Authors Electric

Meow, this is a sad-but-true tale you should tell to all your kittens, particularly if they have white ears. Earlier this year, a nasty buzzing flying thing stung my ear. It hurt a bit afterwards, but my human cleaned the sore for me and I kept washing my ear with my paw. One must look one's best with so many handsome Toms in the neighbourhood, and I should know. I've had two litters of kittens in my youth, the last litter with two different fathers, before the vet took my queen-cat parts away so I couldn't have any more... don't ask. Suffice to say when I see the cat carrier these days, I hide. Since I'm such a clean cat with a well-trained human, little sores like my sting normally clear up in their own time. Only this one didn't. It grew into a lump. This is what my lump looked like in May. (I'm scowling at the camera because I like to look my best in photos - you never know if they'll end up on social media one day.) But the lump itself didn't re

Working like dogs, w/Nibblick, & MJain Liars want to eat my neighborhood again. Their threat is clearer and more immediate this time. With deadlocked polls putting him in short-fingered reach of the U.S. Presidency again, Hair Hitler vows to round up tens of millions of people - immigrants and anyone opposing him he can "denaturalize" - and put them in concentration camps. Even Demagogue Don admits his political pogrom - involving the military, and local police - would be a blood-soaked affair. But, like the purges of Stalin and other genocidal strongmen Trump adulates - purges would aim at terrorizing the populace and consolidating dictatorial power for him and his cronies. Chicago does El Grito (Sun Times) It's not politics. It's personal. Tumpistas have put my blended family and my mixed neighborhood in their  orange crosshairs, just as they did during Trump's first White House term, There can only be one response. Nope! We're not going back! In the wee

  Image Credits:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. One image of The Hayes, Swanwick was taken by me, Allison Symes. I read short and long form fiction and non-fiction. I mix up reading in print books or on Kindle. I often try works by authors new to me on the latter. If I like the ebooks, I often buy said authors’ paperbacks later. The Kindle is especially useful for non-fiction. I also write in short and longer format, fiction and non-fiction. It keeps my reading and writing life interesting. My writing life has been an upside down one. I started by writing novels.Talk about running before I could walk. I then went into short stories. From there I went into flash fiction. During the short form time, I branched out into non-fiction by blogging, writing articles etc. It is all fun. Almost certainly I’ve done everything the wrong way around! Having said that, this means when I go to a writing event, I have a wide range of topics to interest me. It is a rare day when I c

Lilac-breasted roller, Namibia I research everything, in a nerdy sort of way. But I’m particularly conscientious about natural history facts, aware that disseminating false information is really bad news. Over the years I’ve collected field guides for birds and mammals for the different countries I’ve visited, and I’ve got quite a lot of them. But they do add to the weight in a suitcase, especially when you’re talking about bird books. Venezuela: paperback, 878 pages, and weighing in at 1.87 kg. Madagascar: hardback, 719 g, Botswana pb, 800 g, India, hb, 770 g. Mammals aren’t quite as heavy – India, hb, 677 g, Madagascar, pb, 673 g, Borneo, pb, 464 g, Britain and Europe, pb, 380 g, Southern, Central and East African, pb, 187 g. It’s clear that the more specific you get to a region, the lighter the luggage. And field guides aren’t really necessary for somewhere like Svalbard, where the only mammals you’re likely to encounter are polar bears, arctic foxes, walruses, seals and whales. Whe

  2024 has been a somewhat challenging year so far. There have been ups and there have been downs, some of which have been potentially life threatening but here we are Mike and I in September still tottering along. The house has been sold, fingers crossed, the move to Somerset is on the horizon and it is just possible that from now until Christmas there will be fewer bumps along the road. Even if they are, experience has taught me that they will not be the ones I expected. For if there is one thing I have learned this year it is the impossibility of gaging what will happen next and following that the stupidity of trying to pre-empt events. I have spent hours of my time engaged in the art of Whatifery. It’s one I’m very skilled at. Give me any situation and I can riff on the possibilities, mostly dire, for hours. An ambulance going up the hill towards our house? Mike has had a fatal accident. Not only that but he has fallen by the front door which will make access for the ambulance crew

Recipes from My Garden This week author Nadja Maril released her collection of f lash prose, poetry, and essays inspired by her kitchen, garden, and family memories. I sat down with Nadja to ask her some questions about the book, and her process. It's interesting to note that Nadja comes from an artistic background: her late father Herman Maril was an artist, and his painting is the cover of her book. I have enjoyed Nadja's poetry and flash fiction for many years now, and I am very excited for her book! Dianne Pearce (Dianne): What inspired you to combine poetry, short form, gardening, and cooking in one book? How did these different forms of expression come together?   Nadja Maril (Nadja): In January 2020 I’d just completed an MFA (masters in fine arts) in creative writing from the low residency Stonecoast Writing Program at the University of Southern Maine and was in the midst of moving into a 100-year-old house. My husband Peter and I were the General Contractors. Both th