Join me at my author’s collective as I reveal how a fabulous Twitter hashtag improved my sex life and sell my book.
Read “How Twitter Improved My Sex Life.”
Enjoy, and stay sexy,
eden
Filed under Writing Joint Ventures
One of my favourite authors is Jason McIntyre, whom I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing before. I’m thrilled he’s invaded my site again to give you a taste of blood with his newest release — Bled. Since it’s humour month on my blog, I’ve asked Jason to put a comedic spin on Bled.
Read and tell him if he’s succeeded. 😉
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Blood is thinner than water: My new book Bled is a comedy?
I’ve been called a suspense writer, I’ve been called worse.
But I have (so far) never been called comedy writer. Early reviews of my novella, Bled, have had a resoundingly positive vibe, but so many readers — particularly women — wanted to know, “It’s not about a woman’s time of the month, is it?”
Given the title and the cover art, and my history of trying new things with the stories I’m telling, I suppose it’s a reasonable question. After all, if you’re a woman who thinks that would be tactless, then you might like to know before you invest a couple hours reading a novella called Bled. “Is this thing gonna talk about my Aunt Flo and Cousin Red coming to visit from Ohio?” And if you’re a guy, you might be thinking, “Should I really be reading about this? I’m married. I’ve lived through it.”
Uh, no.
Bled takes place in Dovetail Cove, the same island town where last year’s novella took place two years later, in 1974. That book was called Shed (sensing any vowel-chime here?) and while there was an actual shed in the story, it wasn’t really about that. It was about a lot of things, primarily about one’s ability to shed their past, shed the shackles of an outrageous fortune, etcetera, etcetera.
So I’ll say this about Bled. There’s at least a bit of the red stuff within the actual story. Does it have anything to do with your Aunt Flo from Idaho? Not a chance.
Hope you give it a read; hope it gives you the creeps.
Bled: About the Novella
She only wanted to leave. But he took that option from her. Now she wants it back.
Set on the same island as the reader favorite Shed, the latest literary suspense novella from bestselling author Jason McIntyre picks up the Dovetail Cove saga with this story of one lonely woman…trapped.
Tina McLeod is on the cusp of a new life. Extraordinary change is rare in her world but this newsflash means she can finally leave her small island town for good. No more pouring coffee for townsfolk in Main Street’s greasy spoon, no more living under the weight of her born-again mother. That is, until Frank Moort comes in for his usual lunch and dessert on an ordinary Friday in May.
Bled sees things turn backwards and upside down for each of them. Their encounter is prolonged and grotesque, the sort of thing splashing the covers of big city newspapers. Both are changed. And neither will come out clean on the other side.
A story about taking what’s not yours, Bled explores pushing back when you’ve been pushed too far. It paints in red the horrors from our most commonplace of surroundings: right out in the open where nothing can hide behind closed doors and shut mouths.
Buy links for Bled: Amazon Smashwords
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Bled: Teaser Trailer
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About the Author
Jason McIntyre has lived and worked in varied places across the globe. His writing also meanders from the pastoral to the garish, from the fantastical to the morbid. Vibrant characters and vivid surroundings stay with him and coalesce into novels and stories. Before his time as an editor, writer and communications professional, he spent several years as a graphic designer and commercial artist.
McIntyre’s writing has been called darkly noir and sophisticated, styled after the likes of Chuck Palahniuk but with the pacing and mass appeal of Stephen King. The books tackle the family life subject matter of Jonathan Franzen but also eerie discoveries one might find in a Ray Bradbury story or those of Rod Serling.
Jason McIntyre’s books include the #1 Kindle Suspense, The Night Walk Men, Bestsellers On The Gathering Storm and Shed, plus the multi-layered coming-of-age literary suspense Thalo Blue.
Jason McIntyre was originally interviewed, June 24, 2011, for Inside the Author’s Mind.
Find Jason at his many sites below, and join me in congratulating him on the release of Bled. It’s definitely not a comedy! 😉
Website Twitter Facebook Goodreads
Filed under Author Promotions
You probably know by now I’m a fan of English humour, and of course, of this classic Monty Python film.
From the movie Life of Brian, September’s Humour Month concludes with “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.”
An interesting piece of trivia: George Harrison mortgaged his house and London office to put up the money for the film. Why? “Because I wanted to see it,” he said. It’s no wonder he was my favourite Beatle.
Enjoy,
eden
Filed under Musical Mondays
I’d like to welcome back author and friend, George Pappas, to provide details of his latest book, Dear Hef
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Dear Hef, You’ve Got E-Male: The Dark Side of Internet Hook Ups Meets the Playboy Cool of Hugh Hefner in Costa Mesa, Calif. Author’s new Provocative Novel Dear Hef released Sept. 14
More than 8 years in the Making, New Novel Explores the Troubling Aspects of Celebrity Worship and One Man’s Funny, Explicit Journey into the World of Internet Sex and Dating
Costa Mesa, Calif., Sept. 10, 2011 – The dark side of Internet hook ups meets the Playboy cool of publisher Hugh Hefner in Costa Mesa, Calif. author George Pappas’ new provocative, sexy and hilarious erotica fiction novel entitled Dear Hef.
Dear Hef, which is being released as an e-book by Lazy Day Publishing on Sept. 14 and will be available in the Amazon Kindle Store, Barnes & Noble.com and other Web sites, is Pappas’ third novel. His latest novel Monogamy Sucks, about a thirty something man’s swinging lifestyle adventures, is selling well on Amazon and other sites.
Pappas recently launched a blog for his novel Dear Hef which details the origins of his novel, and includes recent interviews and information about the upcoming work.
