Rowena Dawn's Blog, page 11
August 22, 2016
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Tonight, I'd like to make two important announcements (at least, important for me!).
First of all, as I am a woman and an author, I feel like I'm entitled to whims and changes of mind. Who doesn't know that a woman can be as changeable as the weather and authors can be capricious and moody?
So, I've changed my mind and I will not release my new novel " Becka's Awakening " at the end of August. I feel like I have to offer something nice to myself for my birthday and... ta da, here's my present: the release of this novel, which will be at the end of September (I won't reveal the day - the end of September will do.)
I do hope that the second announcement will bring you joy: starting with today (actually within the next thirty minutes), besides the interviews that I promised to feature on my blog, I will start featuring various authors and even reviewers.
The first one - you'll love this author: funny, imaginative, romantic - writes with a lot of feeling and has a real understanding of the human condition. I won't say more. You'll have to see for yourself! I won't spoil your surprise.
Until then, this is everything for now. I do hope no one is disappointed. Huh!
A girl can dream, can't she?
August 19, 2016
Seeing Through Sampson's Eyes: Step in another's shoes, and the journey begins... (Made for Me Book 2) Kindle Edition by Pamela Schloesser Canepa
****
REVIEW
***I was assigned this title in a book group and was asked to give an honest review.
In general, I am not a fun of this kind of novels, however the futuristic world created by Pamela Shloesser Canepa, as well as her characters, seem intriguing.
She set up the action of the novel in a rapidly changing world due to progress, however, that doesn’t mean that the change was positive. The world depicted is dark and somewhat dangerous.
The main character, Norrie gets in a bad situation due to her own actions, however, she handles herself very well and her evolution as a character makes for a good story.
The pace of the story is steady. The plot develops nicely and that made me find the story enticing and I had to read it up to the end.
The subject of android vs human in the world is very controversial and the author managed to deal very well with this matter, even arising awareness to prejudice and making the reader see the other perspective on this matter.
I liked Pamela Schloesser Canepa’s novel even if here and there I got a bit lost but I would like to read more of her stories. This novel offers a good visual description, rounded characters and generally a good story.
Link: https://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Through...
August 17, 2016
AUGUST 17, 2016
Hey there,
I have had a quite contemplative state of mind today mostly wondering where the human kind is going.
The odds don’t seem too good, at least in my mind. Along the history, there have been great civilizations to rise and then to fall once they reached the peak of their development: the Sumerians for instance, Phoenicians, even the ancient Greeks.
You start asking yourself questions when you see real sportsmanship, as the one proven by Jack Sock in his match with Lleyton Hewitt, labelled as stupidity.
(see: https://www.facebook.com/sbnation/vid...) . It’s like the only things that can be applauded today are cheating, besting someone through illegal means, making your money through nefarious ways and so on.
I, for one, don’t care for such things. I salute Mr. Sock. He’s one of the few that still bear the flag of sportsmanship. I think he thought he’d live better with himself by doing the right thing even if he’d lose the match, than having to live with the thought he didn’t say something to help correcting an erroneous decision.
However, the fact that Mr. Sock was labeled stupid wasn’t the only thing that set me off.
I read about a cat called for duty jury. Even though the owners tried to prove with papers that it was a cat and not a person, the court didn’t accept any excuse and asked for the cat to come to court. I wonder what the judge would think seeing a jury formed by eleven people and a cat. By the way, no one bothered to label those people stupid for decreeing that the cat was good enough for jury. What does that say about the American juridical system? Or what does that say about people, in general?
Progress has its advantages and disadvantages. Smartphones became our daily and nightly companions, taking over relationships, either in the family or love relationships.
I saw a young couple taking their baby for a walk in the park this evening. Both parents were on the phone all the time, checking messages or God knows what, and the baby was trying desperately to make them pay attention to him. Not a chance for the little one.
If you get on a bus, everyone takes out their phones and start writing texts or checking Facebook or whatever.
Five months ago, we gave up our cell phones. By that time, every conversation in the house was conducted through text messaging. Since then, there have been daily conversations, more interaction and it seems that a little more understanding. Just a thought.
Well, just a little food for thought: in what kind of world do you want to live?
Any ideas, anyone?
August 13, 2016
August 13, 2016
Hey there again,
It seems I’ve been in too much of a rush to announce that the weather became bearable. Halas that was not the case! It’s getting hotter and hotter and humidity drives me crazy. When I came to Canada, I thought it would be cooler in summer but I’m afraid it is hotter than in Europe. Disappointing from my point of view. It’s like living in a perpetual sauna and I must confess I don’t like saunas.
In other words, it’s been a tough period for me. I prefer to feel the chill in the air not the heat waves.
Besides everything, it’s been a very surprising week and the most surprising thing is that I’m in the situation to admit that I have no sense of humor. Either that or the television people have started to classify the movies and series in a way that eludes my basic understanding.
I think I’ve told you before (and if not, you find out now) that whenever I’m stressed or tired, I relax watching comedies. Well, I finished The Big Bang Theory, which I watched on Crave, a program I subscribed to because one can watch movies without the pestering commercials. On regular programs, a film that should last an hour and a half turns into a four-hour film because of commercials and I don’t have the necessary patience to stay put for four hours only to see the same commercials over and over again. So Crave sounded good.
Anyway, when I finished The Big Bang Theory, correctly classified under comedies, I turned my attention to the series listed above it, The Big C. I thought that the title sounded intriguing enough and as it was listed as a comedy, it was exactly what the doctor had prescribed to me.
Well, it’s a very good series, if you want to cry buckets, and I don’t exaggerate. How the TV people thought that a series about a woman with four stage melanoma, with almost everyone around her dying (probably, that’s the comedy factor: everyone dies but her), could be classified under comedy, I don’t know, but either the sense of humor registered a huge shift in the contemporary society and I’ve been left behind (everything is possible, as there are lots of things and behaviors around that I don’t understand anymore and I don’t bother to ponder upon) or those people lost their minds and find humor in tragedy, death and broken hearts.
Don’t misunderstand me: as far as drama goes (at least in my outdated mind) this is one of the greatest series I’ve ever seen! It seems that I’ve been hooked and even though it is not the comedy I hoped for, I can’t let it go. I have to watch it, no matter what.
