Going Home

Photo “Galaxy” by Christina Hymes Phillips

www.facebook.com/christinaphillips723

Going Home

Leaning against a tall ash, the bark felt rough against my naked arm.  It was a nostalgic feeling, bringing back memories of childhood, when a tree was as much for climbing as for shade or support: memories of a little girl waving and shouting, “Mommy!  Here we are!” as she scrambled up the low slung branches of a back yard tree; Daddy, standing on a dappled lawn, guarding her progress; a gentle wind rustling the leaves of the branches.

A slight breeze lifted my hair, making it dance about my face, tickling cheek and nose.  The night was soft and velvety, with the smell of sulfur hanging in the air, the distant sound of the pop pop pop of fireworks stirring memories as well: memories of celebrations past, of laughter and song, good food and companionship, of family.

Sliding to the ground, I sat.  Drawing my knees to my chest and wrapping my arms about my legs, I watched, resting my chin upon my knees.    The hill where I found myself this 4^th of July evening was an impressive one.  So much so that the fireworks were below me, making it appear as if I observed the display from a more heavenly plane.

It would be nice if it were so, if I could be in Heaven, or Nirvana, or wherever it is we go when we breathe our last breath.  I would be with those who had left me behind, left me to touch and see and smell and hear – alone.

I shifted my body and leaned against the rough bark, relishing the scratchy feel of its bumpy surface through my thin, cotton blouse.  There was a screeeeee, a trail of smoke and a loud bang as a rocket burst into a shimmering bouquet of red and pink.  It lit the ground below, and I could see a billowing nimbus of smoke, looking like so many clouds, reinforcing the illusion that I was not on earth, not bound to this mortal existence, but had moved on, perhaps – gone Home.

They say “Home is where the heart is.”  If this were so, then there was no home for me on this earthly plane.  My heart died a year ago on a freeway in Central Ohio.

My husband and I were married a year when I discovered that I was pregnant.  We were delighted when our little girl was born on the 4^th of July.  Five years later, we were driving home from Grandma’s house, full of hot dogs and bratwurst, birthday cake and soda pop, eager for our beds.

It had been a good five years, full of Christmases and birthdays, paper doilies imprinted with paint-smeared little hands: tiny stars pressed upon a white surface, waiting to be framed and wrapped in bright paper – a Mother’s Day gift from a golden child. 

Five years of butterfly kisses and hugs, Cheerios and Sponge Bob. Five years of love and happiness, that ended a year ago this night, on a dark strip of highway.

The finale was approaching.  The fireworks were coming faster, the screech of the rockets increasing in number.  Soon it would be over and I would be going Home.

My head began to nod.  I smiled a soft, slow smile – my first in a year.  Soon!  Soon!  The scene before me became hazy; the sounds of the finale began to dim.  My heart lifted in joy!  I could hear a little voice, “Mommy!  Here we are!”  I was Home.

© 2008 Debra Shiveley Welch

 

All Shiveley's Die in October

October 15, 2012 I was rushed to the emergency room.  I’d known that something was wrong for quite a while, but like our canine brothers and sisters, I managed to hide it quite well.  I was sick.  I was desperately sick.

I hadn’t told my family that I had been speaking with my mother, my father and Merribuck – all deceased.  Merribuck, my beloved late, Border/Sheltie mix, was the first to visit me.

It was the beginning of October and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to hide how ill I was for much longer.  Understand that I come from a long line of people who just don’t like to go to the doctor.  We’re a hardy group as a rule, but sometimes something sneaks up and knocks one of us for a loop. I was soon to be thrown.

I was sitting on the couch, gathering strength to vacuum, when I saw my Merri.  I could feel the joy rise up within my heart.  I’d missed her so much these past 19 years, and here she was, once again, my beautiful baby dog.  Merri trotted over to me and sat at my feet, feathered, curved tail wagging, mouth open in that glorious smile she always wore in life.

To this day Merribuck is the sweetest soul I’ve ever met.  Truly, God was in a good mood the day He made my sweet girl.  She was always there to comfort me, there to share my joys and triumphs, and I know deep within my soul that she knew what I was feeling and thinking.  We shared a bond that I have shared with only a few beings in my lifetime, my son being one, and so I was not that surprised to see her now…now that I was in trouble.

