Legend of Galactic Heroes is a Trek Beyond the Familiar

Now, for a little something different - an audio excerpt. As a picture is worth a thousand words, at times a brief reading of a narrative is even more valuable. That is why audiobooks are on the rise.

Yoshiki Tanaka's Legend of the Galactic Heroes, narrated by Tim Gerard Reynolds displays the science babble of Star Trek with the pacing and detail of an Orson Scott Card. Fans of science fiction and those who love a great use of language and imagery will be riveted by the combination.

Not Every Sadness Yields Defeat

The discovery of a new writer is always a thrill. It is like a walk into a meadow in the midst of a thick forest. The experience brings light in unanticipated ways. You know there are more trees on the other side, and it leaves you anxious with thoughts about what comes next. That is it is like to explore Tim I. Gurung’s eighth novel, Old Men Don’t Cry!

The subtitle is A Hong Kong Tale of Sorrow, yet don’t be fooled. The words are accurate. There is a great deal of sadness and disappointment in the story of Chan Hong, a Chinese kid with absentee parents who seeks to become a police officer and find fulfillment. At the same time, so many more things come from the novel, that saga is also a tale of triumph. The journey to his goals holds a number of sad twists and turns, yet what Hong traverses teaches readers a lot about what it means to be a man, to love and be hungry for achievement. That spirit is captured best in the title phrase near the novel’s end:

I had promised myself I would not cry anymore. I was too old to cry, and we all know that old men don’t cry. It was not that old men don’t feel pain, yet it is not easy for an old man to cry openly and express his feelings in public....One thing was clear: if there were a next life and I was given a choice, I wanted to repeat the same life again without any changes.

The reader might see such a sentiment and realize that what most adds fulfillment to a man’s life is to be in the sweep of change. That is the other great dimension of the novel. 

Gurung like the late U.S. Novelist James A. Michener. As Michener's Tales of the South Pacific, Hawaii and Alaska , Gurung's Old Men Don't Cry!  sketches out characters against the sweep of a history and evolution of a great society. His prose has the meticulousness of a Robert Ludlum, whose Bourne Trilogy has been the basis for a number of popular films.

“If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people,” Michener once said, “you might better stay home.” Like the American author, Gurung pulls readers into the  heart  of everyday life so that they experience  each moment in Hong's life as a period of their own. He grounds the chapters with background on the political and social changes of the nation, and then they play out in the character's  life. The emergence of China from 1980 to present is revealed in such detail at some points Hong appears to mirror his motherland's struggles.

Gurung, who was born in Nepal, but raised in Hong Kong, walks readers through the culture and sociology of the land. The author returned to the land of his birth for a few months after he retired from the Gurkhas in 1993, yet returned to the island nation to set up a business. After age 50, he began to write as he had in his youth. He uses those funds to support an educational foundation for youth in Nepal. 

At the same time, his main character, Chan Hong, is thoroughly steeped in a discovery of Chinese culture on and off the mainland.Readers learn about the important holidays such as the celebration of the Lunar New Year, the Ghost Festival and Ching Ming from an angle not open to most Westerners.   At the same time, the author shares the political and social changes that redirects the lives of everyday people in the country.

The author unveils a sensory tour of the land in minute detail, because in some ways he was one of those everyday people. Gurung, as his real-life fathers and uncles, became a Gurkha soldier at age 17. As the novel shows, life in the British military unit was tough. The Nepalese were set into a country within a country in many respects, yet the author shows that for children such as Hong, circumstances were almost no different. His service gave the author a special opportunity to see Hong Kong   ways many of the people who lived there never could. The novel benefits from that exposure as the narrative builds a character who seeks righteousness, yet discovers that the world in which he lives offers many people little hope. He places many of those insights into the mind of the protagonist.

On his move from the small village of Kam Tin, Chan Hong goes to Tokwawan, a larger place, in pursuit of his dream to be a police officer. He meets his goal, yet is not a great success. The main character remains a street cop, because his attitude is not compatible with those who move into the higher ranks. In fact, his constant bids to try to discover, understand and help those he encounters at points diminishes his life. 

His lifelong friends, Eddie Ko and Tsang Adele have broader lives because they get to study in the United States, yet they all end up back in the circumstances they fled. Each of the players in the drama is guided by a trait, and Hong’s is self-sacrifice, which makes him vulnerable in every aspect of his life.

Advertisements on the novel say what Hong sacrifices, “will pain your soul,’ and his sorrows will, “just make you cry.” That is true. At the same time, many of those who read this book will want to cheer for the main character at the end. The novel is a classic tearjerker, but more than that it is a story of emergence for a man and his country. Readers can come away with three thoughts. First - a selfish life is a sad waste. Second, choice more than fate controls what you can do. Lastly, not every sadness yields defeat. 

A Testament to the Power and Freedom Hidden in Books

The Book Itch: Freedom, Truth & Harlem's Greatest Bookstore
Vaunda Micheaux Nelson (Author)
R. Gregory Christie (Illustrator)
Carolrhoda Books
ASIN:B013V6OF6O

Most people miss the value of people, places or things in which they see little connection to their lives.  For example, I did not know there was a Grandparents Day until time and circumstance forced me to become one. It is funny how many great things escape our notice. In that same way, award-winning author Vaunda Micheaux Nelson admits she did not realize the beauty or importance of her great uncle's life's work, until after he died. Yet, the light came on for her, as readers will see in the soon-to-be released nonfiction tale, The Book Itch. The writer captures an important American story about a die-hard book lover, as well as a time, place and people of which most people in the United States today missed.

The 32-page text is a simply written tribute to the importance of words, and a man who found his way to freedom and success through their embrace. Lewis Henri Michaux, the main character, is indeed an unusual figure in his devotion. The man was an evangelist for the power of the written word, because he understood the ability to read and grasp ideas was the essence of education. That fact is clearly shown in the sayings he shouted as he literally hawked titles in New York City's Harlem, such as, "Don't get took. Read a book," or  "Knowledge is power. You need it every hour. Read a book."

