Featured Author - Diane Bator

 Hello! I am BWL Publishing Inc. author, Diane Bator. I’m a mystery writer and my books can be viewed and purchased by visiting https://bookswelove.net/bator-diane/ I’ve been a writer my entire life. Since I was little and learned how to scribble with crayons. I still have short stories and poems from when I was a teenager.

Back then, I had one major goal in life. I wanted to be on the Oprah Winfrey Show. In my daydreams, I was an actor or a writer and Oprah and I got on famously. Flash forward many years, a marriage, three kids, and a divorce. Oprah’s show is in reruns. I work in administration for a local theatre and get to meet actors. Oh, and I became a writer.

I’m likely not Oprah Show material at this point. Somehow, I don’t think she’s read my books nor have they been part of her book club, but I’m still a fan.

That’s okay. I write for me.

Writing is what keeps me happy and sane through all the obstacles life hurls. It gives me focus even when the world feels like it’s falling apart. As one of my friends says, it’s like breathing and the ink is in my blood.

I’ve been on several Zoom chats with some very inspiring authors through all of this. Some are encouraging, some are more focused on other things in the world right now. It’s a juggling act between the real world and our fantasy lives some days. Not everyone can keep the balls in the air all of the time. Sometimes, we need to just sit. Just rest.

If I could offer one bit of advice to anyone who wants to write but doesn’t know where to start, I’d say to start with what you ate for breakfast. Silly, right? As Julia Cameron says, sometimes we need to prime the pump. Start writing just for the sake of writing then the great—well, good—stuff will follow.

As for me, after a month and a half of being numb in this new world, I’m writing again. Chapters at a time, which is exciting after a dry spell.

For now, may I present excerpt from my two newest novels, Drop Dead Cowboy and Dead Without Shame. I hope you enjoy the excepts. I promise, there will be much more to come!

Diane Bator

Drop Dead Cowboy (Book 1 Sugarwood Mysteries)

Excerpt:

Chapter 1

“Wow, Miss Lavinia sure goes all out for Halloween, doesn’t she?” Merilee set a brown paper tray with two take-out cups on the front counter then slipped off her black leather gloves.

“In case you hadn’t noticed, her shop is always ready for Halloween. It’s her favourite day of the year.” I reached for a cup and took a whiff. Stitch’n’Time was the only thing that kept me busy and happy now that the children were on their own and I had nothing left to do at home but clean the house and stare at walls. Not that I wasn’t good at either. “Mmm, nothing like a cup of pumpkin spice tea on a chilly October day.”

Merilee Rutherford, my best friend and partner in our shop Stitch’n’Time shook her head. “Give me coffee or let me sleep.”

“What are you talking about?” I laughed. “You get up at five in the morning to do your work out. You’re half done your laundry before I even get out of bed. You’re the earliest early bird I’ve ever met.”

“Yeah, well, it starts to catch up by mid-week.”

I sniffed my tea once more. “Does Miss Lavinia plan to do palm readings again for the Halloween Festival on Friday?”

Merilee shrugged. “I didn’t go inside. I just noticed all the creepy little voodoo dolls and shrunken heads in her window. What’s creepy is that one of them looks a lot like your husband.”

“There’s a shrunken head that looks like Rex?” I raised my eyebrows. “No wonder I haven’t seen him much lately.”

“No silly.” She tapped my arm. “A voodoo doll. How would she know what he looks like or have a piece of his blue striped shirt? Has he ever even been inside her shop before?”

I straightened a rack filled with embroidery needles and a dozen fancy crane scissors I’d bought online for a steal from another shop going out of business. “Only when I dragged him in to see her that one time. I hoped she could cure his snoring with one of her essential oil blends.”

“Did it work?”

“Nope.” I sighed. “Rex still snores like a chainsaw. The problem is now Drake has started to snore too. It’s like I’m stuck between two race cars revving their engines at the starting line. Some nights, I go to sleep in the guest room. I couldn’t get the dog or Rex to wake up. I should go check out her decorations.”

Merilee chuckled. “Oh, speaking of interesting decorations. Did you happen to see the new one on the bench in front of Miss Lavinia’s shop?”

I frowned. “Did she put something on the bench? I know a few people who won’t be happy about that. Mr. Ossington sits out there and throws breadcrumbs for the pigeons.”

