Not about writing today…

Actually have a couple of social issues…

Coming Together for the Cure releases August 13 in e-book and comes out in Print in September.

The anthology includes my story Angel on the Wall. The book blurb: At some point, virtually everyone’s life is touched in some way by breast cancer. Whether it’s a friend or family member, or even yourself, the journey is one of courage and compassion. Phaze continues its tradition of fundraising for this cause with Coming Together: For the Cure, an anthology of erotic romance edited by Alessia Brio. Royalties from the sale of this edition of Coming Together will be donated to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation Coming Together has never felt this good !

Next years anthology is currently accepting submissions: Coming Together with Pride. I am assisting Alessia Brio in selecting stories for this antho. All proceeds will benifit HIV/AIDS research. All geners and pairs are accepted… AIDS hits everyone regardless of class, race and sexual orientation. This is my first foray into quazi editorial aspects and Alessia was kind enough to take my suggestion and allow me to be a part of it.

K.M. Fontaine is donating all of the e-book sales from Loved him to Death to Gai Écoute a French-Canadian organization that helps gay teens who have been turned to the streets by thier families.

There is also the Dreams and Desires Anthology from Freya’s which benifits battered women’s shelters.
Okay… and the crappy shit that has me all depressed…

My mom works at Childrens’ Hospital Los Angeles. Tomorrow my spawn are spending the day with her. She has arranged to take them and another child on a field trip via MetroRail.

-The child is 6.

–She is an abandoned foster child.

—She is Afican American, in a wheel chair and cannot walk right now. The doctors say when she has a transplant, she WILL BE NORMAL.

—-She is on dialisis 3x per week.

—–She has LIVED at the hospital since she was 5, because no foster family is willing to make that level of commitment. This will be her fist trip out of the hospital of more than a few blocks in months.

Small stuff foks.

Yeah, we’ve been talking about “could we do a kid in a wheel-chair on Dialisis” talk tonight. And with us, social services might not let it happen and we’re not sure we could give that level of care. My partner grew up with foster kids. 3 of them along with his 4 natural brothers and sisters. I have an adoptive sister… from Mexico, when she was 12 and couldn’t speak English. Both his maternal grandparents were deaf. We’re both upset.

But, there’s something else small…My mom walks by the “Visit Board” every day… “Please visit with this child, they’ve had no visitors in x months…” insert your poison.. three, six, eight in some cases. The teenagers sometimes go for a year.

I am reminded of an act of my brother’s friends. One of them was diagnosed with kidney failure. Only about 1/2 of his “good friends” showed up to be tested. The “Bitch” that everyone hated, tolerated in thier group… she got tested. She was a perfect match (no relation, wrong ethnicity… 1 in 100 million chance) and they told her. She showed up, let hersefl be cut in half (and the surgery for dontation is FAR more drastic then the person who gets it). 1/2 his GOOD FRIENDS couldn’t be bothered… and she went the distance.

I can get a TB test and background test to read a lonely 10 year old Harry Potter. I can arrange so that my 9 year old does pathetic Majic Shows for cancer kids with my SexyGuy. I can make a small difference in a child’s life…

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Aconite and Belladonna

I’m rereading all the Harry Potter books in preparation for Deathly Hallows. Finished Sorcerer’s Stone the other night. I was paying close attention to Snape in this one, for obvious reasons. I paid special attention to the first time Harry sees Snape: Harry notices a greasy-haired man at the head table looking at him with loathing and right then Harry feels his scar burn, for the first time. But Snape is talking to Quirrel, who has Voldemort in the back of his head. But I thought it was interesting. Was it Snape who made the scar burn, or Voldie? She raises the question right off the bat: is Snape good or evil.

Then in the first potions class, Snape asks Harry a series of three questions, which Harry naturally can’t answer, it being the first day (though of course Hermione can). First, what would you get if you combined asphodel and wormwood? Answer: “a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of the Living Death.” Second: Where would you look for a bezoar? Answer: “from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons.” Third: What is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane? Answer: “They are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite.”

I think we will see all three of these. Of course, we have already seen the bezoar, in Half-Blood Prince, where Harry uses a bezoar to save … is it Ron? Or Slughorn? Anyway, it has appeared. The Draft of the Living Death seems especially promising for plot purposes. And after googling “aconite” I wonder if that’s what was in the water Dumbledore drank to get the Horcrux.

