Caroline Gerardo's Blog, page 36

Kisses

Kisses for Seamus Heaney  and


another Irishman I love.



 

After Sleeping on the stairs of Notre Dame- wake stiff
hipped from love,



before huddling under the Tour Eiffel break baguettes in the
morning light,



 allow the crumbs to scatter like dandelion kites spreading
sparks.



Put raspberries on fingertips - point as if they were
wands, command them.



Moments snap past –

are they shooting stars or air support
from Camp Pendleton?



Sounds of kissing before battle or passing daily
gesture should be the same.



But they are not-



I make a digital image of your lips pressing upon mine.



“Baise-moi”



The French say when prone.



Holding the emotion in the circle
of my palms.



I cuddle into your lean torso for
safety. 



You’re a swan with a flickering of
LED police lights.



Is that sand or bread crumbs in
your bed?



A trick Aurora Borealis but just
as magical.



Can we feed the birds the specs of
joy?



Embrace me as if it is our last
moment.



 







poem copyright Caroline Gerardo

ECO TERRORIST

Rand Green saw his farm go dry. His ancestors survived five
generations of hardship, but nothing like the Great Drought. First, there was
water rationing. Only those who maintain their rights to underground wells,
lakes or river runoff could produce food or keep livestock. Collecting
rainwater was outlawed.



By 2022, McNally’s MME Corporation successfully purchased most of
the riparian rights in the American West. MME systematically re-routed all the
river water with their new dam. Other dams stopped generating hydroelectric
power because of the water shortages. The New Macon Dam owned by MME remains
operational.



If Rand doesn’t stop McNally, the President of MME, he believes
there will be famine and wildfires that release enormous amounts of carbon
dioxide into the atmosphere.



Rand packs tools, rations, automatic weapons and his family into
the Bobcat, leaving behind the red baby swing on the clothesline.



“We will avenge the
displaced.”                                                                  



Rand is raises his lean arm to brush the dust out of his eldest son’s
hair.



“Listen children,” Rand reads from Isaiah 24:4 - 6


“The earth mourneth and
fadeth away, the world languisheth and fadeth away, the haughty people of the
earth do languish.

    The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof;
because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the
everlasting covenant.

    Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that
dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned,
and few men left.”



Excerpt from novel in progress ECO TERRORIST










copyright © Caroline Gerardo 2013
















 
 

Banned Books Panel

Tomorrow I am speaking
with a panel of authors about banned books.



Saturday
May 18, 2013 at Los Angeles Mission College, 13356 Eldridge Avenue, Sylmar,
CA. 91342.







Banned Books Panel



Luis Rodriquez (Panel Moderator)



Frank Mundo



Caroline Gerardo



Melindo Palacios



Rudy Acuna



 
·                        Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years (1998) by B. Bigelow and B. Peterson




· The Latino Condition: A Critical Reader (1998) by R. Delgado and J. Stefancic



· Critical Race Theory: An Introduction (2001) by R. Delgado and J. Stefancic



· Pedagogy of the Oppressed (2000) by P. Freire



· United States Government: Democracy in Action (2007) by R. C. Remy



· Dictionary of Latino Civil Rights History (2006) by F. A. Rosales



· Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology (1990) by H. Zinn.



High School Course Texts and Reading Lists Table 20: American
Government/Social Justice Education Project 1, 2 – Texts and Reading Lists



· Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years (1998) by B. Bigelow and B. Peterson



· The Latino Condition: A Critical Reader (1998) by R. Delgado and J. Stefancic



· Critical Race Theory: An Introduction (2001) by R. Delgado and J. Stefancic



· Pedagogy of the Oppressed (2000) by P. Freire



· United States Government: Democracy in Action (2007) by R. C. Remy



· Dictionary of Latino Civil Rights History (2006) by F. A. Rosales



· Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology (1990) by H. Zinn



Table 21: American History/Mexican American Perspectives, 1, 2 –
Texts and Reading Lists



· Occupied America: A History of Chicanos (2004) by R. Acuña



· The Anaya Reader (1995) by R. Anaya



· The American Vision (2008) by J. Appleby et el.



· Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years (1998) by B. Bigelow and B. Peterson



· Drink Cultura: Chicanismo (1992) by J. A. Burciaga



· Message to Aztlán: Selected Writings (1997) by R. Gonzales



· De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views Multi-Colored Century (1998) by E. S. Martínez



· 500 Años Del Pueblo Chicano/500 Years of Chicano History in
Pictures (1990) by E. S. Martínez



· Codex Tamuanchan: On Becoming Human (1998) by R. Rodríguez



· The X in La Raza II (1996) by R. Rodríguez



· Dictionary of Latino Civil Rights History (2006) by F. A. Rosales



· A People’s History of the United States: 1492 to Present (2003) by H. Zinn



·



Course: English/Latino Literature 7, 8



· Ten Little Indians (2004) by S. Alexie



· The Fire Next Time (1990) by J. Baldwin



· Loverboys (2008)
by A. Castillo



· Women Hollering Creek (1992) by S. Cisneros



· Mexican White Boy (2008) by M. de la Pena








· Drown (1997) by J. Díaz







· Woodcuts of Women (2000) by D. Gilb



· At the Afro-Asian Conference in Algeria (1965) by E. Guevara



· Color Lines: “Does Anti-War Have to Be Anti-Racist Too?” (2003) by E. Martínez



· Culture Clash: Life, Death and Revolutionary Comedy (1998) by R. Montoya et al.



· Let Their Spirits Dance (2003) by S. Pope Duarte



· Two Badges: The Lives of Mona Ruiz (1997) by M. Ruiz



· The Tempest (1994)
by W. Shakespeare



· A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America (1993) by R. Takaki



· The Devil’s Highway (2004) by L. A. Urrea



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· Puro Teatro: A Latino Anthology (1999) by A. Sandoval-Sanchez & N. Saporta Sternbach



· Twelve Impossible Things before Breakfast: Stories (1997) by J. Yolen



· Voices of a People’s History of the United States (2004) by H. Zinn



Course: English/Latino Literature 5, 6



· Live from Death Row (1996) by J. Abu-Jamal



· The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven (1994) by S. Alexie



· Zorro (2005) by I. Allende



· Borderlands La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1999) by G. Anzaldua



· A Place to Stand (2002), by J. S. Baca



· C-Train and Thirteen Mexicans (2002), by J. S. Baca



· Healing Earthquakes: Poems (2001) by J. S. Baca



· Immigrants in Our Own Land and Selected Early Poems (1990) by J. S. Baca








· Black Mesa Poems (1989) by J. S. Baca
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0811...



· Martin & Mediations on the South Valley (1987) by J. S. Baca



· The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, and the Attack on America’s
Public Schools (1995) by D.



· C. Berliner and B. J. Biddle



· Drink Cultura: Chicanismo (1992) by J. A Burciaga



· Red Hot Salsa: Bilingual Poems on Being Young and Latino in the
United States (2005) by L.



· Carlson & O. Hijuielos



· Cool Salsa: Bilingual Poems on Growing up Latino in the United
States (1995) by L. Carlson
&



· O. Hijuelos



· So Far From God (1993) by A. Castillo



So
Far from God: A Novel



· Address to the Commonwealth Club of California (1985) by C. E. Chávez



· Women Hollering Creek (1992) by S. Cisneros








· House on Mango Street (1991), by S. Cisneros



· Drown (1997) by J. Díaz



· Suffer Smoke (2001)
by E. Diaz Bjorkquist



· Zapata’s Discipline: Essays (1998) by M. Espada



· Like Water for Chocolate (1995) by L. Esquievel



· When Living was a Labor Camp (2000) by D. García



· La Llorona: Our Lady of Deformities (2000), by R. Garcia



· Cantos Al Sexto Sol: An Anthology of Aztlanahuac Writing (2003) by C. García-Camarilo et al.



· The Magic of Blood (1994) by D. Gilb



· Message to Aztlan: Selected Writings (2001) by Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales



· Saving Our Schools: The Case for Public Education, Saying No to
“No Child Left Behind” (2004)



· by Goodman et al.



