Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Being Human



"Dear Human: You’ve got it allllll wrong. You didn’t come here to master unconditional love. That is where you came from and where you’ll return. You came here to learn personal love. Universal love. Messy love. Sweaty love. Crazy love. Broken love. Whole love. Infused with divinity. Lived through the grace of stumbling. Demonstrated through the beauty of messing up. Often.

"You didn’t come here 

to be perfect. You already are. You came here to be gorgeously human. Flawed and fabulous. And then to rise again into remembering.

"But unconditional love? Stop telling that story. Love, in truth, doesn’t need ANY other adjectives. It doesn’t require modifiers. It doesn’t require the condition of perfection. It only asks that you show up. And do your best. That you stay present and feel fully. That you shine and fly and laugh and cry and hurt and heal and fall and get back up and play and work and live and die as YOU. It’s enough. It’s Plenty.”

~Courtney A. Walsh

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Get Your Motor Runnin'



"No true-blooded West Virginia boy would ever do less than 120 mph on a straight stretch, because those runs are hard won in a land where road maps resemble a barrel of worms with Saint Vitus' dance." ~~Breece D'J Pancake, "The Salvation of Me"
I am here to testify, that goes for girls, too. 

My older daughter complains bitterly that I routinely drive 20 mph over the speed limit. 


Totally untrue! 

. . . Probably.~~GHC


Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Turning Negatives Into Positives

We often hear that a double negative makes a positive ("He was not incompetent" translates weakly into "He has competence" although it suggests there is some other problem). I looked up the "double negative" definition and information and it turns out there is WAY too much of it for me to post about here. Suffice it to say, a double negative can be positive, or negative, or even neutral. Language is like that. I'm not a grammarian nor do I pretend to play one in any capacity. 

From Wikipedia: Historically, Chaucer made extensive use of double, triple, and even quadruple negatives in his Canterbury Tales. About the Friar, he writes "Ther nas no man no wher so vertuous" ("There never was no man nowhere so virtuous"). About the Knight, "He nevere yet no vileynye ne sayde / In all his lyf unto no maner wight" ("He never yet no vileness didn't say / In all his life to no manner of man").

I do toy with the idea of creating a dictionary for concepts the English language lacks words for. There are so many! For example: What is the word for a parent whose child has died? As far as I'm aware, there isn't such a term, and we need one.

The following image is what triggered my musings on double negatives.


This little poster is intended to be positive and encouraging. For me, the most clear message is that the creator reached out of the bowels of Hell to convey a message of hope. Despite a deluge of double negatives and weak language, the bottom line floats in the rain gutter: Keep going - light is on its way.




Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Anatomical Nesting Dolls


Jason Levesque created these wonderful nesting dolls.


Does anyone else think it strange that we can depict a woman's pubis with immunity, but Heaven forbid we display a female nipple? Even on Facebook, The New Yorker's account was recently suspended for running a cartoon that showed Eve's nipples in the Garden of Eden. Click to read about Nipplegate - new page will open

That's right. Two dots. 

Because we are ever so much more offended by two dots in a cartoon than the thousands of closeup, realistic photographs of voluptuous women's rear ends "covered" by only a thong that regularly post on Facebook. #EndofRant

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Bonus Post: Paradigm Shift in the Henhouse


I've lived in The Truman Show the past nineteen years. It required an adjustment to process that fact, reconstruct my reality, to be able to move onward. 




Channel changed. Time for The Ginger Show now. :)



Guest Poet: Irene McKinney

Irene McKinney was West Virginia's Poet Laureate from January 1994 until her death in February 2012. I am only discovering her work. 

You have Irene McKinney (and my stubbornness) largely to thank for the absence of more of my personal poetry. My intentions were to write poetry, not prose. I wrote to her once, years ago, in the manner of a new writer seeking validation from an experienced one. 

I shall seek my answers within her poetry.



DARKNESS POEM


Have you had enough darkness yet?
No, I haven't had enough darkness.
Have you had enough fire?
Maybe.