Those attracted to the book for a biography of a once important African American will not be disappointed. The author shares Michaux's story in several ways. Although, the narrator is the fictional voice of her cousin, Lewis Michaux, Jr., the facts are there. At the same time, book also builds on her great uncle's slogans to create a tableau that cleverly imparts a strong message that books are cool, even outside of school. "You are not necessarily a fool because you didn't go to school," was one of his father's fondest mottoes.

Lewis Michaux had not much more than a "sharecropper's education," which meant the main thing black youth in his time were taught was how to work in the fields. The bookseller, who died in 1976, was born in Newport News, Virginia, during the last decades of the 19th Century, a time when it was hard for poor African Americans to go to schools. Their school years were often held captive by the needs of the harvest. They would attend classes until the season came for them to pick the crops.

Michaux rejected that fate. He fell into a life of crime as young man, yet redeemed himself, and eventually discovered a passion for words that led him to become an apostle that spread a "knowledge is power" gospel. As mentioned, when his book business began around 1932, he walked the streets with a cart and shouted lines like, "Don't get took. Read a book." Ultimately, the message and those efforts grew into Harlem's African National Memorial Bookstore, a nexus for learning and free speech.

The store near 125th Street and Seventh Avenue was a magnet for readers of all ages, as well as writers, artists, musicians, scholars, and politicians, that included celebrities as diverse as boxing legend Muhammad Ali, the late trumpeter Louis Armstrong, the late Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah, the late authors James Baldwin and Langston Hughes, and civil rights leader Malcolm X. The Book Itch with its vibrant drawings by R. Gregory Christie will delight readers, even in kindergarten, as a read-aloud tale. There were times when the design and layout made the work a little hard to follow for novice readers, yet experienced readers even into middle school will be drawn to the tale's style and message.

The takeaway from The Book Itch for many readers is a sense of empowerment. They will see in Vaunda Micheaux Nelson's nicely knit tale, that an individual can yield real power over his or her future, and knowledge fuels that potential.

And, The Workers Say

Talking Back: Voices of Color
Nellie Wong, editor
Red Letter Press
240 pages
ISBN: 978-0-9323223-32-3



Given the recent reports on desperate conditions for service workers throughout the United States, there is no better way to honor Labor Day than to propose you check out Talking Back: Voices of Color. The work offers readers insights into the United States from laborers and a broad assembly of those who see life from the streets instead of ivory towers. The text might be ideal as a reader for writing students, because the commentaries are easily readable and well edited. It is also a chance to hear more from those who live daily with consequences of the social, political and economic policies rather than the competitive cries of paid pundits. Any adult interested in the honest exploration of views on those issues from a wide range of Americans - native-born and immigrant, different genders, races, sexual orientations, ages, and disabilities - is bound to find enlightenment in this essay collection edited by poet Nellie Wong. I did.

If you are closed to the views of those sectors of society, or prone to be biased against the fact that the group behind it is largely socialist, the work provides a chance for openness. No? Then it will not appeal to you.

Talking Back was - and is - a potent force, a crucial step in understanding that race oppression, sex discrimination, abusive bosses, income inequality, poverty, homelessness, and never-ending war were systemic, institutionalized under capitalism to wreak havoc on our political, working and creative lives.

Wong writes that in the introduction as the key lesson learned through the transformation she underwent in the 1970s. As a Chinese woman, she was raised to be silent about her views. The Oakland writer says that as she listened to the many voices of those shunted aside in society she began to grasp that speaking out was a path to change.

Talking Back: Voices of Color is filled with testimony on trending topics as diverse as immigration reform, the Mexican Border, police violence, the Middle East crisis, and workers’ rights. Most of the statements are less than 1,000 words, yet the writers use of facts and reflection give them punch. Interested readers will find themselves saying, “I didn’t know that,” over and over as the commentaries organized under chapter headings such as, “The border crossed us,” make it easier to hone in on the subjects of greatest interest. For example in Chapter 7, “Shaking it up,” retired Teamster Ann Rogers’ contribution, “Still working after 80: Social Security and me,” pulled me into the book. Her plight is one to which many retired Baby Boomers can relate.

 “The cost of living skyrocketed over two decades, my Social Security did not,” she explains in the dissection of a government benefit system that provides no comfort to many elderly. At 82, the Chippewa woman still works daily, “because I unfortunately also need food, clothes, medicine, a car, gas, and car repairs.” Rogers makes readers consider how the system doles out Social Security compensation. She talks about the general procedure, then asks readers to think about what that might be like for a working single parent.

A Social Security pension is based on an average of a person’s lifetime earnings. That means low-wage workers get smaller payouts. Rogers started as a waitress then worked for Sears. Her employer’s retirement rested on company stock. When those prices dropped like a boulder off a cliff in the recession in the late 1970s, and she was laid off at age 60, there was little to hope for except Social Security. “The highest 30 years of my wages were averaged to figure my benefit,” she states, then contrasts her underfunded fate with what will happen to those who will have to cope with the even more restrictive policies today.

Now wages are averaged over 35 years, and that is sure to include the low wages most people start out making. For many women, unaffordable childcare means they have to take time off work when their kids are young, and they don’t have 35 years’ worth of wage history. 

In the overall, the book is an unsubtle critique of capitalism. The work’s tone is not negative, however. This would be good for personal enrichment or to share with senior high or college writing students to open their eyes to ideas that differ from is usually published in essay collections. Most of the Talking Back authors are literate, yet not professional writers. Their political perspectives are far left of liberal or centrist perspectives found in my social anthologies, and that is one of the reasons the book provokes thought. The voices of color are a clarion call for change.

