Coming Back

On July 18, 2014, my only son . . . my only child . . . was taken from us. And with him went the main light of my life. I never knew how much of my life he formed and influenced but with him gone it is only now as I come out of active mourning that I look around and find a flatness I could never have imagined possible. With him went the verve I once knew for writing, learning, leading, and speaking. During the workday, I remain focused and productive however once home, I have fallen into a sense of nothingness. I follow the events in the news and remain responsive to my sisters, grandsons, and nieces, but they are not with me the long nights alone at home when I find so little impetus to initiate activities of interest. In the past week I have started to read again. For four of the past five nights I read a novel from cover to cover. They were not great novels, but they held my mind. Perhaps this is a start of again doing things on my own. I can only hope.

But Where Fled June?

July Fourth just past and only now getting to blog a bit more personally. Progress on every side–just almost no free time. Kristen Henderson’s eLit Awards gold medalist book of poems, Drum Machine, is now available in paperback as well as eBook forms. Just that for now, if you’d like a copy, you would have to request it by email through the ALVA site contact page. However, come Monday, Alyssa will list it with the other books that can be ordered on ALVA’s buy now page.

Carl Waldman’s enchanting mystery Streetscape: A Jake Soho Mystery will be released July 15 as an eBook with ALVA and if all goes as planned, Lorna Tychostup’s Tales from the Revolution.

And as for me, I’m looking toward a bit of a lull with only Charles Van Heck’s marvelously human and extensively researched historical novel, Mr. Lincoln’s Elephant Boy still in the contract completion process while the other several writers with whom I am working being either on vacation or back at the drawing boards.

Meantime the whir of a rage continues both online and in reality. Authors struggle to determine should they ‘sell’ free and starve as they in this way serve to somewhat glut the market. And then, to only further complicate the glut many are self publishing their works minus and Digital Rights Management (DRM). This in turn permits readers to pass their copyright protected books along on a ‘free-free’ basis as I call it.  The free-frees occur under the radar as readers fail to recall that somewhere some writer labored long and hard to get them the book in the first place and that hopefully that writer still holds the copyright. And if even if that copyright has been signed over to a publisher, that publisher then holds it. However, regardless, every reader is assured, someone does–usually not the reader.

As for the summer, around us all along the East Coast and Southwest, the temperatures soar, fires rage, and everyone figures as best he or she can, a way to mitigate its effects–running to the mountains (where it is also hot), baking at the beach, hiding in the cellar, remaining locked in the A/C, or like too many, just toughing it through.

At Astor Home for Children where I work, summer school reopens next week for six weeks with typically shortened days. We finish at 2:00 instead of 3:00 as kids chomp at the bit looking toward a swim in the pool and in down times observe the progress on the completion of the new sleeping units being built to guarantee each child resident a room of his or her own. As such there will be no longer a necessity for any of the already severely emotionally challenged child residents to share space and keep personal belongings separate while also wading through the ups and downs of a roommates’ behaviors and moods.

The major part of the Astor new units project  appeared to have been done by summer break. The roof was on and they were working on the interior and finishing a glassed-in sunroom of some kind. I believe the plan is for Astor Services for Children and Families to have its Rhinebeck, NY, residential placement for children’s new units ready for habitation come September. Amazing the space and variety the relatively small campus offers in its various buildings for use by staff and children.

Meantime, my two weeks summer break draws to a close, its highlights being the pleasure of my twelve year old and eight year old grandsons spending time with me when possible and the kick of having passed the above publishing milestones. And tomorrow I shall head to Cherry Valley, NY, in a one day run for the opening of colorist Ed McDaniel’s art show at Cherry Branch Gallery and the chance to spend some time with my pal Kristen Henderson and maybe chat a bit with Carl Waldman–if he makes it back in time. 

In the frying pan, a couple of projects: some research into noirs–which I would love some help with–including just possibly the chance to interview someone on the topic–maybe Carl Waldman– and what started out as a request for an interview but has ended up in quickly becoming a hefty research assignment in which I struggle to determine who is Charley Pymell?

Meanwhile I continue with my lopsided life as it flops one way and the other among my publisher, speech language pathologist, writer, family member, and friend identities. Its parts dominate the scene for lengths of anywhere from an hour to a several weeks as I constantly struggle to move back the walls of the day only to find that anything more or other than 6:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. just won’t work.

Roberta in Po-Town

 

Charles Plymell Critiques Henderson’s Poetry

Charley Plymell Critiques the Poetry of Kristen Henderson’s Drum Machine http://ping.fm/s22Et

Alva’s on a Role; Drum Machine Due; McNally Interview Soon

Last Friday Alva gave Chelsea and me another heads up. She says spring is in the air and she is feeling more hopeful–especially since Congress extended long-term unemployment benefits and provided a 2 percent per paycheck tax cut for 160 million workers. She says that’s about a $1,000 savings per worker per year. Except just as Chelsea and I were catching the spirit, at the height of her enthusiasm Alva blurted out something about better weather being a real plus for the Occupy movement.

So I guess if we are not likely to get much out of Alva the Indie here in the office over the next month or two, so we might as well get what we can now–before she packs her backpack and fades silently out into the 99%!

