Butterflies recur in Méret Oppenheim’s art: the many-eyed face at the top of her 1969 assemblage of painted canvas and carved wood, Hm-hm, its “nose” a shaped piece of bark; the tiny wings flitting at the edge of her ink and gouache drawing, Self-Portrait and Curriculum Vitae since the Year 60,000 BC (1966), the cross-section […]
Original source: https://www.nybooks.com/online/2023/01/14/behind-the-mask/
I got a real break in 1963. I’d been living in New York for a year and had just moved from a rooming house on St. Mark’s Place to an apartment on East Sixth Street, across from Tompkins Square Park. I paid eight dollars a week at the rooming house and sixty a month for […]
Original source: https://www.nybooks.com/online/2023/01/14/new-flame-for-black-fire/
Democrats could be forgiven for experiencing some schadenfreude during Kevin McCarthy’s chaotic, protracted election as Speaker of the House, but in an essay from the January 19, 2023, issue of the Review, Alexander Burns argues that relying on Republican dysfunction is not a sound electoral strategy, especially when the structure of the Senate so strongly […]
Original source: https://www.nybooks.com/online/2023/01/14/man-about-the-house-alexander-burns/
The Lost Siren follows a young and beautiful siren who loses her memory and when she starts to regain it, realizes she must seek redemption for past actions. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?
Last year, I wrote a book called Where the Magic Lies, which Literary Titan has also kindly reviewed and granted the gold book award. There is a chapter in it about amnesia, and that was the trigger that kindled a new idea in my mind. What if a story began with a character with amnesia? It would be like a mystery, as the character doesn’t know anything about themself, and there could be countless possibilities for their true identity. I’ve always wanted to write a mermaid tale, and since I played around with my cover designing app and with the help of Shutterstock, came up with a cover I adored, I decided I would have to write The Lost Siren as soon as possible.
Aquila remains strong despite finding out about her past and realizing that her old self could ruin her hope for a happy future. What were some driving ideals behind your character’s development?
The theme of redemption and righting one’s wrongs is important in this story. Also, I did an experiment with Aquila—the same one I did with many of my other female protagonists, Azalea Wood from The First Buds of Spring and Amethyst Quartz from Where the Magic Lies. I made these characters feminine but strong. Now, I received criticism regarding the protagonist of my first book, Alexandria Richardson from In the Name of the Otherworld. Some readers didn’t like her because she was too masculine, and they believed some of her remarks were offensive to feminine women. In other words, she was too politically correct. Of course, I wasn’t happy when the criticism reached my ears, because I felt misunderstood. I didn’t mean to bash anyone at all, and it was unfair the readers automatically assumed I believed what my main character believed! But at the same time, their words got me thinking—would it be possible to create a female character strong and independent, yet graceful and romantic all in equal measure? My three babies—Azalea, Amethyst, and Aquila did it, or at least in my humble opinion.
I encourage people to view my characters as separate individuals instead of labeling their character traits as masculine or feminine, and respect their uniqueness no matter whether they are male or female. In fact, this is something that should be valued in real life, too—to have a heart big enough to accept people of all types and not judge them or label them in a certain way. No matter whether you are a feminine female, a masculine female, a masculine male, a feminine male, or none of these or all of these, you deserve to be you. Having been a victim of bullying, I can’t stress the importance of this enough. Back to the point I made about gender roles, I sincerely hope everyone, regardless of gender, can relate to my characters, regardless of gender, either. Personality traits should be viewed as neutral and not marked masculine or feminine. Everyone should feel free to identify with any trait.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
Redemption is obviously a main theme. There is also an underlying message in the story: don’t judge people based on first impressions. Everard and Raphael, Aquila’s two love interests, are stark contrasts. Everard is charming and gentle at first glance, but he turns out to be a liar who abandons Aquila instead of helping her face her past. Raphael, on the other hand, appears aloof at first, but he shows concern for Aquila when she is in trouble. Just because someone is friendly and adorable doesn’t always mean they have a heart of gold. And it’s also true the other way around—just because someone seems unapproachable and standoffish doesn’t always mean they don’t crave warmth and affection. This is a message that applies to all relationships and friendships alike.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
It’s been a long time since I finished The Lost Siren, which was last August! I went on to write Within the Walls, a YA paranormal fantasy about two students discovering the dark secrets of their boarding school. And after that was A Gathering of Tales, a YA dark fantasy novel with romantic elements centered around the adventures of four protagonists from well-known fairy tales. After that came Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, a prequel and retelling of Alice in Wonderland, told from the Queen of Hearts’ perspective and explaining how she went insane and became evil. Then, I wrote Where the Darkness Lies, a sequel to Where the Magic Lies, and finally, I finished Snowfall, a YA fantasy romance about a cursed ice witch finding love. Right now I’m working on Stars, Clouds, and Shadows, a paranormal romance about an angel and devil falling in love with each other. However, Snowfall might be my next publication. I hope to release it in January because it’s a snowy book, and because I want to get it published on my Mom’s birthday.
