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Albuquerque, NM (PRWEB) August 20, 2014
Faith Comes By Hearing recently added five languages to their expanding catalog of recorded Scripture. Now at 840 languages, these recordings as a whole represent a potential outreach to more than 5.7 billion people in 190 countries, which equates to over 80% of the world's population.
The new releases are:
Cakchiquel South Central – Guatemala
Kuo – Chad
Selee – Ghana
Shawi – Peru
Yali Angguruk – Indonesia
Of the new languages released, Cakchiquel South Central is the largest group with about 43,000 speakers primarily in Guatemala, while the smallest is Selee, spoken by about 11,000 people in Ghana. Combined, these five releases represent almost 100,000 people who now have recorded Scripture available in their heart language.
Faith Comes By Hearing (FCBH) remains committed to the mission of making God's Word freely available to everyone and is encouraged that supporters continue to help make this possible. The ministry is also grateful to their many partners who share a passion for Great Commission work. For this month's releases, they are Indonesian Bible Society, The Bible League and Wycliffe Bible Translators.
"Whether it be our talented and dedicated staff, our generous donors, or ministry partners from all over the world, we have one purpose – to get God's Word to every person," states Jerry Jackson, FCBH founder and president.
Jackson has seen the growth of a small tape lending library established in 1972 to what is now the world's largest resource of digital Bible content. Collectively known as the Digital Bible Platform, Faith Comes By Hearing offers free access to this digital collection of Scripture via downloads, podcasts, Internet radio and satellite TV, while the Bible.is and Deaf Bible apps for mobile devices offer access to God's Word right from the palm of your hand. Approved developers and ministry partners can also have free access to the content on the Digital Bible Platform to incorporate into their apps, software and websites.
For those areas that do not yet have regular access to the Internet or mobile devices, Faith Comes By Hearing continues to reach out by providing Audio Bibles on solar-powered Proclaimers for listening groups. More than 375,000 Proclaimers are literally proclaiming the Gospel around the world.
The ministry's goal is to record and provide access to the Word of God in every translated language, making the fulfillment of the Great Commission a reality in this generation.
Including Selee, Spoken by About 11,000 People in Ghana Faith Comes By Hearing Now Has Scripture Recordings in 840 Languages


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This week on the PlayStation Store Update: Darksiders: Warmasterd Edition, Amnesia: Collection and more!
It was June 2009 and we were running out of money. We'd spent nearly two years making a game called Lux Tenebras. Our idea was to make a Super Mario version of a horror game; something that could be enjoyed in bite-sized chunks, was replayable, and mostly relied on easily repeatable gameplay mechanics.
The problem was, this game wasn't working out. Despite a lot of time and effort, it never really clicked. A publishing deal had recently evaporated, leaving our funds basically drained. We had at most a month left in our budget, and while we had a lot of assets, we didn't have a working game. It felt like the company was on the verge of going bankrupt, and I recall starting on my CV.
Would you be willing to answer a few brief questions about PlayStation.Blog?

subset: commoncrawl


text:
We do not recommend hanging this item horizontally due to the location of the sensor.
We do not recommend that this item is to be fixed as landscape due to where the sensor is located.
All dimensions and fitting instructions are set as the item being vertical.
Hi Jenny, this product is Touch Sensor Controlled led backlit mirror and is made of glass. Thank you, hope this helps.
Hi, manufacturer would not recommend fitting a demister pad to the Premier Glow Touch Sensor Backlit Mirror. Hope this helps.
For further information on our returns process, please check out our Returns Information Page.
Enter the total amount you want to spend, choose how many months you wish to pay, take advantage of our no deposit deal or if you prefer you can specify a deposit of up to 50% of total order value.
* Finance available on all orders over £250. Prices given representative as part of larger order.
For further information on our finance partnership, please visit our finance page
Please select below product and click Add to Basket button from above.
"Yet to be fitted, looks smart and easy mounting design."
The mirror has added that luxurious touch to my bathroom, Excellent quality would recommend Victorian Plumbing.
I bought this mirror to finish off my new bathroom and it does the job with style. It perfectly complements the decor and I am extremely happy with it.


text:
tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-99672082018-09-17T02:47:19.472-07:00Mary AkersThis blog title reflects my choking under naming pressure more than my ego.Mary Akershttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9967208.post-39207146502613342482014-02-14T09:25:00.001-08:002014-02-14T09:26:40.435-08:00

I've moved this blog over to my new website. I think I successfully imported most everything, but I won't be updating posts here anymore, so please visit me in my new digs.Mary Akershttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9967208.post-9546786544262201652013-05-21T06:28:00.002-07:002013-05-21T07:09:47.915-07:00One Life to Give

Have you ever wondered if you could give your life for someone else?

Or what it would feel like if someone else gave their life for you?

Andrew Bienkowski's grandfather starved to death on purpose so that his grandchildren could have enough food to survive (when Stalin banished the family to Siberia in 1939).

Andrew is still trying to repay that gift today. http://www.amazon.com/One-Life-Give-Yourself-ebook/dp/B00355ERQA/ref=tmm_kin_title_0

For just a few more days, you can purchase ONE LIFE TO GIVE in electronic form, for under $3. This is the best price it's ever been!Mary Akershttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9967208.post-80087400405435057752013-01-10T10:11:00.000-08:002013-01-10T11:03:18.889-08:00Anatomy of a Ten-Day Writer's Residency

Day One: After a two-and-a-half hour drive from my Mom's house in Floyd, Virginia, I'm here!

Oh. My. Gosh. It's gorgeous and wonderful and I'm so thrilled to be here. I drove in, walked to the place where they said my packet would be waiting for me, saw my name on the envelope, and promptly started crying, because it meant that it wasn't a mistake after all. (I hadn't realized until that moment that I was waiting for someone to tell me my acceptance had been a mistake.)

I read all through the packet, but couldn't find my room anywhere on the map. I was walking all around looking for it, and I found the grounds guy and said, "Can you tell me where WS11 is?" He smiled big and said, "You've got the Queen's Suite." He showed it to me and I have the most marvelous, large, wonderful room, right next door to the resident artists...my studio is part of my room, I have my own bathroom...so I started crying all over again and called and left a semi-incoherent message on my mom's answering machine, babbling and blubbering.

The weather is fabulous and it's time for me to get to work, lucky, lucky, lucky girl.

Day Two: Today was good. I got a full night's sleep last night. Comfortable bed, good temperature, no noise. I woke up just before 8am and breakfast goes until nine, so I showered quick and hustled down there. The table I picked was rather quiet, but the next table over was having a wonderful time. I was still full from the delicious dinner the night before and so only had yogurt and coffee and then went back to the room to work. (I am definitely going to go home weighing more than when I arrived.)

After breakfast I got to work. First reading over my notes and then editing yesterday's work. It was slow and sort of dispiriting and so I sat in the sun and read some more notes hoping for inspiration. Finally, I hit my stride just before lunch, so I went to the buffet and took a plate back to my room and kept working. Then I read and took a nap and wrote some more. So far, I have produced 3,000 words today (3,000 ugly, unkempt words, but still, words). I was very optimistically hoping to make it to 5,000 by end-of-business. I may yet. With the nap, I think I can keep going late. There's a documentary film showing at 9pm that I want to see, though. I think it is called "Cropsey." I'll report back on it tomorrow.

After the nap I also took a walk through the hay fields and explored the woods a little bit. Dinner was delicious and I had some nice conversations which was good because I was starting to feel like my day was spent in isolation. I sat at a table with two friends-of-a-friend and that was nice.

And now, I must get back to work on those additional 2,000 words. I'm shooting for a whole big mess of "literary clay." It's not pretty, but it's at least not a blank page, so I'll have stuff to work with when I return home. I'm treating this like NaNoWriMo.

Happy writing to me!

Dinner:

Pasta with fresh parmesan and optional sausage or veggie sausage
lovely tender-crisp broccoli florets
sauteed carrots with a hint of lemon
salad
wine
chocolate cake
coffee

Day Three: Yesterday was an interesting day. The film was great. It's "CROPSEY" by Joshua Zeman. You can find info about it here. It's filmed like a horror film: creepy background score; close shots of things that may or may not be ominous; bemused, slightly threatened narrator....but it's actually a documentary. It's about a string of children who went missing on Staten Island (in the 70s and 80s) near the site of an old mental institution and the man they suspect of taking them. Several of the children are found dead/buried in shallow graves, most are never found, nearly all have a mental impairment of some sort. After watching that movie, I had to walk all by myself back to the Queen's Suite at 11:30 at night. Oh, and the other thing people had been talking about before the movie was how they had been hearing bands of coyotes howling really close by. So creepy at night.

But the novel scenes I'm working on right now are really creepy, too, so it's good fodder for me.

Yesterday was less productive for me. I got caught up in research, and I can do that at home. I don't need to be researching while I'm here, with this abysmally slow internet. I need to be moving forward...but I know so little about the NYC subway system, that I felt like I couldn't write the scene I'm writing without doing at least a little research. But that's the trouble I have, it's never a little research. One thing leads to another and before I know it three hours have passed and I'm looking up tile artwork in the subway system when I'd only meant to find out how long the line was from Atlantic Avenue to the Bronx Zoo.

So I only wrote 2,000 words total yesterday. I had some really great conversations at all three meals, though, so that was good. My stomach was hurting most of the day (the morning coffee was perhaps a little strong for me) and I was so glad to see a mild dinner. Then, suddenly exhausted I went to bed to read at 8:30, fell asleep, woke back up, fell asleep again, woke back up, got ready for bed, and then couldn't get to sleep. So I read.

The first two nights I slept like a baby. last night, not so much.

