Friday 28 September 2012

The Indie Exchange #FlashFiveFriday: Backbone




It's Friday Flash time again...

The prompt is...
Backbone





#FlashFiveFriday is a weekly flash fiction/flash blogging prompt run by The Indie Exchange.

The rules are very simple if you’d like to take part:
1) Write for no longer than five minutes;
2) No upper or lower word limits;
3) You must write something new;
4) You can prepare your post ahead of time but the 5 minute limit still applies; and
5) If you add your blog post to the weekly linky you must visit five other blogs that week too to show your support.


Why not give it a go?


Here is mine - 




Wishing

through wintry vistas
she stops and takes the view
socks waving in the breeze
that shakes the cherry blossom
heavy boughs hanging low
it drags towards the ground

along the jagged fence he strides
head bobbing, feathers blowing,
balancing like a man on a wire
his little black eyes stare her way
orbs twinkling in the cold sun
hoping for a peck or two

she smiles, leaves her tea,
collects some bread from the box
tears it into pieces small enough
to fill the robin's wee soul
tossing it outside, she runs back
to watch him, quietly from afar

hopping and pecking in delight
too short the time he spends
then off he flies into the blue
she sighs and stares into nothing
dreaming of far-off places
where her friend may have flown

she fears the solitude that lies
ahead in the hours neverending
all the same, copied over
she wishes to fly, so far away
to distant climes and waking suns
where she could find herself anew

endless roads, mountains high
fleeting glances from passers by
softly she traces her memories
hugging her mug against her
wishing she could fly just once
wishing she had the backbone





Some of the comments below (3) are for last week's poems, but I screwed up and overwrote them! Sorry! Sigh!





Monday 24 September 2012

MondayMogsy: places to sleep 2


Today's bloggy bit is going to very short and sweet cos I had to endure the London Tube in the rush hour today for the first time in months... and it was a shock! I'm mashed!

Cue something cute... Mogsy... 

Here she is doing her best PlayCat pose, complete with 'you really want to stroke me, yes you do' eyes and 'catfood wouldn't melt in my mouth' expression.

I'm not sure if this is unusual for a cat and only Mogsy's thing, but she loves her paws tickled! Seriously! The only cat I've ever had who likes this. If I tickle her paws, I get the full-on roly-poly action and lots of purrs, dreamy eyes and wriggling.

After a weird outbreak of excema that lasted a year or so, I finally got to see a specialist. Guess what? He thinks I'm suddenly allergic to my cat... after all this time. He told me to 'get rid of the cat'! Imagine? And he also said 'I know it won't be great for the cat...' Hell no, mew no. There's no way. The cat is staying! After 13 years, we're like family. Allergies or no allergies!





Monday 17 September 2012

MogsyMonday: places to sleep 1

I figure that Monday is the least fun day of the week, so from now on it's going to be renamed Mogsy Monday, and it's going to be all about my cat.

My cat may be 13 - it was her birthday in June - but she's still as cute as a button. She's a cancer, but she doesn't move sideways in crabby fashion. Luckily for me, she's not a hunter, as I love birds and mice, but she does, for some reason, like to munch insects. Not any old insect, but spiders! Yikes! 

Maybe she noticed that her mum doesn't particularly love them, but she grew up swatting them. For a while she'd just leave them lying there, leggies up or bunched balls, and I'd stumbled across them unawares and scream. Then they began to vanish. Cue spiderless homes for years, which is cool for the scared. Nowadays, she's slowed down on the spider hunting, and alas, I see many eight-leggies wandering around.

Anyway, here's Moggie doing what she does best - looking cute!


Mogsy loves to cat nap and cat snooze and cat sleep and well, you've got the picture. Anything and anywhere can be reinvented to be her prize sleeping place. 

Here's Mogsy's happy sleeping place number 1: my bed!

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz





Sunday 16 September 2012

Celebrating womanhood

Celebrating Womanhood


Happy Celebrating Womanhood day!


