Collect All Four

Don't look now, but this weekend N&L Publishing published my fourth book of fiction, The Breaking Point and Other Stories. My debut novel, The Red Scorpion, became available on Kindle and Nook on 9/11 followed by two collections of short fiction: Unremembered Histories (9/30), Newmanesque (10/15).

It's gratifying to find that TJ (my 16-year-old collaborator) and I have accomplished the task we set out to do in July: get these four books published by November. (Now I can move on to pursue my dream of a career in magic.) Like my other two collections of short stories, this collection likewise has a unifying theme. To order any book, click on the book cover over in the right hand column here.

With the exception of the light-hearted and wry Liz Mills, the stories in this short collection explore the emotions, expectations, illusions and delusions of mundane characters. In the midst of their ordinary lives there is a decisive, extraordinary event. The lead story, The Breaking Point, won the 1991 Arrowhead Regional Arts Fiction Competition. Ironically, it was the one year that the winning story was not printed. Maybe someday... for now, it's being shared in a digital version accessible to anyone with an eReader or equivalent.

Other stories in this collection include For One Night of Love, Episode on South Street and A Brief Transaction. Episode on South Street, the story of an obsessive-compulsive artist and good Samaritan, was translated into a short film that received accolades at the Erie Horror/Suspense Film Festival in 2004.

The next step for TJ & I will be promotion. As you know, with all the static and noise out there it takes more than an announcement to get attention. Each of the three volumes of short stories is available on Kindle or Nook at $1.99 each. Here's the deal:

ANYONE WHO POSTS A REVIEW of any of these books from now through the month of November will receive a signed Ed Newman ACEO (Art Card Editions & Originals) free.*

Art Cards are essentially the same size as baseball cards, and mine come in a plastic sleeve like the one I keep my Mickey Mantle card in. My ACEOs are reproductions of my art. They make great stocking stuffers. Prices for ACEOs vary widely on the Internet, but I've been selling my current ones for $5 each. (Right: With guest at my opening December 9.)

Here's a review of the book Newmanesque which was posted yesterday at Amazon.com.

"An excellent set of five unusual short stories of varying length. As usual with Ed's writing, I like that he prompts me to think. In fact, I placed a dozen bookmarks in my Windows Phone reader while reading these stories, most of them in "The Unfinished Stories of Richard Allen Garston". One word of warning: The story "Terrorists Preying" has a scene of violence with significant detail. I think that story could have glossed over the gory part without harming the story, but I'm the kind of person who hates horror movies, so maybe that's just me."

Collect All Four refers to the books, by the way, not the ACEOs pictured at the top of the page.
I have more than two dozen styles of art cards, and it's unlikely you'll collect all of those.

To see what's next, follow us on Facebook... http://www.facebook.com/NLPublishing
Thanks for following our ongoing story. I trust you're pursuing your own dream as well.

*Due to postage, this offer is good in the U.S. only.

Making Room For Art

"We are tricked by a phenomenon of time: Hours and days pass slowly, but years pass quickly. A life passes quickly, but we always think we have plenty of time. Too often we get so consumed with how we spend our days that we lose track of how we are spending our lives." ~Sally Warner

These are the opening lines of Sally Warner's Making Room for Making Art. I like the title of the book. It is not about art appreciation, but about getting the fire stoked to follow your creative urge.

All too many people who were once in touch with their creative selves have lost touch with that drive. Whether being creative with words, music, paint, sculpture, clay, pencils, or folded paper, there is something deeply stirring in the creative process.

You only live once. There is power in creative expression. It feels good for the artist, almost magical when things come together. And it can be enriching to others.

Paul Klee in 1920 said, "Art is a simile of the Creation. Each work of art is an example, just as the terrestial is an example of the cosmic."

If you once had a love for the creative process, and that fire has grown cold, maybe it's time to stir the flames again. You only live once. Make a space in your life once more to follow your creative impulses.

Strike a match. Light the fuse. I want to see fireworks.

