March Blues by Carol Ann Kauffman

Small-town red-head Cat Collier runs an private investigation service called Red Cat Investigation out of her office in the beautiful Palazzo Castellano with the help of her secretary, Nola White, an ex-client Cat took in because she had nowhere else to go, her boyfriend, Erick “Carter” Larsen, and Carter’s father, the wealthy, influential, and shady lawyer, Detrick Bittmor.

In this third installment of the Cat Collier Mystery series, after escaping from captivity in an abandoned train car, Cat stumbles upon a homeless man at the long deserted train station, who helps her get home to Carter. Detrick discovers he knows this homeless man as the one-time legendary saxophone player who played in the downstairs bar when they were both young and the family embarks on rehabilitating the sax player and reopening the bar, “The Blues.” 

Buy Link: http://tinyurl.com/hhkvul5

The Magical Team of Jacky Quetard and Sanae Kushibiki

Sanae Kushibiki was born in Japan. 

Jacky Quetard was born in Orleans, France. 

They met in London in 1974 and together they create some very unusual and beautiful  artwork.

 

Their artwork is classified as naïve. It has elements of retro art and humor. 

They work on the same canvas together, complementing each other’s style and strength. 

Sanae picks the colors and adds the human and floral components of the composition.  She loves flowers.

I love her color choices and her whimsical additions to the paintings.

Jacky uses his love of architecture to add mechanical elements to compose the basic structure of the painting. He loves trains. 

Their work is highly sought after in Europe and Japan.

Magazine Articles :
“Jacky and Sanae mix dreams and reality. Their naive paintings are highly rich in colour with a touch of retro and a pinch of humour.” (Vivre sa Ville 2001)
“Bravo, continue...you are on the right track.” (Journal La Vie du Rail)
“One can also appreciate the technically skilled Quétard family's enchanting naive paintings.” (La République du Centre)
“Their naive paintings are the result of or marriage between their two personalities, their sensitivity and tenderness and their two talents.” (La République de Centre 1996)

The Art of Eyvind Earle

Eyvind Earle.  Not a household name.  And yet, when you see his work, you'll realize you do know this artist.  He worked with Walt Disney to develop that stylized artwork we now associate with Disney. 

Once again, I found this artist while perusing on the internet while I was supposed to be doing something else.  But it drew me back. Here it what I found.



This is from his Artist Page:

Eyvind Earle's Biography 

Born in New York in 1916, Eyvind Earle began his prolific career at the age of ten when his father, Ferdinand Earle, gave him a challenging choice: read 50 pages of a book or paint a picture every day. Earle choose both. From the time of his first one-man showing in France when he was 14, Earle’s fame had grown steadily. At the age of 21, Earle bicycled across country from Hollywood to New York, paying his way by painting 42 watercolors. In 1937, he opened at the Charles Morgan Galleries, his first of many one-man shows in New York.Two years later at his third consecutive showing at the gallery, the response to his work was so positive that the exhibition sold out and the Metropolitan Museum of Art purchased one of his paintings for their permanent collection.



His earliest work was strictly realistic, but after having studied the work of a variety of masters such as Van Gogh, Cézanne, Rockwell, Kent and Georgia O’Keefe, Earle by the age of 21, came into his own unique style. His oeuvre is characterized by a simplicity, directness and surety of handling.



In 1951 Earle joined Walt Disney studios as an assistant background painter. Earle intrigued Disney in 1953 when he
created the look of “Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom†an animated short that won an Academy Award and a Cannes Film Festival Award. Disney kept the artist busy for the rest of decade, painting the settings for such stories as “Peter Panâ€, “For Whom the Bulls Toilâ€, “Working for Peanutsâ€, “Pigs is Pigsâ€, “Paul Bunyan†and “Lady and the Trampâ€.


Earle was responsible for the styling, background and colors for the highly acclaimed movie “Sleeping Beauty†and gave the movie its magical, medieval look. He also painted the dioramas for Sleeping Beauty’s Castle at Disneyland in Anaheim, California.



Earle’s work was also seen on television. One of his
animated creations was an 18-minute version of the story of the Nativity that he did in 1963 for Tennessee Ernie Ford’s Special “The Story of Christmasâ€. A Daily Variety reviewer said Earle’s sequence “should be preserved and played back for years on end.†The show was digitally re-mastered in 1997.


Earle’s career has encompassed many different fields. In addition to book illustrating, the artist had also designed a number of covers for magazine publications and had produced and created several animated commercials and specials for television.




