Gareth S. Young - - 1000 Trillion Suns

 As promised, today I begin a new series of interviews with a diverse group of writers I've met on my internet journeys. The first head on the chopping block (volunteer) is Valerie Haight. Valerie is a prize winning, contemporary romance and suspense writer from Arkansas. Always supportive of other writers, she was one of the first people on Twitter to extend the hand of friendship to me and the first (and still only) person to ask me to post (guest blog) on their website. I am hugely honored that she has finally relented and agreed to come over to my wee blog and talk to you all (or y'all...whichever is more appropriate lol). So, without further ado, I'd like to introduce the first "Bright Light" in this ongoing series: Valerie Haight GUS: Hi, Valerie! This is a very exciting time for you in your writing career.  Now that you're nearing the release of your first novella, which part of the journey has surprised you the most...

Soon I will have the first of what, I hope, will be a series of interesting and enlightening AUTHOR INTERVIEWS . I realize these pop up everywhere but I intend to add my own little slant to proceedings and hopefully keep them interesting. I'm also going to be talking to a diverse range of writers covering many genres and at many different points in their writing careers. With any luck there will be good information for everyone, from the newest of newbies to the most experienced of old heads. So, come back MONDAY 26th for my first interview. I'll be talking to my good friend  VALERIE HAIGHT . In the meantime, I hope you all had a fun and filling Thanksgiving. I figured I'd keep it light this evening and offer another silly poem I wrote...twenty years ago. Again, I was working on some background stuff for stories and this just popped into my head. I used to love the antagonistic relationship between pairs of cartoon characters and wanted to come up wi...

I read somewhere, a long time ago, that the nursery rhyme "Ring-a-ring o' Roses" was suspected to have been about The Black Death (or some other pandemic). I was fascinated by the dark and grisly origin of a children's playground game and noticed its not an isolated case. One of the most appealing things about Fairytales is that many of them are very dark, lots of axe-chopping, wolf slaughtering, pig eating and witch murdering topped off with some really bittersweet endings. There's a dark streak in children where just a little bit of scary is a good thing. Roald Dahl's books, like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and his book of Revolting Rhymes, are appealing to children for that very reason. Dahl had no problem putting the children in his stories into very dark situations. I recall as a young child being on vacation with my family and coming across a small bridge across a stream. We were somewhere in the Highlands of Scotland...