The Little Book that Could

Let me share with you a 5-star review of my novel No Irish Need Apply

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1434893952

Poetic Prose with Both Depth and Substance, April 26, 2009

Review By Greg Banks (www.wheelmanpress.com)

It's not often these days that you come across writing that possesses both the literary beauty of a classic poem with the depth and substance of a contemporary tale. A story may be gritty and real, with writing that reflects the coarseness of the environment in which the characters live, or you have prose that weaves a magical spell with beautiful turns of phrase, but once you're done reading it leaves you with little to chew on after the fact. But "No Irish Need Apply" by Edward C. Patterson contains both substance and style, a contemporary tale with told with the poetic beauty of the literary classics of the past. "No Irish Need Apply," a reference to the times when Irish immigrants were discriminated against, blatantly reflected by signs posted outside many establishments letting it be known that if you were Irish, then you shouldn't bother coming inside, is a story of love, a forbidden love in many circles, because it's the love story for two teen boys. For many, the subject may be controversial, even considered a topic as forbidden as the incidents it portrays. But in the hands (or should I say pen?) of Mr. Patterson, the story is told with compassion and grace. The tale of these teens as they come to recognize, and eventually accept, their growing love for one another is one which transcends the stigmas and prejudices surrounding homosexuality. It's a story that lives and breathes, takes you inside the minds of two young men dealing with issues that pretty much every human being should be able to identify with. "No Irish Need Apply" isn't a preachy tale, nor a rant against the establishment that denies same-sex relationships equal protection under the law. It's simply a story about teenage angst and love, and of two people trying to find themselves as they discover each other.

If the world is lucky, stories like this one that will kick down the walls of prejudice and the misguided applications of morality that still plagues our world, and in doing so bring better understanding and acceptance to us all. "No Irish Need Apply" isn't just a must read in my opinion, it should be required reading for everyone. Do yourself a favor and read it today. -

Gregory Bernard Banks, author of "2012: Seeking Closure"

The Academician Reduced on the Kindle

For a Limited time only, Edward C. Patterson's latest novel (March 2009) The Academican - Southern Swallow - Book One, priced at $ .99 (NINETY-NINE Cents)

37 years in development, this tale of 12th Century China is finally here:

The Academician http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001UE7D96

Description
"A bigger fool the world has never known than I - a coarse fellow with no business to clutch a brush and scribble. I only know the scrawl, because my master took pleasure in teaching me between my chores. Not many men are so cursed . . ." Thus begins the tale of Li K’ai-men as told by his faithful, but mischievous servant, K’u Ko-ling - a tale of 12th Century China, where state service meant a life long journey across a landscape of turmoil and bliss. A tale of sacrifice, love, war and duty - a fragile balance between rituals and passions. An epic commitment between two men to define the indefinable in their own world and time. Here begins the legacy of the Jade Owl and its custodian as he holds true to his warrants.

The Academician is the first of four books in the Southern Swallow series, capturing the turbulence of the Sung Dynasty in transition. Spanning the silvery days under the Emperor Hui to the disasters that followed, The Academician is a slice of world events that should never have been forgotten. Still, there are things more important than invasions and empires. The world’s fate rests in the warrants of Li K’ai-men, this young scholar from Gui-lin, called master by his faithful servant, but known as Nan Ya to the world.

Edward C. Patterson. M.A.

Ed Patterson to be on Bobby Ozuna's Radio Show this Wednesday 4/22

I'm happy to announce that I will be interviewed as the guest author on Bobby Ozuna's internet Radio Show the Soul of Humanity THIS Wednesday night @ 7PM CST: 4/22/2009

Please join the thousands of listeners at
The Soul of Humanity, on the Artist First Radio Network:
http://artistfirst.com/bobbyozuna.htm
and also visit Bobby's Ozuna's blog, where I will be featured for Q & A.
http://inotauthor.blogspot.com

Thank youEdward C. Patterson
http://www.dancaster.com

How the Kindle SAVED My Life! Hallelujah!

Reposted from Kindleboards
http://www.kindleboards.com

Before the Kindle, there were BOOKS - big, beautiful, bodacious BOOKS, with all manner of fonts sizes that regalled me from an ever growing library that crept from one end of my living space to another. When I left the house, be it for a train commute in the 1970's or a "what to read at lunch time" tote (now), I would need to SELECT, and since I read more than one book at a time, I had a backpack filled with books chosen from the sagging shelf. Heavy on the back. And when carried under the arm, a balancing act. And when I dozed over my books, as I eventually do, they slipped out of my hands and jettisoned across the train or the lunchroom floor. And in bed, they would crash on my face and tumble to the floor. Oh, what troubadours we are - those who read the BOOKS.