· Feminism is for Everybody (2000) by b hooks



· The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child (1999) by F. Jiménez



· Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools (1991) by J. Kozol



· Zigzagger (2003)
by M. Muñoz



· Infinite Divisions: An Anthology of Chicana Literature (1993) by T. D. Rebolledo & E. S. Rivero



· …y no se lo trago la tierra/And the Earth Did Not Devour Him (1995) by T. Rivera



· Always Running – La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A. (2005) by L. Rodriguez



· Justice: A Question of Race (1997) by R. Rodríguez



· The X in La Raza II (1996) by R. Rodríguez



· Crisis in American Institutions (2006) by S. H. Skolnick & E. Currie



· Los Tucsonenses: The Mexican Community in Tucson, 1854-1941 (1986) by T. Sheridan



· Curandera (1993)
by Carmen Tafolla



· Mexican American Literature (1990) by C. M. Tatum



· New Chicana/Chicano Writing (1993) by C. M. Tatum



· Civil Disobedience (1993) by H. D. Thoreau



· By the Lake of Sleeping Children (1996) by L. A. Urrea



· Nobody’s Son: Notes from an American Life (2002) by L. A. Urrea



· Zoot Suit and Other Plays (1992) by L. Valdez



· Ocean Power: Poems from the Desert (1995) by O. Zepeda



Always
Running: La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A.



· Bless Me Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya



· Yo Soy Joaquin/I Am Joaquin by Rodolfo Gonzales



· Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea



· The Devil’s Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea  



· Into
the Beautiful North: A Novel



Tucson’s Mexican American Literature program
was decided to be considered illegal by Arizona Superintendent of Public
Instruction John Huppenthal. According to a state law he banned racially
divisive courses from being taught in public schools.



Huppenthal wrote the law while he was a state
senator. Huppenthal warned he would cut millions of dollars from the district’s
budget should it fail to modify or eliminate the program to comply with the
law. The district chose elimination.



In addition to disbanding the program, The
Tucson Unified School District removed hundreds of books that had been part of
its curriculum. Books were boxed, sometimes in front of astonished students,
classes were suspended and classrooms stripped of any information about the
novels, poetry anthologies and textbooks. The books were discarded in
dumpsters.



Among the banned books were Rethinking
Columbus: the Next 500 Years by Bill Bigelow, Critical
Race Theory by Richard Delgado, Chicano!
The History of the Mexican Civil Rights Movement and
Shakespeare’s The Tempest.



A student, teachers and director of MAS have
sued the state, challenging the law as a violation of their First Amendment
rights.


 

Gravestone Curse

Grave marker California photograph my Caroline Gerardo copyright 2012



Shakespeare's gravestone curse

Good frend for Jesus sake forebeare,/

To digg the dust encloased heare;/

Bleste
be the man that spares thes stones,/

And curst be he that moves my bones






Spotted Owl dove before me today./

Looking for the bones of some prey/ 

Road kill removed from the tree/

Whose roots lay before me.
 

Stormy Sky Haiku

Dreamed about past ~ vengence sky taking a piece ~ mourning heart recovers.

Waiting for the Comet

I am playing with video.

I recorded this brief clip with my iphone this week.

This wednesday I hiked to the top of Aliso Canyon and waited



with a few strangers to spot the comet Panstarrs in the sky.

Plans

I haven't been as active online. Regrouping and following my New Years Resolutions.

1. Finish the novel in progress before my birthday ( have turned into editor)

2. Journaling everyday with instagram I found this handy widget maker at http://snapwidget.com that will roll my  700 photographs on instagram, unfortunately it does not carry the short fiction and haikus that I wrote with the images captured on my iphone. I hope soon enough they will enable that part....

If you go to my http://instagram.com/carolinegerardo you can follow or just read the progress. There are daily posts of some lovely, some ordinary things I find beautiful.

3. Make money with my mortgage business. This means working a 50 hour work week as well as 30 hours writing.

4. Keep soulful, healthy and fit

5. Be kind to someone random every day.



Habits are easy to change. Once you start then go a week walking the plan, it becomes a pattern in the brain.  My children are teens and young adults, and I hope they will soon follow my example and get all A's and work hard.



What are you doing different this year?



What can I do to help you?

Marketing Your Novel

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Mix of new release books, most are hardcover or larger 6 X 9 Plus size paperback. Notice the top row of yellow images seem to get lost even though the guy with the amazing abs might grab a women's fiction or romance fan. Third from the top and bottom row are a number of black covers.




 




Marketing your novel today means even if
you are traditionally published by the biggest house, you need to be aware of
the arena you are playing/ selling. This post will show you some examples of a
couple genre areas in the Barnes and Noble bookstore near where I live and talk
about the other places your work will show and how to plan out the best cover
design for your work. Today even a traditional publisher might use a formula
layout for your cover but here I suggest you go deeper into your market as the
visual part of picking the book off the shelf or buying online directs sales.
While I was taking my iPhone photographs three readers who were browsing the
Young Adult section chatted with me about what compels them to purchase a new
book. They all cited, "the cover art" is the most influential part of paying money for an unknown author. 

