The new American citizen Ludek Pala voting for the first time in the Michigan Presidential Primary at Vergennes Township Precinct 1. Pala was naturalized as an American citizen in 2018 at the Gerald R. Ford Museum in Grand Rapids.
Happy International Women’s Day
Watch for stories from the “Inspiring Women “ series.
Authors @West Michigan Women’s Expo
Included is a list of authors who will be present at the 22nd West Michigan Women’s Expo at Devos Hall from March 13 -March 15. The Great Lakes Writers booth is 976.
PUBLIC SHOW HOURS:
Friday, March 13 – 10:00am – 6:00pm
Saturday, March 14 – 10:00am – 6:00pm
Sunday, March 15 – 11:00am – 4:00pm
DeVos Place
303 Monroe Avenue NW, Grand Rapids MI 49503
Great Lakes Writers
Sherry A. Burton
Jean Davis
Ellen Murray
Laura Holmes
Judith Wade
Norma Lewis
Christina Lonski
Kimberly Mocini
Robert Muladore
Nancy Sanders Pokerwinski (Friday – sharing with Melanie)
Melanie Hooyenga (Saturday and Sunday – sharing with Nancy)
Kathy Spohn
Wendy Thomson
Janet Vormittag
Joan Young (Friday and Saturday –sharing with J.R. Armstrong)
J.R. Armstrong (Sunday – sharing with Joan Young)
Emma Palova
Set-up info
Load-in is Thursday at 5:30 p.m. We’re the last ones to load in. Last year load-in was running behind. When I arrived, our tables weren’t setup yet. I’ll be down there Thursday and you’re welcome to load-in then, but you can easily come early Friday morning.
We’ll be the first to load out on Sunday. They’ll want us out a few minutes before closing. This is because our space is where they pull in vehicles.
I put in everyone’s names for Badges. If you come Thursday afternoon, look for the Exhibitors table and ask for your badge. We’re under Great Lakes Writers. If you come early Friday, the Exhibitors entrance is next to the main entrance to the hall. They’ll have badges there.
Copyright (c) 2020. Emma Blogs, LLC. All rights reserved.
Greenwich Meridian memoir preorder
By Emma Palova
Lowell, MI – Happy Monday to all. This has been one of my happiest Mondays ever. I have just submitted my third book “Greenwich Meridian Memoir” for preorder on kindle Amazon. I will be offering tips on both my EW Emma’s Writings blog and on Facebook, on how to write a memoir. The cover was designed by graphic artist Jeanne Boss of Rockford. We selected a collage of memorabilia including my mother’s Sudanese driving license, the Czech coat-of-arms and postcards.
Greenwich Meridian Memoir is an epic tale of love and immigration spanning three continents and two generations. The story takes place on the backdrop of two major historical events in former Czechoslovakia: Prague Spring 1968 and Velvet Revolution 1989. The two events have propelled the major characters into unpredictable action as they journeyed into the unknown. Inspite of the trials and tribulations, Ella and Vaclav have never lost their passion for each other. The next generation Emma and Ludek followed in their footsteps.
The manuscript is being edited by Carol Briggs of Lowell. It has been one of the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life and that includes surviving the recession of 2007 and two major historic events in former Czechoslovakia. I would like to thank all my friends, family and #NaNoWriMo for the support and keeping me on track.Check out my Amazon author page at https://www.amazon.com/Emma-Palova/e/B0711XJ6GY
Author’s events
West Michigan Women’s Expo, Devos Place, Grand Rapids
I will be at the West Michigan Women’s Expo on March 13- March 15 at Devos Place with my previous books from the Shifting Sands Short Stories series, and with the preorder for the memoir.
There will be other @Michigan Authors present.
Stop by our authors’ area and meet your next favorite book.
Venice Book Fair, Blalock Park
I will be in Venice, FL on Saturday, March 21 for the 9th annual Venice Book Fair in Blalock Park from 9 a.m. – 3 p.m.
Copyright (c) 2020. Emma Blogs, LLC. All rights reserved.
Happy
It’s Feb. 25th 3 p.m., and I am watching an ice fisherman sitting in a green jacket in the middle of Murray Lake that is thawing. He doesn’t have a shanty, only a sled with gear. I can see already water by the shore. Everyone else has left but him. He has no care but for his bluegills. And another one is just trekking across the dangerous waters to his spot.
