Author's RANT & RAVE. O - Z

 

We are all very excited about the Book Fair. Her's what some authors have to say.

Anne Smith-Nochasak  Dianne Pennell

Rick Revelle

Jane Tims   Bea Waters  TP Wood   

Anne Smith-Nochasak

Two novels about journeys – Two stories of the paths to redemption

A Canoer of Shorelines: Julie struggles to define herself in an adult role by coming to live at her childhood landmark; Rachel returns to her childhood home with the idea she might rewrite her past. The two women’s stories intersect and entwine – in fragments, stories, and dreams. At times, the reader must decide which pieces are real, and which parts remain dream. The story unfolds at the old farm at Meadowbrook, but the real lessons are learned along a distant shoreline. There is peace there, affirmation and acceptance.

The Ice Widow: Anna is never able to move past her love for Joshua Kalluk, yet never able to claim it. A youthful infatuation, though, will find a surprising and rich fulfillment in maturity, when Anna accompanies a dying Joshua home to his beloved Land and People. In one final, selfless act, can she redeem a lifetime of regret? What will we sacrifice if we truly love?

~~~

I wrote both novels from my grounding as a Maritimer, relying extensively on familiar settings. It is a joy when people from home recognize Meadowbrook, or embrace the aspirations of Anna Caine, noting that she always came home, as I did. I am bringing my stories to Moncton to reconnect with friends (I did go to Mount A!), hopefully talk to people who read my books last year and meet new readers. I especially want to share my WIP, an apocalyptic fantasy/futuristic memoir set in rural NS, although Miramichi will be significant as a gathering place for the resistance. A study of the topography suggests it will be a strategic site! I look upon this as an opportunity to study the territory and get advice!

Dianne Pennell

I’m excited to introduce myself, as an author, and showcase my books and passion for writing. I’m proud to be promoting at this special event, my novels that are suspenseful, thrillers of twists and turns searching for lost love, while taking place in a contemporary fiction style.

My books unravel the lives of women and men that somehow through different avenues of life, had either lost love, struggled to find it, and discovering in the end, through secrets, lies, and vendettas, the truth of why it was taken in the first place. 

I will take you on a roller coaster of unfortunate events, while my characters search for that human need, simply, love. 

My first two books, “Truth Behind the Lies” and “Secrets and Vendettas” is a series with the finale book, coming soon to complete this thriller of a story.

I’m in the making for my new series that too will keep you reading and wanting more of my writing style.  I love to write and so check my books out at the Fair and follow me on my website.    www.diannepennell.com for updates on new books to come.

This will be one fantastic summer day, so please don’t  forget and put this date on your calendar, July 27^th, as the day to discover myself as being a new author of your reading passion at the GMRD Book Fair and along the way to meet other authors at this provincial event.

Rick Revelle

Rick Revelle’s Rant About His Strong Women Characters.

A few weeks ago, Allan Hudson invited me to the Greater Moncton Riverview Dieppe Book Fair on July 27^th. I was so excited that I just had to write a “rant” about my books! 

Do you like strong women? Women who do not ever back down. If you push them, they will push you back and will stick a very sharp object into a vulnerable part of your body.

          Well, if you do not like that type of female you better quit reading this short article right now.

          My first four Historical Fiction novels that I wrote, I Am Algonquin, Algonquin Spring, Algonquin Sunset, and Algonquin Legacy, called the Algonquin Quest Series take place pre-contact in the early 1300’s Turtle Island. It is a story about four brothers who are trying to protect their families and survive in a harsh natural environment. These men co-habitat with women who are fierce, protective, and skilled in warfare. Throughout this series these women will educate readers on how powerful women were politically adept at running their societies, nurturing their families and as warriors.

          In my fifth novel The Elk Whistle Warrior Society you will follow a secret society of women who hunt down human traffickers and murderers of Native women and abusers of Native children.

          They all have either a Masters or PhD degree, plus a Martial Arts black belt. They don’t use guns, only the weapons of their ancestors. Each woman has a two feathered tattoo on their right should blade.