More than eight years in the making, Dear Hef explores Pappas’ long-time admiration for Hefner through the e-mails of a fan, the book’s main protagonist, a 28-year old Long Beach man named Jimmy Rausch. Essentially, Jimmy wants to be like Hef, but he’s clueless, and nothing like the iconic publisher, which only adds to the book’s humor. However, Jimmy has a simple plan: to use the Internet in an attempt transform himself into a playboy worthy of his hero Hef. Jimmy even shares his hilarious erotic encounters or what he calls his “Playboy training” with his idol through explicit e-mails or e-males. What Jimmy fails to realize is that his naughty adventures with women he meets online truly border on the ridiculous and the absurd, and hardly live up to Playboy’s sexy and cool tradition. Yet by the novel’s close, Jimmy continues to hope for a coveted invitation to the Playboy Mansion from Hef himself.
“Since I had my first Playboy Magazine subscription in my mid teens, I have been fascinated with the Playboy mystique, and the interesting and unconventional life of publisher Hugh Hefner,” said Pappas, a Costa Mesa resident and Costa Mesa High School graduate. “Hef and his magazine represent for me (and many others) a peek into a sexy, wonderful, hedonistic and classy world that fueled my adolescent and later adult dreams.”
Pappas said inspiration for his novel is actually a literary one — Ring Lardner’s dark and comedic short story Haircut. Haircut is told by a barber while giving a haircut to a customer. The barber relates a series of shocking anecdotes revealing that he is a closed-minded, uptight citizen, and condones the harassment of those who don’t fit into the strict community standards of the town he lives in. However, the barber remains oblivious to how he looks to the reader as he tell his troubling and ugly tales.
“I have admired Lardner’s story since I first read it in my high school English class,” said Pappas. “I thought it might be interesting to create a character that shared his wild tales of desperation with Hef via the modern convenience of e-mail. Jimmy is pretty much as clueless as the barber in Lardner’s story in that he doesn’t realize how embarrassing and pathetic he looks in comparison to Hef’s cool example and lifestyle.”
The entire novel is told through a series of e-mails between Jimmy and his lovers, and those Jimmy sends to Hef to keep him updated with the progress of his so-called “Playboy training”. Jimmy’s female lovers are also given a voice in this novel as their e-mails are forwarded to Hef and hence shared with the readers.
Yet the highlight of the book is Jimmy’s hilarious e-mails to his hero Hef.
“That is the core of my novel and what makes it unique from any other erotica book out there right now, “ Pappas said.
Pappas added that Dear Hef does have some similarities with his previous novel Monogamy Sucks in that it is another strong dose of a real life humorous erotica.
“Internet hook ups are pretty much the norm these days. People of all ages are using the Internet to find sex, dating, companionship, and friends,” said Pappas.
According to some surveys and experts, the main reason hooking up is so popular among younger people in their teens and twenties is that in the United States and other Western countries, the age at which people marry for the first time has been steadily creeping up.
“My character Jimmy is more naive, younger and oblivious than Jake Dalmas, the protagonist of Monogamy Sucks. Unlike Jake, it is debatable whether Jimmy learns anything by the end of Dear Hef, which has a much darker and hilarious ending than Monogamy Sucks. But Dear Hef is still funny and sexy, and Jimmy does share some of Jake’s sarcastic wit and humor in describing his sexual foibles and his encounters with the women he meets. I once again leave nothing out or hold anything back in addressing sexual and controversial topics.”
Pappas said he had been writing his novel off and on since 2003 while he also worked toward eventually getting his latest novel Monogamy Sucks published.
“This book project is very loosely based on my own Internet adventures,” Pappas said. “but it is still a work of fiction. I wanted to honestly show the good, bad and ugly of Internet sex and dating as I did with swinging in Monogamy Sucks. I was curious to find out if the Internet would make finding sex and lovers easier, but I have discovered that online life is no different from off line life. The same principles apply. Sex and dating is never so simple.”
Pappas said he has written a paranormal erotica story for a print anthology entitled INDULGENCE that comes out Oct. 19 by Lazy Day Publishing. Pappas also has started a sequel to Monogamy Sucks, and he is also planning a sequel for Dear Hef to come out in the next couple of years.
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Congratulations George on the release of Dear Hef. I’ve picked up my copy already and can’t wait to read it! I invite all readers to comment and offer George best wishes for his success.
George Pappas is a Los Angeles-based novelist, blogger, poet and lyricist. Lazy Day Publishing released his novels of erotic fiction Monogamy Sucks in December 2010 and Dear Hef in September 2011 as e-books. Monogamy Sucks explores intriguing notions about monogamy, relationships, casual sex and the swinging lifestyle. In Dear Hef, the dark side of Internet hook ups meets the Playboy cool of Hugh Hefner. Hilarity ensues as the book’s protagonist Jimmy Rausch shares his sordid tales with his hero Hef through E-male in this sexy novel of online sex and dating. In addition, Pappas is writing a story for a paranormal erotica print anthology entitled Indulgence also set to be released by Lazy Day Publishing in October 19, 2011.
Pappas is a lifelong resident of southern California and has been writing fiction since he was 15. When he’s not writing, Pappas enjoys traveling, music, reading his favorite novelists Henry Miller and Anais Nin, watching films, exploring life’s many adventures and pleasures, and living near the ocean.
George was originally interviewed for Inside the Author’s Mind on Feb. 18, 2011.
Filed under Author Promotions
I love these guys! Flight of the Conchords is a New Zealand comedy duo made up of Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement. They have numerous videos, so check them out.
September’s Humor Month continues with “Too Many Dicks on the Dance Floor.”
Have fun,
eden
Filed under Musical Mondays
Junying Kirk is a lovely author who lives in England after moving there from China in 1988. She was very gracious to interview me on her fantastic blog.
Hop over and read here when you get a chance. We’d love to hear from you.
Junying is the author of Trials of Life and The Same Moon, the first two novels of her Journey to the West trilogy.
Hit on the book covers to learn more about Junying’s fantastic work.
eden
Filed under Important Announcements
It’s humour month, and I heard the funniest thing last week that I just had to share it. I took my cousin Susan, out for her birthday, and we got on the topic of the worst jobs we’d ever had.