I call this passion or craziness. Sometimes, I feel the same way about writing. You’re always treading unknown waters.
I have just uploaded the final Greenwich Meridian Memoir manuscript to editor Carol Briggs. Thank you Carol for your tremendous help. What a relief.
And I think we have resolved the book cover with graphic artist Jeanne Boss. I would not be able to do this without the help of others; direct and indirect.
Indirect help was in the form of encouragement and inspiration from others, as well as the interest in our immigration story from former Czechoslovakia to the U.S.
“You have a responsibility to write this,” said Richie, my parents’ neighbor at their 60th wedding anniversary in August, 2019 in Big Rapids. The memoir is dedicated to them: Ella & Vaclav Konecny. They braved three continents including Africa, and they never lost their passion for each other.
The book is slated for publication this summer. The kindle version will be available for pre-order on Amazon.
See you at the West Michigan Women’s Expo from March 13 through March 15, in Venice, FL on March 21.
Copyright (c) 2020. EMMA Blogs, LLC. All rights reserved.
West Michigan Women’s Expo
I am really looking forward to this first event of the book tour season 2020. I still haven’t come up with a name for my book tour.
I am readying the third book “Greenwich Meridian Memoir” for the market. It will be available for pre-order on kindle Amazon. It is going to the editor Carol Briggs this week.Greenwich Meridian Excerpt
The cover was designed by graphic designer Jeanne Boss, editor emeritus of the Lowell Ledger.
Greenwich Meridian Excerpt
Life was a lot like living in a shoebox next to another shoebox, while the shoeboxes were stacked on top of each other with the imminent danger of collapsing in those infamous megacomplexes.
There was not much one could do because of the constant scrutiny by jealous neighbors, bosses, other employees or the police. The police were called public safety for propaganda purposes to protect us.
Jealousy was the ruling emotion or feeling. No one was safe from this monster. It also had many different forms and ugly faces. Like a Medusa, they reared their heads at any given time.
Family members were not immune either from any of this. On the contrary, jealousy was magnified among siblings. Some had more, some had less. It was the communist version of Hemingway’s “The Haves and the Have Nots.”
Resentment over the 1968 Soviet occupation and massive exodus into the Western world never really went away. It still lingered in households. There was animosity between those who left the country during the Soviet occupation and those who stayed. That is the expatriates were despised, and the freedom fighters who stayed, were jailed but honored.
It was like being the only child for a long time, and then a younger sibling is born. One can’t help but be resentful over what was before and after everything had changed.
Copyright (c) 2020. Emma Blogs, LLC. All rights reserved.
Whites Bridge
Stay tuned for a full story on the making of a new covered bridge.
Copyright (c) 2020. Emma Blogs, LLC. All rights reserved.
Final revisions of Greenwich Meridian memoir
I finally crossed the 51-k word line with the revisions of the Greenwich Meridian Memoir. I have two more chapters to go.
Excerpt
The Haves and the Have Nots
The useless feeling never went away; it intensified with time until it became a monster. I watched this happen between my mom Ella and her younger sister Anna over the years before 1968 and after my parents’ immigration to the USA.
In 2018, Time published a special edition:1968 The Year That Shaped a Generation with introduction: “Like a knife blade, the year severed past from future.”
Before 1968, the two sisters were like regular siblings with occasional hard and soft feelings for each other. They even went together on vacations with their spouses to the Tatra Mountains in Slovakia. Aunt Anna is also my godmother as was the custom in the old country for the closest relatives to be the Godparents.
Their parents treated them equally as any parent would. They had similar hopes and dreams. Neither one of them made a lot of money.
Life before the 1968 “Socialism with a human face” movement started by Alexander Dubcek and the Velvet Revolution in 1989 was simple.
People enjoyed both the advantages and the disadvantages of socialism; everyone had the right to work. There was no such thing as unemployment. If you were unemployed for more than six weeks, you went to jail. Since the economy was regulated and planned, there was always work, whatever work and any work at any given time. If you wanted a good job, you needed connections or my mom’s long arm.
That was balanced out by having to stand in long lines for basic items such as toilet paper. However, college education was free, along with healthcare for all and free daycare.