The continuous fight to take control of a life that got out of hand and the microcosms of parallel misfortunes, tribulations and crashed hopes are compelling. It’s like a book that terrifies you but you cannot very well leave it alone. You have to immerse yourself in that parallel misery like you’ve been caught in the spider web and you cannot break free anymore.
This has been on my mind for the last few days and I had to let it out. That doesn’t mean I will write a long post – no time, I’m afraid. I have a magazine issue to work on and it will not get ready by itself. That’s a work that provokes ambivalent feelings in me. On one hand, I can’t wait to put it up there and show the world: look, what these marvelous people brought you, enjoy! On the other, I fear the 4:30 a.m. in the morning of 15th, when I have to wake up and check the site and see what other blunder took place, because no matter what I write, the website has a life of itself and categories appear differently than what I put there and, worse, people’s works don’t appear at all. Well, it’s a work of love and hate. Let’s see which one wins this time.
See you around! And don’t forget, new interviews to come up. I hope you enjoyed the previous two. There were two different authors, two different generations and two different points of view. If you haven’t read them, do so! They deserve it, believe me!
August 10, 2016
August 10, 2016 - DONAL MAHONEY INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW WITH DONAL MAHONEY
BIO: Donal Mahoney, a native of Chicago, lives in St. Louis, Missouri. He has worked as an editor for The Chicago Sun-Times, Loyola University Press and Washington University in St. Louis. His fiction and poetry have appeared in various publications, including The Wisconsin Review, The Kansas Quarterly, The South Carolina Review, The Christian Science Monitor, Commonweal, Guwahatian Magazine (India), The Galway Review (Ireland), Public Republic (Bulgaria), The Osprey Review (Wales), The Istanbul Literary Review (Turkey) and other magazines. Some of his work can be found at http://eyeonlifemag.com/the-poetry-lo...
(Photo: Carol Bales)
Welcome to my blog, Mr. Maloney! I am extremely delighted to have you as a guest.
Q: Tell us a little about yourself and your background.
I was born to Irish immigrant parents in Chicago many years ago. My mother had been raised with eight other siblings on an English landlord’s farm in a house with no heat, only a fireplace. Her family planted and harvested cabbage, rutabaga and potatoes for the Englishman. She left because of poverty and no future,
My father, reared on a dairy farm in Ireland, was expelled from the country by his English captors for running guns for the Irish Republican Army shortly after the Rebellion of 1916. He had been imprisoned for a couple of years. He was a teenager when caught and in his twenties when put on a boat for America.
My father came here as a grave-digger, boxer and singer in Irish nightclubs till he caught on with the Edison Company in Chicago and learned his trade, He did not live long enough to see his grandson, my son, win a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University in England. He would not have been happy having a grandson of his studying in detested England.
My mother may have had a fourth grade education and my father a sixth grade education but he was able to help me with algebra in high school. A sober Irishman, he saved enough money to send me to college when there were no loans. He was not happy to see me major in English, not go to law school, and then go on for a master’s in English.
In a house like that I grew up not too fond of the English. And now many decades later I cannot say that I am any fonder of them although I thank them for their contribution to literature in the English language.
Q: Do you think that your school years have had an impact in your writing career? If so, what were you like at school?
I was a nitwit in grammar school, always involved in mischief, not much good in math but I could spell and write. I had nuns, God bless them, who took the sons of immigrants and educated them in spite of themselves. They never penalized my academic grades because of the commotion I caused in the classroom.
I remember my father telling me once that I was lucky that he and my mother came to America speaking English, albeit with a thick brogue. The other kids in my classes often came from other European countries and spoke Polish, Lithuanian, German and other languages at home so for them English was almost a second language. For me, English was the only language I knew, fraught as it was with hyperbole and often still is
Q: Were you good at English or like Einstein you excel now in a field that was a nightmare for you as a student?
I was always good in English but had to study in math and science, neither of which did I care for. But if I studied, I did fairly well.
Q: What are your future ambitions for your writing career?
I can’t say that I have any future ambitions as a writer, only to write up until the day that I die. I quit writing for 35 years or so because of jobs as a print editor that took most of my energy. My five kids always got hungry. And I wanted them to go to school as I had gone to school. They did and now have families of their own.
In the Sixties, when the jobs were easy, I had about 100 poems or so published in what were called “little magazines” as well as university magazines and at least one commercial magazine. Then I got my first job as the editor of a small national magazine. I was the staff, no one else. So I quit writing my own stuff and got the magazine out every month.
I returned to writing in 2008 following retirement when my wife bought me a computer as a gift and showed me where cardboard boxes of poems and drafts of poems had been gathering dust in the basement. In addition to poems, I began writing fiction and nonfiction as well. At last count, I have had the good fortune to appear, counting reprints, more than 6,000 times in print and online with poems, stories and essays. But all I do now is write all day.
Q: Which poets have inspired you and how? What was their impact on your work or your literary perspective?
When I was young, T.S. Eliot and Wallace Stevens impressed me greatly. As an adult it was the Irish poet Seamus Heaney, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature, who grabbed my attention because his diction mirrored the diction of the Irish immigrants with whom I was raised.
Q: So, would you mind telling us what you have written so far?
Although I have the quantity and some say the quality to have produced books of poems and maybe a book of short stories, I have not tried to put a book together because I like writing but not editing and compiling a book would remind me too much of work that I did for so many years. I also lack the patience to try to sell the book to a publisher and the idea of going to a vanity press does not appeal to me personally.
Q: What are you working on at the minute? What’s it about?
I write up to nine hours a day in perhaps three hour shifts on poems, stories and essays. I might have as many as four poems in work at once and send each out only when I give up on making them any better. If I’m working on a story or essay I try to stick with it because that seems to occupy some other part of my brain. I “hear” poems. Prose I have to write.
Q: When did you decide to become a poet? What was the decisive factor or you just took a pen and starting writing poems?
I never decided to become a poet. My father spoke a musical English and that affected me, I’m certain. Perhaps the first “verse” I ever wrote was in third grade simply because I liked the sound of it.
Q: What makes you write? What’s the force behind taking your pen (or your keyboard) and put verses down?