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Facebook | Website
Original source: https://literarytitan.com/2023/01/14/kindled-a-new-idea-in-my-mind/
That Sucked. Now What? is a self-help and motivational book that offers readers a practical strategy to normalize chaos when then things go wrong. What were some ideas that were important for you to share in this book?
The idea that sometimes our fall can be our greatest spark to fly forward in life, no matter what challenges, obstacles, or setbacks come up and to fully embrace it.
Also, a 4 step life- curriculum as I’ve used in my own life come out of hard times with grace, even after awful painful losses, and the bounce factor is just one of several tools – that I wanted readers to have access to as it’s helped myself, my students, and clients transform their lives.
What is one piece of advice someone gave you that changed your life?
As a little girl, my dad would always say they, beta keep saying yes to new adventures, whether its in the form of books, teachers, and wise elders, as it adds depth and appreciation of others in a big way. He was right, it set me off to 60 countries and counting consistently leaning into curiosity as my guidepost.
What do you hope is one thing readers take away from your book?
To be brave at sucking at something new. To be okay with the ‘falls’ that will come and to use it as a sign that change is beautiful, in fact can give rise to the magic that’s already on its way.
To be unapologetic and intentional in your own version of resiliency: tough and soft, and gentle and compassion, and loving and stretching you in ways to add to your human experience.
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Facebook | Website
You know those awful, terrible, sucker-punch moments in life? The ones that knock you down, burn you up, or make you cringe so hard you wish it was all a bad dream? Probably–because we all do. These epic, messy, oh-no-oh-crap moments of chaos are just part of life–yet, as Dr. Neeta Bhushan shows us, they’re also beautiful opportunities for change.
As co-founder of the Global Grit Institute, a mental health training platform for leaders and coaches, co-founder of the Dharma Coaching Institute, training thousands to live their best lives, and a thriving coach in her own right, Neeta Bhushan has helped thousands of people move past their heartbreaks, failures, and disappointments. And after years of research into human behavior, observing people in their worst and best moments, being a mother of two small children, and failing more than a few times herself, Neeta knows what it takes to get back up no matter what bowled you over.
That Sucked, Now What? is a real-talk guide to personal growth that draws on and embraces the suck–and helps you break through to lasting, audacious resilience. You’ll learn why it’s so hard to get back up when stuff goes down, how four core components of your life shape your individual Bounce Factor, and how to navigate the five stages of the Fly Forward framework through Falling, Igniting, Rising, Magnifying, and on to Thriving. Along the way, Neeta shares successes and failures of her own, from the wonderful to the WTF, in an indispensable book to pull off the shelf whenever life serves up a setback, no matter the size.
Original source: https://literarytitan.com/2023/01/14/our-greatest-spark/
Sonnets of Love and Joy is a collection of poems that reminds readers of the beauty of life. What was the inspiration for this collection of poetry?
With all the negativity in mainstream news sources, I’ve found that working on love poems has been of great benefit to my mental and emotional health.
What were some goals you set for yourself as a writer in this book?
To communicate the poetic messages with images, metaphors, and well-chosen vocabulary.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
Love won and lost; the beauty of nature; the innocence of children.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
Sonnets for Sufferers (tentative title) will examine the darker side of the human condition.
Original source: https://literarytitan.com/2023/01/14/love-won-and-lost/
A Maze of Glass follows a young woman with magical abilities who is trained to fight supernatural beings and solve problems that seem impossible. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?
Everyone is solving impossible problems all the time.
About twelve years ago in NYC, I was struggling enormously with traditional employment but couldn’t get the financial math to work out to start my own business… until I did the math minus my rent. After moving all my stuff into a storage unit, I slept on couches, guest beds, and subway cars for nine months until my newfound business turned over enough revenue to put me back in an apartment. I was profoundly blessed to have such a supportive network of friends. When one such friend became suddenly and unexpectedly homeless a couple years later, I had him move in with me while he recovered. He now runs his own theatre company.
Problems become impossible, I believe, due to a specific set of person and circumstance. That is, for the person tackling the problem, due to their circumstances, the problem may be impossible to solve – but for a different person, different circumstances, the fix may be easy-as. We may not always be able to save ourselves but we can usually save each other.
Really, very few characters solve their own problems in A Maze of Glass. I didn’t write it this way on purpose but this is the way it turned out. Right from scene one.
Zoe’s family is challenging, and her job monster hunting is dangerous and unpredictable. What were some driving ideals behind your character’s development?
