Category Archives: Special Postings
Ultimate List of the Best Book Review Blogs
Kindlepreneur has created a comprehensive list of book review blogs that gives authors one more piece to their book marketing puzzle.
Their article on the ‘Ultimate List of the Best Book Review Blogs‘ includes a long list of book reviewers and also provides the information author swill need to understand how verified purchase reviews are used on Amazon, ‘the mentality of the buyer’, and different types of blogs before presenting a long list of reviewers broken down into their preferred book genres.
What I found most helpful was their section on ‘How to Get Your Book Reviewed by a Blog’. This section provides a lot of great information that will help authors get the most out of the lengthy list of reviewers that they provide on their site.
Checkout Kindlepreneur and their article on the ‘Ultimate List of the Best Book Review Blogs‘.
And Then You Left (Poetry Video)
For Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day by Gloria D. Gonsalves
Grieving, they say, is the cousin
of loneliness, bonded through
closeness or distant blood.
You left my body the same way.
Slipped away silently, as far kin
of my clan, and yet closer for I
still, feel the knives cutting through
the womb where I had you alive.
Our conversation was one-sided,
but I knew you were listening.
We already had names for you,
representing us, from two cultures.
We manifested you as a girl.
I had begun recalling wisdom
to share with you, our child.
When pain slowed my right leg,
I held hope that we would meet.
That night on my birthday,
I prayed, asking the virgin mother
to take you was the holiest prayer
I have ever offered to the ascended.
The pain was too much to bear
and faith guided me to let you go.
You held on tight, determined to
stay, but the boat carrying you
was sinking to the death realm.
I helped, perhaps more myself than you,
by drinking chamomile tea.
The tea drowsed, and pain floated
like a red amaryllis flower.
My beloved unborn, forgive me
as my waters failed to keep you safe.
It was a long night of life
until I dragged myself to your gravesite;
a bowl of waste and other discharges.
I heard you leave with a ‘plop’ sound,
from waters of life to the waters
of the dead and unwanted remnants.
I still wonder whether you finally rested
in heavenly waters, or you were minced
in the sewer, like a thing, not human.
I keep your existence in this world,
but a mother is not one without proof.
When in the forest, I still hear you
swimming and murmuring in the streams
and that gives me a sea of comfort;
you are still in this life, only parallel to
that which my boat sails saddened.
gloria-gonsalves.com
TUZIBEBE KANGA ZETU
TUZIBEBE KANGA ZETU
Leo siku ya simanzi
tuzibebe kanga zetu.
Tusambaze kona zake nne
zikawe ngao ya uchungu wetu.
Kanga zetu zibebe faraja
hadharani na faraghani.
Magufuli katutoka
kama jua linalozama.
Tuzibebe kanga zetu
tukasambaze matumaini.
Machozi yatutiririka
kwa kasi ya mto Ruvu.
Tuzibebe kanga zetu
tukadeki nyuso zetu.
Kilio kimetutia kikwi
tujisitiri na kanga zetu.
Waliotangulia tuwaombee
heri iwavushe kwa maulana.
Tuzibebe kanga zetu
kama mkeka wa sala.
Kanga zetu tuzifukize rehema
ili tujawe karama.
Vinyongo na visasi tupepee
vitoweke kwa haya na soni.
Marehemu wetu tuwaenzi
fedheha sio kanga yetu.
Tuilinde amani yetu
kwa umaridadi wa kanga.
Tuyavae maneno mema
kwa madaha ya utanashati.
Tuzibebe kanga zetu
tukamuage baba yetu.
Tamati ya maisha imefika
buriani haitoshi pindo.
Kanga zetu ni vigawanyio
kati ya mauti na maisha.
Sare za kanga zetu
ni shada zenye thamani.
Tutandike kanga zetu
kwenye njia ya mazishi.
Waliolala wanafarijika
kusindikizwa kifahari.
Tuzibebe kanga zetu
safari ya baba imekwisha.
Translation/Subtitles:
LET US CARRY OUR KANGAS
Today is a day of mourning
let us carry our kangas.
Let us spread its four corners
as a shield for our pain.
Our wraps should carry comfort
publicly and privately.
Magufuli has left us
like the setting sun.
Let us carry our kangas
to go spread hope.
Tears are welled up
like the speed of the Ruvu river.
Let us carry our kangas
to mop our faces.
Weeping has hiccupped us
let us shield ourselves with our kangas.
Let us pray for the gone ones
to cross over with blessings.
Let us carry our kangas
like a prayer mat.
Let us fragrance our kangas with mercy
so we may be gifted with deliverance.
Let us wave away bitterness and vengeance
that they depart ashamed and confounded.
Let us honour our late loved ones
for ridicule is not our kanga.
Let us protect our peace
with beauty of the wrap.
Let us wear good words
with pride of elegance.
Let us carry our kangas
to bid farewell to our father.
The end of life has come
farewell does not fit the hem.
Our kangas are a border
between death and life.
