Angie Gallion's Blog, page 3

Celadon by Ian Haight

Celadon by Ian Haight is a collection of poems that I suspect will walk with me for many years.  Haight is masterful in his creation of scene, succinct in his word choice, varied in his voice and wise beyond expectation.  Throughout I paused and reread his stanzas, out loud and with varying paces, feeling the way the language resounded.  I was drawn into his poems as if tethered.  A single set of four lines wrapped inside my head for an entire afternoon feeling like a familiar memory stolen away.  I enjoyed the evocative way he brought the people and places of his poems to life.  Haight captured the very essence of the factory laborer, the young lover, the vulgarity of an uneducated segment of society, the baseness and predispositions toward tolerance and not.  The people that walk his factories and fields are resoundingly real.  The factories and field are captured in relief.  These poems are thought provoking.  The social commentary is astute and fine tipped, the breadth of thesocieties he touches is wide.  Celadon moves from the American midwest, depressed and industrial, to Korea and other Asian locals.  It is an interesting confluence.  My first thought was that these poems belonged in different works but as I progressed through the sections I saw how the themes recurred, how the voice grew and shifted.  Haight captures the resounding ‘humanness” in all of us. The spiritual component of the work is contrasted against the brutal, and sometimes vulgar reality of life.  The blending is intellectually honest and I appreciated the depth of Haight’s  representation of details.  Haight’s verse is sophisticated and relies more on rhythm and image than a set rhyming pattern. Ian Haight has given us something mesmerizing, if stop for a moment to step into his work be prepared to linger for days.  Celadon is that good.

Fables for Leaders

By nature I am a fan of fables, fairytales, and legends so when I came across John Lubans' Fables for Leaders, there was no way I could pass it by. The book is segmented into chapters which are then subdivided further. For example, in the chapter titled The Effective Follower, one of the sections is titled “Are You Leading or Am I Following?” and that subsection has three fables pertinent to that concept. The individual fables are further segmented by the retelling of the fable, followed by the accepted interpretation with an analysis of how the fable applies to modern business, and closes often with a tagline gleaned by the author. The organization of Fables for Leaders was creative and thoughtful. Beyond the organization, I loved the texture of the work. The illustrator is Beatrice Coron and her paper cut artwork is done black on white and it is intricately simple and elegant. The font used is calligraphic, which added to the “timeworn” feel. The whole experience of reading the fables made me want a roaring fire and a cozy nook. While Fables for Leaders is beautifully rendered and aesthetically pleasing, the real treasure is found in the hints of wisdom John Lubans reminds us of. We’ve all heard the tale of The Grasshopper and The Ant, certainly, where one saves for the winter and is prepared when bad weather comes, and the other who does not save for winter finds himself in dire straits because of it. What Lubans does, masterfully, is take the cliche and make it relevant for today, and readily applicable for persons in leadership roles. There is great wisdom within these pages and the amazing thing is that we all know it, but Lubans provides us with the next step to take this intrinsic knowledge, this long forgotten wisdom, and retool it for our current lives. He opens the door to us and explains how the fables we learned at our mother’s knee were training us to live a most productive life. I want John Lubans' book, Fables for Leaders, for my own personal collection, and I want it printed on parchment.

