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Happy Thanksgiving from Everyone at indieBRAG!

Geri Clouston
Find award-winning, reader-recommended books about American History @ https://www.bragmedallion.com/award-winning-books/#!/historical-fiction/ Anadama bread, an old New England (many say Maine) recipe, often appears on my Thanksgiving table. What distinguishes this bread is the inclusion of cornmeal and molasses, creating a darker, crusty loaf with a hint of sweetness. So delicious with your meal and yummy, toasted. I learned to bake bread at a Maine music festival, where my husband taught and performed. A pianist at the festival was a professional baker and cook, and made bread each week for the staff. She invited me to bake with her, and I did for 6 wonderful summers. Her Anadama Bread is one of the best I’ve ever tasted, especially with the option of adding cheese chunks (picture at bottom), which partially melt, leaving little nuggets of flavor. Not as common outside of New England, once you taste it, Anadama bread will make a regular appearance at your table! Happy Thanksgiving!                                                                         Anadama Bread Yield: 4 large loaves 3 1/2 c water 1…

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Foodie Lit, Uncategorized

Susan’s Sweet Challah for Rosh Hashanah

Geri Clouston
  If there is one recipe that helps define the Jewish Sabbath and holidays, it is challah. The challah is made around the world in Jewish homes. The aroma of baking challah fills a home with the smells of holidays, traditions and memories. Baking challah is both a physical and a spiritual activity. It connects the baker to customs and culture and is considered a blessing in the home. I have been making challah for 45 years and have developed my own sweet and savory recipes. I bake this sweet challah for the fall holiday season, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot. It was a favorite of my mother’s. Rather than the traditional braided challah loaf used for most of the year is the round challah made for this time of year, symbolic of the end of the old and beginning of the new year- the circle of life. We make it sweet in hope that the new year will be sweet; we bake it with our own hands to bring love into our home. Happy New Year. These are the candlesticks I use lighting for Shabbat and holidays, with the yellow ribbon symbol for bringing the hostages home. Susan…

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Foodie Lit

Aunt Bea’s House, “Visitors”, and the Smell of Baking!

Geri Clouston
Aunt Bea's Legacy A mystery with a romance, Aunt Bea’s Legacy combines what many readers love: a quaint English village, some friendly and not-so-friendly ghosts, twists and turns in the mystery and romance and a surprise ending. And I love a mystery whose ending I can’t guess! The main character, Lucy Dixon, is a chef. I love reading about her baking and canning, living on a small working farm. Very inspirational for those of us who dream of orchards and berry patches and herb gardens. Lucy is an appealing character. While a confident chef, she is unsure of herself in terms of relationships and life’s choices. She decides to leave her London chef’s position to stay at her aunt’s house in order to find out how her aunt died. What are the noises that haunt the house, from footsteps to crying, from screams to eerie images? Is this why her aunt was found dead with a fireplace poker in hand? Her aunt’s will requires Lucy to live at River View for one year to inherit the house. Her love for her aunt, who helped raise her after her mother’s death, is part of the reason for her increasing love for…

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Foodie Lit

Amani’s River – Ncima and Collard Greens, From Mozambique to Southern Tables

Geri Clouston
  In Amani’s River, an intense, well-written historical novel by David Hartness,we are taken inside the mind of Aderito, a 10-year-old American who travels with his father to Mozambique. Aderito's father wants to help his family, caught in the brutal violence of the Mozambique civil war, which raged from 1977-1992. Aderito becomes an unwilling child soldier in this civil war. ​A quiet, studious child, Aderito is transformed into a murderer after his kidnapping by the Renamo rebel forces, fighting against the repressive government forces.  Both forces were accused later of war crimes. Beaten, starved, and drugged, Aderito thinks, “This felt as if it were the end.”  But it was not. ​Memories of his former life fade. “Mixed with emotions, I felt the moral thing to do was to spare his life... However, the thing expected of me was to show my manhood and kill him for his sins. I couldn’t contemplate right from wrong, and so I closed my eyes and pulled the trigger.”                     The Renamo commander controls Aderito’s life. “All I knew was that my new father said it (killing) was the best thing to do.”  Trying desperately to fit into his new dystopia,…

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Foodie Lit

Shaindel packs a suitcase filled with apple strudel for her and for Elta to eat on the voyage to America-

Geri Clouston
Sherry Ostroff'sThe Wall at the Sugar Factory “I had no answers for Elta. None that would be truthful, anyway….. I knew that we needed a home. My daughter needed to live in a place where she wouldn’t have to live in constant terror. A home where she wouldn’t have to be fearful that murderers might come for her in the middle of the night. Where people didn’t hate her…..” So thinks Shaindel, a main character in Sherry Ostrioff’s excellent historical novel, The Wall At The Sugar Factory, based on her own family’s history.  Shaindel and her daughter survived a pogrom, a government or military orchestrated violent attack on Jews. Shaindel’s husband and most men in her village were murdered by the Russian and Ukrainian military. Women and girls were raped and murdered, homes looted and burned. Fear was in the air. Shaindel had hoped that a mother and child would not be targets. But she knew better.     Part of my family was from the Ukraine, coming to the US in the 1880’s. None had a good memory to share. Shaindel’s home was destroyed, her husband murdered at the wall at the sugar factory. She and her 3-year old daughter…

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Foodie Lit, Uncategorized

The Importance of Good cover Design!