“My Buckaroo!” I cried with joy.  “I’ve missed you so much, Little Love.  I’ve always missed you.  Do you know that I come to visit with you when I’m upset?” I asked her.  (I always go to her grave when troubled.)  “Have you come to “fetch” me?”

Buck gazed up at me with her beautiful smile and my heart clenched.  My fingers itched to stroke her long, silky coat, and my soul longed to smell her sweet fragrance that I remembered so well.  I could feel her laugh and say “Mama, you always were so funny” and with that, she jumped up beside me.  I buried my nose in her neck, stroking her wonderful fur.  “Sweetheart” I murmured,“ if it weren’t for our baby, I would love to go with you.  I miss you so much. But my journey with him isn’t over.  I have to stay for him.”

Our baby was my son Chris, born 20 years before.  When Chris came home, I sat on the couch and allowed Merribuck to sniff him.  “This is your baby, Buck.  Your baby.”  From that day forward, she never left his side.

Again I felt the telepathic connection “I know Mama.  I miss you too, and I know when you have come to visit me.  Haven’t you felt me with you? But right now you have to stay here with our baby.”

Merri continued to comfort me for a precious ten minutes or so and then left. As she jumped down from the couch I felt her ‘say’ “You won’t die, Mama.  I came to tell you that you won’t die.”  I once again endured the anguish of our parting, but felt better knowing that, indeed, we would be reunited someday…perhaps someday soon…but that for now, I would be allowed to stay with my beloved son.

I was knocked to my knees in mid-October.  Chris was taking me to the doctor as I was now too weak to drive.  He was begging me to go to the hospital, but I kept insisting that I was all right, just tired.  One look at me and the nurse demanded that I go to the ER.  Finally waking up to reality, or maybe it was the fear in my son’s eyes, I agreed and Chris took me straight away.  I was admitted within an hour.

So, I lay in my hospital bed, not really afraid.  Somehow I knew that I would live, but a statement my father made kept going through my head:  "All Shiveley’s die in October."  Had I imagined Merri out of loneliness for her?  Was I once again hiding the truth from myself?  My mind flew back 16 years.

In 1997 we brought my father home to live with us.  He had developed lung cancer and was dying.  Chemo seemed to be slowing the progression of the cancer, and Da kept saying, “If I live through October, I’ll live another year.”  We were watching Emeril Lagasse, Da’s favorite cooking show, the evening of October 28th, and when he said it to me again, I asked, “Da, why do you keep saying that?”  “Because,” he replied,“ all Shiveley’s die in October.”  I put the thought aside, figuring he was clinging to a very fragile thread. The next morning, Chris and I found him gone, his coffee still hot, and his color just beginning to change. Two weeks later, as I cleaned out his room, I found a shoe box full of obituaries.  All were for Shiveley’s…all died in October.  So here I was – October 15, gravely ill, in the hospital, and a Shiveley.  But Buck had said I wasn’t going to die. Or had she?

That night, my mother came.  I was lying with my eyes closed (who can sleep in a hospital?) when I heard her distinctive laugh.  Slowly turning my head, I saw her sitting in a chair and smiling.  “So, you think you’re going to die because you’re a Shiveley?  Well, you’re also from my people.  You’ll be okay, and by the way, how’s my grandson?”

I filled her in: Mom never met Chris.  Mom died in 1989 of kidney cancer and Chris was born and adopted in 1992.  So I told her all about him.  I kept thinking of how her brother Bussy visited her when she was six months pregnant for me.  She was raking leaves and caught fire, sustaining fourth degree burns.  Her right kidney was literally fried. She lay in a bed at White Cross Hospital, in premature labor for me, and frightened to the core.  She said the room brightened and a moonbeam shot into her room.  There stood her brother, hand extended. “Don’t worry, Re, she’ll be all right. I’ll take care of her.”  He then faded back into the beam and was gone. My mother said that her labor ceased immediately, and I’m here to testify that I survived.  But would I survive this test?

