Book review from the Tampa Tribune:
'Death Wizard' Captures Magic Of Potter Series
By KAREN HAYMON LONG
Published: October 21, 2007
The Death Wizard Chronicles: Book One (The Pit) by Jim Melvin (Rain Publishing Inc., $18)
Adult Harry Potter and Eragon fans can get their next fix with Jim Melvin's six-book epic The Death Wizard Chronicles. Book one (The Pit) and book two (Moon Goddess) are out now. The other four will follow once a month beginning in November.
In The Pit, Melvin's imagination and writing equal that of J.K. Rowling, author of the fantastically popular Harry Potter series, and Christopher Paolini, author of Eragon and Eldest. Some of his descriptions -- and creatures -- even surpass theirs.
His fantasy takes place on Triken, a world of ancient rulers, of good vs. evil, love vs. hate.
His hero, Torg, wizard king of the Tugars, is a "Death Knower," who has died and come back to life stronger than ever many times over the centuries. Torg oversees a peaceful people threatened by an evil ruler, Invictus.
In exchange for the freedom of nuns and monks imprisoned by Invictus, Torg agrees to imprisonment in a pit in a monstrously grotesque frozen mountain called Asubha. No one expects him to survive.
But through his magical powers, great strength and by dying and resurrecting, he survives all that's thrown at him: a monstrous snow giant, demons, evil sorcerers, a cruel spider and giant worm monsters.
Melvin's descriptions of these monsters make them seem frightfully real. That's especially true of the demon Vedana, Invictus' grandmother, who forces Torg to impregnate her.
Melvin's hero may not have the youthful appeal of Harry Potter, but he's compelling enough to hook those who read The Pit.
-- Karen Haymon Long is the Tribune's book editor.
More Than Just A Novel
http://wd-desert.blogspot.com
Section: Books!
DESERT RAIN
More than just a novel
By Barbara Kowal
It was a wet Los Angeles afternoon when I went to visit Wallace Dorian about his new novella, Desert Rain, which seemed apropos, given the title of his book. I wanted to get a sense of the story through the author himself. Looking much younger than his sixty years--his black hair streaked with gray, and smoking cigarettes one after another--I interviewed Mr. Dorian about Desert Rain and how he came to write it.. He talked about more than his book. He also spoke about his struggling years and his humble beginnings growing up in rural Massachusetts.
BK (Barbara Kowal): Is Desert Rain your first novel?
WD (Wallace Dorian): Yes. Actually, it’s a novella. The story of how I came to write it is a journey in itself. Most of my writing has been screenplays and stage plays. I was living in Colorado at the time and feeling frustrated so I wrote this story “Desert Rain” which has a Native American theme running through it as you know. For the Hopi and Native American peoples, and for all of us for that matter, rain is an essential part of our lives, which boils down to water. Water symbolizes many things. It can sustain life, grow crops for food and can also be the very thing that kills us.
BK: The story has a very haunting quality to it. It seems to have all the mythic elements that a good story should have--that is, the hero’s journey into a kind of heart-of-darkness yet, new-age sensibility. You also incorporate the Native American theme into the story, which makes it even more compelling. Why did you choose to write about the Hopi?
WD: When I was a child, my father showed me a painting of the Hopi snake dance and how certain elders or dancers during the ceremony would put a rattlesnake in their mouths, and that image always stayed with me. In writing the story, the main character, Cynthia, a documentary filmmaker and a very independent woman in her 40s, is making a comeback after the tragic suicide of her teenage son, Steven. This, in fact, is the ghost that haunts her throughout the story even though we never see the events that precipitated it. I thought of the metaphor of the desert and this woman entering the arena of the Southwest, mainly Arizona and New Mexico. I then thought of the Southwest Native Americans and did a lot of research about the Anasazi, Pueblo and Navajo. But what really struck me as more intriguing were the Hopi Indians and the idea of the Kachina cult. Thus, I used the ancient Hopi stories that weave themselves very subtly into the fabric of the novella. This is done through the character of John Lone Eagle, a fictional elder.
BK: You also tell the coming-of-age story of an interesting character in Desert Rain--an eighteen-year-old girl who is half-Hopi.
WD: I’m glad you mentioned her because it is this character, Mary, or Kuwanyauma, who symbolizes the emerging generation of Hopi...especially in a high-tech, frenzied world that tries to cut them off from their native roots. In that sense, Mary is a symbol of hope for her people and one that will endure. The story also tells of Mary’s self-identity struggle in a world that wants her to conform to the status quo, and of her tense relationship with her single mother, Amber, who is trying to forget her Hopi roots. Mary also yearns to get close to her cowboy, drifter father who, after nine years away, suddenly returns. The story is a also a call for social acceptance in a world that is primarily racist. I try to convey this idea through storytelling that is indigenous to all cultures of the world.
BK: The book begins 500 years ago, when Coronado was trying to conquer the City of Cibola, or seven cities of gold. You have a scene where a mother is telling her young son a story about their past, just before they are murdered by Conquistadors later on.
WD: Yes. Ironically, I wrote the prologue after I’d already written the first draft of the book and developed Mary’s story more fully. The prologue conveys this idea of storytelling to carry on one’s respect and love of their culture. This storytelling concept comes full circle in the end when Mary–now married with a child and a successful lawyer in the year 2023–is relating an old Hopi folk story to her young son. It is here that the story really comes together in expressing the need for future generations to never forget who they are and where they came from.
BK: What do you hope to accomplish with this book?
WD: Someone once said to me that I was in the “emotion” business. And I was also asked how I came to write a story with the Hopi in it since I’m not even Hopi. I don’t know. Maybe someone was writing it through me in some strange way. I’m just an instrument. I do believe that the story has universal appeal and is not just about Hopi or Native American culture. I think it speaks to all of us about the nature of love, redemption, loss, sacrifice, family and tradition that everyone can relate to. I just tried to convey it in a literary and emotional way. I also hope the book will also strike a nerve with young adults and teens.
BK: All the best with Desert Rain, Mr. Dorian, and thank you very much.
WD: Thank you.
Desert Rain is available at select bookstores near you or at www.rainbooks.com
Section: Books!
DESERT RAIN
More than just a novel
By Barbara Kowal
It was a wet Los Angeles afternoon when I went to visit Wallace Dorian about his new novella, Desert Rain, which seemed apropos, given the title of his book. I wanted to get a sense of the story through the author himself. Looking much younger than his sixty years--his black hair streaked with gray, and smoking cigarettes one after another--I interviewed Mr. Dorian about Desert Rain and how he came to write it.. He talked about more than his book. He also spoke about his struggling years and his humble beginnings growing up in rural Massachusetts.
BK (Barbara Kowal): Is Desert Rain your first novel?
WD (Wallace Dorian): Yes. Actually, it’s a novella. The story of how I came to write it is a journey in itself. Most of my writing has been screenplays and stage plays. I was living in Colorado at the time and feeling frustrated so I wrote this story “Desert Rain” which has a Native American theme running through it as you know. For the Hopi and Native American peoples, and for all of us for that matter, rain is an essential part of our lives, which boils down to water. Water symbolizes many things. It can sustain life, grow crops for food and can also be the very thing that kills us.
BK: The story has a very haunting quality to it. It seems to have all the mythic elements that a good story should have--that is, the hero’s journey into a kind of heart-of-darkness yet, new-age sensibility. You also incorporate the Native American theme into the story, which makes it even more compelling. Why did you choose to write about the Hopi?