The thing about only writing forward (not looking back over what you wrote the day before) is that I am starting to feel chased by it. Like running up the stairs without looking back because you sense someone behind you. Or walking down a dark road at night and thinking you hear footfalls. I don't know if what I've been writing is good and I don't want to take the time to turn around and check because I want to keep moving forward. And what if it's terrible? I'd feel like I have to stop and fix it. So I'm being pursued by my own work. Freaky, huh? You'd think it was almost Halloween or something.

Dinner:

Mashed potatoes (thank you, sayeth Mary's stomach)
ground beef and broccoli something (also on the bland side, which worked for me)
green beans, sauteed, tender crisp
and some sort of cranberry stuffing-ish thing
lemon meringue pie for dessert (I passed on that)

Yesterday (for the first time since I arrived) I didn't have anything alcoholic at all to drink in the afternoon/evening...which isn't terribly unusual for me. I may have only one or two drinks a week in my day-to-day life. But last night was the first night I didn't sleep well here, so I think I'll go back to drinking today.

This evening we have an open studio tour at 7:30.

Day Four: Word count, running total: 22,738 words

Yesterday is kind of a blur. I worked, but not until later in the day. I read a lot, suffered through a sinus headache (the weather is changing) and had some great, great conversations about the big stuff of ART.

Lunch was a big pile of beans and rice that had me all excited, but it was simultaneously bland and very spicy, if you can imagine that. I think they only added cayenne, which had little flavor (no salt, no cumin, nothing). I brought a big plate back to my room because I was writing well, then added half a lime (from my G&T stash) and tons of salt. I also drank a nice cold beer with it, which helped, but that contributed to my late-day headache, I think. I love beer at lunch, but often pay for it later. So much for my plan to drink more.

I got 2,000 words in (I've revised my crazy, unrealistic 3,000 words-a-day goal) and I've decided to be happy with that. The work is still chasing me, begging me to read over it, to make it better, to organize it, but I'm turning a deaf ear. It's a mess back there, I know it is. It's like going on a trip and leaving your house dirty with piles of crap everywhere--it feels so WRONG, but I'm doing it. Forward only. Sort through the musty basement later. I'll eventually throw out half the stuff (or more) but there will be a few treasures in there, too.

I'm up to 22,738 words. I came with some, so it's not nearly as prolific as it sounds, but it's a satisfying number. I do need to go ahead and get my characters out of the NYC subway system, though. Time to hit the streets and breathe some fresh air, then on to the woods (my favorite place in the world). I wonder if writing about a place I love will be harder or easier?

(I'm asking myself a lot of these types of questions here, where I have so much time to think, to be conceptual. It's good.)

The studio tours were great, but I really wasn't feeling that well, so I felt like an inadequate audience for them. I've tried to tell each one of them today how much I enjoyed their work to make up for being a slug last night. Long phone conversation with hubby about all the crap he had to deal with during the day being the only parent. Didn't feel bad about it. Sorry that he had a bad day, but refused to take on any guilt for it. (He wasn't trying to make me feel guilty, btw, that's just my standard MO, so it was freeing to give sympathy but not feel somehow responsible.)

Dinner:

Fettuccine
Chicken Marsala
Spinach with raisins and pine nuts
Spaghetti squash

For dessert: Coconut cream pie (delish)

But I am eating waaaaay too much. Time to pace myself. Today I've done much better. A banana at breakfast, long hike up a mountain, pbj sandwich and an apple. Hoping to keep dinner modest, too. I'm feeling ill from overeating.

Day Five: Word count, running total: 24,137

After days of being a slug, walking only to and from meals, one of the fellows here said she was going on a hike and would take anyone who wanted to go, so I went. There were four of us. It was a moderate hike, but with beautiful waterfalls. Crabtree Falls is the hike and it turned out to be about a 40-minute drive just to get there, but the hike was lovely. Only 1.7 miles, but mostly vertical, with views of the falls all the way up. It was well maintained, and a fair number of people were there, especially on the way back down (we got an early start and had lunch at the top). The hike was good. Short, but I got plenty winded by the climb, got to sweat and breathe hard which always makes the rest of the day better for me.

Funny story: On the drive back through the country, two of the fellows in the car (from New York City) started talking about trick-or-treating and wondered aloud what kids who live way out in the country do. "Do they get in the car and drive from house to house?" one asked, incredulous. Well, life in the country, I know. The part of Virginia we were passing through looks exactly like where I grew up. So I said, "Yep! That's what you do." Unless of course you live so far out that it doesn't even make sense to do that and your parents aren't interested in carting you all over Hell's Half-Acre, anyway. So I told them about the time when I was five years old and instead of taking me trick-or-treating, everyone in the house (two parents, three siblings) went and hid behind a different door and then I went around the house (it was a big, three-story old farmhouse) and knocked on each door. "Trick-or-treat!" I cried. And each family member made a fuss over me and gave me some candy. What's funny about this story? The people in the car with me said, "Oh, my god, that's so saaad!" They thought it was pathetic. And all this time, it had been such a happy memory for me. My family all came together to make a special memory, just for me. They cared enough to find a way that I could still have fun. Maybe I've always been easily pleased, but I plan to keep this one filed away in my Happy Memory folder.

We didn't get back from the hike until 2:30 so I felt a little behind in my daily writing goal. I still managed to crank out 1,500 words before dinner (and do some r.kv.r.y. work) and get a shower in, to wash off the sweat of the trail.

There were three evening readings, which were good. I think about ten minutes is an ideal time to read, fifteen max. But it says in the program that 20 minutes is what the presentations should be. The final reader read for about eight minutes and it was delightful. She read just enough to get us interested, to give a taste of her work, but not enough to give my mind a chance to wander. If I read, I'll try to keep it short. Still on the fence about that. I do think it's nice to share with people what you've been working on....but I haven't been polishing, only cranking out, so I'll have to think about that.

After dinner I was able to finish up my remaining 500 words.

I saw the groundhog. Got quite close. What a little fat, calm, Buddha-rodent he is. Steve? Ralph? What is his name??

Lots of fellows talking about the Frankenstorm, wondering if they should leave early or try to stay later.

A professional photographer was shooting with one of the horses and two models in western attire at the gates to the barn studios.

Dinner:

Quinoa
Bass (fillets)
Broccoli
Carrots sauteed with tiny strips of ginger

Dessert: Carrot cake (and all my resolve went out the window)

Day Six: Word count total: 26,130

The days are starting to run together...let me think what happened yesterday.

I wrote. I read. I wrote. I did yoga (stiff from the hike). I had great conversations....

I brought lunch back to my room to stay in work mode. Yogurt, some Swiss cheese, an apple, and herb tea.

People are starting to panic about Frankenstorm, wondering if they should leave early, or stay a few extra days. Looks like I'll miss it for my travel, which is good.

In my novel I got out of the NYC subway system and started writing from the male POV. Writing from a male perspective, of a fistfight, in first person...very challenging for me. (I've never been a man. Never been in a fistfight. Hate violence and anger, always avoid it.) I'm sure it will still need a lot of work. But one of the interesting things is that it became sort of erotic for these men. They've been isolated for so long and men so seldom touch each other anyway, that when they finally do, even though the skin-on-skin is violent and painful, it's somehow cathartic and erotic. I have no idea if this ever happens in real life. (Hopefully it's not just a female fantasy surfacing.) But all that wet flesh slapping and the overpowering of one over another...anyway, my characters seemed to want to "go there" so I went.

I'm back to the female POV today.

I have a visitor coming this afternoon for a brief visit! Very excited to have an outside friend come.

Had a nice late conversation of several hours with a fellow writer here. Covered many, many topics about life and motherhood and writing and pressures of the outside world. She brought a bottle of port to the conversation, and I like a good after dinner port. (Almost never have it, but I like it.)

Got my 2,000 words done later in the day and evening (1,500 before dinner, 500 after my guest left), but they came easily enough.

Dinner:

Pork medallions with poached pear
roasted root vegetables (beets, parsnips, sweet potato, turnip--so yummy and fall-ish)
cauliflower
fried polenta cakes

dessert: peach pie (I managed to refrain and had a cup of coffee instead--that was probably just as many calories by the time I doctored it up...)

Read until about midnight. Slept well.

(Believe it or not, I'm reading Stephen King's THE STAND here at this wonderful artsy residency. The uncut version, at over 1,000 pages. It's working for me and I'm reminded how much I enjoy King. He's got some beautifully artistic strokes.)

Here's a chapter ending that I loved:

"By nightfall on July 4 he was nearly to Oklahoma. That evening before he went to sleep he stood in another farmyard, his face turned up to the sky, watching a meteor shower scratch the night with cold white fire. He thought he had never seen anything so beautiful. Whatever lay ahead, he was glad to be alive."

Day Seven: Word count total: 28,085

Yesterday was lovely. I got most of my work done before my special visitor arrived. We got caught up on everything writerly, had a cup of tea, I introduced him to a few fellows he didn't know, and we hiked the trail that's on-property together. (I hadn't been able to find it before, so he helped me navigate. The trail was sort of overrun after the derecho storm earlier this year.)

Dinner was delicious and I said good-bye to one of the fellows I have gotten close to. Nice to have made a new writer friend, sad to see her go. I'm now on the down-side of my stay here, so I'm starting to understand that feeling of needing to get the most work done possible.

The storm didn't arrive here (or at least the first wave of it) until after dinner last evening. It rained steadily and for some reason I had a hard time getting to sleep (that cup of coffee I had at dinner, perchance?). Then at 2:45, the power went out. I got up at about seven this morning and piled more clothes on and went back to bed. At 9am I moseyed on down to the dining room thinking everything would be behind schedule, but they had coffee and scrambled eggs and a fire in the fireplace. Kind of amazing.

Dinner:

Braised beef with mushrooms
Garlic mashed potatoes
some sort of soured greens with onions
Squash of some sort, perhaps pumpkin, that was cut into slabs and roasted

Dessert was a smorgasbord of all the leftover desserts from the week. The guy beside me nabbed the last/only piece of carrot cake so I had chocolate cake instead, with coffee. Hard times.