The next night my father arrived.  “Da!” I exclaimed when I saw him.  He gazed at me with that serious Irish way of his and stated, “I just came to tell you that you won’t be dyin’ this October.  You’re journey is not finished.”  Da and I spoke for awhile.  Like Mom, he wanted to know about Chris.  He and Chris had adored each other, and Da was so proud to be Chris’ “Numpa” as Chris called him.  Da’s visit wasn’t long, but he was always one to say his piece and get it over with.

I took all of this with a grain of salt.  It seemed that, after Merribuck left, my emotions flat lined.  I felt no fear, no regret, no apprehension.  My only emotion was of determination:  If I’m going to die, in spite of what I’ve been told, I must make sure that Chris is all right.  I planned my funeral, my wake,  and the epitaph on my tombstone, and set about the business of putting my affairs in order.  I didn’t want my son or my husband to have to deal with any more than they had to.  Also, I wanted to be able to take care of my boy, even after death.  However, true to my visitors’ assurances, I survived and was sent home in eight days with chronic liver failure, possibly due to a biologic I was taking for Psoriatic Arthritis.

Halloween, Thanksgiving, my 60th birthday, Christmas, New Years, all passed with me half there.  I was very weak and was not recovering as everyone had hoped.  On January second, I was again taken to the emergency room.  This time, my doctors told me that, according to my blood tests, I should be in the morgue.  You should have seen their faces when I gave them the cryptic reply, “But it isn’t October!”

Tender loving care from a group of incredible nurses, massive infusions of potassium and sundry minerals and enzymes, and the final return of my appetite (I hadn’t eaten more than four ounces a day since Thanksgiving,  2011) I was well enough to return home seven days later.  Now, I began to get better.  Still, I felt no emotions.  I would sit for hours just staring ahead.  Merribuck’s, my mother’s, and my father’s visits had left me rather numb. Intellectually I knew that I missed them more than ever now, but somehow that message never slipped down into my heart.  Perhaps it wasn’t supposed to.  Maybe I was supposed to concentrate on survival and not grief.

It was March.  I was alone at home.  My husband is a docent at a museum in Columbus, and was there conducting a tour; my son was at school.  I sat, TV off, wishing to God that I could see Merribuck again, and looking outside at the tree my husband and I planted the previous summer – a tree that I thought I would never get to see grow.  I gazed upon her (I always name my trees, and this one, a Royal Empress, was of course, Eleanor) and without warning my emotions came flooding back!  I was filled with the most incredible joy, and I knew, I just knew, that I would see the spring – and perhaps live through another October.  I wept.  I wept as I hadn’t done since my very early years.  I wept for the promise of life, mourned anew for Merri, Mom and Da, and rejoiced with the knowledge that I would remain with my son. Sobs wracked me to the point of making my muscles ache when I was finished, but it was a cleansing, a release, a baptism as it were.

It is now June.  I can walk on my own, climb stairs, take showers,  cook and eat.  My weight is getting to the point where I look thin, but normal, and not unlike a concentration camp victim.  My son is now 21, thriving and happy.  He is studying filmology and is a sushi chef. My husband is convinced that I’m going to be okay, and has relaxed and begun to enjoy his life once more.  I’ve started cooking again, something I loved to do but hadn’t the strength, and began watching Paula Deen, Ina Garten, Giada and other Food Network stars to get my ‘cooking chops’ refreshed. My son and I have just returned from the Muddy River powwow where my sister was Head Woman.  Chris has taken me out to dinner and rejoiced in my returned appetite.  We take walks and my husband and I have started to accept party invitations.  God is good.  God is very, very good.

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Meet Author Roger Sagert

Roger Sagert:  http://highcountrystories.blogspot.com/


Roger, I’m so glad to have this opportunity to talk with you.  I’m a big fan of your Inuit saga series which includs Inuit Child One Who Walks Alone and The Long Trail Home.

What inspired you to write these very unique novels?

Roger: I wanted to show how these unique people lived and how special their lives were and what they thought of their world and themselves.  .

DSW:  How long have you been writing?

Roger: I wrote my first story when I was in the 7^th grade in school in Winter, Wisconsin. The story was short and we were required to produce one for the class and we had to read our stories out loud, it was an enjoyable experience, I wrote my next book in the early seventies. It was by pen and paper while I was living camped out in the Rocky Mountains. It wasn’t until years later when the computer made it possible for me to write so that another person could actually read what it was I had wrote.

