Our Life

photo from www.lamag.com

stand to attention

life is passing by

in a huge float

a floral parade

your life her life my life

look how beautiful it is

look at all those dreams

like helium balloons

clap laugh cry clap

now it disappears around the corner

now it’s gone

And the Winners Are...

First of all, a huge THANK YOU to all those who have made out of this Indie Love blog hop such a fantastic event, bringing together authors, books, and readers.

Thank you, Debdata Dasgupta Sahay, from bookr3vi3ws, for making all of this possible and for inviting me to this event.

Roland, thank you for offering the gifts for the giveaway.

Thanks to all of you for participating in the giveaway and for the wonderful comments.

Without further ado... here are the winners:

20$ Amazon gift certificate:

Bethany N.

Audible audiobook of "Death in the House of Life"

Serena S.

Author Roland Yeomans + Giveaway

Celebrate Valentine's Day by showing some love for an Indie author and by participating in the blog hop hosted by Book R3vi3ws.

Meet or get reacquainted  with indie author Roland Yeomans.

His books are adventurous, philosophical, and exotic. Native American wisdom and folklore play a major role. His main characters are, above all, Human, no matter what else they are.

Samuel McCord, Texas ranger and undead; Victor Standish, son of the Angel of Death; Alice Wentworth,the Victorian Ghoul; Hibbs, the Bear with Two Shadows; Wolf Howl, the Last Shaman… Historical figures often make appearances. Among them are Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain) and Nikola Tesla, the fabled inventor, and even Marlene Dietrich, the German movie star.

Their stories take place in the same universe, in which New Orleans is a magical centre, but their quests take them from New Zealand to Egypt, to the Badlands, and more. The novels are written in such a way that there is no need to read them chronologically; there’s enough in each of them to give a good idea of who the characters are and of the setting, and thus enjoy them separately.

The Legend of Victor Standish
 I studied the rough people in the bus seats around me. Not one Mother Theresa among them. They were all predators. The night made them only more dangerous. The caveman in each of us climbs closer to the surface during the night, for the moon sings to him, and the cold emptiness between the stars speaks his language. To that savage self, evil can look lovely in too little light.

 French Quarter Nocturne
 Meilori’s shade danced open-armed in front of me. What does love look like? What is its color? A white flash of fright. A billowing wave of warmth, its reach beyond the microscope and further than the length of hope. Is it a jewel sparkling in the night? Or a whisper murmuring within the corridors of the heart? Once more Meilori danced across the velvet grass, her empty arms beckoning to me. Her soft voice carried like a specter in the dark. Her words brushed by me and into my soul. “Beloved, one last dance."

Her Bones are in the Badlands
It’s enough to be in stark places like the Badlands of South Dakota, to be alone a while in a place where all I can hear is the lonely wind blowing, where all I can see is the earth stretching all around me into the far distant mountains. I look up into the wide embrace of the endless night. Life sings to me again, and I know I am not lost.

Return of the Last Shaman
The night had strung death like beads along the thread of its hours." "The blue of this anemic dawn was a visual silence. Yet, the ravaged face of the moon still dimly hung in the awakening sky like the mockery of childhood dreams. I could touch neither the moon nor those long ago dreams so I turned to the other half of my heart.

The Stars Bleed at Midnight
I suspect each of us rode toward a different shrine, the same only in name. For the destination men name is only the destination of surface.

Death in the House of Life
 In this wilderness there was no greed, no vanity, no hypocrisy. Only a lasting throb of green growth. And the eternal quiet. I always knew that this was the way I would go. A knife or a gun in hand, my teeth bared at the enemy like an old wolf falling away into the endless void, defiant and fighting to the end.

 Find out more about Roland and his books at his blog, Writing in the Crosshairs.

Enter the giveaway to win a 20$ Amazon gift card - first place, or an audiobook of "Death in the House of Life," - second place.

