Saturday, December 30, 2017

2017 Recap





I began the year by giving my two cents on the subject of diversity in book publishing. We need to hear from a greater range of voices in literature. We need to amplify those of us who are telling stories in #OurOwnVoices. What we probably don't need to do is get angry and shout down every white author / white character. Diversity means everybody, including those who are currently over-represented.  But some more of those who are under-represented sure would be nice.







I made my very first book trailer! I think it's awesome. I don't know if many people outside of my household like it too. I have no idea if it's helped me to sell a single copy of Matters of Convenience. But I'm still prouder and more pleased by it than I have reasonable right to be. Go me!





A post shared by Roy Pickering (@roylpickering_author) on


Technically it was at the end of 2016 (a few days before Christmas) that my family acquired a dog. The one and only SHADOW!!!  He was a ceaseless source of amusement and affection throughout 2017. I don't know if everyone should have a dog, but certainly every WRITER should have a dog. As it turns out, I got the BEST one.







I wrote installments #1 and #2 in the Ava Appelsawse book series. One of my resolutions for 2018 is to get going on #3 while my wife completes illustrations for the first book. Publication date TBD.







Speaking of my wife, I saw how much she was enjoying Instagram so decided to join up too. I set up an account. I got hacked. I set up a replacement account. That one got hacked as well. I seriously considered surrendering but decided to give it one more shot. The third try has proven to be the charm. I still have plenty of exploring to do on there, but one treasure I did discover in 2017 was Bookstagram.







I partially embraced my inner nerd in 2017 and attended a Comic Con for the first time. It was a fantastic experience, definitely one to be repeated. Perhaps in 2018 I'll go full nerd and attend in high quality, budget bending costume. I think I'd make an awesome Black Panther.






I urged people to buy more books, particularly of the ink printed on paper variety. This is something I'll do every year until you guys are buying so many books (perhaps even some of mine) that I no longer feel the need. Until that magical moment happens, here's yet another reminder from me to BUY BOOKS.






Statues were toppled. I found this to be a good thing because those particular statues were testaments to bigotry and segregation and race based oppression and hatred. Surely a person can reside below the Mason Dixon line and be a proud southerner on account of something other than being on the losing side of the Civil War. The good guys won it for a righteous cause. Hanging on to confederate symbols of the battle to retain slavery is not a good look.





Mother Nature lost her mind and did a great deal of damage as hurricanes (and earthquakes and wildfires and...) followed each other in rapid succession. Among the devastated places was my beloved birthplace of St. Thomas, USVI. Also nearby Puerto Rico. Unfortunately we currently have a president who does not seem to realize that the people who live there are fellow Americans. He certainly doesn't believe that man caused climate change is a reality to be dealt with. Too much of 2017 was unfortunately spent being angered and sickened by Trump's behavior. But being furious all the time isn't good for the soul. Sometimes you gotta do whatever is required to generate a sense of calm even as the world is falling apart around you.






One of the ridiculously unfortunate aftereffects of the absurd election of Donald Trump (in addition to irritating Jemele Hill so much that she got herself suspended) was the normalization of Nazis by members of the media who have apparently lost their damn minds in pursuit of click bait. So I felt compelled to shout out to people in the back row who somehow missed why we fought World War II and seemingly have never seen an Indiana Jones movie or any of the countless other films and TV shows which clearly showcase that the Nazis are the bad guys.





As I began my year in blogging by writing about the diversity (or lack thereof) in book publishing, so I ended 2017 writing about Sensitivity Readers. It's a topic that inspires much passion on both sides of the debate. I wonder what a sensitivity reader might have said pre-publication of Patches of Grey, or in advance of the release of Matters of Convenience. Will manuscripts for The Absolutely Amazing Adventures of Ava Appelsawse pass before the eyes of a sensitivity reader before being given a thumbs up? Probably not. But that's just a guess on my part for it's in the future, something that I along with all of you know nothing with certainty about.






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Thursday, December 28, 2017

You need a book with SENSITIVITY












Becoming an editor may have ended up being very frustrating to me. I want to create my own characters/stories/worlds - not help other people do it. Yes, it's hard to find black editors & lit agents. But it's also damn hard just to find readers. And still I strive...




Of course, it's one thing to feel that the existence of sensitivity readers (which if nothing else, perhaps we can all agree is a rather terrible job title?) is an example of Political Correctness gone too far rather than seeing it as an unfortunate necessity in an excessively lily white industry.  It's another to go as far as Tucker Carlson did. Not that his snide point is entirely without merit.










