Welcome to the six hundred and eightieth of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. Today’s is with crime / thriller novelist (Ernest) John Swain. A list of interviewees (blogged and scheduled) can be found here. If you like what you read, please do go and investigate further.
Morgen: Hello, John. Please tell us something about yourself, where you’re based, and how you came to be a writer.
John: Hello Morgen. I’m a retired police officer having provided armed protection for most royals, many foreign dignitaries, worked with MI5 and briefly with the American Secret Service, specializing in protection and anti-terrorism. I now live on a small hill farm, high in the Pennines of the Derbyshire Peak District. I suppose I’ve been a ‘writer’ all my adult working life but that writing was all reports and file preparation for courts. Fiction wasn’t really an option, but I carried some wonderful material in my head that led to my story writing in my retirement. The dangerous situations I sometimes found myself in and the vile characters that I encountered simply cry out to be included in fiction writing.
Morgen: For the past eight years I’ve written a variety of genres (although most of my works have ‘bodies’ in them) but I’m now concentrating on crime and it must be wonderful to have that expertise and knowledge. I interviewed crime novelist Stephen Booth and he writes about the Peaks (I’ve also met him a couple of times, he’s a great speaker). What genre do you write and have you considered other genres?
John: We’re all told “write about what you know”, and so it is with me – I write crime / thrillers but with an element of a love story and certainly with a historical base. Yes, I do write in other genres, for instance I’ve written a children’s / young adult story of magical fairies and goblins but that still sits in my computer.
Morgen: Hopefully not for too long. What have you had published to date? Do you write under a pseudonym?
John: I’ve published two books so far. The first, ‘A Surprising Legacy’, (ISBN 978-0-9574852-0-4 Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com), and the second ‘The Lightning Tree’ (ISBN 978-0-9574852-2-8), (Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com).
Although everyone knows me as John, I write using my first Christian name Ernest Swain to avoid confusion with another author.
Morgen: Ah yes. It’s best to be independent. There’s a thriller author called Geoffrey Archer who I’m sure loses website traffic because his results get filtered in with Jeffrey Archer (I’ve looked). You’ve self published – what led to you going your own way?
John: Yes, both books are self published. Like most of us, rejections played a huge part in my decision. I know it’s a prejudiced view but to me it seems that most manuscripts that are submitted to publishers are rejected unread, due simply to the volume of submissions they’re faced with.
Morgen: If not unread then probably only a paragraph or so, although the larger publishing houses won’t touch an author without an agent. Are your books available as e-books? How involved were you in that process? Do you read e-books or is it paper all the way?
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, Ernest John Swain, Ernest Swain, erotic romance, erotica, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku poem, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, John Swain, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poetry, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, travel memoir, travel writer, Twitter, vampire, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Overnight I received an email from singer Gloria Gaynor’s Manager, Stephanie Gold, with the following request:
Call for Personal Stories of Survival, Inspired by Gloria Gaynor’s Song “I Will Survive”
Have you survived an illness, personal tragedy, abusive relationship, financial ruin, or other life experience that brought you to your knees? Did the song “I Will Survive,” by Grammy Award-winning songstress Gloria Gaynor, inspire you to rise, survive, and move forward? If so, we’d love to share your story in a new book of personal narrative essays that tell the story of how you survived the experience and how the song influenced your life (essential).
We’re looking for real-life stories that read like fiction—similar to the stories in the Cup of Comfort book series, compiled and edited by Colleen Sell. The book will include 50 stories of 1,000-1,500 words each. For each essay selected for publication in the book, the author will receive $75, a complimentary copy of the book signed by Gloria Gaynor, and a signed photo of Ms. Gaynor.
Submit by April 30th 2013 to: glolo2004@me.com or susancarswell@aol.com.
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How We Survived
When Gloria Gaynor’s song “Never Can Say Goodbye” hit the top of the Billboard charts in 1975, she never anticipated her career in this competitive industry would span over three decades and lead to international recognition. But in 1978 she cemented her music icon status with the #1 hit “I Will Survive”.
While the song soared, it also struck a chord with women and men everywhere. Today, “I Will Survive” continues to be an anthem of empowerment for millions, landing on the soundtracks of more than a half dozen major motion pictures and the playlists of fans around the world.
Over the course of her career, Gaynor has been flooded by endless personal messages from those who have found happiness, comfort, relief and power from “I Will Survive”. From those devastated by illness and loss, to those struggling to find solutions and make better choices, all have voiced their experiences to Gloria and shared their stories of strength, hope, encouragement and empowerment garnered from her song.
In “How We Survived,” Gloria Gaynor and Sue Carswell share the positive stories of men and women influenced by the adored anthem. In addition to Gloria’s collection of stories, a social media campaign will be implemented to solicit additional / current stories from fans. Organized by themes, selected stories will be woven into relevant chapters that highlight personal growth, faith, inspiration, relationship and career success.
Grammy award-winning singer Gloria Gaynor took the music world by storm in the 1970’s, striking gold with her disco era hit “I Will Survive”. A member of the Dance Music Hall of Fame, Gaynor has appeared on countless television and radio shows, received a number of national and international music and humanitarian awards and continues to perform around the world for legions of fans including presidents and celebrities. Her most requested song is, of course, “I Will Survive.”
Sue Carswell is a reporter-researcher at Vanity Fair and has ghostwritten ten books. She is a former executive and senior editor at Random House Inc and Simon and Schuster, a former story producer for Good Morning America and correspondent for People magazine.
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For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
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Complementing my blog interviews, today’s Author Spotlight, the one hundred and ninety-third, is of World War Two in the Pacific author and memoirist Ronny Hermand de Jong.
Ronny Herman, a survivor of two Japanese concentration camps for women and children in Southeast Asia during World War Two, was barely three years old when the Japanese conquered the island of Java in the Dutch East Indies, where she was born, and forced her family into prison camps where they suffered until August 1945 and almost died. Ronny, her mother and little sister endured starvation, disease and uncertainty under the brutal regime of the Japanese; all three survived.
When the war was over, a second war ensued: the nationalists, led by Soekarno fought for their independence for another four years, murdering as many Caucasians as they could with weapons the Japanese had provided.
Ten years after the war Ronny went to the Netherlands to study English Literature at Leiden University. Her impromptu marriage to Mike de Jong in 1961 was blessed with two daughters and a son. In 1972 the family immigrated to the United States and settled in Pasadena, California, where the children grew up.
Initially working for a contractor of NASA at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada-Flintridge, Ronny soon followed her dream and became first a fashion model, then a commercial actress in the greater Los Angeles area: a career she could combine with her family’s needs at home. She served as moderator of her church and for six years shared compassion and love with her dying patients and their families as a patient-care Hospice volunteer with Verdugo Hills Hospice. When the children had left for college, Ronny and Mike moved to Hawai’i. Almost twelve years in Hilo on the Big Island provided an opportunity for her to learn the art of dancing hula and volunteer with Hospice of Hilo as Secretary to the Board.
In between trips to the beach she wrote her first book In the Shadow of the Sun, based on the secret journal her mother smuggled through the camps. Published in Canada in 1992 it was one of the first English-language accounts in North America about Japanese death camps for women and children in Southeast Asia. Ronny promoted her book on radio and television in Hawai’i and in the Netherlands. Newspaper reviews came from as far away as Hokkaido, Japan. Her attempt to have her book translated and published in Japan met with insurmountable barriers. The Japanese government still has not acknowledged guilt for their atrocities in the Second World War, nor offered an official apology and compensation to survivors of the World War II concentration camps.
Back on the mainland, Ronny started research for her second book and discovered the NARA Files, the Japanese War Crimes Files declassified in the year 2000, which indicated the 1942 “Liquidation Plan” of the Japanese Ministry of War: Death for All. She included them in her memoir. A pilgrimage to the country of her birth and a spiritual weekend in the leper colony Kalaupapa on the island of Moloka’i are also among the adventures the readers will find in Part Two.
Rising from the Shadow of the Sun: A Story of Love, Survival and Joy, published in March 2011, tells the story of Ronny’s early years in captivity based on her mother’s journal and it includes her father’s story along the same timeline. In part two the reader follows Ronny on her journey through an exciting life of hope and joy from Indonesia to the Netherlands to the United States of America.
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And now from the author herself:
I have loved writing for as long as I can remember. My fifth-grade teacher called me “my little writer”. I wrote stories and essays, and later on I followed the example of my mother, who wrote weekly letters about our life in the Dutch East Indies to her parents in the Netherlands. When I went to the Netherlands for my college education, I exchanged weekly letters with my mother back in Indonesia. When I started dating, I wrote to my boyfriend more than once a week – sometimes to his despair, because he loved to get my letters but didn’t like writing back – and when we got married and immigrated to the United States I wrote to my parents and in-laws and friends and relatives, too. I can’t imagine how I found the time to write so much with a family of five, but I did! I just loved writing.
As a little girl, incarcerated by the Japanese for almost four years, I was not aware that my mother kept writing her letters in a secret diary. She must have written when my little sister and I were asleep, so that we could not accidentally spill the beans to other inmates or to the Japanese soldiers. Writing, even having paper and pencil was strictly forbidden. They would have killed Mamma if they had found the diary.
I love languages. For my college education I needed two years of Greek and Latin, and in high school I learned French, English and German. I loved to read French books; French is a beautiful language. My writing however is limited to Dutch and English. I prefer the English language because it is so much more eloquent than Dutch. I also love translating and editing in Dutch and English.
In 1985, Mamma gave me her camp diary. I loved translating it from Dutch into English for my children. Then I discovered that none of my friends knew anything about the WWII concentration camps in Southeast Asia and everyone confused them with the Japanese detention camps in the United States. This led to the writing of my first book In the Shadow of the Sun, published in 1992 in Canada. I resided in Hawai’i at the time.
Back on the mainland in 2001, I found that people here still don’t know much about the civilian camps in the Pacific theatre; when I did research I discovered the recently declassified Japanese War Crimes Files, the NARA Files. The Japanese were planning to systematically exterminate all prisoners in all camps starting in September of 1945! The bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were dropped only three weeks before the massacre would have begun! I had to share this with my readers. And so I wrote my second book, my memoir, Rising from the Shadow of the Sun: A Story of Love, Survival and Joy.
Through this book I hope to inspire young people to succeed in life whatever their background and to enlighten my readers about what happened to innocent civilians during World War II in the Pacific under the tyranny of the Japanese.
In the future I hope to write a fun, inspirational story for my grandchildren about their European family ties and after that a ghastly murder mystery, all non-fiction. I guess that is my genre. I write from my heart about my experiences. If I may live to be a centenarian, like my mother, I am sure I will accomplish all that. For now, promoting my new book is my first priority. I have to get that story out to the world!
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You can find more about Ronny and her writing via…
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If you would like to take part in an author spotlight, take a look at http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/submission-information/opportunities-on-this-blog (the spotlights are option (a)) or email me for details.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
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or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, Goodreads, grammar skills, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku poem, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, pinterest, poetry, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry slams, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, Ronny Herman de Jong, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, travel memoir, travel writer, Twitter, vampire, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Below is a list of writing competitions and writing-related events taking place next month. If you know of any others, please do email me.
COMPETITIONS
- Flash Fiction: Indies Unlimited hosts a weekly 250-word max. prompt competition – see Indies Unlimited. Also see ‘Short stories’ below.
- Flash Fiction: Writer Austin Briggs runs a monthly 55-word competition (different theme each month). It’s free to enter and you can win $55 (of his own money!).
- Flash Fiction: The NLG Flash Fiction Competition (that I am Head Judge of) is now open – see ‘June’ for full details.
- Mixed: Winchester Writers’ Conference has opened their 17(!) mixed writing competitions (deadline Friday 24th May). Details in their competitions brochure 2013. £7 per entry if attending, £9 if not.
- Mixed: Christian magazine Pockets has a different theme per month.
- Mixed (novels & short story collections): iWriteReadRate and Cornerstones Literary Consultancy (http://www.voteformyebook.com) are offering a monthly social competition to members of the community – see ‘Monthly’ towards the end of this page.
- Non-fiction: Elephants. You gotta LOVE ‘em! And can you WRITE about them? Let’s find out. We’re looking for FICTION (including but not limited to fantasy and humor) and for Narrative Non-Fiction, between 500 and 5,000 words.Prize for 1st place is $150 and 2nd place is $50. Plus, the top tales may be included in an anthology {ELEPHANTHOLOGY} with your name. See http://www.phylsbooks.com/#!contest/c1kbb. Submissions accepted from 1 April 2013 – midnight of 1 July 2013. Cost $10.
- Non-fiction: Nature Writer of the Year 2013. You could win a place on a research expedition to Madagascar. The judges are looking for a short piece of nature writing (800 words) that describes your experience of the wild. The winning story will also be published in BBC Wildlife magazine, closing date 30 April. Judges: Miriam Darlington, Ben Hoare, Rob Stringer, Kate Humble, Paul Evans. Open to all writers aged 18 and over, whether previously published or not,
http://www.discoverwildlife.com/webform/nature-writer-year-2013-call-entries.
- Novels: Novel Rocket runs an annual Launch Pad Contest: Boosting You Out of the Slush Pile. Entries will be accepted in all genres beginning mid-January. The deadline for submission is different for genre categories according to the following schedule. In each case, entries must be received by 11:59 PM EST on the 10th day of the month (April to September) listed on http://www.novelrocket.com/p/launch-pad-contest.html. They also post a new writing-related article seven days a week, from author interviews to marketing discussions to articles about the craft of writing.
- Playwriting: The 7th King’s Cross Award For New Writing. Up to two full-length plays may be entered per writer, unpublished and unperformed scripts only. £5,000 prize. Closing date 30 April. http://www.thecourtyard.org.uk/content/25/writers-group.
- Poetry: Poetry-Next-The-Sea Open Competition. Judge Heidi Williamson, max 40 lines, £100 first prize, closing date 6 April. http://www.poetry-next-the-sea.com/index.html.
- Poetry: UK’S First Bug Poetry Competition marking Buglife’s tenth year as the only conservation charity in Europe devoted to the conservation of all invertebrates, closing date 8 April.
- Poetry: Buxton Poetry Competition History and Heritage theme, all ages, judge Philip Wells, 40 lines max, closing date 8 April. http://www.derby.ac.uk/buxtonpoetrycompetition.
- Poetry: The Writers’ Forum Poetry Competition is a monthly contest for poems of up to 40 lines. Closing: Monthly. Entries arriving too late for one month go forward to the next. Prizes: 1st – £100. Runners-up – A Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. Entry Fee: £5 each, £3 each thereafter. Includes a free critique (sae required if entering by post). Comp Page: http://www.writers-forum.com/poetrycomp.html.
- Poetry: other poetry competitions include Nonsense Poetry & Flash Fiction (2014), Ver, Writing Magazine (WM: open to all theme: horror), www.poetrypf.co.uk, www.swconline.co.uk.
- Poetry & Short stories: Deddington Writers’ Group Open Writing Competition 2013 Short Story or Poem. Competition information and entry forms available from website end January, 2013 or send SAE to: 7, The Daedings, Deddington, OX15 ORT. 1st prize: £100, 2nd: £50, 3rd: £25, awarded in both categories. Closing date 13 April. See http://www.deddington.org.uk/community/arts/writing or www.deddingtonfestival.org.uk.
- Poetry: The Royal Berkshire Poetry Competition open to all, 40 lines max, 1st prize £200, closing date 14 April. http://www.glowmagazine.me/poetry-competition.
- Poetry: Poetry on the Lake International Poetry Competition has a theme of ‘metal’. Top prizes of €200, judges include Anne-Marie Fyfe, closing date 22 April. See http://www.poetryonthelake.org.
- Poetry: The Winter Poetry Competition has grown out of the exhibition, Ice Dance, which features the photography and poems of Rona Campbell. The exhibition is touring throughout Wales and England in 2013 and the winners of the ‘Winter’ Poetry Competition will be announced during her exhibition at The Greenwich Gallery, London, on Monday May 13th 2013.There are three prizes £100 £65 & £35.We are looking for original poems on the theme of ‘Winter’. The subject is wide ranging and can be tackled through any number of approaches, including landscape, environment, political, personal or any other idea you may have. Poems inspired by Rona’s photographs are also welcome, and these can be found on her website www.ronacampbell.co.uk. The Judges are Aled Lewis Evans and Peter Read. Rules: 1.Writers must be over 18 years old. 2. Poems must be your original work, unpublished and not accepted for publication. 3. Poems must be written in English and not exceed 40 lines. 4. Each poem must be typed, single spaced on one side of A4 paper, which must not bear the name of the author, or any form of identification. 5. The titles of the poem/s and name and address of the poet should be clearly listed on the entry form. 6. The entry fee is £4 per poem, or three poems for £10. 7. Receipt of entry will be acknowledged if a s.a.e. is enclosed with the entry. 8. A list of prize winners will be sent if an envelope marked Prize Winners is enclosed with the entry. 9. Copyright will remain with the author, but the organisers reserve the right to publish any of the winning or recommended poems, up to one year after the end of the competition. 10. The awards will be announced at The Greenwich Gallery, Linear House, Peyton Place, Greenwich, London SE10 8RS, at a special poetry event on May 13th 6.30 – 8.30pm. 11. The judges’ decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into regarding the results. The poems will not be returned. 12. The organisers reserve the right to return poems and entry fees if the need arises. 13. The judges will read all the entries. 14 Closing date: Friday 26th April 2013. Cheques/POs made payable to ‘Winter’ and send the completed poem and application form to ‘Winter’ Poetry Competition, 5 Salisbury Road, Wrexham, LL13 7AS.
- Poetry: Ver Poets Open Competition 2013. Judge Nick Drake, 1st prize £600. 30 lines max, closing date 30 April. See http://verpoets.org.uk/news/competitions.
