EDIT #2: Unfortunately Dr. Wilcox has passed away. I should note that I’d contacted Dr. Wilcox (and helped others to do so) simply because I thought it was nice/polite to request permission, but reprinting The Feeling Wheel for purposes of scholarly discussion is permitted by Fair Use. You may desire to track down whoever now owns the rights to Dr. Wilcox’s work and request their permission, but I have no information on that.
EDIT #1: It looks like this blog page is getting all kinds of visitors looking for The Feeling Wheel. I’m happy to see people looking for it, and happy to provide links to it. While you’re here please also check out the other topics I blog about here. There’s a lot more here to discover than just The Feeling Wheel! 🙂
Original post:
Hi all,
As promised, here’s information on the items I’d like to include in my book that I need help tracking down information on. These short writings were so helpful to me that I’d like to put them in an Appendix at the back of my book so readers can have them handy instead of having to track them down.
First is Portia Nelson’s Autobiography in Five Short Chapters, which can be read here: www.panhala.net/Archive/Autobiography.html
According to the Wikipedia page about Portia Nelson this short item was included in her book There’s a Hole in My Sidewalk: The Romance of Self-Discovery which was reissued by Beyond Words Publishing in 1993. I’ve emailed Beyond Words Publishing and left messages on their voice mail trying to find out how to obtain permission to reprint (or if they’re even the people I need to obtain permission from), but no one has gotten back to me. If anyone has further information on who I need to contact, please post a comment below. (I’ve heard back from them, see my update below.)
The next item is what’s known as The Feelings Wheel, which can be seen here: Dr. Gloria Willcox’s Feeling Wheel
That version is attributed to one Dr. Gloria Willcox, with an address listed in St. Petersburg FL. I sent her a letter two months ago but received no response. Interestingly, while researching this post I came across another version of the same wheel, attributed to someone else, located here: Mr. Christopher Cobb’s Feeling Wheel
Using Google I found this page for Mr. Cobb, but I’m not sure it’s the same person. I’ll email him after I post this blog entry. Again, if anyone out there has more concrete information on this item, please leave a comment below.
And lastly, I would like to include a transcript of a portion of an interview given by poet Robert Bly. He was being interviewed by Bill Moyers in a video titled A Gathering of Men, distributed by Mystic Fire Videos. I’ve found three phone numbers for Mystic Fire Videos, two are disconnected, and one was a wrong number. Robert Bly has his own website (www.robertbly.com), but there’s no contact information listed. Most websites have a default email address for the webmaster, usually in the format webmaster@website.com and I’ve sent an email there, but no response as of yet. Again, if anyone can help me find out who I need to contact please leave a comment below.
Thanks in advance 🙂
UPDATE: 06/18/2011
Autobiography in Five Short Chapters: I heard back from Beyond Words Publishing and have received permission to reprint in the US and Canada, working on getting international reprint rights.
The Feeling Wheel: I heard back from Christopher Cobb who explained that his webmaster had posted the Feeling Wheel erroneously attributed to him. It was taken down when they caught the mistake but copies of it are still floating around the internet. He believed it was created by someone in Florida – which would back up the info I found on Gloria Wilcox – but I haven’t had any luck finding more contact info for her. There are a ton of women with the same name, and I can’t even say for sure that she still lives in Florida. So I still could use help getting info on who to contact regarding the Feeling Wheel.
Robert Bly: It appears the default webmaster account for his website is disabled, as my email came back rejected. Google didn’t have any helpful results when I searched for “Robert Bly’s agent”. I emailed www.poetryfoundation.org to ask if they had any contact info for either Mr. Bly or his agent. On their page for Mr. Bly they mentioned some of his recent work, I’ll try tracking down who published those works. If nothing else I figure they ought to have recent contact information for Mr. Bly or his agent.
UPDATE: 07/10/2011
I managed to get in touch with someone at Harper Collins who gave me the phone number for Mr. Bly’s literary agent. Still no response from Dr. Wilcox, so I used an online search tool to track down a possible phone number for her. I’ll try calling them both on Monday.
UPDATE: 07/16/2011
I got some GREAT news! I heard back from the Beyond Words Publishing and they granted me permission to add Portia Nelson’s Autobiography in Five Short Chapters to my book’s Appendix. One step closer to my goal.
It’s been a very busy week at work, completely forgot to call Mr. Bly’s agent, but I did call the number I found for Dr. Wilcox. It was a wrong number but the lady who answered (who has the same name) said that she moved into the area eight years ago and the people at her church knew of Dr. Wilcox. The lady gave me the name and phone number of her church, I might get lucky and find out where she works now, etc. Again, one step at a time.
UPDATE: 11/15/2011
It’s been a long time since I’ve updated the blog but quite a bit has happened. I got in touch with Mr. Bly’s agent who informed me that the rights to interviews are usually held by the interviewer, so I contacted Mr. Moyers’ organization and notified them. I finally worked out permission with Random House for Thich Nhat Hahn’s Hope As An Obstacle (from his book called Peace Is Every Step) – that was the most difficult process of any I’ve been through. Apparently Max Ehrmann’s Desiderata is now in the public domain, and I’ve run out of leads for The Feeling Wheel. I plan to include it in my book with a note asking readers to help me trace down the original author.
Next up: formatting the book for eReaders and getting it out there!
UPDATE: 03/05/2014
I haven’t updated this in a long time. In December 2012 a reader commented below to share that Dr. Wilcox’s Feeling Wheel was published in her book “Feelings: Converting Negatives to Positives”. In the spring of 2013 I tracked that book back to its publisher, Morris Publishing and they did give me a PO Box address for Dr. Wilcox. Unfortunately I never got a response. I also tried calling the church (mentioned above) but no one there seemed to know who she was.
Ironically, I’ve had two more people contact me about Dr. Wilcox in the last week after a year of silence on the matter. Someone who has a copy of my book believes she might be a member of their church and said they’d see if they could locate her for me. I also got an email from another author seeking to reprint Dr. Wilcox’s Feeling Wheel. More to come.
UPDATE: 03/22/2014
I’ve finally gotten in touch with Dr. Willcox! I spoke to her for a few moments on the phone this morning, told her about my book and requested permission to reprint. She gave me her email address and asked that I send a request there and she’d reply with permission. I forgot to mention that other authors were seeking her contact info but I included that in my email and asked if I could share it with others. I’ll update this when I hear back from her.
UPDATE: 07/1/2014
Dr. Willcox replied to me that I can share her email with anyone else trying to reach her. (EDIT: See notes at the top of the page. Unfortunately Dr. Willcox passed away May 14th, 2021.)
Recovery Book Press 