Imagining the Future now out!

My new book, another collaboration in the Celebration Series with Carolyn Howard-Johnson  is now out.  This one is themed around fathers primarily, but also husbands, and men in general. Of the book, Kim McMillon, playwright, producer, and host of the blogtalkradio show Writers' Sanctuary, said: "Authors Magdalena Ball, and Carolyn Howard-Johnson open the doorway of memory through words echoing thoughts, and feelings on fathers that are so strong they can be touched and heard through voiceless memories that forever cling to us all. Words unspoken between parents and children are uttered in these poems of pain, love,and always truth."   Here's a sample poem:


Foaming Stone

A triumvirate of fathers
on memory’s throne
no more godly than they ought
no less holy
in that wicked way of the mind.

Three ambitious men
triumviratus
struggling to be heard
against the lovely cacophony
of history.

The first, a rock
foaming DNA
his universal genetic code
sliding down the hill
impetus you couldn’t stop
even with the best inertia
you gave it everything
steamrolled flat
in glorious anger.

The second, like his predecessor
Julius Caesar
patrician and handsome
calm, cruel
the right word
always at the ready
his sword, admired
by the fireside.

The third
sells energy in a burlap sack
lightning cracks the purple sky
illumination that doesn’t last
sets your hair out
then disappears
leaving only static.

Guest Visit: Marvin Wilson of The Old Silly

Today's guest is Marvin D. Wilson, aka The Old Silly, who joins us to chat about his latest novel Owen Fiddler. Marvin is also the author of I Romanced the Stone (Memoirs of a Recovering Hippie), and Between the Storm and the Rainbow. Marvin describes Owen Fiddler as: "no role model for you or your kids, but reading his story will learn ya a thing or two, and that's a fact. This is an entertaining, thought-provoking, humorous and spiritually insightful book which will surely have you thinking about your own life.Owen talks to me about his work:

Tell me how you came to write Owen Fiddler.

Owen Fiddler is a modern day parable, a sort of fairy tale, set in a world of reality like yours and mine, with a moral to it. It started out as a Christmas short story that I posted on my blog and emailed to some family and friends. The feedback was so positive, and so many people encouraged me to expand on it, that I decided to write it out into a full length novel.

What is the key theme of the book?

Karma, the Law of Attraction, and the Golden Rule play heavily in it. I am a spiritualist, a follower of the Way of Christ, so there are Christian themes in the book, but religious sticklers for rigid interpretations of Biblical theology would have some issues with it as I take quite a few liberties in that regard. In one scene, for instance, I have Kris (short for Krishna), the savoir character in the book, French kissing Frenda Fiddler (Owen Fiddler’s daughter and the secondary main character) in the never-world. Some Christians who read that scene were offended. But that’s me—I like to stir up controversy and healthy dialog and debate.

What was the hardest aspect of writing Owen Fiddler?

The first draft was unbelievably easy. I was in a “writer’s zone” where for several weeks a rarely slept or ate or did anything but write. The ideas were flowing out faster than I could key them in. Characters would wake me from my sleep and demand I get up and write something they needed to say and/or do. Incredible—I’d never experienced anything like that before. The rewrites and revisions took like, gosh, three months at least, because I have a real taskmaster editor who demanded the very best from me. She would not let one scene go until she felt it was crafted to perfection.

Tell me what's on the cards for you - what are you working on now, and what kinds of projects are you hoping to work on in the future.

I have three WIP’s in the works. One is a sequel to Owen Fiddler, it’s a comedic cop story, a whodunit with some spiritual themes underlying the plot, titled, “Detective Snoop”. The second one is a romance, with a female main character who is a best selling author who loves to climb mountains and is married to an unfaithful rock star—that one is titled, “Heaven’s Slope Ascended”. And the last one, the least developed so far, but my favorite and one I simply must get finished or I won’t be able to rest, is titled “Beware the Devil’s Hug”. The best way to describe it is to give you the adblurb I wrote for it for querying:
What if a homeless, smelly, ugly unkempt old man had a hug so powerful it could cure cancer? Cause a prostitute to stop hooking and seek true love? Shake the demons of addiction free from a junkie? Make a Christian want to hug and love a Muslim and visa versa? But rare is the beneficiary of his divine hug—nobody wants to come near him out of fear.

Owen Fiddler Book Trailer

Tour with VBT-Writers on the Move through March. New and famous authors, plus useful information.

Free Books all week!

It's Read an E-Book Week!  From March 7-13th, retailers, authors, and publishers are urging you to get hold of, and read their books for free, or deeply discounted.  This is read an ebook week's 7th year, and creator Rita Toews has gathered together a welter of resources, free books, and tools to help you read an e-book (or two).  So where do you go to get your books and begin exploring the future of reading?

Firstly, there's Rita's own site: http://ebookweek.com/ which has lots of information and an online bookstore chock full of freebies from participants.

You can drop by my interview with Mark Coker at blogtalkradio and hear us talk about the implications and future of ebooks.

You can pick up my books Sleep Before Evening and Repulsion Thrust for whatever you want to pay (including nothing!) from my publisher's site at Smashwords. If you do decide to pay anything, all proceeds will go to the Red Cross effort on the earthquake-devastated island of Haiti. 

You can get hold of my poetry collaborations with Carolyn Howard-Johnson Cherished Pulse and She Wore Emerald Then for free at: http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/maggieball.

And above all, you can celebrate the diversity and availability of the written word, in all its forms and variations.  Enjoy!

Books or bricks: Is this the future of the printed book?

Inhabitat has profiled Book Cell, an octagonal building made entirely from books that was installed in the Modern Art Center in Lisbon, Portugal.  It looks a little like my place.  "Book Cell was originally installed for six months in 2006, but the piece still resonates today. The books used for the piece were borrowed from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation onsite at the Modern Art Center and returned to its collection after use, making it a very site-specific, almost personal piece, and reinforcing the idea that you don’t have to use something crazy, new and disposable to make powerful art."  Books or bricks?  Certainly is a thought provoking piece.  Can't help but think you'd bring down the house if you tried to do any reading.