Are You In the Right Place?

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

On Wednesdays, I share posts, fables, songs, poems, quotations, TEDx Talks, cartoons, and books that have inspired and motivated me on my writing journey. I hope these posts will give writers, artists, and other creatives a mid-week boost.

This modern-day parable is a thought-provoking one, especially for anyone finding herself/himself at a crossroads.

A mother and a baby camel were lying around under a tree.

The baby camel asked, “Why do camels have humps?”

The mother camel considered this and said, “We are desert animals so we have the humps to store water so we can survive with very little water.”

The baby camel thought for a moment then said, “Ok…why are our legs long and our feet rounded?”

The mother replied, “They are meant for walking in the desert.”

After a beat, the baby camel asked, “Why are our eyelashes long? Sometimes they get in my way.”

The mother responded, “Those long thick eyelashes protect your eyes from the desert sand when it blows in the wind.

The baby thought and thought. Then he said, “I see. So, the hump is to store water when we are in the desert, the legs are for walking through the desert and these eye lashes protect my eyes from the desert…Then why are we living in the Zoo?”

The Lesson: Skills and abilities are only useful if you are in the right place at the right time. Otherwise they go to waste.

Source: Livin3

Spotlight on Liar Liar

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

I’m happy to welcome best-selling author Nancy Boyarksy. Today, Nancy shares her new release, Liar Liar.

Blurb

Nicole Graves finds herself in the crosshairs when she reluctantly agrees to babysit a witness in a high-profile rape trial. Mary Ellen Barnes is suing her university’s star quarterback for rape when the authorities won’t act. In the court of public opinion, Mary Ellen appears to be the quintessential, pious, good girl. But her lies and mysterious comings and goings lead Nicole to suspect that she’s not what she seems.

Excerpt

Nicole heard a sound and came in from the balcony in time to see Mary Ellen, now fully dressed, slip out the front door. Nicole ran after her. She couldn’t allow the girl to run off after what she’d said about the hopelessness of her predicament. By the time Nicole got to the elevator bank, it was empty. The girl was already on her way down.

Nicole couldn’t take the stairs; she was on the tenth floor. But the elevator bank had four cars, and luck was with her. Moments later, the door to another elevator opened. When she reached the lobby, she caught sight of Mary Ellen through the window. She had just left the building and was jaywalking across Ocean Avenue toward the beach.

Nicole rushed after her. The wind was picking up, blowing through her jacket. She was halfway across the street, when a car heading south skidded to a stop a few feet away. The driver leaned on his horn and opened his window to scream at her. She ignored him, trying to keep Mary Ellen in sight. The girl seemed to be headed toward the shoreline. When Nicole reached the sand, she started running. She was in good shape, but running on the beach was completely different from a morning jog around the neighborhood. Her shoes sank into the soft surface, making it impossible to gain momentum. Meanwhile, sand leaked into her shoes, chafing her sockless feet.

The beach near the waterline was dark, and Mary Ellen was no longer in sight. Nicole looked desperately around, trying to figure out which way the girl had gone. All at once she stumbled over something lying in her path. As she hit the sand, the figure she’d tripped over slowly sat up, like a zombie in a horror film.

Author Bio and Links

Nancy Boyarsky is the bestselling author of the award-winning Nicole Graves Mysteries.

Before turning to mysteries, Nancy coauthored Backroom Politics, a New York Times notable book, with her husband, Bill Boyarsky. She has written several textbooks on the justice system as well as articles for publications including the Los Angeles Times, Forbes, and McCall’s. She also contributed to political anthologies, including In the Running, about women’s political campaigns. In addition to her writing career, she was communications director for political affairs for ARCO.

Liar Liar is the third Nicole Graves novel, following The Swap and The Bequest, each of which can be read as a stand alone. Readers are invited to connect with Nancy through her website.

Website | Goodreads | Twitter

Giveaway

Nancy Boyarsky will be awarding a $15 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour. Enter here.

Follow Nancy on the rest of her Goddess Fish tour. You can find out more here.


At A Gathering of Quilts in Aberfoyle

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

Yesterday, I attended the Royal City Quilters’ show at the Puslinch Community Centre in Aberfoyle, a short ten-minute drive away.

First established in March 1991, the Guild promotes an appreciation of quilting, provides education opportunities related to quilt making, encourages the exchange of ideas, and works to preserve the tradition of quilting. Their first show was held in 2000 and subsequent shows every three years afterward. Find out more here.