New Comic Book Highlights the Vital Role of a Single Parent

There is nothing handier than to be able to catch a trend on the fly. The recent emergence of Marvel and DC comics characters as hits in graphic novels, television and the big screen was not lost on collaborators Jason Piperberg and Dennis Liu when they gave life to Raising Dion, a new independent comic book. The superhero's origin reminded me of a cross between Superman and Green Lantern. The twist is that the super child and his guardian are black.

Liu, who writes the story, told Fusion.net that the concept came from life experience and a broad knowledge of super sagas. The first key for me was the element of seclusion which is often evident before classic superheros place themselves on the scene. The story lines tend to take a nobody and turn him or her into a somebody who wants to hide from the public. Raising Dion is not exactly like that. For example, Superman, who creators Jerome Seigel and Joseph Schuster have  baby Kalel arrive from the doomed planet Krypton in a hardworking, hard scrabble Midwestern town ten minutes from nowhere called Smallville. It is hard to begin in a more obscure fashion. Yet, as those who read Raising Dion #1, will see, the creators found a way. No spoilers here,

Raising Dion #1 front cover

Dion starts out in a cabin in the woods of Hamilton, New York with his mom Nicole, whom Liu describes as, "equal parts Martha Kent and Alfred Pennyworth." The hero is important, yet she is a character to watch. "Parents install a value system, the author insisted to Fusion. That small thought won my heart and pushed me to look beyond the hype about African American characters and the lack of diversity in U.S. comics to see what he and Piperbrg did with the role of the single parent.

I admit, at first take, I found the idea a little cliche, worse stereotypical. Gee, a black child with a single mother. It's not like readers have ever heard that before. Then, I read the e-book. Never judge a story by reportage.

Liu samples those iconic caregivers to shape her character, and taps into his own experience as uncle to five nieces with single mothers. “If these key parental figures did not raise these superheroes correctly," he told Fusion, "then who knows what Clark Kent or Bruce Wayne would have become?” More than that the setting and overall plot that shows promise to grapple with hot topics such as the environment, science for profit, child-rearing, and racism yields a tale as au courant as selfies. 

I would like to have seen Dion with a more traditional family - mother, father and child - yet that is not here...exactly. As I, after you read the 22-page first issue, you might be cool with that. The final call is to see how the series develops.

I heartily endorse the debut manuscript I read, yet plan to watch before I hang five starts on the work. That said, Liu is an insightful and sensitive storyteller whom I am pleased to discover. Anyone that makes people more mindful of the monumental sacrifices, struggles and responsibilities shouldered by most single moms (and dads) deserves the eyes of as wide a readership (13 to 99) as possible. I often ask myself, but for someone who steps up to parent, what might have happened to the last two generations of  American youth?

 Liu captures the flavor of the story in a statement by Nicole in a trailer that advertised the book, "The most important thing about raising a superhero is learning to become one first." Sound advice to all adults,

I won't say a lot more about the story in the first issue, except that those who have read classic Superman will note many parallels in Dion's emergence.The only difference is the burden of being different, which for the hero of Liu and Piperberg's saga means to have powers beyond those of most people on the planet and being black in America. The author told Fusion that he deals with the issue of what he describes as The Talk most African American parents are forced to have with their children head on. The accuracy of his assessment is left to the reader. Otherwise, in the 22-page readers will find mostly back story and great potential. Like Superman, Dion's deepest struggle is to learn that who he is in much more than what he can do. 

Interested readers can order a print copy for $4. Those who want to take advantage of the sample to make up their minds can check out the free first issue in e-book from Liu's personal website. As an option, explore that book and others on  IndyPlanet.com, an amazing Orlando-based resource for fresh new voices in the medium. NOTE: The IndyPlanet site was crashed on Sunday, when I checked on the availability. I don't know why. There is a notice that says the trouble is under repair. Check them later in the week.

Organization Takes Poetry to the People

Poets & Writers, one of the premier organizations for both in the United States, offers lit lovers a number of resources online, as well as in public. One of those offerings are conferences, and the organization will host its sixth live event on Oct. 17 in Portland, Oregon. Here is a visual treat plucked from coverage of the fifth author showcase in Chicago - Northwestern University Press Poetry Editor Parneshia Jones reads from her debut collection, Vessels.

Stanley Stirs School Excitement and Memories

Stanley at School

By Linda Bailey

Kids Can Press

Published: Aug. 1 2015

ISBN: 1771380969

The calendar has changed faster than the weather outside my window. As the first beams of gray daylight make it possible to see more than shadows moving down the street, I see the

high school students on the way to timely meet attendance on the first day of school. In an hour or so, the elementary school kids will follow. Like clockwork, every school day, I watch the faces as young people of all sizes move past me. Some are on foot. Some ride bikes. Book bags are on their backs. I barely still remember when I was one of them. Full disclosure - I liked school from the first day of kindergarten to college. I cannot fully recall everything that happened on the first day of school in those years. Memories grow faint, but the sense of curiosity and anticipation never fade. Those elements are guaranteed to stir some of the same feelings in those who read, or listen, to the fast-paced action in award-winning Canadian author Linda Bailey’s delightful picture book, Stanley at School.

Anyone who thinks that praise is just hype should give the 32-page work a read. I won’t share much of the story, because you really have to hear the tale for yourself. In fact, the way the author uses words is the first remarkable aspect of the book. First, let me be candid.

When I first saw the title and read the description for this work, I was intrigued yet unimpressed. Several authors have written read-aloud books about dogs (or other animals and creatures) going to school. A standout is Ree Drummond and Diane deGroat’s tale of how Charlie the Ranch Dog makes it in a classroom. Several audience polls rate in slightly higher than Norman Bidwell’s classic Clifford’s First School Day. On its face, Stanley at School, seemed too close in theme and content to Constance McGeorge’s nicely written, Boomer Goes to School, published in 2012. That is why it pays to look beyond the cover.