Then - the Kindle. Now, with my entire library of 3,700 books contained in a StarTrek size (or more like an etch-a-sketch size) device, I no longer need to backpack it or tote or even make decisions before the hallowed shelves. Before the Kindle, I read about 2 hours a day, maybe three books on the go. However, as an author, I am suppose to read as many hours a day as I write, and I write for four hours a day. With the Kindle, my reading proclivity has risen to the appropriate requirement for a writer. I also have six or seven books on the go. And for a reader who has only one good eye (the other is as dumb as an olive), the Kindle's capability of resurrecting small print to Olympian sizes (and at will), has resurrected my reading life.
But there's more. I can publish on the Kindle, privately to edit on the fly, and publicly in tandem with my print output. But most of all, the Kindle has put me in league with a host of other readers and authors, who have been touched by this Promethean commodity. True, I have a TV and a DVD and a Blackberry and a YouTube capable Computer - BUT the written word can take you to the ends of the earth and the beginnings of the first spark (which last time I looked was called, a Kindle). Just to be able to hold the wealth of the world in your hand is to be given opportunities beyond thinking - an imaginative voyage that doesn't need dusting shelf-space, but just the occasional recharge and new battery. I am never without my Kindle. It is the first thing I pick up in the morning (NY Times) and the last thing I set aside at night (beside my besotted spectacles). And yet, there was life before it. I read before it. I wrote before it. I even got my hands dirty with newsprint before it. However, with it my life is changed - supercharged. It has helped get my thoughts out into the community and it has cloaked me with a bounty of the language's best. What more can there be? Well, one might hope for Hogwarts and Middle Earth to join the ranks Narnia, but even if they don't, I'll find room on that darn shelf that I call a shrine now, for the reticent and the recalcitrant, in a format that is now a viable alternative.
How has the Kindle changed your life?

Edward C. Patterson
author of The Jade Owl

Edward C. Patterson Interviewed by Amanda Young

I gave an Interview on Amanda Young's Romance website, complete with excerpts and covers. Come take a look and let me know what you think.

http://www.amandayoung.org/blog/

Edward C. Patterson
www.dancaster.com

Bobby's Trace NOW Nine-nine Cents on the Kindle

I am pleased to announce that for a limited time only I have reduced the price of my Kindle Novel:

Bobby's Trace (4 1/2 stars - 11 reviewers)
now available on Amazon.com for $ .99 (NINETY-NINE CENTS)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00150Z5HC

Description:
Do ghosts mourn the living? Perry Chaplin is in mourning for his life partner, Bobby - a time of stress, notwithstanding. The more he drifts, the more he becomes unhinged until he's one room short of a rubber one. "Get a grip, Perry." So he takes his chances on a blind date, which further plunges him along the nightmare highway. He gets an unsought lesson in life-after-death that turns his bereavement into a horrific adventure. Come peek through Perry Chaplin's mysterious window. See what there is to see. Enter Our Lady of Perpetual Grace, where the holy water boils and the confessionals whisper. What lurks in the rectory's attic? What lies beneath the surface of life and death? What comes in Bobby's - in Bobby's trace? Do ghosts mourn the living? Perry Chaplin knows. Will you?

Edward C. Patterson
www.dancaster.com
COME VISIT THE Best Kindle Book Deals Listomania Page for some great Bargain Kindle Reads.
http://tiny.cc/CzgB0

Southern Swallow and His “Cut-Sleeve” Affair

I received an inquiry from a reader of The Academician about the use of the term "cut-sleeve affair" when referring to homosexuality during the Sung (Song) Dynasty (12th Century) China, the setting for the novel. Perhaps I should have added a footnote in the book. However, the work is a "novel," not a textbook. Although the term, and another one, "sharing a peach," are clear in their application, I owe the non-sinological world an explanation.

Homosexuality in China has been regarded variously during its long and eventful history. Unlike in the West, none of China’s traditional religions and philosophy regards homosexuality as a sin. However, in an agrarian Confucian society, there are certain obligations within relationships that homosexuality precludes — procreation being one. Homosexuality is not the only area that has been evaluated in light of fulfilling one’s obligations to produce children. Buddhism has been subject to a similar and, actually greater hostility, until it modulated into its particularly Chinese brand of the religion. During Ancient times (Warring States and Han), homosexuality wasn’t necessarily accepted, but it was broad based enough on the Imperial level that it was hard to ignore. The term "sharing a peach" came into vogue after a young man, Mi Tzi-xia, offered Duke Ling of the State of Wei a partially eaten, but juicy peach as an entrée to a same-sex relationship. More famous, and as such a more widely applied term, came with the young Emperor Ai, the last Western Han Emperor (9 CE), whose male concubine, Tung Xien, was prominent at court. As the Han Histories state it, Tung Xien fell asleep in Ai-tsung’s arms and, rather than disturb his sleep, the Emperor had his robe sleeves cut away in order to depart. This term for homosexual relationships — a "cut sleeve affair" entered into common parlance since.

During the Sung (Song) Dynasty, the period of The Academician, there was ambivalence about "cut-sleeve affairs." In the novel (as it would be in life), Li K’ai-men does his Confucian duty, marries and cohabitates with his wife and produces two sons, as it should be. His male lover, Fu Lin-t’o, finds himself in a strange limbo between Li’s love and his place in the Confucian order of things. He is not discriminated against and becomes part of the household, but still finds prejudices at every turn, even in the feng-shui notions of keeping heaven balanced. The Southern Swallow series is built around the long life of this cut-sleeve affair and its resilience against all odds. Homosexuality, as open and common, reached its zenith during the Ming Dynasty, when the court was as gay as King Frederick of Prussia’s. There was also a brand of same-sex marriage in Fu-ch’ien Province referred to as "Fu-ch’ien Marriages." With the Manchu conquest in 1640 under the Ch’ing (Qing) Dynasty, homosexuality was dealt a blow. Anything suggesting Ming hedony was suppressed by the more conservative conquerors. While the Ch’ing were importing Western cannon and clocks, they also were importing Jesuit views on homosexuality. In 1740, the K’ang-xi Emperor proscribed homosexuality and it was criminalized (not by death, but with strokes with the bamboo rod). There has been much debate as to whether the new laws were enforced. Still, homosexuality was criminalized in China until 1997 and in Hong Kong until the repatriation in 2000.