- Poetry: Ware Poets Open Poetry Competition 2013. Prizes: £600, £250, £100. £100: The Ware Sonnet Prize. Anthology publication for winners and shortlisted poets (£3.50, post free: pre-ordered). Closing date 30 April. Informal prize-giving ceremony at Ware Arts Centre, 5 July 2013. Fee: £4; 4 poems for £12, then £3 per poem (in the same submission). Length: up to 50 lines. Sole judge: Susan Utting. Include contact sheet with usual details. Download flyer from website, or send SAE: The Competition Secretary, Ware Poets Competition, 21 Trinity Road, Ware, Herts. SG12 7DB or email: warepoets_competition@hotmail.co.uk and see http://www.poetrypf.co.uk/images/compware13.pdf.
- Poetry: Southport Writers’ Circle International Poetry Competition 2013 Final Adjudicator: Stephen Beattie. First Prize £150, Second Prize £75, Third Prize £25 A maximum of 40 lines per poem is allowed. Closing date 30 April. See http://www.swconline.co.uk/n1/?cat=5.
- Screenwriting: Canada-based Wildsound run monthly screenwriting competitions.
- Screenwriting: http://www.oscars.org/awards/nicholl/apply.html is a screenwriting competition with a late April deadline.
- Script: Royal Court Theatre’s 100-word plays and ’Ticket to Write’ 2013: competition for stage plays about The Beatles lasting 15 minutes, closing date 5 April. http://www.acedrama.co.uk/index.html
- Scriptwriting: The Nick Darke Award is open to all writers – stage play screenplay or radio play – prize fund £6,000. Closing date 29 April. http://www.falmouth.ac.uk/nickdarkeaward.
- Short stories: Elephants. You gotta LOVE ‘em! And can you WRITE about them? Let’s find out. We’re looking for FICTION (including but not limited to fantasy and humor) and for NARRATIVE NONFICTION, between 500 and 5,000 words.Prize for 1st place is $150 and 2nd place is $50. Plus, the top tales may be included in an anthology {ELEPHANTHOLOGY} with your name. See http://www.phylsbooks.com/#!contest/c1kbb. Submissions accepted from 1 April to 1 July 2013. Cost $10.
- Short stories: William Trevor / Elizabeth Bowen International Short Story Competition 1st prize €3,000, closing date 5 April. http://www.mitchelstownlit.com/index.html.
- Short stories & Poetry: Deddington Writers’ Group Open Writing Competition 2013 Short Story or Poem. Competition information and entry forms available from website end January, 2013 or send SAE to: 7, The Daedings, Deddington, OX15 ORT. 1st prize: £100, 2nd: £50, 3rd: £25, awarded in both categories. Closing date 13 April. See http://www.deddington.org.uk/community/arts/writing or www.deddingtonfestival.org.uk.
- Short stories: The Fowey Festival of Words and Music (formerly the Daphne du Maurier Festival) has announced the launch of the Short Story Competition for 2013. First Prize is £100 and Runner-up £75. Entry is £6.00 and entry form and full details at http://www.foweyfestival.com/the-du-maurier-festival-society-short-story-competition. The closing date is 19th April 2013.
- Short stories: Five Stop Story, Glimmer Train (different category each month), The Moth-Altun Short Story Prize, Nonsense Poetry & Flash Fiction (2014), Nottingham Writing Magazine (WM: open to all theme: horror / subscriber-only theme: food), www.francobritishcouncil.org.uk, www.west-linton.org.uk/content/pentlands-writers-group. Also see Deddington in ‘Poetry…’ above.
- Short stories: Hayley Sherman runs a monthly short story competition for submissions on any subject up to 2,000 words. The winners are published on the website, promoted online and receive a £10 First Writer voucher. All entrants are also considered for publication in The New Short Story Annual at the end of the year. Deadline 25th of the month. Heather Marie Schuldt runs a similar contest, although 500-750 words max., but with the same deadline.
- Short stories: Young Writers’ Competition. The annual Young Writers’ Competition at Jane Austen’s House Museum is entering its fourth year and is now open for entries. Annalie Talent, Education Officer said ‘Next year is the 200th anniversary of publication of Pride and Prejudice and so we have made the theme of the competition First Impressions which was the original title of Jane’s best-loved novel.’ Entries should be short stories of 300-400 words and entrants can interpret the theme in any way they want. Entry is open to all UK school pupils in school years 7-11. There are two categories: years 7 and 8 and years 9, 10 & 11. The competition will be judged by Professor Kathryn Sutherland of St Anne’s College Oxford and the Museum’s previous Writer-in-Residence, Rebecca Smith.
Closing date 26 April. See http://www.jane-austens-house-museum.org.uk for details.
- Short stories: National Express / Little, Brown / Jenny Colgan are running a free to enter short story competition, max 2000 words. “We’re offering you the chance to become a published author. To enter, we would like you to write a short story no more than 2,000 words long with the premise of ‘take us on a journey’. You can use your own creativity to elaborate your journey into a literary masterpiece. The winning short story will be published in the back of Jenny Colgan’s, The Good, The Bad and The Dumped, e-Book edition. Closing date 28 April. More details here.
- Short stories: first Annual Sara Park Memorial Short Story Competition. Theme Journeying, max 2000 words, closing date 30 April. http://www.redsquirrelpress.com/SquirrelCOMP.html.
- Short stories: The 2013 James Plunkett Short Story Award for new and emerging writing talent, open to all writing in English who have not had a short story collection published. 1st prize €2,000, max 3000 words. Next closing date 30 April. See http://www.ireland-writers.com/index.htm.
- Short stories: 2013 Bristol Short Story Prize is open to all writers internationally over 16 years of age. Stories can be on any theme or subject and entry can be made online via the website or by post. Entries must be previously unpublished with a maximum length of 4,000 words (There is no minimum). Entry fee £8 per story. Closing date 30 April. 1st prize £1,000 plus £150 Waterstone’s gift card. 20 shortlisted writers will have their stories published in the Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology. See http://www.bristolprize.co.uk.
- Short stories: The 2013 Bristol Short Story Prize is open to all writers, UK and non-UK based, over 16 years of age. Stories can be on any theme or subject and entry can be made online via the website or by post. Entries must be previously unpublished with a maximum length of 4,000 words (There is no minimum). The entry fee is £8 per story. The closing date for entries is April 30th 2013. Prizes: 1st £1000 plus £150 Waterstones gift card, 2nd £700 plus £100 Waterstones gift card, 3rd £400 plus £100 Waterstones gift card, 17 further prizes of £100 will be presented to the writers whose stories appear on the shortlist. All 20 shortlisted writers will have their stories published in the Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology Volume 6. The winning story will, also, be published in Bristol Review of Books magazine. The 20 shortlisted writers will be invited to an awards ceremony in Bristol in October 2013 when the winners will be announced and the anthology launched. Any shortlisted writers unable to attend the awards ceremony will be sent their prizes. The awards ceremony will be part of the 2013 Bristol Festival of Literature. Judging panel : Ali Reynolds (literary consultant, former Random House editor), Bidisha (writer, broadcaster, critic), Anna Britten (author and journalist), Chris Wakling (novelist, Creative Writing tutor). Full details and rules at www.bristolprize.co.uk.
See this blog’s Competitions page for other competitions (in date / genre order).
EVENTS
- The Writing School Leicester April to August 2013 programme is now available.
- The London Writers’ Workshops latest programme is now available.
- A rare opportunity to get top tips on thriller writing from one of the best in the business is coming to Galloway. On Saturday April 6th, Lin Anderson will be leading a two hour workshop at the Creebridge House Hotel in Newton Stewart from 2pm. Lin is the author of the popular Rhona MacLoud series of crime thrillers which includes Driftnet, Picture Her Dead and Torch. She is the co founder of the Bloody Scotland Book Festival and is currently the chair of the Society of Authors in Scotland. The workshop is being held as part of the Dumfries & Galloway Rural Literature Development Hub and the cost to any writer living within the region is just £5. This price, which includes refreshments, also applies to any writer living outwith the region but who is a member of a Dumfries and Galloway writers’ group. The cost for anyone outside the region is £25. The event has been organised by the Wigtown based Booktown Writers group and spokeswoman Anni Telford said: “We are absolutely thrilled that Lin has agreed to come to Newton Stewart. This is a marvellous opportunity with one of Scotland’s leading crime writers but places are limited.” For further information or to book your place please contact Anni by e-mailing mail@booktownwriters.co.uk or telephone 07501 046501.
- Oxford Novel Courses is running a day-long conference of seminars at St. Hilda’s, Oxford (England) on 13th April entitled ‘Pitch your novel across the Pond and Beyond’. ”Learn from straight-talking agents, canny entrepreneurs and experienced authors amid the historic surroundings of an Oxford college.” (I went to St. Hilda’s for their crime-writing weekend last August, it is a lovely place) See http://www.oxfordauthorcourses.com for details. Cost £120 (discounts for members of professional societies).
- The yearly one-day (Saturday) Get Writing Writers’ Conference run by the Verulam Writers’ Circle, Hertfordshire, England has moved from their usual February schedule to mid-April (20th in 2013). They’re also on Twitter and Facebook.
- The yearly Chipping Norton Literary Festival runs every April (20-21st in 2013). You can also follow the festival news on Twitter.
- Cambridge-based Wordfest Spring Festival also runs every April and in 2013 is 12th-14th.
- THE LONDON BOOK FAIR 2013 runs from 15-17 April 2013, at Earls Court, London. The LBF has announced a partnership with book marketing and publishing consultancy Authoright, in the creation of a revamped AuthorLounge dedicated to unpublished authors at the 2013 fair. The LBF AuthorLounge will present new writers with an eclectic, compelling, cutting-edge, interactive and collaborative programme of events, seminars and networking opportunities designed to educate and inspire and mark the beginning of a new way of thinking about writing and publishing, providing a space in which authors can learn, create, have fun and, most significantly of all, take control. Already confirmed for the seminars are representatives from Faber and Faber, HarperCollins, Foyles, Kindle Direct Publishing, Matador, Andrew Lownie Literary Agency and Penguin. The AuthorLounge will bring together experts from all aspects of the publishing industry from editors, marketers, cover designers and booksellers to share their expertise and insights into the contemporary publishing landscape and, for the first time ever at the London Book Fair, unpublished authors will also be able to meet and network with literary agents. Find out more about The London Book Fair.
- http://www.chez-castillon.com runs a variety of courses by tutors including Jane Wenham-Jones with her ‘Is there a book in you?’ workshop from Saturday 27th April to Friday 3rd May 2013.
- Alt Fiction is a science-fiction, fantasy and horror weekend in Leicester and runs every April, although it’s on hold for 2013.
-
Oadby Library, Leicestershire, England is running a Get Creative Fortnight 13-28 April:
Saturday April 13 - 2pm-3.30pm £3 per child. Aesop’s Fables: the Lion and the Mouse Interactive storytelling from Lovers of Literature (LOL) with puppets and fun animal games for under 7s.
Monday April 15 - 1.30pm-3.30pm pricing to be confirmed. Poetry Workshop with John Gallas Leicester Writing School tutor John Gallas leads a poetry workshop.
Monday April 15 - 4pm-5pm £4. Roald Dahl Dance Workshop. Discover Roald Dahl’s classic books through the use of dance. A fun, enjoyable workshop for 7-10 year olds using props, materials and imagination to create journeys of movement through books such as James and the Giant Peach and The BFG.
Monday April 15 - 7.30pm £8 including refreshments. Author talk: Stephen Booth. The author of the successful Cooper & Fry crime series discusses his books and the creative writing process.
Tuesday April 16 - 5pm-7pm pricing to be confirmed. Short Story Workshop with Alison Dunn. Leicester Writing School tutor Alison Dunn leads a workshop focussing on the art of writing the short story.
Wednesday April 17 - 2.30pm-3.30pm £4 per child. Explorers Dance Workshop. A dance workshop for 3-5 year old exploring classic children’s literature such as The Gruffalo, through movement and imagination.
Wednesday April 17 - 6.30pm £8 including refreshments. Author talk : Lynda Page. The Leicestershire based saga author discusses her books and the creative writing process.
Thursday April 18 - 6.30pm £3.50 including refreshments. Author talk : Malcolm Noble. Local author talks about his series of ten crime novels and discusses the creative writing process.
Sunday April 21 - 10am-11.30am £4. Storytelling Workshop. What is a story and what does it mean to tell a story? This workshop looks at the connection between theatre and story and how the power of stories influences issues and facts into people and lives.
Monday April 22 - 2pm-3.30pm £4 including refreshments. Secret Leicestershire. Local history author Stephen Butt discusses the hidden historical gems that can be found in your area.
Monday April 22 - 4pm-6pm £5 per child. Under 12s Poetry Workshop. Using games and activities to explore different styles of poetry and techniques to create a poem.
Monday April 22 - 7.30pm £8 including refreshments. Agent & Authors Q&A Session. Children’s books literary agent Penny Luithlen talks about the do’s and don’ts for submissions, and authors Bali Rai and Dan Tunstall share their experiences of getting published.
Tuesday April 23 - 2pm-4pm £10 including materials. Book Making Workshop. Elizabeth Dyer leads a book making workshop. She specialises in handmade and altered books, ranging from simple folded paper books to more complicated book binding and book sculpture. For age 12 and upwards.
Tuesday April 23 - 7.30pm £8 including refreshments. Author talk : Alison Moore. Booker Prize shortlisted author of The Lighthouse discusses the craft of short story writing and reads from her new short story collection The Pre-War House and Other Stories, which will be available to buy ahead of publication.
Wednesday April 24 - 11am-12pm £4 including refreshments. Author talk : Margaret Kaine
Local award-winning author of romantic historical fiction discusses her novels and the creative writing process.
Thursday April 25 - 2pm-3.30pm £2.50 including refreshments. Self Publishing – The Opportunities and Pitfalls This session looks at the range of self-publishing options open to authors, how these choices can affect their chances of success, and some of the common pitfalls authors often meet.
Friday April 26 - 7pm £5 including refreshments. Author talk : Anne Zouroudi The popular author of The Greek Detective crime series of books discusses her work and the creative writing process.
Sunday April 28 - 2pm-3pm £4 per child. Bali Rai Workshop for Kids Local childrens author Bali Rai leads a workshop aimed at stimulating children creatively.
Also, we are open for submissions for the Get Creative Prize 2013, a creative writing competition. Write a short story or the opening of a novel aimed at children or young people. There are three categories:
Under 12s £2 per story (maximum 500 words)
Teenagers £3 per story (maximum 1,000 words)
Adults £5 (maximum 2,000 words)
Prizes include a £50 Leicester Writing School voucher and a critique from children’s books literary agent Penny Luithlen.
You can call in to Oadby Library at 10 The Parade, Oadby, Leicestershire to pick up tickets or call 0116 305 8763 to reserve your place at one of our events. Please note that tickets must be paid for and collected prior to the event. We have many other arts and crafts events, including jewellery making, calligraphy, streetdance workshops, the Utterly Butterly Ukulele Project and BBC Radio Leicester’s Down to Earth gardening programme broadcasting live from the library. There is something for everyone! Click
here for Oadby Library opening times and directions.
- Creative Coffee Club is where creative people meet fortnightly on a Wednesday at Screen Lounge at Phoenix Square Digital Media Centre, 4 Midland Street, Leicester LE1 1TJ (UK).
- Liars’ League run a series of short fiction readings held at ‘The Lamb’ pub in Lambs Conduit Street, London on the second Tuesday of every month.
- Loose Muse runs on the second Wednesday of every month. at the Poetry Cafe, 22 Betterton Street, London WC2 (closest tube = Covent Garden). This is London’s only regular event for women writers of all genres, with a generous open mike sharing session plus two featured writers each month. The night starts at 8.00 p.m. Cost: £5.00 / £3.00 concessions.
- Towcester Writers’ Group meets every third Wednesday of the month. 7.30-9.30pm. Cost £3 includes refreshments. Towcester Library, Richmond Road, Towcester, Northants NN12 6EX.
- Buxton’s Word Wizards slam poetry competition runs in the coffee lounge at the Buckingham Hotel, Buxton, Derbyshire, UK at 7:30pm on the last Tuesday of every month. Entry is £2.50. More info can be obtained by e-mailing Rob at: poetryslamUK@aol.com.
- BookSlam reports to being “London’s best literary club night” and usually (but not always) takes place on the last Thursday of the month.
- http://www.artsderbyshire.org.uk has various literary events throughout the year.
- Other events in April include: www.cheltenhampoetryfest.co.uk (late March / early April), www.sundaytimes-oxfordliteraryfestival.co.uk (early April), www.birminghambookfestival.org (early April), www.galwayartscentre.ie/cuirt.htm (mid April), www.scarboroughliteraturefestival.co.uk (mid April), www.stratfordliteraryfestival.co.uk (late April / early May), www.wenlockpoetryfestival.org (late April / early May), www.hexhambookfestival.co.uk (late April – mid May), www.shrewsburybookfest.co.uk (late April – mid May)
See this blog’s
Events page for other events (in date order).
***
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, fiction competition, five senses, flash fiction, Goodreads, grammar skills, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku poem, head judge, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, pinterest, poetry, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry slams, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, travel memoir, travel writer, Twitter, vampire, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Complementing the full interviews on this blog, which will be dropping to weekend mornings from mid-March, another new interview on my interview-only blog has been posted! The (650+) interviews from this blog are there already so there’s plenty to read.
The latest interview on the new blog is with memoirist Jill Schaefer and can be read in full at http://morgensauthorinterviews.wordpress.com/2013/03/27/author-interview-with-memoirist-jill-schaefer.
***
If you are reading this and you write, in whatever genre, and are thinking “ooh, I’d like to do this” then you can… just email me and I’ll send you the information. They do now (January 2013) carry a fee (£10 / €12.50 / $15) for the new interviews on this blog but everything else (see Opportunities on this blog) is free.
Alternatively, if you’d like a free Q&A-only interview, I now have http://morgensauthorinterviews.wordpress.com on which I’ve rerun the original interviews posted here then posted new interviews which I then reblog here. These interviews are Q&A only, so I don’t add in my comments but they do get exposure on both sites.
