Guest Blog: "It's The Economy, Stupid" by André Jute

André Jute, who lives near Blarney Castle in Ireland (see picture left) is my guest today. His new book, IT’S THE ECONOMY, STUPID a Rhodes Scholar Education in One Hour, will be officially available on Friday but you can find it on Amazon US and Amazon UK. André is the author of one of my top ten books for 2011, Iditarod, a Novel of the Greatest Race on Earth.

Striking back with knowledge

IT’S THE ECONOMY, STUPID 

a Rhodes Scholar Education in One Hour

by André Jute

Myth is the weirdest thing. “The Economy, Stupid” was not originally a taunt by Clinton to the first George Bush, it was a mnemonic to Bill Clinton to stay on-message. It was in fact James Carville, Clinton’s campaign strategist, telling Clinton not to be stupid. Politics, above the visceral level of “We’ve always been Democrats/Republicans”, is about nothing but economics. That is why at the ivied heritage universities it is called “political economy”, why at the ancient British universities one “reads PPE” — politics, philosophy, economics. Hence the subtitle of “IT’S THE ECONOMY, STUPID a Rhodes Scholar Education in One Hour”. Rhodes Scholarships send colonials to Oxford and Cambridge. Clinton was a Rhodes Scholar.

Economics has been made into a huge, complicated subject by people who want to sound important and clever. But at heart it is simple. According to Adam Smith, the founder of modern economics, “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love.” The market works, says Smith, because each individual is “led by an invisible hand to promote an end which is no part of his intention”. Nearer to our own time, Alfred Marshall described economics as the “study of mankind in the ordinary business of life”. That everyone can understand, that everyone takes an interest in, because it is his life, her life, their children’s future. That is why politicians, talking about it, so often spray gobbledygook, because they don’t want anyone to point out how simple it really is. That is why straightforward folk, who know in their hearts that they do understand these matters, become frustrated when politicians talk in jargon intended to hide essential, basic truths.

That is why I wrote a simple book about the simplicity of economics. Some of it is even amusing. And it is short, 21,000 words. That is all that is necessary to give Everyman all the ammunition he needs.

IT’S THE ECONOMY, STUPID a Rhodes Scholar Education in One Hour is sold for 99 cents not because it isn’t worth $2.99, but because I want the maximum number of people to have it in their hands and their heads at election time.

— André Jute

“André Jute writes with great clarity and brevity to deliver a credible and creditable history of western economic theory and actuality in less than 21,000 words. If you know nothing about economics, this booklet is a great way to get started. If you know a bit, this well-structured synopsis is an invaluable aid to organizing what you know into a more coherent whole.” — Bob Fitzconner on Smashwords https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/163066

IT’S THE ECONOMY, STUPID a Rhodes Scholar Education in One Hour is the second of three books André Jute will publish during the Presidential election. The first was AN ELECTION OF PATRIOTS, a true novel about the moment when during the Eisenhower election when the Press surrendered serious politics to the trivial soundbiting of television. The third book, forthcoming, is EIGHT DAYS IN WASHINGTON, a thriller about a serial killer spiralling in on the White House during an election. André Jute is the author of over forty books published in a dozen languages in well over three hundred editions. His current bestsellers are STIEG LARSSON Man, Myth & Mistress (with Andrew McCoy) and IDITAROD a novel of The Greatest Race on Earth.

Andre’s current books on Amazon: US and UK

André’s blog with contacts, etc:

http://coolmainpress.com/ajwriting/

Are Heroes Obsolete?

On a discussion board about books I have been involved in one discussion about the character of Atticus Finch, the enduring hero of Harper Lee's classic To Kill A Mockingbird. It has been an interesting discussion particularly because a couple of participants are trying to make the case that Atticus is hard for them to admire because he seems so “unrealistic.” One person said that he didn't buy Atticus because he needed to be “more well-rounded.” He said “I want to see him bitter and angry over losing his wife and so outraged over what happens to his client that he punches Bob Ewell in the nose.” Goodness.

Of course, the response to that is that Atticus is so admirable and heroic because he doesn't rant and rave and punch people. He is a good, honest, decent man who has been dealt some unpleasant cards in his life and, despit that, is still a good, honest, decent man. If he was a whiny, bitter brute there would be no point to the book. But this brings up a point that I have been thinking about for some time.

In recent months I have read – or started to read – several books in which, a couple of chapters into the book, I realized there was not one character I liked. All of them were whiny, self-absorbed people whose only motivation was getting what they wanted and trying to wheedle and manipulate everyone in the process. Who wants to read about people like that? Except a lot of people do. I have brought this up in a few discussions of those books and the response has been, yeah, they are but that's how people are. I find that discouraging.

A few years back there was a little bit of a hulabaloo in certain quarters over the fact that Narcissistic Personality Disorder had been declassified as a mental disorder and removed from the  Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder. In other words NPD was so common that it was no longer considered a disorder. I have wondered about this as I contemplate the acceptance of self-centered behavior by so many readers. Do these readers now see self-absorpition and manipulation in its service as so common and ordinary that they no longer find it objectionable? I wonder.