So from earliest times to the present, China has had a different view of homosexuality than the rest of the world. It was never a wholesale endorsement, but like many other social institutions, it was required to conform to strict societal relationships, which it did better than some other peculiar Chinese dishes like Buddhism (an Indian import). The euphemisms "a cut-sleeve affair" and "sharing a peach" were used in polite reference, not like Western euphemisms (light in the sneakers etc.). One of my aims, amongst others, in authoring The Academician was to develop a tung-xing-lien (companionable relationship – the Chinese word for homosexuality) during a more enlightened age. The novels span between 1124 – 1172 CE, a time when Western civilization was searching through the mud for its sandals and homosexuality was punishable by lighting the fires and burning the sinners.

Edward C. Patterson

More information on The Aacdemician http://www.amazon.com/dp/144149975X

Press Release on The Academician

After 30 Year in the Making, Patterson's The Academician is to be released on March 9th

The author of Jade Owl Legacy Series, Edward C. Patterson, is releasing the first book in the Southern Swallow Series - The Academician on March 9th, 2009. This novel of 12th Century China, the product of 30 years work. is a real eye-opener.

The Academician - Book I of Southern Swallow

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PRLog (Press Release) – Mar 02, 2009 – The Academician is to be published by the author of The Jade Owl Series, Edward C. Patterson:

“A bigger fool the world has never known than I — a coarse fellow with no business to clutch a brush and scribble. I only know the scrawl, because my master took pleasure in teaching me between my chores. Not many men are so cursed . . .” Thus begins the tale of Li K’ai-men as told by his faithful, but mischievous servant, K’u Ko-ling — a tale of 12th Century China, where state service meant a life long journey across a landscape of turmoil and bliss. A tale of sacrifice, love, war and duty — a fragile balance between rituals and passions. An epic commitment between two men to define the indefinable in their own world and time. Here begins the legacy of the Jade Owl and its custodian as he holds true to his warrants.

The Academician is the first of four books in the Southern Swallow series, capturing the turbulence of the Sung Dynasty in transition. Spanning the silvery days under the Emperor Hui to the disasters that followed, The Academician is a slice of world events that should never have been forgotten. Still, there are things more important than invasions and empires. The world’s fate rests in the warrants of Li K’ai-men, this young scholar from Gui-lin, called master by his faithful servant, but known as Nan Ya to the world."

The Academician is a fictional account of a twelfth Century Chinese scholar-official, who readers of The Jade Owl Legacy first encounter in The Third Peregrination. Although this series serves as an historical adjunct to The Jade Owl, it has been in development longer than any work from the author's pen. The character of Li K’ai-men first came to light over three decades ago in Patterson's first China-themed work, Vagrant Hollow, a work which, unlike Li, will never come to light. Still, Mr. Patterson's great desire to novelize a seminal epoch in Chinese History, the founding of the Southern Sung Dynasty, sprang to life even earlier in his Masters’ thesis, "The Restoration of the Southern Sung Dynasty: The Reign of the Emperor Kao-tsung: 1127 – 1167." While entrenched in this period’s amazing details, Patterson visualized the tug and tussle of events that every Chinese school child knows, but few in the West can fathom.

From My Mind to Your Imagination: Bobby’s Trace and Mystery Writing

I must say, I have fun when I write a mystery, whether it’s a whodunit like Turning Idolater or a horror-ghost story like Bobby’s Trace. Authors have an obligation to their readers — to provide them with compelling material presented through well conceived, living characters who are wrapped in vivid and engaging language. However, when dealing out mystery, logic is a crucial element. Unlike a slice of life work, a mystery promises the reader surprises and clues, not that non-mysteries exclude surprise. However, logic can fly the coop in a mystery, leaving the reader scratching their heads wondering where the work fell off the cliff . . . or did they? I have more fun authoring mysteries because I get to meet logic’s challenge and stretch it to the fullest taffy pull. I succeed only when the reader trips over the ending, hits themselves in the head and wonders why they couldn’t unwrap the enigma. Hiding clues in the reader’s path and knowing that they won’t see them is highly rewarding to me — I’m that tricky.

In Bobby’s Trace, a passionate haunting that blends gay themes, religion, Gilbert & Sullivan and computer programming into an unlikely frolic through the ghost world, I attempt to delight the reader to the extreme. The action belays the clues, which are processed, but dismissed as common elements — much like sleight of hand employed in a magician’s act. This misdirection can be attributed to Bobby’s Trace’s origins. It began life as a one-act farce in three scenes. It had nothing ghostly about it except the tenuous hold of the protagonist’s dead lover. In fact, the play had the unlikely title An Outing in the Wilderness, the main action laid across the humorous conflict of the programmer and the priest (not unlike the Princess and the Pea). I found the premise, amusing as a play, not as humorous in prose. Enter (stage right) Bobby — first as a mild Blithe Spirit presence, and then as a fully developed ghost stuck between the worlds. Then as I developed Bobby’s character, the work changed. The pathos of poor Bobby and his magnetic eyes — the beauty of his youth and the tragedy of his early death was impetus to something far greater than the romp between programmer and priest. The illogic of a fantasy world — a spirit universe married by the very act of mourning — so powerful that both the mourned and the mournful could dwell in it to the point where it becomes unclear whether the living mourn the dead or the dead mourn life, emerged. Now this were a-boilin’, transforming a light gay coming-out comedy into a griping, terrifying ghost mystery complete with a signature gut-wrenching ending.