Thursday's Art Openings Capture Crowds of Curious Creatives

I doubt that I can recall a larger crowd for an opening at the Duluth Art Institute than the one that gathered last night to see the Ochre Ghost first anniversary event and the Martin DeWitt exhibition. As a bonus, the first of five enormous murals by artist Charles Kapsner was there in preparation for Veteran's Day. Kapsner, of Little Falls, MN, learned fresco on location in the heart of Italy, studying Renaissance techniques in the 19th-century studio of Signorina Nerina Simi. This painting was one of five commissioned for the MN State Veterans Cemetery Memorial Association. But the masses were here for the Ochre Ghost and Martin DeWitt openings.

Arriving a half hour after five was a mistake. All the food had been absorbed by many mouths by that time. Drinking would have to commence on an empty stomach. No problem there.

The Steffl Gallery up on the upstairs landing was absolutely alive. The first thing one espied upon leaving the elevator was a tribute many artists whose work had been featured this past year at Ochre Ghost. (Unless I am mistaken and this was a tribute to the artists who contributed to this particular project.) The artists had constructed a house of sorts that was being yanked away in a vortex wind toward the ceiling of the Depot's Great Hall. Inside the maze one came to the tail of a dragon, or what was that critter, assembled from 200 stuffed animals, snaking out through the back of the maze.

Serious in intent? Must be because the artists had probably slept three hours in the past 48 by showtime. The commitment to splash and the elevated energy involved said as much as the construction itself.

Martin DeWitt is founder and curator for the Fine Art Museum at Western Carolina University. The exhibit was called Homecoming because he is originally from this area. DeWitt has exhibited internationally and been a serious artist and instructor for 35 years.

Most if not all of the paintings on display were in pairs, something like ink blots that we folded in half as kids, but colorful and textured. The sizes varied, the intensity of color varied, the impressions no doubt varied from those who studied the work. I found myself reminiscing on my first explorations of texture as a young art student at Ohio University.

Enjoy the pictures here, but more importantly, if you have the opportunity, go enjoy the work in person. It's rich and you will be rewarded.


EdNote: Click images to enlarge. My apologies for the poor lighting in the Kapsner piece, which is 8'x10' and worth a first hand look.

Book Beat: Tablets and eReaders See Increased Market Share

This month's Internet Retailer arrived yesterday and it seems impossible to not mention a few stats that the editors had assembled at the back of the mag. I like graphs and stats because they can compress a whole lot of data into a tight, easy to grasp image. A good graph really is worth a thousand words.

The title of the page reads, "E-readers outpace tablets in sales to consumers." The first chart shows how rapidly the e-reader and Tablet devices have been funneling into the market. In 2009 only 2% of the population owned an E-reader like the Kindle. And this is hard to believe but Tablets like the iPad did not even exist yet.

Think about it. Doesn't it seem like iPads have been here forever?

A year later 3% of all Americans, according to Pew Research, owned a tablet. Just a few months later it was 4% and 5% owned a Kindle. By May of this year, this number had grown to 12% owning e-readers and 8% having tablets.

Why is this? First, no doubt it's due in part to price. The iPad has been a $500 item during this span and Kindles around one-third of that. But the versatility of the iPad is worth that extra chunk of change, since Kindles are essentially only good for reading books (Like!) and browsing the Amazon.com online book store. (OK, yes, there are some free games, too.)

A second chart on the page shows the E-reader and tablet market share. Then the third chart shows how cell phones still rule, with 83% of U.S. adults owning one. 57% own a desktop computer, and 56% own a laptop.

But its the growth of the e-readers that is interesting to me. The number of adults who have e-readers (Kindles, Nooks, etc.) actually doubled from November 2010 to May 2011. And with the Kindle dropping to below $100 it shouldn't be long before we see this market penetration double yet again.

What's on your Santa wish list? My guess is that there will be a lot of Kindles under Christmas trees this year.

One of the more interesting stats on the page is the market penetration by race of these two electronic devices. 11% of whites own e-readers and 7% own tablets. African Americans are a smaller percentage, but in the Hispanic community e-readers are owned by 15% of all adults, and so are tablets.

