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The Pulse of Urban Delaware
New historical novel, The Lies That Bind, debunks slave stereotypes http://www.delawareblack.com/news/entertainment/62-books/867-new-historical-novel-the-lies-that-bind-debunks-slave-stereotypes.html
Honor Among Outcasts: Early Research Takes me to the Missouri/Kansas Border by Ed Protzel, author of The Lies That Bind
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George Caleb Bingham painting of General Order No. 11. In this famous work General Thomas Ewing is seated on a horse watching the Red Legs.
Y’all check out the new book trailer for Bred to the Bone by Lin Waterhouse.
Y’all check out the new book trailer for Bred to the Bone by Lin Waterhouse. This is one mystery you will not know who until the very end. Waterhouse is a master of the chase.
Published by Deer Hawk Publications
Represented by Loiacono Literary Agency
The St. Louis Jewish Light mentions The Lies That Bind by Ed Protzel
The St. Louis Jewish Light mentions The Lies That Bind by Ed Protzel in their Jan. 6 edition – print and online –
http://www.stljewishlight.com/features/business/article_6be56a90-b4a9-11e5-a9e4-833602701358.html
The Lies That Bind, written by Ed Protzel of St. Louis, is a darkly ironic antebellum mystery/drama set in Turkle, Miss. from 1859-1861. It has been released by TouchPoint Press and is currently available on Amazon. The novel is based on Protzel’s screenplay, which was recognized by the Missouri Playwrights Association.
Represented by Loiacono Literary Agency https://loiaconoliteraryagency.com/authors/ed-protzel/
Character Study – Evalyne and Jeffrey Tulschinsky – From Silt and Ashes by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields
Evalyne and Jeffrey Tulschinsky
Twins on their 15th birthday
“Mama, Jeffrey took my doll and hid it. Make him tell me where it is!”
“Mama, Jeffrey took my doll and hid it. Make him tell me where it is!”
“Tattletale!”
Frustrated by her children’s constant bickering, Sarah Tulschinsky stood and hurled her sewing basket to the floor. “Can’t you two play nice? Don’t you know how good you have it?”
Eyes wide, twins Jeffrey and Evalyne backed away from her. Sarah wished she could take back her harsh words. She had always made it a point never to raise her voice to them. After all, they were only four. How could she expect them to understand?
While they were outside playing tag and climbing trees, the postman delivered a letter from Arel that had been lost for almost two months. His detailed account tore her heart into pieces.
Before she could explain to her son and daughter what had happened to those poor children in Kishinev, the front door opened, and Wolf stepped over the threshold. Evalyne and Jeffrey raced to him. He scooped them up, one on each arm and spun them around.
“Papa, the lights comed back on today and we gots water, too!” Evalyne always had to be the first to share whatever she knew.
~~Taken from Please Say Kaddish for Me
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“Do you miss those boys and girls in Kishinev, Auntie?” Evalyne’s round eyes, brimming with curiosity, seemed to pop out of her slender face.
“Would you miss your nose if it fell off?” asked Havah.
Sarah held her finger to her lips. “Evie, you’ll wear Auntie out with your questions.” “How else will she learn? She can never ask me too many questions.”
~~Taken from From Silt and Ashes
Evalyne and Jeffrey Tulschinsky are Sarah and Wolf’s twin children. In the excerpt from Please Say Kaddish for Me they are five-years-old when Sarah receives a lost letter from Arel telling her about the Kishinev pogrom (massacre).
The excerpt from From Silt and Ashes takes place a few months later, after Arel and Havah have settled in Kansas City.
Evalyne is the more outgoing of the two children. Although Havah loves both children, she is drawn to the precocious little girl who is constantly asking questions.
Jeffrey doesn’t share his sister’s enthusiasm for the written word. He would be more than happy to let his sister go to Hebrew school in his place and doesn’t mind living in her shadow.
Not a particularly pretty child, Evalyne makes up for it with her zest for learning, a trait Havah can’t resist.
Published by Argus Publishing
Represented by Loiacono Literary Agency
Jeanie Loiacono, President of Loiacono Literary Agency, to be the featured agent at the 2015 Southeastern Writers Workshop
Jeanie Loiacono, President of Loiacono Literary Agency, to be the featured agent at the 2015 Southeastern Writers Workshop Southeastern Writers Workshop will be June 19-23, 2015 at Epworth by the Sea on scenic St. Simons Island, Georgia. Great conference. Great location. Great information. Great opportunity. http://southeasternwriters.org/Writers_Workshop.html
Loiacono Literary Agency takes on the latest novel from Stephen Doster, aka Stefan Soto, (OMG) Don Quixote and Candide Seek Truth, Justice and El Dorado in the Digital Age (LOL)
Loiacono Literary Agency takes on the latest novel from Stephen Doster, aka Stefan Soto, (OMG) Don Quixote and Candide Seek Truth, Justice and El Dorado in the Digital Age (LOL) Don Quixote is resurrected and sets forth on a quest with another literary heavyweight, Candide (Voltaire’s masterpiece) to find El Dorado…again. LOL
In this picaresque parody, Don Quixote and Candide encounter other literary figures of note during their quest for truth and justice. Cyrano de Bergerac is now a train conductor. Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson are still in the business of crime detection. Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn are somewhat shady business partners operating a rafting/salvage/used auto enterprise. Dean Moriarty is on the road seeking redemption for past sins and sins yet to be committed. Don Quixote and Candide even hitch a ride on a minibus with the crew of the S.S. Enterprise, on yet another mission to save Earth from imminent annihilation.
