Getting to know you

My recurring shifts at a small nonprofit art gallery have helped me get to know a number of local artists. I am continually amazed at their backstories—how they came to be artists, what careers they had or have outside of art and where they find their inspiration.

George Thompson, for example, is an award-winning Doylestown artist who creates both oils on canvas and ceramics. During a conversation at his and his wife’s April gallery show, he revealed that he also loves magic tricks. He promptly removed a deck of cards from his pocket and performed a trick for me in which aces “magically” moved around within the deck.

“Do you usually carry around a deck of cards?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “Just in case I run into someone who wants to see a card trick.”

He then produced a length of thin rope from another pocket and tied it around one of my fingers. With more sleight of hand, he “magically” removed the rope.

It turns out he not only does magic, but also plays in a band, creates papier-mâché sculptures and folk art, and does comedy. And he’s published a small book of sideshow stories about circus life.

His story gets even more intriguing. He loves sideshows and circuses because both of his parents worked in the circus as acrobats. That’s how they met.

A week after that amazing conversation, I sat next to a fellow attendee at the recent Pennwriters conference to share lunch. In addition to her writing fiction, I learned that in her day job, she works as a forensic pathologist and does autopsies…

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What I’m reading

I just finished another of Mary Stewart’s romantic mysteries, set in the mid-20^th century Europe, and I loved this one as much as Touch Not the Cat. Nine Coaches Waiting, set in rural France, involves a British governess hired to care for a shy nine-year-old who’s heir to a large estate…and someone is out to make sure he never reaches the age to inherit. As with Touch Not, the rich descriptions and details (“she radiated all the charm and grace of a bad-tempered skunk”) pulled me in, and the sense of doom about the boy’s future kept me turning the pages. The protagonist, Linda Martin, was smart, witty, and fearless.

Here is just one splendid detail, this of a shop in the village near the Valmy estate:

The open door of a wine-shop glittered like Aladdin’s cave with bottles from floor to roof, shelf on shelf of ruby and amber and purple, the rich heart of a hundred sun-drenched harvests.

I’m currently deep into Misty Simon’s Wicked Ink, about a magical fellow whose scores of tattoos do his bidding.

What I’m writing

I’m delighted to announce that my novel Scream of the Silent Sun, published by Parisian Phoenix Publishing, is a finalist in this year’s Indie Book Awards, as a first novel of 40,000-70,000 words.

This weekend I’ll be helping the Bethlehem Writers Group mark their 20^th anniversary at a book launch party for the group’s Celebrations anthology. I and other members of BWG will be at the B&N - Promenade Shops in Center Valley from 1 to 4 p.m. on May 31.

And next week, I’ll be at StokerCon in Pittsburgh, soaking up all things horror.

Thanks for reading -

Dianna