Calamity by JD Jordan

I had the pleasure of meeting JD Jordan at the Dekalb Author Expo a couple of months ago.  There were upwards of 40 local authors there and I had made the rounds touching base, networking, as I do, and was impressed with JD's cover art and his passion.  When he told me that his book was a Western about Calamity Jane and a space alien, I have to admit I went a little ... meh.  Westerns aren't my thing, and space aliens are really even less my thing.  I congratulated him on his book and continued my tour.  Each of us author were introduced in turn and provided a few minutes to tell a little something about out body of work.  When it was JD Jordan's turn, he took the mic and said "The best way for me to introduce you to Calamity is to let her do it herself."  He then proceeded to read the first paragraph of his novel.  I stopped in my tracks and made my way back to his table.  When I'm writing, one of my strengths is voice.  Jordan's Calamity is VOICE, if you take my meaning.  The novel is told in series of three "Books" and each of these books is one set of adventures.  The narrator, Calamity Jane is telling the stories of her life to a writer who is transcibing her words for the public.  This is her memoir and she is reminiscing thirty years into her past to the time the adventures took place.  It's unlike any memoir I've ever read, and even though there are moments that Calamity Jane reminds us that she is telling this from a distance, it is told with such immediacy that you are caught on her every move.   Jordan captures the reader and takes us on a gritty journey through the dusty landscape of the American West, and in the end you'll thank him for the ride.  Calimity is far and away the most creative work of fiction I have read in years.  It is incredibly imagined, beautifully rendered, and hauntingly real.  Calamity Jane herself is a fine mix of insecurity, fierce spirit, audacity, tenderness, tenacity, love, and hate.  She is fifteen in the tales, orphaned and alone in the world when her path crosses with the Green Man, who is, believe it or not, not the first green man she has encountered.  When her world is tumbled to dust she hitches her fate to the Green Man and they set out together.  Martha Jane Canary is a fierce little bird and in this tale she transforms, shedding the childhood fears along with the name she associates with those weaker moments.  She takes Jane as her nomiker and reminds herself always to be strong, not a Martha, which always made me realize what a young girl she was during this story.  If you had told me a year ago that I would meet a space alien and want to invite him in for dinner I never would have believed you, but the Green Man is magnificent. Jordan's descriptions of the Green Man are clear and precise and come across as absolutely possible, even real.  I loved all the textures Jordan provide, the feel of the Green Man's skin, the opaque blackness of his eyes, the dexterity of his antennae or "stalks."  There is nothing left unfinished in this novel, it is full to bursting with details that never once feel overblown.  JD Jordan has done everything right in this debut novel.  It is fast paced and immensely creative.  I can't say that there is another book I'm familiar with that I can even compare this to.   It is one of a kind.  Jordan has a new fan in me, that's for sure.  I don't care what the subject of his next book is, I'll be reading it.  The only pause I even remotely offer is this, there is a lot of language.  Calamity Jane is rough and tough, full of piss and vinegar, colorful and cantankorous.  She holds nothing back in this retelling of her life and although there is language I didn't find it offensive.  Some might.  Check out JD Jordan's website to stay up to date on his next project at http://www.o-jd.com

Ghosts in the Air

I have a book that I was planning to review for you today, but I'm afraid I won't do it justice, yet.  So instead of giving you a review, I'm just going to talk to you a little bit.  Fall is in the air.  Finally.  I have been looking forward to the cooler weather for weeks and it finally arrived.  I always  look forward to fall, and every fall I find myself anxious and unsettled.  I don't know why, but it happens every year just the same.  I remember being so restless one fall when I was in college that I walked through my hometown every night, feeling haunted as the dry leaves scattered before me.  All my ghosts walk with me in the fall.   I always feel a little disconnected when the leaves change. So, with  me being scattered I'm going to talk about what I want to talk about.  I am reading areally great book that I can't wait to share, but I want to brew on it a bit. I'm also writing.  Alison 4 is well underway.  I'm about 30,000 words in and see the arc taking shape. Off the Dark Ledge is still out to readers, which makes me worry that maybe it's not any good.  I understand how much energy it takes to read an unedited work, so I appreciate everybody who volunteered.  I was hoping to have it out by November, but it's looking doubtful.  I'll be in Illinois for Thansksiving and will be doing my 2nd Annual Meet and Greet at Pensees Book Store on the Charleston Square and was hoping to have copies of The Ledge to share.  Maybe two books a year is too ambitious.  We've had some birthdays, the Daddy, the Son (turned 21), and Bel, my little moonbeam, turns eight this week to catch up with her sister, Livi Sunshine, for six months.  She was very excited about her birthday this year and I'm really beginning to see shades of who they will be in three years, five year, ten years.  The biggest question, though, is how does time move so fast.  I was hit with that earlier this week, when I was searching through old photos for a facebook game, and found a picture I had set up and taken of myself when I was in my early 20's.  I was living in California then, trying to figure out how to make it into Hollywood, even as I was probably beginning to understand that I was never going to be that girl.   How many times was I presented with an opportunity that felt too much like a laying down of my moral code?  Not as often as many, but enough to know it was there and that maybe I wasn't cut out for the life I thought I wanted. That picture was taken in the last apartment I lived in before I rebounded back to the house that built me and licked my wounds.   That change had come in the fall, too. How many lives do we live before we settle into the one that fits?  I was such a chameleon when I was young, shapeshifting to fit whatever I thought I needed to be.  Do other people do that or was I just somehow less grounded?  Was I always on stage back then?  Acting the part I thought the audience wanted.  There are moments inmy memory that I see some action I did or some speech I gave I know it was staged, choreographed.  Now?  I do still step on stage at times, when I'm in an enviromnment that feels overwhelming, but not as a regular thing.  Well, that's about all I've got today.  I'm going to try my mposts at a few different times over the next few weeks, trying to find the best exposure.  Promoting books is hard work, and a little disheartening sometimes.   Maybe that'sjust my ghosts whispering in my ear.  Hope you all are less distracted and anxious than me, enjoy the cooling temperatures.  Say hi to your ghosts as they walk past and don't eat all the chocolate. 