“We have pigeons?” She stared.

Excerpt:  Dead Without Shame (Book 4 Gilda Wright Mysteries)

Just as he predicted, the lunch hour class was packed, even though he did wear the top to his karate uniform. Not about to let anyone slack off, he pushed all the students to run a lap then drop and do ten push-ups over and over until Gilda’s arms and shoulders burned.

“Okay, I give. I’m six push-ups away from death.” Marion Yearly, Gilda’s best friend for nearly ten years groaned beside her. “Who gave Kane coffee today?”

Gilda gasped. “No coffee. Just an unhealthy overdose of ego.”

“Stop being nice to him, will you? Flattery will get us all killed.” Marion dropped face down onto the mat. A foot taller than Gilda and built like an NFL quarterback, Marion was a local 9-1-1 operator. She’d lost about twenty pounds since August when she started training as well as eating healthier along with her new boyfriend, Razi Mauli.

“Get up.” Kane nudged Marion’s leg with his big toe. “One more lap then you can collapse.”

She didn’t look up. Her voice was muffled by the tatami mats. “I’m good. Just run me over.”

Kane closed his eyes and shook his head. He grabbed Marion’s feet and dragged her into a corner. He left her there face down then turned back to face the class. “Yame. Stop and grab your sparring gear.”

“Did he just yell stop?” A loud groan came from Marion in the corner. “Seriously?”

“Except for you.” Kane glanced back over his shoulder.

She struggled to get up. “Oh good.”

“You can give me another fifty push-ups.”

Marion flattened her body to the mat with a groan. “You’re cute, but I hate you.”

“Just think how good you’ll look in a bikini next summer,” he said.

Gilda tried to stop a giggle from escaping as she fastened the Velcro on her sparring gloves. The fact Marion had started training to impress Razi wasn’t lost on Kane.

“Me in a bikini?” Marion pushed her upper body off the floor in a Cobra pose she couldn’t do two months ago. “Could you imagine?”

Kane’s eyes grew wide. He flashed Gilda a small grin. “I asked for that, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did,” Gilda muttered.

He paused. “Okay, on your backs. Count out ten sit-ups each. Marion starts.”

“Yup. Still don’t like you.” Marion flared her nostrils then rolled over and counted.

Gilda never saw Marion move so fast in her life. Not even for ice cream, and that was saying something.

Diane Bator

http://penspaintsandpaper.com

http://dbator.blogspot.ca/

New Brunswick—a surprising history

When I was asked to contribute to the Canadian Historical Brides series, with the stellar help of Nancy Bell, I was given the province of New Brunswick. I bought a book on the province’s history. I decided to set my story in the eighteenth century, a period I enjoy writing in, and picked the year 1784. From the book I learned that was the year the huge colony of Nova Scotia was divided in two, the western part to be called New Brunswick. This was my first surprise. 

Why the break? After the Revolutionary War, the numerous people who’d remained loyal to King George III had their property confiscated and risked arrest. Thousands of these Loyalists escaped north, into Canada, and the western portion of Nova Scotia. The colony swelled with a disgruntled population who needed land. They demanded their own colony, another capital.

I wanted to toss my characters into this morass, everything changing.

The Coming of the Loyalists by Henry Sandham

Nancy sent me several websites with old maps, documents on the settling of the Loyalists, so much to work in, or leave out.

Then I came across the history of the Acadian Expulsion, the original French settlers when the area was known as New France. Entire villages were slaughtered when the British took over. I just had to delve deeper into that period, and have an Acadian character, one whose mother lived through the expulsion.

Maliseet man

Of course, I couldn’t ignore the First People who were there when the French arrived, mainly the Mi’kmaq and Maliseet tribes. Every layer of settlement, wars, massacres, needed to be worked in without overloading the story.

The biggest challenge was to fit in my fictional characters with actual historical personages, the history timeline, and the extreme hardships of this as yet untamed wilderness.

I hope my novel, On a Stormy Primeval Shore, a "Night Owl Romance Top Pick", will intrigue readers about New Brunswick and its varied history.

Purchase this book and my other novels at BWL

For more info on me and my books, check out my website: Dianescottlewis

Diane Scott Lewis lives in Western Pennsylvania with her husband and one naughty puppy.

