Whole Lotta of Bogus Goin' On!

Recently, my husband Victor was falsely accused of infringement by another author. Last week I received one of those bogus emails banks caution us about. In it, the sender, who finds spelling and sentence structure insurmountable challenges, has taken the time to advise me that for security purposes or as he says, "purposres," the personal information for my bank account needs to be updated immediately. This individual is so thoughtful that he provides a special link for me to send him the information to access my checking account. And only this morning I received a congratulatory email from Mr. Albert Leighton of Microsoft "Cooperation" letting me know I have won a vast some of money and need to email all my personal information to him as soon as possible. But I digress, let's return to the infringement issue.

Victor wrote a delightful children's story for pre-schoolers about a little amphibian who inadvertently finds himself aboard a spacecraft to the moon. Another children's book author has also written a children's book with a little amphibian who has the same name as the character in my husband's children's book. One would think the world of publishing is large enough to contain two children's books with two little chaps with the same name. The online publisher who lists both books has apparently taken the woman's infringement claim seriously and has removed my husband's book from their listing while the matter is looked into. I am going to share my thoughts about all this in the "what if" form of writing I'm fond of here on my uncopyrighted, unregistered, untrademarked, but not unread personal blog.

What if I wrote a children's story. In my story, the name of the main character and its species are different from those in Victor's and claimant's stories as I don't want to be accused of double-infringement, whatever that may be. Let's say the animal in my example story is a bunny rabbit named Bunny Bonnie -- not to be confused with Playboy bunnies of the same name. I could even name her Baby Bunny Bonnie. No, that is simply too difficult to say (not for pre-schoolers, for me). For the purposes of this rather informal discussion, suppose another author, one we'll call Unethical Ethel, has written a totally different children's story but one that also has a bunny character in it named Bonny (note y ending not ie).  My bunny is a grey rabbit, big, bold, graceful, and rather dignified, while Ethel's bunny is one of those fluffy, pink, pudgy bunnies who look, I may say, rather predictably phony. Ethel, who apparently confuses herself with Disney Studios and her Bonny with Minnie Mouse, brings a claim of infringement against me. I could rename my bunny "Princess, the Rabbit Formerly Known as Bonnie" but instead I'm taking an imaginative hop and having my bunny publish a children's book about a character named Billy Bob Bobcat. Bonnie's Billy Bob book really takes off and as a matter of fantasy, right now her agent is in contract negotiations for an animated film version. There are even rumors Billy Bob Thornton may do the voiceover for Bonnie's bobcat. However, as luck would have it, another bunny named Bette (note e not y) has also published a children's book with a character named Billy Bob. You can see where I'm going with this. And I'd like to continue writing but my husband just informed me a lawyer representing Jerry Lee Lewis is on the phone waiting to speak to me.

One final note to all little girls, women, and elderly ladies named Barbara. I am absolutely certain that my parents had no intention of infringing on the rights of your parents when they christened me.

Parenting Should Be a Two-Way Street

"The Sun Zebra" is one of my favorite books and I am delighted to share this guest post by my good friend Rolando Garcia, an author who is as passionate about writing as he is about life. Happy Father's Day!

Available at Amazon

Under hypnosis adults can be coaxed to “regress” back to the time they were children. But this “regression,” despite all the sensationalistic claims in the popular press to the contrary, is not true. Scientists have observed that adults who are hypnotically “regressed” do not become children, rather they imitate children, and they do a very poor job at that. So alien is the experience of being children for us that even under the influence of hypnosis we cannot reproduce it convincingly. Why is this? Why as adults can’t we evoke accurately what it was to be a child?

I imagine this is because when we grow up the world view of the child is extinguished in our minds and replaced with that of the adult, and this probably has some survival value. The world can be a terrible place. Like they say “it’s a jungle out there.” With few exceptions children cannot effectively survive in the adult world. That is why children need parents to guide, protect, and educate them. But this tends to turn parenting into a one-way street. Children are cute and fun. We love and enjoy them. But even as we laugh with them (sometimes at them) we are conscious that their state is transitory, and we as parents know that it’s our job to bring about its demise gradually, effectively converting them into adults. Adults who will have, like us, forgotten what it was to be a child.

In our life children are seen as a joy, a stage, a fulfillment of some kind, or a rite of passage, but they are seldom seen as individuals from whom we can learn anything. And why should they? Children are not fit to live in the adult world. What can they possibly teach us that can be of any use in our lives? To me the answer is obvious. Children can teach us what it was to be a child. They can teach us to again see the world through the eyes of a child.

But why would we want to learn that?

The recently deceased writer Ray Bradbury once said the great thing about his life was that everything he accomplished was the result of who he was when he was 12 or 13 years old. In fact, he described himself as “that special freak, the man with the child inside who remembers all.” I paraphrase Mr. Bradbury, an author of boundless creativity and the kindest of hearts, to highlight the importance of making parenting a two-way street. Yes, we should educate children, but we should also allow children to educate us about remembering what it was to be a child and about seeing the world through the eyes of a child. This will enrich our lives as adults and help us know ourselves a little better because many aspects of our adult lives have been shaped by the child we were and how that child interacted with the world.

If you want a better understanding of what I mean, you can read my book “The Sun Zebra,” which is available as an e-book on Amazon. This book is what I describe as a “children’s book for grownups.” The stories deal with how the world of adults and its hard realities intersects with the magical carefree world of children. This book squarely fits the philosophy that parenting should be a two-way street.

So on this Father’s Day please take a good look at your children and consider carefully what they say and what they do. Not only are they probably the closest you can get to understanding who you were then and what you are now, but you can learn from them to see the world in a different light.


To order a copy of "The Sun Zebra," click here.

Visit Rolando Garcia's website to read his essays, short stories, and poems. You can also read his work on the social publishing site Scribd.

A Review of "The Sun Zebra" by Rolando Garcia

It is difficult for me to decide which of the five stories in this collection I like best because each is charming, original, and filled with a gentle humor and each is about the little girl Nell, her loving mother Rhonda, and her thoughtful father, the narrator. The stories are for adults and for children but they are not stories with the magic of fairy tales or Harry Potter adventures. They contain another and equally wonderful magic, that of reality, specifically, nature. In “The Sun Zebra,” we view an old horse in a new way; in “Bob the Intrepid Insectnaut,” we meet a special cicada named Bob; and, in “Raven-Lenore,” we are introduced to a chubby squirrel that Poe himself might have been amused by. And we see them through the eyes of Nell, the delightful child star of all the stories and, the rich imagination of her father. “Raven-Lenore” is also a tender and beautiful portrait of a father’s love for his daughter.

In the last two stories, “The Meaningless Christmas Tree” and “Birdman and the Fairy Tale,” the author abandons critters for our own species. In the former we meet a World War II veteran with a humble and generous heart. And in “Birdman and the Fairy Tale,” we get a closer look into the author’s heart when he muses about aging. In this story he refers to himself as “one feeble Big Bad Wolf” and perhaps that is so but he is certainly one hell of a writer. There is so much love echoing through these stories – love of family and love of nature – they are a joy to read.

Available at Amazon

A Lovely Review of "Mirror Talk" on IndieReader

My memoir "Mirror Talk" received a generous and beautiful review today on IndieReader. To read the review, click here.

"Mirror Talk" Wins Best Memoir in IndieReader Discovery Awards

I am thrilled to say that  Mirror Talk won as best memoir in the nonfiction category of the IndieReader Discovery Awards, announced at the 2012 Book Expo America in New York.