Malcolm R. Campbell's Blog, page 239

The Grandmother I Never Met

Many of us on Facebook have posted photographs of our mothers and/or our grandmothers just in time for Mother's Day. I posted the old phot shown here, a long-time favorite of mine. Here my grandmother Edythe is holding my mother Kaye in 1914 when Mother was about a year old. Notice the steam tractor in the background.

Unfortunately, I never met my Grandmother. She died of typhoid within a year of when this photograph was taken. Mother's memories of her were sketchy and my grandfather didn't see fit to speak of Edythe, to fill in the gaps in the family history. One commenter on Facebook says my eyes and my grandmother's eyes are the same. That pleases me.

Edythe, ever the enigma, was the inspiration behind protagonist David Ward's grandmother in my novel Garden of Heaven: an Odyssey. He never knew her either. When David is standing at the summit of a mountain after a long climb, he can almost see the spot where his grandmother was born in Montana. (The real Edythe lived in Illinois.) And he imagines her this way:

Edythe, 'the contrary side of the sibling coin' who was five years older heard more distant drums from the outside world, brought to her by the National Geographic's pictures of exotic lands, Sam Griffith dashing out the front door of the post office with the latest mail from far away, and Tom Nolan blowing the whistle on the narrow gauge steam engine running the Turkey Track from Lethbridge to Great Falls hauling Canadian coal. Edythe bolted from the house when she was barely old enough to blush and stormed 142 miles southwest—as ravens fly—into her young future before she died of typhoid next to a small well outside the greater circle of David's horizons.

The real Edythe died outside my horizons, and I will always wonder about her, with eyes like mine watching from this old photograph.

--Malcolm

Vanilla Heart Publishing Announces "Jock Talks" E-Book Series

Vanilla Heart Publishing has announced a new Jock Talks series beginning with four e-books available on Smashwords and Kindle. Written by Malcolm R. Campbell, the books feature the work of alter-ego Jock Stewart, the noir reporter from Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire .

While the style and focus of the fake news stories is similar to that found on the popular The Onion web site, Campbell began writing satirical news before the Internet was a gleam in anybody's eye.


Jock Talks...Satirical News, the introductory book in the series, is available free on Smashwords. E-books on Smashwords can be downloaded in multiple formats. The Kindle version will appear in the near future.

Jock Talks...Politics, Jock Talks...Strange People and Jock Talks...Outlandish Happenings are available on Smashwords and on Amazon for Kindle at only 99 cents.

Excerpt

DRUG BUST NETS ROUGH NOTES AND BLACK EYE FOR COP

Police raided WSXX radio during the Sunday Afternoon Literary Hour here today when author Caine Molasses said, "while writing a novel, I keep my heroine with me at all times."

Junction City police and various alphabet soup federal drug agencies kicked open the studio door at 3:08 p.m. while Molasses was reading an excerpt from his upcoming novel Vampire Bait, "The first time Lucretia stuck her neck out in life, she got bitten."

"Up against the wall, you low-life scum," shouted police sergeant Vlad Smith.

"We're on the air," explained program host Nancy Jones.

"I don't care what you're on," said Smith, "put your hands where I can see them. You, too, Molasses."

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Click here for more information about the series--and a few more excerpts. Hope you enjoy it.

--Malcolm

Yellow Journalism is Alive and Well in Pennsylvania

An English teacher in a small Pennsylvania town writes erotic romances under a pseudonym. The romances are available on Amazon. The teacher's author's blog makes no mention of her real name or the school where she teaches.

She has a teacher's website associated with her school website that contains information about classroom rules, assignments, and required reading, but no mention of her novels. She hasn't presented information in class about her writing or otherwise spoken of it to students on or off school grounds. I've never read any of her books. So, how do I know about her work?

I know about it because a non-news event is making the rounds of Internet sites under the guide of actual news. (I won't spread the gossip here by using the name or pen name of the author or the name of the parent.)

Apparently, a parent heard that the English teacher was writing romance novels and--when she couldn't arrange a confrontational meeting with the teacher--went over and told a local TV station about it. I don't need to search through my journalism school notes or textbooks or the notes I used as a college journalism teacher for the class in news reporting to know that this matter is not news.

Had the parent staged a rally, gotten the issue of this teacher's off-hours writing placed on the agenda of a public school board meeting or barged into the teacher's English class and created an incident, the story would be news.

If the teacher were breaking the law, violating her contract with the school system or disrupting her own classes by using her own books as required reading, the TV station could have investigated the matter. However, there was nothing to investigate.