As for Chelsea and the love of her life are off to Walt Disney World for the week–promising to bring back pictures for possible use on a book that should be out sometime later this year but currently in its final rewrite/editing stage. Nonetheless she has said she will distribute the ALVA Press Newsletter remotely from WDW. Meantime, however, who knows what Alva will be doing? Luckily her PR work hours remain flexible and I keep her on because she is simply great with people!

As for me, I’m on pins and needles waiting for the release of Kristen Henderson’s long awaited book of poetry, Drum Machine, at http://alvapressinc.com. We think it will be ready next week–as soon as Kristen and I have a chance to peruse it and approve it in final form–in both ePub (Nook) and ePDF (Kindle). However if you’re one among us who still prefers the feel of paper and the chance for an author-autographed copy, ALVA is also planning the release of Drum Machine in book form, probably paperback, in the near future.

Norothian Cycle Author Michael Edward McNally

Meantime, do watch for my interview with Michael Edward McNally, the in demand author of the Norothian Cycle and Eddie’s Shorts at

The Sable City by M. Edward McNally http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004PLNNLS http://sablecity.wordpress.com/

Roberta in Po-Town, Cookin’

Jolt: a rural noir Midwest Book Review’s Mystery/Suspense Shelf

         Roberta M Roy is the internationally recognized award winning author of
Jolt: a rural noir,the passionate love story of Natalie and Thaw as they struggle
for survival in a tiny mountainside village in an imaginary part of the Northern
USA overrun by forced emigrants fleeing terrorism and a nuclear meltdown, year 2020.

Roy blogs at:   http://alvapressinc.com,    http://alvapressinc.com/robertamroy,  and
http://alvapressinc.com/robertamroyonnuclearsurvival.

Roy is the recipient of a 2011 Jenkins Living Now Award for Inspirational Fiction.

World Mourns Loss of Whitney Houston

Alva the Indie called me. She is in mourning. A generation older, I know what she is feeling. Tomorrow, Chelsea, a generation younger than Alva, will be here and we will all three reminisce and share regrets about the passing of a woman whose heartfelt performances and songs of love, hope, and heartache have touched lives and souls across the generations.

Whitney Houston dead at age forty-eight. The world mourns.

Listen to Whitney Houston here in her 1985 Mel Griffen Show TV debut at age nineteen. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/11/whitney-houston-first-tv-performance-home_n_1271113.html?icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl1|sec3_lnk3%26pLid%3D134919

Roberta in Po-Town

Alva Celebrates Distributors and Roy-McNally Interview

Alva the Indie celebrated the regularization of the weekly distribution of 2000 copies of the ALVA newsletter by email by charting how many Opens there were for each media type. Turned out that old friends and magazines were 5% ahead of Radio, TV, Broadcast, and Print. Alva decided that was because magazines are more interested in the little press (little guy) human interest side of the news. Yeah, I suppose Alva’s guess is as good as mine and she was unwilling to accept my suggestion that the difference may have been due to probability and chance.

But I am so glad Alva is back! (at least for the winter).

Last week Alva brought in a great big sheet cake she had made and decorated with B&N, Apple, Sony, Kobol, Borders, and Diesel to celebrate Alva Press’ agreement to facilitate the distribution of its eBooks on more than seventy wholesaler distribution sites. She called it our ‘Go Get’em Now’ party.

BTW: Alva thinks Chelsea’s reliability and skill in getting out the newsletter is simply awesome! As for Alva, she’d rather deliver newspapers door to door than do, as she calls it, all that computer stuff.

Do you ever wonder why ALVA keeps Alva employed here? Well, I’ll tell you why. First of all, when Alva is here she is wonderful with the phone–any opportunity to talk is a plus for her. And not to forget how (as long as we can keep her on the premises) we are assured of at least one sheet cake a week–if not to raise our consciences for a cause, then to fete our own advancements and successes like when earlier in the month Alva arrived with black masks we had to don for the party and a cake that read, “The Lone Ranger Rides Again.”

It seems Alva found out that back in November 2011 the MidWest Book Review Small Press Bookshelf had given Jolt: a rural noir a rave review on its Mystery and Suspense Shelf. Called it a ‘page-turning thriller.’ And Alva just wanted to be sure that everybody knew that despite the image of the conflagration on Jolt’s cover, Roberta really was one of the good guys! http://www.midwestbookreview.com/sbw/nov_11.htm#Mystery/Suspense

And then when Michael Edward McNally provided Roberta M Roy with that really great interview the cake read “We Love MEdMcNally!” http://sablecity.com/2012/01/31/tag-line-tuesday-with-roberta-m-roy

So I hate to think of the noise level of the place when Alva arrives prepared to celebrate Kristen Henderson‘s book, Drum Machine, to be released as an eBook, possibly by the end of February. Do check back on that and if you have not done so already, sign up for the newsletter which will for the first 30 days will offer a 10% discount on copies of the eBook of Drum Machine ordered through the ALVA Press, Inc., website.

Roberta in Po-Town, Lookin’ up!