Geri Clouston
Cover Design Tips by Tamian Wood & Cathy Helms I always begin any discussion about book cover design by making this one important statement - 'Whoever told you that your book's cover design doesn't matter, lied.' ~ Cathy Helms, Avalon Graphics The old saying 'Never judge a book by its cover.' is actually misleading at best, because people almost ALWAYS judge books by their covers. Even if you are part of the 1% that does not judge cover designs, your readers are part of the 99% that does. Potential readers pick up books in bookstores based on what they perceive as an attractive cover. If all books were wrapped in brown paper, you'd be forced to make a decision based on the title. But this is not how this business functions. The very purpose of a book cover is to entice – to sell the product, which in this case is your book. There are exceptions of course, famous and best-selling authors do sell books based on their names alone. But overall, every author out there must rely on an excellent cover, strong marketing, and platforms such as social media, etc. to sell their books. The phrase "Never judge a book by its cover…" is diametrically opposed to…

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Writers, Readers & Self Publishing

Fact to Fiction – The Eternal and the Holy

Geri Clouston
The Eternal and the Holy Over twenty years ago, two voyages would influence my life in ways I could not imagine. One was a trip to Rome, the other to both Jerusalem and Egypt. These transformative journeys have remained etched in my memory, returning to me repeatedly with reminiscent longing. The eternal city enchanted me with its classical art, architectural marvels and gastronomic delights. I roamed around this cultural mecca on foot, begging to chance upon secret alleys and labyrinthine pathways guiding me to splendid piazzas. The wafting aroma of rich espresso, freshly baked cornetti and basil and garlic tantalised my tastebuds, while the iconic architecture transported me in time with its historic churches and colossal columns still standing as proud and strong as their gladiatorial past, seamlessly blending the old and new. These scents, sights and sounds had plans for me far beyond my holiday, unaware that they would rise and force my hand to pen a trilogy set in Rome, spanning countries, cities and centuries. “Rome greeted them with the gentle smile of the afternoon sun. Christiano parked the car, and they walked along a street alive with the sounds of life, in the antiquated city which never…

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From Fact to Fiction!, The Self-publishing World

“The Child, the best immigrant”

Geri Clouston
Britain's Sea Evacuees: "The child, the best immigrant" More than ten years ago I was flicking through a copy of the Economist when I saw an article that took me quite by surprise. It was about thousands of children who had been routinely sent to the British colonies as child migrants. Because children were young and malleable they were seen as the best category of immigrant - easy to assimilate, more adaptable and with a long working life ahead of them. The British Dominions loved them. This practice only came to light in 1986 when a British social worker called Margaret Humphreys met a former child migrant who asked her for assistance in locating her relatives Margaret Humphreys The woman had been sent to Australia as a young child and now she wanted to trace her family. Margaret was staggered at this revelation and since that happenstance meeting, has formed the Child Migrant Trust to help many people find their families— children now mature adults who had been sent as child migrants to countries such as Australia and Canada from Britain and never knew their own parents. She managed to reunite many of these former child migrants with their families,…

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From Fact to Fiction!, Uncategorized

The Journey to Holy Parrot

Geri Clouston
Award-winning author Angel A's writing journey-   https://theworldsbestmagazine.com/2024/08/21/from-page-to-screen-the-enchanting-storytelling-of-angel-a/?fbclid=IwY2xjawFSZehleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHR7eQiRqZqo0WoVfFfwpgIOhdsIuSsIx2EEPMZEkIIpgrlmhkb232sWsMQ_aem_MT-cJY-Z_FiT7YkjLrPudA Learn more about Angel A

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From Fact to Fiction!, Uncategorized

What inspires an award-winning tale?

Geri Clouston
I am a lifelong swimmer and sometimes writer. For years I swam in the basement of the Jewish Community Center in San Francisco. With all the time to think in the pool, every flip-turn at the wall was a bit like turning the page of a new idea or inspiration. But once I’d surface, something that was momentarily thrilling would vanish as soon as I stopped to look at the pool's surrounding activity. Water aerobics. Lifeguards changing shifts. The constant ebb and flow of the lane lines for the next class. When catching my breath, my eyes often landed on the kids’ swim lessons. I’d been pushing kids into waves for a few years with City Surf Project, and the instruction style was very similar. As was the magic that occurs when a young person is first terrified of the water and then triumphantly embraces it. Kids playing in the water is just the greatest. An idea I kept coming back to was trying to take something so pure—a kid learning to swim—and combine it with something dark and complex—like weapons trafficking. Often, I hung on the wall, transfixed by the story concept of a swim coach acting as a…

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From Fact to Fiction!, Uncategorized

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