When our talents are as profound as the vastness of the universe, we may shy away from such greatness. Yet, it doesn’t stop existing. It simply waits patiently for us to be ready to reveal its brightness. Creative Soul, Elaine Heveron, has emerged from her shell revealing the most precious pearl, shining her creative light, and weaving the tapestry of the human experience with the vastness of her artistic expression.

Elaine is a poet, photographer, and a friend, from Rochester, NY. She resides in Florida with her soulmate-husband, a writer, poet, and photographer, Louis ‘Lou’ Faber, and with their more human-than-cat companion, Teri.

She started writing stories in 7th grade, using writing as a way to “talk to someone”. Growing up with six siblings, Elaine found journals to be her confidant and to listen to her emotional dilemmas. She enjoyed creating stories and making words rhyme, but it wasn’t something she pursued as a priority in her early days.

“Are they paying you?” We get questioned a lot as artists,” expresses Elaine, understanding the painful road that artists walk upon, especially when being questioned repeatedly. It took Elaine some time to embrace the writer within, but she didn’t hold onto self-doubt for long. She has accomplished her visions and her entire life is a living prose. 

In 2000, at 52, Elaine tested the waters of self-publishing and became an author with her chapbook, Standing Room Only in My Heart, in conjunction with Groose River Press. In 2006, Elaine submitted some of her work to Plain View Press, who took an interest in her work, and a manuscript later, in 2007, Email to Cleveland was published. In 2010, Plain View Press published her second full-length book of poems, Not Every Woman Swooned, celebrating with book release parties and readings at Open Mics around Rochester and one in New York City. Elaine has received high accolades from readers expressing how much they enjoy her books and even how her poems made more than a few shed a tear or laugh out loud.

It was years before Elaine published another book. “I tossed any poems I wrote into a folder entitled, Manuscript 2011, but didn’t have publishing at the forefront of my mind again for years,” Elaine shares her process of getting back into publishing.”One day, after reading an article in Tricycle Magazine, about how people in hospice know exactly what they need to do before their life is over, I asked myself if I only had a year to live, what would I want to accomplish? My inner voice replied with a question, “Hello?!  Your writing?”  She was surprised, still not feeling like “that good” of a writer, yet she found the courage to dive into the folder, editing and organizing her work of over a decade, bringing to life Notes From Paradise.     

Plain View Press was once again delighted with Elaine’s new work, and even though they were not accepting any new manuscripts, in September 2023 they published Notes From Paradise.  

In Notes From Paradise, Elaine shares her life’s anecdotes, describing details of her most intimate moments, reliving her first date with Lou, going into her spiritual journey, and so much more that will keep you turning page after page, filling your chest with raw feelings of joy, nostalgia, sympathy, and hope. 

“This is what I live for, to connect with people,” smiles Elaine, feeling passionate to inspire others through her books to own their creative talents. She focuses on writing about love, life, loss, dreams, connections, magical moments, and friendship. 

Alongside Lou, Elaine has traveled to some unique writing workshops at Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, Block Island Poetry workshops in Rhode Island, and participated in writing workshops in Taos, New Mexico, and Ireland. “On Saturdays on Zoom, we write from visual prompts, shared group words, and timed 10-minute writing exercises,” Elaine explains how they have been part of the Taos workshop writing group, Imaginative Storm, with writing teachers and poets they studied with in the past, Allegra Huston and James Nave.  

As a photographer, Elaine brings back memories of when her dad got her a camera when she was 9. She started taking pictures of anything and everything, which stayed with her throughout her adolescence and adulthood. “There’s so much beauty to capture,” Elaine admires the fauna and flora through the lens, capturing the most intimate moments of nature; a solitary Blue Heron patiently waiting for its prey; the dance of the Ibises as they claim branches on a dry tree; an alligator playing statue… Elaine has the touch to bring out the magical colors within one still moment in time.

We are made of light, and Elaine found a way to allow her vastness to shine through, caressing the world with healing words of love. Elaine is now breathing art with a creative flow that enriches and inspires everyone she encounters, and the world is a better place because of her.

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MORE ABOUT ELAINE

Elaine is also an occasional crafter, from her unique series, Palm Frond People, created by painting cartoonish faces on fallen palm fronds with metallic paint, to designing eye-catching jewelry pieces from Pongamia pods.

Lou and Elaine met in 2000. Both of them were working at Xerox when a childhood friend of Elaine’s and a co-worker of Lou’s introduced them. “Lou’s and my shared love of Writing poetry was part of the reason I was willing to go out with him.” As their life grew together, and they traveled to some unique writing workshops, she felt ready and connected to herself and her dreams, and it became clear to her what she had to do to fulfill her passions.