Dance, Dance, and Write by Chelsey M. Ortega

MUSE MONDAY

I love to dance, but I don't have the talent my guest, Chelsey M. Ortega, has. Enjoy her delightful post today on Discover... for Muse Monday.

Nothing opened up the U.S. to ballroom dance like “Dancing with the Stars”. But in my corner of the world, Utah County, ballroom had been popular years before; and popular at Brigham Young University decades before. And with such a long history, it’s not surprising that a handful of DWTS pros every season hail from Utah County; including one of the judges and co-hosts. 

My mom danced through the BYU ballroom program in the ‘80s, and my dad provided the sound system for a local high school’s ballroom concerts in the ‘90s and early 2000s. So, with that as my background, I wanted to be a ballroom dancer. 

My mom signed me up for my first class when I was eleven. My teacher was a lady in our neighborhood who had refurbished her garage into a small dance studio. After a year with her I went on to another studio owned by my dad’s friends. After a year there, I entered secondary school, where ballroom classes and performance teams were offered as elective classes. I spent 7th-12th grade taking technique classes through my school and performing and competing on the school teams. I danced for two years in college, and then chose to focus on starting my family and finishing my academic degree. 

I was good enough to make the teams, but I wasn’t the best dancer on the team. Trying to keep up with
the girls who did have natural raw talent taught me hard work and dedication. Most of my time I started out as an alternate and worked my way onto the team and competition routines. And my Senior year in high school, I made all three competition routines the first time, without needing to start as an alternate. It felt good to earn those spots; and the years of never giving up have bled over into my writing career as I took rejection after rejection, and worked on my writing craft before The Wild Rose Press said yes.  

Today, a little over ten years after I stopped dancing, ballroom dance is still something that I cherish. I cheer on teammates who turned dance into their career, religiously watch DWTS, and dance in my kitchen while I’m cooking and cleaning. Latin is my favorite style: Cha Cha, Samba, Rhumba, Paso Doble, and Jive. With my very favorite Latin dance being the Samba. I discovered my Senior year that I also had a talent for American Smooth: Waltz, Tango, Foxtrot, Viennese Waltz; with Viennese Waltz being my favorite -though based on the judges scores, Waltz was my best dance of the four. 

Since dance is no longer a huge part of my current life, I have chosen to live vicariously through my fictional characters. When I was creating Annamaria’s social life, I put her on her high school dance team. But since I placed her in a tiny fictional town in Wyoming, the chances of it being realistic for a ballroom team to be at her high school were slim; so she is on a dance company which covers jazz, contemporary, lyrical, and hip hop. Later on in the story, Annamaria meets two professional ballroom dancers… who are also vampires. The three become good friends, and Annamaria joins their online dancing channel. 

These scenes were some of my favorites to write. I chose the type of dance, picked a song with lyrics that matched the planned message, and choreographed it in my mind. Then, I had to sit down and write it in a way that the reader would be able to see what I saw. And I would like to share with you the Viennese Waltz: 

The first routine was a Viennese waltz. They told the story of a man and woman meeting and falling in love. Tyler and Annamaria portrayed a couple starting off as shy, then blossom into comfortable and loving. The entire process had been so fun, like swaying through clouds. 

The TV showed the preview screenshot of Annamaria with her right arm around Tyler’s neck, the left trailing behind her with her left foot popped. Tyler’s right arm was around her waist, his left trailing behind him. Both leaned away from each other in a frozen twirl. 

The music started, and Annamaria danced into view. Tyler danced in from the opposite direction and the duet began. They spun and swayed, Annamaria’s light blue dress swirling around her, the rhinestones catching the light. For the last verse of the song, Annamaria completed a seamless onstage costume change by using magic to replace her blue dress to a flowing white gown. Their human audience would think it was just superb editing. 

BONDWITCH

Eighteen-year-old Annamaria Lyons has never left her small hometown of Harrison, Wyoming. She has lived with her aunt, Trinity, since her parents died when she was two years old. Trinity has been a wonderful guardian with one exception—she won’t allow Annamaria out of the house after sunset. That is, until the night of senior prom. Annamaria's long-lost sister arrives, bringing with her a world full of hidden family secrets and the supernatural. 

