Manly Hearts and Banshee’s Croons*
Moon rising, full
Flashing pikes, a thousand
Singing river, a mass of men
Mud-walled cabins, eyes watching
Every foe and traitor, death
For freedom, hoorah
Moon rising, full
*based upon the Irish song of rebellion, “The Rising of the Moon”
It’s my birthday, but I’m giving away presents. Five people will win signed paperback copies of my first novel, A War of Deception, in a Goodreads Giveaway. The Giveaway is open from April 27 to May 26, release day. See the graphic below and enter now!
Giveaway ends May 26, 2017.
See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.
A bit more than two weeks from now, and I’ll join other authors local to my area (the Shenandoah Valley) at the Waynesboro Public Library’s author fest. Imagine–a room full of writers–of all genres. You’ve got your cozy mysteries. You’ve got your thrillers. You’ve got your literary fiction, not to mention romance, horror, and sci-fi.
Have a look at who’ll be there:
I think it’ll be as much fun for us writers as it will be for you.
Waynesboro Public Library is located at 600 S. Wayne Ave., Waynesboro, Virginia. The Author fest goes from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on May 6, 2016, and is free to the public.
On May 26, 2017, one of my life-long writing goals will come to pass: My first novel will be launched.
My first published novel! 🙂
A War of Deception is a story about fathers and sons, the past and the present, and retribution and revenge, encompassed in recent history.
The idea for the novel came to me in the early 2000s, but I didn’t sit down and start to write it until 2010. The manuscript has been edited, rewritten, critiqued, rewritten, workshopped, rewritten, proofread countless times, and professionally edited over the past seven years, and I’m proud of the result.
A copy for your Kindle is available for pre-order now. Click HERE to pre-order, and your copy will download to your Kindle on May 26. A paperback version will be available for purchase on Amazon.com by May 26.
For more information on the book, you can look at its description HERE. You can also check on where I’ll be for book signing events where you can purchase a signed copy by clicking HERE.
To celebrate the novel’s release, I’ve rebranded my collections of short stories published since 2012. To have a look at the new covers–and some with new, reduced prices–go to my Amazon Author Page in a few days to see the new covers.
I hope you share my excitement at this milestone in my life. I’m giddy and thrilled and giddy and… You get the picture.
I’m thrilled to announce my short story, “Wishful Thinking,” about three teenagers in the 1930s in rural Virginia, has been accepted for publication in the Virginia Writers Club Centennial Anthology, The Best of Virginia. Publication will be later in 2017, for the 2018 centennial of the Virginia Writers Club.
Source: 52-13 – My Commute
…I have an author newsletter?
I’m working on issue three now, and you can check out the previous two by clicking on the Author Information tab above and clicking on “My Newsletter: Secret Briefings.”
Even better, you can subscribe to SECRET BRIEFINGS (cool name, right?) for free by clicking on Contact the Author and filling out the email form. Put “Newsletter” in the subject line or in the body of the message. Your email address will remain private; I won’t share it with anyone.
Sign up! Issue three goes live in four days!
Ah, this will be a tough one. Right now, my only relationship is with my characters in my writing. That wasn’t always the case.
That was in high school, of course, and the person I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with was different from every other boy in the school. Then came college and the death of first love. I think I whimpered a little.
In college, there were dates, a few, but no one stood out as “the one.” There was a professor, but that went no further than flirting. There was also a Vietnam vet in several of my history classes. We talked about politics, the war, revolution, and almost anything else. However, I wouldn’t do drugs with him, and he moved on to someone who did.
So, rule one. Never date someone your mother likes, especially if you think it will improve your relationship with her. He was a policeman and a racist, and I wasn’t my authentic self with him. He didn’t see handcuffing and having nonconsensual sex with me as rape. He was also my infamous stalker after we split, the one I had to hold a gun on to get him to leave me alone.
Oh, and when we split, guess whose side my mother took?
I found “the one” at work in the early 1980s, and it was bliss for 20 of our 22 years together. The last two he spent in an alcoholic daze, and I wish I could say we drifted away. Rather, we both turned our backs and walked away: him because I wouldn’t enable any longer; me because I couldn’t live the rest of my life the way I had started it, with an alcoholic.
I’ve often said he was the person I was put on earth to love, and I do. I still do, 11+ years after. I always will.
A couple of years ago, I put my toe in the waters and had a couple of dates with a man in my area. Lunch dates only, and we decided on a “real” date–dinner and a movie. He didn’t call to set it up as he indicated he would, and I’d built up a good head of resentment. Then, I found out he’d died at home, alone, a couple of days after we’d chatted on the phone. I felt ridiculous, of course, for being angry, but I also thought it wasn’t my “right” to grieve. We’d barely known each other.
Even almost two years later, I think about what might have been.
That, and my life is full as it is right now. I’ve been on my own long enough I can’t imagine sharing time and space with anyone other than my friends and family. However, I miss male companionship. I miss the Sunday mornings sharing coffee and the newspaper in bed. I miss the walks, the boat rides, the long drives in the country where we talked about any- and everything.
I think about the promise of forever made by “the one” and wonder why on earth I believed in that fairy tale.
Excuse me, while I go back to writing fiction that’s happy ever after–more or less.
Unexpected Paths 