If you go for the interview, it’s very simple; I send you a questionnaire (I have them for novelists, short story authors, children’s authors, non-fiction authors, and poets). You complete the questions, and I let you know when it’s going to go live. Before it does so, I add in comments as if we’re chatting, and then they get posted. When that’s done, I email you with the link so you can share it with your corner of the literary world. And if you have a writing-related blog / podcast and would like to interview me… let me know.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, Goodreads, grammar skills, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku poem, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Jill Schaefer, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, pinterest, poetry, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry slams, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, travel memoir, travel writer, Twitter, vampire, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Welcome to the six hundred and seventy-eighth my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, scriptwriters, biographers, agents, publishers and more. Today’s is with multi-genre author Nigel Hey. A list of interviewees (blogged and scheduled) can be found here. If you like what you read, please do go and investigate further.
Morgen: Hello, Nigel. Please tell us something about yourself, where you’re based, and how you came to be a writer.
Nigel: Somewhere I have a copy of a story I wrote in my home town of Morecambe when I was 9 but I was 11 before I was paid for anything, with the frisson of having the cheque come from the BBC. My mother had always encouraged me to be a writer, but the money convinced me.
Morgen: What a great way to start and I’m liking your mother. 
And then…?
Nigel: We moved to the States. I doubled as a part-time printer’s devil, reporter, and proof-reader for a small weekly newspaper at 14, wrote children’s columns for three weeklies at 16, then got my degree in journalism at the University of Utah (!) and immediately escaped to fulltime newspaper jobs in Bermuda and England. Eventually I became based in New Mexico, working as a science writer for a very large and creative organisation (10,000 employees), Sandia National Laboratories. I retired from there and became a media consultant / writer. Wonderment is my sixth book. I live nine months a year in New Mexico and three months in England, and if taxes permit I wouldn’t mind switching that ratio.
Morgen: I don’t know about New Mexico’s taxes but I’m guessing the weather’s better too (although England’s not as wet as most movies make out to be). Starting with your non-fiction, how do you decide what to write about?
Nigel: Working at Sandia, I was primed to write about science and technology, so my first three books were young-adult (secondary school) books about science – astronomy and agronomy. The second three, all published in the past ten years, are about the solar system, Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defence Initiative (“Star Wars”), and my autobiography.
Morgen: A great variety. What have you had published to-date? And have you ever used a pen name?
Nigel: Wonderment (Matador 2012): A globetrotting writer’s adventurous life story, interleaving career, domestic life, and departures from the expected. Meantime his philosophy evolves from a child’s fears to a mature, optimistic picture for the future of humankind. (ISBN13: 9781780882864)
The Star Wars Enigma (Potomac Books, ̣̣̣2006): The “inside” political and scientific story of the 1980s Strategic Defense Initiative, derived largely from interviews with leading players in the United States, Russia (USSR), and Britain. (ISBN13: 9781574889819)
Solar System (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2002) The richly illustrated story of planetary exploration, with emphasis on the engineering marvels accomplished during unmanned space flights. Author has recovered publication rights. (ISBN13: 9780304359943)
Earlier YA science books: How We Will Explore the Outer Planets (Putnam, ISBN13: 9780399607639), The Mysterious Sun (Putnam, SBN13: 9780399604829), How Will We Feed the Hungry Billions? (Messner, ISBN13: 9780671324667)
I have used a pen-name, but not since I edited the Bermuda News Pictorial, when I wanted to make people think I had a staff.
Morgen: So you’ve gone the traditional and self-published route, what led to you going your own way?
Nigel: I am realistic that autobiographies of the un-famous are not overly popular (I’m not Brad Pitt) and it would be difficult to get noticed by the few big publishers that remain in an industry that is economically harassed. In my case self-publishing seemed realistic, though expensive. In the past publishers have paid me (ungenerously) for my writing. Marketing is certainly more arduous than writing, my traditional publishers weren’t much more help in that department than my self-publisher.
Morgen: “economically harassed” what a wonderful phrase. Are your books available as eBooks?
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, climate, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, current-events, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, Goodreads, grammar skills, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku poem, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, Nigel Hey, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, pinterest, poetry, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry slams, politics, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, travel memoir, travel writer, Twitter, vampire, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Welcome to the six hundred and seventy-first of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. Today’s is with autobiographer Robert Lewis. A list of interviewees (blogged and scheduled) can be found here. If you like what you read, please do go and investigate further.
Morgen: Hello, Robert. Please tell us something about yourself, where you’re based, and how you came to be a writer.
Robert: I’m based just outside of Los Angeles in Southern California, USA. Upon assignment to my first Special Forces team, I was told by a teammate to “start a journal, as my life was about to get very interesting.” I heeded his advice, and after I left the Army and married my wife I had so many people telling me that I had to get my story out there that I finally decided to put pen to paper.
Morgen: I think the same thing happens with policemen (I met two former detectives at a crime writing weekend who are now crime novelists). Presumably you have so much content to choose from, how do you decide what to write about?
Robert: This first book, “Love Me When I’m Gone” is the story of my time in Special Forces, fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa, all the while trying to keep my love alive with my then girlfriend, now wife and mother of our children, actress Cindy Chiu. I have a dozen fiction books outlined to follow this one, but had to get our true story out there first!
Morgen: You’ll have to come back for an author spotlight when your fiction comes out. You’ve self-published, what lead to you going your own way?
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, Goodreads, grammar skills, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku poem, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, pinterest, poetry, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry slams, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming poetry, Robert Lewis, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, travel memoir, travel writer, Twitter, vampire, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Complementing the full interviews on this blog, which will be dropping to weekend mornings from mid-March, another new interview on my interview-only blog has been posted! The (640+) interviews from this blog are there already so there’s plenty to read.
The latest interview on the new blog is with multi-genre author Toinette Thomas and can be read in full at http://morgensauthorinterviews.wordpress.com/2013/03/12/author-interview-with-multi-genre-writer-toinette-thomas.
***
If you are reading this and you write, in whatever genre, and are thinking “ooh, I’d like to do this” then you can… just email me and I’ll send you the information. They do now (January 2013) carry a fee (£10 / €12.50 / $15) for the new interviews on this blog but everything else (see Opportunities on this blog) is free.
Alternatively, if you’d like a free Q&A-only interview, I now have http://morgensauthorinterviews.wordpress.com on which I’ve rerun the original interviews posted here then posted new interviews which I then reblog here. These interviews are Q&A only, so I don’t add in my comments but they do get exposure on both sites.
If you go for the interview, it’s very simple; I send you a questionnaire (I have them for novelists, short story authors, children’s authors, non-fiction authors, and poets). You complete the questions, and I let you know when it’s going to go live. Before it does so, I add in comments as if we’re chatting, and then they get posted. When that’s done, I email you with the link so you can share it with your corner of the literary world. And if you have a writing-related blog / podcast and would like to interview me… let me know.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, Goodreads, grammar skills, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, pinterest, poetry, poetry collections, poetry slams, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, Toinette Thomas, travel memoir, travel writer, Twitter, vampire, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Welcome to the six hundred and sixty-ninth my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, scriptwriters, biographers, agents, publishers and more. Today’s is with non-fiction author and novelist Mary Hamer. A list of interviewees (blogged and scheduled) can be found here. If you like what you read, please do go and investigate further.
Morgen: Hello, Mary. Please tell us something about yourself, where you’re based, and how you came to be a writer.
Mary: I live in London, near Tower Bridge, though I spent thirty years in Cambridge, working as an academic. But what really got me into writing, at six years old, was getting a fountain pen for Christmas. I thought the word ‘fainted’ in The Wind in the Willows was so exciting that I underlined it—I’ve still got the copy, backless now, on my shelves!
Morgen: What a wonderful story, pardon the pun, and that you’ve still got the book. One of the few books I remember from my childhood is Russell Hoban’s ‘The Mouse and His Child’ which sadly I only have a later edition of. What genre do you generally write and have you considered other genres?
Mary: My first four books weren’t fiction at all: it’s only with Kipling & Trix that I’ve dared to try a novel. I started by writing non-fiction, as an academic.
Morgen: “dared to try a novel” I love that! I started (eight years ago) writing short stories and saw writing a novel as a year-long project but then discovered NaNoWriMo and a month seemed feasible for half a first draft. Five NaNos later, I’ll be doing my first Camp NaNoWriMo next month. You mentioned four books before your novel, what have you had published to-date? Do you write under a pseudonym?
Mary: Well, as a university teacher, I published a stack of articles about literature but my books are ‘Writing by Numbers: Trollope’s Serial Fiction’, ‘Signs of Cleopatra: History, Politics, Representation’, ‘Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar’, and ‘Incest: a new perspective’. I know they sound like a very odd assortment but in fact one led to another. I write under the name from my first marriage, which I kept because it was my children’s name.
Morgen: I’m all for odd assortments; the most enjoyable stories to read and write are quirky. Are your books available as eBooks? How involved were you in that process? Do you read eBooks or is it paper all the way?
Mary: I believe my novel Kipling & Trix is coming out as an ebook. I’ve just had a Kindle for Christmas: it’s quite fun and often convenient but I do prefer the feel of a real book in my hand.
Morgen: I’d say 95% of the authors I’ve interviewed feel the same. I love both formats, probably equally, especially if it means not needing to damage a book’s spine. Which authors did you read when you were younger and did they shape you as a writer?
Mary: Trollope—who wrote 47 novels, by the way, was a big influence. I loved the quiet way he prompted you to use your judgement in order to understand the behaviour of his characters. Woolf thrilled me by her bold determination to follow the processes of experience. But my reading was absolutely governed by greed and opportunism, which s a good thing, I think, in a young person.
Morgen: Ah yes. I spotted your name as editor on his Castle Richmond book (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Castle-Richmond-Classics-Anthony-Trollope/dp/0192821733). Did you choose the titles / covers of your books?
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, AuroraMetro, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, Goodreads, grammar skills, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, Mary Hamer, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, pinterest, poetry, poetry collections, poetry slams, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, travel memoir, travel writer, Twitter, vampire, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Complementing the full interviews on this blog, which will be dropping to weekend mornings from mid-March, another new interview on my interview-only blog has been posted! The (650+) interviews from this blog are there already so there’s plenty to read.
The latest interview on the new blog is with non-fiction author and songwriter Tom Kidd and can be read in full at http://morgensauthorinterviews.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/author-interview-with-journalist-non-fiction-and-songwriter-tom-kidd.
***
If you are reading this and you write, in whatever genre, and are thinking “ooh, I’d like to do this” then you can… just email me and I’ll send you the information. They do now (January 2013) carry a fee (£10 / €12.50 / $15) for the new interviews on this blog but everything else (see Opportunities on this blog) is free.
Alternatively, if you’d like a free Q&A-only interview, I now have http://morgensauthorinterviews.wordpress.com on which I’ve rerun the original interviews posted here then posted new interviews which I then reblog here. These interviews are Q&A only, so I don’t add in my comments but they do get exposure on both sites.
If you go for the interview, it’s very simple; I send you a questionnaire (I have them for novelists, short story authors, children’s authors, non-fiction authors, and poets). You complete the questions, and I let you know when it’s going to go live. Before it does so, I add in comments as if we’re chatting, and then they get posted. When that’s done, I email you with the link so you can share it with your corner of the literary world. And if you have a writing-related blog / podcast and would like to interview me… let me know.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, Darrell Williams, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, Goodreads, grammar skills, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, James Darrell Williams, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, pinterest, poetry, poetry collections, poetry slams, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, Tom Kidd, travel memoir, travel writer, Twitter, vampire, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Complementing the full interviews on this blog, which will be dropping to weekend mornings from mid-March, another new interview on my interview-only blog has been posted! The (640+) interviews from this blog are there already so there’s plenty to read.
The latest interview on the new blog is with multi-genre author Linda Osmundson and can be read in full at http://morgensauthorinterviews.wordpress.com/2013/03/03/author-interview-with-multi-genre-writer-linda-osmundson.
***
If you are reading this and you write, in whatever genre, and are thinking “ooh, I’d like to do this” then you can… just email me and I’ll send you the information. They do now (January 2013) carry a fee (£10 / €12.50 / $15) for the new interviews on this blog but everything else (see Opportunities on this blog) is free.
Alternatively, if you’d like a free Q&A-only interview, I now have http://morgensauthorinterviews.wordpress.com on which I’ve rerun the original interviews posted here then posted new interviews which I then reblog here. These interviews are Q&A only, so I don’t add in my comments but they do get exposure on both sites.
If you go for the interview, it’s very simple; I send you a questionnaire (I have them for novelists, short story authors, children’s authors, non-fiction authors, and poets). You complete the questions, and I let you know when it’s going to go live. Before it does so, I add in comments as if we’re chatting, and then they get posted. When that’s done, I email you with the link so you can share it with your corner of the literary world. And if you have a writing-related blog / podcast and would like to interview me… let me know.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, Goodreads, grammar skills, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Kobo, Linda Osmundson, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, pinterest, poetry, poetry collections, poetry slams, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, travel memoir, travel writer, Twitter, vampire, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Welcome to the newest slot on my blog, the Sunday night Novel Nights In where I bring you guests’ novels in their entirety over a maximum of ten weeks. Tonight’s is the ninth, and final, instalment of the first novel in this series and features the conclusion of a novel by literary author, poet and interviewee Rose Mary Boehm.
For shorter pieces I would run the story then talk more about it afterwards but because this is a longer post (8,630 words), here is an introduction to Rose then the seventh part of her novel…
A German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm now lives and works in Lima, Peru. Two novels (‘Coming Up For Air’ and the follow-up ‘The Telling’) have been published in the UK, as well as a poetry collection (‘Tangents’). Her latest poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in US poetry reviews. Among others: Toe Good Poetry, Poetry Breakfast, Burning Word, Muddy River Review, Pale Horse Review, Pirene’s Fountain, Other Rooms, Requiem Magazine, Full of Crow, Poetry Quarterly, Punchnel’s, Verse Wisconsin, Naugatuck Poetry Review (contest semi-finalist), Avatar…
Her poem ‘Miss Worthington’ won third price in the coveted Margaret Reid Poetry Contest: http://winningwriters.com/contests/margaret/2009/ma09_epaminondas.php
You can find out more about Rose and her writing at her blog: http://houseboathouse.blogspot.com, and you can also read one of Rose’s short stories on http://shortstorywritinggroup.wordpress.com/2013/01/12/short-story-for-critique-003-mrs-boffa-by-rose-mary-boehm.
Coming Up For Air
A young girl’s struggle to take control of her life – click to read Book I: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. Book 2: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. Book 3: Part 1 and Part 2. If you don’t want to wait the 10 weeks for the whole story, you can purchase Coming Up for Air at Amazon.com (just $2.95) Amazon.co.uk (only £1.87). The rest of the ‘adventures of Annie’ can be read in THE TELLING.
***
Book III: Spitting against the Wind (conclusion)
50
June was gently warm and mostly sunny. Auntie Eeva took me on that promised trip. I was enchanted by everything I saw and, for the first time in my life, stayed in hotels and felt suitably grand. The hotel in Tampere gave onto the main street. After having returned to our room, tired from sightseeing and feeding hundreds of little red squirrels in Tampere park, we noticed a commotion in the street. People – not many – were beginning to converge on the pavements just below our window, most with little red flags in their hands, moving them from time to time without much enthusiasm. I had of course no idea what this was about, and Auntie Eeva hadn’t read the papers either since we left Helsinki. We opened the window to see better, when the voices became more excited, the flags a little more animated, faces turned all in one direction and the first black limousine came slowly into view. Low and behold, there were Bulganin and Khrushchev together with an extensive protective entourage in their huge, black limos during one leg of their much announced visit to Finland. “Pathetic”, mumbled Auntie Eeva. I looked at her hoping for an explanation which promptly came: “Pathetic. Did you see the ‘masses of workers’ receiving them? As I told you, there is no love lost between the Russians and the Finns. Some tired red flags in the fists of some workers they probably paid to be here this afternoon, by tomorrow, cleverly photographed, will make the few seem many, grace the front pages of the international press, telling us that the visit has been a total success and that the ‘Finnish workers received the guests from Russia with great affection’. Pathetic!”
*
Before we leave to spend the summer on my cousin’s island, it’s Sibelius Week in Helsinki (a yearly event) and Cousin Magnus indeed asks me to join him and his family at Helsinki’s Messhallen to enjoy one of the concerts. The programme Magnus gives me is in Swedish, but it’s easy to understand that the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra from Amsterdam under Edward van Beinum will be playing Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’s fourth, Claude Debussy’s ‘La Mer’ and Sibelius’ Fifth Symphony. Just before the concert is to start, an older, tall, distinguished man with glasses takes his seat not far from where we sit, and Magnus whispers with some awe, “Kekkonen, our president.” As a hush falls over the audience, the first bars from Mendelssohn’s ‘Italian’ symphony fill the hall. At the end of the concert the audience gives Edward van Beinum a standing ovation who, after a decent interval of seeming hesitation, indicates that they’ll ‘give in’. We all sit down again expectantly. The encore is Sibelius’ tone poem ‘Finlandia’. Never before has it moved me so much, and I look around discreetly to see tears not only in Magnus’ eyes. Next to me sits an elderly American tourist who, having slept throughout the concert, is trying to figure out what’s going on.
We finally get ready to leave during the last week of June. Father had told me about his stay on the island and how he had enjoyed the summer with his cousins (my uncles) and their friends, when my cousin Helvi was just a little girl. Auntie Eeva and I pack (“don’t forget to take some warm clothes and a cardigan for the evenings…”) for a couple of months of summer. On the bus to Tammissaari, where Helvi will pick us up, Auntie Eeva tells me about her Tammissaari island summer house. They built it just for ‘Mummy’, and every year she spends around three months with Helvi, Helvi’s husband and the grandchildren, being fussed over and having absolutely nothing to do but walk, sit on her terrace and read, go to the sauna. “Oh,” she shuts her eyes, “this bus takes forever. I can’t wait!”