Our kangas as uniforms
are valuable wreaths.
Let us lay our kangas
on the road to the funeral.
Those gone are comforted
by this elegant escort.
Let us carry our kangas
our father’s journey is over.
How the heroic Irish won the American Revolution remembered this Patriot’s Day
Phillip Thomas Tucker, Ph.D. @IrishCentral Apr 15, 2019
George Washington Park Custis, Washington’s adopted son and a careful student of history, placed the significant Irish contribution to the American revolution in a proper historical perspective:
“When our friendless standard was first unfurled for resistance, who were strangers [foreigners] that first mustered ‘round its staff when it reeled in the fight, who more bravely sustained it than Erin’s generous sons? Who led the assault on Quebec [General Montgomery] and shed early luster on our arms, in the dawn of our revolution? Who led the right wing of Liberty’s forlorn hope [General Sullivan] at the passage of the Delaware [just before the attack on Trenton]? Who felt the privations of the camp, the fate of battle, or the horrors of the prison ship more keenly than the Irish? Washington loved them, for they were the companions of his toil, his perils, his glories, in the deliverance of his country.”
Yet, the role of the Irish has often been written out. No chapter of America’s story has been more thoroughly dominated by myths and romance than the nation’s desperate struggle for life during the American Revolution. Unfortunately, America’s much-celebrated creation story has presented a sanitized version of events.
The long-accepted proper imaginary of the typical American patriot was that of an Anglo-Saxon who descended from early English settlers. This popular perception became a permanent part of the national mythology, in regard to the people who were seen as having been most responsible for sustaining and winning the revolutionary struggle.
As could be expected, the seemingly endless romantic myths about…
Read More on IrishCentral.com
TOSCA LEE OFFERS COMFORT, ENTERTAINMENT WITH NIGHTLY STORY TIME ON FACEBOOK LIVE
New York Times and CBA bestselling author Tosca Lee has spent the last three weeks offering entertainment, comfort, and encouragement to the public during a nightly “Story Time with Tosca” at 9 Eastern on Facebook live. It started March 20 with a promise to read until shelter-in-place guidelines are no longer necessary… which means she currently has no idea when she’ll stop.
Lee has been reading from her 2014 ECPA Fiction Book of the Year winner, Iscariot—her bestselling novel about the life of the infamous disciple and ministry of Jesus Christ. The perennial Easter season favorite is read annually by some of her fans and was chosen in a vote the day before “Story Time with Tosca” began on March 20. Story Time happens on Tosca’s Facebook author page at www.facebook.com/AuthorToscaLee and everyone is welcome to check out past installments of Story Time live recordings plus take part in the live episodes.
Lee, the first runner-up to Mrs. United States 1998, jokes that she hasn’t worn makeup this many days in a row since her tenure as Mrs. Nebraska. She says the time has been heart-warming, with readers calling the time their favorite part of the day and a much-needed escape from the news and rigors of quarantine. “It’s been an unexpected blessing for my family in return,” Lee says. “A much-needed marker in days that otherwise feel as though they’re running together.” From days that, by her own admission, are a little extra surreal given how closely the news has mirrored her 2019 bestselling thriller, The Line Between.
FICTION MEETS REALITY
An outbreak in Washington… a run on essential supplies… schools closed… quarantined towns… borders shut down.
The spate of recent headlines is also the plotline of Lee’s medical thriller, The Line Between, which released January, 2019 from Howard Books/Simon & Schuster—a year before COVID-19 arrived in the U.S. The book’s sequel, A Single Light (September, 2019, Howard Books/Simon & Schuster) comes to paperback August 17.
Watching the news one year after the release of The Line Between—a Goodreads Choice Awards semifinalist for best mystery/thriller of 2019—Lee calls life “eerie and surreal.”
“Every now and then my husband and I just look at one another as we listen to the news—including the day the Canadian border shut down,” Lee says, of yet one more event she wrote about two years ago before the books went into print. “It’s a little eerie,” she admits.
Another one of the reasons Lee, herself, finds solace in Story Time with her readers.
The Line Between has been optioned by Radar Pictures (Jumanji) and Ed Burns’ Marlboro Road Gang Productions (Public Morals) and is in development for television as first reported by Deadline Hollywood: https://deadline.com/2019/01/edward-burns-radar-developing-the-line-between-thriller-novel-for-television-1202538907/
“[An] edge of your seat, heart-palpitating tale.”
—Top Shelf Magazine, for A Single Light
Lee is the award-winning, New York Times, and CBA bestselling author of 11 novels including The Progeny, Firstborn, Iscariot, The Legend of Sheba, and The Books of Mortals series with New York Times bestselling author Ted Dekker. Her books have been translated into 17 languages and been optioned for TV and film.
Tosca received her B.A. in English from Smith College. A lifelong world adventure traveler, she lives in Nebraska with her husband and three of four children still at home. To learn more about Tosca, please visit ToscaLee.com.