Stanley at School is a romp in language and art. Bailey repeats key words at pivotal parts in the narrative to poke the readers attention. The way the writer sort of seeps words drop by drop to the point cinches along the action. That breeds a gentle tension:

‘What do we do now?’ asked Alice.
But she already knew the answer. All the dogs knew. They had to wait outside.
‘Don’t you ever get tired of waiting?’ asked Stanley. ‘Wait outside the library. Wait outside the coffee shop. Wait outside the bakery.’
And that is when Stanley got an idea. A big idea. A bold idea! An idea so daring it made his fur stand up.

Happy but embarrassed to admit I was right there in the conversation with those dogs. More than that, award-winning Illustrator Bill Slavin’s vibrant drawings make the scene more believable. His image of the closed school doors up a long flight of stairs not only gives the reader an insight into a dog’s vantage point. I could imagine how a three- or four-foot child might similarly see the setting.

Parents who want to slake the interest of a preschooler, or ease the jitters of someone in kindergarten, will find Stanley a great resource. Even readers like me, who have not answered the school bell for a half century will smile, laugh and at some points guffaw, at the tightly woven tale. Those familiar with Bailey’s five earlier Stanley books will attest, the goofy, yet adventurous character strikes something beautiful in the core of many people. Bailey, who is head over heels for her Golden Retriever Sophie, asserts that Stanley is “the dog I would love to be.” That spirit also infuses the narrative, you will see.

It is obvious that I enjoyed the experience, but some of the pictures seemed out of sync with the text. In a couple places the text came on a page after the drawing. I read an e-book, and even went into two-page mode to see if the alignment changed. It did not. I was distracted. Nonetheless, a clever narrator, can hold the image in order for a child. Well, let Stanley at School take you back to that first day when you thought the worst nightmare lay behind a school door.

The Difficult Journey to You

Click the image to download or play the audio clip.

In China there is a wisdom that states if you feel there urge for revenge sit by a river, and eventually your enemy's body will float by. I find the same happens with people you admire. If you keep living, every now and then, someone familiar, or whom you admire, passes...and it's cool.

Mary Karr

In 1995, I interviewed then-Syracuse University professor Mary Karr and reviewed her memoir, The Liar's Club, which became a nonfiction classic. I noted the publication  of Cherry and Lit, her other memoirs, but did not get as deeply into them, mostly because life moved on. 

Nonetheless, the native Texan stayed lodged in my memory. I noted the depth of her reflections on her path, when I gave a quick read to  Sinners Welcome, her first book of poetry, but always looked for her to share more of the personality I briefly came to know.  That happens in The Art of Memoir. The link shares an audio clip.

My best choices for books on the writing craft are still Stephen King's On Writing,  and Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird. That said, the audio clip linked above, shows me Karr could supplant Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones, as third on my short list of book about how to best write your story. 

Fiction is no easier to craft than the truth. As Chilean author Isabel Allende once stated: "There's basically an element of fiction in everything you remember. Imagination and memory are almost the same brain processes. When I write fiction, I know that I'm using a bunch of lies that I've made up to create some form of truth. When I write a memoir, I'm using true elements to create something that will always be somehow fictionalized."

Memoir takes a different level of courage and spirit. "I don't know where the idea originated that memoir writing is cathartic," says U.S. writer Koren Zailcks, whose 2005 debut memoir, Smashed, is considered another landmark work. "For me, it's always felt like playing my own neurosurgeon, sans anesthesia. As a memoirist, you have to crack your head open and examine every uncomfortable thing in there."

Karr, who is the Jesse Truesdell Peck Professor of Literature at Syracuse University, takes readers into the classroom as she shares a spirit and technique for getting into the dark depths of one's being that is as direct, unvarnished and as true to the heart as the advice and instruction she gave in courses on writing memoir years ago.

Here is a News Source Worth a Thousand Times the Cost

BTSemag_July/August 2015

Here is a great free resource for the latest news and interviews. Well, in addition to Veereads, that is. Check it out. Do you agree?

Can You Catch Post Traumatic Church Syndrome?

Listen to an excerpt 

Find out if you have it, too?

For an excerpt from this wonderful memoir, 

click on the link below the picture.

The Story Behind the Story of Our Lives

The Why Factor on Dairies

Click the link in the photo caption.

A Clever Nod to the Best Pulp Tradition

MISS STAKE
AVeronica Benoit Short
Terra Stellar Press
69 Pages
ISBN:1514159842

Veronica "Ronnie" Benoit is a self-described "testament" to her family's "tenacity," but the Louisiana teenager has no idea that she is a linchpin in its legacy.That, briefly, is the plot in the first entry in CG Powell's MISS short-fiction series. The Virginia author breathes the Louisiana Bayou onto the page in this work as if she were a native. At the least, she has probably been there because her bio boasts that she has "traveled everywhere - thanks to her innate curiosity about the world and the Navy."

 In style, Miss Stake: A Veronica Benoit Short is a clever nod to the days before television when imagination reigned, and adventure junkies got their fixes through radio serials such as The Shadow, or paperback books sized to stick into the back pocket on a pair of jeans. Those penetrating adventure and thriller stories popular from the 1930s to the Sixties were woven around the plight of characters as familiar as the curiously odd person next door, up the block, or down the street. That is how pulp novels and story collections gained credibility as page turners, or pot boilers.

The brief story is set in the swamps with more than enough references to all things New Orleans. The first chapter is a little slow, but readers will be seduced to read more because "Ronnie" Benoit and the other characters are obviously headed for something not good. The opening leads the reader to believe that the 17-year-old heroine's biggest worry is how to maintain her virtue against the sometimes not very polite hits from a trio of ordinary outback romeos. The fact that most of what the reader thinks the tale is about is way off from the truth is a tribute to Powell's gift for storytellng. By the middle of this paranormal saga, Veronica discovers that her reality is a very carefully constructed charade. In the best tradition of Louisiana stories,"Ronnie" is tumbled into a world for which she is far under-prepared as her grandfather reveals the family's most tightly held secret.