DSW: How do your ideas for stories typically come to you?

Roger: The air and the world around me are full of stories, I just sit down and start typing.

DSW: Do you know the entire story when you begin or do you begin with a grain of an idea and allow the story to tell itself as you write?

Roger:  If a scene comes to my mind, I start to write, and the story and those in it come in to a life of their own and pass through the story on their own.

DSW: Do you use an outline?

Roger: No I am not a learned man; I thought at one time these types of methods might help me so I bought a writing program, working with that was worse than typing a story. It might even be under my desk collecting dust right now.  A dear friend gave me a book on writing. Oh well, what can I say?

DSW: What is your purpose in writing?

Roger: I like to show that no matter what circumstances a person or peoples are in, they are able to rise up to the challenge. This is something I have noticed as I have lived my life.

I follow the flow as the story comes to me and I will introduce severe situations and the characters must then do what they must. But I never know how they will react to any give situation.

DSW:  That explains why your stories are so personal and touching, even though they happen to a different people in a different time.  Do you feel it to be a calling, or are you satisfying some psychological, spiritual, or social imperative?

Roger: A calling, that would be far too lofty for me, but self-satisfying, and some social imperative, those two suggestions would be closer, I tend to write strong female characters. My mother taught me to be respectful and thoughtful of those around me.
My Father taught me to stand up for the right to live and die for what I believe, and to step in and do what you must even if it was going to hurt.

DSW: Do you write to inform or to entertain, or for some other reason?

Roger: I write because it is in me to do so.

DSW: Do you write to yourself or do you keep a reading audience in your mind's eye?

Roger: One could write for one’s self and be quite happy, and there is nothing wrong with that, but a story that is sent out to the world must quickly take hold of the reader, and like the subtle shade of evening, you must let the reader see enough to follow the path you yourself are traveling on; you must not rush on ahead and leave them in the dark, but occasionally you must brush their fingertips to help guide them to your sight.

DSW: Another example of why I find your work filled with poetry. I like that. What is the most satisfying aspect of writing for you?

Roger: A imaginary story or any factual book no matter the content is built from within the mind of the writer, and to bring the fruit of the story out of one’s mind and place it there for the reader to see, and then to find out that the reader understands what you are really trying to show, is for me the self-satisfying aspect of writing. 

DSW: What is the most difficult aspect of it?

Roger:  Sitting down and doing.

DSW: Do you write on a fairly regular basis, or do you wait for your muse to whisper in your ear?

Roger: Hardly ever, but when I do, I am like a lamb being eaten by the lion, I am consumed. I have written for over twenty four hours at a sitting, and once bitten, I strive to drive the story on to completion.

DSW: What do you do when you face the dreaded nemesis – Writer’s Block?

Roger:  When the thought has entered my mind I ask out loud to myself, “How will I keep this story interesting?” Then I let my fingers move across the keyboard, and a character sticks their head from between the keys on the keyboard and says to me, “Here this is where I belong.”  Or sometimes they say, “You have come too far too fast and must go back and find out why I am here and why I am doing thusly.”

DSW: Is there a better time of day for you to write? 

Roger:  No, the story never stops flowing to me. When I write I write until I need to stop.

DSW: Where do you like to practice your craft?  Is there any particular room?

Roger: I can write anywhere I can get to a computer. I know nothing of structure of sentences and I cannot spell. Vowels and verbs are strange countries made of gooey smelly mud; a hanging participial might as well be a new planet off in deep space.

DSW: Do you need quiet, or do you like noise when you are writing?

Roger: I sometimes put on headphones and listen to old timey blues. Or quiet works also.

DSW: What does your typical writing day look like?

Roger: When I was in the Antarctic I wrote at night until midnight.  When I write at home I close the door of the room, I do not like stopping or being bothered.

DSW: Do you have to struggle for ideas for stories, or do they come to you easily?

Roger:  My mind is not a void that is empty, but rather a new world waiting to be investigated.

DSW: What do you consider the most important quality in writing: character development, plot, etc?

