Author & speaker,
CLAIRE KRULIKOWSKI

Author and freelance writer Claire Krulikowski presently resides in Talent, Oregon (in what is commonly referred to as being "in the mythical state of Jefferson"), five miles north of Ashland.

Krulikowski attended Long Island University-Brooklyn Center, then transferred and earned her B.A. from Ramapo College of New Jersey. Though graduating filled with aspirations of writing fame, Claire quickly fell prey to the allure of regular paychecks, travel, and other affordable leisures. After working for several years as an editor, Claire moved to Southern California where she began a long and successful career in procurement and attended U.C.L.A. Years later she moved to Washington State as the Purchasing Manager for a cellular provider.

Throughout her business career, Claire continued to carve out some time for writing, yet it was when a merger/​restructuring was taking place that Claire received a well-funded severance package that enabled her to spend focused time reconnecting with her love of writing.

As a result, Krulikowski has since become a successful author, freelance writer, copywriter/​editor and writing instructor. This Oregon author also works as a skilled SEO Website Copywriter for an internet retailer of office and computer products, and is also a part-time instructor at Rogue Community College in Medford, Oregon, teaching a 4-credit course on Technical Report Writing (and other courses as requested, including Editing and Proofreading). Providing information that informs, intrigues, and satisfies the audience/​reader need is all important!

Claire's two non-fiction books are Moonlight on the Ganga (India travel memoir), and Living A Radical Peace: Creating Life Anew (Inspirational). Her third book, Rapture: Love of the Heart, offers readers inspirational poetry.

Krulikowski also provides professional editing, copywriting, research, and promotional services to authors and small businesses.

Plus, if you're a doggy lover, you'll enjoy reading Claire's DoggyDundee blog.

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After Leaving Corporate
By "leaving everything I knew behind," and listening to her soul's call, Claire says she allowed a new life story to be written. Daily she sat on her back deck and wondered about the purposefulness of her life.

Shortly afterwards, she was assigned to interview a woman author/​mystic, and "something in that meeting shook my insides." Claire committed herself to discovering more, and, as a result, other spiritual experiences seemed ever willing to seek her out; new knowledge and understandings wakened within her. Claire's old world, her former beliefs, the core of her feelings and perspectives were challenged, shifted, shattered, lifted, released, and reshaped.

The more Claire has allowed for, the more she's grown. "When you resist life," she says, "you keep the old structures in place that say 'magic can't happen' and stop the flow."

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India
Another momentous event occured courtesy of the contacts and questionings her friendship with this mystic had prompted: Krulikowski accepted an opportunity to travel to India. Here, it seemed Ma Ganga (as the Ganges River is called) whispered and nudged Krulikowski to walk along the river's bank and allow this holy river's spirit to flow within. Such singular moments shifted the tide's of her life.

That trip resulted in the 2001 publication of Krulikowski’s first book, Moonlight on the Ganga, an account of her spiritual encounters and insights while strolling along the banks of Ma Ganga. Moonlight has since been brought Back-In-Print by the Authors Guild's Back-In-Print program and republished thru iUniverse in 2006.

Krulikowski's writing credits have appeared in national periodicals (including Organic Style, and Natural Health), as well as trade journals (including Quality Digest and NAPM Purchaser, as well as regional publications, and online magazines. She has also provided articles for online content providers, such as Demand Studios.

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Basking in the 'Moonlight'
Would you like to know more about the writing of my first book? Here's an excerpt from a press interview:

"How often have you done something believing you know all the what’s and how’s and why’s and made your plans only to realize there was something bigger calling for your attention?

"I hadn’t planned on writing a book about India. I hadn’t even intended to travel to India. That country seemed to my mind a land of confusing gods and legends, immense overcrowding, and intense toil, poverty, heat, and exotic diseases. Yet, an opportunity arose to perform work setting up an ashram that had been gifted to an American/​woman/​non-Hindu – certainly an unusual and controversial trilogy – to help further her work of uniting all religions “as One.” It seemed a work of great vision. Less idealistically, I hoped to sell articles about it, and also planned to “get quiet” and finish in calm surroundings a biography I’d been endeavoring to complete for years. This would be a working trip.

"Saying 'yes,' however, unleashed new forces into my life and, preceding the trip, the phrase 'Leave everything you knew behind' echoed within my mind night and day. Somehow that phrase cleansed the debris of fears and judgments about India from my psyche; arriving in that country where nothing looked at all familiar, I felt completely comfortable.

"Life, however, seemed very different. I began seeing similarities rather than differences, sensed the fragility of the human spirit, the impact of every encounter, and the import of each moment. Daily something called me away from group activities, but at first I didn’t know what tugged me to leave or woke me with a notion that I’d be walking that day. The call seemed always to lead along the revered and sacred Ganges River that is known by any of a hundred names, including Ma Ganga and The Elixir of Life. I soon realized it was the Ganga that was calling me, guiding me, and if I chose to follow her I must trust that whoever and whatever I met while sitting or walking along her was meant for some greater purpose than I might otherwise have interpreted. I view a greater depth and breadth to life with each meeting, whether it be a boy with elephantiasis, a sacred cow, a leper, monkeys, or other such meetings.

"Though I kept a copious journal, I didn’t realize there was a book to be written until one day when a man asked me why I was writing. For the first time that day I stated, “ It is a book about this sacred river and about the holiness of the earth and its people…and how we can all experience that.” Where had that thought come from?

"Inspiration nudged again. On one of our last mornings in Rishikesh, several of us gathered on the Ganga’s banks to offer a pre-dawn prayer. The luminous moon hung low, spreading jewels of flickering light over the swift-running Ganga waters. I’d gazed up at that lunar splendor and told a friend standing nearby, “I have the title of my next book – Full Moon on the Ganga.” In that instant, the book was born.

"The essence of the book, however, desired a new name, and, when I accidentally wrote Moonlight on the Ganga in my journal several times, I understood that Ma Ganga was continuing to guide and carry me forward, forever nurturing the landscape of my life." - Reprinted with permission of NW Prime Time News from an article by Claire Krulikowski entitled Writing Moonlight on the Ganga; April 2001)

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Claire's Poetry
Another of Claire Krulikowski's books, entitled Rapture:Love of the Heart, is a collection of sensual mystic poems offering vivid answers to the questions: "What happens when a woman falls in love with God? What does the touch of such a hand feel like on the flesh of her life?" This book is available in both print and ebook formats.

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