FREE eBook by Linton Robinson!

Linton Robinson

 

Linton Robinson has written humor articles for newspapers, syndicates, and national magazines since the first ice age, and gotten little more than awards and suspicion to show for it.  He currently resides in Mexico, which is a rich source of humor that nobody will read.  His cult Nineties humor column The Way of the Weekend Warrior,  has been converted to a widely-reviled novel and is available on amazon and www.adorobooks.com

Weekend Warrior Site

The latest book he was published in, "My Funny Major Medical," is FREE for today only!

Click the picture to get your free copy today.

Please check out his phenomenal books.

 

Featured Author: Jan Marshall

Jan is founder of the International Humor and Healing Institute established in 1986. She worked with board members Norman Cousins and Steve Allen as well as prominent physicians in promoting hope and humor in healing. As a long term cancer survivor, "Jan's Army" acknowledges and sends "Badges of Courage" to other heroes.
    Jan is currently the humor columnist for Senior Correspondents and writes satirical essays for several online magazines and newspapers.

Connect with her directly on 

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin

Pinterest

Amazon

Author Page

Featured Author: R.K. Grow

R.K. Grow was kind enough to feature Wayman Publishing on her blog today.  You can read about that HERE.

She also wrote a very entertaining post where she's answered questions about herself.  Here's a sneak peek:

What does the R.K. in your name stand for?

My first name is Rebekah and my middle name is Kevin. Anytime I tell someone my middle name they are always interested in the story behind it. I was named after my Uncle Kevin who died when he was young. In fact half of my sisters have boy middle names and we are all named after male relatives in our family. I still to this day think it was a way for my dad to have boys in the family.  

For more info about this author, please visit her BLOG.

Who is R.K. Grow?

Featured Author: Barry Parham

Barry Parham

Barry Parham is the award-winning author of humor columns, essays and short stories. He is a recovering software freelancer and a music fanatic. Parham is the author of the 2009 sleeper, "Why I Hate Straws," his debut collection of humor and satire including the award-winning stories, 'Going Green, Seeing Red' & 'Driving Miss Conception.' In October 2010, Parham published "Sorry, We Can't Use Funny," another award-winning collection of general-topic satire and humor, and the more targeted "Blush: Politics and other unnatural acts." He followed up in 2011 with "The Middle-Age of Aquarius," a growing-old-but-not-so-gracefully vehicle for the award-winners 'Comfortably Dumb,' 'Snowblind' and 'The Zodiac Buzz-Killer.' "Full Frontal Stupidity" (2012) is Parham's 5th collection of humor, satire and observations, and features more award-winning stories, including 'Skirts vs. Skins' and 'Scenes From a Maul.' Most recently, his work appeared in the 2011 national humor anthology, "My Funny Valentine," and his essays are slated to appear in two more collections in late 2012.

Blog

Books

Featured Author: U Z. Eliserio

U Z. Eliserio

 

U Z. Eliserio teaches popular culture at the Department of Filipino and Philippine Literature at the University of the Philippines, Diliman. He can be found at uzeliserio.blogspot.com and twitter.com/uzeliserio.

Featured Author: Fran Fischer

Fran Fischer

Then . . .

. . . and Now

Humorous writer and editor, Fran can make anyone laugh. As her 74th birthday present, she flew in the same anti-gravity plane that the astronauts train in! She walks with a cane, but did one-handed pushups & flew like Superman--WHAT A BLAST.

For more information about Fran/Fishducky, please visit her BLOG.

Featured Author: Aimee Davis

Aimee Davis

Aimee was a writer long before she was born. Her hands know little else, and feel most comfortable holding things and tapping things with which ever-afters sing and stories breathe. She married her most favorite character of all time, a boy she met in high school with bedroom eyes and a reckless smile. Next year, they will celebrate 19 years of marriage and the end of his 20-year Army career. They plan on buying Harleys and moving to the beach. They are the parents of two beautiful little muses, their 15 and 17-year-old sons. Her day job is spent writing for doctors, but by night, she is the supreme ruler of infinite worlds created and destroyed with her toolbox of nonsense. She writes about her Earthly oddities at PleasantlyDemented.com, and her chimera daydreams hold sway at GoddessInTheMachine.com.