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On this science fiction shelf there is more variety in colors, most images are illustrations or photographs that are photo-shopped to look like gouache or paintings




 




The trend for publishers seems to be to
copy rinse and repeat whatever was the last big seller. The black background
with stark single image photograph with perhaps only red highlights still
dominates (think Twilight series). Also illustrations with simple bright colors
seem to pop in orange, yellow or red.

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Mystery titles have larger font and graphic Author names that scream out at the reader, "buy me."

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Here is another mystery genre stack of all paperbacks. More than half use red as the predominant color scheme.





 




A few rules which I would suggest:




Do not use borders; they don’t align well when
printed. They can often appear goofy.




Stay away from an all-white background as
on the Amazon or Barnes and Noble sites the background is already white and
your book will be more difficult to notice.




View the color green that Barnes and Noble
uses and the yellow Amazon uses and take these into account as background
either complementary or contrasting colors for online purchases.




Author biography notes really need not be
on the cover- you will have space on Amazon for a full video of you dancing or
illustrating your books. Save the rear cover for endorsements of the book, blurbs
that tease a little, a subtitle or two.




It used to be the Title goes first and
Author name second. This is a dumb rule. As you can see the point is to scream
your name proudly. FONTS fonts fonts are your friends and learn to use one that
speaks your language. Font style and placement and size all speak about you and
your novel.




I hope you got some headshots when you were
young and pretty, or put them inside the book. No one buys a painting of an
ugly old man – even if he’s a president or your grandfather.






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Top Teen Pics: YA and Young Adult It is necessary to have an attractive girl usually a photograph of her face or romanticized lifestyle.



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Teen Fiction (not certain how that differs from YA) ... wait ... I want to put a plug in for Ellen Hopkins who now dominates a whole shelf and two other areas of Barnes and Noble. :)



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Biography requires a photograph of the person written about. These images are black and white or sepia as to appear "artistic."



 

 

Including one of my recent favorite versions of the black cover, Nick Tosches Me and the Devil really jumps from the Amazon page - see the golden yellow and blue arrow that are Amazon trade colors.

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Teen Fiction Covers with variety of photographs. A couple cliches I'm tired of: stay: the back of the girl head cut off, the lady in a gown with no face, and Author with hair over face. The idea is to not be so specific in illustrating what the female lead looks like and have the reader focus on the cover image, but to allow one's imagination to run with their own idea.

Glitter In Your Veins

 

Haiku  ~ You are Special

 

 

"Glitter in your veins ~

everyday joyful in your walk ~

keep the crown on top."

 

Caroline Gerardo

Found Soul Hiking

 

 

 



 Haikus, poems, thoughts from hiking yesterday's rejuvenation trail. Saturday I hiked Ice House Canyon and up Mount Baldy over Devil's Backbone by myself. I was feeling "moody" earlier in the week. I know that giving myself a goal, something to look forward to, a challenge and the amazing variety and beauty of Angeles National Forest would clear my head, bones and Soul.

 

 

I captured about 80 good photographs yesterday. Posting some of the average ones because, well people seem to borrow and forget to credit...  

I'm spoiled, it isn't difficult to see nature in glory by just walking. I am sharing some of my fun with you, I got back on center.

 

 



Abandoned standing ~ hold out icycle words ~ roof  keeps my soul safe.





Hand never let go ~ the belay surely will fail ~ bones crumple to shale.

 

 

 



Across the canyons ~ the haze tells me to hurry ~ before it grows dark.

 



Spines remind that my boots are only made of fake hemp, plastic laces and rubber tire souls.



I knew the pin oaks wouldn't fail me. They light the sky before the days grow short. It is as if they knew I was on my way to visit. Wishing I owned a red cape and brought a basket.



 




Old fire damage on fallen trees is more sculptural than natural slides. Just as lightening can make landscape into dazzling energy.





Composite rock flows ~ looks like this boulder enjoyed  ~ water stroking him.




He is a devil ~ a tough dinosaur spine climb  ~ thanks clouds for no snow.

 

 I brought my ten essentials: a switch blade, rappelling ropes, caribiners, matches and lighter, epipen, phone & camera, sunscreen and hat, compass, water and more water, first aid stuff. I can always find my soul when I'm hiking.


copyright reserved Caroline Gerardo 2012

 Mount Baldy, Angeles National Forest California October 6th