Dec
7
Owner of Cornerstone Book Publishers on Masonic Central
December 7, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Michael Poll was interviewed on Masonic Central on 12/ 06/09. To listen to the show, click the below link:
Click here to listen to show_811413.mp3
Nov
29
Checking in with Evelyn Klebert
November 29, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Cornerstone Cafe: Hello Evelyn, it’s been quite some time since your last interview. How have things changed for you over the last several years?
Evelyn: Well a lot has changed. At a personal level my family and I have moved back to New Orleans and I have to tell you just being in this wonderful city with its unique energy again has certainly fueled the imagination for many of my writing projects.
Cornerstone: What sort of writing projects?
Evelyn: Funny you should ask. Actually I’ve branched out into a new field of writing, esoteric poetry. I’ve published two collections of poetry the first entitled Considerations and the second Explanations.
Cornerstone: When you say esoteric poetry, what exactly does that mean?
Evelyn: The way I look at it esoteric poetry is linked somehow to the search for answers in the mysteries of life, the universe. I believe it is linked to a sincere desire to understand the purpose of living in a spiritual sense. I know that might seem a bit vague but that is as close as I can get to it.
Cornerstone: How long have you been writing poetry?
Evelyn: Actually all of my life. For me it’s been a tool of understanding to help bring me through some of the most tumultuous points during my life. It’s a much more personal medium than any other writing that I’ve done. And to be honest I didn’t intend to publish in this field at all until I joined the Myspace social network and began to post some of my poetry there. I received such positive feedback that I came to feel I might have something to offer in this field.
Cornerstone: Tell me a little more about Considerations and Explanations.
Evelyn: Well Considerations, my first poetry collection, is more of a broad spectrum of poetry spanning from poems I wrote while living in a spooky old farmhouse on the Virginia coast to more introspective work and hopefully inspirational poems as well. One of my favorite poems from that collection is called “Picnicking on the Edge.” It’s actually inspired by an autobiography written by Gilda Radner where she talked about finding the sweetness in the moment even if you know there is disaster all around you. Explanations is actually a bit of a darker collection. I call it the dark night of my soul. It’s very much about working through pain, the steps slowly that are taken to find a place of peace. One of my favorite poems from that collection is called “Do You?” In it I’m talking to my husband, asking him if he remembers who I used to be and how I gain strength seeing myself through his eyes.
Cornerstone: Outside of the poetry what other writing projects have you been working on?
Evelyn: Well I’ve published another collection of short stories entitled The Left Palm which I’m very proud of. The genesis of the collection was writing a group of Halloween stories but each one is so different and unique and might I say edgy that I believe they can be enjoyed apart from the holiday. I always try to stick with a paranormal or esoteric tone but these stories allow me to venture just along the edges of the horror genre, not too far in but skirting around. It was great fun to do. And lastly, but not least is my new novel that I believe will be out early next year. It’s called The Sanctuary of Echoes and is I can safely say my most intricate and weighty endeavor to date.
Cornerstone:Intricate and weighty that sounds intriguing. What’s the novel about?
Evelyn: Let’s see, it would be easy to say it’s a love story. But that is far too simplistic, it’s a story of redemption, of evolution, of being broken, fired, and remolded by life. It all centers around a group of five high school friends with various levels of paranormal sensitivities and through frequents flashbacks moves them around through three levels of their lives: the teenage years, middle twenties, and late thirties. And of course a very old mystical book becomes pivotal in the action as does a very illustrious historical site in New Orleans. And if I didn’t mention it the whole thing is set in the city of New Orleans. It’s quite a ride, and I’m very proud and excited about it.
Cornerstone: As you said, it sounds very intricate. Are there any other plans in the works for the future?
Evelyn: Once I get Sanctuary squared away I’ll have to take an inventory of unfinished projects and see what else I can bring to fruition. In other words I’ll wait and see what the universe whispers in my ear.
