Would I fit in here? It no longer matters – wikipedia photo

Like many authors, I write stories by stirring  up a mix of real locations, imaginary characters, and things that could probably never happen in real life with a liberal dash of old memories. I change the memories for the stories because saying “it’s true” doesn’t cut it if the material doesn’t read well and because I don’t want real people saying, “hey, that’s me and all of my friends know it’s me so I’m going to sue.”

While the names and circumstances have been changed to protect the innocent and the guilty alike, I think that on the off chance anyone “who knew me back then” were to read one of my books, they might well not recognize themselves or the events. Of course, since people know my fiction often refers to things that really happened, they often take some of the more over-the-top scenes and say, “you really didn’t do XYZ, did you?” In most cases, the answer is “no.”

Even when the answer is “yes,” I might cross my fingers and lie about it.

I’ve mentioned before the notion of saving old memories and long-gone locations and circumstances by placing them into fiction. In some ways, it keeps them alive, allows others to witness them, and to know such things once happened and/or were they way things were years ago. However, I wrote the following sequence into my novel “The Seeker” because it’s an event I never came to terms with. I was very much against the Vietnam war and strongly considered, as my protagonist does in the novel, going to either Sweden or Canada. Both countries were safe havens for war resistors.

While I have changed the names and otherwise fictionalized the circumstances, the following is essentially true. It happened almost fifty years ago. Nonetheless, until I wrote this scene, I was not sure I made the right decision. I was more or less sure, but I had doubts whenever I happened to think back on it. Yes, I was nostalgic for the magic of old memories. But I was also using one of a writer’s handiest tools: writing something down as a way of knowing how I truly felt about it.

The following scene occurs in the novel in 1967, a year before protagonist David Ward will be drafted into the military for probable duty in Vietnam or leave the country:

Excerpt from “The Seeker”

Brita Lind told him while they lay on the beach drinking Oranjeboom beer and watching the skûtsjes sailing on a wind-filled day at Lemmer that she was sure kind angels persuaded Tom to detour through the Netherlands for four weeks of business meetings on their way home from Pakistan.

“Did we not climb higher than K2 on still nights in the Drouwenerzand wood, on the shore of the Ijsselmeer, and in our room at Elahuizen?” she asked just before she boarded a ferry boat in Groningen to return to Göteborg without him.

“I will miss you,” he said.

“Did we not hold hands over breakfast and say jag älskar dig—I love you—until our uitsmijters were cold? Did we not listen to the Beatles singing ‘Yesterday’ and share ourselves with each other while ignoring the skinny bridge, the wonders of the Rijksmuseum, the beer at Heinekens and the chewing tobacco at Niemeyer’s?” she asked as though he needed to be reminded.

“Yes we did, but we made no promises.”

“You are right. Consider hearing me again, though,” she said, “when I say you may come to Göteborg with me right now and share my home as long as it’s standing, my bed as long as you want me, and my life as long as it pleases you.”

“That would please you?” he asked.

“It would,” she said. “We fell in love quickly. It’s real, David. I know it’s real even if you think you are rebounding from your Florida swamp lady.”

“Jag älskar dig! I love you for you, Brita Lind. I will cherish you for the rest of my life for inviting me into your life.”

“I have read in the newspapers,” she said, hooking a foot around his right ankle, “when your name is called by the American military, a step forward constitutes induction.”

“It’s an efficient method of making a commitment,” he said.

She pulled gently on his right leg. “Taking a step forward now is an efficient method of boarding a ferryboat without having to make a commitment.”

“But it is a commitment, Brita. While Sweden will accept me with open arms, the United States will consider me a criminal who will never be able to go home again without facing a prison sentence. If my family supported me, I would board this ferry with you in a heartbeat and I would marry you, if it pleased you, and I would learn Swedish, even if my grammar and my accent were horrible, and I would be ecstatic in the knowledge that I finally found everything I was looking for.”

“You’re making me cry.”

“Please don’t. I can’t say goodbye to my family forever without their blessing. That’s what it would be.”

“I think you’re making a mistake that you might regret one day.”

“I regret it today.”

