I created writenowtherapy.com in 2021 (also known as getoveritnow.com) as an accessible self-help approach for people where traditional therapy is not an option. Focusing my profession on a very avant-garde approach allows me to use both my personal experience and my professional education in a very non-traditional way. As a mental health professional, I educate people to use writing therapy as a self-help aid.
When I was working toward my MFT, I pivoted with a Master’s degree in Psychology to focus my research and practice on writing as a therapeutic option. Narrative Therapy was already a common practice in many therapists’ offices; however, I was finding there were opportunities to push therapeutic writing further as a low-cost, self-help, guided model.
What I learned from my education and research was that writing as therapy was a highly effective approach, even outside the therapist’s office. I also found that traditional therapy was not a widely accessible option for most people. Whether it was the cost or stigma that still lingered for traditional therapy (especially for men), therapy wasn’t an option for everyone. In fact, in one study listed on the Scientific Evidence page of writenowtherapy.com, doctors worried that if a patient disclosed a mental issue to them, they were not as likely to mention it to another professional, particularly if the person was a new therapist or “stranger.” From there, writenowtherapy.com was born.
In 2025, I introduced small group retreats as an avenue to get in-person guided help in a relaxed, personal setting. Come join one of these sessions up in the beautiful California Central Coast. These are either hosted in the wine country of Paso Robles or on Avila Beach.
“The Giantologist” widens its reach! The serial fiction novel is now available on three serial fiction websites. Tapas, Royal Road, and Scribble Hub each have the story being posted in chapters and is expected to be 100% complete on each site by the end of 2026.
Back in 2008, I wrote a 556-page manuscript titled A History of Giants. I shopped the manuscript to nearly 100 publishers and agents with no success. The book’s length (nearly 200K words) was going to require the story to be edited down greatly or divided into three books. I tried to find a path forward with editing the book and several starts were attempted and abandoned.
Ultimately, I had a copy of the book produced through Lulu, one of the old self-publishing options at the time, and then put the book up on a shelf and moved on.
Last year, I posted the story on Amazon’s Kindle Vella since Pangloss Seas Books was offered exclusively on Amazon. It seemed like the perfect avenue. That was until Amazon shut down Vella in February 2025.
It was then recommended that I look at Tapas as a new home for the story. “The Giantoligist: A History of Giants” is now posted on Tapas with a schedule to add more chapters from the manuscript through 2025. The story remains at a lengthy 556 pages, so new chapters are plentiful. What’s nice about this continuing saga is that it is a completed story and not simply just a work in progress.
Here’s the blurb about the story:
Twins Darby & Darius are set to spend the summer with the grandparents they barely know the summer after their parents die. On their grandparent’s farm, they learn of their grandparents’ adventures in their search for the existence of giants on Earth. Follow the twins as they walk through their grandfather’s history lesson of ancient giants to the possibilities of giants today. A remarkable story of adventure, faith, and family!
A pioneering family struggles for survival on their way to California. Their violent fight for survival centers around the villainy Badger’s Alley of the Sierra Nevada mountains where survival ultimately comes down to just how far a person is willing to go to survive.
Badger’s Alley, was listed as a top 25 screenplay on Coverfly.com in December 2023. Additionally, it was also nominated for an IMAGINARIUM award for best screenplay that same year. It garnered further recognition as a finalist in the Creative Screenwriting’s Unique Voices Screenplay Competition and other awards recognition in 2023.
Awards & Recognition
Golden Script Contest
Western films have seen periodic resurgences, but every once in a while comes a filmmaker with an authentic narrative voice. Badger’s Alley is authentic from all aspects, but the dramaturgy is the one thing that stands out. Badger’s Alley is right on the target; it succeeds as a drama and delivers the points.
Female Film Festival
Immediately grabs the audience and gets them excited to carry on with the story. I was immediately tense and became hyperaware of the world and space created. It creates moments where it engages the audience in a variety of emotions on the spectrum and this is done so well.
Living in the smallest of towns with an array of hippies, farmers and artists, who are as different as they are close, can be taxing enough without the realization that some of Harmony’s residents may not be what they appear. When Michael and Kate uproot their lives in LA after a miscarriage and move to Harmony, CA (Population 18), they had no idea they’d be sharing their home with a spiritual apparition of a four-year old girl named Ruby. Life in Harmony entertains the thought that the trials we face happen for a reason, and sometimes it takes supernatural intervention for us to understand ourselves, our relationships and the world around us.
Life in Harmony is available now from Pangloss Sea. Click one of the links below to purchase the book today!
To experience the world of Harmony please check out harmonynovel.com. The website is produced in association with VERVETIDE Media & Studios.
Life in Harmony is now exclusively available on Amazon! Click one of these links to purchase the book:
The Wampum Trading Post in Sam Simeon, California closed late in April 2016. Wampum Trading was the original inspiration for the “Gifts from the Sea” shop in my novel, Life in Harmony. Wampum Trading with its seashell souvenirs, incense, and Native American jewelry and artifacts became Ruth’s shop in Harmony in my novel (minus the Native American items).
