Randy Thornhorn's Blog, page 14

Thornhorn Flying into NYC — BookExpo Tomorrow!

Tomorrow is the big day for the official launch of The Kestrel Waters at BookExpo America, at the Javitz Center in Manhattan.

Remember, Randy Thornhorn will be at the IBPA Booth #2352.

I will be around throughout the day, but look for me 9 a.m. – 10 a.m., then 12:30 p.m. – 1 p.m., and ask me for a free signed copy of The Kestrel Waters (while supplies last!).

See you there…

RT

Favorite Breakfast?

A magazine I follow just asked–what’s your favorite spot to grab a great breakfast in the South? Well, I can’t limit it to the South. Other than my own skillet, I have two places: The Breakfast Club on Tybee Island, outside Savannah, Georgia–and The Coffee Corner in Montpelier, Vermont.

What is your favorite spot for breakfast? Name the restaurant and why you love it in a sentence or two.

Goodreads: Book Giveaway – 12 Signed Copies of WICKED TEMPER

All I ask is if you read it and like it–review it on Goodreads!
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Goodreads Book Giveaway\

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Wicked Temper\

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by Randy Thornhorn\

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Giveaway ends June 09, 2014.\

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See the giveaway details\

at Goodreads.\

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Enter to win\

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Snowcrest…

A Southern Winter Interlude.

Here is home…

Goodreads: Book Giveaway – 25 Signed Copies of THE KESTREL WATERS

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Goodreads Book Giveaway







The Kestrel Waters



by Randy Thornhorn

Giveaway ends June 16, 2014.

See the giveaway details

at Goodreads.

Enter to win

A Further Note snagged from Jeffrey Lindner’s FB page…

“I read this book as a favor to a friend. It’s not a genre I typically enjoy and, frankly, I expected a spooky mystery story – entertaining enough in the moment, but nothing that would leave a lasting impression. I was wrong.

This book placed me in a world and among people that could be both a little alien – and deeply familiar. The family and places in this world have become something of an obsession – a source of nostalgia and vivid imagery. I go back when I can – and think about it when I can’t.

I’ve read this book three times now. I can, without the bias of friendship or privilege, recommend it with only this caution: This one will touch you but leave you a little unsettled. You’ll miss these people and worry for them. You’ll miss these places and feel an uneasy yearning for them.

Once again to the author: Thank you, Randy.”

(A note JL added while sharing the book video with “New and Improved Final Closing Image”.)

~ WHO CHILD ~

I been seeing it done for years.

First thing, ever purple morn, the Willerswitch Witch comes to that same steep knob atop Hulep Choat’s Peak. She ain’t much hair left. What hairs they is is white. Her skin be grey. No greyer than other hags and they’s sure to be other hags, I expect. But this hag is — now don’t you worry it — but she’s the Willerswitch Witch to that girly up the tree.

High, she is. Up that tree.

My baby never leaves that limb to ask for no Christian name, mind you. She ain’t one to ask. No, she keeps secret. Her eyes be my eyes.

Below, the old grey thing lifts her skirts and she spin eleven, twelve, thirteen times, eyes closed and whispering. The Witch ask where do time tell, where is the well went, where be the wind sent, how went tizzypoke? The Witch, she blows a French harp — her mouth organ whines whilst jigging and clogging her pointy toes in the air. Whipping up dizzy arias and canticles with her willerswitch, she blows loud and swats down her crazylegged canticles for all souls below to hear.

From that tree on Hulep Choat’s Peak, a wee girl can see hollers piled upon hollers, snapdragon hillsides tumbling into valleys, twining into murky slews. Sometimes, a twanging guitar string ricochets up from below, answering back at that French harp. Soon the Witch takes to circling the tree spire, first to the clockwise, then counter to the clock. The willerswitch will lead, my little girly will listen.

“A thousand’n ten hunert’n two babies I done pulled from they mams. Put my mark on most ever chile I borned. Ever clan has its daemon babe, ye know, a boogified daemon babe. Ask me, I tells em so. Ask me. I hate the impudent chile. I knows him right off. I gives that babe its mark. Everbody got one. I can pick a collicky babe, a trickster, a fool — yay, a fool, or I can pick me a king foretold from the birthin’ slime. So I kisses em with my pucker. Or I kisses em with my willer switch. Onliest ones I ever put back into they mams is them what this world ain’t ripe fer yet. That’s why I’m plumb ashamed this mornin’, humbled I be. That’s why I ask of thee. Do you recollect first babysteps, babysteps? First one, then two step, then three? So here you is — still a chile. So whose chile is you? Who chile, who chile, who chile is you?”

Now, my girly ain’t never been kissed. She ain’t good for that. But she’s the right fit, she can hold her shine, and she can cipher plenty good. I reckon she wonders, who chile is you?

Don’t worry it. Don’t you worry it none. It was many a morn before my girly got wise to that old woman. But she got foxy afore long. Why, that Willerswitch Witch had never left a mark on that girly on high. No tarbaby mark or fortune’s kiss, not even a willer to cry. Borned cold and quiet, she was, to a blindeyed mother cold in the grave.

You ask how could that be? You ask how went tizzypoke? We will just have to see, you see. Make no mistake about one thing.

That baby belong to me.

That baby belong to me.

That baby belong to me.

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(Who Child  is the opening chapter of the book Wicked Temper Untold.)

© Randy Thornhorn

Painting:

Jewel Tree, 1975

Eyvind Earle (1916-2000)

http://www.eyvindearle.com/Details.as...

No Shakespeare

Role models are the death of art.

Art that depicts humanity is mostly built on badly-cracked people and broken relationships. If the folk of great story and song were fully realized human beings or the well-adjusted sort, there would be no Shakespeare. Passion eschews serenity and is not kind to contentment.

RT

= Lyn Dunsavage Young =

Meet Lyn Dunsavage Young.

This woman extraordinaire is an editor, publicist, and my good friend. And then some.

Lyn has had a profound influence on me. Without knowing it, she provoked key events in my new and most important work, and she has helped shape my life for the better in countless ways. She has mentored, encouraged, connected, and offered up the best kinds of criticism. She is a fount of wisdom, filled with endless cheer. Laughter becomes her.

To paraphrase Mickey Newbury: She wanders from room to room in my head, turning on each light.

One day, almost sixteen years ago, I chose a path which led me to her. We have shared an orbit ever since, two moons circling closer with the rise of this life’s tides. I feel overdue in thanking her openly, to let you all know why she has mattered so much in my moonrise. I have a love for her that she may never understand. But it is real, yes, real nonetheless.

May you all be blessed with a friend akin to Lyn Dunsavage Young. She is a beautiful blossom who waters the blossom in others.

RT

Thank you to The Gnu’s Room!

I want to proclaim my deepest appreciation to Tina and The Gnu’s Room (www.thegnusroom.com)–and all the wise and wonderful folks who came yesterday to my first reading and signing for The Kestrel Waters.

Never has a writer had a more thoughtful, attentive, or appreciative audience than the good people who graced this event. Thank you for spending time with me, along the way, on Kestrel’s odyssey.

Onward,

RT