Black Friday--More FREE eBooks!

These eBooks will be FREE on Black Friday only.

Here are the direct links where they're free:

A Cat's Life: Dulcy's Story

A Cat's Legacy: Dulcy's Story

Just Nonsense

Open Doors

Additionally, Homeless in Hawaii has been released today.

Click the picture to find it for 2.99 on Amazon.

Featured Author: Diana M. Amadeo

Diana M. Amadeo

Multi-award winning author Diana M. Amadeo sports a bit of pride in having an excess of 500 publications with her byline in books, anthologies, magazines, newspapers and online. Yet, she humbly, persistently, tweaks and rewrites her thousand or so rejections with eternal hope that they may yet see the light of day.

Author Site

 Additional Info

Featured Author: Afobos

My name is Afobos, and I'm originally from Greece. My family immigrated to the states in the late 60's ,and I've lived here since. I've always loved writing and have written quite a few things mostly for my own pleasure. 

Books by Afobos

I'm a massage therapist and have been practicing for the past 17 years--one day I'll get it right!

    I live 30 minutes south of Houston in League City TX with my 3 indoor cats. Outside I have possums, racoons, and lots of squirrels for company.

    I enjoy kayaking, riding sport bikes, the occasional windsurfing, and fighting the never-ending battle of the bulge. I used to be a bodybuilder back in the 80's and it kind of fizzled from there . . .

    I have worked in a lot of different fields ranging from pizza delivery driver to being a cook, teaching English as a foreign language, teaching Greek, being an interpreter, selling ladies' shoes, working private security, being a bodyguard, a delivery driver, etc. . . . Something about working for someone else though has never agreed with me. I guess you can't fire yourself, that's why I like working for myself.
    I speak fluent Greek, a bit of Spanish--which I learned from ex-wife's family--a little German, and you can catch my accent when I mispronounce words like sheets and sheep . . . . I'll let you guess what sheet sounds like when I pronounce it.
    In my line of work (massage therapy) I've learned to replace sheets with linens. Cuts down on stunned looks.

For more information about Afobos, please check out his books (above) or visit these links:

Massage Business

Facebook Author Page

Inspiration for the Writing Life by Katherine Valdez

Inspiration for the Writing Life

by Katherine Valdez

“Writers live twice.”
—Natalie Goldberg

I was sipping a bottle of iced tea and glanced at the writing inside the cap: “Spend more time on what makes you happy.”

    Writing, reading, running, movies, spending time in nature, and visiting friends and family make me happy. What if I couldn't do these things? What would a character in a story think or do, and how would he interact with people if he's not truly happy? If he's unable to pursue his passions?

    Writing prompts are everywhere, and everything in life is material for your writing. These details will help you tell your story. What are you passionate about? What do you want the world to know?

    I like to read my horoscope once or twice a week as simple food for thought, although the astrologer can be eerily accurate. One day last month, my horoscope said “You will have a strong feeling and a connection to a physical item. It's OK to be unsure as to why.”

    I happened to see a small, inexpensive journal while I was at the store, and was drawn to the blue and green shiny butterflies on the black cover. I'm almost finished with my current journal, so I took this as a sign that I needed to buy it. I could write a story about a girl who is drawn to some butterflies she sees in a park on her way to school, and decides to follow one that circles around her head before heading toward a grove of trees.

    Your journal can be a great source of material. I'm reading Keeping a Journal You Love, by Sheila Bender, in which she shares practical instruction, writing prompts, and journals entries from 15 respected writers such as Pam Houston, Denise Levertov and Ron Carlson.

