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Welcome to e-Writer Magazine. E-Writer is a magazine
for writers of all types at all stages of development from
the novice to the expert. In these pages you’ll find interesting
ideas and tips on becoming a more effective communicator,
as well as book reviews, articles, even poetry. We’re open to
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say it here. You can contact our editor at editor@llumina.com

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Voice to a Generation Muted by its Own Insecurity, Scaccia’s Song Rings with Bittersweet with Clarity

Fort Lauderdale, March  2005: Self-proclaimed “existential punk-rock goddess with a heart of soul,” Annamaria Scaccia’s belts out her poetry in a powerful and insightful voice that belies her youth.  Born in the back roads of Brooklyn, New York, Scaccia’s poems have a distinctive Brooklyn accent tinged with the dialect of disenfranchised youth.  A talented goddess, she is a staff writer to the Brooklyn College Kingsman.  And her work has appeared on www.fictionpress.com, www.poetry.com, as well as in the short-lived music-zine, PicPockit, which Scaccia founded in 2002. Scaccia also paints expressionistic, post-impressionist rock star portraits and nudes.  Her free time is spent contemplating the battle between logic and desire and writing it down in her Moleskin notebook. And Scaccia loves Jeff Buckley.

Youth is just a distraction. Time is non-existent. Everything is questionable. Everything is lost. These are the basic thoughts that penetrate through the heels of Destiny for a Tragedy. A collection of poems, prose, songs, mistakes, regrets, boredom, and persistence, Destiny for a Tragedy tells of a tale of a young girl racing through the red lights of youth, side-stepping wilted lovers, estranged fathers, distorted friends and self-destruction in the form of one-liner notes and tangents. Split into five different chapters, Destiny for a Tragedy takes you down a road of tragic love, brewing hate, silent observation, frustration, cultural activism and political disgust. From words praising the perfect man to the memory of a murdered friend, Destiny for a Tragedy recounts the days of being in love, depression, loneliness, and youth, all while trying to find one’s self. Scaccia tosses together phrases and metaphors that enunciate what it means to be a teenager and what it is like growing up, stepping away from it all. With an epilogue to explain how she is now, content and ready to move on, Destiny for a Tragedy is a sensitive and provocative reflection of change.

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Another Small Town, U.S.A., Immortalized in Becoming Ruby by Marci Henna

Fort Lauderdale, March 2005:  Fireside, Texas circa 1967 is the next small Southern town immortalized in literature in Marci Henna’s Becoming Ruby.  In the tradition of Fannie Flagg’s Whistle Stop, Alabama, and Rebecca Wells’ Thornton City, Louisiana, Marci Henna’s Fireside, Texas is populated by quirky characters, hot gossip, Elvis, and cozy down-home Southern cooking. The local Fireside flavor combines with nostalgic details from those Flower Power years, as two sisters come of age with Ruby and Walt, grandparents who don’t act their age and whose love is legendary.

 Juliet Cranbourne remains in Fireside as a shopkeeper and editor of The Fireside Telegraph long after her grandparent’s deaths and her sister Evangeline’s moving on to big city life.  When Evangeline returns to help Juliet choose a headstone for Walt and Ruby’s graves, the rift between the sisters dissolves within their shared memories of growing up on the ranch with their doting grandparents, eccentric neighbors, farm animals, and each other during simpler times. 

 Fireside’s allure is in its simplicity as a backdrop to Southern cooking and superbly vivid characters.  In Fireside, people are loved because of their idiosyncrasies, not in spite of them.  Interwoven threads of the past surface in the tapestry of the present, as the sisters find that the legacy their grandparents left to them is one of love and acceptance, of the past, of the here-and-now, and of each other.  Becoming Ruby will take its place alongside Fried Green Tomatoes and The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and Fireside and its inhabitants will live on in readers’ memories long after the last page is turned.