The Mystery of the Many Worlds

The Many Worlds version of reality – Wikipedia photo

Some quantum theorists and kabbalists believe that reality splits into multiple worlds at the defining decision points in a person’s life. They would say that one Malcolm came home and ended up on an aircraft carrier in Vietnam and that another Malcolm in a parallel universe went to Sweden.  I tend to believe this. Naturally, most people think the concept is ludicrous and that even if it’s true, it doesn’t matter because no knowledge or information is knowingly transferred from one universe to another.

The theorists believe that we know about alternate universes subconsciously and/or that one day we’ll be able to communicate between them. If I had a magic telephone that would allow me to call the Malcolm who went to Sweden, would I do it? Would I want to know how it went? Prior to writing the Brita scene for “The Seeker,” I probably would have picked up that magic phone to ask Malcolm #2 how he liked Sweden.

But now, I wouldn’t call even if such a magic phone existed. I no longer have the need to know what would have happened if I had stepped on the ferry boat. It just doesn’t matter anymore because writing the scene flushed all the “what if?” questions out of my mind. As a writer, I have quite often felt that writing about old memories is the best way to enjoy the good ones, banish the bad ones, and put to rest old ghosts.

–Malcolm

The simplicity is having the freedom to know what you ate for breakfast this morning, keeping chemicals out of the water supply and the food chain, and asking “why” more often than we do when government protects monopolies with questionable practices.

If there’s magic involved in the Monsanto controversy, it’s in nature as nature intended, not the quick fix of science that harms all of us at our own expense.

At the very least, we need label laws that show whether or not our food contains GMOs. Let’s start with that. There’s more to be done and if you do it, you’ll soon be busy learning more about the agricultural company that brought us PCBs and Agent Orange.

Chances are good you’re already eating Monsanto. Maybe you shouldn’t be. But you don’t know, and my view is that knowing whether you are or you aren’t is a basic right as well as common sense.

–Malcolm

Experts have researched this question for years. The publisher’s description for Psychology of Reading: 2nd Edition says that the book “encompasses all aspects of the psychology of reading with chapters on writing systems, word recognition, the work of the eyes during reading, inner speech, sentence processing, discourse processing, learning to read, dyslexia, individual differences and speed reading.”

Others shrug and say reading fiction is an simply an escape while those who have a higher regard for storytelling suggest that in addition to a book’s entertainment value, its plots, characters and themes give readers a chance to see, experience and contemplate situations that “real life” doesn’t present to them. To some extent, it’s like assuming a role in a play or game. Or, as the Star Trek films and TV series suggest for our future, stepping into a holodeck.

I’ve seen and experienced many worlds recently via Butterfly Moon, Entangled Thorns, Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells, Bitter Orange, The Storyteller’s Bracelet, The Raven Boys, Locked On, and a selection of Catherine Coulter’s FBI series books. Now I’m one hundred pages into Dan Brown’s Inferno. At the same time, as a writer, I am telling my own stories, and that adds more worlds, situations and prospective roles into the mix.

According to the authors of Psychology of Reading, those who can read take their ability to read for granted, seeing it as effortless when they are motivated to spend time with words. Most readers approach a book with a working knowledge of some 30,000 words, words that they can recognize in a fraction of a second in spite of the variables of type size, font, paper and screen presentations, and author’s intent:

“A skilled reader is able to perform a feat that is well beyond the capability of the most powerful computer programs available today. But that is not all. Skilled readers can identify words that have different meanings in different contexts.”

When I read, the skills of which these authors write are totally transparent to me unless a distracting word or phase appears. When I read Smoky Zeidel’s The Storyteller’s Bracelet, I was transported to an Indian school in the 1800s. When I read the stories in Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells, I time traveled through Victorian England in realms that were not quite real. And now, as I read Inferno, I’m (figuratively speaking) back in the city of Florence, Italy, a place I loved visiting as a tourist years ago.

All of these books use words in multiple ways, employing multiple levels of literal and symbolic meaning in a variety of genres in disparate levels on readability scales. When the writer does his or her work well—or even a bit less than well—I step into these stories unmindful of what my mind is doing.

As I read, I am also—to some extent—outside the book considering the morality, ethics, wisdom, consequences, of the characters’ goals and intentions as well of those of the world in which they live. While I do not see Florence as Dan Brown’s Robert Langdon sees it, I wonder what I would do if I woke up in a foreign city with amnesia and realized unknown people were trying to kill me. Langdon is a fictional character in a fast-paced story. I’m along for the ride while analyzing the ride as it unfolds.