Sep
4
Kevin Noel Olson Interviews Ron Fortier
September 4, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Ron Fortier and I go back to the early 90s, though we did not meet until three years ago or so. Our connection started far earlier. Let me explain; as a boy, I used to listen to old-time radio shows at 10 PM over an AM radio station. Between comedies and westerns, they would run shows of pulp heroes such as The Shadow, The Whistler, and The Green Hornet. Wanting to listen, I would stay up past my bedtime to listen to these shows. I am uncertain how many children stayed up past their bedtime to listen to the old radio shows, but I was one.
When Now Comics came out with a new Green Hornet series, I voraciously bought anything I could get my hands on. It was a superb series with excellent writing and art. On a project, I was ecstatic to learn the man who headed it had also written one of my favorite comics. It has been an honor to work with Ron Fortier and I have had the rare luck of turning from admiring fan to working on a project with him. Ron now produces books with Airship 27 Productions, published and distributed by Cornerstone Book Publishers. This interview took place on a day of thunder and ill weather for Ron. The weather set a mood not out-of-place in an old suspense movie from the 1930s. The same type of spirit of thrills and adventure Ron Fortier is recreating with Airship 27. Read on.
Kevin Noel Olson: You’ve been writing comics and fiction for quite some time, Ron. How did you get started as a writer?
Ron Fortier: Comics brought me into writing. I read and collected them as a child. By the time I reached High School, I wanted to be a part of the comic community and create comics. I had a minimum amount of drawing skills. I realized by my sophomore year that as okay an artist as I was I wasn’t gifted to the full amount needed to become a graphic illustrator and make a career out of it. That being the case, I realized the only other avenue open to me to get involved with comics was as a writer. Suddenly, that became my avocation. I took every writing class and joined the journalism club in High School and just kept writing away. I learned everything I could about literature. I came out of the military, after serving three years as a clerk, and I started writing for fanzines. Ultimately, I did enough fanzines where I got to a point where I could do professional submissions and that’s how I broke into the market.
KNO: You have a new comic series called MR. JIGSAW. What can you tell us about him?
RF: The character himself has the ability to dismember every part of his body and control them with his mind. It’s a comedy character not intended to be taken seriously and is done with tongue-firmly-in-cheek. Basically, my artist Gary Kato and I looked at the Golden Age comic heroes ala the original Captain Marvel and Jack Cole’s Plastic Man for our inspiration for Mr. Jigsaw.
Rob and I are doing individual issues of Mr. Jigsaw. So far we’ve done four of them. The first three are reprints of all the old Mr. Jigsaw material, the fourth issue of Mr. Jigsaw has all new material and is the first new Mr. Jigsaw in eight years. Those are only available through www.indieplanet.com. Sean Collins of Wild Wolf Entertainment came to us and asked if we could make a deal and print the first three issues together as one graphic novel. We agreed, Gary Kato did a new cover for it and we changed the title to The Adventures of Mr. Jigsaw to differentiate it from the single issues. It is now available through all the major distributors such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble and through the new Haven comic distributors so comic stores can order it.
KNO: I know you’re working on new Green Hornet stories for Moonstone Comics. Can you talk about how you got started with The Green Hornet?
RF: I was a fan of the short-lived 1960s Green Hornet television show and that was my introduction to the character. It wasn’t until many years later that I ran into Texas comic artist Steve Erwin. Steve suggested that he and I get together and come up with a proposal for a new Green Hornet comic book series. At that time there hadn’t been a new Green Hornet comic since the old Gold Key series based on the T.V. show of which they had only produced three issues.
I set out for the next four or five months writing a proposal for a new Green Hornet comic combining the elements of all the previous incarnations from the radio, serials, and the t.v. show. My then-agent suggested I travel to San Diego that year for the comic con where I met Tony Caputo of Now Comics. During one of my conversations with Tony, this was after he hired me on the spot to be the new writer for his Terminator comic, he and I got to talking the last day of the show about classic hero characters that hadn’t been seen for a long time in comics. We mentioned the Lone Ranger, Tarzan, and Tony said, “The Green Hornet.”
