Circa24's Blog - Posts Tagged "thomas-hardy-was-an-optimist"
Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock: A New Giveaway has made its way to GoodReads
📚 Get ready for a literary treat this November! Starting on November 2, we're kicking off an exciting Goodreads Giveaway featuring my debut collection of short stories, "Thomas Hardy Was an Optimist."
📆 Join us for a month-long journey and celebration of the power of hope, resilience, and optimism. The Giveaway concludes on December 1, World AIDS Day, also known as "The Day Without Art." I lost many friends to that pandemic, and for me, withholding the results of this Giveaway until after the remembrance is a way to commemorate its impact.
Don't miss your chance to win a copy of this collection and delve into its emotions and experiences. Join us, spread the word, and make November a month to remember.
📆 Join us for a month-long journey and celebration of the power of hope, resilience, and optimism. The Giveaway concludes on December 1, World AIDS Day, also known as "The Day Without Art." I lost many friends to that pandemic, and for me, withholding the results of this Giveaway until after the remembrance is a way to commemorate its impact.
Don't miss your chance to win a copy of this collection and delve into its emotions and experiences. Join us, spread the word, and make November a month to remember.
Who is your favorite villan in other author's books?
A good villain can spice up a story more than a sympathetic hero. Literature includes so many outstanding ones. In Robert Graves’s “I Claudius,” the semi-fictionalized portrayal of Livia stands above the others for her cunning and intrigue. For the banality of evil and the cold-blooded use of others, Iago (Othello by Shakespeare) and Commander Waterford (The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood) stand out. For self-righteousness, Conner Brooks’ rationalizations of his actions drive the story forward in “Ill Wind” by Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason.
Of course, these top my list in my mindset at this moment. Catch me again in a month or when I’m in a different mood, and I’m likely to give you a different list.
Of course, these top my list in my mindset at this moment. Catch me again in a month or when I’m in a different mood, and I’m likely to give you a different list.
Thirteen days left in my Giveaway
Only 13 Days remaining in the GiveAway for "Thomas Hardy Was an Optimist."
https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sh...
https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sh...
Nine days away from World AIDS Day and the end of the GiveAway for THWAO
The GiveAway for "Thomas Hard Was an Optimist" ends on December 1, 2023, in remembrance of World AIDS Day and the incredible loss of life during the then pandemic that has since become an ongoing endemic.
https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sh...
To everyone who, like me, lost close friends to this devastating disease, I share your pain. I, too, lost many of those dearest to me.
https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sh...
To everyone who, like me, lost close friends to this devastating disease, I share your pain. I, too, lost many of those dearest to me.
Thank you for supporting my Giveaway!
My book giveaway was surprisingly successful (given that even I couldn't find it without the link). Nearly 400 people entered the draw that ended on December 1, World AIDS Day.
George Carlin, speaking about the drug culture of the 60s, once observed that if you remember the 1960s, you weren't there. For many of us, the late 80s and early 90s became a blur, not from intoxicants but from grappling with the pain and sorrow of the relentless loss of so many people so fast. Instead of forging ahead along our professional paths, we found ourselves ensnared in a relentless cycle of attending funerals, navigating through the grieving process, and bearing witness to the abrupt and heartbreaking loss of friends, individuals with whom we had envisioned traversing the journey of life.
As in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that plagues our present, the death tolls during the initial years of the AIDS pandemic happened alongside the normal daily challenges of life The AIDS crisis intertwined pre-existing prejudices, discrimination, and widespread ignorance, amplifying the sorrow and deepening the grief endured by the survivors, the friends and families of our lost loved ones.
George Carlin, speaking about the drug culture of the 60s, once observed that if you remember the 1960s, you weren't there. For many of us, the late 80s and early 90s became a blur, not from intoxicants but from grappling with the pain and sorrow of the relentless loss of so many people so fast. Instead of forging ahead along our professional paths, we found ourselves ensnared in a relentless cycle of attending funerals, navigating through the grieving process, and bearing witness to the abrupt and heartbreaking loss of friends, individuals with whom we had envisioned traversing the journey of life.
As in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that plagues our present, the death tolls during the initial years of the AIDS pandemic happened alongside the normal daily challenges of life The AIDS crisis intertwined pre-existing prejudices, discrimination, and widespread ignorance, amplifying the sorrow and deepening the grief endured by the survivors, the friends and families of our lost loved ones.
The Endured By The Gods GIveaway is about half-way through its run.
I am thrilled with the positive reception of my latest writing venture, Endured By The Gods. There are 100 Kindle copies being given away, one hundred copies that someone has to win. The contest ends on Feb 6, so please, if you enjoyed Silent Consent, I hope you will take this chance to read the sequel with a free book!