I circled the room several times, stopping to read the story cards on each quilt and snap pictures.

Here are my favorites…





An Eternal Question…To Avoid!

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

On Wednesdays, I share posts, fables, songs, poems, quotations, TEDx Talks, cartoons, and books that have inspired and motivated me on my writing journey. I hope these posts will give writers, artists, and other creatives a mid-week boost.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading and highly recommend Born a Crime, Trevor Noah’s inspirational memoir. Here’s a thought-provoking excerpt that I have reread many times in the past year.

“I don’t regret anything I’ve ever done in life, any choice that I’ve made. But I’m consumed with regret for the things I didn’t do, the choices I didn’t make, the things I didn’t say. We spend so much time being afraid of failure, afraid of rejection. But regret is the thing we should fear most. Failure is an answer. Rejection is an answer. Regret is an eternal question you will never have the answer to.’What if…’ ‘If only…’ ‘I wonder what would have…’ You will never, never know, and it will haunt you for the rest of your days.”

10 Interesting Facts about Lake Superior

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

I’m happy to welcome Amazon International best-selling author Judy Penz Sheluk to the Power of 10 series. Today, Judy shares interesting facts about Lake Superior and her latest release, Past & Present.

Here’s Judy!

Earlier this year, I established my own publishing imprint, Superior Shores Press. As a traditionally published author, it was a decision I thought long and hard about, but after three years and three books, I felt ready to take the plunge.

Deciding on a name for the company was actually pretty easy. Although our main residence is in New Tecumseth, Ontario, we also own a cottage on Lake Superior, not far west of Sault Ste. Marie. Yes, it’s a long drive (7 ½ hours), but as you can see from the pictures, it’s a perfect writing retreat.

Sunset at Judy’s Cottage on Lake Superior

Gibbs Sheluk Enjoys the View

The first book released under the Superior Shores Press imprint is Past & Present, Book 2 in the Marketville Mystery series. And now, here are 10 interesting facts about Lake Superior.

1. Lake Superior is the largest of the Great Lakes, shared by Ontario to the north, Minnesota to the west, and Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to the south.

2. The Ojibwe name for the lake is kitchi-gummi or gichi gami, meaning great sea or great water. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the name as “Gitche Gumee” in The Song of Hiawatha, as did Gordon Lightfoot in his song, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

3. According to the University of Wisconsin, the Objibways believe Lake Superior is protected by Nanabijou, Spirit of the Deep Sea Water.

4. The average depth of Superior is about 500 feet. The deepest point in Lake Superior (about 40 miles north of Munising, Michigan) is 1,300 feet (400 meters) below the surface.

5. Superior holds about 3,000 cubic miles of water— enough to fill all the other Great Lakes plus Lake Erie three times over. Its volume is second only to Russia’s Lake Baikal.

6. The surface area of Lake Superior (31,700 square miles or 82,170 square kilometers) is greater than the combined areas of Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Hampshire.

7. The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum approximates 6,000 ships and 30,000 lives lost in Lake Superior shipwrecks. Thanks to Gordon Lightfoot, one of the best known is the Edmund Fitzgerald, which lost her entire crew of 29 men on Lake Superior November 10, 1975, 17 miles north-northwest of Whitefish Point, Michigan.

8. Because of its location north of Lake Huron, which was discovered first by Brûlé, the lake’s name comes from the French word lac supérieur, which means “upper lake.”

9. The lake is about 350 miles (563 km) in length and 160 miles (257 km) in width. If straightened out, the Lake Superior shoreline could connect Duluth and the Bahama Islands.

10. In the summer, the sun sets more than 35 minutes later on the western shore of Lake Superior than at its southeastern edge.

About Past & Present

Sometimes the past reaches out to the present…

It’s been thirteen months since Calamity (Callie) Barnstable inherited a house in Marketville under the condition that she search for the person who murdered her mother thirty years earlier. She solves the mystery, but what next? Unemployment? Another nine-to-five job in Toronto?

Callie decides to set down roots in Marketville, take the skills and knowledge she acquired over the past year, and start her own business: Past & Present Investigations.

It’s not long before Callie and her new business partner, best friend Chantelle Marchand, get their first client: a woman who wants to find out everything she can about her grandmother, Anneliese Prei, and how she came to a “bad end” in 1956. It sounds like a perfect first assignment. Except for one thing: Anneliese’s past winds its way into Callie’s present, and not in a manner anyone—least of all Callie—could have predicted.

