It’s back! The 5th annual Hawaii Book & Music Festival invades the civic grounds at Honolulu Hale this weekend (Saturday and Sunday, May 15-16) like a family-friendly Godzilla (not the less-than-friendly Godzilla, the destructive version of the giant radioactive mutant Japanese monster with the dangerous tail who likes to smash Tokyo and anything else in his way).
All the festival details and schedule are online. Take a look and then come back.
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A diligent researcher has recently unearthed some original working titles for books that were later published under more familiar titles. This person, who has chosen to remain anonymous, revealed only that he or she was inspired by an episode of Seinfeld. Here is the exact passage quoted in the introduction to the list of titles:
Read the rest of this entry »Jerry: Hey, you know what? I read the most unbelievable thing about Tolstoy the other day. Did you know the original title for War and Peace was War—What Is It Good For?
Elaine: Ha ha.
Jerry: No, no.. I’m not kidding, Elaine, it’s true. His mistress didn’t like the title and insisted he change it to War and Peace.
Our guest blogger today is mystery/crime fiction writer and Oahu resident Deborah Atkinson.
A recipient of the University of Hawaii’s Meryl Clark Award for Fiction, she is a graduate of the University of Michigan and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and the author of Primitive Secrets (2002), The Green Room (2005), and Fire Prayer (2007).
Debby’s latest novel is Pleasing the Dead. I asked her to share her thoughts about romance and mystery. Welcome, Debby!
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Voices on the page, or on the computer screen of this blog, echo down the last days of 2009. Here are some of the voices that have brightened “A Little Romance” this year:
Read the rest of this entry »Local writer and teacher Cami Nihipali: There are discussions in literary circles about whetherTwilight is ‘good’ literature. I know my colleagues and I have had this discussion numerous times. The truth of the matter is that it doesn’t matter. Like the Harry Potter phenomenon, which became embroiled in a religious argument several years ago, Twilight and its subsequent books have gotten kids reading, and excited about reading nonetheless. As for romance, Meyer hits the nail on the head. Whether the reader likes Edward or Jacob, everyone can find that flutter of first love in this story.
“Low hanging fruit.” Easier to pick. There for the taking. Why venture higher when there’s good fruit you don’t even need a ladder for, or maybe just a short ladder?
I hear that phrase now and then in different contexts, often from someone on radio or TV. When they use the familiar phrase do they see the image in the metaphor? Do they see a tree with low hanging fruit, and perhaps someone picking?
When I hear “low hanging fruit,” an image of a mango tree immediately flashes in my head. Not just any mango tree, although where I live in Kapahulu/Kaimuki, on the island of Oahu, there are beautiful, fantastic Hayden mango trees on every block. I see a tree that is no longer there.
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In the middle of Frank Delaney’s novel Ireland, an engaging 560-page narrative about Ireland and Irish storytellers, there’s one paragraph that jumped off the page at me and said “Take me home with you.” Or perhaps it whispered “Kiss me, I’m Irish.” Whatever. But it’s a memorable paragraph for all writers, and readers, and here it is.
Read the rest of this entry »A story has only one master—its narrator; he decides what he wants his story to do. I know, I have always known, what I want my stories to achieve—I want to make people believe. Believe what I tell. Believe in it. Believe me. Belief is the one effect I’m always looking for, and I apply every device, every pause, every gesture, every verbal nuance and twirl, to that end. To achieve it, I myself have to believe; if I don’t, who will? I must believe ancient Ireland was as I describe it. The swords really did ring loudly off the shields. And the armor surely gleamed in the sun.
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