Late May Self-Promotion Party!

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Hello everyone! It’s near the end of May, the weather is turning warmer, and it’s time for a self-promotion party!

Be proud of your writing!

Share your book(s) with the world!

Be your own best publicist!

To help as many as possible see your work, reblog, like, and follow others.

Available on Amazon

GetthedraftdonepossEbookcover!-page-001

Get The Draft Done! is available here: Amazon.com

GallowsHillFinalCoverEbook

Gallows Hill can be found here in ebook.

Gallows Hill in paperback can be found here.

An interview about Gallows Hill can be found here.

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Please follow the following links to find my novel:

ebook

Print book

My radio interview:

interview

coverIPScookbook

Available on Amazon

French On English

Available on Amazon

With Which Authors Would You Choose To Share A Meal?

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This idea of meeting with a few authors over a meal and having a conversation with them is something I have discussed before, and it was fun to consider. I have, therefore, decided to cover this scenario again.  I was thinking about with whom I would like to dine and with whom I would enjoy having a conversation, among authors, both living and dead. Obviously, for the sake of this idea, if an author is dead, he/she will be resuscitated for the meal and conversation.

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I consider myself an author of speculative fiction, which can encompass many genres, but one of my areas in writing, in teaching, and in study is Gothic/Horror.  Three of my novels, Maledicus: The Investigative Paranormal Society Book 1, Gallows Hill: The Investigative Paranormal Society Book 2, and Evil Lives After, The Investigative Paranormal Society, Book 3 are all of the Horror and Gothic genres. I have already written the first draft of two other horror novels. Horror and Gothic have interested me since I was a youngster, and it will the rest of my life.

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I would like, therefore, to have a meal with 3 masters of this field: Stephen King, Edgar Allan Poe, and Bram Stoker. I think this would be an enlightening, provoking, stimulating, and lively conversation. I would raise a glass with them and toast to their enduring brilliance.

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My question, then, to all of you is this: with what three authors would you like to have a meal and conversation?

 

 

What Is One Of Your Favorite Books–Revisited?

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I am a teacher, a writer, and a lover of books. I cannot remember a time when I could not read, and the simple act of reading a book is one of the best pleasures in life.  So, I was thinking today about a book, one of my all time favorites: The Shadow Of The Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, that I have used in classes at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA. This novel is brilliant, funny, witty, Gothic, romantic, and deeply engaging.  Can you tell I love it?

Here is a quotation from the back cover of the paperback:

“Wondrous . . . masterful . . . The Shadow Of The Wind is ultimately a love letter to literature, intended for readers as passionate about storytelling as its young hero.”

— Entertainment Weekly, Editor’s Choice

I love to ask this question of readers: What is one of your favorite books? (If you wish, offer more than one.)

 

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What Are You Currently Reading?

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Hello to everyone!

Here is a quick question for you–what book or books are you currently reading?

To answer my own question, I am reading:

Bruno, Chief Of Police by Martin Walker

Swan Peak by James Lee Burke

The Siberian Dilemma by Martin Cruz Smith

and Culture: The Story of Us From Cave Art to K-Pop by Martin Puchner.

It is an odd coincidence that three of the four books are written by authors with the first name of Martin.

So, I ask you–what are you reading?

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Some Reviews Of French On English: A Guide To Writing Better Essays Revised

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I want to share a few reviews with you about my small essay writing book that I often use in my First Year Writing classes at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA and Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA.

“Very helpful for writing professionally.”

“This guide offers valuable advice to sharpen writing skills. Whether you are in high school or college, this guide will make you a better writer. Reading this guide will give you the knowledge and confidence to take the next step in becoming a good writer. I highly recommend!”

“I do a lot of writing. This book is never far away. Good for study to keep your skills honed; good as a reference. A book everyone needs. If you want your work to look good, don’t skimp on English skills.”

“A must have, especially for students. A great tool for your arsenal of knowledge.”

“Great book on the overlooked basics of english. Really insightful for people of all ages to refine their writing, improve their grammar, and utilize different tenses.

French On English

Available on Amazon

An April Self-Promotion Party

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It’s Spring, and weather has become warmer, plants are beginning to grow, and trees and starting to bud.

This is also a good time to do some unashamed self-promotion!

Tell us about your book(s)!

Leave links and images.

Shout to the world about your work!

You are writers–be proud of what you create.

So as many as possible can see your work, please like, tweet, and reblog this post!

Available on Amazon

GetthedraftdonepossEbookcover!-page-001

Get The Draft Done! is available here: Amazon.com

GallowsHillFinalCoverEbook

Gallows Hill can be found here in ebook.

Gallows Hill in paperback can be found here.

An interview about Gallows Hill can be found here.

32570160

Please follow the following links to find my novel:

ebook

Print book

Thank you!

