2024 Annual Report & "WINNER-WINNER CHICKEN DINNER" Last 2024 GIVEAWAY Winner!
Happy mid-point of the 1st Quarter of 2025 Fishbowl Review!
My New Year’s resolution was to write y’all an update about what’s swirling in the Fishbowl AND FINALLY draw the winner of the 4th Quarter Winner-Winner Giveaway first thing… January 1st…
Well, that’s one broken resolution out of the way. (Have no fear, I will announce the winner shortly.) First the news!
The end of 2024 beginning of 2025 knocked me sideways. (Maybe not for the reason you might imagine.) My mother decided it was time to move on to better. Mom had been ill, physically and/or mentally for most of her life. On her 88th birthday, August 27th, she told me she was done, that there was such a thing as living too long. When Mary Ellen Silva made up her mind to do a thing, she did. She passed gently into brightness on Jan 3rd.
What some of you know is that my mother, what she lacked in physicality she made up for in creativity.
Several years back, Mom began drawing cards with fun pictures and saying on them, which she generously mailed to family and friends. Then, an avid reader, she turned to creating bookmarks. Bookmarks decorated with fun doodles, stickers, clever sayings and quiz show-style questions (answers on the back.)
This card of Elvis is one of her earliest—and a personal fav. It hangs in my office.
One day I asked if I could put some of them in the books in my Little Free Library. Mom flew into production. On a weekly basis she’d send me manila envelopes filled with bookmarks, which I happily popped into my LFL books. (The books often returned; the bookmarks never did.)
Mom’s last project was to be sure every caregiver received an envelope filled with bookmarks created especially for them—some 30-plus caregivers.
As mom lay dying, and in those days after she passed, everyone I saw at Cascades, her assisted living, told me about her bookmarks. Many had one in their pockets. So yes, Mary Ellen Silva McAndrews, artist name “Merry,” will live on, in all of us and her art.
People often ask me why I became a writer—more than that an author.
I think that’s why. In the same way, as much as mom loved creating art, she loved sharing it and enjoyed the idea of other people being moved by her creations—and by the idea of immortality through art.
Mom had this “glamour shot” taken when she and my grandmother went to a Vegas show. It was one she particularly liked—and why not?
The agony and the ecstasy! I’m writing on the tailwind of an incredible, once unimaginable, cycle trip in Southern Cambodia and Vietnam. A short clip of me riding through a village near Seim Reap is on youtube:
Big deal? Yes, it is! I planted my feet, smelled cooking, feasted on roadside visions, heard voices, music, laughter I had imagined more than 20 years ago. Literally! What many of you may not know is that along with my writing partner of 20 years, Ronnie Davidson (our pen name is “Jill Max”) I wrote a middle-grade memoir about a boy’s struggle to survive in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge regime—aka “time of the Killing Fields.”
The book, a memoir of a boy (now father) called “Mok” is the result of more than 4 years of Saturday interviews with “Mok” and copious hours spent reading everything we could to find out what the heck really happened in Cambodia, and why. The book was finally published several years after it was finished, after long agonizing years of “Yes, send it!” from editors followed by crickets. (Most deemed the subject too “tough” for children to handle.)
Strangers in Black by Jill Max, was published in 2006 by Royal Fireworks Press.
(Yes, the book is still in print. Available from the publisher and other booksellers, Amazon included.)
One delightful event during my time in Cambodia was a visit to The Green School, a non-profit school which supplements the free education program in Kampong Tralach. In Cambodia, free education is 4 hours a day, 6 days a week, with elementary schools in most villages but beyond that children must travel (sometimes long distances) for more. An expensive commitment for the family, and with education non-compulsory, not a priority. The Green School focuses on Computer Training, English, Ethics and it has a library. (I donated copies of my books, of course. What a thrill imaging people learning English with my stories.) Here’s a video from the visit.
What else? Segueing faster than a Ruthian hit, my non-fiction picture book The House That Ruth Built about the opening day game in the original Yankee Stadium, baseball history, and Babe Ruth’s big wish needs YOUR help!
While baseball folks of all ages—Sox fans exclude)—love the book! (The sidebars trivia, facts, and photos combined with Susanna Covelli’s authentic, gorgeous art are worth the price alone.) It hasn’t garnered the attention it deserves.
That’s where YOU come in. If you have baseball fans in your life—better on your gift list—buy it.
Even if you don’t: review it, add it to your reading lists, share it on your social, even just look at it on Amazon. Every bit helps!
Up Next? More Baseball! More Babe! Call it Spring Training for baseball lovers. It’s a gift book really. (Think Father’s Day, Birthday, Graduation, Inspiration—the what folks by for the baseball fans in their lives book! While I was collecting baseball facts and photos for The House That Ruth Built, I kept jotting down quotes by and about Babe worth chewing on. And better, became acquainted with Babe’s grandson and great-grandson Brent and their family friend Stu Dressler. The three of us, Brent, Stu and I, approached Familus with the idea of compiling them in a collection along with some photos from the family collection and elsewhere.
Out of the Mouth of Babe
comes out April 15th from Familius.
Check it out! Better yet, Pre-order it NOW! for everyone in your family (Red Sox fans INcluded).
And now! The moment you’ve all been awaiting: The Winner of the 2024 4th Quarter “Winner-Winner Chicken Dinner” Give-Away is….
(First an announcement: This will be the last quarterly giveaway. At least for the foreseeable future. Instead I’ll be hosting other giveaways. More about those later. )
The Winner of the 2024 4th Quarter “Winner-Winner Chicken Dinner” Give-Away is…
jpuglow
*jpuglow I removed your email ending to protect you from sneaks—but YOU know who you are! Besides, you will be notified by email, so check your spam folder.)
The lucky winner will win dinner with a chicken or their choice of any one of these fabulous prizes:
More exciting stuff! Along with writing a poem a day—for more than 3200 days—and creating weekly prompts to share with you, Cindy Faughnan and I began submitting our poems and have had several published. Most recently, my poem was chosen as Rattle Poetry’s poem of the month in November. Here’s the link to “All The Fixings”. It includes a clip of me reading it, yum!
And that’s not all! The weekly 7-minute Poetry Challenge will continue. I have more book news coming, which I’ll share soon. What’s most? I hope 2025 brings you all copious belly laughs! and lots of creative moments. I appreciate your support!
Glugs and hugs from the Fishbowl, Kelly