In 1998, at its Annie Awards show in Glendale, the International Animated Film Society gave Earle its Windsor McCay Award for lifetime achievement. In the 1940’s, Earle adapted his creative landscapes to Christmas cards, painting more than 800 designs that have sold more than 300 million copies through American Artist Group.

After about 15 years creating animated art, Earle returned to painting full time in 1966 and kept working until the end of his life. In addition to his watercolors, oils, sculptures, drawings and scratchboards, in 1974 he began making limited edition serigraphs.

Eyvind Earle had a totally original perception 

of landscape. He successfully synthesizes seemingly incongruent aspects into a singularly distinctive style: a style, which is at once mysterious, primitive, disciplined, moody and nostalgic. He captures the grandeur of simplicity of the American countryside, and represents these glimpses of the American scene with a direct lyric ardor.

His landscapes are remarkable for their suggestion of distances, landmasses and weather moods. “For 70 years,†Earle wrote in 1996, “I’ve painted paintings, and I’m constantly and everlastingly overwhelmed at the stupendous infinity of Nature. Wherever I turn and look, there I see creation. Art is creating...Art is the search for truth.â€

Eyvind Earle passed away on July 20, 2000 at the age of 84. During his lifetime he created many paintings, sculptures, scratchboards, watercolors and drawings that have not been publicly seen or exhibited.

Eyvind Earle Publishing LLC, under the specific instruction of the late Eyvind Earle, will continue the legacy of the artist, promoting and introducing new serigraphs and books through galleries worldwide. These posthumous limited edition serigraphs will be printed from the oil paintings created by Eyvind Earle that are in the collection of Joan Earle and others.

Sources:

Gemini Moon by Maria Grazia Swan

Hi Carol, 
Gemini Moon was inspired by the death of a very good friend of mine. She died of a gunshot to the head. Her death was ruled accidental. The shooter? Her husband. This happened in 1990, in Southern California. I knew I had to write about it, I also knew i wanted to do it right.
 And one day I was ready. In Gemini Moon, the roles are reversed, the wife shoots the husband. Because of my strong friendship with the woman whose death inspired the story, I describe her as she really was in life, pretty, smart, funny, bubbly and full of love. R.I.P. Yvonne.

Blurb 

When her eyes were finally opened to the truth, she couldn't recognize her own life...

Italian-born Lella York is trying to figure out who she is. Her husband has died. Her son is grown and, for the most part, gone. And now, her best friend is missing.

Upon returning to Southern California after a visit to her beloved Italy, Lella is shocked to learn the mysterious circumstances of Ruby's disappearance as well as the death of Ruby's husband. And Lella's son is the prime suspect. Her cat is not so happy about it all either!

Now, someone's stalking Lella. Caught in the middle of it all, Lella stumbles across the perfect topper--namely, a sexy police detective who keeps secrets from her while he's setting her pants on fire. Nothing like a little romance to distract a girl while she's trying to locate a missing person, solve a possible homicide, get her son out of jail and stay two steps ahead of the firing line. 

....A perfect murder mystery....Dana Point Times
In a “suspenseful...smooth, compulsive” read, national bestselling and award winning author Maria Grazia Swan, delivers a “can't-put-it-down kind of read, almost like a dream/nightmare that won't stop”  Italophile Book Reviews

Gemini Moon was awarded the prestigious HOLT Award of Merit from the Virginia Romance Writers Association.

It also received a certificate of excellence from The Heart of the West Romance Writers of America

https://www.amazon.com/Gemini-Moon-Murder-Italian-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B01JAIXHCK/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1469898554&sr=1-1&keywords=gemini+moon#nav-subnav

Interview with British Screenwriter Lucy Walsh

Lucy Walsh 

UK 

Welcome, Lucy, to Vision and Verse.  We're thrilled to have you here this morning.  It is always a pleasure to have bright British authors on our blog.  You raise our collective IQ.  Now, what have you written?
I did a writing degree where I did loads of creative work for assignments along with my own writing outside of it. I’ve written short stories, short films and a feature length science fiction screenplay (called Plan 3). I’ve had a few short stories published in anthologies (which I also had the pleasure of editing). I’ve just started writing movie reviews and articles for GeekSmash.com and I’ve got a short play that, as far as I’m aware, is going to be performed in the next month. 

Which of these is your favorite medium?
I don’t really have a favorite medium because I usually fall head over heels for the story and its character despite its medium, but I would say that scriptwriting is my main forte and, if it’s possible, find easier to write in.

