Mom’s Favorite Reads eMagazine April 2019

Volume 2, Issue 4

April 2019

IN THIS ISSUE...

• An exclusive interview with Sunday Times bestselling author Lesley-Ann Jones • Easter stories and activities • Recognising Autism Awareness Month • The Birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll • Challenging your fears and so much more...

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Promoting Literacy Parenting Tips Short Stories Recipes Activities for the Kids Exploring New Worlds Wellness and Well-being iscovering New Authors D and so much more...

Mom’s Favorite Reads eMagazine is published monthly by Goylake Publishing and designed by Nicole Lavoie of www.JustSayingDezigns.com

All contents Copyright Š the individual authors and used with their permission. All rights reserved.

Founders Hannah Howe

Denise McCabe

Ronesa Aveela

www.hannah-howe.com

www.kidsstoriesblog.com

www.ronesaaveela.com

Find us online www.moms-favorite-reads.com facebook.com/momsfavoritereads momsfavoritereads@outlook.com Discover more about us through our video: https://youtu.be/s0CNofMbQdM Never miss an issue by subscribing to our FREE magazines: www.tinyurl.com/momsfavoritereads-subscribe

FEATURE Lesley-Ann Jones

Interviewed by Hannah Howe..................................................................................8

INTERVIEWS An Interview with Tony Whitt - Interviewed by T.E. Hodden..............................16 An Interview with Val Tobin - Interviewed by Rachael Wright...........................32

POETRY Too Late by Christine Ardigo......................................................................................28 Spring Is... by Sylva Fae.................................................................................................35 Friends by May Panayi...................................................................................................48 Your Purpose in Life by Stan Philips..........................................................................54

SHORT STORY The Easter Bunny by Kirsten Nairn............................................................................12 Orange Belt Opportunities: Part One by Stephen L. Brayton................................26

HUMOUR Laughter is the best medicine!

Contributions by Anthony Randall & Hannah Howe........................................50

TRAVEL - OFF THE BEATEN TRACK Leonardo and Galileo: Science Museums in Florence

by Fabia Scali-Warner...............................................................................................21 Occidental Mindoro: The Philippines by Grant Leishman....................................36

RECIPES Vegan ‘Steak and Kidney’ Pie by May Panayi..........................................................49 Chicken Wraps To Die For by Anthony Randall......................................................51

ARTICLES Autism Awareness, Inclusion & Acceptance by April Cox.....................................20 Some Are More Dead Than Others by Val Tobin....................................................22 Bullying by May Panayi................................................................................................24 The Birth of Of Rock ‘n’ Rock by Mansel Jones.......................................................29 The Queen of Disguise by Hannah Howe ................................................................30 The First Snowdrop of Spring by Sylva Fae..............................................................34 Bilingualism and Special Needs by Millie Slavidou...............................................44 What’s causing my shoulder pain? by Cassandra DenHartog...............................46 Her Online Predator by Brenda Mohammed............................................................48 Facing Your Fears by Christine Ardigo MSRD.........................................................52 Departures by Anthony Randall..................................................................................56

ACTIVITIES Checkmate in Three Supplied by Chess.com............................................................15 April Word Search by Mom’s Favorite Reads...........................................................31 Extra Easter Egg, Anyone? by L.L. Thomsen..............................................................39 Coloring Easter Eggs by Ronesa Aveela.....................................................................42

AUTHOR RESOURCES DISCOUNT: 20% OFF First Book Promotion...........................................................38 Meet Our Designer - Nicole Lavoie / Just Saying Dezigns.....................................41 Connections eMagazine.................................................................................................55

Lesley-Ann Jones

Interviewed by Hannah Howe

You began your writing career on Fleet Street.

That sounds like a daunting assignment. Did you approach it with nerves or confidence?

As with most of what I have ever become involved in - aren’t we mostly the same? - I landed there by accident and via a circuitous route. My post-grad internship at London’s Capital Radio led to a job in the art department at Chrysalis Records, which in turn led to a presenting job on TV. The Editor of the Sun saw me on television and called me to offer me a Girl About Town-style column, because I appeared to know lots of pop and rock stars. I was subsequently poached by the Daily Mail. I found print journalism infinitely more thrilling than TV broadcasting. Despite the fact that my father had by this time been working for years on Fleet Street as a distinguished sportswriter, I was young and unprepared for the piranha pool. Reading my own account of those wild and at times life-threatening years, I can hear my hair falling out.

capable of making up myself. It was all very scripted, directed and controlled. There wasn’t much leeway to go off-piste and misbehave. I was young and hadn’t yet found my feet in the medium. I often contribute to documentaries these days, and I like to think I’m much better at it now. I am older, so a bit more articulate. I have opinions that I am not afraid to express.

What was your brief as a Fleet Street journalist?

I was there during the ‘80s and ‘90s, at the height of the Street’s obsession with celebrity culture. The wide-open brief was to bag the biggest exclusives and to reel in the superstars. In that now barely imaginable pre-internet age, this often meant hopping on planes at a moment’s notice and tearing halfway across the world to doorstep some unsuspecting victim. Money was no object. The expenses were spectacular. We were expected to look the part, to dress to impress, to travel like stars ourselves, and were always lodged in the best hotels. I pinched myself more than a few times, as I prepared to board Concorde or checked into the Plaza in New York. I’ve lost count of the number of young journalists who have said to me in recent years, ‘I got into this to have the lifestyle you had.’ Those days are gone, sadly. The dolce vita once lived to the hilt by hacks no longer exists.

In the rich tapestry of your career, excitement is a constant thread. You were involved in the inception of Channel 4, was that an exciting period of your career? Not as exciting as I’d hoped! I never really warmed to the theme of sitting around in TV studios, reading aloud from autocue a bunch of words that someone else had made up, but which I was perfectly

As a music fan, Chrysalis Records played a big part in your youth. You worked for Chrysalis Records and there is a good chance I read your sleeve notes.

Do you have any special memories of that era?

Those years were an amazing wheeze. I could never in a million have called it work. It was like going to a party every day. We played music so loudly that the windows rattled. I’m amazed they didn’t fall out of their frames. We rocked up dressed for that evening’s round of drinks dos/gigs/ parties/receptions/ whatever. The job was unpredictable. No two days were ever the same. The artists were often in the building, for interviews, photo shoots and meetings, so we got to hang out with them all the time and were one big exuberant family. Lasting friendships were forged. On the ground floor of the building on Stratford Place, off London’s Oxford Street, the former Beatles producer George Martin (not yet ‘Sir’) ran his new business, AIR Studios. It was in Reception that the entire staff gathered, when came the hideous news that John Lennon had been assassinated in New York.

You have also worked in radio. Which medium do you prefer, television, radio or writing? Writing will always be my first love. I’ve been writing since I could hold a pencil, and I’m always scribbling something. I used to make up short stories at junior school, and was allowed to read them out to the class on Friday afternoons. I still have all the notebooks.

That was when I got the bug. The written word, to me, is the most powerful form of communication.

That said, my voice seems to work ok on radio. It has,

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apparently, a ‘transatlantic Welsh lilt’. Speaking on air must bring out my Welsh roots. I no longer have the face for television, and never watch myself on screen.

But I do still get asked.

Your family excelled at sport. Indeed, many of them were the superstars of their day. Do you have any sporting memories associated with your family?

When my Great Uncle Bryn was transferred from Wolverhampton Wanderers to Arsenal FC in 1939, fans burned down the goalposts at Molineux in protest. There was also a demonstration in Downing Street. Europe was on the brink of war, and an unthinkable sum had just been shelled out in exchange for a mere footballer. The transfer fee was a world record: £14,500. A generation later, family history repeated itself when ‘Uncle Cliff’ Jones went to Spurs for the world-record fee of £35,000. No one played the game for millions in those days. My family was not changed by fame and fortune in football.

There wasn’t any. So it never went to their heads.

Those members of the family who are still alive are exactly the same as I remember them from my childhood.

You have interviewed many leading figures. Did this come naturally to you? Or did you wake up some days thinking this is all so surreal? I have to say, I was never really lost for words … why are you not surprised … and I always got ‘a line’. Often a splash headline.

At the very least, something new. I had ‘the nack’. The Mail’s woman columnist Lynda Lee Potter had taught me ‘the Columbo Technique’, so named after the detective on the eponymous longrunning TV series. Lieutenant Columbo would pretend to bumble his way through a casual interview with a murder suspect, conclude the chat, the suspect would heave a sigh of relief, believing himself to be off the hook, and Columbo would bid him farewell. He’d make for the door, pause, turn to face his victim, and then fling the killer dart: ‘Just one more thing …’ I’ve watched photographers deploy a similar technique, shooting roll upon roll of film (as they used to, in the olden days) to put their subject at ease, gradually coaxing them into the pose or position they’d had in mind all along. Building confidence and getting them to eat out of the palm of your hand is

key. It is perhaps not something that can be taught.

Live Aid was a seminal moment of the 1980s, and you were there. Do you have any special memories of that day? Where do I start! The entire day was a ridiculous experience. I watch documentaries or read about it now, and I can barely believe that I was part of it. Freddie Mercury brought his new boyfriend Jim Hutton, who told me that it was not only his first stadium experience, but his first-ever gig.

Talk about being thrown in at the deep end. Queen were not only the best band on the day, they were the loudest – because one of their engineers went out before Queen went on stage and whacked the sound right up. They absolutely stole it. Their performance was thrilling and unforgettable. David Bowie was the best solo artist on the day. What else? Simon le Bon singing the bum note of all time. Bono making his leap of faith into the crowd. The sound going down on the Who. When I think about promoter Harvey Goldsmith and Bob Geldof working out when to hand over the broadcast into each of the many territories with a pair of wooden callipers and a big old paper map, my mind is blown. That they achieved what they did with the minimum of technology will always amaze me. The gods shone on them, and on all of us, that day.

You have written a number of highly-acclaimed biographies featuring Freddie Mercury, Marc Bolan and David Bowie. What attracted you to write about these icons? Their music. You’ve got to really love an artist if you are to spend a year or two in their company while researching and writing a book about them. I had adored Bolan and Bowie since childhood, and I’d worked with Queen as a journalist, so those were no-brainers. I turn down more subjects than I ever agree to write about. If I don’t adore them, there is no point. Which is not to say that I write hagiographies. It is vital to be impartial, and to present them warts-andall. Most readers don’t want a whitewash, they simply want the truth, perspective and some valid, informed opinions.

I understand you are a big fan of Paul McCartney.

Have you had the pleasure of interviewing him? Oh, I do worship Macca. He walks on water. May he live forever. I’ve talked to Paul on numerous occasions, but we have never yet conducted the big in-depth. I

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did, however, work with his late wife Linda, on an extraordinary memoir which was cancelled before it could be published. I never really found out why, although this kind of thing tends to happen with A-list celebrities. Perhaps they just change their minds about putting themselves out there. Linda had long endured a bad press, but I adored her. She was warm, funny and down-to-earth. She had Paul exactly where she wanted him. She ruled the roost, and she called the shots. They were a very happy family. I learned more about Paul through her than I could ever have discovered by cross-examining him myself.

‘Cherchez la femme,’ as they say.

Is there any chance that we will see a Lesley-Ann Jones biography of Paul McCartney at some point in the future? The best biography of Paul ever written has recently been done – by my friend Philip Norman. No writer could get closer to the essence of the man than dear Phil.

Alongside your biographies, you have written a mystery, Imagine. What sparked the idea for that novel? I made a short documentary in 2015 for Showbiz TV, ‘The last Lennon Interview’, with former BBC Radio 1 DJ Andy Peebles. Andy conducted the final interview with John Lennon by a British broadcaster, in New York, in December 1980. While Andy was on the plane home, John was killed. He only heard about John’s murder when the aircraft landed.

He was accompanied to a makeshift studio at Heathrow to talk about the killing live on air. Andy never recovered from that experience. It affects him deeply to this day. That got me thinking about all kinds of other people whose lives had been turned upside down by John’s death.

Many committed suicide because of it, which of course was terrible, and pointless. I started to imagine what it might have been like to have been standing there on the pavement outside the Dakota building, John’s home, when it happened. What would a rookie journalist have made of that experience? Would they have seized the opportunity to write an eye-witness account, and thus make their name? Or would they have been so adversely affected by it that they would simply have walked away and tried to forget about it?

I wrote the story of a young rock writer – a composite, she is not me – who watched Mark Chapman shoot John dead. Needless to say, she didn’t walk away.

Music is another constant thread in your life. Do you play a musical instrument? Are you a frustrated musician? I don’t play, I can’t sing a note, and I have

never been musical. My three children all play at least two instruments each - piano, guitar and a few others – and they all sing beautifully. My son is a second-year Musical Theatre undergraduate at Arts Educational Schools in Chiswick, London. He has a rich bari-tenor singing voice, and hopes to make it all the way to the West End stage. My youngest daughter sings on the Band of Sisters’ 2013 CD ‘Issues’. They do it so well. I have no idea where they get it from.

Not from their father, nor from me. I got up as a backing vocalist once, in San Francisco, for a feature for YOU magazine. ’Hopeless’ would have been a compliment. No, I am by no means a frustrated musician. I know where to draw the line.

Your new book, Tumbling Dice, is an intimate, frank and hilarious memoir. Was it fun to write?

It was the book that had been begging to be written for years. The blighter nagged and nagged, and in the end I had to give in to it. Some of it was fun. Trolling back down Memory Lane, poking in and out of the pubs, getting back into all those scrapes and reliving my misspent youth was some jaunt. A lot of it was incredibly painful. But those experiences had to be there too. I decided at the outset that I couldn’t simply be some disembodied voice in the process, telling all these crazy stories but never revealing my true self. I had to be a real, living, bleeding person, with a plausible personal life and all the usual ups and downs. Juxtaposing that mad hack and glam alter ego with the ordinary girl from nowhere – the girl I really was became the challenge. The things we got up to in the name of a splash headline became all the more extraordinary because I was just me. The point is that absolutely anyone could have fallen into the life that I had.

During the writing of Tumbling Dice did you ever pause and say, “No, I won’t include that,” because it was too personal or upsetting? Yes. Many times. Felt the fear, took a breath, did it anyway. I have left out a few names. You have to, don’t you. Some of them, I just didn’t want to give oxygen to. To have mentioned others would have been to hurt people I didn’t want to hurt, including my kids. You get the picture.

Writing about the miscarriage I suffered in Munich was excruciating. I’d bunged it on the top shelf of my mind. I hadn’t dealt with it. Revisiting it made me face it. I must have cried for about a week, but it was incredibly healing.

Did you approach the writing of Tumbling Dice as a cathartic experience, or did you view it as your

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opportunity to tell your extraordinary story? There was nothing that intellectual about it, to be honest.

When I was married, I was in the habit of giving and going to a great many dinner parties and drinks dos.

I’d get a few stories out to titillate the throng with.

As you do. Friends would make comments along the lines of, ‘You really should write a book about your own life!’ Why would anyone be interested?

Plus, I never thought I’d have the courage to do it. My friend Jane Wroe-Wright, a former colleague on the Sun, nagged me for years to write it. When Tumbling Dice was announced on Twitter, she sent me a oneword text: ‘Finally!’ The book is dedicated to her.

Do you have a favourite anecdote or story from Tumbling Dice? So many! The one that always make me chuckle is when I was ordered by an overboiled newspaper editor, riled by news of a rival’s exclusive buy-up, to get to Memphis and interview Elvis Presley - despite my protests that the singer was already dead.

Even though you have a publisher and an agent, you are publishing Tumbling Dice independently. I think this is an exciting decision, and I believe many traditionally published writers will follow your trendsetting path. What prompted you to make this decision? I wrote the book, and showed it to a couple of publishers, who told me in no uncertain terms that their sales forces would ‘never get it into the shops’ because I am ‘not a household name.’ I was always too busy to go slogging around, trying to sell it to someone else, so I stuck it in a drawer and forgot about it. Then out of the blue one day, my friend Andy Hill at the Startle music company in London called me and asked, ‘What did you ever do with that great memoir you sent me to read?’ ‘Nothing,’ I admitted. ‘I’ll have another look at it when I’ve delivered the two books I’m working on now.’ ‘If a product is ready to take to market,’ he responded, ‘the time to take it to market is right now. Get it out. Publish it yourself. You have nothing to lose. I will help you.’ Andy introduced me to a friend and former colleague, Francis Booth, who read it, loved it and took the book on. It has been a huge amount of work, preparing the manuscript, jacket, images and everything else for publication.

But now that the work is done, I’m so excited to see how far I can go with it. My next two books are a celebrity biography for a mainstream publisher, and a ghost-write for a private client. Both will be published in 2020. I see no reason why an author cannot take advantage of every available discipline, format and method of publication. There being plenty more ways than one to skin a cat.

You are a true all-rounder. As well as your writing and media work you are involved in coaching and ghostwriting, plus you have a family. How do you juggle such a busy schedule? I never sleep! Seriously, my younger two children are now away at college and university. I am single, so I please myself. I do drive what seem like thousands of miles around the country on a regular basis, to see and do for my kids and my mum and dad. I often stay up all night writing, if the muse demands and if I happen to have the energy. Like most people, I think, I veer between being super-organised and in complete disarray.

I have super-good intentions, but find that I can’t always live up to them. Yet I have never once missed a publishing deadline, nor had a manuscript rejected.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be tempting fate…

Would you like us to highlight a charity or good cause? The Royal National Institute of Blind People.

I am desperately myopic, and have always been terrified of losing my sight. We all need our eyes, especially writers. www.rnib.org.uk/ And finally, what are your favourite reads?

You’re going to write me off as a complete anorak now. I love books about grammar and punctuation.

Mark Forsyth’s ‘The Elements of Eloquence’ would be my Desert island Discs read. I must have devoured it a dozen times. Michael Hauge’s ‘Writing Screenplays that Sell’ is another old favourite. I did his screenwriting course in Hollywood, donkey’s ago. It’s about time I got round to writing an actual screenplay … My favourite novels are Gustave Flaubert’s ‘Madame Bovary’ and Oscar Wilde’s only novel, ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’. I currently have Chris Salewicz’s biography of Jimmy Page, Philip Norman’s Eric Clapton biography, ‘Slowhand’, Anna Burns’s novel ‘Milkman’ and Gabriel Tallent’s ‘My Absolute Darling’ on the bedside table. And always the Holy Bible. King James version.