I just laughed, picked up my briefcase, put it up on the table and opened it up. I took out my 40-page proposal and handed it to him and said, “Here you go.” Well, he took it home, read it, loved what we’d done, and made an appointment to find the license holders in New York. He went to them, showed them the proposal, and I was tickled pink. Apparently, Marvel and DC over the years had tried to get the rights and couldn’t. The people in New York, after reading my proposal and talking to Tony, were impressed with what we had there and gave him the go ahead and the permission. Suddenly Now Comics had the rights to the Green Hornet.
Tony called me at home and told me to start writing the scripts and to get a hold of Steve Irwin and tell him that we’re going to do this thing. Irony of ironies, it’d been six months since my initial talk with Steve. Here I am calling him in Texas and telling him, “Get ready, we’re going to do the Green Hornet.” Steve came back to me and said, “Gee Ron, I can’t.”
I said, “Why not?”
Steve replied, “I’ve just been hired by DC and I’m going to be working for them.”
So, all the sudden I’ve got the Green Hornet proposal picked up by a comic book company and it’s going to start being printed and I need an artist in the worst way. Again, as luck would have it, I remembered meeting a young artist at San Diego by the name of Jeff Butler. In the course of talking with him he showed me his portfolio and in it were pictures of the Green Hornet he had drawn. He was a fan. So I immediately dug through all the business cards I’d brought back from San Diego, found his, gave him a call and said, “How would you like to draw a new Green Hornet comic book?”
Jeff was ecstatic, said yes, and that’s how I got involved with the Green Hornet.
KNO: The pulp field from the thirties traversed a wide range of speculative fiction, including Sci-fi, fantasy, Western, and adventure and so on. What is the attraction of the old pulp stories in today’s market?
RF: The attraction is that most of what should be escapist literature of late has failed their audience. The pulps were born during the Great Depression, and they offered an entire generation a couple of hours of being able to forget their problems by picking up these garishly colored, exciting magazines on the kiosk stands every week.
The thing was that they were very simplistic. All of them were, regardless of the genre. It was basically lots of action in exotic locales and the heroes were stalwart good guys who beat the dastardly villains and saved the day.
So here we are in the midst of a rather monumental recession and the American public is once again looking at cloudy skies. All the sudden we’ve got this resurgence, renaissance or renewed interest in the pulps. I sincerely believe the American reader wants to go back to those kinds of just plain fun escape stories. I think they’re tired of all the dark, gloomy, angst-ridden tales that we’ve being offered in the last 20 years as supposed adventure material. That’s what the attraction to the pulps was all along for me, and that’s why we’re doing them again. I think there’s a need for that.
KNO: What encouraged you to start AIRSHIP 27 PRODUCTIONS?
RF: All the time that I wrote comics, and still do, for the last 27 years, you can’t get involved with the comic community without eventually learning its history and the fact that the comics came out of the pulps. First, there were the pulps, and then those young men and women that grew up in the thirties and forties later went on to become the comic book writers and artists that we know of.
The connection is very solid and it’s right there. While working throughout my comics career I’d learned about The Shadow and Doc Savage and G-8, and all those great, great pulp heroes. When I’d get together with colleagues we’d sit around and talk about it and say, “Wouldn’t it have been fun to write those kinds of stories?”
About six years ago I finally retired from the day job, my 32-year-career at General Electric was over. I found myself with a lot of free time to devote to writing. Suddenly, I was seeing this renewed interest in pulp reprints, and started wondering if there was a market there for new stories of all these classic pulp heroes. That’s why I started Airship 27. I hooked up with my buddy, Rob Davis, who signed on as art director. We cast a wide net to see if we could find other people who would like to do this kind of stuff, and lo and behold people were basically breaking down the door to come work with us.
So, just two-and-a-half years ago we launched Airship 27. We did something right, because it’s going strong and it’s getting stronger every year.
KNO: How would you describe the partnership between Cornerstone Book Publishers and Airship 27?