          I have known many strong women in my life. None so much as my grandmother who was born in 1914 to a Mi’kmaq woman and an English father. She lived in a two room log cabin in the woods of Coxvale Ontario with ten other siblings. At the age of thirteen she left home to keep house for a rich couple. There she was raped by her employer’s son who was nine years older than her. No charges because she was an “Indian.”

          She married an Algonquin man who raised that child as his and three of their own. Grandma did whatever it took for the next seventy-five years to survive.

          Strong Native Women Power!

Jane Tims

Where do the ideas for my books begin? Of course, every subject I write about is based on my background knowledge and experience. My poetry book, ‘within easy reach,’ for example, started from my interest in botany, wild food and foraging. My second poetry book, ‘In the Shelter of the Covered Bridge,’ grew from my interest in saving our province’s covered bridges.

 

For my books of fiction, the story often begins with a title. The titles of my first two mystery books, ‘How Her Garden Grew’ and ‘Something the Sundial Said,’ played in my head long before the plot or setting ever evolved. The stories developed from the questions asked in the titles: why did her garden grow so well? and what stories would a sundial tell if it could talk?

My interest in the theme for the poetry book ‘mnemonic’ began in the early 1980s when I was hired by Canadian Nature Tours to be botanist for their tours of Grand Manan. Most participants were birdwatchers; as I was sitting in the woods trying to identify some obscure little plant, the tour folk would have their binoculars focused on the trees and sky.

During subsequent years of bird watching and feeding, I began to think about how the birds I saw were often symbolic of my life. Since I often identify birds by their calls and love to include sound as well as the visual in my poetry, a collection of poems about birdsong emerged. I am so happy to have my book, ‘mnemonic,’ so beautifully published by Chapel Street Editions.

Bea Waters

The Greater Moncton, Riverview, and Dieppe Book Fair will be somewhat of a debutante party for Bea Waters, for whom this will be her first book fair appearance. Bea will debut her first novel, Project Human, an epic YA Sci-Fi Fantasy adventure that takes our hero, Olivia Carpenter, 400 light years across the galaxy. Thirteen alien races are fighting to control planet Earth, because humans are their science project. The ascension of humans into the galactic community rests on the shoulders of Olivia Carpenter, a 14 year old girl just trying to find her place in the world. But not everyone in the galaxy wants Project Human to succeed.

One reader stated: “A universe where you belong.

This one makes you feel good inside. I struggle more with Sci-Fi than any other genre, and I absolutely loved this story. Bea Waters has not only created a world, but a universe and a mythology. The scenery is beautiful, the lore is compelling, and the characters will make you fall in love with them.”

Olivia Carpenter is an outcast on Earth but thrives as a friend once given the chance. The obstacles she is forced to face are numerous, her challenges feel impossible, but the only thing worse than losing is never trying when there's a chance.

TP Wood

Writing is Messy

Ah, kindergarten. Remember? When the teacher brought out the bowls of colours, and you weren’t sure what would come next, but it smelled like fun?

Then, dipping your fingers, maybe your entire hand into the gooey green, spreading it out. Smearing reds and yellows, making orange, not caring if the paint spilled on the floor or careened off the edge of the paper.

Reckless. Messy. Exhilarating.

Those first stages of the writing process are like that. Finger painting with words. Leaning into the work (which now doesn’t seem like work at all) with kindergarten enthusiasm. Plunging your fingers into the palette of verbs and nouns and adjectives, not caring how they land on the page.

In this place, I’m free from the shackles of perfectionism. Nothing else matters or exists; just drenching the page with the colours of words.

This is magnificent chaos. A universe loosed in its own Big Bang. All that energy released, then splattering on the page. There’s no rhyme or reason to it—or so it seems—then the chain reaction transforms the word anarchy into a cosmic event of meaning and structure. Something that did not exist only moments ago appears. A spark of life that had lain dormant, and all you had to do was let it happen.

Creation is inherently sloppy. Writing, like finger painting, is no different. It’s no more mysterious than dunking your hands in the paint and spreading rainbows on the page.

Make a mess. Make a mess with your words, phrases, paragraphs. Who cares? When you brought your masterpiece home from kindergarten, what happened?

Your granny hung it on the fridge!