You can discover more about Lesley-Ann on the Mom’s Favorite Reads website here: https://moms-favorite-reads.com/moms-authors/lesley-ann-jones/ - 11 -

The Easter Bunny

by Kirsten Nairn

‘Mummy. Is the Easter Bunny Real?’ my five-year-old son asks as we walk up to school.

‘Of course he is.’ I reply absently, as I run through my daily mental checklist of things to do, wondering if I have time to cook something fresh for dinner (I know I should) or whether I can justify a quick fish fingers and beans on the basis that it’s Monday and everyone is tired?

Easter Bunny isn’t real, then what about Santa?’

‘Oh, good Lord. Santa is definitely real. No doubt about that,’ I laugh gayly. Perhaps too gayly.

‘Why do you ask?’

‘Well, Gray May says he’s not real and anyone who believes in him is just stupid.’

I chew my lip, wondering if, in fact, it is me who is condemning my child to a lifetime of ridicule, colluding with him in his belief about, what are, all things considered, totally unbelievable stories.

‘Well, what does Grayson Mason know?’ I scoff ‘Lots of things actually. He’s pretty smart.’

I seriously doubt it if his parent’s intellect is anything to go by. Anyone who names their offspring Grayson and Jason, with Mason as a surname, condemning their children to a lifetime of ridicule, must have the IQ of a rabbit. Although, to be fair Gray May is right. There is no Easter Bunny. It’s all a hoax by the chocolate industry to guilt trip parents into buying hoards of overpriced, poor quality bunny shaped confectionery. But how do you explain this to a fiveyear-old without sounding miserly?

‘Well just take the moral high ground and tell Gray May that in actual fact, Easter is all about God.’

We arrive at the school gates and I watch my son, face contorted, deep in concentration, trying to make sense of it all. Do all his classmates agree with Gray May? I imagine my precious little offspring being pushed around the playground, getting laughed at because he believes that an overgrown rabbit delivers eggs to all the children around the world in one night.

It niggles at me all day until I pick him up after school. I scan his face for traces of worry, sadness, fear. I make a mental note to check him later for bruises. He looks happy enough.

‘How was school?’ I ask lightly.

‘The what ground? And what has God got to do with it?’

Actually, perhaps this isn’t the best advice. It might provoke a whole new conceptual belief-based discussion which I don’t think my five-year-old is ready for yet. I remember my own father telling my six-year-old self to ask the teacher to explain where Adam and Eve fitted into Darwin’s theory of Evolution. I duly did and was met with a withering stare and told to sit down and remember ‘No-one likes a smarty pants.’

‘Fine.’

‘What did you do?’

‘Stuff.’

‘Okay,’ I say slowly. ‘So, tell me the best bit about today.’

‘The end.’

I resort to my default advice. ‘Err, do you know what.

Just ignore Gray May and try to avoid him if you can.

Okay?’

He persists though. He is my child after all. ‘But if the

My head whips around. I am immediately on high alert. ‘Oh?’ I say, trying to keep the concern out of my voice. ‘Did anything happen?’

‘Well, I’m the best at skipping but Natalie Smythe says she’s the best and if she doesn’t win, she cries, so I always have to let her win. And today was a skipping day.’

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‘Gotcha.’ I say relieved, ruffling his thick brown hair.

‘Any more chat about the Easter Bunny,’ I enquire tentatively.

burst his bubble, could I?

‘Oh, well Madeline Morrison told Gray May to shut up and that it doesn’t really matter if it’s real or not and that all children should just ask for one egg each because lots of children all over the world don’t get any eggs and that if we just ask for one each we’ll also be saving the planet with recycling and stuff.’ He finally stops for breath.

‘Wow! She said all that?’ I wish I had the persuasive and intellectual capacity of the five-year-old Madelaine Morrison, little eco-warrior that she is.

‘Why not? I would have,’ he shrugs, taking a beer from the fridge.

‘Okay. I’ll let you explain away Santa as we approach Christmas then, shall I?’ ‘Aw, that’s different Cats. Come on, every kid believes in Santa.’

‘They don’t actually,’ I say petulantly, but decide to let that argument go.

‘Look all I’m saying is, I don’t think he’ll be heartbroken to find out it’s not real. As long as he gets an egg.’

‘Yes, and she also said we’re to go to hers on Sunday and her mum will boil five hundred eggs and we’ll paint them and roll them down the hill at the back of her house.

‘I know, it’s just that he expects shitloads of eggs from the rabbit.’

‘Well get him shitloads of eggs then. Just say they’re from us. You’re over thinking it. Now, at the risk of appearing insensitive, I was hoping to catch a bit of the football if that’s okay.’

‘Really? That’s very good of her. How many people are going?’

‘Twenty. But not Gray May. ‘

‘Fine. Thankfully Madelaine Morrison has played the eco card, so we’ve been saved, as has the planet.’

Five hundred eggs for twenty people? Maybe not so eco-friendly after all, but the thought of a few hours’ peace and quiet on a Sunday supersedes any thought of saving the planet. I make a mental note to buy Madelaine’s mother a bottle of wine to show my eternal gratitude. How many metal notes can a person make in one day?

He looks at me perplexed. ‘Don’t ask,’ I say, as he heads for the living room.

I try not to think about it anymore. I buy one large chocolate egg, and that’s that.

I’m still pondering the whole Easter Bunny thing and weighing up the pros and cons of telling the truth V the magic of childhood when Nathan arrives home.

‘What’s up?’

‘Nothing.’ I shrug

Happy with my purchase I am fully confident that my intelligent, sensitive son will understand when we explain there is no bunny, but in effect, what does it matter? You still get an egg. He himself seems resolute that he will receive one egg thereby saving the children of the world and the planet itself.

So why, at bedtime on Saturday night, after I’ve had a few glasses of wine, does he announce that he’s super-excited about the Easter Bunny coming tomorrow and can’t wait to hunt for eggs in the garden.

‘Okay, so tell me why nothing has resulted in frown lines as deep as the Samaria Gorge then?’

I proceed to tell him about the conversation with Cameron and the whole Easter Bunny thing, hoping he’ll offer some support, re-assurance and fatherly words of wisdom, but instead he snorts.

I look at him in horror. ‘But I thought we had agreed on just the one egg? I thought Eco princess Maddy Mo was all for one egg per child?’ I whine helplessly.

‘Well, I’m not sure why you ever filled his head with all that nonsense about a whopping great Rabbit in the first place. He would have been just as happy with a chocolate egg which came from us.’

I look at him aghast. ‘I didn’t fill his head with that nonsense. I have no idea where it came from, nursery probably, but once he believed in it, I couldn’t exactly

‘Oh yeah, but she said she thought the Easter Bunny probably didn’t know about all the poor children and would still hide eggs in the garden. I think she’s right because it’s not like we’ve written a letter to tell him, so I think he’ll come anyway.’

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I kiss him goodnight and race downstairs, head and heart in a flap, to explain the impending disaster to Nathan.

I find it difficult to speak, my tongue sticking to the roof of my mouth, but I manage to say ‘Oh Cameron sweetheart, I don’t think has been. I think there is maybe just one egg. It’s big though.’ I say hopefully.

‘Och, don’t worry, he’ll be fine. Once he sees that giant egg we’ve got him he’ll forget all about it.’ He drains his glass and pours another.

‘No, he has been. I went into the garden just to check, and look? My bucket’s full of eggs.’

‘It won’t be fine. He’ll be heartbroken and probably scarred for life. It’s the same as waking up on Christmas day with no presents. Would you say that’s fine? Oh God, I wonder if anyone has any spare eggs?’ I mutter more to myself than Nathan.

‘Seriously, Cats, you’re not going to go begging eggs off people. Look, if he’s upset, we’ll just say the big daft rabbit made a mistake. I mean they’re not known for their intelligence, are they? And we’ll go to Tesco and get a few more. Half price. Win-win.’ He turns back to the TV. Conversation clearly over.

‘Aaaagh, why are men so one dimensional,’ I say as I storm off.

There is clearly nothing I can do at this hour, but I fret for most of the evening, finally retiring to bed for a night of broken sleep. I toss and turn, vivid dreams of oversized rabbits and a small, sobbing boy, interrupting my sleep.

I am awoken at what feels like an ungodly hour with screams of delight.

‘Mummy, mummy. He’s been. I knew he would come. I knew he was real!’

I manage to prise my eyes open to see him standing at the edge of my bed in his gorrilla onesie, chocolate smeared around his mouth and a bucket brimming with eggs of varying sizes. ‘And look, he also had a bite of a carrot. Just like Rudolph!’ he squeals My mouth drops open. ‘But?…what the?…how?...’

Nathan sits up in bed next to me, rubbing his eyes.

‘Eggscellent. Any for dad?’ he smirks, raising an eyebrow in my direction. ‘Good old Easter Bunny, eh?’

Kirsten Nairn lives in Scotland with her husband, two children, and many pets. A Sorry Affair is her first novel but there are many more at various stages of editing and proof reading. 2019 will be the year of publishing! One other thing…Kirsten writes in secret. No one, not even her family know she has published a book!

You can discover more about Kirsten on the Mom’s Favorite Reads website here: https://moms-favorite-reads.com/moms-authors/kirsten-nairn/

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Checkmate in Three Supplied by Chess.com

It may seem hard, but if you just look for the most forcing moves, you will find the solution.

Supplied by https://chess.com/ the #1 chess website. Used with permission.

For more chess puzzles please visit https://chess.com/ You can find the answers for this activity on the Mom’s Favorite Reads website here: https://moms-favorite-reads.com/magazines/activities/ - 15 -

An Interview with Tony Whitt Interviewed by T.E. Hodden

Like many fans of a certain age, my first experience with many Doctor Who stories was not watching the TV screen from behind the sofa, but reading them under the blankets by torchlight. Novelisations published by Target Books, were pocket-money affordable treats, covering a vast back catalogue of adventures across time and space.

Two classic adventures, Revelation of the Daleks, and Resurrection of the Daleks, both stories of the 1980s, scripted by Eric Saward, didn’t make it into he range, due to legal issues, but will finally grace the printed page later this year.

station ran a promotion for supporting the show (which I’d been watching for some time by then). If you donated $60 per year, or $5 per month, they sent you not only a randomly chosen Target novel (which should sound really familiar to our listeners) but also one of the special books such as K-9 AND OTHER MECHANICAL CREATURES. That was the good news. The bad news was that, as a result, the very first DW novelization I ever owned was THE HORNS OF NIMON. I couldn’t even take it out on the school bus because the other kids would laugh at the author’s name – again, something which should sound really familiar to our listeners…

To celebrate the landmark, and discuss the cult appeal of the novelisations, I reached out to Tony Whitt, of the Doctor Who Target Book Club Podcast. Tony, with a loyal band of brave friends, has undertaken the daunting task of reading, and reviewing every novelisation in broadcast order (which is to say, he’s reading the stories as they were shown on TV, rather than as they were published).

But I soon discovered that a bookstore a few towns over from us across the West Virginia border carried the books, and even better, that the comic shop where I spent a good bit of my time when we visited my sister every summer in Michigan also carried them.

I believe my second book, the first one I actually paid for with my own money, was TOMB OF THE CYBERMEN. And off we went.

Hi Tony. Would you mind introducing us to yourself and your team? Hello, fellow time traveller!

My name is Tony Whitt, and I both host and produce the DOCTOR WHO TARGET BOOK CLUB podcast, which is released roughly twice each month. We have a rotating group of panellists, including our so-called expert who’s been a WHO fan since 1979 (that would be me…) and at least two novice or semi-novice fans who are unfamiliar with either the show, the books, or both. Our usual victims are Alyson Fitch-Safreed and Dalton Hughes, with infrequent visits from mega-fan Trey Korte, but we also have hosted Jenny Ingersoll and Rory Jobst (co-workers and friends of mine). We also occasionally guest people from other podcasts, such as Stephen Fodor from TOO MUCH SCROLLING, J.G. McQuarrie from TALKING WHO TO YOU, and Skip Benninghouse from the FICTION PARADOX podcast. In upcoming episodes, we’ll be joined by Larry VanMersbergen of the DOCTOR WHO COLLECTORS ARCHIVE and by someone we’ve interviewed twice on the show, the author John Peel.

I still have those first two books, by the way, even though the spine of the K-9 book was so poorly put together that it’s literally falling apart…

When did you first discover the novelisations?

I didn’t know that the novelizations even existed until sometime around 1981, when my local PBS

Why do you think they were so well loved by fans?

I have two answers for that: the reason they were loved THEN, and the reason they’re loved NOW. Back in the day, as the young’uns say, the reason we loved the books was because many of us were too poor to afford VCR’s, and thus the books were a way to revisit the stories we loved (and even the ones we didn’t) whenever we wanted to. When we inevitably learned that the books differed, sometimes quite wildly, from the televised version, we loved them even more because they gave us a different take on a story that we never thought of before. This was my first experience of many of the Hartnell and Troughton stories that I would not end up seeing until 1986, by the way, so that made those later viewings a bit more…interesting. (Needless to say, I was happy that Ian does NOT ask Barbara where his breakfast is at the beginning of THE WEB PLANET, which he DOES do at the beginning of DOCTOR WHO AND THE ZARBI…) I think it also helped that in 1981, I was right in the age range that the Target books were intended for, and I even remember

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learning words like “bas-relief” and “dirk” from TOMB OF THE CYBERMEN, so there’s that.

of the books!

As for the reason we love them now…well, it’s nostalgia, really. My friend Trey can remember exactly where he was when he first read a Target book. I personally will always remember pushing my homework aside on the afternoon of Sunday, November 20, 1983 because I’d just bought the novelization to THE FIVE DOCTORS and wanted to read it before I saw the episode on TV that Wednesday night. (In fact, I remember it that vividly precisely BECAUSE it was THE FIVE DOCTORS.) As we get older, those mostly-buried memories come to mean a lot more to us, and rereading these books, even though I make more fun of them now than I did then, still brings back that excitement I had when I first read them. Well, most of them, anyway.

MARCO POLO bored me then, MARCO POLO bores me now. Rest in peace, John Lucarotti.

In the UK they were a constant presence in bookshops, and a staple of charity shops and jumble sales. Were they as easy to find in the US where the show had a far less mainstream following? Actually, it was the other way around: once the show got steam here in the States, Target found itself having to triple and quadruple their output just to meet the demands of we American fans! Admittedly, we were (and are) a bunch of spoiled brats, aren’t we? Not only did we get ENDLESS repeats of Tom Baker’s run, and then later of Pertwee, Davison, and all the other Doctors, while fans in the UK had to wait for a rare repeat or an even rarer VHS release, we got THE FIVE DOCTORS on the day of the anniversary before you did… Not to rub it in or anything. But they became very easy to find, and they remain that way – my local Half-Price Books has doubles of nearly my entire Target collection, as well as the Pinnacle Books (these were the first novelizations published here, with different cover art and with Americanized prose – NOT recommended for fans except as a curiosity).

Mind you, given that I didn’t know the books even existed until 1981, I probably felt differently about the abundance we had, but it didn’t take long to find sources for our addiction. For that matter, we also had the wonderful services of the great John Fitton Books, from which we could order VERY expensive collectables such as the Annuals or fairly inexpensive things such as a very reasonable six-month pre-paid subscription for which we got each new Target book as it was released in Britain – WITH postage paid.

That would have been 1984, at which point I would say I wasn’t suffering from not being able to find any

I guess we should begin by asking, what makes a good Novelisation? This changes depending on the fan. Personally, a GREAT novelization for me is not only one which recreates the world of the original story but also expands a good bit on it. In fact, some of my absolute favorites (as I’ll talk about in a bit) have almost nothing to do with their onscreen counterparts. A simply GOOD one is one that faithfully retells the story and perhaps adds some stuff or fixes some plot problems along the way – Terrance Dicks falls into that category more than anyone else, and not just because he’s written more of them than anyone else.

Do you have any favourites? Several, and for very different reasons. I’d reread DOCTOR WHO IN AN EXCITING ADVENTURE WITH THE DALEKS anytime, not only because it gives us the closest thing to a novelization of the first MOVIE that we’ll ever get, but also because David Whittaker is simply one of the finest prose stylists ever to put pen to paper to tell a Doctor Who story. If you read this one and THE CRUSADERS, he has no interest in retelling the story just for kids – the savage beating of Barbara in the second book, which is one of the main reasons I DON’T include it on my favorites list, is proof of that. We’re about to rediscover the joys of Malcolm Hulke on the show – in fact, John Peel requested to guest on our episode about THE CAVE MONSTERS – and it’s all due to his unique style and his way of making sure his readers LEARNED something they couldn’t get from the TV version. THE RESCUE by Ian Marter is a particular favorite just because of how much he ADDS to that story – even to the point of making crude sex jokes, almost all of which the editor took out. But my absolute favorite to date – and you’ll notice that I’m only including the earlier books because I haven’t gotten to revisit the later ones yet – is THE GUNFIGHTERS by Donald Cotton. If only Cotton had written more of those, because he honestly doesn’t give a flying one if the plot diverges from what’s onscreen, and so what’s on the page is just unexpected and fun.

If pressed to give a LATER example, just from memory, I’d have to say FRONTIOS by Christopher H. Bidmead. His first two books absolutely bored me, but that one stirred my imagination, especially his descriptions of the graceful but monstrous Tractators, the Doctor and Tegan being levitated at rushing speed through the darkness of the caves, the mining machine made from actual parts of the corpses of the colonists…!

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So you can imagine my utter disappointment when I finally saw the story about a year later. The book was SO much better.

Revisiting the old adventures has not always been a comfortable experience, seeing the differences in how race, sexism, and politics were portrayed. Were you expecting to have to deal with such weighty and delicate issues? From the start. AN UNEARTHLY CHILD starts with a Barbara Wright who seems to want a second career as a detective, convincing her friend Ian to go spy on a student of theirs because she just…seems…wrong. Brilliant. The Barbara Wright in AN EXCITING ADVENTURE, on the other hand, spends a good part of the first third of the book injured in a crash that it’s implied she caused, and then the rest of it is pined after by Ian (who is telling the story). Not necessarily sexist, mind you, but not as progressive as the original.

