"First Love," by John Clare

"Freedom of Love," by Andre Breton

"Henry River Poem 13," by Tim Peeler

How Novels Begin: ANIMAL FARM, by George Orwell

"The Masquerade," by Olive Custance

How Novels Begin: THE SOUND AND THE FURY, by William Faulkner

"Theatre of the Absurd," by Hans Ostrom

British Poets--Youtube

It turns out I've read 88 poems by British poets on Youtube. The most viewed is "Cherry Ripe" by Robert Herrick--I don't think I read it very well because I tried to sound like a market-barker in the first few lines. The least viewed is "On Gut," by Ben Jonson.  Anyway, here is a link:

British poets

"Thomas Hardy and A.E. Housman," by Max Beerbohm

"Inventory," by Dorothy Parker

"Thomas Hardy and A.E. Housman," by Max Beerbohm

"Sestina: Ellis Island, Amelia Earhart," by Hans Ostrom

Novel Out a Year--Set in the Sierra Nevada

HONORING JUANITA, a novel I wrote, has been available for about a year. It hasn't appeared on the New York Times best-seller list, but I imagine that's just an oversight. It's a contemporary tale set in the Sierra Nevada and concerns a woman who decides to protest the building of a dam on a pristine alpine river. Her husband happens to be the county sheriff, so he has to arrest her. Complications ensue, as they often do in novels. A secondary plot is historical--the lynching of a Mexican woman during California's Gold Rush.  This part's based on an actual event that happened in a town near where I grew (a town by the name of Downieville). Anyway, these stories were something I'd wanted to write since I was in about the fourth grade--well, at least the historical plot was. 

The novel-publishing world is mad to categorize novels--just look at any literary agent site. Of course, "romance" is the big category. But then there's chick-lit, fantasy, multi-cultural, "literary," mystery, and so on.

 HONORING JUANITA seems to have a bit of the "women's novel" about it, as far as I understand that category. And multi-cultural: Juanita is/was Mexican, and Mary Bluestone & her husband Lloyd are of mixed ethic backgrounds.  And environmental?  Is that a fiction-category? Also relatively short. Don't you love relatively short novels? I do, even though the enormous WAR AND PEACE remains my all-time favorite piece of fiction. But just looking at one of Georges Simenon's thin Maigret novels makes me smile. I see I've digressed.



HONORING JUANITA is available in traditional form for $11.95, less than that used on amazon, and VERY cheap on Kindle: less than a dollar! Such a deal. This post constitutes my major advertising-push and has left me exhausted.  A link:

HONORING JUANITA