T.L. Curtis - Poet of the Soul

T.L. Curtis is a poet who started her career as a mental health therapist and is very versed in the variables that play a role in the human psyche.  Suring the summer of 2016 she stepped out of her career in social services to devote her energy to writing.  She is encouraging to other writers and entrepenuers and was very easy to connect with and relate to.  Her poems are poignant and often powerful, and she uses her understanding of people to connect with her audience.  I had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Curtis at the DCPL Author Expo, where this whole vein was inspired. Thank you Teneesha, for participating in my People Who Inspire segment. Can you tell me a little about your early life?I was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. I went to J. Graham Brown school from 1st through 12th grades and built a lot of strong, positive relationships with the faculty and students that I met there. I started writing almost as soon as I learned how to. My father would read to me at home and I came to love reading so much that I wanted to write my own stories as well. My mother would review and critique my stories, helping me grow as an author. I had lots of wonderful friends and family who encouraged me to write. What did you want to be when you were little?A roller coaster designer! As I started to realize that my natural talents had nothing to do with mathematics and architecture, and as I gained knowledge that some of my other talents could be turned into lucrative careers, my occupational goals shifted. When did you realize you had something that needed to be written and shared?In middle school, I wrote a poem about Phyllis Wheatley (a last-ditch effort to not fail a presentation I hadn't thoroughly prepared for) and moved my teacher to tears. That incident was a turning point that helped to validate my inner feelings and helped me understand that they could be expressed in a way that other people could understand and resonate with. What was the writing process like for you?I'm what you might call "scatter-brained." So, if I don't have a clear road map for where my story is going, it will either end up an amorphous blob, or it won't get completed at all. I always start with an outline and use that to revise the general plot line before I begin writing in an effort to not waste energy on passages or chapters that I'll just end up scrapping. Can you tell me a little about your body of work?  Who is your target audience?As I said, I've written a lot throughout my life, but I've been too scared to publish it until recently.When I think about all the different pieces that I've written--and will be publishing--it's hard to define a single audience that might like my work. There's some fantasy, some poetry, some sci-fi, and other genres throughout my collection of books. So far, I've actually published a book of poetry and a dystopian, psychological thriller (with a second book of poetry on the way!). My target audience would have to be true literature lovers. People who love good writing and don't restrict their literary experiences down to a single genre. Did you self-publish or are you with a legacy publisher (traditional publishing house)?I'm an independent author who is self-publishing. My company is called Volo Press (volo-press.com) and it is one of my platforms for connecting with my readers, keeping up with my fellow authors, and selling my creations.  What do you want to inspire with your work?  What do you hope to achieve?I hope that people can be moved to think more deeply about how they think of themselves and how they interact with others when they read my work. I hope I can push people to reflect and make choices that help them achieve their dreams by reading about how one of my characters failed or triumphed (or both). Is there any one person in your life that inspired a change in you that led you to your current path?"It takes a village to raise a child," as they say. It's really hard to name a single person because so many people have had an influence on me regarding this path I've taken. But I'd ultimately say that, most noticeably at the moment, my husband has really been my biggest support as I've started making literature my career instead of just a hobby. Literally and figuratively, I couldn't do what I'm doing without him. Do you have an organization you would like to bring attention to, as an ancillary to your writing?Multiples, really. My writing groups: Atlanta Writes, The Gwinnett County Writer's Guild, and Vicious Circle Writer's Group. They keep me inspired, motivated, organized, and on schedule! What is the one piece of advice you most often give?If you don't HAVE to pay for it, don't. Many of us are struggling with being able to step off of the 'employee' stone and onto the 'entrepreneur' stone without falling into a lake of debt. I don't think anyone should have to go broke to start publishing their work and that's why I've figured out how to get my books work-shopped, revised, edited, published, and promoted without spending a dime. Not having enough money can be another excuse to not try to publish your work and, as hard as writing already is, no one needs another reason not to do it. I hope that people can be moved to think more deeply about how they think of themselves and how they interact with others when they read my work. I hope I can push people to reflect and make choices that help them achieve their dreams by reading about how one of my characters failed or triumphed (or both). T. L. Curtis - Contact Infohttp://volo-press.com