What happens when we read a novel? In some ways, it’s magic. That’s how I see it while reading or writing. Like the fictional centipede that couldn’t walk once he was asked which foot he moved first when he wanted to go somewhere, if I think too much about what’s happening when I read or write, I believe the process would not only become far less enjoyable, but potentially impossible.

It’s easier for me to acknowledge that stories can change our lives while entertaining us and that the why and how of it is best kept as a mystery.

–Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of paranormal short stories and contemporary fantasy novels, including “The Seeker.” For a chance to win a free copy of “The Seeker,” see Spring Fantasy Novel Giveaway for ‘The Seeker’ – First Excerpt.

“The planting of trees means improved water quality, resulting in less runoff and erosion. This allows more recharging of the ground water supply. Wooded areas help prevent the transport of sediment and chemicals into streams.” —USDA Forest Service

My wife and I planted this Bradford pear, a cultivar of the Callery pear, six months after we moved into our current house in 2002. While the tree is at risk in winds and ice storms, we wanted a fast-growing tree to provide shade in the side yard and to serve as a screen between the breakfast nook window and the bedroom window of the neighboring house.

While I find the strongest magic and beauty in native forests, especially in Montana’s stands of fir trees and Florida’s remaining stands of longleaf pine, a few flowering ornamental trees can add a touch of color and brightness to a yard like ours that’s filled with aging hardwoods. The birds have enjoyed the tree, often using it as a launch pad toward the array of feeders outside the kitchen window.

We’ve added a few other trees, most of which started out as very tiny, almost-saplings from the Arbor Day Foundation’s mixed batches of Flowering Crabapples, Eastern Redbuds, White Flowering Dogwoods, Washington Hawthorns, Eastern Redbuds and Goldenraintrees. A few others have come from the forestry department as thank-you gifts for working at the Christman tree recycling center.

This booklet comes in a western and an eastern version.

I’m happy to say that our small town in northeast Georgia has a “Tree City” designation, a community tree management program that begins with an inventory of tree canopy (created by volunteers counting trees in aerial photographs) and signifies an on-going commitment to forest (including yards, parks, and vacant lots) management.

According to the Arbor day Foundation, “Together the more than 3,400 Tree City USA communities serve as home to more than 135 million Americans.”

As we look at Mother Earth, the statistics about the benefits of trees (shade, water control, climate change, real estate values, habitats) are attracting practically minded officials, homeowners, developers and others. Magic and quality of life issues and stewardship are harder to sell.

In the  novel The Night Circus, performers presented real magic under the guise of sleight of hand. In many ways, those of us who love forests and their natural magic as part of the living organism named Earth are doing the same thing.

People don’t listen when you say Earth speaks through the growth of a tree, the way it moves in the wind, and via the songs of the wild critters it attracts. They do listen when you say trees can reduce summer air conditioning costs by 35%. I’m okay with that. We need to reduce our use of power and the amount of the family budget it consumes. The magic will follow for those who love the tree for its own sake and are willing to listen.

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You May Also Like: Review: ‘Butterfly Moon,’ by Anita Endrezze and Spring Fantasy Novel Giveaway for ‘The Seeker’ – First Excerpt

–Malcolm

The South  Carolina Arts Commission said, in its press release about the novel, “There’s a remarkable sensitivity to the mystery of how place affects human souls, and descriptions of the land are masterful, always interesting and never overdone, integrated seamlessly into the narrative. This is a writer who definitely has what it takes to continue on to more books and make a real contribution to Southern literature.”

From the Publisher:

“Shortly before daybreak in War, West Virginia, a passing train derails and spills an avalanche of coal over sixteen-year-old Emma Palmisano’s house, trapping her sleeping family inside. The year is 1924, and the remote mines of Appalachia have filled with families like Emma’s—poor, immigrant laborers building new lives half a world away from the island of Sicily. Emma awakes in total darkness, to the voice of a railroad man, Caleb Sypher, who is digging her out from the suffocating coal. From his pocket he removes two spotless handkerchiefs and tenderly cleans Emma’s bare feet. Though she knows little else about this railroad man, Emma marries him a week later, and Caleb delivers her from the gritty coal camp to thirty-four acres of pristine Virginia mountain farmland.”

