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“Reminiscent of Mona Simpson and Elizabeth Strout in the way Ostermiller expertly explores family dynamics and mother-daughter bonds, (Outside the Ordinary World) gives a shattering portrait of ordinary people breaking asunder and helplessly trying to glue back together... There is absolutely nothing ordinary about this astonishingly moving and complex novel.”

--Caroline Leavitt, The Boston Globe

Outside the Ordinary World
debuted in the United Kingdom
on August 19, 2011, to glowing reviews! 

Dori's Blog

Making Time to Write

May 26, 2013

Julia Cameron, in her book The Right to Write, says, "The trick to finding writing time is to make time in the life you've already got.  Stop imagining some other life as a 'real' writer's life."  There's always enough time, she says, but it must sometimes be stolen, like a kiss between lovers on the run...

In the last year while finishing Outside the Ordinary World, I somehow found the will to rise at 5 am, four days a week, though I'm completely allergic to mornings...  I also learned to utilize that untapped "waiting mother" time-during piano lessons, dentist's appointment, soccer games...

When we love something enough, we find a way to make room for it. The trick is, then, to learn to write from a place of love--for the sheer joy and passion of it.  If we can learn to write what we love, it becomes exponentially easier to show up.  

...

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Writers in Progress Workshops

Dori is the founder and director of Writers in Progress, a literary arts center in Florence, MA. Writers in Progress offers a live reading series, as well as ongoing weekly writing workshops and retreats with several area writers, including Jacqueline Sheehan, Suzanne Strempek-Shea, Ellen Meeropol and Dori herself.

see workshop schedule

Latest News

Applications are now open for the Manuscript Intensive Series.  Deadline is June 30th to be considered for next year's group!

Our next open house/reading will be in August.  Looking for readers from WIP workshops!

Writers in Progress Summer Workshop Schedule is here! 

 

The London Times chose Outside the Ordinary World as a Recommended Read!

Outside the Ordinary World was favorably reviewed by Jonathan Barnes in the August, 2011 issue of the Literary Review.

A lovely blogger review by Debs Carr on Novelicious.com

A great review of OTOW on Reallyrelative.com

Outside the Ordinary World was long-listed for the Richard and Judy Bookclub in the UK!

Outside the Ordinary World was nominated to the “Must Read Books of 2010” list, by the American Library Association!

"Outside the Ordinary World" is an Indie Next List Notable Book by the American Bookseller's Association.

 

 

 

Book: Outside the ordinary world

Sylvia Sandon always swore she wouldn’t become her mother. But one August morning she finds herself walking the same path as the fervently religious yet faithless Elaine…into an affair she feels powerless to resist.

Against the backdrop of California brush fires in the ’70s, twelve year-old Sylvia had agreed to hold a secret that would devour her family’s dream of happiness. Now struggling to create a better life in small-town New England, Sylvia nonetheless feels caught in the coils of history: she confronts the embers of her dying marriage, the all-consuming needs of her two daughters and her faltering artistic career. Then Tai Rosen—the father of a student— ignites an unexpected passion and a familiar betrayal that could illuminate the past, even as it jeopardizes everything dear.

Outside the Ordinary World reveals what lies beneath the surface of infidelity.  But at its heart, it is the story of the powerful, sometimes disturbing bond between mothers and daughters, and the shimmering line between self-revelation and self-destruction.