Have you noticed I’ve been a bit quiet on the comments front?
Have I just popped in a ‘like’ and run away?
Well, it looks like my witty quips and encouraging asides may have gone astray. It seems they may have been swept up into your spam folder. But I have no idea why.
It hasn’t happened to all of them but it started at 1a.m. PST on Tuesday 12 October. I’ve dropped a note to a few folk and those who’ve seen and checked have found my missing words in their spam folders (thank you all! ๐๐).
I’ve contacted the ‘Happiness Engineers’ too.
For contributors to Sadje’s WDYS, to Di at Pensitivity 101‘s Wednesday 3TC, Denise’s happy band of Sixerians, and anyone who regularly hears from me, if you see a ‘like’ but no comment, it’s a pound to a penny my comment is in your spam… if you have a moment, please track it down and approve it. Maybe then Askimet will stop whisking my words away and hiding them.
I don’t know how long this will last… but please don’t think I’m ignoring you. I’m missing our happy exchanges already. ๐ข
A few weeks ago, I was delighted to discover that my historical fantasy fiction novel ‘Following the Green Rabbit’ was the subject of an episode of author and reader, Jean Lee’s wonderful ‘Story Cuppings’ podcasts. In this series – for picky readers and busy writers – Jean reads and discusses the first chapter of her chosen book, giving listeners a feel for the author’s writing craft and a sense of the story to come. Jean has a superb reading voice and her analysis is warm and insightful. So, I invite you to settle down with a cup of your chosen beverage and listen to what she has to say about my first chapter…
Welcome back, my fellow creatives! Weโll continue tasting the wares of fellow indie authors I have gotten to know in this beautiful community through the years.
Bethany followed Hans and Greta, who scurried off through the woods, their short legs scuffing up the leaf litter in fountains of foliage. Their house, which Bethany had almost expected to be made of gingerbread, such was the similarity of the pair to the almost-namesakes of her daydreams, soon came into view.
Greta ushered Bethany inside, while Hans pulled the front door closed behind them, leaning back against it with an obvious sigh of relief, โyou donโt think anyone saw us do you, sister?โ he said anxiously, glancing at Bethany, โif Captain Stinger and his patrolโฆโ
โHush, brother,โ interrupted Greta; she turned to Bethany, โplease sit down, my dear, while we decide whatโs best to do next,โ she gave Hans a sideways glance, โrest assured we will not be handing you over to anyone.โ
Hans, alerted by the sound of marching feet, rushed outside to greet the approaching patrol, allaying any suspicions with much bowing and scraping, while beyond the patrolโs line of sight, Greta and Bethany peered from the kitchen window: โI pity anyone who falls into the clutches of the Owl-King,โ whispered Greta, noticing the two prisoners.
Bethany gasped: โthose two prisoners are my sister and our tutor!โ
Bryony, Bethany and Mr Eyre first appeared in my historical fantasy fiction novel, Following the Green Rabbit. They’ve been begging to go on another adventure and it looks like they’ve got their wish!
The image shows shows a rocky landscape near the ocean. Overhead an old house with a few mechanical devices is floating in the sky on a small piece of land.
All aboard, all aboard!
Cogs whirr, chains clank pistons pump and gears crank hang onto your hats and donโt look down Bethelbertโs ride is the best in town feast your eyes on the folk down there open-mouthed they stand and stare passing over the hills and dales the oceanโs in sight, do you see those whales? clouds above and sea below which wayโs up Iโd love to know hold on tight and live your dream in Bethelbertโs marvellous mystery machine!
Elizabeth Gauffreau and her new poetry book, Grief Songs
It’s my great pleasure to welcome Elizabeth Gauffreau to this month’s Launch Pad spot. Like me, you may already be familiar with Liz through herblog, and others of you will know her through her wonderful novel, Telling Sonny, a book I thoroughly enjoyed when I read it earlier this year.
So, let’s find out a little bit more about her. We’ll start with her official author bio:
Elizabeth Gauffreau writes fiction and poetry with a strong connection to family and place. She holds a BA in English/Writing from Old Dominion University and an MA in English/Fiction Writing from the University of New Hampshire. After a misbegotten stint teaching high school English and Latin, she spent her career in nontraditional higher education.
Her recent literary magazine publications include Woven Tale Press, Dash, Pinyon, Aji, Open: Journal of Arts & Letters, and Evening Street Review. Her fiction and poetry have also been featured in several themed anthologies, including Ad Hoc Monadnock, Shifts: An Anthology of Womenโs Growth through Change,When Last on the Mountain: The View from Writers over Fifty, Familiar, and Poetry Leaves. Her 2018 debut novel, Telling Sonny, was inspired by a family secret and a lot of research into small-time vaudeville.
