropist and botox junkie. Tootsie Fennimore is a retired LPGA golfer who is reproductively challenged. Blanca Midnight Fernglen is a beautiful mixed-race divorcee, making ends meet by modeling and selling her paintings. Chloe Forrest is a Canadian import who is a schedule-spewer and has financial difficulties keeping up with her upper-middle class neighbors. Amanda Prince is a resentful employee of Sylvia Ostrander's high-powered attorney husband, grieving over the loss of her only child. Tara Shephard is a former beauty queen and commercial artist, who is a raging alcoholic. Each character plays an integral role as they face ordinary and extraordinary circumstances, and are forced to come together as a group to support one another. You've heard of Steel Magnolias? This is more like Steel Tumbleweeds. The American women who belong to bunko groups, bridge clubs, book clubs and dice clubs will find this both funny and tragic, and highly relatable.

It's Not Your Mother's Bridge Club

Innkeepers Mike and Michele Cozzens have owned and operated Sandy Point Resort &amp; Disc Golf Ranch for 20 years. They purchased an existing resort property in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, rebuilding it into a popular and successful family vacation destination. In How To Achieve Your Dream Life, Michele relates their experiences visualizing and creating the business, and offers useful tips on developing a business plan, maitaining the property-inside and outside the office-how-to deal with guests, and advice on working through the "romantic and at times absurd life of an innkeepeer." A dream life indeed.

How to Achieve Your Dream Life: Start-Up Advice from a Successful Innkeeper

Business & Money

Job Hunting & Careers