    One of the most intriguing prompts from this book is “Write about something someone told you during the day and what it makes you feel about life.” I was explaining a dilemma to a friend recently, and she asked, “What do you want to do?” I had to repeat the question in my mind. “What do you really want to do?” Without taking anything or anyone else into consideration, my decision became clear. I now had permission to pursue my own happiness, guilt-free.

    This same thought process could end up revealing something about a character that I might not include in a story, but is important to understand. Maybe that character is hesitating to make the right decision because she knows it will hurt someone she loves.

    Add details that provide depth to your protagonist. What quirk or tendency does he have? Maybe it's something that annoys another character. Maybe it's a flaw that will affect the story's conflict.

    I've overheard some funny and interesting portions of conversations over the years, while standing in line at the grocery store, sitting in a coffee shop, or waiting for a movie to start at the local theater.

    In the November/December 2012 issue of The Writer, Diana Abu-Jaber, author of Birds of Paradise, said: “When I'm starting a new book it seems as if everything inspires me. I think of that time as 'sticky brain.' Anything can set off a story: an angle of light through trees, an item in the newspaper or a bit of overheard gossip. Basically, I think you have to be sort of naturally receptive toward inspiration. Be open to being inspired by whatever comes your way – then you'll never run out of ideas.”

    A friend gave me Journey to the Heart: Daily Meditations on the Path to Freeing Your Soul, by Melody Beattie. Just before finishing this blog post, I read the entry for today's meditation, about awakening to the storyteller within. “Each of us has a story to tell, a story to share with the world...Tell it with joy and flair. Commit to telling it with love and passion.”

    Good luck on your writing journey! I'd love to hear what inspires you.

About the Author

Katherine Valdez writes short fiction and personal essays. She was a finalist in the Grey Sparrow Journal 2012 Flash Fiction Contest and her short story “Little Red Riding Hood Seeks Vengeance” appears in the anthology Open Doors: Fractured Fairy Tales. Contact her at www.KatherineValdez.com and find her on Twitter (@KatValdezWriter) and Facebook (KatherineValdez2012@gmail.com).

Featured Author: Timothy Hurley

   

About the Author

Timothy Hurley is a writer, retired physician, and family man with four children and six grandchildren.  Coast-hopping between New York City and San Francisco Bay Area, he writes literary, speculative and humor fiction.  His heroes, M. Twain, E.A. Poe, and E. Hemingway, among others, are not returning his emails.  His works-in-progress include collections of New York and Mars short stories, The Grumpy Old Men’s Club, and a memoir of his medical career.  When not writing, he reads, and often walks the neighborhoods of New York searching for the perfect pizza.  Timothy and his wife, the architectural historian and author, live in Brooklyn.  They will celebrate their forty-fourth anniversary the day the Mayans bring the world to an end, but they’re not afraid.  Timothy blogs occasionally at The Lunatic Assylum, his name for Earth, and tweets at @timothyhurley3.  Email Timothy at thelunaticassylum@gmail.com.

Published work:

“The Book Report”, humorous book review of Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris at The Satirist, thesatirist.com September 2012.
“Being in the Box”, speculative flash fiction at Fiction and Verse, fictionandverse.com, October 2012.
“Hanzel and Gretyl: A Boomer Fairy Tale”, humor short story in Open Doors 2 anthology, eBook and paperback, Wayman Publishing, December 2012.

FREE eBooks--A Tribute to EC Stilson's Angel Baby

Zeke Jackson was born on 11/18. At the end of January the following year, he died in my arms.
    Today, to honor my son on his birthday, three of my eBooks are available for FREE download. Here they are:

 

    

Zeke would have been ten today. I'll never forget him or the lessons he taught me.

About the Author

Elisa spends most of her time taking care of four rambunctious kids who are better than green eggs and ham. They're pretty darn fun, but despite that, after she had kids, her boobs shrunk, she lost hair, but gained a greater sense of humor!
    When she's not scavenging through the vents, where her son--the Zombie Elf--likes hiding things, she's sewing, playing her violin, or writing.

