Category Archives: book signing

book release, book signing, books, Daily Post prompt, fiction, inspiration, prompts, publishing, Shifting Sands Short Stories, short stories, Uncategorized, writing

Symphony of words

August 11, 2017 emmapalova Leave a comment

With our thoughts we make the world.

Buddha

A well-written story is a Symphony of words that click well with the reader. If the reader cannot relate to the content, the writer is not at fault. The reader shouldn’t be at that show. Not everybody likes classical music or country music. But everybody likes music, everybody likes books. They are like pizza. There is no such thing as a bad pizza.

“What inspires you?” people ask me the most.

That is probably the most popular question for any author. There is no single answer, but a multitude of answers depending on the day.

Early in the day, I was inspired by someone else’s selfishness. That person feared that I wouldn’t make the birthday party, if I got into an accident on my upcoming vacation.

I was speechless and flabbergasted. Not a care about the fact, if I was going to make it alive out of the accident. The only thing that mattered was the party.

I always say: “Real people inspire me the most with their actions and emotions, or the lack of both.”

“What powers people’s thinking?”

“With our thoughts we make the world,” Buddha said.

I try to think before I say something and definitely before I write anything.

My best advise to any writer is clear thinking that comes out of meditating, out of that space inside us that we explore, free of distractions and turmoil.

And maybe even more important is the detachment from the outcome, as I found out today while meditating.

After a month of my new book Shifting Sands Short Stories hitting the market, I started feeling resentment for not writing books for all those 20 years that I was working as a journalist for different newspapers.

“Really, Emma?”

That thinking honestly surprised me, and that’s why I went back into meditating.

“Emma, without the journalism jobs, there would be no Delivery of the book, that’s how you built your name recognition and following.”

“That’s how you gained experience, mom,” my daughter Doc Emma said.

I meditated with Deepak Chopra and Oprah Winfrey in their newest Desire & Destiny meditation. I highly recommend it, and not just to writers and authors.

It’s better than any “How to…….” manual.

It starts with the paramount question that we should ask ourselves every day.

“Who am I?”

“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”

Mark Twain

My next book signing of Shifting Sands Short Stories will be during the Fallasburg Fall Festival & village bazaar on September 16 & 17 from 1pm to 4 pm at the one-room schoolhouse museum.

Everyone is welcome.

August, book signing, crops, Daily Post prompt, food, prompts, Uncategorized

Foggy walk precedes August rain

August 3, 2017 emmapalova 1 Comment

August delights

Foggy

By Emma Palova

It was a foggy morning walk on the gravel road to the Sisters as August made its grand entrance on the summer scene this week.

After days of drought, the rain was forecasted at 70 percent last night. Ella called the weatherman, a douche bag. That was very appropriate, since “douche” in French means shower.

On Tuesday, I went to the Paulson’s pumpkin patch farmer’s market north of our ranch. I bought our favorites, peaches and plums for the classical Czech summer fruit dumplings dish topped with cottage cheese.

I had to pass on the first harvest of cucumbers, since we will not have the time to can them this year. But we do have a good stock of last year’s sweet and sour pickles to get us through the winter.

Purple blue plums are also the main ingredient in plum brandy, known as “slivovice.” I call plum brandy, the Moravian gold.

It looks like an abundant harvest this year.

blog pics currant 7-20 004 — Czech fruit dumplings with cottage cheese

The Paulson’s farmer’s stand overlooks the vast fields of vegetables, fruits and orchards that were wilting in the heat, along with some marigolds by the fence.

“Did you do the rain dance?” asked me the owner sitting comfortably in an orange folding chair behind the counter loaded with fresh produce.

Among the novelties at the stand were sweet jalapenos. I have yet to try them. But, I did buy yellow cauliflower and red lettuce for different color varietals.

“No, should I?” I asked.

“You should do it every morning,” he said.

Then, I remembered while watering the patio garden, I did run a stream of water on my brand new mysterious “rain chain” and on the tin sunflower, causing it to whirl.

And it finally rained, this morning after I dropped off Ella at the summer school. I went to my favorite hideout, and it poured on the lake. I watched the rain swirl and twirl on the windshield.

But, before that, being totally stripped of any energy, I ate the entire Chocolove xoxox Almonds & Sea Salt dark chocolate bar. It tasted like heaven, after weeks of starving myself for the book signings.

To my great delight, I discovered inside the chocolate wrap a poem by Alexander Pushkin:

Thou and You

She substituted, by a chance,

For empty ‘you’- the gentle ‘thou.’

And all my happy dreams, at once,

In loving heart again resound.

In bliss and silence do I stay,

Unable to maintain my role:

‘Oh, how sweet you are!’ I say-

‘How I love thee!’ says my soul.

It’s going to be a great August.

I am looking forward to the Czech Harvest Festival this Sunday in Bannister. Watch for post.

arts, book release, book signing, Daily Post prompt, fiction, local author, news, press release, prompts, publishing, Shifting Sands Short Stories, short stories, Uncategorized, writing

Shifting Sands Short Stories book press release

July 25, 2017 emmapalova Leave a comment

Local author pens Shifting Sands book of short stories

A press release is a Traditional Gate way to media coverage at large, don’t be a
Dormant writer,or author. You’ve finished your book now what?