She definitely took the cake when she told me she had worked on an assembly line—for fruitcakes nonetheless! Her job was to put four cherries on top of the round fruitcakes—2 green and 2 red. The green ones had to be placed across one another, as did the red ones. When she tried to change it up a bit, she was scolded by the manager for her creativity!
“Who knew that people eat fruitcake all year round?” she said.
(No kidding, I don’t eat it ANY time of the year).
I thought her story was hilarious, and it reminded me of the classic candy factory scene from “I Love Lucy.” Even though this clip is almost sixty years old (1952), it’s still one of the all-time comedy greats. If you’ve never seen it, you’re in for a treat. (All puns in this post intended)!
Comment with your worst job ever and enjoy the video.
eden
Filed under Revelations & Humor
These guys continue my humor month with this campy video. They are much TOO SEXY for themselves and my blog!
Enjoy,
eden
Filed under Musical Mondays
I wasn’t going to write about the 10 year anniversary of 9/11, but I find it impossible not to.
The day will forever be etched in my mind with horrific images and sounds, along with a feeling of helplessness.
I can only comment on one thing that makes sense to me, and that’s honouring those who were killed. Of the nearly 3000 who died, 26 of them were Canadian or had strong Canadian connections.
Let’s not forget them and all those who lost their lives that day.
Michael Arczynski — The 45-year-old sports enthusiast from Vancouver was a senior vice-president of Aon Corp.’s Manhattan office. He and his wife, Lori, who was raised in Montreal, had three children after their marriage in 1990. Lori gave birth to a fourth child, named for his late father, after the attack. Arczynski, who loved to ski near Vancouver and spent a lot of time with family in Vermont, also left behind three daughters from his first marriage.
Garnet (Ace) Bailey — The 53-year-old director of pro scouting for the National Hockey League’s Los Angeles Kings was a native of Lloydminster, Sask. He was aboard United Airlines Flight 175 when it crashed into the World Trade Center’s south tower. He was a veteran of 11 NHL seasons as a player with the Boston Bruins, the Detroit Red Wings, the St. Louis Blues and the Washington Capitals. He moved to the World Hockey Association for the 1978-79 season and joined the Edmonton Oilers where he was a linemate of teenage phenomenon Wayne Gretzky. Bailey ended his playing career in 1980 after he accumulated seven Stanley Cup rings and turned to coaching. He is survived by his wife, Katherine, and son, Todd. Katherine has started the Ace Bailey Children’s Fund, which supports play centres and programs at the Tufts New England Medical Center in Boston.
David Barkway — The 34-year-old executive with BMO Nesbitt Burns in Toronto was in the office of Cantor Fitzgerald on the 105th floor of the north tower. He sent an electronic message to his Toronto colleagues, saying, “We need help … This is not a joke.” Barkway was in New York with his wife, Cindy, for a three-day business trip just days after celebrating his birthday. After his death, the avid golfer nicknamed Barky was remembered by friends in Toronto as a bright and thoughtful leader who loved fine cigars, high-tech stereos and trips to the cottage. The couple has two young sons, one who was born in January 2002 and named David after his father. The David Barkway Memorial Scholarship in Economics was set up by the Department of Economics at Carleton University to honour his memory and life and is awarded to a high-achieving fourth year economics student.
Ken Basnicki — The 48-year-old father of two was in the north tower attending a conference for BEA Systems, the software firm he worked for in Toronto. He was last heard from at 8:55 a.m. in a cellphone call to his mother from an office on the 106th floor. His wife, Maureen, a former flight attendant grounded in Germany at the time, said he had a boundless passion for golf, skiing, snowboarding and his Harley Davidson motorcycle. In the five years since her husband’s death, Maureen has started the Canadian Coalition Against Terror and is lobbying for legislation that would allow Canadians to sue countries or groups that support terrorism.
Jane Beatty — A native of Britain, Beatty, 53, lived in Ontario for more than 20 years before moving to the United States to work as a technical supervisor at Marsh and McLennan Cos. Inc. in the World Trade Center’s north tower. She worked on the 96th floor of the north tower and phoned her husband Bob just before the plane hit. Three weeks before she died, she celebrated her fifth anniversary of surviving breast cancer. She had two grown sons.
Joseph Collison — Collison was born in Toronto in 1951 and moved to New York City more than 15 years ago. He was on the 102nd floor of the north tower, where he worked in the mail room of Kidder, Peabody & Co., according to his sister-in-law, Janet Collison. He was buried in Mississauga next to his parents. At the time of his death, Collison, who was not married, was hoping to adopt a young boy in New York whom he cared for.
Cynthia Connolly — Connolly, 40, transferred from insurance firm Aon Corp.’s Montreal offices to New York in 1999. She and her husband, Donald Poissant, married in 1998 and lived in Metuchen, N.J., with their Airedale-German shepherd, Shadow, and pet cat, Obi. People in her neighbourhood fondly remembered Connolly, four-foot-three, struggling to control her dog as they walked through the area. Her mother recalled her as “loving and caring,” always showing a soft spot for stray animals who she would bring home when she was a child.
Arron Dack — The 39-year-old father of two was known to his family and friends for his ability to succeed in anything he tried. Dack was born in England, but moved to Canada with his parents in 1970. The senior executive with Encompys was attending a conference in the north tower of the World Trade Center when the first plane hit. He called his wife Abigail Carter and calmly asked her to call 911 since he thought a small bomb had gone off. Carter, who lived in New Jersey at the time but has since moved to Seattle, started two support groups for widows. He is survived by two children, Olivia and Carter.
