AN AUTHOR WORTH READING: Vic Fortezza

Killing by Vic Fortezza

About the Book:

Dante Gentile, a carpenter, is quietly proud to have served in Vietnam. Twenty years later, he faces psychological warfare on the home front. His son, Junior, is off fighting the Gulf War. He suspects his wife of infidelity. His teenage daughter is a mystery to him. His father, a WWII veteran, is becoming increasingly embittered.

Set in an Italian-American community in Brooklyn, Killing is not a murder mystery or a mob epic. It focuses on family and its central theme. Adherents of political correctness are warned to stay away.

"We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do." - Francis Bacon

Is killing ever justified? If so, to what extent? These are questions that captivated me, and I don't know if anyone has ever attempted to tackle the theme to degree that I have in Killing. Of course, as is the case with all life's great questions, with life itself, it is cloaked in mystery. I also wanted to explore a family coping with the modern world, and to use my Italian-American upbringing as the backdrop.

The greatest difficulty the novel presented was the dialogue. At first I was set on using almost 100% Brooklynese, as I wanted to write the truest book possible, although it is fiction. I'm sure I was thinking of the language of the slave Mark Twain used for Jim in Huck Finn. People who read early drafts found it too difficult. Eventually, I compromised, whittling the Brooklynese to about ten percent.

Since our community is diverse, the flavor of Brooklynese is stronger in some than others, and is so in the characters. I suppose some Italian-Americans will find the language, views and behavior of some of the characters as insulting as that of those in The Sopranos or Goodfellas, although the mob is only on the periphery of the book. Too bad. I am fascinated by humans and try to capture them as they are, not as they should be.

A second aspect of the novel that some would find controversial is the inclusion of a historical figure, who also remains on the outer periphery late in the narrative. I could have used a fictional name, but everyone would know who it is, so I used the real name. My biggest concern was not what he or his supporters would think, but what Vietnam veterans would think of the action the main character proposes, even though it doesn't come off in the end. They've suffered enough at the hands of leftist artists. I was overjoyed when a veteran read and loved it. That is only one opinion, but it gave me a lot of encouragement.

In the end, Killing is a book for anyone who enjoys conflict and confrontation. The greatest irony of the novel is that no one is killed except in a dream sequence.


About the Author:

Vic Fortezza was born in Brooklyn in 1950 to Sicilian immigrants. He is a graduate of Western Michigan University, 1971. He has had more than 50 stories published worldwide. He contributes articles to buzzle.com. He hawks his books on the streets of NYC. His hobbies are muttering profanity on the golf course, and mangling notes and chords on the guitar while singing off key.

Sample his short stories at: http://members.tripod.com/vic_fortezza/Literature/


Read his book reviews here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A3CMFY6R6DMUTJ/ref=cm_cr_pr_auth_rev?ie=UTF8&sort_by=MostRecentReview

Order Killing at http://www.amazon.com/Killing-ebook/dp/B006520M64/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324994706&sr=1-1-spell 

AN AUTHOR WORTH READING: Charles Rodenbough

Charles Rodenbough

JUST WHO IS CHARLES RODENBOUGH ANYWAY?

I am Charles Rodenbough and beyond my role as husband, father, and grandfather, I suppose I can characterize myself as a writer and teacher, both capacities I have enjoyed since retiring from being a business manager. Many years ago I was aware of what I enjoyed doing but I let others convince me of my “responsibilities” and I gave up the desire to be a college professor. I don’t begrudge the choice nor do I regret what might have been.  In my retirement I am getting to catch up on the avocation that I had continued even while functioning as a businessman.

History is my genre and my concentration has been associated with North Carolina. I chaired a Sesquicentennial Celebration (Madison, NC), organized Historic Districts, county chaired the National Bicentennial, Presided for the Historical Society, planned for a county museum, and all the while I read, researched, and collected for a time when I could write. When that time came, I was not starting from scratch but ready to compose from what I had assembled. 

I like to structure my writing on the bare facts but I like to create beyond into the logic or lack thereof in how people, individually and collectively, accommodate to their circumstances. History writing is always interpreting the circumstances of one time or generation to another which sees through its own prism. The historian has to convey facts and situations in such a way that the reader begins to perceive in the historical moment. I have written biography, history, and historical fiction.

Most recently, I wrote a biography with my grandson that could be read and appreciated by multiple generations of readers. Stealing Andrew Jackson’s Head was published this year by All Things That Matter Press. My wife, Jean Rodenbough, is also a published author with All Things That Matter Press.

Currently, I am involved with a project with the University of North Carolina, studying a unique common thread of slavery from Africa, through the West Indies, Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana and Canada over a hundred year period.  

Stealing Andrew Jackson’s Head

http://www.amazon.com/Stealing-Andrew-Jacksons-Charles-Rodenbough/dp/0984651799/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1322169788&sr=1-1 

AN AUTHOR WORTH READING: Jessica Chambers

JESSICA CHAMBERS

JUST WHO IS JESSICA CHAMBERS ANYWAY?

Soon after Jessica was old enough to walk and talk, her parents realised two things.