What’s more surprising is that so many of the books RETAINED those notions and ideas, even when they could easily have been jettisoned, probably because some of the same men who wrote the televised stories were responsible for the novels. We were, for example, shocked at that aforementioned beating scene in THE CRUSADES, and I never realized just how heart-stoppingly sexist Bill Sutton was until I reread THE ZARBI and got that other aforementioned scene, AND his unnecessary change of a female character back into a male one!

We’ve only had a chance to really ask one author about all of this on the podcast, and that was when I interviewed Nigel Robinson about the slap that Jamie gives to a hysterical Polly in THE UNDERWATER MENACE – and then she THANKS him for it! I thought Alyson was going to come out of her chair over that one. To his credit, Robinson said he didn’t remember whether it was in the original but that he did regret it could be taken in a sexist way now. I very much doubt whether Whitaker, Strutton, or Dicks would ever apologize for something taken as sexist in one of their books, even now.

Have you been surprised for good reasons too?

Gleefully so. I never expected us to get such a good discussion out of GALAXY FOUR, which most fans will agree is a turd out of water. The book, though, has a unique take on the Hartnell Doctor, one in which he is constantly thinking about the age of his body and longing for the moment he will get a new one. You NEVER see that in any other Hartnell books, even the ones that remind us anachronistically that he’s a Time Lord. It also had some downright

hilarious moments, such as when the Chumblies come to move the TARDIS. The Doctor and Stephen are hurled to the floor, and when Stephen asks if he’s all right, the Doctor, still lying down, replies, “Oh, yes, I just love games like this.” That book also gave us an interesting discussion about gender and the way it’s portrayed in fiction and on TV, and it stands out to me even now.

I’m always surprised, though, by the insights of our panellists. One of our patrons and best friends of the show, Rick Taylor, once told me he valued our show because we brought to our discussions insights into the stories that he had never thought of before, and I completely agree, though I give all the credit to the other panellists. Alyson and Dalton (and, when she joins us, Jenny) have come up with ideas about the stories that I would never have imagined, and I get at least one of those surprises every episode.

In television terms you’re about to enter the era of colour episodes with Jon Pertwee. What have been your highlights of the journey so far? Apart from the examples I’ve just given, there are still so many.

Reading the books made us long for the character of Vicki to be better written than she was, to the point that one of our listeners claims that we hate her (Vicki, I mean, not the listener). We don’t – we adore Maureen O’Brien, especially after I showed the other panellists her performances – but we did get a lot of mileage, and still do, out of how strongly a companion gets introduced and how they seem to just peter out by their last story. We came to love Zoe, though, and we now believe that the late Deborah Watling was cheated out of playing a really GOOD character by a bunch of middle-aged men who didn’t know how to write for her. (John Peel, on the other hand…)

I also personally love the moment that I got annoyed with Alyson because a character in THE SAVAGES referred to what was happening as “just another Tuesday,” and it took her a good two minutes to realize I wasn’t pissed off about the Douglas Adamslike humor but because an alien planet had Tuesdays!

That still makes me laugh.

Something to remember, though – for US, the stories have ALWAYS been in color, unless we decided to watch an episode. The books can be very colorful, though I do notice that THE AUTON INVASION is a lot more VIBRANT than most Terrance Dicks books I’ve read.

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Doctor Who isn’t the only show to have been novelised, or to have spun off into original novels.

Are you a fan of other series too? I am, and I so desperately want the time and resources to do podcasts about them, too! We actually did an April Fools’ episode which was in a way a backdoor pilot for the STAR TREK BOOK CLUB PODCAST I want to do someday; and I’m a huge fan of DARK SHADOWS, though reading THOSE books is both cost-prohibitive (you’ll almost never see THOSE in a second-hand shop, for example) and just painful, until you get to the newer ones by Lara Parker. And if my co-panelists ever had any interest in it, I’d love to read Jack McKinney’s excellent novelizations of the not-always-excellent anime series ROBOTECH, which also aired when I was a kid. Thing is, I’m hoping we finish the DOCTOR WHO podcast before I get too old to edit it (I’ll be 49 this year, and we won’t be finished until my early 50s at least), so if we wait till then to do the STAR TREK one, I literally will NEVER see the end…

The range has been revived in recent years with novelisations of modern era episodes. Have you been reading them? How do you think they stand up to the classics? They’re…interesting. They’re very much what a bunch of NEW ADVENTURES novelists think the Target books SHOULD have been, for better or for worse. That makes it sound like I hate them, and I don’t – it’s just that I found THE CHRISTMAS INVASION was the only one that really did a Dicksian take on the original story, in that there weren’t a lot of new moving parts, and none of the new moving parts contradicted anything we’ve seen before. ROSE, on the other hand, was the story I think RTD originally wanted to tell but couldn’t.

DAY OF THE DOCTOR is…clever, and not always in the best ways (much like Moffatt’s stories on screen, in fact). The one that hits that perfect sweet spot between recapturing the original story and adding some wonderful new elements, though, is Paul Cornell’s TWICE UPON A TIME, which is one of the few novelizations that has ever made me cry – when the TV story itself didn’t. The only Target book I

remember doing that so well was REMEMBRANCE OF THE DALEKS, because of course it did.

I do hope that, by the time we find ourselves reading Gary Russell’s novel of the TV movie, they’ll have done enough books of the new series that we might go on another two or three years, which probably means I’ll be editing from a wheelchair by then.

Okay, lets end with a little game of Desert Island Docs… If you were going to be stranded on a desert island with just three novelisations for company, which would you choose and why? THE GUNFIGHTERS, because it would never cease to make me laugh; DOCTOR WHO IN AN EXCITING ADVENTURE WITH THE DALEKS because, yes, it really IS an exciting adventure with the Daleks, so much more so than what we got; and TWICE UPON A TIME, for the reasons I just gave above.

And if the tide was about to sweep them away, which would be the one you saved? I’d probably drown trying to save all three of them! Depending on the edition, though, I might save EXCITING ADVENTURE if it’s the original hardcover that I own.

I’m hoping that one will pay for at least a couple weeks of my retirement…

Where can we find your podcast? On the podcast provider of your choice, including iTunes (but NOT Podbean or Spotify, yet), but you can get our episodes directly from https://soundcloud.com/ doctorwhotargetbookclubpodcast - and if you want to throw a bit of your money away every month to support us on Patreon, there are at least three extra episodes done exclusively for our Patrons that you can find there, at https://www.patreon.com/ DWTargetBC

Tony, from all of us at Moms Favorite Reads, thank you!

And thank you, fellow time travellers, for your valuable time!

T.E. Hodden trained in engineering, and works in a specialised role in the transport industry. He is a life long fan of comic books, science fiction, myths, legends, and history. In the past he has contributed to podcasts, blogs, and anthologies.

You can discover more about T.E. on the Mom’s Favorite Reads website here: https://moms-favorite-reads.com/moms-authors/t-e-hodden/ - 19 -

Autism Awareness, Inclusion & Acceptance

by April Cox

April is Autism awareness month. In previous years it didn’t mean much to me. There is no Autism in my family and I never really understood the huge impact it has on the kids and their families. This year is different. A young man named Jayden changed that for me. He has lifted my spirits and given me insights into Autism and peaked my curiosity to learn more and figure out how I can help.

It all started when I received a thank you note from Jayden’s Mom. Jayden had received the Puppy Pickup Day Companion Coloring Book and he loved it. She was excited to share with me that her son was coloring! It was a huge deal because Jayden has always struggled with fine motor skills. But he was working through it because he really identified with the story of The Little Labradoodle.

In the book, Puppy Pickup Day, the small puppy is clumsy, cannot catch balls and is excluded from play with his siblings because he was too small. Jayden couldn’t catch balls either or jump a rope and he knew what it was like to be excluded from play. Coloring and writing did not come easy for him, so he tried to avoid it at all cost.

I told his Mom that I had a contest going on and all he needed to do to enter was color one of the pages and send me a picture. What a great job he did! The encouragement was just what he needed. I sent along a hardcopy of the book and a little labradoodle plush. In the inscription I encouraged him to write a story. A few days later, this is the note I received from his mom, Diane.

“ Your previous letter to Jayden has made a big impact on him. I am attaching an artwork he did after he received your letter and it made me cry (happy tears). I tried for years to try to make him write and failed miserably.

Just look at his work now, I see a major improvement.

Thank you so much and God Bless!! “ This little boy has captured my heart and inspired me to learn more about Autism. I had the pleasure of talking with a few Moms of Autistic kids. What they want most is not to have a day or a month of people being aware of Autism, but rather have them understand, acknowledge, include and embrace autistic kids.

Many of them have difficulties in some areas and excel in others. They need to be challenged and accepted.

Sometimes it takes a person outside the immediate family to speak words of encouragement or to challenge them with something new. The most important thing is to act with love, extend a hand in friendship and to teach our kids to do the same. I am so grateful to have my new pen pal and look forward to seeing him continue in his writing skills. Who knows – maybe he will be a published author one day. Maybe even with Little Labradoodle Publishing!

April M Cox is an Author of children’s books and Entrepreneur, founder of Little Labradoodle Publishing. She is a Mom, Nana of 4 beautiful kids that inspired her journey. April lives in Pawtucket, RI with her husband, Steve, and two labradoodles.

You can discover more about April on the Mom’s Favorite Reads website here: https://moms-favorite-reads.com/moms-authors/april-m-cox/

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Leonardo and Galileo: Science Museums in Florence

by Fabia Scali-Warner

I recently visited the Museum of Leonardo www. museoleonardodavincifirenze. com/‎ and the Museo Galileo www.museogalileo.it/ in Florence, two small hidden gems of the Tuscan city.

of Leonardo’s research as an engineer.

In the Museo Galileo instead we follow, through the changes in time to scientific instruments, the evolution from the Geocentric to the Heliocentric system. At the same time, we feel the arrival of the Enlightenment in the popularity with the political and cultural elites of the time, of instruments and machines designed for research as much as the spectacularization of science.

The main premise is that both are science museums: the former is dedicated to working replicas of the different machines designed and built by Leonardo, while the latter displays collections of several scientific instruments used throughout the XVII to the XIX century.

Both indicate the renewed interest towards science that was typical of the Renaissance, which was dedicated to the research and discovery of the laws of nature; the incredible impact of visual arts produced during that period should not make us forget just how fluid the separation was between the philosopher, the artist, the scientist and the magician/ alchemist.

It is therefore not surprising that Leonardo’s noble employers did not only expect from him paintings and elaborate theatrical scenographies, but also farming or war machines. As mentioned, the Museum of Leonardo does not display original works, but working copies of the machines and experiments from Leonardo’s notebooks. The exposition allows direct interaction with the functional mechanisms of these machines, allowing us to experience the breadth

Armillary spheres, maps and travel logs are accompanied by increasingly more complex instruments, like thermometers and spyglasses. In particular, the collection of the museum shows the evolution of the design of optical instruments, like the prototypes for telescopes and microscopes.

This museum also has interactive displays, dedicated to the demonstration or experimental exemplification of some of the mathematical and physical principles at the heart of the discoveries allowing the evolution of the displayed instruments. While not a fullyfledged Science Museum on its own, this part of the museum shows willingness in trying to explain science to the younger generations.

Culture in the Renaissance required a balance between arts and sciences: perhaps we still have something we can learn from the ancient masters.

Fabia Scali-Warner is a writer who loves communication and technology. Her non-fiction works are focused on literature and communication. In fiction, she is currently exploring the depths of the Sci-Fi genre. Her first novel, Julia Dream, explores a dystopian, post-apocalyptic future.

You can discover more about Fabia on the Mom’s Favorite Reads website here: https://moms-favorite-reads.com/moms-authors/fabia-scali-warner/ - 21 -

Some Are More Dead Than Others

by Val Tobin

Death and Near-Death Defined and the After-Effects of Near-Death Experiences In his book, The Journey Home, Phillip L. Berman references a 1981 Gallup poll putting the incidence of near-death experiences (NDEs) in Americans at 8 million (8). Dr. Jeffrey Long of The Near-Death Experience Research Foundation calculates the occurrence of near-death experiences in the United States at 774 daily. In his calculations, Long uses a 1992 Gallup poll that raises the overall figure to 13 million. As science, technology, and emergency medical care improve, more people are returning from the brink of death than ever before.

Random House Kernerman Webster’s College Dictionary on dictionary.com defines near-death experience as “any experience involving a vision, as of the afterlife, reported by a resuscitated person.”

Based on this definition, mystical experiences and out-of-body experiences not involving resuscitation would not qualify. A true NDE would require a return from clinical death with some type of medical intervention.

Not everyone concurs with this definition. An International Association for Near-Death Studies website article called About Near-Death Experiences defines the term more loosely. It includes any experience reminiscent of an NDE even if the experiencer was not near death.

On the Scientific American website, the blog post “What Does ‘Dead’ Mean,” written by Northwestern University associate professor Kelly Michelson, says that death has more than one definition. In her discussion, she talks about brain death and circulatory death, with brain death in particular causing controversy when loved ones must decide whether to keep a

patient on life support. What a medical doctor defines as death may not be considered as such by a patient’s loved ones.

Raymond Moody, M. D., first used the term “neardeath experience” in his book Life After Life. He used as case studies people who had been clinically dead though not necessarily formally declared as such; those who had an experience while near death; and those whose experiences were reported to third parties and then relayed to Moody (8). Moody leaned toward the tighter definition of the term though he did not require that clinical death be a part of the experience.

The lack of agreement in what defines death mirrors the controversy that surrounds the legitimacy of the near-death experience itself. Skeptics dismiss it as a chemical reaction in the brain, drug effects, a physiological response to the body shutting down, or other natural causes. Believers debunk the debunkers and insist the experiences are real and proof of continued existence after death. While the debate persists, with neither side conceding, people continue to have the experience, and they come out of it altered.

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Regardless of whether a near-death experience is proof of an afterlife, it results in dramatic, life-long changes in the experiencer’s current life.

and benefit from the experience. Research by Kenneth Ring has shown that an NDEer’s experience can have a ripple effect that may bring others to a higher level of consciousness.

Case studies from researchers such as Moody, Kenneth Ring, and P. M. H. Atwater, interviews with NDErs, and existing documentation show that those who have neardeath experiences return from those experiences radically altered. Common after-effects include changes in values; beliefs; relationships with others; and physical, mental, and emotional function. While some of the alterations may facilitate spiritual or personal growth, they don’t make life easier.

My upcoming book, Changed for Life, examines the after-effects of near-death experiences and how those who haven’t had such an experience can improve their lives through learning about them.

Works Cited:

There is a period of struggle akin to what those with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) might experience. A mental illness, PTSD is a reaction to trauma, and symptoms include re-experiencing the traumatic event and avoiding trigger-inducing situations. According to Dr. Bruce Greyson’s article “Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms Following NearDeath Experiences,” NDE survivors have been shown to experience more of the disruptive effects of PTSD, but not more of the trigger-avoidance symptoms.

The experience must be processed so the subject can reintegrate into life on the physical plane. This is particularly important when the experiencer was reluctant to return to life and was sent back with the admonition that it wasn’t his or her time to die.

The return might bring the person back to physical pain and loss as well as to skepticism from loved ones. If the experiencer successfully integrates what happened, those he or she encounters can also learn

Atwater, P. M. H. “Aftereffects of Near-death States.” IANDS.org.

International Association for Near-Death Studies Inc., 12 October 2013.

Web. 23 August 2015.

Berman, Phillip L. The Journey Home: What Near-Death Experiences and Mysticism Teach Us About the Gift of Life. New York: Pocket Books, 1996. Print.

Long, Jeffrey. How Many NDEs Occur in the United States Every Day? Near Death Experience Research Foundation. Web. 30 August 2015.

“Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): Causes.” www.mayoclinic. org. Mayo Clinic Staff, 15 April 2014. Web. 22 October 2015.

Michelson, Kelly. “What Does ‘Dead’ Mean? blogs.scientificamerican. com. Scientific American, 9 February 2016. Web. 12 February 2016.

Moody, Raymond A. Jr. Life After Life. New York: Harper Collins, 2001.

Originally published in 1975 by MBB, Inc., and by Doubleday Books in 1976. Print. “near-death experience.” thefreedictionary.com. Random House Kernerman Webster’s College Dictionary, 2010. Web. 23 Sep. 2015.

Val Tobin, formerly a software/web developer, now spends her time writing.

She is also a Reiki Master/Teacher and Angel Therapy Practitioner® with advanced training, certified by Doreen Virtue in Kona, Hawaii. She has written numerous novels and some short stories, available at various retailers. In April 2016, Val received her master’s degree in parapsychology.

You can discover more about Val on the Mom’s Favorite Reads website here: https://moms-favorite-reads.com/moms-authors/val-tobin/ - 23 -

Bullying

by May Panayi

When we think about bullying- we maybe first think about physical violence. This is often boys bullying boys- like in Tom Brown’s Schooldays, Lord of the Flies or Scum. More often nowadays we include the alternate ways that girls tend to bully. This bullying is often more emotional. It comes to light more and more often, as cyber bullying, name calling, criticising and picking on the victim- often online on social media, but also in person. Frequently, and very sadly, these days we see reports of teenagers driven to grim suicide and attempted suicide; or having their lives thrown into turmoil in other ways- such as developing anorexia or bulimia, or other forms of self harm.

But this has been going on in all its forms for a very long time. I attended a girl’s grammar school between 1974 and 1979, and the predominant reason I did not stay on for the sixth form, and subsequently university- was the trauma of being bullied. I couldn’t wait to get away from it, at any cost to myself or my education and future. I was forty before I went back to university to get my degree.

Grammar school girls are supposed to be a bit more civilised; our school even had ‘for young ladies’ in the name; but I did not find it so. There was a group of four girls who made my life hell. Lucy was the alpha female, and main instigator and plotter of bullying events. Gwen was her side kick, first in line for delegation of attacks and back up. Retrospectively, the other two girls probably joined the gang to not get picked on themselves. Leilani was the only girl in our year that wasn’t entirely white, and Elizabeth was the only fat girl in the year. If the pair of them had not been part of the gang of bullies, they definitely would have been picked on.