I have no idea what makes me write except that it is one of three obsessions I have had in life. The other two might have gotten me arrested, if caught, or made me sick had I not managed to quit both of them.
Q: Do you write full-time or part-time? Do you have a special time to write or do you write every day, 5 days a week or as and when?
Because I am retired I write 7 days a week usually in three three-hour shifts a day unless doctor appointments or something else tears me away from the computer.
Q: Where do your ideas come from? Or is it just the spur of the moment, a special feeling you experience or a specific conjuncture that offers you inspiration?
I have no idea where my ideas come from except to say that a phrase that sounds good will pop into my mind. For example, the other day I remembered how when I was small my father, when he was upset, would go around the house chanting “the bog above Bob Gordon’s bog,” which I always assumed was something from his childhood in Ireland. I never found out what it meant but I finally tried to get it out of my mind by using it in a poem that I had no idea at the start what it might be about. It turned out to be a ditty. I write ditties to get rid of phrases that won’t go away but sometimes good poems start the same way. I never know where a poem is going until it is written. This link will take you to the ditty that resulted:
http://www.thepoetcommunity.com/8539/above-bob-gordons-bog-a-poem-by-donal-mahoney
Q: How do you think you’ve evolved creatively?
I have no idea except that I always loved words, the sound of them bumping into each other, as the immigrant Irish spoke them in Chicago. They were the only discipline that I was attracted to because until graduate school I really did not have to work too hard and that was fine with me because I loved basketball and general mischief and commotion.
Q: In your opinion, what is the hardest thing about writing?
Not knowing when a poem is “done,” But even when a poem is done, it really isn’t because as some famous poet once said, “A poem is never done. It is simply abandoned.”
For me the main problem is running on. Not quitting when I should. Not editing myself the way I edited others to make a living. Although I quit drinking on 11-23-61, verbally I am always drunk.
Q: Now, what about the easiest thing about writing?
The computer that replaced the typewriter that I was weaned on. The delete key beats an eraser.
Q: Do you ever get writer’s Block and if so do you have any tips on how to get through the dreaded writer’s block?
I have never had Writer’s Block. I suffer from dysentery of the mind.
Q: Do you read much and if so who are your favorite authors? For your own reading, do you prefer eBooks or traditional paper/hard back books?
I read many books in grammar school, high school, college and graduate school. In grammar school, I would go to the library and bring home bags of books. I then read for pleasure. Majoring in English made me read because I had to. I now read periodicals in print and sites online. No books in a long time. But the book that changed my life in 1958 was J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye.” It probably cost me a law degree because I was headed to law school till I read that book.
Q: What book/s are you reading at present?
No books but a ton of magazines.
Q: Do you proofread/edit all your own books or do you get someone to do that for you?
I have dry macular degeneration, which is why I type in bold so as to catch as many typos as I can. My wife proofs everything for me now. Her comments on my poems are also helpful because she is a journalist and reporter by trade and approaches poetry from a different angle.
Q: Do you let the book stew – leave it for a month and then come back to it to edit?
If I can manage to do so, I leave a poem draft marinate overnight after revising it probably 10 or 12 times during the original writing. The older I get the less I like to let anything hang around. I like to say enough. And that is not a wise thing to do.
Prose is different because I write prose. I hear poems and type them out if that makes any sense.
Q: Who edited your last book and how did you select him/her?
The only “editor” I have is my wife who comments on poems, stories and essays while proofing them.
Q: Do you think that the cover plays an important part in the buying process?
Absolutely but often for the wrong reasons.
Q: What would you say are the main advantages and disadvantages of self-publishing against being published or the other way around?
I would only self-publish if I wanted to leave hard copies of my stuff for my kids. But that would involve a lot of work that does not interest me.
Q: How do you market your books, if you do the marketing yourself?
I have never thought about my writing as a way to make money so many but not all of the following questions are not for me to answer although I understand their importance.
Q: Would you or do you use a PR agency?
If I were a commercial writer, I certainly would.
Q: Why do you think that other well written books just don’t sell?
I fear books, magazines, newspapers and most print material are in a terminal state and will reside only in libraries.
Q: How do you relax?
I seldom relax and when I do I’m likely asleep
Q: What is your favorite book and why?
The Bible
Q: What is your favorite quote?
“I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.”
----Jesus Christ
Q: Where can you see yourself in 5 years-time?
Still alive, I hope, and writing
Q: What advice would you give to your younger self?
Don’t be so full of yourself.
Q: Is there anything else you would like to add that I haven’t included?
I think one of the most important aspects of my life that I have failed to discuss is attending Roman Catholic schools for 19 consecutive years without ever thinking about being a priest. I then did not practice Catholicism for 40 years, only to return to the Church eight years ago. One either has faith or does not. I have always believed even when I was not practicing my faith. Believing for me is like breathing and writing, They come naturally and I thank God for them.
Q: How can readers discover more about you and you work?
Website: http://eyeonlifemag.com/the-poetry-locksmith/donal-mahoney-poet.html#sthash.OSYzpgmQ.dpbs=
and
http://booksonblog12.blogspot.com
Thank you very much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to take part in this interview.
BIO: Donal Mahoney, a native of Chicago, lives in St. Louis, Missouri. He has worked as an editor for The Chicago Sun-Times, Loyola University Press and Washington University in St. Louis. His fiction and poetry have appeared in various publications, including The Wisconsin Review, The Kansas Quarterly, The South Carolina Review, The Christian Science Monitor, Commonweal, Guwahatian Magazine (India), The Galway Review (Ireland), Public Republic (Bulgaria), The Osprey Review (Wales), The Istanbul Literary Review (Turkey) and other magazines. Some of his work can be found at http://eyeonlifemag.com/the-poetry-lo...
(Photo: Carol Bales)
Welcome to my blog, Mr. Maloney! I am extremely delighted to have you as a guest.
Q: Tell us a little about yourself and your background.
I was born to Irish immigrant parents in Chicago many years ago. My mother had been raised with eight other siblings on an English landlord’s farm in a house with no heat, only a fireplace. Her family planted and harvested cabbage, rutabaga and potatoes for the Englishman. She left because of poverty and no future,
My father, reared on a dairy farm in Ireland, was expelled from the country by his English captors for running guns for the Irish Republican Army shortly after the Rebellion of 1916. He had been imprisoned for a couple of years. He was a teenager when caught and in his twenties when put on a boat for America.
