Upcoming book reviews

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn fiction, writing2 Comments

I’ve got my work cut out for me with Philip Lee Williams’ huge new novel The Divine Comics: A Vaudeville Show in Three Acts. It’s a 1,000+ page, two-inch thick novel from an award-winning Georgia author. However, I’m really looking forward to this one. I’ve previously enjoyed his poetry in Elegies for the Water, his natural history about the ridge he calls home in In the Morning, and his civil war novel  A Distant Flame. Williams, who is also a composer of classical music, recently retired from the  University of Georgia.

I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Williams several times at our local library when he was on tour.

I’m also looking forward to Rhett DeVane’s new novel Cathead Crazy. She wrote a guest post about the novel’s background here on March 12. I’ve started reading the book—it’s great. I’m not surprised. I liked Rhett’s Evenings on Dark Island, co-written with Larry Rock. What a great vampire spoof that was. While Rhett lives in Tallahassee, Florida, the town where I grew up, I’ve never met her. She needs to do a book tour into the Northeast Georgia region where we also happen to like large biscuits.

Meanwhile, I’ve been reading and enjoying Lynne Sears Williams wonderful novel about the long-ago days in the country now known as Wales. I’ll be talking more about The Comrades on this blog very soon.

Meanwhile, I’m busy keeping up with my Book Bits blog (writer’s links) while working on short stories. (I’m not yet ready to tackle another book-length story.) And then, too, the website has undergone a major overhaul lately. That can happen when you switch the domain from one ISP to another.

The weather’s heating up in northeast Georgia, the grass is growing faster than I like, pollen is covering the cars, the cats are constantly miaowing about something, and I’m starting to think I’m ready for a vacation.

Malcolm

‘Fall for Glacier’ Scheduled for September 6-9

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Glacier National Park

While spring has hardly sprung, especially in the high country, it’s time to make plans for autumn if you’re interested in this year’s Fall for Glacier September 9-12 experience at Glacier Park Lodge, East Glacier, Montana.  Enjoy the following on this exclusive weekend:

  • Exclusive BNSF Railway Private Train Ride from Whitefish to Glacier Park Lodge.
  • Three nights stay at the century old Glacier Park Lodge in East Glacier including all meals
  • Blackfeet Reservation and Lewis and Clark historical tour
  • Special guests and Blackfeet interpretive programs by renowned ledger artist Terrance Guardipee and Native American Music Award winner Jack Gladstone
  • Red Jammer bus tours
  • Discover Glacier hikes and scenic boat ride with Park interpretive rangers and researchers.
  • Glacier High Tea with special guests
  • Horseback riding and golf in view of the majestic mountains of Glacier
  • Welcome reception Thursday evening
  • BBQ cookout and Great Northern Railroad history with special guests on Friday night
  • Tickets to the Backpackers Ball gala event on Saturday night– dinner, live performance by Jack Gladstone, and a live and silent auction of Glacier art, memorabilia, and outdoor packages.

Call 406-892-3250 for reservations and information or see the website here.

The weekend is sponsored by the Glacier National Park Fund. Stay tuned for information about the Fund’s soon-to-be-implemented Adopt-a-Trail program to help cover the costs of trail maintenance throughout the park.

–Malcolm

The Sandwich Generation

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books4 Comments

Today’s guest post is by Rhett DeVane, author of “Mama’s Comfort Food,” “Evenings on Dark Island” (with Larry Rock), and “Accidental Ambition” (with  Robert W. McKnight). Her new novel “Cathead Crazy”  is the “story of one woman’s determined journey through love, loss, and the surprises of mid-life.” Rhett’s post gives us a glimpse of the realities and inspiration behind the novel.

The Sandwich Generation

Over 10 million Americans are part of the “sandwich generation,” caring for both children and elderly family members. This group falls between ages 34-54, and are of all cultures and ethnicities. Caretaking brings a crash course in legal and financial matters, difficult medical decisions, and questions about housing. Add to that, finding time for the caretaker to rejuvenate before his or her own health and relationships suffer. Wow.

