Francesca Forrest's Blog, page 48

Yesterday's chalk endeavor

Yesterday, rather than do a drawing, I had the idea to do a very simple choose-your-own-adventure story. The location is the paved path across the common space in this housing development.

The start point for the story was right in front of a bench that's right off the path. There were two choices: to the mountains



Or to the sea



(photographing these is hard at the time of day I drew them... major sun-dappling interference!)

( follow the mountain thread )

( follow the sea thread )

I have NO IDEA how t...

"experiencing an unprecedented pandemic"

The ninja girl made a poem by cutting up Trump's stimulus-check letter and rearranging the words and sentences. The result is excellent:



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reading and other escapes

I finished a review of A Sinister Quartet just 45 minutes late of being able to post it on the day the book launched, which was yesterday. The review is on Goodreads ; people reading here have heard my reactions to the first two stories in any case.

Those two--"The Twice-Drowned Saint" (CSE Cooney) and "An Unkindness" (Jessica Wick)--were right up my alley thematically and writing-wise. The remaining two, "Viridian" (Amanda McGee) and "The Comforter" (Mike Allen) were both excellent tales, slightl...

"An Unkindness" and The Time-Traveling Popcorn Ball

I've finished the second novella in A Sinister Quartet--Jessica Wick's "An Unkindness." It's fabulous in a completely different way from "The Twice-Drowned Saint," and isn't that what's great about a good anthology? This is a good anthology.

Ravenna is the younger sister of Aliver, the heir to their peninsular kingdom, which has a bloody past and still has things like bride tasks to win a hand in marriage, but also has tourists and lawyers--a sort of early twentieth century, maybe? Aliver has al...

Holyoke protests the death of George Floyd

Having failed on the weekend to get to a protest in Amherst (because I decided to walk a fairy path--or should I say a ferris path--to get there, and that took longer than I bargained on), today I took myself to Holyoke, where I got to be part of an impressively organized, inspiring protest.

These women organized it. I didn't catch their names, but one teaches ethnic studies at Holyoke High School.


( photos )

It finished with a commitment to continue the work; the one white speaker urged white atte...

"When I Write It"

A 14-minute film that follows two Oakland teens, who talk about writing, reading, being Black, growing up in Oakland, etc. I enjoyed spending time with these two and their family and friends and seeing the city, and I think you will too. They're part of the better world we're reaching for. We'll reach it. We'll build it together.



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Pimpernel Smith

I finally saw this movie, which sovay has written about eloquently several times. It's a retelling, more or less, of The Scarlet Pimpernel, starring (and directed by) Leslie Howard, who played the Scarlet Pimpernel in the 1934 film. Pimpernel Smith was made in 1941 and set in 1939; in this version, it's a mild-mannered archaeology professor who spirits people out of Nazi Germany.

It's a *smashing* film. I loved the 1934 Scarlet Pimpernel, but I love this version equally well, maybe better. The e...

oak flower season

When you see one bundle ....



... there are likely to be more



These are fallen flowers from oak trees! Sometimes the tumble-bundles can get quite sizable.

Look at them lining this path



Another photo:



That one shows the trees, too--healthy and strong this year, so different from the years they've been under siege from gypsy moth caterpillars.

Musical note: here is a lovely tune from the 2003 Fullmetal Alchemist cartoon, played on a music box.

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Wednesday reading

I finished CSE Cooney's The Twice-Drowned Saint, the first (and longest) of four novellas in the collection A Sinister Quartet, which I'm hoping to read and review in its entirety before it comes out--in two weeks or so!

I think this may be my favorite thing I've read by Claire--and I've read lots, all of which I've enjoyed. But this was just--it was a whole other level. It reaches for something really big and achieves it.

It starts out an acrobatic tale of an angelic city that's really a kind hel...

Audiobook!

It's quite a breathtaking thing when a friend likes your story so much she declares she'll do audio for it--and then assembles a team to do the sound engineering and proofing! But that's what CSE Cooney did for The Gown of Harmonies, and now it's live and available via Audible, Amazon, and iTunes.

We're in the final week of May--my hope is that this new format will get a new batch of people interested in the story and lead to some more purchases--> more money for the Food Bank of Western New Engl...