Day Eight: Word count: 30,279

Okay, really on the downside of my stay now. I leave Thursday to drive home, and although I can stay in my particular studio until midnight, I'll have a ten-hour drive ahead of me, so I guess I won't. Also people waiting at home...

Yesterday was good. Did a little more than my word-count goal and topped a big number which feels satisfying.

I am starting to reconsider my word-count push now. Not because I don't want to do the work, I do. And I came here to get work done. But now that I only have two days left, I'm realizing how important the connections and conversation are. I mean, I've got silence at home. Every day, my "men" leave and go off to school and work and I've got silence. What I don't have--and what I miss having--is connections to other artists and human interaction and the discussion of big ideas. I crave that, and here I've cloistered myself away to do work. And it's not like I've been a monk, but I have made the work most important in my mind and let the great conversations happen only at meals. I think for my last two evenings, I'm going to seek out people and not hide away. That will be every bit as useful to me (after I get home) as the word count.

Last night after dinner I wanted to see some moving pictures of the storm so I went into the TV room and surfed around a little. Yikes. I hope my east coast friends are staying safe and dry. Scary stuff. Then another fellow came in, saw what we were watching and said, "Oh, God. I've watched so much storm porn I don't think I can sit through any more." But he did. And we were all riveted. Storm Porn. That's what it's come to. Very strange. (But true.)

The storm was still going pretty well here last night and my door kept getting blasts of wind that would make it sound like someone was knocking on my door. (And if you recall, I'm sort of off away from most everyone else. I'm next door to the resident artists, but I never see or hear them, so I do feel like I'm in a distant country. I was worried those "knocks" on my door would wake me up overnight so I wedged a bag under the door and that seemed to help. Either way, I slept fine. I really have slept so well here. Only two nights weren't good. Every other night I've clicked off the light around midnight and hardly moved until about 8am. God that is good. Almost worth the residency even if that was all I accomplished. It's probably been years since I've had such a good period of reliable sleep. Usually I have a cat waking me to go in or out, a son walking around banging on things, a husband getting up earlier than me...I just want to say, it's been nice. Thank you sleep gods for shining on me.

And last of all, I am reminded how very much I do love freaks (I say this with fondness--I hope the term doesn't offend anyone. In my world, it's good to be a freak.) And god, we're all freaky here, but there's something so endearing to me when people wear it proudly. God bless the freaks.

Dinner:

Stuffed green peppers with sour cream
sauteed green beans
rice
and something else that I ate...?

Dessert: Carrot Cake! (and DECAF coffee)

Day Nine: Word count: 31,720

Yesterday I didn't make my word count for the first time since I started. Will try to make up for that today, my last day.

Had a great conversation last night until about 11pm with a female fellow whose name I knew, but only that. Turns out we have a million mutual friends, but somehow never crossed paths in person. Lots of talk about agents and publishers and more.It was a lovely and very interesting chat.

Spent three hours yesterday morning in one of the visual artist's studios. She opened up her work space and let me do a collage with her materials. Great fun, good to use that other part of my brain. And plenty of parallels with writing--cutting, arranging, combining, layering, but visually. So I made a collage for myself with underwater themes and I also made a square for the Painted Quilt Project which is a project in the phone room, where each artist who wants to participate paints or writes in a square of paper (precut) and signs it then adds it to the quilt. Kind of fun. I love collaborative things like that. I also cropped one side of my collage by about 2 inches, and voila! instant bookmark.

After dinner one of the fellows showed a short film (actually a 30-minute segment of a work-in-progress) that was really wonderful. It interviewed four people about their "Life's Work" which was also the title of the film. It followed a man who is attempting to digitize black southern gospel vinyl before it all disappears, a man who is trying to revive/propagate old growth trees like redwoods and elms and others, a woman who listens for signs of extra-terrestrial life, and Paulo Soleri, an architect who has been trying to build a desert city for his whole life. Very interesting and inspiring. None of them will see their life's work come to fruition in their lifetimes, and that was sort of the crux of the film. How do you deal with that? And how do you keep working in the face of that knowledge?

So...between the studio time and the long evening talk and the film showing, I didn't make my word count. But I am off to remedy that right now. I only need 280 more words before I start on today's count.

Dinner:

Fried chicken
Mashed potatoes and parsnips
broccoli with black olives
Green beans...? maybe. I can never remember the fourth thing. I'll see it today at lunch as a leftover--then I'll remember.

Dessert: Key Lime Pie (yes)

Day 10: Word count total: 34,345

Got in a good spurt of writing on my final day. So sorry to be leaving. (Shhh, don't tell my family.)

Good, sociable breakfast conversation. Came back to my room and started packing up. Wrote. A fellow stopped by to see the mythical WS11 room. I got my lunch to go and ate in my room and worked more and also mapped my route for tomorrow.

At 4:30 there was a mixer at the main office to meet-and-greet. I went last Wednesday, but there weren't many people there. This week tons of staff were there and they were all in costume, offering Halloween candy. Before dinner one of the fellows played his guitar (he's been doing that every evening before dinner--it's very nice). Dinner was great fun. I made sure tonight to not be first in line, because last night I was first, and I sat down first and ended up sitting at a table with a bunch of people I probably wouldn't have sat with if I had chosen where I wanted to sit. They were nice, but with only two dinners left I kind of wanted to hang with the people I had gotten to know well. I could hear them laughing it up at the next table over and I wanted to bad to move over there and join them. So, tonight I made sure to sit where I wanted and it was a great dinner of camaraderie.

After dinner a composer played some of her music for us and it was really cool and generated some great discussions. She often composes work in response to books or other written work. One piece was a response to On Chesil Beach. Another to the Korean War Memorial in DC. Very interesting to hear her talk about the work before hearing it. As someone who knows very little about composing classical music, it helped me to appreciate it even more.

I stayed in the library with a group of women (writers, artists, and the composer) and talked until about 9pm. I came back to the room, called home, packed a bit more, and finished up my daily word count.

Dinner:

Italian Sausage with Parmesan
Sweet potatoes, mashed with walnuts
Carrots and Peas with dill
And that ever-elusive fourth thing...?

Dessert:

Chocolate cake and a decaf coffee. All my jeans have shrunk.

I will eat drink and be Mary, for tomorrow I drive.

Mary Akershttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9967208.post-32410453631172900122013-01-07T07:48:00.005-08:002013-01-07T07:53:39.524-08:00Interview at the Press 53 blog

I'm interviewed at the Press 53 blog for the new year. Thank you Christine Norris!

http://press53.tumblr.com/post/39928859763/5-questions-3-factsMary Akershttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9967208.post-45448624087351590982013-01-02T06:55:00.000-08:002013-01-07T07:49:28.872-08:00The Next Big Thing
Big thanks to the fabulous Ellen Meister for tagging me in this latest writer's meme.

I am so looking forward to reading her forthcoming novel Farewell, Dorothy Parker which has been described as "wickedly funny and surprisingly poignant."

And now, on with the questions for me:

What is the working title of your book?

Bones of an Inland Sea

Where did the idea come from for the book?

From the late--and much admired--literary agent Wendy Weil. For years, I've been a fan of the work she represented: Anthony Doerr, Andrea Barrett, Molly Gloss, Rita Mae Brown, Alice Walker, Fannie Flagg, and most recently Heidi Durrow. I sent her my first collection and even though she passed on it, she said she would love to see a linked collection that focused on my marine ecology experiences. (I co-founded a study abroad marine ecology program in Dominica, West Indies, and that was in my bio. She was very observant.) I started working on Bones of an Inland Sea that very same day.

What genre does your book fall under?

I would say it's literary. I'm calling the manuscript a "composite novel" because many of the stories work alone, but they do interweave extensively and are meant to be read and appreciated as a whole. Other works I would also call "composite novels" would be The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann, A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, and Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. These are all books I greatly admire.

What actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Oh, my. Too complex a question for this non-moviegoer. How about instead I say who I would like to illustrate the cover of my book? I'd love to use a photo collage by Matthew Chase-Daniel. I adore his work. Maybe something like the image below--one that captures the essence of many smaller perspectives combining to make a more complete image of the whole:

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

(Pardon me, please, but I'm going to use the two-sentence description from my query letter.)

In BONES OF AN INLAND SEA we come to know passionate and restless Leslie Baxter through the secret lives of a host of characters whose paths intersect with hers, over many years, in locales as varied as the Sinai desert, a tsunami-torn reef in Thailand, Bikini Atoll after the atomic testing, and a futurist island utopia run by a dangerous charismatic leader. Written in a bold and inventive array of styles, Akers captures the longing we all feel for family, home, and a connection to something larger than ourselves.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

I never know how to answer that question. The real answer would have to be given in hours, not days, months, or years. And is that hours spent thinking about plots while washing dishes and showering? Hours spent dreaming of characters while asleep? Or does that only count creation time actually spent at the keyboard? And what of the fact that I wrote three other books while finishing this one? As you can see, any answer I give would be incomplete, but here's the best, most concrete numbers available: I started the first story in 2003 and finished the final one in 2012.

What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?

I think the range of characters would be of interest. I have a Vietnam veteran with PTSD who tries to save an aquarium full of fish, an elderly woman with Alzheimer's moving into a nursing home, a female-to-male transsexual meeting his father for the first time, fraternal twins from Puerto Rico whose separate lives take eerily similar turns, a man whose wife is in a persistent vegetative state and has been recently removed from life support, and an overworked menopausal woman struggling to survive the sandwich generation (among others).

Every story revolves around the ocean in some way, too. The settings include a reef in Thailand during the horrific Indonesian tsunami, the Red Sea at the tip of the Sinai peninsula, a plague of deadly box jellies in Dominica's waters, a post-hurricane rescue attempt gone wrong in Florida's Hutchinson Island, and so much more.

