$19.95
Paperback, 6″ x 9″
112 pages
ISBN 978-1-63381-448-6
by Nancy Creighton Collins, PhD
Climbing aboard the deck of her newly purchased boat, the First Class, is just the beginning for this suddenly divorced and broke woman. Keeping the old wooden boat afloat, learning how to throw pottery, and enjoying a social life make her dizzy. Her desire for perfection often gets in her way and even causes flying clay and goofy clay turkey decorations. When she discovers wabi-sabi imperfection, everything really turns upside down.
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When Nancy Collins’s ‘perfect’ life is upended, she finds herself living alone on a creaky boat, saddled with debt, and facing an uncertain future. She thus embarks on a high-spirited and often hilarious journey that leads her through many wrong turns to find the perfectly imperfect husband, cat, and home and, perhaps most critically, a new sense of purpose behind a pottery wheel. It is there she learns to embrace life with all its flaws, cracks, and all. You will find yourself cheering on this delightful author every step—and stumble—along the way.
—Elizabeth Peavey, celebrated Maine writer, performer, and educator and the creator of the award-winning one-woman show My Mother’s Clothes Are Not My Mother
In this memoir-in-essays, The Perfectly Imperfect Potter, Nancy takes readers on a journey through a life lived with an intrepid spirit, from living solo year-round on a 38-foot boat docked in Chesapeake Bay to taking ice-skating lessons in her sixties; from Buddhist retreats to learning pottery; from relearning downhill skiing in Maine to finding new love mid-life. Throughout these adventures, Collins follows the Japanese principle of wabi-sabi, embracing and even celebrating imperfections. Collins’s verve, and often courage, will inspire readers in this charming and beautifully written memoir.
—Maureen Stanton, author of The Murmur of Everything Moving: A Memoir and Body Leaping Backward: Memoir of a Delinquent Girlhood
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nancy Collins majored in Interior Design at the University of Connecticut, but she never made a splash in the design business. After a few years, she went back to school to earn a more practical degree in Computer Science at Norfolk State University. After discovering how many college students were having drug issues, she earned a Master’s in Counseling at Old Dominion University. She then completed a Doctorate Degree in Education at ODU. She is now retired and enjoying life along with her husband and their precious half-breed Maine coon cat.