WD: When I was a child, my father showed me a painting of the Hopi snake dance and how certain elders or dancers during the ceremony would put a rattlesnake in their mouths, and that image always stayed with me. In writing the story, the main character, Cynthia, a documentary filmmaker and a very independent woman in her 40s, is making a comeback after the tragic suicide of her teenage son, Steven. This, in fact, is the ghost that haunts her throughout the story even though we never see the events that precipitated it. I thought of the metaphor of the desert and this woman entering the arena of the Southwest, mainly Arizona and New Mexico. I then thought of the Southwest Native Americans and did a lot of research about the Anasazi, Pueblo and Navajo. But what really struck me as more intriguing were the Hopi Indians and the idea of the Kachina cult. Thus, I used the ancient Hopi stories that weave themselves very subtly into the fabric of the novella. This is done through the character of John Lone Eagle, a fictional elder.
BK: You also tell the coming-of-age story of an interesting character in Desert Rain--an eighteen-year-old girl who is half-Hopi.
WD: I’m glad you mentioned her because it is this character, Mary, or Kuwanyauma, who symbolizes the emerging generation of Hopi...especially in a high-tech, frenzied world that tries to cut them off from their native roots. In that sense, Mary is a symbol of hope for her people and one that will endure. The story also tells of Mary’s self-identity struggle in a world that wants her to conform to the status quo, and of her tense relationship with her single mother, Amber, who is trying to forget her Hopi roots. Mary also yearns to get close to her cowboy, drifter father who, after nine years away, suddenly returns. The story is a also a call for social acceptance in a world that is primarily racist. I try to convey this idea through storytelling that is indigenous to all cultures of the world.
BK: The book begins 500 years ago, when Coronado was trying to conquer the City of Cibola, or seven cities of gold. You have a scene where a mother is telling her young son a story about their past, just before they are murdered by Conquistadors later on.
WD: Yes. Ironically, I wrote the prologue after I’d already written the first draft of the book and developed Mary’s story more fully. The prologue conveys this idea of storytelling to carry on one’s respect and love of their culture. This storytelling concept comes full circle in the end when Mary–now married with a child and a successful lawyer in the year 2023–is relating an old Hopi folk story to her young son. It is here that the story really comes together in expressing the need for future generations to never forget who they are and where they came from.
BK: What do you hope to accomplish with this book?
WD: Someone once said to me that I was in the “emotion” business. And I was also asked how I came to write a story with the Hopi in it since I’m not even Hopi. I don’t know. Maybe someone was writing it through me in some strange way. I’m just an instrument. I do believe that the story has universal appeal and is not just about Hopi or Native American culture. I think it speaks to all of us about the nature of love, redemption, loss, sacrifice, family and tradition that everyone can relate to. I just tried to convey it in a literary and emotional way. I also hope the book will also strike a nerve with young adults and teens.
BK: All the best with Desert Rain, Mr. Dorian, and thank you very much.
WD: Thank you.
Desert Rain is available at select bookstores near you or at www.rainbooks.com
Unusual Abductors Sighted in Toronto
UNUSUAL ABDUCTORS SIGHTED IN TORONTO
Just when we all thought we were safe, it has been reported that Graeme Hulis, an English boy in Toronto Canada has began to experience unusual sightings.
According to him, these sightings indicate that Abductors are afoot in the city. The thirteen year old boy was reluctant to describe at length the nature of his encounters, but it was reported that he did not have prior exposure with paranormal activity. Rumors surfaced which indicate that the sudden disappearance of the boy’s father might indeed be an unusual abduction.
Explosive information has surfaced concerning the boy’s long dead mother indicating that she too might have been exposed to mysterious encounters and activity in and around the home they left behind in the UK. It would appear at this time, that there is every possibility that things Graeme Hulis might have confided to his Jamaican school friend Norman Abdilani are unexplainable. No one, not even Norman Abdilani seems to know for sure why Graeme Hulis has been targeted by Abductors. Norman speculates that his friend’s interest in folk and alien lore might well have stimulated the interest of beings outside of our realm.
Graeme Hulis of course is the main character is Bernadette Gaby Dyer’s new Young Adult Fantasy book “Abductors” released by Rain Publishing in the summer of 2007-Dyer author of Waltzes I Have Not Forgotten, Women’s Press, 2004 and Villa Fair, Beach Home, 2000 is also a professional reader for The Writers Union of Canada.
Born in Kingston Jamaica, where she graduated from The Immaculate Conception High School, as well as The Jamaica School Of Art, having specialized in Painting and Design. She was trained as a teacher at Toronto’s Lakeshore Teacher’s College, before becoming a novelist, a poet, a storyteller, a short story writer and a playwright.
Bernadette has told stories on CBC Radio, as well as a variety of Toronto venues, that include the popular "1001 Nights Storytelling Series," and festivals at Nathan Phillips Square. She has read from her own work at Harbor Front, Lees Palace, the University Of Toronto, and numerous other locations. Her work has been anthologized in several collections and appeared in Canadian literary magazines as well as literary magazines from the University of London England, a journal from France, and a literary magazine from the University of Miami Florida.
Bernadette lives and works in Toronto.
###
Please contact Rain Publishing admin at rainbooks dot com 905-592-2122 for more information, or to arrange an interview with Bernadette Gabay Dyer contact her directly at BERNADETTEEDYER@aol.com
Just when we all thought we were safe, it has been reported that Graeme Hulis, an English boy in Toronto Canada has began to experience unusual sightings.
According to him, these sightings indicate that Abductors are afoot in the city. The thirteen year old boy was reluctant to describe at length the nature of his encounters, but it was reported that he did not have prior exposure with paranormal activity. Rumors surfaced which indicate that the sudden disappearance of the boy’s father might indeed be an unusual abduction.
Explosive information has surfaced concerning the boy’s long dead mother indicating that she too might have been exposed to mysterious encounters and activity in and around the home they left behind in the UK. It would appear at this time, that there is every possibility that things Graeme Hulis might have confided to his Jamaican school friend Norman Abdilani are unexplainable. No one, not even Norman Abdilani seems to know for sure why Graeme Hulis has been targeted by Abductors. Norman speculates that his friend’s interest in folk and alien lore might well have stimulated the interest of beings outside of our realm.
Graeme Hulis of course is the main character is Bernadette Gaby Dyer’s new Young Adult Fantasy book “Abductors” released by Rain Publishing in the summer of 2007-Dyer author of Waltzes I Have Not Forgotten, Women’s Press, 2004 and Villa Fair, Beach Home, 2000 is also a professional reader for The Writers Union of Canada.
Born in Kingston Jamaica, where she graduated from The Immaculate Conception High School, as well as The Jamaica School Of Art, having specialized in Painting and Design. She was trained as a teacher at Toronto’s Lakeshore Teacher’s College, before becoming a novelist, a poet, a storyteller, a short story writer and a playwright.
Bernadette has told stories on CBC Radio, as well as a variety of Toronto venues, that include the popular "1001 Nights Storytelling Series," and festivals at Nathan Phillips Square. She has read from her own work at Harbor Front, Lees Palace, the University Of Toronto, and numerous other locations. Her work has been anthologized in several collections and appeared in Canadian literary magazines as well as literary magazines from the University of London England, a journal from France, and a literary magazine from the University of Miami Florida.
Bernadette lives and works in Toronto.
###
Please contact Rain Publishing admin at rainbooks dot com 905-592-2122 for more information, or to arrange an interview with Bernadette Gabay Dyer contact her directly at BERNADETTEEDYER@aol.com
When Breast Cancer Said Hello
When Breast Cancer Said Hello
It was a typical November day in 2004 when the phone rang in my office. Most of my thoughts were on the upcoming feast of Thanksgiving and time spent with family sharing laughs and great food. The thoughts of the wonderful days ahead were soon dashed by the tone of my Mother’s voice at the end of the line.
My Mother had recently had a mammogram that had shown a suspicious area in her breast that the doctors decided to biopsy. “Jeff, the results weren’t good,” was all she needed to say. As a lump formed in my throat I scrambled for whatever words I could respond with, I quickly entered a state of denial. The only thought that raced through my brain was “This isn’t real; these things just don’t happen to us.” The conversation changed into a discussion on what would happen next and the plans of treatment that the physician recommended. What I had hoped was only a bad dream that I’d soon awake from suddenly became something very real, my Mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer.