Bio

Judy Penz Sheluk is the Amazon international bestselling author of the Glass Dolphin Mysteries (The Hanged Man’s Noose; A Hole in One) and the Marketville Mysteries (Skeletons in the Attic; Past & Present). Her short stories appear in several collections.

Judy is also a member of Sisters in Crime International, Sisters in Crime – Guppies, Sisters in Crime – Toronto, International Thriller Writers, Inc., the South Simcoe Arts Council, the Short Mystery Fiction Society, and Crime Writers of Canada, where she serves on the Board of Directors, representing Toronto/Southwestern Ontario.

Find her at http://www.judypenzsheluk.com.

Find Past & Present in trade paperback at all the usual suspects, and on Amazon Kindle for an introductory price of $2.99 (reg. $5.99) and Kindle Unlimited.
Buy Link: http://authl.it/afj

Happy Peace Day!

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

Established in 1981 by a unanimous United Nations resolution, International Peace Day (Peace Day) provides a globally shared date for humanity to rise above all differences and contribute to a building a culture of peace.

I’m sharing the lyrics and music of “Imagine,’ a song written and performed by John Lennon. The best-selling song of his solo career, its lyrics encourage us to imagine a world at peace.




Encountering Two Tigers

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

On Wednesdays, I share posts, fables, songs, poems, quotations, TEDx Talks, cartoons, and books that have inspired and motivated me on my writing journey. I hope these posts will give writers, artists, and other creatives a mid-week boost.

When I first read the following Zen parable, I found the situation too difficult–even bizarre–to even imagine. It gives new meaning to the expression: “Embrace the present moment.”

A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him.

Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!


James Frey Visits Kitchener

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

Friday evening, I attended “An Evening with James Frey” at the central branch of the Kitchener Public Library.

This Premiere Series event was well-attended by fans of the best-selling author of A Million Little Pieces, My Friend Leonard, Bright Shiny Morning, and The Final Testament of the Holy Bible.

His latest book, Katerina, was released last week.

Before starting to read, James warned us that parts of Katerina were extremely dirty and the book contained tons of profanity. In an interesting twist, he asked members of the audience, to suggest excerpts.

Afterward, Michael Patterson, Drugs Strategy Specialist for Waterloo Region, engaged James in conversation. It didn’t take too long before the conversation veered toward the controversy that had surrounded (and still surrounds) A Million Little Pieces.

A bit of history…

2003 – Random House released A Million Little Pieces, a memoir of drug abuse and redemption.

2005 – Oprah selected the book for her monthly book club. Over two million copies were sold within months of the announcement.

January 2006 – The Smoking Gun released a report discrediting James Frey and the book. The investigative website reported that much of the book had been fabricated, including critical details about Frey’s criminal record and rehab experiences.

At first, Frey defended the book, but as the accusations mounted, he was forced to make a televised apology on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Nan Talese of Random House admitted that the company failed to fact-check the manuscript. You can watch the entire show here.

February 2006 – Random House published and included a note from James Frey, apologizing for fabricating portions of the book, in later editions.

September 2006 – James Frey and Random House reached a tentative legal settlement. Readers who felt they had been defrauded by the book would be offered a refund.

Friday evening, James admitted that a brief unpleasant period followed the telecast of the Oprah show. He faced 17 class action suits and five lawsuits. After receiving death threats and dealing with constant harassment from the media, he left the country with his wife and one-year-old daughter.

In spite of the controversy and scandal, James has no regrets and wouldn’t do anything differently. A Million Little Pieces has changed many lives and given hope to addicts. Two audience members publically thanked James for writing the book.

During the Q & A period…

• James was inspired by Henry Miller’s controversial novel, Tropic of Cancer. After reading, James set himself the goal of becoming the most notorious author on the planet.

• A Million Little Pieces was not an overnight success story. It took twelve years to write.

• James doesn’t fear failure. If something doesn’t work, he tries a different approach.

• While he finds much of contemporary literature boring, he did enjoy reading Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng. He also reads thrillers.

• He believes that authors don’t take enough risks. Too many of them attend writing school (something that didn’t happen thirty years ago) and write what he calls “homogenized literature.”

• James advice to writers (and all creatives): “If you work hard and believe deeply enough, you can pull it off.”

• He gave the following advice to an audience member struggling with her memoir: “Call it a novel or hire a lawyer.”

• While James wasn’t involved in the filming of A Million Little Pieces, he thought it was awesome when he saw it last week at TIFF. The film stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Billy Bob Thornton, and Odessa Young.