For years I have been complaining about the popularity of miz-lit, books about people who, for one reason or another, endured a miserable childhood or situation, survived it, and then wrote a book detailing their misery. It is not that I am unsympathetic to their suffering but I find the voyeuristic consumption of these books for entertainment to be disturbing. Are these people the new heroes? I don't know.

I've always been attracted to heroic characters in books, movies, etc. I want to believe that people are capable of being far better than they would normally be expected to be just out of a sense of personal worth. I love characters with dignity and a sense of honor. As a kid I grew up loving super-heroes, like a lot of kids did. Characters who were strong and powerful and who could vanquish the bad guy, restore order, and carry the heroine off into the sunset. That's why to me Atticus Finch was so astonishing. He didn't do any of that (well, he shot the rabid dog which was pretty cool) but in his fight to save Tom Robinson he lost. He entered the contest knowing he would lose, that he could not win, and yet he did it anyway because he was a just man. When his daughter asks him why he is defending Tom and he says, “Because if I didn't I couldn't hold my head up in this town. I couldn't even tell you and Jem not to do something again.” In other words, to Atticus Finch his right to moral authority was entirely based on his own moral behavior.

Is narcissism replacing moral authority? I wonder. Are heroes becoming obsolete as people become increasingly acceptant of their own self-righteousness whether they deserve it or not? I hope not but I do wonder. I hope that Atticus Finch will always be a hero to most people but I worry about it sometimes.

Thanks for reading.

#SampleSunday: "Mardi Gras Was Over" - having a daughter can be difficult...

...especially when she acts just like you did! This story and two more love stories are FREE from Amazon Select thru May 28th! 

MARDI GRAS WAS OVER

My husband and our daughter are fighting again. This latest installment of the fight has been going on for three days but they have engaged in an ongoing battle since she was old enough to have an opinion. Our daughter has many opinions.

I concentrate on chopping onions and slicing tomatoes for the salad. The table is set, Byron, our three year old, is in his booster chair wearing a bib. Camille, who is eight and Mommy’s Little Helper, is carefully folding the napkins at the dining room table and keeping a nervous eye on the combatants. Ten-year-old Marcus has vanished.

"You’re afraid of being alive!” Maya screams, her hands on her narrow hips, and all the outrage of her thirteen years of life burning in her bright cheeks.

"You are so boring!”

My husband, his face also red, stares at her. He has never understood his first-born child. "What does that have to do with anything?” he asks. Only I can hear the hurt in his voice.

"You’re jealous,” Maya spits. "I’m young and you’re old and you’ve never done one interesting thing in your whole stupid life so you don’t want me to have fun either.” We’ve heard this complaint before. It is her favorite explanation for why her father and I are so impossible to get along with. She is young, we are old. She wants to have fun, we are stuffy old bores who stand in her way.

My husband turns his back and walks out of the room.

"Maybe so,” he says, "but you’re still not going to Mardi Gras with your friends.” I hear the front door slam. He will be outside on the porch trying to calm down, sneaking one of the cigarettes he is supposed to have quit but which I know are still hidden on a rafter under the porch roof. My husband cannot bear these fights. He will be upset for hours but neither will he change his mind.

"Mo-o-o-m!” Maya pleads.

"You heard your father,” I say keeping my eyes on the tomatoes.

"YOU went to Mardi Gras!” she says.

"I was eighteen,” I say. "Not thirteen.” 

Maya flings herself into a chair. "That was like a million years ago! It’s different now! Girls are more mature at thirteen than they were back then.”

"You act like this and then you tell me you are more mature?” I turn and stare at her. She is huddled on the chair in the corner by the door, slender arms and legs crossed, fury and outrage clouding her lovely face where the cuteness of the child she once was is transforming daily into the beauty of the woman she will one day be.

"Listen, my darling daughter, you are not going to New Orleans with a bunch of girls I don’t care whose older sister will be going along. You are too young and that is that.”

"I HATE you!” she screams again, "You’re both old and boring and stupid.” She runs out of the room, caroms down the hallway, and slams the bathroom door.

"She’s just mean, Mommy,” Camille says watching me with her big, worried eyes. Eyes made too wary by too many scenes like this. "Don’t listen to her.”

"It’s okay, my angel,” I tell her cupping her soft little chin in my hand and bending down to kiss her silken cheeks, "she’s just being a teenager. She’ll grow out of it.”

"I hope I’m never like that,” Camille says.

I sigh. "I was like that too when I was her age,” I say. And I was.

My mother still tells me that she was too easy on me. Even after all these years, and four grandchildren whom she dearly loves, she never misses an opportunity to tell me I was too wild. She still dredges up what might have happened. How lucky I was not to end up in a gutter somewhere. When I complain to her about Maya’s temperamental behavior she laughs and says,"It’s the fulfillment of The Mother’s Curse: Someday I hope you have a child who acts just like you do.’”