RF: That to me is the most beneficial, symbiotic relationship going. Michael Poll is a terrific guy. He’s an experienced publisher. He knows the book business better than anyone I’ve ever met. The initial six months working with Mike to show him our wares and books were like a tutorial for Rob and I. Mike pretty much held our hands and showed us some of the ‘dos and don’ts about publishing.
At the same time, Mike let us know that it was his goal to expand Cornerstone Book Publishers. He initially began it as a company to publish books on Freemason culture but was looking to expand that to widen his field to what he could offer the readership. He looked at Airship 27 and saw the quality inherent in the books Rob and I were doing. It was a perfect marriage, and one that keeps getting stronger with each new title that we put out.
KNO: Thank you for the interview, Ron. It is always an extreme pleasure. Is there anything further you’d like to mention concerning Airship 27’s activities?
RF: Thank you, Kevin.
Mar
25
New Cornerstone Books
March 25, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Cornerstone Book Publishers will shortly be releasing two inspired collections of poetry. The first is: “Poems for the Short-Term Memory” by Robert Fraser. Of this thought-provoking collection Adam Zagger writes: “Robert Fraser’s “Poems for the Short-Term Memory unveils the very threadwork of modern American life with a keen sense of current social conflicts and political agendas. These thrifted wisdoms display rhythm beat, and demand an awareness of truth and values achieved through struggle and personal enlightenment.” “Poems for the Short-Term Memory” will soon be on the Cornerstone website, but if you contact Robert and pre-order a copy directly from him, he will send you a free CD with poetry from the book read to music along with the book as soon as it is released. You can pre-order this work now by contacting Robert at his MySpace site: http://www.myspace.com/poetrobertfraser.
Poems for the Short-Term Memory
Robert Fraser
ISBN: 1-887560-78-5
ISBN 13: 978-1-887560-78-8
Retail: $15.00
Published by Cornerstone Book Publishers
http://csmbooks.com/blog/www.cornerstonepublishers.com
==============================================
The Second work is “In the Twinkling of a Star” by Sis. Joyce Fuller, OES, PHA. This is a wonderful collection of OES poems collected by a Past Matron of the Eastern Star. This book offers selected new poetry from OES leaders as well as classics from the likes of Robert Morris and others. This work is sure to inspire and entertain all. This is a perfect gift for any new Star. “In the Twinkling of a Star” will also shortly be listed on the Cornerstone website, but pre-orders can be secured directly from Sis. Joyce now via e-mail at: fullstar@gtcom.net.
In the Twinkling of a Star
Collected and arranged by Sis. Joyce Fuller, OES PHA
ISBN: 1-887560-77-7
ISBN 13: 978-1-887560-77-1
Retail: $15.00
Published by Cornerstone Book Publishers
http://csmbooks.com/blog/www.cornerstonepublishers.com
Mar
22
Review: Knights and Freemasons
March 22, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Knights & Freemasons: The Birth of Modern Freemasonry
Edited by Michael R. Poll
Foreword by S. Brent Morris
Softcover $16.95
ISBN 1-887560-66-1
Published by Cornerstone Book Publishers http://www.cornerstonepublishers.com
Legendary Masonic authors, Albert Mackey and Albert Pike take us on an amazing venture from the days of the Crusades and the Knights Templar to the creation of modern speculative Freemasonry in a collection of inspiring papers. Includes the rare, The Order of the Temple by Albert Pike.
Edited by Michael R. Poll with a Foreword by S. Brent Morris.
Reviews
“Brother Poll is well known in scholarly Masonic circles as a writer, editor, and publisher. Dr. Morris is, of course, the editor of the Journal and of Heredom, the transactions of the Scottish Rite Research Society. His foreword is excellent, a clear capsulation of the historic and traditional approaches to Freemasonry and how great men change their opinions as their knowledge and understanding change. And the concept of the book is brilliant (wish I had thought of it): bring two of the greatest thinkers and students Masonry has ever produced into the same room (so to speak) and let them slug it out by seeing what each had to say on the topic.
