Just Being ….

We are currently in lockdown again but Buch Wien, the Vienna Book Fair, made it through just in time. I went twice thanks to a discounted ticket from the Fair and a complimentary one from Shakespeare & Company where I had just picked up my copy of The Stoning by Peter Papathanasiou.

I was thrilled to see my books on the IG-AutorInnen stand

and to hear good conversations with local authors Natasha Strobl, author of Radikalisierter Konservatismus: Eine Analyse, and Daniel Wisser, author of Wir Bleiben Noch.

Then came lockdown preceded by demonstrations by people carrying on about freedom – their own of course – making me strongly consider using the spelling “freedumb” in that respect as I try and refrain from getting entangled in their propos of freedom of choice, discrimination, while people are dying due to their stance.

So, you can imagine how thrilled I was to see my interview at Litrobona followed by a review of All the Beautiful Liars, both in German, but that perhaps will help getting out a German-language version of my fictional memoir.

Then followed a 20-book order of my post-2020 flash nano bilingual novella in flash, Romeo & Julia in Corona for an English class in a nearby school and the photo to prove it. Look what they are reading!

(Btw, I have permission to use the photo.) And proceeds from the book sales are donated to PCs für Alle.

I´m currently submitting my literary memoir, Braiding my Lives through international conferences and festivals – telecommunications – education – literature, which was born in a MasterMind workshop run by Nancy Stohlman. It started out as a memoir in flash but seems to have morphed into a hybrid of a quite different sort with a touch of almost “Being Katrina Klain” in the process. (Apologies to John Malkovich there ;))

Doors closing and opening elsewhere. Where belonging loses importance and the longing to be becomes being. Just being as I leave you with onwards, in tune with the call for submissions for the next issue of WordCity Literary Journal.