Losing Kei by Suzanne Kamata

A young American mother living in Japan fights impossible odds to be reunited with her child

Jill Parker is an American expat artist living in a remote town on the southern coast of Japan and making ends meet as a hostess at a seedy waterfront bar when she meets Yusuke, a sensitive art gallery owner who believes in her talent. As their affair leads to marriage, Jill is convinced that her life has finally opened to real love, to a measure of artistic success, and an insider’s connection to her strange and beautiful adopted culture. Instead she is trapped as she had never imagined. Under the demanding oversight of Okasan, Yusuke’s cold and tradition-bound mother, Jill is expected to apprentice herself to the womanly arts, to sacrifice her life to her husband’s pleasure and the family’s honor. The long anticipated birth of Kei, a beautiful baby boy, only serves to increase her failure in the eyes of the family. Divorce is one way out but according to Japan’s rigid laws, a foreigner has no rights to custody and Jill is essentially told to disappear and leave her child behind. Rendered with tenderness, humor, and an insider’s knowledge of contemporary Japan, Losing Kei melds the off-kilter cultural misunderstandings of Lost in Translation with the wrenching family drama of Kramer versus Kramer and marks the debut novel of an exceptional expatriate voice.

Suzanne Kamata's short work has appeared in over 100 publications. She is editor The Broken Bridge: Fiction from Expatriates in Literary Japan and a forthcoming anthology from Beacon Press Creative Writers on Raising a Child with Special Needs. She is a five-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize and two-time winner of the Nippon Airways Fiction Contest.

Order on Amazon.com.

Darrell Bain talks about his book, Savage Survival

SAVAGE SURVIVAL is not just another testosterone driven science fiction novel. At the basic level, it explores the personalities and attitudes of men, women and children when stripped of the comforting insulation of organized society. Invulnerable aliens have captured millions of humans and are subjecting them to the most brutal and horrible environments ever encountered, in essence a survival test of a magnitude heretofore undreamed of.

Lyda Brightner is an eleven year old girl when she is suddenly and without warning separated from her parents and thrown into the midst of undisciplined humans in a harsh desert environment. Food and water and clothing are fought over. Those who control it can do as they wish—and their wishes are terrible.

Lyda is weaponless and alone, like almost everyone. Raped at eleven. Forced to kill. Grieving for her parents. All that stands between Lyda and death is her own innate bravery, her quick mind, her unwavering integrity and ultimately, her belief that someday she will find someone to love.

Lyda's strength of character and fighting spirit make her a leader, even at a very young age. Over the next six years she must constantly fight the ever changing and ever more dangerous environments the aliens subject them to. But she must fight other humans as well, those who have survived by brute strength and ruthless plundering of the weak.

But even if she lives through all this, Lyda must still face the final question: What do the aliens have in mind for the few hundred remaining humans, those few left of all the millions who died?

SAVAGE SURVIVAL is a coming of age novel like no other and Lyda Brightner is a character you'll never forget.

An Interview With Darrell Bain

1. What inspired you to write this story?
Probably my own childhood history of adversity had something to do with it and seeing young orphans in Vietnam making a life by themselves when still very young was in the back of my mind, too. But really, one day the whole theme and plot came to mind like a vision, something that happens very seldom to a writer.

2. Who is your favorite character and why?
Lyda, of course is my favorite character for the reasons listed above.

3. How have your personal faith and beliefs influenced your story?
I don't have a religion. I believe a person is responsible for whatever they make of their life.

4. What was the hardest part of writing this book?
There was no hard part. It practically wrote itself. Again, something very rare.

5. What was easiest?
It was all easy. I like this story about as well or better than anything I've ever written.

6. What's next for you?
I'm currently collaborating on a novel and possibly a series with Travis S. Taylor, a well known science fiction author and scientist.