Honoring Fathers on Father's Day by J.Q.Rose

Deadly Undertaking by J.Q. Rose

Cozy mystery

A handsome detective, a shadow man, 

and a murder victim kill Lauren’s plan for a simple life.
Click here to find more mysteries by J.Q. Rose at BWL Publishing

****

Hello and welcome to the BWL Publishing Authors Insider Blog!

My Dad
oxoxoxox

This Sunday, in the US, we honor fathers during Father's Day. I would like to take this opportunity to honor my father, Gordon.

My dad is up in Heaven tapping the piano keys playing for the angel choir or jazz band. He was a talented musician as well as a very special person, not only to me and my brothers but also to our community. He was a funeral director.

Yes, I am a funeral director's daughter, hence the premise of my romantic suspense novel, Deadly Undertaking. I used my life experiences in writing the novel. Some of the quirky characters in the story actually are people I knew!!

I am now writing a memoir and that demands that my dad is in the story. I am including an excerpt about my father in this post from the book, Arranging a Dream, to be released in January 2021.

Arranging a Dream by J.Q. Rose, Excerpt from Chapter 13

The best way to keep my dad’s memory alive and to honor him is to remember all he had instilled in me while growing up and to practice those lessons. He always pointed out the beautiful things surrounding us in nature like a wide-open prairie sunset, the glitter of the sun on a spider web, and the way the leaves on the trees flipped over before a storm. He never gossiped about anyone or badmouthed a person. He never swore, well, except the time when my brother’s class ring was not correct and the shopkeeper would not do anything to make it right.

A sense of mischief popped out in his odd sense of humor. He’d go for coffee at Turner’s, the local greasy spoon located on Route 66, where they called him Digger. He carried a measuring tape in his pocket to measure up anyone who gave him a hard time, being sure he would order the right sized casket for the jokester. 

He cared about people and appreciated the simple things in life. I wanted to be just like him as a businessperson, friend and parent. But most of all, I wanted to teach our baby daughter, Sara, the same lessons by example.

****

Arranging a Dream: A Memoir
by J.Q. Rose

****

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!

J.Q. Rose, author

Click here to visit J.Q. Rose online.

Featured Author Susan Calder

https://bookswelove.net/calder-susan/

I am BWL Publishing Inc. author Susan Calder. I've published three mystery/suspense novels, which you can view and purchase by visiting my BWL Author Page.

I’ve loved mystery novels since I read my first Bobbsey Twins book when I was eight years old. From the kid sleuth twins I progressed to Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden and, later, Agatha Christie whodunnits and Daphne Du Maurier dark suspense. I wrote my first mystery novel, A Deadly Fall, as a classic whodunnit combined with a coming-of-middle-age story. My amateur sleuth, Paula Savard, age 52, stumbles into investigating the murder of her childhood friend. The story events shake up Paula’s personal and professional life and lead her in new directions.

On the principle of ‘write what you know,’ I set the novel in my home city, Calgary, and created a protagonist similar to me. Paula was my age at the time I wrote A Deadly Fall. Like me, she grew up in Montreal and moved west to Calgary for opportunity. She’s an insurance adjuster; I worked as an insurance claims examiner. But as our shared traits diverged, Paula became her own person. She's divorced; I’ve now been married for 42 years. She has two grown up daughters; I have two sons. She enjoys sports and risk. I like reading and run from danger. 

Here’s Paula with the novel’s prime suspect, her murdered friend's husband. He’s invited Paula to lunch to learn what her friend had told her about him.  

Paula would reassure him and make it clear her friend had told her nothing. He would be on guard, but, perhaps, less guarded than he’d be with a cop. There was a chance he’d slip.

He was waiting for her reply. His face said, ‘Yes, no, either way, I don’t care’ while his hand opened and closed into a fist, opened and closed against his shaking leg. He was hanging on her answer. Saying ‘no’ would close the door. After talking with the police, she could cancel.

“I can do lunch tomorrow,” she said. “Where? What time?”

“Your choice,” he said.

She thought of a nearby restaurant. “Do you know Lily’s Café?”

“I’ve heard of it.” 

“Noon. I’ll give you directions.”

While writing A Deadly Fall, I realized that an insurance adjuster would make a good series detective. Adjusters are skilled in investigative work. They visit accident and crime scenes, interview witnesses and study forensic evidence to determine what really happened. Insurance claims could also reveal cover-ups for murder. Was the building fire an accident? Did an arsonist set the blaze to collect the building insurance? Or to kill a person sleeping inside?