And I am hereby tagging T.L. Sherwood to take on The Next Big Thing next week.Mary Akershttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9967208.post-63700764632583478352013-01-02T05:56:00.001-08:002013-01-02T07:02:15.042-08:00The January FRIENDS & FAMILY issue of r.kv.r.y.

The January issue is now live! We have some wonderful written work and beautiful illustrations. Please check it out!

r.kv.r.y. quarterly literary journalMary Akershttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9967208.post-6680094431589854482012-09-27T06:59:00.000-07:002012-09-27T06:59:12.871-07:00The October MEN issue of r.kv.r.y.

Well, after much cursing and gnashing of teeth, we have a new website up (almost completely ready--the archives are not yet 100%), AND a new issue! It's a stunning array of work. When we first conceived of the theme, our editorial staff was 100% female and we thought it would be interesting to see what an issue themed "Men" would look like when the work was all selected and assembled by women. (Voila!)

We're proud to present an interesting and diverse array of voices and perspectives — men writing about their daily lives, about their fathers, about the women they love (or love to hate), about raising children, about their traitorous bodies, and their love for other men. We even have work from a few women writing about men, just to round out the category.

Our illustrator is none other than the talented and visionary photo-collagist, Dariusz Klimczak who graciously allowed us to select from his extensive body of creative work. Truly, it's an embarrassment of riches.

Here's the link.r.kv.r.y. quarterly literary journal

Mary Akershttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9967208.post-81165219497432435612012-09-24T07:31:00.000-07:002012-09-24T07:31:03.166-07:00We Represent the 47%Today I have a letter to Mitt Romney up at We Represent the 47 Percent.

In general, I don't push my politics on people. I feel that who I vote for is a fairly private matter between me and the election booth. But the recent video of Mitt Romney speaking to donors just about did me in. And when that happens, I write to keep from jumping out a window.

Thanks for reading.Mary Akershttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9967208.post-8440667036486272062012-08-27T09:11:00.002-07:002012-08-27T09:11:42.321-07:00My interview with Anthony DoerrOkay, so I was a little bit intimidated, interviewing one of my very favorite authors, but Tony Doerr turned out to be gracious and generous and wise. Here's a link to his outstanding interview at the r.kv.r.y. blog:

ClickyMary Akershttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9967208.post-18128131408214030192012-06-01T17:26:00.003-07:002012-06-01T17:29:24.667-07:00

Many thanks to Carmille Bauer and her wonderful book club for a great meeting that featured discussion of One Life to Give: A Path to Finding Yourself by Helping Others. The food was delicious and the company outstanding!Mary Akershttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9967208.post-73907271371088389842012-05-22T13:37:00.000-07:002012-05-22T13:37:50.727-07:00My Interview at The Review ReviewThank you, Jessica Ullian, for the great interview!

Mary Akershttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9967208.post-75575702145187557542012-05-01T08:39:00.001-07:002012-05-01T08:39:25.330-07:00Merci, Fabrice Midal!Mary Akershttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9967208.post-46222428081251592402012-04-13T15:59:00.011-07:002012-09-20T16:01:41.184-07:00Rejections: A view from the other side of the desk

First and foremost, I am a writer. But I have also been Editor-in-chief of the online journal r.kv.r.y. for about a year and a half now. It's been a wonderful, enriching, exhausting, eye-opening experience. So much so, that I thought it might be valuable to share some of what I've learned from my time spent on the other side of the desk.

I took on the challenge of editing the journal for three main reasons. First, I had been published by r.kv.r.y. in the past and I liked their mission (literary work on the theme of recovery) and I respected their founding editor Victoria Pynchon a great deal.She loved her journal but found that she didn't have time anymore to give it the attention she would have liked, so in the summer of 2010 she put out a call on Facebook for someone to take it over. I hate to see good work die out, so I volunteered.

Secondly, I have always wanted to be part of the side of publishing that helps authors get their work out into the world. I didn't want to only be an author clamoring for space herself. I think it's important for writers to give back to the literary community they belong to, and I saw this as an opportunity to do that.

Lastly, and most importantly, I wanted to understand what it was like to be in charge of reading, evaluating, and selecting work and putting together and publishing a final product. In some perverse way, I felt I needed to understand what it was like not only to give authors the good news, but also to give them rejections. By that time in my career I had received thousands of rejections myself, so I knew what it felt like to receive them. Many of my rejections had made me grumble and grouse about editors and their lofty decisions handed down from on high, but intellectually I knew editors couldn't be so different from me--they were people, many underpaid or volunteers, who were passionate about language, and in it for love rather than money.

Well, guess what? I learned that it's tough to be an editor, mainly (in my case) because I WANT to be open and excited by every single piece of writing I receive. I want to find value in everything that comes across my desk. I believe in nurturing writers and giving them a vehicle for their voices. I wish I had the time and energy to say yes to everyone.

But man alive, is that ever an exhausting position to take. I never fully appreciated the side of editing that meant saying no. As a writer sending out work, I imagined the editor's job to be an easy one. You get to sit and read good work all day long. From those you read, you simply pick your favorites, and voila! What could be more simple and enjoyable than that?

Well, it turns out that a lot of things can be more simple and enjoyable: cooking dinner, cleaning bathrooms, having a tooth filled. Okay, I'm exaggerating, but when you really, really want everything you read to be good...and you simultaneously have only enough space for what averages out to one story a month for the whole year, it gets frustrating. It gets overwhelming...even disheartening. And I know there are people who would respond with some version of, "So quit. Nobody's making you do this. The last thing writers need is a frustrated editor."

But the thing I want to say is that I'm not frustrated with the writing. I may occasionally get cranky about work on a micro-level, but the big picture is, I'm cranky because of the exhaustion that sets in when I am constantly evaluating work and most of it is good, solid work. That was a revelation to me. When you want to love everything, choosing who gets to play and who doesn't takes a heck of a lot of mental energy. It takes a certain amount of ego and it takes a lot out of you. No wonder agents and editors so often talk about "needing to fall in love" with a project. I get it. It's so darned easy to like everything (hello Facebook!), and yet you can't possibly give everything you like the same fair shot or you'd never get anything done.So yes, you have to fall in love.

And by "you," of course I mean "me."

In spite of the frustrations, though, working on the other side of the publishing equation has taught me a lot. And it has helped me...helped me to feel not quite so downtrodden when I get rejections. It has helped me to understand one of the most important (and simple) rules of writing and publishing. That rejection isn't personal.

Or... as I prefer to abbreviate the concept: R.I.P.

It isn't personal. It feels personal, you're sure it's personal, how could be anything BUT personal...but it isn't. The work is simply a widget, and this particular widget didn't fit.

So try again. If it comes back, re-examine your widget and edit as needed. Then try again.

Trust me on this one. Writing is a game of attrition. If you want to succeed, if you want to be published...don't attrish.

Mary Akershttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9967208.post-28904566697792377952012-03-28T09:46:00.000-07:002012-04-13T16:21:03.047-07:00Dear Teen Me

My "Dear Teen Me" letter goes live today. Thanks to the moderators for this wonderful, important site.

Dear Teen MeMary Akershttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9967208.post-14603348434751437502012-03-13T08:58:00.000-07:002012-04-13T16:21:03.047-07:00An author video from 2009This interview aired on a local TV station in 2009, but most of the discussion revolves around about the process and the art of writing, which are timeless subjects.

Mary Akershttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9967208.post-44119560697593042092012-02-28T14:44:00.008-08:002012-02-29T10:35:21.426-08:00A House of Words

A book, I have come to believe, is rather like a house.

For the past six years I have been building a house of words from the ground up. I hammered every nail, placed every stone (at first I thought to write "brick" but the unique shapes of words, their roundness and roughness and varied colors make "stone" the better metaphor), and made every single design decision. Then I asked the advice of several friends and professionals. Their suggestions encouraged me to tear down and rebuild some stuff, rip out a wall or two, add some unusual landscaping and a distinctive path to the front door. These helped make my house better and stronger, more attractive, navigable, and liveable.

Then I found my wonderful agent, and she helped me see that I needed a fresh coat of paint and new carpets in order to give it that final spruce-up that would help it appeal to a certain kind of buyer. After that, we put this book-house on the market and showed it a few times. The buyers we approached were complimentary and appreciative, but still skittish. So we had a few more people look it over and give us ideas. We carefully picked and chose among those ideas and implemented the ones that seemed best.

But here's the thing: anyone who buys this house I've built is still going to want to paint it and change the carpets, even though we just did that. We did it to make it sell, but they will do it again to make it THEIRS. In all likelihood, I will have more changes to make that will come only after we make a sale. So I've come to realize that I need to save a little bit of passion and energy for that time or I'll never get through this crazy, lengthy process. And I also have to be careful not to tack on too many things that other people think might make it a better house.

Just because one potential buyer loves plants and another makes birdhouses as a hobby and another wants to entertain friends and still another likes lots of natural light doesn't mean that the buyer we find will want the house to come with an attached greenhouse and a bar in the basement and a woodworking studio and a whole bunch of skylights. If I start to add all of the different things to my house that could potentially make it appeal to a certain type of buyer, in the end no one will want it because it will have become a crazy hodge-podge.It will end up like The Burrow, Ron Weasley's family home. (No offense, Ron.)

So, anyway, that's the latest writing analogy I employ to help me sleep at night. I am a hard-working author, committed to making this book work, but at some point I have to step back and say DONE. I have to stop tinkering and wait for the buyer (who--surprise!--loves the house and wants to own it in the worst way) to tell me what finishing touches I need to add to make it a perfect fit.Mary Akershttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9967208.post-55015134531092571632012-02-20T13:51:00.000-08:002012-02-20T14:05:22.510-08:00What does success look like to you?