Creating a satisfying mystery — one that delivers on its promise, is to enter a partnership with the reader — to help the reader search for the clues, and then, push them off in another direction. Agatha Christie loved to employ these red herrings in her books. The trick is to not let the fish smell too much like fish. Many readers of Bobby’s Trace have told me that they loved re-reading it just to find out where they went wrong — sort of sniffing for the fish in the corners. When I hear that, my day is always made, because it means that I have fulfilled my author’s motto — From my mind to your imagination . . .

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1434893960 (Paperback)http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00150Z5HC (Kindle)

Edward C. Patterson

The Advent of Simone DeFleurry

The Advent of Simone DeFleurry in The Jade Owl
by Edward C. Patterson

One might think that to pop in a compelling character like Simone DeFleurry — a drag queen, into a fantasy adventure like The Jade Owl is a simple matter of adding spice to a story. However, nothing could be further from the truth. If an author is to entice a reader with developing character arc, such "devices," rarely work except on reruns of Murder She Wrote. Simone, who has consistently been reckoned by my readers as their favorite character, is never too far away from that other persona — Simon Geldfarb. When I decided that a principle character would be a chanteuse of note, I sorted out my own experiences concerning drag queens. To the outer world, and even the inner, drag queens are men dressed as women, outrageously over the top and something of an entertainment perk, representing the Gay male community at Gay Pride Parades. Nothing could be further from the truth. That most cross dressers are heterosexual men who glam about in their wives bras and undies is a statistical fact (I allude to it in The Jade Owl). Simone DeFleurry is a charmer — a fashion plate and a walking encyclopedia on good taste and manners. He provides Nick Battle with love and companionship as part of the double-barreled mailbox label "Geldfarb-Battle." His view of problems are often so direct, the others miss the obvious until the poignant Miss DeFleurry points the way. Simone manages some glorious feats of bravery throughout the series with swagger and posh.

When I began writing The Jade Owl, my vision of drag queens was narrow — shallow. To pepper the story with one or two could have been misconstrued as pushing stereotypes, and that would never do. I therefore opted to sit down and get to know some drag queens. It’s odd that, having degrees in Sinology, I needed little additional research into Chinese culture. Being Gay, one would think that every gay man knows the inner soul of a drag queen. WRONG. Being honest — telling my interviewees that I wanted to capture the true essence of who they were, was a bold thing to ask. I was surprised to discovered a sub-culture beneath a sub-culture that was beautiful — rich and rare. Very human, and in Simone’s own words — "I am as much a man as you are, only packaged differently." The aspects of the people beneath the boas and high heels astounded me. After all, it was the drag queens that had the bravery to start the whole Stone Wall Revolution that began the modern Gay & Lesbian Activist Movement. There were no yelling and screaming Act Up bravos then; just a fiery brace of drag queens, who demanded their rights. Simone DeFleurry represents that brand of fire — the beautiful home hearth that lights the way to a natural and normalized way of life — one that gives Nick Battle the embodiment of a father/mother/wife. One that holds the candle high for Rowden Gray, so he might grow into his own acceptance of things different. In fact, for the reader — who should feel more uncomfortable when Simone dresses as Simon Geldfarb, complete with a yellow lemon tie than when he wears his favorite red polka-dot sun dress. The sadness of Simon as opposed to the lilt of Simone is crucial.

An essential requirement for me as the author of the Jade Owl Legacy Series was to make the reader forget that the story has a drag queen amongst its stars. By the third book, The Dragon’s Pool, Simone DeFleurry is a vessel that can hold even a greater responsibility — graduating to motherhood. However, since number three in the series will not hit the streets until May, I’ll say no more.

Edward C. Patterson

The Jade Owl Legacy SeriesThe Jade Owl http://www.amazon.com/dp/1440447977The Third Peregrination http://www.amazon.com/dp/1441456724and coming soon The Dragon’s Pool, The People’s Treasure and In the Shadow of Her Hem Also coming soon, an adjunct series Southern Swallow (In Three Parts)The Academician(mid-March), Swan Cloud, and The House of Green Waters

Professor Gray and His Garland

In The Jade Owl, Professor Rowden Gray refers to gathering the rosebuds as ye may, gathering them onto a garland — a garland which constitutes a complete strand of logical facts that can be analyzed and codified into a scholarly article for The Harvard Journal of Asian Studies. Funny thing that, because during the entire Jade Owl Legacy Series, the more rosebuds that the good Professor tacks onto the garland, the more the strand remains unresolved. In fact, after the journey that The Jade Owl’s first book reveals, Professor Gray knows as much about The Jade Owl as he did at the beginning of the tale. Of course, the wonderment of this little green devil is unraveled in the other books and also in the companion series, Southern Swallow (first book, The Academician coming in March). The logic behind its operation is not the kind that any scientist would readily understand. Rowden Gray being a scholar, even a Sinological one, he cannot perceive the truth of the matter until he, like the reader, suspends believe and basks in the full mystical legacy of Chinese spirituality, folk lore and that metaphysical property known as ch’i – a power that Lucas called the force, but the Chinese have for five millennium called spirit breath. Nonetheless, Professor Rowden Gray continues to weave this long rope of logic until it makes less sense at the end than at the beginning. His boon companion, Nick, however, views The Jade Owl and its purpose from a different perspective and is enlightened.