Part one begins:

On Monday, Washday, the two boys standing outside the white frame house looked like wizened old men. They’re old enough to stop speeding mine cars with wooden sprags. Emma thought. Old enough to chew their daddy’s tobacco, they stood in the middle of the dirt road, their slate eyes searching for her inside the family’s front window. The taller one had burned a black ‘Made in Poland’ tattoo to his right forearm. The shorter one lacked a forefinger and a thumb on his sooty left hand.

“Go stand in the window in the window,” Emma’s mother said. “At least let them get a look at you.”

“It’s just a coupled of spraggers,” Emma said. “They should be at work.”

“Maybe they’re still in school.” Her mother frowned, for a girl should be seen and not heard. But Emma was sixteen, old enough to work alongside her mother and speak her mind.

Turning away from the boys’ longing eyes, Emma followed her mother out to the crumbling brick oven beside the rusted train tracks to boil water for the washing.

From Kirkus Reviews:  “Tekulve’s descriptions of the hard, cold, dirty coal camp life, above and below ground, are masterful … (Her) great gift is to live in the hearts of her characters … Lyrical, haunting fiction.”

I think we’ll be seeing a lot more from this author!

–Malcolm

In addition to four novels, author Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of the southern short stories on Kindle, “Moonlight and Ghosts,” “Cora’s Crossing” and “Emily’s Stories.” “Emily’s Stories,” a three-story set, is also available as an audio book.

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“I had not expected to see any magic in your world. Osprey said your people used science and technology instead of magic.” – Sarabande in “Sarabande”

Fantasy has come a long way since Beowulf (800), The Mabinohion (1100), Le Morte d’Arthur (1469) and The Faerie Queen (1590).

Today’s popular fantasy titles on Amazon are Dead Ever After: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel by Charlaine Harris, A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 5) by George R.R. Martin and A Memory of Light (Wheel of Time, Book 14) by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson along with pre-orders for After Dead: What Came Next in the World of Sookie Stackhouse by Charlaine Harris and Lisa Desimini (Oct 29, 2013) and Written in My Own Heart’s Blood: A Novel (Outlander) by Diana Gabaldon (Dec 10, 2013).

It’s not always easy to separate out genre sales figures. Fantasy is often grouped with science fiction. Some people classify vampire and zombie stories as occult and some people include them with fantasy. You might find Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series variously listed as fantasy, historical or romance. However, fantasy usually appears as the fifth most-popular genre with 8% of total sales, following romance, paranormal, thriller and mystery.

In my novel Sarabande, I distinguish between the magical alternative universe world of the protagonist and the science and technology world of the present day. While a greater percentage of Beowulf’s audience believed magic was real than today’s audience, a fair number of people still hope it’s real and/or enjoy imagining that it’s real. Look at the success of the Harry Potter series books and films, the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Game of Thrones phenomenon.

Depending on your viewpoint, the attractiveness of books such as The Secret show that people either hunger for proof that they are powerful beyond measure, as Marianne Williamson once said, or that they are delusional and willing to be fooled. Yet, books such as  The Sage Age by MaAnna Stephenson that draw parallels between science and mind power, and consciousness research by organizations such as Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) suggest that mankind is still searching for the magic we love to read about in our fantasy literature.

Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell, founder of IONS, said “I realized that the story of ourselves as told by science—our cosmology, our religion—was incomplete and likely flawed. I recognized that the Newtonian idea of separate, independent, discreet things in the universe wasn’t a fully accurate description. What was needed was a new story of who we are and what we are capable of becoming.”

Fantasy is, of course, fiction…a good story…an escape, perhaps…an alternative to westerns and science fiction and romances for great themes and plots…and good fun at the movie theater and a good book at bed time. If that’s all it is, it’s served its storytelling purpose.

As a fantasy author, I like to believe that behind the adventures, fantasy speaks to our greatest hopes.

–Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of three fantasy novels, The Sun Singer, Sarabande and The Seeker.

The GoodReads giveaway ends May 21, 2013. We’re giving away three copies of this novel of visions, magic, romance and fate.

My two brothers and I at Spitler Woods in Central Illinois

Truth be told, my parents and grandparents probably took my two brothers and I to large city parks to give us a place to burn off energy. And we did.