"I was a lot older,” I respond.

"You were always too big for your britches,” she claims.

I was eighteen when I ran away. She’s never let me forget that. It was a typical South Carolina winter, dark and cold and raining. I had graduated from high school the June before but had to wait a year to enter college because I hadn’t completed my applications on time. I was waiting tables in a downtown diner by day, looking for trouble by night, and driving my parents crazy. I didn’t think I could hang on until it was time to leave for college. All my friends were gone and I wanted to be too. I wanted adventure but it was adventure that found me. It arrived on a bitterly cold January afternoon riding a gleaming black and silver Harley-Davidson.

He was big, tall and broad, and he walked with the easy confidence of someone accustomed to being in control. When he unzipped his black leather jacket the first thing I noticed was the promise of tattoos beneath his shirt’s open neck. When he took off his helmet the first thing I noticed was a face that had starred in my wildest dreams, only better.

"What would you like?” I asked pouring coffee as he settled onto a stool at the counter.

He grinned at me. White, white, white. Beautiful. Eyes like pools of melted caramel. Thick, long hair the color of the coffee that streamed into his cup.

"Steak,” he said, "rare. Home-fries. Pie.”

"Is that it?” I asked my heart hammering against the front of my uniform.

"You,” he added. "I’m on my way to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. You should come with me.”

Okay,” I said.

_________________________________________________________

Mardi Gras Was Over: Three Love Stories - Free through May 28.

Thanks for reading.

A Quintessentially Cape Ann Cookbook

Gloucesterite Melissa Smith Abbott's sensational cookbook, "The Legacy of Three Melissas" Has been breaking records for book sales since its debut last year. Since I designed this book I have a special affection for it. The following is an excerpt from a recent newspaper article:

In compiling a pictorial collection of quaint New England recipes and mementos that began as a heartfelt homage to her grandmother and great grandmother, Melissa Smith Abbott has
created a book that’s created one singular little sensation in her hometown of Gloucester, Massachusetts.

In the ten months since its self-published debut, her soft cover, lovingly illustrated ‘Three Melissas’ has outsold Elyssa East’s New York Times best-seller, ‘Dogtown,’ in the local Gloucester book shop. East’s best-seller, a cinematic novel set in Gloucester, has the benefit of a national marketing machine pushing sales.


Smith-Abbott’s book, a highly personal Proustian pictorial montage of remembrance of things past in a succession of family-owned, sea swept Cape Ann inns, has relied entirely on the one-woman wits and marketing ingenuity of its new media-savvy author.


Nevertheless, it continues —thanks in part to tourists who snap it up— to rack up a surprisingly impressive volume of national sales.
In that, it is similar to the early sales of another locally selfpublished book, set in neighboring Salem, Brunonia Barry’s novel, The Lace Reader. Like ‘Three Melissas,’ its initial launch was largely local and organic, but like East’s ‘Dogtown’ it is a highly
cinematic novel, so its mass-appeal is obvious.


Smith-Abbott finds it hard to explain where her book finds curious commonality in this local trilogy, except to say that she is not surprised that it continues to capture the imagination of so many, because its subject matter has, for so many years, captured hers.
“This was a book I’d been living with for so long,” says the author, who begins it with a story she’d heard all her life, of how the first of her ‘Three Melissas,’ her great-grandmother, Melissa McKeekin Collins, landed on New England’s rugged Cape Ann shores from New Jersey in 1929, intent on converting an old blacksmith shop into a restaurant. This in itself --a woman with the gumption to be so enterprising on the cusp of America’s great depression, could itself be material for a novel. 

I.O.U. SEX Discusses My Each Angel Burns

It is always exciting to find out one of your books is being talked about in an unexpected place. I just found this on a blog:
I.O.U. SEX: Teaser Tuesday - Each Angel Burns: In today's Tuesday Teaser, two of the male characters in Each Angel Burns  by Kathleen Valentine are discussing virgo intacta (virginit...


When she finished the book the blog's author left this review on Amazon:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Compelling Plot and Characters With Depth, May 24, 2012 By  Sandra Nachlinger "Author" (Pacific Northwest United States) - See all my reviews Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Each Angel Burns (Kindle Edition) Each Angel Burns is one of the most meaningful, compelling books I've read in a long time. Rather than skim over the inner lives of her middle-aged characters, Kathleen Valentine goes deeper and reveals the worries, fears, doubts, and joys of the realistic people in her story. The three main characters (Maggie the sculptor, Gabe the artist/artisan, and Pete the priest) all have a history of good and bad decisions, all of which are believable and completely logical within the story line. Their flaws make them who they are. The love scenes are poignant, focusing more on the characters' emotions than on who's doing what; and the mystery that threads its way through the tale adds another element. I wasn't quite certain that the person I'd identified as the murderer would be the one after all. That, along with my interest in the fate of the characters, kept me entertained to the end. I recommend Each Angel Burns as an enjoyable book that will stay with readers long after they've turned the last page.