The news for our family couldn’t have come at a more difficult time. My Brother, who serves in the Army, was nearing the end of his 10th month in Iraq. It had been a very difficult load for all of us, especially my parents. The latest news would make for a very difficult holiday season for our entire family.
When the holidays arrived they were difficult but we made it through them. There was still the glow in the eyes of the grandchildren, and we enjoyed the time together sharing memories of Christmas past. But with my Brother in Iraq and the mountain that my Mother was facing, there was a distinct somberness that couldn’t be avoided.
My Mother’s surgery was during the first week of January and was a success without any complications. The next several months were spent going from one appointment to another as she slowly recovered while battling the disease. The process was a real rollercoaster ride for Mom, full of ups and downs in the way she felt physically and mentally.
I will never be able to fully express the gratitude I have for my parents for the unspoken life lessons that were taught to me through this difficult time. In my Father I saw the words “in sickness and in health” being lived out before my very eyes. Although I know that this was tough on him, my Father was a rock through this never leaving my Mother’s side. He showed me what being dedicated to a commitment meant and that we each have only one true love in our life, but only a lucky few ever find them.
I saw an inner strength from my Mother that could only be described as someone that is truly living on faith, along with a belief that this faith would see her through. When some of us grew weak along the road, she remained positive and strong. Mom became a hero for all of us, and I will always treasure her for the living example that she is.
It was through my Mother’s battle that I became inspired to write “Running the Race,” a children’s story about breast cancer. It is my sincere hope that the story will serve as an educational tool for children of loved ones stricken to better cope with something that is difficult to understand.
“Running the Race” is for adults too. The story offers an inspirational message that will show that everyone can make a difference in this battle against breast cancer. It is my sincere hope that all who turn the pages of “Running the Race” will be touched in a special way. I believe that everyone will find something that truly speaks to their hearts.
The story of how breast cancer has affected my family is one that is lived out by families around the world each and every day. There have been great advances in efforts toward awareness, prevention, and research, and this wonderful progress that we are witnessing is only the beginning.
No one ever expects breast cancer to say hello, but I firmly believe that someday the same hello that has haunted millions of lives will become a goodbye…forever.
Author Jeff Yosick’s book “Running the Race”was released by Rain Publishing Inc. Ask for your copy at a local bookstore near you, or visit http://www.rainbooks.com/ for more information.
-end-
It was a typical November day in 2004 when the phone rang in my office. Most of my thoughts were on the upcoming feast of Thanksgiving and time spent with family sharing laughs and great food. The thoughts of the wonderful days ahead were soon dashed by the tone of my Mother’s voice at the end of the line.
My Mother had recently had a mammogram that had shown a suspicious area in her breast that the doctors decided to biopsy. “Jeff, the results weren’t good,” was all she needed to say. As a lump formed in my throat I scrambled for whatever words I could respond with, I quickly entered a state of denial. The only thought that raced through my brain was “This isn’t real; these things just don’t happen to us.” The conversation changed into a discussion on what would happen next and the plans of treatment that the physician recommended. What I had hoped was only a bad dream that I’d soon awake from suddenly became something very real, my Mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer.
The news for our family couldn’t have come at a more difficult time. My Brother, who serves in the Army, was nearing the end of his 10th month in Iraq. It had been a very difficult load for all of us, especially my parents. The latest news would make for a very difficult holiday season for our entire family.
When the holidays arrived they were difficult but we made it through them. There was still the glow in the eyes of the grandchildren, and we enjoyed the time together sharing memories of Christmas past. But with my Brother in Iraq and the mountain that my Mother was facing, there was a distinct somberness that couldn’t be avoided.
My Mother’s surgery was during the first week of January and was a success without any complications. The next several months were spent going from one appointment to another as she slowly recovered while battling the disease. The process was a real rollercoaster ride for Mom, full of ups and downs in the way she felt physically and mentally.
I will never be able to fully express the gratitude I have for my parents for the unspoken life lessons that were taught to me through this difficult time. In my Father I saw the words “in sickness and in health” being lived out before my very eyes. Although I know that this was tough on him, my Father was a rock through this never leaving my Mother’s side. He showed me what being dedicated to a commitment meant and that we each have only one true love in our life, but only a lucky few ever find them.
I saw an inner strength from my Mother that could only be described as someone that is truly living on faith, along with a belief that this faith would see her through. When some of us grew weak along the road, she remained positive and strong. Mom became a hero for all of us, and I will always treasure her for the living example that she is.
It was through my Mother’s battle that I became inspired to write “Running the Race,” a children’s story about breast cancer. It is my sincere hope that the story will serve as an educational tool for children of loved ones stricken to better cope with something that is difficult to understand.
“Running the Race” is for adults too. The story offers an inspirational message that will show that everyone can make a difference in this battle against breast cancer. It is my sincere hope that all who turn the pages of “Running the Race” will be touched in a special way. I believe that everyone will find something that truly speaks to their hearts.
The story of how breast cancer has affected my family is one that is lived out by families around the world each and every day. There have been great advances in efforts toward awareness, prevention, and research, and this wonderful progress that we are witnessing is only the beginning.
No one ever expects breast cancer to say hello, but I firmly believe that someday the same hello that has haunted millions of lives will become a goodbye…forever.
Author Jeff Yosick’s book “Running the Race”was released by Rain Publishing Inc. Ask for your copy at a local bookstore near you, or visit http://www.rainbooks.com/ for more information.
-end-
P.L. Reed-Wallinger
P.L. Reed-Wallinger,
Masters Curriculum & Instruction
Novelist Ÿ Author Ÿ Educator
Dark Secrets, Forbidden Fantasies, Emma's Choice and coming winter 2007- Obscene Obsessions
Born into a military family, in San Diego, California, P.L. Reed-Wallinger traveled a great deal with her parents and brother, W. Craig, living in such places as California, Guam, Turkey, Washington State, Arizona, and Maryland. After twenty years of service, most in cloak and dagger Intelligence work, her father, William J. Reed, retired from the Navy and took up writing. That life change introduced his children to a new world—one that not only fascinated, but lit the creative fires within.
With her family raised, P.L.Reed-Wallinger followed that life-long dream to put pen to paper and stepped into the literary arena alongside her father, William Joseph Reed, and brother, W. Craig Reed, with the publication of her first book the romantic suspense, Dark Secrets. One year later, and excited to be with a new publisher, Reed-Wallinger has penned two more novels due for publication. The first release, Forbidden Fantasies, is another romantic suspense, but with an erotica leaning. Emma’s Choice, the second release, is a young adult novel set in Wymore, Nebraska.
Reed-Wallinger claims her years of residing in the state of Nebraska have given her a profound appreciation for the work ethic, resiliency, backbone, and heart of its people, something she tries to capture in her work. Holding a Masters of Curriculum and Instruction, and employed as a middle school general science teacher, P.L.Reed-Wallinger currently lives in southeast Nebraska.
The author also encourages feedback from her readers, via email at the following address: pam@reedwriting.com
For more information on Reed-Wallinger’s work, please visit www.rainbooks.com or www.reedwriting.com.
Masters Curriculum & Instruction
Novelist Ÿ Author Ÿ Educator
Dark Secrets, Forbidden Fantasies, Emma's Choice and coming winter 2007- Obscene Obsessions
Born into a military family, in San Diego, California, P.L. Reed-Wallinger traveled a great deal with her parents and brother, W. Craig, living in such places as California, Guam, Turkey, Washington State, Arizona, and Maryland. After twenty years of service, most in cloak and dagger Intelligence work, her father, William J. Reed, retired from the Navy and took up writing. That life change introduced his children to a new world—one that not only fascinated, but lit the creative fires within.
