Category Archives: Blog
Pitching Whitewashed Jacarandas
Pitching Whitewashed Jacarandas
An African Outpost, a Royal Visit and the Pursuit of Progress.
Goucher, a small liberal arts college in Maryland, is scrapping the standard college application in favor of a two-minute video made on a smart phone. Though the idea sounds revolutionary, literary agents at writer’s conferences have long used the two- minute pitch as the crux of decision making in finding new authors with a fresh story to tell:
Whitewashed Jacarandas a 99,000 word novel is based on true events.
Forbidden marriage during WWII means Doctor Sunny Rubenstein and his Gentile wife, Mavourneen, know they only have each other. Demobbed, brilliant and self-confident he nevertheless discovers posts are hard to find. But finally, armed with his Zeiss microscope, a set of surgical and dental instruments and medical books crammed into the boot of his camouflage green army Ford (issued in lieu of a resettlement allowance) they leave South Africa with Apartheid on the horizon in the rear view mirror. Ahead is his 51st prospect in the heart of Southern Rhodesia and a rich gold mine attached to the smallest municipality in the world, Umzimtuti.
The big draw for him is the free reign he’ll have in the New Government Hospital theatre and for Mavourneen and small son, Douglas, is liberation from their dingy Pretoria flat to the joy of a free sprawling garden and house with an indoor toilet−the only one in town.
To the Conference and Back
To the Conference and Back
It felt so good to toss my sweat pants into the laundry (long overdue), dust off my suit, slip into my little red car with the top down and head out to the Willamette Writers Conference in Portland.
Off to the Willamette Writers Conference!
Off to the Willamette Writers Conference!
Hi Everybody!
I want to thank every single one of my Inner Circle readers for the precious summertime they have devoted to reading, commenting and completing the questionnaire on Whitewashed Jacarandas, (even though one remarked that they never thought they would have to write another college paper!) All the feedback has been very instructional and insightful and most of all a great moral booster as I head out to the Willamette Writers Conference tomorrow. I’ve made a number of edits based on their feedback while I contemplate more serious changes after the conference. Next week I will post a few excerpts of my Circle’s wonderful feedback (anonymously).
Keeping Everyone in the Loop
Keeping Everyone in the Loop
There has been an overwhelming response on the blog and e-mail directly to the invitation to join my Inner Circle of early Whitewashed Jacarandas readers. The book selections readers chose brought back a flood of book favorites I had not thought about in a while as well as new ones I look forward to digging into.
An Invitation To All of You!
An Invitation To All of You!
The writing is done, my first novel is ready to be read!
You’re invited to be one of the first people in the world to read Whitewashed Jacarandas.
