Courtesy of Rick and Stacie Fessler.
St. Louis business owners Rick and Stacie Fessler never expected that they’d be writing a book together. As a successful entrepreneur and real estate agent, respectively, the couple keeps a busy schedule. But, after being introduced to the publishers at Mark Victor Hansen Library, they decided to give authorship a try.
Mark Victor Hansen, who co-created the popular book series Chicken Soup for the Soul, was working on a new project: A group of works called Savannah Valley, centered around a fictional retirement community. Each title in the nine-part series follows a different group of characters navigating life in retirement. When Rick and Stacie were connected to Hansen’s team through a mutual acquaintance, their conversation laid the foundation for the couple’s installment in the series, Maestro: Songteller of Savannah Valley.
“We told our whole story—it took about two and a half hours—and it was so amazing the way they welcomed us in,” Rick says. “They told us, ‘Not only do we want to help you write your story, we actually want you to be a part of this series we’re getting ready to launch called Savannah Valley.’”
At that initial meeting, Rick and Stacie shared about a difficult period of time that they experienced. In 2017, Rick learned that he would be forced to sell his business—an enterprise that he had helped build for 23 years. Around that same time, Stacie’s mother was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer. Things were hard for Rick and Stacie for about two years, but that time also presented an opportunity for them to reflect.
“What we realized in 2017 was, even though we’d been married for a while, that’s when our marriage really came together,” Rick says. “Both of these situations could have ruined a marriage, but instead they brought us closer.”
The growth associated with those struggles, Rick says, led to the couple’s decision to work on a book together. While The Maestro takes place in a fictional setting, it incorporates key elements of Rick and Stacie’s lives. In fact, the two main characters—Goddard and Maureen—are fashioned after the couple.
“[Maureen] is a character that resonates with me,” Stacie says. “She loves her friends, and loves to pour into them and to find the best in all of them. That’s kind of been my role in life, and it’s Maureen’s role in Savannah Valley.”
The books in the Savannah Valley series are linked through their setting and peripheral characters, and can be read in any order. One of the project’s goals is to center the narratives of those 55 and over. According to Hansen, people in this demographic often do not see themselves represented in print, and their stories “seldom see the light of day.”
With The Maestro, Rick and Stacie hope to communicate that there’s beauty in every stage of life. As Goddard and Maureen grow closer over the course of the book, they teach each other the importance of community and rediscover their own purposes.
“Both Goddard’s wife and Maureen’s husband have passed away, so they walk into this beautiful place alone, and they haven’t experienced that in a long time,” Stacie says. “I feel like [The Maestro] shows that, in retirement, your friends become your family, and you have a lot of life and a lot of giving left to do.”
The Maestro: Songteller of Savannah Valley was released on September 23 and can be purchased on Amazon, where it is classified as a bestseller.
