Evy Journey's Blog, page 2

Aimless? In A Rut? Haiku yourself out of it.

Haikuing is fun and it only needs 17 syllables, give or take. I have haikued in the past, but I’ve nearly forgotten doing it until I came across this quote from Gilbert K. Chesterton:

I’m in a rut, at the moment. This happens every time I finish a project. When it’s big enough, like a novel, the rut can last a while. So, I wonder aimlessly, maybe try out new recipes in my kitchen, or go to restaurants and get the best meal I could buy. Food is one delicious way I deal with personal ruts.

G.K. C...

Book Giveaway To Celebrate Diversity

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, where we celebrate diversity. I’ve lived in and traveled to Asian and European cities where I’ve been exposed to many cultures and all kinds of people. My experiences find their way into any fiction and other articles I write.

Want to know vicariously what it’s like, being a person who comes from a different (or mixed) race or (blended) culture? And would you like to win a few ebooks while you celebrate diversity in literature with us?

Click (or tap) the ima...

Survey About Illuminated Manuscripts: Results

After my first self-edited draft of my latest book, The Golden Manuscripts Book 6 of the series Between Two Worlds, I wondered how many readers knew about illuminated manuscripts. So as part of my research,I decided to do a survey of readers in my relatively small mailing list. The results below are interesting, but they only provide a glimpse, and may not be representative of all readers.

Thirty-five per cent say they know what illuminated manuscripts are, though not all in this group seemed t...

A Teaser: The Golden Manuscripts: A Novel

Here’s a teaser for my newest book, The Golden Manuscripts: A Novel, published this month.

The novel is inspired by a real case involving two illuminated manuscripts stolen by an American soldier toward the end of World War II. The theft becomes the vehicle for illustrating what’s wrong with today’s art world. Though I tell an imagined story of the theft, the narrative is factual on what was stolen—except for the second stolen manuscript—how the treasures were later returned, and how the famil...

Paris, Je T’Aime: Looking Back

I cannot say exactly when I fell in love with Paris. I suppose I came by it gradually. Before I knew that this love had seized me irrevocably, I thought that if there was one place in the world I was truly in love with, it was Florence, Italy. That if I had the wherewithal, it was where I would have chosen to live. For the art. For the history. For the Florentine sensibility I imagined it to have. For the gelato and the loggia in the Piazza della Signoria. All contained in a coherent little pack...

The Common Man’s Book Reviews: The End of Civilization?

A while back (maybe seven years), I read a couple of articles on book reviews, written by an erudite man with impeccable credentials. In an online magazine called The Arts Fuse, he continues the lament of the literati on the growing tyranny of the common man’s book reviews.

I have almost forgotten what academic writing is like, at least a decade away from it. Academics don’t write like normal people. For one, they love to split hairs. And they use big words. But they do often have something to s...

An October Winter in Paris

We woke up to some sunshine one Saturday morning in October. Sunshine and smiles—for me, they go together. In the afternoon, we went out, hoping the sun would hold. It didn’t, and we got caught in a near-freezing drizzle. The day before was no better—clouds, icy wind, high humidity. We’d seen this kind of weather in Paris. In the winter.

 

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I loved my transient life in Paris. But weather-wise, that was the most miserable October I’d had there. Overcast and cloudy most days, and rainy for the r...

Bohemian Artists, Mid-1800s

Bohemian. A word often uttered with a mix of admiration, confusion, and mockery. Usually we think of a bohemian as someone who’s unconventional, footloose and carefree. Quite likely, she’s also an artist or maybe, a writer.

A place called Bohemia does exist. In the Czech Republic. But that’s not where the concept of a Bohemian—as we often use the term —comes from. In fact, if you were to associate Bohemian with a place, you’re more likely to think of Paris. For good reasons.

The mid-1800s was a ...

A Closer Look At Our Multicultural Society: Ebook and Paperback Giveaways

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, as diverse and big a melting pot as any you’d find in American cosmopolitan areas. I’ve lived in and traveled to Asian and European cities. Been exposed to many cultures and all kinds of people. So, you could say it’s inevitable that my experiences find their way into my fiction and other articles I write.

Want to know vicariously what it’s like, being a person who comes from a different (or mixed) race or (blended) culture? Sample the work of authors of th...

Stark Truth: Behind the Beautiful Forevers

My latest novel, The Shade Under the Mango Tree, takes the reader to a foreign culture. I’ve traveled to Asia, Europe, and parts of North Africa so it might have been inevitable that I would write about experiencing other cultures in my fiction. But more than the act and pleasure of traveling, it’s “living” (no matter how superficial and transient) in the cultures I visit that stays with me.

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The pandemic has vastly curtailed travel but, thanks to books and other written sources, we can still d...