Making The Novel

Jonel Abellanosa  lives in Cebu City, the Philippines.   He is a nature lover, an environmental advocate, and loves all animals particularly dogs. His poetry and fiction have appeared in hundreds of literary journals and anthologies, including  Windhover, The Lyric, Star*Line, Poetry Kanto, Dark Matter, Marsh Hawk Review, That Literary Review  and  The Anglican Theological Review . His poetry collections include  Meditations   (Alien Buddha Press) , Songs from My Mind’s Tree  and  Multiverse  (Clare Songbirds Publishing House),  50 Acrostic Poems  (Cyberwit,   India),  In the Donald’s Time (Poetic Justice Books and Art), and his speculative poetry collection,  Pan’s Saxophone  (Weasel Press ).  He loves to self-study the sciences.  Healers  is his first novel. John Bloomberg-Rissman  is an editor and mashup ethnographer slash maker of texts. Among other projects, he has co-edited one v...

Introduction:  This excerpt is from  RUNAWAY TRAIN  and  GRENADE BOUQUETS , the first books of a series set in the early '90s, charting the journey of an aspiring grunge singer who goes off the rails when her sister dies of a sudden brain aneurysm and runs away at the encouragement of her delinquent friends to accomplish every item on her bucket list, culminating in showing up at Kurt Cobain's house, and a sequel about the singer and her band, “Grenade Bouquets,” as they climb to fame in New York City.     Sick of Myself –  Matthew Sweet              I’m barefoot on a roof deck, maybe it’s my own, I dunno. Life has been a series of hotels recently, but I think this is that place the band rented down on the Lower East Side. Everyone hates me so they all moved out and I’m left alone in a huge loft with a fire escape that twists up to a roof with barely any railing to keep me safe. I have a joint...

Introduction:   Set in 18 th   century India and in Spain’s most eastern colony, the Philippines and tells the story of a young English lad, Christopher Courtney, who stows away on an East India Merchant ship bound for Madras. It is at the time when huge fortunes are being won and lost by the British and the French in India as they battle over the vast riches of the emerging continent. The autonomous East India Company, based in Madras, is headed by the influential Governor, George Pigot, who is immediately impressed by the young stowaway and takes him under his wing. With Pigot’s patronage, Courtney makes a swift rise through the ranks of the East India Company and, encouraged by the Governor, becomes engaged to the his favourite niece, Henrietta.   Pigot sends Courtney to the Philippines to make trade agreements with the local Sultan Azim-ud-din of Sulu for diamonds and pearls, to set up a factory in the Islands and to wrest control of the lucrative spice trade in the E...