Thinking what to write on the theme of ‘womanhood’, my mind flickered to strong or inspirational women through the ages, and the first names that came to mind were these: Joan of Arc, Cleopatra, Boudica, Queen Elizabeth I, Jane Austen, Marie Curie, Emmeline Pankhurst and the Suffragettes, Mother Teresa, Florence Nightingale, Aung San Suu Kyi, Tawakel Karman, Maya Angelou, Harper Lee, Virginia Woolf and Margaret Atwood.

There are so many amazing women who could join this list. In particular, I admire the Suffragettes for their painful fight to bring us equality (British women over 30 could vote in 1918 and gained equal standing in 1928/American women won the vote in 1920), Aung San Suu Kyi for her endless fight for justice and freedom, Marie Curie for her discoveries and for being the first woman to win the Nobel Prize (twice), and Margaret Atwood for her powerful books about the female condition, particularly The Handmaiden’s Tale.

Women played a huge role in both World Wars, entering the military forces and engineering, performing unpaid work at home, and taking up roles that had traditionally been reserved for men. However, today we still do not have equality around the world and some women do not have the human rights that should be everyone’s birthright.

Looking at The Women’s Economic Opportunity Index (2010), we still have a way to go. Women, on average, earn 75% of their male co-workers’ wages. In some developing countries, women cannot vote, own property or walk outside the home without a male family member. An estimated 16% of the world’s adult population lack basic literacy skills and about two-thirds of these are women. In adulthood, women more often than men face the triple burden of work, household chores and child/family care responsibilities. In many societies mothers face a stigma if they leave their children to go to work. In eight countries, women do not have property ownership rights ­- Cameroon, Chad, Chile, Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Togo and Zambia. A few governments even have laws that stop women leaving their homes or country without the permission of a male relative or guardian (this restricts a woman’s ability to get a passport). These countries include Oman, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Yemen.

So, although not every woman has equality yet, I’d like to think that one day we will get there. We have many positive and powerful role models that the younger generation can look up to. Yay to women! :)


Below are a handful of poems that I wrote in the past with a woman at the centre.



Some day

Some distant day she’ll
Return when she sees beauty
In a rainbow sing



Hey little girl

Hey little girl
Where are you going?
Before you fade
Into the dark
Wander into the yellow light
Flick your hair
Jump into the sea
Running leap of sheer faith
Cut the surf at a run
Feel its cascade
Into the depths of the sea
Keep the spark
Stay shining
In the heat of the sun
Summer daze
Trivial gaze
Lazy haze
Stay awhile and turn your head
Keep smiling
Before it fades
With the waves
Trickling into the shapes
Of feet in the sand



Rain

She sits and dreams of making rain
In the dark, shadows dancing mimic
Colours of the aghast
Sights and sounds and murmurs
Still breathing
Watching over the edge
Of everything
The glass splinters into a million shapes
Cast in a myriad of lights
Bright and sparkling, dancing
In the spring sun
And she dreams of making rain
That tears and crashes
Washing away the shards of glass
Splattering the colours rent
With droplets of ice-cold nothing
Cuts and caresses
Shards of grass peeking through
Clouds gathering
Dust



Shine

She makes music
In the silence
Feels it shine
In the still
Wakes the muse
In the night
Wanders free
The pseudonym




Dreamers

She lives among the dragons, stars and unicorns
The fairytale world born in her wildest dreams
Of childhood wandering on the darkest nights
Beneath the chill of the star speckled moon

In the dark the dragons shine their fiery red
In the light the unicorn bows it silvery head

She dreams the dreams she yearns to live
Ascending the high, jagged mountain reaches
Descending the bleakest, deepest chasms
She rides the unicorn, outpacing green forests

Dead set distancing the thickset woods, screams
The day, the light, the shake of morning dew
Lifted on breezes the silent wails of the dreamer
Spinning on tiptoes across the surface of a lake

