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



Monday, December 14, 2009

Back Home at Last: The Glories of One's Own Bed, the Lonely Howls of a Lovesick Cat, Just Hanging Out

These figures memorialize the coming of the Irish to Boston. In 1847 alone, some 37,000 starving, dirt-poor Irish immigrants escaped the potato famine only to continue their famishment in the squalor of Boston-waterfront slums.

Coming home from Boston last night at 2:00 A.M. exhausted after being jammed up on the East Coast for the second time in three weeks, we were greeted by our joyous kitties who immediately wanted something to eat.

It was a fine homecoming after sitting in the Newark Airport for over eight hours (yes, we sat comfortably in fat, soft chairs in the Continental Airlines President's Club where the booze/wine/coffee/snacks/Internet are free, but still....), a delay caused by fog and complicated by an overweight plane, oversold seats, angry fellow passengers, and a piece of Terry's luggage being taken off the plane as we watched from the last seat in the back and finally being delivered to our doorstep late this afternoon.

Still, it was worth it. Boston is always worth it. We had a crackling fine time in the city before and after four days in the minor but Christmas-lovely former mill town of Southbridge which is right next to the colonial reenactment town of Sturbridge, MA, where Terry had biz meetings and I blogged, read, and hung out. I say crackling because that's how the winter temperatures, enhanced by a 20 mph wind, made my face feel--burning-crackly.

On Saturday, we walked the city again as we had the Saturday before. We scouted out a bar/restaurant for our dinner with Tom, my old, Emerson College-days roommate (it's been 42 years since I was a college student in Boston. Did I know Sam Adams? No, we ran in different circles), bought me yet another pair of gloves (Earlier in the week, I'd lost a nice pair of fur-lined leather gloves two hours after buying them).

Finally, we met up with Tom and poor Terry had to put up with a few hours of us laughing like apes over our fondly-remembered, long-lost youthful adventures boinging around the old city. We were innocent back then, really--terribly innocent and I wish we could go back and start things over--maybe get things right this time---Did I just write that? I take it back. I love what I have.
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