Savage Survival by Darrell Bain

Genre: Science fiction

Publisher: Twilight Times Books, www.twilighttimesbooks.com

Darrell Bain's finest novel to date. Savage Survival is a coming of age novel like no other and Lyda Brightner is a character you'll remember forever. Raped at eleven. Forced to kill. Subjected to suffering in one brutal and horrible environment after another, with no parents or guardian to protect her as she grows up. Millions of earthmen have been captured by invulnerable aliens and are being put through the strangest and most terrifying survival tests ever imagined. Young Lyda Brightner's first experience after being thrown into the midst of undisciplined humans is horrible enough, but she doesn't know that the trials are just beginning. She doesn't know that only a few hundred of the millions of captives will live through the vicious and cruel winnowing process. Again and again as she grows into a young woman, she has to call on the only resources she has available: her own innate bravery, her quick mind, her unwavering belief in the goodness of the majority of humans and ultimately, an enduring hope that one day she will find someone to love. But even if she lives through all this, she will still have to face the final question. What do the aliens have in mind for the few survivors?

Interview with Grace Bridges

What inspired you to write this story?
It kind of came from daydreams I've had since early childhood. They were vague at first, wondering if heaven might be able to include reliving childhood. Later, they solidified into the ideas that became Faith Awakened. I formulated the first story idea when I was 14.

Who is your favorite character and why?
I suppose it's Mariah. Faith is too similar to me, but Mariah is me as I would hope to be if I ever got in as much trouble as she did.

How have your personal faith and beliefs influenced your story?
Faith's journey of faith is much like my own. Both her life and Mariah's leave a lot of unanswered questions, but certainty in the things that matter. I have a lot of questions I'd like to ask God, and I think that's all right. I'm happy I don't have to know all the answers.

What was the hardest part of writing this book?
There were some chapters around the middle where I got quite stuck for a while. The plot was planned out, but between crises there are bits that aren't as exciting as others. That's always difficult.

What was easiest?
The crisis chapters where all the strands are bound together. That was really fun!

What's next for you?
A space-epic Pilgrim's Progress inspired by and vastly different to Frank Creed's Flashpoint.

Review of Faith Awakened by Grace Bridges

There's a saying in literature: There are no new plot lines, just new ways of approaching the same plot lines. Grace Bridges has shown that she is a master at novel approaches with her book Faith Awakened.
Faith Awakened tells the story of two women: Mariah, one of the last survivors of a dystrophic world in which a virulent plague has destroyed 99.9 percent of mankind, and Faith, a woman who has dealt all her life with depression, bizarre memory loss and a struggle to serve the Lord even when she doesn't "feel" His presence.
Familiar plotlines? Sure--until Grace mixes the two so that Faith is Mariah, living out a new life in a virtual reality program while her body is in stasis to wait out the death of the killer virus.
That clever mix caught my interest and kept me reading. Even a month after having read the Faith Awakened, I still find myself pondering the story. Were the memory losses because of the badly connected sensors or faults in the program? Was her depression a natural extension of Mariah's circumstances or difficulties interfacing with the machine? What about her tie to the Lord: did the computer, her misconnected probe or some aspect of her personality prevent her from feeling God's presence in her alternate life? I loved how she persevered despite not having an overwhelming emotional faith experience. It reminded me of the words of a child's father to Jesus: "I believe. Help my unbelief." (Mark 9:24)
I found the Biblical messages a little heavy at times, but that's a personal pet peeve. Besides, it's part of the genre. What I find significant is that Grace wove these so well into her story that I could easily chalk them up to the characters' thoughts rather than an author-induced sermon and go on with my reading--and I wanted to go on. Grace has written a wonderful, unique story and I recommend it to any Christian reader who's looking for something out of the ordinary.

Even a month after having read Faith Awakened, I still find myself pondering the story. Grace has written a wonderful, unique story and I recommend it to any Christian reader who's looking for something out of the ordinary.

Download or buy now:
Faith Awakened at Lulu.com! Free e-book - or the print copy at cost price!
Faith Awakened at Amazon.com Printed copies only

CFRB Presents: Faith Awakened by Grace Bridges

If you could design your own virtual world to live in, what would it look like? If you lived on a dark and empty planet, how far would you go to save your life? Is God a computer programmer? And can he take you to heaven... before you die?

"A fascinating tale of playing God over one's own virtual life, while the real God influences the real one... or both." - Angela Brett, 1995 winner of the Young Writers' Katherine Mansfield Memorial Award

The Future Happens Twice by Matt Browne

THE FUTURE HAPPENS TWICE

Book 1 in the trilogy: THE PERENNIAL PROJECT
Paperback, 732 pages
ISBN: 978-1844018307
Date: June 14, 2007
Published by Athena Press, London

For decades scientists have dreamed of sending deep-frozen humans on interstellar missions. But until this dream comes true, they must settle for a much simpler technique available: the freezing of human embryos. However, long distance space travel of this nature poses other challenges, none more so than the management of artificial pregnancies and how to raise the children produced.