She tells me that I’ll be staying in the ‘sauna flat’ and that the boathouse is always reserved for an old friend of the family, Armas Vuoristo, who joins them every year for at least one month if not two – July and / or August. “You’ll like him. He’s quite a character.”
*
Helvi was a tall woman with short curly hair, still brown but greying everywhere, clearly not cut to be fashionable but to be efficient and no bother. Her kind brown eyes were big and round and easily took on an astonished expression as though constantly surprised by what she saw and heard around her. She had a full mouth that was quick to smile. Her strong hands were those of a woman who uses them to make, to do. She wore mostly dresses, the simple, no-fuss kind, and sometimes, when we were working in the fields or making hey, old baggy trousers, held up by braces, into which she carelessly stuffed one of Seppo’s shirts.
I soon became (and delightedly so) part of that especially gorgeous summer’s island life. What once had been a ‘gentleman’s farm’ had been transformed into a working farm by Helvi’s husband Seppo, who was somewhat shorter than Helvi, balding and grey, always in overalls and walking with a pronounced limp which didn’t seem to bother him much. I was fascinated by two rather big tufts of grey hair growing from his nostrils and the fact that he’d only shave on Saturdays.
The big farmhouse, the typical Finnish dark red offset with white, was the place where everyone tended to congregate for breakfast. Lunch and supper were simple affairs for most of us, but Helvi would take special care of Auntie Eeva and often send one of her boys with a tray to ‘Mummy’s little house’. Well, ‘little’ was not exactly a word I’d have used for a beautiful wooden house of perhaps 100 square metres, a good-size terrace and an old-fashioned flower garden, surrounded by a mix of pine trees and birches where I would often eat with her to keep her company.
The first time Auntie Eeva and I had lunch together on the island, she grinned and poked me with her elbow: “A long way from two useless women who can’t cook…”
Very soon after my arrival in Helsinki I had admitted to my aunt that I couldn’t cook either, and we had decided to learn together, reading cookery books and trying out recipes. We had encountered some problems when we’d tried to clean a chicken and quarter it with the help of a pair of rose clippers; on another occasion we wondered how best to prepare small herrings I had bought from one of the little boats anchored in the market place (take out the innards, get rid of the scales, yuk!); and once we tried to bake a cake – another dismal failure. But both of us got slowly better at it as the weeks passed, and we’d had a lot of fun. In the kitchen we cemented our unlikely friendship. Auntie Eeva was always ready to laugh at herself and generally see the funny side of things, and I found that in me the ‘laughter strings’ resonated and my natural silly sense of humour, up to now a bit starved, was allowed to blossom.
It was as though I was growing ‘into myself’, as if, up to now, I had not known how to match myself to myself. And deep, deep inside I timidly began to believe that perhaps I could be attractive and loveable.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: agent, Amazon, author, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, books, characters, children’s, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, Facebook, fantasy, feedback, fiction, fiction author, flash fiction, Goodreads, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, historical, horror novel, interview, interviewees, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, pinterest, poetry, poetry collections, pseudonyms, publisher, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, romance, Rose Marie Boehm, Rosmarie Epaminondas-Boehm, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, Twitter, vampire, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Welcome to the six hundred and fifty-fourth of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. Today’s is with memoirist and children’s author Ellen Schecter. A list of interviewees (blogged and scheduled) can be found here. If you like what you read, please do go and investigate further.
Morgen: Hello, Ellen. Please tell us something about yourself, where you’re based, and how you came to be a writer.
Ellen: Hello, Morgen, pleased to meet you. I’m a widely published author in print and on the web. I live in New York City and write every day—looking out over the every-changing Hudson River in New York City. I commute from bedroom to living room, keeping office hours, about 10 to 5 every weekday.
I’ve been writing since kindergarten, when my first story was published, and that did it: it’s in my blood. I get hives if I don’t write. The sign above my computer says, “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.”
Morgen: “commute from bedroom to living room” I love it! You write non-fiction, how do you decide what to write about?
Ellen: So many things fascinate me, and I write about what fascinates me most: Many of my children’s books were inspired by my children and their classmates, who once said: “Why aren’t there any African-American queens and princesses?” So I wrote about the Queen of Sheba. But I also write fiction: many of my children’s books are fiction. I’m particularly interested in re-telling stories from other cultures, which introduce strong girls—which is important for both girls and boys to read. My latest book, Fierce Joy, a memoir, is non-fiction. That’s the one I’d like to talk about most.
Morgen: We’ll have to chat again about your children’s books. What have you had published to-date? Do you write under a pseudonym?
Ellen: I’ve published over twenty children’s books, and only two were written under a pseudonym. I wrote them with my friend, Doris Orgel—a wonderful writer—and the publisher said they had too many books from us, so we created a fictitious name to please them. I don’t want to tell you, because I don’t want to blow our cover.
Morgen: Your secret is safe with me. Are your books available as eBooks? Do you read eBooks or is it paper all the way?
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, Ellen Schechter, Ellen Schecter, erotic romance, erotica, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, flash fiction, Goodreads, grammar skills, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, pinterest, poetry, poetry collections, poetry slams, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, travel memoir, travel writer, Twitter, vampire, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Complementing the full interviews on this blog, which will be dropping to weekend mornings from mid-March, another new interview on my interview-only blog has been posted! The (640+) interviews from this blog are there already so there’s plenty to read.
The latest interview on the new blog is with memoirist and travel writer Jill Dobbe and can be read in full at http://morgensauthorinterviews.wordpress.com/2013/02/24/author-interview-with-memoirist-and-travel-writer-jill-dobbe.
***
If you are reading this and you write, in whatever genre, and are thinking “ooh, I’d like to do this” then you can… just email me and I’ll send you the information. They do now (January 2013) carry a fee (£10 / €12.50 / $15) for the new interviews on this blog but everything else (see Opportunities on this blog) is free.
Alternatively, if you’d like a free Q&A-only interview, I now have http://morgensauthorinterviews.wordpress.com on which I’ve rerun the original interviews posted here then posted new interviews which I then reblog here. These interviews are Q&A only, so I don’t add in my comments but they do get exposure on both sites.
If you go for the interview, it’s very simple; I send you a questionnaire (I have them for novelists, short story authors, children’s authors, non-fiction authors, and poets). You complete the questions, and I let you know when it’s going to go live. Before it does so, I add in comments as if we’re chatting, and then they get posted. When that’s done, I email you with the link so you can share it with your corner of the literary world. And if you have a writing-related blog / podcast and would like to interview me… let me know.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, flash fiction, Goodreads, grammar skills, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Jill Dobbe, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, pinterest, poetry, poetry collections, poetry slams, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, Twitter, vampire, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Welcome to the newest slot on my blog, the Sunday night Novel Nights In where I bring you guests’ novels in their entirety over a maximum of ten weeks. Tonight’s is the eighth, and penultimate, instalment of the first novel in this series and features the second section of Book 3 (of three) of a novel by literary author, poet and interviewee Rose Mary Boehm.
For shorter pieces I would run the story then talk more about it afterwards but because this is a longer post (10,276 words), here is an introduction to Rose then the seventh part of her novel…
A German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm now lives and works in Lima, Peru. Two novels (‘Coming Up For Air’ and the follow-up ‘The Telling’) have been published in the UK, as well as a poetry collection (‘Tangents’). Her latest poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in US poetry reviews. Among others: Toe Good Poetry, Poetry Breakfast, Burning Word, Muddy River Review, Pale Horse Review, Pirene’s Fountain, Other Rooms, Requiem Magazine, Full of Crow, Poetry Quarterly, Punchnel’s, Verse Wisconsin, Naugatuck Poetry Review (contest semi-finalist), Avatar…
Her poem ‘Miss Worthington’ won third price in the coveted Margaret Reid Poetry Contest: http://winningwriters.com/contests/margaret/2009/ma09_epaminondas.php
You can find out more about Rose and her writing at her blog: http://houseboathouse.blogspot.com, and you can also read one of Rose’s short stories on http://shortstorywritinggroup.wordpress.com/2013/01/12/short-story-for-critique-003-mrs-boffa-by-rose-mary-boehm.
Coming Up For Air
A young girl’s struggle to take control of her life – click to read Book I: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. Book 2: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. Book 3: Part 1. If you don’t want to wait the 10 weeks for the whole story, you can purchase Coming Up for Air at Amazon.com (just $2.95) Amazon.co.uk (only £1.87). The rest of the ‘adventures of Annie’ can be read in THE TELLING.
***
Book III: Spitting against the Wind (part 2)
47
“You slut!” my mother spits from where she stands, under the lamppost right by the front door of Udo’s building. My heart misses a beat, my stomach tightens into the familiar knot, and my first thought is ‘Thank God that Udo didn’t come down with me’.
Her face is drawn, angry, almost defeated. “You slut!” she repeats when she pulls me by my arm and then pushes me in the direction of the tram stop. “What did he pay you? That dirty old fornicator. Did you know he’s married? He has a reputation in town. Go on, walk!” She suddenly lets go of me and almost runs ahead, not even turning back. I follow her. What else can I do? Right now I feel neither very joyous, clever nor particularly grown up or even surprised. In my letter to Ruth I had seen it coming, hadn’t I? Mother’s rigid back speaks of fury, bitterness, hurt, and something I dare not recognise so that I won’t give in to loving her: sadness and vulnerability.
*
I deliberately remember all those times Mother has killed my happiness, cut my wings, sat in the kitchen waiting, bitter, resentful, putting down my friends, insinuating that I was guilty of the most terrible crimes, calling me names, physically pulling me out of harmless parties, sniffing me to detect what … cigarettes, alcohol and perhaps sex, too. No, I am not going to love her, especially after what she did today.
When we get home, Father is waiting in his study. Before joining him I go to my room, leave my coat and bag on a chair, then I walk into the study and sit down. Strange that now I don’t feel angry or even afraid but rather a little sad and forlorn. It’s no longer the same as it would have been only yesterday. Today I am no longer his little girl, today I am a confident young women and beginning to suspect who I may be one day.
Mother stands in the doorway, having put on her suffering face. “She’s all yours, Father. I picked her up from a man’s apartment. I don’t know what to do any longer. Your daughter is a slut.”
Father looks at his wife, then at me, then into a space only he can see. I take the initiative: “Father, we can’t go on like this. I am on my way to being 19 years old. Well, whatever. I am a woman, no longer your little girl. I love you, but you have had your lives. I have to grow into mine. I really don’t know how you two have managed, neither do I want to know. But tell your wife to stay out of my hair from now on. Just because I have to live at home doesn’t give her – or you – the right to treat me like a five-year old. Perhaps you mean well, but you’re screwing up. What I do may not be what you would do, but you aren’t me.
“Father, the best thing for everyone is that I move out and on. That I get as far away as possible from both of you. That will give you peace and allows me a breathing space. I need your permission, I know that legally I am not yet ‘grown up’. But you can see that that’s the best solution, can’t you?” I run out of breath and all of a sudden feel empty.
I can’t read my father’s expression. Could he be holding back tears? Mother has come into the study and is sitting on the sofa, her elbows on the table, face in her hands. My father clears his throat and says with an effort: “Perhaps this would be the best solution. Your mother has suffered enough. I’ll think about it.” I feel dismissed and go to my room, closing the door behind me. My legs won’t quite carry me. I kick of my new shoes and sit down. Will they let me go? And if they do, what will I do?
*
Udo and I no longer saw each other. We had some clandestine meetings, mostly in restaurants, bars or coffee shops, which left us feeling miserable and frustrated. I had made a discovery and wanted to repeat the experience. Still, very soon, to my surprise, I began to enjoy the fact that our relationship no longer included much time spent together (even Udo understood that he couldn’t go back to besieging me at the Austerlitz studios) and we both knew that surreptitious, hush-hush lovemaking was an impossibility. His attentions, though, now intense and full of unspoken need, were exactly what made my heart beat faster. To be wanted, longed for, without having to give, seemed enough right now and, cowardly, I used Mother as the perfect excuse.
Ruthie, my dearest friend, you haven’t written. Whine, whine. I suppose you, too, are busy investigating life. In your last letter you said you didn’t want to write too explicitly because you thought my mother would read your letters as she always read everything else, even my diary… don’t worry. She doesn’t open letters any more before she gives them to me. We had a big row about that! And when I’ve read your letters I burn them on the terrace. Once – with her sense of smell she should have been born a Doberman Pincher – she must have detected an atom of smoke, opened the kitchen window, leaned out and called over to me where I was doing my ‘Ruthie-ritual’ on the veranda and wanted to know what I was up to. So I told her I was burning my love letters on a regular basis. She was not amused.
Strangest thing happened: I had an orgasm the other day. Don’t laugh. I’ve never known what it would be like. You know perfectly well that sex for me was just a little boring and I didn’t know why. Sometimes it was quite enjoyable, but never quite, you know… When you said how your Rolf was making you feel, I was envious. For me it was the only way to getting hugged and cuddled, just the price I had to pay. I suppose it was about getting tenderness, touching, and feeling good about myself. But the other day, with Udo out of all people, I suddenly understood the world. Well, what makes people want to make love. I can now imagine that it can get sort of addictive, can’t it? The weird thing is that it only happened when he couldn’t be ‘good Udo’ any longer, but became passionate, intense, ‘can’t wait bad Udo’. Do you think that my Wolf experience has made me into a pervert?
But that’s just part of the story. My old spoilsport mother had followed us and waited for me when I came down from his flat. She called him names, called me ‘a slut’, and when we got home there was Father, all quiet and upset. She handed me over, indirectly accusing him that ‘his slutty daughter’ was all his fault and he’d better deal with the situation. You know my father, he doesn’t deal with anything, really (well, he ‘dealt’ with Führing that day, but that’s the only time I have seen him in action). The situation at home is becoming unbearable. Christ, why aren’t I 21 yet? Then I can do what I want anyway, but I can’t wait any longer. I want out now. I told them both that I think it’s time I left. Better for them – they don’t have to get so upset about their misfit daughter any more – and better for me because I can start to find out who I really am when I don’t have to be so revolting (ha!).
I’ll be keeping you abreast (one for me, and one for you – please smile) of the situation. Write! Your orgasmic friend, Anne.
*
The situation at home had already deteriorated before I joined the paper. As the result of the last exhibition with the local artist group, the town had offered me a scholarship to attend the renowned school for graphic design in a neighbouring city. When it had dawned on me that they would only pay for tuition, books and materials, I had refused the grant knowing that I would be in Mother’s clutches for the years of study. Every time I’d asked her for money, she had given it to me with conditions. And every time I felt I’d sold my soul. Mother never understood my refusal and I never explained. But she never quite forgave me for ‘throwing my future onto the dung heap’. So I didn’t hold out much hope for a solution to something that seemed to be only my problem.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: agent, Amazon, author, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, books, characters, children’s, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, Facebook, fantasy, feedback, fiction, fiction author, flash fiction, Goodreads, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, historical, horror novel, interview, interviewees, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, pinterest, poetry, poetry collections, pseudonyms, publisher, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, romance, Rose Marie Boehm, Rosmarie Epaminondas-Boehm, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, Twitter, vampire, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Complementing the full interviews on this blog, which will be dropping to weekend mornings from mid-March, another new interview on my interview-only blog has been posted! The (640+) interviews from this blog are there already so there’s plenty to read.
The latest interview on the new blog is with sci-fi / fantasy writer and publisher Robert B Marks (who returns to talk about his writing) and can be read in full at http://morgensauthorinterviews.wordpress.com/2013/02/23/author-interview-with-writer-and-publisher-robert-b-marks-part-2. You can read our interview about his publishing here.
***
If you are reading this and you write, in whatever genre, and are thinking “ooh, I’d like to do this” then you can… just email me and I’ll send you the information. They do now (January 2013) carry a fee (£10 / €12.50 / $15) for the new interviews on this blog but everything else (see Opportunities on this blog) is free.
Alternatively, if you’d like a free Q&A-only interview, I now have http://morgensauthorinterviews.wordpress.com on which I’ve rerun the original interviews posted here then posted new interviews which I then reblog here. These interviews are Q&A only, so I don’t add in my comments but they do get exposure on both sites.
If you go for the interview, it’s very simple; I send you a questionnaire (I have them for novelists, short story authors, children’s authors, non-fiction authors, and poets). You complete the questions, and I let you know when it’s going to go live. Before it does so, I add in comments as if we’re chatting, and then they get posted. When that’s done, I email you with the link so you can share it with your corner of the literary world. And if you have a writing-related blog / podcast and would like to interview me… let me know.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, flash fiction, Goodreads, grammar skills, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, historical, horror novel, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, pinterest, poetry, poetry collections, poetry slams, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming poetry, Robert B Marks, romance, romance fantasy, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, Twitter, vampire, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Welcome to the six hundred and forty-ninth of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. Today’s is with poet, memoirist and fiction author Joseph J Cacciotti. A list of interviewees (blogged and scheduled) can be found here. If you like what you read, please do go and investigate further.
Morgen: Hello, Joe. Please tell us something about yourself, where you’re based, and how you came to be a writer.
Joe: Hello Morgen. My name is Joseph (Joe) J. Cacciotti (Ca-shot-ee) and I live Racine, Wisconsin, which is a small city in the US. I’ve been writing poetry since I was seventeen years old. But I never really thought about being a writer, until I made a promise to a very close friend of mine.
To make a long story short; I had an accident when I was 6 years old, and it punctured part of my lung in my throat. I had difficulty speaking at times, and found myself stuttering more and more.