Wampum Trading had been a long-time staple just south of Hearst Castle along Highway 1 between Monterey and San Luis Obispo. I spoke with Nancy, the owner, early in the week that the store closed. She informed me that the building that houses Wampum and Castle Warehouse was being torn down for a new development by the land owner.
Wampum Trading like Gifts from the Sea was an easily missed treat to those speeding along Highway 1 up and down the coast. It was a quaint little gem for those who appreciated it. I invite you to read some of the Yelp! reviews for the store and it’s neighboring store Castle Warehouse (while there are two different businesses both share the same roof so it was really hard to tell the difference). Many of the reviews are similar stories to what happen to Kate and Michael in Life in Harmony.
Sometimes we stumble into a new adventure along life’s highway when and where we least expect it. Wampum Trading Post was that store for me and so many others. Sadly as Joni Mitchell said, “Don’t it always seem to go, You don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone. They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”
What first drew me to the town of Harmony (besides the serenity of its locale) was its population of 18. I wondered how in a state like California could there still be a town with such a fictionally small number of residents. When I began building the cast of characters that lived in Life in Harmony, I surrounded the central couple with other couples in various stages of marriage. I wanted Kate and Michael to see examples of how each marriage is different. Here’s a rundown of the other couples of Harmony and the role they play in the story.
Beck and Lucy
Beck and Lucy are the mature couple who run the Acadia Inn (Acadia is derived from the Greek word for idyllic place/harmony with nature). They are an example what love looks like after years of marriage. They certainly argue but at the heart of their relationship is love. From Beck’s calling Lucy “a pretty little thing” as she is walking away to his speech at the dinner party where he tells everyone that if his wife (and daughter) believes in miracles that’s all he needs. He loves her so much that her beliefs surpass his own. Beck and Lucy are also an example of a happy life after the loss of a child. In addition, they help keep things light by providing some comic relief with those private details of married life (usually geared around toilets).
Sunny and Holla
Our hippie couple reminds us the book is set in California where people freely live by their own set of rules. I wanted their kumbaya, melting-pot religious philosophy to counter what Ruth was selling. Make no mistake they are selling their lifestyle. They seem a “sunny” and the happy couple whose pick-and-choose philosophy appears to work for them (on the surface).
I encourage you to look at the journey Holla is on in the book. It is a subtle story. She is quick to caution Kate about Ruth’s God but motherhood is changing her. She wants different things now that she has her son. What seemed like her path before, may not be working for her. She has doubts about her beliefs and wants there to be more to life than what Sunny is selling. She also wants reassurances that her deceased father’s life did not just end. Her story is a work in progress that comes to an understated conclusion at the end of the book. Father Tom leads those gathered in prayer and the chapter ends with As Father Tom prayed, Raye bowed her head and without thinking so did Holla.
Stan and Tess
The last couple in Harmony is one that is only together in one of the first chapters. Stan and Tess are the couple having dinner in Juanita’s that first night Kate and Michael visit Harmony. They are a punk rock couple who seem out-of-place in the peaceful setting. They argue. It is ugly. Tess walks out and we never see her again in the book.
The Harmony Chapel mentioned in the book. It sits behind the Creamery Building.
Stan and Tess remind Kate of what she sees in her own faulty marriage. It was two chapters before where we see Kate and Michael fight in much the same way. Kate herself wonders if staying married is the right choice for her. Stan and Tess’s breakup signifies that all is not peaceful in Harmony. There is reality and choices to be made. Kate wonders if like Tess she will walk out. I can tell you there is certainly more to the Stan and Tess story but the rest of it was left out of this book.
Life in Harmony is about Kate and Michael. It was an editorial decision that details in Stan and Tess’s story was left out entirely. I know it leaves unanswered questions in their journey and I apologize. Perhaps that is a story for another book
With these three couples, we see a marriage that works in the long run, one that ends abruptly and one that seems alright on the surface but may be beginning to crack. They are examples for us to compare the main characters’ relationship to and hopefully add richness to the story.
Small disclaimer: The residents in the novel, Life in Harmony, are all fictional characters and are not likenesses of the actual residents of Harmony. While some may share trades and locations as those in the real town of Harmony, they are works of fiction. I know the book’s website, harmonynovel.com, does a fantastic job of blurring the lines of reality and fiction but the book is and always has been a work of fiction.
Living in the smallest of towns with an array of hippies, farmers and artists, who are as different as they are close, can be taxing enough without the realization that some of Harmony’s residents may not be what they appear. When Michael and Kate uproot their lives in LA after a miscarriage and move to Harmony, CA (Population 18), they had no idea they’d be sharing their home with a spiritual apparition of a four-year-old girl named Ruby. “Life in Harmony” entertains the thought that the trials we face happen for a reason, and sometimes it takes supernatural intervention for us to understand ourselves, our relationships and the world around us.
Life in Harmony is available now from Pangloss Sea. Click one of the links below to purchase the book today!
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B. K. Bergman 