One viable solution comes in the form of advanced biotechnology and highly sophisticated androids, and a large scale project has been implemented to explore these options. To prove that it can really work, the project's scientists go a step further. Somewhere in the Nevada desert and well hidden underground, they conduct an eighteen-year-long experiment using a young starship crew unaware of their true environment. Surrounded by complex simulations, the crew believes they are approaching a distant star system, one that appears to host a planet suitable for human colonization. What they also don't know is the fact that their embryos had been split prior to the implantation in the womb devices.

The scientists' bold plan is to send the twin embryos on the real mission, pioneering the frontier of space. From both identical genes and an identical environment inside the starship, they arrive at the assumption that the future is a mere repetition of the present events. And indeed, about 42,000 years later the twins grow up with the very same android parents.

But then things start to drift away from the original plan. The real starship crew now faces a constant battle for survival. Only their fortitude and strong determination to land on the extrasolar planet averts a disaster. The reward is the new exotic world that awaits them, full of overwhelming potential.

Matt Browne's beautifully worked space epic explores the bounds of human hope and invention and plumbs the depths of human duplicity. Tender relationships between the budding astronauts are pitched against the disillusion they feel when an embattled President confronts them with their true origins and purpose, only to reveal the real culprit in the entire project - something closer to all of us today.

The author's fascination with the fields of bioengineering and information technology sustains the reader's interest all the way in this futuristic roller-coaster ride. And he asks a terrifying question. Setting aside man's inhumanity to man, what if Nature herself turns against us?

This gripping novel of epic proportions skillfully mixes elements of drama, medical thriller and science fiction. As the story unfolds, Matt Browne takes his readers on a breathtaking journey through vast stretches of time and space.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Matt Browne is a computer scientist with an M.S. degree from the University of Kansas. He works for a large, multinational company in the information technology division. He lives near Frankfurt, Germany, is married and has two twin children. In 1996 Matt Browne began his part-time writing career. Currently he is underway completing "Human Destiny", the second novel of the "Future Happens Twice" trilogy.

Find out more at my website at

http://www.meet-matt-browne.com

The Tesserene Imperative by Mark Chapman

LOOKING FOR MARK'S BLOG CHAIN STORY? SCROLL DOWN.

It was supposed to be a routine prospecting mission, but something went wrong.
With 43 billion souls crammed together on Mother Earth and using up natural resources at an unsustainable rate, the essential minerals that support human civilization are in desperately low supply. Tesserene, the mineral that makes starflight travel possible, is especially critical. Without it, humans are effectively imprisoned on their home world.

When prospecting ship Shamu is almost destroyed in a distant asteroid belt, Swede Johansen and rest of the crew of five is left with three days of air, little water, a smashed starflight drive, and no hope of rescue. It will take every ounce of ingenuity and stubborn pigheadedness they possess to find a way to survive.
Assuming they do find a solution, the ultimate jackpot awaits them in the shadows of a distant moon—if the galaxy doesn't kill them first.

Now available available from Amazon.com/Amazon.ca (paperback), Fictionwise.com (ebook), and other retailers. For more information about The Tesserene Imperative, or author Mark Terence Chapman, visit http://tesserene.com.

Mark Chapman on Becoming A Published Author

Mark is doing something new on blog tours--a serial blog essay. Enjoy and check otu the rest on the other blogs.

My long, strange road to becoming a published novelist (Part V)
By Mark Terence Chapman

(This entry is a continuation of one on writer Suzanne Kamata’s blog. Click here to return to Part IV.)

Following the release of my OS/2 book in late 1995, I began thinking about writing a novel. (After a 20-plus-year layoff from fiction writing, most people would have started with a short story. I prefer to make things as difficult as possible for myself….) The problem was I had no plot in mind, just a desire to write something. I thought I had to have a detailed outline written before I started, laying out the major plot points. And for some reason, I was unable to sit down and do that. I just couldn’t think that far ahead.