My father came here as a grave-digger, boxer and singer in Irish nightclubs till he caught on with the Edison Company in Chicago and learned his trade, He did not live long enough to see his grandson, my son, win a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University in England. He would not have been happy having a grandson of his studying in detested England.
My mother may have had a fourth grade education and my father a sixth grade education but he was able to help me with algebra in high school. A sober Irishman, he saved enough money to send me to college when there were no loans. He was not happy to see me major in English, not go to law school, and then go on for a master’s in English.
In a house like that I grew up not too fond of the English. And now many decades later I cannot say that I am any fonder of them although I thank them for their contribution to literature in the English language.
Q: Do you think that your school years have had an impact in your writing career? If so, what were you like at school?
I was a nitwit in grammar school, always involved in mischief, not much good in math but I could spell and write. I had nuns, God bless them, who took the sons of immigrants and educated them in spite of themselves. They never penalized my academic grades because of the commotion I caused in the classroom.
I remember my father telling me once that I was lucky that he and my mother came to America speaking English, albeit with a thick brogue. The other kids in my classes often came from other European countries and spoke Polish, Lithuanian, German and other languages at home so for them English was almost a second language. For me, English was the only language I knew, fraught as it was with hyperbole and often still is
Q: Were you good at English or like Einstein you excel now in a field that was a nightmare for you as a student?
I was always good in English but had to study in math and science, neither of which did I care for. But if I studied, I did fairly well.
Q: What are your future ambitions for your writing career?
I can’t say that I have any future ambitions as a writer, only to write up until the day that I die. I quit writing for 35 years or so because of jobs as a print editor that took most of my energy. My five kids always got hungry. And I wanted them to go to school as I had gone to school. They did and now have families of their own.
In the Sixties, when the jobs were easy, I had about 100 poems or so published in what were called “little magazines” as well as university magazines and at least one commercial magazine. Then I got my first job as the editor of a small national magazine. I was the staff, no one else. So I quit writing my own stuff and got the magazine out every month.
I returned to writing in 2008 following retirement when my wife bought me a computer as a gift and showed me where cardboard boxes of poems and drafts of poems had been gathering dust in the basement. In addition to poems, I began writing fiction and nonfiction as well. At last count, I have had the good fortune to appear, counting reprints, more than 6,000 times in print and online with poems, stories and essays. But all I do now is write all day.
Q: Which poets have inspired you and how? What was their impact on your work or your literary perspective?
When I was young, T.S. Eliot and Wallace Stevens impressed me greatly. As an adult it was the Irish poet Seamus Heaney, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature, who grabbed my attention because his diction mirrored the diction of the Irish immigrants with whom I was raised.
Q: So, would you mind telling us what you have written so far?
Although I have the quantity and some say the quality to have produced books of poems and maybe a book of short stories, I have not tried to put a book together because I like writing but not editing and compiling a book would remind me too much of work that I did for so many years. I also lack the patience to try to sell the book to a publisher and the idea of going to a vanity press does not appeal to me personally.
Q: What are you working on at the minute? What’s it about?
I write up to nine hours a day in perhaps three hour shifts on poems, stories and essays. I might have as many as four poems in work at once and send each out only when I give up on making them any better. If I’m working on a story or essay I try to stick with it because that seems to occupy some other part of my brain. I “hear” poems. Prose I have to write.
Q: When did you decide to become a poet? What was the decisive factor or you just took a pen and starting writing poems?
I never decided to become a poet. My father spoke a musical English and that affected me, I’m certain. Perhaps the first “verse” I ever wrote was in third grade simply because I liked the sound of it.
Q: What makes you write? What’s the force behind taking your pen (or your keyboard) and put verses down?
I have no idea what makes me write except that it is one of three obsessions I have had in life. The other two might have gotten me arrested, if caught, or made me sick had I not managed to quit both of them.
Q: Do you write full-time or part-time? Do you have a special time to write or do you write every day, 5 days a week or as and when?
Because I am retired I write 7 days a week usually in three three-hour shifts a day unless doctor appointments or something else tears me away from the computer.
Q: Where do your ideas come from? Or is it just the spur of the moment, a special feeling you experience or a specific conjuncture that offers you inspiration?
I have no idea where my ideas come from except to say that a phrase that sounds good will pop into my mind. For example, the other day I remembered how when I was small my father, when he was upset, would go around the house chanting “the bog above Bob Gordon’s bog,” which I always assumed was something from his childhood in Ireland. I never found out what it meant but I finally tried to get it out of my mind by using it in a poem that I had no idea at the start what it might be about. It turned out to be a ditty. I write ditties to get rid of phrases that won’t go away but sometimes good poems start the same way. I never know where a poem is going until it is written. This link will take you to the ditty that resulted:
http://www.thepoetcommunity.com/8539/above-bob-gordons-bog-a-poem-by-donal-mahoney
Q: How do you think you’ve evolved creatively?
I have no idea except that I always loved words, the sound of them bumping into each other, as the immigrant Irish spoke them in Chicago. They were the only discipline that I was attracted to because until graduate school I really did not have to work too hard and that was fine with me because I loved basketball and general mischief and commotion.
Q: In your opinion, what is the hardest thing about writing?
Not knowing when a poem is “done,” But even when a poem is done, it really isn’t because as some famous poet once said, “A poem is never done. It is simply abandoned.”
For me the main problem is running on. Not quitting when I should. Not editing myself the way I edited others to make a living. Although I quit drinking on 11-23-61, verbally I am always drunk.
Q: Now, what about the easiest thing about writing?
The computer that replaced the typewriter that I was weaned on. The delete key beats an eraser.
Q: Do you ever get writer’s Block and if so do you have any tips on how to get through the dreaded writer’s block?
I have never had Writer’s Block. I suffer from dysentery of the mind.
Q: Do you read much and if so who are your favorite authors? For your own reading, do you prefer eBooks or traditional paper/hard back books?