Is this the cutest thing or what?

I spotted this on another blog and loved it. The beginning is here but you have to go to Grizzly Bear Modern for the complete instructions:

SUCCULENT DRESSER

APRIL 4, 2011 | IN DIY, PLANTS

Now that our new place has a yard, I’ve got a way to get my green thumb on. House plants are fine, but they just don’t cut it. If you’ve seen our wedding pics or spent any time on this blog, you know we’ve got a thing for succulents. So two weeks into our place I’ve already brought the succ to the backyard.

This vintage hardwood dresser was abandoned in the garage and I knew right away I could do something cool with it. Check out the process after the jump: Read the rest and see the pictures

What Is With the 50 Shades of Grey Phenomenon?

Disclaimer: I have not read these books, I have read very little erotica, I write books that are sexy and sultry but in no way qualify as erotica. That being said, this whole phenomenon is amazing me. I have seen Ellen Degeneris' hilarious sketch about the books and also the Mother's Day parody on Saturday Night Live. The books have been discussed endlessly in the author's forums I participate in but, the bottomline is, these books are selling like mad.

The thing I hear over and over in the author's forums is that the writing is positively atrocious. Somewhere on some blog there is a list of the repetition in just the first volume alone and it it pretty funny. I don't remember the exact figures but it was something like “She sighed.” (93 times). All of which proves one thing: those who are looking for erotica don't seem to care about writing quality. I also keep coming across a rumor that the author of the books said she knows they are badly written but people don't care about that. She appears to have a point.

So what is going on. I participate in a few online forums for authors and a large percentage of those authors (both male and female) write erotica/porn. Some of them are doing very, very well, some of them are not. I have read a few samples of popular porn books on Amazon and there haven't been any so far that the samples were sufficiently captivating to make me want to pay for the rest. Of course that's just me. What has made the 50 Shades series stand out from thousands of other such books?

Recently I talked to a friend, a woman about my age who read all 3 of them in a few days and absolutely adored them. Since she is an intelligent woman I asked her what she found so compelling about them? She said, “Oh, the story is so good. You just cannot believe how interesting it is.” So I asked her to tell me the gist of the story without going into graphic detail. After several stuttering starts she finally just said, “I can't explain it, you have to read it for yourself.” Now, this is a woman who has discussed other books in depth with me. But this one she cannot explain.

Now heaven knows I am no prude. Most of my books have sultry, tantalizing scenes in them and one scene in Each Angel Burns got me in big trouble with a popular book review site because it was more explicit than the reviewer was up for (suffice it to say that the lady taught the gentleman a new form of pleasure.) Add to that the fact that my sister refused to keep reading The Old Mermaid's Tale because of a scene in the back seat of a Thunderbird which was more than she could handle. I cannot imagine how that reviewer or my sister would handle the 50 Shades books. But maybe they would. I don't know.

Last night I downloaded a free (yes, I'm cheap) Amazon book of erotica about a naughty wife who just couldn't get enough. I read about 20% of it and the repitition was beyond tedious. I kept nodding off and I don't think that's a good sign. It's not that I don't like sexy reads, I do. There are a few mainstream books that had sultry scenes in them that fired my imagination for weeks (Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series comes to mind.)

Some years back I wrote a few semi-erotic stories for a friend who was editing books of erotica and I got amazingly bored with the stories because part of the editor's requirements was that I use explicit words for various body parts and functions. After the third or fourth time I wrote about her ----- or his ---- I thought, “Who wants to read this? It's tedious.” Obviously I am wrong.

Well, I know I am not going to change the way I write. I will write my stories with sultry, tantalizing (I hope) scenes in them. (My latest book, Depraved Heart, has a love scene on a boat in Gloucester Harbor during the Greasy pole Champions Walk – I liked the metaphore.) And I wish the authors of the erotica books well – though heaven knows they are selling more books than I am. Maybe one of these days I'll understand why.

Thanks for reading.

Writers on Writing: Timothy McDougall on The Seven Pillars of Wisdom

There are so many books that are inspiring to me but I would single out, for the sake of practicality, T. E. Lawrence’s The Seven Pillars of Wisdom. I say this because his prose is so poetic, almost line by line, that it has the quality of making you wall out all other considerations of the moment as it wraps you up and carries you completely into its journey. It had the same impact as when I saw my first Renoir painting, remembering how I rounded a corner at the Art Institute of Chicago, coming to a sudden gasping stop when I laid eyes on the 1881 painting of “Two Sisters (On the Terrace)” and almost involuntarily saying, definitely thinking, “this man can paint!” I couldn’t take my eyes off it for quite some time. I put the two experiences together because writing, I believe, is similar to painting. Also, almost all artistic endeavors are usually beset by headwinds of one sort or another.