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 Fort Lauderdale, March 2005:  Forget those anonymous newspaper headlines about medical miracles and accompany Dr. Craig Collison, his family, colleagues, and friends, on an incredible journey through his death-defying ordeal with flesh-eating bacteria.  When a medical disaster ripped this young doctor’s body and world to shreds, the steadfast faith of his family circle made it whole again. 

Collison was completing his residency and awaiting the birth of his third child, when a routine surgery turned into the kind of unique catastrophe that makes medical headlines.  The flesh-eating bacteria that was consuming his healthy body could not obliterate Craig’s belief in God, nor shake the faith of his family.  Collison’s wife Michelle put a journal at his bedside for well-wishers, and herself, to write their thoughts in.  Entries from that journal punctuate the gripping and dramatic account of how a fluke bacteria transformed Craig from healthy young doctor to critically-ill patient and how his friends and family kept the faith.

Tattered Flesh, Resilient Spirit is the incredible story of the Collison family’s struggle with “flesh-eating” bacteria, a spontaneous and horrible illness that caused massive tissue destruction with deadly and never-ending complications.  Raw emotion, both incredible joy and overwhelming sadness, as Michelle’s journal entries take you to the heat of the moment, inject you right into this real-life drama.  Their astounding faith in the verses used to try to understand why this happened gives witness to the Spirit at work in our lives, allowing Craig to persevere where so few survive.

 Fort Lauderdale, February 2005:  A real-life canine role model is immortalized with words and in pictures in Sari Mitchell and Greg Raische’s new children’s book, Ollie the Trolley.  Ollie, the real-life hero dog, lost his hind legs to an infection.  Ollie wears a trolley-like device to wheel around.  Despite the unimaginable pain this true-life puppy has gone through, his spirit and resolve made him the perfect role model for children of all ages and inspired this beautifully-illustrated children’s book, the first of the Patty-the-Petsitter series.

Follow Ollie and Patty on their sunny afternoon adventure in this fanciful portrayal of the real life Ollie.  This brave, happy, and loving, handicapped wiener dog will unlock even the hardest of hearts.  Ollie is inspiration and example for everyone who has faced hardship and disability, and an education for those on the outside looking in.  The matter-of-fact approach to Ollie’s handicap makes Ollie the Trolley the perfect vehicle for introducing the concept of disabilities to young audiences.  Raische’s rhymes make Ollie an easy-read for beginning readers and Mitchell’s detailed crayon renderings are delightful.  There is even a little quiz at the end of the book to make certain the reader has paid attention to the tiny details! 

 Visit our website,  www.mostunique.com/ollietrolley.htm, to hear Ollie’s touching story, see where Ollie lives, meet his parents, his pals and experience a day in Ollie’s life. WEBSITE BONUS—Preview the next two companion books in the Patty the Pet Sitter Series: It’s a Ducky Day and The Curious Case of Mr. Banana Face.  A portion of the proceeds from sales of Ollie the Trolley are earmarked for The Special Olympics and The Humane Society. 

 Fort Lauderdale, March 2005: 

 PEACE, WAR and the AFTERMATH is an account of war and communist takeover, and a coming-of-age tale with a twist. As a young boy, Sándor Erdélyi saw the horrors of war firsthand:

 A work crew had already dug out a long ditch in the nearby church garden, a mass grave, in effect. We were given no tools with which to extract the bodies from the slush and ice that covered them. Shaking with horror, crying with despair, I dug alongside my mother.

 After WWII, Hungary was stripped of vast chunks of her territory and her remnants were swallowed by Soviet Russia. Classmates and workplace colleagues disappeared and families were torn apart. Erdélyi’s generation was decimated by deportation, internal exile and murder as the communist regime tightened its chokehold on the country. By turns harrowing, comical and moving, Erdélyi’s story is a testament to the strength of the human spirit and a valuable chronicle of a country that is still poorly understood in North America.

