The frenzied whirl of the newsroom is the centerpiece for SOLD ON A MONDAY, an historical fiction novel to be easily savored and digested within a couple of days. You won’t be able to put this one down.

Cigar smoke, paper airplanes flying, loud chatter, phones ringing, reporters scurrying about spilling coffee, crumpled paper being tossed in rubbish bins, and rushed stand-up meetings happening in small spaces. All of this activity and the flurry of competition between reporters hungry for the next story are well portrayed by author Kristina McMorris.

The ability to create a definitive mood from chapter 1’s opening paragraph through to the last page of this book, is a stunning feat. As McMorris masterfully paints this literary masterpiece, she blends together an array of colors and textures, using tiny vivid details and subtle emotional nuance, all of which make this story sing.

As we travel through the chapters, the two lead characters, Ellis Reed and Lily Palmer, gradually reveal their human flaws. Yet, each possess a heart of gold.

The trigger to this compelling tale takes place when Ellis makes a snap decision under pressure at the very start of the book. As an aspiring junior news reporter seeking his first sizzling headline, he hopes to capture the hearts and minds of readers, as well as reel in attention from his newspaper chief.

The setting for the story is the East Coast, including the farmlands of Pennsylvania, the city of Pittsburgh, and the heart of New York City. The year is 1931, in the midst of the Great Depression and prohibition. Ellis has staged a photograph to ‘cover his ass’ with his tough demanding boss. The photo is a fake, set up to look like something real but that factually, ‘is not.’ The photograph and its evocative heart-tugging caption become ultra-popular with the masses, and Ellis’ career is launched into the big-time news world.

Ellis achieves his dream but the featured photograph and caption also serve to set off a ‘domino effect’ with grave repercussions; all caused by his unethical ‘spur of the moment’ decision. The result is a family torn apart, with two children placed in great danger, leaving Ellis emotionally broken because of the heavy guilt he carries. His dilemma is an ethical one, faced with how to ‘right a wrong’ that’s remained secret for months.

When Lily, also an aspiring reporter with a hidden past, enters the picture, readers will delight in the twists and turns that follow, and how their paths will intertwine.

This novel will undoubtedly have readers on the edge of their seats. There’s action, family tension, unrequited love, passion, and characters who must deal with challenging societal pressures, including ‘seedy’ crime bosses out to eliminate anyone that gets in their way.

But the real impact of this read for me personally was the tug on my emotions which caused me to think about at least one snap decision I made in my life that, unfortunately, set a fireball rolling downhill; and my world, as I knew it, tilted.

Everyone reading this work likely has at least one on-the-spot decision that they deeply regret. And that is why the lead characters in this novel are compelling and relatable.

SOLD ON A MONDAY, by Kristina McMorris, is one helluva read! I highly recommend picking this one up.

Lazy Cat

Lazy cat, you’re napping

In the sun again as if its June,

But in the center of the road,

Playfully flopped over the yellow line.

I can tell you’re a nice cat, black,

White paws and throat, pink nose.

I’m sure you rub legs, curl on laps,

Beg for a string, a fish, a saucer of cream.

You belong to the old woman in this house

Or the little girl in that house.

At first, I pass by: “That’s too bad.”

A neighbor’s car swerves;

A truck straddles your repose.

I pick you up and you’re not

Stiff yet. Blood on my gloves,

I set you on the curb, hoping

Loved ones will discover you,

Knowing someone will grieve

And surely give you a proper

Burial in their backyard.

The Granary

The granary stood

Leaning unassuming apart

From the barn and dairy

Painted the same red

As the machinery shed

Now fading more

Wood than pigment

Each a singular

Pungent redolence

Hay milk grease

The granary aroma

Was autumn and burlap

Plowing planting

Worry fruition

In its polished ribs

Boards slippery with chaff

The way the wheat

Sifted sliding over

Your palms was soothing

Familiar and primordial

An instinctual assurance

_Nature_

I hear the silence of the water in every morning walk.

A tree communicate with another tree through their roots and i feel their heart beat as i embrace that tree.

I belong to the nature as the nature live under my skin.

I fly with the eagles.

I run with the lions.

I play with the elephants in the mud.

I am a bridge between the perfect and the imperfection.

I am the image of the beauty and the dark.