Lacking a news story, the station reported that the teacher was writing the books and that one or more parents weren't happy about it. Once the story was reported, it began to become news in much the same way that gossip spreads.

News outlets and bloggers and at least one Facebook page have now gotten into the mix. The writer on one site went so far as to call erotic romance novels "soft porn," without using any evidence to prove what kind of content in the author's books pushed them from romance fiction into a pornography genre.

The parent who brought the matter to the TV station's attention says the teacher is a good one but wants her to be more discreet. What a red herring that comment is. The parent is the one who's spreading the word about the books, ensuring that students, teachers, school staff, parents, news outlets, bloggers and others know about the teacher's work.

In the old days, we called sensationalistic reporting, yellow journalism. These days, it's the stuff of supermarket tabloids. In many ways, it's a voyeuristic invasion of privacy with the subtext innuendo that there's something seedy or suspect about a romance novelist teaching sweet kids how to diagram a sentence or develop an appreciation for classic literature.

What a shame.
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Posts on my Other Blogs

Light Conquers All - Author Pat Bertram discusses the theme behind her new novel Light Bringer in a guest post on Malcolm's Round Table

Writing a sequel 26 years after writing the first novel - As is work on a sequel to "The Sun Singer," I can't help but note there's been a lot of water under the bridge since I wrote it.

--Malcolm

Zora, a book of poems and a wedding

Several months ago, I mentioned reading an old copy of Their Eyes Were Watching God By Zora Neale Hurston. My paperback copy included a foreword by Alice Walker about Hurston, including Walker's search for Hurston's grave. With that in mind, I very much enjoyed Judith Mercado's short story about a young woman trying to find that grave called Visiting Zora.

Leah Shelleda's collection of poetry called "After the Jug Was Broken" is pure magic. In fact, it transcends magic. You'll find my review of the book on Malcolm's Round Table as well as on Amazon and GoodReads.

I read a news story somewhere saying that the upcoming royal wedding will cost the British economy a lot of money simply because the day's been proclaimed a holiday. While many here in the States will get up early to watch the wedding coverage, I don't plan to. However, I couldn't resist posting a bit of Jock Stewart satire about the wedding here on Morning Satirical News.

Brian Knight has posted a review of Garden of Heaven: an Odyssey on Amazon and elsewhere including this blog. I appreciate his comment: "I recommend this book to those with a vivid imagination and a mind ready to see a larger scene."



--Malcolm

The weekend: a long poem, a writing contest, weaving and 'Swan Thieves'

The following headline on the NPR website caught my attention: 'Crossing State Lines': 54 Writers, One American Poem

This is collaborative poetry--a relay, so to speak, for National Poetry Month. Each poet writes ten lines in two days, and then the next person on the list takes over. It will be interesting to see how the "renga" poem turns out.

If you like writing contests, consider the Black Warrior Review's annual competition. I posted about it HERE on Writer's Notebook. Deadline is September 1 for three poems, a short story or a work of nonfiction.

As I work on my novel Sarabande this weekend, I'm focused a lot on weaving, both as a traditional "women's work task" and a metaphor for the creation of oneself or the world. If you're drawn to the subject, see my post "Women, Weaving and Storytelling."

I continue to read and enjoy Elizabeth Kostova's The Swan Thieves, advancing from page 123 to page 180 where the story jumps for a second time back into the 1870s. So far, Kostova hasn't divulged just how a young woman (who's an artist) in this time period figures into to our present day story. The lack of a more-obvious tie-in makes for a somewhat disruptive side-trip at this point, but the primary focus of the novel is strong enough to keep me reading.

Meanwhile, after reading Lee Libro's review of Bella Pollen's "The Summer of the Bear," (due out in June), I now have another novel to add to my TBR list. Thanks Lee.

Happy reading and writing this weekend.

--Malcolm

Happiness is a copy of 'The Swan Thieves' for the weekend

Today's weather is grey, rainy and cool, just the kind of Friday afternoon that makes one consider starting the weekend a bit early--especially if they have an interesting book to read.

I'm on page 123 of Elizabeth Kostova's The Swan Thieves that begins, "Kate had set her coffee cup, with its ring of glazed blackberries, on a table at her elbow. She made a small gesture, as if asking me to let her stop talking. I nodded and sat back at once; I wondered if there were tears gathering in her eyes."

The end of the book is on page 561. Good, there's plenty of the story left to read.