For immediate release

July 25, 2017

Contact info

Emma Palova

phone

website

Lowell, MI- Local author Emma Palova of Lowell has published the book Shifting Sands Short Stories, formats kindle and paperback, now available on Amazon for $7.99 and $11.99.

Palova’s book will also be available at the Kent District (KDL) libraries, the Hastings Public Library and in Big Rapids.

She will have a book signing event at the Fallasburg one-room schoolhouse museum on September 16 & 17 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. during the Fallasburg Fall Fest and the Fallasburg village bazaar, with more local author events to be announced. The public is welcome.

The Shifting Sands Short Stories book is a collection of 13 short stories that Palova wrote and collected over the span of more than two decades. The fiction’s genre is magic realism, a combination of fantasy with reality.

“In magic realism you combine the fictitious with fantasy and sometimes you use real characters to model the fictitious characters,” Palova said. “It can be a hybrid. I don’t write about Martians. I write about real people.”

Palova started writing for the Czechoslovak Newsweek based in New York City in 1990 upon arrival in the USA. She initially wrote a column, “A Place for Commentary” in Czech.

Many of the stories are based on experiences Palova has had during her time living and working in the greater Lowell area, West Michigan.

“I am passionate about the hometowns in Midwest America their characters and personalities,” she said. “They are a hardy bunch.”

Palova has been writing for the area publications since 1997 when she launched her journalistic career with Kaechele Publications in Allegan. In 1998, she joined the staff of the Ionia-Sentinel Standard where she received awards for community reporting from the Ionia Chamber of Commerce in 2000 and the Ionia County Community Mental Health, 2003. In 2011, she received an award from American Legion for covering veterans’ events. In 2015, Palova also had a community blog in the Ionia Sentinel-Standard.

Palova worked as a correspondent for the Grand Rapids Press, the Advance Newspapers, Gemini Publications and the Lowell Ledger.

Palova is currently working on the second volume of stories, as well as on the memoir “Greenwich Meridian, where East meets West” about the Konecny family immigration saga from Czechoslovakia to the USA.

She is preparing her first novel, “Fire on Water” based on her communist experience for publication.

Palova has a lifetime passion for history and politics. She does social media marketing for the Fallasburg Historical Society (FHS), and she is working with the Tri-River Historical Museum Network.

“I am deeply humbled by the opportunities this country has given me,” Palova said.

Shifting Sands Short Stories on Amazon, author’s page

https://www.amazon.com/Emma-Palova/e/B0711XJ6GY

For Fallasburg info go to: Fallasburg Today at http://fallasburgtoday.org

book signing, books, Daily Post prompt, events, excerpts, fiction, inspiration, local author, passion, relationships, Uncategorized

Professor Martin buries his obsessions

July 12, 2017 emmapalova Leave a comment

Daily Post prompt Bury with book excerpts from Shifting Sands Short Stories

By Emma Palova

Not only am I buried with all the tasks around marketing my new book of short stories, but one of the early stories “The Temptation of Martin Duggan” touches on burying one’s miseries.

Storyteller 2017 Emma

We often would like to bury a lot of things, and some of them we actually do in meaningless stockpiles. However, sometimes we need to refer back to them, and dig out some parts of the past.

The main character professor Martin Duggan in the story “Temptation of Martin Duggan” finds himself in this position as he confronts the major conflict in his life: and that is his son Joe.

As soon as the daylight broke, Martin grabbed a spade from the garage. There was still morning dew on Rose’s mauve tulips, as Martin started digging a hole in the middle of the garden. Soil and tulips were flying around as Martin dug deeper into the earth.

Along with the brown soil, Martin was also exhuming his suppressed past longings. He intended to bury in the hole all the role models, present and past, including the model of himself.

He ran back into the den. Rose couldn’t sleep all night long. Courageously, she went after him into what used to be his pride, his office. She looked at the rampage Martin left. Little tears, tiny like the dew drops on the destroyed mauve tulips, rolled down her swollen cheeks, as she watched the man she once had loved.

There were broken pieces of furniture scattered all around along with the broken window pane. There were blood stains on the white carpet and some of the papers.

“Martin, stop. Are you crazy?” Rose cried.

Yes.”

Martin was stuffing his books, notes and computer perforated paper into black garbage backs. He filled six bags with equations and solutions. He tied the bags up neatly and ran back into the garden.

Martin, stop, you don’t what you’re doing,” Rose cried helplessly.

He threw the garbage bags into the hole and threw dirt on top to cover them up. He worked diligently, all sweating. He made a neat mound, and stomped on it to level it.

He grabbed again the axe and wanted to chop up the pretty Danish teak furniture in the living room, he only stopped for a minute in front of the oil painting of the Dutch windmill.

“Stop, I am going to call the police,” Rose said. “Don’t you dare turn on me, you crazy fool.”

Rose walked boldly toward Martin and took away his axe. She pushed him into a chair. Martin was panting, exhausted. He was all flushed and couldn’t breathe.

The book Shifting Sands Short Stories is now available on Amazon at:

https://www.amazon.com/Emma-Palova/e/B0711XJ6GY

Emma’s book signing is this Sunday, July 16 at the Fallasburg one-room schoolhouse from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Everyone is invited.

Come and chat with the author in the beautiful historical setting of the 1850s pioneer village of Fallasburg.

Ask the author questions about the egotistical characters in the short stories.