It is understood that Lawrence faced an arduous and uneven task of getting his manuscript to the public though it is now widely hailed as a literary masterpiece. There is further a story told by the impressionist painter Claude Monet concerning an early encounter between Edouard Manet (an established painter at the time) and Renoir (who was younger and early into his career) at Monet’s home in the countryside of France. Renoir had energetically set up a canvas next to Manet and started painting along with the master. Manet looked at Renoir’s work and visibly upset, quickly took Monet aside, commenting regarding Renoir, “He has no talent, that boy! Since you are his friend, tell him to give up painting!” This particular anecdote taught me a twofold lesson, one I believe that is especially valuable to all who venture: beware of the naysayers and gatekeepers, they come in all sizes and guises.

_____

Timothy McDougall is the author of Violence, a contemporary romantic suspense/thriller which is available on Amazon. Timothy currently lives outside Chicago with his wife and three children. Violence is his first novel.  

The Shoemaker's Children...

...have no shoes. And, despite the number of web sites and marketing materials I create every year, they rarely make it onto my web site. For the past 2 years I've been dragging my feet about updating my professional web site so this weekend I made myself sit down and do it.


One of the things that is changing in the cyber world is that the ever-growing use of hand-held devices means that web sites have to make sure they are ready for these devices. Many of them do not recognize Flash scripts and rollovers. Because my old web site had a Flash movie on the home page, I decided to change that into a static image. I also wanted to put an emphasis on the many book covers I have done in the last couple of years.


So this is my new home page:

I also added a Book Covers page and three Flash movies for book interiors I have done. I think I may have to change those Flash movies to static pages but I'll give that a day or two. There is also a page for my books!


It took me two years to get around to this so I am happy I got as much done as I did.


Thanks for reading.

#SampleSunday: Syd Cooks A Catfish from "Depraved Heart"

This a selection from my new novel of romantic/suspense, Depraved Heart: A Novel. Tempest Hobbs is spending the summer at the island estate Hathor in order to evaluate the art collection there. One evening she enters the kitchen to find Syd Jupiter, the recently paroled "depraved heart" murderer of dancer Raven Silver and former football star, cooking fish. She is fascinated by Syd because his quiet nature belies his reputation:

I knew that Syd worked a couple days a week on Miles’ boat. On those days he would return to the house sun-burnt, filthy, tired, and happy. It was late in the afternoon on one of his fishing days that I found him in the kitchen, hair still wet from a shower, sharpening a knife. A huge fish lay on the counter.

“Do you like fish?” he asked.

“I do.”

“Good, because we have a treat tonight. Look what Miles brought up in one of his traps.”

He turned the fish to face me, and it was, without a doubt, the ugliest fish I had ever seen in my life. Its skin was a mottled purplish brown and its teeth were utterly terrifying.

“It looks like something from outer space,” I said.

Syd laughed. “See those teeth.” He pulled the jaws apart and I cringed. “Do you know what he uses those teeth for? He crunches up lobsters, clams, scallops. That’s all this guy lives on so you can imagine what his flesh tastes like. Better than lobster, in my opinion.”

“What is that?”

“A seawolf or wolffish. That’s what they call them here. It’s really an ocean catfish. We had a devil of a time getting him out of the trap. I was afraid he was going to eat his way right through it.”

“How did you? No, don’t tell me. I think I’m better off not knowing.”

Syd laughed again. He was in a very good mood.

“What I can’t figure out is how he got in there. He looks like he weighs ten pounds.”

“Twelve pounds three ounces. They get in sometimes. Miles said he just cuts them up to get them out and throws them away but I wanted this one. Almost lost a finger getting him out.” He held the fish up and studied it. “It reminds me of a guy who used to play defensive tackle for the Buffalo Bills.”

He slapped the fish down on the cutting board and set about expertly skinning, de-boning and fileting it.

“What are you going to do with it?”

“The secret to cooking these guys is to do as little as possible. They’re so sweet the less you do the better. I’m going to just saute it in butter with a little garlic and lemon. I gave Audrey the night off, if you want to help you can make a salad to go with it.”

It was pleasant working in Hathor’s big kitchen with him, chatting about the paintings I had cataloged that day, and watching the ease with which he did his work. Anjelica bounced in through the terrace door, flashed her bright smile when she saw me tearing up lettuce. She placed a paper sack from The Grocery on the counter next to the stove.

“I got your lemons and Miss Finn said I should bring this home. It’s bread with a funny name. Dammit bread.”

Syd looked sideways at her and I thought he was going to scold her but all he said was, “Do you want to slice up those lemons for me, please?”

“Sure,” she grinned at him.

It was increasingly obvious that Anjelica absolutely adored her father. At first it worried me that she was so eager for his approval until I realized Syd was equally aware of her longing and did his best to reassure her regularly.

“Anadama bread,” I said.

“Yeah,” Anjelica beamed at me. “That’s it. Weird name.”

“Well, there’s a story that goes with it.”

“Oh, tell it!” Anjelica set about daintily slicing up the lemons while Syd cooked fish and I cut up vegetables for the salad. It was as cozy a domestic scene as one could ask for, I thought. Straight out of Norman Rockwell if you knew nothing about the people involved.