Roger:  I waste very little time describing the characters. I give the reader the bare necessity , I leave them to be molded by the reader, I offer them a sip of warm mulled wine and let their inner glow flesh out what they themselves want to see. Perhaps this is a mistake. I’ll let the reader decide.

The plots main course is on its own. If I do something about it, I sure don’t know it when I do. If something is really wrong and I sense it, I look at my direction to see what has happened.

DSW: Can we look forward to other books by you in the future?

Roger: Will the sun rise in the realm of our minds, and will not the rain fall and call the salmon from the sea?

DSW: There you go again, Roger!  I love the way your mind works.  Would you care to share some of those ideas with us now to whet our appetites?

Roger: An Inuit woman listens to the sounds of the northern lights in which she hears the words of the spirit children that are there in the night’s sky, and they tell her of a strange man who has come to the shore of her land.  She wakes up from her dream and comes out from the hole in the snow where the night before she had sheltered herself, and she seeks him out. She is guided by the voices of the children; she finds him.  Carefully she approaches him and he is covered with fine snow. He has blond hair and a metal hat with horns on top….

Interview With Author D. Eward Bradley

­Interview of David Edward Bradley with Debra Shiveley Welch

http://www.dedwardbradley.com/ 

Hi, Edward.  I’m happy to be able to visit with you today.  I have some questions for you which my followers will be interested in.  Edward, how long have you been writing?

Edward: First of all, I should point out that my real name is David Edward Bradley, but I write under the pen name of D. Edward Bradley.

To answer the question, I actually wrote a novel circa 1950 when I was about 20 and still living with my parents in the UK. It was about a giant asteroid…..   I sent it to a publisher and it was read (and rejected, of course) by a well known author whose name I have since forgotten. It was pretty awful.

I have been writing seriously since retiring from a faculty position at Canada’s most easterly university, Memorial University of Newfoundland—about 15 years. Since my last novel, She Came from Away, was published in 2007 I have been attending to other aspects of the writers’craft and learning about e-publishing.

DSW: How do your ideas for stories typically come to you?

Edward: My first novel Leeward is entirely imaginative; the Caribbean island, where much of the action takes place, doesn’t exist. It was vacations in Jamaica and St. Kitts— each with its own dramatic topography, colourful history, and tropical headiness—that  rekindled a creative spark that had lain dormant while I had been concentrating on my career as biology researcher. Places I had known as a boy in England, while on military service in Germany and on a scientific expedition to Iceland, were soon woven into the plotlines of my first four novels. You could say that, to some extent, places I had experienced prescribed plot direction. Harry’s War is the only novel where actual events in my life inspired the story. My latest novel, She Came from Away, borrows from our life in a small Newfoundland town, both for settings and for local colour.

DSW: Do you know the entire story when you embark on a new manuscript, or do you begin with a grain of an idea and allow the story to tell itself as you write?

Edward: It depends on the book. For Leeward I had a rough idea of plot when I started, but the plot transfigured itself through twists and turns as I wrote. For all the other books I knew where the story was going before I wrote the plot outlines, and the writing flowed.

DSW: When you decide to write a book, how do you set about the task?

Edward: I have a system:

First I start with a single-sentence descriptor of the book: who, what, where, and when. For  Harry’s War it might read “Thirteen-year-old Harry Lockwood’s life at an English boarding school for boys near London during World War II.”

Next, I expand this to a paragraph outlining the plot direction and naming the principle characters. From there I write single-sentence chapter outlines for the whole book. I flesh out the chapter outlines to several paragraphs, three at a time, before I sit down to write. As each chapter is completed, I flesh out another chapter outline. Plot changes are accommodated as they arise by updating the chapter outlines.

Generally, I write several pages longhand and then type them, revising roughly as I do so. There are revisions at the chapter level for things like awkward phrasing, word overuse, and anything missed by the word processing software. With a lot of dialogue, punctuation spell checking can be a concern. Rereading of longer sections hopefully picks up any plot inconsistencies and a read by an “outsider” can help with this. I used to print and bind several copies of my final drafts, complete with laminated colour covers, to send to friends before publication.

DSW: Why did you start writing novels after a career in Biological Research?