Naturally I have a vested interest in following some of these stats. In September I began publishing my own eBooks through N&L Publishing. This weekend my associate TJ Lind will upload The Breaking Point and Other Stories, my third collection of short fiction, all priced at $1.99 apiece, joining my debut novel The Red Scorpion. All of our books are available on Kindle, Nook and soon the Apple iStore.

An article in Tuesday's edition of PC World outlines some of the reasons why e-readers have become big winners in the tablet wars.

As e-reader prices plummeted, features improved. Released two years after its predecessor, the Kindle 2 was 50 percent thinner, improved battery life by 85 percent, ballooned storage to 2GB from 256MB, and showed 165 shades of gray versus only four shades in the original. Another two years went by and the third-generation Kindle improved on that -- two ounces lighter, 50 percent clearer contrast -- until today, when the Kindle Touch barely resembles the original in looks, feel, or function. Similarly, when the Nook Simple Touch debuted, it blew the original Nook out of the water at more than 4.5 ounces lighter, 25 percent faster, and a huge, two month battery life. Sony, which also just joined the tablet wars, updated its Reader to version PRS-T1, which retails for $149 and is the lightest of the bunch at 5.9 ounces.

Near the end of the article there's a humorous picture of a box of cereal with a big starburst proclaiming "FREE NOOK INSIDE!" That's certainly the direction pricing has been going. Ultimately B&N and Amazon.com are in the book business, and as movie theaters were to Hollywood film producers, so these distribution channels need to be out in the streets in order for their digital wares to find distribution.


VETERANS DAY SPECIAL

There are still some who do not own a Kindle or Nook and prefer reading the old fashioned way. I won't hold it against you. Your kids make poke fun some at you some day, but I won't.

Today is Veteran's Day and I can't let it pass without mentioning my father-in-law's book,

AND THERE SHALL BE WARS
World War II Diaries and Memoirs
536 pages. Illustrated with 178 original photos and documents.

Available at Savage Press:

And There Shall Be Wars.

Read On!

Still More Area Art Happenings

Next Wednesday, November 16, there will be an Artist Reception at the Lake Avenue Café in the De Witt Seitz Building, Canal Park here in Duluth. From 5-7 p.m., accompanied by the Procrastinator’s Jug Band, Karin Kraemer’s Ceramic Wall Tiles will take center stage for the duration of November.

Kraemer’s work on exhibit at the Cafe will be comprised of classic tiles, looser hand tossed tiles, with paintings, and hand-built boxes, like terra cotta architectural building elements. All are terra cotta clay, with Maiolica hand-painted glaze. When I look at the work it is reminiscent of ceramic pieces I saw at a pottery studio just outside Guanajuato, Mexico in the 1980’s.

Kraemer has been contributing to the arts scene in the Twin Ports for more than two decades. “I’ve been a potter and tile maker for 25 years,” says Kraemer. She has an MFA in ceramics from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale and a BFA in Glass from St. Cloud State University. “I teach in various settings, like the Duluth Art Institute, Lake Superior College, UWS, the Grand Marais Art Colony, and elsewhere. I make custom tiles for folks' homes and other projects. I began in hot glass, and migrated to clay. The circle of growing the garden, cooking, and making the pots (that the) food is served in make a full circle for me.”

Many of her mentors are well-known potters in our area: Bob Briscoe, Bob Husby, Dick Cooter, Warren McKenzie, Linda Arbuckle, Jan Siverson and more....

“I love doing clay, because it is a part of our daily life. You don’t need a lot more of artistic content than that it holds our food! It's the best calling card for the world of art....beauty, food, everyday actions, appreciated.”

Tonight, Tonight
Several much anticipated events are occurring this evening in Duluth. At the Duluth Art Institute new work by Martin DeWitt will be on display in an exhibit titled “Homecoming.” The opening from 5-7 p.m. will be concurrent with an exciting Ochre Ghost exhibit in the John Steffl Gallery upstairs. Chester Creek Café is donating wine and appetizers as the Thirsty Pagan Brewing generously supplies the beer.

