Monday, March 18, 2024

The Story Behind The Golden Manuscripts: A Novel by Evy Journey

 



 





The Story Behind The Golden Manuscripts: A Novel

Are you ever curious how picture books and, by extension, even graphic novels, first began? Has it ever occurred to you that picture books might have illustrious beginnings?

Like most mothers, I read to my son when he was a boy, and I understand how wonderful children’s picture books can be. Pictures in books are not only entertaining, they also teach.

Today, we take picture books for granted. We love images. We whip out our cell phones and take pictures to preserve memories of instants in time.

I love illustrations in fiction and wish we did more of them. One of my favorites is an old almost tattered copy of a collection of Jane Austen’s novels featuring illustrations of scenes from her stories by a nineteenth century artist.  Before Masterpiece Theater and my exposure to films of 19th century England, these images shaped my limited conception of everything that was old English. Now, I have an ebook copy of an old illustrated Jane Austen collection. 

When an art history class introduced me to manuscript illuminations, I was amazed at the thought that illustrated books likely have medieval beginnings dating back to Charlemagne’s reign in the 9th century. While he revived classical art, his most lasting achievement is the flourishing of picture bookmaking. Most people in the Middle Ages couldn’t read, so he championed the creation of picture books to teach them about God.

Historians called those early picture books illuminated manuscripts or manuscript illuminations. They were handwritten and illustrated on parchment (dried and stretched animal skins), often by the same creator who painted the pictures. 

An illumination is a picture or illustration in a book that conveys the meaning of a piece of text. It’s “illuminated” through the use of gilding—gold or silver decorations on letters and figures.  In medieval times, these manuscripts represented a high art form. 

This intro compelled me to do extensive research into illuminated manuscripts. One of the articles I unearthed told of an actual theft by an American soldier during WWII of a couple of these rare manuscripts. It was eureka moment. I was left with no choice but to write a story around this theft of illustrated books.

To make the story more intriguing, and in keeping with the overall theme of the second set of standalone novels in my Between Two Worlds series, I chose a young biracial heroine who’s rootless and anxious to find a home for herself. The product is a literary novel based on actual events, into which I’ve woven mystery, historical, and romance elements.

 



Title: The Golden Manuscripts: A Novel

Author: Evy Journey

Pages: 360

Genre: Historical Fiction/Women's Fiction/Mystery

A young woman of Asian/American parentage has lived in seven different countries and is anxious to find a place she could call home. An unusual sale of rare medieval manuscripts sends her and Nathan—an art journalist who moonlights as a doctor—on a quest into the dark world of stolen art.  For Clarissa, these ancient manuscripts elicit cherished memories of children’s picture books her mother read to her, nourishing a passion for art.  When their earnest search for clues whisper of old thieves and lead to the unexpected, they raise more questions about an esoteric sometimes unscrupulous art world that defy easy answers.   Will this quest reward Clarissa with the sense of home she longs for? This cross-genre literary tale of self-discovery, art mystery, travel, and love is based on the actual theft by an American soldier of illuminated manuscripts during World War II.
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Evy Journey writes. Stories and blog posts. Novels that tend to cross genres. She’s also a wannabe artist, and a flâneuse. Evy studied psychology (M.A., University of Hawaii; Ph.D. University of Illinois). So her fiction spins tales about nuanced characters dealing with contemporary life issues and problems. She believes in love and its many faces. Her one ungranted wish: To live in Paris where art is everywhere and people have honed aimless roaming to an art form. She has visited and stayed a few months at a time.

Author Links  

Website | Facebook | Instagram | Goodreads

Monday, March 11, 2024

The Story Behind St. James Infirmary (Stories) by Steven Meloan

 


 


 


The Story Behind St. James Infirmary (Stories)

Many of the stories were spawned by semi-annual literary events in my town—raucous, coffeehouse-style readings often set to acoustic live music. The group just celebrated its ten-year anniversary at the same location. The below picture was taken at one such gathering—and is on the back cover of St. James Infirmary

With most of the stories, I began with the germ of some event or experience that was important or memorable to me, and then let the underlying meaning of the experience reveal itself during the writing. And since many of the stories were intended to be read aloud, the rhythm/pacing of the words was also essential. 

After several years of such gatherings, I realized I had a sizable collection of stories. The co-founder of the events suggested I put them together into a book, and so I did.

I’d had a previous collection of song lyrics published out of an indie press in Germany. Through them, I connected and became friends with Westley Heine, a wonderful musician, poet, and memoirist, with a book on the same German press. Westley ultimately found his way to Roadside Press, and Michele McDannold. Roadside published Wes’ Busking Blues, a wild memoir of his days as a Chicago squatter and street musician. Through that connection, St. James Infirmary also found a Roadside home. McDannold is a true publishing force of nature—with over 100 recent books of poetry, prose, and memoir. And she is a brilliant poet in her own right. 