To my young eyes (and legs) large city and county parks seemed infinite, and to some extent, the size of the meadows, the mysteriousness of woods without apparent end, and the length of the trails were magic.

There were so many possibilities. Part of it was a growing love of nature and the infusion of energy that came from being out in the natural world. Part of it was what the imagination of children (and fun-loving adults) can make out of hills and dales and streams and closely sheltered trails. (Click on the photo to see a place with a cool trail.)

To return to a park was to return to the joys and traditions that we discovered and created the last time we were there. Do kids still feel this way or are their expectations higher and their feelings of anticipation higher only with theme parks?

I’ve never loved a theme park as much as a city, county, state or national park because, early on, I was trained by my parents and grandparents to believe that my own imagination was infinite. Theme parks present somebody else’s imagination and once you’ve seen it all, infinity closes down to nothing.

The magic of city parks has no end even though I haven’t seen those old favorite places for half a century now. In a moment, I’m there again with new smiles and delights.

–Malcolm

Needless to say, Malcolm R. Campbell grew up to write fantasy novels, including the recently released story of love and destiny, “The Seeker.”

Wikipedia commons photo

Much has been written about the loss of the physical book with the advent of e-books.

The craftsmanship of printing and binding added to the words, creating a physical object with rigid covers wrapped in cloth or leather, with sewn binding, paper and ink choices that matched the work, type fonts that matched the work, and beautiful book jackets.

Paperbacks took some of these standards away. And now, e-books have morphed what were once beautiful works of art into files on a computer or an e-reader.

When my new novel The Seeker was released last month, it didn’t take a rocket scientist or a guru to figure out that most people would skip the trade paperback and purchase the book on Kindle, Nook and other e-book formats. That’s today’s reality. While the words are the important thing, I wish we weren’t losing the other factors that made a book a book.

Books on a shelf, while potentially a way of showing off, were a cherished collection, an easily visible reminder of what one had read, a place to stand and look while selecting an old favorite for an afternoon of reading.

Hardcover and paperback books were easily lent to friends. They stopped by, saw something they liked and borrowed it, hopefully with the intention of giving it back in good condition. That’s harder to do with an e-reader where all the books are hidden inside an electronic device rather than gracing a nightstand or a shelf.

Today’s book

Traditional books could be physically signed by the author. In earlier days, people tended to inscribe books they gave to friends and family with the date and good wishes like, “To Malcolm on his 21st birthday, with love Dad and Mother.” Hard to do that with an e-book.

While e-books are certainly easy to access, search and store, it’s not quite the same as sitting by a floor to ceiling shelf in the living room and idly reaching for one thing or another for a bit of browsing.

The books on those shelves became heirlooms in some ways with all their inscriptions and signatures and wear and tear of use. They were easy to cherish, not simply for the words, but for the feel of paper and binding in one’s hand and for what they had meant to other people and how they had survived throughout the generations rather like old paintings, jewelry boxes, grandfather’s glasses, mother’s sewing kit, the old butter church in the garage.

I still prefer reading physical books even though most of the high-quality printing and binding have gone the way of cheaper fare. For me, a book was more than words and a treasured household possession. It was easy to cherish because I could pick it up, hand it to a friend and remember how and when I acquired it. I haven’t yet figured out how to do this with an e-book because it’s just a name on a list with a thumbnail photo of the cover.

I guess we will find a way to love them for more reasons than price and ease of reading on vacation and the small amount of physical space a library takes up on a Kindle or a Nook. It’s progress, I guess, with loss of a lot of tradition. I suppose people once thought that way when they stopped writing books in clay and then stopped writing than by hand.

Time moves on, or so I’ve been told.

–Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of contemporary fantasy novels, including “Sarabande” and “The Seeker.”

An assault on a lonely road changes a life

From the Montana Historical Society

Keeping the home fires burning was no picnic at the turn of the last century, but it will be when the Montana Historical Society opens its new exhibit “Domestic Economy: Managing the Home 1890-1920″ Thursday, May 9, at 6:30 p.m.

‘This exhibit explores the ‘new’ science of Home Economics and some of the most popular features of this topic like food, clothing and home health care, which were important parts of how a home was expected to be efficiently managed,” MHS Curator of History Sarah Nucci said.