About the Author

Sándor Alexander Erdélyi was born in 1934 in Budapest, Hungary.  He studied at a prestigious separate school, but the Communist government denied him a university education.  His early freelance writing career was aborted by government censors.  He escaped Hungary in 1956 with his wife and child and settled in Canada.  After almost thirty years of salaried work and business ownership, Erdélyi resumed writing, producing op-eds, interviews, and analytical reports for the government.  In retirement, he wrote short stories before embarking on his first full-length book.  He is currently working on several writing projects.

Fort Lauderdale, March 2005: A learning guide developed while the author was serving as a consultant in conflict resolution, anger management, and creative problem solving, Planning with Purpose will give you the means to understand your own anger, and to effectively diffuse negative reactions in others.  The book was originally used in workshops that were conducted for adjudicated juvenile offenders and adjudicated adults who were judged as having anger management problems.  The book also evolved from experiences the author had as an Alternatives to Violence (AVP) facilitator in prison and community settings and from other conflict resolution and peacemaking training he conducted including: developing peer mediation programs in school settings and training law enforcement officers and community members as community mediators. 

The learning guide teaches the application of two types of planning skills: finite and infinite.  Finite or "use-your-brain" planning focuses on traditional behavior management strategies for self-control of behavior.  Infinite or "heart and soul" planning emphasizes increased receptive skills such as listening and seeking an awareness of one's purpose in life.  The book includes learning strategies (written activities) designed to assist the reader in recognizing and reducing episodes of destructive violence and to increase creative problem solving and planning strategies associated with happiness and a purpose-filled life. 

About the Author

Robert Benefield is currently Professor of Psychology and Criminal Justice at East Texas Baptist University.  He is also Professor Emeritus at Louisiana State University in Shreveport where he taught for 27 years prior to his retirement.  He is a consultant in conflict resolution, anger management, and creative problem solving for law enforcement and community agencies.  He received his PhD from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, his MA from New Mexico State University, and his BA from Louisiana Tech University.  All his degress are in Psychology.  He is married and has six children.

Author Lets Book Rest for Ten Years Before Publishing 

Fort Lauderdale, March 2005:  Chris Pugmire, author of The Sentient Advantage, finished his manuscript a decade ago.  He waited ten years before publishing because, as Pugmire writes in the preface, “When I first wrote this book I wanted to enjoy reading it as if someone else had written it. so, I came up with the cunning plan of waiting ten years without thinking about it and then re-reading it. Surprisingly, my plan mostly worked; and even more surprisingly, I found that I really quite liked it and decided to get it published.”

The Sentient Advantage was well worth waiting for.  It is pure engaging, entertaining, and stimulating science fiction.  In the tradition of Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy, Pugmire injects an intelligent comedic element into a futuristic science fiction theme that will appeal to both sci-fi enthusiasts and satire lovers alike.  Pugmire’s deadpan delivery does not obscure the twinkle in his eye as his story unfolds.  It is difficult not to smile along with him as we follow his hero Jaros from a fall from space to a whole other world. 

Then Jaros wakes up and finds himself falling from space, he is alarmed to realize that he has no memory.  Nothing.  Yet it seems like he was expected.  He takes up residence in Kayla’s haunted house that is run by a house comp that won't take orders.  Together they must figure out what’s really going on, save the galaxy, and avoid being killed by large ugly aliens.  Every step of their adventure is hilarious.  This is the kind of book that people pass on to their friends, but want returned so they can read it again when their friends have finished.

 The Sentient Advantage did not lose a bit of its edge in the ten years that Pugmire had it under lock and key.  Let’s just hope we don’t have to wait another decade for its sequel to appear!

Stay Dead! is another 'Keeper' for Florida Renaissance Man, James C. Dunavant!!

James C. Dunavant, author of the wildly popular science fiction series, Keepers Way, scores another victory with Stay Dead!  -- a ghost story with a unique twist.  Dunavant, who first published his writing on the web, has a rabid online fan base that has been awaiting his next saga.  They will not be disappointed.  Stay Dead! is proof that Dunavant’s writing skills can succeed in any arena, as he makes the leap from hard science fiction into a whole new ballpark, horror.  True to form -- with Stay Dead! -- Jim scores another grand slam. 