Never crack the mirrors in this lingering escape
Take the dreamer in one hand, bend to fate
Where she dances in a stream of starlit skies
Never wandering from the bending, stony path

In the dark the dragons shine their fiery red
In the light the unicorn bows it silvery head

Darkest eyes penetrate the watching innocence
Of the dreamer floating through the skies
Never falling, always flying, asleep, suspended
Travelling in this mystic world so shimmering



Saturday 15 September 2012

Review for Kiwi in Cat City

Today I got a wonderful review for Kiwi in Cat City... and my first video review... from Emily. Here it is and a big thank you to Emily for reading and reviewing my books.

The full article, by her mum, Megan, along with a giveaway is here:
http://www.behavioralchild.com/friday-finds-kiwi-in-cat-city-vickie-johnston


Thanks for reading,
Vickie

Friday 14 September 2012

The Indie Exchange #FlashFiveFriday: Giving



It's Friday Flash time again...

The prompt is...
Giving





#FlashFiveFriday is a weekly flash fiction/flash blogging prompt run by The Indie Exchange.

The rules are very simple if you’d like to take part:
1) Write for no longer than five minutes;
2) No upper or lower word limits;
3) You must write something new;
4) You can prepare your post ahead of time but the 5 minute limit still applies; and
5) If you add your blog post to the weekly linky you must visit five other blogs that week too to show your support.

Why not give it a go?


Here are mine... each individual poem was given a maximum of 5 minutes. 



Giving


In the doorway he slumps down
Turning neon below a hotel sign
A trickle of rain bounces off his nose
To patter on the cold stone ground

Passersby give him the cold eye
As he stares out beneath his hat
The night chill wanders around him
Hugs his shoulders tighter yet

Across the street, crowds gather
Queuing noisily to enter the club
In the distance a guitar is wailing
Inside, his hopes are languishing

He remembers times past in light
Faces he once loved and lost
The times they change so swiftly
He almost doesn’t know himself

Here in the doorway, no one stops
Invisible his heart seems to pour
But no one feels it sitting there
They step over his legs, he isn’t here

Down the pavement a girl strides
Hugging her warm coat around her
The lonely man looks up and smiles
At her sweet and bonny face

Peering down again, he sniffs
While the cold sneaks into his toes
Swirls of water chase down the gutter
Carrying a forlorn leaf or two

Yet she stops and speaks and smiles
Spilling coins into his waiting hand
The spirit of giving warms him
Resurrecting the man inside.



Haiku on the theme of giving

Dressed all in pink, she
Recalls her mum, finishing
Her JustGiving race


Walking Shep, she stops
Before the open smile to
Post a greeting card


“Giddy up” shouts Santa,
Chasing the elves with their gifts –
“Christmas is coming!”


Sparkling tinsel lights
Bright boxes eager to thrill
Waking Christmas kids





Tuesday 11 September 2012

In memorium

Thoughts today for those who lived and suffered through 9/11. Hard to imagine it's the 11th anniversary of it. 

I was at home (London) with a cold and my friend texted me to turn on the TV. I guessed it was nothing serious. Then she rang and I switched on. And then I was glued to it all day and night. It was that shocking. 

Later, in London we had the Tube bombing on 7 July 2005, and it brought back the same feelings, although we were in the middle of it then, stuck on Tube trains in tunnels, not knowing what was happening. 

I'd love to live in a simpler world with no wars, bombings, evil, etc.

Book Review: Noah Zarc: Mammoth Trouble




By D Robert Pease

Amazon rating: 5 stars

I really enjoyed this book. It had many themes: time travel, how we define disability, the environment, extinction, family, friendship, our relationship with nature and animals, and choice.

I thought it was interesting that the hero was a paraplegic. We are told: “I was born without the use of both of my legs. The only time I feel free is when I’m piloting a ship.” Our hero finds himself frustrated by his own body, which limits him, but he appears to be a born pilot. Through this he finds confidence and freedom. Cue an adventure. 