Forced to flee her childhood home without a proper goodbye to her human life and first love, Annamaria immerses herself in the magical world. New friends and a new suitor challenge her original dreams for the future, and when she finds herself caught in the middle of a centuries-old conflict, Annamaria must decide to rise above it or give in to the darkness. 

Bondwitch can be purchased here:

Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Bondwitch-Chelsey-M-Ortega-ebook/dp/B0CF6H8NYC?ref_=ast_author_mpb

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1143894193?ean=9781509251940

Bio:

Chelsey M. Ortega is a teacher by day and award-winning author by night. History is her first love, and any story involving magic and romance, her second love. She especially loves witches and is still awaiting her acceptance letter to a well-known school. Chelsey received her Bachelor's in History Teaching from Brigham Young University. In addition to writing, Chelsey teaches high school U.S. History and ELD. She lives in Utah with her husband, three children, and two cats. Follow Chelsey at www.chelseymortega.com.

 

 

 

 

Binding a Book Like a Work of Art by Kitty Shields

Readers, you are in for a most fascinating Fearless Friday. So grab a cuppa, prop up your feet, and enjoy the post by guest Kitty Shields.

AFTER

BEFORE

Hi, my name is Kitty, and I’m a book nerd. I have a book problem. I read them; I write them; I… bind them. Not in a weird way. No, I’m a certified bookbinder. 

What is a bookbinder? Traditionally, a bookbinder is the person who sews and covers a book. Nowadays, machines do this, mostly with glue. Sometimes a machine will sew a book (depending on costs, hardback vs. paperback, etc). Most contemporary books are bound with glue and the cheapest kind at that. 

What I do is sew books, cover them in leather, repair them. Basically, I do book makeovers. 

So, what the hell does this have to do with #FearlessFriday? 

In 2008, the stock market took a dive. A lot of people lost their jobs, and I was one of them. I was a graphic designer for a trade business magazine, nothing fancy, but it paid the bills. The Great Recession, as it’s called, forced me to move back home, where I spent a miserable year working in retail and trying to figure out my next move. 

I started researching grad schools and sort of stumbled on art conversation, specifically book conservation. See, conservationists are entrusted with the most important cultural objects. Paintings, books, jewelry, monuments — a conservationist’s job is to repair, maintain, preserve, and stabilize these cultural treasures so that they can be passed on to the next generation.

You know the part in the movie National Treasure when they steal the Declaration of Independence from that special room? That’s where the conservationists work. That’s the kind of job I’m talking about. A book conservationist gets to repair and handle the most fascinating books in history: Gutenberg’s Bible, Shakespeare’s First Folio, a first edition Isaac Asimov, a clay tablet of cuneiform writing. Honestly, can this job sound any cooler? 

I may have stumbled upon this career path, but I wanted in bad. The prerequisite list for admittance into an art conservation program was long and arduous. And there were only two art conservation grad programs in the country. One of the requirements was to have 150 hours of conservation experience already logged before applying. Um… where the hell was I supposed to do that? 

Enter: North Bennet Street School. 

North Bennet Street School is a vocational school for old world trades. There you can learn violin-making, preservation carpentry, furniture and cabinet making, piano technology, and, of course, bookbinding. This is a school where a special kind of hands-on nerd goes. If people go to Hogwarts to learn to change the world through magic, people go to North Bennet to learn to change the world through craft. As part of their curriculum, students learn the basics of book conservation technique. As part of the curriculum, I could log 150 hours of experience. 

The catch? The bookbinding program only takes eight students a year. It is a two-year, full-time program located in Boston. Two years of vocational school before even applying for grad school. Then another two years of grad school before I could play in the backs of museums and libraries all day. And that was assuming I was accepted into both programs. 

The idea was ludicrous. Like a good, mature adult, I let it go. 

I found a fantastic job, got my own place, adopted a cat, traveled to foreign and wondrous lands. I rebuilt my life, and it was pretty good. But I couldn’t help myself. On weekends, I went to bookbinding workshops and rare book libraries. After a few years, I applied to North Bennet on a lark, thinking they would never let me in. There was only eight spots! I was a hobbyist. Then I got a call to come visit. 