Dunavant, a child of the sixties whose humility belies his monumental talent, modestly explains, “I’ve got a good portfolio…” Understatement!  That portfolio includes but is not limited to, music (composing and performing), as well as art, mechanical engineering, electronics, robotics, and computer programming.   And this includes writing multi-genre fiction.  Like a modern-day Leonardo, Dunavant is a master of many, many things.

It is his writing, however, that attracted the attention of the hardcore science fiction fans who flock to his website (http://keepers.jamesdunavant.com.) to leave adoring accolades to the humble writer they compare to Isaac Asimov, Anne Rice, Poppy Z. Brite, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, John Gideon, and other more well-known authors.  It is not only his Internet fans that recognize Dunavant’s genius:  A film company has expressed an interest in making Jim’s The Keepers of Forever novel and its sequels into major motion pictures. 

While the author’s reserved demeanor seems contrary to his genius and star-power, Stay Dead! promises to keep a literary spotlight on James C. Dunavant for years to come.  This reluctant genius will have to get used to it!

For further information about Stay Dead!, check out Dunavant's website at http://staydead.jamesdunavant.com.

Chained Generations - A Triumph Over Tyranny

FORT LAUDERDALE, FL – March 2005:  Chained Generations triumphs over tyranny with its passionate voice, engaging drama and story that is, sadly, been a global one throughout the history of the world. Chained Generations exposes the cruel totalitarianism of Soviet Communism and relates a family saga so passionate and compelling, it could have only been based on reality.  This fictionalized version of life in Russia from before The Revolution through the days of détente screams a truth that needs to be told -- as living under an oppressive regime in this day’s world is still common reality for millions.  

 This story was almost published in 1974 by Exposition Press, but one author’s residual fear from her days as victim under a Communist regime stifled her.  Even after her feet were firmly planted on freedom’s shore, it still took many years for her to embrace liberty and to truly understand what it means to be free.  Chained Generations is one family’s three-generation saga of enduring love and sacrifice in the name of freedom. With history as a backdrop, the story takes us from Russia’s pre-revolutionary days through Nikita Khrushchev’s political thaw and the eventual lifting of the Iron Curtain.  

With truth as its template, Chained Generations follows a couple who will suffer anything – including swimming across a river to Romania, leaving their young daughter behind – to build a better life for themselves and their child. Their fate, as well as that of their left-behind daughter and eventual grandchild, is in the hands of their oppressors. Their lives are tumultuous and often uncertain, but they never lose sight of what is important – freedom.

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 Fort Lauderdale, March 2005:  If anyone has survived grade school without being bullied, life has been kinder to him than the rest of us.  Most adults can remember a time when they were victim of a school bully.  And some of us have carried those scars into adulthood, allowing it to effect our grownup behavior and social skills.  We want better for our children.  Character Ed and the Magical Lesson of the Bully-Proof Vest is that something better.

An honest and simple story of the-kid-next-door and his nemesis Buster the Bully, Character Ed opens the topic of bullies and victims up for discussion and shows children ways to disarm an intimidator without resorting to bullying back and sullying their own character.  It shines a spotlight on Buster that reflects back how a tormenter appears to the rest of us.  Whether you know a child who is being harassed or one who is doing the harassing, Character Ed and the Magical Lesson of the Bully-Proof Vest is a wonderful non-threatening starting point to open up discussion.  Steven Rosenbloom’s experience as an educator and counselor shines through the pages of this sweet and insightful morality tale.  The illustrations that accompany the text are hip and colorful and make this story understandable for beginners (which is when most bullying begins). If you have kids or work with children, Character Ed should be an invited guest at your read-alouds.  Its lesson is a gift to both victims and bullies alike.