My radio interview:

interview

coverIPScookbook

Available on Amazon

French On English

Available on Amazon

Quotations On The Need For Questioning

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“The unexamined life is not worth living.”

                                                                              Socrates

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“He explained to me with great insistence that every question possessed a power that did not lie in the answer.”

                                                                     Elie Wiesel

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“Original thought, original artistic expression is by its very nature questioning, irreverent, iconoclastic.”                                                                                                     Salman Rushdie

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“One of the most important lessons we should teach is to always ask questions.”                                                                                                                                     Charles F. French

Welcome Another Member of The U.L.S., The Underground Library Society

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I am honored to welcome Cap Parlier as the newest member of the U.L.S., The Underground Library Society!

In an earlier First Year Class at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA, The U.L.S. — The Underground Library Society — was created. It is in the spirit of the Book People from Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. In that novel, all books have been banned, and a few people “become” books by memorizing them, in the hope that, one day, books will be permitted to exist again. Those who join write a post about a book they would become if such a time was happening.

Please enjoy reading Cap Parlier’s entry.

In these tumultuous times, I struggled with what book to choose as my inaugural submittal for membership in the Underground Library Society (ULS)—a spiritual tribute to Ray Douglas Bradbury’s seminal dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953). So many books, known and peripheral, qualify in my mind and reading experience. Yet, there is one book that persistently floods my conscious thought for selection for this purpose.

Eric Arthur Blair wrote his last novel toward the end of his life and in ill health. That book would become his magnum opus, published in 1949. Like the centerpiece basis of ULS, the book is a profoundly dystopian novel offering a very dim view of humanity’s future [if we were (are) not careful]. Blair had survived the Spanish Civil War, witnessed the Great Purge in Stalin’s Soviet Union, and watched the violent oppression of Hitler’s Nazi Germany. He had plenty of real examples for his imagination to consider. Blair’s nom de plume, adopted when he began writing while serving as a member of the Indian Imperial Police in Burma (Myanmar), was George Orwell.

My choice to join the Book People and ULS is Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. The book represents a prescient glimpse of what might be when we embrace authoritarian governance. The central character, Winston Smith, works in the Ministry of Truth in Airstrip One, a province of Oceania, one of three super-states, including Eurasia and Eastasia. The three super-states remain in an environment of perpetual war, and the Party and its leader Big Brother must control all information and thought to keep the populace focused on the objectives of the State. Winston joins the resistance under the Party’s threat of execution and obliteration. Yet, the massive billboard on the Ministry of Truth building succinctly consolidates the essence of the Party’s oppression.

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

The story revolves around the resistance and their clandestine absorption of scraps of knowledge they can collect. They recognize the truth and the oppression of Big Brother. In telling the story of Winston Smith and Oceania, Orwell created highly descriptive terms three-quarters of a century ago that surprisingly apply to contemporary life—Big Brother, Newspeak, Thought Police, Memory Hole, Doublethink, and Thoughtcrime. Censorship in its myriad forms is the cornerstone of the Party’s domination of Oceania. So many elements of the Party, Big Brother, and Oceania display the traits of dictatorship and other authoritarian governmental systems. We do not know how Oceania reached its state of oppression, but we see what it has become.

There is no indication that Orwell knew of Lord Woodhouselee’s 1787 lecture “The Fall of The Athenian Republic,” but Nineteen Eighty-Four portrays the citizens of Oceania on the full circle of the Tytler Cycle back to bondage. Further, the Party’s doublethink dicta sought to interdict the collective thoughts required to break the bondage. Big Brother sought servitude. Winston and his brethren wanted freedom.

Orwell brings the world of Oceania, the Party, and Big Brother into vivid clarity. We see through Winston Smith the nightmarish, terrifying domain of Nineteen Eighty-Four. Orwell’s tome should instruct us today and most definitely should serve as the negative metric we use when we decide who we are going to vote for, i.e., who not to vote for. If we vote diligently for candidates who will do their part to protect our rights and freedom, we can maintain the republic and avoid Oceania or anything even remotely resembling that dismal state.

In the related and relevant category of ‘whoda thunkit,’ today (March 2023), multiple nations, including the United States of America, face the forces of authoritarianism in its Medusan forms. The suppression of books, the restriction on schools of what can be taught to our children, the denial of history, the mantra accusation of ‘Fake News,’ the direct invasion of a woman’s fundamental right to privacy in controlling her biological functions, ad infinitum ad nauseum, these are the phrase an authoritarian regime (or at least wannabe authoritarian people). Yes, indeed! Nineteen Eighty-Four is the most appropriate book for all of us to read and re-read to understand the signs and characteristics of authoritarian governance in any of its myriad forms. We may not be wise enough and sufficiently perceptive to halt our decent back into bondage. Yet, 74 years ago, George Orwell gave us a  clear vision of what can happen if We, the People, do not protect our individual rights and freedoms. They are too precious to lose. Whenever we prepare to vote, we should remember Nineteen Eighty-Four. Most importantly, the Book People must preserve the words of George Orwell and permanently remember them.