Enough wind and rain?
Enough black ink?
Ask me again, later.

Have you had enough sugar?
Definitely.
Enough salt? No.

I haven't had enough salt.
Are you finished with wringing your hands?
Definitely.

Finished with spiders and silks
And creatures of glamour?
Probably not.

Winsome looks?
Completely.
Pity? Never.

I feel pity right now
For everyone who got broken,
Including me. Pity feels

Like a sore and swollen heart
Leaking blood and tears
So hot they sting.

Imagine that. Stay there.
Have you had enough wind?
No. Enough earth? No.

Enough water? No, not nearly enough.
Enough dirt to walk on?

No. Never, never.

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Wienie Roast

This post is incredibly long (1500 words) and the subject matter is heavy. So if you are in a hurry or looking for a little ditty to entertain yourself with today, move along -- nothing to see here. Catch me tomorrow. :) I'll be happy to see you then.~~GHC
Wienie Roast

Today a dark cloud fell over my thoughts. It occurred to me how limited I am, how little I've accomplished, what a wienie I am. Why haven't I written my books? Why, why, why.


Immediately, unbidden, I remembered that this “wienie” once chewed through the wooden slats of her playpen to escape. Forget the conditions that led to that act of desperation because they are lost to history. The important thing is the persistence of the human spirit – of my spirit. I wonder how many hours it took to completely chew through and force my small body between the bars and squeeze through.

My stroke essay popped into my head next and I thought of the years I spent struggling just to speak a coherent sentence, to write something readable again. I remembered the years that followed my car accident in March 2002, several of them overlapped my recovery from the stroke event, when I could hardly walk. Until 2008, I literally had to crawl on my hands and knees to go up stairs.

That made me remember the couple of months our family lived with my son and daughter-in-law following the house fire and our subsequent eviction. Their apartment was upstairs and of course, it was damned hard (and dignity-destroying, needless to say) to scramble up a flight of steps like an animal.

I am not a wienie.



I was not a wienie when I pushed my IV pole across the hospital courtyard an hour after I got out of recovery room following my second breast surgery in two weeks' time. It was New Year's eve 1999, the eve of the millenium. Snow spit from a slate sky as I navigated two surgical drains and a morphine drip, my winter coat loosely around my shoulders. What motivated this Herculean effort? I wanted a cigarette!

I was not a wienie when I drove myself to chemotherapy and endured that poison. I was not a wienie when I got third-degree burns from radiation and figured out how to treat my wounds myself since the radiation oncologist seemed helpless to provide a solution (put VERY CLEAN room temperature wet washcloths on the burn until the cloth is warm to the touch, remove, re-wet, replace, repeat until the heat stops being given off through the burn. This will take literally hours but works with all burns to stop subsequent damage).



In 1992, when I sat with my brother at University of Cincinnati Burn ICU after he suffered third-degree burns over 80% of his body and bagged him with an Ambu bag so the staff had more hands to quickly change his bandages so he wouldn't have to suffer as long, or assured him I'd take care of the leprechaun he hallucinated while he was weaning off morphine and on methadone, or when I made the unilateral decision for the surgeons not to amputate both his forearms – nope, not a wienie.

When the doctors suggested my brother would make a wonderful organ donor because of his general health and youth, and I urged them not to withdraw life support – to let HIM decide if he wanted to fight to live, that it was not our right to make that decision for him – I was not a wienie.

When my son's head delivered in the car on the way to the birth center, I was not a wienie. When I endured years of systemic abuse as a child, nope, not a wienie then either. I have experienced misogyny on a profound scale in my lifetime, social and cultural systemic abuse and neglect.

When I was a divorced mother of two trying to raise my babies without child support for my son (which eventually accumulated to over $224,000) and I made $8 too much per month to qualify for food stamps or child care assistance, and my child care bill totaled 60% of my take-home pay and my father berated me for not taking on a second job but I refused to because I didn't want my children totally raised by somebody else – I was not a wienie then.