With her family raised, P.L.Reed-Wallinger followed that life-long dream to put pen to paper and stepped into the literary arena alongside her father, William Joseph Reed, and brother, W. Craig Reed, with the publication of her first book the romantic suspense, Dark Secrets. One year later, and excited to be with a new publisher, Reed-Wallinger has penned two more novels due for publication. The first release, Forbidden Fantasies, is another romantic suspense, but with an erotica leaning. Emma’s Choice, the second release, is a young adult novel set in Wymore, Nebraska.
Reed-Wallinger claims her years of residing in the state of Nebraska have given her a profound appreciation for the work ethic, resiliency, backbone, and heart of its people, something she tries to capture in her work. Holding a Masters of Curriculum and Instruction, and employed as a middle school general science teacher, P.L.Reed-Wallinger currently lives in southeast Nebraska.
The author also encourages feedback from her readers, via email at the following address: pam@reedwriting.com
For more information on Reed-Wallinger’s work, please visit www.rainbooks.com or www.reedwriting.com.
Fool On My Knees
Fool On My Knees
Tilly Rivers
Reaching out into the air
Seeing the colours that aren’t really there
When will I learn that love is a fable
And stop falling on my knees like a fool
Raise my hands to the sky
Clenched fists begging why
Why am I such a fool to believe?
Why am I such a fool to still care?
It does not seem to matter how much you hurt me
I still have a spot that won’t let you go inside me
I’m not a silly person without backbone or brain
Why am I such a fool when it comes to you?
Let him go my mind screams
Let him go my spirit begs from the pain
Yet my heart hangs on like a fool
A fool on my knees
Seeing the colours that aren’t really there
When will I learn that love is a fable
And stop falling on my knees like a fool
Raise my hands to the sky
Clenched fists begging why
Why am I such a fool to believe?
Why am I such a fool to still care?
It does not seem to matter how much you hurt me
I still have a spot that won’t let you go inside me
I’m not a silly person without backbone or brain
Why am I such a fool when it comes to you?
Let him go my mind screams
Let him go my spirit begs from the pain
Yet my heart hangs on like a fool
A fool on my knees
Novel Stands Out From the Crowd
Real Characters That Will Appeal to Both the Heterosexual and Homosexual Demographic Makes This Novel Stand Out From the Crowd!
Victoria Tatum’s The Virgin Children is a story of complex family identification that shows what makes or breaks the bonds that bind.
Santa Cruz (CA) – You cannot help but be drawn to The Virgin’s Children. The story of self discovery, same-sex relationships, and family identification which shares the parallel stories of Paul, who has only known the love of his religious grandmother, and Nora, who discovers she is pregnant after a drunken graduation night tryst with her homosexual friend Evan.
Victoria Tatum has certainly proven her MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University has gone to good use. This is literature at its best and will appeal to a large demographic including both heterosexual and homosexual readers, with believable characters fostering a real life feel.
Tilly Rivers, CEO of Rain Publishing Inc states “Victoria has penned a story that we can all relate with; that being the struggle of self and where we fit in.”
The Virgin’s Children was released in December 2006 from Rain Publishing Inc. and is available by request at local bookstores or on line at www.rainbooks.com
For more information regarding The Virgin’s Children please call 905-592-2122 or email info@rainbooks.com
-end-
Victoria Tatum’s The Virgin Children is a story of complex family identification that shows what makes or breaks the bonds that bind.
Santa Cruz (CA) – You cannot help but be drawn to The Virgin’s Children. The story of self discovery, same-sex relationships, and family identification which shares the parallel stories of Paul, who has only known the love of his religious grandmother, and Nora, who discovers she is pregnant after a drunken graduation night tryst with her homosexual friend Evan.
Victoria Tatum has certainly proven her MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University has gone to good use. This is literature at its best and will appeal to a large demographic including both heterosexual and homosexual readers, with believable characters fostering a real life feel.
Tilly Rivers, CEO of Rain Publishing Inc states “Victoria has penned a story that we can all relate with; that being the struggle of self and where we fit in.”
The Virgin’s Children was released in December 2006 from Rain Publishing Inc. and is available by request at local bookstores or on line at www.rainbooks.com
For more information regarding The Virgin’s Children please call 905-592-2122 or email info@rainbooks.com
-end-
Excerpt: Anhedonia
Colin O’Sullivan
Rain Publishing
www.rainbooks.com
*
We’ve just got out of the truck, Billy, Gerri and I. Billy was driving and then he told us what he’d done and he pulled over to the side of the road and we got out. Gerri screamed so loud I thought the windscreen would shatter. Gerri’s a girl. When we were young I used to tease her, telling her it was a boy’s name. But she really got off on that. She never liked being a girl. She still wears boys’ clothes. Even takes Billy’s clothes though they are too big for her. Billy’s her brother. I think I’d probably like to have a go with her, you know, if she was more feminine, and if she wasn’t Billy’s brother, looking like him and all. But she’s like one of the guys, so I can’t, could never really, get a handle on it. She screams like a girl though. No changing that. If you don’t have an Adam’s apple you scream like a girl. Or like a bitch Billy says. But you can’t blame her for screaming this time. I nearly did. I gasped and felt my balls go funny, as if warm soup had just been poured inside my testicle sack. Billy’s just told us that Mrs. Cane’s body is in the back of the truck.
I used to call her Mrs. Cane, even when she said to call her Julie. I couldn’t get a handle on it. I like to be polite to people when I am talking to them. I always called her late husband Mr. Cane too; truth is though, I didn’t even know his first name. He fell off some scaffolding while on a job somewhere, building a building or something. At least that’s what Billy said. But you can’t always trust Billy. Although he’s like our leader and everything, you can’t believe everything he’d say to you. He’s always making things up. When he’s not doing damage to people that is. He gets in lots of fights. All three of us do. But he gets in more because he’s always aggressive. About everything. He comes up with the ideas, like how the three of us wear matching denim overalls now, and matching peaked caps; Billy fears the ultraviolet rays, “devil’s secret work”, so we protect ourselves. These are his notions. And we go along with them. And the rock band idea was his too. Though none of us could play an instrument. We just liked the idea of being in a band. Gerri can sing a bit though. I sometimes sit outside her door when she’s singing in the shower; it makes me feel good. But because Billy wanted to be the singer he decided to split up the band. He said, “as of now, I am hereby dissolving the band, as sugar does in water.” He always has funny ways of saying things. He gets the stuff from books. You wouldn’t take him for a reader but he is; the only thing he really liked in school, not that we ever spent too much time there, was reading them English books Mrs. Liddy would dish out. School has been over for a few years now. Now we are all legal. We can drink. Billy even has a driving license and we can have sex if we want to. And though I sometimes want to do it with Gerri, like when we go to the beach and she wears a swimsuit and doesn’t look like a boy at all…but I think Billy wouldn’t allow me. They are very close. We all are, but especially those two, obviously, because they are family and all. He gives her big hugs and tells her everything will be all right. And he strokes her short hair. She always keeps it short like a boy. I remember when their grandfather died and they were real young and they didn’t even cry. Or maybe they did, but in private. I didn’t see it. I cried though, for myself more than anyone else. I was thinking how sad it would be if someone in my family died. That’s why I was crying. I haven’t cried for years now though. Billy knocked all that out of me, for my own good. Even when we did get around to killing my father I didn’t cry. Billy had told us that if we were to carry out our mission, our vocation, well, we had to start with the most painful stuff. It made sense I guess. Billy has a way of making you think that what he says makes sense. It’s like a car salesman or something. You know they are lying to you but you kind of think what they are saying is impressive the way they do it, all gestures and smiles and all. My mother had left us, me and my father that is, years ago. She said was staying with her sister for a few days and got on the bus and never came back. The school principal Mrs. West, a fat woman with glasses, said it retarded my development, but I think I was pretty developed all right. I felt like taking down my pants then and there and showing her just how developed I was. Could have slapped my dick across her cheek. That would have shut her up. But I have my real family in Billy and Gerri anyway. They are a few years older than me and take care of me. With my Mom gone we burned the house down with my dad in it. It was easy for everyone to think he got drunk and fell asleep and let his cigarette fall near the old kerosene lamp and the whole thing spread so fast, we had kind of made it look like it was a drunken accident. Everyone bought it. I think they didn’t really care enough to investigate too much. He was such a sorry state after Mom left for her sister’s, a drunken mess most of the time. There were cockroaches everywhere. I think Billy used to call over just to have fun killing them with that big old mallet he used to carry around. The social workers thought I’d be better off with a proper family and started making inroads to get me to move to a foster family. I did spend some time with a family a few miles down the road. The Watson’s. They were nice but couldn’t contain me much. I was always running off. I dodged them enough till I became old, became an adult like, and the authorities gave up and knew I slept in Billy’s house most of the time anyway. Billy’s parents, and Gerri’s obviously, don’t mind me staying there. I’m there most of my days. Unless the three of us are out on a mission of sacrifice (we just tell the folks we are camping out in the woods for a little while. Billy’s parents think we are real outdoor people). I think they kind of like having me around the house though. I’m real polite to them. And I never swear. Billy’s always at it. They tell him to cut it out but it’s too late now it’s such a habit. Maybe they think I will marry Gerri someday. Which isn’t a bad idea… but I doubt Billy will go for it.
