In February, I recorded an interview on my works and writing with “Write On Four Corners“, a program with KSJE 90.9 FM, the Farmington (NM) National Public Radio station. The interview will air on March 7, 2018, at 10:30 a.m. The interview covered a wide range of topics concerning my writing and my writing plans for the future including upcoming work. Be sure to tune in. The program was hosted by Traci HalesVass, retired assistant professor of English and Creative Writing at San Juan College in Farmington. The interview will be available on podcast after the broadcast.
To celebrate this, on the day of the broadcast, I am giving away e-copies of all my works available on Amazon Kindle. These include A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror, Alien Embrace, The Scent and Other Stories, Click, Diabolical: Three Tales of Jack Thurston and Revenge, and Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover. Follow this link to my Amazon Author’s page to find out more about each work.
The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,
The vapours weep their burthen to the ground,
Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,
And after many a summer dies the swan.
Me only cruel immortality
Consumes; I wither slowly in thine arms,
Here at the quiet limit of the world,
A white-hair’d shadow roaming like a dream
The ever-silent spaces of the East,
Far-folded mists, and gleaming halls of morn.
Alas! for this gray shadow, once a man–
So glorious in his beauty and thy choice,
Who madest him thy chosen, that he seem’d
To his great heart none other than a God!
I ask’d thee, “Give me immortality.”
Then didst thou grant mine asking with a smile,
Like wealthy men who care not how they give.
But thy strong Hours indignant work’d their wills,
And beat me down and marr’d and wasted me,
And tho’ they could not end me, left me maim’d
To dwell in presence of immortal youth,
Immortal age beside immortal youth,
And all I was in ashes. Can thy love
Thy beauty, make amends, tho’ even now,
Close over us, the silver star, thy guide,
Shines in those tremulous eyes that fill with tears
To hear me? Let me go: take back thy gift:
Why should a man desire in any way
To vary from the kindly race of men,
Or pass beyond the goal of ordinance
Where all should pause, as is most meet for all?
A soft air fans the cloud apart; there comes
A glimpse of that dark world where I was born.
Once more the old mysterious glimmer steals
From thy pure brows, and from thy shoulders pure,
And bosom beating with a heart renew’d.
Thy cheek begins to redden thro’ the gloom,
Thy sweet eyes brighten slowly close to mine,
Ere yet they blind the stars, and the wild team
Which love thee, yearning for thy yoke, arise,
And shake the darkness from their loosen’d manes,
And beat the twilight into flakes of fire.
Lo! ever thus thou growest beautiful
In silence, then before thine answer given
Departest, and thy tears are on my cheek
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in the Roman countryside by J.H.W. Tischbein
The warder looks down at the mid hour of night,
On the tombs that lie scatter’d below:
The moon fills the place with her silvery light,
And the churchyard like day seems to glow.
When see! first one grave, then another opes wide,
And women and men stepping forth are descried,
In cerements snow-white and trailing.-
In haste for the sport soon their ankles they twitch,
And whirl round in dances so gay;
The young and the old, and the poor, and the rich,
But the cerements stand in their way;
And as modesty cannot avail them aught here,
They shake themselves all, and the shrouds soon appear
Scatter’d over the tombs in confusion.-
Now waggles the leg, and now wriggles the thigh,
As the troop with strange gestures advance,
And a rattle and clatter anon rises high,
As of one beating time to the dance.
The sight to the warder seems wondrously queer,
When the villainous Tempter speaks thus in his ear:
“Seize one of the shrouds that lie yonder!”-
Quick as thought it was done! and for safety he fled
Behind the church-door with all speed;
The moon still continues her clear light to shed
On the dance that they fearfully lead.
But the dancers at length disappear one by one,
And their shrouds, ere they vanish, they carefully don,
And under the turf all is quiet.
But one of them stumbles and shuffles there still,
And gropes at the graves in despair;
Yet ’tis by no comrade he’s treated so ill
The shroud he soon scents in the air.
So he rattles the door–for the warder ’tis well
That ’tis bless’d, and so able the foe to repel,
All cover’d with crosses in metal.-
The shroud he must have, and no rest will allow,
There remains for reflection no time;
On the ornaments Gothic the wight seizes now,
And from point on to point hastes to climb.
Alas for the warder! his doom is decreed!