I created a game out of going through dumpsters collecting aluminum cans and glass bottles to recycle so we had enough money to eat out once a week. It served as both an outing and an income of sorts. I remembered thinking how my father was probably at the symphony or a rose society meeting right then and how horrified he'd be if someone saw me.

When I begged the man from the water company not to turn off my water because I used cloth diapers and mixed my son's powdered formula with water, and most of the food I cooked required water to prepare – I was not a wienie then. And neither was he when he went out and pretended to turn off the water and came back and warned me he would lose his job if I told a soul. (I never told until now. Thank you, Mister. You probably saved my life).

The month both my grandfather and favorite aunt died and my electricity and water got turned off and I voluntarily placed my four- and one-year-old children in temporary foster care so I could receive in-hospital treatment for depression, and despite the State's promise to keep them together, they were placed in two different homes – I was not a wienie then either.

When my agreement with the State was that I would have two weeks post-hospitalization to adjust and heal before my children came back home but the worker decided she would transfer legal custody to my ex-husband if I didn't take them back the day I was discharged – not a wienie then.

When it turned out the final straw in the whole depression dynamic had been I simply needed thyroid medication and if the doctor had only recognized or tested me for that, I wouldn't have spent months trying to find someone to agree to care for my children after I died, I didn't lose hope.



These are but a few not-a-wienie situations out of many, many dozens more throughout my lifetime. I won't but touch on being methodically beaten by my alcoholic lover and the creative excuses I offered for my various injuries because society's disapproval of interracial relationships was so much bigger than anyone's desire to help a woman find her way out of Hell.

I'll leave it to your imagination what it felt like to sit in a sheriff's office and have him tell me in a patronizing tone of voice that a three-year-old's testimony against a sexual abuser won't stand up in a courtroom, that there was nothing I could do to save others or I'd be charged with slander. Additionally, he offered the example that a thirteen-year-old girl was a poor witness too “because she might just have changed her mind and been a willing participant.” My sarcasm was lost on him when I added “I get it, just like an old woman would be a bad witness because she might just be senile, right?”


Having never been one to know when to leave something well enough alone, I felt compelled to ask “So just what IS the ideal age to be raped?” He had no answer.

Like I say, there are dozens and dozens and dozens more of these situations I've survived. Every time I tell even one lone story, people exclaim “How did you survive that? You are so strong!” All I can think is “That's nothing” and “You do what you have to do.” I don't share these experiences to elicit pity – I do not need you to feel sorry for me. I appreciate your compassionate spirit but do not feel bad for me.


What I do ask is that you do not judge me or criticize my housekeeping or my weight or my health or why I don't look at things from a whitebread point of view. I ask that you do not presume I am unaware of the way society works, nor do you suggest I don't understand what it means to be marginalized.



Don't tell me we have no choice in how to view our world. Don't call me a survivor. We're all survivors, we're all marching forward one step at a time. We are all heroes in our own plays. Don't compare your path to mine. Just keep putting one foot forward on your own journey. My friend Karen quotes a Japanese proverb, fall down seven times, get up eight.

I'm here to tell you not to stop at eight. 


Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again. Why? To paraphrase Yoda, “There is no why. There is only do.”

Because we are not wienies.

Bonus Post: Free Book

Author C. W. Smith has generously offered ChickenScratches' readers a link to a free download of his book of dark short stories, entitled "Losing Face." 

NOTE: Offer expires October 31, 2012. Get one! There are a variety of formats available ranging from plain text to Kindle, etc. - something for everyone. 

Coupon Code CK82Z
Click for Losing Face


Confidently Doubtful



I am confidently doubtful. ~~ GHC

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Stroke Aphasia 0, Me 1


I had a stroke several years ago which affected my use of language. In short, I was unable to call forth the word I needed or wanted to use, in either spoken language (speech) or written language. Example: The word blue would not pop into my head. I wanted to express “blue” but could not for the life of me think of the actual literal word “blue.” I could describe blue (“the color of the sea or the sky”) but blue itself would not pop into my head. Needless to say, this limited my writing severely.