Frank Joseph Doyle — The 39-year-old Detroit native was married to Kimmy Chedel of St. Adele, Que. He was an American citizen whose parents were from the Ottawa valley, and he had a home in Canada. The executive vice-president of Keefe, Bruyette and Woods left two children, Zoe and Garrett. Doyle, a gifted athlete who did a triathlon the summer before he died, was living in New Jersey and working on the 89th floor of the second tower. “He said, ‘You have to promise me every day for the rest of their lives you’ll tell Zoe and Garrett how much I love them, and I didn’t realize that he was saying goodbye, he was just so brave and so strong,'” said Chedel. She created “Team Frank” in her husband’s honour — a collection of family and friends who participate in athletic events worldwide. Doyle’s friends from Bowdoin College also established a memorial scholarship in his name for outstanding athletes.
Christine Egan — The 55-year-old Health Canada nurse epidemiologist from Winnipeg was visiting her younger brother’s office on the 105th floor in the second tower of the World Trade Center. Friends and family said the woman with a beaming smile was one of the most energetic, fun-loving people they knew. Egan was raised in England and moved to Canada in the late 60s. She taught at the University of Manitoba and received a PhD in community health services. Egan also had a love of Canada’s North, where she had practised as a nurse. A memorial scholarship was set up in her name at the University of Manitoba for promising Nunavut nursing students. Egan’s partner Ellen Judd said she was “good, generous person who was full of vitality.”
Michael Egan — The 51-year-old lived in New Jersey and worked on the 105th floor of the World Trade Center at the insurance firm Aon Corp. The father of two boys moved to the New York area from Montreal in 1991 after immigrating to Canada to follow his sister Christine. She happened to be visiting him on Sept. 11 and was also killed in the attack. Michael spent much of his time introducing his son Matthew, who has Down syndrome, to various sports. His passion, his wife Anna has said, “was to make Matthew as happy as he could be.”
Albert Elmarry — The 30-year-old moved from Toronto to the United States in 1999 to work in computer support for Cantor Fitzgerald on the 103rd floor of one of the towers. He had worked for IBM Canada when in Toronto. Elmarry, a devoutly religious man who started each day with a prayer, met his wife, Irinie, on a visit to his native Egypt. Irinie gave birth to a daughter nearly six months after her husband was killed.
Meredith Ewart and Peter Feidelberg — The Montreal couple moved to the United States in 1997 and married in March 2000. One month before they died, they returned to Montreal for a second wedding reception with family and friends. Ewart, 29, and Feidelberg, 34, lived in Hoboken, N.J., and both had offices on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center’s south tower, where they worked at Aon Corp. At the time of the attacks, Meredith’s father, Robert Ewart, frantically called hospitals and the police in New York and at one point thought Feidelberg had survived based on a false Internet report. Friends remembered Feidelberg for his adventurous and competitive spirit, and his athletic interests, which included basketball, mountain biking, scuba diving and running the 1998 New York City Marathon. Friends and coworkers say Ewart shared her husband’s athletic pursuits and was always rife with stories of their outdoor adventures. They said they were in awe of Ewart’s beauty and intelligence.
Alexander Filipov — Filipov, 70, was born in Regina and lived in Concord, Mass. He was on American Airlines Flight 11 when it hit the World Trade Center, just days before his 44th anniversary. An electrical engineer with three sons, Filipov became a U.S. citizen in 1962. His widow, Loretta, said he never slowed down, trying bungee jumping at age 60 and carrying on with his favourite pastimes — golf, skiing and music.
Ralph Gerhardt — The 34-year-old vice-president with Cantor Fitzgerald called his parents in Toronto, just after the first plane hit the north tower. “Something just happened at the WTC. We either got hit by a bomb or plane. I am OK. We are OK. I love you, but I have to go now. We are evacuating. Call you later,” Gerhardt said in a message to his father, Hans. But no more calls came after his son said he was going to look for his girlfriend, who was also killed. His father described him as a very family-oriented man who was very close to his parents.
Stuart Lee — Lee had returned a day before the attacks from his Korean homeland where he had taken his wife, Lynn Udbjorg, to show off his roots. He was vice-president of integrated services for DataSynapse, a technology company that serves the financial industry. The 30-year-old spent the last hour of his life e-mailing his company, trying to figure out how to get out of the building where he was attending a conference on the 106th floor. Lee, who grew up in Vancouver, loved travelling the globe with his wife, who described him as a romantic and someone known for his generosity to his friends and family.
Mark Ludvigsen — The 32-year-old native of Rothesay, N.B., moved to the United States with his family at age seven. The avid rugby player graduated from Virginia’s College of William & Mary and worked as a bond broker at Keefe, Bruyette and Woods. He and his wife of three years, Maureen, lived in Manhattan. Ludvigsen was working on the 89th floor of the south tower, but managed to leave a message for his mother at 9 a.m. “Mother, now don’t you worry. I’m in the other tower. I’m fine and I’ll call you later,” he said.
Bernard Mascarenhas — The 54-year-old native of Newmarket, Ont., worked for Marsh Canada, whose parent company, Marsh and McLennan Cos. Inc., had offices at the World Trade Center. The chief information officer for the company was on the 97th floor of the north tower as part of a five-day business trip to New York. Marsh had about 1,900 employees in the two towers; 295 were killed. Mascarenhas left behind his wife, Raynette, a son, Sven, and a daughter, Jaclyn.
Colin McArthur — The 52-year-old Glasgow native moved to Toronto in 1977 to work as an insurance broker. He moved to Montreal in 1986 after marrying his wife, Brenda. McArthur became a Canadian citizen and worked as a deputy managing director at Aon Corp. The couple relocated to New York in 1997 where McArthur continued to work for the same company on the 104th floor of the South Tower. He was a keen golfer who loved the game, despite his dubious achievements on the course, according to his wife. She set up the Colin McArthur Postgraduate Scholarship at his alma mater, the University of Glasgow.
