2014 really started out with a bang. My debut novel, The Sowing, has been doing great on Amazon and other online retailers. I finished writing the first draft of the second book in the trilogy, The Reaping, in late December. I’m working on a novella set in the same world, from a different character’s perspective, TBR in…
Read MoreAll articles filed in Musings
In Memoriam
This draft has been floating around for about nine months. I’m not sure, even now, that I’m making the right decision by publishing it. It’s raw and it’s painful and there’s no right way for me to say the things I want to say. This may even be offensive or hurtful to some. I don’t…
Read MoreIt’s My Birthday!
Today, January 3, I, Amira K. Makansi, am 25 years old. A quarter of a century. When I was born the Berlin Wall was still around, the Internet hadn’t been ‘invented’, and ‘smartphone was a nonsensical word. Now I’m twenty-five, thinking about history and wondering where I will be in another twenty-five years. Birthdays are…
Read MoreBlog Awards, Or, Those Whom I Love
A great way to ring in 2014 – my good friend Nillu has just nominated me for a blogging award called the “WordPress Family Award”! I have no idea what this means, but I guess I’m in some sort of family now, and I’ve inspired at least one person with all these words I type.…
Read More2014: Looking Forward As A Writer
Talking to Carol Cooper yesterday about resolutions for the New Year got me thinking about my own. I don’t usually make New Year’s resolutions, but this past year was full of so much promise, so much untapped potential, that I feel like now is a good time to focus on self-improvement to turn that potential…
Read MoreWriter Wednesday: Interview With Dr. Carol Cooper
Meet Carol Cooper, doctor, journalist, and most recently, novelist. Her debut novel One Night at the Jacaranda is about dating but has darker undercurrents. Carol has also authored a string of non-fiction titles on health and parenting. She works as a family doctor in London and is a journalist for The Sun, the biggest-selling newspaper in the United Kingdom.…
Read More2013: Year In Review as a Reader
Here I’d like to remark briefly on the past year in reading. In a few days I’ll post a list of New Year’s resolutions for my writing, but in this post I’m focusing on my favorite books of the year. I’m happy to share this list with the blogosphere, but this is meant as an…
Read MoreI Wanted To Love You
In the snow, we whistled, chased birds, threw ourselves down hills, ran along railroad tracks and chased trains blindly through the soft senescent light of streetlights. We drank tea and coffee and ran together and fought and I broke the spines of your books as an act of vengeance. In the flowers, we bled, we…
Read MoreThe Sowing is an “Irresistible Read”!
I rarely toot my own horn on my blog, but recently something big happened that I just have to announce and share with the world. A few weeks ago we submitted The Sowing to a new website called Compulsion Reads, which reviews and endorses independently-published books. I couldn’t be more pleased to announce that The Sowing has…
Read MorePossession
I think sometimes that the ancients had it right, that we ought be buried with what we own. That too many spirits inhabit these things of ours for them to be anything but haunted. This vase here that was grandmother’s a generation ago is too valuable to be used, a cabinet piece, a thing in…
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The Z-Axis 