The first was that she had an incredibly vivid imagination. Unlike many small children, she was content to spend hours at a time amusing herself, inventing ever more dramatic games of kidnap, runaway orphans and wicked stepmothers. When she wasn’t playing, she could often be found listening to an audio book, Roald Dahl, perhaps, or her favourite Enid Blyton, becoming lost in the tales woven by others. Even as a child, Jessica cherished a dream that one day she would be a writer herself. Always a shy person, she revelled in the ability to escape into another world, something that remains true to this day.

The second thing which gradually became apparent to her parents was that there seemed to be something wrong with her sight. She was forever tripping over toys left lying around on the floor, or being chided for sitting too close to the television (“You’ll get square eyes if you don’t watch out.”) It took several years of appointments with specialists, of brain scans and visual tests, but   when Jessica was five years old, experts diagnosed her as having Retinitus Pigmentosa, a degenerative disease affecting the retina.

At school, Jessica’s teachers did everything in their power to make life as easy for her as possible, including providing her with a CC TV and computer. However, as she approached her ninth birthday, her sight had deteriorated so severely that the teaching staff no longer felt equipped to meet her needs. It was decided that she should transfer to Dorton House, a weekly boarding school for the visually impaired. For Jessica, this was a dream come true. Having devoured all the boarding school stories she could lay her hands on, from Billy Bunter to Mallory Towers, she couldn’t wait for her own adventure to begin.

Of course, her time at Dorton House wasn’t quite the round of classroom pranks and midnight feasts she had anticipated. Nevertheless, her nine years there were extremely happy. In addition to the standard subjects, she learned to read Braille and to use a computer with speech output, was introduced to talking kitchen scales and white canes, and mastered countless every day skills to help her adapt to life as a visually impaired person. Outside of lessons she tried her hand at horse riding and archery, fell in love, and had her first painful dose of heartbreak. When she left at eighteen, she did so not only with top grades in her exams, but most importantly with the encouragement of her English teacher, which gave her the confidence to pursue a career as a writer.

Perhaps as a result of going away to school, spending more time in the company of her peers than her own family, Jessica developed an intense interest in people. Everything about them fascinates her. She loves to observe the ways in which they interact, their steadfast loyalty and tendency to hurt those closest to them, their capacity for both cruelty and kindness. It’s this understanding that makes her such a skilled writer. In the words of multi-published author Molly Ringle, “Jessica has an amazing talent for creating true-to-life characters, throwing them together in a gorgeous setting and letting the sparks fly.”

This insight into the best and worst aspects of human nature comes to bear particularly strongly in her novel Dark Is the Sky, soon to be published by All Things That Matter Press. An emotional read fraught with tension and unexpected twists, the novel follows a family’s struggle to come to terms with the past. Twelve years after tragedy tore them apart, the Camerons reunite for the first time since that terrible summer’s day. Far from being allowed to lay their ghosts to rest, however, a shocking revelation almost destroys them for a second time.

Want to know more? Keep up to date with all Jessica’s news, including the release of Dark Is the Sky, by joining her Facebook fan page

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jessica-Chambers/177537202257347?ref=sgm

or subscribing to her blog. http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify

For more information about Jessica and her novels, visit her website

http://www.jessicachambers.co.uk/ 

JUST WHO IS JEFF GEPHART ANYWAY?

JEFF GEPHART

"JUST WHO IS JEFF GEPHART, ANYWAY?"

Just as my wanderlust has kept me moving from place to place and working in diverse capacities, my writing defies strict categorization, from the satirical humor blog I post on my website (jeffgephartwriting.com) to the poignant drama of my first two novels?2006's The Second Life and Out of Dark Places, published in 2011 by All Things That Matter Press. 

The settings and characters can change, but one theme that ties most of my writing together is the examination of the human spirit. I find people fascinating, and I want to understand what motivates and inspires them, so that's what I write about. Most of the kids my age loved Star Wars for the space battles and memorable aliens, but what drew me in was the battle raging within Luke Skywalker's soul and his ultimate decision to reject the Dark Side. To me, nothing is more compelling than a story of someone finding the resources within themselves to overcome life's staggering obstacles. The Second Life deals with a man who rejects society's definition of religion and struggles to find the truth within himself, while Out of Dark Places features a protagonist who learns that the connections we make with others might be enough to redeem his tattered soul. 

While my next project will be a more light-hearted, comedic look at a character finding his way through a confusing world, I'm sure you'll notice those same themes of self-discovery and the evolution of the human spirit. If you're a reader that enjoys having your empathy awakened and discovering that the similarities of our life experiences is what binds us all together, I have a feeling you'll find it as rewarding to read my books as it was for me to write them.

http://www.jeffgephartwriting.com/

https://www.createspace.com/3589477

http://www.amazon.com/Out-Dark-Places-Jeff-Gephart/dp/0984639209/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1302752992&sr=8-2

http://www.amazon.com/Out-of-Dark-Places-ebook/dp/B004W8E9XU/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1313263945&sr=8-3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyArqsc5QtI 

AN AUTHOR WORTH READING: Maggie Tideswell

Maggie Tideswell

                                         JUST WHO IS MAGGIE TIDESWELL ANYWAY?