Written so well, Don himself would dedicate a quest in Doster’s honor. Having done extensive research, Doster weaves into the story characters we are all familiar with, and in so doing, it is like going to a family reunion. OMG, you LOL finding 400+-year-old men tackling modern technology (hence the texting shorts), historical figures and events reoccurring as in a time warp, and, most of all, seeing how it all makes sense. This is sure to be a classic on the shelf right next to Candide and Don’s volumes; a ‘must have’ for all who love literature.
Stephen Doster was born in England and grew up on St. Simons Island, Georgia. He received a degree in Marketing from the University of Georgia and a Master of Liberal Arts and Science degree with a certificate in history. Doster has appeared at BookExpo, the Southern Festival of Books, the Amelia Island Book Festival, the Southern Kentucky Book Fest and has spoken at colleges, historical societies, and library associations in Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. He has been interviewed on public radio and television in Mississippi, Tennessee, Florida, and Georgia. Currently, he is an assistant editor for a peer-review journal at Vanderbilt University. His other works include: Voices from St. Simons, Lord Baltimore, Georgia Witness, Jesus Tree, Shadow Child, Rose Bush and Her Finest Hour. www.sdoster.com
Character Study – Wolf Tulschinsky – From Silt and Ashes by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields
Wolf Tulschinsky – From Silt and Ashes by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields
After one last draw on his pipe, Wolf emptied it into an ashtray on the end table. He leaned back on the sofa and stretched his lanky arms over his head and his long legs out in front of him.
“Public school is a wonderful thing,” he said. “The twins will learn to read and write like American children. There’s talk at the synagogue of starting a Talmud Torah class as well. It will be like heder in the old country, so Jeffrey will learn Hebrew, too.”
“What about me?” Evalyne sat up straight. “Talmud Torah classes are for boys, sweetheart.”
“Auntie Havah reads the Torah in Hebrew, doesn’t she?” Evalyne stuck out her lower lip.
“Yes, I do. Is this not America? Why shouldn’t Evie know what her brother does?”
Havah rose and arched her back in an attempt to find some relief.
“Are you saying we should be without tradition like the gentiles?” asked Wolf with a growl in his voice as he stood.
“I’m saying, our traditions should include women and girls.”
“Then your tradition contradicts Talmud!”
“My papa used to say the Talmud is just a bunch of rabbinic opinions.”
“They’re damn good ones at that, and I’ll thank you to keep your ideas to yourself where my daughter’s concerned.”
~~Taken From From Silt and Ashes by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields
Wolf Tulschinsky is a self-made man. He met and fell in love with Sarah Gitterman on the way to America. Together they’ve forged a good life for themselves and their twins, Jeffrey and Evalyne. He’s a good husband and a loving father. While Wolf prides himself on his trade as a tailor and a modern American, his ideas concerning Jewish tradition are very much old world. Although it’s clear in both Please Say Kaddish for Me and From Silt and Ashes he admires Havah’s courage and strength, he disagrees with her radical stance on women and education.
Published by Argus Publishing
Represented by Loiacono Literary Agency
Hangin With … Author/Screenwriter Ed Protzel, author of The Lies That Bind
Hangin With … Author/Screenwriter Ed Protzel, author of The Lies That Bind
G.W. Pomichter online interview – https://youtu.be/cJnzbvPiA5A
Mary Ickes review of Shanty Gold by Jeanne Charters
Reviewed by Mary Ickes
As the author’s faithful canine companion and writing coach, Bucky Restivo remains ever on alert at his post beneath her desk, and writerly expletives rend the air, he knows that she requires his assistance. Therefore, Bucky volunteered to pen Jeanne’s “Funny, Isn’t It?” column for the October WNC Woman Magazine. Lest he give too much away, Bucky succinctly states that Shanty Gold relates the fictitious story of Mary Boland, Jeanne’s great-great grandmother, emigrating from Ireland.