Edward:  An underlying desire to write fiction had been with me since young adulthood and I felt an unmet need to be creative after I retired. The career work I was involved in —first as an electron microscopist and later as a microbiologist—was both visually and intellectually stimulating. Research is a field where you have an end goal and must plot how to get there. As with writing a novel, you may end up somewhere totally unexpected!

DSW: Do you write to inform or to entertain, or for some other reason?

Rfestf: Primarily to entertain, though with Harry’s War I wanted the reader to sense the reality of war-time Britain: rationing, German aerial attacks, family separations and stolen childhoods. My other books might be informative in the sense that descriptions of foreign settings are based on my actual recollections, sometimes augmented by research. 

DSW: Do you write to yourself or do you keep a reading audience in your mind's eye?

Edward: Definitely the latter. I try to develop characters in such a way that readers can feel strongly about them. I also try to paint a vivid picture of the scene where the action is taking place so that readers might feel as though they are there with the protagonists.

DSW: What is the most satisfying aspect of writing for you?

Edward: Getting very good reviews has to top the list. Producing pre-publication bound copies for family and friends, with covers that I had designed, was also very rewarding as I developed the technique myself through much experimentation in my garage workshop.

More recently I had to read versions of several of my books which I had formatted as ebooks (Kindle in particular). I was surprised (though I say it myself!) that the writing still seemed strong and clear. I don’t think I could write as well now.

DSW: What is the most difficult aspect of it?

Edward: Putting pen to paper and composing—converting my chapter outlines to scenes and actions, especially where the outlines lacked detail.

DSW: Do you write on a fairly regular basis, or do you wait for your muse to whisper in your ear?

Edward: I try to have a writing session every day, however short—even just a paragraph or short conversation. This means a day doesn’t pass without thinking about the book. I feel that if I wait for inspiration, there is a risk the work will never be finished, as is the case with a novella I started a couple of years ago.

DSW: What do you do when you face the dreaded nemesis – Writer’s Block?

Edward: I have been lucky in that my system for writing the text seems to have almost eliminated writer’s block. There is always a detailed chapter outline to draw me onward. The fact that three of my novels form a trilogy has meant that my characters have a shared past that can be drawn upon when needed. Quirks of character or past foibles can be revisited. 

DSW: Is there a better time of day for you to write?

Edward:  Probably afternoon or late morning. Not after dinner.

DSW: Where do you like to practice your craft?  Is there any particular room?

Edward: In summer, with good weather, my favourite place is in my shaded garden. Indoors, I enjoy the seclusion of my bedroom where a comfortable chair awaits.

DSW: Do you need quiet, or do you like noise when you are writing?

Edward: I definitely need quiet; even music upsets my concentration. Unfortunately even a suburban garden can be fraught with distraction.

Do you have to struggle for ideas for stories, or do they come to you easily?

Edward: I do now. Ideas used to come easily since I wrote most of my novels using my own experiences and observations. When I travelled more there were always intriguing places and new people that I could reconfigure into the dramatic scenarios of fiction.

DSW: What do you consider the most important quality in writing: character development, plot, etc?

Edward: Definitely character development. Some of my reviewers have said how much they like the portrayal of my Newfoundland characters in She Came from Away.

DSW: One of your reviewers described Harry’s War as “semi-autobiographic.” To what extent was he right?

Edward: I was just a little younger than the fictitious Harry when I experienced the war years in England. I too spent four years at an English boarding school, complete with prefects and bullies. My school, Malvern, was taken over for the development of radar near the outbreak of WWII and re-housed at Harrow-on-the-Hill, which, like the fictitious Markham College, is about 15 miles from central London. I experienced several of the war-related incidents in the book but embellished them so they were more exciting.

DSW: Did writing Harry’s War change how you remembered WWII?

Edward: Yes, it certainly did. For the first time I wrote down my own recollections in as much detail as possible. I did a bit of research to ensure historical time lines for events in the book were plausible if not 100% accurate, and I located a sound clip of a V1 flying bomb which made me relive the night when they were first launched to hit London.