My speech was also affected. Words would not come to me when I wanted to express them. My sentences were halting, my speech was stilted and uneven. I perpetually sounded as if I were searching for the right words (which I was). I felt stupid. Even expressing a simple concept was painstaking and difficult. Every spoken interaction was a monumental effort.

Last night, I discovered a notebook that I used to write while I was in the hospital for my stroke episode. It is bizarre to read the language and see the penmanship, etc., in that notebook. The marked out sentences – example: I wrote “She offered to take [sic] out to lunch” and scribbled it out. Apparently what I intended to write was “She assisted with my gown, tying the strings correctly and seeing to it that my rear-end was covered.”

I wrote out the ending of my novel while in the hospital. This was a celebration, to find those words! I thought I had lost them in a corrupted computer file. Redemption, once more!

How I struggled, but kept writing. Example: “The phrophets roam the streets of America as they've done since the beginning of Time, and declare the Truth.” “Phrophets.” I am a meticulous speller. And of course, prophets have not roamed America's streets since the beginning of Time (America hasn't existed since the beginning of Time as an entity called America, nor have there been streets) – such a fallacious statement! But that's a sample of how hard it was for me to express what I wanted to convey.

But I kept writing, and I kept talking despite feeling embarrassment and without speech therapy other than what I provided for myself.

This was all compounded by the fact my MRI revealed no area of clot and so my doctor decided I probably didn't have a stroke. Um, well, yes – yes, I did! Or something, some phenomena took place that changed my entire world and how I expressed myself.

You may understand how this language barrier changed my writing. So when you compare my writing style now to my prior style, you will see a richness today where once existed a sparseness. Perhaps I use too many words nowadays – maybe I'm a little flowery with my language, a little scattered, less focused than I used to be. But I am just thankful to be able to express myself at last. It's a good thing.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Fun with Anagrams




Interesting. I Googled "Omega Girl" and this image appeared.
There are EIGHT Omega Girls. My anagram is "Ninth Omega Girl."
Cue "Theme from Twilight Zone"

I ran my “Ginger Hamilton” name through an anagram creator and it spit out over 52,200 combinations. Here are some of my favorites. What is your vote? Leave a comment and let me know!

Nightmare Lingo
Large Mini Thong
Ninth Omega Girl
Grim Night Alone
Thine Grim Anglo
Enamoring Light

Incidentally, the "N" word is an anagram of my first name. :-(

Malingering Hot
Realigning Moth
Emailing Throng
Triangle Homing
Altering Homing
Integral Homing
Relating Homing
Alerting Homing



Anion Germ Light
Who knew there really was one?

Anion Germ Light
Negro Night Mail
Irma Tingle Hong
Gilt Manor Hinge
Aligning Mother
Align Mothering
A Hermit Longing

There actually are two Youtube videos entitled 'Nightmare Login." One is 1:18 of an online game login page. Yawn. The other is an advertisement for some gambling how-to-beat-Vegas. 

Nightmare Login
Agile Night Morn
Light Nor Enigma

Mint Grog? Close enough.

Inhale Mint Grog
Marine Night Log

To generate your own anagrams, check out this site: http://wordsmith.org/anagram/

Monday, October 15, 2012

Bonus Post: Guest Poet Robert Augustus Masters

For full effect, listen to video beginning at 1:40 for this post. I apologize; this is not my favorite version of this tune but it the only version I could find that plays on all platforms. 





 Poetry should not be so much read as imbibed, perhaps after releasing its juices with an unapologetically deep bite or two. No bibs. No napkined abyss. Sit as though you are at a feast, even if the fare is spare, knowing that the tiniest morsel can make the biggest difference.
                                ~~Robert Augustus Masters

For my special friend on this momentous day; you know who you are. I hope you understand.


