Author Archives: R Cawkwell

Hi I'm Rosemarie and I like to write. I write short stories and longer fiction, poetry and occasionally articles. I'm working on quite a few things at the minute and wouldn't mind one day actually getting published in print.

Review: ‘Earth’, by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen and Linda T. Elkins-Tanton

                                                                 Publication Date: 9th May 2017

Published by: Bloomsbury Academic  

Edition: Paperback

I.S.B.N.: 9781501317910 

Price: $14.95

 

Blurb:

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

In Earth, a planetary scientist and a literary humanist explore what happens when we think of the Earth as an object viewable from space. As a “blue marble,” “a blue pale dot,” or, as Chaucer described it, “this litel spot of erthe,” the solitary orb is a challenge to scale and to human self-importance. Beautiful and self-contained, the Earth turns out to be far less knowable than it at first appears: its vast interior an inferno of incandescent and yet solid rock and a reservoir of water vaster than the ocean, a world within the world. Viewing the Earth from space invites a dive into the abyss of scale: how can humans apprehend the distances, the temperatures, and the time scale on which planets are born, evolve, and die?

Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.

Continue reading “Review: ‘Earth’, by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen and Linda T. Elkins-Tanton”

Oh, I’ve been nominated for a Mystery Blogger Award

Thanks to Planet Pailly for the nomination, I’m flattered, shocked and embarrassed. Also thank you to Okoto Enigma for creating this award.

Award Rules

  • Put the award logo on your blog.
  • List the rules.
  • Thank whoever nominated you and link to their blog.
  • Mention the creator of the award (Okoto Enigma) and provide a link as well.
  • Tell your readers 3 things about yourself.
  • Nominate roughly 10 – 20 people for this award.
  • Notify your nominees by commenting on their blogs.
  • Ask your nominees five questions.
  • Share a link to your best/favorite post that you’ve written.

Three Things About Myself

  1. When I was a kid I was given a typewriter for one of my birthdays. Or possibly Christmas.
  2. I used it to write really bad ‘Famous Five’/’Swallows and Amazons’ type children’s adventures.
  3. I used to write during the night and wake everyone up with the sound of me hitting the keyboard. And possibly talking to myself.

Five Questions from Planet Pailly

  • What do you want to be when you grow up?

I refuse to grow up. Adulthood is a mugs game.

  • What book has had the most influence on you?

The Lord of The Rings

  • Has a movie ever brought you to tears? If so, what movie was it?

Loads of films make me cry. The Return of the King, and, The Help, are good ones if you need a good bawl.

  • If you were a dinosaur, which dinosaur do you think you’d be and why?

An ichthyosaur. I like the idea of swimming around in the Triassic ocean being the top predator. Have you seen them teeth!Thalattoarchon saurophagis looking big mean and ichthyosaurian. Here ...

  • What will be the title of your autobiography?

Where’s did I put my glasses?

Nominees

Gosh, this is hard. I’d nominate Planet Pailly, if James hadn’t already nominated me.

Blissful Scribbles

Grendel’s Mother

The Shameful Sheep

Okay, I know I’m supposed to nominate 10 – 20 bloggers but I’m not very good at this stuff. So two will have to do for now. I think I’ll have to add more blogs as I go along. I read irregularly, it doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy reading all the blogs I follow, only that I don’t have a huge amount of time to read more than a couple of posts a day.

My Five Questions

  1. When did you start writing?
  2. Pluto: Planet or not?
  3. Favourite place to write?
  4. Pen or word processor for the first draft?
  5. If you were a mythical creature, what would you be?

 

 

Beowulf and the Monsters

I’ve been thinking about the ‘monsters’ in Beowulf recently. I don’t think they’re all that monstrous, if anything they’re probably justified in their actions if you look at events from their point of view.

Continue reading “Beowulf and the Monsters”

Review: ‘What Regency Women Did For Us’ by Rachel Knowles

PubWhat Regency Women Did For Uslished by: Pen & Sword 

Publication Date: 5th April 2017

 ISBN: 9781473882249

Price: £10.39

Blurb

Regency women inhabited a very different world from the one in which we live today. Considered intellectually inferior to men, they received little education and had very few rights. This book tells the inspirational stories of twelve women, from very different backgrounds, who overcame often huge obstacles to achieve success. These women were pioneers, philanthropists and entrepreneurs, authors, scientists and actresses women who made an impact on their world and ours. In her debut non-fiction work, popular history blogger Rachel Knowles tells how each of these remarkable ladies helped change the world they lived in and whose legacy is still evident today. Two hundred years later, their stories are still inspirational.

