A resident of NY, Stephen Mead is a published artist, writer, and maker of short collage-films. To learn more Stephen Mead's multi-media work of writing, painting, music and film please place his name in any search engine.
The passion of a writer is often one which stems from defeat and loss. In "Hang Onto Your Teeth" Stephen Mead explores this psychological drama through the character of William Bradstreet, an author who has been creatively blocked since the murder of his gay son, Colin. Five years after his son's death, with the ghost of Colin looking over his shoulder, William at last begins the painful process of coming to terms with the sources of Colin's life and death. In theory it sounds simple enough: William just has to pick up a pen. Theory and actuality remain a searing conflict for William, however, especially as he forces himself to confront the prejudices he too had for his own child. With each page, "Hang Onto Your Teeth" leads the reader deeper into the interior of William's struggle, creating a tightrope of eloquent tension. The climax resulting from this is one of haunting impact and yet a lesson in the profoundly redeeming powers of love.
"ACCORDING TO THE ORDER OF NATURE" by STEPHEN MEAD
A resident of NY, Stephen Mead is a published artist, writer, and maker of short collage-films. To learn more Stephen Mead's multi-media work of writing, painting, music and film please place his name in any search engine.
"According to the Order of Nature (We Too Are Cosmos Made") is a mixed media series of paintings and montages begun in late 2009 and completed by New Years 2014. The title refers to all of the laws which weigh against LGBT individuals globally, only this project reverses the persecution, exploring LGBT sensuality for its spiritual roots and profound bonding, more so when people risk their lives in order to have and to hold love. While specific pieces present graphic erotic gay sexuality, by incorporating organic matter such as moss, hair, leaves, spices, rose petals etc., they go beyond the realm of titillation for the viewer to celebrate (or be challenged by) the validation of earth-centered sensuality. Juxtaposed with the larger mixed media series are small 8" x 10" images depicting outlines of the naked male form in traditional yoga poses. These independent paintings are then merged with various star, earth, and weather pattern imagery to create the sense that, looking at the night sky, a person may connect the dots, draw pictures in the clouds, and find not just Orion or The Big Dipper, but an innate sensual energy directly connected to the heavens. I envision the combination of all these images, as being exhibited on one wall, the text which eventually evolved from them forming underneath letter by letter: forest green on rose marble.
"31 KISSES" by STEPHEN MEAD
A resident of NY, Stephen Mead is a published artist, writer, and maker of short collage-films. To learn more Stephen Mead's multi-media work of writing, painting, music and film please place his name in any search engine.
"31 Kisses", the book, comes from a long hibernation period. It was around the year 2000 when I first began submitting the images from it to small print and online journals and sites. At the time I did not have a computer or scanner and hence sent out photocopies. I was surprised when many of these were accepted and found myself using these same photocopies when I put together a short slideshow/collage-film of the entire series in 2003. In 2012, cleaning out a filing cabinet, I came across the original 9 by 9 inch sketchbooks and re-discovered that I'd done both drawings and paintings of the work. Flipping the pages I recalled how I'd been collecting small images of couples, often snipped from magazines, for years, thinking one day I'd get around to making something of them. I recalled too how I often used a magnifying glass when I finally got around to making sketches, sometimes taking a snippet from one clipping and adding it to another so the figures did not come from the initial collected image. I wanted the actual images to remain small in scope while, after painting with color for years, I was also interested in getting back to exploring black and white as a way of relearning light and shadows. Furthermore, though I wanted the book to include couples of all sexual orientations, I was just as interested in exploring sensuality as spirituality and presenting couples perhaps not in a sensual way but through the bond of friendship. Seeing the original drawings and paintings again I realized how much the photocopies lost details and wanted to present a book that was as close to the originals as possible, originals which stirred up the lines of text within me which became the crux for the series entire. It is my hope that those who come across this version of "31 Kisses" will find it to be as it was first intended: a universal celebration of love.
Selected images are for sale via zazzle.com/stephenmead and Fine Art America, Lulu.com and Absolute Arts.