Like a long-legged spider, with ne’er-changing speed,
Advances the dreaded pursuer. –
The warder he quakes, and the warder turns pale,
The shroud to restore fain had sought;
When the end,–now can nothing to save him avail,–
In a tooth formed of iron is caught.
With vanishing lustre the moon’s race is run,
When the bell thunders loudly a powerful One,
And the skeleton fails, crush’d to atoms.-
I try to publicize my works as much as possible using social media, because it is very inexpensive (often free) and it has the potential of connecting with people around the world. My personal WordPress account shows that my viewers come from around globe from such diverse locales as Ireland, Russia, India, Singapore, Australia and Brazil among many others.
I became curious about what would be the best time to post to reach the largest audience. I did a little research on the Internet and made a few calculations and came up with some interesting results.
According to study by Fictionophile, the most “literate” of the United States is the East Coast, where most major cities are concentrated along with most major universities and Ivy League Schools. Therefore, to gain the most exposure to this audience, you have to time your posts with the eastern time zone. How you want to do that, of course, is up to you. I try to post at 7:00 a.m. EST, when most people are rising for the and reading their e-mail or newspaper. But you might want to post at 5:00 or 6:00 p.m. when most people are coming back from work and settling in for the evening. You might also want to post on Fridays, often advertised as #FictionFriday, when people start to seek out reading for the weekend. There are a lot of other possible strategies as well. Fortunately, WordPress allows its users to schedule their posts, so this is easy to do for me.
Here are a few notes I took during my research. Being a former Naval officer, I still find military time easiest to use, so most of my time references are based on the 24-hour clock. I live in New Mexico, thus the references to Mountain Standard Time (MST). UTC is “Universal Time Coordinated, the successor to Greenwich Mean Time, which is the time in London, England. More on UTC can be found at https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/timezone/utc.
To time European English-speaking countries for publicity, use Central European Time (CET) which is eight hours ahead of MST. (2030 MST Monday = 0430 CET Tuesday). Ergo, 0001 MST = 2001 CET.
India Standard Time (IST) is UTC + 5:30 or CET + 4:30. Ergo, 2030 MST Monday = 0930 IST Tuesday
Australian Eastern Daylight Time (AEDT: Sydney, Canberra) = UTC + 11/CET + 10
Staggering release times of announcements would seem to be best to catch a world audience. Ergo, for a three day free promotion, Release as follows:
0801 Mon. MST = 0001 Tuesday CET = 0431 IST
0001 Mon. MST = 0801 Monday CET = 1231 IST = 1701 AEDT
To make this easier for me to track, I use the World Clock feature on my iPhone clock, which allows me to track the time in several time zones at once. Currently, I am tracking the time in Washington, DC; Brussels, Belgium; New Delhi, India; Singapore; Perth, Australia; Sydney, Australia; and Honolulu. By targeting these time zones, I believe I can reach the majority of the English-speaking world.
Note that, if you are interested in targeting an Australian audience, they are about fifteen hours ahead of us (MST), so promoting book giveaways or announcements for a specific day is tricky. For example, if you have a book giveaway that starts at 8:00 a.m. MST on February 25, it won’t start for the folks in Sydney until 11:00 p.m. February 25. Here’s a screenshot from my iPhone to show the intricacies involved. Still, I believe that proper timing of your posts with the audience you want to reach will eventually be worthwhile.
Examples of the time zones with the majority of English-speakers
Big Pete is a hitman that was hired to kill a local minister. However, though a series of random events Pete decides turn himself into the police and tells them about every hit he performed and every client that hired him. The story was decent, but seemed a bit silly at times. Also, I would […]
Watching YouTube videos by Tom Nicholas, Ph.D student. First was a very interesting but brief look at the meaning of postdramatic theatre. Now a look at the meaning of “dramaturgy”. These are his first videos, but they are very well thought out. I recommend them. They cover “deep” subjects, but are clear, concise, and well-written and accessible to the layman. I am going to bed after this second one. Good night.
Finished watching “Hughie” by Eugene O’Neill a few minutes ago. Another one act play dependent on one character’s monologue, but interesting to see how Erie, a B.S. artist, was dependent on Hughie as sort of a one-man support group and how the new night clerk recognizes this and steps in to fill Hughie’s shoes.