“Well, the story goes that up in Rockport there was a fisherman who had a very lazy wife who served him nothing but cornmeal mush and molasses every night for dinner. Her name was Anna and he got tired of working hard on his boat all day and then coming home to a bowl of cornmeal mush and molasses.”

“Ew.” Anjelica wrinkled her nose. Syd laughed.

“So one night he looked at the mush, cried, ‘Anna, damn her!’ and dumped the cornmeal mush and molasses in a bowl, added flour and yeast and baked it in a bread pan. The bread he made was so delicious that all his neighbors wanted the recipe. Pretty soon everybody in Rockport and Gloucester was making the bread and they called it Anna-damn-her bread. Eventually that got shortened to Anadamma.”

“Is that true?” Anjelica asked arranging the lemon slices on the platter for the fish.

“I don’t know, I...” The cell phone in my pocket rang.

Read more.....Depraved Heart available in paperback or digital from Amazon or Barnes and Noble

25 Quick & Easy Quesadilla Recipes by Ann Chambers

This week I am beginning a new feature on this blog. Every Saturday I'll feature a guest blogger who is the author of a book on cooking, crafting, home & garden, or wellness. I'm very pleased to start this series with a post from the fabulous Ann Chambers:


25 Quick & Easy Quesadilla Recipes by Ann Chambers

I’ve been making cheese quesadillas for years for my sons. They became a staple around my house because it was quick, hot, and simple food that my children loved. Then my children grew up and moved out and quesadillas slid off the menu plan.

To keep the mess to a minimum, I tend to pre-cook filling items that need it in the heavy skillet I use for cooking the quesadillas. I dump the filling ingredients into a dishwasher safe leftover container so I can just slap the lid on it and toss it into the refrigerator if I don’t use it all.

In the meantime, I had slowly gained weight. Last summer I realized that I weighed more than I did when I had my full-term twins! Something had to give and I discovered the HCG diet. For those who don’t know, the HCG diet is a very low calorie diet that is combined with special drops or shots for rapid weight loss. The diet is super strict. After the HCG diet, participants must follow a low-carbohydrate diet for a few weeks as transition. I didn’t know anything about low carb. After a couple of bacon-and-cheese filled days, I had to learn a little about it. I love bacon a ridiculous amount, but even I can’t live on it forever.

A plate of hot, fresh quesadillas with homemade salsa for dipping.

And that’s when I thought of quesadillas! The hard part of low carb is the restriction on breads. But “carb-balanced” tortillas are available in any grocery store or market these days. So I put quesadillas back on the menu – but not just boring old cheese ones. I started experimenting and came up with lots of different flavors.

You can put anything in a quesadilla - it doesn’t have to be Mexican food. I created several tasty Italian flavor quesadillas. Then Greek. Then assorted American flavors.

The basic structure of a quesadilla requires 2 tortillas for the exterior plus cheese to melt and hold the quesadilla together. And whatever fillings and spices you care to add. It’s kind of a blank slate. I experimented with assorted cheeses, meats, thin sliced vegetables, spices and more. A few of the recipes were shared by friends. It’s an extremely flexible food once you stop thinking of it as a Mexican appetizer.

The quesadillas deliver hot and delicious dinners in short order with only one dirty skillet and a cutting board in the kitchen. It’s an awesome addition to my list of quick items for a week night meal. By using the smallest tortillas, I can easily cook each person his very own quesadilla with just what he likes in it. Don’t like onions? No problem. One wants mushrooms but the next won’t eat them? Okay.

I credit the frequent quesadilla dinners with part of ease I’ve had in keeping off the weight. I think a low-carb night or two is a great addition to the food selection at my house.

When I put the book together, I included my 25 favorite quesadillas and then added a few sauces that go with them. I made sure to include my favorite homemade salsa and guacamole because almost nothing beats great salsa. It’s naturally low in calories and basically fat free yet so delicious.

It’s my hope that the quesadillas can help other busy moms add quick and delicious options to their weekly menus. I’m still so very glad I did.

About the Author:

Ann Chambers is a journalist, author, and long-time foodie. She worked in a variety of restaurants as a teen and college student, developing an interest in food and cooking. Semi-retired after 20 years working full time as a reporter, editor, and researcher, she is now busy experimenting in the kitchen and tending the garden. Over the past year she has compiled 6 new e-cookbooks, including 25 Quick & Easy Quesadilla Recipes, 35 Quick & Easy HCG Recipes, and her latest offering Gourmet Ice Pops for Kids and Adults.

A Ghost Story Based in Legend

Working on my cycle of Marienstadt stories has become something of an obsession and the latest one, the 8^th in the series so far, is unique. It is a ghost story based on a legend that I heard from the time I was a little kid. In my home town there was a tombstone in the Catholic Cemetery of a priest, one Father Cooney. Father Cooney, who never actually served at any of the parishes in town, died in 1935 and was buried in our cemetery. That's pretty much all we know for real about him.