The only downside to the work in style and story is that the tale ends about the time the adventure shifts to a new level of intrigue in the story. It's what we hate most about serials. We have to read more. E-books are available FREE OF COST through the author site, Amazon,  Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords.
  AMAZON    BARNES & NOBLE   SMASHWORDS

Goodbye Indie Writers...Until Next Year

There are writers conventions, salons, workshops, retreats, and meetups throughout the country. I have been to many, but few have I enjoyed as much as last weekend's  Orlando Indie Bookfest 2015. Most of the activity -panels, signing, authors, bloggers - were the same as other events. The chief difference was the camaraderie. 

Tawdra Kandle

I spent time with an earnest crowd of more than 100 authors, fans and bloggers who were as anxious to meet and encourage solid acquaintances as well as nurture newbies in the nuance of their crafts. One thing is certain, if you already are, or want to be a serious author, the road is open. The publishing industry has undergone a paradigm shift. E-books have revolutionized where an author can reach. The rest depends on desire, talent and organization. You could feel the warmth and good spirits in the sessions where candor was key in shaping an atmosphere where those new to authorship could find a leg up, and old guys like me, who have published in traditional houses could find a a boat load of information and encouragement to reinvent.

Mandie Stevens

Orlando hosted similar events in 2013 and 2014, so IBF 2015 co-convener Tawdra Kandle, who writes Paranormal, New Adult and Contemporary Romance, said she and partner, blogger and Urban Fantasy and Contemporary Romance author Mandie Stevens were not new to the idea. At the same time, they had no concept the biggest challenge was going to be time. 

Between February and the opening July 30 session, Kandle and Stevens pulled together a tightly dedicated crew of helpers that included their pre-teen and teen-aged children to organize authors,speakers and activities, as well as the nuts and bolts of a three-day event at the upscale Caribe Royale Resort Hotel and Convention Center about two miles from Disney World.

"We really had to scramble," Tawdra said. I saw proof of that in Mandie and her during the three days. They were on the move, and seemed to have skills at
"herding cats." 

"Organizing an event like this while also being a prolific romance writer, attending other events and releasing books  was a challenge, said Tawdra, who released three titles during the build up to the convention. "I didn’t sleep much."

Beyond that, they found that those who were used to past IBF conventions were a hard sell. Most of them were skeptical of the newcomers. As might be expected, comments such as, “But we’ve always done it this way,”  were tossed. Others wanted to know why Kandle and Stevens made certain decisions. "Mandie and I tried to explain our rationale at every step," she said. "Eventually, everyone seemed to understand!"

As she gave further explanation I began to understand that the optimism was warranted. Tawdra said the target audience - authors, bloggers and readers - were "genuinely excited," was a surprise. In her words, "The enthusiasm was contagious."

More surprises:

1. How much physical work went into tasks on July 31, the first full day of the gathering. "My body is one big hurt today," she wrote.
2. How accommodating everyone was at the Caribe Royale Resort. 
3. The awesomeness of Jana Oliver. "She is so much fun," Tawdra said. 

I can attest to that, too. I called the award-winning prolific author a force of nature. Throughout the three days she moved through session after session with conversations in between and always held a ready smile and a quick wit. Some credit in that should extend to her husband/roadie Henry. He was always behind the scenes with what she needed to shine. When I complimented them on their contributions to the event, and mentioned Henry, Jana joked, "He says I'm his retirement plan." 

As for next year, Tawdra said, "YES!! We already have tentative dates,  likely in the fall. We have authors eager to sign up. We have readers making plans! And we’ve made a list of what we want to change in our process. 2016 will ROCK!" 

Interested? Here is a link to sign up for IBF2016  information.

Independent Authors Stake Out A New Vision for Publishing in Orlando

Independent Publishing pioneer Jana Oliver's keynote message - publishing is in a paradigm shift and authorship is in new day - launched an Orlando celebration

(l-r behind table) YA fiction authors Jana Oliver
Susan Burdorf, Raine Thomas, Nadege Richards
and Tricia Zoeller discuss techniques and ideas.

of independent authors and publishers at Indie Bookfest this weekend.

The July 31 to Aug. 2 event featured dozens of authors on panels. Writer after writer, as well as some of the 80 authors who displayed their works, greeted fans and introduced themselves to new readers, declared the days when writers pinned their hopes for exposure on agents and tried to woo their way into a few stodgy mainstream publishing houses have gone the way of the electric typewriter.

Travel author Lee Foster laments the decline of the traditional publishers, yet confirms that the shift is more than theoretical. The technology offered by outlets such as Amazon and CreateSpace have kicked open the markets.

"A critical aspect of the rise of independent publishing is each author’s answer to the question, 'Who actually sells my book today?'" he writes in , "Independent Book Publishing: Is it the Viable Future for Books?" an essay on his website In the past, the publisher was a major seller. A bookstore would stock every book in a given publisher’s lineup. Now the author himself or herself is the main seller, aided by Social Media reach."

Technological developments have allowed authors to publish and market themselves. That opens the industry to a wider variety of stories and perspectives.

"If an author needs to create the market, why not take 100% of the profit?" writes Foster. "That’s what I get from BookBaby for my ebooks, 100% of the net ebook sales, vs a “generous” 25% from Countryman Press. I use the word “generous” because Countryman upped the payment to me from 15% of net for printed books to 25% of net for ebooks. As mentioned, for my print-on-demand books, I earn about $4.25 per sale of a book through Amazon or Ingram, vs about $1 some six months later for a sale of a printed book from a traditional publisher, such as Countryman Press. Given these dollar disparities, it may be increasingly difficult for traditional publishers to attract authors."