I have a good friend who has recently hit a publishing wall. She's a great writer, with a published book that was nominated for a major award. Her writing inspires me. Now she has a second book out on submission and the process is killing her confidence in the unique way that only the publishing industry can. What she describes feeling is common among writers, even the successful ones. We all simultaneously think we're something really special...and nothing at all. It doesn't make sense, but that seems to be the way of the creative mind.

If you are a writer, here's what I think you need to spend at least a little bit of time thinking about: What does "success" look like to you? I'm talking about in your heart-of-hearts, what does success look like? When you have that warm vision of you as a successful writer, where are you? What are you doing? In my daydream of success, I'm standing at a lectern, reading and answering questions and I have a large audience. So, that's "success" for me, it turns out, and that tells me that I am more interested in reaching people, in having an audience, and connecting with readers. Now for another writer, he might envision success as walking on stage and accepting a big award, or getting an excellent critical review of his work, or making the canon. Another writer might just see success as being able to find the time to write, alone, for long stretches. If you know what success looks like to you subconsciously, you can make changes in your work to push it in that direction.

You have limitations, you say? All writers have limitations, even the great ones. And most creative people are working through the same themes for the bulk of their lives. I just read John Irving's most recent book, and thirty-plus years later he is still rehashing the same themes--absent women, dastardly dogs, death of a child, and oral sex (usually taking place in a car) that goes horribly wrong. Every one of his books seems to have one or more of these issues creep in--but he's JOHN IRVING...and he's a writer with limitations.

When the negative responses start to come in, we can parse them for similarities. Do any of the publisher's responses ring true in terms of specific criticisms? Are there common complaints that can be addressed before the next round of submissions? I'm always amazed by the ways that small adjustments can make a huge difference to readers. (And help the writer to feel proactive instead of reactive.)

Alternatively--and this is a scary question, but bear with me--could it be time for you to give up? Maybe it is time to ask that awful question. Asking is just asking, just admitting to a possibility. Why not give up and see how it feels? No one has to know but you. Just stop caring and tell yourself you are never going to write another fricking word again, ever. Not one. Then see how that feels. Freeing? Good. Go with it. It is guaranteed to take you somewhere. I've given up about five times in my writing career. I do it once every three years or so. I simply swear off the stupid writing. What a relief!! I don't ever have to write again. Thanks be to God. And yet somehow I always come back to it. It's how I process the world, so I can't seem to not write. And when I come back to it after sincerely swearing off the writing, I come back with renewed vigor and fresh eyes because I know I'm doing it by choice. I usually feel less pressure when I come back, because hey, I quit writing, so who cares what my next "thing" looks like?

And my final words of wisdom...chances are good that you are actually closer than you have ever been before. Look behind you at the long road you have already traveled and imagine yourself back there at the start of it all. Wouldn't where you are now look like success to that far away writer? Here is what I told my friend: You have an agent who believes in you. Your work is being sent out and landing on the desks of big NYC editors. It's getting READ!!! CONSIDERED!! It only takes one yes. You've done your part, let the agent do the hard work now. And maybe it's best if you tell her to hold onto the responses for a while. Ask her not to tell you what they are until she has a common complaint that you can address. You don't need to read and obsess over the nuance of every single rejection. Let her do that, let her absorb the blows for a while. She's got more distance. It isn't her baby in the same way it is yours. It sounds like it is self-defeating and counterproductive for you to be kept apprised of the responses as they come in. Plenty of writers tell their agents they don't want to know, they just want to write. You could try that with this next round of subs and see how that works for you.

And in the end, maybe the truest sign of success is simply being able to write and not worry about how it is (or will be) received. Maybe we all need to remember that the real joy is in the writing.Mary Akershttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9967208.post-88407578785650361432012-02-08T09:49:00.000-08:002012-02-29T10:35:21.426-08:00It's All About the Writing

Before I began writing full time, I was a production potter. I strove to create beautiful work that was also functional. For me, beauty and function have never been separate ideals. A pitcher that is easy to lift and pours a smooth stream of liquid without dripping is beautiful for how it becomes an extension of the hand, an aid to human intent and ability. Beauty, likewise, has its own unique function: to make us happy, to carry us beyond the mundane details of our daily lives, to engage our souls and help them briefly soar.

During my days as an MFA student studying creative writing, a beloved instructor gave me the following advice: "It's all about the writing." Focus on the writing, she said, and the rest will follow. She's a brilliant writer and a kind and generous soul, so I believed her. But I now believe that I took those words of hers too literally, as in, ONLY the writing is important. In today's publishing climate, this is not the case--if, in fact, it ever was.

I'm not only referring to the fact that agents and publishers want to know if you have 1) a "platform" (i.e. some claim to fame beyond the writing, preferably still related to the writing) from which they can help you to launch your writing, 2) if you have a blog, 3) how many Facebook friends you have, and 4) how many Twitter followers.

No, I think what I'm talking about is the fact that readers crave beautiful writing, yes, but they also want good, solid characterization, they want a functional story. And why shouldn't they? I want those things in my reading, too. Writing beautiful descriptive passages has never been a problem for me. I've got that pretty much nailed. But it isn't enough to keep a story hanging together. It isn't enough to fully transport the reader.

I'm a stubborn person. I know this about myself. For those of you who follow such things, I'm a Taurus, so yeah, bullheaded and all that. But I can be taught. I can learn. And what I have learned from my novel currently out on submission is that it is "beautifully written," and that I am a "wonderful writer"...and yet... somehow it isn't fully capturing the reader. It doesn't quite deliver that fictive world that readers want to inhabit for 200 pages.

Until now.

I've spent weeks revising with this in mind, that it isn't only about the writing. It is also about the character and what he/she wants more than anything in the world. It's about the experiences in life that brought her to this critical crossroads and inform the choices she makes, good or bad, from here on out. And it's about how she is changed, and by extension how the readers is changed, before the final page is turned.

I feel like I get it now. I finally, finally understand. And so I'm taking all that beautiful writing and making it just a little bit more functional. A little less likely to drip when poured. I can hardly wait to send it out and see.Mary Akershttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9967208.post-30310354521956211452012-01-13T09:24:00.000-08:002012-05-24T12:44:21.546-07:00Never Give Up

Cliff Garstang has a great post about keeping hope alive as a writer: Don't Give Up! Truly, mental fortitude in the writing business is as important as the writing itself, especially in the beginning. As Fred Leebron counseled us during our MFA program, "Writing is a game of attrition. Don't attrish."

I'm very pleased to announce that I have not attrished, and any plans for attrishment that were being hatched have been ferreted out and squashed. The writing is going well on all fronts. I only wish I had more hours in the day.

A bit of excellent news arrived in my inbox yesterday. I won the League of American Pen Women Mary Mackey Short Story Prize for my story Viewing Medusa. This story is part of the novel-in-stories that I'm working on, so that's doubly heartening. Also, that story has been sent out to over 100 magazines and journals without ever getting picked up (yes, I'm stubborn). It is also the story that helped secure me a Bread Loaf waitership and an SLS scholarship in a contest judged by Margaret Atwood. It's served me well, but no magazine has seen fit to publish it. Am I alone in finding that odd? Well, until one finally does, I guess I'll just keep using it to apply for as many good opportunities as I can. :)Mary Akershttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9967208.post-37078436154782632492011-12-10T08:41:00.000-08:002012-02-29T10:35:45.091-08:00The (dreaded) Author PhotoMost of the readers I know, love to look at an author's photo. Most of the writers I know hate the idea of their picture being attached to their words. In that regard, I'm no exception. I mean, I write words, for heaven's sake--I'm not an actress. What does it matter what I look like? My writing should tell you everything you need to know about me. Please, keep my looks out of the equation.

Except I admit that I look at author photos, too. It's not necessarily the first thing I do as a reader, but I usually do it before I commit to buying the book, and then again (sometimes many times) while reading--the number of glances largely related to how I feel about what I'm reading. When I first read Wally Lamb's She's Come Undone in the 1990s, I kept returning to the author photo. I had so much trouble believing it had been written by a man. I looked and looked at his face, wondering, was he transgendered? Was he some sort of super-sensitive male creature? What makes this author tick?

Reading my first Malcolm Gladwell book, Outliers, I was intrigued by his author photo, too, especially his splendiforous hair, which I know has nothing to do with what he writes, but his photo and the subject he wrote about felt oddly mismatched for me. Revisiting the author photo was evidence of my continued incredulity: "This guy wrote this?" (I've since reconciled the author image and the book's content.)

If a book is funny, you want to flip to the back and see a photo of someone who looks like there's an amusing anecdote just waiting to fall from her lips (calling Erma Bombeck!). If it's a book about science, you want to see the scholarly author ready to expound on her topic of expertise. For One Life to Give, the non-fiction book I co-authored, with its inspirational/educational focus, we chose author photos that showed us looking trustworthy and understanding.

As an author, I think it's difficult to know when it's time to update the(dreaded) author photo. I've been to plenty of readings where the author in question is a good twenty years older than his or her most recent official author photo. While I understand the impulse to present your best, youngest self, that older picture isn't really a picture of you anymore. So I've decided that every ten years is a good benchmark to shoot for. And this fall, when I still had a smidge of my summer tan and backpacker's fitness left, I decided it was time. I bought tooth whitener. I got a really good haircut. I bought two new shirts. I actually got excited about getting my picture taken, convinced that I could be happy with the results. (Apparently I had forgotten how seldom I see of a photograph of myself that I actually like.)

Oddly enough, I found that my previous author photo often caused readers to exclaim, "Oh, you look so much younger in person!" when they met me, which I found very strange. How often does that happen to an author?? And what was wrong with that photo? Was it the pose that made me look older? The outfit I was wearing? The use of a black-and-white image? What? Whatever it was, I knew that I wanted my updated author photo to go in the other direction this time.

So I tried for a look that might be labeled "hip" if it weren't for, you know, the fact that it's a photo of a writer. (Apologies to all my hip writer friends out there, but surely you know you are in the minority.) I was pretty sure I wanted my photo taken outside. I write a lot about the natural world, and I am far more comfortable outdoors than I am cooped up inside. I thought I wanted a photo with my fins, which led to an option that I decided was fun, but not really author photo material.