Liz lives in Nottingham, New Hampshire with her husband. Their daughter has flown the nest to sunny California.
Grief Songs ~ paperback and ebook
Liz’s new book of poetry, Grief Songs – Poems of Love & Remembrance, is just out. It’s a deeply moving collection of poetry which speaks to an album of her family photographs. I just finished reading it yesterday, such a wonderful bitter-sweet collection, it moved me deeply. You can read my review here.
Now, let me hand over to Liz to tell us about the background to her new release.
~~~
Thank you for hosting me on your blog, Chris. I greatly appreciate it.
I am a fiction writer by training, so I never expected to be releasing a book of poetry, much less a book of poetry written in tanka. However, being a part of our wonderful blogging community for the past several years has given me the inspiration to take my writing in new directions and the courage to publish the results for others to read.
Grief Songs started with the last poem in the collection, “Portland Head Autumnal,” although I had no way of knowing that when I wrote the poem. I had been following Colleen Chesebro’s poetry blog, “Word Craft: Prose & Poetry,” for some time and growing more and more curious to try my hand at syllabic poetry adapted from Japanese, such as haiku and tanka. I wrote “Portland Head Autumnal” as a tanka after a trip to Portland Head Light in Maine on a cold, gray, windy day in September when I could not recall any time I had been to Portland Head when the sky and water were gray, rather than bright blue.
Two months later, my mother died, leaving me the last person in my immediate family. As people do, I turned to the family photograph albums in an attempt to keep my mother with me just a little longer. As part of that process, lines of poetry started coming to me. Tanka seemed the appropriate form to give those lines shape and purpose. In the book, photographs are paired with poems to tell the story of a loving family lost.
Grief is a deeply personal experience, yet it’s an experience many of us have in common, particularly as we get older. What prompted my decision to go ahead with publishing Grief Songs were readers’ responses to some of the individual poems I shared. The poems prompted fond memories of their own loved ones. For me, striking a responsive chord with a reader’s own experience in any number of different ways is what poetry is all about.
Thanks again, Chris, for featuring Grief Songs: Poems of Love & Remembrance on your blog and giving me the opportunity to share my thoughts with your readers.
~~~
The blurb
When a loved one dies, the family will often turn to the photograph albums as an act of solace, to keep their loved one with them just a little while longer, Grief Songs: Poems of Love & Remembrance arose from that experience. The collection opens with three free verse expressions of raw grief, followed by a series of photographs from the authorโs family album, each paired with a poem written in tanka. Taken together, they tell the story of a loving family lost.
Praise for Grief Songs
“A beautiful, personal collection of family photos and poems that express the author’s most inner feelings. Nostalgic and heartfelt, Gauffreauโs poems are written in the Japanese style of tanka, simple, thoughtful, and full of love. Filled with wonderful memories of the past.”
~Kristi Elizabeth, Manhattan Book Review
“Poetry readers willing to walk the road of grief and family connections will find Grief Songs: Poems of Love & Remembrance a psychological treasure trove. It’s a very accessible poetic tribute that brings with it something to hold onto–the memories and foundations of past family joys, large and small.”
~Diane Donovan, Midwest Book Review
Book Trailer
So lovely, I’ve watched it again and again…
Grief Songs is available in paperback and ebook from all your favourite online bookstores – buy it here
Although their previous dalliance with other-worldly travel had led to a certain equanimity in how to handle unfamiliar situations, nothing had quite prepared Bryony and Mr Eyre with the sight which confronted them now.
They were surrounded by a small group of black-bearded fellows, dressed in indigo army fatigues and wielding weapons reminding Mr Eyre of the stingers found on wasps and other vespids; the overall effect would have been rather intimidating but for their small stature and the incredibly large pointy ears poking out from beneath their caps.
โOther-Worlders!โ exclaimed one who, from the elaborate insignia adorning his cap, must be the captain; he craned his neck in an attempt to look Mr Eyre in the eye, โready your weapons, men,โ his eyes switched back and forth between his prisoners, โthese could be tricky customers.โ
Six stingers began to buzz; the captain pointed first at Bryony and then Mr Eyre, โTurn out your pockets!โ
Mr Eyre offered Bryony a reassuring nod before emptying the pockets of his tweed jacket of everything from bus tickets to bits of string; Bryony pulled her notebook from her pinafore pocket and held it out.