During the weekend participants explored methods to develop ideas and write for Young Adult, New Adult, Erotic, Adult and Mystery, Science Fiction, Paranormal, and Romance genres. Beyond that, various panels addressed the nuts and bolts of the business of being an author, Published writers and experts gave pointers on editing, promotion, formatting books and covers, as well as sales.

.

A Too Merciful Look into a Pastor of Power

Pope Francis: Pastor of Mercy
By Michael J. Ruszala
Wyatt North Publishing
173 pages

Bio books on religious figures are usually a no-no for me. Michael J. Ruszala's Pope Francis: Pastor of Mercy might have continued to sit on the shelf, except for my personal admiration for the subject of the  text. That said, most lives of popes tend to drip with needless deference and pious platitudes. At the same time, as Ruszala, those who explore the realm of faith best, are the committed. Likewise, many writers produce those kinds of works without a level of analysis that makes a look into the lives of what are in essence international men of power worth the read.

Michael J. Ruszala's Pope Francis: Pastor of Mercy shows  a great deference in the handling of his subject, yet provides enough insight into the Pontiff's views on mercy, social issues, the place of the People of God in the church and the world, and the deep need for more mercy on our planet, that an exploration of the very readable biography is not a waste.

One weakness of the book is that the author, who is a "director of faith formation,"a lay minister, at St. Pius X Church in Getzville, New York, is a self-described "active member of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists yet seems too wrapped up in the Church to make an objective analysis of the new pope possible. Even so, he writes like anyone who does not have direct and prolonged access to the Pope Francis. In effect, this is a great fan book. That said, if a reader has no idea about the background and views or the man in the white cassock who sits on St. Peter's throne, Ruszala's Pope Francis makes the perfect primer. The author makes reference to the pope's activities and attitudes about service to humankind. He shows how the leader of a church known for homophobia, pedophilia and stolid patience in the face of international crisis, has challenged institutional hypocrisy and tried to make reparations for its sins. 

At one point in the book, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church describes himself as "a sinner." In response to a "How would you introduce yourself?" query, the former Argentine cardinal, Jorge Bergoglio, states, "I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner. " Ruszala culls that most of the best lines in the work, from the others' interviews. Unfortunately, he leaves readers with a desire for more immediacy. That is not a crime, yet the distance leaves a reader with a sense of being too removed from the pope to gain a feel for the man. By the end of the biography, those who are not pious Catholics, or merely fans of the often smiling prelate, only come away with facts that might have been found in an encyclopedia.

Future Film offers Father-Son Insights

This commentary is not going to spoil the movie After Earth if you read it. Go see the film. You will find it one of the few this year worth the nearly ten dollar admission. My main interest is the story, which goes far beyond what is shown in trailers.

I learned long ago to take movie trailers with a grain of salt. Often those present day sideshow barker imitations exist, as did their predecessors, to put butts in the seats. They suck in viewers who want to see the latest, fantastic oddity, like the bearded lady, two-headed cow or Martian baby. Well, the hype for Jaden and Will Smith's After Earth pulled me in, but like many movies the post-apocalyptic drama left a hunger for more. I need to understand more about that future. I want to better grasp what made Will Smith's character, Gen. Cypher Raige, into such a complicated figure. I want to know more about his wife and daughter. I need to see why Jaden Smith's Kitai Raige so deeply feels about his experiences. I suspect budget concerns did not leave much room to flesh out the story. That is why I left with a promise to read Peter David's novelization or other books created to go with this series.

After Earth the movie is about fathers and sons, appropriate for the upcoming Father's Day celebration. The film and the book are also replete with lessons about family, hurt, disappointments and healing. The best part is the story, which if you check Amazon or other book sites, appears as a just-released series of novels and short stories set to cash in on what is likely to be a wave of fandom.

Co-star Will Smith is credited with the development of the tale, which holds more depth than the 99-minute flick is equipped to display. Viewers will wonder whether the tale is autobiographic in some respects, although the tabloids have never signaled any serious father-son drama in the family. The fact that After Earth is set in the next millennium showcases the lack of male role models as problem played out in homes across the world. The rift is often most wide between successful dads and sons forced to live in their shadows. As mentioned, there is much on this part of the story in the movie, but many aspects of what keeps the younger and older males apart go unseen.

In fact, its biggest weakness is the way the screenplay, credited to Book of Eli screen author Gary Whitta and the film's director M. Night Shyamalan, crunch most of the backstory into scattered paragraphs. Those who look at the film's official website will be surprised how much happened in the 1,000 years that precede where the movie story begins. Nonetheless, there is much just enough revealed about the major characters, and they are the tale's richness.

As many sons, Kitai Raige loves his father and wants to be like him. The only problem is the boy resents the old man because he feels abandoned. Gen. Cypher Raige, supreme commander of the United Ranger Corps, commands the military elite that protects humanity in 1000AE (3025AD), and is like a lot of fathers, too. He looks at his male heir with disappointment. The film unveils a lot of the causes of the chasm between them, and entertains viewers with their path to reconciliation and healing.

Peter David's novelization combines three short stories previously published by Del Rey, a Random House subsidiary: After Earth Ghost Stories: Redemption, After Earth Ghost Stories: Savior and After Earth Ghost Stories: Atonement. There is also a prequel, A Perfect Beast: After Earth, by veteran science fiction authors Michael Jan Friedman and Robert Greenberger.