For a world without animals, Noah and his family, and their own four-legged friend are the only hope. Earth has been saved for the animals, and humans are now living on Mars and Venus. It is the job of Noah’s parents, himself and his siblings, to travel through time on the Animal Rescue Cruiser to find those creatures now extinct in their own time. Unfortunately, not everyone thinks this is a good idea. And there begins the plot of the story.

I particularly liked the characters of Noah and his father. Adina, Hamilton, Sam and Haon are also well developed.

The author investigates how Noah sees himself and his disability, and how he grows. In this book he learns a lot about himself and his strengths, along with some things about his family and secrets long hidden. I found this book fun and easy to read. The style is easy. The plot is exciting. There’s suspense, fun and some heroics thrown in. I look forward to the author’s next books.

Author page:

US: http://www.amazon.com/D.-Robert-Pease/e/B005HF5G8E/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1
UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/D.-Robert-Pease/e/B005HF5G8E/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1




Monday 10 September 2012

Free today: Life's Rhythms






My new haiku collection, Life's Rhythms, is free today on Amazon US/UK. I love haiku because I think of them as little pictures or moments in life. The book contains 316 of them.

Have a cool day :)
I'm watching the Paralympics Parade on TV! Loving it!



Rain fallen like stars
Sprinkles silver-like touches,
Dancing beside me


Some distant day she’ll
Return when she sees beauty
In a rainbow sing


Under sparkling stars
She laughs like water cascades
Rippling endlessly


Raspberries blood red
Ripe, soft and so succulent
Chilled ice-cream slithers


The sheltering moon,
Beneath her glimmer they roam -
Free, the wild wolves howl


In the dry still heat
The lizard basks, eyes aloft
Watching out for lunch


Eyes turn to the sun,
River of blue-black shimmers
On peacock feathers


Leaves hurtle, twisting,
Dropping without an echo –
Curved, their hands open


Review on Amazon US from Ed Drury:

"I spent the morning with these poems, reading, clipping and reflecting. I find them wonderful little treasures and am happy to have them in my library, there for when I need to summon an image for comfort or inspiration" (excerpt from 5 star review).

Links:

UK Amazon 



Friday 7 September 2012

The Indie Exchange #FlashFiveFriday: Broken




It's Friday Flash time again...

The prompt is...
Broken





#FlashFiveFriday is a weekly flash fiction/flash blogging prompt run by The Indie Exchange.
The rules are very simple if you’d like to take part:
1) Write for no longer than five minutes;
2) No upper or lower word limits;
3) You must write something new;
4) You can prepare your post ahead of time but the 5 minute limit still applies; and
5) If you add your blog post to the weekly linky you must visit five other blogs that week too to show your support.

Why not give it a go?


Broken
(given 5 minutes)


Today I checked the theme of this week’s flash and it was ‘broken’. I thought it was really apt as this week and the last I’ve been glued to the Paralympics. On Monday and tomorrow, I had the honour, and I underline the word ‘honour’, to go and watch these magnificent athletes racing. Winning. Fighting. Overcoming. Not giving up. All of these things so important. Life takes us all on different journeys, throws up different challenges, surprises us, confounds us and sometimes poses us with something that we find difficult to overcome. But these athletes have overcome. I watch with tears in my eyes every time someone crosses the line, and fulfils their dream after years of hard work and determination. Which brings me back to the theme of ‘broken’. What does broken mean? Can such a thing always be overcome? And what of the body and the mind? When are they broken? From watching the Paralympics and these amazing people, I would put forward that nothing is ever truly broken. The spirit is stronger than the body, and the spirit fights back over adversity. A big cheers to the Paralympics athletes. I am in awe.





