ONLY YULES & VERSES - CHRISTMAS FUN

I wrote a book of Christmas-related funny stuff and a kind person posted these unsolicited comments.            

“Only Yules and Verses is one of those special little books that you happen upon serendipitously. I have read authors' blurbs before extolling the mirth to be found in THEIR book only to buy the book and be severely disappointed. What an unexpected joy, therefore, to pick up this little gem and read it to the end with smiles, a few laughs out loud and some headshakes at the ingenuity of Joe Cushnan. I thoroughly enjoyed this and wholeheartedly recommend it to everyone.

 

P.S. I am not a friend or family member of the author, but how I wish I were!”

You can buy this stocking-filler here.

https://www.feedaread.com/books/Only-Yules-Verses-9781784070823.aspx

RIP MASTER STORYTELLER WILBUR SMITH (9 JANUARY 1933 – 13 NOVEMBER 2021)

Wilbur Smith, Guardian obituary: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/nov/14/bestselling-author-wilbur-smith-dies-aged-88

RIP to this great adventure storyteller. I sent him a fan letter and a poetry pamphlet in 1999. He kindly replied thus: 

BLACK FRIDAY RETAIL BULLSHIT

This so-called Black Friday retail bullshit is due. Supposed to be a day, bit lasts much longer. 

So glad I am out of retail after 40 years. Do your worst, businesses and customer saps. 

Black Friday, get in a queue and wait,
dressed from head to toe in combat gear,
prepared, who dares wins, shopping with no fear,
eyes on bargains, gathered hordes salivate,

wearing elbow pads, knee pads, shin pads, hobnail boots,
the atmosphere rising to fever pitch,
the mild-mannered become bastard and bitch,
battering and bruising, not giving two hoots.

The luckiest ones hold their prizes high,
triumphant in their quest to win the day,
victorious survivors of the fray,
while unlucky ones hang their heads and cry.

And after all the sales are rung and checked,
both store displays and shop staff nerves are wrecked.

BOOK REVIEW - THE BLACK DREAMS: STRANGE STORIES FROM NORTHERN IRELAND

The Black Dreams:

Strange Stories from Northern Ireland

Edited by Reggie Chamberlain-King

Blackstaff Press

2021

https://blackstaffpress.com/the-black-dreams-9781780733289

Stories by:

Jo Baker, Jan Carson, Reggie Chamberlain-King, Aislinn Clarke, Emma Devlin, Moira Donaldson, Michelle Gallen, Carlo Gebler, John Patrick Higgins, Ian McDonald, Bernie McGill, Gerard McKeown, Ian Sansom, Sam Thompson.

This is the strangest, mind-boggling, challenging collection of stories (all in a good way!) I have read, so good in fact that I felt compelled to read them in one sitting.  In fact, it is obvious when you think about it that the backdrop link to all of the stories is strange, mind-boggling, challenging Northern Ireland. As a Belfast kid, I get this.

Although they reside under the Black Dreams umbrella, each storyteller has taken the central theme of strangeness and let creativity and imagination rip.  Characters look within, rummaging through emotions and memories, look out and sense things only they can sense, explore the past, consider what will be, sometimes dreaming impossible dreams and coming to profound conclusions about the value of their lives and the lives of others, the history of their surroundings and the shifting power of the landscape.

It is difficult to pick a favourite and I won't.  Readers will have to decide for themselves. Of the fourteen stories, there was only one I didn't care for, and I won't reveal that one either.

The Black Dreams is an excellent collection of stories by gifted writers unafraid to loosen the reins and take us on a gallop down twisty, turny roads.  It is quite a ride!

Indeed, creativity and imagination unleashed.

 

HAS ANYBODY HERE SEEN KELLY? A MEMOIR COMING SOON.

 

In 1960, my father, John Cushnan, left our Belfast home, his wife and seven young children, and vanished. The next we heard of him was when we were told he had died at 57 in Clapham, London in 1982. By this time he had reinvented himself as John Kelly from Derry. Apart from anything else, he left us with a mystery of 22 missing years. 

This book is the result of much research done by me to find out about his life post-Belfast. I found out a lot. It is also the story of my heroic mother, Rita, who raised her seven kids as a single parent.

Edited by Averill Buchanan

More soon.

Media contact: joecushnan@aol.com