In this case, the topic is the Knights Templar and the origins of Masonry. We put this under the something old heading, because neither the question nor the opinions of Pike and Mackey are new. But the approach is, and I find new insights just in the juxtaposition. This is a good and comfortable book, crafted in an age when men knew words should glow like jewels in their settingsand both Pike and Mackey were master jewelers.”
-Jim Tresner,
The Scottish Rite Journal
“This is a good book to read and to have on hand in your library. The scholarship is excellent, and the work that went into compiling the information must have taken quite some time. What Brother Poll has done is to pose the question of what did Albert Pike and Albert Mackey have to say on the origin of Freemasonry? And then he proceeded to find the answer to his question by searching out their writings and compiling what they wrote so that we, decades later, can read their thoughts on this question without searching all this out for ourselves. By him doing this he saves us much time and effort even if we have all the writings of Pike and Mackey in our libraries, which most Masonic students don’t; because of the difficulty in locating the used volumes and then the cost of purchasing them.
Brother Poll has hit on a great idea and I can see him doing this with other questions and possibly other writers from the past as well.
This book has the forward written by our good Brother S. Brent Morris, who is one of the best Masonic Scholars we have in Masonry today.
In this book you will find interesting information on the Crusades, the Knights Templar, and many names connected with the Templars you will recognize and enjoy learning about. This book also has information on the organization of the Grand Lodge of England and the transition from Operative to Speculative Freemasonry.
I think you will like reading this book, and I recommend it to every serious Masonic Student. It is not what I would call light reading, but it is well worth the time it takes to read. I can see using this book off and of for a reference book for years to come.”
-Ed Halpaus
Grand Lodge Education Officer
The Grand Lodge of MN
Feb
24
Review of “Eerey Tocsin in the Cryptoid Zoo”
February 24, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Ron Fortier, writer of POPEYE and THE GREEN HORNET for Now Comics, and PETER PAN: RETURN TO NEVERLAND for Malibu Comics, has written a new review for Kevin Olsen’s new book, “Eerey Tocsin in the Cryptoid Zoo.” The book is available at most on-line book stores.
——————————-
EEREY TOCSIN IN THE CRYPTOID ZOO
by Kevin Noel Olson
157 pages
Available from.. (www.cornstonepublishers.com)
One of the privileges of writing a review column is being able to break your own reviews. You see, this is a column devoted to modern day pulp fiction and this title is certainly not that. It is a wonderful, exciting, extremely original children’s book by the very talented Mr. Olson.
Having had the pleasure of reading the manuscript before it went to the presses, I was only to happy to contribute a small cover blurb for this terrific story. And now that the book is out and marvelously illustrated by Debi Hammack, I want all you Harry Potter fans to go out and buy this. Eerey Tocsin is one of the most charming, amusing and daring heroines to come down the literary highway in years.
This adventure is fast-paced, dark and mysterious and a through joy to read. Just when you think the wonder and magic have slowed down, you turn the page and wham, it jumps right back at you. I really, really hope this is on the first in a series. I am now an Eerey fan and I want more. Lots more.
by Ron Fortier
http://pulpfictionreviews.blogspot.com
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“Eerey Tocsin in the Cryptoid Zoo”
Written by Kevin Noel Olson
Illustrated by Debi Hammack
Published by Cornerstone Book Publishers
Softcover $15.95
ISBN 1-887560-72-6
www.cornerstonepublishers.com
Feb
24
“The Temple That Never Sleeps” Review
February 24, 2007 | Leave a Comment
“The Temple That Never Sleeps”
By Josh Heller and Gerald Reilly
Cornerstone Book Publishers
“The subtitle of this book is “Freemasons and E-Masonry Toward a New Paradigm,” which is a hopeful prediction, but one that honors the gift of instant global communication. This book tells the story of Masonic Light, an internet meeting place for, at the time I write this, 859 Freemasons hailing from 162 jurisdictions. Some of these jurisdictions you’ve heard of and others you might not believe exist. You can learn more about ML at masoniclight.org.
