In the Sun and in the Rain |
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Spring has been a welcome invitation to the outdoors, and vaccinated, we step into a more normal pace. With a new appreciation for simple pleasures, I celebrated my first sit-down cup of coffee with a friend at a neighborhood café and hope you are also enjoying our new freedoms. Bouncing down this uncertain path to normalcy, I appreciate these shifts. They are earned and precious. Through COVID days, I have kept a pretty regular routine of writing, now completing the first draft of a novella, based on Greek mythology. It is a different experience than writing a memoir. I devise the plot as I go in this Novella, unlike describing actual past life events in my memoir, Sophia's Return. This time I follow the characters to where they want to take me. The story is still in early stages, too early to tell where it is taking me. Any beta readers out there? |
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Enjoy visiting Publications, where you will find new and recently published pieces to peruse. There is a variety of pieces published in the recent past. Also In the News, enjoy a book trailer for Επιστροφή Στη Θεσσαλονίκη/Return to Thessaloniki, the memoir’s Greek version that you can order here for US delivery. |
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It was an exciting day when I received the comment that is now on the back cover of my memoir, Sophia's Return: Uncovering my Mother's Past. Jean Gilbertson, Author of Dancing in the Whisper of God wrote: "A deeply considered investigation of family dynamics and the secrets that in many families go unchallenged but in this one find resolution through tenacity and eventual forgiveness." Thank you, Jean! The pages have been laid out and the cover has been designed; I hold in my hands an Advanced Review Copy! Any writer can testify to that special moment when the mail carrier delivers that package! It has been a nine-year journey. At the end of this time, my memoir, Επιστροφή Στη Θεσσαλονίκη / Return to Thessaloniki, has been published in Greece and will soon be launched in English. It is a story of a persistent search that yielded a better understanding of our family. I can hold the book, it has a physical shape; it is real! |
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May was a Better Hearing and Speech month, which gives me a good reason to celebrate it, even belatedly, with the work of Angeliki Stamatopoulou-Petersen. She is the author of The Secrets Hidden Beneath the Palm Tree. In children's literature, this book stands out for being insightful and instructive; it heightens the reader's skills in communicating with deaf children. My Featured Guest, is the mother of a now adult deaf son, diagnosed with a hearing loss at age three. This work is a distillation, an insightful guide based on her personal experience that aids hearing children welcome a classmate with hearing loss to the classroom. The publication is available in Greek, under the title Tα Κρυμμένα Μυστικά Κάτω από την Φοινικιά, and has recently been translated in Hindi by Abha Sharma. I admire Angeliki's accomplishment that is recognized as a contribution to the hearing loss community. I asked her to discuss the role teachers play for deaf children in their classroom. The author answered as follows: "Students with hearing loss who attend a mainstream school are at the crossroad of hearing and deafness. The daily effort they make to meet the educational challenges is usually above their ability. The classroom teachers play the most significant role in the acceptance and progress of children with individual differences. The importance of positive early childhood experiences through appropriate engagement with all students will enable the child with the hearing loss to reach his/her full potential. In recent years, few children with hearing loss attend mainstream schools while internationally, there is an upward trend of students with hearing loss who attend neighborhood schools because of the advancements in technology and related science. For these reasons all the present and future educators need to have appropriate training." |
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In the Sun and in the Rain aspires to bring you work from many corners of the world, and to keep honoring creative people who in the dark days of coronavirus, even when the curtain is closed, continue to contribute.
Feel free to share the Newsletter with your reading and writing community and friends. Have a wonderful spring, and stay strong and healthy.
Best,
Sophia
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