So, I put off writing a novel. The next year, I put it off again. In 1997, I thought I’d take a stab at writing a children’s picture book. (You know, one of those books you read your kids to sleep with, with a page of illustrations for each page of text.) I ended up writing With a Name like Jeremy Hippenzoodle, about a little boy with a funny name that no one could seem to get right. The twist was that no one had a problem with Hippenzoodle. It was Jeremy they could never remember.

That got me thinking again about writing a novel, but I continued to struggle with the idea of needing a detailed outline of a story before beginning to write. This continued until November 2002. I heard about something called the National Novel Writer’s Month (NaNoWriMo). The goal was to write 50,000 words of a story during the month of November. I found out about it in the middle of the month, too late to participate that year. But it got me thinking again about writing that darn novel. Finally, on May 8, 2003 (I marked it on my calendar), I finally had enough of procrastinating. I told myself to sit down and just start writing. Even if I didn’t know how the story would turn out, just…start…writing. Something, anything. So I came up with a simple premise: A small crew is trapped aboard their disabled spaceship, running out of air and water, with no hope of rescue. How do they save themselves?

I began writing with no more to go on than that. My only rule was that I had to work on the book every day. If I couldn’t think of anything new to write, I’d edit what I’d already written. I soon found that editing often jumpstarted my writing again. While editing, I’d think about what was happening to the crew and possible solutions to their problems and additional crises to confront them with when they got past the first one or two.

This system worked so well that 69 days later I had a finished first draft of 81,000 words. It needed a lot of work, both for polishing and to flesh out some scenes, but at least the worst was over—I had a complete story.

To find out what happens next, click here for the next segment of the story, on Ron Berry’s blog.
(510 words)

The Mars Imperative by Mark Chapman

It's the year 2174. With 30 billion people choking Planet Earth, civilization is near a breaking point. Too many cars, too many skyscrapers, too much of everything is straining Earth's ability to supply humanity with the raw materials needed to keep the machinery of civilization going.

The only way mankind can survive long term is to expand to the stars, but that's somewhere off in the future. Until then, we must find a way to mine the solar system for iron, copper, and the many other minerals needed in daily life. Thus far, Mars, Luna, and the asteroid belt are being explored and mined.

Enter James McKie, a recent graduate of the University of Manitoba with a degree in areology (Martian geology), on his way to his first job in space. Starry-eyed, he looks forward to making his mark on the Red Planet. But first he has to survive the trip there. A mysterious fire aboard his ship is followed by a crisis on the giant space elevator high above Mars.

If he survives everything, he has to brave the perils of Mars itself: rock slides and planet-wide dust storms that leave the unwary traveling blind in red-out conditions, unable to find their way home before their oxygen runs out.
And then there's the terrorist....

In the end, there's an incredible discovery waiting to be made: the key to terraforming the planet for human habitation—if it doesn't kill everyone first.

Now available available from Amazon.com/Amazon.ca (paperback), Fictionwise.com (ebook), and other retailers. Or visit my web site at http://tesserene.com or my blog at http://tesserene.blogspot.com. For more information about The Mars Imperative or author Mark Terence Chapman, visit http://tesserene.com.

Memsaheb and the Thief by Chandra Ghosh Jain

The ten tales in Memsaheb and the Thief are a collection of stories that make the reader travel from rural India, small towns and the great metropolis with ease.

In Memsaheb and the thief, life as a pampered daughter and wife had been easy for Simran. As a Memsaheb she is fond of Hindi film songs and sings one befitting each situation in her life. But somewhere along the way, she finds herself alone with only a thief for company…

Politics of the Virtuous shows us how the innocents are betrayed and misled…
The loneliness of a career woman is captured in the Net as Netting?

The allure of power associated with politics can undermine all relationships and loyalties as Kolya the hapless son discovers in the Cadaverous Chief.

The stories are often less than linear in structure; and they have a knack for the ungracious character - the one who gets kicked under the table, argued with, and often sighed over. The tales present such people in all their irascibility and mess, and then somehow like those psychologists who prove that pessimists have a more accurate view of reality than their optimistic and normal counterparts.

By the end the tales reveal the cranks' greater humanity and even make the "better" characters seem cardboard in comparison.

This is a collection of stories of anger and bitterness, love and loss, loneliness, change, oppression, grief, endurance, fear and death. They move one through a gamut of emotions but most importantly they move the reader to give a cry of recognition - yes this is what it feels like being a human in this way, time and time again.