In grief, the heart is broken in the same way that a stream rushing down through a mountainside forest is broken — it’s still cohesive spiritually, still unified in essence, its elemental dying only strengthening and affirming its fundamental aliveness, its rough-and-tumble course only furthering its dynamic yet utterly vulnerable surrender. 
                                         ~~Robert Augustus Masters

Let the unknown dissolve in a deeper unknown
See more than what is shown
The undoing that we fear is already here
The Mystery of mysteries closer than near
Beyond all familiarity we eventually must go
This we fight and this we know

                     ~~Robert Augustus Masters


Saturday, October 13, 2012

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

What's on Your Mind?




What's on your mind, Facebook asks. 

Wonderin' where my fieldstone fireplace is, the one containing a stack of well-placed logs. The flames are cracklin' just so, and the fire roars but gently in a contained manner. 

Wonderin' where the fellow I'm supposed to have is, why he isn't curled up beside me right now, why my head isn't on his strong chest, why his clean masculine scent isn't filling my nostrils, why his gentle hand isn't stroking my hair, why his resonant voice isn't telling me a story or a joke. 

Um, well, you asked, Facebook.~~GHC

Sunday, October 07, 2012

Guest Poet: Rumi



I went inside my heart to see how it was.
Something there makes me hear the whole world weeping.
~ Rumi





“The minute I heard my first love story,
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.
Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.
They're in each other all along.” 
~~ RumiThe Illuminated Rumi



“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” ~~ Rumi


I want to see you.

Know your voice.

Recognize you when you
first come 'round the corner.

Sense your scent when I come 
into a room you've just left.

Know the lift of your heel,
the glide of your foot.

Become familiar with the way 
you purse your lips
then let them part, 
just the slightest bit,
when I lean in to your space
and kiss you.

I want to know the joy 
of how you whisper 
"more” 
~~ Rumi




“That which God said to the rose, and caused it to laugh in full-blown beauty, He said to my heart, and made it a hundred times more beautiful.” ~~Rumi

Friday, October 05, 2012

Banjos, Fiddles, History and Pies


Today was a lot of fun. So was yesterday. The Universe has swung Its light in my direction, and things are coming together. I need to make hay while the sun shines, as the old folks used to say. As a result, I will cut back on the daily blog posts for awhile in order to concentrate on my longer-term writing projects. Please keep checking back – I will post something at least once a week (and probably more often).

Kim Johnson, John Morris, Dr. Wilson

I got to listen to two of West Virginia's most amazing musicians perform this afternoon. Kim Johnson is the Grande Dame of Banjo Pickers. She said when she began playing, the other women were all forty years older than she was. Now they have moved on to the next dispensation, and Kim is the Matriarch now. Very sweet lady and uber talented. Truly a treasure.


John Morris is the younger of the two Morris Brothers from Ivydale/Clay County, West Virginia. Yes, that's the famous Morris Family of the Morris Family Farm Festivals held at Ivydale every year in the 1960s and 1970s. Yes, the same festivals where angry rain fell from the skies, flooded the creek, and threatened to wash away the festival goers and everything else! 

John says legend has it there was an old woman who lived at the head of the creek on the farm, and she didn't cotton to music. She'd bring out her Morris Family voodoo dolls and pour a pitcher of water on 'em! I tend to believe it – I remember those festival floods.

Kim Johnson (plays banjo), John Morris (plays fiddle),
Me (plays video games)

John gave a running history lesson on West Virginia fiddlers. I took pages and pages of notes. I also recorded about a dozen tunes Kim and John played, created one video of them performing (the battery on my cell phone was very low to start with), and I got a handful of photographs.

In the middle of the two-hour performance, I received a phone call announcing I had won a random drawing and needed to come to the student union pavilion – to throw a pie in my history teacher's face! 

