Lost Decade

Dang!
Has anyone seen my lost decade? I’ve misplaced it. It’s gotta be around here somewhere. Let me retrace my steps.
Hmmmm. Moved to Tucson in ’00. Started and finished a novel. Began writing Down But Never Out, flew back and forth to Philly a lot. Bought a place in Durango, stayed there each summer.
What happened next? Ah yes, bought a Tucson house for my in-laws and they refused to move from New Jersey. Sold the house back to the seller. In ’05 moved in-laws to a second house in Tucson. In ‘06 couldn’t leave in-laws alone in summer, so sold Durango, both houses in Tucson, moved all to Laguna Woods, California in ’07.
Finished Down But Never Out… began publishing The Hummingbird Review. Birthdays…recall a few but not ten. TEN, no way!
Maybe I left the decade in the closet.
Going to look for it now.
If you find it first…please write me.

Thank You, Mrs. Galvin

I received a note today from 6th grade teacher Karen Galvin. She explained that she had been using my website’s “News & Info” page as a resource for information and suggested that I add a new reference for a valuable resource given to her by a student. So here it is:
ADD/ADHD Learning Center
www.healthline.com/health/add-adhd-attention-deficit
My thanks to Mrs. Galvin’s student for this important reference, soon to be added to my webpages. http://www.charlieredner.com/

Love for Tucson Gets Wings

photo by Charles Redner

Let it be known, writing “5 Best Photo Opportunities in Tucson” for AOL Travel via RedRoom wasn’t simply an opportunity to see another byline. I love Tucson. My wife and I visited for vacation during New Year’s 1999-2000. She left for a bike ride and returned in a car driven by a Realtor. We looked at a house, purchased it on the spot, only returning to New Jersey to pack our things. I have visited and photographed every site mentioned in the article (except the Titan Museum) and hope, should you visit Tucson, that you find my assessments agree with yours. Space did not allow but the Pima Air and Space Museum is also worth a look.
http://news.travel.aol.com/bloggers/charles-redner/

Guest Appraiser

Guest Appraiser
By Charles Redner
My wife’s painting of a battered red truck
proudly hangs in her art society’s gallery
where a class, currently in session,
is painting a female model.

The artists appear at ease,
checking proportions, brushes at arm’s length,
splashing moistened pigments on canvas.
This is their norm.

But oh, so new to me.
I shift my eyes from the wall
where my wife’s painting
has been judged honorable.

Desirous to better view the model,
I shift my eyes hard, hard as possible,
as a head turn, would be obvious.
Obvious to the model, the class, my wife.

But the eyes shift
does not accomplish—a look.
A look—a nonchalant glance.
You know, nonchalantly.

Wife gazes at me for appraisal of her work.
I study it now for the first, nod approvingly.
Voice has deserted the vocal cords.
She turns to leave, turns the wrong way.

Do I pirouette in the same direction?
Or accidently turn toward—
Did I mention—there’s a model?

A naked,
unencumbered by clothes,
beautiful, young lady
posing less than a fallen easel away.

I turn, having appraised and follow my wife out the door.

The Night BP...back story

A few months ago, Michael Blake sent me a manuscript of his new book, Into the Stars. It’s about an American soldier during WW I who finds a horse on the battlefield. After I read it I called Michael, so impressed with his description of trench warfare. I asked him where he found do much material on WW I as I felt as though I was there. He told me that he made it all up. Impressed, I mentioned this to Said. He then challenged me to write about a subject of his choosing without any research. He chose the Gulf oil spill.
I wrote "The Night BP Drove Old Dixie Down" which is now a finalist in RedRoom’s short story contest. What I found interesting is that friends have asked me how I knew so much about fishing and drilling for oil.

Hummingbird Review Poetry Revue

NEWS FLASH, SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA LITERARY FANS: 'Dances With Wolves' author Michael Blake will be joining American Haiku magazine founder Don Eulert, Hummingbird Review editor Bob Yehling, poet Maggi DeRosa, short fictionist Alwyn Martin and yours truly at the Hummingbird Review Poetry Revue Sunday, Oct. 24 at Vista City California Library. It starts at 2:30 p.m. and is presented by the Sunset Poets. What a day for spoken word this is going to be!

Viva Tucson

This I believe.
There are places on this earth that resonate beyond the five senses. For me, here in the lower forty-eight, I discovered one in Abiquiu, New Mexico, near Santa Fe – Ghost Ranch – where Georgia O’Keeffe waved her magic brush. The second is located in Chinle at Canyon de Chelly (pronounced de Shay), in the northeast quadrant of Arizona. The third is the state’s second city, Tucson, where I lived for seven glorious years. It was in Tucson that I wrote my first novel and discovered poetry, thanks to Penny Porter, matriarch of the Society of Southwestern Authors, who invited slam poet Taylor Mali to perform at its 2008 conference. Tucson, the Old Pueblo, is where I learned to appreciate a desert’s spectacular beauty, where I experienced its unfathomable wonder and gathered up the vibrations it sent my way.
Been kicking myself rather hard since I missed the second annual Tucson Festival of Books in March, where 450 writers assembled to thrill over 50,000 readers. Titled, “Where Words & Imagination Come to Life” the festival even featured a hummingbird as its symbol—kismet. I squandered the opportunity to mingle with authors Elmore Leonard (Get Shorty and 3:10 To Yuma); Michael Gelb (How To Think Like Leonardo da Vinci); and Mark Frost, who along with David Lynch produced the phenomenal 1990s television series Twin Peaks. I lost the chance to talk with my old friend, Academy Award screenwriter/novelist Michael Blake (Dances With Wolves and Indian Yell) I also missed out on visiting with The Hummingbird Review's inspiration, Luis Alberto Urrea (Into The Beautiful North, Hummingbird’s Daughter), who was blessed by a shaman during his signing session. Whoa! I've already marked my calendar for next March 12-13.