The school sits on the periphery of the North End in Boston. Two blocks down is the best Italian food outside of Italy you’ll ever have. Across the street is a gorgeous public park, and you can smell the salt water of the harbor from the front door. And the inside! 

The bookbinding department has over a thousand brass hand tools just to decorate leather. There are book presses from two centuries ago and more pretty paper than an art store. The teacher, Jeff, has a dry sense of humor and a mustache that curls at the ends. 

We launched into a conversation about the program, books, tools. It felt like someone was finally speaking my language. I had found my tribe. We talked for over two hours. At one point, he pulled out my portfolio, and we went over the examples I submitted one by one. Finally, the conversation wound down and he shrugged and said, 

“Well, we have one spot left. It’s yours if you want it.” 

If this were a movie, this would be the moment where the music changed. I remember sitting back and reminding myself that this was insane. I’d have to quit my job, move to Boston, somehow afford to attend the school full time for two years. Who does that? Who leaves a perfectly good life when they were just settling down to go to a foreign city with no friends, no family, to attend a school for bookbinding? 

I did. And I don’t regret it. 

I moved to Boston and graduated from the Bookbinding program. In those two years, I had many, many adventures. I got to see Paul Revere’s library card, repair books owned by Franklin D. Roosevelt, touch a curl of the Statue of Liberty, visit the archives at the Guinness Factory in Dublin, hold a book bound in human skin, see Harvard’s conservation lab. I ate better than I have ever eaten in my life. Boston is a foodie city for sure. I made lifelong friends and discovered that I did not, in fact, want to be a book conservationist. Book conservation, it turns out, consists mostly of repairing itty, bitty, teeny, tiny rips in paper. Although they get to play in the backs of museums and libraries and handle some of the most amazing objects ever, I found 150 hours to be plenty of experience logged. I didn’t need anymore. It was the best midlife crisis ever. 

So what do I do now that I am a certified bookbinder? I take people’s favorite books, graphic novels,
gaming manuals and transform them into works of art. My Harry Potter set looks like it came out of the Hogwarts library. My RPG gaming manuals appear to have been stolen from the dungeon master. My graphic novels match their super heroes. 

I can’t pretend I’m not lucky. Lucky they offered me this amazing opportunity, that I was able to go for it. Perhaps, most of all, I was lucky to discover that one path wasn’t for me. I’m incredibly lucky and grateful. All I can say is if you have a ludicrous notion that equal parts terrifies you and sings to your soul—be fearless. Like me, you may come out realizing that some paths aren’t your path, but the stories you’ll collect along the way will be worth it. 

You can find all of Kitty's books here: Kitty's Amazon Page

Author Bio: 

Kitty Shields (she/her) lives outside Philadelphia, where she writes to overcome the fact that she was born a middle child with hobbit feet, vampire skin, and a tendency to daydream. In her spare time, she binds books, takes bad photos, and tries to avoid the death traps her cat sets for her. You can check out her writing at www.kittyshieldsauthor.com. Her new book The Second Pillar is coming out May 2023!

Want to see more bookbinding? Visit her on Instagram @theshadowbindery or Facebook https://www.facebook.com/theshadowbindery.

 

THE SECOND PILLAR AVAILABLE FOR PREORDER RELEASES MAY 2023

Kate McGovern has survived her first job long enough to get fired from it. But she has not come out empty-handed. Now a Pillar of Heaven, Kate bears the weight of a quarter of the sky. And she is looking forward to her next chapter, whatever that is. But the world is still in danger.

When another Pillar of Heaven is killed in a natural disaster, Kate must travel to Indonesia to locate the body and pass the Pillar on before the sky teeters and falls. Soon enough, Kate and her team realize the natural disaster was, in fact, supernatural. As powerful enemies strive to destroy the world, Kate, with the help of some new friends, fights to restore the balance. Oh, and she needs to find a new job too. 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NGWLYD6?

 

 

About Supernatural Beings Known as Houbies (and being fearless…or feckless) by J. Arlene Culiner #FearlessFriday #supernatural

FEARLESS FRIDAY

It's always fun to have J. Arlene Culiner on Discover... Her Fearless Friday post is no exception. So grab a cup of whatever, sit back, and enjoy the read! 