Why he has decided to kill old Mrs. Cane I don’t know. How he chooses the catches, I don’t get it. It’s like we started doing ritual stuff, like he told us the books said, but we soon gave all that up. Blood of chickens etc, it all got a bit much, was kind of dumb, so we just got rid of all that stuff, just did the killings straight up. Billy says that you can only know real sadness if you know happiness and freedom if you know pain. He says I know freedom now because I burned down my house with my dad in it. Billy gets loads of books from the library. And he underlines some of the interesting bits though I told him he shouldn’t, ‘snot his property. Some of the books are philosophy and history and stuff. He can read much better than me. Gerri can too. She’s smart. It bugs me sometimes. The Mrs. Cane thing is kind of getting to me now too. She was such a nice old lady. She used to make this great blackcurrant jam and bring it over to my Mom and my Mom would lash it onto my toast. I don’t see why Billy had to do this to her.
Colin O’Sullivan
Rain Publishing
www.rainbooks.com
*
We’ve just got out of the truck, Billy, Gerri and I. Billy was driving and then he told us what he’d done and he pulled over to the side of the road and we got out. Gerri screamed so loud I thought the windscreen would shatter. Gerri’s a girl. When we were young I used to tease her, telling her it was a boy’s name. But she really got off on that. She never liked being a girl. She still wears boys’ clothes. Even takes Billy’s clothes though they are too big for her. Billy’s her brother. I think I’d probably like to have a go with her, you know, if she was more feminine, and if she wasn’t Billy’s brother, looking like him and all. But she’s like one of the guys, so I can’t, could never really, get a handle on it. She screams like a girl though. No changing that. If you don’t have an Adam’s apple you scream like a girl. Or like a bitch Billy says. But you can’t blame her for screaming this time. I nearly did. I gasped and felt my balls go funny, as if warm soup had just been poured inside my testicle sack. Billy’s just told us that Mrs. Cane’s body is in the back of the truck.
I used to call her Mrs. Cane, even when she said to call her Julie. I couldn’t get a handle on it. I like to be polite to people when I am talking to them. I always called her late husband Mr. Cane too; truth is though, I didn’t even know his first name. He fell off some scaffolding while on a job somewhere, building a building or something. At least that’s what Billy said. But you can’t always trust Billy. Although he’s like our leader and everything, you can’t believe everything he’d say to you. He’s always making things up. When he’s not doing damage to people that is. He gets in lots of fights. All three of us do. But he gets in more because he’s always aggressive. About everything. He comes up with the ideas, like how the three of us wear matching denim overalls now, and matching peaked caps; Billy fears the ultraviolet rays, “devil’s secret work”, so we protect ourselves. These are his notions. And we go along with them. And the rock band idea was his too. Though none of us could play an instrument. We just liked the idea of being in a band. Gerri can sing a bit though. I sometimes sit outside her door when she’s singing in the shower; it makes me feel good. But because Billy wanted to be the singer he decided to split up the band. He said, “as of now, I am hereby dissolving the band, as sugar does in water.” He always has funny ways of saying things. He gets the stuff from books. You wouldn’t take him for a reader but he is; the only thing he really liked in school, not that we ever spent too much time there, was reading them English books Mrs. Liddy would dish out. School has been over for a few years now. Now we are all legal. We can drink. Billy even has a driving license and we can have sex if we want to. And though I sometimes want to do it with Gerri, like when we go to the beach and she wears a swimsuit and doesn’t look like a boy at all…but I think Billy wouldn’t allow me. They are very close. We all are, but especially those two, obviously, because they are family and all. He gives her big hugs and tells her everything will be all right. And he strokes her short hair. She always keeps it short like a boy. I remember when their grandfather died and they were real young and they didn’t even cry. Or maybe they did, but in private. I didn’t see it. I cried though, for myself more than anyone else. I was thinking how sad it would be if someone in my family died. That’s why I was crying. I haven’t cried for years now though. Billy knocked all that out of me, for my own good. Even when we did get around to killing my father I didn’t cry. Billy had told us that if we were to carry out our mission, our vocation, well, we had to start with the most painful stuff. It made sense I guess. Billy has a way of making you think that what he says makes sense. It’s like a car salesman or something. You know they are lying to you but you kind of think what they are saying is impressive the way they do it, all gestures and smiles and all. My mother had left us, me and my father that is, years ago. She said was staying with her sister for a few days and got on the bus and never came back. The school principal Mrs. West, a fat woman with glasses, said it retarded my development, but I think I was pretty developed all right. I felt like taking down my pants then and there and showing her just how developed I was. Could have slapped my dick across her cheek. That would have shut her up. But I have my real family in Billy and Gerri anyway. They are a few years older than me and take care of me. With my Mom gone we burned the house down with my dad in it. It was easy for everyone to think he got drunk and fell asleep and let his cigarette fall near the old kerosene lamp and the whole thing spread so fast, we had kind of made it look like it was a drunken accident. Everyone bought it. I think they didn’t really care enough to investigate too much. He was such a sorry state after Mom left for her sister’s, a drunken mess most of the time. There were cockroaches everywhere. I think Billy used to call over just to have fun killing them with that big old mallet he used to carry around. The social workers thought I’d be better off with a proper family and started making inroads to get me to move to a foster family. I did spend some time with a family a few miles down the road. The Watson’s. They were nice but couldn’t contain me much. I was always running off. I dodged them enough till I became old, became an adult like, and the authorities gave up and knew I slept in Billy’s house most of the time anyway. Billy’s parents, and Gerri’s obviously, don’t mind me staying there. I’m there most of my days. Unless the three of us are out on a mission of sacrifice (we just tell the folks we are camping out in the woods for a little while. Billy’s parents think we are real outdoor people). I think they kind of like having me around the house though. I’m real polite to them. And I never swear. Billy’s always at it. They tell him to cut it out but it’s too late now it’s such a habit. Maybe they think I will marry Gerri someday. Which isn’t a bad idea… but I doubt Billy will go for it.
