About
JessieMay Kessler – How Many Years to Build an Author?
JessieMay has carried several names and roles since her birth. Her maternal grandmother called her My Little Bird, and the family ran with Birdie.
JessieMay contracted scarlet fever at age five which morphed into rheumatic fever. The cure in 1945 was total bedrest. She refers to herself in this period as Bitzy. At ten years old, having met her bestselling author uncle, Ralph Moody, she announced, “I’m going to be a big writer just like you.” JessieMay entered the University of Massachusetts, Amherst Massachusetts Campus, and by her third semester, nearly flunked out; her English professor believed she plagiarized her paper on Motivation. Home Economics became the safe place, graduating with straight A’s and a degree in Education. After a year of teaching, she married a country minister fresh from divinity school. Rev. and Mrs. Lesser settled into a small country parish in eastern Connecticut. Thirteen years and three children later, JessieMay felt it dangerous to stay in an abusive marriage. She filed for divorce. Her three daughters went with her. To re-find herself, she went into intensive Jungian dream therapy. JessieMay met Sy Kessler in a divorce support group and at first sight the magic started. They combined their two dysfunctional families of girls into one family of five teenage daughters. Sy called her Jess. Some of the daughters called her "the Great Gray Witch." During this time, JessieMay secured her degree in counseling. She needed it! Thirty five years later, having built their dream house, Sy passed away suddenly. For Jessie the first year was a quagmire of grief, sorting documents, and preparing to live the single life. Their daughters were settled into their own homes. Sixty years after that promise to Uncle Ralph, JessieMay’s first book, A Bird and the Dragon: Their Love Story: A Memoir, was published. In 2022, her second book, Bitzy’s Story: Healing the Pain of Silence, has been released on Amazon.com. But rumor has it; she plans two more books written from her tiny apartment named Gram’s Nest in Southeastern Connecticut. Her only daily companions now are dog, Blaze Be-Loved, and rescue cat, Diamond Love. |
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Therapist and Writer’s Training
My therapeutic training came from my therapy with Rev. David Eaton, a Jungian therapist, seminars, reading, and a master’s degree in counseling from Saint Joseph University, Hartford, Connecticut. My high school year book states, “She is a great observer, and she looks quite through the deeds of men.”
There are three founding fathers of psychology: Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Alfred Adler. Freud believed people were motivated by their sexual longings. Jung felt that a need for spiritual meaning drove humankind. Adler taught people to set goals and overcome obstacles. Jung broke with Freud to develop a therapy involving dream interpretation, dialoging, drawing, painting, talk therapy, astrology, and anything that would bring healing. He believed ninety-five percent of a person is unconscious while five percent is conscious, directing our daily tasks. Healing comes from connecting the two. I use Carl Jung’s therapeutic approach. I mention astrology, because when I take on a new client, I do an astrological birth chart: where the planets were at the time of birth. This chart shows the client’s wounding and likely by whom, where they have talents, and what unlocks those talents—a virtual therapeutic roadmap. My writing started in grade school with the first prize for an eighth-grade piece on “Why I Am an American.” In high school junior year, I won first prize in a writing contest. I lost the prize senior year but won the scholarship for college. You have already read what happened to my writing career in college! As a woman with partially grown children, I attended two Wesleyan College Summer writing programs. During the second summer, my advisor read parts of Bitzy’s Story and told me to rework it, but also to get it published. Next, I completed the Long Ridge Writers course with much encouragement and one suggestion to use the Military Choir Mistress in some way. She is in Bitzy’s Story. I took two semesters of creative writing at Mitchell College in New London, Connecticut, and won that year’s Eugene O’Neil Writer’s prize. Following that endorsement, my husband, Sy, dared me to approach a local newspaper and write a family psychology column. I wrote “Tid-Bits from the Couch,” for seventeen years. The final step: to dive into the water and swim like hell for the shore! Voila, two well-received published books! |
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Member of ACA, American Counseling Association
Member of CAPA, Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association
Member of CAPA, Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association