Blog: Crazy Life of a Writing Mom

Twitter: ECwrites

Author Site

Into the Void By Rayne Debski

Into the Void

Rayne Debski 

It works like this. You’re on dive boat in the ocean. The current is ripping at three to four knots. The wind causes the water to stand up in peaks. Your scuba tank is strapped onto your buoyancy
compensator which hugs your torso. You test your regulator to make sure your breathing apparatus works. You look over the side of the boat. Visibility in this chop is about one foot, and you’ll be diving down to eighty feet. Someone hands you your photographic gear. You turn and sit on the side of the boat, exhale, and tumble backwards into the void. Seconds later you’re in the deep blue, clearing your ears, descending slowly, and feeling the exhilaration that comes from entering another world. You don’t know what you’re going to encounter, or how the photo shoot will turn out. You’ve spent years taking underwater pictures that were over lit, under lit, spattered with sand you inadvertently kicked up, out
of focus, or just plain dull. But you’ve persevered. And by now you’ve done it so many times you know that when you spot a particular piece of coral, or a flaming scallop, or the sun shining through the water at a certain angle, you can use the knowledge you’ve acquired to compose a photo with elements others
have used but in a way that’s unique. And you have the awards to prove it.
    Writing fiction isn’t very different. There’s the knowing what to do and how to do it. And there’s the doing it. Several years ago I heard about a creativity experiment in which Japanese art students were divided into two groups. Both groups were given several days to complete their assignments. Group A’s assignment was for each student to make a single drawing, perfecting it as much as possible. Group B was told to produce as many pictures as they could in the allotted time. At the end of the experiment, researchers found that the students who did several drawings produced better, more original work than the group who used the time to create a single piece.
    A blank page (or an empty screen) is the writer’s void. Trying to write the perfect story is the writer’s nemesis. Jump into the void. Write. Learn the rules. Then learn when to break the rules. Use the tricks you’ve acquired to bring characters alive, to give your stories a unique voice, to use time and place to weave a fictional world where things happen. Write. As much as possible.

About the Author

Rayne Debski has been an innkeeper, a college instructor, an editor, and an organizational development manager. She now lives and writes in central Pennsylvania, where she shares her life with her husband and their enthusiastic yellow lab. Her award-winning short fiction has appeared in several online and print journals and anthologies, and has been selected for dramatic readings by professional theatre groups in New York and Philadelphia. She is the editor of Aftermath: Stories of Secrets and Consequences,
forthcoming from Main Street Rag Press in December 2012. Between hiking, cycling, and kayaking adventures, she continues to work on a collection of linked short stories.

Publications where her stories have appeared:

Aftermath: Stories of Secrets and Consequences, edited by Rayne Debski

 

"Support System" by Rayne Debski (Necessary Fiction)

 

"In the Country" by Rayne Debski (The Quotable)

"In Love, We Are" by Rayne Debski (6S: The Love Book)

"Hunting Season" by Rayne Debski (A Community of Writers)

"Insurrection" by Rayne Debski (XX Eccentric: Stories of Women and Their Eccentricities)

 

"My Neighbor's House" by Rayne Debski (Thema: Off on a Tangent)

 

"Move On" blog post

Featured Author: Mickey Hunt

Meredith Eugene Hunt  (aka, Mickey Hunt)

 
My brother treated me to eight days in Rome, Italy a few years ago. We stayed at a private apartment half a mile from the Vatican and walked everywhere.  Imagine, he a “liberal” from Berkeley and me, a “conservative” from North Carolina, wandering the streets of that city museum of civilization together, napping in the Pantheon, climbing above the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, savoring chocolate gelato as a street-side lunch.   The talks we had!
    Much could be said about that marvelous trip, but for our purposes here, the most important part was barbecue sauce.  Stubb’s barbecue sauce.
     At a certain alimentaria (Italian grocery) in Rome, I was amazed to discover bottles of Stubb’s on the shelf, and all the way from West Texas.  Stubb’s was once the favorite at the dinner table with me, my wife, and six children, and it seemed so out of place in Italy.  I guess Stubb’s gets around.
     And it’s tasty enough you could slop some on roast possum and enjoy.  Possibly I exaggerate.
     A picture of Mr. Stubblefield is printed on every bottle. He’s a handsome older man in a cowboy hat.   We share a lot in common.  His most famous quote is “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m a cook” and   his second most famous quote is “My life is in these bottles.”  I like those quotes.  They’re inspirational.  So, following Mr. Stubb’s example, I will simply say “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m a writer and my life is in these stories.”
     Therefore, open up a bottle.  Read one of my stories, either true-to-life or speculative.  What they all contain, I hope, is fun entertainment that offers intriguing, maybe even unsettling perspectives.

