Shakespeare would turn in his grave - by Vijaya Schartz

Azura Chronicles award-winning scifi-romance series 

The conversation, on some Facebook groups for authors this month, turned to common mistakes in English grammar. As a wordsmith, I cringe at typos, misspellings, and grammar blunders in professional books. And I’m talking about simple mistakes, not wrong tenses, dangling participles, or run-on sentences. In the media arena, the language of Shakespeare is taking a beating. But it’s a lot worse than you would expect.

Here is a reminder of a few common mistakes… are you guilty of those? Maybe you should stick this note to the side of your tablet or computer screen.

And these are only a few. There are many more. I particularly resent “it’s” instead of “its” and “than” instead of “then.” There is also “lie” and “lay,” “affect” and “effect,”

I can easily forgive readers and casual posters for not remembering their schooling. But if you make any of these common mistakes on your resume, for instance, you may well have forfeited the job.

And if you run an ad for your business with a mistake in it, the return will be so low, you’ll lose your investment in advertising.

Furthermore, I see these common mistakes repeated by newscasters, on advertising spots, on printed ads, and in articles by news writers and other professional people of the spoken and written word.

What about “verbing” or “verbification?”

There is also the new tendency of making verbs with nouns, called “verbing” by the Oxford University Press, or also verbification. This is part of normal language evolution. When there is no verb to express the action, you can use a noun as a verb. “To parent,” for example, has become part of the vocabulary, like “to vacation.”

It used to be that the printed word was respected and valued. Nowadays, anyone can write and print anything, without any knowledge of proper language, grammar, or spelling. Worse, they do not hire an editor. If it’s important enough to say or write for the public at large, it’s important enough to be edited.

Another way to improve your grammar is to read well written books. Here are my latest series.

Vijaya Schartz, author
Strong Heroines, Brave Heroes, cats
http://www.vijayaschartz.com
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New Release: WHAT HAPPENS NOW - by Marilyn June Janson

Sam Landon's mom tells him some news about his classmate Tyler Reed. Sam has lots of questions. With Mom's help Sam learns how to say goodbye to a teammate, friend, and classmate.

Find this ebook in kindle HERE $2.99 or free in kindle unlimited.

New Release: The Dust Never Settles - by Stacey Goodman

 

The Dust Never Settles is a riveting, first-hand account from inside Ground Zero. Stacey Goodman was a female police officer with federal disaster training who was pulled out of the suburbs of Long Island and thrust into the heart of the 9/11 mayhem of the World Trade Center devastation.

With high security clearance, she worked at the very center of the rescue and recovery efforts on the Pile for 23 days, and witnessed firsthand the horrific details of the terror attacks that decimated the world's financial center.

Stacey relives her experience on the Pile in her 20-Year Anniversary book commemorating the event, and shares aspects of her life and career that prepared her for the grueling episode. 

About the author:

Stacey was a police patrol officer on Long Island on 9/11. What many didn’t realize was that she had been receiving ongoing and extensive training in disaster response and was a member of a federal disaster response team that was always ready to deploy in the event of a major disaster. On the morning of September 11, 2001, Stacey had just finished a shift and was getting ready to run some errands as she heard chatter about a an airplane hitting the Twin Towers in lower Manhattan. Stacey was immediately activated for duty with the federal government and reported to the heart of chaos, right in the middle of Ground Zero, where she spent the next 23 days. For more on Stacey, visit her website at https://staceygoodmanbook.com  

New Release - Boca by Moon Light - by Brad Graber

Boca by Moonlight:

A Funeral. Three Friends. Starting Over.

George Elden had it all. A lovely wife. Two beautiful adult children. A condo on the grounds of the Boca Raton Resort & Club. But when his wife dies, he's suddenly alone in retirement. A lost man. Sure, he has his golf buddies to console him, but when his friend Willy dies, George is caught off-guard. Why did Willy's family stay away from the funeral? Why did the check to the mortuary bounce? And why did George and his buddies have to pay to bury him? More importantly, what can George learn from Willy's life to escape making the same foolish mistakes? 

From the award-winning author of The Intersect, After the Fall, and What's That Growing in My Sour Cream? comes a tale of redemption. The story of a man coming to grips with his mortality and the complications of human relationships. Told with the wit, humor, and emotional power that Brad Graber brings to his novels.

You can find Boca by Moon Light on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, FoxTale Book Shoppe, and other outlets.  