As the years pass, I realize what a charmed childhood I led— raised in the gentle rolling hills of North Florida with two outstanding parents, fresh air and homegrown vegetables, and always more than enough dogs, cats, chickens, and the occasional rescued tortoise, squirrel, or rabbit. My parents were my my biggest cheerleaders, especially my mom. As she put it, I served as “her caboose,” until her later years when I became “her engine.” After my father’s death at 79, Mom stayed in that big farmhouse on Bonnie Hill until her late 80s, when she decided to move close to my home in Tallahassee.

My brother lived a few towns distant, and my sister in Tennessee, so I became the go-to, go-get, go-crazy girl. The one who gets called at 2 a.m. when the ambulance is on the way. The one who dries tears. The one who occasionally thinks of steering her car one-way out of town and not leaving a bread trail.

Mom and I did the typical “girly” things: we shopped, enjoyed the monthly mani-pedi, tried new local eateries, and gossiped on the front porch. I got caught up in the goings-on at her assisted living facility and never visited that I didn’t end up laughing, or at least in a much better mood. It wasn’t all nirvana; there were times when we stomped all over each other’s last nerve. We kissed and made up, then pressed on.

Cathead Crazy follows one woman’s similar bumpy journey. But it could be anyone’s. The anecdotes are based on truth, either personal or those shared with me. Though Mae has many of my mother’s traits, Hannah’s mother is much more cantankerous. Nor did I have two teenaged kids to add to the mix. Fiction demands drama, so I went all-out to torment Hannah. Poor dear.

In our reality, my family faced the sudden death of my sister Melody, six months before my mother “left for Home.” Both women are reportedly doing well on the Other Side (as my brother and I have been shown in dreams); my mother drives a bakery food truck and my sister sings to those nearing death. They stay busy. No huge surprise.

The draft for Cathead Crazy idled in my computer’s hard drive for over two years before I could bring myself to revisit it. And how grateful I felt that I written it as I rowed my leaky caretaker canoe upstream. The memories flooded back, and I healed as I slugged through the revisions.

I think Mama D would be proud. She’d say, “Sugar, this one’s a keeper.”

Cathead Crazy Launch Party

While paperback and Kindle editions of Cathead Crazy are already available on on Amazon, the party is yet to come. If you’re in Tallahassee, Florida on April 26, stop by the Mockingbird Cafe from 5:30 till 8:00 pm to meet Rhett and enjoy the excitement that’s part of the official launch of a new book.

“This one will make you smile, make your eyes leak, and make you want to rush to the kitchen to bake a batch of fresh ‘catheads.'” – Rhett DeVane

A writer’s influences

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books, Fantasy, fiction, writing5 Comments

Yesterday afternoon, I enjoyed a wonderful conversation about writing, fiction and the hero’s journey via a speaker phone with professor Melissa Studdard and her English 2341 students in “A Study of the Journey in World Literature” at Lone Star College in Texas. Readings for the course included my 2010 contemporary fantasy The Sun Singer.

When one student asked whether the novel’s supporting character Grandfather Elliott was based on a real person, I had a ready answer. No, but I was strongly influenced by my Grandfather Joe Gourley who lived in Decatur, Illinois where the initial parts of the novel are set.

My grandfather and me

Imagination With  Dash of Reality

After the Q&A session was over, I started thinking about what I would say about characters’ role models in fiction if I were teaching a creative writing course. First, I would clear away the misconception some readers have that novelists can’t possibly dream up characters from scratch, that characters must be based on real people.

That commonly held belief is a long way from the truth. Characters are created out of authors’ imaginations with a dash of reality. In the case of Grandfather Elliott in The Sun Singer, my fictional character is not my grandfather with a pseudonym. If my grandfather had been alive when the novel was published, he wouldn’t recognize himself in the character.

What he would see is a character who, as he did, took his grandson on a day trip to the nearby Allerton Park where they saw wooded trails, formal gardens, and sculpture including the famous bronze Sun Singer statue. Joe Gourley would also see that my novel was set in the house he owned when I was a child and that the characters visited the parks where I once played.

