Emma in 2019

Picking up speed with excerpts from new “Secrets”

Most of us can relate to slow starts after the holidays. On top of the holiday indolence, I’ve been sick too. And I even got my first ever flu shot in 2018 inspite of my wavering doubt about the effectiveness of the vaccine. This is the first day that “I feel like a human being.” That’s a quote from colleague writer Tamela Spicer.

What’s coming down the pipeline?

Book cover for “Secrets” aka the Face of Gossip.

I am working on two last stories to complete the second book Shifting Sands: Secrets. (c) 2019 Emma Palova. It is a sequel to Shifting Sands: Short Stories. I will let the manuscript run through the AutoCrit self-editing software for fiction to test it and review it.

I found out about AutoCrit during the #NaNoWriMo 50K word marathon in November. It has reasonably good reviews. A webcast on self-editing using the software is scheduled for Jan. 22 from 4 to 5 p.m.

Below is the link to the webcast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmrIsIvEw3Q

I will most likely self-publish on the kdp self-publishing platform, since anything else is a complex labyrinth of paths with dead ends.

Looking for reviewers

On the other hand, I am an eternal optimist, so I will pitch the individual stories via the app Submittable to different markets. Any new book needs reviews, any reviews.

Let me know if you would like to write a review. All Advance Reader Copies (ARC) are always free. You get to read something no one else has read before; now that’s pretty special.

Touring with books

I am also in the process of creating a tour for the new book Secrets. My first targeted event is on April 6 at the Author’s Fair in Detroit.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/annual-authors-fair-2019-tickets-50594326994

I am imposing a deadline on the memoir project “Greenwich Meridian” about the family immigration saga from former Czechoslovakia. I am taking this book to the event Books Alive! in Ludington on July 19 in conjunction with Ludington’s Friday Night Live.

Authors (left to right) Jeanie Mortensen and Emma Palova of Lowell share a giggle.

This event is possible thanks to author Joan H. Young from Scottville.

I am also looking forward to continuing my partnership with LowellArts for book signings and the upcoming playwright festival.

Excerpt from short story “40 Hunks” in Secrets

They were crossing the Sonoran Desert west of Nogales. Jose felt the pocket of his jeans for a piece of paper. He pulled it out to look at it for the 100^th time as they were nearing the border.

It was the letter from the US Department of Agriculture giving him permission to cross the border to the US with the 40 men sleeping behind his back. Before they boarded the bus, Jose had to make sure they were the right men. Most of them didn’t have any IDs, so he trusted them and tried to match up the names with the list from the government.

The list was far from being exact, but Jose knew once they entered the US territory, they would be assigned a permanent work guide. From there on, it was none of his business what’s going to happen with these men. The guides were correction officers borrowed from the regional correctional facilities in the US.

The border patrol in Nogales searched the smelly bus and studied Jose’s driver’s license and that piece of paper.

“How do you know who’s who?” barked a sweating guard with an AK47 across his shoulder, at Jose.

“Vaguely. I know that I have 40 men,” said Jose also sweating.

The guard boarded the bus and walked in the aisle examining each face, holding the piece of governmental paper in his hand. He stopped and looked closely at one man. The men were wide awake now. He leaned over the hulky man taking in his odor.

“Who are you?” he asked with his face distorted in an evil grimace.

Jose walked up to the two men in the back of the bus.

“Hey, amigo,” he said to the guard. “They don’t speak English.”