Science fiction predicted it. Space exploration is our only chance of survival as a race - by Vijaya Schartz

 

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Recently I saw a French documentary on the state of the agriculture in Europe that got me thinking. In it, a chemical expert for the study of soil and crops (in this case wheat) was explaining that all the chemicals we use to grow crops are killing the ground, interrupting the cycle of renewal through natural decay of vegetal and animal origin.

The elimination of weeds and insects has made the soil sterile. The ground is too compact due to lack of animal and vegetal decay, and doesn’t absorb water. If tomorrow the various chemicals used to grow crops were no longer available, the soil is incapable of sustaining any kind of growth, and could be sterile for decades.

Furthermore, the crops themselves, in this case wheat, have been genetically modified (GMO) to adapt to the new farming style. For example, the stems are much shorter and the harvested grain larger. Which is dandy, except that if we stop using chemicals and pesticides, the new species of grain will not be able to survive a natural environment. After all, mother nature made the stems high to protect the growing grain from natural predators, worms, crickets, floods, etc.

As a sci-fi writer, I can see how this could bring instant famine in a post-apocalyptic scenario, with radical weather changes, or even in a pandemic scenario, where the flow of chemicals is interrupted due to crippled manufacturing or interrupted shipping.

But traditional farming failed to produce enough reliable and bountiful harvests, and there are 8 billion mouths to feed in this world. When I was a child, the world population was only 1.5 billion. Think about it… and the numbers keep climbing exponentially.

The problem mankind refuses to face is that there are too many people on this planet and we are killing it to fulfill our needs, whether for food or with plastic waste in the name of practicality. As the population grows, the Earth will eventually die. But killing mother Earth will not help our survival. So, what’s the solution?

If you are familiar with the Avenger movies, Thanos had a simple solution. Instantly kill half the population of every planet. But he was a supervillain, at least in our minds. So, let’s not do that.

China tried restricting the number of children per couple to two, but it only led to selective breeding. They ended up with an overwhelmingly male population and a steep decline. Now, they allow three children per couple.

Of course, as a sci-fi writer, I also have a solution. Let’s colonize Mars and terraform it. Have you seen the movie THE MARTIAN? It is possible. Let’s build and develop autonomous human habitats on the moon and on Mars. Oh, wait, we are already working on that project.

Let’s build space stations the size of a small country and grow artificial crops in orbit, while preserving natural life on this planet.

Let’s explore the universe in search of Earth-like planets to settle. Let’s look toward the stars for our salvation.

Too farfetched? Not at all. Several countries are already developing such programs. China has a very active space program and is already on the moon. Other countries have their own space program as well. 

And with the privatization of space technology, many companies see profit in space mining and are considering space tourism as a profitable venture. Soon, our news will be broadcasting from space, the new frontier, where pioneers will inspire young people to explore new worlds.

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All this has already happened in my science fiction novels. But despite scientific advancements, the fundamental needs of mankind remain the same. Food, shelter, friendship, love, recreation, happiness.

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Happy Reading!

Vijaya Schartz, author

Strong Heroines, Brave Heroes, cats

http://www.vijayaschartz.com

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New Year Resolutions - by Kathleen Cook

February … my favorite time of the year! I love the energy I experience in tackling my New Years' resolutions with gusto. By May, I'll be tired of them, but February? I'm just getting started!

My biggest goal this year revolves around the Arizona Authors Association. It's such a thrill to see the website coming together, and knowing that I have a role in making it happen. The site is humming along … if you haven't checked out your authors' page on Arizona Authors.org or .com, please do so. If there are any typos or errors, email me at faerland@yahoo.com and I'll get to them pronto!

While the new members' pages only allow for one book cover, I think you'll find that the website is more inviting now, and will attract more visitors to your webpage. Overall, it's a more professional look for you as you grow your reputation as an author. All of the text links to your books are clickable, so visitors may easily see all of your books, not just the one pictured. Please check out the site and let me know what you think. I welcome your input. 

Last month, I added all of the newsletters from 2019 and 2020 to the website. Now you may easily peruse the archive of old issues. There is even an issue from 2015 on the resources page, for those who wax nostalgic for the old days. (Okay, not so old for us fogies, lol, but fun to look at anyway. Ah, for the good old, pre-pandemic days!) I will be updating the archive at least twice yearly, so that we will have a record of our progress as an association in the years to come. I'm sure a decade from now, some of us will look back at the current issues and think, "Wow, we've come a long way since then!” I hope to be around to make that observation along with the rest of you. 

