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



Saturday, May 11, 2013

Midnight at the Jet Lag Hotel



It's witchy-witchy time here in Albuquerque where I'm at the Southwest Book Fiesta. I fell asleep at 8:30, wide awake at Midnight, my body-mind still lost in a time zone somewhere in the vast Pacific. One week ago I was in the Philippines, five days ago in Guam, four days ago, Honolulu, two days ago Virginia, yesterday, here.

This global soul is tired but happy. Bustling about the World, I am, after all, self-actualizing at the top of my game, and I'm not about to complain. My new novel, Brothers of the Fire Star, is the engine behind all this, my artsy-cognitive lump of literary gold. And this week I learn that it has been selected as a finalist in a Book of the Year competition, this one sponsored by ForeWord Reviews, an organization that seeks to find the best writing produced by independent and academic presses. From the finalists will be selected the winners in various categories, mine Young Adult. And the winners will be announced in Chicago on June 28th at the annual convention of the American Library Association. Nice. Just being a finalist is nice. Wonderful, in fact.

So my eyes burn, my mind fogs over, and my failing memory is worse than ever, but I know who I am and where I'm going and, most important, who I love.

Now I'm going to turn out this light again and try to sleep.

Note: My latest piece in the Prague Revue is all about knots: Elegant Tangles for Sailors, Sex, Hangmen, and Cowboys.  I had fun writing it: www.praguerevue.com
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