โWord-Peddler, eh?โ said the captain with a sinister smirk.
Bryony, Bethany and Mr Eyre first appeared in my historical fantasy fiction novel, Following the Green Rabbit. They’ve been begging to go on another adventure and it looks like they’ve got their wish!
Heritage Day in the Rainbow Nation (photo Western Cape Government)
Today is Heritage Day, a public holiday in South Africa, our multi-racial, multi-cultural and muli-coloured nation. On this day, South Africans are encouraged to celebrate their culture and theย diversityย of their beliefs and traditions, in the wider context of a nation that belongs to all its people. It’s a day that has its origins in the post-1994 flush of the Rainbow Nation that sought to create unity in diversity.
Today it means different things to different South Africans, from dressing in traditional finery to firing up a braai (aka barbeque).ย Its timing coincides with the start of spring and now that some of the covid-related restrictions have been lifted, and it begins a long weekend, it’s a real feel-good holiday, even if you just stay at home.
It is also known as a National Braai Day in commemoration of the culinary tradition of informal backyard barbecues, known as braais. In September 2007, Archbishop Desmond Tutu celebrated his appointment as patron of South Africa’s Braai Day, affirming it to be a unifying force in a divided country by donning an apron and enthusiastically eating a boerewors roll. (Boerewors is a sausage, popular across Southern Africa made from coarsely minced beef and spices). Here’s the great man busy with the braai.
Desmond Tutu at the braai
Many elements and influences characterise my adopted country and when I decided to write a novel set in South Africa, almost 10 years after I came here, I began by auditioning some new characters. I placed them in different settings and through them, tested out some different themes.
In the piece below, which I originally posted in 2019, the characters represent (some of) the different groups in our diverse country. The novel I was planning eventually became ‘Song of the Sea Goddess’. If you’ve read the book, or even followed the various excerpts I’ve posted this year, maybe you can guess who the three men eventually became.
~~~~~~
Parched Earth
โYou must call the San Man,โ she whispers. โOnly he can bring the rain bull.โ
โBut how?โ
โYou must go to the cave which watches over the veld. Go at dusk, light a fire.โ She reaches into the pouch she has beside her and holds out a handful of grey-green herbs. โBurn a little of this, and then watch and wait.โ
He raises his eyebrows at his two companions.
The old woman holds up a finger. โHe may not come the first night,โ she shakes her head slowly. โHe may not come at all.โ She stares intently at each of them. โNow go.โ
The three men depart.
โI guess itโs worth a try,โ says the first. He is a tall, robust white man, dressed in shorts and sandals; the hint of an overseas accent.
โAnother winter with no rain; we must do something,โ agrees the second, a brown-skinned man, whose features echo the ancient people that once inhabited this corner of Africa.
The third man, by far the youngest of the three is silent. He too is brown-skinned, a son of the Rainbow Nation, where a multitude of peoples have planted their seeds.
Later, the three trudge silently up to the koppie where the ancient cave paintings are. The air is hot and parched like the veld. The sky turns liquid orange as the sun is swallowed up by the smudge-blue mountains. They light the fire and sprinkle herbs onto the flames. The three settle down to watch and wait.
~~~~~
Now, as the sun sets, let’s gather round the fire and enjoy some of the sights and sounds of ‘National Braai Day’.
Bethany stared at the green-clad brother and sister who had turned away and retreated a few steps to confer in private, she strained her ears but her grasp of their conversation was limited to what she took to be oaths and exclamations; whatever could be the matter?
She surveyed her surroundings, as she retrieved the memory of her previous encounter with an โother worldโ; by whatever method she had been transported to this unfamiliar place, it was important to commit the exact location of entry to memory in order to find the way back.
Their discussion over, the green-clad man marched back to Bethany and stared up at her, โGreta and I have decided, we have to hand you over to the Owl-King, we donโt want to, butโฆโ he paused and took a breath, screwing up his eyes, โitโs the Rules.โ
Greta hurried over to join them; taking her brotherโs arm, she whispered, โHans, thereโs no need to frighten her,โ she stared around with anxious eyes. โAnyway, we havenโt decided; weโll go back to the house and then weโll decide.โ
Although Bethany still had no idea what was going on, she was certain that this Owl-King was someone best avoided.
Bryony, Bethany and Mr Eyre first appeared in my historical fantasy fiction novel, Following the Green Rabbit. They’ve been begging to go on another adventure and it looks like they’ve got their wish!
luna's on line 