‘Ochre Ghost: Ab Initio’ will undoubtedly be a most unusual display, possibly breathtaking, possibly preposterous and most assuredly memorable. Jessica Liszewki, co-founder of the Ochre Ghost Gallery a year ago, stated, “Our main goal in doing this is to show the broader Duluth community kind of what we have been up to.”

According to a New-Tribune story, the exhibit will have four components.
• The temporary house structure, which provides the framework for the rest of the show.
• Video by Sean Elmquist and Nick Sunsdahl that will be projected on inner walls, sometimes distorted into corners and laid over pastel graphic designs sketched into the surface. Five projectors will play video on about a 25-minute loop.
• A mash-up of found sound, mixed by Gustaf Ekstrand.
• A large-scale fiber piece that required skinning more than 200 pounds of stuffed animals purchased from Goodwill. The fur has been stitched together to create a coat for a 15-foot worm-like creature that is about 3 feet high at its thickest point. It will look as though it is being pulled through the house and up into the vacuum.

The Ochre Ghost’s primary claim to fame has been its ability to find and share under-represented artists with the local community. Here’s a way to learn more about tonight’s event.

Once you’ve had an eyeful at the DAI, head on up to The Stagecoach, the Twin Ports’ newest art venue at 15 Third Avenue West. This is the new gallery I made reference to on Monday when writing about the Surfacing exhibit at Pizza Luce. The open house will be from 7:00-9:00 p.m., with music and amenities. For sure I plan on attending both events. And maybe I’ll see you there, too.

As always, click images to enlarge.

Wordless Wednesday, 11-9-11

A Yellow Rose

"Myth is the nothing that is all." ~Fernando Pessoa

Every now and then you experience something that touches you in a deeper place than the other mundane things you encounter daily. Something deep within you stirs, awakens. An inner voice whispers, "What is this that has so moved me?"

This can happen in certain geographic localities where we suddenly find ourselves startled. Goethe, upon arriving in Rome, declared, "At last I am born!" For another it might have been Africa, Paris, or an Irish countryside.

It can also be people who awaken us. This includes the minds of those we encounter when we read a great story or a great book. The person behind the ink, as it were, is a mind alive that can leave its mark on those who chance upon it. It may be a small thing but it transcends explaining.

For me, one such experience was a single description on a page of a story by Hemingway, The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife from his first collection of short stories, In Our Time. Several years later it occurred again when I picked up an old Antioch Review from a garage sale and read the story which I have reproduced here, A Yellow Rose, by Jorge Luis Borges.

What is it in this very short burst of light that touched me so deeply? Perhaps it was the density of the prose. Or perhaps it was the scope of the story, extending from the birth of man through the Renaissance into the present and envisioning our very own futures.

A Yellow Rose

Neither that afternoon nor the next did the illustrious Giambattista Marino die, he whom the unanimous mouths of Fame — to use an image dear to him — proclaimed as the new Homer and the new Dante. But still, the noiseless fact that took place then was in reality the last event of his life. Laden with years and with glory, he lay dying in a huge Spanish bed with carved bedposts. It is not hard to imagine a serene balcony a few steps away, facing the west, and, below, marble and laurels and a garden whose various levels are duplicated in a rectangle of water. A woman has placed in a goblet a yellow rose. The man murmurs the inevitable lines that now, to tell the truth, bore even him a little:

Purple of the garden, pomp of the meadow,
Gem of the spring, April’s eye . . .

Then the revelation occurred: Marino saw the rose as Adam might have seen it in Paradise, and he thought that the rose was to be found in its own eternity and not in his words; and that we may mention or allude to a thing, but not express it; and that the tall, proud volumes casting a golden shadow in a corner were not — as his vanity had dreamed — a mirror of the world, but rather one thing more added to the world.

Marino achieved this illumination on the eve of his death, and Homer and Dante may have achieved it as well.

Note: This particular translation is by Mildred Boyer and currently resides in a short volume of Borges' writings titled Dreamtigers. If you are a fan of Borges, you might enjoy a few stories of my own inspired by this master storyteller. They can be found in my book Unremembered Histories.