The Uncarved Blog

Writers’ Voices: Author in the house –
B. Steven Verney and “The Best of All Possible Worlds”

Monica Hadley and Caroline Kilbourn are delighted to welcome first-time novelist and former MIU student B. Steven Verney to KRUU 100.1 FM and Writers’ Voices, as he returns to Fairfield from his home in Massachusetts to join in the festivities of the MUM Literature Reunion being held this weekend, August 30 – September 2. See the press release: MUM Celebrates Literature Reunion 2013.*

In “The Best of All Possible Worlds,” published May 2012, Verney combines story-telling, philosophy, and the history of the TM movement into a unique and engaging novel. Anyone who attended TM teacher training courses in Switzerland or learned to meditate at Amherst in the early 70’s may just recognize pieces of their own personal history in this novel, while younger meditators, and even non-meditators with no connection to those events, will get a much deeper perspective of what all the fuss was about. This interview aired live, Fri Aug 30 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm and replayed, Mon Sep 02 8:00 am – 9:00 am. Here is an MP3 of it.

A newer interview recorded before Christmas 2013 was later posted in the new year: @MaharishiU Dean of Faculty, Dr. Cathy Gorini, interviews author Steven Verney on MUM’s KHOE.

If you went to MIU, Bruce Verney, as he was known back then, was student body president and won the Enlightened Leadership Award. He graduated in 1981 in Philosophy and married fellow student Kay Noble the following year. For the next 24 years, Steve and Kay started and operated three different businesses while raising their two sons. They’ve resided in New Salem, MA and currently live in Wellfleet, MA. This is his first novel.

I highly recommend the book. It won’t disappoint. The ending is mind-blowing! Steven said it took him 18 months to get the first draft down, and 3 years to revise and shape it, with some help from an editor, who curiously enough, turned out to be the person who had taught him Transcendental Meditation in Cambridge, MA decades earlier!

Although Steve is now writing his second novel, this first one is finally taking on a life of its own. David Lynch loved it and gave Steven a quote to help promote the book. “This book captures the thrill and magic of the spiritual path and how things make more and more sense the bigger the picture gets.” — David Lynch, Filmaker

The book will no doubt spread by word of mouth. George Ellis, author of A Symphony of Silence: An Enlightened Vision, said it should be turned into a screenplay. I agree. It’s destined to become a classic. I’m sure we’ll be hearing more of B. Steven Verney.

Visit Steve’s new website one of his son’s designed for him http://steveverney.com and blog. Read the overview of the book and see the Xlibris Book Trailer: The Best of All Possible Worlds.

*You may also enjoy The Flow of Consciousness: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on Literature and Language, 1971 to 1976, edited by Rhoda F. Orme-Johnson, Ph.D. and Susan K. Anderson, Ph.D., two former chairpersons of the MIU/MUM Literature department who attended the Literature Reunion 2013.

Another novel about a meditating philosophy professor worth reading is, “To Be Enlightened” by Alan J. Steinberg.

Tags: B. Steven Verney, Caroline Kilborn, Literature, Literature Reunion, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, miu, Monica Hadley, MUM, The Best of All Possible Worlds, Transcendental Meditation, Writers' Voices

This entry was posted on September 10, 2013 at 11:22 pm and is filed under Audios, Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.