The bullying wasn’t physical, it was much more insidious than that. Occasionally they would resort to outright name calling and mockery, but mostly it was really subtle stuff. The real problem with subtle bullying is it makes the victim feel paranoid. Is this really

happening? Am I just rubbish? Is it me? All questions the victim ends up asking themselves as time goes on.

I felt unliked, not good enough, deserving of always being overlooked. Those feelings of unworthiness, especially at such a formative age, build and build, leading to depression and suicidal thoughts. The main thing I took out from school into life was a low self esteem, which took years to repair.

Out of school, I was being subjected to emotional and sexual abuse. I suspect this put the victim label squarely on my forehead for the bullies to see, in the first place. It certainly added to the feeling of being an outcast at school; somehow the scabby, dirty, scarred and different girl; the one the cool kids would never want to hang out with. It was the psychological, invisible version of being the kid in a wheelchair that people turn away from, or the kid with the burns scars that the others put on a show of being nice to, but don’t want to hang out with as they feel uncomfortable in their presence.

I had been writing since I was a small child, and there was a school magazine club that I desperately wanted to be a part of. Gwen, Elizabeth and a girl from another class were on the editorial team. Because my English essays had been graded A plus, there was no possibility of denying my acceptance to the

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group, but it turned out that membership of the group most certainly did not mean inclusion. The editorial team would select which articles, stories and poems were to be included in the magazine, and Gwen would make sure that mine often just didn’t make the cut. If they did include something of mine, they would be certain to put it near the back of the magazine, where it was less likely to be seen. My work would never be included in the blurb at the front of the magazine which highlighted the ‘good stuff’ within. Little things that made me think it was just me being sensitive; stuff that built the paranoia.

They actually started the group up whilst I was away on a field trip; so I was playing catch up from the outset. They would schedule group meetings for after school, when I had to catch the coach home, and couldn’t stay on for them. When I did manage to attend meetings, any ideas I dared to put forward were routinely shot down in flames. Often I would find those same ideas had been later introduced by another group member as if raised for the first time.

I never felt a part of that group, always felt like the outsider; the unwanted family member that insists on turning up for Christmas, even though no one wants them there.

It wasn’t just on the school magazine though.

Sports were an absolute nightmare. The bullies were mostly sporty types- apart from Elizabeth- and often got picked to captain the hockey or netball teams, and then pick out the kids they wanted on their teams. I was always left standing there unpicked at the end. I was physically slim and fit at that time, but all the other kids got picked first. I would be left with two other girls who were in the same boat as me; Linda and Sue, to run about on the sidelines

‘practising.’ The sports teachers actually seemed to love the bully girls. At first I used to twist my ankle on purpose to get out of sports; leaving me to this day with weak ankles that turn easily. Later I faked sick notes from my parents, and finally I just stopped going along to sports at all, and hid in the library instead. No one seemed to notice.

The final straw was when I was sat at a desk next to Lucy in an exam. She was caught receiving a note that had been passed to her by Gwen, and taken to the head mistresses office. When interrogated as to who passed her the note, she claimed it had been me.

With no idea what was going on, I was taken to the head’s office and suspended for a week, despite my protestations of innocence. When I got home I had a major epileptic fit which required hospitalisation; something that had happened once before in response to a sexual abuse incident; and to this day, very occasionally occurs in response to extreme stress. The school never believed my side of the story, and did not lift the suspension. Worse, every time after that, that we had a class exam, Lucy would sneak into the class early and write my name, and that I was a cheat on the board. I know it doesn’t really sound like much, but added together and ongoing over five years, it made my life hell. I used to hide in the cloakroom behind coats at break time so they couldn’t find me. I had more sick days than anyone should, and began cutting and self harming during that time.

I think society is now becoming more aware of bullying and there are more support and resources available to provide help, but it still goes on, and that is very sad.

May J. Panayi has been writing since 1967, when she had her first poem called ‘In a Rage’ published in the local Gazette newspaper. That was the point at which she decided she wanted to write, and has been scribbling in one form or another ever since. She’s had poetry, short stories, articles and fillers, published in a variety of magazines, two book anthology collections, fanzines and websites.

You can discover more about May on the Mom’s Favorite Reads website here: https://moms-favorite-reads.com/moms-authors/may-j-panayi/ - 25 -

Orange Belt Opportunities: Part One

by Stephen L. Brayton

Being a heroine isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

with something normal instead of what usually walks through the door. Like I said, I just want to be me, but ‘me’ tends to attract oddballs wanting evidence of infidelity on their significant others or searching for lost or stolen items. A collection of matchbooks.

(Ironically, they were burned up in a fire.) A set of early 19th Century dollar bills. (The stripper in whose g-string they were placed, discovered their worth, sold them, quit the strip club, and moved to California.)

In fact, I don’t think the term applies to me. Yes, I’ve found myself in situations in which others were in danger and by quick thinking and a few martial arts techniques I avoided disaster. I carry a gun during my work hours, but use it only as a last resort. Most of the time I rely on wit and skill.

I didn’t consider myself a heroine in school.

When bullies teased the weaker students, I helped by offering guidance and suggestions from my taekwondo instructor. The best assistance I gave was being a friend. Did it come to push and shove? Well, once, but that’s a tale for another time.

The point is, I thought I was a typical teenager with the normal amount of angst, problems, and life discoveries. I earned some admiration by solving the school embezzlement case (again, another story for another day), but I also hung out with friends on Friday nights, dated boys, and attended sleepovers.

I drank sodas, ate burgers, and tolerated the second hand smoke at the bowling alley cheering for my dad on league nights. Mom taught me to cook, sew, and garden.

School counselors urged me toward certain employment opportunities, but I had plans, formed and shaped while reading mysteries years earlier and further evolved as a result of my martial arts training.

Because of my goals, I may have lost out on chances for the fast track in New York or Chicago. Some of my friends have shaken their heads in disbelief at my choices. I hope I still earned their respect through my actions and success.

I just want to be me, though. Mallory Petersen, Fourth Degree Black Belt in taekwondo and private investigator in Des Moines. Most weeknights I’m instructing classes unless a case keeps me away and my crew of reliable instructors manage fine on those occasions. During the day, some of those cases keep me hopping. They also keep me hoping I’ll end up

I don’t know why these types of clients come to me but just as my orange belt students, beginners who are looking to shine, I strive to do the best no matter what case I accept or whatever circumstance I find myself. Am I the heroine? Maybe, but always with a glitch.

Take for instance the Saturday I was shopping for groceries. The warm, sun-saturated weather of early June beckoned and I hadn’t planned to be inside very long. My organization’s World Championships in Little Rock was scheduled in a few short weeks and I wanted extra practice on my taekwondo form outside at one of the local parks. Going into that year’s Top Ten tournament I sat in third place. I was looking forward to my last year in my current age division and wanted to sport the red lettering on the back of my uniform denoting my status as World Champion in the forms competition. Whether I’d also achieve the same title for sparring and the weapons competition was another concern. I faced tough competition against some very talented women I’d met at other tournaments.

In the fruit department, I inhaled the combination of citrus as I perused the selection of grapes and oranges. The faint chords of Muzak came through the overhead speakers, but was drowned out by the abrupt loud voice behind me.

A brutish man, six inches taller than my six feet, loomed over a woman whose blonde head only came up to his chest. Everything about the guy was big.

Large hands, muscular arms, wide shoulders. A thick

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neck held an ogre of a head spiked with short bristles of black hair.

“Zip your mouth,” he berated in a harsh voice. “I didn’t want to be here in the first place. I should be out in New Mexico with my team. But since I’m stuck with you, let’s get this over with and go home without your yapping.”

His ‘team’ was actually his former team. I recognized him from the news. Carl Yazel made the headlines a month previous when the minor league Iowa Cubs suspended him for steroid use. An aging pitcher desiring another year paid the price for his decision to boost his performance level. His appeal still trudged through the court system. The media reports had mentioned frequent ‘misunderstandings’ with his wife that warranted visits from the police.

Apparently, his quick temper hadn’t been left at home.

“Carl, please,” the woman said. “Not here.”

“Don’t tell me what to do. Finish your shopping and shut up. Don’t forget the twelve pack this time.”

Yes, because alcohol would solve the problem.

I wanted to mind my own business but Yazel did the one thing I couldn’t ignore. He smacked the back of his wife’s head. She stumbled a step before regaining her balance. I didn’t like his yelling at her but physical violence demanded a response. I set my basket on the floor and stepped toward them.

“Are you all right?” I touched the woman’s arm to steady her.

“What’s it to you, lady?” Yazel’s breath evidenced alcohol consumption.

Really? At ten in the morning?

“Hitting her wasn’t necessary, sir.”

“Bug off. This doesn’t concern you.”

“It does when you get physical.”

He spat a derogatory word and pushed me.

“I’ll show you physical.”

I backed away, hands up, mouth open to diffuse the situation with words before it shifted to something more serious.

Too late. He reached into the nearby bin of oranges, snatched one of the orbs, and threw a fastball at my strike zone. An ex pitcher with his system revved by drugs and alcohol and ten feet away delivered a pain filled shot to my chest. The shock silenced me. He picked up another orange. I ducked away, but took the pitch on my left shoulder. I turned away and tried to shield myself behind the bins, but a third smacked the back of my head before I dropped out of sight.

With my vision momentarily blurred, I crawled to the far end of the bin and scurried to the next as more fruit whizzed overhead. Protests from other customers rose up around me and in my frantic scramble I heard people moving out of harm’s way.

If I could draw him toward me, keep his attention, maybe his wife would have a chance to be part of the retreat. Even though I risked more pain, I had to divert further violence toward his wife. Despite the trio of throbs in my chest, shoulder and head, I stood.

“I can see why your E.R.A. was so high last year,” I taunted, then turned to dash down the far aisle.

Yazel, all sense of reason gone, roared like a gored bull. He stomped after me. Ham like hands swept up anything within reach. He fired missiles at me with regular rhythm. I wrapped my arms around the back of my head. Tomatoes splattered and peppers disintegrated to either side. The aisle had cleared of shoppers but everyone turned to observe the spectacle. I remembered not to run in a straight line and sidestepped but a tuna can caught me between my shoulder blades. I pitched forward. Fingertips caught the edge of a shelf but I sprawled over the open tub of the meat cooler.

What was wrong with this guy? Why did nobody else step in to help? Surely somebody had called the police. How did I find myself dodging edible ammunition?

The most important questions: How long could I continue to evade him before being forced to fight?

What type of defense could counter his steroid and alcohol driven rage? A battle toe to toe was not a good idea.

My brain became distracted by all the questions. I heard labored breaths and turned to find Yazel almost upon me. He’d lost control. Spittle flew from his mouth and his eyes were dilated and bloodshot. His

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fists showed white knuckles.

I faced a dead end. Three walls lined with shelves of bagged dog treats, jumbo sacks of pet food, and a half dozen brands of cat litter. A twowheeled dolly with fat rubber tires stood nearby.

I ducked under his roundhouse swing, stepped to my left, and swept my instep into the back of his knee. He stumbled into the shelves of packaged bologna and plastic wrapped ham. I chose to run...in the wrong direction. Instead of staying in the main part of the store with multiple egress options, I scurried around the corner of the wide entrance to the storage rooms. Too late, I realized I’d passed the exit sign over the rear double doors. Too late did I think about how if Yazel followed me outside, he’d be away from innocent patrons, but I’d have more room to maneuver.

The ex-pitcher appeared and blocked my escape. My heart raced and my stomach ached with instant fear. I stared at an animal who was red-faced, wild-eyed, but able to understand my unfortunate predicament.

Trapped.

So much for my heroine status.

Stephen Brayton is a local Iowa Author and black belt. He uses his experiences along with his love of research to bring together complex and exciting mysteries. His books ALPHA and BETA are a combination of imagination, his martial arts knowledge, and lots of hard work.

Too Late

by Christine Ardigo Rain unleased above Destructive force of nature Winds that gust with rage Grandpa cries alone Water creeps beneath the door Memories washed away Trees snap, glass shatters No one by his side to help Monsters roar outside Ocean and wind clash Calls for help go unanswered Sturdy doors splinter Thrust into darkness Nowhere to go, time runs out Rescue crews rush in You can discover more about Christine on the Mom’s Favorite Reads website here: https://moms-favorite-reads.com/moms-authors/christine-ardigo/ - 28 -

The Birth of Of Rock ‘n’ Rock

by Mansel Jones

In the 1950s, the pop charts (introduced in 1951) were dominated by the likes of Frankie Laine, Johnny Ray, Rosemary Clooney, Doris Day, Tony Bennett, Dickie Valentine and Jimmy Young. On the whole these singers produced melodic, easy-listening tunes with not much there to frighten the horses. Then, in the mid-1950s Bill Haley and Elvis Presley burst on to the scene and popular music would never be the same again.

Nineteen Fifty-Six opened with Bill Haley at number one in the charts with Rock Around the Clock. The year also saw the début of Elvis Presley, who had six hits, commencing with Heartbreak Hotel. Understandably, British entrepreneurs began their search for a ‘home-grown’ Elvis and, briefly, Gene Vincent appeared to fit that bill. Promoters also touted Tommy Steele as a ‘British Elvis’. However, it soon became apparent that Elvis was an original and that there could be no substitute for the real thing.

Another major musical development of 1956 was the arrival of skiffle. Ken Colyer has a claim to being the first artist to bring skiffle to a British audience.

Nevertheless, Lonnie Donegan popularised the genre with his first hit single, Rock Island Line. Skiffle was accompanied in the charts by rock and roll and beat music; orchestral pieces and comedy records also had their say, but the popularity of the ‘easy-listening’ ballad was on the wane.

Bill Haley, like a comet, blazed across the charts with fourteen hits before fading in 1957. As ever with pop

music, as one star burned to ashes another kindled into life and the charts of that year were graced with new acts, such as the Everley Brothers and Jerry Lee Lewis. The Everley Brothers’ first, of nineteen, hits was Bye Bye Love, while Jerry Lee Lewis entered the charts with Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On. Another artist who had a major influence on pop music arrived in 1957; the song was That’ll Be The Day and the artist was Buddy Holly with his Crickets. Furthermore, television began to show an interest in the developing rock sound and the BBC broadcast the first of what was to become many series devoted to pop and rock music with 6.5 Special.

As the 1950s drew to a close Duane Eddy’s twanging guitar could be heard along with the dulcet tones of Johnny Mathis. Buddy Holly went solo with Peggy Sue and someone who was to prove more enduring than all the above, Cliff Richard, had the first of many hits with Move It. In addition, Billy Fury with Maybe Tomorrow and Adam Faith with What Do You Want? entered the charts for the first time.

This was an era when many people could cover the same song and still expect to make the charts. In 1959 three versions of Come Softly To Me made the top twenty, recorded by the Fleetwood’s, Frankie Vaughan and Craig Douglas. Also in 1959, there was a precursor to the early 1960s trad jazz boom with Chris Barber’s hit, Petite Fleur.

Mansel Jones has been researching and writing about medieval history for the past forty years. He is an acknowledged expert in his field and academics and universities seek his views. He is the author of A History of Kenfig, Pendragon and Tangwstyl.

You can discover more about Mansel on the Mom’s Favorite Reads website here: https://moms-favorite-reads.com/moms-authors/mansel-jones/ - 29 -

The Queen of Disguise

by Hannah Howe

Known as the ‘Queen of Disguise’, Annette Kerner was a leading detective in the 1940s. Born into a wealthy family, Annette trained as a mezzo-soprano with Ivor Novello’s mother, Clara, before opening the Mayfair Detective Agency in the 1920s.

Annette’s parents opposed her singing career so, aged seventeen, Annette secretly negotiated a singing contract with a nightclub in Geneva. While crossing the Channel to France, she flirted with a fellow passenger who told her that he was an intelligence officer keeping an eye on a suspected foreign agent.

The passenger went on to explain that the agent’s briefcase contained vital evidence of his guilt. Eager to impress her new friend, Annette calmly stole the briefcase and presented it to him. The agent responded by contacting his London headquarters; he urged his bosses to employ Annette as a freelance, and they agreed.

Drawn into the world of spying, Annette left the Geneva nightclub and sang instead at a Zürich club, a popular haunt of intelligence agents. She mingled with those agents with ease and when the time arrived for her to return to London she decided that a routine career was not for her and so opened her detective agency.

Although small in stature, Annette was a fearsome opponent and from her Baker Street office she mixed with criminals from all classes. During one investigation in the 1920s, Annette posed as an opium addict. She entered an opium den and to allay suspicion she sampled the drug. She was also held captive during the same investigation and had her wrists slashed, though ultimately she did assist the police in arresting the culprit.

In 1948, Leader magazine described Annette as ‘the woman of a hundred faces - at one moment she is a neat, matronly children’s nurse pushing a pram, only to confront a gentleman blackmailer, then she is an untidy waitress in a dingy backstreet restaurant mixing with fences.’ During her eventful career Annette took on the role of a cheerful char lady, a society vamp and a modest widow proving that female detectives can be as tough as their male colleagues, and just as resourceful.

Annette Kerner, in disguise.

Hannah Howe is the author of the Sam Smith Mystery Series, the Ann’s War Mystery Series and the #1 international bestseller Saving Grace. Hannah’s books are published by Goylake Publishing and distributed through Gardners Books to over 300 outlets worldwide. Her books are available in print, as eBooks and audio books, and are being translated into ten languages.

You can discover more about Hannah on the Mom’s Favorite Reads website here: https://moms-favorite-reads.com/moms-authors/hannah-howe/ - 30 -

April Word Search

by Mom’s Favorite Reads

MFR - April 2019 (Easter

How many of the words from this month’s magazine can you find below?