 Koenig’s Wonder, a riveting multi-generational saga of a fragmented family emigrated from Germany, blends the world of horse-racing and international art into a masterpiece of mystery and intrigue.  In this fictional world of horse racing, Koenig’s Wonder, a magnificent Kentucky Derby winning Thoroughbred stars in author Linda Kuhlmann’s novel of family secrets, deception, greed and murder. 

In 1937, two brothers flee pre-Nazi Germany and embark at Ellis Island in New York City with only a white Lipizzan stallion and a stolen Friedrich painting. Their relationship, fractured by deceit, causes the brothers to go their separate ways in their new homeland.  What follows affects three generations of the Maseman family as they are torn apart by greed, war, and revenge. 

Years later, Emma Maseman discovers the harsh truth about her family when she is investigated for the theft of Koenig’s Wonder. As the mysteries unravel, Koenig’s Wonder races toward the finish line in a brilliant and thoroughly engrossing fashion.

FORT LAUDERDALE,  March 2005:  Ah, the college years: exciting new friends, exams and all-nighters, loads of books, parties galore, graduation, and…murder? 

In Creamed at Commencement: A Graduation Mystery, Professor Melanie Andrews, a brilliant academic, is murdered at the Yonkers University Graduation.  Katie Maguire, sixty-something sleuth, and Maria Rodriguez, her twenty-something sidekick, are on the case.  Professor Andrews turns out to be a control freak who thought everyone’s business was her own.  Whodunnit?  A competitive professor, a dishonest dean, a sneaky janitor, a disgruntled administrative assistant, or a frustrated family member?  Follow this unlikely couple as they traverse New York City in search of the killer, learning about the art and science of detecting in the process. 

Gail Farrelly (www.FarrellySistersOnline.com) has published academic, professional and Op-Ed articles, as well as fiction.  Her first mystery, Beaned in Boston, was named to the 1997 Washington Irving Book Selection List.  After the publication of her second mystery, Duped by Derivatives, the Westchester Library System in New York named her a “Millennium Author.”

Fort Lauderdale, March 2005:  A Death Interrupted begins when David Elliott, an editorial writer for the Washington Tribune, in D.C., receives an e-mail from his lifelong love, Senta Trondson on his sixty-second birthday.  But Senta died three months earlier! Suspecting a hoax, Elliott challenges the validity of the message, but finds the e-mail to be authentic. Senta explains that Damodar, the Hindu Master of Wisdom who has made this unique method of communication between them possible, has temporarily halted her passage through the postmortem realms as a demonstration to the world of the processes involved. Through a series of follow-up e-mails, David learns from Senta, not only what the first phase of the afterlife is really like, but also, about some long-suppressed psychological feelings that she never revealed to him in life.

  The newspaper’s executive editor agrees to allow Damodar to explain the true nature of the after-death states according to the Eastern occult philosophy in a series of articles specially prepared for the newspaper’s Religion Section. Ultimately, Damodar’s articles about the world beyond and a televised challenge of his occult powers have major worldwide consequences, while David and Senta both achieve psychological discovery about some emotional hang-ups of their own that neither was forced to confront until after Senta’s death. 

 “Written in a fast-paced style, the book is bound to keep the reader riveted to the seat until the very end.  The numerous twists and turns in the plot makes the reading a delightful and invigorating experience.  The work is a roller coaster ride, which is bound to sweep readers off their feet.”      Bookwire Review, February 3, 2005 

About the Author

 Eli P. Bernzweig, a retired federal government attorney with more than twenty-five years of experience as a health law specialist, resides in Palo Alto, California. He served as Executive Director of the H.E.W. Secretary’s Commission on Medical Malpractice, and later was a Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.  Mr. Bernzweig is the author of four books and numerous articles on the professional liability of doctors, nurses, lawyers, and financial planners. He has been a student of Theosophy for many years. This is his first novel.