“Much the way internet shopping poses indefatigable competition to our local “brick and mortar” retail stores through incomparable convenience and limitless variety, this “emasonry” model gives Masons instant access to brethren around the globe for the enjoyment of eye-popping scholarship and jovial chat alike. For the education Mason, the value of this convenience and variety can be more attractive than what’s in our lodges. The book quotes one anonymous Brother saying “With 50+ years as a Mason I have discovered things about the Craft that I never dreamed existed.” Imagine that: a Gold Token Mason with the wideeyed excitement of a kid in a candy store… and the store is open 24/7.
“It is difficult to say how the internet will shape Freemasonry’s future. With most jurisdictions still fumbling with amateurish websites devoid of content while the non-recognized jurisdictions prefer privacy over publicity, there is an actual need for individual Masons to employ the web to find each other for intelligent conversation. This book is an account of one forum where ideas like regularity and recognition are exposed as the naked emperors they’ve been for the past 250 years. Identities like race, religion and sex are as unimportant as the time of day in “The Temple That Never Sleeps.” The ML adventure is not for everyone, but if you’re a fit, then the experience can be highly rewarding, as this well written book documents.”
- Jay Hochberg, WM
New Jersey Lodge of Masonic
Research and Education
———
The Temple That Never Sleeps:
Freemasons and E-Masonry Toward a New Paradigm
by Josh Heller and Gerald Reilly
Softcover $16.95
ISBN 1-887560-68-8
www.cornerstonepublishers.com
Feb
12
Cornerstone Interview with Evelyn Klebert
February 12, 2007 | 1 Comment
Cornerstone is happy to share this interview with Evelyn Klebert. Evelyn is the author of: A Ghost of a Chance and Dragonflies: Journeys into the Paranormal, as well as the soon to be released, An Uneasy Traveler. Evelyn holds a Master’s Degree in English Literature and has also authored a number of articles and short stories published in literary and scholarly journals.
Cornerstone: Hello Evelyn and thanks for participating in our interview. Can you tell us a little about your background?
Evelyn: Well as a writer I suppose it all began very young with journals. I remember as a very young teenager keeping journals, not really what you’d call diaries because instead of chronicling events I’d chronicle impressions, feelings, and thoughts. And of course this flowed into writing stories and poetry. In the early nineties I earned a Master of Arts degree in English Literature and not much later than that settled in Virginia for some years with my husband and two young children. It was during this time that I started writing in earnest. I completed A Ghost of a Chance, Dragonflies: Journeys into the Paranormal, and more recently An Uneasy Traveler which will be published within a few months.
Cornerstone: All your writing undeniably has paranormal overtones. Can you explain your attraction to these themes as well as a pronounced public interest in such subjects?
Evelyn: Interesting question. Well from my viewpoint a fascination with the paranormal started out quite young. I suppose we all in some way or another have a draw to the spooky, ghosts, or perhaps just the unknown. On a grander scale the idea that there is more to life and living than what is readily explainable has its own fascination. Throughout history there have been stories of the miraculous and other worldly happenings. It is quite a compelling subject. As spiritual not just corporeal beings I think we all have an innate feeling that what meets the eye may only be the tip of the ice berg. At least I sincerely hope we do. Perhaps, on a larger scale I personally believe that the growing interest and acceptance of the paranormal could be linked with the escalating violence in the world. People seem to be looking for answers in more non-traditional spiritual avenues in response to a mounting anxiety in what they perceive in the world. In other words the status quo is not providing answers to what is happening around us now. And of course I also think there is the big question that accompanies all of us in life which is what happens after death. No religious imagery of the hereafter seems concrete enough to answer those questions about what happens next. And just a permanent and abrupt cessation of living once the body dies probably doesn’t sit well with most. Death is as concrete a part of living as anything and yet nothing is given to us in enough of a concrete manner to comfort our hearts with substantial certainty about what really happens to us afterwards.
Cornerstone: Are there any particular writers that have been inspirations to you?