Everyone is fair game

Joe Gourley in Decatur in the 1940s

I think there’s even a tee shirt out there that says something like “if you aren’t nice, I’ll put you in my next novel.” When novels focus on real towns, the author’s neighbors try to find themselves in the book. They did it with Peyton Place and when The Help was released, they were still doing it. Since I tend to “meet” my characters as I write in much the same way all of us see people in our dreams that we didn’t know before, I seldom think of real people as role models. My grandfather Gourley played a role because, like my character, he visited the Sun Singer, lived in a neighborhood that made a strong impression on me from the time I was born through junior high school, and loved practical jokes.

When I’m writing about a character with certain traits, I often think of people I know who have those traits. The title character in Sarabande is a good-natured individual who expects the best from other people and loves learning new things and traveling to new places. She shares these qualities with a co-worker I knew forty years ago. If my former co-worker read the book, she might like seeing those qualities in Sarabande, but she wouldn’t for a moment think I was writing about her.

Those old familiar places

Buses and street cars came and went from this transfer house in Decatur's Lincoln Square when I was a child.

Decatur, Illinois made an impression on me because our family was there so often during my formative years. The Florida Panhandle made an impression on me because I lived there from the first grade through college. Glacier National Park made an impression on me because I worked there while I was in college. So, I know these places. They influence me whether I consciously think of them or not. The same is true of family and friends. Since I like blurring the line between fiction and “real life,” I take the influence of places one step further and put real places in my books.

The Sun Singer is set in Decatur and Montana. So is Sarabande. My magical realism novel Garden of Heaven: an Odyssey is also set in those locations as well as north Florida and the places I saw when I was in the Navy. The three short stories I’ve written so far this year are also set in those places, perhaps because Decatur, North Florida, and Glacier National Park fit me like old shoes.

My memories influence what I do, just as they influence everyone else. When I write, most of those memories are part a figurative vat of stew. As I dream up characters, they often remind me of people I knew—or know now. Bob Hope’s signature song was Thanks for the Memories. If I wore tee shirts with slogans on them, they might say “Thanks for the Influences.”

—Malcolm

Review: ‘Lowcountry Bribe’ by C. Hope Clark

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books, reviews5 Comments

Authors often ask “What if” when they have an idea for a plot. When C. Hope Clark first thought about a civil servant at the Department of Agriculture reporting an attempted bribe by a farmer, she must have asked “what’s the worst that can possibly happen?”

Carolina Slade (and you don’t call her “Carolina” unless you’re her mother) is a USDA official who plays by the rules. While others might have overlooked hog farmer Jesse Rawlings’ offer of a bribe in hopes he would never bring up the matter again, Slade tells her superiors. After that, the dust never settles.

C. Hope Clark’s protagonist in the dazzling debut mystery/thriller “Lowcountry Bribe,” is a Charleston County manager who coordinates federal loans and their repayment by farmers. When she leaves her desk, it’s to inspect a farm, not to carry a gun and catch bad guys. Yet, as a Cooperating Individual (CI) she has no choice but to help agents Wayne Largo and Eddie Childress prove Rawlings tried to bribe her.

The case is getting a lot of attention from Atlanta. Slade wonders why. Perhaps there’s more to the bribe than she knows, a greater level of fraud that might implicate her former boss who disappeared last year or a co-worker who shot himself in the office last week. Slade can’t even be sure Largo and Childress aren’t investigating her. A supposedly easy “Get Jesse to repeat what he said Friday” turns into a dangerous crash course in crisis management where the stakes are much higher than missed loan payment or a reprimand from the boss.

Some publishers would have categorized “Lowcountry Bribe” as a mystery/thriller/romance because the novel includes romantic elements as well as Slade’s feelings of approach/avoid, trust/distrust insofar as agent Largo and his motives are concerned. Regardless of the book’s official genre(s), the danger and intrigue Slade is drawn into are industrial strength, requiring a CI who is tough enough to view blood on an office wall as “O-positive primer,” savvy enough to think a like federal agent and experienced enough to apply humor and sarcasm to methods and practices that don’t measure up to her high standards.

Clark knows the territory. She lives in South Carolina, has a degree in agriculture, has worked with the USDA for 25 years, and is married to a former federal agent. This information appears on the novel’s back cover. By the time readers finish the novel and find out the worst that can possibly happen, they will have discovered that Clark also knows the territory of deftly plotted fiction, realistic dialogue and place settings, and how to tell a story that burns like a stiff drink with a touch of sugar.