A suspicious house fire is the subject of my second Paula Savard mystery novel, Ten Days in Summer. Paula investigates the fire from the property insurance angle. In the course of her work, she gets to know the family living in the house and gradually unearths their secrets. I set this novel during Calgary’s annual wild west festival, The Calgary Stampede. For ten days each July, Calgarians cut loose, wear cowboy hats and boots, party, line dance, and cheer on the daily rodeo and chuckwagon races. Paula’s mother from Montreal is visiting her this summer. Paula takes her to the Stampede parade, which kicks off the festival. In the midst of the revelry, business intervenes, when an insurance claimant/suspect returns Paula’s phone message to set up a meeting.  

Stampede Parade

       

Belly dancers, in halters and pantaloons, whisked guns out of their holsters. They twirled the pistols around their fingers and shot imaginary bullets into the air.

“A blend of the old and new Calgary,” Paula said to her mother, who was seated on the lawn chair beside her. Over the past few years, Paula had noticed more and more newcomers’ floats and acts in the Stampede Parade. Today, Asian, Muslim and Caribbean communities would march with descendants of the original pioneers.

Her cell phone rang. Brendan Becker.

“Great of you to call,” he said. “I’ve been bugging my sister Cynthia to contact the insurance company.”

The belly dancers moved on. A bow-legged man wearing riding chaps bounded toward Paula and her mother. He moved his arms in circles.

“Cynthia refused –”

“YAHOO,” the cowboy shouted.

“YAHOO,” the crowd answered.   

“YEE-HAW.”  

“YEE-HAW.” Paula’s mother joined in.

“You sound like you’re at the parade,” Brendan said against a backdrop of trombones.

“You too?” Paula said.

          

While working on his second mystery novel, I got an idea for a different suspense/mystery story. Calgary engineer Julie Fox travels to California to search for her mother who abandoned Julie when she was a child. This novel, To Catch a Fox, would alternate between five viewpoint characters. As the story progressed readers would understand the harm and danger the two 'bad guys' plan for Julie. 

My husband Will and I researched setting descriptions on two holidays in Southern California. Yes, writing can tough sometimes. Julie stayed in the Airbnb apartment Will and I rented in Santa Monica. All of us rented bicycles from a shop on the boardwalk. Julie questioned a clerk in the shop.

  

Julie hesitated, feeling foolish to hope the clerk could provide any information about her mother; yet how wonderful, how easy would it be if he did.

He looked up, his eyes bleary red, and asked what type of bike she wanted.

From her waist pouch, Julie pulled out the three pictures of her mother she’d brought. “I’m looking for this woman, who once worked in a bike shop in Santa Monica.”

“This shop here?”

“I’m not sure. It was in the late 1980s. Was this place operating then?”

The man’s grin revealed a gold front tooth. “Beats me. I only bought the joint two years back.” He picked up the pictures.

“Could you put me in touch with the previous owner?”

“Not likely. He’s dead.”

Bike shop on the Santa Monica boardwalk

After BWL published To Catch a Fox in 2019, I returned to my mystery series. I’m currently working on the third Paula Savard book, Winter’s Rage. Paula investigates a hit and run collision that killed a woman and seriously injured her husband. Was it an accident? Or a pretext for murder? The insured vehicle owner, an eighty-five-year old man recovering from heart surgery, insists he wasn’t driving. 

    “I can’t tell you more than what I told the police,” he said. “Them showing up at my door yesterday was the first I’d heard of anything.”

“Our insurance perspective is different from that of the police.” Paula had explained over the phone that she was the independent adjuster assigned to the claim, but repeating that could insult him, and rightly. So far, he’d impressed her as being mentally on the ball.  

He leaned forward, lines flaring from his nose bridge. “When they talked about my car being in an accident, you could have knocked me down with a feather. I haven’t driven for two months. Doctor’s orders.” He rapped his chest with his gnarled hand. “I was sitting right here, reading, that whole evening until I went to bed.”

“At what time?”

“About 9:30, my usual these days.”

“It was your birthday,” she said. 

“At my age, that’s nothing to celebrate.”  

Every book publication is something to celebrate. BWL has scheduled Winter’s Rage for publication in February 2021. After the celebrations, I'll move on Paula Savard mystery # 4, which will be set in spring, the season of hope.         