Dolls
(given 5 mins)

Lopsided smiles
On broken faces
The porcelain cracks
Black lines drawn
Around dark eyes
Red lips beam
The colour smudged
Echoes of a name
Repeated some time
In ages long past
When words frayed
Emotions spent
Childhoods passed
We learn as we cry
We grow as we smile
Giggles at bedtime
Tumbles beside
Running into tomorrow
Pausing to recall
Cracked expressions
Of aged dolls




Some haiku 
(given 5 mins or less for each one)


She fades into dark
Places where sanctitude reigns;
Memories shattered


Snapped into pieces
The doll cries in silences
Tears deep etched in dust


The body broken
Digs deep from the heart to learn
Ways to live again


Into the light she
Shines – before rows of faces
She crosses the line


Despite this cruel crush
The spirit fights in the dark;
A sense of awe shines









Thursday 6 September 2012

Congratulations to Feed Your Reader Winners!


Co-hosted by Books: A True Story

Congratulations to three readers who have won copies of my books in the Feed Your Reader Giveaway Hop

I'm excited to be name the winners of the following books:

Kiwi in Cat City
Kiwi and the Missing Magic
Day of the Living Pizza


Congratulations to:

Tammy Brewer
Stacy Richman
Michelle L Lynn

Yay! I'm emailing you now and I hope you enjoy the books.

A quick recap of the winners' favourite and scariest animals - 

Tammy - my favourite animal is a hippo and I am scared to death of mice

Stacy - love jaguar and wolves but they are also the scariest 

Michelle - horses, well, grew up with them, then worked with them in my career, but for a smaller house pet, cats for sure. love dogs too, am a total animal person really :)


Thanks to everyone who stopped by and took the time to enter.
Happy reading everyone! :)




Wednesday 5 September 2012

Words with... Joe Perrone Jr


Thanks to Joe Perrone Jr, author of the Matt Davis Mystery series and other titles, for this interview


First off, a giveaway challenge from Joe Perrone Jr...

If anyone can arrange for their book club to choose
one of my Matt Davis mysteries as its book of the month selection, I will reward them with a personally inscribed, autographed copy of 
Twice Bitten,
and agree to do a group Skype interview with their
book club.


What is your day job or are you lucky enough to write
for a living?


I am a full-time author and publishing consultant.

What books have you written so far?

I co-authored my first book with a friend in 1997. It is called Gone Fishin’ With Kids (How to Take Your Kid Fishing and Still be Friends). I published my first novel, Escaping Innocence (A Story of Awakening) in 2007, followed closely by the first Matt Davis Mystery, As the Twig is Bent, which I published in 2008. In 2010, I published the second Matt Davis Mystery, Opening Day, as well as A ‘Real’ Man’s Guide to Divorce (First, you bend over and…). In 2012, I published the third Matt Davis Mystery, Twice Bitten.

What works in progress do you have?

I am currently writing the fourth in the Matt Davis Mystery Series, called Broken Promises. It should be ready for publication in March or April 2013. I am also working intermittently on a literary novel entitled Changes, which I expect to take several years to complete.

How long did it take you to write your book/s?

Approximately one year. Escaping Innocence was written (and rewritten numerous times) over a 20-year period, while the divorce book was written in less than a week. As the Twig is Bent was written over a 10-year period.

Do you write linear, or jump back and forth? Do you plan or write by the seat of your pants?

It depends upon the book. Escaping Innocence began as a memoir, which then morphed into a novel, and was written linearly, as were the fishing book and the divorce book. The three (soon to be four) Matt Davis mysteries all jump back and forth, which is something I really like to do. For the most part I write by the seat of my pants, with the exception of Broken Promises; the mystery I’m working on now. I conceived the entire plot in my sleep, and wrote it down at 4 a.m. in the morning. Of course, as with all of my books, even with a definitive plot, they still tend to go where they want to, which is the true fun and adventure of writing fiction.

Why do you write?

I write primarily because I enjoy it and because I’m somewhat driven to do so. I love to know that others are reading what I write and, for the most part, are receiving enjoyment from doing so. However, now I also write to make a living, so it has also become a business.