Clark is now writing the next novel in the Carolina Slade Mystery Series. For readers who like great storytelling, that’s the best that can possibly happen.

–

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of contemporary fantasy, magical realism, and paranormal stories and novels, including “Conjure Woman’s Cat” and “Eulalie and Washerwoman.”

The value of parks

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Glacier National Park, Historic Preservation5 Comments

While serving as the chairman of my town’s Historic Preservation Commission (HPC), I heard more than my share of gripes about the taxpayer costs of city budget items that were often labeled as “fluff” during difficult economic times. City parks, historic districts, entry-road signs, green space and related tree canopy programs,  and National Register of Historic Places districts were on most people’s hit lists.

The City Parks Alliance, for example, says on its home page that “Urban parks are dynamic institutions that play a vital, but not fully appreciated or understood role in the social, economic and physical well-being of America’s urban areas and its residents.” This is a good place to start. But, when taxes, city/federal budgets and the not-so-deep pockets of residents come together, it helps to have some dollar values to assign to the catch phrases.

Even though my love of parks includes environmental concerns, habitat protection, fresh air and recreation, such “fuzzy aesthetics” as these don’t wash during a confrontational city council budget meeting. Looking at the skimpy budgetary support of our National Parks system coming out of Washington, things that are good to do for their own sake don’t get much attention in Congress either.

Economic Value  – real estate, jobs, tourism

Locally, the HPC tried to stress the economic value of city parks, a value that typically exceeded the cost of maintaining the parks when viewed separately from recreational programs. In promoting economic returns, we were on the same page as the Chamber of Commerce, a group that knows the importance of such things as parks, green space, and historic preservation to corporations and individuals contemplating a move to a new city.

Historic districts, like museums and other cultural tourism attractions not only attract people (who make purchases throughout a city), but also create a level of interest that—according to studies—is higher than other vacation/business travel. While national parks and other wilderness areas with a lot to see tend to draw people who stay longer, the same is true for sites and attractions focusing on culture and history. Visitors to such sites stay longer and spend more than the average tourist.

Likewise, many studies have shown that the value of houses near city parks tends to be higher than the value of similar homes in other neighborhoods. While it’s easy to point fingers at the costs of maintaining a city park, their impact on real estate values is often overlooked when budgets and taxes are under scrutiny.

While city parks rated as excellent can increase the property values of nearby homes as much as 15%, the Trust for Public Land, in “Measuring the Economic Value of a City Park System” (PDF link) takes a more conservative approach to account for those parks rated as problematic: “Once determined, the total assessed value of properties near parks is multiplied by 5 percent and then by the tax rate, yielding the increase in tax dollars attributable to park proximity.”

Regional Impact of a National Park

Last month, Glacier National Park released information that demonstrates the economic importance of a major tourist attraction. According to an NPS report for 2010, two million visitors came to the park, spending $10 million and supporting 1,695 local jobs.

“Glacier National Park has historically been an economic driver in the state,” said Glacier National Park Superintendent Chas Cartwright. “This report shows the value that the many goods and services provided by local businesses are to the park visitor, as well as employment opportunities for the area.” Click on economic benefits here to download the report itself.

Personally, the value of parks to me cannot be expressed in economic terms. Yet I’m realistic enough to know that people coping with stretched-to-the-limit household budgets need to see some real dollar values attached to local and national governmental expenses before they “buy in” to the value of parks.

The Trust of Public Land, City Parks Alliance, National Park Service, and your state’s Department of Natural Resources are good places to track down information that may help win over the homeowner next door who sees nothing  but red in city, state and national green spaces.

This free 48-page PDF about Glacier’s history, personalities, facilities, plants and animals can be downloaded from the Vanilla Heart Publishing page at Payloadz.