Travel was more problematic and based on your “profile.” We each had a profile ever since we were old enough to join the Socialist Youth Union at approximately the age of 14. The profile also contained information about your parents. Then volunteer hours on socialist projects were added to the profile. At 18, you were expected to become a member in the Czechoslovak Communist Party and get your red membership card. Soon profile info started to add up in your favor or against you.
Certain things were unacceptable like if your family was a member of the bourgeoisie, royalty or owned land, you would definitely go nowhere. Based on the bizarre profile criteria, if they were good, you could go to Yugoslavia or maybe somewhere west if you got the exit visa.
If your profile was bad like mine, because we left the country illegally for the USA, you sat at home. The profile thing continues to puzzle me to this day.
Like in Hitler’s Germany nothing was ever forgotten or forgiven. That was in an era before computers. The whole socialist machinery was like a self-fulfilling prophecy. You always got what you didn’t wish for, but somebody else wanted it for you. Sometimes you never found out who wanted all that hogwash for you.
“Oh, we just wanted the best for you,” a voice would say.
“How do you know what’s best for me?” I asked.
“Socialism never sleeps,” the voice would persist. “We know what’s best for the country. Look at all the improvements in the last 40 years.”
Banners hung on buildings proclaiming the “Successes of Socialism” and the bright future for the socialist youth like me.
We were constantly brainwashed with the socialist youth philosophy, even though they did not want me in the Socialist Youth Union, which was too bad for them.
Copyright (c) 2020. Emma Blogs, LLC. All rights reserved.
On the lake
Memoir Revisions
On track with final revisions of the Greenwich Meridian Memoir
By Emma Palova
Lowell, MI – As of Saturday, I’ve crossed the 40,000- word mark of the final revisions of the Greenwich Meridian Memoir about our family immigration saga from former Czechoslovakia. I completed the first draft during the NaNoWriMo 2019 challenge and I signed the pledge to revise and revise again.
The memoir spans more than 50 years of trials and tribulations of two generations alternating with victories. The epic story started with the Prague Spring of 1968; it was exacerbated by the presidential amnesty in 1973 for political refugees and it peaked in the Velvet Revolution of 1989.
These are the historical anchors that pitched the characters into action, sometimes against their own will or the will of others.
At each crossroad, the characters had to make major decisions for themselves and for others. Time hasn’t erased some resentments.
Read in: Excerpt from Greenwich Meridian Memoir written in her own words by mom Ella
“Charles, here’s another one with three passports,” he said.
Charles came and took me and the kids to a room where we waited the entire afternoon. The officials were waiting for other airplanes that spit out similar victims like me. At this moment, I knew there was something wrong; I remembered Vaclav’s friend from Canada warning me not to return, that the amnesty wasn’t working. All the joy from returning home was gone and I kept thinking what’s going to happen with us.
Around 6 p.m., a man in a dark suit entered the room and took us through the many hallways and backdoors back on the tarmac. However, there was no plane; instead there was a minivan with six to eight people seated in it. What ensued was the saddest trip through Prague that I will never forget. We were headed into the unknown- that always in the communist system foreshadowed bad things to come.
I regretted that I had left the peaceful village of Hawkins. I prayed to God to save us from all evil. I thought they were taking us to jail. Looking through the minivan window, I envied each pedestrian walking on the sidewalk his freedom and liberty. We drove through the entire capital Prague and continued south of the city. We were in Trebotov, according to the signs by the road. After a short ride through the city we made a turn to a four-story building. I don’t know what was exactly on the signs on the building, probably some kind of a hospital facility. Two soldiers with guns were guarding the gates.
The driver opened the doors of the minivan and told us to get out. I was increasingly scared as my heart skipped a beat. Nobody wanted to get out of the minivan; they had to tell us twice. Later we found out that the facility was a hospital for people with long-term illnesses.
After the declaration of the amnesty in February, that lasted through the end of 1973 and impacted 40,000 to 50,000 Czechoslovaks who fled abroad, the Interior Ministery rented the austere building for the 1968 refugees, who decided to return to the homeland. The officials used an excuse that we may have contracted different diseases in foreign countries and that we needed to undergo health screening. However, during our stay at the quarantine, we never had any tests done, X-rays or blood tests; it was a camouflage for the public.
The cover was designed by graphic artist Jeanne Boss of Rockford.
To be continued…..
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