Why he has decided to kill old Mrs. Cane I don’t know. How he chooses the catches, I don’t get it. It’s like we started doing ritual stuff, like he told us the books said, but we soon gave all that up. Blood of chickens etc, it all got a bit much, was kind of dumb, so we just got rid of all that stuff, just did the killings straight up. Billy says that you can only know real sadness if you know happiness and freedom if you know pain. He says I know freedom now because I burned down my house with my dad in it. Billy gets loads of books from the library. And he underlines some of the interesting bits though I told him he shouldn’t, ‘snot his property. Some of the books are philosophy and history and stuff. He can read much better than me. Gerri can too. She’s smart. It bugs me sometimes. The Mrs. Cane thing is kind of getting to me now too. She was such a nice old lady. She used to make this great blackcurrant jam and bring it over to my Mom and my Mom would lash it onto my toast. I don’t see why Billy had to do this to her.
Abductors Reviewed by Teen Read Too! 5 star Rating
ABDUCTORS by Bernadette Gabay Dyer
Category: Science Fiction
Age Recommendation: Grades 6+
Release Date: 6/1/07
Publisher: Rain Publishing
Reviewed by: Marta Morrison
Rating: 5 StarsBalance.
That is a theme that I have come across in books and society. We need balance in all we do. We need it in work and play, physical and mental, good and evil, and in spiritual and earthly. The earth is out of balance and we need to make it right again.
ABDUCTORS explores this theme in the realm of good and evil. The good starts with the plight of Graeme Hulis, who awakens on the Downs in Sussex, England. He is found by a professor who is studying the paranormal. Graeme cannot remember anything about his life. Then he meets a beautiful girl named Anna Wall. The professor then decides to hypnotize Graeme, and he tells him and Anna the fascinating story involving the abduction of his mother by little men, the arrival of spacemen in Toronto, Canada, the love of fairies, and the future of the balance in nature.
There are many interesting characters in this story, There is a loving family, a talking fox, little men, amazing friendships, and a main character who the reader will grow to love. It is a quick read that holds the reader's attention. I hope Ms. Dyer will write a sequel, because I would like to hear more about Graeme and his friends.
Category: Science Fiction
Age Recommendation: Grades 6+
Release Date: 6/1/07
Publisher: Rain Publishing
Reviewed by: Marta Morrison
Rating: 5 StarsBalance.
That is a theme that I have come across in books and society. We need balance in all we do. We need it in work and play, physical and mental, good and evil, and in spiritual and earthly. The earth is out of balance and we need to make it right again.
ABDUCTORS explores this theme in the realm of good and evil. The good starts with the plight of Graeme Hulis, who awakens on the Downs in Sussex, England. He is found by a professor who is studying the paranormal. Graeme cannot remember anything about his life. Then he meets a beautiful girl named Anna Wall. The professor then decides to hypnotize Graeme, and he tells him and Anna the fascinating story involving the abduction of his mother by little men, the arrival of spacemen in Toronto, Canada, the love of fairies, and the future of the balance in nature.
There are many interesting characters in this story, There is a loving family, a talking fox, little men, amazing friendships, and a main character who the reader will grow to love. It is a quick read that holds the reader's attention. I hope Ms. Dyer will write a sequel, because I would like to hear more about Graeme and his friends.
Unplanned Family Finds a Way to Make Things Work
Unplanned family finds a way to make things work; Mother of seven chronicles their life together in conjunction with adoption month
New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal
Page: B6 Section: News Byline: By Erin Dwyer For the Telegraph-Journal Source:
Donna Gillis Spalding always dreamt of adopting a child - a dream that grew from her volunteer work in a Cape Breton orphanage when she was 16.
But she never imagined she and husband, Howard, would adopt seven children - all from different racial backgrounds.
"This was a totally unplanned family," she said.
Today, Spalding is launching her book, Roots, Wings & Other Things: A mother's true stories of transracial adoptions, in conjunction with National Adoption Month.
The book, published by Ontario's Rain Publishing, is coming out at a time when adoption officials in the province are once again encouraging people to consider adopting older children. It's also coming out at a time when Madonna's adoption of a Malawi boy made headline news and stirred debate about the ethics and merits of transracial adoptions.
In her book, Spalding offers an internal glimpse into an interracial family, and one of the first in Canada. Transracial adoption was not permitted in Canada until the 1970s. With little Canadian research on the success of transracial adoptions, according to the publisher, this book begins to fill the gap by providing anecdotal evidence that they do work.
Spalding said she wanted to demonstrate that a family does not have to be white, middle class with two children to be normal. She wanted to tell others that family is more important than race of culture.
"The controversy over transracial adoption usually focuses on the importance of children being raised among people of their own race," she writes. "Although we recognize the value in that point of view, we believe that having a family, regardless of one's race or traditions, is more important that not having one.
"Transracial adoption is not exploitation; it's just practical," she adds.
But Spalding has a second message. At a time when international adoptions are popular, Spalding said, there are many older children here in the province waiting for a good and loving home.
According to recent statistics from the province, more than 600 children - most of them between the ages of three and 12 - are in care needing permanent homes.
"In terms of bonding, it is just as easy to bond with an older child as a younger child," she said. "But with an older child, we had to back off being the parent. We had to let the children talk, and let them tell them this is a good place, and then let them wait until they were ready."
Having never forgot the orphans she worked with as a teenager, she decided early on she would adopt when she was married. She even made it one of her criteria for finding a husband - something Howard Spalding agreed to before their wedding in 1964.
A year after their biological son, Jade, was born, they proceeded with their first adoption - a three-month-old boy African-Canadian boy named Jason. For several years, they raised their two boys while attending classes at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, where both were pursuing their undergraduate degrees.
On the day of their graduation, instead of attending the ceremony, they drove to Cape Breton where they adopted Aleta, a two-year-old girl of First Nations descent. In the same foster home, they laid eyes on a white, African- Canadian girl. At the time, Megan was not available for adoption, but a year later the four-year-old was adopted into the Spalding home.
When Howard began practising law in Saint John, one of his first cases involved the adoption of two siblings of Chinese-Canadian descent. The adoption fell through and soon Jessica, 5, and Scott, 8, joined the growing Hampton family.
When Jade was 13, he brought home a 13-year-old boy named Angus.
"You've been bringing kids home all my life, now it's my turn," Spalding recalled her son saying.
Angus, of Acadian descent, lived with the family for two years before deciding he wanted to be adopted, becoming the seventh child in the family.
Nadine, who was of Canadian-Jamaican descent, joined the family as a 20-year- old, old enough not to have to go through the formal adoption process.
Growing up, the children did experience racism, Spalding said. But because so many of them came from different cultural backgrounds, they could rely on each other.
"The fact there were so many of them in the same situation, it really wasn't that big a problem. They could relate to each other and they formed a pretty strong unit. They could defend one another pretty readily, and did."
While most parents don't know what problems their children will encounter in life, Spalding said, she and her husband had the advantage of being able to identify some. They knew the children - some of whom had experienced physical and mental abuse before being adopted - might encounter racism, have difficulty in developing a sense of identity and difficulty accepting the concept of family.
"We knew we had to make them into really strong individuals. So we didn't sweat the little things."
While they didn't drag them to cultural centres, Spalding said, she and her husband encouraged their children to investigate their ethnic backgrounds just as she encouraged them to look up their biological family.
"In the end, it is family, not race, which matters," she said.
All of the children attended university and became professionals. During a week this past summer, three of them were married on the family homestead in Hampton, planning their weddings so they would coincide. At one wedding, there was a sweet grass ceremony and native drumming. At another wedding, the couple jumped the broom - an African-American marriage rite.
"Our children have grown beyond our beliefs and values, having to a large extent developed unique values and beliefs of their own," Spalding writes in her book. "But in the end, what we will always share is that common root system that wound its way through the years, nourishing each of us as we grew individually, and as part of a larger family."
New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal
Page: B6 Section: News Byline: By Erin Dwyer For the Telegraph-Journal Source:
Donna Gillis Spalding always dreamt of adopting a child - a dream that grew from her volunteer work in a Cape Breton orphanage when she was 16.
But she never imagined she and husband, Howard, would adopt seven children - all from different racial backgrounds.