According to the legend he had an affair with a young woman and, when she became pregnant, he murdered her. Where stories like that begin heaven only knows. But the story was that if you went to his grave on a moonlit night you could see a ghostly image on his tombstone. What that image was tended to change – sometimes it was blood running down the stone, sometimes it was him carrying her dead body, or him stabbing her or strangling her. It depended on who told the story. Kids have such great imaginations.

But I, like most local kids, remember making a trip to the cemetery on a requisite moonlit night to see what we could see. I was in high school at the time and there were boys involved and scared girls need strong boys to protect them. The boys counted on that.

So, as I continue to work on these stories, which I think of as The Whiskey Bottle in the Wall: Secrets of Marienstadt, I decided I wanted to transform that particular legend into a story of its own and, wow, was that a fun project. I finished the first draft last night and emailed it off to my No. 1 reader for these stories, my buddy Ray. He wrote back and said, “Whoa and double whoa!!!! Spine tingling thrills, heart pounding, tears....wow....I didn't see that coming....wow...what an ending!!!! You have outdone yourself this time.” So I guess he liked it.

Of course you have to flesh out stories like these with more details and that is always both a challenge and a treat. For this story I created some new characters including Skidder Hoffman, an old hermit who lives in a camp out in the woods, and Marcella Fledderman, his cousin who was an Army Nurse during WWII and Korea. Of course some of my regulars are involved, Henry Werner, the handsome and gentle Chief of Police; Lola, the luscious strudel artist. We get to know more about Fred Sarginger, the former Police Chief who now owns a bar, and Candy Dippold, the always-up-to-something grocer. I also introduced a new character I kind of like. He has a small role in this story but he has potential. His name is Juney Wickett and he's a chainsaw artist. I meant for him to have a minor role but I like him a lot. And we also get a return appearance by Ethel Hauber, the cranky old lady who plays Lawrence Welk records at top volume to annoy the neighbors.

This story is called The Legend of Father Cuneo's Grave and it is a story both funny and sad with a ghostly twist. I loved writing it and I'm excited to add it to the collection. I have two more stories in mind and then this will be ready to be polished up, edited and launehd into the world. And now I need to get to work.

While working on this I found the following online:

COONEY'S GRAVE (St. Mary's, Elk County) There's reportedly a tombstone of a Father Cooney in St. Mary's Catholic Cemetery.  He's supposedly got a girl in a family way in the early 1900s and killed her. There's alleged to be ghostly phenomena associated with the gravestone, that on moonlit nights it's said a blood-like liquid can be seen on his marker, according to The Shadowlands  There's another tale, too.  Back in the day, a crazy man named Cooney murdered his wife and hung her from a tree in St. Mary's cemetery. It is said that every Halloween, you can see the shadow of her lifeless body hanging from the tree.This was told in PA Legends

Thanks for reading.

Writers on Writing: Jean Cross on Wuthering Heights

I read Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte when I was a teenager and found it utterly compelling. Her bleak, wind swept landscape quickly drew me from my comfortable world. I was amazed at her power to unsettle me and riveted by the intensity, obsession and danger that raged in Cathy and Heathcliff's love for each other. When, around the same time I learned a little of her life story I was fascinated that a mind could peer into a seemingly genteel world and see such surroundings and such characters as she wrote in Wuthering Heights. I was intrigued at how this woman could create this story in her imagination, focus it in reverie and shape it in ink. To this day I can still see the picture I conjured as a teenager, that of a room with a fire and a small writing desk and a silent, plaintive woman gazing out on the moor from an upstairs window as her characters move inexorably towards their own destruction.

With Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte opened a door and my teenage self slipped through. She taught me that I cannot protect my characters from the consequences of what they would do. That complacency does not sit well in the narrative. That place is important and language paramount. I still regard Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte as the best book I ever read. My own effort, The Boots of Saint Felicity, is worlds away from her masterpiece of literature, but it is grounded in my imagination and my observation of the world and maybe a glance or two out of the window.

Your Daily Dumpling: A Love Story

Dumplings are part of my heritage and I love them. Sweet apple dumplings, hearty liver dumplings, spicy bacon dumplings, and old-fashioned potato, egg, or butter dumplings. I don't eat them much any more because of the carb content but lately I've been experimenting with nut flour dumplings and I think I may be on to somethiing. But dumplings are one of those foods, like bread, that has a version in virtually ever cuisine known to humans. From Asian pot-stickers to Hungarian pierogi and from Jamaican bean dumplings to Italian gnocchi (possibly the loveliest dumpling of them all, leave it to the Italians!) dumplings are lovely things.

