Nan Hawthorne's Blog, page 9

Christopher Moss: What is a Man?

From Christopher Moss: What is a Man?

"What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets!"

Dracula from the game Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. It was developed and publ...

[STORIES] Where "The End" Never Occurs!

Have you ever gotten to the last pages of a novel and sighed, "Oh no, not 'The End!'"?
With An Involuntary King: A Tale of Anglo Saxon England there is no "The End". A print novel may only have a finite number of pages, in this case 648. But with an accompanying web site the tale can go on and on.

With Welcome to Cr íslicland we can not only share the old tales my Muse and I wrote as teens in 1964-1969 but we can offer a continuing adventure. We can tell you how the queen learned to use a swor...

[BIO] Clara Wieck Schumann - Musician

By Greta Marlow

Before the women’s movement opened up career options for women, there were no doubt many women throughout history who had to make a choice between developing their own abilities and talents or following their hearts to marry a man they loved. Clara Wieck Schumann is a woman who seemed to have had both, a successful career and a loving marriage. However, her life was touched with tragedy as well.

Clara’s father, Friedrich Wieck, was a well-known piano teacher in Leipzig, Germany....

[TOPIC] Not a Lie, Not Misrepresentation - Simply "Not Intended To Be a Factual Statement"

As a purveyor of entertaining fictions,  I was fascinated to hear what his staffers said about Jon Kyl's statement that Planned Parenthood spent 90% of their time performing abortions. They said, and I quote, what Kyl said "was not intended as a factual statement".  However you feel about the issue, it might boggle the mind that inaccuracy is somehow OK.

But I got to thinking, here we are, we novelists, forced to jump through hoops on the copyright page of our novels, with...

[Humor] Fifty Shades of .... Gay?

By Christopher Moss

You've heard of the scandalous novel Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James?  It just might spark more of an industry than just women's erotica... like the idiot's Guide and the 100 Best.. series.  Why not add to some of these we found in the Comments section below?

Of course I have to start with my own genre...

Fifty Shades of ... Gay!

How about these?

A book on veterinary care, Fifty Shades of ... Spay
Better that than Fifty Shades of ... Stray
Or for that matter, Fifty...

[REVIEW] Lion of Ireland by Morgan Llywelyn

My first introduction to Brian Boru came no doubt from my lifelong interest in Medieval Ireland. I plaued "Brian Boru's March" on my old Celtic music show often enough. In the meantime, I read -- and adored -- Edward Rutherfurd's The Princes of Ireland which included the Battle of Clontarf and just the last of Boru's magnificent victories. Mirella Patzer ( Bloodstone Castle ) recommended Lion of Ireland and named Brian Boru as her favorite romantic hero for an issue of Medieval Novels Monthly...

[BIO] Primrose and West - Entertainers

George Primrose and Billy WestIn the musical, White Christmas White Christmas, there is a set called the "Minstrel Number" with these last lines preceding the song "Mandy":

When Georgie Primrose used to sing And dance to a song like this

That was the first time I ever heard of George Primrose, and it inspired me to do this brief Random Biography on him and his song and dance partner, Billy West. George Primrose (1852-1919) and William H. "Billy" West (1853-1902) started out as entertainers...

[NEWS] Happy Bird-day!!!

Today is my bird-day.  no, not my birthday...  my BIRD DAY.  What is a bird-day?  Why, silly goose, it's your half birthday.  Cheesh.  Doesn't everyone know that?

Well, a few people do.  All the kids in my neighborhood know precisely what a bird-day is.  I expect, and this fills my heart with song, their children will know about it and celebrate theirs, and their kids will too.  Now that's the kind of anonymous immortality I can go for.

The Origin of...

[GAME] A Historical Mad Lib Game

If you are not familiar with the word game "Mad Libs", here's how it works. There is a short story already prepared where numerous words have been left blank. Their part of speech is noted and players asked to supply words that fit those parts of speech. The story is then read, or in this case printed, with the words filled in. The stories are often quite hilarious.

For example, let's say I ask you for this list of words:

animal, plural
adjective
noun, plural
verb, past tense
food
liquid

You supply:

a...

[BIO] Albert D. J. Cashier/Jennie Irene Hodgers - Soldier and Laborer

Albert D. J. Cashier was a soldier serving in the Union Army during the American Civil War.  He was born Jennie Irene Hodgers in Clogherhead, County Louth, Ireland, on Christmas Day in 1843.  Jennie Hodges emigrated to the United States sometime before 1862 at which time she was living as a man named Albert Cashier.  Cashier joined the 95th Illinois Infantry Regiment, part of the Army of the Tennessee  under General Ulysses S. Grant from Belvidere, Illinois, where he...