Fresh Ink

Coming to Amazon.com Fall 2024

These Angels Among Us: Memorial Artwork of JR Johansen - Expanded Edition
Compiled and edited by Heather Coulson Burton
Published by Cedar Fort with kindest thanks to Shane Sullivan

JR Johansen has painted and gifted 167+ portraits to 167+ of the families of men and women, young and mature, who have passed away while in (or just before, or just after) full-time service to Jesus Christ. As with its privately published first edition, this collection features luminous portraits alongside biographical tributes, and is a feast for the eyes and spirit. Perhaps strangely, it is also good for the heart.

Our family is one recipient of JR’s talents and compassion. My Facebook page offers updates.

Available on Teachable.com for back-to-school

You Can and This is How: Homeschool
© 2023 Heather Burton
Genre: how-to, personal growth, life encouragement, family leadership
Status: Video course and Course Companion completed     

Our stumble into homeschooling started when Robby, our eldest, was approaching kindergarten age. Our local school was full, and Robby would need to be bused through rush-hour traffic to an inner-city school miles from home.

This year marks the official sign-off of my avocation as a homeschooling mom. Grown-up Robby will turn 36 this December and is the father, with Naomi, of seven of our wondrous grandchildren, who are also homeschooling. Our youngest child, a homeschool graduate in June, is preparing to live and serve overseas for two years. These bookend siblings came before or after Josh, Denny, Christian, David, Benson, Charity, and Aaron, also my “why.”

You Can and This is How: Homeschool is a heartfelt, empathetic, honest collection of the most important lessons we learned over 25+ years of family-centered education, 20+ years of homeschool mentoring, and 15+ years of conflict resolution (plus more 10 years supporting home-based learners in a public alternative school setting). Conveniently available in video format with a printable Course Companion, You Can and This is How Homeschool offers foresight for families new to homeschooling, hindsight from a veteran educator-parent for those in the middle, and confident encouragement for all.
Trailer
Register here. (Back to school special pricing - 75% off!)

Recent Articles

I am a life writer. Essays and articles appear on Medium.com at varying intervals, but always with care. It’s a sobering thing to hold up one’s basket of gathered truths and offer samples to passersby.

I love feedback in whatever form you choose to give it: likes, claps, return visits, shares, comments on the articles, and emails. I respond back when that’s an option.

I send out pings into the Universe pretty much daily on my Facebook page. You can ping back by following me there.

Current Projects

All the Wrong Things: A Homeschool Confessional
© 2020 Heather Burton
Genre: Non-fiction, education, personal development, memoir

For 25 years, we homeschooled nine children. It was the best of times…most of the time…despite my doing many of the most important things wrong at first. But, oh, did this mom get a great education! Shared with a heartful of tender regrets and beaming love, my epiphanies about children, parenting, learning and teaching will hopefully serve as gentle cautionary tales to others who decide to educate their own. Available late 2024.

Peace with Food - 52 Ways To Tame Disorderly Eating and Make Your Peace with Food
Genre: Personal development, non-fiction, well-being encouragement, memoir

There are three parts to this project, so far:
* Weekly email send-outs: no obligation, just peer coaching to help you with your personal food relationship struggles. Sign up here. Unsubscribe anytime.
* A Facebook page for community and support.
* This article, published on Medium.com: Six Steps to Tame Disorderly Eating and Make Your Peace with Food

Treasure, or The End from the Beginning
© 2024 Heather Burton
Genre: Middle-grade realistic fiction       Age range: 10-ish to 14-ish
Status: In progress

Excerpt:
Chapter 1: Finding Out

Some things are just too much to take.

Like finding your gerbil limp and cold in the morning.
Like having oatmeal for breakfast and supper more times than you can count.
Like seeing an eviction notice on the front door.
Like finding your mom sobbing her eyes out.
Like being told the darkest secret of your 11 year-old life.
Like hearing her say, “I’m sick, and won’t get better.”
Like her leaving for the hospital.
Like having to move in with the Gearys.
Like their dad raging that he doesn’t want another kid in the house.

When all these things happen between the end of school and the end of summer, it’s as if the ground is cracking up around you and under you and there’s nowhere left to stand.

That’s when Treasure started running.

The Day My Grandpa Forgot Me
© 2024 Heather Burton
Genre: Picture book, realistic fiction     Age range: Very little to very old; anyone touched by Alzheimer's or dementia
Status: Querying

Excerpt:

The day my grandpa forgot me was a day we came visiting. We drove up to his sunny house where daisies line the walk and pink pelicans guard the raspberry bushes from birds.

Grandpa was sitting on the porch on a swinging bench like many times before. He wore his fishing cap pushed back, twinkled me a big smile, and asked, “And who do we have here?”

“Grandpa, it’s me, you silly squirrel!” (His code name for me was Goofy Gopher.)

Grandpa wasn’t laughing. He looked at my dad and said, “Ben?”

That isn’t my name. It’s my dad’s. We stood for a second with a breeze between us. A cloud passed by the sun.

“Remember what we talked about?” Dad asked. I knew the time had come.

“Grandpa, I’m Sam, YOUR Sam, and we’ve come to take you fishing.”