i.m. Paula Neuss & Sylvia Plath We don’t forget we don’t forgetAll night your stars blaze on the hillwhich is to say all our livesChildhood shut fast behind a doorMy mother, too built a room thatshe would later die in. She dug herown grave in the air And in the smallbackyard there was a stone liona […]
The cult of individuality was born amid a melding of minds. Meldings must be preceded by meetings, of course, and the meetings took place in Jena, a university town in the German duchy of Saxe-Weimar with a population of 4,500 or so. If Jena was small, the minds that gathered there in the last years […]
The French anthropologist Nastassja Martin is lying on a misty Siberian steppe, surrounded by “wads of brown hair stiffened by dried blood.” While she waits for the arrival of a Russian army helicopter, she wonders about “how to survive despite what I have lost in the other’s body, how to live with what has been […]
A few years ago, while doing research in southeastern Kansas, I stopped in Independence, a metropolis of around 8,500 on the Verdigris River, and paid a visit to the Independence Historical Museum and Art Center, a brick pile occupying much of a city block just off Main Street, which is also US Route 160. There […]
In our October 6, 2022, issue, Erin Maglaque reviews The Incomparable Monsignor, by J.L. Heilbron, a biography of the Veronese astronomer Francesco Bianchini, whose life and influential work—notably the use of an enormous telescope he built in the middle of Rome to view the face of Venus—spanned the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Maglaque […]
Billy Be Kind helps young readers find the courage they need to tell the truth. What was the inspiration for the idea behind this children’s book?
This book, like all my books, is inspired by authentic situations and real conversations that I’ve had with my three children. Like most parents, the importance of honesty is something that I emphasize regularly to my children. In particular, this book was inspired by a discussion I had with my son who admitted to telling a lie to avoid getting into trouble. I realized that all kids lie, but it’s up to us as parents to create an environment that encourages honesty.
The art in this picture book is vivid and cute. What was the art collaboration process like with illustrator AyeshaW?
Since I have collaborated with my illustrator Ayesha Warusavitharana on other projects, she has a clear understanding of my vision. I begin by sending her my storyboard and stick figure drawings. She then sends me her interpretation of my ideas. We often go back and forth until we are both satisfied that the artwork matches my vision. Her humility, patience, attention to detail, and her desire to excel in her field make it easy to work with her.
What is one piece of advice you would give to parents that are trying to teach their kids about honesty?
The best way to teach honesty is to be honest. We are our children’s first teachers. Have the “honesty conversation” early and look for ways to acknowledge and appreciate their choice to tell the truth, especially when it may have been easier to tell a lie.
What can readers expect in the second book in the BillyBe Kind series?
In the second book, Billy Be Kind: Making A New Friend, the readers are introduced to a new character, Lucy-Lou. She is a shy little girl who has a hard time making new friends. Billy Be Kind, the kind little mouse, encourages her to be brave and take the first step in meeting someone new. The readers can expect rhyming stories, colorful illustrations, and themes that teach valuable lessons simplified for young children.
Author Links: Goodreads | Facebook | Website
Billy Be Kind: The Kind Little Mouse – Honesty, is the story of two young boys faced with a dilemma of whether or not to tell the truth and the kind little mouse that encourages them to make the right choice. This wonderful, rhyming story is part of the Billy Be Kind Children’s Series. The Billy Be Kind Children Series is a collection of short stories with important lessons simplified for young readers. The series offer eye-catching illustrations, diverse characters and relatable themes that help children thrive to reach their full potential. Ages 2-5
Laddie Roy DFC follows an intrepid youth from a British colony who flies a combat aircraft for the Royal Air Force in the Great War. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?
Having read a few brief mentions of Lt. Indra Lal Roy or ‘Laddie Roy’ on Memorial Day, I was quite in awe of his achievements. Here was a young Indian boy from colonial India flying expensive war planes to take down the German aircrafts at a time when the Red Baron spread terror in the skies with his deathly ‘Flying Circus’. It seemed too good to be true: we have read amazing accounts of Indian infantry battalions storming German trenches on the ground but the aerial fight of the flying aces was a tactical and expensive war and if not for Colonel Sefton Brancker, no one from the British colonies could ever fly these magnificent machines, let alone get near them. However there were brave men from all corners of the Empire and America whose characters have been woven into Laddie Roy’s journey to greatness because they worked as one squadron, one team. It didn’t matter where they were from but what they did to fulfil their mission duties. Mike Mannock (Victoria Cross), George McElroy (Distinguished Flying Cross) and James McCudden(Victoria Cross) and many others were Indra Lal Roy’s contemporaries and colleagues who figure prominently in his story. When a plan and a few good men come together only greatness can follow, this was the inspiration for the setup of my story.