The garland of Rowden Gray is a notion that we all weave, like Wagner’s Norns, yielding precise measurements for life and time. However, this is a western notion. The Chinese have no such measurement. Time is illusive, and even death is a mere wall between two states. Therefore, the real challenge for Professor Gray as he leads the various followers, first in The Jade Owl and subsequently in The Third Peregrination, is to cut the stringency of the garland and let the rosebuds fly as they may. Not until he immerses himself in the randomness of it all does he come to understand the true nature of The Jade Owl and the triad that it forms with elemental nature and a curious set of earth events that other characters will study to the geologic and paleontologic depths, discovering the tick-tockings of this most curious bird.

As an aside, I chose the rosebud/gather ye reference as a homage to my own gene pool — how egoist is that? My grandmother was Hilda Herrick, a direct descendant of Robert Herrick, my ancestor who crafted that line as advice to virgins. Go figure.

The Jade Owl http://www.amazon.com/dp/1440447977
The Third Peregrination http://www.amazon.com/dp/1441456724

The Third Peregrination (The Jade Owl Book 2) Hits the treets

I am happy to announce the availability of the second book of The Jade Owl Legacy Series in both Paperback and Kindle edition:

The Third Peregrination by Edward C. Patterson

664 Pages

ISBN: 1441456724

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1441456724

Description:

"THE SECOND BOOK IN THE JADE OWL SERIES.
The world is on the brink, now that the relics flow together again. The new China Hands should have left the Jade Owl in the tomb, to fester silently for another age, but they didn't. Now there is a tapping in the basement and a flowering of new relics, all seeking to move Curator-General Rowden Gray and his crew into the field again to solve the mystery of The Seven Sisters. However, the world has changed since Rowden managed his first task. The new China Hands are sucked into the maelstrom of time, flowing together with the relics, now that the world is at the brink.

Rowden Gray and Nicholas Battle, joined by three new stalwarts in pursuit of the next level in the triad, find a fortress in a mystery deeper than the first warrant, something that compels them to return to China and unravel a more difficult truth - one that challenges them beyond time's membrane. This second book in the Jade Owl Legacy Series pushes the new China Hands to the world’s brink - now that the relics flow together again."

Come, continue reading the journey or dip into the first book: The Jade Owl

Rainbow Reviews said of The Jade Owl: "The Jade Owl is a nonstop, don't miss page turner and only the first in a quintology, The Jade Owl Legacy series. Readers, run, do not walk to your nearest book outlet and grab this intriguing gay mystery with its fully realized characters, gay and straight and bi, roller-coaster plotting, and paranormal fantasy elements. The Jade Owl is a true winner." - Frost's Fancy.

Edward C. PattersonDancaster Creative

The Road Goes Forever On and On

When a sixteen year old goes off on his first road trip with another sixteen year old (even when chaperoned by the minister and his wife), there's bound to be new impetus, especially if the friend is cute. Into my quiet world of opera libretti and delivering perscriptions for the local pharmacy came this trip—to Atlanta, GA, with a wide looping return through Cincinnatti, OH. It was an adventure obstensibly to meet Martin Luther King at Ebenezzar Baptist Church, but there was scant religion about the trip — as far as us teens were concerned. There was a little tipple on the highway, a midnight hitchhike to a porn show. (Porn? Ha! Well, the porn of 1963 at least). It was also when I was first willing to face my own sexuality, but that's a different journal entry altogether.

It should come as no surprise that this trip broke the libretto pattern. No more unproduced operas. The world was a real place and it intruded. Suddenly, I wanted to document every inch of travel — every town, street, population stat and Civil War battlefield, of which I saw too many. The people I met, became characters — from my traveling companions to Reverand Abernathy (Reverand King, alas was in Los Angeles quelling riots). But when I touched pen to paper, I probably should have use Charmin. Nothing worked. Crisis. Disillusion. I couldn't capture it all, so I captured nothing. I needed those lunetic birds and their silly quartets. I became more a reader than a writer — Dickens with a capital D. Melville with a capital M for Moby. The dark writers, Hardy, Conrad and Dostoevsky. The father of the modern Novel, Jane Austen. And then the magical books — Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. In fact, 1963 was the first of forty or more reads of The Lord of the Rings. I must say, I have never stopped reading it. The Road Goes Forever On.