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Sunday, November 26, 2017

Normal Next Door Nazis?




































Readers Accuse Us of Normalizing a Nazi Sympathizer; We Respond https://nyti.ms/2i87fcm





Normalizing monsters seems to be all the rage these days.


Tough call, but if given no choice I'd rather read about Charles Manson being anti-pollution than about the charm of some random Nazi's tattoos and taste in TV shows. Fortunately I do have a choice and so elected to read neither.


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Sunday, November 5, 2017

BOOKSTAGRAM



Goodreads Book Giveaway

Matters of Convenience by Roy L. Pickering Jr.

Matters of Convenience

by Roy L. Pickering Jr.

Giveaway ends December 25, 2017.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.
Enter Giveaway














From what I can see - authors, readers, bloggers, photographers, bibliophiles, etc. are all making a wonderful go of it. Apparently print needed to be near death for us to truly appreciate the beauty of ink on paper. What a time to be alive!





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Thursday, September 14, 2017

TRUMP VS HILL



Based on very recent tweets, Donald Trump is not done feuding with Hillary Clinton. But if Trump vs. Hillary wasn't enough to satisfy him, now we have Trump vs. Hill. That would be Jemele Hill, ESPN commentator. Pretty easy to pick sides in this one. Granted, Jemele Hill's area of expertise is sports - not politics. But as someone who is also a human being, Jemele is allowed to have opinions on the Clown in Chief. I suppose that in being a public figure who is a spokesperson for her employer, there are some limitations on how she chooses to express personal non-sports opinions, no matter how accurate they are. Politics is neither sports nor entertainment, despite what we often see on TV. But sometimes no matter who you work for, you just have to get something off your chest. And ESPN, a network that is supposed to be about sports and nothing but sports, has certainly spent some of its valuable air time delving into non-sports areas. They even once decided to dedicate an entire show to this subject...






If we were able to make it through that well intentioned effort from the most peculiar of messengers then surely our patriotism can take the hit of Jemele Hill calling it like it is about the man who has taken the US presidency hostage.




































Trump supporters who claim not to be bigots need to closely examine his words and deeds along with their own hearts. If they don't/won't, Michael Jackson was clearly right.
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Friday, September 8, 2017

THE CALM - a short story



Both before and after that storm comes "the calm". I once wrote a story with that very title. You can find and read it below.




                           THE CALM
                              BY ROY L. PICKERING JR.
Certain days are never withdrawn from one's memory bank.  Such was the case of the first full day of a summer that was taking over for a rain filled spring, fresh on the heels of a bitter New York winter.  Incarceration by nature's less than ideal elements had finally concluded.  The sun now blazed with abandon, summoning God's creatures to emerge from hiding.

A picnic seemed in order.  Paulette felt the same, surely a good omen.  We had not agreed on much of anything in some time. Our frequent opposing views added spice to the relationship in the beginning.  As long as we shared lust for one another in common, other things didn't much matter.  Over three years gone by, the carnal nature of our union having peaked and moved beyond, it was in doubt as to whether Paulette truly was the yang to my yin, the negative charge to my positive, the creamy center to my cookie crust.

These worries I put aside, for I didn't need to get along with Paulette to know that I loved her.  I was willing to work out whatever problems we may have, though not inclined to have my love life be a chore, I was hoping the passage of time and shared experiences would work the kinks out for us.  Ending the relationship never emerged as an option, even in our most heated disputes.  I took this to mean that Paulette felt as I did.
We spread a blanket on the grass of a nearby park, popped Miles Davis into my CD player, set up assorted reading material (I was reading Faulkner, she examined Cosmopolitan magazine), and partook of grapes, brie cheese on crackers, and a pitcher of lemonade.  

The rippling lake before us was a constantly changing work of art reflecting the cloudless sky above.  A man taught his precocious daughter how to fish; a dog frolicked with his masters; children rolled by unsteadily on rollerblades or glided past with more assurance on bicycles; lovers lay blissfully together as far as the eyes could see.  All of this Paulette and I contentedly observed, our souls filling up with peace much like the air was becoming saturated with pollen, the latter of which I had prepared for in advance by taking a sinus pill.  I felt secure for perhaps the first time that we would make it, that the winding roads of our separate lives were no longer running parallel, but had merged together as one.

