Today we’d like to introduce you to Charlotte Ward.
Hi Charlotte, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I have lived long enough to have had four children and studied many subjects. The bio in our book gives a sufficient listing of accomplishments and interests. For many years, I have co-authored several books, edited many more, and just now completed poetic captions to accompany the photography of my son Christopher for our collaborative book, ATMOSPHERE, INFINITE MALIBU. Rather than rephrase the particulars, I’ll quote our introduction on our website and in the book and my bio at the end:
ATMOSPHERE: INFINITE MALIBU celebrates the universal allure of water and sky and terrain. Thousands of people each year flock to our shores to soak in the beauty of the shining sea and stroll on the wide sand beaches. From a single vantage of the Pacific Ocean, you too can enjoy twenty-four hours of gorgeous scenes. Brilliant photographs accented by poetic captions afford you lasting memories of your own vacation or provide a preview of what you can anticipate from travel to Southern California.
Creating this book became a family collaboration of a magnificent photographic record of the moods of weather passing over the ocean, poetic musings, and design to honor the vision of the whole. Each of the ninety-eight scenic images reaches across two pages to afford you a grand view. Jewels of colorful language enhance the immersive experience.
Designed for contemplation, ATMOSPHERE invites you to visit Malibu from your home, linger in the joy of nights and days by the sea, and even gaze upward for a telescopic view of the vast array of planets, stars, constellations, and nebulae overhead.
Twenty years ago we arrived in Malibu seeking a secluded home with a sea view from the Santa Monica Mountain National Recreation Area. We found Meteoros, a Greek-inspired spectacular site reminiscent of the six dedicated UNESCO Metéora mountain monasteries “suspended between heaven and earth.”
Over ten thousand square miles of the Pacific Ocean stretch before us. Solstice Canyon Park spills from our doorway down twelve hundred feet to a sandy beach and rocky shore. The Milky Way, constellations, and planets glide across the vast sapphire canopy.
Uplifted daily by the panorama that unfolds from this singular location, we share our infinite Malibu—our paradise, our inspiration of time and beauty, the natural world that continues to immerse and enthrall us. Every chosen word and image celebrates our decades of life here and the community who protects this remarkable space.
About the Creators
Charlotte Ward, poems, has been nominated to be the 2025-2027 Poet Laureate of Malibu. She has co-authored The Home Birth Book, Doubleday; Simply Live It Up: Brief Solutions, Purposeful Press; and since 1991, multiple editions of the best-selling gemology series: Diamonds, Emeralds, Gem Care, Jade, Opals, Pearls, Phenomenal Gems, and Rubies & Sapphires, Gem Book Publishers. She has edited many business projects, six books on life coaching, and three memoirs. With a BA in English and a teaching certificate, University of Florida, and an MLS with Distinction, Georgetown University, she holds credentials in the MBTI, Neuro-Linguistic Programing, Photo Reading, and Success Unlimited Network®. Long a member of Malibu Woman’s Club who delights in collaboration, she hosts a writing group, participates in area poetry events, and attends Santa Monica College Emeritus creative writing and literature classes. At an early age, Charlotte chose poetry as her vital means of self-expression.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
When asked that question, my answer has always been that I have enjoyed an embarrassment of riches. I have always been surrounded by generous and loving people. Family and intellect are my highest values. My husband of six decades was a world-renowned photojournalist, with whom I worked closely on many projects. Before moving to Malibu in 2004, Fred and I lived in Bethesda, Maryland, from where he created stories for many publications, including National Geographic for 28 years.
During WWII years, my father served in the Navy, so our family “struggled” alongside many others around the world. Most of that time, I spent on my grandmother’s farm in East Tennessee, a haven that I value still as fundamental to my love of nature and affinity for beauty and space. My father returned to his law office and finally, a judgeship. My mother taught elementary school.
It was long my dream to move from the DC area to somewhere along the Pacific coast. After 15 years of “searching,” we found this home, which has led to our celebratory book.
“The Space That Keeps You: When Home Becomes a Love Story”
~ J Jeremiah Brent, Harvest Books/Harper Collins, 2024
Before I saw it, my determined aim
had been to live on the light-filled
Southern California shore.
I had dreamed banks of bougainvillea
and potted tree ferns, the white stucco,
even the towering flame.
After we had repeatedly driven due
south from Seattle to San Diego,
touring every city’s Japanese garden enroute,
I scouting neighborhoods,
Fred accommodating, our son
finally asked, “What about Malibu?”
I recognized immediate reality
pictured in a real estate brochure
lying on his car seat
when I landed to help him move.
“Chris! That’s our house!”
We drove toward the aerie,
winding up to the promontory
surrounded by undulating chaparral
and far-reaching silence:
shining under the North Star
and the Milky Way above the Pacific,
at eleven hundred feet, safe from tsunami—
Meteoros. “Between heaven
and Earth,” the owner sighed
at leaving what he had built, “uplifting”:
complete with boulders of native sandstone,
bonsai, and a bamboo fountain
frequented by quail, chickadee, and wren,
a fuchsia carpet of ice plant that closes
to bees each April night, mornings that open
to ravens, hummingbirds, scrub jays,
and Ceanothus, hibiscus, olive, citrus,
and pomegranate trees, milkweed blooms
for Monarchs, and for us, roses, roses, roses.
Twenty Thanksgivings have come and gone.
Collections still inform the beauty;
memories paper the walls.
This place keeps witness to our story,
a home we never want to leave,
a love to savor from now on.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Sometimes, we manage to transform an experience into words and if we are lucky, words back again into new experience.
I wrote my first poem when I was away at summer camp. Since then, I have found the deepest happiness in shaping poetic expression. I like wielding the careful, descriptive vocabulary to describe the arc of an experience or a philosophical thought. In high school, I won the poetry awards. After Fred and I married at the University of Florida, we moved to the DC area. In 1963, I won First Prize in the State of Maryland Poetry Contest. In 1987, I participated in exhibiting my words alongside an artist of large-scale botanical portraiture in a two-person show.
Once established in Malibu, I have been active at many levels of the artistic community.
I had aimed for years to publish a book of poetry. When my son Christopher asked me to contribute words to his photographs, I recognized that this project met my highest values of family and artful thoughts. Whether what I offer sets me apart is for others to say. I shape what I find remarkable in the world, and those who read and listen and relate are each the ultimate collaborators to complete the circle of appreciation.
Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out?
Identify four or five interests that come naturally and that you love to do. Concentrate on your favorites, and center your efforts where the highest two connect. No need trying to be “well-rounded.” Many others will choose what would only rank second- or third-best for the rest of us.
A poet is necessarily an artist within, so I reflect deeply on my own ideas, aided by a dedicated weekly writing group. Seven of us provide each other with an elegant inner circle of distinct voices and careful opinions.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://GemBookPublishers.com/Atmosphere
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/awardagency/
Image Credits
Christopher Ward