Orville Mouse and the Puzzle of the Last Metaphonium

Tom Hoffman’s Orville Mouse and the Puzzle of the Last Metaphonium was a joy to read.  Hoffman opens with a dream sequence that sets the stage for Orville and his friends', Sophia and Proto, next adventure.  Orville and Sophia are members of the Metaphysical Adventurers and when a beautiful ghost asks for their help the friends start investigating, along with the robot sidekick, Proto.  They travel to a synthetic world called Elysian, by way of a mystical Metaphonium.  They encounter many interesting people along the way as they try to understand the changeable environment of Elysian.  They are joined on their quest by Brother Solus, the last of the Mintarian Gray Monks, who has no memory of how he arrived in Elysian and seems a mystery in his own right.  Together they journey across vast oceans, through putrid swamps, through massive forests, and past an insurmountable wall to reach the beautiful ghost and in so doing, solve the puzzle of the Metaphonium.  Tom Hoffman has written a great adventure.  His characters are fully developed and endearing, with all their individual quirks and traits.  Hoffman writes to a youthful audience (3rd-5th grade), and he writes with intelligence, drawing his readers forward, rather than relying on gimmicks so often employed for this age group.  Hoffman offers a larger world to his readers, an expansion of their understanding of the possibilities. His word choices are precise and often chosen to increase his readers vocabulary, by introducing a complex word then developing the scene to provide context.  Orville and his friends have to work as a team to solve the puzzle, each member of their party brought something unique to the table, and none of them could have done it alone. Orville Mouse and the Puzzle of the Last Metaphonium has everything a young reader will enjoy, humor, great action sequences, believable dialogue, fantastic friendships, and a powerful message about facing our fears. This book was nicely done, Mr. Hoffman. 

Sanctuary by T. M. Brown

I'm a transplant to the South.  I was raised in East Central Illinois in the heart of farm country.  I have had the opportunity to live several places in my life and have always enjoyed studying the cultural differences in the places I lived.  When I moved to Georgia I had some very clear expectations, having read and loved Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell and North and South by John Jakes as a teen.  I expected the beauty of the countryside.  I expected the hospitality.  I even expected, to a lesser degree, southern humor, which is truly a thing unto itself.  I fell in love with the South and I think by and large southerners are a proud people who respect their religion, their country, their families, and their lands with unerring strength.   There were things I didn't expect, the steel in the spine of many Southerners, the well guarded inner life, and the heat, I didn't expect the summers to be so dang hot. T.M. Brown's novel, Sanctuary, is in many ways a love story to the South.  The novel centersaround Liddy and Theo Phillips, retirees who have moved from the hustle and bustle of Atlanta to the quaint antebellum town of Shiloh, Georgia.  Theo is a retired editor and naturally falls into the community newspaper to write a special interest piece on a local hero, Jessie Masterson, and by extension John Priestley.  Masterson suffered an untimely death shortly after Priestley was imprisoned for embezzlement, a charge that rings dubious at best to the townspeople who knew him.  Priestley and Masterson had played an integral role in the character of the town and their stories are entertwined.   This novel, and the town it is set in, is populated with an eclectic menage typical of small southern towns.  While I fully enjoyed the cast of characters and the familiar nods to southern hospitality the real power in this story is the unraveling of the tale beneath the surface.  Brown does a nice job setting the slow cadence of life in a southern town and lets the minutia of life filter through the novel, in simple backyard cook outs, amiable conversations, liesurely afternoons on the hammock, and hours digging through long overlooked files seeking answers.  Sanctuary is a slow southern amble into the heart of a mystery.  It reads like water under a bridge, fathoms deep and murky beneath a placid surface.  Brown brings a frank honesty to his work that I thoroughly enjoyed.  His faith in God shines through and in the words of his protagonist he offers wisdom, as Theo understands it, as he is guided to do the work he feels drawn to do.  