FORT LAUDERDALE, March 2005:  We live in a time far removed from gentlemen’s combat, tightly formed phalanxes, brightly colored uniforms declaring who belongs to which side.  Furthermore, we live in a time without clear-cut sides.  How, then, to determine the enemy?  Who is he, and what makes him the foe?

 Marginal Enemies, in asking these very difficult questions, follows the lives of two boys growing up during World War II, when the enemy was clearly defined.  The boys’ parallel lives—one German and one American—explores the development of the concept of “enemy,” at the same time questioning its very essence by telling the story of the German boy’s pacifist father, who deserts his own troops in a desperate attempt to live a life away from hatred.

 In recognizing the complex nature of those we hate and telling tales of the undesirables (the Gypsies, the homosexuals, the African-Americans, and the Japanese-Americans), Marginal Enemies lends a voice to all involved in this horrible war. 

 Norman Beaupré was born in southern Maine and received a Ph.D. in French Literature from Brown University in 1974.  After thirty years of teaching and a stint as chair of the Department of Humanities at the University of New England (formerly known as St. Francis College), he retired in 2000.  He has taught French language and literature, world literature and a course he developed entitled Transcultural Health Care.  He is presently Professor Emeritus and continues to pursue his two great interests, travel and writing (he writes in French and English).  He is the author of two works in French published in Québec and a third at a publisher in Montréal.  He has two unpublished manuscripts in English and is working on another novel based on the life and art of Van Gogh from the point of view of an eleven-year-old boy in Arles.

March 2005:  What if you unknowingly married a witch? When Sam Melody, a hardworking private detective, marries Jasmine Pellitier, the consequences could be deadly. Jasmine seems like the perfect woman. She is actually a 2,500-year-old witch — pursued by ancient enemies who would stop at nothing to learn the secret of her powers. 

Brian Dobbins’ new novel, Jasmine’s Husband Sam, blends supernatural ingredients and several genres into one delicious nouveau cuisine brew. Dobbins incorporates the supernatural into what begins as a basic gumshoe detective tale. Then he spices it up with extra helpings of witchcraft and adventure. While the story stews, a romance simmers, showing Dobbins clearly has all his burners cooking. The result is an engrossing literary feast that follows no recipe but his own. 

Jasmine’s Husband Sam takes the reader from Sam and Jasmine’s adventures in modern-day New York City to her ancient beginnings and back again. Fighting a battle between good and evil, they elude their enemies, and keep their own love burning. In a fascinating new take on the witch-tale, follow Jasmine and the man she loves to a final showdown between the powers of Darkness and Light.

Jasmine’s Husband Sam is Dobbins’ first novel.  Brian Dobbins lives in Cincinnati, Ohio and is finishing his second book.

Fort Lauderdale, March 2005:  Professor R.J. Rummel, Nobel Peace Prize Finalist and Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Hawaii, already the author of twenty-five works of non-fiction on the “democratic peace,” incorporates his passionate views into the latest book of his fictional Never Again series. 

A twenty-first century George Orwell, Rudy Rummel switched to fiction to promote his message to the wider public.    Embedded in the solidly entertaining and remarkably well-crafted (as well as historically accurate) political-science fiction adventure series, is the same message Professor Rummel has been preaching to his classes, his colleagues, the world:  That democracy and freedom are the only known antidotes to the collective violence bred by concentrated political power. 

However, don’t mistake any of Rummel’s Never Again novels for didactic morality tales.  They are not. The stories stand on their own as well-told adventures featuring love, lust, mystery, suspense, conflict and betrayal, all the elements essential to popular thriller fiction, and more.  Rummel’s underlying message, his truth -- that absolute power begets democide, war and famine, while democracy nurtures freedom and prosperity -- is woven subtly within the fabric of the fiction without dropping a stitch of the fantasy element.  Supported by the historical scaffolding that only a renowned scholar of political science could provide, Never Again entertains and educates, and, with Rummel’s hope for global peace in our lifetime, will unlock minds and open the door to peace and democracy on a global scale.