Cap Parlier

Again, thank you to Cap Parlier for joining the group!

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March 2023 Self-Promotion Party!

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Hello to everyone! We are now in Spring, and I thought it would be a good time to share what you have been writing and what you have written. I want once again to offer an opportunity for all writers who follow this blog to share information on their books. It can be very difficult to generate publicity for our writing, so I thought this little effort might help. All books may be mentioned, and there is no restriction on genre. This includes poetry and non-fiction.

To participate, simply give your name, your book, information about it, and where to purchase it in the comments section. Then please be willing to reblog and/or tweet this post. The more people that see it, the more publicity we can generate for everyone’s books.

Thank you for participating!

Keep on writing!

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Celebrate and promote your writing! Shout it out to the world! Let everyone know about your work!

Don’t be shy. Be your own best promoter and publicist!

Feel free to promote a new or an older book!

I hope this idea is successful, and I hope many people share information on their books!

Available on Amazon

GetthedraftdonepossEbookcover!-page-001

Get The Draft Done! is available here: Amazon.com

GallowsHillFinalCoverEbook

Gallows Hill can be found here in ebook.

Gallows Hill in paperback can be found here.

An interview about Gallows Hill can be found here.

32570160

Please follow the following links to find my novel:

ebook

Print book

Thank you!

My radio interview:

interview

coverIPScookbook

Available on Amazon

French On English

Available on Amazon

A New Book Entry For the U.L.S., the Underground Library Society: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

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Here is another entry into the U.L.S., the Underground Library Society by Robbie Cheadle, a long-time member of this unofficial group. I am honored that Robbie Cheadle has written another entry–this one on The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.

To Robbie: thank you!

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Overview

The Picture of Dorian Gray is a gothic novel written by Oscar Wilde and first published in April 1890.

The book opens on with painter, Basil Hallward, a sensitive soul, painting a portrait of a young man of extraordinary good looks called Dorian Gray. Basil’s friend, Lord Henry Wotton is observing Basil adding the final touches to the painting and comments that it is Basil’s best work.

Lord Henry takes an interest in Dorian, a remarkably good looking but shallow young man, and sets about influencing him with his believes that beauty and the pursuit of personal pleasure are the only things in life worth pursuing.

Basil gifts the painting to Dorian who makes a secret wish that the painting could age and change on his behalf and that he, Dorian, could retain his good looks for the rest of his life.

Under the warped influence of Lord Henry, Dorian sets out to explore every emotion and sensation life has to offer, regardless of the cost to others. He meets a beautiful young actress, Sybil Vane, and falls in love with her amazing renditions of the various heroines in Shakespeare’s plays, in particularly the tragic roles. He purposefully meets Sybil and declares his love for her. A young and easily influenced girl from a poor family, Sybil falls in love with Dorian, and it impacts on her acting, rendering her quite unable to perform. Dorian rejects her and Sybil commits suicide in her anguish. After this tragedy, Dorian views the painting and see a sneer of cruelty around the portrait’s mouth. He realises that his wish for eternal youth and beauty has come true.

Influenced by a book provided by Lord Henry, Dorian sets out on a path of debauchery and sin, influencing other young men and women to accompany him in his heinous behaviours. As his life progresses, the painting becomes more and more hideous.

The quote below describes the degeneration of Dorian’s soul as depicted by the painting:

“Often, on returning home from one of those mysterious and prolonged absences that gave rise to such strange conjecture among those who were his friends, or thought that they were so, he himself would creep upstairs to the locked room, open the door with the key that never left him now, and stand, with a mirror, in front of the portrait that Basil Hallward had painted of him, looking now at the evil and aging face on the canvas, and now at the fair young face that laughed back at him from the polished glass. The very sharpness of the contrast used to quicken his sense of pleasure. He grew more and more enamoured of his own beauty, more and more interested in the corruption of his own soul. He would examine with minute care, and sometimes with a monstrous and terrible delight, the hideous lines that seared the wrinkling forehead or crawled around the heavy sensual mouth, wondering sometimes which were the more horrible, the signs of sin or the signs of age. He would place his white hands beside the coarse bloated hands of the picture, and smile. He mocked the misshapen body and the failing limbs.

There were moments, indeed, at night, when, lying sleepless in his own delicately scented chamber, or in the sordid room of the little ill-famed tavern near the docks which, under an assumed name and in disguise, it was his habit to frequent, he would think of the ruin he had brought upon his soul with a pity that was all the more poignant because it was purely selfish. But moments such as these were rare. That curiosity about life which Lord Henry had first stirred in him, as they sat together in the garden of their friend, seemed to increase with gratification. The more he knew, the more he desired to know. He had mad hungers that grew more ravenous as he fed them.”

