Heather is an accomplished writer. Her novel Flawed is a four-generation family saga of dysfunction and betrayal. Recently, she completed the libretto for the musical, The Calling Hour, a whimsical environmental musical, as well as the screenplay, Salmonkeeper, a story about a disabled woman who saves a salmon stream. Currently, she is working on a story about a Cajun family in Louisiana with roots in Acadia and Le Grande Dérangement, (to us Anglos, the Great Expulsion) of 1755.

FLAWED is a lush journey through real and spectral worlds. A magical mystery, it draws on Tibetan, First Nation, and Classical mythology to tell the story of two families: four generations, torn apart by a terrible secret that cries out to be revealed. “It was my mother who sent me into the arms of a killer. ...white trash recycled to fine china. Only I saw how cracked she was...”

With the hands of a healer, Heather Herington uses her knowledge of homeopathy, botanical medicine and entheogens to unearth the tenuous connections between ancestors and progeny. “The little folk flutter and buzz... scrambling up vines of brilliant blue clematis, over a rambling rose... Years ago, a little girl lived here... Painted them almost all her life. [They] have threads to tie, threads that have been ripped, shredded, left to disintegrate. ...They feel frisky at the knowledge that they have secrets to unravel, memories to sort through, decisions to make of the highest order.”  Definition of an entheogen: A psychoactive substance that induces alterations in consciousness. The word comes from two ancient Greeks words--entheos meaning “in God” or inspired, and genesthai “to cause to be.” 

THE CALLING HOUR, an environmental musical by Avi Gross and Heather Herington Log line: A whimsical musical tracing a city girl’s journey to her birthright, the magic of nature; Spell Forest’s troubles may be over.

Synopsis: Almost one hundred years ago the Queen of Spell Forest tripped the logger Zeke; after the last petal sniffed, they signed a pact: The village of Tallwood could harvest from Spell Forest what it needed in order to survive and prosper if village children would spend a year in Spell Forest, becoming bears or other forest denizens, to learn the language of nature.

As the story opens, the Calling Hour—the time when the Spell Queen’s voice rings out, summoning next year’s children—is three days late and villagers are beginning to panic over this year’s children’s safe return and the unexpected arrival of the mayor’s niece.

What the villagers don’t realize is that the Spell Queen’s magic has been disturbed by their greed, the century old pact on the verge of being destroyed due to clear cuts and the cluttering of streams.

No longer able to invigorate the fleurbs, the special half-herb, half-flower that normally facilitates the children’s transformation back to human form, the Spell Queen’s voice, Spelly, has gone missing, leaving the children stuck between two worlds, as chanimals: half-bear, half-child.

With the wind spirit, Flyn, threatening to usurp the Spell Queen’s rule and blow the village to smithereens once and for all—his idea of saving Spell Forest— the chanimals have no choice but to take matters into their own hands. With help from Breen, a wolf, and Bailey, a butterfly, they determine to rescue Spelly from Flyn and the forest denizens who have crossed sides, including Ift, a mouse, and Zin, an owl.

While a battle for the voice of Spell Forest is gearing up, the villagers continue to be distracted by Grace’s arrival, Zeke’s great-great granddaughter, whom after the death of her mother has had no choice but to come and live with her greedy, rich, and rude Uncle Grant.

Can an angry city kid save the ritual of the Calling Hour that binds forest and village? Will Grace transform her feelings of arrogance and self-pity through her inheritance, an unwitting knowledge of the language of nature?

SALMONKEEPER, a film in pre-production

Logline: A woman's mystical power prevents the destruction of a salmon stream.

Synopsis: Nattie thinks she’s a fish. A big pink salmon.
Tons of therapy allows her to function but in a world of her own creation.
She yearns to merge with the salmon in the nearby ocean.
Nothing else matters. 
But why do they insist on keeping her locked in a hospital in the city.
Dolly, a First Nation herbalist, understands.
Dolly tells Nattie about the salmon stream under the hospital.
The doomed salmon stream.
Where they’re building the hotel.
And Nattie knows she must save the salmon. 
Nattie knows she must save herself.

CAJUN BOUND

Logline: A Cajun family spans generations to heal the terror of the ten- year-old witness to the Acadian expulsion of 1755, Le Grande Dérangement.

Synopsis: From a family of Acadians—French settlers in Canada in the 1700s—who become Cajuns, to the bedside of a Katrina survivor, Cajun Bound tells the story of connection, the retying of generational threads.
Centered on the genocide that became known as Le Grand Dérangement, Cajun Bound blends fact and fiction. It is the story of the LeBlancs, who, forced from their homes and land by the British, are herded onto ships, ending up in the Louisiana bayou.
One hundred years after the expulsion, the Cajun traiteur (healer) Antoinette LeBlanc makes friends with Marie LeVeau, New Orlean’s Voodoo Queen. Joining with Marie to free slaves, Antoinette is influential in the 1787 Yellow Fever epidemic through her use of homeopathy. Ultimately, haunted by her ancestor—the ten-year-old girl who experienced Le Grande Dérangement—Antoinette becomes the link between the horror of displacement, and present day LeBlancs, one whom is barely surviving.