Another of my New Year's resolutions is to finish the series of historical puzzle books that I'm working on with my son, Kevin Gundlach. He conceived the idea when he was working in a Glendale high school as a math teacher. He discovered that in order to teach any subject, whether math or history or language skills, you first had to ensure that your students knew how to logically tackle the subject. Without honing their logic skills, all other subjects proved difficult. He designed logic puzzles geared toward that end, to first teach a teen to reason, and then to teach them the other necessary skills. 

He broached his idea with me, and I came up with a storyline to mesh with his historical puzzles. Together, we created Tryn, a superhero, alien, time traveling, high school teacher. Tryn travels through earth's history to fix the little messes that his rebellious, genius students make, in their desire to perfect the present by tinkering with the past. The books combine real history with language and logic skills, geared toward thinkers from 12 to 92. (I've done the puzzles and I love them; other seniors might get a kick out of them, too.) So far two are finished, The Altered Alphabet and Alexander the Late, and I'm currently taking up my pen again to create the third. 

Have you started on your New Year's resolutions yet? February's a great time to start! What books will you write, or at least start, within the next couple of months? What will you leave behind in 2022 that, in ten years, will make you smile and say, "My, I've come so far since then!"? 

It doesn't have to be big, but it should be significant. It must be something that you can look back on with pride. What stirs your fancy? Make a list, check it twice, cross out things until you get to that one doable, special, wonderful thing, and then do it. Finish that resolution, move forward, and grab your star. You'll be stepping into the future not with merely a sack full of excess baggage, but with a portfolio full of accomplishments. That's what New Year's resolutions, and Februarys, are for! 

Kathleen Cook is a retired editor and the author of more than twenty books. A former copy writer/editor for Demand Studios, she also served as the Fictional Religion Editor for the ODP (Open Directory Project) in the internet’s early days. She is currently the Arizona Authors Association Editor as well as the new Secretary and Webmistress. 

ARIZONA AUTHORS ASSOCIATION 2022 LITERARY CONTEST DEADLINE: July 1st!

Since 1978, the Arizona Literary Magazine has launched the careers of many authors - Enter our contest for a chance at cash prizes and recognition. Find the entry form HERE

Recent winners:

 

Unpublished Categories

Poem, 

Short Story/Essay/Personal, 

Narrative/Review, 

Novel /Novella

Published Categories

OLDIE BUT GOLDIE

Fiction 

Nonfiction 

Children’s Picture Book 

Juvenile/Young Adult

First Prize 

$100 & publication or feature in Arizona Literary Magazine 

Second Prize 

$50 & publication or feature in Arizona Literary Magazine 

Third Prize 

$25 & publication or feature in Arizona Literary Magazine 

Honorable Mention 

Publication or feature in Arizona Literary Magazine 

1st and 2nd Prize Winners in Poetry, Essay & Short Story get nominated for the National Pushcart Prize (value: PRICELESS)

Public Speaking for Authors - Part One - By Jeanne Burrows-Johnson

 

ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE...and it awaits the imprint of your brand!

The success of a branding program rests on harmonizing the look, sound, and feel of all of its components, including the setting in which an author speaks publicly. While you may not be able to completely control the physical environment of your presentations, you can enhance the overall positive impact of the experience for yourself and your audience.

THE VENUE

If you have never spoken at the venue, you’ll be relying on the event’s organizers to provide the correct information regarding lighting, voice amplification, and projection of materials you’ll utilize to highlight your speaking points. In addition, they’ll be scheduling the podium, table, and/or chair from which you’ll speak. If possible, visit the venue in advance of the event. While this may be easy in your hometown, it can be impossible when you’re working in another city [let alone country]. Therefore, it’s good to arrive a day in advance of your presentation. If you’re lucky, you will be delivering your remarks at the hotel in which you are staying. As this is seldom the case, travel with the basics you require to be effective.

FROM A STAGE, OR…

Depending on your height and weight, and position in relation to the audience, you may need to modify your hair, clothing, shoes, and/or accessories to maximize your facial and overall visibility. Speaking engagements often occur in rooms with a stage that is at least a step above the floor on which the audience is seated. This enhances your visibility as a speaker, but it means you must look good from the top of your head to the bottoms of your shoes. And although many stages are carpeted, older wooden or tiled stages may have uneven surfaces, for which you will require sturdy and slip-resistant footwear.