When I was twelve years old, I met this perfect stranger working on an old house. I asked him if he needed help and I ended up not only helping him, but becoming a landlord myself for the next 36 years. I always told him someone should write a book about how it really is to be a landlord, and he told me I should write it because I wrote poetry back then. When I found out he was dying of cancer, I buckled down and started writing my first non-fiction book Blue Collar Real Estate Mogul “Literary Work” and since I was off work due to an umbilical hernia. I was able to go read to Harold what I had completed, and before he passed away he asked me to do him one last favour. He asked me to never stop writing, and when I finished my biography Blue Collar book. I decided to put together 50 of my favourite poems ad put them into a book, and therefore Poems for the Heart was produced.
Morgen: Wow. What a fantastic story. What genre do you generally write and have you considered other genres?
Joe: I started out writing a Non-Fiction book Blue Collar Real State Mogul “Literary Work” due to the economy I’m not trying to push this one at this time. However, it’s more than just a real estate book; this is my biography about how I met a perfect stranger at the age of 12. Harold Schink, became one of my best friends and my mentor as a landlord. He encouraged me to write my first book, but before I could finish it he passed away from cancer. After 36 years my dear friend was gone, but before he left this world he asked me to do him one last favour. He said “Joey, never stop writing,” this is how I started my new career as a writer.
Not long after my non-fiction book I came out with my poetry book Poems for the Heart, which I won an award for being one of the top five inspirational books of 2011. On may 15, 2012 Poems for the Heart Volume II was published and is now on The Laurus Company.com site and is available on ebook. I’m working on Poems for the Heart Volume III now.
Then I also write my fiction books: Right now I’m working on a ten book series with a detective named Hurricane. My first two books Hurricane Cores the Big Apple, and Hurricane Rocks Wisconsin are out now. With Hurricane Strips Las Vegas on it’s way shortly, also in the mix is Hurricane Strikes Rhode Island, Hurricane Mashes Idaho, Hurricane Gold Rushes California, and I’m currently working on Hurricane Volunteers in Tennessee.
I’ve just entered a contest for a screenwriters play or movie, and this was my first attempt at this field.
Morgen: Good luck with that. I wrote the first 102 pages of a TV drama for the now defunct Script Frenzy and found it much tougher than prose. If any of my books were ever picked up by Steven Spielberg, I’d gladly let a professional scriptwriter write it. What have you had published to-date?
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: agent, Amazon, author, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, Facebook, fantasy, feedback, fiction, fiction author, flash fiction, Goodreads, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, historical, horror novel, indie, interview, interviewees, Joe Cacciotti, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, pinterest, poetry, poetry collections, pseudonyms, publisher, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, romance, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, Twitter, vampire, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Welcome to the newest slot on my blog, the Sunday night Novel Nights In where I bring you guests’ novels in their entirety over a maximum of ten weeks. Tonight’s is the seventh instalment of the first novel in this series and features the first section of Book 3 (of three) of a novel by literary author, poet and interviewee Rose Mary Boehm.
For shorter pieces I would run the story then talk more about it afterwards but because this is a longer post (12,016 words), here is an introduction to Rose then the seventh part of her novel…
A German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm now lives and works in Lima, Peru. Two novels (‘Coming Up For Air’ and the follow-up ‘The Telling’) have been published in the UK, as well as a poetry collection (‘Tangents’). Her latest poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in US poetry reviews. Among others: Toe Good Poetry, Poetry Breakfast, Burning Word, Muddy River Review, Pale Horse Review, Pirene’s Fountain, Other Rooms, Requiem Magazine, Full of Crow, Poetry Quarterly, Punchnel’s, Verse Wisconsin, Naugatuck Poetry Review (contest semi-finalist), Avatar…
Her poem ‘Miss Worthington’ won third price in the coveted Margaret Reid Poetry Contest: http://winningwriters.com/contests/margaret/2009/ma09_epaminondas.php
You can find out more about Rose and her writing at her blog: http://houseboathouse.blogspot.com, and you can also read one of Rose’s short stories on http://shortstorywritinggroup.wordpress.com/2013/01/12/short-story-for-critique-003-mrs-boffa-by-rose-mary-boehm.
Coming Up For Air
A young girl’s struggle to take control of her life – click to read Book I: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. Book 2: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. If you don’t want to wait the 10 weeks for the whole story, you can purchase Coming Up for Air at Amazon.com (just $2.95) Amazon.co.uk (only £1.87). The rest of the ‘adventures of Annie’ can be read in THE TELLING.
***
Book III: Spitting against the Wind (part 1)
42
I am slowly walking back towards the large room where so many people are typing, shouting into telephones and at each other, where machines clang and clatter, and where I have a small desk and a typewriter. I am still not quite sure what they expect of me and who exactly my boss is. Up to now they are all using me to run errands, make coffee or to tease me mercilessly. Between copy boy and cub reporter … but I’ll show them. Just because I am the first girl they have ever had in here, that doesn’t mean they can ignore that I have a brain! I’ll show them. But I need a break to show what I can do. There must be something I can do. It won’t happen until I make it happen…
The moment I open the door they all look up from whatever they are doing and stare at me. Then they hoot with laughter, and some slap their thighs. Yes, alright, I suppose I deserve this one. But I feel deeply embarrassed and stupid. How could I possible fall for this?
*
One of the reporters had sent me down to the typesetters to bring him back a Rasterpunkt – a matrix dot – one of the dots that make up a newsprint black and white half-tone picture, the same dots that are now counted to indicate resolution, as in, for example 300 dpi. This was one of the oldest jokes regularly inflicted on the latest recruits to the press room, and I dutifully walked all the way downstairs to the typesetters and asked for one. They had been warned by the jokers upstairs and had been ready for me. One of them made quite a performance out of putting something very small I couldn’t see (he used tweezers) into a relatively big box and handed it to me saying that I must handle it with great care. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. That at least was the moment when I should have tweaked. But no. I was too eager to please, too determined to make this work. I had promised myself that I’d run every errand, make every coffee, take any shit with a smile to make them like me and give me that chance I so craved.
Especially the editor-in-chief was intimidating. His office was halfway up the stairs. From there he could more or less control the editing room. He kept his door open and there was no passing his floor without being seen by ‘the führer’. Ernst Führing seemed old to me then, but he must have been a young man of around 36, built like an American football player. Weary brown eyes looked out from a frame of thick, rather feminine eyelashes, he had a large, handsome face, and his dark curly hair gave him a slightly dishevelled appearance. He only ever wore white shirts, open at the neck, his tie knot pulled down, the sleeves rolled up until his elbows. I usually saw him sitting behind his huge desk, either speaking like machine-gun fire into the black telephone, or ‘parking’ it between chin and pulled up shoulder when he was looking for some papers. When I brought him material to sign off he would normally ask me to wait and then he’d dump even more papers and photos into my arms with delivery instructions. Standing he must have been around 1.80 m but one saw the beginnings of a belly, and since his trousers where usually just belted below that slight protuberance, they took on a life of their own, cascading down to his highly polished shoes, the turn-ups at the back of the trouser legs disappearing beneath them.
He often stopped me when I was on my way up to the art department or asked in the press room for me to run an errand. Every time I was near him he’d make some comment, some sexual insinuation, some joke I didn’t get, or indicate that I should be doing something different, something that women do. I began to dread my contacts with ‘the führer’, even though he never made a pass, for which I was grateful.
The in-house photo reporter, Wald Radetzki, had quite some reputation. And I was fascinated by his urbanity. It wasn’t just that his name turned up on most news pages of the paper, he also photographed local society and was more than once the object of other photographers when he accompanied some of the famous (and the infamous) women to various events.
To everyone here he was just Radetzki, and when I first met him on the stairs, I felt considerable awe and worried immediately that I may have a shiny nose. The Radetzki I knew from photographs was far less impressive than the real thing. Blinded by my admiration for his local notoriety, I didn’t see a man of already middle years, with a lived-in, somewhat sloppily designed and cruel face, a man who desperately wanted to stay young by donning ‘beatnik uniform’: black tight trousers, black roll-neck sweater, black leather jacket and black leather cap, his cameras slung carelessly over his shoulder; I only saw what I wanted to see: an admittedly older but sexy male, tall, slim, and handsome.
I was on one of my never-ending errands from the pressroom down to the printers, just passing the dark room which I’d never seen open, when Radetzki came up the stairs, taking two steps at the time. He looked up.
“Hey, gorgeous, and where did they hide you? What, are you on your way to me? Lovely surprise.”
*
I stand still, desperately wanting to be the most attractive woman on earth, thinking Rita Hayworth, definitely not Doris Day. But all I can come out with is, “Oh, hi, I am the new trainee.”
“Well, well, well … turn around, would you? Let me check you out!”
I know I blush and I am angry with myself. I also hate the fact that I have absolutely nothing witty to say to this apparition. While he scares me a bit, he is also incredibly attractive in a forbidden sort of way. I know immediately that Mother wouldn’t approve of me being even near this man. That alone makes him irresistible. Not knowing what to do, I smile what I hope is a seductive smile and do a very fast turn on one foot, losing my balance just a little on the small step. Radetzki immediately reaches up and puts two strong hands on my hips: “Wow, little treasure, easy… mind you, you’re welcome to fall!” and he lets go.
“We’ll be seeing a lot more of each other. By the way, what’s your name? … Annemarie? That’s Anne for short, surely … Must dash, have just come from an assignment and they’ll want the photos like yesterday … until soon. I’ll make sure of it.”
He takes out some keys, opens the darkroom and disappears into it. Shuts the door behind himself. My legs are like jelly. I can barely continue my descent down to the basement. I feel his hands on my hips and I feel my insides knotting up.
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Complementing my daily blog interviews, today’s Author Spotlight, the one hundred and sixty-eighth, is of non-fiction author Kerry Dwyer.
Kerry Dwyer was born in the North of England and educated in the South. She worked in finance for more than two decades in the UK, USA and various countries in mainland Europe.
She now lives with her husband and daughter in the South West of France. Following the birth of her daughter she gave up finance and retrained as an English teacher (TEFL).
She currently teaches English as a foreign language to adults by telephone and internet. Ramblings in Ireland is her first book.
And now from the author herself:
The journey in the book is only half the story of the journey of the book but I will start with that. As we were walking and talking the germ of an idea formed that I should write all this down at some time. Each day we went on a new journey together. In French the word journée means day or daytime that was very relevant to us as we journeyed not only through Ireland but through each others lives. Each day we found out a little more about each other. Although we have been together for years we had never spent quite so much time together alone and with nothing more to do than walk and talk.
When we came home to France I wanted to write the diary of the significant of this holiday. I started writing about the walks and the conversations and as my mind wandered off at tangents I started to write those down as well. When we had been in Ireland a lot of ideas had already started to formulate so the book almost wrote itself. It was a great pouring out of some things that I hadn’t thought about for years and some things that were very recent. They were all somehow linked together in that one week in that one idea. The story grew and changed and became the book. It was as I was writing the book that I realised how important that week had been and how Bertrand and I had moved closer.
I don’t find it easy to sit down and focus on something for a long time and I am not very good at finishing things. The number of projects I have half started is always growing. I became interested in the writing process and found some competitions on the internet for finished manuscripts. This gave me the impetus to get on and complete it. I always work better when I have a deadline. The book was duly sent off for the competition and came no where. It was bound not to really as I hadn’t had it proof read or edited or beat read. It was very raw. I didn’t mind that at all the competition had done its job and my manuscript was ready for the next stage. There was a lot to do when it came back from Beta and proofreaders. I am lucky that I have friends who are very generous with their time and also not afraid to give criticism where it is due.
It was because of their positive feedback that I decided to go ahead and try to get the book published. I had not really heard of many people publishing their own books and people used ‘vanity press’ as though it were a dirty word so I tried to find a publisher. The rejection letters were not bad, they were obviously standard with the same lines virtually in each one telling me that I didn’t fit into their niche. The silences were worse I thought. Not one to flog a dead horse I resigned myself to the long list of would be published authors and put my book away. I was still in some way quite proud of the achievement, I had written a book. People had read it and liked it, even if they were my family and friends.
I had started a blog some time before the trip to Ireland. I tried to write at least a post a week and I was toying with the idea of posting parts of the book as blog posts. Then I had a problem with aligning my pictures. I couldn’t get the pictures on a particular post called ‘Eat that frog’ to line up. I asked for help on the social networks and I met Joel Canfield who kindly offered his assistance. He sorted out my picture problem and he had also explored my blog. He had found my proud post from when I had finished my book and was certain that some publisher would take it up and publish it. Joel sent me some of his snapshots from Ireland, I sent him some of mine. He wanted to know when my book would be published. This was our conversation via LinkedIn:
Me ‘You might wait a long time to read Ramblings. I haven’t even had a nibble. I did think about doing it myself but I think if there has not even been a nibble from a publisher then it probably isn’t again good’.
Joel “I’m curious what makes you equate nibbles from publishers with quality? Publishers have one deciding factor: money. Unless they’re sure your book will make more money than any other manuscript they’ve been offered, they’ll ignore you. It has nothing to do with quality. If your story is worth telling, tell it. A good editor can take a good story and make it great. Don’t wait to be picked. Pick yourself and ship your art.”
That was a very significant conversation. It lead me to not only being published but also to reassessing my feelings about my work, and its worth. I also discovered that hundreds of other worthy people with wonderful stories are doing just that.
Joel helped me to prepare my manuscript for publication and shepherded my though the process. We exchanged hundreds of emails and a few hours of SKYPE calls. He pointed out weak areas and helped me to make them stronger. So now I am a published author and that is still not the end of the story. Without the backing of a big publicity machine like one of the big publishing houses I need to make my work visible to my potential audience. So that it what I am doing. I am seeking reviews by sending out hundreds of review copies and I am giving author interviews and guest posts in the hope that I make myself a little more visible. To write is human to be read divine.
My friends and family are all really thrilled for me and very supportive. My mother did the artwork for the book for me. She is a Chinese water colour artist and she painted the picture of the Beara peninsular for me. She has been a great support throughout, reading excerpts and allowing me to tell some of her stories in my book. My dad read a very early draft and his comments were really helpful in pulling together the final version. My husband doesn’t read in English so it was difficult for him to relate to this book. He is very proud that I have a published book and was so supportive and helpful when I wanted the time to write. I hadn’t told him that I had dedicated it to him. He bought it on his Kindle and was very moved. He has since read the whole book which shows dedication and devotion.
I then invited Kerry to provide an extract from her book…
After the hardware shop we found a small supermarket and bought some lunch to take on our walk that afternoon. I needed to buy some shampoo as well. I had put the empty bottle into my wash bag instead of the full bottle. We had used the shampoo provided at the B&B.
I was selecting some cold meats and salads from the chill cabinet when I heard Bertrand call me excitedly from the sandwich counter. I went over to where two shop assistants were serving freshly made hot and cold snacks to take away. What had excited Bertrand so much was the “deal of the day” – Full Irish Breakfast in a baguette.
What more could a French man want out of life?
We bought one for Bertrand. I chose what I wanted and we drove up the Beara Peninsula. The car soon filled with the smell from the still-warm ingredients in the baguette. We had to pull into a lay-by so Bertrand could wolf down his second breakfast of the day, improved immeasurably with the addition of French bread.
And a synopsis…
Ramblings in Ireland is the story of one particular walking trip and the memories and musings that it inspired. It is not a guide book for rambling in Ireland
British ex-patriate Kerry and her husband explore the West of Ireland. Kerry’s inability to read maps and Bertrand’s insistence that she leads means that they inevitably go off the beaten track. This leads them to reflect and reminisce on upon accents and accidents, family and friends, love and what it means to be alive.
It is a book with a lot of meanderings and tangents. Kerry discusses French versus English and Irish culture viewed through her own and her husband’s eyes. She talks about life in France and growing in England.
You can find more about Kerry and her writing via her blog at http://www.kerrydwyer.net or her facebook page https://www.facebook.com/KerryDwyerAuthor
*
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***
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Welcome to the six hundred and forty-first of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. Today’s is with mystery author and memoirist Elaine Macko. A list of interviewees (blogged and scheduled) can be found here. If you like what you read, please do go and investigate further.
Morgen: Hello, Elaine. Please tell us something about yourself, where you’re based, and how you came to be a writer.
Elaine: Hi, Morgen. My name is Elaine Macko and I live in California after growing up in New England and living in Belgium for 12 years. I always wanted to be a writer and while living in Belgium I decided to try my hand at it and see where it would lead.
Morgen: And here you are. What genre do you generally write and have you considered other genres?
Elaine: I write light, funny murder mysteries and I’m also working on a memoir highlighting my years in Belgium.
Morgen: Both very popular genres. What have you had published to-date? Do you write under a pseudonym?
Elaine: I write under my own name and my first two books in the series are currently available. The first is called Armed and the second, Poisoned.
Morgen: I see a theme (one-word titles) there. Are your books available as eBooks?
Elaine: My books are available in both paper and eBooks.
Morgen: Do you have a favourite of your books or characters? If any of your books were made into films, who would you have as the leading actor/s?
Elaine: I would love to have my books made into films and have already narrowed the list of people that I think would make great directors/producers. You can see I have big dreams! As for my favourite characters, the grandmother in my series is based on my grandmother who died when I was 14. I loved her dearly and she was a wonderful character so I put her in my series and people really seem to be enjoying her.
Morgen: What a shame, but great that she lives on in your writing, and even better that more people are ‘meeting’ her. Did you have any say in the titles / covers of your books? How important do you think they are?
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Welcome to the newest slot on my blog, the Sunday night Novel Nights In where I bring you guests’ novels in their entirety over a maximum of ten weeks. Tonight’s is the sixth instalment of the first novel in this series and features the third and concluding section of Book 2 (of three) of a novel by literary author, poet and interviewee Rose Mary Boehm.