             

My front yard this spring

Short Stories and Short Story Contests by Nancy M Bell

Calgary Stampede is cancelled this year so why not come and visit the Stampede in the pages of Come Hell or High Water. to find out more about my titles and where to get your copy of Come Hell or High Water click on the cover above.

Short Stories and Contests

What is a short story?
A short story is usually narrative prose. It typically focuses on a single self-contained incident and includes a small cast of named characters. The short story makes use of plot and other components used in the longer novel, just to a lesser degree.

Types of short stories are determined by word count or topic. For the purpose of short story contests there is usually a minimum and maximum word count which needs to be strictly adhered to.
Short Story Lengths in words:
Traditional: 1,500 to 5,000
Flash Fiction: 500 to 1,000
Micro Fiction: 5-350
It is most common to sell a story that is 1,500 to 3,000 words long.

Short Story Contests.
Should you enter? YES! Of course, you should. Even if you don’t win or get short listed, often you will receive valuable feedback from the judges.
How to decide which contests to enter? First decide what market you are writing for. Fiction or Nonfiction. Then look at what is open for submission and what is coming open in the future. Read the guidelines carefully, paying close attention to the rules and guidelines. Generally, these will include topics or focus of the contest, minimum and maximum length of the entry, entry deadline and method of delivering the entry. Generally, this is by electronic means these days including the use of the Submittable website, although some still ask for hard copy entries. Also pay attention to the entry fee asked for and decide if the cost is within your budget and if you feel it is worth the cost of entry. There is a list of 2020 short story contests online, the Writers Guild of Alberta also lists contests in their newsletter.

Crafting the Short Story.
Now, you need a plan. Again, this is going to be different for everyone. There are two basic ways of going about The Plan. This is what is referred to in author speak as Plotting or Pantsing.
There is no right or wrong way, just what works best for you. What is Plotting and Pantsing?
Plotting is just what is sounds like. The author plots out their story using what ever method works best for them. The plot plan will include, in some form, the following elements:
The Beginning of the Story/The Exposition
Rising Action
Climax or Turning Point
Falling Action
The End of the Story/The Resolution

So, now to start:
Generate the core idea. Ideas are all around us, you just need to learn to recognize them. This often starts from a memory, a fear, a problem, or an incident that resonates with you, stays with you and keeps nudging you to share it.

Write it down. Get it out of your head and onto paper. Rough first drafts are always just that rough. Write everything and anything that comes to mind, don’t worry about word count at this point.
Create the characters from people you know, or sometimes the characters just present themselves to you. Go with whatever feels natural to you. If you’re having trouble, it is easiest to base your character on people you are familiar with and grow them from there.
Trust yourself, believe in yourself. We are all writers and creators.

Now you have the basis, you need to add some structure and start to put things together.
Basic story structure is outlined below:
The Opening
Incident that changes things, sets things in motion
Series of crisis or events that builds tension
The Climax
The End

There are various examples of story structure: The Hero Journey, The Three Act Structure, The 7 Point Story Structure. You can look at these online if you want to delve deeper into them.
The structure should assist you in sorting out your conflict, climax and resolution.
In short: The Hero Journey
Call to Adventure
Challenges and Temptations
Revelation- death/rebirth
Transformation/Atonement
Return

In short: The Three Act Structure
Set Up- establish characters and setting
The Confrontation- appears simple with underlying complexity
The Resolution- a good ending contains high stakes, growth and transformation and a solution

In short: The Seven Point Story Structure
Hook the starting point
Plot Turn 1 conflict that moves the story to the midpoint
Pinch Point 1 pressure on the your protagonist- stumbling blocks in the pursuit of the goal
Mid-Point character responds to conflict with action
Pinch Point 2 more pressure and stumbling blocks between protagonist and the goal
Plot Turn 2 moves story from midpoint to resolution
Resolution where everything up to this point has been heading. Goal achieved and loose ends tied up.


Some other forms of Short Stories.
Anecdote: This is a short account that tells a story about a real person or actual incident. It can be amusing or interesting or both depending on the subject. Anecdotes are often used to support a point in larger work, for example an essay or article.

Drabble: This is a very short work of fiction, generally exactly 100 words not counting the title. This form is used to demonstrate a writer’s ability to express something meaningful in a confined number of words. It is an exercise in brevity.

