Title: The black velvet coat
Description: Twenty-eight-year-old struggling San Francisco artist Anne McFarland is determined to get a one-woman show, even though no one, including herself, believes she can do it.  But when she buys a coat at a thrift shop with a key in its pocket, strange, even magical, occurrences begin to unfold, and she is inspired to create her best work ever.  Fifty years earlier -- it's 1963, and the coat's original owner, young heiress Sylvia Van Dam, is headed toward a disastrous marriage with a scoundrel.  In a split-second reaction she does the unimaginable, which propels her on a trip of self-discovery to nature-filled Northern Arizona.  When Anne and Sylvia's lives intersect, they are both forced to face their fears -- and, in the process, realize their true potential.
Subjects: Self-realization, Women artists, Magic, Locks and keys, Coats, Artists, Fiction
Places: San Francisco (Calif.), California