For shorter pieces I would run the story then talk more about it afterwards but because this is a longer post (11,015 words), here is an introduction to Rose then the sixth part of her novel…
A German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm now lives and works in Lima, Peru. Two novels (‘Coming Up For Air’ and the follow-up ‘The Telling’) have been published in the UK, as well as a poetry collection (‘Tangents’). Her latest poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in US poetry reviews. Among others: Toe Good Poetry, Poetry Breakfast, Burning Word, Muddy River Review, Pale Horse Review, Pirene’s Fountain, Other Rooms, Requiem Magazine, Full of Crow, Poetry Quarterly, Punchnel’s, Verse Wisconsin, Naugatuck Poetry Review (contest semi-finalist), Avatar…
Her poem ‘Miss Worthington’ won third price in the coveted Margaret Reid Poetry Contest: http://winningwriters.com/contests/margaret/2009/ma09_epaminondas.php
You can find out more about Rose and her writing at her blog: http://houseboathouse.blogspot.com, and you can also read one of Rose’s short stories on http://shortstorywritinggroup.wordpress.com/2013/01/12/short-story-for-critique-003-mrs-boffa-by-rose-mary-boehm.
Coming Up For Air
A young girl’s struggle to take control of her life – click to read Book I: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. Book 2: Part 1 and Part 2. If you don’t want to wait the 10 weeks for the whole story, you can purchase Coming Up for Air at Amazon.com (just $2.95) Amazon.co.uk (only £1.87). The rest of the ‘adventures of Annie’ can be read in THE TELLING.
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38
Mother once told me that she was convinced she’d become pregnant the moment she’d sit on a chair on which a man had been sitting just before.
Looking back at my parents from today’s perspective, I feel almost ashamed of not having been able to see them, measure them against their own contexts. Still, I suppose it would be an odd child able to do that at the time of its own struggle with life.
I had been a latecomer, unexpected and scary. My mother, Ilse, was already 38 and my father, Julius, was 47 when I arrived. Clearly, abortion in those days was not even thought about, even though my mother – by normal standards of those days – was ‘too old’ to give birth, and she and her child were considered ‘at risk’. My brother was already eight and no further child had been planned or expected to happen. In other words, between me and my parents, especially in post-War Germany, there was an almost insurmountable abyss – a generation gap of cosmic proportions.
Julius Becker was born in 1892 into a seriously rich family; there were seven living siblings – Grossmama Becker had given birth to a total of 12 children over the years of which seven survived. Several servants saw to the children’s daily needs, while their father and mother did what they were supposed to do: their father ran the mines and the shipping company with an iron fist, and their mother managed the household, gave occasional soirées, travelled and painted. Julius’ father was a despot, while Julius was a sensitive, gifted child with yearnings for adventure and freedom from the straightjacket of tradition. Just like his brothers, Julius was expected to earn a doctorate in whatever academic discipline he cared to choose. His two sisters were supposed to be bright, beautiful and virtuous until they married into other upper-crust families – either rich or aristocratic, if at all possible, both.
Ilse Ernestine Hartefeld was the illegitimate daughter of Ernestine Wilhelmine Bergdorfer, the worst that could have happened to mother and daughter in a Germany around the turn of the last century. Ilse was a gangly child, exceptionally intelligent and hungry for learning. Her stepfather, August Hartefeld, married her mother when Ilse was already four years old. He’d always loved ‘his Erna’, and she finally gave in. Two quite extraordinarily courageous and honest people who much later meant so much to me as my Opa and Oma, my grandfather and grandmother Hartefeld.
While Julius grew up in the heart of industrial Germany in the Ruhr Area, Ilse, nine years younger, looked after her two younger brothers when she wasn’t eagerly learning everything she could in the one-class school of her little village near Dresden in Saxony.
Julius completed his Abitur (the German equivalent of A-levels or a graduation diploma), after which he did his military service – first as a tall, blond, dashing young test pilot, and then getting himself involved in the Turkish-Arabian conflict (aka the Arabian Revolt of Laurence of Arabia fame) on the Turkish side, then finished World War I as a fighter pilot in the Normandy.
Ilse slowly turned into a tall, striking young girl with chestnut hair, high cheekbones and a generous mouth.
The post-WW I Treaty of Versailles and the French annexation of the Ruhr devastated Germany’s economy. The Becker family suffered losses, but were financially sustained by the sheer size of their business and their holdings, as well as business interests outside of Germany. After getting back from the war, young Julius, already 27, began to study engineering in a town near Ilse’s little village, famed throughout Europe at the time as one of the Technical Universities, sure of his father’s cheque arriving punctually every month.
Ilse had had to leave school at 14 to feed herself and help her family. She walked three kilometres every day (six days a week) to the train that would take her to the factory where she’d sew gloves for 12 hours before taking the train back and then walking another three kilometres to get home.
Yes, of course… they met one night at the train station. As far as Julius was concerned this was not only love at first sight, but deepest and most committed one. And Ilse? Ilse probably was dazzled at first and later learned to care for him deeply. It was difficult not to care for this charming young man with the brightest blue eyes which always contained a twinkle, not to be seduced by his devastating smile, impeccable manners and, at that time and for that time, considerable means.
He showed the extent of his irresistible devotion when Ilse was ill and they couldn’t meet for a few days: Julius walked for over three hours from his university (there were no cross-connecting trains, busses, trams, taxis, and most students didn’t have cars) to Ilse’s house where he would just stand for a few minutes, gaze up at her, greet her and then leave again; of course he couldn’t ‘come in’, Ilse’s was a respectable family.
When he wrote home that he had met the girl of his life and wanted to marry, the shock was total. ‘Gold digger’ was perhaps the mildest expression used in connection with Ilse. His father threatened to withhold the monthly cheques unless the ‘affair’ was immediately terminated. He even wrote a letter to the Dean explaining he would no longer pay for tuition because he had discovered his son’s ‘misalliance’
There were hard years ahead. Julius tried to show his father that he could fend for himself, that he didn’t need his money and went off to Berlin to find a job. Both Julius as well as Ilse – in their respective places – had to survive the worst year in Germany’s history: the hyperinflation of 1923. Mother once told me that one week’s wages from one day to the next wouldn’t buy a loaf of bread, that at the worst time they would go to the shops with a washing basket full of money to buy whatever was on offer now because an hour later the same items would require two washing baskets full of useless paper money. The value of the Papiermark (literally translated the Paper Mark), was worth 4.2 per US dollar at the outbreak of World War I and stood at one million per US dollar by August 1923.
In Berlin, Julius was not very successful. He got caught up in the German revolution that almost happened, was nearly lynched in the street by the Communists and finally fell extremely ill. When Julius had been brought home, near death, and nobody held out much hope, his older sister, Emma, was determined: “Why don’t we at least look at the girl?” since Julius, in his fevered dreams, only ever called Ilse’s name.
Emma brought her to meet the parents Becker, after which the story had a relatively happy ending. Julius and Ilse married, but Julius had no idea how to fight for survival, and Ilse had only ever sewn gloves in a factory, and when Julius’ father suddenly died they were left without financial help, while the oldest son (mis)managed the businesses. Corrupt managers and the total ineptitude of brother Jochen and his stock-market speculations of African proportions brought about such huge losses that even such a large fortune couldn’t quite survive it.
Father remembered vaguely how his sisters, ‘nice’ girls from a good family, had been brought up and what was expected of them. Mother imagined how ‘nice’ girls from good families ought to be brought up and behave, while never managing to live in the style to which Father was accustomed and Mother had aspired to. Father didn’t care. Mother did.
*
It’s Sunday. Gisela and I ask whether we are allowed to take off for a summer recreation area on the way to Düsseldorf, where the river Rhine feeds a large, artificially created pool, cordoned off to provide a supervised zone for swimming. We take our swim suits, towels and something to eat and drink, put the bags on the backs of our bikes and pedal off. It’s a good hour and a half either way. We leave early to have several hours to enjoy the sun, have a swim, get tanned…
We carefully put our bikes down on the grass, one on top of the other. Then we help each other to change into the swimsuits – while one holds the towel, the other struggles discreetly. We are hot and exhausted, put our clothes into the bags, the towels on the grass, and start this beautiful summer day by rushing into the water and swimming towards the chain that marks the limits. As we approach, we see two boys swimming towards the chain from the outside, dive under it and come up just next to us, grinning at us and putting their fingers to their lips in the ‘don’t tell’ gesture. We giggle and splash them and turn towards the ‘beach’ where we left our towels. The boys come too.
*
We spent that day with our new friends, sharing our sandwiches and drinks. Nobody had any money. We never did, and they obviously had none in their swimming trunks. We laughed at their antics, were happy, entertained, flattered and forgot the time. The sun was already sinking when we realised that we had to be on our way. The boys left for wherever they’d come from, and we struggled out of our wet swimsuits, hopped on the bikes and kicked off. We both knew we’d have to be back on time or we wouldn’t be allowed to go again, and to our total horror, only half-way, we had to get off the bikes because Gisela’s had a flat tyre. There was no way to communicate with our respective parents – mine didn’t even have a telephone. It was getting dark and we were in a wooded area, the shortcut we normally only took when it was still light; we’d never been out that late.
*
We push our bikes and speculate what’ll happen to us when we get home. “I’ll be ticked off something rotten,” says Gisela, and I add cheerlessly, “You know my mother… she’ll kill me, and I probably won’t be allowed to go again this summer.”
*
We were late. Gisela’s mother stood outside our door, on the pavement – we could see her by the light coming from the hall – and we knew we were in deep trouble. Gisela’s mother started a long, angry monologue, pulling Gisela away with her, and when I stepped through the door, both Father and Mother moved towards me and Mother, before I could explain, slapped me more than once hard in the face until I couldn’t see for tears or speak for sobs.
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Welcome to the newest slot on my blog, the Sunday night Novel Nights In where I bring you guests’ novels in their entirety over a maximum of ten weeks. Tonight’s is the fifth instalment of the first novel in this series and features the second section of Book 2 (of three) of a novel by literary author, poet and interviewee Rose Mary Boehm.
For shorter pieces I would run the story then talk more about it afterwards but because this is a longer post, here is an introduction to Rose then the fifth part of her novel…
A German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm now lives and works in Lima, Peru. Two novels (‘Coming Up For Air’ and the follow-up ‘The Telling’) have been published in the UK, as well as a poetry collection (‘Tangents’). Her latest poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in US poetry reviews. Among others: Toe Good Poetry, Poetry Breakfast, Burning Word, Muddy River Review, Pale Horse Review, Pirene’s Fountain, Other Rooms, Requiem Magazine, Full of Crow, Poetry Quarterly, Punchnel’s, Verse Wisconsin, Naugatuck Poetry Review (contest semi-finalist), Avatar…
Her poem ‘Miss Worthington’ won third price in the coveted Margaret Reid Poetry Contest: http://winningwriters.com/contests/margaret/2009/ma09_epaminondas.php
You can find out more about Rose and her writing at her blog: http://houseboathouse.blogspot.com, and you can also read one of Rose’s short stories on http://shortstorywritinggroup.wordpress.com/2013/01/12/short-story-for-critique-003-mrs-boffa-by-rose-mary-boehm.
Coming Up For Air
A young girl’s struggle to take control of her life – click to read Book I: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. Book 2: Part 1. If you don’t want to wait the 10 weeks for the whole story, you can purchase Coming Up for Air at Amazon.com (just $2.95) Amazon.co.uk (only £1.87). The rest of the ‘adventures of Annie’ can be read in THE TELLING.
***
33
Gisela and I had finished our homework. The late afternoon sun was about to sink behind the horizon when we decided to walk very fast along the towpath by the canal to see whether we could be fast enough and ‘catch’ it before it disappeared. We knew it was impossible and just a game.
We talk while we walk. Suddenly Gisela stops. “Do you think it’s true about how they make babies?”
“What do you mean… that the man lies on top of the woman?”
“Well, yes, and that he puts his willie into her hole.”
That’s not something anyone ever told me about and definitely hasn’t occurred to me. I have never seen my brother other than at least wearing his underpants, and my father never ever walks through the house in his underwear or even in a dressing gown. I have only ever seen him fully dressed. Still, I have an idea what a ‘willie’ is, I am not that dumb, but the idea that anybody should ‘stick his willie into my hole’ gives me the creeps.
To Gisela I pretend I know exactly what she is talking about. I am too embarrassed to let on that I just discovered how backward I am. So I say boldly, “Of course it’s true, but it’s really disgusting, isn’t it? I don’t think I’ll go for it.”
“Neither shall I. I’ve thought about it often. And I don’t understand how my mother could actually do it with my father…”
Now there’s a thought. This, of course, is a revelation. When I get home I look at my parents with different eyes and decide that they are really quite despicable and that I’ll never, ever…
*
I took high school very seriously and actually enjoyed it. The school was in another part of town, and in the winter we took the tram which rattled past the coking plants, the steel works and even through some leafy roads lined with sycamore trees. In early spring we’d go by bike. There were usually three of us, three girls. We lived very close to one another and became good friends over the years almost by default. With Gisela I discovered how babies are made and with Helga I learned how to smoke.
*
Helga’s mother works and isn’t home yet. That’s why the three of us are alone in her house – Gisela, Helga and I. After sneaking in to see ‘Les Diaboliques’ we realised that we have to do something or we’ll be hopelessly left behind. Not smoking clearly marks us as little girls of no importance, and therefore smoking is one of the first things we have to learn how to do.
Helga has stolen a handful of cigarettes from her mother, one by one so she wouldn’t notice. We each take one and hold it awkwardly, imagining we are Simone Signoret, Rita Hayworth or Betty Grable. Helga holds a match to each one, and we suck the air through the cigarette to make it glow. The smoke fills my mouth and stings, tasting of unpleasant and smoke-filled memories. We hold the smoke in our mouths for a moment before we let it drift out again.
“I don’t think that’s how it’s done,” says Helga. “When my mother smokes she inhales it, it stays in her body for a while and then she exhales and the smoke comes out with her breath, sometimes through her nose.”
“Alright, let’s try…”
The next puff has us inhaling and immediately coughing until our eyes water and sting. We double over, nearly vomiting, and we look at each other with tears in our eyes – we look pale grey to green.
“Okay, guys. This needs practise. Since everyone smokes, it can’t be difficult to get used to it.” By the end of the afternoon we feel rather sick but triumphant: we don’t cough any more, our eyes don’t water, and we hold and light the ‘glimmersticks’ like old pros, ready to conquer the grown-up world, ready to enter a party with something to hold on to, ready to give us the air of utter sophistication and experience. Now we have to practice the ‘look’ (think Lauren Bacall) and we’ll be complete.
*
We’d meet up by the local cinema and from there go to school together – either by tram or by bike, depending on the time of year. On the way we were sometimes met by boys who used the same route but, living closer to the school, joined later. We never actually agreed to meet, but when it happened we were particularly giggly and slightly hysterical.
*
Our French teacher doubles her duties and has us once a week for religion. Even though I like it, I’m usually in trouble because I just can’t get my head around certain Bible stories and their interpretations. As far as I am concerned, some of the stuff just doesn’t add up.
“Miss …?”
“Yes, Anne…?”
“Well, when you say that Judas will roast in hell for his betrayal of Jesus, I disagree.”
“Oh?”
“I think that Judas got a bonus when he got to heaven. And I do think he went to heaven.”
“Why is this then, Anne? Why would you think Judas could get anywhere near heaven?”
“Because he did them all a favour, didn’t he … if it hadn’t been for him, the Big Plan wouldn’t have succeeded. Somebody had to do it. So, I suppose, Jesus and God ought to have been grateful.”
I am really very serious, but the class giggles. They think I do this on purpose to sideline Fräulein Franzen and make her forget what’s on the syllabus for today. Judas – and many other aspects of our Bible studies – just have me baffled. There is no way, I think, that logic and belief need to be mutually exclusive, and to me it’s logical that all the players get a fair deal.
Then there is this thing about ‘God Knoweth Best’ which implies that I know very little… So if I ask God for things and then have to say ‘But not as I want it, but as You want it for me in Your wisdom’, I give God carte blanche and may as well not have bothered. If I ask for a beautiful bicycle and God thinks that’s a bad idea, he won’t give it to me. So why ask?
Then we are being taught that the universe doesn’t lose anything, it just transforms. That’s physics. But physics has to be applied to all things. So, if that’s how things are, then my thoughts are matter, and it must be as bad to want to kill someone as it is to actually kill him. And if that’s so, my soul can’t just disappear after I die, since the universe doesn’t lose anything.
I read that in India they believe in reincarnation. Now that begins to make sense. My soul goes on forever and sometimes is transformed into a body and sometimes it’s in a non-body state. I try to imagine where the non-bodies go to while they hang around until they come back again, but all I can think of is that they are probably peacefully sleeping somewhere until they are woken up to go back.
When I hear people say, ‘God is so cruel. Why did He allow this baby to die? It didn’t even have a chance to live…” I think that life isn’t all that hot anyway – at least from what I can detect so far – and then I have a feeling that God doesn’t ‘allow’ anything. He just doesn’t get that actively involved. He got the creation ball rolling and then retired into a benign but remote presence to let us get on with it.
I imagine that the soul probably makes a deal in its non-body place: ‘I go down there even though it’s not my turn yet. But don’t you dare to leave me there longer than the three years you promised. I am willing to teach these people about loving and losing and heartbreak, but don’t you trick me! And don’t forget: I get another 150,000 years bonus for that!’
There is no way I can make my teacher understand any of this. She isn’t even willing to consider the options. So I get sent out of class yet again and have to write 100 times ‘I must not be so obnoxious’. For tomorrow.
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Welcome to the newest slot on my blog, the Sunday night Novel Nights In where I bring you guests’ novels in their entirety over a maximum of ten weeks. Tonight’s is the fourth instalment of the first novel in this series and features the first section of Book 2 (of three) of a novel by literary author, poet and interviewee Rose Mary Boehm.
