A PROUD DAD

Hi folks,

First, thanks to a lot of people's generosity and warm, giving natures, Craig McNeely emailed me to say that he and his family will be able to get a place to live by tomorrow! He asked me to thank all of the folks we may have reached. I know that like me, you're glad that his two little girls, his wife, and himself are going to be able to get off the streets! This is where social media shows its soul.

Now, I have to brag on my son Mike a bit. Mike's kind of a Renaissance Man in that he's talented on many levels. When he was in grade school, he and his friends made a spoof movie on Saving Private Ryan, he retitled Saving Ryan's Privates, where he followed his friend Ryan around school with a movie camera, and every time he came close to a girl Mike and his buddy tackled him in a heroic effort to save their friend's "privates." In high school, he was a star pitcher who played on several outstanding travel teams all over the country and his h.s. team won the large school state title twice.

On the mound for Snider H.S.

On his uncle's Harley...

And, as an 8th grade basketball player.


Nowadays, Mike is the top salesman at the Rogers & Hollands' Jewelry Store in Ft. Wayne, and recently was awarded their top employee of the year from all 80 of their stores.

In his spare time, Mike has always drawn really abstract forms and posted them on Instagram. Just recently, his work was discovered by a major art dealer who is going to present them in an exhibition and for sale. Won't name the gallery just yet until it's cleared to do so, but the owner is a well-regarded name in art circles. Anyway, I thought I'd post the images Mike sent to her which are being prepared for exhibition and sale. I think Mike got his art ability from me since I have none left, whereas his mother still has a lot. That only makes sense, right?

Anyway, here's Mike's drawings:

He has literally dozens and dozens and dozens of these as well as "regular" artwork. I'm really proud of him and this may mean the dawn of a new career for him. Hope you enjoy the look at his weird mind... That, I know he got from dad...

Not to mention his sister, Sienna is an extremely good artist as well. His other sister, Britney, is the outlier as she's a computer guru... We can't point to any parent for where she got those skills... not from me, anyway! But, we do know she got her brains from her mother since I still have all of mine...

In case you can't tell, I'm so damned proud of all of my kids!

Blue skies,
Les

NEW BOOK COMING SOON!

Hi folks,

I’ve got a new novel coming out shortly from StoneGate Ink both as an ebook and as a paperback, and it may be a surprise to some of y’all as it’s in a genre I haven’t published before. It’s a YA.

And, it’s clean. No cursing, no vampires, no explicit sex. I wrote it at a time when those things weren’t around. Well, I guess sex was around, but not like it is today. At least not the “in your face” variety we seem to encounter these days for kids’ books.

That may doom it… or it may not. We’ll see.

I wrote MIRROR, MIRROR without any view to getting it published. I just wrote it for my daughter Britney who was nine at the time. Just a labor of love. I wanted to give her something I thought she’d enjoy. And, she did.

At the time, I briefly considered trying to get it published and sent out the mss to two publishers, Scholastic and Hyperion. Hyperion had just started up, which tells you how long ago it was! I was new to publishing then, even though I had a few books out, but didn’t really understand the industry well as evidenced by what happened next.

I got back lengthy letters from the chief editors at both places. One was five pages long and the other, eight. Single-spaced and typed. That also tells how long ago this was... One wanted me to change the title as they had one in the hopper with the same title. The other wanted me to recast it in third person (it was--and still is--in first). She also sent me five of their paperbacks to read so I’d know their “style.” Now, I know this is hard to believe—especially today, when there’s so much knowledge about publishing—but I didn’t see either of these responses as a “yes,” but rather, as really nice rejections. I put ‘em both in the proverbial drawer, along with the manuscript, and forgot about them.

Kind of dumb, wasn’t it!

Guilty…

It saw there for a long time, and then my daughter Britney and I were talking one day about stuff, and suddenly, out of the blue, she said, “Dad, you remember that book you wrote for me when I was a kid? Mirror, Mirror?” Well, yes, I said. “Well,” she said, “it was four years before I could look into a mirror for longer than ten seconds at a time. It scared the crap out of me!”

When she said that, it dawned on me that perhaps it really was publishable. Britney was (and is) a really smart person and from the time she was five read voraciously. If she found it scary, then I figured it really might have some legs.

And, that’s when I hooked up with Aaron Patterson, the publisher of StoneGate Ink and he agreed.

That’s its little history. When Britney’s little sister, Sienna, came along, I had her read it at about the same age Britney was when she first read it and her reaction was pretty much the same as Britney’s. Scared the crap out of her.

I’ll let you folks who pick it up be the judge. Look for it—it’s coming out pretty soon and I’ll be sure to announce it here.

Hope it keeps kids up at night and makes ‘em avoid mirrors…

Spoiler: No vampires, no zombies, no explicit sex, no cursing.

Here's the synopsis of MIRROR, MIRROR:

Elizabeth Mary Downing is a typical American teenager...almost. When she peers into a mirror, she sees someone else staring back--an image identical to herself in every detail save one--the mirror image has blue eyes. Elizabeth's eyes are brown! She is told by her mirror counterpart, "Liz,” that she can enter any mirror she wants through "trans-starence,” and when curiosity prevails over fear she enters the mirror, trading places with Liz. The horror begins as Liz wreaks havoc with what was a normal life. Elizabeth's attempts to trick Liz into going back into the mirror reflect both suspense and humor, and just when all hope seems lost, she succeeds...only to discover she has to return to the mirror to reverse events and get her life back to where it was. She succeeds, but she leaves part of herself forever in the mirror.

 

Blue skies,

Les