Patsy Buell Stierna
Patsy Buell Stierna always dreamed of being a writer. She was on the staff of her high school newspaper, always looking for the next story. After two master’s degrees and 36 years of teaching in Minnesota she retired to Door County with her husband in 2007. She began studying writing through seminars at The Clearing and at Bjorklunden, and later Write On. She thoroughly researched and published her first book Visions from Two Continents, an historical fiction biography of her mother the artist Sheila Buchanan Buell. In 2022 she published Getting Beyond... a memoir. She is now working on a fiction novel highlighting her journeys to Australia.
Fiction
Visions From Two Continents
2017; 2nd ed. 2022, Door County Natural Creations
Tragic and inspiring, Visions from Two Continents is the story of a 20th century woman, Sheila Buchanan Buell, determined to express herself through art and find her way home to Australia. Sheila said, “I don’t need to watch soap operas, I lived one. Soap operas are for people who haven’t lived.” Sheila told stories of her life which women of that era rarely admitted. Her daughter brought these stories to life in a fast-moving trip through childhood in Australia, traveling in Minnesota, graduating from high school in 1929 when everyone was out of work, an abusive marriage, escaping through working on the home front in WWII, getting pregnant out of wedlock, a second marriage, and the death of her second husband to cancer. Through it all she paints marvelous joyous pictures from nature
Nonfiction
Getting Beyond...Abuse and Codependency to Achieve a Lasting Relationship
2022, Door County Natural Creations
Her father died when she was eight, but Patsy never stopped searching for a father-figure. She wanted to be enlightened, to know the truth of life and death by becoming involved in a yoga group. Instead, she was seduced by her guru (a father figure) and told she was responsible for her alcoholic husband (her "child").
While in India she was enlightened about the predatory nature of her guru and tried to stop him from abusing other young susceptible women.
Back home she worked with others to have the guru deported to stop further abuse in that community. She journeyed through recovery from her husband's alcoholism & her own codependency with her husband to eventually achieve a happy and successful marriage.