"This was a totally unplanned family," she said.
Today, Spalding is launching her book, Roots, Wings & Other Things: A mother's true stories of transracial adoptions, in conjunction with National Adoption Month.
The book, published by Ontario's Rain Publishing, is coming out at a time when adoption officials in the province are once again encouraging people to consider adopting older children. It's also coming out at a time when Madonna's adoption of a Malawi boy made headline news and stirred debate about the ethics and merits of transracial adoptions.
In her book, Spalding offers an internal glimpse into an interracial family, and one of the first in Canada. Transracial adoption was not permitted in Canada until the 1970s. With little Canadian research on the success of transracial adoptions, according to the publisher, this book begins to fill the gap by providing anecdotal evidence that they do work.
Spalding said she wanted to demonstrate that a family does not have to be white, middle class with two children to be normal. She wanted to tell others that family is more important than race of culture.
"The controversy over transracial adoption usually focuses on the importance of children being raised among people of their own race," she writes. "Although we recognize the value in that point of view, we believe that having a family, regardless of one's race or traditions, is more important that not having one.
"Transracial adoption is not exploitation; it's just practical," she adds.
But Spalding has a second message. At a time when international adoptions are popular, Spalding said, there are many older children here in the province waiting for a good and loving home.
According to recent statistics from the province, more than 600 children - most of them between the ages of three and 12 - are in care needing permanent homes.
"In terms of bonding, it is just as easy to bond with an older child as a younger child," she said. "But with an older child, we had to back off being the parent. We had to let the children talk, and let them tell them this is a good place, and then let them wait until they were ready."
Having never forgot the orphans she worked with as a teenager, she decided early on she would adopt when she was married. She even made it one of her criteria for finding a husband - something Howard Spalding agreed to before their wedding in 1964.
A year after their biological son, Jade, was born, they proceeded with their first adoption - a three-month-old boy African-Canadian boy named Jason. For several years, they raised their two boys while attending classes at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, where both were pursuing their undergraduate degrees.
On the day of their graduation, instead of attending the ceremony, they drove to Cape Breton where they adopted Aleta, a two-year-old girl of First Nations descent. In the same foster home, they laid eyes on a white, African- Canadian girl. At the time, Megan was not available for adoption, but a year later the four-year-old was adopted into the Spalding home.
When Howard began practising law in Saint John, one of his first cases involved the adoption of two siblings of Chinese-Canadian descent. The adoption fell through and soon Jessica, 5, and Scott, 8, joined the growing Hampton family.
When Jade was 13, he brought home a 13-year-old boy named Angus.
"You've been bringing kids home all my life, now it's my turn," Spalding recalled her son saying.
Angus, of Acadian descent, lived with the family for two years before deciding he wanted to be adopted, becoming the seventh child in the family.
Nadine, who was of Canadian-Jamaican descent, joined the family as a 20-year- old, old enough not to have to go through the formal adoption process.
Growing up, the children did experience racism, Spalding said. But because so many of them came from different cultural backgrounds, they could rely on each other.
"The fact there were so many of them in the same situation, it really wasn't that big a problem. They could relate to each other and they formed a pretty strong unit. They could defend one another pretty readily, and did."
While most parents don't know what problems their children will encounter in life, Spalding said, she and her husband had the advantage of being able to identify some. They knew the children - some of whom had experienced physical and mental abuse before being adopted - might encounter racism, have difficulty in developing a sense of identity and difficulty accepting the concept of family.
"We knew we had to make them into really strong individuals. So we didn't sweat the little things."
While they didn't drag them to cultural centres, Spalding said, she and her husband encouraged their children to investigate their ethnic backgrounds just as she encouraged them to look up their biological family.
"In the end, it is family, not race, which matters," she said.
All of the children attended university and became professionals. During a week this past summer, three of them were married on the family homestead in Hampton, planning their weddings so they would coincide. At one wedding, there was a sweet grass ceremony and native drumming. At another wedding, the couple jumped the broom - an African-American marriage rite.
"Our children have grown beyond our beliefs and values, having to a large extent developed unique values and beliefs of their own," Spalding writes in her book. "But in the end, what we will always share is that common root system that wound its way through the years, nourishing each of us as we grew individually, and as part of a larger family."
Interview with Jim Melvin
Epic fantasy novelist. The Death Wizard Chronicles. Rain Publishing. www.rainbooks.com
Interview with Jim Melvin“The Death Wizard Chronicles”
WEB SITE: http://www.mrmedia.com RSS FEED: http://feeds.feedburner.com/MrMedia
Jim Melvin has been a friend of mine for more than twenty years and, for as long as I’ve known him, his driving interest has been writing an epic fantasy series, something that might find shelf space alongside J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.
But life kept getting in the way. He was married, raised two wonderful daughters, had a full-time job as an editor at the St. Petersburg Times, and did all the other good stuff that eats up time and interferes with achieving those very personal dreams we all entertain.
But that’s life, right? Well, a few years ago, Jim decided it was now or never. He retired from the newspaper, took his family and savings, and moved to North Carolina. He put everything else aside to fulfill what he believed to be his destiny and nearly two- thousand pages that became The Death Wizard Chronicles.
The first book in the six-book epic fantasy was released in September by Rain Publishing, and a new installment will be delivered to bookstores every thirty days until the entire series is available in February 2008.
It’s a hell of a story, a hell of a series, and Jim Melvin is a hell of a guy.(You can meet Jim in person when he makes his major book festival debut on Saturday, October 27, 2007, at the St. Petersburg Times Festival of Reading!)
Check out this week’s entertaining Mr. Media interview – via audio or read the transcription – now: http://www.mrmedia.com !
Don’t miss an audio download – subscribe to Mr. Media in the podcast section of iTunes!
As always, thanks for checking out Mr. Media!
Bob Andelman
Mr. Mediahttp://www.mrmedia.com http://feeds.feedburner.com/MrMedia
Interview with Jim Melvin“The Death Wizard Chronicles”
WEB SITE: http://www.mrmedia.com RSS FEED: http://feeds.feedburner.com/MrMedia
Jim Melvin has been a friend of mine for more than twenty years and, for as long as I’ve known him, his driving interest has been writing an epic fantasy series, something that might find shelf space alongside J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.
But life kept getting in the way. He was married, raised two wonderful daughters, had a full-time job as an editor at the St. Petersburg Times, and did all the other good stuff that eats up time and interferes with achieving those very personal dreams we all entertain.
But that’s life, right? Well, a few years ago, Jim decided it was now or never. He retired from the newspaper, took his family and savings, and moved to North Carolina. He put everything else aside to fulfill what he believed to be his destiny and nearly two- thousand pages that became The Death Wizard Chronicles.
The first book in the six-book epic fantasy was released in September by Rain Publishing, and a new installment will be delivered to bookstores every thirty days until the entire series is available in February 2008.
It’s a hell of a story, a hell of a series, and Jim Melvin is a hell of a guy.(You can meet Jim in person when he makes his major book festival debut on Saturday, October 27, 2007, at the St. Petersburg Times Festival of Reading!)
Check out this week’s entertaining Mr. Media interview – via audio or read the transcription – now: http://www.mrmedia.com !
Don’t miss an audio download – subscribe to Mr. Media in the podcast section of iTunes!
As always, thanks for checking out Mr. Media!
Bob Andelman
Mr. Mediahttp://www.mrmedia.com http://feeds.feedburner.com/MrMedia
10 Tips on How to be an Awkward Author!
Margaret Watson
Blokes with Stoves, Hot as You Like It
Stockport, Cheshire UK
**This is just for a quick smile and a laugh**
How to be an awkward author – 10 top tips
1) Make sure there are enough spelling mistakes and grammatical errors in your query letters. About one a line at least. A couple of crossings out would add a touch of authenticity – Charles Dickens did it, and a certain Mr Shakespeare or is that Shakspar
2) Editors hate good original work, otherwise why do they reject so much. Ensure that yours is neither good nor original by writing a bad parody. If you are writing for a magazine look at last months issue and write an article on a featured subject. If it worked well last month it will be twice as good next month – right?