How long have you been writing?

For as long as I can remember, in some fashion or other, but only seriously for about 15 years.

Where and when do you write? Do you have set times?
 
I have an office in my finished basement where I write (I share it with my two cats, Cassie and Callie). As far as when I write, that’s a bit complex. I try to write every day after breakfast, but often my best work is done when the mood strikes me, which is usually at 3 or 4 in the morning.

Which character from your books do you like most/are most like?

Without a doubt, my favourite character is Matt Davis, the protagonist in the Matt Davis Mystery Series. He is most like me, except for the fact that I was never in law enforcement.

What/who inspired you to write and still inspires you?

My mother was the one who inspired me to read (at a very early age) and began my love affair with words, but I was definitely influenced in my writing by numerous teachers and professors along the way. More recently, it is my wife, Becky, who has become my muse.

What do you think is the ideal recipe for a good novel or story?

Conflict! A good story must have at its core some form of conflict, whether it be moral or even physical. Also, it must be believable (even though it’s fiction). But, in my opinion, the two most important qualities of good fiction are three-dimensional characters and solid, accurate dialogue.  I work very hard at making my dialogue read as natural as possible. If it’s good, it will never be in the way of the story, but will always augment it.

Have you ever based a character on someone from real life? And did you tell them?

Absolutely! In fact, I find myself doing it more and more often (always with the permission of the real person). Most recently, I used my wife’s oncologist in Twice Bitten. I also use several good friends as recurring characters in the Matt Davis Mystery Series.

If you had to pick some actors/actresses to play the characters in your book, who would you hire?

Oh, gosh. That’s a tough one. When I wrote the first Matt Davis mystery, As the Twig is Bent, I actually had a real person – an actor in a TV commercial – in my mind as I wrote the book. But, I think it would depend upon when a book was made into a movie and who was available at the time that would most determine my choices. Right now, there’s an actor on the new series, Major Crimes, whose name escapes me, who I might choose to play Matt Davis. Anything beyond that would be pure speculation.

Fave things: animal? food? drink? film? colour? band? song? place? item of clothing?

Cat. Pizza. Mountain Dew. The Big Lebowski. The Beatles. Time in a Bottle. A tie between Roscoe, NY and Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Baseball cap.

When you were a kid, what did you want to do/who did you want to be when you grew up?

Early on, I wanted to be a famous artist. Then, as I grew older, I wanted to be a famous actor. Not once did I ever dream of being a writer “and now I am one…LOL”!

Would you say that your dreams have come true or are you still working on them?

I have been blessed beyond belief in my personal and now my business life. I have been blessed with wonderful children and a wife (my best friend in the world) of 31 years. I guess I always dreamed of being famous (or, more accurately, well-known) and in a minor way that dream has certainly come true. There are literally thousands of people whom I’ve never met that have read my books, and some eagerly await the next book I’m writing. That is a blessing!

You’re walking in the forest and you bump into an alien librarian from Mars. He wants five book recommendations from you…

Hmmm…that’s a tough one. I would start with Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. It is the first book that I remember falling in love with. To that I would add In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, Boys and Girls Together by William Goldman, Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth, and Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A Heinlein. Naturally, there are dozens more, but you only asked for five.

Who is your favourite character from any book and why?

Probably Detective Edward X Delaney in the First Deadly Sin by Lawrence Sanders. That character definitely influenced my characterisation of Matt Davis, at least as he was drawn in the first book in the series.

Who is your hero/heroine?
 
Without a doubt, my father and my wife. Close seconds would be President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the two best leaders in my lifetime.

Which book do you wish you had written?

On the Road by Jack Kerouac.

Which three authors would you like to take to the pub?

Truman Capote, Ernest Hemingway and Norman Mailer.

Are you published or self-published? What is your experience?