Find me at www.chaoticterrain.com.  Then, go to Short Stories.

Myth in THE BEAR WITH TWO SHADOWS By Roland D. Yeomans

Myth in THE BEAR WITH TWO SHADOWS

Roland D. Yeomans

 

Charles Reed has graciously allowed me to slip in through the back door of this cyber domain to talk a bit about the hero of “3GOLDILOCKS & THE BEAR” and my Native American Lord of the Rings, THE BEAR WITH TWO SHADOWS.

    Or rather about the meld of the world's myths that makes for the world of Hibbs, the bear with two shadows.  Why two shadows?

    Isn't there a duality of natures in all of us - a white wolf and a black wolf, both contesting for control of our spirit, the Lakota would say.  And the one who wins?  The one we feed.

    Ancient cultures were defined by their mythology, shaping the sacred stories to show their values, beliefs, and concerns.  Those myths expressed the spiritual and intellectual life of the people of those cultures.

    Those myths had superhuman beings such as Gilgamesh of Mesopotamia - not just a culture hero, but he was the founding father of a whole society.  Hibbs is such a character, more than what he seems, though less than what he yearns to be.

    In many myths, the discovery of knowledge is related to the human characteristics of curiosity and playfulness.  Such is the case with the ever-curious, ever playful Hibbs  -- much to the consternation of the mysterious Turquoise Woman.

    She represents several dualities common in myths :

Trickster -

The Native American tricksters often take on animal form such as Raven or Coyote.  That particular role is taken on by Little Brother, often seen as a hawk.  But rarely, and luckily so, seen as Chaos or the ThunderBird.

Goddess/Teacher  -

Estanatlehi, the Turquoise regally assumes this role, much like Spider Woman.  Though a helper and teacher, she can also be dangerous and unpredictable.  And that is to be expected as she is also :

Gaia -

The Turquoise Woman is the electro-magnetic consciousness that circles from pole to pole of our world.  She is, in fact, the mind of this planet, who can take physical form.  And because of that she leads to an important aspect of my novel :

THE MELD OF THE WORLD'S MYTHOLOGIES -

The Australian aboriginal aspect of the Dreaming flows into my novel, shaping the universal Great Myth of Hibbs' adventures.  Why universal?  Which of us does not dream?

    Hibbs' adventures in the Dreaming, the creation time, interconnects all the world's myths, turning the landscape of the entire world into a living body.  The Lakota see the world as one large web of life, each strand vibrating to the beating of the heart next to it.

THE MYTH OF THE BEAR WITH TWO SHADOWS

Myths are not fixed truths.
    Rather they are ever-winding, ever-shifting paths to misty glimpses of possible answers to questions.  And each wanderer down those paths asks different questions, so their eyes and hearts whisper different answers.

    Sometimes those eyes are at odds with the hearts.  And considering the two shadows we share with Hibbs, should not this be so?

    Thank you for letting me draw back the curtain a bit for you to peek into the myths which live in THE BEAR WITH TWO SHADOWS.

AUTHOR BIO

WHO IS THIS STRANGE MAN WHO WROTE THIS BOOK?

My family left Detroit when I was quite young so my last memories of Detroit are hub cabs and knee caps. The further south we went, the hotter it got. So I was glad when we stopped in Lafayette, Louisiana, because I was real sure the next stop would have been Hell.