Some dumplings are plain, made from flour and eggs, maybe milk, maybe baking soda, maybe some seasoning, and some dumplings are quite elaborate. Usually dumplings are designed to be dropped into bubbling hot liquid, broths or water, and boiled. But dumplings can also be fried, like pierogi, baked like maultashcen, or deep-fried in oil like fritters. I've been thinking a lot about dumplings lately because I have two works-in-progress that involve dumplings. One is a short story for The Whiskey Bottle in the Wall collection. It is called The Great Dumpling War and Dance Competition and is extremely entertaining to write. The other book is a cookbook I am working on that includes the recipes for food mentioned in my other books. And from Syd's corn fritters in Depraved Heart to Lola's Kartoffelklöße in The Whiskey Bottle in the Wall, there are lots of dumplings in my stories.

When I was writing the first version of Fry Bacon. Add Onions in 1982 my Gram Werner gave me a recipe that she called maultashe. She said her mother made it all the time and that she had never seen a recipe for it anywhere. Basically it is a potato dumpling filled with spiced apples and baked in a custard. I included it in the cookbook but I never heard of it either until a few days ago. I was doing some research for my WIP and I came across a reference to maultaschen, a potato dumpling stuffed with spiced meat or vegetables. The article said it was a specialty dish in the Baden-Württember area of Germany – which is where my great-grandparents were from. The word means “mouth pokets” (which is what Gram said) and they are still very popular there. My friend Michael Belsole, who used to live in Bavaria, said they are very popular there. They are, he said, quite large, two or three is a good meal. I'm so happy to know this. Gram would be so proud!
 
I recently came across a lovely little cookbook called Favorites from Amelia's Kitchen: Vegetarian Comfort Food for Everyone by Amelia Terhune. In it she includes a recipe for a fruit dumpling. All the fruit dumplings I knew about were crust filled with fruit and baked but Amelia makes a sweet, dough dumpling that is simmered in stewed fruit (see the picture above.) I had never heard of this before but it sounds wonderful.

Last night I found my copy of a 35 year old cookbook called The Dumpling Cookbook by Maria Polushkin which is filled with recipes for dumplings and fritters from all over the world.

So, as I write and tinker around making hazelnut and cashew flour dumplings, it is nice to remember the role that the humble dumpling has played in the history of the world.

Thanks for reading.

Writers on Writing: Matt Iden on Tobias Wolff

Tobias Wolff: "Bullet in the Brain" (from Our Story Begins)

I've benefited enormously from writers' guides and editing manuals and I would never give away the lessons I've learned from them. But I think the best teacher remains reading good writing. Guides and how-to schemes teach the basics and help refine my craft, but it's great writing that speaks to me directly and gives me the passion to do the same, to hold myself to a higher standard. For me, "great writing" is exemplified by Tobias Wolff's "Bullet in the Brain".

This short story, first published in the New Yorker in 1995, details a brief, violent episode in the life of book critic Anders, who is unlucky enough to be in line at his local bank during a robbery. The narration is split into two parts: one you might call the action segment, the second the reflective; the two are separated by the event described in the title.

At any point in the story, the narrative could have tipped into the pedestrian on one side (plain old cops-n-robbers) to the maudlin (my God! I'm dying!) on the other. Wolff does neither, instead leading the reader masterfully through the moment using comedy, nostalgia, shock, and sympathy. Each turn--particularly the humor--in this compact, 1,500 word story is unexpected but fits so perfectly you wonder how you didn't see it coming. Point-of-view slides seamlessly from close third-person to omniscient with a flick of the wrist, word choice is uncannily accurate, the end is philosophical and resonates long after the page is turned.

Reading "Bullet'" for the first (and second and third) time was, at first, depressing. The skill on display seemed so natural and so beyond my own that I was left feeling like I'd be better off sticking to newsletters and website blurbs. It was only after I read Wolff's preface to Our Story Begins (the collection containing "Bullet in the Brain"), where he states that some of the stories went through as many as twenty drafts before being considered "final", did the light bulb go on: it's still craft. It's still work. It still takes effort. Even for Tobias Wolff.

Reading great writing continues to be my primary guide and inspiration. But I'll never be fooled into thinking that the classics sprung fully-formed from authors' heads. They looked towards other writers for inspiration and had to work their butts off to create their masterpieces. That knowledge, as much as any of the words they put on the page, keeps me going.

About the Story
You can find "Bullet in the Brain" in Wolff's collection Our Story Begins available in Kindle Format on Amazon.

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About Matthew Iden
Matthew Iden writes thrillers, crime fiction, and contemporary literary fiction with a psychological twist, but he's also tried his hand at fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Former money-earning activities include time as a rifle-and-backpack-toting volunteer for the USDA Forest Service in Sitka, Alaska; IT Manager for the world-spanning Semester-at-Sea program; and postman. He's recently released four collections of crime fiction short stories in ebook format (collected in the omnibus ONE BAD TWELVE) and a fantasy short story debut, SWORD OF KINGS; his medium-boiled crime fiction series featuring retired Washington DC homicide detective Marty Singer debuts soon in A REASON TO LIVE.

Blog: http://matthew-iden.com
Twitter: @CrimeRighter

Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00642SZQO