I read many books in grammar school, high school, college and graduate school. In grammar school, I would go to the library and bring home bags of books. I then read for pleasure. Majoring in English made me read because I had to. I now read periodicals in print and sites online. No books in a long time. But the book that changed my life in 1958 was J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye.” It probably cost me a law degree because I was headed to law school till I read that book.
Q: What book/s are you reading at present?
No books but a ton of magazines.
Q: Do you proofread/edit all your own books or do you get someone to do that for you?
I have dry macular degeneration, which is why I type in bold so as to catch as many typos as I can. My wife proofs everything for me now. Her comments on my poems are also helpful because she is a journalist and reporter by trade and approaches poetry from a different angle.
Q: Do you let the book stew – leave it for a month and then come back to it to edit?
If I can manage to do so, I leave a poem draft marinate overnight after revising it probably 10 or 12 times during the original writing. The older I get the less I like to let anything hang around. I like to say enough. And that is not a wise thing to do.
Prose is different because I write prose. I hear poems and type them out if that makes any sense.
Q: Who edited your last book and how did you select him/her?
The only “editor” I have is my wife who comments on poems, stories and essays while proofing them.
Q: Do you think that the cover plays an important part in the buying process?
Absolutely but often for the wrong reasons.
Q: What would you say are the main advantages and disadvantages of self-publishing against being published or the other way around?
I would only self-publish if I wanted to leave hard copies of my stuff for my kids. But that would involve a lot of work that does not interest me.
Q: How do you market your books, if you do the marketing yourself?
I have never thought about my writing as a way to make money so many but not all of the following questions are not for me to answer although I understand their importance.
Q: Would you or do you use a PR agency?
If I were a commercial writer, I certainly would.
Q: Why do you think that other well written books just don’t sell?
I fear books, magazines, newspapers and most print material are in a terminal state and will reside only in libraries.
Q: How do you relax?
I seldom relax and when I do I’m likely asleep
Q: What is your favorite book and why?
The Bible
Q: What is your favorite quote?
“I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.”
----Jesus Christ
Q: Where can you see yourself in 5 years-time?
Still alive, I hope, and writing
Q: What advice would you give to your younger self?
Don’t be so full of yourself.
Q: Is there anything else you would like to add that I haven’t included?
I think one of the most important aspects of my life that I have failed to discuss is attending Roman Catholic schools for 19 consecutive years without ever thinking about being a priest. I then did not practice Catholicism for 40 years, only to return to the Church eight years ago. One either has faith or does not. I have always believed even when I was not practicing my faith. Believing for me is like breathing and writing, They come naturally and I thank God for them.
Q: How can readers discover more about you and you work?
Website: http://eyeonlifemag.com/the-poetry-locksmith/donal-mahoney-poet.html#sthash.OSYzpgmQ.dpbs=
and
http://booksonblog12.blogspot.com
Thank you very much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to take part in this interview.
August 7, 2016
August 7, 2016
Hi, there!
I’ve been a little restless lately and I’ve been looking for something that was in my control and change.
At last count, there are some things. I can try to change my outlook of the world. Tough one, eh? How can you change it when you see the same thing over and over again? Now, this is a good question and if anyone can answer it to me, I’d be grateful.
Then I thought about changing the look of the house by playing with furniture and knick-knacks and other things like that. Well, I rolled up my sleeves, looked around and, with a sigh, I instantly gave up, I must tell you. It’s too much work involved and too little patience on my side. So that one was a “no go”.
I took the entire day yesterday to think and I didn’t make much way. There was always something there: laziness, affordability, lack of interest, you pick.
Today, though, I’ve finally found something to change. I like to bake and if you’ve ever read my bio on Amazon, for instance, then you already knew that. If not, you’ve just found out. Interesting, huh? Well, maybe for some of view, I doubt the others will find it of notable interest. Anyway, as I like to bake and I have had to bake some bread – I discovered an hour ago that there was no crumble of bread in the house and lunch is almost here, I’ve decided to change the bread recipe. I’ve baked the same type of bread for the last few years and something new was due. So, I’ve changed. I can’t tell you how that turned out, as the bread is still in the oven, but that little thing, the experiment with ingredients, made me feel that I’ve accomplished something.
The tribulations of a writer’s life are many – at least when you’re aspiring to become a writer, which means to have sales, people following you and showing interest in your work.
It’s not easy-peasy to have your work out there. Well, you can publish it, that’s no big deal. The question is: how do you make people notice you or your work? I’ve heard a lot of theories and I must admit, I’ve put every single one in practice. After all, I do want to be able to say: hey, look here, I’m a writer! Nonetheless, nothing panned out or at least for the moment. I’m probably not a good seller. I might be good at writing but that doesn’t mean people would take my word for it. I still have to make people believe it. Well, one of these days I might stumble on the right way. Until then, I’ll just scribe away.
You might wonder how come I’ve started writing today. I’ll tell you the secret: the heat is gone. There’s a bit of wind, a little chill in the air: perfect weather for me. I know that some of my fellow Canadians hate me for being happy for this change in the weather (if not 99% of them), but right now, I don’t care. It’s a beautiful day and I feel in my element again.
The heat is not for me, at least if it isn’t accompanied by a sandy beach and a wavy sea and the sea breeze. I’m quite particular in this matter. During the last few days I couldn’t even think properly and that reflected in my writing: none to speak about.
Now, I can enjoy my yard. Of course, I don’t enjoy Rex’s constant hunt for squirrels. Don’t worry, squirrels are safe. They’re there in the tree, chattering at Rex and driving him mad. Consequently, he drives me mad and I suppose everyone living in the proximity. Fortunately, my neighbors – the five-people family with a penchant for bad swearing and ill-treating of their own children, are not here. They left for a birthday party yesterday afternoon and haven’t returned. Don’t ask why! I’m not a psychic and I can’t know why. However, it’s been heavenly peaceful this morning. No yelling, no swearing, no Elvis redemptions (that from the other neighbor – I think he went somewhere as well because no peep came from his side)! Well, I don’t complain, quite the opposite. It’s been a while since I could sit in my yard and just write without interruptions. Let’s just hope that it will last.
Well, not much to say as I haven’t left the house since yesterday evening. But I will keep you posted, no worries!