Order It Here

Review of Flashpoint by Frank Creed

FLASHPOINT
Book One of the Underground
Author: Frank Creed
Published by Writers Café Press
ISBN: 978-1-934284-01-8
200 pages

Frank Creed pushes the boundaries of Christian fiction with Biblical cyberpunk—when he talks about "God in the machine," he's quite literal. He's been thinking and playing in the genre since long before William Gibson made it popular—and Creed can give Gibson a run for his money.

Creed starts with the basics for both cyberpunk and Biblical speculative fiction: a dystopic world run by a totalitarian global regime, with a pretty wide division between the haves and have-nots.

Those who support the regime live a prosperous life, while those who do not are left to the squalor of a crime-riddled underworld at best and slave camps, or "reconditioning" at worst. True to the Christian angle, the government has established a watered-down "feel good" religion, and true Christians (dubbed "Fundamentalists") are forced to hide their practices or go totally underground by joining the Resistance.

Dave and Jen are our young heroes. When the government finds out their family is part of a secret home church, they are taken to the underground by their father to save their lives. Daddy leaves them in order to draw off the authorities and is captured with their mother. Meanwhile, Dave and Jen are taken in by the Resistance and discover they have amazing abilities. They receive cybernetic mind enhancements that enable them to become the kind of perfected humans God created, before we were damaged by Original Sin. Dave becomes a superhero with Matrix-style abilities, while Jen becomes e-girl, the computer wizard no cyberpunk novel is complete without. They join the Resistance; their first mission: Save Mom and Dad and the members of their home church. And as they fulfill their mission, they learn what it means to be part of God's army.

There's nothing especially spectacular in the plot, but the real magic is in the execution. Creed does a fantastic job of weaving in all the things that make cyberpunk an exciting genre to read: the melding of human capabilities with highly technological advancements, exciting scenes that deliver the adrenalin rush, earthy but clever repartee, cunning twists to the mundane, some well-thought-out fight scenes… But what about the Biblical message? Here again Creed shows his genius. He immerses you in the Word of God just as he immerses you in the cyberpunk culture—in thought, word and deed. The thing I personally love about cyberpunk is the complete cultural mythos, right down to vocabulary.

Creed does the same thing; in addition to some really fun slang, he's woven in Scripture and the ideals of his Christian "Army" so that as you read, you are neither preached to nor pulled out of the story. It's all part of the program—literally and figuratively.

Flashpoint is a fast, fun read, something I was comfortable in giving to my 13-year-old son, and which I wouldn't mind re-reading again. (My husband can tell you that from me, that's high praise.)

If you are looking for Biblical speculative fiction the way it should be done, you need to read Creed!

Flashpoint by Frank Creed

Persecution in Chicago has reached the Flashpoint.

In the year 2036, all nations are run by a one-world government.
The One State has but one threat:
Fundamentalist terrorists.
The One State has declared that Bible believing Christians are now terrorists.

But the One State has not yet encountered
Calamity Kid and
e-girl . . .

When peacekeepers bust a home-church in Ward-Six of the Chicago Metroplex, brother and sister, Dave and Jen Williams, are the only members who evade capture. Their only place to turn? A Christian ‘terrorist’ cell known as the Body of Christ.

In their shattered world, Dave and Jen adopt codenames and slip between the Underground cracks of the Chicago Metroplex. They must save their home-church before their parents, brother, and neighbors are all brainwashed by the One State Neros or worse.

Calamity Kid and e-girl fearlessly walk the valley of death, because He is with them.

But they’ll need every molecule of their re-formed faith to face down ppeacekeepers, gangers, One-State neros, and fallen-angels, in America’s dark Post-Modern Humanist age.

Doorman's Creek by Lea Schizas

Several months ago, I promised to tour Doorman's Creek by Lea Schizas. Sadly, the realities of life got in the way and then my HP Pavilion (aka the Lemon) crashed for the third time, taking my notes with it. I'm finally getting my act together and post this now with my recommendation and a review by The Book Pedler.

When Kyle Anderson and his two buddies decide to explore a cave hidden within Doorman's Creek, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton... and an unknown entity, throwing them right into the path of a serial killer.