Eternal evil never looked so beautiful. Before Indiana Jones… Before Allan Quartermain... There was... Samuel McCord. Join the cursed Texican as he clashes with the last survivor of an extinct species in the Missouri of 1848. He communes with the Spirit of the Earth in the Hawaii of 1866. He is betrayed into the hands of the British government in 1895 Cairo. Thrill to his escapes from ancient death traps in the ruins of the lost city of Tanis. Match wits with him as he duels grey aliens and seeks to decipher the mysteries left behind by the aliens who were the basis for the gods of Ancient Egypt. As he seeks to save the world and his marriage from the monster that is the eternal beauty, Meilori Shinseen, the Empress of a race from beyond the stars... and his wife. Doc Savage had no wilder crew to back him up than does Samuel McCord - Mark Twain… Oscar Wilde… The genius Nikola Tesla… The undead Ada Byron, creator of the first computer language in the 1840's. And the incomparable She Who Devours, the model for the Sphinx… Empress Meilori Shinseen… McCord's beloved wife. And the probable Destroyer of our world.

Contest is open internationally, where applicable by law. Entries close at 11:59pm EST Feb 20/15. Winners will be announced Feb 23/15.

a Rafflecopter giveaway


 Also visit, if you'd like, Wanderings on Darker Shores, the blog of my book, for a glimpse inside and another great giveaway.

 

Don't forget to visit the other participants in the blog hop to discover other Indie authors and show them some readers' love...

  

Dream of Love

photograph taken almost one year ago in Central Park, Manhattan

this is my hope

to sleep and dream of you

and have your smile

which while awake knows not of me

know me alone

and have this dream

in which your eyes

find —raw— in mine

the very essence

of your love

keep warm my soul

until I dream again

of you

Airships & Automatons

About two and a half years ago I was posting here a poem by Emily Dickinson, Hope is the Thing with Feathers. I was saying that I had found it while searching for a title for a story I had just written. It was doubly important to me because it had two things that were in my story: the "thing with feathers" and "hope".

Well, soon after that, editor Charles (Chuck) P. Zaglanis accepted my "(The) Thing with Feathers" for the anthology he was editing for White Cat Publications. The anthology was supposed to come out in Autumn 2013. That didn't happen. I was disappointed and sad, but ultimately didn't lose hope. After all, I had  written the story specifically for this anthology and I had no intention of finding another home for it. Then, at the end of December 2014, Chuck contacted me again with the contracts to sign...

So today I'm very happy to announce that "Airships & Automatons" is back on track, flying high, and it should be available in March. My story is in it!!! And in great company!

Spanning the ages between ancient Greece and a far flung and dying future. - See more at: http://www.whitecatpublications.com/products-page/steampunk/airships-automatons-pre-order/#sthash.CncgJsEC.dpuf

Spanning the ages between ancient Greece and a far flung and dying future. - See more at: http://www.whitecatpublications.com/products-page/steampunk/airships-automatons-pre-order/#sthash.CncgJsEC.My story is in it!!! And in great company!

Spanning the ages between ancient Greece and a far flung and dying future, this is the final ToC from Chuck's Facebook page:

A COURTLY DIVERSION by Gary Cuba
THE DOG-FACED CANNIBAL by Christine Purcell
ALL THE KING’S MONSTERS by Megan Arkenberg
THE THING WITH FEATHERS by Cora Pop
MEMPHIS BBQ by Cat Rambo
A HORRIFIED MIND by Ferrel D. Moore
IN CHAINS LIGHTER THAN AIR by Nghi Vo
THE UNICYCLIST’S FATE by Michael J DeLuca
IRON & BRASS, BLOOD & BONE by Alma Alexander
THE TROUBLE WITH BOMBS by Jay Caselberg
TAKING FLIGHT by E.G. Gaddess
AN URCHIN, AN ADVENTREMAN by Eric Del Carlo
FLIGHT OF THE PEGASUS by Darin Kennedy
GRINDSTONE by Jay Lake
RAISING THE DEAD by James Dorr