Maggie walks in two worlds. The one is reality, the here and now: in the other there is no concept of time and space. But in both worlds love is what holds it all together. The love of the Superior Beings, the love between a parent and a child, the love between siblings, friends, for a project, or object, or aminal. The world as we know it cannot exsist without love relationships. 

The ultimate love relationship is that between a man and a woman, and this is what Maggie explores in her writing. But as nobody exists in a vacuum, the world intrudes on every relationship.

In Dark Moon, Maggie took and extraordinary meeting between two strangers, added the world and wrote a book that will have the reader turning the pages until the thrilling end.

Book Trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvFqnD20-IE

Available in paperback & e-book format at:

http://tinyurl.com/5sklwxd

http://www.kalahari.com/books/Dark-Moon/632/42728694.aspx

AN AUTHOR WORTH READING: Jean Rodenbough

JEAN RODENBOUGH

Just Who Is Jean Rodenbough Anyway?

Let me tell you:  I was eight years old and we were in Honolulu, Hawaii.  My father was an Army doctor.  Early one morning in December our family woke up to loud sounds that first seemed like the Navy practicing their firing.  But it was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The days following were the beginning of a time that changed everything for me.

Many years later, I thought of that time, of the effects on my psyche from the nearness of that war.  I wondered then what must it have been like for children who were living in the midst of war?  And I began researching stories, gathering stories from friends I had known recently, and those from my own childhood, about how they experienced World War II.

The book that resulted, Rachel’s Children: Surviving the Second World War, was published in 2010 and has been read by those who lived through those times, and those who were born long after such a war.  The book describes the tragedy and outrage that wars carry in their paths.  My stories are commented on by brief poems and reflections, to provide some distance from the pain of those years.  

Now in my late 70’s, I feel some release for my own emotional reactions.  It is in telling our story and reliving the experience not only of our own lives, but the stories of others which verify our own, that make us whole.  I am glad to have made the effort, and appreciate All Things That Matter Press for publishing it.

Now I work on another collection of stories, this time of animals who have been tragically abused, mistreated, abandoned.  The stories tell of the caring human beings who have taken these animals into their own lives and made pets of them.  Poems will be the commentary for the situations that at last have given peace and love to these creatures: dogs, cats, birds, and all four and two-legged beings.

http://www.amazon.com/Rachels-Children-Surviving-Second-World/dp/0984621660/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319642997&sr=8-1

AN AUTHOR WORTH READING: M. J. Neary

M. J. Neary

JUST WHO IS M. J. NEARY ANYWAY?

My literary career began in Neo-Victorian fiction and drama. I am the author of the acclaimed novel Wynfield’s Kingdom that appeared on the cover of the First Edition Magazine in the UK and the sequel Wynfield’s War. The two novels were adapted for stage as historical tragicomedies, Hugo in London and Lady with a Lamp respectively. Last year I decided to temporarily leave the slums of 19th century London behind and relocate to the heart of early 20th century Dublin, the hearth of nationalistic activity, where every week a new alpha-rebel usurps the power. That is precisely the setting for my iconoclastic novel, Martyrs & Traitors: a Tale of 1916. 

Introduced to the concept of cultural activism at an early age by my father, a prominent operatic coach and language revivalist, I always found it fascinating how various ethnic groups have addressed the concept of national identity, especially when it was in peril.

While examining any nationalistic movement, it is vital to remember that some individuals perceive their facial features and their language as mere technicalities, while other – as definitive elements of their personhood. Some can effortlessly divorce themselves from their roots, move to another country and marry someone from another ethnic group, while others would find such acts blasphemous. Some are willing to fight not only their perceived enemies but even those comrades who show insufficient zeal, branding them cowards and traitors. At one point does love for one’s heritage become unwholesome and destructive? I don’t attempt to answer that question. 

One of my goals in writing Martyrs was to challenge the innerving stereotype of Irish rebel as being a financially disadvantaged Catholic and fond of drink. The protagonist is the complete opposite – a middle-class Quaker of Anglo-Scottish origin and a vehement abstainer. I find that the Protestant angle is largely underrepresented.

My choice of focal character has been questioned on several occasions. I have been asked: “Why did you choose Bulmer Hobson for your protagonist? That’s not a name you hear frequently.” And my answer is: “Because Michael Collins has been done to death, and I have nothing more to say about him.” To me historical fiction is not about brand recognition.  I am not interested in capitalizing on the star power of canonic figure. With the risk of sounding arrogant and elitist, I do not read bestsellers, nor do I watch blockbusters. My lifelong quest is to dig up lost treasures, literary and historical, and bring into light those figures that have remained in the shadow for whatever reason. Currently, Bulmer Hobson is not a star in the popular epos of Irish nationalism, but he certainly was a star in his day – a star that was abruptly extinguished. The story of a man so precocious and egotistical in his politics yet so naïve in matters of the heart fascinated and moved me, and I hope it moves my readers. This novel is my hymn for all prematurely extinguished stars.

Martyrs and Traitors: A Tale of 1916

Book and Kindle Editions

Amazon.com:     http://tinyurl.com/3kahyk8