![]() The draft of my first book Black Ice Matter was written in 2013 when I was a student in the Masters of Creative Writing program at Auckland University. I have since had many pieces of short fiction published and some poetry. GC: I started seriously writing fiction around 2009 when I began sending off my short stories and poetry to literary journals and writing competitions. ![]() VR: Can you also please tell us more about your writing career and genres? Current projects? Just a bit of background… They’re all gone now, but my grandparents still have a huge influence on me and my writing. My grandmother also came to stay with us several times when we lived at the lighthouses. I travelled a lot to Fiji as a young person and stayed with my grandparents in Suva. All beautiful and remote places in coastal Pacific Ocean settings that have had a profound effect on me and often find their way into my writing. We lived at Cape Campbell, Farewell Spit and Cape Reinga. I was born and raised in Auckland although some of my early childhood was spent living at various lighthouses where my father worked as a lighthouse keeper. ![]() Gina Cole: My mother is Fijian from the islands of Serua and Ono-i-Lau. ![]() Vaughan Rapatahana: Can you please tell us about your own background? Some reference to your Oceanic/Pacific heritage would be great. I asked Gina several questions and I am sure that you will find Gina’s responses thoughtful and interesting. This month’s Flash Frontier featured author is Gina Cole. ![]()
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![]() But her father doesn’t see this as luck but as a sign of her inferiority. Her self esteem is flagging already what with a rejection letter from El Cameno college ( school of cool cars? ), and the fact that the summer camp she’d gone to as a counselor, for years has suddenly cut back on staff and as luck would have it she was the only one not asked back. ![]() ![]() Melissa is an average 18 year old but feels stifled in her wretchedly small town life, especially under the dictatorship of her father, a brusque misogynist who constantly compares her to her seemingly perfect older brother Bob. It wouldn’t be so bad had I not seen the same father-as-bigot attitude in her last gothic. The only flaw I might have against this offering of Woolfolk’s is the almost dated woman’s movement theme that infiltrates every aspect of the story. ![]() Some other reasons it maybe unfair to pit it against Lynch is that Lynch’s last book I read – Girl in the Shadows was only 155 pages and had a larger font – a skimpier read with less time to fool around with descriptions and character growth. In some ways it seems unfair to compare the two writers – especially by the time I got done reading the Girl Cried Murder – it’s got Woolfolk’s trademark feminist touch but it is also a darn good gothic mood piece. Well I’m down to my last Windswept ( for now ) in my pair off with Dorothy Woolfolk and Miriam Lynch. ![]() ![]() ![]() This is an engaging listen from beginning to end, and wisely (without lyrics or narration) the music is left to speak for itself even individual tracks are strong taken by themselves – this is that rare soundtrack with zero filler. ![]() While many projects of this type can weigh down and become overbearing, this one certainly does not there is a good balance between dynamics, tempos, and timbres as the storyline progresses and its various elements unfold. ![]() Lovecraft’s “The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath,” eleven purely instrumental tracks following a brief spoken intro, alternating light and dark (and very dark) elements of progressive rock, electronic, symphonic, and floating ambient, occasionally informed by bits of jazz and world music. This ambitious concept album by Maryland duo Xcross is based on H.P. Xcross - Kadath - The Dream Quest (Ek Balam EBRCD001, 2007, CD) ![]() ![]() ![]() (This is my opinion, but I felt that the Big Messy Scene itself was a little overblown. (Sorry about the cumbersome sentence!) They confess the truth to each other at the summer festival, immediately followed by Devlin’s discovery of his father’s indiscretion and subsequent loud, dramatic and messy public scene. He and Gwyneth Rhys, daughter of neighboring landowner Lord Rhys, have been attracted to each other for years but due to miscommunications, shyness, misread signals and personality quirks, they each felt the other one disliked them. Unfortunately, while the series itself has promise, the opening book just didn’t fully succeed for me.ĭevlin Ware, eldest son of the Earl of Stratton, is described even in his (idealistic, naïve, bucolic, joy-filled) youth as “dour” by his neighbors. Balogh’s and I was very excited to be given early access to her new series launch. An honest review was requested but not required. Balogh for the opportunity to read an ARC of this title. ![]() ![]() ![]() Clair, at least that's what she goes by now, on set, and her presence sends Sloane's already precarious life into a tailspin when their paths collide again. But she wasn't expecting to see Campbell St. She's done this enough times that she just needs to follow the script and hit her lines. The movie is a great opportunity for her, and in spite of her ambivalence, the show must go on. Sloane Murphy's career has been careening forward for the last decade, so it doesn't matter that she doesn't like being an actress. Her ability to write her newest novel has been practically non-existent, she's all but given up on having a social life, and with the recent loss of her father, she's trying to understand what she wants for her future. She should be excited that she'll be consulting on the movie adaptation, but she's struggling. Clair never expected her first novel to catapult her to success. ![]() ![]() ![]() Īlthough he was raised in the Greek Orthodoxy and has not formally left the denomination (saying he has "great respect" for it), Metaxas has attended Calvary-St. He is Greek on his father's side and German on his mother's he was raised in a Greek Orthodox environment. Metaxas lives in Manhattan with his wife and daughter. ![]() While there, he edited the Yale Record, the nation's oldest college humor magazine. He graduated from Yale University (1984, B.A., English). ![]() Metaxas was born in the New York City neighborhood of Astoria, Queens and grew up in Danbury, Connecticut. He has also written humor, children's books and scripts for VeggieTales. He has written three biographies, Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery about William Wilberforce (2007), Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy about Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2011), Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World (2017), If You Can Keep it (2017), Fish Out of Water: A Search for the Meaning of Life (2021) and Letter to the American Church (2022). Eric Metaxas (born 1963) is an American author, speaker, and conservative radio host. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() With heart-pounding thrills and feverish pacing, Transfer of Power “mixes in a spicy broth of brutal terrorists, heroic commandos, and enough secret-agent hijinks to keep the confrontation bubbling until its flag-raising end” ( Publishers Weekly). ![]() But there’s someone waiting in the wings, someone within the Washington elite, who is determined to see Rapp’s rescue mission fail. /rebates/2f97818498347352fTransfer-Power-Vince-Flynn-18498347332fplp&. ![]() The Secret Service immediately evacuates the president to an underground bunker-and while officials argue over how best to negotiate with the enemy, Mitch Rapp, the CIA’s top counterterrorism operative, moves stealthily among the hidden corridors and secret passageways of the nation’s capital to save the hostages before the terrorists reach the president. The stately calm of a Washington morning is shattered when a group of terrorists descends, killing dozens and taking nearly one hundred hostages as they try to infiltrate the White House. Transfer Of Power (Mitch Rapp 3) What if America's most powerful leader was also its prime target On a busy Washington morning, the stately calm of the White House is shattered as terrorists gain control of the executive mansion, slaughtering dozens of people. This “roller-coaster, edge-of-your-seat thriller” ( Star-Tribune, Minneapolis) in the #1 New York Times bestselling Mitch Rapp series follows the CIA’s top operative as he must stop a massacre in Washington, DC, and save the president before terrorists reach the White House. ![]() ![]() Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011.īreathing Room by Marsha Hayles places 13-year-old Evvy in Minnesota’s fictional Loon Lake Sanatorium. The author was raised in a medical family at a TB sanatorium in Manitoba and the details are accurate. ![]() Queen of Hearts: Coming of Age in a Hospital Bed by Martha Brooks is a young-adult book, but interesting enough to be read by adults, too. The books on this list are generally available at bookstores, libraries, the publishers, or. In recognition of their personal sacrifices, I am recommending books that feature tuberculosis patients and sanatoriums. They spent months and years on bed rest with few diversions or distractions. ![]() Although our situations can be tiresome and frustrating, I think we all need a reminder that our particular type of quarantine would be envied by a population beset by several contagious and potentially fatal diseases, including tuberculosis. We have access to 24-hour entertainment and several means of communication. Perhaps social isolation is depressing enough without having it occupy your end table or bedroom dresser. I did a quick online survey of several lists and didn’t see any books about real quarantines. ![]() Quarantine reading lists abound in this year of isolation and lockdowns. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Privacy versus publicity swift success versus laborious apprenticeship national versus international association, or ownership of the celebrity - no single version of celebrity applies to all. Depending on the public interpretation of a particular writer's life and work, different tensions arise in negotiating literary celebrity. She casts doubt on the notion of a specifically Canadian response to fame. ![]() Montgomery, York demonstrates that individual authors respond differently to fame in ways that can be contradictory and complex. Using as examples three contemporary literary celebrities, Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, and Carol Shields, and four earlier popular writers, Pauline Johnson, Stephen Leacock, Mazo de la Roche, and L.M. Building on the argument that celebrity is a phenomenon firmly embraced by mainstream culture, Lorraine York examines it in relation to various tensions and conflicts within the literary community and beyond. Literary Celebrity in Canada is the first extended study of the dynamics of celebrity in the field of Canadian literature. In recent years, Canadian authors have enjoyed tremendous international success, writing novels that become Oscar-nominated films or achieve coveted success as selections for the Oprah Winfrey bookclub. ![]() ![]() It could easily become confusing and clumsy, but Mary Kay Andrews has clearly spent some time weaving threads of stories together and instead the stories keep your attention, and you’re invested in a (hopefully) successful resolution to the characters’ challenges. ![]() There’s a side story about Greer’s estranged father, one about Eb’s loser, soon-to-be-ex convict brother, and various interpersonal relationships tied to the film set. The thing I liked best about this story is that it’s as much about the various relationships as it is about Eb and Greer’s impending romance. ![]() ![]() As you can imagine, with every ideal location comes a challenge, the least of which is the “has his hands in everything in the town” mayor, Eb Thibadeaux, and then we all know where things go from there. Greer locates a town called Cypress Key that is absolutely perfect for everything the producer wants for the new film. The story centers around a woman named Greer Hennessey, who is a film location scout and set manager trying to save her career with the work on a new film she’s working on. Given my ongoing journey through chicklit/romance it’s actually kind of a surprise that this is the first Mary Kay Andrews novel I’ve given a chance for how often I recall seeing the covers of her books on the shelves. This past week I’ve been listening to Beach Town by Mary Kay Andrews. ![]() |