The cautionary aspects of the story about the natural environment, fear and family are important for our time. As mentioned, the essential messages in the story relate across lines of culture and generation. However, it is equally important that movie-goers see the father-son clash played out among African Americans. Black fathers are too often portrayed in American media as unfeeling toward their children, especially sons, yet race is not relevant in the film. The key issue is species in that future, which begins on a new planet called Nova Prime, where humans are daily protected by the Rangers from the threat of alien creatures. After our Earth is wiped out, “human” is the only culture that can matter.  That is why fathers, especially those who see themselves as successful should see the film and read the books, then take another look at their sons.

An Other American Life

Breathing, In Dust
By Tim Z. Hernandez
Texas Tech University Press
178 pages
ISBN: 978-089672-742-7
E-book: 978-0-89672-6


Hernandez writes that it is the true things that happen along the nation's southern border that are hard to believe. Readers who find that hard to believe need to listen to the testament played out in his novel, Breathing, In Dust. Many readers will find the coming-of-age story to be an eyeopener. The

frailties and fears of the human condition, are rampant in Catela, the fictional San Joaquin Valley farm town that is the backdrop for the adventure. Those qualities are mirrored in the angst of
Tlaloc, the novel's main character, as he struggles to advance his humanity in an American locale where the legendary “dream” is abandoned.

The title itself, Breathing, In Dust, hints at the fraudulence of the American Dream as it forecasts the story in that most of the characters have breath, yet their lives never rise above the dust. Hernandez drags readers who are likely unfamiliar with the paradox of life in California's San Joaquin Valley into places and introduces them to personalities as stark and startling as the scenes in Larry 1966, small town, North Texas novel, The Last Picture Show. The reward for readers who finish the book will be revelations about poverty, immigration and race in the early 21st Century that hit as hard as Michael Harrington's nonfiction expose on Appalachian poverty The Other America struck readers in the early Sixties.

Tlaloc's life unfolds in a 400mile stretch of hard times along the center of California, just below the capital, Sacramento. At the core, the story is a saga of troubled fathers that yield troubled sons. The people are hard, but the novel makes it clear that the problem at root is the demands of the land.

In reality, nearly 4 million people live in the largely agricultural region known as, “The Food Basket of the World.” Life is hard there for Mexican Americans, but no easier for the Black, Asian, and poor white inhabitants, who rank among the poorest people in the state and throughout the country. It is a place where people find existence, not hope. Interestingly , the Undocumented and immigration problems are a back beat in the story. The focus is on the in-country migrants who make an annual circuit to survive, yet both the plight of both groups are part of the truths and contradictions bred by capitalism.

The harvest demands of oranges, peaches, garlic, tangerines, tomatoes, kiwis, and some of the region's other crops require hands to whom most employers extend more tasks than cash. Hernandez, who is also a poet, has a spare but colorful writing style that comes through clearly in the fictional town's description:

To say Catela is to say Chihuahua and Ararat and Grecia and Madina all in a single breath. To live it is a whole other tangle of vines. Forged at the bottom of a once lake, ripe with tule foliage and cattails, no eagle perched atop nopal leaf, no shining constellations or symbols of destiny manifest, nothing but darkened flesh and muscle and spade and oxen black as pitch, and a few seeds spilled from the rucksack brimming with disease and curse and karma long past due.

The novel, divided into four parts, which as the awareness of the reader grows through the main character, removes most questions as to the effect of the environment on what chapter after chapter seems to become a comedy of errors. Tlaloc's drama unfolds in what sometimes appears to be a series of twenty short stories, rather than a chronological narrative.

He is like a lot of young people throughout the nation. From child to teen, an observer in a life in which he should be a player. Readers learn about him in a variety of ways. One of the most artful is in the chapter, “Antifaz,” which means “mask.” The author skillfully reveals a number of things about characters in subtle touches such as punctuation. One of the most interesting passages is where the reader is shown a letter from Tlaloc's absentee father who because of work and the stresses that their lifestyle places on the family lives in Brownsville, Texas. The author uses the chapter to show what happens when circumstances leave a man unable to find his footing in life. The reader sees words stricken from the text, as the putative writer fumbles to find the right expression to reach across the years to the son he left behind.

“Hijo mio (my son),” is scratched out. “I wish,” is dropped. “Dear Tlaloc,” does not make the cut, either. The reader can see the father’s struggle with his failure to master the right tone to make his case in either Spanish or English. “Many times I,” are the last set of striked-out words. The man finally choses to bluntly begin, “Tlaloc.”

It is clear that Tlaloc's father gives up on the family because of the “antifaz,” the look on his wife and child's faces the last time he saw them. He left when the boy was three, after an argument with Tlaloc's mother. At the same time, the reader wonders whether he had a recourse.

Hernandez shows the reader a simplicity and sincerity in the unnamed letter writer that engenders sympathy for a man who does not know how to gain control over life. For example, in the letter the father describes a ride from Tijuana at break neck speed when Tlaloc was an infant. The passage reveals how the last ties with his wife unravel, which turns into his final moment with the family:

Your such an asshole, she called me. This was her favorite word for me back then. You’re in the back seat of course quiet like always. I look at you and you got this nasty antifaz pulled on your eyes. (He strikes out, “The car bangs over the potholes and”) I am cussing at the road and your mama yells at me something about the way I'm driving. It must be one hundred degrees and the air conditioner didn't work. We were sweating like perros. Your damn tongue was hung out your head and I said something to her about this and she thinks I am calling you a dog and then she spits right at me. And then you complain that your stomach hurts and makes this horrible noise from your throat and then, you hold your stomach and do this silent crying thing you always did. No tears or nothing like that just a lot of shaking and then you shut your eyes. When your mama sees you she gets more pissed off and grabs my hat and throws it out the window. It hits the car behind us and now this asshole is flipping me off and trying to pull me over.

The tragic errors escalate until the mother climbs into the back seat with the child. The father continues the narrative about the long ride, but ironically never says that they reached home. What is clear is that he no longer has one.