Michael Pelletier — The 36-year-old commodities broker for TradeSpark, a division of trading firm Cantor Fitzgerald, was on the 105th floor of the north tower. He called his wife, Sophie, and told her he was trapped in the building and that he loved her. Pelletier’s Vancouver-based father refused to believe at first that his son, a strikingly handsome natural athlete who excelled at hockey, wouldn’t get out. “We were saying there’s gotta be a way, we know Mike, he’s a survivor, he’ll find some way out.” At the time of his death, he had a three-year-old daughter and one-year-old son.
Donald Robson — A Toronto native, Robson, 52, had lived in the United States for 20 years. He was a partner and bond broker for Cantor Fitzgerald on the 103rd floor of the north tower of the World Trade Center. He and his wife, Kathy, had two sons, Geoff and Scott. He had been planning 24th wedding anniversary celebrations with his wife. “Then bang, it’s all over just like that,” she said from her Long Island home a year after the attacks. The friends Robson left behind described him as a “fun-loving guy who lit up every room that he entered.”
Ruffino (Roy) Santos — Santos, 37, a native of Manila, moved to British Columbia with his family in the 1980s. He moved to New York in the late 1990s, where he worked for Guy Carpenter as a computer consultant. He was supposed to leave the 94th floor of the World Trade Center the week after he died to work for Accenture. His mother, Aurora, and her two other sons went to New York for the first anniversary. “I want to see Ground Zero to pray and bring some flowers and candles,” she said.
Vladimir Tomasevic — A native of Yugoslavia, Tomasevic, 36, moved to Canada in 1994. He lived in Toronto with his wife, Tanja, and was vice-president of software development for Optus E-Business Solutions. He was on his first visit to New York and was attending a financial conference on 106th floor of World Trade Center’s north tower. “He was always there for anyone — that’s what we miss about him the most,” his wife has said. Tanja, who received a small amount of remains and a piece of shredded material from his pants, had urged the Canadian government to provide more support for the families of 9-11 victims.
Chantal (Chanti) Vincelli — The 38-year-old former Montrealer worked as a marketing assistant at DataSynapse Inc. Vincelli moved to New York in the late 1990s and lived in Harlem with her cats. She was setting up a kiosk for a trade show on the 106th floor of the north tower. Her brother Anthony said the woman who dreamed of becoming a talk-show host “had charisma, she had wit.” The local grocer named her the Harlem Princess and the name stuck.
Debbie Williams — Williams, 35, worked for international insurance company Aon Corp. for 15 years. She and her husband, Darren, moved to Hoboken, N.J., after being transferred to New York City by their employer. Williams, a Montreal native, gave birth to their only child six months after settling in Hoboken. A friend and neighbour set up the Debbie Williams Memorial Park Fund to install a new playground named after Williams at a Hudson County park.
LeRoy Homer — Homer, 36, was the co-pilot of United Airlines Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania after being taken over by hijackers. Homer was an American citizen, but his wife Melodie was Canadian, having grown up in Hamilton. His family said Homer always wanted to be a pilot. He was just 15 when he started flight instruction in a Cessna 152. The couple, who lived in Marlton, N.J., have a young daughter. Homer served in the U.S. forces, serving in Desert Shield and Desert Storm, and later supporting operations in Somalia. He received many commendations during his military career. He joined United Airlines in May 1995 and received awards posthumously for his actions on board Flight 93. The LeRoy W. Homer Jr. Foundation was established to provide financial support and encouragement to young people who wish to pursue careers as professional pilots. It also promotes awareness about aviation careers to disadvantaged youth.
Filed under Revelations & Humor
I’m happy to welcome back one of my favorite people, author Larry Enright to introduce his new book, A KING IN A COURT OF FOOLS.
He’s conducting quite the unusual interview with his main character, Tom Ryan, who also happens to be an author.
Take it away, Larry. 😉
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Is this the book that launched a thousand stories…?
Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing the infamous Tom Ryan, ten year-old hero of the newly released A King in a Court of Fools, and author of the lost journal, the Book of Tom.
As background, A King in a Court of Fools begins with a book — The Book of Tom — a journal writing assignment from Tom Ryan’s sixth-grade teacher, Sister Jeanne Lorette. That’s what she called it anyway. Tom called it punishment. In it, he chronicles the adventures of the Caswell Gang, a group of siblings and friends with two things in common — their love of adventure and their allegiance to Tom, their king.
The 1950s book was misplaced a long time ago, and all the children have since grown up, but Harry, Tom’s youngest brother, still remembers it and retells for us one of its stories in a nostalgic, heartwarming, and humorous way that will have you wishing for adventure, too.
I sincerely hope you find the interview with Tom as much fun as I did trying to keep him from destroying my office.
Larry: Welcome, Tom and thank you in advance for behaving yourself during the interview. I know you have an appointment after school in the principal’s office for detention that you’re so looking forward to, so on to the first question — when and why did you decide to become a writer?
Tom: I “decided,” as you call it, when Sister Jeanne Lorette made me do it by assigning the punishment of keeping a journal for the rest of the year. It was a bum rap, a set-up I tell you. I had nothing to do with those thousand caterpillars released inside the eighth grade classroom. The green stains on my shirt were purely coincidental and all the evidence was circumstantial. There’s no justice in a court of parents.
She thinks she got me, but I fooled her. I used her punishment to keep a journal of my gang — the Caswell Gang. That’s my brothers and sisters, and four other friends from my sixth grade class. I’m their king, and boy did we have fun.
Larry: It sounds like you enjoyed writing it.
Tom: Funny thing is, I did. I actually had a blast writing about our adventures. Can you believe it? I never knew being a king could be so much fun.
Larry: King, eh? That’s interesting. I’m sure your parents had some input into that. Tell me, where do you do your best writing?
Tom: At the Isaly’s Dairy Store up on Main Street, home of the Klondike Bar. Never heard of the Klondike? Let me explain it this way. A great man once said that the history of the world could only be appreciated by reading it from the Book of Tom, so I’ll read you one of the things I wrote.