3) Don’t bother about author’s guidelines, formatting and word counts. They are only for beginners and anyway they aren’t important now that we have word processors.
4) Address your query letter to ‘To whom it may concern.’ rather than using the editor’s name. Everyone knows how busy editors are and you will ensure that at least it ends up on someone’s desk. Also it shows that you are too busy to spare time looking up the editors name and probably haven’t had time to read the magazine.
5) Call frequently to see what progress your submission is making. About once a day is about right, but the more often the better. They will publish just to shut you up. On the other hand don’t return telephone calls or e.mails or only after a week or so. Keep them on their toes.
6) Do not cite references. Looking things up is someone’s job and you don’t want them to be redundant. Anyway quoting proper references may result in paying royalty payments.
7) Always get deadlines extended. It shows you are in control and a Christmas article at Easter will be unique but in December it will be only one of many.
8) Have firmly fixed ideas before you begin about such things as art work, fonts to be used etc. You know what you want so why listen to experts.
9) Be inflexible when it comes to publicity opportunities such as signings and book fairs – if only the second Thursday in December will do stick to it.
10) Most importantly – do not accept editorial advice – this is your work take it or leave it.
Not everyone can an Awkward Author, but follow all or as many of these rules as possible and you’ll make it. There are authors out there who get published without keeping any of these rules, but remember an Awkward Author is a Remembered Author.
Blokes with Stoves, Hot as You Like It
Stockport, Cheshire UK
**This is just for a quick smile and a laugh**
How to be an awkward author – 10 top tips
1) Make sure there are enough spelling mistakes and grammatical errors in your query letters. About one a line at least. A couple of crossings out would add a touch of authenticity – Charles Dickens did it, and a certain Mr Shakespeare or is that Shakspar
2) Editors hate good original work, otherwise why do they reject so much. Ensure that yours is neither good nor original by writing a bad parody. If you are writing for a magazine look at last months issue and write an article on a featured subject. If it worked well last month it will be twice as good next month – right?
3) Don’t bother about author’s guidelines, formatting and word counts. They are only for beginners and anyway they aren’t important now that we have word processors.
4) Address your query letter to ‘To whom it may concern.’ rather than using the editor’s name. Everyone knows how busy editors are and you will ensure that at least it ends up on someone’s desk. Also it shows that you are too busy to spare time looking up the editors name and probably haven’t had time to read the magazine.
5) Call frequently to see what progress your submission is making. About once a day is about right, but the more often the better. They will publish just to shut you up. On the other hand don’t return telephone calls or e.mails or only after a week or so. Keep them on their toes.
6) Do not cite references. Looking things up is someone’s job and you don’t want them to be redundant. Anyway quoting proper references may result in paying royalty payments.
7) Always get deadlines extended. It shows you are in control and a Christmas article at Easter will be unique but in December it will be only one of many.
8) Have firmly fixed ideas before you begin about such things as art work, fonts to be used etc. You know what you want so why listen to experts.
9) Be inflexible when it comes to publicity opportunities such as signings and book fairs – if only the second Thursday in December will do stick to it.
10) Most importantly – do not accept editorial advice – this is your work take it or leave it.
Not everyone can an Awkward Author, but follow all or as many of these rules as possible and you’ll make it. There are authors out there who get published without keeping any of these rules, but remember an Awkward Author is a Remembered Author.
Michele Paiva Sets up Parents to Win Against Professional Bullies in the School System
Pocket Guide for The Educational Advocate
by Michele Paiva
This brief guide of what you need to know, to advocate your rights, in any educational system will help parents express their rights and even the 'playing' field against "professional" bulling by teachers in the School System.
Teachers need to be aware of their obligations and responsibilities . Students need to be aware of their rights, and how they can stand up against power abuse . Administrators and all federally funded program employers and employees, such as a district as a whole and all of the individuals within, also need to know their obligations – both ethically and legally.
From the K through 12 system, and colleges (training institutes to Ivy League) from students and parents to professors and teachers; there is a need for a higher level of understanding on rights and empowerment for students, who are inevitably, the most common victims of failings in the education system.
Elliot Stone and the Mystery of the Backyard Treasure by LP Chase
Elliot Stone and the Mystery of the Backyard Treasure by L.P. Chase
Elliot Stone is back! And he and his friends, Cassie and Jake are ready to solve their newest mystery! It all begins when the trio sets out to dig up a buried treasure chest and discover much more than they bargain for--a secret box, a mysterious key, a foreign name...What does it all mean? But when Elliot discovers a creepy statue in his grandparents’ house, he can’t shake the urge to investigate even more. Dig in with Elliot, Jake and Cassie, as they get to the bottom of this latest mission.
Complete details at www.rainbooks.com
Constructing Your Masterpiece
Constructing Your Masterpiece
It’s Possible At Any Age
By Krissy Brady
My first book Tidal Wave was released by Rain Publishing Inc. There is nothing more amazing than accomplishing something that you have wanted since the age of six. I can seriously still remember sitting in my grade one classroom, stapling stacks of paper together in order to create my “novels”. Apparently, I was even detail-oriented back then, because afterwards I would attach a piece of construction paper and design an original “cover” for each one I put together.
My tastes have obviously changed, and the caliber of my writing has improved (let’s hope), but no matter how many books I end up publishing, it’s still going to feel like I’m putting together a book of scribbling and construction paper. I’ll complete each project with just as much pride as I did when I was six.
Though I’m more particular about the finished product than I used to be, the natural enjoyment I have during the entire process is timeless—it’s how I know I’ve chosen the perfect career.
When you end up turning your hobby into a career, it’s important to keep your work as light as possible so as to take it seriously enough to succeed, but to still gain the sincere enjoyment out of it that was always there. It’s a hard thing to remember at times as workloads fluctuate, but there’s nothing more satisfying than waking up and knowing that you have complete control over your day.
About Krissy Brady
Krissy Brady is a freelance writer residing in Gravenhurst, Ontario, Canada. She is the editor-in-chief of Brady Magazine, an online writer’s trade directory dedicated to putting writers on the map. She is also a poet, whose book Tidal Wave is currently in production (Rain Publishing, www.rainbooks.com).
It’s Possible At Any Age
By Krissy Brady
My first book Tidal Wave was released by Rain Publishing Inc. There is nothing more amazing than accomplishing something that you have wanted since the age of six. I can seriously still remember sitting in my grade one classroom, stapling stacks of paper together in order to create my “novels”. Apparently, I was even detail-oriented back then, because afterwards I would attach a piece of construction paper and design an original “cover” for each one I put together.
My tastes have obviously changed, and the caliber of my writing has improved (let’s hope), but no matter how many books I end up publishing, it’s still going to feel like I’m putting together a book of scribbling and construction paper. I’ll complete each project with just as much pride as I did when I was six.
Though I’m more particular about the finished product than I used to be, the natural enjoyment I have during the entire process is timeless—it’s how I know I’ve chosen the perfect career.
When you end up turning your hobby into a career, it’s important to keep your work as light as possible so as to take it seriously enough to succeed, but to still gain the sincere enjoyment out of it that was always there. It’s a hard thing to remember at times as workloads fluctuate, but there’s nothing more satisfying than waking up and knowing that you have complete control over your day.
About Krissy Brady
Krissy Brady is a freelance writer residing in Gravenhurst, Ontario, Canada. She is the editor-in-chief of Brady Magazine, an online writer’s trade directory dedicated to putting writers on the map. She is also a poet, whose book Tidal Wave is currently in production (Rain Publishing, www.rainbooks.com).
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