Review: ‘An Uncertain Age’ by Ulrica Hume

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books, reviews1 Comment

At the beginning of Ulrica Hume’s metaphysical and spiritual novel An Uncertain Age, Justine meets Miles Peabody on the Eurostar en route from London to Paris. While they appear to meet by chance, it’s more likely destiny is involved. An aspiring artist, Justine is looking for certainty and stability after losing her job and her fiancé. A retired librarian, Miles is focused on twilight of life issues. They are drawn together despite their differences of age and lifestyle and end up site seeing together while Miles considers making the traditional Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage. He wants Justine to accompany him; before she can decide what to do, Miles disappears on a routine errand in Chartres.

Miles is fascinated to the point of obsession with the tragic love story of the 12th century French philosopher Peter Abelard and his student Héloïse d’Argenteuil. In fact, it’s nearly impossible for Justine to converse with him about anything without hearing what Abelard and Héloïse thought or did under similar circumstances. Abelard founded a monastery called the Oratory of the Paraclete. Some years after the powers that be forced Abelard and Héloïse into separate lives (both in religious orders) after their illicit affair was discovered, she ended up at the Paraclete as its abbess. In their honor, Miles’ house in London is named The Paraclete.

The relationship between Justine and Miles takes on some of the overtones of Abelard and Héloïse’s relationship. Inasmuch as destiny seldom presents its happenings with a definitive guidebook, it’s impossible to say whether Miles and Justine are drawn together and then separated from each other because Miles wants to mimic Abelard’s life as part of his own search for meaning or because their spiritual quests cannot move forward on the same path.

While much of Abelard’s work was considered heresy by the church, he did convince the Pope to accept his doctrine of limbo. The irony here is that Miles’ Abelard-like disappearance casts Justine into an ongoing temporal limbo. First, the nature and direction of their relationship could not be pinned down to Justine’s satisfaction. When Miles disappears, the French police won’t allow Justine to leave town until they are satisfied she is innocent of potential crimes that might explain his absence. When Miles isn’t found and she is free to leave Chartres, Justine is uncertain what to do next because other than working on her art, her specific plans aren’t well defined.

Wherever Justine is, she knows she will be waiting for Miles to return, perhaps as Héloïse longed for Abelard. Drawn to spiritual ideas, she seeks out a safe haven where she can ponder religious writings, work on her art and share her days with others of like mind. Those she ultimately meets on are missing something and are on their own quests based on the tenets of their diverse faiths.

The strengths of An Uncertain Age include the many layers of meaning flowing through the steps Justine, Miles and the other rather eccentric characters take while seamlessly sharing prospective routes to fulfillment that are traditionally at odds with each other. Hume’s novel is well plotted, well crafted and well researched. Some readers may be turned away at Hume’s characters’ heavy reliance on quoting and pondering scholars and religious leaders. To some extent, the philosophy delays the story.

At the same time, the philosophy drives the story. An Uncertain Age has the depth and power to inspire readers to ponder their own choices while waiting for the moment when each of Hume’s characters moves forward in faith or certainty instead of doing what Abelard and Héloïse would do. Hume’s prose makes this journey a rewarding trip.

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of four novels, including the contemporary fantasy “Sarabande.”

contemporary fantasy for your Nook

If you’re not a reader, for Pete’s sake, stop trying to be a writer

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books, writing23 Comments

When I taught college-level journalism, I was convinced that some of my reporting and feature writing students never read newspapers.

Other than wondering what the hell they were doing in my classroom, it was clear to me that those who didn’t read the news would probably never learn how to write it. News and feature stories have a noticeable organization and style.

Long-time journalists can hear the cadence of a “properly written” news story inside their heads. Stands to reason, then, that reading—in this case, the news—will help you learn the fundamentals of reporting much faster in a classroom and on the job than being clueless about it.

Aspiring poets and novelists who don’t read poems and novels

Author and editor C. Hope Clark (“Lowcountry Bribe”) wrote in a February 28th post at read.learn.write that in her consulting and speaking work, she finds a lot of aspiring writers who seldom read:

The world abounds with writers. Everyone wants his name, photo and title on a bookstore shelf, as a minimum on Amazon. But amazingly enough, most of them are not voracious readers. They are spitting out words, but taking few in. It’s like using a shotgun instead of a high-powered rifle. The result isn’t very refined, the results less satisfactory.