Faced with a sudden gift of visions into past and present disappearances, Kyle must now track down who the murderer is before another family member gets killed.

Excerpt of review by The Book Pedler (link here to read the full review)

"Doorman’s Creek by Lea Schizas has to be one of the best books I have ever read, period. Part mystery, part paranormal thriller, Doorman’s Creek is an incredible read that starts with a bang and just keeps going. From the moment the novel starts, you’re taken on a whirlwind of secrets, murder, sacrifice and death that just gets better with every page."

See more of Lea's stuff at http://leaschizaseditor.tripod.com/

Blessing Tour: Poet Stephen Todd Jones

Hi, folks,

Today, VBTdeNet is doing something a little different. A writer friend, Karen McSpadden is arranging a "blessing tour" for Stephen Todd Jones. She writes this about him and his poetry:

Stephen Todd Jones is a writer and poet from Virginia Beach, Virginia. While a sophomore at Liberty University, he sustained injuries in a car crash that left him in a wheelchair, and this perspective forms the basis for much of his writing. Through his poetry, he gives us a window into his world and his faith.

Stephen, I can hardly imagine what you must go through, but I do know there must be periods when you are frustrated and discouraged and ready to give up. In those times, call on your faith. God is with you, and He has a purpose for you. You may not feel it's true, but you are an inspiration, both in your struggle to do all you can despite the prison of your body and in the way your soul continues to soar free of that prison through your beautiful poems. I pray for your healing, but most of all, I pray that you are sustained in your struggles and that you do not forget taht you are loved and admired.
Please remember Stephen, both in your prayers today and when things seem too difficult for you in your own endeavors.

Some of My Dreams
by Stephen Todd Jones

Some of my dreams have had to
Alter beyond any doubt
As happenings necessitated change
Along this daily route.

Dreams of great “success” here in
Certain fields is out of
The questions, because of limitations
Brought on-- I still love!

Other fields are beyond my ability,
But if one is hurting here,
I am most willing and as able,
In time of need, to draw near.

Why Not Internally?
by Stephen Todd Jones

Why do you not peer inside yourself,
Revealing what you see in review
As relates to the simple, yet complex
Matter that indeed is you;
Why do you not evaluate your own self
In light of that true indeed here
In order to best prognosticate what
Lies in an eventual year?

You may not like what you see inside,
Turning your gaze that way.
Oh, is that the reason behind avoidance
Of looking inside? Okay...
I see your reasoning though avoiding
That makes no less sure
The demons and devils, residing within,
As more than conjecture.

How They Are!
by Stephen Todd Jones

Things are how they are
In shades life gives it;
However things prove to be,
It's live-- live it!

Pretend, if you must do so
In order to feign the
Happiness foreign for now
Until it's reality.

Nobody wants to hear how
Life turned sour
For, to make it turn out is
Beyond their power, ----

And they have their share of
Troubles their own
To face also unaided daily
When they feel alone.

Companion of The Word
by Stephen Todd Jones

Words are constant companions
When nobody is around
Since various degrees of solace
In those here are found.

Sometimes not enough are they,
Having no flesh or bone
Though, in all honesty, they have
A substance all their own.

The letters, once here combined,
Compose skeletal formation
As of living and thriving humans
For our God-willed duration.

Words have a longer duration for
They can be recorded that
Later generations may share in the
Wisdom of one then at.

The Word is my Companion even
Though others will fade
Over the expanse of history years
If written or even said.


If Seen As God Sees
by Stephen Todd Jones

If I were transparent,
What would people see
Of which God is aware
Deep inside of me?

What blemish would
Appear-- before unseen--
If others saw, as God,
a panoramic scene?

Would some loving here
Draw back in disgust
If they knew, as God does,
Every deed and lust?

I am glad He is patient,
Loving and forgiving
When I come unto Him;
Sin is part of living,
Unfortunately.

I see the wickedness when
I honestly do inspection
To see what should not be
So on an introspection.

Who I Am Before
by Stephen Todd Jones

I must know who I
Am before
I can hope to be known
By one for---

If I am not aware
How can I
Expect others to distinguish
This guy?
(cont.)
I can not realistically
Hope for such
If I fail to really know,
Being out of touch

With reality. Reality, some say,
Is overrated here,
But we all need to dwell in
An actual sphere.