A vanilla ice cream square dipped in milk chocolate — that was the Klondike bar created by the Isaly Dairy Company of Youngstown, Ohio in the early 1920s. They named it after the Klondike River in Alaska because Alaska is covered with vanilla ice cream all year long and the Klondike is really a river of chocolate. Polar bears love ice cream. They eat so much of it they turn white, and the more they eat, the whiter they get. Most people don’t know that, but that’s because the polar bears scare them off. They want all the ice cream for themselves. Why else would they have a polar bear, a big scary one, on the Klondike’s foil wrapper? Come on, use your head.
See what I mean? We didn’t know Isaly’s was the largest dairy chain in the world. We thought we had the only one right there in our neighborhood. But one thing we did know was that it was the only place you could get Klondike bars and Skyscraper cones. That makes it the best place in the world to play nickel hockey on the oversized counters, or stop off for something cold after a hard day at the movies, or to write about the Caswells.
Larry: I’ll bet you met a lot of interesting people there. Who would you say was your biggest influence?
Tom: My archenemy, Frankie Marx. Just say his name and it’s enough to make my blood boil. Frankie’s too smart for his own good — the only boy with straight A’s in the sixth grade. Doesn’t he realize how tough that makes it on everyone? And Frankie is his own public relations department complete with loudspeaker and regular public service announcements — “I got an A on the spelling test, Tom. What did you get?” Blah, blah, blah.
Worse, Frankie is the teacher’s pet, every teacher’s pet. He has that market cornered and was even voted by the gang most likely to open a pet store before he was twelve. All the girls like Frankie, too. Every day his Mom packs extra Kit-Kat bars for him to give to his favorite girl friends. They fawn over him and fight over them. Every day. It’s disgusting. He’s cornered the market on girls, too. And worse still, Frankie’s a blabbermouth. No secret is safe with him. Not even guy secrets. There is nothing about Frankie Marx to like and everything to hate. It’s good versus evil, right versus wrong, superhero versus archenemy. How’s that for an influence?
Larry: Well, you certainly set us straight on that. Are you fortunate enough to be able to write full-time?
Tom: I have too many other things to do, like last week after the big rain we had to build the Hoover Dam in the street. It rained so hard the side yard had become a lake stretching from the house to the woods. It spilled over the curb into the street feeding a raging river that ran from the woods to the corner, ending in a waterfall at the storm drain. We dammed the river with mud and leaves but we needed a floodgate. Good thing we’d been collecting bricks for months from the Shannons’ house while it was under construction and hid most of them in the woods to use when we built our fort. The few specials that we’d found we kept stashed in the garage. They were special because they had three holes in them — perfect for a floodgate. We stuck one in the dam, and water poured through the holes in three streams, allowing the puddle to drain, just like the Hoover Dam, better than the Hoover Dam. We also tried to generate electric power from it, but that didn’t work out so well.
Larry: Very ingenious. I’m sure the streets department thought so, too. If Hollywood came knocking who would you want to play you in a movie?
Tom: It would have to be Tom Terrific. You’ve probably seen him on Captain Kangaroo. Not only is he terrific, but his name is Tom, and he lives in a tree house just like our secret hideout in the woods. It’s a cherry tree, deep in the woods, but not just any old cherry tree, The Cherry Tree. It’s the tallest tree around and if you climb to the top everything you see belongs to the Caswell gang. And guess what? Our claim saying just that is staked by a sign tacked to the base of the tree, warning off anybody who happens by. We defend it with our lives. Those are the rules.
Larry: I’ll keep that in mind if ever I go that way. Next question. Name six people, dead or alive, you’d love to have as guests seated around your dinner table.
Tom: That’s not a question.
Larry: You know what I mean.
Tom: Fine. Captain Midnight, Bill Mazeroski, The Cisco Kid, Zorro, The Lone Ranger, and Rin Tin Tin – but he’s need a special doggy chair, I think.
Larry: What one piece of advice have you found the most important in your writing career?
Tom: The most important advice I got was from Sister Del Rey, the school disciplinarian at Saint Catherine’s. She never smiles, never frowns, never laughs. She’s never angry. That’s because she is a robot Sister with super powers that the nuns got from the Sears catalog. When her robot eyes look around a room, you’d better duck down under your desk. Her advice to me was “Do it, Tom, or you’ll spend the rest of the year in detention getting acquainted with every piece of dirt on every floor in the school.” Good advice.
Larry: Yes, I should think so. And finally, if you were stranded on a desert island what three books would you choose to have with you?
Tom: Any issue of Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang, The Hardy Boys – The Tower Treasure, and another composition notebook so I could start another journal. I could get used to this writing thing.
Larry: Thank you for taking the time out of your busy detention schedule to be interviewed and I wish you all the best with your book.
Tom: And thank you for interviewing me. I have to go now and sit quietly for the next two hours with Sister Del Rey. If you see me wandering around like a zombie it’s probably because she ate my brain.
Eden: Larry and Tom, thanks for such an entertaining interview! From what I can tell, no fist fight or temper tantrum broke out during it, so Bravo to you both! ‘Twas a pleasure to host you!
About the book: A King in a Court of Fools, originally published as a serial novel, is Larry Enright’s second published work. It is humorous, nostalgic fiction about kids growing up in the 1950s and has been already enjoyed by ages ten through ninety-one. It is available in both eBook and paperback from Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com.
Click for details to Purchase or sample A King in a Court of Fools.
About the author: Larry Enright was born to Irish Catholic first-generation immigrants and raised in Pittsburgh. After college, he moved to the Philadelphia area where for the past 40 years he has filled his life with many careers including musician, teacher, programmer, researcher, and writer. He has written three other novels, including the best-selling Four Years from Home. Visit Larry Enright’s site.
Larry was originally interviewed, August 19, 2011 for INSIDE THE AUTHOR’S MIND.
Filed under Author Promotions
This month’s guest blogger is Tim Queeney. His new book, George in London was featured recently on my blog, and he’s been kind enough to return and write something as part of my September Humour Month.