Have fun, it's summer!
This is one of my favorite places in the world: Santorini, Greece! I do miss it!
August 3, 2016
August 3, 2016 - Adam Levon Brown Interview
Dear Readers,
I will start with a series of interviews to introduce the authors that have had a great impact on the success of the literary magazine Scarlet Leaf Review by putting it on the map of the literary world.
I am pleased that these gifted authors have accepted my request for an interview.
Let's welcome the first author today: ADAM LEVON BROWN!
INTERVIEW WITH ADAM LEVON BROWN
BIO: Adam Levon Brown is a poet, student, and activist residing in Eugene, Oregon. He enjoys the outdoors, playing with cats, and meeting new people. He has been published in a few dozen places including Burningword Literary Journal and Yellow Chair Review.
He can be contacted via his website at www.AdamLevonBrown.org, where he offers free resources for poets. Welcome, Adam Levon Brown!
Q: Tell us a little about yourself and your background.
I grew up in Eugene, Oregon in the United States. I dabbled in writing and wrote short stories when I was 7 years old. I have a great family who is always supportive of my endeavors. I have 2 cats that I adore to death.
Q: Do you think that your school years have had an impact in your writing career? If so, what were you like at school?
I didn’t like school until I got to college, where I was free to explore subjects that interested me. I studied mostly science until recently.
Q: Were you good at English or like Einstein you excel now in a field that was a nightmare for you as a student?
I think I’ve always had a knack for writing and reading. My reading comprehension was at a college level from age 12, or so I was told. I loved reading and did so a lot when I was younger. I only started writing close to 2 years now, and I can’t get enough of it.
Q: What are your future ambitions for your writing career?
I want to spread my words to as many people as possible. I also want to win some kind of award eventually.
Q: Which poets have inspired you and how? What was their impact on your work or your literary perspective?
Honestly, I haven’t read much poetry; but my favorites are Poe, Plath, and Ginsberg. Their darkness is really relatable to me, and their work has shaped the different words and images that I try to convey in my work.
Q: So, would you mind telling us what you have written so far?
I have two full collections of poetry out with Creative Talents Unleashed; “Musings of a Madman” and “Cadence of Cupid”. I also just released my first chapbook under my imprint, “Madness Muse Press” The title of the chapbook is, “These Streets Don’t Cry For Us” and is currently ranked #14 in Bestselling Death/Grief/Loss Poetry.
Q: Where can we buy or see them?
These Streets Don’t Cry For Us Links:
https://www.amazon.com/These-Streets-Dont-Cry-Us/dp/0997859911
Musings of a Madman Links:
https://www.amazon.com/Musings-Madman...
Q: What are you working on at the minute? What’s it about?
I’m working on my next poetry chapbook which I’m planning to release in Mid-December around Christmas. It’s tentative title is, “Emotional Explosives” and is full of raw, hard-hitting free/experimental verse.
Q: What genre are your books and what draws you to this genre?
If I had to classify my work in a genre, it would have to be, “Dark”. I have a lot of personal demons and I’ve spent a lot of time alone. I’ve always been drawn to darker works because I can feel them more than lighter pieces.
Q: When did you decide to become a poet? What was the decisive factor or you just took a pen and starting writing poems?
I really got into poetry a year and a half ago. I started doing writing prompts from Creative Talents Unleashed and just fell in love because I was able to express myself. I really didn’t decide to keep it going until I published my first book, “Musings of a Madman.” The moment that book was released, I decided, I’m going all the way with this poetry thing.
Q: What makes you write? What’s the force behind taking your pen (or your keyboard) and put verses down?
The need to express complex emotions which may be lost if not analyzed and expressed.
Q: Do you write full-time or part-time? Do you have a special time to write or do you write every day, 5 days a week or as and when?
I’m a student and I write part-time. I don’t have a particular time I write, though most of it happens between 12 am-3 am.
Q: Where do your ideas come from? Or is it just the spur of the moment, a special feeling you experience or a specific conjuncture that offers you inspiration?
Spur of the moment, I love to twist and play with language. It’s fun for me.
Q: Do you ever get writer’s Block and if so do you have any tips on how to get through the dreaded writer’s block?
If you want to get rid of writer’s block, READ. Get ideas swirling around in your head by reading or conversing about deep subjects like philosophy.
Q: Do you read much and if so who are your favorite authors? For your own reading, do you prefer eBooks or traditional paper/hard back books?
I prefer paperback. I like a lot of Gothic fiction. My favorite authors are J.K Rowling, Laurell K. Hamilton, and Anne Rice.
Q: What book are you reading at present?
Right now, I’m reading through, “The Essential Ginsberg.”
Q: Do you proofread/edit all your own books or do you get someone to do that for you?
I do all of my editing.
Q: Do you let the book stew – leave it for a month and then come back to it to edit?
Yes.
Q: Who edited your last book and how did you select him/her?
I edited it.
Q: How can readers discover more about you and you work?
Website: www.AdamLevonBrown.org
Facebook: www.Facebook.com/AuthorAdamLevonBrown
Twitter: @AdamLevonBrown
Amazon Author Page: amazon.com/author/adamlevonbrown
Book Links:
https://www.amazon.com/These-Streets-...
Thank you very much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to take part in this interview.
Recording: Dearly Departed
https://soundcloud.com/poet-adam-brown/dearly-departed
I will start with a series of interviews to introduce the authors that have had a great impact on the success of the literary magazine Scarlet Leaf Review by putting it on the map of the literary world.
I am pleased that these gifted authors have accepted my request for an interview.
Let's welcome the first author today: ADAM LEVON BROWN!
INTERVIEW WITH ADAM LEVON BROWN
BIO: Adam Levon Brown is a poet, student, and activist residing in Eugene, Oregon. He enjoys the outdoors, playing with cats, and meeting new people. He has been published in a few dozen places including Burningword Literary Journal and Yellow Chair Review.He can be contacted via his website at www.AdamLevonBrown.org, where he offers free resources for poets. Welcome, Adam Levon Brown!
Q: Tell us a little about yourself and your background.
I grew up in Eugene, Oregon in the United States. I dabbled in writing and wrote short stories when I was 7 years old. I have a great family who is always supportive of my endeavors. I have 2 cats that I adore to death.