Continue reading “Review: ‘What Regency Women Did For Us’ by Rachel Knowles”

Bonus cover reveal: The paperback cover

Michelle came through for me this afternoon and delivered my paperback cover wrap. It’s brilliant. She did have to nudge me to get the blurb done though. I stayed up too late last night and it went right out of my mind. Here it is, complete with the blurb I’m extraordinarily proud of.Continue reading “Bonus cover reveal: The paperback cover”

Hidden Fire Progress report.

I have finally got all the changes made to the text and now I’m getting Hidden Fire set up on CreateSpace – for the paperback – and KDP for the ebook. I hadn’t realised I could do both through KDP and used CreateSpace first. I’m jumping from one page to the other but I think I’m about sorted. I’m just waiting for my cover design now. I’ve got a few weeks so it’s no rush.

I plan to have the book available for pre-order in early June, ready for publication day, my birthday, 17th June.

What I really need now is beta readers, to go over the text one more time. There’s time to make any changes, but I need people other than me to read through to catch anything I’ve missed. I hate poorly edited books, as you all know, so I don’t want mine to join that list.

After I’ve got the book made, I’ll be looking for reviewers, so if anyone wants to read a fantasy novel and review it for me, either on their blog or on Amazon I’d been happy to send a copy.

HIDDEN FIRE progress report

I’m still planning to publish my book Hidden Fire this summer. I’ve made some progress. A couple of weeks ago I printed the whole book out and have been slowly editing. It took me the best part of two weeks to go through the first 11 chapters, but this weekend I’ve really put my back into it (because I haven’t the energy for anything else) and completed the read through. I’ve made some changes to the printed version and I now have to go back to my computer and make the changes in the document.

Yesterday a friend from university shared a video about formatting a book for publishing on Kindle, so I watched that and had a go at it. I have saved the original document too, so it’s not a big deal if I mess up. I currently have a file with the book formatted for Kindle, and another for the print book. I’m sure there’s front matter I’m missing and I need to find out about ISBNs and bar codes, but I’m getting there.

I’m waiting to hear back from my cover designer, but Michelle is busy working on her second novella, The Deceived, the follow up to her recently published The Bound. It’s understandable that she wants to concentrate on her own writing right now so I’m not going to be pushy. There’s eight weeks yet until publication date.

I’ve set up an author page on Facebook – Rosemarie Cawkwell – Indie Author. You’re welcome to follow and share if you’re on Facebook.

That’s about it. I’m going for a walk and then it’s back to work.

Review: ‘Lunatics, Imbeciles and Idiots’, by Katheryn Burtinshaw and Dr John Burt

Published by: Pen & SwordLunatics, Imbeciles and Idiots

Publication Date: 3rd April 2017

I.S.B.N.: 9781473879034

Price: £15.99

Click cover for link to publishers page.

As ever, I was sent this book in return for an honest review. Thanks to Alex and Pen & Sword for sending me the book.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blurb

In the first half of the nineteenth-century treatment of the mentally ill in Britain and Ireland underwent radical change. No longer manacled, chained and treated like wild animals, patient care was defined in law and medical understanding, and treatment of insanity developed.

Focussing on selected cases, this new study enables the reader to understand how progressively advancing attitudes and expectations affected decisions, leading to better legislation and medical practice throughout the century. Specific mental health conditions are discussed in detail and the treatments patients received are analysed in an expert way. A clear view of why institutional asylums were established, their ethos for the treatment of patients, and how they were run as palaces rather than prisons giving moral therapy to those affected becomes apparent. The changing ways in which patients were treated, and altered societal views to the incarceration of the mentally ill, are explored. The book is thoroughly illustrated and contains images of patients and asylum staff never previously published, as well as first-hand accounts of life in a nineteenth-century asylum from a patients perspective.

Written for genealogists as well as historians, this book contains clear information concerning access to asylum records and other relevant primary sources and how to interpret their contents in a meaningful way.

Continue reading “Review: ‘Lunatics, Imbeciles and Idiots’, by Katheryn Burtinshaw and Dr John Burt”