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https://www.magicaljeep.com/product/james/129

In compiling my collection of stories, I came to see that they often centered around “wounded people in need of care.” And since the title story makes mention of an old folk-blues standard, “St. James Infirmary,” it seemed the perfect encompassing title. The song also has great personal meaning for me. It has been recorded by countless artists—including Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, Van Morrison, and Rickie Lee Jones. In fact, an entire book was recently written about the song. But the version that I know best is by the folk singer Josh White. My mother was friends with White in Greenwich Village during WWII. So I grew up hearing his music. (White was later honored with his own commemorative US Postal Stamp, and is mentioned in Bob Dylan’s autobiography.)

The title story of the collection centers around a wild cocktail party thrown by my parents during my teen years. The cover image of the book—featuring a cocktail glass and ‘60s/’70s Pop Art colors—is visually celebrative. But the title text hints at darker undercurrents. The book’s jacket blurbs note that the stories take readers on “a dark and uncanny journey through everyday life,” exploring “complex human relationships and the often-mysterious forces that shape them,” and then “throwing a column of light into the underground of the ordinary.”

 
 


Title: St. James Infirmary

Author: Steven Meloan

Publication Date: April 20, 2023

Pages: 80

Genre: Short Fiction

A book of short stories by Steven Meloan.

Steven Meloan’s writing has been seen in Wired, Rolling Stone, Los Angeles, BUZZ, the San Francisco Chronicle, and SF Weekly. His fiction has appeared in SOMA Magazine, the Sonoma Valley Sun, Lummox Press, and Newington Blue Press, as well as at Litquake, Quiet Lightning, and other Bay Area literary events. He has regularly written for the Huffington Post, and is co-author of the novel The Shroud with his brother Michael. He is a recovered software programmer, and was a street busker in London, Paris, and Berlin.

“Reading these stories, I felt like I was hearing an original voice for the very first time. They are surreal, cinematic, poetic, and have real punch-with everything I could want in a collection of short fiction. Set in California and Europe, from the 1960s to the 1980s, they vividly capture lost times and lost places. They have echoes of Jack Kerouac and Paul Bowles, and can be read again and again with a sense of wonder and pleasure.”-Jonah Raskin, Author of Beat Blues, San Francisco, 1955

St. James Infirmary is a captivating collection of stories that takes readers on a dark and uncanny journey through everyday life. Meloan’s writing has a haunting subtlety that draws one in, as if witnessing the events in real-time. With sharp insights and unexpected twists, these stories explore complex human relationships and the often-mysterious forces that shape them. Meloan vividly captures the gritty reality of each setting, throwing a column of light into the underground of the ordinary. For fans of evocative writing that stays with you long after the final page, St. James Infirmary is a must-read.” 

– Roadside Press

St. James Infirmary is available at Amazon at http://tinyurl.com/fv3zr2hn and Roadside Press at https://www.magicaljeep.com/product/james/129 .


Steven Meloan has written for Wired, Rolling Stone, the Huffington Post, Los Angeles, BUZZ, the San Francisco Chronicle, and SF Weekly. His fiction has appeared in SOMA Magazine, the Sonoma Valley Sun, Lummox Press, Newington Blue Press, and Roadside Press, as well as at Litquake, Quiet Lightning, Library Girl, and other literary events. His short fiction collection, St. James Infirmary, was released in 2023 on Roadside Press. He is a recovered software developer, co-author of the novel The Shroud with his brother Michael, and a former busker in London, Paris, and Berlin.

Author Links  

X (Twitter) | Facebook | Instagram

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

The Story Behind The Dreaming Team by Chris Wallace

 


 





The Story Behind The Dreaming Team

This is a true story about the first Australian cricket team to play at the home of cricket in England.  It took place in the 1860s, when Australia was a colony of the British Empire.  The team that made that journey was made up of Indigenous Australians.

I became aware of it maybe 5 or 6 years ago and played a marginal role in trying to turn it into a television miniseries.  I found it to be not just a fabulous yarn, but, given the increasing global interest in Indigenous affairs, also a necessary story.  It shows a group of young, Black men on an unimaginable adventure, representing a colony whose white settlers have attempted to marginalize them into extinction.  In spite of this, they conduct themselves with grace in social situations and enormous skill in athletic ones.

What really interested me in the story wasn’t the cricket part of it as much as the human part of it.   I kept wondering what it must have been like for these guys who were children when the settlers ripped their way of life away from them, and then turned them into representatives of the colony.

The facts of the story are by themselves almost unbelievable.  My goal was to turn these men into people you could relate to.  That would, in turn, make the history of it even more dramatic.

So, given all of that, and knowing how important the story is as a symbol for reconciling white and Black Australia, I watched while the idea of a television miniseries died on the vine.  Nobody was picking up the ball in either the Aboriginal community or the community at large.

I knew it was a huge risk, as not only a white person, but a foreign-born one, to venture to write the book.  People would be lining up for miles to criticize my brashness.  That kept me from even starting for a long time.  But eventually I decided that the risk was far outweighed by the importance of telling the story.  So, I wrote it as a historical novel for people like me who may not know or care much about cricket, but do care about people and their journeys in Life.