Then we shot some in color, against a rustic doorway, but they felt too smiley. What I had in mind was a photo that would depict me as serious but approachable, intelligent but fun. I understand that's a lot to ask of one image, but we kept trying. We even gave the studio shots a whirl in both black and white and color, using different backgrounds, wearing different clothes, striking different poses, looking in different directions. The photographer was very patient. In the end, I decided to go with the leather jacket image that I have made the "face" of this blog. Although I will happily take a publicist's advice when we get to that stage.I'm looking forward to it. :)Mary Akershttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9967208.post-8102405844624065312011-10-13T06:55:00.001-07:002012-03-13T08:55:11.647-07:00Freight Stories #7!

Very pleased to have my short story appear in this issue!

Freight Stories 7Mary Akershttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9967208.post-7080058167198739832011-09-28T07:30:00.000-07:002012-02-29T10:36:08.099-08:00Margaret Atwood at the r.kv.r.y. blog

I am a huge, slavering fan of Margaret Atwood's work. I first read The Handmaid's Tale in 1985, and it took the top of my head off. Thereafter, I read everything of hers I could get my hands on. The Double Voice, the poem she graciously permitted us to print in this issue, became a standout poem for me in those early years when I was grappling with what it meant to be a woman, and a creative woman at that.

I grew up spending a lot of time in the wilderness. Our first house in the Blue Ridge Mountains was located down a one-lane dirt road in a holler, a mile away from our nearest neighbor, with two creek crossings (no bridge--we just drove right through). In the winter, we kept our vehicles at the top of the hill and first walked up there to drive to town, then brought our groceries back down by toboggan, usually once a month. (We bought a lot of powdered milk and pinto beans.) I'm sure it was a difficult existence, especially for the adults, but it was a magical time for me. I've read that Margaret Atwood spent many months in the Canadian wilderness as a child, and I can't help but wonder if some of my affinity for her work is related to the similarities of our early experiences, although back then Canada seemed like a world away from Check, Virginia.

Our first winter in that house was the winter of 1976, an especially snow-heavy winter all over the east coast. I missed school the entire month of January because of the excessive snow. I also remember watching the news after the freak snowstorm in Buffalo that year that left people climbing out of their second-story windows to get out of their houses. I distinctly remember thinking, "Who in their right mind would ever live in such a place??" And here I am now, going on 11 years in Suchaplace, NY. A southern girl at heart, I now live so far north that parts of Canada are actually south of me. Oh, irony.

Anyway, this was meant to be a post about Margaret Atwood and her amazing work. I've heard her speak several times, once in Buffalo, once in Toronto for her clever, theatrical, and environmentally consciencious launch of Year of the Flood. For intellectual stimulation and wry wit, she never disappoints. In 2012, at the annual AWP conference in Chicago, she will be keynote speaker--a Do Not Miss event.

Here is a video link of her brilliant talk at a tech conference in which she discusses The Publishing Pie (featuring her own hand-drawn slides). I highly recommend this discussion of the role of authors in the changing publishing landscape. In response to popular demand, she made several of the slides into t-shirts, including the Dead Author t-shirt pictured below, that you can purchase at Cafe Press. Clearly she's an author not afraid to embrace new technology, and that alone would be enough of a reason for me to admire her.

And here is a fun video from one of my favorite shows, The Rick Mercer Report, in which she answers the question Poet first? Or novelist first? Surprise answer? Goalie!Mary Akershttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9967208.post-67155188822553453962011-09-08T05:38:00.000-07:002012-02-29T10:36:08.100-08:00My Blanket Apology

I am counting down. I have given myself a timetable and my end date is September 15th. One week to go.

This is the date I have told myself I must be done. I've completed nine other revisions on this novel, but this last one is a biggie. New title, new ending, new character names, new motivations, more sex, and another death. I am almost there. But I still have one week to go. So...

No matter how much I love you, don't expect to hear from me. Unless you have the same number as the Hong Kong Buffet takeout place, I'm not likely to ring you up.

On the other hand, I may contact you if you know anything about boats or sharks or the Windward Isles or what it means to be a Belonger. Or even if your area of expertise is 70s punk or panic attacks or Mormonism or stalking.

If you call me, I am not likely to answer. If I do answer, expect me to sound confused, distant, and disoriented for the first five minutes of our conversation. (No, I have not been drinking...unless it's after ten pm and I'm writing a sex scene.) When you have been diving in very deep waters, it takes time to resurface, unless, of course, you don't mind if your head explodes.

If you email me and my answer is shorter and more to the point than my usual emails, understand: brevity is where I live. For the next week, I won't use two words where one will do.

If I seem testy, don't take it personally. It is only because I am spending my days looking for any spark of conflict and then cupping it in my hands and blowing on it.

To my friend who has recently had a baby, I'm sorry I haven't called. I've been up at night walking the floors with my own colicky manuscript.

To my neighbor, whose son just left for college, I'm thinking of you, I really am.

To my former sister-in-law who just lost her beloved uncle, I love you and I'm sorry for your pain.

To my children, my mother-in-law, my co-author, my best friend, my editors at the journal, my book club, my sisters, my mother, my poor neglected husband, my cat, my garden, and my yoga mat, I'm sorry I love you all. Please just allow me one more week of being here but being absent. Just seven more days, I promise.Mary Akershttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9967208.post-77303989822758359962011-08-11T09:29:00.000-07:002012-02-29T10:36:08.101-08:00Interview with Dylan Landis

At the r.kv.r.y. blog.

Here's an excerpt:

MA: I've read that you feel one of your themes to be "the redemptive power of art." I love that. It makes so much sense to me, but I'm wondering if you could extrapolate on that for our readers.

DL: I'll say this inadequately, as neither a scholar nor an artist. I'm an ex-newspaper reporter who spent thirteen years getting her first book of fiction out.

Art requires so much discipline, and receptivity; and in return it connects you with humanity, and transcends what is mundane about humanity, too. This may sound crazy, but striving for all of that makes me feel forgiven, like I have a right to be here after all. Just the act of reading and writing, or answering your questions and looking up what Chekhov said about being cold, bonds me with other souls who care about story, books, language, a higher purpose. I need that. And I need to write about people who don't yet realize what it means to be touched by that.

Of course I may be producing absolute dreck while rereading Faulkner or Toni Morrison. But as long as I show up, I'm plugging into something larger and more vibrant than anything else I could probably manage to do.

So I wish that for my characters. I see art—and science too; think of Andrea Barrett's work—as a driving force for some of them, or as a real lack in their lives. Remember that art can be provocative, and artists troubled. The possibilities in fiction are intense.Mary Akershttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9967208.post-49655482900025732302011-07-15T06:43:00.001-07:002012-03-14T05:56:29.401-07:00The French cover!

I love this cover unreasonably. The title translates to "The grandfather and the calf. Lessons of life and hope." I love the title unreasonably, too. So thrilled at the job our French publisher did. C'est formidable. Merci beaucoup, Belfond!!Mary Akershttp://firstname.lastname@example.com


text:
Running backs: C+
Starting tailback Ray Rice (pictured) had a slow start, but he made some big plays as a runner and receiver. The Ravens got a lot of juice from backup running back Bernard Pierce and his downhill running ability. They didn't have big numbers, but were solid.
Baltimore Sun photo by Lloyd Fox
Copyright © 2018, Hartford Courant


text:
Now that the smoke has cleared, the medals handed out, and Paul McCartney safely returned to storage, the other shoe can officially begin its descent. The Olympic party is over and a hangover of Big Ben proportions awaits. If the Olympic planners had been honest, they would have used the closing ceremonies to introduce the new sixth Spice Girl, "Austerity Spice".
When I was in London last May, I met people optimistic and pessimistic about the coming Olympics. I spoke with Tories excited about the coming spectacle and union leaders concerned that the promises of jobs and development would fall short. I met right-wing economists railing against the Olympic-sized debt and Labour party leaders giddy about the tourism and "prestige" the Games would bring. I met cab drivers enraged about restrictions on their routes and bus drivers ready to strike if they didn't receive a hefty bonus for the extra demands of the Olympics (the government caved and paid transit workers to be happy during the fortnight).
But there was one thing everyone agreed about, and they used the same phrase repeatedly: "After the Olympics, the gloves will come off." They all meant that the Olympics were a vacation from political reality. After the games were done, a political battle would commence over who would bail the UK out of a crippling economic crisis. Simon Lee, senior politics lecturer at the University of Hull, was quoted by Reuters as saying that the Olympics did little more than "paper over the fact that we are on the verge of a depression."
The numbers are certainly dire. The economy has been shrinking for nine consecutive months, even with the added stimulus of pre-Olympic spending. Youth unemployment is well over 20 percent. Among all unemployed, almost a third have been out of work for a year. The plan for correcting this is even more dire, with Prime Minister David Cameron committed to an agenda of acute austerity. That means laying off government employees, including doctors, nurses and teachers, and raising taxes on working people, all in the name of paying down their debt.
If Cameron believes that debt is truly the economy's greatest problem, then the Olympic hangover, as it did in Greece in 2004, could severely aggravate the existing crisis. The final price tag of the games, including massive security costs, will reach as high as 24 billion pounds, ten times the original rosy projections when they won the bid back in 2005. Back then, London Mayor Ken Livingstone predicted a tax of £240 per citizen to pay for the games. Suffice it to say, those costs can safely be adjusted upward.


