Introducing Sonika

My very good friend, Eilis Flynn, announced the release of her third novel December 13. Introducing Sonika is currently available as an e-book from Cerridwen Press.

I bought her latest novel early Thursday morning and started reading immediately. This book is a fantasy with superheroes and dastardly villains. An exciting setup and sympathetic characters hooked me right away. I’m looking forward to finding out how heroine Sonya Penn will use her superpowers. And what course her romance with physicist John Arlen will take.

If you’ve never read an e-book, you should check it out. There’s a long list of advantages of e-books over print books—save forests, money, time and space—to name a few. You can buy e-books online 24/7, usually at a fraction of the cost of the very same print book. I use MS Reader (a free download) on my PC. My Microsoft e-reader shows the pages like a print book so there’s no scrolling, it bookmarks my place, the type is easy on the eyes and you can change the font size. It will even read the book to you if you want. Thus, any e-book can be a large-print or audio book. You can save thousands of books on a computer, hundreds on a CD, and you can buy a handheld reader to take them with you everywhere you go. You’ve probably seen Amazon’s new Kindle reader in the news, and there are many others available, i.e. Franklin E-Bookman, Hiebook, Rocket E-Book, Sony Digital Reader. I don’t own a handheld device, so I can’t give a personal recommendation. My understanding is they all have advantages and quirks, including a wide range of prices, so I’d suggest researching before purchasing.

Naturally, I think e-books are great since my two contemporary romances, Special Delivery and Big Bad Wolfe, are available at Wings ePress as e-books as well as paperbacks. You can also buy them on Amazon (paperback) and at Fictionwise (discounted e-book). Save a tree, read an e-book. Not a bad slogan.

"Souvenir"

Souvenir is currently playing through June 10 at the ACT Theatre in Seattle. Patti Cohenour’s portrayal of real-life Florence Foster Jenkins, pictured on her album cover above, is laugh-out-loud funny, though the play’s central themes are of serious interest to artists. Ms. Jenkins, known as Flo to her long-time accompanist and friend, Cosme McMoon, was aria challenged but gave recitals to paying audiences consisting originally of her wealthy friends. The concert proceeds went to charity and her popularity grew, resulting in the production of the album and larger crowds, culminating in an overflow audience of 2,000 at Carnegie Hall in 1944. She died a few months later.

Cosme, portrayed by Mark Anders, narrates the play and struggles with the issues of the market value, popularity and ultimate worth of art. The music he writes is ignored while the truly terrible singing of Flo is acclaimed. He wonders at her confidence: does she hear something different in her head than what comes out of her lips, does she know how she sounds and capitalizes on it, is she the ultimate trickster or mad naïf?

As an author, I attend many writers’ conferences, and I always love to hear other authors tell their personal stories. Often, you hear an underlying shadow of self-criticism of their work. Large doses of courage are required to send you heart and soul out into a critical and rejecting world. Writers agonize: am I good enough, should I keep trying? Apparently, Flo didn’t agonize. She had no talent, but she did her thing and was successful anyway. I can think of several extremely popular writers who I believe fit into the same category.

Joe Adcock says in his Seattle Post-Intelligence review that laughing at Jenkins is like laughing at the disabled, but I disagree. The disabled don’t choose their situation; Florence Foster Jenkins chose, for whatever reasons, to perform. When we choose to perform, we invite the reaction of our audience.

Go see the play; I highly recommend it. Or you can listen to samples of Flo’s singing on Amazon. And you can read excerpts and reviews of my books on my Web site, www.linda-wallace.com, or at my publisher’s site, Wings ePress. I bravely invite your reaction. Even if it’s laughter.