What is your favorite genre to write?

Science fiction! It’s the escapism that appeals to me but also that the genre allows you to explore and deal with big issues. At university, I did a lot of research into the genre and it ended with me choosing to do Plan 3 for my final major project there. It’s all about a planet’s destruction because of the rise of technology and racism, lots of deep stuff, but it’s all hidden away in a made up planet where this mad adventure takes place. It was great fun to write and I learnt a lot about myself and my writing from it too.

Plenty of people succeed without a writing degree and it’s a very personal decision to make for your writing, but I’d recommend it to anyone who was interested in it. It was a brilliant decision for me because when I started I was desperate to learn about it all and develop, I hadn’t really met many other writers at that point so it was a natural decision for me to make when I was looking at universities. I think the big thing this course helped me to do was in the end write Plan 3, I’d wanted to write a science fiction feature since I was about fourteen. In the final year you work on a professional product which will hopefully help you to get a foot in the door. It also equipped me with everything I needed to know about writing and it’s definitely given me a grounding for all of my work and the way I work. I got my first contract a couple of months ago and went straight back to the lecture notes to check it! 

Favorite food.
Black Olives – I used to hate them but then I hit twenty and haven’t been able to get enough of them since!

Where would you like to visit?
Rome - Italy is such an inspirational place to me, I’m desperate to experience one of it’s most famous cities. 

Rome is beautiful and exciting.  I loved Rome.  Go to Venice, too, if you can.  Venice will steal your heart.  Favorite musical artist.  Do you listen to music when you write?  What?

At the moment, I’m fond on Bon Jovi and Nerina Pallot and a load of movie and television soundtracks (Doctor Who’s “Doomsday” will always be inspirational for me). When I started writing, I didn’t listen to music often. I found it too distracting but then I found that it helped me get into the right mood – but it can’t be music with lyrics when I’m writing because I find that invades the words I’m writing down, so I always listen to dramatic soundtracks. Whilst writing and developing Plan 3, I religiously listened to the Gladiator soundtrack. If it counts, my cat also comes and sits on me when I’m working so she often gives me a good few musical purrs to add to everything too. 

What makes you laugh?

My best friend always comes out with the best-timed jokes and knows just when to crack them. As writing this, I’m chortling away to the scenes where the dwarves in The Hobbit invade Bilbo Baggins’ house – comedy (and fantasy) masterpiece.

How old were you when you started writing?

I have vague memories of writing and drawing made up stories or scenes from when I was a young child, but it took me quite a while to actually pen a story. I think I was about thirteen when that happened and I believe it was a story about a haunted lighthouse. Then a friend introduced me to the world of fanfiction, I’d just gotten into Docto Who and started writing heaps of my own adventures with the Doctor and Rose. It was great fun and it just developed from there I think and I started doing my own stuff.

I am a big fan of The Tenth Doctor  David Tennant and I love Billie Piper, too.  Where do you get your inspiration?
I’d say it was a mixture of things. My biggest source is from the television shows and books that I love. When I need it, I head to those and seek out my favourite scenes or moments but sometimes real life inspires me too. For example, my little brother managed to inspire my for a character (although he doesn’t know that yet…) and my cats have featured in a couple of things before.

What do you do when you get a writer's block?

A good break, sometimes just a walk outside will do but sometimes it can be a couple of days of doing no writing at all that eventually helps the problem. 

Who is your favorite author?
H G Wells

Best book you ever read.
I’m fond on The Time Machine, it holds great memories for me and was just a really fun book. It’s very scientific too which just fuels all of my interests!

Who is the one person who has influenced your personal life the most and why?
This sounds clichéd but my parents and my best friend – they’re all brilliant.

If you could sit down and have a conversation with ONE person, living or dead, real or fictional, who would it be and why?
I would love to speak with Russell T Davies. He was the head writer of Doctor Who and has done other great shows like Bob and Rose or Queer As Folk. His writing inspired me so much when I was beginning to write (and still does now) that I just want to talk to him. I’ve no idea what I would say actually, but I’d think of something and maybe give him a huge hug for helping to get me on this writing adventure of mine. 

I love Russell. T. Davies.  He is by far the best writer of our time.  Torchwood, Casanova, and well as Doctor Who.  What advice would you give someone who aspired to be a writer?

Go for it! Be patient, persistent and don’t let anything or anyone stop you from doing it. You’ll get there and when you do, even if you hit some obstacles, it’s the best feeling in the world. 

You are delightful, Miss Lucy.  Please come and see us again.