Q: Do you think that your school years have had an impact in your writing career? If so, what were you like at school?
I didn’t like school until I got to college, where I was free to explore subjects that interested me. I studied mostly science until recently.
Q: Were you good at English or like Einstein you excel now in a field that was a nightmare for you as a student?
I think I’ve always had a knack for writing and reading. My reading comprehension was at a college level from age 12, or so I was told. I loved reading and did so a lot when I was younger. I only started writing close to 2 years now, and I can’t get enough of it.
Q: What are your future ambitions for your writing career?
I want to spread my words to as many people as possible. I also want to win some kind of award eventually.
Q: Which poets have inspired you and how? What was their impact on your work or your literary perspective?
Honestly, I haven’t read much poetry; but my favorites are Poe, Plath, and Ginsberg. Their darkness is really relatable to me, and their work has shaped the different words and images that I try to convey in my work.
Q: So, would you mind telling us what you have written so far?
I have two full collections of poetry out with Creative Talents Unleashed; “Musings of a Madman” and “Cadence of Cupid”. I also just released my first chapbook under my imprint, “Madness Muse Press” The title of the chapbook is, “These Streets Don’t Cry For Us” and is currently ranked #14 in Bestselling Death/Grief/Loss Poetry.
Q: Where can we buy or see them?
These Streets Don’t Cry For Us Links:
https://www.amazon.com/These-Streets-Dont-Cry-Us/dp/0997859911
Musings of a Madman Links:
https://www.amazon.com/Musings-Madman...
Q: What are you working on at the minute? What’s it about?
I’m working on my next poetry chapbook which I’m planning to release in Mid-December around Christmas. It’s tentative title is, “Emotional Explosives” and is full of raw, hard-hitting free/experimental verse.
Q: What genre are your books and what draws you to this genre?
If I had to classify my work in a genre, it would have to be, “Dark”. I have a lot of personal demons and I’ve spent a lot of time alone. I’ve always been drawn to darker works because I can feel them more than lighter pieces.
Q: When did you decide to become a poet? What was the decisive factor or you just took a pen and starting writing poems?
I really got into poetry a year and a half ago. I started doing writing prompts from Creative Talents Unleashed and just fell in love because I was able to express myself. I really didn’t decide to keep it going until I published my first book, “Musings of a Madman.” The moment that book was released, I decided, I’m going all the way with this poetry thing.
Q: What makes you write? What’s the force behind taking your pen (or your keyboard) and put verses down?
The need to express complex emotions which may be lost if not analyzed and expressed.
Q: Do you write full-time or part-time? Do you have a special time to write or do you write every day, 5 days a week or as and when?
I’m a student and I write part-time. I don’t have a particular time I write, though most of it happens between 12 am-3 am.
Q: Where do your ideas come from? Or is it just the spur of the moment, a special feeling you experience or a specific conjuncture that offers you inspiration?
Spur of the moment, I love to twist and play with language. It’s fun for me.
Q: Do you ever get writer’s Block and if so do you have any tips on how to get through the dreaded writer’s block?
If you want to get rid of writer’s block, READ. Get ideas swirling around in your head by reading or conversing about deep subjects like philosophy.
Q: Do you read much and if so who are your favorite authors? For your own reading, do you prefer eBooks or traditional paper/hard back books?
I prefer paperback. I like a lot of Gothic fiction. My favorite authors are J.K Rowling, Laurell K. Hamilton, and Anne Rice.
Q: What book are you reading at present?
Right now, I’m reading through, “The Essential Ginsberg.”
Q: Do you proofread/edit all your own books or do you get someone to do that for you?
I do all of my editing.
Q: Do you let the book stew – leave it for a month and then come back to it to edit?
Yes.
Q: Who edited your last book and how did you select him/her?
I edited it.
Q: How can readers discover more about you and you work?
Website: www.AdamLevonBrown.org
Facebook: www.Facebook.com/AuthorAdamLevonBrown
Twitter: @AdamLevonBrown
Amazon Author Page: amazon.com/author/adamlevonbrown
Book Links:
https://www.amazon.com/These-Streets-...
Thank you very much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to take part in this interview.
Recording: Dearly Departed
https://soundcloud.com/poet-adam-brown/dearly-departed
July 31, 2016
JULY 31, 2016
July 31, 2016
I wanted to write a post yesterday, not only the promotional post for my book. However, with everything going on – my mother’s birthday, trouble with the cover for print, Rex’s boredom and Zoey’s playful nature yesterday, it was a little difficult to write anything.
Besides my crime novels, which I enjoy writing, I started writing romance with a little of adventure and humor peppered here and there, even though lately, looking around me, I have had some doubt that true lasting love still exists.
I’ve thought that maybe people are in too much rush to find their happiness right now and, consequently, they settle for the immediate without too much thought of what might come along. There’s also the possibility that maybe people want just to have some fun to counterbalance the harshness of life or the ugliness of the reality pictured by the news. Maybe many are only driven by the principles depicted by Sex and the City, although in my opinion, there’s a lot of sadness and disappointment in that film, even though it doesn’t pop up at first sight. Anyway, you can take your pick.
Yesterday, though, I was reminded what real love is.
I went shopping – well, our variant of shopping. Having Rex in the leash, I wait outside and my daughter goes inside with a fuzzy idea about what she should buy (it seems that everything flies out of my head when we get there, and anytime I prepare a list, I forget the list at home. So, I let her choose.) It is exhilarating to see what’s in her bags when she comes out of the store. There’s never disappointment but sometimes there’s a huge surprise. More important, rarely what’s in the bag could help with cooking dinner without a lot of cleverness and applying the Romanian saying “To make bricks without straw”.
Anyway, waiting outside with Rex means that I have plenty of time to observe the people milling around and yesterday, I had plenty of material to pick from: from the guy who was talking on his cell phone, which was on speaker, because he used the screen to groom his mustache, to the old couple that had come shopping and after shopping stopped outside the store for a while, just to hold each other.
They are actually the subject which I had in mind when I started writing this post. Around eighty, both of them weighed down by age, they had that air of the couples that had spent decades together. It was refreshing to see that after half a century – they both were around ninety - they still felt the need to hold each other and whisper things meant only for their ears.