The Fall by Silvia Cristina Valentini

I read The Fall by Silvia Cristina Valentini in one sitting.  It’s a novel based on true events and through most of the novel I was furious at the ineptitude and outright disregard our heroine, Sarah Martinelli, is faced with.  She is the victim of an elevator accident in her workplace and from the very beginning she is discounted at ever turn.  The bureaucracy that Sarah Martinelli comes up against in trying to deal with the ramifications of her accident is nothing short of criminal.  The company CEO, Dennis O’Connell, one of several villains in this tale, gives the faulty elevator a pass, just waiting for the next tragic accident to occur, as if he doesn’t believe she has suffered a fall from the third floor of the building to the basement.  Valentini’s writing style in The Fall is succinct, without a great deal of flourish.   The novel keeps you moving forward. Valentini’s takes us on a journey of broken life, shattered by the negligence of others.  Our resilient and persistent heroine, Sarah Martinelli, is thrown into a world of corruption where Doctors, Lawyers, Medical Examiners, and Employers look out for their own bottom line without consideration or concern for the injured party.  There is real as  the company Martinelli worked for, a religion based organization with the goal of helping people, does nothing to aid her, and in fact tries to discredit the validity of her claim  More than once her manager, O’Connell “prayed for her” and his other employees, while doing nothing to afford them safe passage on the ancient elevator in the building.  Valentini’s tale, The Fall, does have a saving grace in the end, but the path to get there is painful.   I was compelled to keep reading because I had to know that there was some little bit of justice left in the world. This is a classic page turner made all the more compelling because it is based on true events. 

Xenosaber by Jedaiah Ramnarine

I made a return visit the the psy-fi / fantasy realm with this weeks read.  Xenosaber, Fury of the Stars by Jedaiah Ramnarine is a fast paced adventure, positioned to be the foundation for a future series.  The language of this book feels almost foreign, or otherworldly, which adds to the sensation that it is of another time, another world.   Ramnarine has created some very nice characters, with personalities and solid voices.  Jaival is our hero, but he is helped on his quest by several characters that try to teach him what he needs to know.  Arya, the stunningly beautiful Princess, Sorata, the Oracle and witch, Baldr, the wayward Prince, King Tyr, aloof and royal, and Mikael, the teacher.  He has also created some truly terrifying creatures.  Xenosaber is full to brimming with elves and guardians, dark lords and princess', oracles, long held secrets,  drifters, magical weapons, unltimate power for good or ill, epic battles, and unexpected heroes and heroines.  Xenosaber reads, in the beginning as Zelda fan fiction, with a shape shifting demigoddess who guides our hero to the land of Eiri, much like Link has in his adventures. I  liked the little tributes to Zelda, it made the otherworly quality less foreign, familiar touches in the landscape of Star World.  The beautiful Princess Arya certainly put me in mind of the Princess Zelda, but only in her appearance.  Once I got past all the opening descriptors all the Zelda influences disappated and the characters took on a life of their own.  Arya is not damsel in distress, she is strong and defiant and willing to face her fears with the best of them.  Jaival is not just another "chosen hero" but a conflicted soul fighting his own need for revenge to do what is right.   Many threads run through this book, with the distinct sense that time and souls move in circular fashion guided by destiny.  I liked that Ramnarine pulled in things that felt nostalgic in this futuristic novel.  Once the cast of characters is all set the novel flows in rapid succession.  The battles build andclimax and the structure of the conflict takes shape.  It is a classic tale of a good boy gone bad, of a son lost, of light versus dark, of secrets and answers.  An ancient evil threatens the land of Eiri, and Jaival and Arya are the spearheads to return the Star World to balance.  Ramnarine is descriptive in the action sequences, which are elaborate, precise, and sometimes lengthy.  We move rapidly from one adventure to the next Ramnarine barely allows the reader a breath between, building to the ultimate battle.  Every time I thought I knew where this book was going the author shunted me off in a different direction with a twist here and a turn there.  It's  so densely packed that you'll want to take your time reading it to fully appreciate the small details Ramnarine has included.  I really enjoyed that his characters were both stong and weak at times and that sometimes a hero had to be saved by a heroines.If this psy-fi/fantasy is your genre, you won't want to miss Ramnarine's Xenosaber, Fury in the Stars.  It is solidly written.

