I recently discovered a website and community called Book Crossing. It’s an organization that celebrates and promotes the distribution of book as opposed to keeping your books on a shelf at home. The website encourages users to print out a label for the book, register the book online, and release it into the wild! Continue reading “An Alternative to Shelf Life: Book Crossing”
To Journey Over the Rainbow
From Land of Oz is a quest about finding poetry everywhere it presents itself. These poems are based on L. Frank Baum’s cherished children’s book “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” a story has inspired reproductions, continuations and recreations since its original publication in 1900. Inspired, Kathleen de la Chaumette relies on the classic as the basis of her poems in the recently published From the Land of Oz.
Reminiscent and nostalgic, the poems in the collection attempt to recreate the magic and mystery we experienced as children, reminding us of and transporting us back to Oz. The wonderment and joy that follows the childlike innocence experienced and replicated through The Wizard of Oz are retained and revisited in De La Chaumette’s selection of poems. Continue reading “To Journey Over the Rainbow”
Rebecca’s Poetry, Spoken Word Open Mic.
Rebecca’s Poetry, Spoken Word Open Mic., every third Tuesday at 6:30PM.
With its dim yellow lighting against fading yellow wall paint, Rebecca’s provides a classically comfortable setting perfect for recitation or live music. Complete with mismatched armchairs and covered couches, thick wood tables and burlap coffee sacks hung from the ceilings and unframed canvas paintings waiting patiently and hopefully to be purchased, Rebecca’s looks the quintessential coffee house. Against one wall is a bookshelf containing classics and modern romance alike, board games and decks of cards; an old piano waits to be played in the opposite corner of the room. The bar is cluttered with pastries behind glass and cluttered hand-written menus, listing coffees and sandwiches and ‘specialty drinks’. Piled near the door wait a variety of free and local newspapers, magazines, business cards and advertisements in support of local businesses and individuals.
They Were Promised the Sea
“For me, the problem is that the conflict between Arab and Jewish is not out there in the country, it’s inside my soul, inside my identity. I have this Arab part and this Jewish part and I wouldn’t like them to be in conflict.” – Shira Ohayon
Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey
“It’s nine forty now, try not to eat it till twelve, right?”
Less than a page later:
“The plate has a note attached: Lunch for Maud to eat after 12 p.m. I take the Saran Wrap off.”
Two sentences later:
“When I’ve finished eating I wander back to the sitting room.”
With her love of toast and cans of peaches, one would think that the narrator of Elizabeth is Missing, eighty-two year old Maud, would be a relatable character – and although her dementia progresses with each page, this sentiment holds true. Continue reading “Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey”
Fandoms
fan·dom
/fandəm/
noun: fandom; plural noun: fandoms
-the state or condition of being a fan of someone or something.
-the fans of a particular person, team, fictional series, etc., regarded collectively as a communi
ty or subculture; includes cosplay members.
A fandom and fan has evolved and transformed from holding a foam finger to binge watching marathons, creating fan fiction and creating other forms of art. Continue reading “Fandoms”
Mosquitoland by David Arnold
“I am a collection of oddities, a circus of neurons and electrons: my heart is the ringmaster, my soul is the trapeze artist, and the world is my audience. It sounds strange because it is, and it is, because I am strange.” – Mim Malone
Mosquitoland is a novel about a girl named Mim aka Mary Iris Malone. Mim has had her life uprooted when her parents divorce and she moves from Cleveland to Mississippi with her Father and stepmother against her wishes. When she overhears that her mother, who she hasn’t heard from in three weeks, is sick she immediately decides to go see her herself. She jumps onto a Greyhound bus to do just that but not everything goes as smoothly she planned. Continue reading “Mosquitoland by David Arnold”
‘Rise of the Dragons’ the New Fantasy Adventure by Morgan Rice
Morgan Rice’s newest novel Rise of the Dragons is an action packed fantasy sure to please fans of her previous novels, along 
with fans of works such as The Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini. The first to what looks to be the next The Sorcerer’s Ring, Rice’s acclaimed Young Adult fantasy, Dragons starts out running, a fast paced read that keeps you guessing until the very last page, and then leaves you wanting for more.
Escalon is a kingdom of oppression, fallen to the neighboring kingdom of Pandesia and forced to live under their rule. Continue reading “‘Rise of the Dragons’ the New Fantasy Adventure by Morgan Rice”
Cinderella: The Development of a Classic
It all started with a dream and a slipper. But where did the dream and the slipper come from? When was the first tale of Cinderella told? The 1950’s Disney animated classic can’t be the original version and it most certainly can’t be the only version. Common belief is that the French version Cendrillon and the Brothers Grimm version in their collection of folktales are the
original versions of the Cinderella theme, and just about everyone knows about, or has seen, the Disney animated film Cinderella, but is the story older than that? It is; you see, the theme of the tale can be found as far back as 7 BCE in the tale Rhodopis about a Greek slave girl who marries the king of Egypt. In another tale, the Cinderella character is known as Cordelia and she is the daughter of King Leir of Britain and in another version out of China the Cinderella character is called Ye Xian. Continue reading “Cinderella: The Development of a Classic”
WILD: A Journey of Self Realization and Self Discovery
At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mothers death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State—and she would do it alone. Told with suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild powerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her. Continue reading “WILD: A Journey of Self Realization and Self Discovery”
Seeing ‘Wild’
Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée, Wild is based on Cheryl Strayed’s memoir of her journey along the Pacific Crest Trail. Driven to the edge by the loss of her beloved mother (Laura Dern), the dissolution of her marriage and a headlong dive into self-destructive behavior, Cheryl Strayed (Reese Witherspoon) makes a decision to halt her downward spiral and put her life back together again. With no outdoors experience, a heavy backpack and little else to go on but her own will, Cheryl sets out alone to hike the Pacific Crest Trail — one of the country’s longest and toughest through-trails.
Powerfully moving and emotionally resonant, the film opens with the climactic loss of a boot as it slips from Cheryl Strayed’s mountain top perch, which is immediately followed by a barrage of flashback memories and thoughts — bursting images of a fox, of a horse, of dictionary definitions, of her mother’s face. This opening serves as a framework to outline the story, attempting to afford the viewer with a general overview into the journey that is about to unfold. Continue reading “Seeing ‘Wild’”
Interview with Locked Horn Press
Locked Horn Press is a multi-genre publisher founded upon the idea that any space in which conflict exists is an opportunity for discovery and conversation. Striving to publish creative and scholarly work that provokes, inspires, and sparks not only excellent writing, but also dialogue about contemporary issues, Locked Horn publishes works that are designed to speak to one another. Interweaving the creative and the critical, these collections will provide space for writers and readers to engage the various and persistent conflicts that surround us.
Locked Horn Press has published two collections this past year: Read Women, a poetry collection of contemporary female-identifying/gender queer poets, and Gendered & Written: Forums on Poetics, a compilation of diverse writings from working poets–including a selection of poets in Read Women–that explore the relationship between gender and poetry.
You can find more information about the press at lockedhornpress.org.
ROSES AND REVIEWS 