As her story opens, Mary is walking thirty miles from her village of Kinsale to the port city of Queenstown where she hopes to board a ship bound for America. She carries no possessions, but the burden of guilt for losing her mother and baby sister to starvation almost overwhelms her. With no other options available, Mary boards the Pilgrims Dandy, a coffin ship. (Owners of coffin ships charged cheaper rates for ships barely still afloat and supplied, if any at all, less food and water than required by law. A mortality rate of 30%, as on the Pilgrims Dandy, was the norm.) Mary is so traumatized that she considers jumping overboard until befriended by Kamua, a slave boy. He hides and protects her until the Pilgrims Dandy sails in to Boston Harbor eleven weeks later. Mary and Kamua declare themselves brother and sister of the spirit and vow to help each other succeed.
Mary, though illiterate, soon learns that N.I.N.A. posted in a store window means No Irish Need Apply. After twelve days of desperate searching, Kathleen O’Halloran hires Mary to work in the pub owned by her and Tommy, her husband. Kathleen, the story’s moral compass, befriends and protects Mary and Kamua and teaches them to read and write. As they explore new ideas and ponder destinies beyond their initial expectations, their lives in America begin anew. Mary wonders, Besides finding Da, what is me destiny? I love working at O’Halloran’s, but I can do more.
Because Mary and Kamua are so young, their successes stretch the reader’s credibility; when their story opens in 1849, she is age thirteen and he is fifteen. Like many immigrants before and after them, Mary and Kamua were a new breed of young people with boldness, audacity, and nothing more to lose. Mary and Kamua lost their families to greedy violence, suffered horrifically on the Pilgrims Dandy, and arrived in Boston owning only the rags they wore. By the book’s end in 1852, Mary has progressed from a girl with barely enough strength to walk from Kinsale to Queenstown into a young woman with a destiny that will correct injustices that poor women endure.
Mary, a discerning narrator, provides readers with an acute sense of place whether in desolate Ireland, in the Pilgrims Dandy’s deadly hold, or on Boston’s churning streets. She and Kamua, accustomed to lack, are happily … ‘distracted with all the wares offered along the road. There are shoes for human feet and horse hooves … and chamber pots so fancy they look like soup urns.’ She scorns a rich person’s home… ‘If the foyer is gaudy, the drawing room can be described as nothing but shanty-Irish brash.’ Mary misses nothing and duly informs her reader.
She has learned to be equally perceptive about people… ‘Now, I have faith in me instincts. They are sharp. Mary Boland is no longer the fool girl who trusted’ … She befriends Stash, the kindly oarsman who rows them to shore, but she is rightly terrified by Shiv McGraw at first glance. Daniel Kelly might be Adonis handsome and smitten with her, but Mary insists on a successful career first, romance second. With each appearance, the main characters grow in complexity and interest.
Jeanne Charters’ meticulous research in Ireland and Boston makes Shanty Gold a historical novel suitable for mature young adults, their parents, and grandparents, no matter what their level of expertise on Ireland’s Great Famine and the ensuing emigration.
Jeanne notes in her November “Funny, Isn’t It?” that an Amazon reviewer wrote, “Good Story, fair brogue.” For the many readers, including me, who would probably stop reading a book rather than slog through a full brogue, Mary’s lilting Irish is a relief.
As you will see in the author’s bio, Shanty Gold is the first book in a trilogy about women fleeing the Irish Famine. Bucky has assured me that he is supervising Jeanne as she writes Lace Curtain to make sure that she continues the high standards of historical accuracy and reading enjoyment established in Shanty Gold.
Author Bio: After her release from prison (corporate business), Jeanne Charters vowed to reform, so she quit her criminal life (not really) and started writing for WNC Woman. You, too, can find redemption! Write a book…or buy Shanty Gold or both! www.jeannecharters.com
Just kidding! Jeanne Charters is a historical fiction author who plans to follow her debut novel, Shanty Gold, with two more books based on female Irish immigrants’ experiences in coming to America. Lace Curtain and Silk Stockings will be published in 2016 and 2017 by Rogue Phoenix Press.
In this Irish-American trilogy, Jeanne’s heroines, Mary Boland, Nellie Kelly, and Kate O’Halloran inherit brutal circumstances emanating from the mid-nineteenth century Irish Famine. Their converging stories culminate in a most dramatic ending, and, for two, a new beginning.
Jeanne, former President of Charters Marketing, an award-winning advertising agency based in New York State, now lives in Asheville, North Carolina, with her husband, Matt Restivo and therapy dog, Bucky. She is published by Rogue Phoenix Press www.roguephoenixpress.com represented by Loiacono Literary Agency www.loiaconoliteraryagency.com . Shanty Gold is available in Asheville at Malaprops and Mountain Made; in Brevard, at Highland Books; in Waynesville, at Blue Ridge Books and News; and in Tryon at the Book Shelf. And, of course, on Amazon B&N KOBO GoodReads Shelfari IDreamBooks Scribd .