    A year there taught me to say "sir and ma'am" and to pronounce David and Richard in really strange ways when they were last names. And it was not a pretty sight when I said Comeaux for the first time.

    Lake Charles was the next stop. I remember standing in the front yard of our new home, watching the neighbor across the street beating in his front door (his wife had locked it) with a fence post.

    I looked up to Mom and said, "You know, if I had a degree in Psychology, I would probably understand what's going on there."

    She ruffled my hair and said back, "Lot's of luck with that."

    And she was right. A master's degree in psychology hasn't unlocked the why's of the pain I see. It just helped me put fancy labels on them.

    I have been everything but a pirate, but since I once worked for a tax preparation firm, I guess you could say I've been that, too. I was a teacher for awhile. Then, a family counselor. My mother contracted cancer, and I emptied my savings, opening my own bookstore to give me freedom to go with her for her out-of-town treatments.

    Mother died. The reason for my store died with her. I saw an opening at Lifeshare Blood Center in the Product Management department. I applied and was hired. And the rest is infamy, ah, I mean history.

    I've been writing most of my life. Most of my old writings burned up when my home burned to the ground. But now, I have an e-book, THE BEAR WITH TWO SHADOWS, on sale at Amazon HERE.

Hibbs also appears to fend off the Twilight of the Gods in post-Katrina New Orleans along with the Lakota shaman, Wolf Howl, in END OF DAYS. Click HERE for more information.

Dear Sir or Madame, Thank You for Rejecting Me

Dear Sir or Madame, Thank You for Rejecting Me

by Melissa Nott

What's a nine-letter expression for one of the most painful, lonely and oft-times humiliating experiences a person can face?

BLIND DATE?

TEEN YEARS?

PROM NIGHT?

Maybe for some of us.

But then there's REJECTION, the universally negative and disheartening experience of being turned down. As writers, we're drenched in rejection. Rejection assaults us via SASE in our mailboxes. It plagues us electronically in our email inboxes. "The creative work in which you bared your soul is not good enough for our publication," is the general gist of a literary rejection.

    Does rejection sting? Yes.

    Is it good to be rejected? Yes.

    Rejection is the nudge that lets us know, in no uncertain terms, that something we've written is not yet ready for the public eye.

    Rejection is like a true blue friend who has the cojones to tell us, "Hey, there's green stuff stuck between your teeth. Maybe you should floss before leaving the house."

    A kindly editor once rejected a sci-fi story of mine this way: "I liked the world-building element of this piece, but the narrative didn't pack enough punch." He didn't have to spend his precious time writing me that note, but he did, and for that I'd like to bake him a pan of brownies. I took his comment to heart, searched my soul, and realized my main character was boring. I re-worked my concept, turned my dullard MC into a hilarious caricature, and cranked out a much better story, which was eventually accepted elsewhere. Am I glad the kindly editor rejected me? You bet I am. And if only I could remember his name, a scrumptious batch of double fudge brownies would be sailing through the U.S. Postal Service tomorrow.

    Another editor once jotted this on one of my humor pieces: "We're gonna pass." These three words both horrified and mystified me. Gonna? Was the writing so bad you couldn't even be bothered with going to? This rejection incensed me enough to really dig my heels in and think critically about my story. The voice was pretty darned good, but the narrative used too much profanity. I cut the naughty words, which actually ended up strengthening the prose, and subbed to a humor site I wholeheartedly respect. And guess what? The story was accepted. Am I glad the Gonna editor ticked me off enough to push forward and keep on improving? You bet your #$% I am.

    Maybe you're not like me. Maybe everything you write is perfect, and any editor who rejects you is a misguided moron. In this case, is it possible to thank an editor for declining your brilliant brainchild?

    I like to think of it this way: some relationships just aren't meant to be. Many moons ago, I fell in love with a fifteen-year-old boy named Tom. Tom was a school girl's dream: smart, cute, funny. An aspiring writer, actually. I couldn't wait for him to ask me to marry him. But he dumped me instead. I nearly drowned in my tears. The rejection was almost more than my teenage heart could bear.