Some years ago, when desktop publishing programs made it easier to create newsletters, brochures, and posters on a PC screen, a lot of big corporations cut the writers from their staffs because—the bean counters seasoned—anyone could use the software and create something that looked like a newsletter, brochure or poster. Who needed actual writers? The results were a mess, and since the bean counters never read anything anyway, they didn’t know the results were a mess.

The Internet is (perhaps) today’s desktop publishing

The Internet has not only reduced our attention spans, it’s given all of us the power to create materials that look like e-zines, blogs, books, magazine articles and poems. No experience necessary. Simply log on and create.  Clark says that “The slogan ‘reading is fundamental’ is remarkably accurate. Somewhere along the line, however, between elementary school and college, reading falls by the wayside. Teaching to tests, however, and not enticing children to fall in love with words, has stolen their ability to perform later in life.”

As a writer, I’m biased: I think all of us need to learn how to read and then not let the skill get away from us. And, we’re talking novels, essays, commentaries, features and criticism here, not just the back of the cereal box or the “Trending Now” links on the Yahoo screen. Having worked in corporate America, I can testify to the fact that a lot of stuff got screwed up because the people reading the reports and white papers and trade magazine article weren’t really getting it. They skimmed and/or couldn’t follow a logical argument in print.

What do I have to do to become a writer?

The Internet, and that includes a few well-known print-on-demand book publishers, gives the impression the answer is nothing. Just put one word after another until you reach the required word count for a short story or a book, format it, and you’re done. And when nobody reads it, the first thing you’ll hear from “the writer” is the accusation that there’s a conspiracy out there. Amazon, BIG PUBLISHING, the government, the search engines, the service providers and the reviewers had nothing better to do that get together in a bar and decide to stomp down some a book that otherwise would have won the Booker, Nobel, and Pulitzer prizes.

The speculation about “What the hell happened to my book?” seldom includes any need to learn the art and craft of writing first. And this goes back to something very fundamental: Reading. That’s where becoming a writer starts, and it never stops.

—Malcolm

A combination of incongruous things

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books, writing6 Comments

“pot·pour·ri n. pl. pot·pour·ris – 1. A combination of incongruous things: “In the minds of many, the real and imagined causes for Russia’s defeats quickly mingled into a potpourri of terrible fears” (W. Bruce Lincoln). 2. A miscellaneous anthology or collection: a potpourri of short stories and humorous verse. 3. A mixture of dried flower petals and spices used to scent the air.” – The Free Dictionary