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
This story runs parallel to the events of Silent Consent, unfolding in the early days of the Energy Crimes Unit. Where the first book focuses on Central and Homeland 7, this one takes place in District 5 and a Centurion camp along the Western border and follows a young woman who suffers because of a familial demotion that relates her to the status of the Nameless. It delves deeper into the lives of the public No-names in the founder states and the strength it takes for her to survive.
While some founding members of Central’s Energy Crimes Unit appear, the spotlight focuses on the struggle of a new protagonist, Tissi, who must survive under the control of a Harrie-hating base commander with the aid of allies, not all of whom see the No-names as human.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
This story runs parallel to the events of Silent Consent, unfolding in the early days of the Energy Crimes Unit. Where the first book focuses on Central and Homeland 7, this one takes place in District 5 and a Centurion camp along the Western border and follows a young woman who suffers because of a familial demotion that relates her to the status of the Nameless. It delves deeper into the lives of the public No-names in the founder states and the strength it takes for her to survive.
While some founding members of Central’s Energy Crimes Unit appear, the spotlight focuses on the struggle of a new protagonist, Tissi, who must survive under the control of a Harrie-hating base commander with the aid of allies, not all of whom see the No-names as human.
Celebrating the Release of my newest book: Four Giveaways!
To celebrate the release of my most recent book, An Encounter With Cows, I am offering giveaways of that book along with both books in my Silent Consent series, Silent Consent and Endured by The Gods. Once I posted those two, I thought, why not run one more for my book of short stories, Thomas Hardy Was an Optimist?
Silent Consent
Endured by the Gods
And here is my book of short stories:
Thomas Hardy was an Optimist
And Finally, introducing my newest offering:
An Encounter with Cows
Silent Consent
Endured by the Gods
And here is my book of short stories:
Thomas Hardy was an Optimist
And Finally, introducing my newest offering:
An Encounter with Cows
Why Sad Stories Sing to Us.
Fiction provides powerful frameworks to explore and understand the experiences and viewpoints of others in a way not possible in our daily lives. Although it does not provide factual knowledge, it immerses us in the minds and lives of characters, including ones you’d never encounter in reality. Thomas Harris’ Hannibal series, for example, dives into the mind of Hannibal Lecter. This character, who would terrify us in life, becomes someone we can understand as we see the world through his eyes, and in a macabre way, we empathize with him. Throughout Fiddler on the Roof, we watch Reb Tevya grapple with a changing world as he bends his cultural and moral compass, wondering when he will reach his breaking point and refuse that one last compromise.
Horror, like Predator, and dystopian novels, like The Handmaid’s Tale, provide a means of confronting our fears. Through them, we imagine and rehearse scenarios. Although exaggerated beyond anything we are likely to encounter, a well-written horror story lets us wonder about how we might react, not just in extreme situations but in the more moderate challenges that could confront us in our daily lives. The dark threat over our horizon may not be an invisible monster but a domineering boss or that unknown car that seems to follow us on the highway.
Books that explore humanity’s dark side let us experience the world from the perspectives of both the victims and oppressors. Some, such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin, have had the power to help change the world. The profound appeals of Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo tugged on the conscience of 19th-century society as they pled for social reforms.
Sad stories also provide an emotional release. They let us explore sadness and depression in a controlled, distant, selective, time-limited environment free from the ongoing repercussions of actual events. We can experience a catharsis and resolution, emerging unharmed and enriched by the experience. When we engage in the pain and sorrow of a heart-breaking novel, our lives brighten through the comparison. We realize that given a chance to trade places with characters, we would choose our own realities over theirs. Tragedies can also deepen our connections to our own pasts, sending our minds back to those difficult times that, in retrospect, were often the most fulfilling periods of our lives.
Horror, like Predator, and dystopian novels, like The Handmaid’s Tale, provide a means of confronting our fears. Through them, we imagine and rehearse scenarios. Although exaggerated beyond anything we are likely to encounter, a well-written horror story lets us wonder about how we might react, not just in extreme situations but in the more moderate challenges that could confront us in our daily lives. The dark threat over our horizon may not be an invisible monster but a domineering boss or that unknown car that seems to follow us on the highway.
Books that explore humanity’s dark side let us experience the world from the perspectives of both the victims and oppressors. Some, such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin, have had the power to help change the world. The profound appeals of Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo tugged on the conscience of 19th-century society as they pled for social reforms.
Sad stories also provide an emotional release. They let us explore sadness and depression in a controlled, distant, selective, time-limited environment free from the ongoing repercussions of actual events. We can experience a catharsis and resolution, emerging unharmed and enriched by the experience. When we engage in the pain and sorrow of a heart-breaking novel, our lives brighten through the comparison. We realize that given a chance to trade places with characters, we would choose our own realities over theirs. Tragedies can also deepen our connections to our own pasts, sending our minds back to those difficult times that, in retrospect, were often the most fulfilling periods of our lives.
