A trip down memory lane

[Margaret Tanner]

Remember the 1960's?
My latest release, "Cardinal Sin", from The Wild Rose Press is set against the background of the Vietnam war. It received a great review from Writers and Readers of Distinctive Fiction (WRDF)
Who remembers the mini-skirts, manual typewriters, hippies and the Vietnam War. Remember the catch-cry Make Love Not War? I worked in a Goverment office in those days, wore mini-skirts (I had slim legs then), Beatles concerts. Wow, those were the days.
Regards
Margaret

[Sidney Allinson]

Like you, Margaret, I too lived through the Sixties. It is
remarkable how they are already becoming close to being
considered an "historical era."
Currently, I am writing a police procedural novel set in 1968.
Though pleasureable to write, it is also quite demanding,
in that 1968 was vastly different from 2008, in almost every
aspect of daily living. So, writing about back then demands
combining my personal recollections along with contemporary
research of those times.
I wonder if any other members here have used the 1960s as
the setting for a "historical" novel?
-- Sidney Allinson.

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JEREMY KANE: A Canadian novel of the 1837 Mackenzie Rebellion
and its brutal aftermath in the Australian penal colonies.
http://tinyurl.com/5orl7x

[William Ramsay]

Ah, the good old days. I'd sit there with my tape recorder (I'd hire someone to type up the tape for me), stroking my sideburns, smoking my reefer, buttoning and unbuttoning my leisure suit, spewing out the words that would make up a non-fiction MS (never published) on how the whole world was going to change and there would be equality and love and harmony everywhere from now on. (Whatever happened, guys?) Well, I think the breath of fresh air (the "mighty wind"?) blowing through the era did something to wash away some prejudices and stale ideas. But -- surprisingly -- human nature didn't change as predicted! (A good lesson for a novelist, I think.)
---Bill Ramsay
-------------------------------------------------
Me and King John:Medieval and Modern History Ransacked, as an Evil King Shakes His Family Tree to Try to Improve His Karma.
(Available at booklocker.com)

[Laurel Lamperd]

Life was so different then, wasn't it? The Internet has changed our world. What a good idea to bring the Vietnam War back in a novel, Margaret. I hope you have lots of success with it. Laurel


Laurel Lamperd
Wind from Danyari – a family saga
Available fromwww.wings-press.com
http://laurel6346.tripod.com

[Sidney Allinson]

Let me share a pleasant surprise I had the other day.

In our local public library reference dept, I noticed a shiny big book titled, Canadian Fiction – A Guide To Reading Interests, by Sharon Smith, Libraries Unlimited, Westport, Conn. 2006.

With no expectations at all, I idly looked up my own name – and there I was! Mention of one of my books I wrote 10 years ago.

The listing reads:

"Historical Fiction

Allinson, Sidney.

Jeremy Kane: A Canadian Historical Adventure Novel of the 1837 Mackenzie Rebellion and Its Brutal Aftermath in the Australian Penal Colonies. Xlibris Corp., 1998. 364pp.

Following the failure of the Rebellion of 1837, Mackenzie supporter Jeremy Kane and 100 other rebels are transported to a penal colony in Tasmania. Young Jeremy's hope and determination enable him to overcome the horrors of nineteenth-century prison sentence to transportation for life.

Second Appeal: Story

Subjects: Australia • Convicts • Nineteenth Century • Penal Colonies • Prisons • Re­bellion of 1837 • Tasmania."

The moral for us all: Publicity is wherever you find it!

Sidney.

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book business plan
www.eRichWriter.com

[Laurel Lamperd]

How interesting for you Sydney. And what a great flip to your self confidence as a writer. I've yet to find my name anywhere. Laurel

Laurel Lamperd
Wind from Danyari – a family saga
Available fromwww.wings-press.com
http://laurel6346.tripod.com

[Douglas W. Jacobson]

No one our age will ever forget the '60s. I was in college at the University of Wisconsin at the time, complete with street demonstartions, protests against Dow Chemical and napalm, tear gas mixing with the smell of pot in the student union. It was a time of awakening to the power that people can have if they're willing to protest aganst what they feel is wrong or unjust but an equally imporatnt lesson was also learned. And that is when protest crosses the line to crime and violence every good thing that might have happened dies quickly. That happened at UW in 1971 when a young man named Karl Armstrong set off a bomb in a mathematics building and killed an innocent graduate student. The mood on campus changed in a heartbeat and whatever impetus there was for constructive change in the war policy evaporated. Lesson learned? Perhaps, but perhaps not. History, as we know, does have a way of repeating itself. But, I still had the Eugene McCarthy bumper sticker on my 1963 Ford when I showed up for work at Chevron.