text:
OK, we get it. Nike's days fill easily with fun projects, too many to think about, admits Nike basketball graphic designer Erick Goto. But he says that nothing tops creating an entire extraterrestrial line of shoes for superstars Kobe Bryant, Lebron James and Kevin Durant set for showcasing during the NBA All-Star weekend Feb. 15-17.
Reflective hints. Glow-in-the-dark soles. Materials extruding texture. And color, oh, the colors of alien life, all receive graphical free rein in Nike's new Area 72 line, an entire project based around one weekend of basketball. Not only did the Nike graphic design team create one-off shoes for the three superstars to wear in Houston during the All-Star festivities, but they also conjured up five more "alienesque" Nike sneakers and apparel pieces inspired by the same out-of-this-world design.
Each year, Goto says, the team of about six designers and color experts itch for the freedom that All-Star weekend brings — the opportunity to step beyond convention and play with both story and color as star players aren't required to adorn team colors on their feet for the weekend. Last year's All-Star game in Orlando introduced a space theme, one more in line with training suits and moonboots. This year, with the game in historically space-heavy Houston, Goto says he wove a "design language around space and space travel not done before from a footwear perspective." And that's when things got fun in Area 72.
While birthed from Goto's research, the Nike team also needed client buy-in. And that involves Kobe, Lebron and KD. "We pitch a lot of the ideas in the beginning and we'll be having our athlete meetings and present the entirety of the concept and samples of the models," Goto explains. "The signature athletes are all very different in interests and personalities."
The team devised fictional stories to go with the designs, giving each player a personalized All-Star tale. By researching materials that seem "foreign and alienesque" and scrutinizing planetary composition and meteor makeup, Goto devised a line heavy on, well, geology. The special Lebron X shoe, for example, bases its deep purple, pebbled look on the rare Carbonado black diamond believed to have originated in space. "The Lebron really amplifies that idea of rocky geological layers," Goto says.
Looking to Get Your Clients on Board with a Design Project?
5 Steps to Finding the Best Clients.
40 Better Ways to Work with Interactive Clients.
"The Graphic Designer's Guide to Clients."
With Kobe, the designers focused on bright orange marble and fiery volatile surfaces with some icy teal. The Durant shoe hit varying alien-green tones, with Nike color expert Eugene Rogers heading the palette, allowing Goto to weave edgy colors with ample texturing throughout the entirety of the line.
"We definitely played with a lot of materials and you can see the special effects," Goto says. The Lebron's purple may look flat at one angle, but the textures shoot to life from contrasting views. The shoe's venting zones, material changes and sharp angles provide ample texturing opportunity. The five-shoe Area 72 sportswear line gets even a bit funkier with glow-in-the-dark outsoles and reflective materials.
"All-Star is definitely the pinnacle expression of combining sport with a fun cultural element," Goto says. "We have a lot of fun in making something that is both performance and actually has bold expression. Easily, this provides the most freedom." Just don't let Nike's updated alien character, Raygun, catch you thinking about next year's New Orleans All-Star theme.