Zoe is a complex character with a job that sounds cool on paper. Some of the family-related content derives from my own lived experience, ditto for the content relating to addiction and mental health, but the job hazards emerged as byproducts of critiques I have regarding both the general genre and the concept of the ‘cool on paper’ job.
The first: any setting with functional magic would be absolutely paranoiac to anyone who knew that functional magic existed. If energy/people/technology existed that could alter, break, or ignore local or general rules of physics/biology/etc, those rules lose certainty and, eventually, the magnitude of uncertainty would lead to a breakdown of knowable causality. As Zoe puts it, “When is a car crash just a car crash, after all?”
My criticism of the ‘cool on paper’ job is somewhat easier to explain: all jobs suck. Fabricating a new identity, using credit cards taken out on a stolen SSN, going through magical rituals of invocation and defense, hunting supernatural entities, it all does sound rather cool… if it’s not something a person does full-time. In a more regular way, what all of that adds up to is labor spent, time lost, and inconvenience incurred. Plus there’s still paperwork. And while Zoe’s job pays very well, a significant amount comes as hazard pay, an ante against the small but non-zero odds that any given run could end in death.
So, when imagining Zoe’s unfolding life, I framed it around certain elemental constants. Zoe is practical, capable, and hyper-competent. She’s also traumatized, self-isolating, and reactive. She grows up in a difficult family with middle-good extra-familial role models and she becomes an adult and professional in an uncertain and paranoid world.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
I’m interested in the way we look at the past from the perspective of the present, which is in large part the reason this story is written the way it’s written. In our usual chronology, we know the outcome of past actions before those of the present; with A Maze of Glass I wanted to create the emotional situation of discovering outcomes more simultaneously. I worry about saying more on this particular topic so I won’t.
I also wrote A Maze of Glass as something of a moral interrogation. What makes a person ‘good?’ When determining a person’s ‘goodness,’ what do we take into account? Effort? Labor? Result? If someone tries to do The Right Thing and they fail, does it count? To what extent is judged ‘goodness’ derived from intent and to what extent is it derived from outcome? These questions hover around a lot of my work, but usually not so consciously.
As an extension of the moral interrogation, I avoid writing heroes or villains in my work. There are rare, occasional evil-doers in our real world, yes, and a similar (if slightly smaller) number of opposing ‘heroes,’ but 98% of people are gray-shaded, uncertain folk who sometimes do good things and sometimes do bad things and mostly just try their best. The grayness complicates things, it makes questions harder to answer. Truth is a foggy thing, diffuse and hard to make out. Simple answers are almost always lies.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
Good question! I’m working on three different projects right now… my next Oceanrest-related book is currently titled Where Everything Unravels and functions as something of a prequel to A Maze of Glass, featuring Zoe and Omar again as they tumble through multiple alternate and simulated universes in search of a witch whose magic is destabilizing local reality itself. It should release a bit later this year. I’m also working on another Oceanrest novel (currently untitled) as well as a near-future sci-fi horror novel (also currently untitled), though those dates are harder to pin down…
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Facebook | Website
Original source: https://literarytitan.com/2023/01/14/everyone-is-solving-impossible-problems/
In His Hands: A Spiritual Journey shares your experience with your own spiritual journey and helps others that wish to find their own path with God. Why was this an important book for you to write?
I really felt compelled to write about my experiences, and what I have seen within the Church. After my encounter with the Holy Spirit, my life took a whole different direction.
I feel it is important for the Church to see what is possible, and to give a new direction for today. I don’t have all of the answers but I believe I have been given a glimpse into God’s plan for the Church today.
I appreciated the candid nature with which you told your story. What was the hardest thing for you to write about?
Probably the hardest thing for me to write about was the relationship between my wife and me before we were married, to look back and see how God was directing our lives when we were not following God. How we can know about God but never really know God?
The chapter “A Matter of Authority” deals with women in places of Authority, this is not a popular topic within the Church today as the Church has been corrupted by secular trends. Why am I to be so vocal on this subject in light of where the Church is going today?
What were some ideas that were important for you to share in this book?
Why did Jesus put an emphasis on watching that we were not Deceived?
Our relationship with the Holy Spirit and the need for the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, the true power of the Church.
Leadership within the Church, Where are the Apostles, and the Prophets, two of the main foundations of the Church?
Why are certain scriptures taken out of context and others are ignored altogether?
What do you hope is one thing readers take away from your story?
A renewed interest in their relationship with God and the need to search the scriptures for Truth and not rely totally on someone else to tell them what it means, the Holy Spirit is our Counselor today!
What happens when the Holy Spirit can operate in you and the Church?
Where are our True Apostles and Prophets of today, when so much is written about False Prophets and Teachers in the Last Days?
Original source: https://literarytitan.com/2023/01/14/my-encounter-with-the-holy-spirit/