June 2023 Newsletter      sophiakouidougiles.com

Even before alphabets developed, men gathered to share stories, around a fire pit, inside caves, on land and at sea. Storytelling has been a primary and continuous thread in our existence. It's a way of communicating experiences, orally, to begin with and eventually in print. Change has been constant in where we live, how we travel, what we wear, but the need to share a story has been a constant through the centuries.

So, what is a book? A written or printed work consisting of pages glued or sewn along one side and bound in covers, says the dictionary in our day, it has evolved into digital print and will continue to stay with us adapting to technological advances. An object that takes us by the hand and guides us inside a plot where we meet characters and travel in worlds outside ourselves. While a memoir, like Sophia’s Return, reads about actual life experiences, in my upcoming novel, An Unexpected Ally, the reader stretches encountering fantastic worlds, familiar ancient gods with superpowers in magical realism. It is a style of literary fiction that paints a realistic view of a world, blurring the lines between fantasy and reality.

The storytellers often describe their own experiences and feel a need to transmit and recreate some filtered by the cauldron of the creative process. This ambition stems from the need to share and is akin to translation, where the collector gathers and imparts scenes that reflect, among other elements, settings, characters, societies, rituals, and traditions that occur in languages other than English and in distant corners of the world.

In novels, we sometimes preserve and transmit experiences accumulated during our lifetime, factual, dreamed and imagined. And while living in an anglophone world, we also have access to literature set in foreign countries that takes us to exotic settings and cultures.

Featured Guest

It is time to introduce a bilingual author who has mastered a language with a reputation for being difficult and is also highly adept at interpreting Greek culture, society, and politics. I met Kathryn Crawley when we started internet conversations about the writing life. Later we met in person, in our beloved Thessaloniki, Greece, the setting of her book where she lived in the 1970s. I am so pleased to share with you Walking on Fire, a well-crafted novel of self-discovery for a young woman ready for adventure.

To my question, "Do you maintain ties to Greece, and how?" Kathryn responded as follows:

“My connection to friends in Greece remains an important part of my life. These are people I met almost fifty years ago when hired as a speech pathologist for cerebral palsied children at the Hellenic Center for Disabled Children in Thessaloniki. Our connections to each other and our affection for the children at that center were quite strong.

From America, I speak by phone to these friends several times a year, checking in periodically and always on Name Days. I relish the chance to practice my Greek during our calls. I also keep track of other friends via Facebook and Instagram.

This past September I was in Sounion for a wedding. A former colleague, a physical therapist, summered nearby. We resumed our friendship as though it had been weeks rather than more than twenty years since our last time together. Later on in Thessaloniki, it was wonderful to sit around the table with other friends, refreshing our bonds and talking for hours and hours. Would this have been the case if my friends were not hospitable, loving Greeks?

A family member sends links to Greek music, especially of my favorite Dionysis Savvopoulos, and to a popular music television program. Some songs whisk me immediately back to halcyon days in the mid 1970s.

Although it was almost half a century since my plane first touched down in Greece, my connection to my beloved friends and my adopted homeland remains vibrant.”

Just out in bookstores midmonth, you can order your copy of Kathryn’s novel now and be among the first to receive it. You can also visit her website at kathryncrawley.com.

In the Sun and in the Rain aspires to bring you creative work from many corners of the world and introduce many new and old friends. From the Salish Sea of Seattle, I wish you a creative year and many journeys, by train, bus, air, or sea, and through books.

Feel free to share this Newsletter with your reading and writing community and friends who can also subscribe.

Live long and prosper!

Best,

Sophia 

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