 

 

 
 


Title: The Dreaming Team

Author: Chris Wallace

Pages: 368

Genre: Historical Fiction

In the 1850s, Australia was a thriving colony of the British Empire, with its own sense of importance and sophistication.  But the people who had occupied this vast land for upwards of 40,000 years didn’t fit well with colonial expectations of the future.  In every way imaginable, white Australia tried to keep its “darkies” in line. It is against this backdrop in the 1860s that the amazing story of an all Aboriginal cricket team, the first Aussie team to do so, played at Lords, the home of cricket in England.  Conventional wisdom predicted that Indigenous Australians would die off by the next generation. The Dreaming Team brings those Indigenous players to life and follows them on an adventure that would appear to be unbelievable if it weren’t true.  They not only changed the minds and perceptions about Aboriginal Australians, they arguably changed the course of Australian history.  Praise for The Dreaming Team: “A beautiful story, beautifully written, about a piece of Australian history that, if you don’t know about, you probably should. Heartwarming, heartbreaking and brimming with relevance for today’s Australia. A poignant example of how far we’ve come and how far we haven’t.” “The Dreaming Team tells the true story of the all Aboriginal cricket team from Victoria who did a tour of Great Britain back in the 1860s and all the drama, setbacks, and cultural divide between the Aboriginals and white Australians involved. Considering the state of affairs for Aboriginal people in those days, the team’s accomplishments are no small feat!” “What an interesting story. It is truly an Australian story about indigenous Australians. The story grabbed me from the first chapter, and drew me further in to where I could not put it down. I don’t want to give anything away, so I will say that the twists and turns makes you want to know what happens next at the end of each chapter. To say it is a sports story is not fair, it is a people story, told from the heart, about the hearts of people who love the land, and their story. I recommend it highly, and look forward to more from the author, Chris Wallace!”

You can purchase your copy at Amazon



Chris Wallace is a creative resource.  

As an actor, he was a regular on the hit daytime drama, All My Children, created the role of The Half-Percenter in Joe Papp’s production, Mondongo, appeared in countless television programs, including The Incredible Hulk, The Mary Tyler Moore Hour and had a starring role in the holiday horror classic film, New Year’s Evil.  

As a producer, he put on New York: A Great Place to Live at Lincoln Center which kicked off New York City’s Diamond Jubilee; for Channel Five in New York, he produced the highly acclaimed Harlem Cultural Festival; at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, he produced Uptown Sunday Afternoon, which was hosted by Harry Belafonte and featured Richard Pryor, Bill Withers, and a galaxy of other performers; for the National Organization for Women, he produced A Valentine’s Day Tribute to Woman at New York’s Town Hall;  was associate producer of the first Ali-Frazier Heavyweight Championship Fight at Madison Square Garden, and produced the gigantic block party, hosted by Gwen Verdon, which named West 46th Street as Restaurant Row. .

He earned the Silver Award at the New York International Film and Television Festival for In the Balance, a film that advocated sustainability and common sense in wildlife management.  It was also singled out by the Department of the Interior as one of the best films of its kind.  Chris wrote, narrated and wrote the musical score for that film.

He performed on several children’s television programs in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and Jacksonville, singing his original children’s songs.  In Hollywood, he performed them for all denominations of Big Brothers and Big Sisters of America.  He created a musical, A Special Thing to Be, at the Los Angeles Children’s Museum that featured his kids’ songs and the museum’s children’s chorus.

He wrote the songs for two children’s theatre productions in Hollywood, Hooray, Here Comes the Circus and Sleeping Beauty; wrote and performed the songs on Strong Kids, Safe Kids, a video produced by Henry Winkler for Paramount that dealt with the protection of children from sexual molestation and exploitation.  He created his first musical revue, Greatest Hits, in Hollywood, which played several venues, including Carlos ‘n’ Charlie’s on Sunset Strip and The Backlot in West Hollywood.

Upon relocating to Australia, he produced A Helping Hand at the Victorian Arts Centre, a benefit for Quadriplegic Hand Foundation; wrote book, music and lyrics for Nothing to Wear, a musical based on “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” also produced at the Victorian Arts Centre.  He created a one-man show, A Thing of Shreds & Patches, for the Melbourne Fringe Festival; created another one-man show, The Mark Twain You Don’t Know, which toured Australia, then Pacific Palisades, California, and played in New York City on the 100th anniversary of Mark Twain’s death.  He created several cabaret shows for The Butterfly Club in Melbourne, most notable of which was Les Femmes which featured an all female cast.  He wrote, produced and performed in Huckleberry: A Musical Adventure which premiered in Melbourne.

Which brings us to The Dreaming Team.  This is his second book.  The first, Hollywood Mosaic is written under the pen name, Pete Joseph.

You can visit his website at www.olentangymusic.com.