Why you should preorder Light Seed Truth

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

My newest book, Light Seed Truth, challenges traditional religious teaching, the kind that results in “thou shalt not” combined with a fear of eternal suffering or some equivalent.

My book outlines an alternative to the legalistic framework found across religious traditions with their institutions and rituals grounded in second-hand retelling of mystical encounters. As you’ll see in the book, it’s not just religion, either.

Do note, though, the price will more than double shortly after the official release on June 7. So buying now helps you.

Preorders are one way of boosting the algorithm of first-week sales, and that can increase the title’s visibility on those ebook retailers’ bookshelves. So that helps me.

You can find it in the digital platform of your choice at Smashwords prior to the official release.

Be among the first to check it out. Thanks!

Aspiring to the big-time is natural

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Let me confess to the allure of having an author’s photo and bio blip on the back dust jacket of a hardback volume. That’s always carried so much more gravitas than a mere newspaper byline – in my early days reserved only for major stories rather than distributed to just about every headlined item, in part to shift the blame for errors – or, one step up, the columnist’s thumbnail mug shots, for the truly honored writers. A magazine’s contributors page was a step up, especially when they included a full-color photo.

It’s not that being honored was essential – I was an anonymous, behind-the-scenes copy editor, after all – but more an acknowledgment of success, especially when it signified not being a hack. It’s just that everyone harbors a desire to be important, at least to someone, right?

~*~

For me, having the manuscripts but working on them part-time, I sensed myself racing a ticking clock. Would time run out on me?

The book publishing world was shrinking, as was daily newspaper journalism that provided my paychecks. Fewer houses were publishing fiction, and even those were in turmoil. They wanted blockbusters rather than the cottage-industry lines that previously prevailed.

Literary agents were struggling to support the writers they had and were less likely to take on new clients who would require more time and effort to promote. One, who had been considered hot just the previous year, replied to my query – a rarity, by the way – saying my proposal was an important book but not “commercially viable.” Another, equally acclaimed, vented her frustration with the changing publishing world and her struggles to cope within it.

Well, it did remind me of a letter I received from a newspaper editor I greatly admired during one of my job-hunting interludes. He was warm and welcoming, but confessed his career had turned into heading papers through their final days. From what I saw, he did manage some glorious sunsets.

My personal writing turned to several nonfiction projects that had commercial potential, but they, too, failed to break through the brick wall. One problem was that I was only a writer rather than an expert with academic or other highly placed credits.

It was a vicious circle. To get published, you had to have been published to some success.

~*~

It paralleled my earlier efforts to land a position on a major metropolitan newspaper. There had been some near misses, but the Union Leader proved to be a better fit for my remaining career. I even made it to the finishing line in a rapidly shrinking field.

In addition, “making it” as a poet was looking more and more like a dead end. Who can even name a living poet?

How are you feeling about the trial’s revelations?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

You know the one I’m talking about. Even before getting to the others just ahead.

Let’s just say I’ve been watching this building up, step by step, for decades. The corruption by big money and trickery, the erosion of the middle class, the polarization, the sleaze, the breakdown of the checks and balances or a loyal opposition.

Working in the newsroom, I was bound to give both sides their voice, though one was doing everything it could to discredit us and those distortions went unchallenged. There was more, of course, going on in the dark, things we sensed but couldn’t prove outright.

Let’s just say I was outraged but had to keep it bottled up. But then, after retiring, I let it out by indulging in a stream of poetry I usually steered clear of – the polemic rant akin to Dr. Bronner’s Moral ABC or Allen Ginsberg’s The Fall of America collection or Phil Ochs’ protest folksongs.

The result is Trumpet of the Coming Storm.

While the pieces that spewed forth in my collection may look like history from the Reagan years through the Bushes, they do reflect the origins of what’s coming to a head today. Even the poems that can be considered sophomoric seem prescient.

There are good reasons I subtitled it Blasts of Alarm and Rage, 1976-2008.

Do take a look.

It’s available in the digital platform of your choice at Smashwords, the Apple Store, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Scribd, Sony’s Kobo, and other fine ebook retailers. You can also ask your public library to obtain it.

No House of Lords

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

… the federal senate will never be able to transform itself, by gradual usurpation, into an independent and aristocratic body; we are warranted in believing that if such a revolution should ever happen from causes which the foresight of man cannot guard against, the house of representatives with the people on their side will at all times be able to bring back the constitution to its primitive form and principles.