Oddly, writing the novel made my personal experiences at boarding school feel more like a movie and less real, but how I remember WWII remains a complex compilation of experienced events, newsreel footage, and my relative’s harrowing tales. My parents were in South Africa for part of the war then were finally allowed to return to England in a convoy. The ship behind theirs was sunk in the north Atlantic.   

DSW: Can we look forward to other books by you in the future?

Edward: Probably not. As a retiree of many years I’m not sure I have the discipline to take on a novel at this point. 

DSW: What made you write a trilogy—the Harry’s War Trilogy?

Edward: That’s simple!  A reviewer wrote: ". . . . Growing through the adversities of WWII and of Markham College, Harry develops from a 13-year-old . . . to a confident, mature young man of 17 in 1945, ready to tackle a still uncertain future. His girlfriend, Jenny, is as sure as he is they can succeed. Perhaps there's a sequel in the offing to determine whether or not they did. And if it's as good as this book it will be well worth reading."   M. Wayne Cunningham, Books in Canada—The Canadian Review of Books, September 2004.

So I took his suggestion seriously and wrote Another Kind of War, then The Iceland Connection.

DSW:  David, that you very much for taking the time for this very interesting and informative interview.

D. Edward Bradley’s books are available on most online book stores, including Amazon and Barnes and Noble and can be ordered through your local book store.

Become a Published Author

Join us tonight on Readers Rockin' Radio January 4, 2012 - 6:30 p.m. EST

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/readersrockinradio/2012/01/04/1st-place-winning-author-joins-readers-rockin-radio

Learn about our contests through Master Koda and Saga Books!

For Published Authors

  Win Best Traditionally Published Book 2012

Win Best Self-Published Book 2012

Win a Marketing and Promotional Package Worth Up To $2,000

For Unpublished Authors

First Place - Your Book Published by Saga Books - A Traditional Publishing House - in Paperback

Second Place - Your Book Published by  Saga Books in eBook Format

For Poets and Essay and Short Story Authors

Have You Work Published by Saga Books in an Anthology of Poetry and Short Stories 

Join us tonight, January 4, 2012 at 6:30 p.m. EST

If you miss the show tonight, catch us on the archived version. 

See you there!

Big Fat Cedar Woman Give Away

Hello, my friends.  It's been a while since I started the give away and you all have been extremely patient.  I would like to ask one more favor of you.  Could you please go to http://apps.debrashiveleywelch.net/blog/ and sign up there.  Simply post a comment saying, "I'm in!"

I need to free up this blog for interviews.  That said, if any of you would like to be interviewed about your blogs, your web site, business, poetry, etc., please let me know.
Thanks so much.  The contest will commence after the holidays.

I apologize for the delay in the commencement of the contest, but an avalanche of work (I've been made a partner in Saga Books) and health complications have eaten away my time.  I will have this all sorted out by January 1.  In the mean time, please send me your snail mail addresses to DebraSWelch@aol.com and put in the subject line "My Snail Mail Address."

Again, thank you all a hundred fold for your patience.

My Big Fat Cedar Woman Give Away

Click  to Vew Book Trailer

Now is the time to participate in my

Big Fat Cedar Woman Giveaway!

The rules are simple.

Buy a copy of Cedar Woman and begin to read. Cedar Woman is available through Amazon and Barns&Noble. Use the comment feature below to register simply by posting somthing like, "I'm in," and emailing me privately at DebraSWelch@aol.com with the first sentence of chapter one.


I will announce a week ahead of when the contest will begin.


There will be a prize for every chapter. Each prize is of the same value, or more, as the book.


A question will be asked from each chapter. Those who answer correctly (through private email to me) will be put into a hat and the winner drawn.


Good luck!


Prizes include authentic Native American jewelry complete with certificates of authenticity


An authentic powwow shawl
Native American hair ornament
A new, never opened Logitech Web Cam


And more.


The prize for chapter one will be a set of Nigella Lawsons measuring cups. A $35.00 value.

• Practical and attractive measuring cups
• Set of 4 different sized cups
• Dishwasher safe
• Made of tactile stoneware
• Cup sizes - 250 ml, 125 ml, 80 ml and 60 ml
• A $35.00 value!

I also use them as prep bowls and vessels for holding condiments.

Sign up today for my Big Fat Cedar Woman Giveaway!