This is a story of obsession. The characters are well developed: Andrew the psychiatrist; his patient, the artist Robert Oliver; Kate, Oliver's ex-wife. The prose is carefully handled, especially in the descriptions of artists and their works. Kostova uses the device of letters to help tell her story; a little bit of this goes a long way, and I think she's gone a letter or so too far. But, no matter, I'll grant her that stylisitc device and keep reading anyhow because the story is pulling me along.

In the HuffPost Books review, M. L. Johnson writes that As in "The Historian," Kostova's visual images are stunning. She uses words to paint the pictures crucial to the plot and then carefully directs readers' attention to background characters, facial expressions and colors important to uncovering the novel's central mystery. The mental images she evokes in some cases linger longer than images seen in real life. It's difficult to believe the paintings don't really exist.

The mysteries behind patient Robert Oliver include: Why did he attack a painting of a woman and a swan at the art gallery? Why does he remain silent when Andrew Marlow offers him multiple opportunities to talk?

If you read this novel, did you like it? How does it compare to Kostova's debut novel "The Historian"?
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You May Also Like: The first time I drove to the lake it was a lake - This is my Earth Day post about a once pristine lake that now exists only in my memory.

--Malcolm

A Gift to Help You Celebrate Earth Day

Vanilla Heart Publishing is helping you remember Earth Day this year with a free e-book called Celebrating Earth Day 2011. The anthology includes short stories, recipes, puzzles, crafts and poetry. Click HERE to download your free copy from PayLoadz.

The e-book features the work of Anne K. Albert, Charmaine Gordon, Chelle Cordero, L.E. Harvey, Malcolm R. Campbell, Marilyn Celeste Morris, Melinda Clayton, Robert Hays, S.R. Claridge, Smoky Trudeau Zeidel, Victoria Howard, and Vila SpiderHawk.

Earth Day 1970

For many, April 22, 1970 seems long ago and far away. So does the Vietnam War and Flower Children cultures that were in place, and at odds with each other, when Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson came up with the Earth Day idea.

According to the Earth Day 2011 Organizer's Guide, "The first Earth Day led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species Acts. "It was a gamble," Gaylord recalled, 'but it worked.'"

This year's Earth Day theme is "A Billion Acts of Green." Click HERE to learn more about what you can do to help.

You May Also Like

What are you doing for Earth Day? Katie Alexander's post includes ideas and links.

On Writing as Entertainment Author L. E. Harvey, whose work is included in the earth day anthology, is my guest today on Malcolm's Round Table.

Book Reviews - Do You Read Them and, If So, Where?

A 2009 Verso Advertising Survey of book buying behavior found that readers place more stock in an author's reputation and recommendations from friends than book reviews. 37% of the readers based their buying decisions on reviews.

Yet, from the last I heard, sites like GoodReads continue to grow and prosper. So to book review blogs. I post reviews on my Malcolm's Round Table blog, most recently The Tiger's Wife and The Seas.

Predictably, books that already have a lot of buzz get more hits on Malcolm's Round Table than small press and self-published books. Malcolm's Round Table covers a variety of subjects, so I tend to get more hits on book posts via searches on the title, author or subject than by people who regularly stop by the blog every week to see what books are being covered.

I write reviews because I buy the books and like talking about them and because authors and small publishers send them to me. While I enjoy the buzz and the comments associated with "name" authors and books, I prefer reviewing small press books. Why? Because the struggle to get reviews.

Mainstream reviewers and critics are going to cover most of the BIG BOOKS. So, pretty much everyone is going to be aware of new releases such as "The Tiger's Wife," while my author friends at Vanilla Heart Publishing, Second Wind Publishing, Chalet, Weaving Dreams and Fisher King cannot count on anyone at Kirkus, Publisher's Weekly, Book List, New Pages, or the San Francisco Book Review for any coverage, much less the prestige literary magazines.

I don't kid myself. A Malcolm's Round Table review isn't going to ramp up the buzz for any book. For one thing, I'm not getting the books multiple months before the release date. For another, a hundred hits on one of my reviews isn't going to have a lot of impact on a new title compared to the thousands of people who see a Kirkus review on a book's Amazon page. But, I hope it helps.

What about you? Are you drawn to book reviews written only by professional critics? What about reviews written by bloggers who simply like books? And when you read those reviews, are you looking for new books or are you drawn to posts about books you've already heard of somewhere else?