Unable to snag a coveted location under the shade of a tree, Paulette and I spritzed each other with water to endure the humidity.  After an hour passed, a steady breeze began to blow.  The sun's rays took pity and lessened in intensity, perfecting the level of comfort.  We kissed tenderly, then passionately, then reposed with hands held and hearts light.

I assumed the first roll of thunder to be my imagination, the second a misinterpretation of a lick by the bass player accompanying Miles.  The third roll was too distinctive to be anything other than what it was.  Looking upward, I saw that the sun's clemency was due to clouds which had crept upon it.  In the following silence I hoped the inevitable would not occur, but a flash of lightning on the horizon told me that hoping would do no good.

Paulette and I hurriedly packed our belongings under the rapidly darkening sky.  The first drops trickled down large, cold and ominous.  The breeze, once gentle as a baby's kisses, now sent debris into orbit.  We had just begun the race we had no chance of winning when the barrage started.  There was no shelter in sight that was a match for the storm's force.  We could do nothing but get drenched and either find humor in Mother Nature's unpredictability or not.  I saw no reason for a little water to ruin our moods, but Paulette's joy endured the rain as well as a lit match.

I went away for nearly two weeks on a business trip the next day. Upon my arrival back home, the tone of Paulette’s "we need to talk" on my answering machine foretold that our reunion dinner date would likely spoil my appetite.  It did.  Paulette felt that continuing further with the relationship would keep us from getting on with our lives.  I had not been aware that either of our lives was on pause.  Therefore, I objected strenuously to Paulette’s resolution.  It was one thing to fix what was possibly broken, but to simply discard our relationship was inexcusable.  Paulette was convinced that we weren't meant to be, to which I rebutted that nothing was meant to be.  Things just were.  Paulette replied that our thing was just over.

That summer had been shaping up to be special but turned out to be an idyllic backdrop for my grief.  I could find no humor in the irony that of all our disagreements, the only one to matter was the one about breaking up.  Paulette probably would have said solely for the purpose of contradicting me that our final dispute had actually been about staying together.  But no matter how the situation was viewed, it wouldn't change the fact that I was now alone, nor help me cope with this any better.  For longer than I care to recall, I isolated myself while waiting for Paulette to realize the folly of her decision.  If she ever did, she didn’t bother to let me in on her change of heart.

Time tends to all matters in due course.  I am not of the opinion that wounds heal so much as they are buried under the growth of new skin.  They become invisible to the eye, but continue to be a part of who we are.  As Paulette predicted, I eventually began conducting the business of getting on with my life, no doubt considerably later than she.  Breaking up with someone is something one does long after already having done so emotionally. Perhaps a trite lesson to learn, but valuable nonetheless.

And so I decided on a lovely August day to prepare a picnic for one and head to the park.  It was a mirror of the occasion spent there the year prior.  The lake was as ceaselessly moving yet never changing as I remembered, and the sun remained a boiling pupil in a vast blue iris.  About me adults huffed and puffed to sweat off a few pounds while children played for the right reason.  I surveyed my surroundings and saw that God's creation was a good one; that beauty persevered in the face of ugliness; that some people should never wear a bathing suit in public.  I thought of my past and present, tried to ponder my future but came up blank because it had not yet been formed.  No matter.  If not to be granted knowledge, I would settle for serenity.  Tomorrow would be here soon enough.




The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First SuperheroThe Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero by William Kalush
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

4 stars earned because the subject of this book led such an interesting life. 2 stars earned because the tedious writing style pulled off the feat of making Houdini's exploits seem quite mundane. So I've split the difference to give it 3 stars. Overall I'm glad I read this book. What I came into it already knowing about Houdini only scratched the surface of his accomplishments. I had no idea that he was a major participant in the earliest days of airplane flight. Not until reading the jacket cover did I know he most likely participated in spying for the government. Turns out he was also a Hollywood star (writing, directing, acting), a bibliophile who amassed practically a public library's worth of books, a man on a mission to warn the public against con artists who promised (for a price) to provide connections to the dearly departed, and perhaps least surprising - a ladies man. Houdini proved to be much better at escaping from all manner of devices than at keeping his extramarital affairs secret from his wife. The subject matter of this biography is juicy but the prose manages to be overlong and repetitive and I'll just say that it's way less of a page turner than it could have been. But I read through to the end and now feel that I know just about everything there is to know about Harry Houdini EXCEPT how he managed to pull off all that wonderful magic. He is and probably forever will be the gold standard of mystifying entertainment.

View all my reviews

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