Indra Lal Roy is an intriguing and well developed character. What were some driving ideals behind your character’s development?
Indra Lal Roy’s journey to become a pilot of the Royal Flying Commission (as the RAF was named at the time) was not without incredibly challenging odds and yet he overcame them. It was his struggle about getting past his first failed qualification test for the RFC, his first crash which nearly killed him, his remarkable recovery thereafter to become a flying ace in a matter of days gives us hope that we can achieve what we set out as our goals. Indra Lal Roy was as determined, as forthright and sincere as anyone could be but I see this brilliant brightness in his persona that just made destiny put the pieces together for him to fulfil his dreams until it didn’t in his final flight mission over Carvin, France. Roy never let up his determination to keep going despite all odds and yet he never lost that touch of humanity between missions despite fighting the moral dilemma of destroying an enemy aircraft.
My book touches upon this aspect of what we now call PTSD but back then soldiers were afraid to admit this and yet one could find evidence of their stress in the mails they sent back home as I have mentioned in the story. My driving ideals were to present as accurate a picture as I could, a snapshot of the time when flying was still an experimental science forcefully brought into urgent improvement during the First World war.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
I wanted to delve into the psyche of the victor and the vanquished airmen in an aerial dogfight, clearly this is a different war than those fought in the trenches and that is where the heart of the book lies. One is transported into one of these biplanes, high above the sky, cold and alone except for possibly a few more colleagues in their own planes on a flight mission waiting to take on enemy aircraft. It is a situation where a thousand checks can fail save for one rash maneuver, one bracing wire to snap or have enemy aircraft shoot at you from below. Flying these aircrafts required incredible skill if one were to stay alive after the mission was over and this is the reason why some of the challenges faced by the pilots especially technical faults are mentioned. One has to remember these men were not given parachutes as it was a ‘do or die’ mission which made sure the pilot applied himself the best he could while flying these airplanes.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
My third book would be a conclusion of my first one, The Incidental Jihadi because I couldn’t quite give the story a conclusion at that point in time. Given the geopolitical situation in Syria is difficult, it felt almost impossible to conclude the story but the wheels are in motion as some ideas are shaping into chapters. I always want the best for my characters which is why closure from the first book is quite important to me as it needs to be realistic to what could be achieved now that the US has retreated completely from Syria, leaving the nation completely open to Russian influence. I am hoping to complete the conclusion to my first book The Incidental Jihadi by the end of 2023.
Author Links: Twitter | Facebook
What were the odds of an intrepid youth from a rebellious British colony flying a combat aircraft for the Royal Air Force in the Great War? Could hopes and dreams survive at the cusp of an increasingly bleak conflict on the western front? Against all odds, Flying ace Indra Lal Roy (D.F.C. 1918) dreamt of flying airplanes and engaging in a new form of battle for the skies above German occupied France. He achieved ten victories in thirteen days. This is his story based upon true events from the war.
The Nephilim Project follows a demon who exposes a demonic plan to impregnate the daughters of men to spawn the Nephilim. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?
Jesus Christ said he would return when the days on earth will be like those Noah experienced. The giant Nephilim ruled the earth when Noah was building the ark. Could demons once again produce the Nephilim, and would it be a precursor for Jesus’ second coming? If I answered my own question, I would say probable not, but we need to take notice of another marker of the days of Noah. God said he destroyed mankind with a flood because the hearts of men were continually evil. Today we see the rise of evil in our lands and we should be watching for Jesus’ imminent return.
Utoneious is an intriguing character. What were some driving ideals behind your character’s development?
Utoneious is a fallen angel, a demon if you will and he tells of his exploits in Heaven and on earth. He is perplexed and troubled over this gnawing question: Why does God give men multiple chances to change their evil ways and angels suffered God’s wrath for just one evil choice? Should Utonious be pitied, should the unrepentant human be pitied? Upon realizing both men and demons share the same fate, Utoneious begins to regret the choices he made and wants to make amends not knowing salvation is based on faith rather than works.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
My first book was criticized for being too “preachy”. In this book I set out thinking; If I presented the Gospel through the voice of a demonic, no one could say it was too preachy and for years I thought that showing the Gospel in this way was the purpose of my book. Just recently, I realized the major theme of the book is not the Gospel, but rather, God’s judgement is inevitable, and it will be tragic for those who refuse to repent and believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
At this time, I don’t have any plans. I wrote my first book after being shunned from a Christian Church and that took a year. Writing “The Nephilim Project” took me two years. If a third book followed suit, such an endeavor would take three years to accomplish. I guess I should get started on the Nephilims’ sequel before I get any older.