The end comes without a word in the midst of a crazy dash back to Catela. The man sees the eyes of the mother in the rearview mirror. He writes,“the same loco antifaz you got except hers don't go away.” A few sentences before the father sums, “she's giving me this look like she wished I was ('invisible' strike out) dead.”

The letter offers Tlaloc an invitation to Brownsville, a photograph of Tlaloc in which he is a the three-year-old with his father and uncle on his grandmother's porch and a $20 bill. The father writes, “Just so you can never say that I gave you nothing, even though I know that isn't true.”

The letter writer's fabled unsteadiness is what the reader sees in Tlaloc throughout the novel. His struggle against the Fates is understated, yet in nearly every chapter the circumstances of life swirl into chaos. Things happen to him more than he makes happen, and Tlaloc is suspended in chaotic state not much different that the one described by his father. In response, the character shows a great deal of covert emotion. For example, the teenager joins his uncle Alejandro, and Animal, the uncle's buddy, in the slaughter of a pig. Throughout the episode, the boy does what he is told.

The scene opens in 1983, and Tlaloc's age is not mentioned, yet the boy seems like a grade-schooler with a butterfly, as he pokes a finger through a wire mesh cage to touch the pig. Readers can see the child's instinct to make a pet of what the uncle has made clear is about to be a victim. Animal,the uncle's buddy, cautions the boy about the nature of the beast.

“That son of a bitch will eat anything put in front of him,” he tells the boy. “Even its own children.”

The statement becomes subtly prophetic. As the brief chapter unfolds, Tlaloc is swallowed by the mens' bloodlust, and jumps into a swirl of violence when uncle cannot find his machete for the slaughter. He is forced to try to slay the pig with an ice pick. Chaos ensues. Most of the time, Tlaloc is knocked about or stands frozen in fear in the shadows of a darkened garage. In the end, he watches Animal smash the creature's skull with an old tire rim.

The boy screams, “No!” After, his uncle hands him a mop and says, “Get cleaning.”

Tlaloc moves throughout the book in a similar fashion. Even in the final chapter, his character emits the sense of the outsider/observer to whom things happen. There is a sense in the novel that all human endeavors matter little in the end. Tlaloc returns to town for his friend, Jesus's bachelor party, which revs into a carnal free-for-all in room nine at the Blossom Motel. He leaves in resignation.

“You expect someone, Jesus maybe, to open the door and call you back in, but it never happens,” he says. He describes the scene as “a zoo in full riot.” The young man elaborates, “A swell of sound and stench and thundering comes from behind the walls.”

The final lines draw memories of the descriptions of his father:

As you walk to your car you wonder if you'll ever see Jesus again. You wonder why you could careless either way. You look back at the room and decide to leave all these questions there in the parking lot of the Blossom. And then you get in your car and drive away. Wondering how long before , or if, anyone will notice you've been missing.

Breathing, In Dust is a little gruesome. Even the passivity of the main character is a little like an assault on the senses. Readers might find themselves with impulse to scream at the boy, yet never able to disengage from as the story unfolds. The characters, language and scenes are like a bad traffic accident – one wants to turn away, but cannot help continue to peek at the damage. Those same things are almost too different for those who reside in “polite society” accept without feeling uneasy, but those features in their totality make book a beauty.

A Siren's Call to be Inspired

Together We Jump

Ken McAlpine

iUniverse Books
361 pages

ISBN: 978-1-47595-119-6

Ken McAlpine's new novel is a roller coaster ride through the mind and soul of the main character Pogue Whithouse, who as many people over age 60 takes a physical, emotional and psychological foray with the ghosts of relationships past. As the subtitle, A Journey of Love, Hope and Second Chances betrays, the story drags readers to many memories and even more locales throughout the United States. Pogue grapples in a bid for peace, or at least fulfillment, in the balance of his life. He says:

I want to see my country, but I’m afraid to take my eyes off the road. My fellow Americans stomp on their accelerators as if pursued by the devil himself. From the corner of my eye, I catch snatches of Steinbeck’s central valley—hypnotic irrigated fields,grassland and dun-colored hills, their dusty look mirroring the pasty gumminess in my mouth.

Pogue seeks redemption, mainly about the death of his older brother Sean. The quest forces him to face the lies and secrets behind his relationships with most of the people he knew.

“Life is a tug of war between how we would like things to be and how they are,” Pogue says.

The eerily realistic plot and dialogue only attests to the skills of a writer whose earlier works were largely nonfiction. McAlpine is a three-time winner of the Lowell Thomas Award for travel writing, and author of Islands Apart: A Year on the Edge of Civilization and Off Season: Discovering America on Winter's Shore, a 2004 Barnes & Noble Discover Great Writers selection. Together We Jump and Fog, a novel also published through iUniverse last year, signal his talent for truth in fiction.

Now, another bit of truth – at one point I wanted to give up the read. I thought the deeply personal nature of the experience and the book's length were a fault, but McAlpine's use of language and plot made every page turn. The narrative is poetic at turns, and the descriptions and reflections spur thoughts like the kind of conversations that begin in evenings and end at dawn.

Sea turtles' life struggles are his metaphor:

In my favorite dream, I swim easily in green waters just below the surface so that the sky ripples overhead, the white clouds like bedsheets in the wind. I am underwater, but the river still sings on the surface, softer dreamier, more distant, yet infinitely more comforting. I sense something timeless, beyond mankind's stumblings, passed to me in a whisper I cannot grasp, but it soothes me nonetheless. I am gripped by something that swings on the very hinges of the earth, something so large it erases any urge to conquer, to compete, to dominate, to prove, to possess, to hate, to question.

The book mentions them at several junctures. Most die soon after they are born, yet those who survive beat the odds in a hostile world because of endurance. The words and images are so real and human that readers will pause at many points to ask whether the book is a memoir. I did, more than a dozen times, but discovered, Together We Jump as a call to inspiration.