Of course, he’s an expert in the field of humor. I’ve been a fan of Tim’s satirical news site, Height of Eye for some time now and encourage you to check it out.
Please welcome the wily and witty, Tim Queeney.
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What makes someone attractive? The obvious answer is looks — the hot bod and the pretty face (or the hunky bod and the handsome face). But there is another type of attraction, too. Sometimes we are captured by another person’s wit, charm and charisma. They are just so damn fun, funny or engaging, we don’t care so much what they look like. Remember that guy or girl in school who was no beauty but had the opposite sex hanging on their every word?
The idea of differing physical and verbal attractiveness is perhaps most famously played out in the story of the 16th century French soldier Cyrano de Bergerac. Cyrano is witty and charming but has an enormous nose that limits his visual appeal. He must woo the beautiful Roxanne for a man who’s a hunk, but also a dolt. Cyrano remains hidden, feeding wonderful lines to the hunk, who repeats them as if they are his own. Cyrano burns with desire even as he crafts his lovely language. He wishes that Roxanne could only see the beauty of his words and choose him over the hunk, no matter that he has a prodigious proboscis (of course, if Cyrano’s nose is that big it does raise the question of the sizing of his other body parts – perhaps Roxanne is missing out on something good here).
In my novel, George in London, I have fun using this idea for a nighttime scene where one man woos a woman for another and a double case of mistaken identity occurs.
One night during his adventure in London, the 19-year-old George Washington believes he has been summoned to a moonlit meeting with the beautiful French countess Sophie. She waits for him inside her coach, parked next to the somewhat suggestively named Marybone Basin. But Washington is too nervous to speak for himself, fearing he will say the wrong thing and drive her away forever. Darius Attucks, an African American mariner, is George’s companion on their trip to London and it is Darius who hits upon a scheme to woo Sophie. Darius will speak for George — who he calls “Geo” — until the countess eagerly invites George into her coach for an amorous encounter.
In his playful exchanges with the woman in the coach, Darius uses the language of war as a metaphor for sexual conquest. He likens sex to the siege of an 18th century Vauban fort. During such a siege, the attacker digs a series of steadily closer trenches that bring the attackers nearer to the very heart of the fort. The defenders attempt to defend the fort with cannon fire, but they must be relentlessly accurate in their cannonades. Because as the trenches get closer, the attackers set up their own cannon that can destroy the cannon inside the fort. If the defenders’ cannon is knocked out of action, the fate of the fort is sealed. The attackers can dig their covering trenches right up to the walls and then rush the fort’s defenses and overwhelm it.
But enough military history already! Below is the excerpt from George in London with Darius playing Cyrano.
“The dark of night approaches and soon we will hide in the folds of its cloak. Since I carry none of the emotion that burdens you, let me speak for you. She will stay within the coach while I converse with her. Given the quality of my education, my facility for English rhetoric is excellent — certainly better than your own. She need never know that it is me who speaks to her. You will wait and when she bids you enter, so you shall.”
“It does have a certain genius,” Geo admitted. “Though I must protest the assertion that you speak the King’s English better than me.”
“How could the son of a pig farmer from the swamps of Virginia have better speech than a man educated at the finest school in New York City? The idea is preposterous on its face.”
Geo grudgingly conceded my point and soon we were in place near the lady’s coach. The coach lanterns were weak and the footmen who attended the countess were happy to see the tall, young figure of Geo step into the light. They had been told of his arrival, so they quickly repaired to the far side of the coach to commence games of dice and to drink gin. Geo then stepped back into the shadows and I stepped forward.
A female voice called out through the yellow curtains that masked the coach windows. “Who is that without?” The timbre of the voice was rather different than what I had expected from the countess, but there was no time to delay.
“’Tis I, my lady,” I replied.
“Ah,” she gurgled contentedly. “I am most pleased you have come.”
“How could I do otherwise? To gaze once again at your beauty would draw me from the farthest reaches of Araby or even from darkest Africa.” Geo frowned at my mention of Africa, supposing perhaps that I might give myself away, but I waved him off. He could be such a dolt.
“When I saw you today, I was taken with your manly prospect,” she said. “Little did I realize you also had a tongue of silver.”
“As you say, my lady. I possess a tongue of silver to sing your praises, ears of diamond to hear your wishes, a heart of gold to treasure your love and a root of the firmest British oak with which to be of service.”
She laughed and her hand started to open the curtain.
“Pray, my lady, wait further before drawing back the cloth,” I said quickly. “I am sensible of great delight in prolonging the moment of first entry.”
She was not adverse to my suggestion, though she pretended to be so. “Shall we banter like this all night? I grow warm here in my coach.”
“It would be a pleasure unsurpassed simply to continue this intercourse ’twixt us ’til old Sol peeked over the world’s edge,” I said.
“Would be pleasant, true, but I’d be consumed by the heat of my blood, which rises apace. You must climb aboard and make bodily plain the sweet ecstasy of your words. Do you so mercilessly tease the girls of America?”
“In matters of Venus, as in matters of Mars, there can be no quarter given. First must the citadel be besieged and made ready for the final thrust. When the wall is breached, then the attack can be consummated.”
“Oh, indeed,” she sighed. “You have most assuredly effected a breach, sir, and my inner keep lies open for your triumphal entry.”
I smiled in the dark at her eagerness. “Even now my forces strain forward, tight against their constraining trenches. The trumpet is up, ready for the final signal.”
A sigh of frustration came from within the coach. “Damn it! You must rush forward into the breach now! I will brook no further delay!” With this, she flung open the door and leaned forward with her arms outstretched.
I had expected to see the pretty young face and comely figure of the Countess d’ Abbeville. I was instead confronted with another woman entirely. She was older and rather more shopworn than the countess. Leaning forward with an attitude of lustful abandon, a position underlined by her loosened clothes, bare skin and flushed complexion, was none other than Fanny Chase. My surprise was so great I found myself momentarily struck dumb.