  1. I’ve about finished reading An Uncertain Age by Ulrica Hume. That means you’ll be seeing a review of the novel here soon. According to the publisher (Blue Circle Press), Justine’s life is uncertain when she meets Miles Peabody on the Eurostar. She has lost her job, her fiance, everything except her dream of becoming an artist. Miles Peabody, a retired librarian and beekeeper, has always led a cautious, philosophical life. Now, faced with his mortality, he needs a miracle. Drawn inexplicably to each other, their relationship is tested when Miles invites Justine to join him on a Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage. But before she can answer, Miles goes missing. Desperate to find him, and nudged by the French police, Justine slips into a dark night of the soul. A fascinating theme!
  2. I you keep up with publishing news, you know that the Independent Publishers Group and Amazon could not agree on Amazon’s slice of the pie. Consequently, Amazon turned off the buy buttons for the 4,000 e-books from the author’s IPG represents. In a post called “What Should an E-book Cost?,” IPG compares print and e-book pricing. Not being one to keep quiet about such issues, I posted “The low prices of e-books are bad for writers” on my Sun Singer’s Travels blog.
  3. While I’m happy that The Artist, Meryl Streep and Christopher Plummer won Oscars last night, I’m also happy that I only watched the last 15-20 minutes of the event on TV. It was long, ending a little after 11:30 p.m. (Eastern), but not as long as it has been before.  Had I watched all of it, I think I would have agreed with Andrew O’Hehir’s assessment in a piece he wrote for Salon: “From Billy Crystal’s cringe-worthy act to the obvious winners, the Academy Awards felt old, tired and out-of-touch.”
  4. My brother Douglas has entered the world of fiction writing with a fantasy/allegory called Parktails. The novel tells the story of a massive forest fire in a national park from the animals’ point of view. In many ways, Parktails is a quest story; the animals are seeking answers and inspiration and must travel many miles to learn how to keep their community together. Doug teaches art at George Fox University in Oregon. He is also the author of Seeing: When Art and Faith Intersect,  published in 2002.
  5. I have been updating my website to better display my books. Among other things, I needed to add my recently-released free e-book Celebrate Glacier National Park. The 48-page PDF about Glacier’s history, personalities, facilities, plants and animals can be downloaded from the Vanilla Heart Publishing page at Payloadz. In addition to the website, you can learn more about my 2011 contemporary fantasy novel Sarabande on my Sarabande’s Journey weblog where my most recent post was “Check your imagination at the door.” If your book group or class is planning to read and discuss the novel, you”ll find a list of sample discussion questions here.
  6. If you’re an author and/or an avid reader, I invite you to stop by my daily list of links for book reviews, book news, contests and writing tips called Book Bits. It’s usually posted in time for your lunch-time web surfing. Tomorrow’s edition will include a feature for writers called “Know Your Competition” and a review of Kate Alcott’s The Dressmaker.
  7. You can still download Vanilla Heart Publishing’s free, Valentine’s Day e-book called A Gift for You. The book, which features fiction, nonfiction and poetry focused on love, includes my short story “Those Women” as well as work from authors S.R.Claridge, Janet Lane Walters, Anne K. Albert, Chelle Cordero, Marilyn Celeste Morris, Collin Kelley, Melinda Clayton, Charmaine Gordon, Smoky Trudeau Zeidel and Joice Overton.
  8. Even though it’s not yet spring, I’ve already had the lawn mower out once to trim the front yard. I’m always somewhat surprised when it starts right up without a lot of tinkering, oil changes, or a trip over to the auto parts store for a new spark plug. The yard looks better now and even somewhat green due to our recent thunderstorms. We’ll have to decide soon whether to clean out the garden in the back yard and then fight with the deer all spring and summer over our vegetables. Oddly enough, they seem to be drawn to the hot peppers–I thought they would leave those alone.

Wherever you live, I hope you’re seeing signs of spring.

Malcolm

contemporary fantasy for your Kindle

First Christmas, First Book – and it was Mother Goose

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books2 Comments

Contrary to popular belief, I am not older than Mother Goose.

In fact, there’s a fair amount of debate about who, if anyone, Mother Goose was.  Some say “Mother Goose” was a lady named Mary Goose. Perhaps. There’s a gravestone in Boston from the 1690s that tourists like to visit. Looking way back, we find the name in Charles Perrault’s 1695 book, subtitled “Tales of my Mother Goose.” It was translated into English in 1729. However, the primary association of Mother Goose and nursery rhymes probably began with  John Newbery’s 1791 collection called Mother Goose’s Melody

All that happened many years before my time.

Since then, a lot of authors and artists have produce collections. One of my gifts on my first Christmas was Berta and Elmer Hader’s Picture Book of Mother Goose published by Howard-McCann in 1930. (Also before I was born.)

Berta and Elmer Hader were a prolific husband and wife team, producing many books beginning in the 1920s.  They won the Caldecott Medal for illustration in 1949 for The Big Snow. They died in the 1970s, having left a wonderful legacy of books and rich illustrations such as the one shown here.

I liked picture books when I was young because I could create my own stories for the pictures with my imagination when nobody was around to read to me.  Years later, my daughter would enjoy illustrated books for the same reason, though when she was a child, the books by Richard Scarry were probably more popular than Mother Goose.

Later, I had quite a few shelves of books, many of them the Little Golden Books with stories like “The Little Red Hen.” While I like magical realism and fantasy now, my reading goes back to “Old Mother Goose,” “Hickory, Dickory Dock,” and “Polly, Put the Kettle On.” I’m sure my parents made use of the lullabys in my Mother Goose book, though I have no memory of it. Or, perhaps they pointed out all the drawings of sleeping children in the book and hoped for the best.

I’m not sure why or how this old book is still on my shelf rather than being packed away. Nostalgia, perhaps.

–Malcolm

Kindle Edition