Dr. Peyton is an esteemed historian with his own page in the West Virginia Encyclopedia. He has published one book (so far) as well as produced/written a documentary film (he has his own page on IMDB.com). He regularly appears in PBS documentaries as an expert in West Virginia and Appalachian history. And we were high school classmates and regularly share memories of The Good Old Days. He's also a mensch of a human being, and I had to buck up my courage to do something as dastardly as hit him in the face with a whipped cream pie (but I managed somehow).



So all in all, today was a blast. Got to meet new people, enjoy wonderful music, and pie a professor. And the odometer rolled over on my blog -- 13,000 hits as of today. Life is good. :) ~~GHC




The latest collection of short stories from West Virginia Writers includes one of my stories, is ready for pre-order. Fed From the Blade: Tales and Poems From the Mountains is ripe with promise. 

Click Here For Pre-Ordering Info (New Page Opens)

Thursday, October 04, 2012

Playing for Keeps



I got some amazing great news Wednesday! Not trying to tease anyone; just wanted to share the general sense of happiness. Good things goin' on! ~~GHC


"Truth is handsomer than the affectation of love. Your goodness must have some edge to it, else it is none."
~~Ralph Waldo  Emerson





I believe in being good for goodness' sake. I seek to live my life in a genuine manner, with honesty and compassion. I have been criticized by "some" because at times I operate with a sharp tongue, at other times I choose not to reply at all. I have been accused by some folks of being unkind because of these behaviors.

I find that reaction hurtful, confusing, and in conflict with my sense of Truth and Goodness.

Today I found Emerson's words (above) as well as the following words that put my mind at ease. I am not at odds with Truth OR Goodness when my behavior doesn't reflect sweetness and light. :-)

Tibetan meditation master Chogyam Trungpa coined the phrase "idiot compassion" to define the behavior people tend to do where they react from the "Playbook of Nice" rather than "from an authentic arising of goodness, because our heart is simply open."
"An open heart is never certain, it is in open dialog with this world and thus can respond with sweetness when sweetness is due, or wrath or silence or dismissal or an endless embrace. You are on the razor's edge, meaning right here, right now, playing for keeps, not for appearances." ~~Susan Piver


Wednesday, October 03, 2012

Washing Dishes


I was drafted into a war I didn't want to fight. I couldn't move to Canada to avoid it, and conscientious objecting was not an option.

Unknowingly, I stumbled into the front lines when I received my draft notice: "The pathology report was positive, and the margins are bad" translated into "You have breast cancer, and it has spread." The unspoken translation: “You are going to die."

Washing Dishes





I despise the symbol for breast cancer – the pastel pink ribbon. My treatment for breast cancer temporarily robbed me of my outward signs of femininity. I lost all my hair – my eyebrows, my pubic hair, even the fine tiny hairs on my knuckles sloughed off.

Following two surgeries within a month (bad margins the first time), my affected breast was markedly smaller and had ugly red and purple tracks on it. Unusual complications from radiation turned the already assaulted breast into a swollen, deep red, leathery lump.

Chemotherapy withered my ovaries, ensuring I would never again know the pleasure of conception, pregnancy, or future children.

No, the symbol for breast cancer should be a black ribbon or, at the very least, a deep brown one. There's nothing girlie about breast cancer.

I was told by my oncologist that if I live long enough, complications from breast cancer will likely end my life. Of course, I may get lucky and be clobbered by a Mack truck or mugged or have a heart attack. But my chances of "dying peacefully" in my sleep of "natural causes" are slim to none.

I don't like to read obituaries which state someone succumbed "after a long courageous battle with cancer." Who says they fought a courageous battle anyway? At the risk of sounding insensitive, I cried like a baby at the prospects of being torn from my children and husband. There was no option but to try and survive; courage did not play a role. My heart pounded and I felt trapped, often. My body had turned against me and there was little I could do about it. It wasn't like I could run away; the monster was inside me.

I want my obituary to read "passed away after a valiant battle with the laundry beast." We all can relate to that fight. It's a zero sum game, but we all play it.