T N A L N X U V X O N I O S O S W V J P R J L A

D I S G U I S E H B C A R D Y Q U M A E T V Y J

G P E I D G X G U H I Z W A E L Q U R S S L R V

P I Y Y P E E L Z S D T W D D T T W P N L M D W

R A W O T J W A B Y V U C Y U I P R O R G P R Z

A C V T I D O F P A E Z U T S T I W A L Y M A B

N S S Z J O I J P T X R T M W N D N R Q I G K P

K G R L V Y N X A X F S G Q G R U Y P K D D O L

B U R D X P N R C E T L D X O Y L K K X M H M F

S B B C A M O N J S C V U P Q T S R C J T B C I

Y T E N H C H J U P E N O Z J T G W H O Q R G N

H E W U E O B R E B S N A I N T N F T T R X T C

L R U D S A J C J P J N I T A T J Q T K M N N L

N G S H A W U X N X P R M P P P E J U S U R K U

Z F A S L E G X U T D U A H P E R Q Y L F I I S

T G E K E R S D F F Z P B B J I C I E N L U V I

W V G O E N G U Q L R N Q M G J L C L W O T U O

Z H G T Q H E U O I O W V E V H F I A I W F A N

H T S S B G G R L H H R A X Y O H Y H S E F D O

R A N Y N N Y W A G D I E O A B B O M P R O E K

E E H F P L H D M W F N X N W L U A H C S A G V

decorate

prank

philippines

snowdrop

spring

disguise

rock

roundhouse

acceptance

inclusion

florence

awareness

death

autism

bullying

bunny

eggs

flowers

april

easter

F D D M C E V B J Y A K U S C C K S L O Q Y J U

G N I Y L L U B F K P R F O D E Z Z Z U G P B C

C P B V N W N M A F Q Z W E R G H P I K C K I W

You can find the answers for this activity on the Mom’s Favorite Reads website here: https://moms-favorite-reads.com/magazines/activities/ - 31 -

An Interview with Val Tobin Interviewed by Rachael Wright

Val Tobin: Author of The Experiencers

woman who’s desperate to find her father and in so doing is confronted a host of her own mother’s lies.

There’s a cabin in rural Ontario, where the trees are bare and the rain falls in sheets. It sits on the edge of a black lake. Out of the flat black water rise sun baked wrecks of trees. There’s no guarantee that a slithering quiet creature hasn’t grabbed hold to that driftwood and in the silence lifted its hand to grip the edge of your boat.

The stuff of nightmares for many children or perhaps forgotten after hours of sunbathing, but for author Val Tobin, the family cabin she returned to each Spring was the stuff stories are made of. It has stuck with her through the years.

“Everything was grey and dead … some bushes or tree might have buds if was late enough in the season, but there’s nothing eerier that going into the woods in early Spring,” Tobin explains.

For an author whose books rely on the supernatural and the hazy line between this world and any others, such inspiration is key.

In The Experiencers, “Carolyn’s encounter with a UFO hovering above her daughter’s school happened to someone I know,” Tobin said. “The experience is described in the novel almost exactly as it happened to my friend.”

It is a story steeped in the messiness of truth. Dani, Tobin’s protagonist, after confronted with the truth about her life is forced to reevaluate everything her mother taught her. Though fragile and vulnerable, Dani is, at her core, strong and resilient and manages to become successful in her own right.

At the end of each novel Tobin finds readers coming back, hankering for more. They’re successful, she believes, because the settings are real. Poison Pen is set in Niagara-On-The-Lake, Walk-In in Newmarket and Sharon, The Valiant Chronicles in Ontario, and Injury is set in California and Toronto.

Perhaps unknown to some of her readers, Val Tobin is also a Reiki Master and Teacher. Though initially hesitant when it came to healing modalities, Tobin said she wanted to be open enough to investigate it. Ever pragmatic, Tobin decided to get her Level I attunements because the cost of training was the same as a one-hour session.

Tobin says her Reiki knowledge and experiences infuse her writing to a great extent. Carolyn of The Valiant Chronicles is not only a Level III Reiki practitioner but a psychic medium as well.

From A Ring of Truth Tobin drew upon one of her own experiences and admitted she’s never known what really happened.

“She uses her abilities in a way that I’ve learned to do, though Carolyn is far more psychic than I am,” Tobin said.

“In this scene, Robert, a character Michael meets when he’s trying to get to the Valley of the Headless Men in the Northwest Territories, describes his own encounter with alien abduction,” Tobin said. “The story he tells is similar to something that happened to me … another person was with me at the time but for years he refused to discuss it.”

As if her fiction writing were not enough, Tobin is working on a nonfiction book about the aftereffects of near-death experiences that is based on her master’s thesis.

Tobin doesn’t limit herself to the paranormal and supernatural but demonstrates her vast repertoire through her novel Injury; a story about a young

Michael arrived home just before one-thirty. He went into the house and called to Jessica. Everything was quiet. He checked the kitchen. She wasn’t there. Her

Read below for an excerpt from Tobin’s The Experiencers:

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car was in the driveway. She couldn’t be far. “Jess?”

Michael kept talking, distracting her. He put his arm around her and guided her out of the bedroom.

“Don’t worry about anything. I’ll take care of lunch.

You can relax. I’ve got some work to do, but I can do it here.”

He moved on to the living room when there was still no response. Fear streaked through him. He reached under his jacket, pulled out his gun, and cocked it.

He made his way up the stairs, gaze darting around, watching for an ambush. At the top of the stairs, he stopped and listened. He thought he heard a sound from the bedroom.

He had to get her out of the house, and he had to make it look natural. “The sunshine and fresh air will be good for you.” He wondered then why she’d said nothing. “Jess? Are you okay?”

He went to the open bedroom door and listened. It sounded like someone was retching in the en suite bathroom. She’s sick. That’s all it is. He exhaled loudly, relieved. Still, he scanned the room before entering, and continued to hold his gun up and ready. After verifying the room was empty, he made his way to the bathroom.

To his horror, she burst into tears.

“No. I’m not okay.”

She was there, hunched over the toilet, wiping her lips with a tissue. He slipped his gun back into its holster as she turned to face him. She spoke before he could say anything. “Where have you been?”

“I had to go to the office.” The old standby. But it always came out sounding like “I needed to get the fuck away from you.”

“What’s wrong?” He couldn’t get into it. Not now.

He needed to get her out of the house. He wanted to check the place for bugs, for cameras. But he couldn’t let her see him do it.

“You’re what’s wrong.” There was pain in her eyes, and he knew the same pain was reflected in his own.

It hurt because it was true.

“Come outside. You should get some air.” He doubted there’d be listening devices out there. Get out of the house, damn it. It was all he could do not to give her a shove.

Her eyes showed their disappointment.

“I’m back now.” It was such a useless thing to say.

He hated himself for saying it. What he wanted to do was hug her, but he feared she’d push him away. “I’m sorry you’re not feeling well.” That was better.

You can discover more about Val on the Mom’s Favorite Reads website here: https://moms-favorite-reads.com/ moms-authors/val-tobin/

She acknowledged it with a nod.

He thought of what he needed to do. “Why don’t I help you set up outside on the lounge chair? You can relax there, read a book. I’ll bring you whatever you need.”

She continued to stare at him, wary.

Rachael Wright is a Colorado native with degrees in History and Political Science from Colorado Mesa University and is a columnist for Colorado Politics.

She is a devoted tea drinker, Manchester United fan, wife, and mother. Rachael lives outside of Denver with her husband, daughter, and crammed bookshelves.

Much of her writing is drawn from her experiences as a police wife, a life in politics, and the challenges of parenting. Although her first two novels were glibly classified as women’s fiction, she believes that death and loss and relationships are not issues that only women deal with or that women want to read. We are all of us drawn to stories that help us understand our own lives.

You can discover more about Rachael on the Mom’s Favorite Reads website here: https://moms-favorite-reads.com/moms-authors/rachael-wright/ - 33 -

The First Snowdrop of Spring

by Sylva Fae

I have always loved myths and legends,

When it was time for Lady Spring to take her turn, her big sister Winter was unwilling to relinquish her reign over the earth and sent down another blanket of snow to cover the land. Lady Spring arrived to find a frozen wilderness. Annoyed, she sent down her sunbeams to melt their way through to the bulbs below the soil but her efforts were thwarted by witch.

especially those surrounding nature. There are many stories about the spring flowers, but this is one of my favourites. This one is loosely based on a Moldovan legend and it is the tale I used to tell my children as we went for wintery walks, looking for the first snowdrop of spring…

Mother Nature created the world and filled it full of flowers, trees, animals, birds and people. She was pleased with her creation but it needed more spirit. Every part of the land was in balance, always the same, everything flourished and grew. Despite its beauty, Mother Nature became bored of her creation, so handed it over to her daughters to rule.

The Winter Witch and Lady Spring battled for days over the land below. Spring tried to heat up the land and sent down showers of rain to melt the snow, while Winter pelted the earth with icy hail. During the fight, Lady Spring pricked her finger on a shard of ice and a single drop of her blood fell to the earth.

The blood melted the snow and warmed up the earth below.

A tiny snowdrop sprung up from the bare soil and bloomed as white as the snow around it. Mother Nature, tired of her daughters’ squabbling, declared it was a sign that Lady Spring had won the battle and Winter’s reign was finally over.

Her eldest daughter was a witch named Winter. She stepped up to rule earth first and made her presence known with a flurry of snowflakes. She took pride in creating each individual flake in an intricate pattern. She blew her snow flake creations around the lands on icy winds, delighting in the way they covered every living thing below. The land cooled down and was soon coated in sparkling white snow.

Sylva Fae is a married mum of three from Lancashire, England. She has spent twenty years teaching literacy to adults with learning difficulties and disabilities, and now works from home as a children’s writer and illustrator.

Sylva has published several children’s books and also writes a blog, Sylvanian Ramblings. Her debut book, Rainbow Monsters won the Chanticleer Best in Category award.

You can discover more about Sylva on the Mom’s Favorite Reads website here: https://moms-favorite-reads.com/moms-authors/sylva-fae/ - 34 -

Spring Is...

by Sylva Fae

…thinking about starting.

good at dealing with adverse weather conditions. My lovely aunty sitting in her Canadian log cabin in the forest, surrounded by 6ft snow drifts, is giggling right now at our ineptitude to deal with a few inches of snow.

She can’t quite decide if she’s ready yet and winter is still hanging on. England is stuck in the mid-season zone.

At the weekend we awoke to the sun casting rainbows through the window. Throwing the curtains wide revealed a garden bathed in golden light, birds singing for their breakfast and spring flowers blooming. The girls rushed out before breakfast, nearly clothed in an eclectic mix of pyjamas and a random selection of shoes to play in the sunshine.

Later, and more respectably dressed, they charged through the park, happy to be no longer to be constrained by coats and hats.

Such a joyous feeling to celebrate the first sunshine of spring out in the fresh air. The sound of children’s laughter rang out all around as my three ran, climbed and tumbled, gathering new friends along the way.

We watched as they ran squealing, dragging a kite, in an attempt to make it fly across a wind free sky. Undeterred, they persevered, squealing with glee as it rose just a metre off the ground before crashing back down.

A carpet of crocuses added a colourful frame to the busy playground and new leaves and buds adorned the surrounding trees. Beautiful if only for a few days…

Spring was undecided…

She soon retreated taking the sun with her, sending out wintery showers of sleet and freezing rain. The garden playground of a few days ago has returned to mud and the snowdrops droop under a heavy coat of raindrops.

Then suddenly, the snow came down thick and heavy. Well by English standards, we’re not very

But it’s true we’re rubbish! All roads ground to a standstill, trains were delayed and cancelled and schools declared it a snow day. Ten-minute journeys took two hours, adults mumbled and grumbled about the inconvenience of it all, but all over children squealed in glee. Wellies on, sledges out, they made the most of an afternoon off.

Today all is quiet in the garden, the lawn crisp and untouched, the many welly prints of yesterday’s fun have disappeared. Yesterday’s snowman is hiding under a snowy blanket but more snow just means bigger and better snowmen are waiting to be discovered by chilly mittened-hands.

The garden fairies are taking cover and enjoying the peace and quiet. The blackbirds are sitting patiently in the ivy waiting for their snow free lunch. I’m under strict instructions from my girls not to play in the snow till they’re home. My wellies are sat waiting at the back door and I’m restraining myself from rushing out to make my own snow fairy.

All is quiet. That is until school’s out! Then the blackbirds will take flight as the silence is filled with shouts and the air is filled with flying snowballs. One shake of the swing and we’ll have our own willow tree blizzard. We’ll build our snowman, we’ll stomp and twirl around singing ‘Let it go’ Elsa-style. We’ll enjoy our snow day till noses turn pink and little fingers get too cold to play. Then back inside to defrost chilly toes in front of a roaring fire and fill up with hot stew.

Who knows what weather tomorrow will bring? Spring is still deciding.

You can discover more about Sylva on the Mom’s Favorite Reads website here: https://moms-favorite-reads.com/moms-authors/sylva-fae/ - 35 -

Occidental Mindoro: The Philippines

by Grant Leishman

I want to highlight a Philippine island that for many people may well be considered; “off the map” - the island of Mindoro, and more specifically the western side of the island, Occidental Mindoro.

Mindoro, a large, tear-drop shaped island is the seventh largest Island of the Philippines, at roughly 10,600 square kilometres, and lies off the southwest coast of Luzon, the main island. Its two provinces, Occidental and Oriental Mindoro are clearly delineated by a range of mountains that form the spine of the centre of the island. Although not generally seen as a tourist destination, Oriental Mindoro does contain one famous resort in Puerto Gallera, a popular spot for divers and sun-seekers, located on the far north-west tip of the island.

However, I want to focus on Occidental Mindoro, on its sheer unspoiled beauty and the immense potential that exists there.

Occidental Mindoro is accessible from the Luzon mainland in two ways. First, there are daily flights by Cebu Pacific and Philippine Airlines to the province’s largest town, in the south of the Island - San Jose. The other option is to catch “a slow boat to China” i.e. a roll-on-roll-off ferry from the port of Batangas, to the port of Abra de Ilog, at the north of the island. The trip can take anywhere from two hours to as much as three, four or even five hours, depending on which ferry you are fortunate or unfortunate enough to have caught. There appears to be no rhyme or reason why some ferry trips take forever, and some are quick and easy. It’s just the luck of the draw.

From Abra, the western side of the island spreads out before you and you can travel down from North to South in either air-conditioned buses or large passenger vans that ply the Abra - San Jose route regularly. The trip by road from one end of the island to the other will take you around 5-7 hours depending on your mode of transport.

The first time I visited Mindoro was in 2012 as we travelled to my wife’s home-town school reunion in San Jose. We took the “slow boat

to China” and the long bus ride down the Island, a trip that took all of 18 hours from the time we left our home in Metro Manila, till our arrival in San Jose.

It was, however, a fascinating 18 hours though as I drank in the sights of a part of the Philippines that was so diametrically opposite to the hustle, bustle and frenetic pace of Metro Manila.

I quickly dubbed Mindoro as the forgotten island”.

It seemed to me that the rest of the country had somehow forgotten that Mindoro existed. The infrastructure was still back in the 1950’s, with large parts of the main road not paved and with several main bridges in a state of total disrepair. I might add the main road is vastly improved now in 2019. The drive itself; through the rich farmlands of rice, corn and tobacco was beautiful and always interesting. On one side were the rich farming valleys and on the other side, often the sparkling waters of the West Philippine Sea. One thing I wondered early on was whether the Spanish had also forgotten the island of Mindoro. So often in my travels around the Philippines I have been impressed and stunned by the grandeur of the Spanish architecture and the historic, beautiful churches that they left behind. I saw none of this in Mindoro and must only assume the Spanish never saw the necessity to populate Mindoro in quite

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the same way as they did other islands of the archipelago.

away from it all” and the antithesis of the hectic lifestyle of Metro Manila. For me, the beaches of Mamburao are, and hopefully will always be; “paradise on earth”. Selfishly I say, long may Mamburao remain an undiscovered gem!

The two towns in which I’ve spent the most time in Occidental Mindoro over the past three years bear some mention here, for different reasons.

The other town in Occidental Mindoro that I want to highlight is the small farming town of Rizal. Rizal is located around 30klm north of San Jose and about 10klm in from the coast, in the island’s interior. It is special to me for two reasons; one, it is the home town of my lovely wife; it’s where she grew up and where her Papa (Papang) still lives and farms, along with two of her brothers.

Firstly, I want to talk about the first town you come across in your drive south from Abra de Ilog; the Provincial Capital of Mamburao.

Initially I expressed surprise that Mamburao should be the Provincial Capital, given it was a relatively small town, just a large fishing village and rural service town really, but like all things political in this country, I was told that there was a myriad of reasons why Mamburao was chosen as the Provincial Capital back in 1950, when the island was split into its current two provinces. I suspect it probably had something to do with it being the home-town of the Province’s first Governor.

Mamburao is home to some of the most stunningly beautiful, beachfront real estate I’ve ever seen anywhere in the world. The beaches at Mamburao may not have pure white sand like Boracay, but they have something much more special - peace, tranquillity and sheer magnificence of scenery. To witness a sunrise or a sunset on a beach in one of the many bays around Mamburao is to truly feel at peace with the world. The term “paradise on earth” is one that is bandied about far too much, but when I’m sitting under a coconut tree, sheltered from the sun, looking out through a vista of trees at the sparkling, deep blue waters of the West Philippine Sea I am at a loss for a better description of this amazing place.

There are very few beach resorts in Mamburao; it truly is an undiscovered gem in the tourist crown of these beautiful islands.

It is not unusual to swim at Lagundian Bay, near Mamburao and to see no other person within a radius of several miles.

It is the epitome of “getting

Secondly, Rizal, to me, is the epitome of Philippine rural life. It exists for one reason and one reason alone, to service the farms and farmers of the valley in which it is located. Just getting there is no easy task, a long, hot dusty ride by tricycle over three sets of hills and into three valleys is required before you drive up the main street of Rizal.

Rizal, I suspect, has changed very little since my wife grew up there in the 1960s and 70s. Sure, there is more mechanization now than there was then, more vehicles on the roads, but it was easy to walk along the main road of Rizal and picture the little girl walking down the road to the local school or running to the store to buy something for Mama or Lola. There are no great, pretentious buildings in Rizal. The town has that age-worn, lived in look of a place where just getting by was the norm and there was seldom excess to spend on luxuries like making the house look pretty or repairing the broken shutters and eaves.