For shorter pieces I would run the story then talk more about it afterwards but because this is a longer post (9,173 words), here is an introduction to Rose then the fourth part of her novel…
A German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm now lives and works in Lima, Peru. Two novels (‘Coming Up For Air’ and the follow-up ‘The Telling’) have been published in the UK, as well as a poetry collection (‘Tangents’). Her latest poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in US poetry reviews. Among others: Toe Good Poetry, Poetry Breakfast, Burning Word, Muddy River Review, Pale Horse Review, Pirene’s Fountain, Other Rooms, Requiem Magazine, Full of Crow, Poetry Quarterly, Punchnel’s, Verse Wisconsin, Naugatuck Poetry Review (contest semi-finalist), Avatar…
Her poem ‘Miss Worthington’ won third price in the coveted Margaret Reid Poetry Contest: http://winningwriters.com/contests/margaret/2009/ma09_epaminondas.php
You can find out more about Rose and her writing at her blog: http://houseboathouse.blogspot.com, and you can also read one of Rose’s short stories on http://shortstorywritinggroup.wordpress.com/2013/01/12/short-story-for-critique-003-mrs-boffa-by-rose-mary-boehm.
Coming Up For Air
A young girl’s struggle to take control of her life – click to read Book I: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. If you don’t want to wait the 10 weeks for the whole story, you can purchase Coming Up for Air at Amazon.com (just $2.95) Amazon.co.uk (only £1.87). The rest of the ‘adventures of Annie’ can be read in THE TELLING.
***
25
I am in love! I know I am! Wilfried is the oldest boy in my new class. He is 14! He is in our class because he had to repeat several times. He is very handsome, with dark hair that’s cut less short than other boys’ and sometimes it falls into his eyes. I sit in the middle of the class towards the back, and Wilfried sits further to the front in one of the right-hand side benches by the wall.
Whenever I look in his direction, he seems to be watching me. He has big, shiny brown eyes and a quick and naughty smile. From time to time he ‘sends’ me coveted swaps on the back of which he writes ‘Ich liebe Dich’. It’s a bit embarrassing, but I am also excited. The swaps are passed from desk to desk until they arrive in my hands which means that everyone knows and giggles.
When we are in the school yard during breaks, Wilfried catches me more often than any of the other girls and holds my arm just a bit longer, and when we go back inside for our next lesson, he hangs around just close enough to make it obvious. Once he even pushes one of the other boys out of the way. This must be love, and I have a funny fluttery feeling inside that makes me giggle a lot.
*
We didn’t know it then, but while we were in what was East Germany (to become the GDR, the German Democratic Republic), even though we went hungry more often than not, we had been relatively well off; we were spared the results of the Morgenthau Plan (Program to Prevent Germany from Starting World War III) which didn’t remain active for many years, but while it was being implemented, things were dire.
Letters had kept us somewhat up to date about family, friends and neighbours in the Western Allies’ occupation zones: many had either frozen or starved to death during the worst winter in living memory, and armies of half-starved, skinny kids dressed in rags had been seen scavenging through rubbish bins for anything at all to eat – discarded potato peels being about the only thing left to ‘recycle’. Then we received the sad news that Father’s mother, Grossmama Becker, had died of hypothermia, facilitated by acute starvation. Grossmama had been a proud woman and must have been either too embarrassed to ask for help, or those she did ask couldn’t give it. She died in the spring of 1948 – just a few months before we would return.
Even though the original plan proposed by American Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr. had been somewhat softened before it was implemented, it still had every intention to turn Germany into ‘a country primarily agricultural and pastoral in character’ and was agreed to, and signed by, Franklin D Roosevelt and Winston Churchill at the Second Quebec Conference in September 1944. The first ‘level of industry’ plan from 1946 foresaw to lower German heavy industry to 50% of its 1938 levels by laying waste to 1,500 of its manufacturing plants.
Soon it became only too apparent that these policies not only devastated Germany, but created a chain reaction. They put the brakes on a general European recovery, thus resulting in huge expenses for the occupying powers who had to make up the most glaring shortfalls through a relief programme.
It also became soon obvious that something had to be done – and not only for humanitarian reasons: with the onset of the Cold War, the Allies got very worried about Europe’s political leaning, fearing that the lethal combination of abject poverty and famine would drive especially the Germans into the arms of Communism and, since the long-term economic health and continued prosperity of the US depended on trade, export markets had to be either revived or created.
Enter the Marshall Plan. Secretary of State George Marshall’s ‘European Recovery Program’ was to take the form of easy loans. In 1949, the plan was extended to include the newly created Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany, aka West Germany), the idea being that the Europeans would use Marshall Plan aid chiefly to buy manufactured goods and raw materials from the United States.
But that was later, and even then it didn’t solve the immediate need of the German people in the US and British occupied zones who, in two of the most severe winters on record, were either starving or freezing to death. In the winter of 1946, after touring the American occupied zone of Germany, ex US President Herbert C Hoover was not only extremely critical of US occupation policy, but what he saw made him despair.
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Welcome to the six hundred and twenty-fourth of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. Today’s is with memoirist, non-fiction author and spotlightee Barbara Barth. A list of interviewees (blogged and scheduled) can be found here. If you like what you read, please do go and investigate further.
Morgen: Hello again, Barbara. Please remind us about yourself, and how you came to be a writer.
Barbara: Death, Dating, and Dogs in Decatur, Georgia. I laugh and like to sum up my memoir with those words. Humor has saved my life when I thought I couldn’t move. Becoming a widow three months before I turned sixty was not in my life plan. My husband and I lived together twenty years and then married for another five years. We had no children, except our two dogs. I was retired from my job with the Federal Government and, while I dabbled in selling antiques, I realized I had nothing to do after he died. I sat on my sofa in total panic that I was alone.
Late at night I sent pitiful e-mails to friends, who were not up at that hour to answer. I’d listen to music, play with the dogs, and then send another e-mail with the words, “never mind”. No one ever acknowledged my craziness. But I knew I needed to get control if I was going to deal with the word “widow” and find my place again. I needed to jump start my life quickly or give in to grief. I started dating within three months to get out of the house, bought a vintage Corvette that I never drive, and let the universe guide me to my path. I became a dog hoarder.
Writing became my tool for dealing with the pain. At first I wrote to clear my head of demons. Then, along the way, a funny thing happened. I discovered I loved to write. I liked putting words on paper (in this case Word) and working with dialog. I went from being sad, to finding pleasure in the late night hours, writing my story with my own brand of humor.
Now I have to write, not because I am alone, but because it is in my blood. I feel cheated if I don’t write every day!
Morgen: It’s great that something positive came out of your situation. Writing can be very therapeutic. You write non-fiction, how do you decide what to write about?
Barbara: I decided to share my story on finding a new life for myself. My memoir is a series of essays over a year doing all those things I never thought I’d do again. It is very personal and no subject is off limits. One of my older friends, as in age, read my book. She is very dignified. I worried a bit about how she would view me afterwards. While we have known each other in the antique world for many years, we had more of a business friendship. Soon after she finished my book we met for lunch. “I was really surprised at something I read.” She looked me straight in the eye and I thought, oh no, here it comes. My mind immediately went to my dating misadventures. “I can’t believe you only own one bra!” We had a good laugh about that. I now own more. But that little tidbit came out in an essay on always being late. My new rescue dog swiped my bra and was chewing it in the living room as I was frantically trying to get to my part-time job. She and I now have lunch weekly and talk about everything under the sun!
Morgen: How funny (especially when I first thought that you and your dog had lunch weekly and talked to each other!). What have you had published to-date? Do you write under a pseudonym?
Barbara: The Unfaithful Widow is my first book. However, every night I write essays on life as I see it, as a sixty-plus single female leading a creative life with a six dogs at home. My essays are on many sites for women, including Silver & Grace in Canada, Skirt.com in the United States, and most recently in On Purpose Woman, a magazine in the metro Baltimore, Maryland, area and on Speak Out Friday with Women On Writing (WOW). I was featured in Silver & Grace’s e-book Women Who Make A Difference. I am a member of the blogging team for Lifetime Television’s ‘The Balancing Act’, a morning TV show for women, where I post online as the CEO of Life on Monday (Creative, Energized, and Old Enough To Know Better).
In December 2010, I published a one-time, twenty-six page, e-zine for rescue dogs and vintage dog art called Writer With Dogs: The Magazine Where Dogs Meet Art. You can still view it online today (http://www.epaperflip.com/aglaia/viewer.aspx?docid=4e65b04193e346d08143d5c6c2d36a22).
I am embarrassed to admit it, but I have many of my own blogs, one for every interest it seems, and I am always posting on them too. Miss April In Paris, my big hunting dog, had her own blog for a few months where she dreamed of going to Paris. It turned out to be kismet. While on a book blog tour with Women On Writing, I landed on Tilly The Dog site in England. The post had to be written from the dog’s point of view. Miss April in Paris had her blog to share!
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Complementing my daily blog interviews, today’s Author Spotlight, the one hundred and fifty-seventh, is of murder mystery author and fiction memoirist LT Bentley.
L.T. Bentley has sung professionally, owned a bed & breakfast, worked as both a forensic and clinical therapist, taught school, taught music, currently works part time as a Health Coach, but writes full time.
A mother of five, and still avidly involved in the field of therapy, it’s no wonder that she enjoys writing murder mysteries / psychological thrillers and relational fiction.
When not in front of her computer writing, she enjoys the beach, gardening, redecorating, building furniture, and reading anything she can get her hands on.
And now from the author herself:
Survivor is how I define myself and it is the underlying theme in all my writings. Most of my life can be defined by the trials that I have overcome and grown from. As a therapist, I quickly discovered that those who could overcome devastating experiences were individuals who refused to see themselves as victims. This self-definition is not inherent, it is learned. My goal was born. I wanted to help others discover their own strength; to find their own definition of survivorship.
Therapy on a one-to one basis wasn’t enough to fulfil my desires so I began to write. I found that I could reach more individuals and I felt more fulfilled by the process. The first time a reader contacted me and told me how my story had changed her self-view, I knew I’d found my calling. I was meant to write.
As I continued to write, I discovered that I was healing from my own past. Baggage I had once carried around for decades, was finding its way into my stories and I was leaving it there. It was very freeing. Who would have thought that I would have found healing in such a way?
My stories are all about personal discovery and redemption on some level. Writing in this way offers me hope that I will continue to grow as a survivor and if I can bring my readers along on that path with me, then that’s even better.
You can find more about LT and her writing via her website http://www.ltbentley.com and blogs (http://ltbentley.wordpress.com, http://relatingtoyou.wordpress.com, and http://crafterheart.wordpress.com).
*
The blog interviews will return as normal tomorrow with historical romance novelist Nandita Chakraborty Banerji – the six hundred and twenty-first of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. A list of interviewees (blogged and scheduled) can be found here. If you like what you read, please do go and investigate further. And I enjoy hearing from readers of my blog; do either leave a comment on the relevant interview (the interviewees love to hear from you too!) and / or email me.
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Welcome to the newest slot on my blog, the Sunday night Novel Nights In where I bring you guests’ novels in their entirety over a maximum of ten weeks.
And now I’ve added Saturday nights with the serialisation of my chick lit novel The Serial Dater’s Shopping List!
Tonight’s is the third in the Sunday series and features the conclusion of Book I (of three books) of a novel by literary author, poet and interviewee Rose Mary Boehm.
For shorter pieces I would run the story then talk more about it afterwards but because this is a longer post (8,360 words), here is an introduction to Rose then the third part of her novel…
A German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm now lives and works in Lima, Peru. Two novels (‘Coming Up For Air’ and the follow-up ‘The Telling’) have been published in the UK, as well as a poetry collection (‘Tangents’). Her latest poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in US poetry reviews. Among others: Toe Good Poetry, Poetry Breakfast, Burning Word, Muddy River Review, Pale Horse Review, Pirene’s Fountain, Other Rooms, Requiem Magazine, Full of Crow, Poetry Quarterly, Punchnel’s, Verse Wisconsin, Naugatuck Poetry Review (contest semi-finalist), Avatar…
Her poem ‘Miss Worthington’ won third price in the coveted Margaret Reid Poetry Contest: http://winningwriters.com/contests/margaret/2009/ma09_epaminondas.php
You can find out more about Rose and her writing at her blog: http://houseboathouse.blogspot.com, and you can also read one of Rose’s short stories on http://shortstorywritinggroup.wordpress.com/2013/01/12/short-story-for-critique-003-mrs-boffa-by-rose-mary-boehm.
Coming Up For Air
A young girl’s struggle to take control of her life – click to read: Book I: Part 1 and then Part 2. If you don’t want to wait the 10 weeks for the whole story, you can purchase Coming Up for Air at Amazon.com (just $2.95) Amazon.co.uk (only £1.87). The rest of the ‘adventures of Annie’ can be read in THE TELLING.
***
18
On 30 April, 1945, in his bunker under the devastated city of Berlin, Adolf Hitler blew his brains out while the whole of Germany lay in ruins, with every major city destroyed by Allied bombs. Bridges had been blown up, train tracks had been bombed and every road was clogged with refugees. Thousands of women in eastern Germany drowned themselves rather than submit to rape by the Russian soldiers who were advancing rapidly towards Berlin. Boys of 14 and younger, and old men of 60 and older had been forced to fight the advancing Allies in a hopeless, last-ditch effort. German soldiers who had survived and returned from the eastern front stripped off their uniforms and swam naked across the river Elbe to surrender to the Americans. The Germans were terrified of the Red Army who already had gained a reputation during their advance for committing unspeakable atrocities.
People cowered in their underground bomb shelters in the cities or waved white flags of surrender from their windows in the smaller towns and villages. Thousands of homeless people had taken shelter in the bombed-out shells of churches and were cooking over open fires in the streets. Refugees trying to flee from the war zone sat for days beside the railroad tracks waiting for trains which never came. Others tried to escape on foot with their meagre possessions but had nowhere to go, and Allied planes were strafing everything that moved.
Subways were flooded, phone lines and electricity cut. The water supply in the bombed cities was either contaminated or non-existent, and there was no food, clothing, or medicines… Thousands of dead civilians were still buried under the destroyed buildings in every large city, adding the stench of decomposing flesh to the general confusion and misery.
On 27 April, 1945, American troops advanced eastward across Germany to link up with their Russian allies. The Russians had been marching west, across Poland, towards Berlin and beyond.
The American tanks had lined up on one side of the village by the upper woods; the German remainders were digging in on the other side, by the lower woods. Our village lay stretched out between the two fronts. Sporadic exchange of fire would send us scuttling down to the shelter. Many houses and farms were burning now, hand-to-hand fighting had begun in the streets. I had also seen some youths ducking down along the road carrying bazookas.
We heard the crackling sound of burning wood just after the explosion and raced upstairs to put the fire out, each one of us armed with one of the buckets filled with water that had been strategically placed on each landing. Before we reached the attic, we saw water trickling down the stairs. In the attic stood a zinc bathtub filled with water for just such an occasion. The shot from one of the tanks had ripped through the roof on its way to the opposing army, and shrapnel had hit the bathtub. What we’d heard was the water dripping down the stone stairs.
It’s over. Our white sheet hangs from the window but Adelheid’s father is furious.
“Germans do not capitulate!”
“Oh, do be quiet once and for all. What do you think will happen to you? We don’t ‘capitulate’ you silly man, we are being liberated, especially from people like you!
This sheet will probably save even your mean neck!”
**
19
As the American planes, jeeps and tanks rolled over our fields to ‘park’ behind the house, I watched with alarm the damage they did to the growing corn. It was still green and very young. For me, this was the obscenity, the blasphemy, this was the ultimate disregard for life, for growing food. In my small world this was worse than killing people… after all, the dead had been with me as long as I could remember.
Mother was relieved that the Americans had reached us first.
“Gott sei Dank! I prayed so hard that the Americans would get to us before the Bolsheviks!”
My brother had come into the kitchen from his nightly radio listening.
“They said on the radio that the Americans are about to take Berlin!”
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Welcome to the six hundred and sixteenth of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. Today’s is with multi-genre author Carmen Anthony Fiore. A list of interviewees (blogged and scheduled) can be found here. If you like what you read, please do go and investigate further.
Morgen: Hello Carmen. Please tell us something about yourself, where you’re based, and how you came to be a writer.
Carmen: My real name is Carmen Anthony Fiore, which is also my professional writing name. After a three-year sojourn in Florida with my wife, Catherine, who is a professional artist and art teacher, we moved back to our home state, New Jersey. The Toms River area is only about five miles from the Atlantic Ocean. I was born in Trenton, NJ. Anyone from Great Britain who is interested and familiar with the interlocking history of our countries will note that the battles of Trenton and Princeton in 1776-77 (Christmas holiday time) against the Hessians and the British troops played a pivotal role in the American Revolution and Gen. Washington’s rejuvenation as a winner, overcoming the loser he was prior to those battles. Talk about a momentum switch!
I’ve always marched to a different drummer, and I was always highly alert to my environment when growing up, as well as having an active imagination. Looking back, I realize how important that was to my becoming a writer. But I shouldn’t discount growing up with my father’s barbershop occupying the front room of our house. I used to sweep the hair and shine shoes in it while listening to the adult male conversations. I found them intriguing. It was an education you can’t buy or get in school. Of course, as an adult I held positions as a social worker, a schoolteacher and ad a civil servant for the State of New Jersey where I dealt with the public on a daily basis. My work background contributed to the grist that fed my writer’s mill, writing part time while maintaining the jobs, and now that I am retired, I write full time and I’m loving every minute of it. I hold a B.S. in Commerce from Rider Univ. and a Master of Education Degree from Rutgers Univ. (both in NJ). And my all-time favorite author is William Shakespeare. I’m such a fan of his I wrote a supplemental textbook for high-school kids titled SUPPLEMENT TO SHAKESPEARE which is supposed to be published this year by a small independent education press. It compares Shakespeare / Elizabethan entertainments to the present-day entertainments in all their electronic glory.
Morgen: An active imagination certainly does help a writer although it sounds like you’ve had an interesting life to write what you know. What have you had published to-date?