I was a ‘published’ writer with a newspaper and have had some fly-fishing short stories ‘published’. I also wrote advertising copy freelance. But, I proudly consider myself an ‘indie’ author. In fact, later this year or early next year, I intend to form my own publishing company.

How do you find the marketing experience?

Marketing is what separates, in large measure, the successes from the failures. By that I mean that there are thousands of really good books written and self-published every year, but only a few succeed ­or, to be blunt, sell. As most of us know, the average self-published book sells less than 100 copies in its lifetime. All things being equal, it’s the marketing that makes the difference. I probably spend as much, or more, time marketing my books as I do writing them. As I mentioned earlier, writing is my passion and also my business, and, as such, I invest a good deal of each day promoting it.

What advice would you give other writers just starting out?

Read as much as you can of those writers you admire most. Observe what it is that they do so well that makes them successful. Then, emulate them. Work hard at your craft, including taking workshops and courses if necessary to shore up your skills. Don’t be afraid of criticism. Good, honest, objective criticism is what helps us become better writers. Sometimes it can be painful, but it’s a necessary part of the process. Learn how to write good dialogue; it’s critical to good fiction. Above all, be open to new ideas and technology. Then, above all else, write, write, write.

Do you have a blog? What do you blog about?

I do. It’s mostly about me. I find that my readers enjoy learning about me as a person. It’s their way of feeling connected to me and my writing. I probably have put more ‘out there’ than some wish to know, but, hey, that’s me. I’m a natural social animal. I welcome emails from my readers and gladly respond to their inquiries. Naturally, when I blog, I tend to emphasise anything to do with my books.

What other hobbies do you have?

I have always been a bit of a ‘jock’. However, in recent years, physical disabilities have curtailed my athletic endeavours quite a bit. My favourite physical activity is fly fishing. I was a professional fly-fishing guide for ten years in the Catskill Mountains of New York, and use fishing scenes quite a bit as interludes in my Matt Davis mysteries. I also tie my own flies, fish with them (for trout), and write short stories about fly-fishing. My favourite hobby is watching movies (usually with my calico cat, Cassie, seated in my lap). My wife and I have a large, flat-screen television with super surround sound and we own several hundred films on DVD. I also like to listen to music and play my guitar (I’m not very good, but I find it relaxing), and I LOVE to cook ­ and eat! The latter will be the death of me.

What would you like to achieve in the next five years?

I would like to finish my literary novel, Changes, and have it published by a major publishing house. Personally, I would like to travel to the western part of the United States, especially to Montana (before I’m too old to fly fish those fantastic rivers), and to England and Italy. We’re hoping to visit the UK in 2013.

If you won the Lotto or a major publishing contract, what would you do with that dosh?

That’s an easy one. My wife and I talk about this all the time. The very first thing I would do is buy a travel trailer and have it permanently lodged at a campsite alongside the Beaverkill River in Upstate New York. Then, we’d start travelling and not stop until we’d seen all the things we’d always dreamed of seeing. If there was anything left, I’d start a scholarship fund for aspiring writers and leave the rest to my kids.

Complete one of these stories in 100 words or less…

1. There was once a wee worm called Fred...
2. In the deep and darkest reaches of the dank forest...
3. One day Charlotte decided she was going to change the world...

There was once a wee worm called Fred who wanted to catch the largest trout in the world. Each day he exercised and ate plenty of whatever worms eat, so he’d be strong enough to accomplish his goal. He tried his skills on panfish, being ingested, then spit out as quickly as possible, but that got to be boring. So he set his sights on largemouth bass, which provided a bit more sport. He was caught (and released) by several in the three-pound range. Just when he was ready to try for trout, he drowned in a rainstorm. So sad.

What question do you wish I’d asked and, of course, what is the answer?

Do you believe in God?

Absolutely! How could I not.

Thanks so much Vickie for this delightful, insightful interview. I’ve really enjoyed it.

Links



Thanks for reading! Vickie