One thing that surprised me in Occidental Mindoro was the predominance of the Nipa Hut style of house. This is a bamboo constructed house with a roof of thatched flax to protect from the sun and rain. Many, many of

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the families in Occidental Mindoro still live in either pure Nipa Hut style housing, or a mixture of concrete block and bamboo, with a thatched roof. I suppose it was a sign of the times, but something that will stick with me, was the incongruity of a Nipa Hut, with a satellite television dish attached to the roof. The twenty-first century meets tradition I suppose.

For me, Rizal was a warm and welcoming place. I also felt like I was coming home.

I guess it helped that every second person we met was a cousin or a relative of some sort, but I felt a genuine warmth and hospitality that is so evident in the Filipino psyche. I remember saying to my wife, “if this is where you would like to retire to, in ten years time or so, then that’s just fine by me.”

Simply put; in Rizal, I felt at home.

I haven’t even touched on Sablayan or San Jose, but each of those towns has its own uniqueness and excitement to offer. Sablayan has many beach resorts of great quality; especially resorts located near the famous Apo Reef, which is a very popular destination for divers. San Jose, equally, has a number of fine resorts. Many of these are located on Ambulong Island, Ilin Island and White Island.

The fact is Occidental Mindoro offers something unique and special that is hard to find in some of the more touristy resort locations in this country. If you fancy something a little off the beaten track, yet close enough to Manila to still be easily accessible; then give Occidental Mindoro a shot. Just don’t be sitting on my beach at Lagundian Bay when I’m looking for my own peace and solitude!

Grant Leishman is a fifty-nine-year-old full-time author and editor, domiciled in the beautiful islands of The Philippines. After careers in finance and journalism, Grant finally found his true bliss in life – writing. He his happily married to Thess and they have two daughters, Rose and Angeline.

You can discover more about Grant on the Mom’s Favorite Reads website here: https://moms-favorite-reads.com/moms-authors/grant-leishman/

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Extra Easter Egg, Anyone?

by L.L. Thomsen

How many Easter Eggs do you usually get? One? None? Three? More?

this person with a friendly challenge in the form of a ’riddle’ that they are required to solve.

I bet you, no matter what the number, there would always be room for one more. Am I right?

And here comes the catch. Albeit, a good catch.

Well, if so, this year, your Easter wishes to receive more delicious chocolate might just come true, thanks to this dear old Danish tradition that I’m going to tell you all about. And the best thing?

Well, the best thing is that this is lots of fun for both children and adults!

Sounds daft? Well exactly, but it’s a great break from pads and other electronics. Furthermore, you should also know that there’s also chocolate at stake – yet, before I elaborate on that, allow me first to tell you a little bit about the origins of this prank and how it developed, because the history of this goes way back...

So without further ado, let me introduce you to the ‘Easter hoodwink’ – or in other words: how you might use words and art to set a challenge for one of your loved ones. And this is not just any old boring challenge, either! You see this particular challenge is deliberately designed to lead astray, confuse, and delight.

Sounds a little strange? Ah but it’s not. In fact, when you hear how you are supposed to go about this, you will probably be itching to try it out. But first, a few details to fill you in…

In the same tradition as the Valentines card, the Danish ’gækkebrev’ (loosely translated as: the prank letter), is a type of letter sent out for a specific holiday – in this case, not the 14th of Feb, but during the week leading up to Easter. However, the ’gækkebrev’ concept covers a lot of ground. You could therefore send it like an Easter Valentines with a romantic message (and a riddle) if you feel so inclined – yet it so happens, that in the majority of cases, the prank letter is simply used for plain old fun. It can be sent to anyone, by anyone, and usually there are no romantic connotations involved.

Now okay... when I say ’anyone’... maybe you would not send one of these to a total stranger since that is not the aim of the game. Yet, unlike what the name suggests, the prank is not of a malicious kind, so if the letter did go astray, I doubt me anyone would take offence, though they would surely be puzzled - and with good reason. Because the prank letter has two purposes. The first: to convey your happy Easter wishes to someone you know. And second: to issue

As stated above, the person who receives the prank letter must solve the ’riddle’. The riddle of who sent them the letter, that is. And they must do so by Easter Sunday, too – so the clock is ticking from the moment the letter is opened, for IF the riddle is not puzzled out by this date, the game will be considered forfeit and the sender becomes the winner.

The origins The trickery has roots solely in Denmark – and amazingly, it’s a peculiar old-fashioned tradition that can be traced as far back as the 1400s, and to the use of something called a ’binde brev’ (loosely translated as: the binding letter).

A ’binding letter’ was basically a card/letter traditionally sent to someone on their birthday (or on one of the Ember days), with the purpose of officially ’binding’ this person to accept a challenge. As per tradition, this challenge most often took the form of a quirky riddle that had to be solved, however, in some cases the task could simply involve untangling a piece of string tied with knots. And there were rules.

If the person issued with the challenge did not rise to the occasion, or if they were unsuccessful, the only ’way out’ of the pickle was to host a party for everyone, thus ’unbinding’ themselves from the vexing task set out in the binding letter!

I wonder if this is why the binding letter eventually lost its appeal? Certainly, you cannot blame anyone for embracing the prank letter in its place, and perhaps this is why (with the passing of time and the introduction of new ideas), the binding letter did eventually morph into what we now know as

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’the Easter prank letter’. Yet in spite of this change, something of the old still remains in the new - and it is precisely those very ties that give the Easter prank letter its current characteristics.

Example: Hop, little bunny, hop, hop, hop

For example, these days it is still a tradition to make your own prank letter, and people often fashion these with elaborate patterns that they cut into the paper using scissors. It gives the letters a particularly festive look – however, few probably remember that this tradition is in actual fact a modern throwback to the look of the original binding letter, which was often heavily decorated. Furthermore, another direct line can also be drawn to the past through the token rhyme of poetry we now write in the Easter prank letters. It is a lingering small nod to the original riddles associated with the binding letters, and though the original purpose may have ceased to matter, a silly verse is now an absolute ’must’ bit of trickery in any modern Easter prank letter.

So just exactly how does it work now?

To issue a prank challenge, the sender of the Easter letter must remain anonymous and cannot leave any clue as to whom they are, except for the traditional trail of dots to represent their name. The token verse of poetry is usually written within the letter also, but though it may still read as a riddle and reflect aspects of Easter and of the challenge(r), it will usually have no other purpose than to make you smile (Remember, the emphasis is no longer on the idea of a party but rather on solving the enigma of who sent the prank letter – and on winning the prize!)

And so now we are back with the chocolate eggs, finally. Because the prize at stake these days is... you guessed it... an Easter egg!

The modern rules of engagement: Upon receiving the prank letter, the addressee now has three guesses to identify the sender. If they do not guess right, or if they do not issue three guesses by the time Easter Sunday comes around, they now owe the sender an Easter egg! (Yay) BUT, if the addressee should happen to guess correctly within the given time given, it will be YOU, the sender, who owes them an egg (Ups) - so beware, and be warned to make your challenge a good one!

In general, you may use any existing Easter verses/ poetry/rhymes that you can think of. But for fun, why not make up your own?

You left behind nothing but small footprints: dot, dot, dot Now dearest friend of mine Behold this Easter challenge so fine I wonder, can you possible reveal The riddle of my name – it’s a big deal!

See, you have but three tries Till Easter Sunday rolls on by Then should you fail to guess correctly Be sure, I will come by and claim directly...

My chocolate Easter egg!

To make your own prank letter – you will need: Coloured or white paper of any size and thickness.

A good pen. A pair of good scissors or a small craftknife for the fine details (NB! Please note that the latter is a suggestion for adults only. Please also remember to work on a suitable surface, like a table with a protective cloth and mat. Wear old clothes or an apron – just in case.)

Now fold your piece of paper as many times as you like, either just on a rectangle or a square, or if you fancy something different, maybe in the shape of a fan, or whatever shape your imagination can rustle up.

Then take the scissors and begin to cut out large and small shapes where you want to. If you cut along folded edges, the pattern will be a beautifully mirrored motif once you unfold your piece of paper, but you might have to try a few times to get the design right. If you like, you could also find a template online and draw it on your paper to cut along the lines. The possibilities are many and, fortunately, there is no right or wrong. If you cut along an outer edge, the edges of the unfolded paper will be shaped in the

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pattern you’ve cut. You can enhance the edges of your letter by cutting fringes or scallops, etc.

Once you have cut the desired shapes into the paper, unfold, and carefully straighten. Now write your rhyme anywhere you like. It doesn’t matter if it snakes around the cuts. And don’t forget to add the dots or little footprints to represent your name. Now, if you like, you can further decorate it, by colouring or sticking-on feathers, pictures, sequins, or beads (remember that apron!).

When done, pop your prank letter in an envelope, address it, and send it off – but remember: do not add your sender’s details anywhere, or your game will be over before it begins.

Oh... and don’t forget... if you are sending this as a sort of Easter Valentine’s, make sure to include a real snowdrop. If you press it gently between the folds of your letter it will stay nice looking.

Sneaky trick – if you think people will recognise your handwriting, get someone else to write it for you.

That way, you will remain completely incognito.

For visual inspiration, visit http://tinyurl.com/y3jf8c3l

Have fun, and happy Easter everyone!

L.L. Thomsen is the author of The Missing Shield: an adult high fantasy series that is set in an epic new world that involves a full cast of flawed, multi-faceted characters. With a hint of mystery, darkness and romance her conceptual approach to writing is utterly unique to the fantasy genre and cannot be fully appreciated unless you are prepared to read beyond the ‘first 10 pages’ and immerse yourself in the experience.

You can discover more about Linda on the Mon’s Favorite Reads website here: https://moms-favorite-reads.com/moms-authors/l-l-thomsen/

Meet Our Designer

Nicole Lavoie / Just Saying Dezigns

Nicole Lavoie is the Graphic Designer responsible for bringing the Mom’s Favorite Reads magazine to you every month. She also designed our book catalog that is published quarterly and will be designing our upcoming cookbook that is on track to be published later this year.

Along with her dedication to Mom’s Favorite Reads she also offers website design services, book cover design and specializes in Book Layout and Design for children’s books.

Whether you need help with your book, your website or could use a designer to help you finish off those creative tasks on your to do list, Nicole can help!

You can discover more about the services Nicole offers on her website at: www.JustSayingDezigns.com or by emailing her directly at Nicole@JustSayingDezigns.com - 41 -

Coloring Easter Eggs

by Ronesa Aveela

During my childhood, my grandmother colored eggs for Easter with dye made from natural products like onion skins and walnut tree leaves. Today, many people use commercial dyes, but in some villages in Bulgaria people still use natural colors and beeswax candles to decorate Easter eggs. The following describes how to decorate using the traditional methods. As you cook, save several of the dry, outer layers from onions. This may take a while depending on how often you use onions.

What You Need - White or brown eggs - Onion skins - Candle - Empty plastic vitamin bottles - Small paint brush used for art - Spaghetti strainer - Coffee mugs

Preparation Steps • Boil the eggs for 10 – 20 minutes, depending on the size (small to extra large). To prevent cracking, set the heat low, then remove the eggs gently with a spoon.

• Put about 6 cups of water and onion skins into a pan. Make sure the skins are covered with water.

Bring the liquid to a boil, then simmer for about 20 – 30 minutes.

• Light a candle. One made of bees wax is the best.

• Set the eggs on the top of empty vitamin bottles.

Decorate the Eggs • When the wax has melted, dip a thin paintbrush into it and paint a pattern on the eggs. First paint one half of the egg, let the wax dry, then turn the egg upside down and paint the other half. You can decorate several eggs at the same time if you have multiple bottles to use as stands.

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A few natural resources used for various dyes include:

• While waiting for the wax pattern to dry, put the pan containing the onion-skin dye back on the stove and bring to a second boil. Using a strainer, pour the dye into coffee mugs, filling them halfway.

• Put each egg in a mug and leave it there until the dye cools down, about 20 – 30 minutes. Pieces of the melted wax will float on the surface. Carefully remove the eggs with a spoon and wipe off the excess wax with a tissue.

• Remove the floating wax with a strainer, pour the liquid back into the pan, and boil again.

• Repeat the above steps to finish the rest of the eggs.

- Walnut leaves, turmeric (yellow) - Onion peel (yellow or orange) - Apple peels (yellow or light green) - Paprika, oregano, beetroot (red) - Coffee (brown) - Nettles, spinach, clover, parsley (green) - Cabbage juice (lilac) - Blueberries (purple) - Cornflower (blue) - Sumac (orange)

Modern-Style Alternatives:

Use any color medium-point permanent marker to make designs on the eggs. Another organic way to color them is with decorative paper napkins. My favorite design is daisies. Carefully cover the egg with uncooked egg white like glue. Cut out the pattern from the napkin and paste the design on top. Repeat until you have all the eggs decorated. Let them dry.

Now you are ready to celebrate and have eggs fitting the holiday. Hristos Voskrese and Voistnie Voskrese as Bulgarians say on Easter.

Various traditional designs include plants, animals, insects, reptiles, geometric shapes, a stairway of life spiraling to the top of the egg, butterflies (symbol of the soul and resurrection), and vines.

Originally published in Light Love Rituals: Bulgarian Myths, Legends, and Folklore.

Ronesa Aveela is “the creative power of two.” Two authors that is. The main force behind the work, the creative genius, was born in Bulgaria and moved to the US in the 1990s. She grew up with stories of wild Samodivi, Kikimora, the dragons Zmey and Lamia, Baba Yaga, and much more. She’s a freelance artist and writer. She likes writing mystery romance inspired by legends and tales. In her free time, she paints. Her artistic interests include the female figure, Greek and Thracian mythology, folklore tales, and the natural world interpreted through her eyes. She is married and has two children.

Her writing partner was born and raised in the New England area. She has a background in writing and editing, as well as having a love of all things from different cultures.

Together, the two make up the writing of Ronesa Aveela.

You can discover more about Ronesa on the Mom’s Favorite Reads website here: https://moms-favorite-reads.com/moms-authors/ronesa-aveela/ - 43 -

Bilingualism and Special Needs

by Millie Slavidou

Anyone with a child being brought up in a bilingual home tends to learn early on that they need to grow a thick skin. There will be comments about their child’s development, about being behind at skill, about how useful the minority language will be, and even from professionals, such as teachers, there is frequently a lot of negativity.

So imagine how much worse all of this can be when the child in the bilingual environment has special needs. Even without the bilingual element, when a child has special needs, the parents are suddenly surrounded by experts, from the person on the street or in the supermarket, to well-meaning friends and relatives.

Everyone but everyone feels a need to voice an opinion, and in the case of special needs, the social attitude towards bilingualism is overwhelmingly negative.

When my third child was born and his special needs became apparent, I had already been bringing up two other children in a bilingual environment for several years, and they were both doing well and reaching all their milestones. By that time, I had already read a great deal about the research into bilingualism, and had learnt from the experiences of other bilingual families. I knew of the benefits to the brain, and to cognitive development.

But then, with my third child, milestones were not being reached. I did not worry, as these milestones were not purely related to language. He was behind his peers in everything, from supporting his own head with his neck, to smiling, to rolling, sitting up, everything. Doctors had talked to me about the physical aspect of his development and what to expect, and he was receiving specialist help.

neurotypical children, and it created new pathways in the brain, then how much more advantageous would it be for a child with special needs, for whom new pathways in the brain could be a great stimulus, perhaps contributing to an improvement in the overall condition?

I talked to my son’s neurologist, who agreed with me, and encouraged me to continue with the bilingualism. I bore his words in mind when the occupational therapist told me severely to stop speaking in my own language, that I was sabotaging his development. Fortunately, by that time, my thick skin had practically developed into a suit of armour!

However, as time went on, it became necessary for my son to receive speech and language therapy.

While he was showing signs of comprehension in both languages, he only uttered one or two words in either of them. It is likely that this would have been the case if he were monolingual, and was related to his special needs rather than to the bilingualism. I took him to the clinic where he would be referred for speech therapy, and encountered a major setback. The doctor assigned to his case refused to refer my son for the therapy that he needed. “If you insist on speaking a second language to him, then it is you who are the problem,” she declared. “Speech and anguage therapy should concentrate on one language. That is the most logical.” I asked politely for proof of this statement, but I was asked to leave.

I continued to speak to him in my own language, the minority language, while my husband spoke to him in the community language. I considered it carefully. If bilingualism was an advantage for - 44 -

I was undeterred. I went to the director of the clinic and requested a new case worker. I knew by then that a lot of health care professionals could be incredibly negative about bilingualism, and that it is very common for speech and language therapists to advise parents to use only one language at home.

So why do I persist in doing so? Well, there is no reason not to speak two languages to a person who happens to have special needs. No research has pointed to a disadvantage.

International studies have shown only benefits and not drawbacks to the use of two languages, and children with various conditions, such as Down’s syndrome, autism, and developmental and cognitive delays have been shown to be able to cope with more than one language. Not only do they cope, but research suggests that the stimulation offered by a second language can help children with special needs to function better. They are not learning them as foreign languages, which is a very different matter, but being brought up speaking both from birth.

If this is the case, you might wonder, then why the negativity from professionals towards bilingualism?

Such matters are rarely simple. Firstly, research does not always reach the people on the ground for a long time after it has been carried out, and some professionals may have studied and been trained at a time when it was standard practice to discourage bilingualism. Secondly, those people may have little experience of bilingualism themselves, and unfortunately, they may extrapolate from their monolingual difficulties in learning a foreign language as an adult and apply that to the very different

situation of bilingualism from birth – two native tongues.

Many researchers have suggested, as I theorised with the neurologist, that bilingualism may even boost the cognitive abilities of children with learning disabilities and cognitive delays, and at the very least it provides them with a constant extra stimulus. So why would I limit and restrict my child by depriving him of one of his languages? Not only that, but it would leave him unable to participate fully in his family environment, unable to communicate with family members who live in another country and do not speak the community language where I live now.

Should he be condemned to have no relationship with his grandparents? With uncles and aunts and cousins?

