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



Thursday, May 5, 2016

About to Leave for Guam and FestPac 2016: Jet Lag and Joy


              Sitting with dancers from Papau New Guinea at FestPac 12 years ago in Palau.

On Sunday, I begin the journey to Guam. It will take a couple of days with a layover in Honolulu to rest and hang out for a few hours at Waikiki. Once on Guam I will have two weeks to recover from jet lag do have some book signings. Then, on the 21st of May, the 2016 Pacific Festival of the Arts begins.

I have been selected as a literary delegate representing Guam and will be attending writing workshops with other delegates. Then, on the 25th, I'll be doing an hour presentation on the writing of my novel, Brothers of the Fire Star. I will also be a bus driver. I may get a tattoo. I'll be sleeping on a futon on the floor of a classroom in a high school. There are no laundry facilities. I will be wearing an island-style "tapis" which is really a kind of skirt. So I'll be driving a bus whilst wearing a skirt. And talking about what I love and what I do.