James Madison in Federalist No. 63

Remembering the student strikes of ‘70

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

News reports of protesting students seizing administration buildings on college campuses do bring back memories, and I know I’m not alone.

While there had been earlier seizures of campus facilities in the late ‘60s at schools like Berkeley, Columbia, and Ann Arbor, Michigan, the killing of four protesters at Kent State on May 4, 1970, and two more at Jackson State on May 14 triggered student strikes across the country.

The causes ran deeper than just the ongoing warfare in Vietnam and surrounding countries, do note. My novel, Daffodil Uprising, reflects my experiences in Indiana.

The making of a hippie

While I’m not about to engage in comparisons of today and back then, I am fascinated in the focus on university funding in the current protests. My novel saw that as a crucial factor back then, too – it wasn’t just Dow Chemical, either.

Of special concern, now and back then, is the depth of frustration that finally erupts as rage and revolt. We can assume there are elements in the current actions that go back well before the current Gaza crisis, and not just in the Middle East.  They need to be addressed.

I believe that many of the problems in contemporary America can be traced back to unresolved issues from the late ‘60s For now, I’ll leave it at that.

For any of you interested, my book is available at the Apple Store, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Scribd, Smashwords, Sony’s Kobo, and other fine ebook retailers, and at Amazon in both Kindle and paperback.

A few more things to put Maine in perspective for you

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Geographically, Maine is the biggest state in New England – almost as large as the other five combined. That still ranks it 39th in size in the USA.

We’re also famed for some very dry humorists and fresh-from-the-sea lobsters the way Vermont’s stuck with maple syrup and a red leaves identity.

Beyond that, here are some other things that are unique to the place.

  1. It’s the only state that borders just one other state. But it’s also the only one that borders three Canadian provinces.
  2. Half of the state is essentially unpopulated – mostly forests, wetlands, black flies, and mosquitoes.
  3. Its craggy coastline is longer than California’s, but shorter than Florida’s and Louisiana’s and, of course, Alaska. While the state and its tidal waters are famed for lighthouses, Michigan – with four of the freshwater Great Lakes ringing its shores – has the most.
  4. The bulk of the population lives within twenty miles of the Atlantic and its tides. Less well known are the interior towns between the ocean and the mountains. Much of that belt’s suffering, economically.
  5. Some of the state’s biggest urban centers are divided into two cities by rivers: Portland/South Portland, Lewiston/Auburn, Bangor/Brewer, Biddeford/Saco, Brunswick/Topsham. Calias/Saint Stephen is complicated by the U.S.-Canada border. Augusta and Waterville are the prime exceptions.
  6. Demographically, Mainers are the oldest folks in the country. The median age is 45.1 years. About 21.2 percent of the residents are 65 and above while only 18.5 percent is under 18.
  7. Despite all the white steeples you see in the photos, Maine is among the four least churched states. Typically, it’s hovering at the bottom, with New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Vermont as rivals. Some of the variation occurs when looking at religious affiliation versus measures of religiosity.
  8. Famed outdoor outfitter L.L. Bean in Freeport can be seen as the epitome of the Pine Tree State. But quirky discount chains Mardens and Remy have their own loyal following, as adventurous visitors discover.
  9. Maine is the leading lobster-producing state in the nation, employing more than 5,600 hundred lobstermen (male and female). The tightly regulated catch contributes more than a billion dollars to the state’s economy.
  10. The state is also famed for its wild, lowbush blueberries. More than 70 percent of them are harvested in Washington County, where I live. Ranked by dollar value in the state’s agricultural output, the berries traditionally come in second, a bit above $100 million a year, but way below the $247 billion potato crop, mostly in Aroostook County to our north or the $137 million milk output statewide. But medical cannabis sales, at $266 million in 2020, surpassed them, and that’s without recreational marijuana figures, $72 million in 2021. They’re expected to go even higher this year.

Acid test poet: Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892)

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Whittier is a poet I’ve come to know largely through Dover, where his maternal grandparents and an uncle and cousins on his father’s side lived. His parents in fact, married in our Quaker meetinghouse.

His poems aren’t about himself but rather a greater faithfulness. While he’s self-effacing, many of his works are deeply felt political and social protests that remain biting and land on-target.

Despite the seeming simplicity of his rhyming form, his lines are sharp. When you read his poems, don’t stop at the end of the line but keep moving onward as a full-sentence thought. There you can breathe. Robert Frost follows in Whittier’s footsteps.

His poem, “How the Women Went from Dover,” commemorates an important event that appears in my Quaking Dover as well.