"A GOSPEL OF LIGHT" by Alisa Velaj
Blessed with incredible talent, Alisa Velaj writes a poetry so subtle and so personal that reading it one feels almost as invading her privacy, and yet at the same time one is not able to stop from reading, poem after poem. Nature plays a very strong part in her art, if as metaphor, if as partner to dialogue, if as part of her own being, her wording relates in few sentences stories that would take entire chapters to tell, her variety of hues and tones is incredible. Reading one poem never prepares you for the next one to come – all are unique, different, all are amazing. Alisa’s poetry is mostly written in her native Albanian, and still we are able to enjoy it fully due to the outstanding quality of translation into English professed by the distinguished Mr. Ukë Zenel Buçpapaj.
"Moonlight Dreamers of Yellow Haze"
Michael Lee Johnson chief editor and coeditor Ken Allan Dronsfield are on roller skates excited about the release of a poetry anthology book shaking the poetry world apart, 53 professional poets and limelighters on the raise. All the poets in this book are members of Contemporary Poets, Their Works, Current Poetry Projects, News, Link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/807679459328998/ The book is selling well with wonderful comments on Amazon. "Moonlight Dreamers of Yellow Haze", is now available on Amazon.com, Amazon Kindle, available in Europe. Buy now just $13.95/Kindle $2.99. http://www.amazon.com/dp/1530456762 https://www.createspace.com/6126977 *Scroll down see Favorable Customer Reviews
ACRONIMELE LUI PASCAL, by Luminita Zaharia
Luminița Zaharia - a revelation of the modern literature by Eliza Roha
Honestly speaking, “The Acronyms of Pascal”, short stories (Semne Publishing, Bucharest, 2015) written by Luminiţa Zaharia is a real revelation for the reader, out of range, of the common, an intelligent playing with ideas, words and meanings. An alert prose, juvenile, where irony, self-irony are at home, getting less wild until they reach into deep, disappointing thoughts regarding life and human nature, told with humor, in such a way that you can’t be upset, only take heed. Because, beyond all that, we find a very generous soul and a superior optimism, Pascal is, after all, only a masculine image in the mirror of a delicate and discrete feminine nature, as the author herself tells us: “This is my composition about Pascal, and if he will ever read it one day, I hope he sends me at least a postcard, not to thank me – oh, my God, no! – just with a good thought, a smiling thought, an erratic one, a silly one, even an amused thought!” (page 37). A succession of stories out of the everyday normality, going to a normality of moral, meaning a struggle beyond real and the fantastic, an outburst of the spirit, too large to fit in a small world, poor in every sense of the word, a dated world. Luminiţa Zaharia can fully manage the figurative meanings of the messages she intends to send us, in a dense prose, rather of a ludic – poetical inspiration, practicing an atypical satire as well, with a delicate cut, harmlessly not hurting, only amusing. The words seem to be engaged in a ping-pong game, in short replies, smartly built, full of the joy of fitting the senses. Specific feminine prose, revealing a large heart, a sensibility grown on presence of mind, intending to fight back, in her own way, against a false world. The characters are ordinary people only until a certain point, when they slip, without noticing it, into another dimension, a fictional one, where the subconscious aspirations dwell. Luminiţa Zaharia is a good psychoanalyst, creating complex characters, youthful, unaltered by the avatars of life, totally disobedient to any rule. The style is ludic, expressive, elegant, with qualitative humor, she is simply playing with metaphorically images, with amusing wordplays, with morality, with surprising connections between banality and extraordinary, which give originality to the texts and a measure of good taste. For example: “Much later, when the large bear works up the courage, he also starts talking, this time about everything under the sky, and other planets of our solar system. He doesn’t even breathe and passes on to other solar systems, because, isn’t it so, every system has, inevitably, its own sun. O sole mio…” (p.45). A dense, clever, allegoric prose, slightly peevish, breaking the patterns of the dated thinking, totally anchored in the reality of our time, beyond which deep, profound meaning is hiding, sadness, disappointment, masked under an apparent indifference, in fact assuming life as it is, like an irreplaceable gift. “Tiroliana was always attracted to the idea of the afterlife. She studies with fervor and cruel ambition, medicine. Not, it wasn’t contradictory. Life before, life after. Life. Everything is cyclic, and this time, not by chance, God, when playing at creation, got bored to death in his shapeless infinity. He first drew a straight line, but it lead nowhere. Then he came up with the saving idea of the circle, symbol of infinity and delimitation at the same time. You could walk around in circle as much as you wanted, not stopping, without getting lost – you would end upon, invariably, from where you left, with a feeling of safety and accomplishment. He created life the same way, after the model of the mysterious circle, representation of perfection” (p.113)
RESONANCE, by Gary Beck
Resonance
A Poetry Collection by Gary Beck
For Immediate Release
Resonance is a collection of poems that looks at individual and cultural experiences from this complicated world in which some receive rewards but others are punished and pushed to the brink of despair.