David Allman - A Quiet Kindness

David Allman is one of the first indie published writers I met last year when I started promoting Intoxic.  We met at a local book store's Meet the Author event.  We had a wonderful, quiet conversation, where he told me about his book Acorns to Wheat, and I told him, not so quietly, about my book, Intoxic.  It was a wonderful day.   Several days later I got an email from David, who had the hook up on another author event and encouraged me to put my name in the hat.  That's the kinda guy David is, he's looking out for other people.  By nature, I'm gregarious, outgoing, upstaging, in some instances.  David is quiet and calm.  For him to reach out to me, someone he had just met, to help me find a path, is impressive, because he had to know that I'd come in like a whirling dervish.  David has continued keeping me in the loop for author events he hears about and I've had the pleasure of hearing him talk about his book several times.  He is one of my Gallion Picks authors, because his  book is meticulously researched and written in such a simple, quiet way that it transported me to 4000 B.C.  I respect his skill as a writer, but even more I respect his skill as a person.  I watched him lseveral weeks ago at an author event (that he probably put me in touch with), in his corner of the library, and I could see him spreading that quiet calm of his to everybody who came to his table.  It was like a small ripple of good spreading through the room.  Thank you David, for all you have done for me over this past year and for participating in my People Who Inspire."My father is a Presbyterian minister and my mother was the secretary to the head of a large insurance firm until they started having children. They both earned college degrees. I am the second son and 'last' child until age 12, when my parents 'oops' son came along. I was raised in a loving, two-parent home in a small town, protected from outside-the-family drama while growing up.I was about age 12 when Dad started explaining his work with racism, poverty and the social inequity of the late '60s in rural Alabama. It was a shock to a pre-teen. I was exposed to abject poverty, church members' hate-filled racism and the ruthlessness of what happens to anyone who broke the social norms of 'polite' society. These were experiences I remembered and leaned upon for guidance throughout my adulthood.I have always loved writing. In the innocence of my youth, I wrote love poetry and idyllic sci-fi and adventure short stories. I graduated from college with a degree in teaching history.Growing up, my mother always told me I could be anything I put my mind to. Unfortunately, that translated into I didn't need to make realistic plans for a career as whatever I needed to know would just come to me. A few months into my marriage, I found I had to actually get a job and support my half of the family. That took up the next nearly 50 years.Throughout my working career, I dabbled in collecting my mother's family histories. After retirement, that was the first book I completed. The work re-ignited my writing interests and after five years of heavy research, I published my second book, Acorns to Wheat, an historical fiction novel. The book's success and the education garnered by my research has inspired me to start another book, beginning where the first saga ended. I may even have the stamina for a trilogy.  My writing remains in the historical realm, both fiction and non-fiction. My target audience is an educated adult history buff. I relish the challenge of talking to adults about their perception of ancient people and our collective journey from stone age to atomic age. I love learning about history and want to share it in a positive way that encourages others to explore what they are interested in learning.After being rejected many, many times, I chose self-publishing and self-promoting. Now, I speak to groups of readers and writers about my journey from manuscript to book promotion. I want to show them how to satisfy the writing bug and lessen some of the turbulence along their journey.My most rewarding decision was to join a writer's group. I attend the library's Writers Circle in Peachtree City where I get excerpts from my manuscripts both bashed and bravo-ed. I would not want it any other way. My best advice is to fail and learn what you can from it. Change, grow and try 'til you die."David Allman - Contact infohttp://acornstowheat.com