Personally, I am not fighting a battle against cancer, and I am not a survivor. Women are notably strong, but I believe it's unnatural and unhealthy to maintain a battle-ready state of mind.

Cancer is part of my daily existence. Why should I program my mind to engage my body in a battle with itself? Studies have shown that folks who picture battle themes such as shooting, bombing, and stabbing cancer cells have a shorter life expectancy than those who use less violent imagery.

Positive imagery is a wonderful concept where folks picture their cancer cells and then picture themselves eliminating them. I envision my body as a plate and the cancer cells as leftover food on the plate. I scrape what I can into the garbage. Then I use hot water and detergent to thoroughly clean the plate. I love the idea of throwing and washing away the cancer and seeing sparkling clean body cells. It is satisfying and something I can relate to in my external existence.

To apply the medical model to my visualization, scraping equals surgery; hot water equals radiation; detergent is chemotherapy. You can just as easily visualize without relating to the medical model (although I am NOT advocating omitting traditional treatment methods).

The term `survivor' irritates me. There are concentration camp survivors who will never again be in a concentration camp. There are earthquake survivors and rattlesnake bite survivors – even bear and shark attack survivors. None of those folks ever have to repeat their experience again.

Breast cancer doesn't go away forever for those whose cancer has spread. We are not survivors. We are veterans on the front lines of death, ever vigilant for renewed enemy attack.

But we don't have to live each day in a war zone.

Instead of battling breast cancer or calling myself a survivor, I have learned to love my body and its limitations. I have a renewed appreciation of the satisfaction possible in imperfect human relationships. Having breast cancer has transformed how I experience the smaller moments of my life. The smell of dinner cooking is precious. Daily annoyances don't seem as irritating now.

Despite my aversions to wearing a pink ribbon or labeling myself as a survivor, I feel an inexplicable connection to my breast cancer sisters. There are as many ways to get through breast cancer as there are types of individuals. Just as with so many other aspects of life, each of us faces our challenges in our own way.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have plates to wash.~~GHC


Note: You can pre-order "Fed From the Blade" (the upcoming anthology that I have a story in) by clicking HERE (new window opens).


Tuesday, October 02, 2012

Fed From the Blade Cover Announced


Unexpected news today! Woodland Press released the above image of its latest forthcoming publication, "Fed From the Blade," due to be released in a couple of weeks (I'm guessing). This book is special to me for several reasons.

"Fed From the Blade" contains my short story "Bringing Home the Bacon." The unnamed narrator is a crone instructing a young person on the finer aspects of, well, bringing home the bacon (in the realest sense of that phrase's meaning). I wanted to preserve a traditional procedure, and I experimented with how best to disturb the reader without being at all graphic.

I believe I succeeded wildly, in both regards.

My mentor Cat Pleska edited the book. She also designed the composition of the cover, arranged the apples, chose a special knife from her daddy's collection, and created the photograph for "Fed From the Blade." 

Co-editor Michael Knost sat across a table from me not two months ago over Mexican food in the Barboursville Mall and issued a challenge for me to begin writing again. He urged me not to let the chaos in my private life rob the world of my gifts and talents. He demanded that I attend my readers.

Cat has supported me in so many ways over the past couple of years that words are inadequate. Suffice it to say that there are portions of my walk down Life's Beach where the single set of footprints belong to her and not me and I mean that in the most respectful way. I am eternally grateful, Cat.

Close to a dozen of my colleagues and friends are also involved in this wonderful anthology. My friend since first grade, Marion Kee, has her poem "On Hearing Bill Withers in the Ninth Grade" in "Fed From the Blade." I am tickled that fifty years after we first met, two of our word babies have likewise met on the pages of this book and will march hand-in-hand together throughout Time for future readers to enjoy. And if that sounds corny, well, that's how I roll tonight. 

Thank you for your loyalty and love, from the bottom of my heart, and from the little girl version of me -- the one who inspires and encourages me to be who I am and to have the courage to share it with you.~~GHC


Pre-order information