P.S. I have an idea on how Utonious could escape the demon prison Tartarus.
Author Links: Amazon | Facebook
This award-winning book recently earned acclaim from the prestigious Next Generation Indie Book Awards and tells of shadows encompassing the earth. In this darkness evil seeks obscurity. With effort it can be perceived by the human mind and those groping in the dark can be enlightened by a demon’s tale. Deep in the bowels of earth, wasting away in a prison called Tatarus, a demon named Utoneious remembers the days of Heaven and gives testimony of what it’s like to be Satan’s slave. He exposes a demonic plan to, once again, impregnate the daughters of men and from this union the Nephilim, as in the days of Noah, will be spawned. The devil plans to use these giants in a most insidious way, and as the overseer of the Nephilim Project, Utoneious is well aware of what lust for flesh can bring. This fallen angel’s evil knew no bounds. Legends of old were targeted and Utoneious played his role to perfection. He brought the ruin of Nimrod at the tower of Babble and Pharaohs of Egypt knew his curses before they were buried in their pyramid tombs. All of mankind suffered Utoneious’ lies until one day something tempered his ways. Perhaps he tired of his deeds when he watched the Church put men, from the order of the Knights Templar, to the torch or he may have changed because of his love for a woman. Did this fallen angel try to redeem himself or was his rebellion against Satan a ruse. Whatever the case may be, his story begins before death was ever known and leads down a doomed path where his destiny is intricately interwoven with a relic of Satan’s design. Life and death, Heaven or Hell—what is the truth? If an answer could be found in a story, there would be no beginning to such a tale as there could be no end. Nevertheless, many have tried to tell it. Know this and be forewarned: chronicles from the damned are a tragedy, telling lies meant to deceive the race of men to join an unholy alliance, sharing with Satan an antipathy toward God.
Broken follows the adventures of Keesa Donovan, a woman of an Establishment settlement outside of Savannah in a post-apocalyptic world. In the aftermath of the Great Drop, when nuclear bombs were dropped all over the world, survivors are forced to create a new world. One of the big players is the Establishment, who have enslaved many people of the world, among them Keesa, her brother Kiran, and their Uncle, who live with meager hope for escape. Keesa has accepted, and welcomes, the fact that she’s going to die, especially after failing to make the yearly sacrifice for the third time, but fate intervenes in the form of a new friend who brings new hope. Dobbs Saunders, a fellow slave, who has managed the impossible and escaped on numerous occasions. He speaks of the Resistance, who are liberating people and spreading their anti-Establishment message. With Dobbs’ know-how, the gang of friends band together to hatch a plan to escape.
The author creates a dreary setting in this gritty post-apocalyptic story. I could really feel the despair and hopelessness of the characters’ lives. I find this emotional depth often lacking in other young adult books, but I really enjoyed how this story embraces that darkness and colors the world in austere shades that make the story feel authentic, if bleak. This is a dark and disturbing dystopian world that is enthralling. There were several intriguing details that made my skin crawl. The author does an excellent job of conveying this in the writing, and I enjoyed every bit of it.
Although dark, the story shows how love and perseverance can be used to push through any obstacle. This creates moments of great humanity in a world that feels as if its lost theirs. I really liked the fantastic contrast within the story and I found it compelling, but I wish there was more light to balance out the dark. The book also contains tender moments as well that I would have liked to have seen expanded on further.
Broken shows readers a dark vision of what the world could be after a nuclear fallout. This is an enthralling cautionary tale that will inspire readers to choose love and use determination to push through the darkness. This is a thought-provoking and entertaining post-apocalyptic adventure novel that will appeal to fans looking for a story that, while dark, provides great lessons in finding strength in dark times.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
The cult of individuality was born amid a melding of minds. Meldings must be preceded by meetings, of course, and the meetings took place in Jena, a university town in the German duchy of Saxe-Weimar with a population of 4,500 or so. If Jena was small, the minds that gathered there in the last years […]
The French anthropologist Nastassja Martin is lying on a misty Siberian steppe, surrounded by “wads of brown hair stiffened by dried blood.” While she waits for the arrival of a Russian army helicopter, she wonders about “how to survive despite what I have lost in the other’s body, how to live with what has been […]
A few years ago, while doing research in southeastern Kansas, I stopped in Independence, a metropolis of around 8,500 on the Verdigris River, and paid a visit to the Independence Historical Museum and Art Center, a brick pile occupying much of a city block just off Main Street, which is also US Route 160. There […]