That refreshed my belief that something else might exist besides the instant gratification that seems to be the purpose of most relationships I’ve seen lately.
That being said, it doesn’t mean that a relationship that starts on a flirty note and seems like just a lot of fun can’t evolve into something meaningful. Surprisingly, most of the time people are taken aback to see that exactly the relationships labeled as: “it will never last” are the ones that last in the end. Probably because of the contradictions or differences in temper and sometimes in beliefs, such relationships may pass the test of time. The two protagonists don’t have the time to get bored one with the other because they are too involved in the relationship and because surprises come too fast one after the other. Sometimes, if one of the two is a pain in the neck for the other that might give an occupation to the partner.
I’m far from an expert. I can speak only about what I’ve seen during the time. Of course, there are relationships where the two partners think the same and behave in the same way, and of course, these relationships can last as well. However, most of them fall into a sort of routine. The relationship still exists, under a certain form, the feelings are mutual but there’s no spark whatsoever. Without the spark, everything goes on as a lazy river, too fat to move. It’s like that Merry-Go-Round which I mentioned in a previous post.
But imagine a relationship like the roller-coaster! Scary! Thrilling! Your heart is about to jump out of your chest! Nonetheless, how many of you, after a scary ride, didn’t go back to try it again? Just asking!
See you again – I hope!
July 30, 2016
JULY 30, 2016
Hello Dear Readers,
Today it is my mother's birthday and that's why I decided to release my new novel exactly on July 30th.
Check it out on Amazon and Smashwords!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01JBTNT2G#...
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view...
I will have a promotion until August 21st. During the promotion, you can find the book at $0.99 only.
.
Please, try the sample, at least, and let me know what you think!
Soon, it should be in print as well. Here's the cover:
July 26, 2016
July 26, 2016
July 26, 2016
The first smart thing I’ve done: I didn’t promise a post every day. As you’ve seen, on Sunday and Monday, I couldn’t write. On Sunday, in the morning, I gave in and accepted to bake a cake despite the high temperature. The results were somehow mixed: the cake was good; however, I managed to burn my right hand. I don’t really know what I was thinking but I simply put my hand on the oven door to take the pan out with the other hand.
Of course, it wasn’t a very good Sunday and writing was out of question. I spent the entire day doing something I haven’t done in years: watched a season and a half of The Big Bang Theory.
Anyway, I’m back in the trenches now. Let’s see for how long! Life has its own way to dictate what you can or can’t do.
This morning, I’ve been thinking a lot at the new shape of the neighborhood. It seems that in less than a year things changed dramatically. There’s good material for a writer but as a person that enjoys quietness, especially in the mornings, there’s not such a good choice for living.
We have the guy who thinks he’s Elvis and every morning, around six, he takes his guitar out in the yard and plays his guitar, which wouldn’t be too problematic. However, he also sings: from the tops of his lungs. All the dogs in the neighborhood feel a compulsion to sing along. It’s a unique concert that usually lasts about an hour or an hour and a half during weekdays. On weekends, things change. The guy gratifies us with two or three concerts along the day, each between one hour and a half and even three hours sometimes, when he feels inspired. I say inspired because all songs are personal composition (or at least, I can’t recognize them – his interpretation is unique).
Then we have the family of five, right next door. I’m happy when they have guests and I think their three children are happy too. Those are the only moments when the adults play the role of loving parents and talk to their children with patience, and in a loving manner. The rest of the time, they could put a gang to shame. I don’t even have to check to find new phrases for swearing. They know the entire repertoire and they use it with dedication when they address one of the children. And they do, constantly. The mother complains she’s very tired in the evenings and I believe her. It is no easy task to yell nonstop and be so inventive that the swear words never overlap.
The other close neighbors are something else altogether. I’ve seen the man of the family once when he told me that I have an obnoxious dog (like I didn’t know that! Huh!). The lady I heard or better said I heard her sweeping the yard. She does that every day, at least three or four times a day. Otherwise, they come out of the house only after dark. No, they’re not vampires, because he wouldn’t have talked to me in broad daylight and she wouldn’t be so adamant that no speck of dust touches her yard.
The ones that read my blog in the past might remember that I was wondering about the lack of kids. Of, good days! There was a huge shift in population. There are lots and lots of kids now. I can mention the little guy who likes to stand in the middle of the alley – for hours! – and imitate a crow. Terrific sound! Especially if you try hard to move a scene along in your novel and the scene doesn’t involve a crow!
Most of the games that the other children play seem to involve a very long “aaaaaaaaaaah” repeated at very short intervals or running along with the supermarket carts that are the mark of the condominium. I’ve told you before: everyone must have one at the front door. It helps a lot: you can go shopping, take a run in the cart, walk the dog (why, I wonder?) and so on. I like people here: they are extremely inventive.
We couldn’t integrate into the population, I think, as we couldn’t go past the shame of going shopping leaving with the cart from home or come back home with a cart. The truth is that we’re still old-fashioned: we carry everything in bags. Maybe one day we’ll reach the modern age too…. Who knows?
Rex is not the noisiest dog in the neighborhood anymore. That’s the happiest thing that has happened lately. He was outdone by two Chihuahuas, one poodle, a Shih Tzu and a boxer. It’s true, he still watches the moon with apprehension and still gives the evil eye to planes and helicopters but he doesn’t bark at them anymore.
He hasn’t overcome other things, though. God forbid putting a thing in a place where that thing has not been before! He goes into a fit of barking and he doesn’t stop till the said thing is removed. The problem is when the neighbors move something in their yard: there, I have no jurisdiction. It makes for a happy afternoon, believe me! And besides that, of course, there are the squirrels. There are three of them at least, I think, because they’re of different color. They’ve seen that he gets furious when they come into his yard and now, they come just for fun, talk to him, drive him crazy… Anyway, they go to bed early so it’s not a real problem.
I think I’m all caught up right now. I ‘m about to launch a new novel. Check it out on my site and see the links! I had another one coming out last week and there has been a revamp to my crime story Mayhem on Nightingale Street. Another crime story is in the works!
See you soon and have fun! It’s summer!
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