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, March 22, 2010

A Head Cold in Washington, D.C.; Re-Editing a Novel; Sirens at the Window


















Will Work Hard for a Better Life

These young women joined thousands coming
from all over the U.S. to demonstrate for immigration
rights.

March 20
Things are howling in this small city. There's a fairly constand parade of human crises going on just outside the safe and comfy domain of this hotel. Ambulances wake us in the night, fire trucks shriek and blast at all hours, the honking impatience of rush-hour traffic echos off the streets and off the high rise walls around me.

The National Mall was thick with demonstrators who think
imigration laws needs changing.


Nonetheless, it is spring, my head cold--which has kept me in bed all week--is fading away to a dry cough, and I hope to finish up the re-edit of Book I, The Face in Amber today. My publisher gave me a great opportunity to make some changes to the first novel in the The Eye of the Stallion trilology (maybe it will go beyond trilogy now that the publisher asked), but it was not comfortable sitting up in bed, the inviting sounds of things happening just outside, and working with a pounding head and an aching body.

22 March: Head cold is gone. Yesterday was Terry's B'day and we celebrated with a champagne and jazz brunch and a D.C. city walkabout. Went to the waterfront, found the marina, and got info where to go/what to do if we ever bring our boat up here on a cruise. Also found a pretty amazing seafood market right under the 14th Street Bridge. Then we walked all the way back to the hotel, mingling with thousands of demonstrators protesting current immigration laws. When we got back to the hotel and turned on the TV, we saw them on Fox News who said they were there protesting the health care bill. Lovely.

23 March: Today we decamp from this hotel and drive across the Potomac to another in Ballston where Terry has another two days of meetings. I'm going to get to go to the Pentagon for the first time to meet with a would-be financial advisor. Wednesday, home, home home and this weekend hope to get Seawind back in the water and back to her slip on Onancock Creek. Progress being made on all fronts.

A seafood market under the 14th Street Bridge
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