Featured Post

TORN From the Inside Out & THE JOURNEY

 MEMOIRS In 1973,  a young woman, barely sixteen years old, and a zealous member of a cultist religious group, married a twenty-three year-o...

Showing posts with label author. Show all posts
Showing posts with label author. Show all posts

Saturday, May 31, 2014

Tribute to Maya Angelou by Sara Niles

Maya Angelou died just three days ago, on May 28, 2014. I was a twelve year-old girl when I first heard of Maya Angelou, the author of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and I was engrossed when the story was told via a PBS documentary some years later. I read the book when I was in middle school for the first time, and I re-read it several times thereafter; each time finding a greater depth of meaning as my own perspective of life had expanded. 

I found Dr. Angelou to be a fascinating person as a whole of her many composite selves: the author and poet, the innovative entrepreneur, the multi-talented actress and dancer, and most of all, the tireless humanitarian philosopher and perpetual teacher whose motto was  “ If you learn, teach.”

Maya Angelou was a self-made woman whose phenomenal personality enriched the world that she lived in.
She was indeed a Phenomenal Woman:  Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou from Oprah.com, because when she walked into the ‘room’ of the world and made her place, she was noticed as she walked through life with her head “not bowed”, and even though she did not “talk real loud”, she left the echo of her words behind.

I feel I have lost another part of my life, another life member, because my world has had her in it since I was a child. Although I never met her, I knew she was there... her presence defining the perimeters of the literary world; her tweets and posts providing encouragement and hope for everyone.
I woke up today and remembered she is gone. I offer tribute to the woman who was born to small things yet rose to greatness.

Dr. Maya Angelou’s biography: Biography of Maya Angelou from Maya Angelou.com


Sunday, December 15, 2013

The Torn Trilogy By Sara Niles

Quote from Torn From the Inside Out

“For the next half decade, I lived on the ‘flower bed of Eden’, as Cousin Andrew called it.  The days were never long enough; perhaps that is why I hated to sleep.  Seasons came and went in a panorama of delight.  The record ice storm of the early 1960’s was a great memory to me as a small child, as I watched the storm through steam fogged windows, warm and snug, as the loud popping of snapping pine trees screamed with the howling winds. Nothing caused me to fear those years, because I felt perfectly safe, as I expected I always would”

From: The Journey
“When the dark night ended, a new day dawned for us when my children were still small, and the new day was a long as the long night had been, and in some ways, just as frightening”



“Love is one of the greatest human emotions and a powerful force in its own right, but even love cannot prevent some things from happening”


“Sometimes when you become so accustomed to loss, a new loss is only part of your usual ‘normal’”


“Our flight to freedom and safety was filled with a calm suppressed terror in the children and I, the type terror you have when you are used to living with danger

Quotes and Excerpts
From: Out of the Maelstrom

“He was dead, alright. The sight of death is an ugly and fearsome thing, I thought, as I absorbed the tragic sight in front of me. It was a man, ‘The man’ , was lying in the road with blackish- red blood pooled around his head, and as he lay face down with his feet in his own yard, while his head and shoulders were planted in the street, he gave the appearance of  a killed animal felled in its tracks by a hunter. 

Sunday, August 18, 2013

Robert Galbraith’s The Cuckoos Calling …by J.K. Rowling


By Sara Niles

So the secret is out: J.K. Rowling hid her identity behind the pen name Robert Galbraith in order to pen her second adult book since the Potter series (http://www.hypable.com/2013/08/16/jk-rowling-new-book-plans/). Of course, when you are as big and internationally famous as Rowling, there is no use trying to hide. We know who you are, and we will find you, no matter what pseudonym you use.

It seems obvious why Rowling would not want her name to get in the way of her writing-she wanted to be known for her writing and not her name. Either way, the results will be the same: readers read because they want to. There is no way to make a reader love your writing simply because of a name.

So what is the verdict so far, from the true judges, the readers?  Good and exceptional.

 If you go to Amazon and check the thousands of reviews, they are all overwhelmingly five stars, and I agree:  http://www.amazon.com/The-Cuckoos-Calling-Robert-Galbraith/dp/0316206849/    

I did not really like her first book: The Casual Vacancy, but this one is much better; she is definitely getting her adult writer’s pen in shape and her adult plots in form. I look forward to more from Rowling, under whatever name she chooses next.