Dickens, however lit my writing fire. He showed me how characters could pop up like asparagus and be recycled like mulch. His stories were compelling, towering over me like Marley's ghost. I jotted notes for a Dickensian style Road Trip Novel, something involving a trip to the Southern US and 'cross country (go figure), but set in 19th Century America. A competition, perhaps, but with an orphan — definitely an orphan (Please sir, I want some more). Soon there was a character, Denny Danville. (There was this cute guy in Home Room named Denny). Denny was the long lost son of some Rockefeller look-alike, but doesn't know it, needs cash to marry sweet Mary Wimper, daughter of a Hearstian newspaper mogul, so he joins the flocks of the challenged in a cross country bicycle race. He falls on hard times (and his ass). He meets a group of Twainian rogues, who force him to rob a bank. He races over the Rockies barefooted on a bike of dubious authenticity and, of course, wins the race, the hand of Ms. Wimper and, because an old Indian woman recognizes a silver broach that she gave a wealthy debutante she once nursed back to health, Denny Danville becomes Denny Bartholemew, son of banker Rance Bartholemew of the Brooklyn Bartholomews.
I drafted, outlined and even systematized Denny Danville for a good part of a year. It was a bumpy year for my old upright typewriter. The more I stretched the plot, the less the story held. I had a great opening, a sympethetic central scene and here and there an ending, but (no surprise) Denny Danville never materialized, except in bits and chapters and outlines. I even considered updating the tale to the 20th Century and give Denny some civil rights work. Unfortunately, I am a creature of the 19th Century and have never felt at home in the 20th. I'm doing better in the 21st, but my next turn of creativity brought me out of all centuries. Next up, I meet Voltaire and his incredibly optomistic creation, Candide. Still with me folks? I hope so.

Gentlemen of Japan

What does Rachely of Babylon, The Death of a Redstart and The Pirates of Galicia all have in common? Anybody . . . Anybody? Well, these are three of perhaps twenty-five unproduced Ed Patterson operas written between 1959 and 1961. They were unproduced because I never wrote the music, except in my head and when I sang them aloud in my bedroom. I even mentally composed Overtures, Ballets and here and there an Intermezzo. The sign of a crazy boy, eh? Well, I had a neighbor across the street who saw my vision and she tried to marry Rachely of Babylon to Brahms' Symphony No. 1.

I was a budding Opera queen. I was taken totally by the Opera The Mikado. It was the beginning of a full life devoted to the world of Gilbert & Sullivan, and beyond. Sullivan was the attraction, but soon W.S. Gilbert was my first mentor, leading me to a world of words that swarmed from the hive and over my mind and hands and typewriter.Rachely was a forceful drama about a fictional Queen of Babylon, who lost her throne and love (and her virginity) over a libretto that chortled in broken cuneiform and a ridiculous rewrite of history. I barely knew where Babylon was, except for the Hanging Gardens and all them fig trees. Still, there was a Chorus of Bablyonian courtiers that would have felt at home in my High School music class.

Better than drama was tragedy —The Death of a Redstart, which engaged a troop of birds, all types, but particularly a Redstart named Petitius (pronounced Pet-teet-tee-yus). Why a Redstart would have a Latin name is less curious than why a Redstart would be a tenor in an all bird Opera. Well, if it was good enough for Aristophanes, why not me? (BTW, I saw The Birds last year and it wasn't good enough for the old Greek). To this day, I can sing portions of the Love Duet: "Petitius, I lo-o-ove you." The tune has haunted me for my entire life. As for The Pirates of Galicia, which I thought was somewhere in Spain (probably landlocked; but if it was good enough for Shakespeare . . .), it reflected my exposure to The Pirates of Penzance. The rousing chorus "Men of the Sea, De-de-de-dee, De-de-de-dee!" was sure to bring the opening night audience to its feet (or the men in white coats to my seat). This array of libretti sailed from fingers and mind for three years, unabated. At first blush, you might be blushing, but even this excursion contributed to the creative forces that would shape my future writing. As bad as the poetry was, it was rhythmic enough to jolt me into the repetitive sonorities that naturally flow now from my pen. "I got rhythm! I got music!"

It was during this time that I developed this important facet. I also worshipped (and still do) at W. S. Gilbert's sarcastic throne. It will come as no surprise that even in my novel The Jade Owl, I have one character (a bureaucratic type) say: "Due economy must be observed," a direct quote from Pooh-bah in The Mikado. I also merit Gilbert with my interest in things Oriental. When I first came to study East Asian History and Culture, years later, I came through Japan instead of China, where I earned my meat and potatoes.

So Gilbert and Opera (I started attending The Brooklyn Conservatory of Music about this time with the aim - my parent's aim too - to become the next Jussi Bjoerling) gave my typewriter a new and inventive twist. I created worlds that didn't exist and became emotionally charged with characters that should have remained dead, both my own and others. Dickens crept into my reading. Shakespeare trickled. Disney tickled (Old Yeller). So, "if you want to know who we are, we are Gentlemen of Japan." The only regret I have is that I lost the folder with all my wonderful libretti in them. I would love to sing them again in the quiet hours between revising the mega-tomes I craft today.

Next up (If you'e up to it?) — Road Trip! Until then, I'm on a frozen pond whistling "Petitius I lo-o-ove you. Wu wu wu Wu wu wu wu-wu."

Edward C. Patterson

Falling Of a Cliff

So where did it all begin for me. I am a 62 year old author, with nine published works under my wing and nine in the pipeline. However, no one should think I woke up one morning and decided I was the world's next Dickens. (That happened years ago - just joking). It all started when I was twelve years old.