Just finished watching Eugene O’Neill’s “Before Breakfast”. The outcome was somewhat predictable after the halfway point, but how O’Neill told a complex tale through the brief monologue of a single character was the most interesting part.
I have been contemplating my play “Centaurs” and trying to work out what I need to change. It just isn’t exciting enough. It doesn’t involve the audience enough. I know there’s something missing, but I can’t pinpoint it. Therefore, tonight I have been surfing YouTube for performances of great plays and surfing the Internet for what are considered the great play of American theatre. Perhaps not surprisingly, there is a generally accepted canon of the greatest American plays: “The Iceman Cometh”, “Long Day’s Journey into Night”, “Death of a Salesman”, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf”, etc., with “Angels in America” probably being the most contemporary on most lists. Although all are terrific works, none seem to have something innovative enough to interest me. Therefore, I have started looking into contemporary theatre. This is turning out to be quite interesting. Contemporary theatre, based on the few videos I have seen tonight (and on past experience too, of course), seems to have the minimalist, dreamy, postmodernist, almost mystical qualities that intrigue me. I will continue my research for probably a few days to come, but I am already coming up with ideas about interaction with the audience and monologues. Combining those with my own past experience in public speaking and acting (I was once in two short Tennessee Williams plays), I feel I may be on to something.
On each Friday over the next few months, I will be giving away one or more of my works.
Today, I am giving away A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror, The Scent and Other Stories, Click, and my latest work, Nocturne.
A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror, I offer a look into the minds of people who perpetrate horrors, from acts of stupidity with unintended results to cold-hearted revenge to pure enjoyment to complete indifference. Settings range from 17th-century France in the heart of the werewolf trials to the resurrection of the Aztec black arts to a medicine man’s revenge in the Old West to the depths of Hell to mob vengeance and modern day necromancy to sociopathic serial killers and on to alien worlds in the distant future.
In The Scent and Other Stories, I explore the dark, sometimes violent, sometimes twisted, sometimes touching side of love, the side kept not only from public view, but sometimes from our mates. Set in the modern era, these stories range from regretting losing a lover to forbidden interracial love in the hills of 1970’s Kentucky to a mother’s deathbed confession in present-day New Mexico to debating pursuing a hateful man’s wife to the callous manipulation of a lover in Texas.
In Click, Frank Martinez, a policeman with the Corpus Christi Police Department, has unintentionally shot and killed an unarmed man when called to intercede in a domestic violence case. To recover from the guilt while the incident is under investigation by the CCPD, Frank’s fiancée arranges for him to stay on a secluded island owned by her father’s former law partner. While dozing one night on a lounge chair in the yard, he awakes to find two hitmen slipping onto the island and breaking into the cabin. Are they after him? Are they after the cabin’s owner? Most importantly, how is he going to reach his pistol in his luggage in the bedroom?
Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested loveris a collection of my poetry written from the mid-80’s to mid-90s, a turbulent, fluid time in my life in many ways, but especially romantically. I have taken many of the poems he wrote during those years and compiled them into a dark narrative capturing the emotional turmoil of that time as a narrator, who descends from romantic love for a woman into a lonely world of alcohol and night clubs, where his only love is the night that envelopes him psychologically, emotionally, and physically. Kindle was published on February 15, 2018. This is the first time it is being offered for free as a promotion.
In February, I recorded an interview on my works and writing with “Write On Four Corners“, a program with KSJE 90.9 FM, the Farmington (NM) National Public Radio station. The interview will air on March 7, 2018, at 10:30 a.m. The interview covered a wide range of topics concerning my writing and my writing plans for the future including upcoming work. Be sure to tune in. The program was hosted by Traci HalesVass, retired assistant professor of English and Creative Writing at San Juan College in Farmington. The interview will be available on podcast after the broadcast.
To celebrate this, on the day of the broadcast, I am giving away e-copies of all my works available on Amazon Kindle. These include A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror, Alien Embrace, The Scent and Other Stories, Click, Diabolical: Three Tales of Jack Thurston and Revenge, and Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover. Follow this link to my Amazon Author’s page to find out more about each work.
This is a poem I wrote in the late 80’s to early 90’s, most likely some time between 1988 and 1991, when I was living in Alexandria, Virginia, dating around and frequenting the bars in Old Town Alexandria. I don’t recall the circumstances under which I wrote this, just the feeling of these being the emotions of walking home around 2:00 a.m. after closing time.