"Very impressive poems" -Dead Snakes Magazine
"The noir voice and objectivity of each piece is unique and exploratory, very delightful reads" -Media Virus Magazine
"Awesome! I love the language" -Graffiti Magazine
Resonance is a 136 page poetry volume. Available in paperback with a retail price of $8.00 and eBook with a retail price of $1.99. ISBN 1523916400 Published through Dreaming Big Publications. and available now through all major retailers.
For more information or to request a review copy, contact Dreaming Big Publications at: [email protected]
SUOSSO'S LANE, by Robert Knox
Robert Knox is a fiction writer, poet, freelance writer for the Boston Globe, and blogger (prosegarden.blogspot.com) on gardening, nature and other subjects, based on the premise that there's a garden metaphor for everything. His poems, stories, and book reviews have appeared in a wide variety of journals.
"Suosso's Lane," available at https://www.web-e-books.com/index.php#load?type=book&product=suosso presents a compelling tale of ethnic profiling and death row injustice.
Novelist and poet Robert Knox provides a contemporary setting for a rearview look at the early 20th century trial of politically radical Italian immigrants Sacco and Vanzetti.
Targeted for their anarchist political beliefs, Sacco and Vanzetti are charged with taking part in a robbery and murder despite little evidence to connect them to the crime and convicted in a trial that leads to international condemnation of American justice.
Seventy years later a young history teacher moves to Suosso's Lane, Vanzetti's old neighborhood in the home of the Pilgrims, Plymouth, Massachusetts, and learns of lost evidence that might prove his innocence. Knox's then-and-now novel reconstructs the case that captivated the world's attention.
DOGGERLAND, by Ted Garvin (Kindle)
Deccan had always wondered what had happened to his father. When he learns that he was killed by a neighboring tribe, he longs for revenge, even though it is forbidden by the rules of his tribe.
Ted Garvin is a middle-aged, disabled writer of mixed Native American/European descent. He lives in Northeast Oklahoma (Tulsa area) with his wife and his menagerie of cats, dogs, goldfish, and house plants. Career-wise, he's done a little of everything, from debt collection to customer service. He has a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Oklahoma. His politics reflect his understanding of the Gospel: love God; love your neighbor; change the world. His favorite authors are Patrick O'Brian, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Roger Zelazny, among others. Follow the link: http://www.amazon.com/Doggerland-novelette-Ted-Garvin-ebook/dp/B01AMOZ9DQ
DOGGERLAND, by Ted Garvin (paperback)
Deccan had always wondered what had happened to his father. When he learns that he was killed by a neighboring tribe, he longs for revenge, even though it is forbidden by the rules of his tribe.
From the Author: This is my first novel. Writing it was illuminative, cathartic, and deeply enjoyable. From the Back CoverDeccan lived in Doggerland, the land between the (now) British Isles and Scandinavia, above sea level during the Mesolithic period. His people were hunter/gathers and were semi-nomadic. His father was killed by a neighboring tribe. Will he obtain the vengeance he desires?
Ted Garvin is a middle-aged, disabled writer of mixed Native American/European descent. He lives in Northeast Oklahoma (Tulsa area) with his wife and his menagerie of cats, dogs, goldfish, and house plants. Career-wise, he's done a little of everything, from debt collection to customer service. He has a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Oklahoma. His politics reflect his understanding of the Gospel: love God; love your neighbor; change the world. His favorite authors are Patrick O'Brian, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Roger Zelazny, among others.