Birds of a Feather

 

“The greatest achievement wasat first and for a time a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn, the bird waits inthe egg, and in the highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs. Dreams arethe seedlings of realities.” James Allen

 

Emily Dickinson wrote thathope is the thing with feathers, and every debut author hopes they’ll find theperfect thermal to help their literary dreams soar. Feathers and fingerscrossed.

 

Recently, I read about a funexperiment that taught parrots to FaceTime new feathered friends. The parrotsloved their parrot-to-parrot video-calling system and could peck at a screenline-up of birds like an old-school gym class picking candidates for a team.How did the parrots feel when they didn’t get selected? Lousy. I would knowfrom personal gym experience!

 

I don’t consider myself a birder. Still, birdsare always on the fringe of my consciousness. I hear them, even when I can’tsee them. I find a closed window, a form of imprisonment, and an open window,the gateway to chatter and birdsong that punctuates my life. When I travel toCosta Rica, the mewling song of the toucan is ubiquitous and soothing. InFlorida, finding a sleeping osprey on the railing of my balcony is like aviannirvana. But there’s no yin without yang because birds on the balcony leavepoop. Good and bad experiences are almost always intertwined. Every radiantpeacock feather has a pointy end.

 

While writing my novel, Idiscovered that being a bird brain is considered a compliment. That’s because Iread The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman while writing and, believe it ornot, used the book as research for my paranormal sci-fi novel. My alienprotagonist, Dob-Dec, loves birds, and even though he isn’t impressed withhuman brains, he thinks that bird brains are very significant and intelligentfor their diminutive size. I do too. The intelligence of birds is a threadthroughout my novel, and if my book had a soundtrack, it would be the exotic, undulatingwhoop of an oropendola. As an author, I hope to have a career as varied as thesong of mockingbirds. I want every novel to have a different genre or melody.

 

And don’t get me started onthe beauty of birds. And speaking of flight, my ARC copies are flying into theinboxes of early readers, blurbing authors, and book review websites. Keep yourfingers and feathers crossed that my book garners some good peeps and chatter! Mynext newsletter flies into your inbox on July 17.

 

“Each day has a story thatdeserves to be told, because we are made of stories. I mean, scientists saythat human beings are made of atoms, but a little bird told me that we are alsomade of stories.” Eduardo Galeano

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