Opening Your ‘Heart’

Meg Eckenbrecht Bertini ’88 tried teaching at a law school, freelance writing, rehabbing houses and recruiting executives for law firms. None of it was fulfilling, so she toyed with becoming a literary agent. She had, after all, written three novels and six screenplays, though none had sold.

But that didn’t feel quite right, either.

Then, in February 2006, the idea to run her own publishing company hit, two weeks before leaving on a solo, monthlong trek around Australia. She thought about it constantly during her travels, jotting down notes along the way. By April, one month after her return to Florida, Bertini had launched Dreamtime Publishing. She signed her first writer weeks later.

Dreamtime’s niche is combining concepts found in the Chicken Soup for the Soul and Dummies book series. Weaving together inspirational stories and practical advice, its Open Your Heart series includes titles such as Open Your Heart with Basketball and Open Your Heart with Winter Fitness. Eleven books were included in the collection by August 2007.

“I’m lucky in that I don’t have a very risk-averse personality,” Bertini says of her latest—and possibly last—career change. “It was really the result of having both my personal growth and professional growth meet at the perfect point—sort of like a perfect storm, only in a good way.”

On the personal side, she had been learning a lot about herself since getting out of a “challenging relationship,” one that found her trying to fix someone else’s broken spirit instead of nurturing her own.

“It seemed as though a lot of people got to that point in their lives, either from a bad relationship or drug addiction or some kind of trauma,” she says. “I thought, ‘How can people get there an easy way?’ One of the goals behind the books is to show how spirituality can be combined in many ways with everyday life, and to make readers see that they can enjoy the benefits without lighting incense, doing yoga, changing, or whatever they’ve heard that makes them think it isn’t forthem.

“It probably already is a part of their life,” she adds. “They just don’t recognize it for what it is.”

That partially describes the premise behind Open Your Heart with Geocaching, due out this May and written by Jeannette Czanne, who also serves as the series’ editor. Czanne recalls that as she and Bertini talked about “our place in the universe and what we need to do to find joy in life and help others find joy in life,” she spontaneously, half-jokingly suggested submitting her own proposal on the outdoor treasure-hunting game.

As a wife whose stepchildren live with her and her husband on a part-time basis, she had struggled to find an activity that everyone enjoyed doing together. The discovery of geocaching was “nirvana,” she says, and the game is now her family’s primary hobby. She delivered a draft of her book in six weeks.

Of the philosophy Czanne shares with Bertini, she adds, “In spite of all the crap that life will throw at you, there are some beautiful moments and some things that need to be held up and rejoiced.”

Bertini’s plan is to expand Dreamtime, whose slogan is “Live Your Vision,” beyond the Open Your Heart series.

“My belief is that if you set an intention and go with the flow, things happen,” she says. “And with any luck, [readers] will be able to take that feeling of being in the flow, of being conscious of what they’re doing, and take that to the rest of theirlives.”

—Robin L. Flanigan