Douglas Arvidson is a past winner of the WICE/Paris Transcontinental International Short Story competition. His short fiction has been published in Paris, Prague, and in literary magazines in the United States and he was recently invited to be a staff writer for the Prague Revue, a cutting-edge, online literary journal (http://bit.ly/1mMT6ZC). The novels in his fantasy series, The Eye of the Eye of Stallion, include The Face in Amber, The Mirrors of Castaway Time, and A Drop of Wizard's Blood. His new novel, Brothers of the Fire Star, was selected as a finalist in the ForeWord Reviews 2012 Book of the Year national awards and as a finalist in three categories in the 2013 New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards: Action Adventure Fiction, Historical Fiction, and Young Adult Fiction. It has become part of the pantheon of Pacific literature and is now included in school literature programs. Brothers of the Fire Star is an adventure story set in the Pacific during World War II and concerns two boys of different races and cultures who escape the island of Guam in a small sailboat when the Japanese army invades. They must then struggle to survive as they master the secrets of the ancient Pacific navigators. Appropriate for young adults as well as adult readers, Brothers of the Fire Star is available on Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com (http://amzn.to/1j3axVk) and Crossquarter.com. Visit the author's website: douglasarvidson.com



Sunday, June 29, 2008

The Accidental Tourists: Easy and His Pal in D.C.




There's Easy (short for Taking It Easy) on the right, leaning this way and that in front of the National Gallery of Art, and there's his pal in the left, in complete control of the situation, as is her habit. Terry, in her new role as Federal Education Association Director for Dept. of Defense Dependents Domestic Elementary and Secondary Schools had four days of meetings in the Omni Hotel in D.C. and, as I wasn't doing anything in particular, I tagged along.
On Saturday, we took the subway/underground (I prefer the latter term--a hint of mystery in it especially after observing some of the denizens of its tunnels) for the short ride into the city and did a little touring. The National Gallery of Art is always a great place to hang on a languid Washington summer day while throngs of overheated tourists with screaming kids and young people trying hard not to look like overheated tourists wandered about the Mall taking in a Folk Festival.
Highlights of the visit to the Gallery included some Picassos, some Matisses, The Farm by Joan Miro that used to hang in Hemingway's house at the Vinca Vigia, and a splendid display of ancient treasures from the National Museum in Kabul. We had a very fine lunch in the Gallery cafeteria with other like-minded visitors (earthy-crunchy, artsy-fartsy people tending toward and beyond middle age), and then managed to beat a dandy thunderstorm back to the underground entrance. All in all, it was great fun spending the day together and doing something together rather than spending the day together doing separate things. Today is Sunday and I'm told we are going to walk up to the zoo that is four blocks from the hotel and observe some of Washington's other caged beasts. Watch this space for some interesting photos of cheetahs and gorillas and, with luck, a Congressperson or two (not that they could top the black cat featured in an earlier post).

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