It began when my grandmother gave me an old upright typewriter for my birthday, many years ago . . . a half century at least . . . and thereby hangs my taleI had a typewriter, and I had fingers, so therefore I was a writer . . . a twelve year old writer. My imagination went wild, straight off a cliff in fact. I sat in front of the infamous white page and told my first story. It was a tale about a Boy Scout camping trip filled with campfires and ghost stories and a friend, who when scared from his tent during a prank, ran in the wrong direction — right off a cliff. Of course, he's stranded on a convenient ledge until my father was able to lower himself down to save him. Thrills. Chills.The major problem with this story, which I term my first novel, was it wasn't fiction. It actually happened. I didn't even bother to change the names of the characters. The only thing I continually changed was the title. Prank. and Campfire Dares. When I think back, it was dreadful. I even managed to use a curse word — not the fabled, hallowed F word, but the S word (and with boyish glee).

I often think about that first work. Falling Downward. (How many ways can one do it?). Boy Scout Daze. (Gimme a break). It had some elements that I maintained for years . . . bad spelling, awful grammar and a penchant for contrivance. Still, a book about young men in the wild did strike a good first note. I've written reams about young men in various states of wild since. What lingered was the three staples binding the proscribed novel into something tangible; something wrought from nothing. That has always stayed with me. Afterall, isn't that the first lesson we learn when we create, that we create. Prior to the thought, there were no words, no tale, not even the typewriter, which my sainted grandmother saddled me with all those years ago, like a commission from one generation to another.

What was I to do? I did what any twelve year old nancy boy with a typewriter could do. I declared my novel a resounding success and aimed my typewriter at creating librettos for imaginary operas. I dug in and built a new Babylon, rewrote history in my mind and animated a kingdom of birds (that twittered duets and trios even). To hell with football! (with boyish glee).

Shall I tell you more? I think I will . . . next time.

Edward C. Patterson

The Third Peregrination is Coming

[The Jade Owl Legacy Series: Book 2]

The world is on the brink, now that the relics flow together again. The new China Hands should have left the Jade Owl in the tomb, to fester silently for another age, but they didn’t. Now there is a tapping in the basement and a flowering of new relics, all seeking to move Curator-General Rowden Gray and his crew into the field again to solve the mystery of The Seven Sisters. However, the world has changed since Rowden managed his first task. The new China Hands are sucked into the maelstrom of time, flowing together with the relics, now that the world is at the brink.

Rowden Gray and Nicholas Battle, joined by three new stalwarts in pursuit of the next level in the triad, find a fortress in a deeper mystery than the first warrant, something that compels them to return to China and unravel a more difficult truth — one that challenges them beyond time’s membrane. This second book in the Jade Owl Legacy Series pushes the new China Hands to the world’s brink — now that the relics flow together again.

Start your adventure with the Jade Owl at http://www.amazon.com/dp/1440447977 (Paperback) http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001J54AWO (Kindle)
Edward C. Patterson

No Irish Need Apply to be The Book of the Month (June 2008)

Nice news coming for the Holiday Season.

My Novel - No Irish Need Apply - has been selected as The Book of the Month for June 2009 (Pride Month) for the Book Reading Club sponsored by Booz Allen Hamilton, McClean, Va. There will be over 100 readers, all having read the book and I have accepted an offer to speak, read and sign books via TeleConference in June. I am quite excited about this as it is a corollary to my former roll at Dun & Bradstreet where I was the President of GLISN (The Gay & lesbian Information Support Network) and toured the country speaking about GLBT issues in the workplace. I won the 2000 New Jersey Minority Achievement Award for my work in Corporate Diversity. Anyway, I am thrilled that their organization has selected No Irish Need Apply for such an honor, and that all attendees will have read the book before my speaking gig. I feel like a parent about to watch his child graduate. Well, that's my Holiday news.

Edward C. Patterson
No Irish Need Apply http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1434893952 (Paperback)http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0012NOW44 (Kindle)http://www.mobipocket.com/en/eBooks/BookDetails.asp?BookID=83902 (Mobipocket)http://www.createspace.com/3339176 (Smashwords)

A Fish out of Water – No Pun Intended

I recently had an e-mail from a reader who asked where I get my inspiration for my stories, especially Turning Idolater, which seemed unique to her — genre defying and yet satisfying genre need. In Turning Idolater, I literally take the protagonist, a young internet stripper who is yearning for something indescribable, and beach him in a world that makes him squeamish. The sleaze of the porn world smashed into the preciousness of the literary world creates a tsunami for all the characters. That the two main characters are as noble as Ishmael and Queequeg, taken from Moby Dick, grounds Turning Idolater in a genreless world, despite the echoes of gay-themed and whodunit. Is it a murder mystery? Is it slice of life? Is it a gay romance? Is it a romance, period? Yes. Like tofu in a pot, this novel is meant to appeal to every imagination it infects. A fish out of water in every genre in which it swims.