Characterisations

The introductory chapters to this book set the stage for the plot extremely well as it gives a lot of insight into the characters of the three men at that point in time.

Basil is clearly sensitive and creative, an excellent artist and a lover of beauty. Dorian’s angelic looks have captivated him to a point where he is obsessed by the concept and illusion of this young man he has created in his own mind. His painting of Dorian is his attempt to capture the beauty and goodness he believes he perceives in his subject. Basil is delighted by the painting which he believes does justice to the characteristics he has attributed to Dorian.

Basil is also a man of strong morals and principles. All his characteristics are demonstrated by the following quote:

“You don’t understand me, Harry,” answered the artist. “Of course I am not like him. I know that perfectly well. Indeed, I should be sorry to look like him. You shrug your shoulders? I am telling you the truth. There is a fatality about all physical and intellectual distinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the faltering steps of kings. It is better not to be different from one’s fellows. The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live–undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. They neither bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it from alien hands. Your rank and wealth, Harry; my brains, such as they are–my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray’s good looks–we shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly.”

Lord Henry Wotton is a self-centred and egotistical man. Spoiled due to his life of wealth, privilege and idleness, Lord Henry proclaims himself to be a hedonist who believes the pursuit of personal pleasure is the most important thing in life. He is a clever man who has channelled his brilliant mind into devising fascinating, poisonous and ill-conceived theories to support his shallow and selfish beliefs. Despite his long ramblings in support of his ridiculous notions about life, he is not actually a bad man and does not indulge in sordid or criminal behaviour. In fact, he believes that criminal activity belongs exclusively in the realm of those he deems to be the lower orders of humanity.

Unfortunately, Lord Henry is charming and worldly in addition to being a great, albeit misguided, intellect and he easily influences the weak and spineless Dorian Gray with his radical theories.

The following quote is an example of one of Lord Henry’s speeches:

““There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray. All influence is immoral – immoral from the scientific point of view.”

“Why?”

“Because to influence a person is to give him one’s own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of someone else’s music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is self-development. To realize one’s nature perfectly – that is what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one’s self. Of course they are charitable. They feed the hungry, and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never had it. The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion – these are the two things that govern us. And yet […] I believe that if one man were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream – I believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we would forget all maladies of medievalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal – to something finer, richer, than the Hellenic ideal, it may be. […] We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind, and poisons us. … The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful.””

Dorian Gray is a weak character with not ambition to do anything useful with his life. The reader quickly realises that Basil’s romantic ideas about the young man are mere fancies, and that Dorian is not actually a very nice person. He is aware of his beauty right from the beginning of the book, and is very vain, but he is not aware of its lack of durability. It is Lord Henry who draws Dorian’s attention to the fact that beauty and youth are short lived.

Consider this quote:

“The painter considered for a few moments. “He likes me,” he answered after a pause; “I know he likes me. Of course I flatter him dreadfully. I find a strange pleasure in saying things to him that I know I shall be sorry for having said. As a rule, he is charming to me, and we sit in the studio and talk of a thousand things. Now and then, however, he is horribly thoughtless, and seems to take a real delight in giving me pain. Then I feel, Harry, that I have given away my whole soul to some one who treats it as if it were a flower to put in his coat, a bit of decoration to charm his vanity, an ornament for a summer’s day.””

Is The Picture of Dorian Gray worth reading?

The painting in this story, effectively depicts Dorian’s soul or true self. As Dorian sinks deeper and deeper into a life of debauchery and sin, the effects of his actions show on the portrait making it uglier and uglier. For me, the effect of sin on the painting is an effective metaphor for the effect of selfishness and I-concentric behaviour on our own souls.

In our modern world of excessive consumption, I think this lesson is still vitally important. Mankind needs to look beyond individual wants and desires and set about earnestly saving our wildlife and natural environment as well as uplifting and education disadvantaged people.

In addition, from my personal perspective, I loved the skilful and beautiful writing (although it does require extra concentration effort as the descriptive paragraphs are long and intricate) and an interesting storyline in addition to its focus on questionable ideals that still dominate our society.

Please visit Robbie Cheadle’s sites, and please buy her books! They are all excellent.

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Thank you to Robbie Cheadle!

Check out her newest book of poetry; it is extraordinary! 

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Available on Amazon

Please be sure to visit Robbie Cheadle’s wonderful sites:

Robbie Cheadle Books/Poems/Reviews

Robbie’s inspiration

If anyone wants to join this group, simply send me an email to frenchc1955@yahoo.com. Write about what book you would choose to memorize and save if we lived in a world in which books were banned.