SOLO PERFORMANCE

Sole presenters in a public venue usually have access to a podium. Free-standing or tabletop, it should offer sides that mask your script, notes, watch, and other items you may need to reference. Unless a free-standing podium is constructed of a tubular frame, it is probable that you’ll be visible only from your chest up. That gives you more flexibility in your stance and movement of your feet. If the podium is comprised of a hollow frame or positioned on top of a table that has no tablecloth, you will not have that luxury.

WHISPERS TO SCREAMS

The quality of your natural speaking voice can be either an asset or detriment in public speaking. Depending on your audience, even the strongest of voices expressed in the wrong tonal range can be hard for some listeners to hear properly. Many podiums are set up with a microphone fixed in position. If you learn you’ll be using a hand-held mic, you may want to obtain a small stand in order to free your hands for gesturing, pointing to overhead projections, etc. Having said this, I must note some presenters like to speak off the cuff rather from written material and prefer a handheld or wireless mic so they can roam freely—sometimes even moving within their audience. 

Be aware that the effectiveness of the microphone you use [especially lavaliere or headsets] can depend on your neckline, arrangement of hair, and any chain or necklace you wear. Also consider that dangling earrings and loose watches or bracelets can interfere with sound projection. Having a strong voice may lessen the need to provide your own electronic equipment. However, if you are embarking on a lengthy tour, you might consider acquiring sound equipment that can make you more independent of the facilities in which you appear—if it is compatible with the speakers to which your equipment will be connected. In making such a decision, you will want to seek the input of an electronics specialist.

INVITING DISPLAYS

Will you be able to set up a display that greets and enlivens your audience? At the minimum, you should be able to drape a banner over the front of a podium [using double sided tape, if nothing else]. I carry the banner from the release of my first book. I also travel with varied sizes of my shipping boxes on which I can place color-coordinated tablecloths to create elevated surfaces for displaying signage, products, and handouts. Stands of varying proportions allow me to maximize visibility across a room. Of course, be cautious about displaying valuable items which could disappear… 

Enlargements of colorful book covers, pictures of previous appearances, and banners with both your image and the works you’re presenting make a wonderful background for highlighting fliers, future project descriptions, and business cards. I always order hardcover books with embossed jacket fronts which are durable event samples [and are popular with libraries concerned with their collection’s longevity]. By presenting them on stands, as well as on the tabletop, I am inviting people to pick them up. If there’s a theme to your work, you can add decorative items that reinforce such a reference. As most of my work centers on Hawai`i, I display a shell lei or two, a golden fish business card holder, and tablecloths that harmonize with my book cover colors.

BE PREPARED

If you’re speaking in your hometown and have checked out the venue, you’ll know what you need to carry with you. The one thing that may affect your preparations is a change in the size of your audience, thereby impacting the number of books and handouts required. When traveling to a long-distance destination, try to send a box of books and promotional materials ahead to a friend, colleague, or even the hotel at which you’ll be staying. Generally strategize the items you should carry personally, rather than check into a plane or train’s luggage compartment. 

I recall my gratitude for arriving in Hilo, Hawaii, two days ahead of an engagement following a trip to the U.S. mainland. I was performing Scottish Highland Dancing and was shocked to learn that my costumes were never transferred from my original plane and thus they sat in Honolulu for a day. As an author, I now keep the following items with me personally when traveling to author appearances: memory sticks and master copies of materials needed for display and distribution; one copy of pertinent books and project samples; one small tablecloth and a shell lei to personalize my displays; a couple of copies of a short biography; two 3 x 5 inch cards with an introduction of me and my presentation; a name badge with large print and pertinent professional organizational pins; a beautiful artificial orchid for my hair; and, one elegant jacket to dress up even an emergency wardrobe purchase if my luggage does not arrive with me!

Jeanne Burrows-Johnson is a published author who now lives in Tucson, Arizona. To find out more about Jeanne, go to her website at: https://www.jeanneburrows-johnson.com/

My favorite science fiction cats in space - by Vijaya Schartz

 

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As you can tell from my book covers, I have cats in many of my Science fiction novels, even in those not featuring a cat on the cover. Most of these cats are telepathic, and it’s not by accident. We all know cats have a sixth sense… and nine lives to boot.