From Botanical.com: “It was said to be the invention of Hecate from the foam of Cerberus, and it was a species of Aconite that entered into the poison which the old men of the island of Ceos were condemned to drink when they became infirm and no longer of use to the State. Aconite is also supposed to have been the poison that formed the cup which Medea prepared for Theseus. (Note—Aconite and Belladonna were said to be the ingredients in the witches’ ‘Flying ointments.’ Aconite causes irregular action of the heart, and Belladonna produces delirium. These combined symptoms might give a sensation of ‘flying.’—EDITOR)

Love the references to Belladonna.

Continuing my list of the books I’ve read so far in 2007:

1. The Sea, John Banville (exquisite book, reminds me of what high-flown literary fiction is like, since I’ve read so little in the past few years. Extraordinary eye for detail, tight first person narrative focus, a bit heavy on the navel-gazing and middle-aged male Irish angst.)
2. Looking for Alaska, John Green (good, but I never really got Alaska, never saw her. Not like I got/saw Holden Caulfield.)
3. I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith (as good as JK Rowling promised)
4. The Night Journal, Elizabeth Crook
5. The Ice Queen, Alice Hoffman
6. Blood and Chocolate, Annette Curtis Klause
7. Practical Magic, Alice Hoffman
8. The End, Lemony Snickett

Now reading The Fugitive Wife, by Peter C. Brown. Wonderfully compelling narrative of a Midwestern wife who runs away from her hard-ass husband and ends up in Alaska during the Gold Rush. But wow, some of the things he does my crit partners–Lynne, Kate and Jen—would never let me get away with, like POV shifts from paragraph to paragraph. This is not the seamless flow of Bel Canto, mind you. It’s just sloppy and pops me out of the story.

Also and forever, The Golden Bough, now on p. 269, still on taboos. This section is on abstaining from women, putting them outside the community during menses, sex weakening warriors and hunters, etc.

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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – one fan’s opinion

Yes, I’m looking forward to the new Harry Potter book.

I became a fan of the HP books and of J. K. Rowling as an author pretty much by accident, as I see it. I avoided the books for a while; there are so many best sellers that I’ve spent my money on just to find out that the particular novel is garbage, so I’ve become a bit skeptical of the validity of the bs list sometimes, as it pertains to quality anyway.

But a few years ago I was looking for something light to read after finishing a wonderfully profound but somewhat grim novel. I just needed something to relax with and pass the day while I was at work (no, not slacking. It was a job w/ enormous amounts of approved downtime). So I thought, what the hell. One Harry Potter book can’t hurt. So I bought the first one. And I enjoyed it. And a couple of years later I bought the second one–at that time I believe the first four in the series were on the shelves.

So now I’m awaiting the next one along with most of the world. And while I’ve yet to participate in any message boards, etc., I too wondered if the author would kill Harry Potter.

But I don’t think so. Why? It’s just something simple that I’ve noticed. It’s not a deep philosophical examination of fantasy lore or symbolism present in the books. Again, I have yet to participate in the fan boards, so it may very well be that just about everyone has made this observation already, but I think that the last HP book will end on a good note for one simple reason – the order of the series:

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s stone (Philosopher’s stone in England/Canada) (the Philosopher’s stone was a force of good)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Chamber was a force of evil)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Prisoner [Sirius Black] good)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Goblet bad)
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Order good)
Harry Potter and the Halfblood Prince (Halfblood Prince bad [so it seems])

So based on that, I’d say that the Deathly Hallows will be a force of good, or at least results in good things eventually happening for Harry Potter. I also think that Sirius Black will be resurrected.

If the Deathly Hallows turns out to be a a good thing in some way, it really brings everything full circle for Harry as well. Plus, there’s something, it seems, in the importance of his age at the different stages/years at Hogwarts and it just appears that this book and the character’s age present the perfect time to make him a full-fledged wizard. To do that and then kill him, well, seems kind of pointless. But that’s just my opinion and speculation.

As far as the rest is concerned (who else might or might not die, come back, etc.) anybody’s guess is as good as mine. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Nancy O. Greene
http://www.portraits.bravehost.com

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