This is the opening poem of my first volume of verse, Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover. Nocturne will be free on Amazon Kindle on February 23. I published it on Valentine’s Day of this year.
Going through my computer files tonight, I believe I have discovered some poems unintentionally left out. Stand by for a second edition. I hope you enjoy this poem.
Come with me, my love
and I will show you
nights of love
full of life and laughter
as empty as an empty
bottle rattling down a cobblestone
street blown by a chill
wind
Come with me, my love
and I will show you
nights of love
full of lust and passion
as lonely as a lonely
man pacing off a deserted street
under the brisk October moon
its cold light muted
in the mists
As the fog embraces you
like a one-night stand in a town
of dying dreams where
hopes lie scattered on the barroom floor
with cigarette butts and the dust
of endless roads
Bring me to that ultimate pleasure
in your all-consuming eyes.
Let us become one
and share the horrors of this
world
as only
lovers can.
On each Friday over the next few months, I will be giving away one or more of my works.
On Friday the 23rd, I am giving away A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror, The Scent and Other Stories, Click, and my latest work, Nocturne.
A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror, I offer a look into the minds of people who perpetrate horrors, from acts of stupidity with unintended results to cold-hearted revenge to pure enjoyment to complete indifference. Settings range from 17th-century France in the heart of the werewolf trials to the resurrection of the Aztec black arts to a medicine man’s revenge in the Old West to the depths of Hell to mob vengeance and modern day necromancy to sociopathic serial killers and on to alien worlds in the distant future.
In The Scent and Other Stories, I explore the dark, sometimes violent, sometimes twisted, sometimes touching side of love, the side kept not only from public view, but sometimes from our mates. Set in the modern era, these stories range from regretting losing a lover to forbidden interracial love in the hills of 1970’s Kentucky to a mother’s deathbed confession in present-day New Mexico to debating pursuing a hateful man’s wife to the callous manipulation of a lover in Texas.
In Click, Frank Martinez, a policeman with the Corpus Christi Police Department, has unintentionally shot and killed an unarmed man when called to intercede in a domestic violence case. To recover from the guilt while the incident is under investigation by the CCPD, Frank’s fiancée arranges for him to stay on a secluded island owned by her father’s former law partner. While dozing one night on a lounge chair in the yard, he awakes to find two hitmen slipping onto the island and breaking into the cabin. Are they after him? Are they after the cabin’s owner? Most importantly, how is he going to reach his pistol in his luggage in the bedroom?
Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested loveris a collection of my poetry written from the mid-80’s to mid-90s, a turbulent, fluid time in my life in many ways, but especially romantically. I have taken many of the poems he wrote during those years and compiled them into a dark narrative capturing the emotional turmoil of that time as a narrator, who descends from romantic love for a woman into a lonely world of alcohol and night clubs, where his only love is the night that envelopes him psychologically, emotionally, and physically. Kindle was published on February 15, 2018. This is the first time it is being offered for free as a promotion.
This is a poem I wrote in the late 80’s to early 90’s, most likely some time between 1988 and 1991, when I was living in Alexandria, Virginia, dating around and frequenting the bars in Old Town Alexandria. I don’t recall the circumstances under which I wrote this, just the feeling of these being the emotions of walking home around 2:00 a.m. after closing time.
This is the opening poem of my first volume of verse, Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover. Nocturne will be free on Amazon Kindle on February 23. I published it on Valentine’s Day of this year.
Going through my computer files tonight, I believe I have discovered some poems unintentionally left out. Stand by for a second edition. I hope you enjoy this poem.
Come with me, my love
and I will show you
nights of love
full of life and laughter
as empty as an empty
bottle rattling down a cobblestone
street blown by a chill
wind
Come with me, my love
and I will show you
nights of love
full of lust and passion
as lonely as a lonely
man pacing off a deserted street
under the brisk October moon
its cold light muted
in the mists
As the fog embraces you
like a one-night stand in a town
of dying dreams where
hopes lie scattered on the barroom floor
with cigarette butts and the dust
of endless roads
Bring me to that ultimate pleasure
in your all-consuming eyes.
Let us become one
and share the horrors of this
world
as only
lovers can.
Phil Slattery, Writer, Publisher 