Not only that, but I can see for myself through simple observation that bilingualism is not confusing or distressing for my son. It is all he has ever known, so for him, it is normal and natural. The vocabulary does not confuse him at all, any more than a child becomes confused learning ‘quick’ and ‘fast’, two words that essentially mean the same thing.

Interestingly, although in our own case my son has a limited active vocabulary in comparison with his peers, the words that he does use are words for the same thing in either language, which means that both his languages are progressing at the same rate. The same is true of his passive vocabulary, the things that he understands and responds to but does not actively use himself are the same things in both languages.

Millie Slavidou, author of the Lucy Evans Instaexplorer adventure series for preteens, featuring little snippets of language, and Sparky, a first chapter book for early readers.

You can discover more about Millie on the Mom’s Favorite Reads website here: https://moms-favorite-reads.com/moms-authors/millie-slavidou/ - 45 -

What’s causing my shoulder pain?

by Cassandra DenHartog

This is always a difficult question, due to numerous problems that could happen and the fact that the shoulder is made up of several boney, muscular, and ligamentous structures. Let’s start off with a little anatomy review.

So why are you having shoulder pain? This is a loaded question as you can see the overwhelming amount of muscles that could be part of the problem.

The shoulder is made up of three large muscles collectively called the deltoids, 4 rotator cuff muscles, and several other muscles.

Some problems include:

The deltoids individually are the anterior deltoid, medial deltoid, and posterior deltoid. These muscles help the arm with flexion (moving forward), abduction (taking the arm away from the body), and extension (bringing the arm back behind the body).

Four muscles together make up the rotator cuff.

This is commonly, incorrectly, called the rotator cup or rotary cup. The rotator cuff is made up of the supraspinatus, infraspinatus, teres minor, and subscapularis. Together they stabilize the shoulder, hold the head of the humerus into the glenoid cavity, and maintain the shoulder joint.

Other muscles related to the shoulder are:

• Latissimus dorsi, usually just calls the lats, is a flat rectangular muscle of the back that helps rotate the arm and move the arm away and closer to the body.

• Triceps brachii, which is the large muscle in the back of the upper arm that helps straighten your arm.

• Pectoralis major, which is a large fan-shaped muscle that stretches from the armpit to the collarbone and down across the chest. Although it seems like a chest muscle, it also is a very important shoulder muscle which helps with bringing the arm towards the body and inwardly rotating your arm.

• Pectoralis minor which is the smaller pec muscle that fans from the upper ribs to the shoulder. The pec minor can draw the shoulder down, or the shoulder blade (scapula) upwards.

• Teres major runs under the shoulder and helps rotate the shoulder upward.

• Biceps brachii, known as the bicep muscle, is a thick muscle that rests on top of the humerus and rotates the forearm and also flexes the elbow.

• Shoulder pain coming from the deltoids. This could be a strain or caused from trigger points in the muscle belly. Trigger points are when the muscle binds up in one spot making a knot.

Think of it like a wrinkle in a fabric.

• Bursitis, which is inflammation of the bursa (a fluid-filled space) and tendons, which connect your shoulder muscles to your upper arm bone.

• A rotator cuff tear which could be in any of the four rotator cuff muscles listed above. A rotator cuff tear occurs when the tendons of the rotator cuff separate from the bone. Tendons are the ends of the muscles which attach the muscle to the bone. As such, when a muscle pulls too much they can tear this anchor (tendon).

• Frozen shoulder, also called adhesive capsulitis.

Frozen shoulder is a common condition that leads to stiffness of the joint and sometimes constant pain, or just discomfort when reaching behind your back or head. A true frozen shoulder limits motion so much that even when stretching the joint is very hard or impossible to move.

• Bicep tendonitis which usually causes pain that develops gradually at the front of the shoulder that moves down over the biceps muscle. The pain is often worse with repetitive lifting, carrying heavy bags, or overhead activities.

• Other causes could be Bicep Tendon Rupture, SLAP Tears (Superior Labrum Anterior Posterior tear), Shoulder Osteoarthritis, AC Arthritis (arthritis of the place where the clavicle meets the acronium, which is the hard, pointy spot on the top of the shoulder), Shoulder Instability, and Shoulder Dislocation.

What this laundry list of possible problems mean is that it’s incredibly hard to diagnose exactly what is

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going wrong. So, what do you do?

only get better after performing Stabilizing Shoulder Exercises.

First, did the pain come on gradually or suddenly?

If pain came on gradually, especially if performing a task that cause repetitive movements, then that narrows it down. Most commonly, this leads to tendonitis or trigger points in a muscle. Ice will help relieve tendonitis, as it decreases inflammation.

Helpful hint: any medical word ending with itis means inflammation. If it’s an overworked or tight muscle, then heat will be helpful. Why? Because when a muscle gets tight, it narrows blood vessels.

Heat opens these back up and allows the muscle to get fully nourished again.

So, what are these? Here’s a list of some of the best:

If pain came on suddenly, especially after a movement, lifting, or injury, you’re at a higher risk of having a sprain, strain, or even a complete tear.

This is all very overwhelming, I know. So, what should you do? If pain persists then your best option is seeking medical care. The internet is not your friend, as it offers far too much information, causing even more confusion than all the information above.

So, some simple rules:

• Shoulder circles- Hold arms out at sides like you’re a bird and make small arm circles until the shoulders are tired.

• Prone flexion- lay on stomach with arm hanging over edge of bed. Raise arm up to ear like you’re Superman flying.

• Prone abduction- lay on stomach with arm hanging over edge of bed. Raise arm up to the side like you’re a bird or an airplane.

• Prone extension- lay on stomach with arm hanging over edge of bed. Bring arm backwards towards your hip.

• Prone rows- lay on stomach with arm hanging over edge of bed. Keep elbow bent and pull arm up at the side like you’re pulling on a lawnmower cord or rowing.

• Wall push ups- with feet away from the wall, and hands up on wall at shoulder’s width apart, lower face towards wall and then push back out.

Many people get obsessed with the ‘show muscles’, which are the muscles that becoming bulky and good looking; but they forget all the other shoulder muscles.

What happens when one muscle becomes too strong and one too weak? Well, think of strapping a fridge to a trailer, only you didn’t tighten one side enough, and the other side you tightened as far as it could possibly go. What will happen? Most likely while bouncing down the road, the straps won’t keep the fridge stable and it will tip.

The same can be said of the shoulder.

• Pain comes on suddenly = use ice and rest.

• Pain comes on slowly, especially after work = use heat and rest.

• Pain after a traumatic event, like a slip, fall, or car accident = see your doctor.

To help prevent or reduce pain from all of the above, you can do this: Stabilizing Shoulder Exercises.

Why? When the shoulder is stable and the muscles are strong, your risk of injury or all the problems above go down significantly. Also, many injuries

So, what’s causing your shoulder pain?

Or should we ask: what started that led to the shoulder pain? Imbalance.

Cassandra DenHartog is an author of Paranormal and Fantasy Romance. Lover of fairy tales and dreams. Hospital worker and business owner. Often referred to as the crazy bird lady.

You can discover more about Cassandra on the Mom’s Favorite Reads website here: https://moms-favorite-reads.com/moms-authors/cassandra-denhartog/ - 47 -

Friends

by May Panayi

He’s extrovert and fun to know, His friend is quiet and likes to be alone With his dog.

They shared a childhood, Shared fights with boys from down the street, Shared Irish Catholic mothersSome feat.

Shared big families, Enough brothers to make a football team.

Shared teachers at school, And shared failed exams.

They left and shared boring jobs, And shared drinks in half empty pubs.

Shared musical tastes, But most of all- shared me.

And now they don’t share anymore.

You can discover more about May on the Mom’s Favorite Reads website here: https://moms-favorite-reads.com/ moms-authors/may-j-panayi/

Her Online Predator

by Brenda Mohammed

One of the stories in Heart-Warming Tales Jean met the man of her dreams online on her computer.

Unaware to her it was a deadly female imposter.

Who hacked the page of John and kept enticing her.

To fly to the United Kingdom from America.

Filled with delight and love for John in her heart From her beloved hometown, she did depart.

Landed in the clutches of a human trafficker.

Scammed, duped, and tricked, wishing she was smarter.

Fortunately for her, John was a famous lawyer Who was investigating the trafficking matter.

He closed in on the perpetrators in time to save Jean And realised she was the woman in his dream.

Although there is a happy ending to this story It does not end happily for everybody.

Be careful how you choose your friends on the internet.

It could lead to a life filled with regret.

Copyright@BendaMohammed

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Brenda Mohammed is a former Bank Manager who was successful in her job. After her retirement from banking, she ventured into Insurance Underwriting. After six years, she was awarded Life membership in the Million Dollar Round Table, a Premier Association for Financial Professionals. A diagnosis of cancer changed her career aspirations and in 2013 she became a writer.

You can discover more about Brenda on the Mom’s Favorite Reads website here: https://moms-favorite-reads.com/ moms-authors/brenda-mohammed/

Vegan ‘Steak and Kidney’ Pie

by May Panayi

For the pastry • 150g vegan spread- pure, vitalite etc • 150g wholegrain rye flour • 150g plain white flour • 3 tablespoons plant milk • Pinch of salt

For the filling • 75g soya chunks • 1 tin kidney beans with liquid • 2 tablespoons cooking sherry • 1 red onion • 2 cloves garlic • 6 large white closed cup mushrooms • 2 tablespoons bouillon stock powder • 1 tablespoon onion gravy granules • 1 tablespoon marmite • Salt and pepper • 1 teaspoon mustard powder • Water to top up Rub the fat, flour and salt together until fine. Slowly add plant milk until you can form the mix into a dough ball. Wrap the ball in clingfilm and place in fridge to chill for half an hour. Meanwhile make the filling. Place a very small amount of water in the bottom of a saucepan and ‘fry’ the chopped onion and garlic in it. Add the chopped mushrooms, then soya chunks, kidney beans with liquid and all the flavourings. Top up with a little water as required to make a thick sauce. Cook for about twenty minutes then cool slightly while you roll out the pastry. Use two thirds for the base and a third for the lid. Line a pie dish with the pastry base, then spoon in the filling. Fit the lid on top and bake the pie at Gas 6, 200c for 35 minutes. Serve hot or cold.

You can discover more about May on the Mom’s Favorite Reads website here: https://moms-favorite-reads.com/moms-authors/may-j-panayi/

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Laughter is the best medicine!

Contributions by Anthony Randall & Hannah Howe

This morning, I turned to my partner and said, “My car won’t start; I think there’s water in the carburettor.”

‘Mommy! Mommy!

Why is Daddy running away?’

‘Please be quiet, dear, I’m trying to reload...’

“How do you know that?” he asked.

“You don’t even know what the carburettor is.”

“I’m telling you,” I replied, “I’m sure there’s water in the carburettor.”

“We’ll see,” my partner sighed wearily.

“Let me check it out. Where’s your car?”

“In the swimming pool,” I said.

Abel Goldstien is on his deathbed surround by his family, all in grave anticipation of him drawing his final breath, when suddenly he croaks into life.

“Miriam, my wife, you are here!”

“I’m here my love,” she says patting his withered hands Q: What’s the last thing that goes through a fly’s mind when it hits a car windscreen?

“Ruben, Moishe, Benjamin, my sons, you are all here!”

A: Its bum.

“We are here papa.”

“Daniel, my Brother, Esther, my Sister, Simon, Saul, Rebekah, my cousins you are all here!”

“We are all here Abel,” they say in mournful acknowledgment.

I went to the opera once, and I’ll tell you this much, they don’t like it when you join in...

“My grandsons, David and Herschel, you are here!”

“We are here Grandpa,” they reply in unison “Tell me,” he says wide eyed, “who’s minding the bloody shop?”

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Chicken Wraps To Die For

by Anthony Randall

Serves two: Preparation time, 10 minutes, cooking time, 10 minutes

Ingredients: • 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil • A knob of butter • 1/2 an onion, thinly sliced • 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped • 25g (1oz) fresh white breadcrumbs • 6 large sage leaves, finely chopped • Grated rind and juice one 1 lemon • 1 teaspoon of Cajun seasoning, or mild chilli powder • 100g cooked chicken breast cut into 1 cm strips • Salt and pepper • 4 tortilla wraps • Shredded Iceberg lettuce • 2 tablespoons of sour cream or Greek yogurt

Method: Heat the oil and butter in a large frying pan and cook the onion and garlic for 3-4 minutes until softened and golden. Stir in the breadcrumbs, sage, lemon rind, Cajun seasoning and chicken and stir for another 2-3 minutes until the breadcrumbs begin to brown. Add the lemon juice and seasoning to taste.

Warm the tortilla’s either in a microwave or wrapped in foil in the oven. Line your tortillas with sour cream, lettuce and your chicken mixture, wrap and enjoy heaven.

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Facing Your Fears

by Christine Ardigo MSRD

With Easter I always think of new beginnings, moving from winter to spring, and starting fresh. It’s also a time to try new things. Fear is just an obstacle that prevents us from achieving our dreams. An illusion we create to make excuses for not trying new things. Is it really fear though, or excitement?

I always had a fear of heights and falling. Not sure if it’s that stomach-dropping feeling, not being in control, fearing pain, death? I remember hating when someone threw me in the air, tossed me overhead into the ocean, or pretended to drop me from a high altitude. (Okay it was only a few feet but still). I hate roller coasters. I can do most of the slides at the water parks, but spinning things? Freefalls? Upside down rides? Ah, no.

My husband left me a note the other day that I had a surprise present waiting for me on Sunday for our anniversary. Reservations were made and were nonrefundable. P.S. It would be the best five minutes of my life.

I knew right away what it was.

Skydiving.

I couldn’t do it. There was no way. Me, afraid of heights, falling, death! I tried not to think about it but a co-worker suggested I look it up online. I did.

And, I read a post by a man that said the freefall was only about 45 seconds, the next 4 minutes involved floating slowly down with a parachute. He said you can’t feel yourself falling because there is no depth perception when you are up that high. You can feel wind blowing in your face, your ears, but nothing to suggest that you are actually falling. I had parasailed years ago in Mexico and loved that. I pictured the scenery around me, the leisurely gliding in the air.

The more I read, the more I watched on Youtube, the calmer I became. Everyone I told stated they could never go skydiving. But for some reason, this calm numbness overtook me.

Could I do the one thing I feared more than anything? Why wasn’t I nervous?

When would the panic kick in?

On the day of the flight, the calmness continued. It was weird, but for some reason the fear of boarding a tiny plane, jumping out in the middle of nowhere 13,500 feet up, freefalling…dying, it wasn’t there.

Why? As the time neared, my excitement grew.

Waiting for two hours to board made me want to get on with it already. When it was our turn, the numb feeling continued. The man attached my harness, I said good-bye to my daughters, jumped on the tiny plane that held only twelve passengers, and up in the plane I went.

I noticed immediately that they sat me a foot away from the door. The door that was wide open during the entire ascent. Did this mean I was to jump first?

Yes. My husband was way in the back of the plane.

The instructor I was harnessed to had me gaze out the window at the gorgeous scenery and I saw familiar sites: Splish Splash Water Park, Tanger outlets, and even the skydiving facility that my children waited for me at. When it was time to jump, I saw how truly high up we were.

This was the moment. I tried to remember all the positive things I read. Fear still escaped me. I wondered if this was how it felt the moment before you died. Knowing that peace awaited you. If you let go of any negative thoughts, there is no more fear, anger, sadness, hate. Only peace. The video we watched before boarding said that we would most likely sit down on the edge of the plane, let our feet dangle, count down, and then jump. My instructor eased me to the door, and then BAM! Out the door I went before I had a moment to think. There was no sitting, no countdown, just an immediate jump.

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I promised myself I wouldn’t close my eyes, but out of habit, that’s exactly what I did. Those first two seconds blew my mind. Not sure if I actually felt the fall or my brain made me imagine what it would feel like, but before I could comprehend what happened, that was it! I had just jumped out of a plane. He tapped my shoulder to let me know I could let go of my chest straps and I let my hands fly out. And that was all. Two measly seconds of terror and then hovering. I didn’t feel like I was falling. The scenery, the view, was spectacular. My instructor gave me a thumbs up, a high five and I only felt the wind soaring past my ears.

After about forty-five seconds he pulled the cord and I shot back up into the sky. Then there was silence.

Beautiful silence. No noise pollution, just calm. He removed my goggles and loosened my chest straps a little. I saw the other parachuters around me with their blue, purple and green chutes. The landing area was so clear below me - I spotted my older daughter Ashley right away in her blue T-shirt and shorts, her cell phone held high, videotaping us.

in the past. What was stranger was why I was so calm all week. I went from complete panic, to intrigue, to this pleasant serenity and then excitement. I actually wanted to do it. It makes me wonder again, why our brain works against us. Once I dismissed all my preconceived notions and only thought about the wonderful aspects of it, there was no fear. You have to control your mind, it should not control you. It also helps to have people around you that not only support you, but push you. This is definitely something I’d do again. As I write this, I can hear a plane outside my window and that hum of the engine will never sound the same.

It has new meaning to me now.

What are your greatest fears?

Have you conquered any of them?

How did you conquer them and what did it feel like afterward?

I’d love to hear from you!

I didn’t want it to end. I thought how fast it went, how addicting it could be.

I actually wanted to redo that initial two seconds and keep my damn eyes open. I wondered why I was initially so frightened.

Why I refused to try this Christine Ardigo is a Registered Dietitian/Personal Trainer who writes contemporary romance novels in her spare time. When weight lifting, rock climbing, white-water rafting, and jumping out of airplanes wasn’t enough, she decided to fulfill a dream she had as a child: to write a book.

She’s lived in New York her entire life and can’t imagine living anywhere else. She has the beaches, the bay and the city, all a half hour away. She’s built memories here with her husband, two silly daughters and a bunch of crazy friends, all whom she loves very much.

You can discover more about Christine on the Mom’s Favorite Reads website here: https://moms-favorite-reads.com/moms-authors/christine-ardigo/ - 53 -

Your Purpose in Life

by Stan Philips

And don’t go searching for your purpose in life.

Or blindly follow a path, unnatural to you, chosen by well meaning, or self serving others.

Your only reason for being is to live each moment time has bestowed upon you as best as you can.

Your laughter

For you are unlikely to find it.