I love cats, and if I had to go on a long voyage through space to another planet, I couldn’t imagine not taking a cat as a companion. I would also want to seed that new earth-like planet with cats. It makes perfect sense as I couldn’t imagine life without these beautiful creatures.

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Marshmallow in BLACK DRAGON is a cuddly ball of fluff who helps the hero cheat at cards and charm the ladies. His favorite reward is synthetic tuna.

But some of these cats are enormous, and readers not familiar with my work sometimes ask: “How is it possible to have such big cats on a spaceship, or a space station?”

Alpha Space Station in the movie Valerian and the city of a thousand planets

Obviously, they have the wrong idea of the size of an interstellar ship. Since there is no limitation to size in space, ships can be the size of several football fields. As for the space stations of the distant future, we are not talking about our tiny ISS orbiting earth, but about space stations as large as entire cities or small moons, like artificial planets orbiting alien suns or gas giants, and supporting millions of people.

The Byzantium Space Station as I imagined it.

How do cats happen to be in space or on other planets?

Sometimes my fictional cats are wild and native to their alien planet, like Tibeta and her cubs in Angel Brave, the Smilodons of Azura, a planet teeming with large predators. I pity the hero, Keoke, who has to face this deadly family of cats.

Tibeta, the sabertooth Smilodon cat in Angel Brave

Sometimes, like in the Chronicles of Kassouk, the big cats are the result of a human experiment gone out of control, and are trained and used in battle, or kept as pets.

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There are also the big cats experimented upon, who are genetically modified and electronically enhanced to communicate telepathically with their owners. They usually become companions for bounty hunters, like Akira’s cheetah retriever in AKIRA’S CHOICE, or the telepathic cougar helping Fianna catch the bad guys in ANGEL MINE.

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In MALAIKA’S SECRET, Raja, the lion guarding the temple, was rescued from illegal smugglers of exotic animals.

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In SNATCHED, my heroine has to face a native saber-tooth tiger in the jungle.

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In ALIEN LOCKDOWN, set in the Andromeda galaxy, my protagonists face a native predator called a bearcat.

There are no significant cats in my medieval fantasy series CURSE OF THE LOST ISLE, based on Celtic legends, but I must mention for dog lovers, that I have a heroic dog named Kopek in DAMSEL OF THE HAWK, book 7, which is a standalone in the series.

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But there are more cats to come in my future books. In ANGEL SHIP, Book one of the Blue Phantom series, to be released in the fall of 2022, the heroine, a warrior princess, has a telepathic feline bodyguard with a keen sense of peoples’ true character.

In the meantime, you can find all my books at online retailers. amazon - B&N - Smashwords - Kobo

Vijaya Schartz, author
Strong Heroines, Brave Heroes, cats
http://www.vijayaschartz.com
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Academy Award Winning Movies 1928-2020: How Movies Have Changed Through the Years - by Diane Holloway Cheney

 The history of the Academy Award ceremonies and awards is captured here for each passing year. Important themes and movies of lasting value are examined for additional ideas, sights, dialogue, stars, cast selections, racial issues, inside relationships, and musical impacts. Keep this book close by to re-watch important movies.

Diane Holloway Cheney, Ph.D. is a member of the American Psychological Association, Society for Cognitive Studies of the Moving Image, American Film Institute, Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, and Sundance Institute. She wrote The Mind of Oswald after working at Parkland Hospital in Dallas at the time of President Kennedy's assassination, and many non-fiction books.

Donald Trump, Robert Mueller, Christopher Steele: Mogul, Enforcer, Spy - by Diane Holloway Cheney

 

This thrilling page-turner describes the lives of the most controversial men of our era and how they impacted each other. We now realize that the greatest threat to our country can come from within as well as those not in our own country. Can an administration ignore laws and attack democratic institutions without damaging democracy?

These shocking revelations are not without some humor to brighten what are otherwise dark and scary truths.

Diane Holloway Cheney, Ph.D. was director of a psychiatric hospital in a Dallas suburb, led the Dallas Police Department in setting up their first assessment center for higher ranking police supervisors, and was appointed the first Drug Czar of Dallas by the Mayor. She wrote The Mind of Oswald after working at Parkland Hospital in Dallas at the time of President Kennedy's assassination. She also wrote Analyzing Leaders, Presidents and Terrorists, and I Was a VIP on 11/22/63 and many non-fiction books.