Evelyn: Now that’s a tough one. There are so many. Going way back the Bronte sisters and the brooding gothic overtones of their novels. Jane Austen, oddly enough, and her quick wit and priceless repartee between characters. I find humor and dialogue key in writing, and she was a master of both. The works of Richard Matheson, Bid Time Return, and What Dreams May Come. And I’ve also enjoyed some good horror novels by Stephen King and Anne Rice. It’s sort of a mixed bag.
Cornerstone: What inspired you to write your first two books, A Ghost of a Chance and Dragonflies: Journeys into the Paranormal?
Evelyn: Well in terms of inspiration it’s sort of odd. Ghost started out rather strangely I suppose with a rural house that my husband and I were living in out in the country. The odd feeling of peacefulness, yet isolation sort of took root with me. And so I began writing the story of a writer who deliberately out of personal pain chose her own exile. Then of course there was the other thread of my hero, Jack Brennon, who was vexed with his own sort of complicated life that he’d chosen and yet had also become consumed by. The idea that life is not random but rather a blueprint that we’ve chosen to learn from is an interesting concept to me. But if you’re so stuck that you’ve ceased to learn, how do you learn any longer? Perhaps something drastic happens to you, like becoming a ghost! In terms of Dragonflies it actually is a collection of short stories that cover a span of many years. A friend of mine, another writer, and I have an ongoing arrangement to produce a short story every Halloween, and many of the stories in the book come from that particular pact. As with Ghost, many of the stories were inspired by place. “The Sojourners” came from living along the coast of Virginia in a small town for a year in a house where we were more than sure unhappy spirits walked. “The Tear” came from an early time living in New Orleans, a beloved city, and all it’s very unique paranormal vibes. The premise itself for Dragonflies, drawing together stories of people on their own paranormal journeys of self-discovery was actually one I’d been carrying around for nearly twenty years. That same friend, the Halloween story writer, told me a parable once about a dragonfly that I included in the book. In it, she uses the symbol of the dragonfly to represent me, one given the duty to warn other dragonflies about the dangers that lie in the depths of a beguilingly, beautiful pond. It’s something that stuck with me and that I knew I’d use one day.
Cornerstone: You’ve mentioned locations. Are there any other things that help inspire the ideas in your books?
Evelyn: Yes many things. People, actually talking to and watching people. Sometimes I’ll see someone, or hear of a situation that simply triggers an idea in my mind. And of course bantering ideas back and forth with my friends could inspire the germ of something that hopefully will take root. Music as well, moody music, sometimes classical pieces I find to often spark something creative. It’s odd sometimes I’ll begin writing a few lines odd a piece then drop it and come back years later and pick it up again. That’s what happened with An Uneasy Traveler, my new book. I wrote the opening intro a good three years before I picked up the piece again and began writing on it. Of course it took an entirely new direction but that worked well for me. I don’t believe in being married to a plot.
Cornerstone: Tell us a little more about your next novel, A Uneasy Traveler.
Evelyn: Well Traveler is a bit of an unconventional love story. It tracks the life of a very special psychic, a sensitive I call her who is wrestling with the dilemma of fulfilling her path, using her gift, at the expense of having a life of her own. As many of my characters, it seems she is on the reclusive side, keeping parts of her life involving psychic mentors, spiritual guides, and extraordinary paranormal experiences very much on the QT. And as happens with most recluses, her life is interjected with a dynamic and powerful presence, a gifted local artist named Jacob Wyss. Jacob himself is a veteran of a painful and disillusioning divorce, finding his creative inspiration running at a low ebb, until he stumbles upon this very compelling woman on a cold wintry afternoon in a bookstore. This novel while being heavily laced with the paranormal is also the story of two people trying to heal their own wounds from the past, and past-lives, to carve out a life together. I’m very excited about it and am looking forward to its release.
Cornerstone: Is there any advice that you’d give someone who is considering writing as a career?
Evelyn: Just that we all have stories inside of us, and if you feel writing is something that you should do, then you should. Those inner voices should never be ignored in any context of life. It is the spirit that guides us. I think we were all put on this earth to learn from each other and telling our stories is one of the great ways to do just that.