However, this doesn’t answer the prime question. Where do I get my inspiration? Well, here’s a state secret. I imagine a story that interests me, perhaps topically; perhaps it’s the character development possibilities. I think on that story and its possibilities and then I lay it out in a plank — simple and direct; an anchor for my writing. It stays with me for a long time — years perhaps. THEN, and this is the Patterson family recipe, I add an element diametrically oppose to the simple line; a kettle of fish out of water. Thus, a study of gay activist meetings becomes a satirical comedy on human frailty (Cutting the Cheese). A love story teaming with deceit becomes a super-charged ghost story (Bobby’s Trace). A simple coming out tale becomes a contemporary poster for prejudice (No Irish Need Apply). A memoir of the gay experience in the military in 1967 becomes a marathon run by a fat man (Surviving an American Gulag). A simple porn boy meets snob man romance becomes a high-powered murder mystery (Turning Idolater). A quest story becomes a Dickensian epic (The Jade Owl). A sedate exposition of a Chinese official’s life in the twelfth century becomes an historic epic (The Academician and Swan Cloud – the two parts of Southern Swallow). What happens when you tell a prosaic military tale set in Germany during the 60’s and smash it up again the Brothers Grimm? You get The Road to Grafenwoehr. Mix time travel and alternative worlds with the history of the Cherokee nation and you get Belmundus. How about gay discrimination in the workplace mixed with a cocktail of the biblical triad — Jonathan, David and Saul. That would be Green Folly. And it goes on and on in my works.

Take a fish out of water and let it swim in snow and everyone will want to know whether the snow is cold enough to preserve the fish, or the fish large enough to swallow the snow. Nothing is ever too simple to be riveting or too complex to repel.

Happy reading, dear readers.

Edward C. Patterson

The Jade Owl Legacy Series "a True Winner"

On October 28th, the first book of The Jade Owl Legacy Series was published and has been received by readers intently. In fact, one review from Rainbow Reviews states:

"The Jade Owl is a nonstop, don't miss page turner and only the first in a quintology, The Jade Owl Legacy series. Readers, run, do not walk to your nearest book outlet and grab this intriguing gay mystery with its fully realized characters, gay and straight and bi, roller-coaster plotting, and paranormal fantasy elements. The Jade Owl is a true winner."

The series consists of five books, all about 600-700 pages in length, the second book (The Third Peregrination) due for release in mid-February 2009. The third book (The Dragon's Pool) will hit the boards in late Spring 2009. The last two works will be released in 2010-11 (The People's Treasure and In the Shadow of Her Hem). The sweep of the work embeds a modern adventure story in the mystical aspects of China's five major religions - Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, Naturalism and Legalism. Step that up with a Tolkienesque fantasy tale and old Chinese legends, then add a dash of modern societal issues and a host of sizzling characters, and you get an eclectic ride down Mount T'ai.

As a Sinologist (a specialist in Chinese History and Culture), I have attempted to engrave China's deeper cultural trends with easy and enjoyable access for my readers. In addition to the five book series, another two book series will be released in 2009 — the fictionalized biography of a 12th Century scholar-official during a period of social and political upheaval. The series is called Southern Swallow. The first book, The Academician, will be available in late January 2009. The second book, Swan Cloud should be available mid-Summer 2009. This series parallels The Jade Owl legend, but from a purely Chinese point of view. In fact, I utilize many traditional Chinese novel techniques. Taken together, the two series covers a universe that should not disappoint.

I'll keep my readers updated on the progress of each book. I know of one "reader discussion forum" forming for The Jade Owl . There's a great deal to discuss in this series and it's my great joy to fire up my reader's imagination in a world that has been with me for over three decades.

Edward C. Patterson

Picking at an Old Chestnut – Moby Dick Lives

Ever since I picked up Herman Melville’s tale of the Whale, that great leviathan of beauty and destruction, I have been struck by the sheer poetry of Moby Dick. It teams with detail, buoyed up by a natural elegance that truly makes it a literary treasure. In my novel, Turning Idolater, the title of which comes from Melville’s work and intones the ability (or inability) to compromise, I blend unlikely elements using Melville’s basic theme that each life is a journey that needs to come to terms with earth’s organic unity. The sea is prominent in the work, but instead of Melvillian detail — nine hundred shades of white and every knot that can be tied for any reason, I developed the characters along a different course – a Dickens course. Smashing Dickensian characters into Melvillian amplitude gives the work a unique feel. Add to that the juxtaposition of romance and mystery, a good, old fashion whodunit (here a herring, there a herring – mostly red, but some a shade of pink), and the reader is provided with a memorable experience. The dichotomies are further maintained by placing the sleazy world of Internet porn beside the hoity-toity universe of literary circles.

Finding the balance between many diverse elements is the shell surrounding this nut, but at its heart is Melville and the sea. Young Philip Flaxen’s voyage across an uncharted ocean in a vessel that leaks like the Dickens and flags in bad weather provides the reader with a hero’s journey. Philip is taxed by the many anomalies that he cannot digest, yet somehow he remains afloat. In hindsight, I have achieved what I wanted to achieve. Besides my usual attention to the reader’s needs, I sought in Turning Idolater to fire up old Melville, who is sometimes more admired than read — to reach down and scrape off the Pequod’s barnacles — bring it ashore for a modern day inspection. I am happiest when a reader tells me, as they have, "Now that I have read about Philip and Tdye and Sprakie and Old Charlotte, I think I’ll pick up Moby Dick again and give it another try." For every chapter in Melville that drones on about the nine hundred shade of the color white, there are others that sing:

"Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can."

It’s a fine clear day, mateys, and the dolphins are calling, the gulls leading the way. You only need to be Turning Idolater to see your way clear through this damp, drizzly November.

Edward C. Patterson
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1440422109 (Paperback)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001FWZ92Q (Kindle)