Why Sorrow Over
by Stephen Todd Jones

Why sorrow over
That had not
For the same is a
Heavy thought?

Why not enumerate
All here had
Rather than accounting
For those bad?

In content, do you
Not strive to
Obtain that reserved,
It seems, for few?

Or is content a state
Where you are
Never seeking that
From way afar?

Is dreaming wrong to
Do here when
You are dissatisfied in the
State you are in?

Are we not to seek to
Improve our lot,
Or as the fatalist here,
Are we not?

God, reveal to me the
Answer to those,
Or is there a definite
As I here suppose?
We Dream Still

Only some dreams
Are God's will
For us to obtain here;
We dream still.

Some are contrary to
His loving fill
Of events for our life.
We dream still.

Some are meant to be
Ours though until
Comes the proper moment,
We dream still.

Some of our dreams
God will not fulfill
For He knows better than we;
We dream still.

We think we know better
From our clouded sill,
Facing what we see dimly;
We dream still.

Through a glass darkly,
We see and we will
What may be impossible;
We dream still.

God, may dreams sifted
Be like wheat until
Chaff is winnowed out;
We dream still.

Interview with Jack Stinson

1. What inspired you to write this story?

I helped with an inner-city homeless ministry for about five years where I got the inspiration for High Street. I saw just so many people who’d hit bottom because of horrible decisions – many of them barely out of high school. I wanted to write a story that would be a vehicle for many things: the salvation message, warning to kids & parents, present a glimpse of this dark area normally swept under the rug…

2. Who is your favorite character and why?

Boy, that’s a tough question! I’m going to say Harold. He was such an innocent, childlike guy.

3. How have your personal faith and beliefs influenced your story?

Salvation and redemption through Jesus was something that came up often. Also mankind’s inability to ‘do it alone’ without God is a Biblical teaching that was in the back of my mind always.

4. What was the hardest part of writing this book?

Sticking to the despair and gloom of the homeless culture and various addictions. From my experiences in ministry to the homeless, I saw the victory of the enemy over and over again. It’s ugly, and I wanted to stay true to that reality. Maintaining that for an entire book was hard. But I felt it was necessary.

5. What was easiest?

The plot. I knew the entire story before I started the book. I struggled with descriptions and details, but I knew what I was writing about.

6. What's next for you?

I actually just finished a book of short fiction titled Hard Pursuit. It’s similar to Sherwood Anderson’s book Winesburg, Ohio, in that it is a collection of short stories centered on a common theme. (Actually, in his case it was town.) Hard Pursuit is about middle-class people affected by a corporate downsizing in a bad economy. I’m currently doing a lot of reading and plan to start another novel later this year.

For more about Jack or reviews of his book, High Street, check out the CFRB book tour. Click on any of the links under the banner to the right.

High Street by Jack Stinson

Jamie Boyer sits in a stark homeless shelter in one of the seedier areas just off of High Street, certain that he has messed up his life forever. The young man had left his home on the farm just six months earlier for college in the big city. After falling in with the wrong crowd and getting mixed up with alcohol and drugs, his life is shattered. From the times he attended church while growing up, Jamie knows that he is running from God. The squalor and hopelessness of the homeless culture horrifies him, yet in shame he refuses to call home. Back in Shelby County, Martha Boyer worries about her missing son. She knows that she is not right with God herself, and is guilt-ridden. The occasional church visits have only made her more miserable.
High Street cuts through the heart of Columbus, Ohio. On the way, it snakes along a sprawling college campus offering rowdy bars and good times to young people who have just left home, and slides by dirty, crime-infested areas of the city that most try to ignore.
Can Jamie work his way out of his problems alone⎯and will anything really be different if he gets back to the college bars on High Street?

About the Author
Jack Stinson was born and raised in rural, northern Ohio. After college, he became a technical writer, living and working in several states on the east coast and in the Midwest. For many years he helped with a Christian outreach program for the homeless, which was the inspiration for High Street.

Interview with Caprice Hokstad

What inspired you to write this story?

AOL used to have a huge free-form roleplaying forum. That's where I caught the "bug" to write. It completely amazed me that anyone outside the group I actually played with were reading my posts and told me they looked forward to what I would come up with next. When the forum dissolved and all my story-weaving partners went their separate ways, I found I missed the creative outlet. If no one would write with me, I was going to have to write by myself.

