Thursday’s Tale: The Girl Sold with the Pears

by Carol2 Comments
We're visiting Italy today. "The Little Girl Sold with the Pears" is a fairy tale collected by Italo Calvino in Italian Folktales, published in 1954. You'll notice some familiar themes in the story. A man had to pay the king four baskets of pears each year, but one year he only had 3½ baskets to send, so he put his little girl in the bottom of the fourth basket and covered her up. She is eventually discovered by the King's kitchen staff. She is given the name Perina and she goes to work in the kitchen. Of course, she's beautiful and kind and smart and the prince falls in love with her. The other maids though become jealous and tell the King that Perina has boasted that she can steal the witches' treasure, and he sends her out to do so. Perina travels through the woods, spending the night in a pear tree. In the morning, a little old woman is standing...
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Spotlight: Ghost of the Gods by Kevin Bohacz

by CarolNo Comments
Title: Ghost of the Gods Genre: Techno-Thriller Author: Kevin Bohacz Publisher: Mazel & Sechel Purchase at AMAZON Was it the accumulated wounds to the environment that had finally triggered the nanotech plague or was it simply one more step in a shrewdly crafted plan to replace us with humans 2.0? As I write this at least one pair of these transhumans breathe the same air as us, and there are likely many more. They may look like us, they may even be almost human, but they are also cybernetic and will live for an extraordinary length of time. Trust me, their goals are not the same as ours. It was not a natural plague that almost drove humankind to extinction but an attack from within, turning our own biology against us. Scientists discovered all too late an artificial entity, a sentient machine foolishly created in the image of god, had been studying us and genetically altering us for longer than we can imagine. Perhaps it...
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Guest post: Kevin Bohacz, author of Immortality

by Carol2 Comments
Today, I'm happy to welcome Kevin Bohacz to my blog, discussing his publishing journey. The Three Bears of Publishing… By Kevin Bohacz My first novel, Dream Dancers was conventionally published in 1993 in a deal closed by the agent I had at that time. In 2003 when Immortality was finally completed I assumed I would be able to get it published since I was already a published author. I soon found myself waist deep in rejection notices from both agents and publishers. All the rejection notices basically said, “We are sure this is a wonderful book but we don’t have the time to read a long manuscript by an obscure author.” In other words, I wasn’t able to even get into the Three Bear’s house, let alone try the porridge or sleep in their beds. I knew Immortality was a timely, entertaining, and marketable novel. Some extremely successful literary professionals including more than one famous writer had read it and told me they...
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Spring into Horror Read-a-Thon Wrap-up

by Carol4 Comments
I didn't get in as much reading as I had hoped this weekend, but that's okay. I did finish The Black Country by Alex Grecian, which I counted as my creepy book. Yeah, I know it's stretching the rules a little, but I don't think Michelle minds too much. I started listening to Ten Lord A-Leaping by C. C. Benison and reading India Black and the Gentleman Thief by Carol K. Carr. I'm enjoying both but am not close to finishing either. I just didn't set enough time aside to just read. Thanks for hosting, Michelle. Maybe I'll do better in the summer.  ...
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Thursday’s Tale: The Snow Queen

by Carol3 Comments
I haven't seen Frozen yet - one of these days. It's based in part on Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen," which I hadn't read until today. I'm not sure how I passed over one of Andersen's most famous fairy tales, but it's a long story with a bunch going on. "The Snow Queen" was first published in 1845. A demon makes a magic mirror that distorts the appearance of everything it reflects. It fails to reflect the good and beautiful aspects of people and things, while magnifying their bad and ugly aspects. The demon teaches a school. He and his pupils take the mirror throughout the world and delight in distorting everyone and everything; the mirror makes the loveliest landscapes look like "boiled spinach." They try to carry the mirror into Heaven with the idea of making fools of the angels, but the higher they lift it, the more slippery the mirror becomes and it slips from their grasp and falls back to...
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Z is for Zentangle

by Carol13 Comments
My daughter is the artist in our family. She's talented, and I'm not just saying that because I'm her mom. I, however, am not. But I've been learning Zentangle - "an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns." And it is fun and easy and quite pretty. Here are a couple of my recent tiles. I haven't had a lot of practice yet, but I think it's something I'll continue to do. I used watercolor pencils on the first tile before drawing the tangles. The second is more traditional. I think I like the simplicity and contrast in the first. There is a bunch of info on-line about Zentangle, and patterns and strings. I also picked up a book, One Zentangle a Day by Beckah Krahula. Title: One Zentangle A Day: A 6-Week Course in Creative Drawing for Relaxation, Inspiration, and Fun  Author: Beckah Krahula Category: Art Published: November 2012 by Quarry Books Rating: 5 out of 5 stars Add: Goodreads Purchase: Amazon |...
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