     I live in an area of France where ancient sunken paths lead between villages or isolated farmhouses. Many of these dirt lanes, hidden behind high hedges, are pre-Roman, and when I walk along them, I think of long-forgotten peoples — Diablintes Aulerques or Abrincates — who wandered here two or three thousand years ago. 
     Less than a hundred years ago, these ways were still used by itinerant preachers, postmen, workers, shepherds, and cowherds who needed to get from one farm to another, one village to the next. Needless to say, I rarely meet another soul when I’m walking along these damp, shady, secretive lanes, and it’s easy to see why superstition held on longer in this region, why there are still village sorcerers, casters of spells, and a belief in supernatural beings. 
     Some years ago, I temporarily moved to an old house along a local river, and I particularly enjoyed walking along the old towpath that headed into a small forest before continuing on to the closest town. And one late spring evening, there I was, stuck in that town with my huge black dog named Dog, and with no way of getting home. Yes, I could have waited for a ride, but that would have meant killing off two or three hours. Wouldn’t it be more fun to walk? My house wasn’t far, only around five miles…or so I thought, for I had never gone the entire way on foot. I was quite wrong: it was almost twice that distance. I also hadn’t reckoned on darkness. 
I had covered quite a bit of ground when night fell, and I couldn’t find the path leading toward the wood.

     For the next hour or two, I stumbled over tree roots, headed down sunken lanes at random, and I always ended up in marshy fields or impenetrable thickets. Dog was of great help, finding a way through hedges, leading me to dry ground, but he couldn’t tell me which path was the right one. I wasn’t frightened — I didn’t have time for that — but I was unhappily resigned to the idea of wandering until dawn or sleeping curled up against a tree. The night grew colder: my long black coat and black scarf were warm, but not warm enough. 

     Finally, exhausted by my thrashing about, I was relieved to see a light far ahead. A feeble light, yes, but light meant electricity and civilization, didn’t it? And, sure enough, Dog and I soon found ourselves in a farmyard surrounded by barns and a low stone house. 

     I went up to the door, knocked. I heard voices inside the house, but no one answered. I knocked again. Then again. I couldn’t leave without getting directions.

     Finally, a window was opened, and a heavy wooden shutter was thrown back. A woman appeared, and she began screaming: “Go away! Go away, go away, go away!”

     “All I want are directions to the river…”

     “Go away!”

     “I’m lost. I need directions.”

     Behind her, a man materialized. He was holding a rifle. “Get away from here.” 

     I did, of course. Sticking around was unhealthy. But what odd people they were. Just my luck to find the strangest people in the area. I stayed lost for quite a while, then miraculously found a path to the river. After another hour or two, I was home. 

     A few days later, when sitting with a group of local people, I told them about my experience.

     “Of course they told you to go away,” said one man. “They were scared silly.”

     “Of what? Me? A lone woman with a dog.”

     “Yes, you. There you were, wearing that long black coat and walking with a black dog. They thought you were a houbie.”

     “What in heaven’s name is a houbie?”

     “An evil spirit in a black cloak who wanders through the countryside, brings back luck, and casts the evil eye. Local belief says that if a houbie asks a question and you answer, you’ll soon die. That’s why they wouldn’t give you directions. You’re lucky they didn’t shoot you.”

     “Many years ago, my father’s sheep were being stolen by a houbie,” said another man. “Everyone said there was nothing he could do, but my father wasn’t superstitious, so he took his gun, hid out in his field, and waited. One night, he saw a figure in a black cloak creep out of a hedge and head for the sheep. My father stood up, cocked his rifle and got ready to shoot. The houbie saw him, turned, and ran off leaving his black cloak behind. But my father had seen that the so-called houbie was his next-door neighbor.” 

     I can’t put my experience down to fearlessness. I was only being foolhardy…as usual. But I do love writing about fearless heroines. Like me, they always get themselves into tricky situations, or find themselves in dangerous parts of the world, or they take chances, or they risk falling in love with impossible people. But no matter what happens, they’re always fun to read about.

 

Find all of J. Arlene Culiner's books here: AMAZON AUTHOR PAGE

Her web site: Ms. Culiner's Web Site