As i was the guilty that burns the tree without a warning.

I cut the trees and i make a home.

I took the fishes in my plate.

I am the dangerous animal of all and nature keep supporting me in so Many different and extraordinary ways.

That the difference between human and nature.

I am not the creator but i am that little bee that trying for days to put the nectar  in the nest of the Queen. I was only a small ant that was looking for food.

I am the perfect and imperfect nature that will become the Dreamland of every living being 

I start to forgive this imperfect world and spread a new message of kindness and generosity.

Nature teach me to be free but not greed .

To be open but not manipulated.

To be the real me in any circumstances and accept my responsibilities.

Nature, only teach us how we can understand ourselves and become the real one.

The pureness is not easy but it is not impossible.

Dear Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie,

Dear Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, I want to let you know that you saved a young boy. I want to let you know that you revealed a young boy to himself. I want to let you know that you made a young boy see himself. I want to let you know that you made a young boy feel seen. I want to let you know that you led a young boy towards healing. I want to let you know that you gave a young boy a voice. I want to let you know that you made a young boy see the world better. I want to let you know that the young boy began to seek for more, that the young boy became a citizen of the world, that the young boy decided not to die again, that the young boy began to walk with a surer gait, that the young boy decided to give life a chance, that the young boy began a journey of seeking for the meaning of his life.

Dear Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, I want to let you know that a young boy is still alive because of you.

Nearer To Ourselves

For Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

When our stories were far-fetched

You brought them closer to us.

When our stories meant only one thing

You made them versatile.

When we didn’t understand well,

You cared to explain.

When the stories were one-sided

You made them balanced.

You made us inquisitive.

You made us ask questions

You gave us a mirror to peek at ourselves.

You lighted up the gifts!

You said no to the silences.

You sat down,

Bore the pain,

Heard the calling.

And you answered the calling,

So that others could hear theirs too!

Isaac Dominion Aju is a Nigerian writer whose works have appeared in different literary publications. In the analysis of his creative nonfiction in Penned In Rage Journal (UK), his work was compared to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half Of A Yellow Sun on the theme of identity. 

School — The Golden Garden of Childhood

(Dedicated to Graduates)

School — a sacred trace etched in my heart,

Each letter a memory, each day a part.

Here we learned life’s very first truth,

Here began each dream, each light of youth.

Classmates’ laughter, teachers’ wise tone,

Moments engraved, in our hearts alone.

Notebooks and pens won’t fade from mind,

Each second a memory, one of a kind.

The echo of the final bell now rings,

Eyes full of tears, hearts with longings.

The future calls — the paths unfold,

But school remains in hearts of gold.

Thank you, dear teachers, your love a stream,

Your lessons the staff that holds our dream.

Farewell, our school — you’ve always been

Our first stairway to the stars unseen.

Jo‘rayeva Marjona Baxtiyorovna was born on October 18, 2003, in the Termiz district of Surxondaryo region, Uzbekistan.

I Can’t Stop Loving You
‎
‎

Is time new? ls time old?

‎How can I say to you?

‎How am I to know?

‎Why is it snowing?

‎Why is your everything without me?

‎The world is motionless.

‎I want to back in time

‎I want to back in you

‎I want to feel the spring of magic moment

‎Love won’t end

‎Time won’t change the sun.

‎

‎Give me another chance

‎Come back and touch my heart

‎You are still living here

‎I am not the slave of time

‎Was l wrong? Were you wrong?

‎Who will break the cell of egg?

‎It is l who am always ready

‎Hear my heart and  touch my arms

‎You are everywhere

‎You are around my dream

‎You may be false, your love may be false But I am true

‎My love is true

‎I have never divided my mind into two

‎I have never walked another way

‎I have read the tears of my love

‎Take my heart into your heart

‎Take my life

‎My love is true and timeless

‎It is virgin and pure

‎I can’t stop loving you.

‎

‎Ask your soul about me

‎Ask yourself about me

‎Let me know your answer.

‎I don’t care your answer

‎I love you

‎And l can’t stop loving you.

Women Studies and Women Writings: Sultana’s Dream

Examine Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s feminist speculative utopian fiction “Sultana’s Dream” with textual references and critical perspectives.

Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s Sultana’s Dream is a hallmark experimentalist avant-garde Bengali Renaissance story-telling of magical fantasy and surrealistic utopian fiction, chronicling the documentary testament of women’s revolutionary envisionings toward salvation from patriarchal misogyny within the cosmos of western colonialism. Sister Sara’s acquaintanceship is a blessing of that silver lining foretelling of women’s rights’ movement awareness campaignings throughout the post-futility of egalitarian feminist microcosmic world in Ladyland. As a pioneering forerunner of womens’ literature, the then authorial narratorial personae is considered as a heretic, heathen, pagan, agnostic and sceptic idolatress for her groundbreaking canonical narrative, “Sultana’s Dream”.

Sultana’s exploratory adventure of the utopian wonderland of a promised land of New Jerusalem unravels the audacity and resoluteness of Her Royal Highness’s sovereignty and integrity. The Queen of the swargiya’s boldness, fierceness and aggressive traits are lionized for emerging triumphant victor transcending predatory perpetrators in the visages, masques, personages and imagoes of imperialistic masculine feuding lords. Banishment of zenanas and patronage of mardanas satirically extrapolates the decline of male authoritarian dominance and subsequent uprising of the female reign to throne. This subversion of power polity is a swashbuckling spectacle and furthermore witnesses dilapidation of crumbling hierarchies upheld by traditional conventions of the then milieu. For instance, the domiciling of police commissioners and magistrates into the boudoirs underscores the core essence of female utopian officialdom that doesn’t peremptorily trials lawsuits at the expense of innocent residents of the city of naivety and gullibility. Hence, Sara’s repartee to Sultana’s conspicuous persiflage entails transcendental philosophic humility and altruism, “It is our religious duty to love one another and to be absolutely truthful.”

Despite veiling purdaah of pardanashin culture, women of aristocracy and elitism exhibit unsurpassing charisma in juxtaposition to their countervailing counterparts as showcased by the stalwart public intellectualism/educationalism and iconoclastic socio political treatises of the authoress. Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s memorial engraving of Sultana’s Dream enmeshes her modernistic and realistic perspectives of femininity to meteoritic and nebulous phenomenological transformation in the era of scientific revolution and technological progress. This is starkly evident in the embellishments of the accolades and laurels achieved by the Headmistresses and her legion of distinctive comradely school girls in establishing the hall of fame solar and hydroelectric power projects energy schemes. Collective welfarism of the cooperative society is fostered by the solidarity and fraternity of the utilitarian feminist utopia. Restoration and reformation policies abolishing stereotypical obsolete gendered expectations limelights the contributory significance behind the crusade of the wave of feminism that was published in the then The Indian Ladies Magazine Madras (1905).

In this fairyland masculinity is emasculated because of the castration threat [penis effect] and commodification of femininity by the male gaze is thus dismantled. Hence voyeuristic perspectives of masculinity are inverted aftermath of fetishization and libidinization of the masculine objects of feminine subjectivity. The extradition of male in the mardanas have secluded them in a mirror image of the traditional culture of purdah. Effeminacy of men have transformed the role of the women as lionesses and tigresses captivators of “veteran mannish” through male enclosure enchantment. The male characters are deprived of their autonomy and agency through demasculinization and the female characters are overpowered with their calibre and intellect. “Solar ovens, rainwater harvesters, water balloons and pollution free hydrogen aircrafts” are exemplary facets of the ecocritical feminism harboured by the clairvoyance of the Queen of Ladyland: “We dive deep into the ocean of knowledge and try to find out the precious gems, which nature has kept in store for us. We enjoy nature’s gifts as much as we can.” Koh-i-Noor and the Peacock Throne are prospects of metaphorical power relations, power polity and power dynamics that the Ladyland’s Queen disavowed but avowed passive resistance and peace mongering with a consortium of mardanas.    

Further Reading, References, Podcasts and Endnotes

Chapter Title: Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain (1880-1932), Women’s Political and Social Thought, An Anthology, Hilda L. Smith and Berenice A. Caroll, Indiana University Press 2000.

Wikipedia Reading

A Brief Textual Analysis of Sultana’s Dream, Sudeshna Majumdar, Assistant Professor of English, Rampurhat College 

Behind the Scenes – Sultana’s Dream

Fabian&Fred

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