A Heaven of Flowers

Thirty years ago, I invited four women to come to my little apartment in Savannah, Georgia, to talk about books and life. Four years later, as more women joined, we named the group Zona Rosa. Today, I lead Zona Rosa Writing-and-Living workshops and retreats all over the United States and in Europe; thousands of women (and, sometimes, men) have participated. Sub Rosa, or Secret of the Rose, peer groups are also thriving throughout the country. Along the way, many exceptional Zona Rosans have contributed to making Zona Rosa what it is today facilitating our retreats, sharing their original ideas, copyrighting our name, trademarking our logo (my lip print) and preparing the Foods of the Goddesses that are a delicious part of our gatherings. And then it dawned on us what we needed was our own book imprint not an imprint that would publish all of our books -- after all, many of us were being published by traditional venues (to date, over 80 Zona Rosans have become published authors) -- but an imprint that would make available special books by Zona Rosans and the friends of Zona Rosa that might otherwise be overlooked. In addition, we decided that while we might publish very few books, whatever we published would be of the highest quality, standards with which publisher Vally Sharpe and editor Connie Baechler concurred. But what should we publish first? There were a flurry of ideas; then, it came to our attention that long-time Zona Rosan, 92-year-old Maggie Hunt-Cohn, had written hundreds of exceptional, highly original poems that had not yet been made available to a general readership. We are pleased to honor Maggie with this, our initial publication, A Heaven of Flowers, in the hope that you will delight in her poems as much as we have. Rosemary Daniell