    But then I grew up. I married a different man. When I look at my life today – loving husband, two beautiful children – I realize how happy I am that Tom rejected me. And I shudder to think what shape my life would have taken if the romantic dreams of my adolescence had come true.

    Writers – even good ones – get rejected. It's part of the job description. When rejection rears its ugly head in your life, you have two choices: you can hate the sir or madame who rejected you with a passion that burns you alive, or you can thank them for giving you the impetus to grow into a better writer and a better person.

    I choose to thank them.

About the Author 

Melissa Nott is a Michigander. Or maybe she's a Michiganian. She resides with one husband, two children, and three egocentric furry creatures. No, make that three children and three egocentric furry creatures. Wait, hold up: Five egocentric furry creatures and one husband. Six egocentric furry creatures? Uh . . . let's start over. Melissa Nott lives in Michigan. Her writing has been accepted for publication by online magazines Defenestration, The Big Jewel, eFiction Humor, and The Story Shack. Check her out at melissanott.blogspot.com.

Featured Author & Editor: Joshua Carstens

Joshua Carstens

Joshua Carstens is a Nerd, and proud of it. Yes, that is Nerd with a capital "N." Joshua holds an MA in Professional Writing where he focused on Creative Writing, and a secondary emphasis in Applied Writing with particular attention to editing and design. He will edit anything you put in front of him, whether fiction or non-fiction and any genre.

 Blog

Twitter

Featured Author: Diane Farone

Diane Farone, a lifelong fan of fairy tales and other truth-rendering fiction, has been happy to turn her writing efforts from academic publications in the publish or perish world of academia to writing for fun in her retirement. Ever the student she has been studying creative writing through the Writers Studio. Her stories have been published in Rose Red Review; Our Spirit, Our Reality; and Story Circle Network.

Contemplative Cat: Susan Kane

Writing an autobiography is a dicey thing. 

    On one hand, it could sound like I am the epitome of teaching (for twenty years), or an adventurer who worked tirelessly by my husband’s side in our hotel in Ireland (for three + years).

    There is also the part where our three children were born and raised, guided through some bumpy roads, and netted us three grandchildren (I love that part). 

    I could make myself appear to be a well-educated writer who is part of an elite group that focuses on writing in the classroom (I bet you were thinking “elite group of assassins), or I could go all humble and refer to my farm country roots with a barn full of stories. (Now, there’s a book to read when it gets published!)

    No matter what is chosen to go down on paper, none of it sounds real to me.  

    Basically, the bits of my life experiences have been carefully chopped into pieces, tossed into a blender, and ended up to where I am now.

    Which is here:  Open Doors Anthology.  I hope you enjoy my contribution, ”Cinder, Ellie: An Exclusive”

To read Susan Kane's wonderful posts, please visit her BLOG or Author Site.

Featured Author: Kate Buhler

 

Kate Buhler is a recent graduate of Fordham University. She is currently living in Buffalo, SD taking time off before committing to a future of 9 to 5s. Kate writes a weekly blog humbly titled “KB Thinks For You: The Only Things You’ll Need To Know From the Only Person Who Knows Them All” as well as a blog called “A Week in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” which details the life of her chronically dissatisfied cat, Ivan.

Blog links:

KB Thinks For You

A Week in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

Author, Journalist, Editor and Reviewer: JL Whitehead

JL Whitehead of The Examiner reviews and promotes the works of authors. He also handles projects that entail proofreading, editing and ghostwriting.

JL Whitehead began writing at the age of twelve while residing in West Philadelphia. Being brought up in the turbulent gang war era of the 70’s, JL’s mother thought it best to keep him inside for his safety. It was then that he turned to creative writing as a means of entertainment and self-expression. Once in high school, he began writing short stories and sharing them with his classmates. Years later, he submitted an editorial piece to PGN Incorporated which evolved into a freelance columnist position. In 1989, he self-published a book of his own poetry entitled, “Universal Words”, and later that same year, he became the cover model as well as one of the contributing poets to “A Warm December” released by Vega Press.