Fable: This form uses anthropomorphic creatures to illustrate a story with a mora. These may include animals, plants, inanimate object, forces of nature etc) Burgess Thonton’s work in the early 20th century is a prime example, as well as Asesop’s Fables. The moral is usually spelled out for the reader at the end of the story.

Flash Fiction: This is short literary work. No widely accepted word count but usually between 300 and 1,000 words. Generally I have seen then around 500 words in contest rules. Pay close attention to the guidelines of the contests you wish to enter.

Frame Piece: this is not generally used now but has been used in the past. In Walter Farley’s the Blood Bay Colt one of the characters is bed-ridden and reads a book whose contents are shared within the context of the larger story.
It is also useful for introducing the main narrative or setting the reader up for a series of short stories that follow. Flashbacks- the dreaded and should be seldom used flashback- is also an example of this form.

Mini-Saga is a short story of exactly 50 words. A good exercise to learn to remove all but the most pertinent parts of the story or scene.

Story Sequence: this isn’t a novel, but rather a series of short stories within an over all timeframe that together tell a larger story while still remained complete stories in their own right. This is sometimes referred to as a composite novel.

Vignette: this focuses on a single character, setting or scene. No emphasis on conventional structure or story development. Can be stand alone or part of a bigger work.

We can go deeper here and look at three distinct types of short stories. The Epical Story, The Lyrical Story and The Artifice Story.

The Epical Story: realist short fiction. Commonly withholding a part of the narrative. Generally, the best of this type are the ones where in spite of the obvious clues within the narrative, the reveal of the missing part is unexpected from the reader’s POV. The revelation must serve to highlight what came before it, shining light onto what was just latent beforehand and locking with it seamlessly and showing it in a new way. The big reveal is always at the end, the quality depend on the unexpectedness of the discovery, the twist.
indefinite range of things, if not everything.

The Lyrical Story puts the emphasis on a central recurring image or symbol that the narrative revolves around, rather than focusing on the plot. The ending is considered to be ‘open’ as the focus doesn’t insist on one meaning but is open to many depending on the readers’ perspective. This form needs an external plot (often of the epical form) which flows alongside the development of the image. The central focus fills in where an expression is wanted but didn’t show up. There is a need to express what the protagonist won’t or can’t, to cry, or express joy, or grief.
The Artifice Story is the weaving together of two apparently non-compatible things. This can be two story lines, realities or perspectives. This can be used as an over-arching metaphoric device or it can be an abruptly introduced incongruity. This is inserted into the otherwise conventional narrative at the beginning, the larger meaning comes directly from the unexpected symbiosis between the deliberately inserted incongruity and the conventional plot.

Until next month, stay well, stay happy.

You can also find me at http://www.nancymbell.ca

New Release and A New Move #BWLAuthor #MFRWAuthor #Romance #Contemporary

NEW RELEASE AND A MOVE

 

Two reasons bring Cancer heroine Janine Rhodes to Fern Lake. The first is the Masters and Doctors program at the nearby university. The second is a letter from a dying woman. Since the courses she takes are weekend ones, she finds a job for the Grantlans a writer and a nurse practitioner caring for their toddler niece they recently adopted. While here, she is able to observe the son she gave up for adoption eight years ago and his attorney father. She is content just to watch until tragedy strikes.

When Virgo Nate Quinn learns about his son’s medical condition, he can barely hold on. Just a year ago, he lost his wife to cancer. His adopted son has become his entire family. When the doctor asks him about the child’s birth parents, he has no idea. He agreed to the adoption but only signed papers and took no other part in the process. Now he needs to locate two people.

Then he learns the identity of his son’s birth mother and knows she has been in the periphery of life. He acts rashly and then must find a way to make amends, especially when he learns more about her.

This beek finished very close to the deadline. The problem was two fold. I became so interested in the story that I forgot to look at the romance and also had a screwy time line. At the beginning of May when I was revising I discovered both problems and had to rewrite all but four chapters. But I finished and the bookis released.

Now for the move. I haven’t left my home of many years. When my husband became very ill, we moved him to what way my study for his bedroom and I migrated to the second floor. This meant many trips up and down the stairs.