Probably the most interesting part to our guests about these topics is the food, and those who attend will be treated to an indoor 1900s picnic featuring sandwiches and desserts made with recipes from that era.

“The staff pitched in with this over the last several weeks by creating and tasting recopies from our historic cookbook collection like Devil’s Food Cake and Mock Mince Meat Pie,” Nucci said.

A free pamphlet with historic recipies will be available throughout the exhibit’s run.

The kitchen portion of a homestead era dwelling will be part of the exhibit and will include the kind of things people needed to survive on the Montana frontier.

Early homesteaders often lived miles from the closest doctor or medical professional, which meant it could be many hours or even days before help could arrive. The exhibit will include an example of a small medical kit most homesteaders kept handy.

“These early homesteaders and their neighbors were often the only medical help that was available,” MHS Reference Historian Zoe Ann Stoltz who helped create the exhibit, said. “Childbirth was often only attended by older, experienced, female neighbors.”

The new exhibit will provide a unique look at the everyday life of those who settled Montana, and the ways that the developing

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Finding the Magic

Wikipedia commons photo

The historical information accompanying museum artifacts and exhibits helps us understand our ancestors, while creating a psychic link between ourselves and  long-ago lifestyles buried deep within our collective memory.

My wife and I have worked in museums, and–in doing so–we have had a rare opportunity to hold artifacts in our hands that are generally displayed within Plexiglas or glass vitrines or behind ropes and electronic barriers. When one is relaxed, or especially tired while setting up an exhibit with a looming deadline, touch can work like a telegraph.

Touch brings with it many impressions of an object being used and of those who made the object and how they skipped or struggled through their lives. When we restored the Pullman railcar used by President Harding, we felt not only his presence, but that of the craftsmen who constructed the car. The same has been true when displaying a pre-Civil War doctor’s bag or a general store shelf of ancient farm equipment.

One can also do this as a museum visitor, especially on a slow day when the press of crowds doesn’t force one to keep moving from display to display. You probably won’t be allowed to touch the butter churn or the heavy iron or the mixing bowls in a domestic economy exhibit. But you can stand their quietly and listen for the voices from the objects. They speak.

Does hearing them take practice? Maybe yes, maybe no. It depends on your openness, stress level, ability to use biofeedback techniques to slow brainwaves, your comfort zone, and the kind of day you’re having. I always note how a museum displays the artifacts in its collection, the kinds of interpretive labels and signs they provide, and I wonder whether or not those who worked late into the night before opening day heard the voices behind the objects.

I hope to.

–Malcolm

As you might expect, Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of paranormal short stories, including “Cora’s Crossing,” and contemporary fantasy novels, including “The Seeker.”

Sometimes I think of the day in which the picture was taken. Other times, I think of the beautiful rivers I have seen but did not capture in photographs. Then, too, there all those things that have been written about rivers, in or out of their banks, rushing or calm, in sunlight and storm.

You probably have your own favorite quotes about rivers. Here are a few of mine to set the stage for the week.

“I choose to listen to the river for a while, thinking river thoughts, before joining the night and the stars.” — Edward Abbey

“A brook can be a friend in a special way. It talks to you with splashy gurgles. It cools your toes and lets you sit quietly beside it when you don’t feel like speaking.” — Joan Walsh Anglund

“Men may dam it and say that they have made a lake, but it will still be a river. It will keep its nature and bide its time, like a caged animal alert for the slightest opening. In time, it will have its way; the dam, like the ancient cliffs, will be carried away piecemeal in the currents.” — Wendell Berry

“We may be floating on Tao, but there is nothing wrong with steering. If Tao is like a river, it is certainly good to know where the rocks are.” ― Deng Ming-Dao

“Keep your rivers flowing as they will, and you will continue to know the most important of all freedoms—the boundless scope of the human mind to contemplate wonders, and to begin to understand their meaning.” — David Brower

“Or like the snow falls in the river,
A moment white—then melts for ever . . .” – Robert Burns

“A river seems a magic thing. A magic, moving, living part of the very earth itself.” ― Laura Gilpin

–Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of contemporary fantasy novels and short stories, including my three-story set called “Emily’s Stories,” now available as an audiobook.