It lost something without the interaction, but there's also more control when you do it alone. No more crazy twists that forced my characters into weirdness that didn't go anywhere, or went in a direction I didn't like. I also didn't have to wait on anyone else in order to advance the plot. My novel's hero was based on a roleplay character created by a brilliant writer named Rhoderick C. Hayes (Duke Vahn was adapted with his permission and blessing).

At first, the story was just kind of a way for me to extend the fun I'd had in the forum that died, and it was only going to be a novella shared with a few friends. But the more I wrote, the more it mushroomed until the idea became a trilogy and the story (in my opinion) blossomed into novel quality.

Who is your favorite character and why?

Hermione Granger. I see a lot of myself in her. Yes, I'm the nerd who would read ahead in the textbooks and read stuff that wasn't assigned, just for fun. And yes, I did, on occasion, find myself reading a big unabridged dictionary for hours on end. I'm not as likely to break rules as Hermione is though. I was always too goody-two-shoes for that. But I'm way too boring to make any kind of decent fiction character.

Oh, wait. You meant you want me to name which of my own characters is my favorite? You realize this is like asking a mother to say which of her children is her favorite. Didn't the story of Jacob and Joseph teach you nothing? At the risk of condemning my beloved child off to slavery in Egypt, I'd probably say Duke Vahn. Chivalrous. Handsome. Kind. Devoted father. What's not to like? But as I said above, I can't take full credit for Vahn.

How have your personal faith and beliefs influenced your story?

I think my faith shows in the themes. Jesus said the greatest in God's Kingdom would be the servant of all. My heroine is a servant. She's not especially beautiful or physically strong or even especially intelligent by our standards. There are a few other Christian themes running throughout, but I don't try to hit readers over the head with them. They're there if you look, but the story appeals to people of all faiths, or so I have been told by Wiccans and agnostics as well as Christians.

What was the hardest part of writing this book?

Accepting that some of my natural tendencies weren't best for the story. I originally wrote "The Duke's Handmaid" in totally omniscient point of view. After attending a writer's conference and hearing over and over that I could never sell it the way it was written, I finally broke down and rewrote the entire book. Now I didn't go so far as to make it what the commercial market prefers (Deep Limited) because I write very cinematically. My descriptions are written like a camera which can see everything, even things the POV character might not see. But I cut the head-hopping and limit the thoughts to one character at a time. Maybe someday someone will convince me that dropping the Cinematic POV for description is "better" but so far, I'm not convinced.

What was easiest?

Anything related to writing fiction is infinitely easier than anything related to promoting. Writes. Rewrites. Critiques. More rewrites. All of that is easy as far as I am concerned. But ask me to fill out an interview such as this and I am a fish out of water. I also don't particularly like writing query letters, synopses, proposals, or anything like that. Yes, I know all this promo stuff is a necessary evil, but it's still evil.

What's next for you?

I've just finished the sequel to "The Duke's Handmaid". The second book of the trilogy is called "Nor Iron Bars a Cage". It's a much longer book. My cover artist just finished and I'm letting my fans chime in on their favorite of the different color combinations for the front cover (
http://members.aol.com/hokstads/covers/ ). I am hoping to release "Nor Iron Bars a Cage" around September 15. I'm also working on a long-neglected study guide for "The Duke's Handmaid", a project I started a while back, but had to put on a back burner in order to focus on getting the second book done. Eventually, I'll be starting work on the third book in the trilogy, but with my less-academically inclined daughter in high school now, I may not have much time for writing. (I am homeschooling her)

CFRB Presents: The Duke's Handmaid by Caprice Hokstad

Keedrina is a young peasant maiden who lives on the outskirts of a prosperous seaport town until marauders kill her family and burn her farmhouse. She reports the tragedy to Duke Vahn, who champions her cause, apprehending the outlaws and meting out justice. Orphaned and homeless, Keedrina envies the slaves who live in fine homes with luxuries she has never had. The duke offers her a position as his indentured servant. With very little left to live on and intrigued with the handsome young noble, Keedrina accepts. Can the simple farmgirl find a home among the refined servants in the duke's house? Not if the prejudiced and conniving duchess has her way!