text:
Bankers Creation: ISIS™ – Parapolitics: Have Events Escaped the Control of Its Engineers? – CIA-NSA-Swiss Banks-Booz Allen Hamilton-Terrorist Finance – Where Is the Gold? – Terrorism™ Is Big Business – Secret Slush Fund for Covert Political Operations – The M-Fund (Secret Slush Fund) – Traced Back to the National Security Act
This article appeared
at Gateway Pundit
Jim Hoft
May 5, 2015
ISIS released a new online threat today on JustPasteIt.
The terrorist group says they will murder Pamela Geller and kill anyone who shields her.
The terrorists also say they have 71 fighters in 15 different states and they 23 have signed up already for missions like the failed Sunday attack in Garland, Texas.
Via Sooper Mexican:
Bismillah Ar Rahman Ar Raheem
"The New Era"
To our brothers and sisters fighting for the Sake of Allah, we make dua for you and ask Allah to guide your bullets, terrify your enemies, and establish you in the Land. As our noble brother in the Philippines said in his bayah, "This is the Golden Era, everyone who believes… is running for Shaheed".
The attack by the Islamic State in America is only the beginning of our efforts to establish a wiliyah in the heart of our enemy. Our aim was the khanzeer Pamela Geller and to show her that we don't care what land she hides in or what sky shields her; we will send all our Lions to achieve her slaughter. This will heal the hearts of our brothers and disperse the ones behind her. To those who protect her: this will be your only warning of housing this woman and her circus show. Everyone who houses her events, gives her a platform to spill her filth are legitimate targets. We have been watching closely who was present at this event and the shooter of our brothers. We knew that the target was protected. Our intention was to show how easy we give our lives for the Sake of Allah.
We have 71 trained soldiers in 15 different states ready at our word to attack any target we desire. Out of the 71 trained soldiers 23 have signed up for missions like Sunday, We are increasing in number bithnillah. Of the 15 states, 5 we will name… Virginia, Maryland, Illinois, California, and Michigan. The disbelievers who shot our brothers think that you killed someone untrained, nay, they gave you their bodies in plain view because we were watching.
The next six months will be interesting, To our Amir Al Mu'mineen make dua for us and continue your reign, May Allah enoble your face.
May Allah send His peace and blessings upon our Prophet Muhummad and all those who follow until the last Day.
Abu Ibrahim Al Ameriki
The threat was posted by Abu Al Ameriki.
This article appeared at
The Common Sense Show
Special Ops Officer Blows Whistle on CIA Funded ISIS Through Swiss Bank Accounts
04 May, 2015
by Dave Hodges
Have you ever wondered why President Obama is so willing to chase ISIS into Syria and risk war with Russia, but he allows an ISIS base camp to remain intact only 8 miles from El Paso?
Both this article and the subsequent interview will answer the aforementioned question while demonstrating how the U.S. is funding the very enemy we are supposed to be trying to destroy. All is revealed in this "tell-all" in one of the most important interviews ever conducted on The Common Sense Show.
ISIS is funded by the CIA, so says Scott Bennett who is a U.S. Army Special Operations Officer (11th Psychological Operations Battalion, Civil Affairs-Psychological Operations Command), and a global psychological warfare-counterterrorism analyst, formerly with defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. He received a Direct Commission as an Officer, held a Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmentalized Information (TS/SCI)security clearance, and worked in the highest levels of international counterterrorism in Washington DC and MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida. He has developed and managed psychological warfare theories, products, and operations for U.S. Special Operations Command, U.S. Central Command, the State Department Coordinator for Counterterrorism, and other government agencies.
Bennett served in the G.W. Bush Administration from 2003 to 2008, and was a Social Science Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation. His writings and lectures seek to enhance global awareness and understanding of modern psychological warfare, the international military-intelligence community, and global surveillance operations being artificially generated under the spectre of "National Security".
Scott Bennett was my guest on Sunday night, May 3, 2015, on The Common Sense Show. At least he was supposed to be my guest until both the servers and the live stream feeds, which are housed three thousand miles apart, were taken down by an unknown source. Fortunately, we were still heard by phone, but that was all. Scott Bennett is an expert on terrorism and the moment we got too deeply into the topic, somebody pulled the plug on our satellite provider, in multiple locations. However, the interview was preserved on our archives and is available for listening. What the bad guys must not realize that about 40 times more people listen to the archives than the live broadcast.
The net effect of taking down the bulk of our interview with Scott Bennett will be about the same as was NPR's lame attempt to collectively disparage my reporting on Jade Helm. On May 3, my website analytics revealed that about 20,000 NPR readers actually came to The Common Sense Show website, directly from NPR, to take a look around because of the negative article. Thanks NPR and thanks to the people who attacked our show last night. As word spreads about how The Common Sense Show was attacked, the curiosity factor will double or triple our normal listenership. Thanks to NPR and the other would-be-assassins of the truth for helping our staff spread the truth partially through the law of unintended consequences.
During the course of the interview, we spoke extensively on how 9/11 was most likely a CIA/Mossad operation and key written records were destroyed in two locations both at Building 7 and at the Pentagon. Had the financial records from either site ever been made public, this government would have been brought to its knees because of the massive financial corruption that would have been revealed.
We also spoke of Russian-American relations and the tragedy and needless rise of the new Cold War. Bennett stated our corporate greed and American hegemony has placed us in a position where we are now isolated from our allies and Europe is in the process of turning their collective backs on the United States in which Germany, for example, is likely to leave NATO and align with Russia.
Bennett has written extensively on the intelligence community's surveillance activities addressed by Edward Snowden's National Security Agency-Central Intelligence Agency materials; and since 2010, Bennett has filed numerous military-government whistle-blowing reports with Congressional Committees, including: the Intelligence, the Armed Services, the Government Oversight and Reform, the Homeland Security, the Judiciary, the Foreign Affairs, the Banking, and the Terrorism Committees. He has communicated with over a hundred Federal representatives, Senators, senior military officers and Pentagon officials, and journalists about the scandalous abuses of power and deception being employed against the American people by its own military-intelligence community; and the most damning report brought into the public sector occurred when he filed legal action against Booz Allen Hamilton and the Department of Defense for their involvement in secret Swiss Bank Terrorist Finance Operations, in which he uncovered with the help of Union Bank of Switzerland whistleblower, Brad Birkenfeld a massive terrorist funding program.
We know that ISIS got its "beginnings" from U.S. military equipment deliberately left behind in Iraq. Bennett and I both agree that to leave unsecured weapons on a former battlefield was undoubtedly an intentional act because of the strict military protocols against such a practice. Again, he views ISIS, which is a hybrid terrorist organization, as the artificial creation of the CIA and the Mossad in a joint operation. Ultimately, chasing ISIS into Syria will result in Russian intervention and World War III. But first, we have to contend with ISIS on our doorstep, only 8 miles from El Paso. This is the quintessential false flag cover in which they hope to convince most of America to accept martial law out of ignorance to the role that the CIA and its allies will have played in the event. This parallels the letter I received from the Texas Ranger on the same topic in which he claimed that the Rangers are bracing for an attack by ISIS against targets in Texas.
Scott Bennett's information is so sensitive and so many careers and even individual freedoms rests upon what he reveals, or keeps secret, there are many who would like to see him dead. Subsequently, Bennett has taken steps to insure his longevity.
Bennett is all too keenly aware of what was done to journalist Michael Hastings after he and Michael Isikoff (NBC News) began investigating Bennett's reports and materials in relation to the Edward Snowden and Brad Birkenfeld connections (CIA-NSA-Swiss Banks-Booz Allen Hamilton-Terrorist Finance). The Birkenfeld, Swiss banking connection, is telling. Birkenfeld oversaw money placed in Swiss bank accounts and then redistributed to terrorist organizations around the world. Subsequently, there are many who would like to see him dead. Bennett has taken steps to insure his longevity. Individuals have been killed for far less and Bennett issues the following warning on his website.
WARNING: In the event of my untimely death, additional documents and materials will be immediately released which expose all previously undisclosed persons, networks, operations, and financial accounts relating to illegal foreign and domestic terrorism activities. All materials have been safely uploaded to legal counsel. Congress and Military authorities have been notified of this.
This interview has prompted me to issue my own warning:
WARNING: The leadership of our present administration is a criminal enterprise. They have completely forsaken their oath of office. Administration officials are guilty of violating every precept of the United States Constitution. They have engaged in massive lying to the American people, and have absconded with American taxpayer money in order to enrich their corporate and bankster benefactors. They will not hesitate to install a brutal form of martial law in which untold numbers of American citizens will lose their lives and they are practicing for this eventuality, right now, through Jade Helm. These criminals in suits will think nothing about sending our children off to war to die in order to increase the bottom line of the banksters. They will dress up this coming war as the patriotic thing to do. However, patriotism only serves to conceal the underlying and insatiable lust for power and wealth. This administration does not serve the needs of the people, we are its subjects and soon to be its slaves. Scott Bennett has only scratched the bare surface of how bad it is going to get here in the land of the free and the former home of the brave. I weep for the loss of my nation. Long live the King, the King is dead.
The interview with Scott Bennett can be heard by going to this link. Scroll down to the date, May 3, and simply follow the prompts. The interview is housed in hour number one and hour number two.
If your media player is up to date, you may also listen to the interview through the following links:
Listen to Hour 1
Listen to Hour 2
Discussion of the book Shell Game: A Military Whistleblowing Report to the U.S. Congress Exposing the Betrayal and Cover-Up by the U.S. Government of the Union Bank of Switzerland-Terrorist Threat Finance Connection to Booz Allen Hamilton and U.S. Central Command written by Scott Bennett.
Shell Game in PDF format:
Scott Bennett is a U.S. Army Special Operations Officer (11th Psychological Operations Battalion, Civil Affairs-Psychological Operations Command), and a global psychological warfare-counterterrorism analyst, formerly with defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton.The same company where Edward Snowden worked at.
The allegation is that ISIS is being financed by Swiss Banks including the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS). In the following article, Japan's Operation Lily is discussed related to the Black Eagle Trust and the M-Funds set up after WWII which still have a huge impact on recent political events and control over the world's financial system. It is also further alleged that some of the gold looted by the Japanese during and before the start of WWII and stored in tunnels in the Philippines, was later shipped to Swiss banks including the Union Bank of Switzerland. Through the work of Sterling and Peggy Seagrave, they have meticulously documented the history of Japan's Operation Golden Lily in their book Gold Warriors: America's Secret Reecovery of Yamashita's Gold. The following is what Robert D. Steele said of Sterling and Peggy Seagrave's book:
This book is earth-shattering and faith-shaking, a well-documented tale of deceit at the highest levels of the US government. So controversial and potentially explosive are the findings of this book, to wit, that the White House recovered most of the Nazi and Japanese loot and created a secret slush fund for covert political operations world-wide, [including financing and weaponizing ISIS?] that the authors go the extra mile and offer, at a nominal price, two CD-ROMS containing 60,000 pages of supporting documentation including the Japanese treasure maps used by the US to recover the gold and other valuables.
Major players include Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, and Nixon, both Allen and John Foster Dulles, Douglas MacArthur, John McCloy, and the famous unconventional warrior Edward Lansdale. What we learn from this book is that those writing about "blowback" (the consequences of unwise US actions) have barely scratched the surface. What we learn is that rather than truly seeking to help the Japanese, Chinese, and other looted nations recover in the aftermath of WWII, the most senior leaders of the US government, no doubt with the best of intentions, actually conspired with Nazi bankers and the Japanese imperial family to create a Black Eagle Trust controlled by a very select hand-picked cabal in Washington.
Originally used to fight communism, the Black Eagle Trust, according to the authors and as thoroughly documented by the book and the two CD-ROMS (which I am happy to have in hand), quickly became a global slush fund used to bribe national leaders and manipulate elections around the world. This fund remains in existence today, making the Swiss Holocaust funds seem like loose-change. According to the authors, major banks are "addicted" to the funds and would face collapse if public investigations resulted in a forced return of this gold and related certificates to the rightful owners.
The authors have produced a magnificent work of both scholarship and investigative journalism. They document the extent of Japanese looting of Korea (beginning in 1895) and China as well as the other countries in the "co-prosperity sphere." They document the manner in which Japan hid most of the gold in the Philippines (some in Indonesia), and were forced to leave it there from 1943 onwards, when US submarine interdiction became too effective to risk shipments homeward.
I found the level of detail in this book to be quite gripping. The ingenious nature of the Japanese burial sites, with caverns below the more obvious tunnels, with sea-water protection, with maps created in reverse–and the in-bred cruelty of the Japanese, thinking nothing of burying all of the US and other national slave labor *and the Japanese engineers* alive as the final stage of protecting the looted treasure, leave one stunned.
The authors document the central role played by Lansdale in recognizing the opportunity and then briefing MacArthur and then President Truman. According to the authors, the architects of the Black Eagle Trust were three advisers to President's Roosevelt's Secretary of War, Henry Stimson: John McCloy (later head of the World Bank), Robert Lovett (later Secretary of Defense), and Robert Anderson (later Secretary of the Treasury). They made the case to Roosevelt, and presumably to Truman after Roosevelt died, that it would be impractical to return the looted gold to the rightful owners, in part because many of the looted countries were now under Soviet control.
The authors, who conducted many interviews in support of the work, including interviews of former CIA deputy director Ray Cline, who they say was involved with [Edward] Lansdale and the gold in the 1940's and remained involved with the black gold through the 1980's, provide copies of documents showing the redirection of the looted gold to 176 bank accounts in 42 countries. The gold was then used to support the creation of gold bearer certificates that were in turned used to bribe the most senior officials around the world.
The authors tell a shocking tale of how quickly MacArthur chose to collaborate with the very leadership of Japan that declared war on the USA and was responsible for genocide and looting in Asia on a scale rarely achieved by anyone else. Bringing the story up to date, the authors show how prior attempts to investigate the Black Eagle Trust have led to the ruin of individuals such as Norbert Schlei, at one time deputy attorney general to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. While I have no direct knowledge and cannot be certain myself, I believe the authors have provided a sufficiently compelling case to warrant an international investigation concurrently with a General Accounting Office investigation to be chartered by Congress with unlimited supeona powers specifically directed against classified personalities and archives.
If this story is true, and I personally think that it is, then the US government, in active collusion with the very people the American people fought to defeat in WWII, has been guilty of fraud and depravity on a global scale and against the best interests of both the American people, and the against the rightful owners of the looted gold and other treasures. The authors may well have uncovered the last really big secret of the post-WW II era, and in so doing, opened the way for a restoration of the balance of power among diverse nations, and a sharp delimitation of the abuses that appear to characterize American leadership when it thinks it can rely on secret gold and stolen oil to engage in imperial adventures and domestic improprieties. As an American citizen and voter, and as a person of faith who believes that we must do unto others as we would have them do unto us, I find this book to be shocking, credible, and a basis for popular outrage and demands for truth and reconciliation.
The following is a paragraph from the book Collateral Damage: U.S. Covert Operations and the Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001:
In 1992, George H.W. Bush served on the Advisory Board of Barrick Gold. In the long term, the Barrick operation would create billions of dollars of paper gold by creating gold derivatives. A major distribution channel for the sale of Barrick's gold futures would be Enron. Enron would also become the vehicle by which oil and gas contracts from the former Soviet Union (vehicles for Soviet money-laundering) were processed. Another key player in the Marcos gold was Banker's Trust, which was taken over by Alex Brown & Sons, after Banker's Trust floundered financially on its Russian loans in the mid 1990s. These Russian loans were facilitated by Enron, starting in August of 1993, and very possibly were part of the takeover of Soviet industry. Barrick Gold Corporation, which has no mining operations in Europe, used two refineries in Switzerland: MKS Finance S.A. and Argor-Heraeus S.A. The big unknown is what gold was Barrick refining in Switzerland, as they have no mines in that region. Barrick would become a quiet gold producing partner for a number of major banks, and its activities became subject to an FBI investigation into gold-price-fixing. The gold that flooded the market for ten years has never been officially explained. The records of many of those transactions disappeared when Enron collapsed and the trading operation and all its records were taken over by Union Bank of Switzerland, another major recipient of Marcos gold. The "tracking the money" project was conducted over-all by Household International with the assistance reportedly of Systematics, a banking computer /wire transfer firm, originally a subsidiary of an Arkansas-based operation. Targeted have been the banks of both friends and enemies alike. Vince Foster and his crew — Hillary Clinton and Webster Hubbell — used as a cover that they were supposedly attorneys for Systematics. Vincent and Hillary's role in this was arranged and supervised by a Chicago-based law firm Hopkins & Sutter.
The back ground to Operation Golden Lily, the Black Eagle Trust and the M-Funds are discussed at these links. The amount of the funds are speculative but by all accounts the funds are vast.
FTR #451 Petals from the Golden Lily
Operation Golden Lily
An Interview with Peggy Seagrave (MP3 audio file)
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