Carmen: So far I’ve published (print / e-books) 26 titles. Twenty-four titles are available on the Kindle e-book reader and other hand-held devices as follows:
Full-length novels priced @ $2.99 per download:
- AVARICE CAN BE DEADLY (private-eye/mystery-suspense) ASIN: B006QG7N5M
- ITALIAN INTERLUDE (private-eye/mystery-suspense) ASIN: B0073GQMOM
- THE DREAM LADY (private-eye/mystery-suspense) ASIN: B006SMKVXA
- TILL DEATH DO US PART (private-eye/mystery-suspense) ASIN: B007139TG0
- EROTIC PRIEST (drama) ASIN: B006GV89SC
- LITTLE OSCAR (erotic drama) ASIN: B00564R9HC
- SEARCHING (racial drama) ASIN: B003KN3Z1U
- SZABO’S SONG (social drama) ASIN: B006OELY42
- THE BARRIER (racial drama) ASIN: B005230PZ0
- THE COLORED KID (family/racial drama) ASIN: B006M47M0O
- THE LINCOLN CAPER (what-if historical fiction) ASIN: B0064D6CZ4
- THE SNAKESKIN (juvenile adventure) ASIN: B004VSYMOM
- VENDETTA MOUNTAIN (family/suspense drama) ASIN: B004X2HTLE
- A CASE IN PRINCIPLE (amateur-sleuth/mystery-suspense) ASIN: B007DCBIFY
- AND BABY MAKES THREE (amateur-sleuth/mystery-suspense) ASIN: B0081KQ1LI
Novellas priced @ $1.99 per download:
- A RESTLESS SPRING (family drama) ASIN: B005BYXAIE
- MIXED DOUBLES (mystery-suspense) ASIN: B005C6CHB2
- SPORTS CAN BE LETHAL (private-eye/mystery-suspense) ASIN: B006VEZ518
- THE DEVIL’S WORKSHOP (private-eye/mystery-suspense) ASIN: B006YDMNKW
- WHERE’S THE PARTY? (drama) ASIN: B005A1IYIE
- YOUNGBLOOD STALLION: boy writer (humorous drama about writing, publishing) ASIN: B00767V43M
Full-length nonfiction:
- GETTING WHAT YOU WANT FROM DIFFICULT PEOPLE (self-help) ASIN: B005CKIBWM
- HOW TO BE EMBARRASSMENT PROOF (self-help) ASIN: B005D7V8QU
- NOBODY LOVES ME LIKE I DO (self-help) ASIN: B005EHRVB0
I have two books in print that are not on the Kindle:
- YOUNG HEROES OF THE CIVIL WAR (creative young-adult historical nonfiction)
- VOICES OF THE DAUGHTERS (nonfiction-interviews of Italian-American women/co-written)
Morgen: Wow. It makes me tired just reading that list. Have you ever written under a pseudonym?
Carmen: I have never used a pseudonym and never intend to.
Morgen: I wouldn’t say you need to with a great name like yours. You’ve self-published, what lead to you going your own way?
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Tags: agent, Amazon, author, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, biographers, biography, books, Carmen Anthony Fiore, characters, children’s, creative writing, crime, critique, erotic romance, erotica, Facebook, fantasy, feedback, fiction, flash fiction, Goodreads, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, historical, interview, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mystery, mystery series, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novels, paranormal, paranormal romances, pinterest, poetry, poetry collections, publisher, rejection letters, rejections, romance, science fiction, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, story author, story authors, story writer, submissions, Twitter, vampire, western, Wordpress, writer, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing group, writing magazines, YA, youtube
Welcome to the six hundred and thirteenth of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. Today’s is with non-fiction author and poet Dorothy K Fletcher. A list of interviewees (blogged and scheduled) can be found here. If you like what you read, please do go and investigate further.
Morgen: Hello, Dorothy. Please tell us something about yourself, where you’re based, and how you came to be a writer.
Photo courtesy of Will Dickey
Dorothy: I have lived the bulk of my 62 years in Jacksonville, Florida. The experiences I have had and the connections that I have made as an educator have helped me immensely in furthering my writing career. My most recent books have been local histories about the 50s and 60s in Jacksonville. They were put out by The History Press, a company located in South Carolina and London.
Morgen: Topography is incredibly popular. My aunt’s written seven books about her town, actually not that far from London. With your non-fiction, how do you decide what to write about?
Dorothy: Most of the time, I will have a lingering image from my childhood or youth and then I begin researching the event that is behind the image. Usually, I head for the main library and go through the microfilms of The Florida Times Union or the now-closed Jacksonville Journal. After that, I start calling people for interviews and then, as things are revealed, I start a “retelling” which includes all of the elements I remembered and I have discovered.
Morgen: I used to do in-person or Skype interviews and really enjoyed them, although they were time-consuming. I can get to do one a day via email (and there are plenty of authors wanting to be interviewed… I’m booked up to July!) but it was great actually getting to meet / speak to people. What have you had published to-date?
Dorothy: Besides numerous poems and articles, I have published 5 books. They are:
- The Week of Dream Horses, a children’s book, with Green Tiger Press (1984)
- The Cruelest Months, a novel about my teaching experiences in an inner city school in Jacksonville, with Xlibris (2002)
- Zen Fishing and Other Southern Pleasures, a collection of essays and poems about life in the South, with Ocean Publishing, (2005)
- Remembering Jacksonville: By the Wayside, a collection of essays written for the Florida Times Union, (2010)
- Growing Up Jacksonville: A 50s and 60s River City Childhood, a memoir about my Jacksonville childhood influences, (2012)
Morgen: I spotted Xlibris so you’ve self-published, what lead to you going your own way?
Dorothy: Yes, my second book was self-published. After many rejections, I was finally being championed by a young editor at Thomas Dunne, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press. Of course, after I revised the manuscript to suit them, it took almost a year for them to recommend another revision, which I did. I waited another year to be told a different rewrite was necessary. They wanted me to abandon my basic format because I used quotations from classics to open each chapter. I think there was concern over copyrights or fees that needed to be paid to use the quotations. At that point, I said no.
I have done very well on my own. I have sold over 1100 copies, quite good for a self-pub, and the book is now being used as a college text in an introduction to teaching class at Florida State College in Jacksonville. (It is interesting that my book has to be kept behind the counter because it has a tendency to be stolen—go figure. I suppose you could say I have arrived as a writer when people feel sufficiently compelled to steal my books).
In the teaching community, I have received many supportive comments about the book and its accurate depiction of teaching. I am afraid that traditional publishers in New York haven’t a clue what goes on in classrooms all over America, so they saw very limited possibilities for my book.
Just as a side note, I did get permissions from all living writers or the heirs of dead ones to use non-public domain quotations. I even paid Toni Morrison’s organization $35.00 and two copies of my book to use a piece of her The Bluest Eye. I think concerns over such things revealed a lack of publishing knowledge on the part of Thomas Dunne’s organization.
Morgen: It must be so thrilling to have your books used in classes – I think an aspiration of any author. It’s true you have to be careful about quoting other works but if they were ‘classics’, you’d probably find they were out of copyright and in the public domain already. Are all your books available as eBooks? Do you read eBooks or is it paper all the way?
Dorothy: Remembering Jacksonville is available as an ebook, and Growing Up Jacksonville will be within a few months. And as for ebook or paper, I can honestly say that I do both. I have a Kindle and love the ease with which I am able to read lying down. I also love being able to enlarge the fonts so that I do not need glasses. Still, I love reading books, flipping the pages, and cuddling up on the sofa with one. I love that I am in an age when both are possible.
Morgen: I can probably count on one hand the authors who’ve said they only read eBooks. I love the Kindle app on my iPad (and my books are only available as eBooks so I rely on those who do read them ). Did you choose the titles / covers of your books? How important do you think they are?
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Tags: agent, Amazon, author, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, biographers, biography, books, characters, children’s, creative writing, crime, critique, Dorothy K Fletcher, erotic romance, erotica, Facebook, fantasy, feedback, fiction, flash fiction, florida times union, Goodreads, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, historical, history press, interview, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mystery, mystery series, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novels, paranormal, paranormal romances, pinterest, poetry, poetry collections, publisher, rejection letters, rejections, romance, science fiction, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, story author, story authors, story writer, submissions, Twitter, vampire, western, Wordpress, writer, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing group, writing magazines, YA, youtube
Welcome to the six hundred and twelfth of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. Today’s is with multi-genre author Anne Hosansky. A list of interviewees (blogged and scheduled) can be found here. If you like what you read, please do go and investigate further.
Morgen: Hello, Anne. Please tell us something about yourself, where you’re based, and how you came to be a writer.
Anne: I live in New York City and work at home, which means I can get to my “office” in one minute.
I didn’t as much “come” to writing, as circle back to it. As a child I was always writing, mainly poems. My grandfather was the first (and only) person to believe I’d grow up to be a writer. You’ll be interested in knowing, Morgen, that he was British, a sports writer for The London Times. When I was a rebellious teenager I told him I was going to be an actress. “You’ll outgrow it,” he predicted. It took several decades, while I did act with various theatre companies. When I gave birth to my second child, I decided it was too difficult to juggle theatre and motherhood, so I stayed home and gained an extra 50 pounds out of boredom. I joined Weight Watchers to lose the pounds and heard that the company was looking for an editor. I applied, was hired, and began writing articles about weight loss. That was the beginning of getting back to my first love: writing. I left the organization after some 18 years, and began writing freelance articles and short stories.
What triggered my first book was my husband’s terminal illness and death in 1990. I wanted to write about our bizarre experiences in dealing with doctors. After my husband died, I continued writing about trying to make a new life for myself, writing it as I lived it. The result was my memoir Widow’s Walk.
Morgen: Sorry to hear about your husband. They say “write what you know”, and it is easier. Healthy eating has always been a popular subject – Jane Wenham-Jones blogged on my site only this week about her writer’s bottom. I’m also based at home and would sit in my pyjamas all day if I didn’t have to walk my dog. You write non-fiction, what else do you decide to write about?
Anne: Actually I write both fiction and non-fiction. With articles the idea comes from something I want to say or that seems relevant to the issues of the day. For instance, I’ve written many articles about being a caregiver for a loved one. After Widow’s Walk was published I decided to write about other people’s experiences on coping with loss. I interviewed dozens of inspiring people who also made new lives for themselves. This became my second book, Turning Toward Tomorrow.
Morgen: What have you had published to-date? Do you write under a pseudonym?
Anne: In addition to the two books I mentioned, I have a new one – Ten Women of Valor. It’s a totally different topic, our first Biblical heroines from a feminist viewpoint. I’ve also had numerous articles and short stories about a variety of topics published in magazines.
I don’t use a pseudonym. However, while working for Weight Watchers I wrote the advice column in the magazine under the name of Jean Nidetch (the founder). My therapist asked whether it bothered me to have my writing under someone else’s name. I thought about that, and haven’t done it since.
Morgen: I’d feel the same, unless I was being paid to ghost-write. You’ve self-published, what lead to you going your own way?
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Welcome to the newest slot on this blog, the Sunday night Novel Nights In, where I bring you guests’ novels, in their entirety, over a maximum of ten weeks.
And now I’ve added Saturday nights with the serialisation of my chick lit novel The Serial Dater’s Shopping List!
Tonight’s is the second in this series and features part two (9,100 words) of Book I (of 3) of a novel by literary author, poet and interviewee Rose Mary Boehm.
A German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm now lives and works in Lima, Peru. Two novels (‘Coming Up For Air’ and the follow-up ‘The Telling’) have been published in the UK, as well as a poetry collection (‘Tangents’). Her latest poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in US poetry reviews. Among others: Toe Good Poetry, Poetry Breakfast, Burning Word, Muddy River Review, Pale Horse Review, Pirene’s Fountain, Other Rooms, Requiem Magazine, Full of Crow, Poetry Quarterly, Punchnel’s, Verse Wisconsin, Naugatuck Poetry Review (contest semi-finalist), Avatar…
Her poem ‘Miss Worthington’ won third price in the coveted Margaret Reid Poetry Contest: http://winningwriters.com/contests/margaret/2009/ma09_epaminondas.php.
You can find out more about Rose and her writing at her blog: http://houseboathouse.blogspot.com, and you can also read one of Rose’s short stories on http://shortstorywritinggroup.wordpress.com/2013/01/12/short-story-for-critique-003-mrs-boffa-by-rose-mary-boehm.
Coming Up For Air
A young girl’s struggle to take control of her life – click here to read Book I, Part 1. If you don’t want to wait the 10 weeks for the whole story, you can purchase Coming Up for Air at Amazon.com (just $2.95) Amazon.co.uk (only £1.87). The rest of the ‘adventures of Annie’ can be read in THE TELLING.
***
11
As part of the blackout effort, there was no longer any light in our hallway. On each half landing between one flat and the next one were two lavatories, separated from each other by a wooden partition. When we first arrived at the village, Adelheid and Ulla showed me their ‘secret lavatory telephone system’: the holes in the wooden seats had wooden lids which one could pick up by a handle and put on the side of the box seat. Enormous pipes ran from either lavatory to one even bigger main pipe which then ran all the way down into the cesspool. An outside lavatory in the yard served the workers and us children when we played out there. When we played ‘telephone’, one of us would be in the yard loo, one of us somewhere half-way upstairs, and another one all the way up in one of the lavatories on the top landing. We’d lift up the lids, first let the flies escape and then shout to each other through the pipes until the grownups told us to stop it. So much for ‘secret’!
*
It’s bed time and Mother finishes the story… I have been holding my wee for some time now because there’s no way I can leave our flat, walk alone up the dark staircase to go to the lavatory. Out there is everything I fear. I need Mother to accompany me but she is busy and impatient with me. But I know that something will get me in the dark. My heart is beating fast. I wobble on my stool. I try to pretend I don’t need to go any more. Mother’s face promises storms, and – not for the first time – I can’t hold it any longer. It’s inevitable, wet and warm and totally embarrassing. Every morning in the light of day I promise myself that tonight I’ll face the dark. After several weeks of this I cannot hold my wee at all. I hurt. The doctor diagnoses a severe bladder infection.
*
It’s harvest time. I watch the horses pull empty carts out into the fields. They trot, the farmhand holding the reins. They are the same horses that pulled the plough in the spring but then they take turns. Now, late summer, they go out together. Soon all the corn will be cut, it’ll be tied into bales and five of them will be stacked against each other to form something resembling an Indian tepee. This way the corn can dry, and we can play hide and seek inside the stacked-up bales. Inside each ‘tepee’ is just enough room for one of us.
I have learned to run across the dry stubble without hurting my feet. Even though I tread on a thistle from time to time, it’s not much of an event because the soles of my feet are now as tough as leather.
The sun stays with us. The summer never ends. Soon the corn is dry and can be taken to the barns. The rhythmic sound of the flails echoes through the village.
When the harvests begin, we pick up empty sacks and bags and go to those fields where the farmers have nearly finished and where the last bundles of wheat, corn or barley, or the last sacks of potatoes, are being lobbed onto the carts. As soon as the farmer gives us the go-ahead, we begin to walk slowly across the field. Taking a sack each, we pick up whatever the machines have left, and the field is picked clean in no time.
The whole village is here, well, everyone who does not live on a farm. Old women, young women, children, some old men. Each gatherer follows his ‘own’ track. Some are gathering faster than others and take from the tracks of the slower ones. Some old people who can’t move very fast or bend very easily have very little to take home, and then there are some mean farmers who rake the fields until there is nothing left anyway.
We also gather sugar beets. Mother boils the sugar beets in the washhouse. It takes many pestilential hours of boiling the beets until a bowl of brown, sticky mush is left which Mother keeps for the winter. I can’t stand the taste of sugar-beet syrup because it reminds me of the smell when she boiled it in the washhouse.
*
I am by myself. The evening sun is still warm. It paints golden specks on the world. I feel lonely and like it. I can hear Armand’s voice from afar. Armand is one of the French prisoners of war who help the farmers. Armand is the nicest. He always has a smile for us children. He sings beautiful and sad songs. His voice makes me shiver. I can see him now. He sits high up on the wagon, the reins left lose, the horses walking very slowly. When he comes over the hill, down the hill, towards me, he sings the most beautiful and sad song of all – the song of the Normandy. I recognise it because Father often used to sing this song to me and, even though I don’t understand the words, I remember Father’s translation and feel sad – Armand must be lonely for his home. Now he sees me. He waves his beret at me. This is how pirates must have looked – proud, strong, beautiful. I hope that he can go home soon, home to his Normandy. Everybody seems to be in the wrong place.
I have learned French:
“Bonjour, Armand!”
“Bonjour, mademoiselle, ma belle!”
**
12
An estimated 2,000 thunderstorms are in progress at any one moment anywhere in the world, with lightning striking around 100 times each second. Daily, there are about 45,000 thunderstorms and yearly around 16 million all over the world.
*
And still it is hot. It’s already autumn, but the midday sun burns. The horizon behind the church steeple is now covered by a threatening dark metallic grey. The sparrows on the telephone wires are quiet; there is no wind. The horizon is blackening and slowly takes over most of the sky. The sun is still free, but its light has grown weaker. Everything made from polished metal takes on an eerie shine. And still there is no wind. The black spreads like a disease. The sun slowly expires, and the air grows heavier. Soon the wild riders will fill the sky. We wait. Nature waits. The trees await their punishment. My friends and I are holding hands and look up into the trees, waiting for the first sign. There… the leaves begin to whisper – quietly at first, then more urgently.
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John: Hello Morgen. I’m a retired police officer having provided armed protection for most royals, many foreign dignitaries, worked with MI5 and briefly with the American Secret Service, specializing in protection and anti-terrorism. I now live on a small hill farm, high in the Pennines of the Derbyshire Peak District. I suppose I’ve been a ‘writer’ all my adult working life but that writing was all reports and file preparation for courts. Fiction wasn’t really an option, but I carried some wonderful material in my head that led to my story writing in my retirement. The dangerous situations I sometimes found myself in and the vile characters that I encountered simply cry out to be included in fiction writing.
John: I’ve published two books so far. The first, ‘A Surprising Legacy’, (ISBN 978-0-9574852-0-4 Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com), and the second ‘The Lightning Tree’ (ISBN 978-0-9574852-2-8), (Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com).