--Malcolm

Three Books of Poems for National Poetry Month

Today's mail brought three gems by Leah Shelleda, Naomi Ruth Lowinsky and Paul Watsky for this year's National Poetry Month celebration. I have been looking forward to these collections from il piccolo editions from Fisher King Press for ages, and now plan to take time every day to unplug from the hectic outer world.

After I've read, re-read and absorbed these poems, I'll report back and tell you about the journey. For now, here's what I'll be reading, along with the publisher's information for each book.

"After the Jug Was Broken" by Leah Shelleda


The poetry of Leah Shelleda inhabits a realm of magic and marvels. The poet is a shape-shifter. Meet the Lamia, those "Madonna-faced/serpent below the waist"; creatures, whose songs Shelleda sings. Meet Kitsune, the Spirit Fox, who is nine hundred ninety nine years old--about to grow nine tails. Meet Asherah, the Hebrew Goddess, her graven image shaped in bread--about to be eaten. Shelleda's poems play at the edge of the wild and the forbidden; they dive down to the depths, bringing up treasure from the collective unconscious and the wisdom traditions; they enchant, seduce and bless; they transport us in the four directions and into the three worlds; they touch all the chakras. Leah Shelleda gathers the shards of our broken world and gives us sacred space.

"adagio & lamentation" by Naomi Ruth Lowinsky


Naomi Ruth Lowinsky was the first child born in the New World to a family of German Jewish refugees from the Shoah. Many in her family were lost in the death camps. It has been the subject and the gift of her poetry and prose-to write herself out of the terror, into life. Naomi had a special tie with her only surviving grandparent, the painter Emma Hoffman, whom she called "Oma." Oma showed her that making art can be a way to transmute grief, a way to bear the unbearable. The cover of Adagio and Lamentation is a watercolor by Emma Hoffman-an interior view of the Berkeley home where Naomi visited her often as a teenager. Oma tried her best to make a painter of her, but Naomi was no good at it. Poetry was to be her vehicle. Adagio and Lamentation is Naomi's offering to her ancestors, a handing back in gratitude and love. It is also her way of bringing them news of their legacy-the cycle of life has survived all they suffered-Naomi has been blessed by many grandchildren.

"Telling the Difference" by Paul Watsky


"To quote Norman O. Brown quoting Euripedes, "God made an opening for the unexpected," and at long last we have what many of us have greatly desired: a collection of poems by Paul Watsky. His is a singular voice in contemporary poetry, with a range that encompasses the wry, the mordant, the laugh-out-loud funny and the deeply moving, often within the same poem. One of Ovid's earliest critics complained that he did not know when to leave well enough alone. In this he resembles the eponymous hero of Watsky's "The Magnificent Goldstein," and, come to think of it, Watsky himself, for which we have cause to rejoice." -Charles Martin

You May Also Like

And Now The Story Lives Inside You - This post in my heroine's journey series includes a review of a wonderful book of nature poems called "And Now The Story Lives Inside You," by Elizabeth Reninger.

--Malcolm

Recent Reviews and Other Posts

Have you read "The Tiger's Wife" yet? It's number 67 on Amazon's top 100 list. "Bossypants" is number three, and a couple of diet books sit at number one and number nine. That alone is an omen. Here's my review of "The Tiger's Wife."

Along with my "Jock Talks" satire e-books, Vanilla Heart Publishing has released some wonderful short stories, also at only 99 cents. I especially liked the stories by Robert Hays and Smoky Trudeau Zeidel. Here are my reviews of Hays' Equinox and Zeidel's Goodbye, Emily Dickinson.

I continue to work slowly on my sequel to "The Sun Singer," Sarabande.
As I write, I discover more and more about the heroine's journey. I write about that on my "Sarabande's Journey" weblog. Recent posts there are And Now the Story Lives Inside You and The Light of Nature.

If you're more in a satirical frame of mind, you might like my recent "Morning Satirical News" post If Only I Dreamt of Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair.

Meanwhile, if you live in or near Jackson County, Georgia, I hope you will visit the Crawford W. Long Museum's new Civil War Medicine Exhibt. It opens at the museum in Jefferson Friday, April 15 (10-5) and Saturday, April 16 (10-4). At 2 p.m. on Friday, authors Barry Brown and Gordon Elwell will be signing their book "Crossroads of Conflict: Guide to Civil War Sites in Georgia."

A consultant for the museum, my wife Lesa, is in charge of the new exhibits. I've been there as a laborer to help place objects in the display cases.

I hope you are well, reading a lot, and perhaps writing a lot as well.

--Malcolm