When he died in January, the process of moving took a lot of time and with the coronavirus the move was slow. I am now back to my home base and happily learning the new routing. I do miss having the large screen TV across from my recliner but that’s probably a good thing. I don’t waste time watching TV. But my dragons are arrayed above my computer and so is the dreamcatcher, my epee from my fencing days and family pictures.

Hard pants, by J.C. Kavanagh

The Twisted Climb - Darkness Descends 

Book 2 of the award-winning Twisted Climb series

In a world where there seems to be less and less humour and more and more hardship, the English language has - how would you say it - blown up. Indeed, it seems that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to life a linguistic creativity that unites us all. There are so many new terms / words developed in the last six months, and in many ways, these terms have broadened the way we live and cope through these troubling times.

I'd like to promote more humour so I've compiled a few terms I've made up, together with some I've learned and others researched on the web.

Hard Pants: when you have to leave the house and replace your sweat pants or flannel pyjamas (soft pants), with jeans. I have to wear my hard pants to the store. They're sooo tight.

Cornteen: the intentional misspelling of quarantine. I'm getting so fat during this cornteen.

Covidiot: a person who disregards social distancing and safety guidelines. Look at those people on the beach. Bunch of covidiots.

Moronavirus: another term/form of quarantine shaming for those not following health and safety guidelines. He speaks so moistly and without a face mask! What a moronavirus.

Quarantini: a slang term for day-drinking while under quarantine. It's after 2... time for a quarantini anyone?

WFH: the acronym for Working From Home. WTF, I can't take anymore of this WFH.

CovKilos: the weight gained during COVID-19 gym closures/restrictions and WFH. These CovKilos are making it impossible to wear my hard pants. Pour me another quarantini.

Coronials: They're on their way. A reference to the generation of children conceived during the pandemic. Yeah, I'm a coronial. Want my autograph?

Skunk-Stripe: the natural, un-tinted white stripe at the top of your head and hairline. I'm desperate for my hairdresser! This skunk-stripe is making me look like a granny. 

Sheepdog: a person's hairstyle after four months without a hairdresser/barber. Hey sheepdog! You'd win a sheep-shearing contest with that hairdo.

Stay safe everyone. This too, shall pass. And, I do have a great suggestion to pass the time at home - read my award-winning books. If you like action / adventure / suspense / drama and a dash of paranormal, then The Twisted Climb books will take you to all those places. Enjoy!

J.C. Kavanagh, author of

The Twisted Climb - Darkness Descends (Book 2)

voted BEST Young Adult Book 2018, Critters Readers Poll and Best YA Book FINALIST at The Word Guild, Canada

AND

The Twisted Climb,

voted BEST Young Adult Book 2016, P&E Readers Poll

Novels for teens, young adults and adults young at heart

Email: author.j.c.kavanagh@gmail.com

www.facebook.com/J.C.Kavanagh

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The Inimitable Josephine Baker

Josephine Freda MacDonald was born in St. Louis, Missouri on June 3, 1906, to Carrie MacDonald, a part-black and part-Native-American woman, and Eddie Carson, of black and Spanish ancestry. When her father abandoned them, the family was left destitute. Josephine, at the age of eight, had to work cleaning houses and babysitting for wealthy white families.

She ran away from home at the age of thirteen and found work as a waitress in a club. There, at the same age, she met and married her first husband, whom she divorced soon after. 

Young Josephine had always loved dancing and performing, so when the opportunity to join a travelling band arose, she quickly accepted the offer, though she was considered too young and skinny to be a chorus girl and often had to take non-performing parts. At the age of fourteen, she married William Howard Baker, whose last name she kept, though their marriage dissolved after four years.

Her big break came in 1925, in France, during the explosion of interest in American Jazz on the European continent. She opened in the “La Revue Negre” at the Theatre des Champs- Elysee and became a huge hit, famous for her uninhibited performances and scanty costumes. Her fame grew and among her fans were Christian Dior, Grace Kelly, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemmingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

 She returned to America in 1936, but was not well-received. Infuriated by the racial discrimination she encountered, such as being barred from hotels and refused service in clubs and restaurants, she returned to Paris after renouncing her American citizenship.

The Second World War opened the most interesting period of her life. She used her fame as a cover to gather intelligence for the French underground. She carried sensitive documents and messages to neutral countries, sometimes using invisible ink on sheet music. She rose to the rank of lieutenant in the Free French Air Force and, after the war, was awarded the Croix de Guerre, the Légion d’Honneur and the Rosette de la Résistance.