Main Site

Personal Testimonial
 
The Examiner 

Dee Ready on Writing a Companion Cat Book

Writing a Companion Cat Book 

By Dee Ready

Years ago, I lived with Dulcy—the sweetest of cats. For seventeen-and-a-half years, she and I cherished one another. On July 8, 1989, two days after she died, Dulcy began to channel through me the purr of our relationship. The words came from that deep center of myself where Oneness dwells and surely Dulcy and I were One.

            In April 1991, I sent a query letter plus five chapters of the book to Jane Meara, an editor at Crown Publishing in New York. In her return letter she asked me to delete half of the 42,000 words of Dulcy’s manuscript by concentrating only on our relationship. Immediately I ruthlessly rid the manuscript of any story that didn’t concern the two of us.

            Of course, being a hoarder of words, I pasted everything I cut into a separate document. (If you’d like to know more about Dulcy and our relationship, please click here for another guest posting I wrote.)

How A Cat's Life: Dulcy's Story came to be

            Crown published A Cat’s Life: Dulcy’s Story in September 1992. For the following six months I enjoyed the hoopla of signings, readings, interviews, and local talk-show appearances. By the following spring, all that ended. Two years later, the final count for the sales came to just under 14,000 books in the United States.

 

            I do not know what the sales were for the editions published in Korea, Germany, Taiwan, and Japan. However, the advance against royalty from each publisher plus the royalties on the US edition enabled me to visit Greece for four weeks to research a novel, on which I’m still working.

            During the next two years, I tried to create a salable manuscript from the stories  I’d cut. To do so, I changed the point of view to third person and introduced Tromley, the cat who lived in the house behind ours. In this first attempt to create a companion book, Dulcy used the deleted stories from A Cat’s Life to teach Tromley how to win a human’s love. 

            Jane Meara’s response?

            “It doesn’t work for me.”

            No contract.

            Next, I tried to use the deleted sections to create the life of Tromley. No go. Down deep I was glad. Using the material that way felt like a betrayal of Dulcy.

            Finally, I came up with the idea of cobbling the material into twelve distinct stories. Once again, Jane Meara turned down the manuscript. “No thread holds it together,” she said. “Nothing compels me to read beyond the first story.”

            In other words, no glue held the stories together.

            So I set aside the material that had been cut in 1991. Someday, I thought, I’ll figure out how to get Dulcy’s other stories out to an audience.

            That someday came several years later when I got the idea to divide the stories into twelve habits of successful cats. Dulcy would “purr” these habits. Then I’d follow each with a short reflection about how the habit had influenced my life as her human. I titled this new manuscript A Cat's Legacy: Dulcy's Story by Dulcy and Dee Ready.

            By this time, Jane Meara had left Crown. I tried the agent route but was unable to interest anyone in even reading the proposed book. Once again, no chance to get Dulcy’s words to readers.

            Now we come to today. I’ve concluded that finding an agent or an editor in today’s publishing milieu is almost impossible. However, Wayman—a small, but growing, publishing house—expressed interest.

  

            If you have any interest in reading Dulcy’s words of wisdom—or mine—please click here to get to its location on Amazon. Dulcy’s purr is sweet. As to the text I wrote, it represents experiences I’ve had in living a long and happy life. May you know peace today in your own lives. 

About the Author

    A psychic once told me that in a past life I'd been a Native American healer and shaman in Florida. The people living in the villages I visited believed I had the ability to change myself into a panther. In my present life, I do seem to have an affinity for cats.

    I now live with three wonderful felines: Ellie, Maggie, and Matthew. They are my family.

    I hope one day to have a novel published. That is my dream and has been since I was eight years old and found my grandmother's typewriter. My first story was a mystery written on that old Royal!

 
Blog: Coming Home to Myself

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