And to be fair, the surprise for Lady Chase must have been equally great. Instead of a tall, dashing young white gentleman, she was confronted, instead, with a shorter, somewhat more weathered (though I like to think still dashing in my own way), African man. Though she knew me as well as she knew Geo, Lady Chase reacted as if she had seen Beelzebub himself. She screamed wildly as she attempted to quickly tighten all the items of her clothing that she had loosened.
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George in London available for Kindle at Amazon
Goodreads
Thanks Tim for sharing your humorous excerpt! To my readers, have you had any funny encounters with mistaken identity? Please comment and let us know!
Filed under Eden's Guest Bloggers
Today, I’m over at romance writer, Layna Pimentel’s blog as part of her week-long series called “Writing Erotica, Erotic Romance and Pushing The Boundaries.”
She is featuring a different author each day this week, and I’m honored to start it off. Please come for a visit!
Layna is the author of Betrayal and Seduction.
eden
Filed under Important Announcements
This is a HILARIOUS performance of “Hocus Pocus” by Focus. After watching the keyboard player, you’ll want to bang your head against a wall to calm down.
Have fun and enjoy,
eden
Filed under Musical Mondays
Tim Queeney is a man of many talents—satirist, journalist, and author. He has a new book out, and I’m happy … no, I’m hysterically happy to have him tell you a bit more about it today. Tim will be guest blogging for me next week, but until then, find out more about George in London.
Whoever said History was boring and not sexy has never read the seductive words of Tim Queeney ….
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The gracious and talented Eden Baylee has kindly invited me to introduce my new book George in London, a comic historical tale of 19-year-old George Washington’s trip to London in 1751 seeking his fortune.
This isn’t the stuffy, Founding Father with the bad teeth. This George is a young man still finding his voice. And for George, his risky journey succeeds beyond his dreams. He gains wealth, property and the love of a beautiful French countess — until somehow it all goes wrong.
George is not alone on this journey through London’s streets and squares. He is accompanied on his adventure by Darius Attacks, an African American master mariner. In addition to acting as George’s guide and his second in duels and other affairs of honor, Darius also records the story of their adventure. Darius subtitles his diary: “A true account of young George Washington’s adventures and romances in England in 1751 – as recorded by his companion, master mariner and son of African nobility, Darius Attucks of New York.”
But how could historians have missed this wild story of a young George Washington? The answer is simple: Darius’ manuscript was hidden within the very foundation stones of Mount Vernon, Washington’s Virginia estate. It was discovered by Professor Edward G. Portobello, former head of the department of history at Custis College in Virginia. Prof. Portobello is currently free pending appeal and is cooperating fully with state and federal authorities.
Especially intriguing is that George — nicknamed “Geo” by Darius — had won the love of Sophie, the Countess d’Abbeville. And from Darius’ account it seems they were certainly headed for betrothal and marriage. Yet we know nothing of this French noblewoman who captured George’s heart, as we can see from this excerpt from George in London:
Geo was like a sailor swept overboard. He felt himself floating round the square in a turquoise sea under a loving sun’s caress. He could do little else but relate his own feelings of love and devotion. He confessed he had thought of little else but her from the first time he saw her. “I chopped down many a tree thinking of you.”
“I do not know what that means,” she admitted, “but it sounds delightfully improper and very endearing.”
Emboldened by her response, Geo asked her the question that burned in him, like a Promethean fire delivered of Heaven. “Do you love me as I love you?” he asked.
She reached up and threw her arms around his neck and kissed him, “Yes, I am quite sure I do.”
To Geo it seemed only a moment had passed since he and Sophie began their circuits of the square, so happy was he with Sophie on his arm. But, in truth, the day had fled and the dark of night was falling fast. On this evening, the Duke of Richmond and several others of the highest rank had arranged for a celebration of His Majesty, George II’s 24 years on the throne. This took the form of a fireworks display from barges anchored in the Thames opposite Somerset House, some ways downstream from Westminster Bridge.
Geo and Sophie followed the crowds that left the market square and walked down Southampton Street, across the Strand and into the lanes leading to the river: Salisbury Street, Cecil Street, Dirty Lane. By a stroke of good luck they fell in with a party that showed them the way to the Savoy Stairs. From this perch on the river, they could see not only the fireworks barges and the king’s vessel, but a bit of the Somerset House gardens as well.
The happy couple had just sat down as the first notes of the fireworks music floated over the water. The crowd grew quiet so as to hear every measure. At the same time the colorful fireworks began. The walls and balustrades of the Somerset House gardens were outlined in sizzling red, with many great wheels of smoking fire interspersed. The initials “GR” burned in red and white letters 20-foot-high on the face of Somerset House. Meanwhile, red and white and yellow fountains of sparks popped skyward. From the barges in the river were lit a great profusion of rockets and mortar bombs that rose above the river and detonated. Soon the music was barely to be heard over the roar of rockets and the whine of shells exploding in reds, greens, blues, yellows and brilliant white, the effect of these chromatic flowers accentuated by the scattered reflections thrown back by the waters of the great river.
From the many thousands watching on shore there escaped loud exclamations of awe and delight. Geo and Sophie sat at the water’s edge, with the Virginian enclosing the countess in his arms. As the rocketry filled the sky with light, Sophie said softly, “See the red glare of the rockets.”
To which Geo replied, “Yes, and the bombs that burst in mid-air. They are most beautiful, yet they pale next to your brilliance.”
Sophie leaned her head to touch his and he hugged her closer, their eyes dazzled by the light on the river. “This is perfect, my love.”
It seems only a full reading of George in London will reveal the true reason for the beautiful Countess’ absence from the pages of Washington’s personal history.
Connect with Tim
George in London is available for Kindle at Amazon
The full range of electronic formats and a paperback version are coming soon.
Filed under Author Promotions
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