Her personal life was also out of the ordinary. Men fell madly in love with her and she received approximately 1,500 marriage proposals. She married four times, but had no children of her own. Rather, she adopted twelve orphans, from different parts of the world, whom she called her ‘Rainbow Tribe,’ to show that children of different colors and nationalities could live together.

In the Fifties and Sixties, Baker frequently returned to the United States to fight racism. She participated in demonstrations and boycotts of segregated clubs and concert venues. In 1963, she joined Martin Luther King Jr. in the famous March on Washington, and became one of the notable speakers at the event. In honor of her efforts, the NAACP eventually named May 20th “Josephine Baker Day.”

In 1973, she performed at Carnegie Hall, after decades of rejection and racism. Greeted with a standing ovation, she openly wept in front of the audience. The success of the event marked her comeback on the stage. 

On April 12, 1975, Baker died in her sleep of a cerebral hemorrhage. She was 68. More than 20,000 people lined the streets of Paris to witness the funeral procession and the French government honored her with a 21-gun salute, making Josephine Baker the first American woman to be buried in France with military honors.

Mohan Ashtakala (www.mohanashtakala.com) is the author of "The Yoga Zapper," a fantasy, and "Karma Nation," a literary romance. He is published by Books We Love (www.bookswelove.com)

Unexpected Consequences...by Sheila Claydon

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In my last blog I talked about Shakespeare and the pandemic that affected him all of his life, starting with a fifth of the people of Stratford dying the year he was born. It was, of course, the bubonic plague, and it rampaged around the world for several hundred years, coming and going seemingly randomly until its cause, the fleas in rats, was discovered. Even that plague had its positives though, and in Shakespeare's case it gave him time, while he isolated himself and his family during the worst outbreaks, to write much of his best work.  

The Coronavirus that at the moment is affecting countries around the world also has some surprising upsides. I know businesses that are unexpectedly thriving because, with the closure of many shops, people are turning more and more to online shopping. The same with take-away meals and the many smaller restaurants that previously only offered table service are now barely able to keep up with requests for meals to be delivered.  And there are new local delivery services too where, for example, local farmers have seen a gap in the market and started delivering their fruit and vegetables directly, while family run butchers do the same with their meat.

Of course there are many, many people who are suffering, people who are wondering if their jobs are safe, people living in overcrowded conditions where the virus is more likely to run rife, people with barely enough to eat, but there are many, many more who are enjoying the unexpected freedom that has come with being paid to stay at home until the worst is over. This has led to family time, new hobbies, DIY house upgrades, healthier meals being cooked from scratch, more exercise, more fresh air...the list goes on. Although we live near a beach it is a bit off the beaten track, so we tend to recognise most of the people who park near us and set off through the woods and sand-hills to the sea. In the recent warm weather, however, we have seen so many new families visiting and enjoying themselves, and so many strangers exercising, that we doubt whether life here will ever be the same again. 

And that brings me to our own unexpected consequences. Three days ago we had coffee in Sydney. Yesterday we had lunch in Hong Kong. This evening we are having a drink with friends on the south coast of England and we will be meeting up with more friends in the Midlands on Tuesday. There are plans to see cousins in San Diego and we have already walked around a friend's garden in New Zealand and admired their burgeoning fruit trees and newly planted flower beds.

When I started writing I needed a strap line and at the time it was that my books were a 'ticket to romance' because many of them were set in places I've visited over the years. The fact that all that travelling is continuing virtually is the wonderful unexpected consequence of how Coronavirus is affecting us.  Where we used to exchange emails and maybe meet up once or twice a year, or only every few years if the distance was great, now we are very active Internet friends, talking weekly in many cases. With so many social platforms available it is so easy, and with practice has become almost as pleasurable as seeing one another face to face. We all have so much to say that we quickly forget about the screen between us as we lift our glasses to one another or excuse ourselves for a couple of minutes while we make another coffee. Why it has taken a pandemic to set up such an enjoyable online network of weekly contacts I can't fathom. We could have started doing this years ago instead of just limiting online calls to our granddaughter in Hong Kong. Everyone says the same and I think, when live gets back to whatever normal is going to, be this is an unexpected and very enjoyable consequence that will continue.

Cheers everyone!