Your tears

Don’t even expect your purpose to appear, unannounced out of the mists of morning, or shining in the bright of a new spring dawn.

Your woes

It doesn’t happen like that.

Your pain

Yes, your life has a purpose.

Your power

Everyone’s does.

Your grief

And it will unfold with the passage of time.

Your glory.

But we don’t need to seek it.

All those things are part of your purpose for being but not all of it.

No, it will find you.

Your triumphs

No, not all of it

It lies shy, or dramatic.

Simple, or earthshaking somewhere along life’s unknowable avenues.

Coloured like a thousand rainbows it might be.

Or sombre, like a night in autumn when the leaves fall, and the stars are yet to emerge.

Your purpose awaits you, for you truly have one.

But you need not know what it is.

For it is a secret born with the creation of the universe, and known only to whatever force brought that event into being.

Some of it is anger, or frailty.

Regret or hope.

But we do our best and love our best, and hope not to do too much harm during our brief sojourn here.

And maybe a little bit of good as we celebrate the reality of the unfolding moment in the freedom we now have from the futile pursuits of that purpose that waits patiently somewhere in time yet to be lived.

Stan Phillips on a meditative January day.

Stan Philips is an 80 year old poet, musical podcast maker, part time wannabe male model, and occasional stand up comedian. I used to be a psychotherapist/ counsellor when I had an honest job. I was born into prewar London, and attended 17 schools (My father believed they couldn’t hit a moving target) and I eventually finished up here in Ireland. Still wondering what I will be when I grow up - but enjoy writing my quirky poetry as I do so.

You can discover more about Stan on the Mon’s Favorite Reads website here: http://moms-favorite-reads.com/moms-authors/stan-phillips/ - 54 -

Connections eMagazine The Connections eMagazine Reader’s Choice Award is open to all independently published authors and their work. This is an annual award. The winners will be featured in the August issues of the magazine. Authors can be nominated by anyone who has read the novel. If you have not read the book, please refrain from nominating it. Books will be rated in four areas and can be Fiction or Non-Fiction. If you have read a book that you love, this is a great way to support the author and their work.

Judging Criteria…

• Fiction - Compelling Intro / Good flow - Character &/or World Development - Cover Design - Presentation (Formatting, Grammar, Typos, etc.)

• Non-Fiction - Compelling Topic / Moral or Societal Value - Informative Intro & Descriptive Delivery - Cover Design - Presentation (Formatting, Grammar, Typos, etc.)

• Children’s Book - Compelling Topic / Message, Societal Value - Age Appropriate / Illustrations - Cover Design - Presentation (Formatting, Grammar, Typos, etc.)

Categories

• Romance • Horror | Thriller | Mystery • Sci-Fi | Fantasy | Paranormal | Supernatural • Young Adult • Other Fiction • Non-Fiction • Children’s (Picture or Chapter)

Schedule

• Nominations Open until May 1st • Public Voting begins June 15th • Voting Ends August 1st • Winner Announced in August Edition of eMagazine

Show you love for a novel and support the author. Nominate a book… https://goo.gl/forms/X8hjFu9rX41WOXdW2

Connections eMagazine is a FREE quarterly publication founded by authors Melanie P. Smith and Rhoda D’Ettore. It is currently produced entirely by Editor, Melanie P. Smith. The magazine was created as a way for authors to connect with readers, reviewers and bloggers. Over the years, the magazine has evolved, and it now features promos and sales, freebies, blog articles, and short stories in every issue.

Discover more about Connections eMagazine on their website here: https://melaniepsmith.com/emagazine-landing/ - 55 -

Departures

by Anthony Randall

A dep turned up to a Shebeen gig once with a ludicrous amount of gear, he had at least four keyboards, a rack of amps and outboard equipment.

He came highly recommended from another dep with the accolade of having once been in a wellknown eighties British rock group, so we had huge expectations of the dude, but he turned out to be useless, all the gear and no idea.

miserable in a corner, Paul our OCD guitarist decided he wanted to go home, and had singlehandedly packed away everybody’s equipment including the PA system and was sitting on an amp cross-armed waiting for us come out with a face like death. Paul did a fair impression of Count Dracula when in his black suit, white shirt and waistcoat, his long black receding hair greased and pulled back into a tight ponytail gave him the vampire peak, and just like a blood-sucking un-dead incubi, he excelled at being cold and cheerless.

To be a sort after and well employed function band musician you have to have a unique blend of versatility and humility, know all the popular tunes, or at least the rudiments and be adept with a multitude of rhythms, this fella didn’t, and unfortunately neither did some of the core members from the original line up of Superfly.

The first to get his P45 was James our drummer, a reasonable enough chap, but he was way too serious for his own good, had a desolate demeanour, and lacked in versatility.

Nick our keyboard player suggested we try his brother Alex, a handsome lad with nothing, in particular, going on in his life. We were experimenting with some variety to the set, breaking away from the consistency of 60’s soul music, trying a few funkier numbers and some modern classics.

James couldn’t cut it, but in a secret practice session we found that Alex could, so, finding my self as bandleader all of a sudden, it was down to me to give James the old heave-ho, never a delight and he took it badly as if someone had slipped 40lbs of lead into his pockets, but we were moving on and he was holding us back. I can’t recall what I said to him, but I hope I was honest.

I think the last gig we did with James was at The Institute of Mechanical engineers, Birdcage Walk, London, a Christmas party for its staff where the bar manager, a big ginger bearded Scott in a kilt insisted on confirming the myth of being commando beneath the skirt, several times throughout the evening, he had every right to be exhibiting his pride and joy, the man was half donkey.

Another thing has just popped into my head from that gig, whilst most of us were yahooing with the bar manager, apart from James that is, who was being

I had known Paul from a time when he was quite the opposite, fun loving, party going, intellectual and philosophical, a fine musician even though he was quite mechanical in his delivery, unprepared to deviate from the structure of a song. Then on his 21st birthday, he suffered a massive mental blow when his parents told him his sister was, in fact, his real mother and they were actually his Grandparents. The revelation had a staggering effect on his personality; he became meticulously methodical in everything he did, on stage he would tape measure the distance from his amp to his pedals, he would clean his guitars and leads fastidiously after each performance, which in the beer-swilling environments that we inhabited was a challenge that most musicians couldn’t be arsed with. His Guitars were pristine, so when Terry accidentally knocked one off its stand one evening sending it crashing to the stage and gouging a decent chip out of the body, Paul went into a passive menacing rage. It cost Terry a couple of hundred quid to get that thing repaired.

Paul’s oddities amused other band members no end, especially Roan our sax player who would journey to gigs in the back of my van relentlessly making Wildebeest noises and impersonating Beavis and Butthead just to antagonise the guitarist, who would sit their stone-faced staring out of the window ignoring the mayhem, which would just enflame Roan’s behaviour more. It was chaotic and unnervingly surreal.

We had a wedding reception to do in a village called Woodhall in Sussex. Being a long journey we took a convoy of three vehicles, my mate Bill came along as a driver, he was also handy with the PA system, and Nick drove Alex and himself. It was way out in

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the sticks and before the popularisation of satnav systems, we had to rely on maps, but eventually, more by chance than anything, we found the entrance to a long drive on the curve of a country road manned by a bent-over local ancient tending a flowerbed.

“Is this Woodhall?” I asked through the window.

Without deviating from his task, or even looking up, he replied: “Arr, this be Woodhall.” It was like the build-up to a 1970’s Hammer House of Horror movie.

Would the evening unfold as a joyful wheeze or a gruesome bloodbath? Time had all the answers.

Paul, helping himself to a case of his favourite tipple, which bizarrely included Luke stocking up on a crate of UHT cream and slabs of cooking chocolate “to use as Christmas presents,” he said.

Not a lone soul was there to greet us at the function room, which was odd. A community hall type building attached to a gymnasium of sorts containing a basketball court, and bleachers. There were two function rooms both bedecked in balloons, streamers and laid tables, each room with a fully loaded bar.

We had hours to kill, a bored band, and a room full of booze, what could possibly go wrong.

Paul’s behaviour was getting more and more insular, he was unwilling to learn different genres of music and he was frustrating the other members of the band, he had to be replaced for the sake of group harmony, but who to swap him with. I’d seen a group play in The Horns in Watford fronted by a circuit singer called Andy Mitchell, I thought they were very impressive and wanted the musicians in Superfly, I knew the bassist through one of my mates, he was another local fella called Micky, but the others I didn’t know, so I got Mickey’s number and called him, they were all freelance musicians and pretty busy, but were available if the money was right. The guitarist was called Rod, he had the funk. I called Paul soon after and broke the bad news, he was emotionless, like a dismal android, but was inquisitive enough to ask if it were his playing ability or his personality the other band members took umbrage with, in retrospect I should have sugar coated it but sticking to the painful truth, I told him it was his personality, I felt his hurt over the phone.

Several beers later, the balloons stepped forward as the first casualties. Helium is always a good source of entertainment and plenty was inhaled in the pursuit of comic mirth. Then some of the streamers accidentally fell off the walls and entangled the band members before eventually, a powder fire extinguisher came out to play, causing it to snow indoors. During this whole time Paul sat on a chair and did nothing, he was not amused and he certainly wasn’t joining in. Then the bar staff turned up and became quite irate that we had wrecked the decorations, and helped ourselves to the beer, to top it all we were in the wrong room, so after some red-faced apologies we had to lug all our gear next door and set it up again while the staff frantically redecorated the demolished room. How we weren’t berated even more is a wonder, we weren’t even asked to pay for the drinks.

The reception passed all expectations, the bridal party were extremely pleased with us, no chainsaws were brandished, or fangs drawn and off they went, to somewhere exotic no doubt, once again leaving us in charge of an empty venue, totally void of any personnel, an open hall, kitchen and bar, all the lights on, fully stocked, no staff, it was bizarre. So we did the only thing natural to a bunch of inebriated mischief makers and loaded up the vehicles with leftover contraband. Each band member, apart from

We left Woodhall as the staff had, doors open lights on, it seemed the done thing around those parts, besides it gave us an alibi were there any repercussions, but I guess no one was counting because we heard not a thing and I received a cheque in the post for the full amount.

Next to go was indeed Alex.

He and Terry clashed on a personal level, Alex was a real piss taker and it wound my brother up to the point where it almost came to blows.

Although Alex was a good drummer, his heart wasn’t in it, he was overtly nonchalant about his talent which was so wasteful; he just couldn’t be bothered. A gig came up that Alex wasn’t available for, The Swan in Stockwell, south London, another Irish boozer that we’d played in a few times. It had taken me a long while to get into this gig, it was on the circuit, a huge venue, well advertised, had live music most nights of the week both downstairs in the pub and in a late night venue upstairs in a cavernous ballroom. The PA and engineers were in-house and they got us a great sound. The only downside was you had to get all your gear outside on the pavement, - 57 -

whatever the weather, by the fire exit and wait until the band playing support finished and got their equipment out before you could get in, and that was usually about 11 o’clock at night, in Stockwell, out on the street, with all the dodgy people that place could muster wandering about. This was another venue where the toilets were awash with piss and after a while, we stopped changing clothes in there, it was far too strenuous trying balance on one foot and keep your trousers out of the stream.

So on this occasion, I got the number of the drummer I had seen with Andy Mitchell, his name was Shane and his playing was like a revelation, he remains the best drummer I have ever played with and became a Superfly permanent member for the rest of its history. The son of The Shadows drummer Tony Meehan, he was well connected, well respected, and grew up amongst the icons of the 1960s and 70s, he’d done some TV work, been on Top of the Pops, a man with perfect timing, a dark sense of humour and a penchant for mucking about, he’d fit right in.

It may have been that night, or another I witnessed the grisly side of the pub’s doormen. The exit door I mentioned previously was to the right looking out from the stage; during our performance, I happened to glance that way as a wannabe entrant tried to get in without paying. Head and shoulders barged through the double doors only to be met with an astonishing right-hand hook that launched the guy with menace back out into the cold, the doors closed behind him and the grinning bouncer dusted off his hands in accomplishment, ‘job done’, it took about two seconds but will stay with me a lifetime.

The agent who booked the bands for The Swan, a decent fella who appreciated how we played, sadly took his own life for some undisclosed reason (it wasn’t our playing) and the gigs frequency dwindled, but we did get to perform for one Saturday night in the top spot upstairs, a 1 o’clock start to an audience of around five hundred revellers, of the kind that never wants to go home, when that’s all you very much want to do at the end of an extremely long night.

Having family members in business is often a recipe for disaster. I’d generally got on well with my Brother in life, we had never fought physically, there’d been some arguments sure, and some harsh words between us, but never anything strong enough to create a rift, until the day I had to sack him from the band. He never spoke to me afterwards for three months.

Due to demand, our repertoire was expanding, we were introducing funkier numbers like Incognito’s ‘Always there’, Rose Royce’s ‘Car wash’, Brick House

by The Commodores and ‘I wish’ by Stevie Wonder.

Terry was struggling, everyone felt it and some hinted he should be replaced, Micky was keen to join us, and after some considerable soul-wrenching, I decided that crushing a family bond and breaking my brother’s heart was the way to go. He knew from the tone of my voice what was coming, he walked away disgusted with me, and I felt so despicable that I almost changed my mind, but it was done and I’d have to live with it.

On a bright summer’s day in ’94, we had a photo session set up in and around the bandstand outside Watford town hall. I’d contracted a professional local photographer to take some glossy shots to be used for promotion and portfolio, his name was also Terry, but Roan had a better idea, he was to be christened ‘Frother,’ due to a colossal and constant build-up of foamy saliva in the creases of his mouth that volleyed forward whenever he spoke.

It is off-putting enough to have to someone giving you close quarter instruction whilst slavering you with drool, but to retain your mirth and be a good subject when a bandmate keeps up a barrage of dog growled “Frother!” in your ear, was a battle.

I wanted good results from this bloke, we were paying him decent money, and although funny to begin with, candidly amongst ourselves, Roan’s relentless onslaught was becoming embarrassing, our sax player showed no mercy, but Terry a true gent, never acknowledged that we were making fun of him and never dropped a smile. We got through the day eventually producing a decent image which we used to our advantage, securing favour with several agencies, and Frother a paragraph in history.

Roan didn’t stay with us for much longer after that, he’s a wonderful player, but his heart was in jazz fusion and at that point in time we weren’t getting paid enough to keep him interested in playing something that he wasn’t enjoying.

It came to a head one night during a gig in a Watford venue called The Wag and Bone, the one and only time we played there. The deal was you got to keep the door money but nothing else, so it was down to you to pull in a crowd. Well, we each brought people along but we really didn’t have a following, our sole intention had always been to be hired to a readymade audience, so the place was just half full and

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we possibly only raised about twenty-five quid each.

Roan didn’t even stay to be paid, he’d had enough of us, he stormed off with his suspicious girlfriend in tow, she really didn’t like me much, for reasons I’m still unaware of.

We needed a new sax player, and fast, a maiden gig was looming at a happening venue in Acton just down the road from the Shebeen, called The Redback, a renovated pub proudly displaying a large motif of the deadly Australian arachnid painted on the exterior white wall.

I had been sending demo tapes to the Aussie booking agent for some time and finally, after numerous phone calls, we had a Friday night spot, but no sax player.

Micky came to the rescue with another player from Andy Mitchell’s well of talent, a powerfully built half Samoan New Zealander called Greg with a scholarship in music and a smiley face, he proved to be an exceptional talent, with the finest tone I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with. And although you’ll definitely be on the losing side if it ever came to fisticuffs with him, in all years we played together, I never once saw him lose his temper, he was always gracious and polite and cheerful.

The Redback had a dressing room at the back of the building and a rear entrance which was ideal for bringing in equipment straight onto the stage. It had a house PA system with an engineer, so for me, it was a dream. Internally the whole place was painted matt black.

After the sound check, there was some time to kill so a couple of us went outside to chill. Returning,

we had to go in through the main entrance which had three or four stone steps leading up to the doors manned on both sides by burly archetypical bouncers, shaven-headed, black Crombie coats, chewing gum, stern faces, palms covering back of the hand in front of the groin. I nodded at them as I began to climb those steps but noticed a pound coin on the second.

Not being one to pass change lying in the street, I bent down to retrieve it, only to be met with glued resistance and guffaws from the beefy doormen. Like a plebe I’d fallen for a trick played out dozens of times in front of security and a line of punters queuing behind me, I felt very much like the twat they took me for.

The gig was fine, we got several return spots, Friday and Saturday nights, but I always had to call up and hassle for them, competition was fierce and I don’t think the agent loved us that much, which was fine, the pub gigs were a training ground, paid rehearsals, we used them to hone the material and find out what worked with a live audience, they were bread and butter. The real prizes were yet to come; besides I knew that to keep players of this quality in my band I had to have consistent work, then they would feel less obliged to stray. My mantra was, if I could obtain a gig a week, then I would have a gig every week, and that would be enough to keep the same line-up. If we played that often together we would be a very tight outfit indeed, as it happens we ended up having two, three or four gigs a week, whilst I held down a day job. It was tough to stay awake on home journey’s, I nearly fell asleep on a number of occasions, Red bull and slapping my face helped, it was dangerous, I knew, but it was paying my mortgage.

Anthony Randall is fifty-six and hails from Watford in Hertfordshire. He has resided in Tucson, Arizona and Bourlens, France, but now lives in sunny Dorset on the south coast of England by the sea. He has been a singer and song writer for nearly thirty years, recording and performing hundreds pop tunes all over the world. He wrote and self published his first novel ‘The English Sombrero’ with co-author Doug Goddard back in 2005, now available as eBook and paperback online. This book is the first of a four part saga about the trials and tribulations of Don Simmons, an extravagant millionaire who lends himself to some outrageous adventures and sticky situations. Book two ‘The Little White Ball’ sees Don further his journey of enlightenment and is also available as an eBook and paperback online. Book three ‘Choice’ is under construction, as is a Thriller entitled ‘Tip of the teaspoon’ and my own novel called ‘Tales of Tucson.’

You can discover more about Anthony on the Mom’s Favorite Reads website here: https://moms-favorite-reads.com/moms-authors/anthony-randall/ - 59 -

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