The Olympic Flame is on its way - and so am I ...

The Olympic Flame is on its way to Marseilles from Piraeus. It should arrive there tomorrow, May 8th.

Panathenaic Stadium

This short article, https://www.euronews.com/2024/04/27/olympic-flame-sets-sail-from-greece-to-france, translated from (possibly) French, is full of distracting ads and 'further reading', but it gives the main facts and has a fine photo of the Belem, the three-masted sailing ship that is carrying the flame to France after its odyssey through Greece. It's a two minute read and also has a photo of the handover of the torch by the Head of Greece's Olympic Committee to the President of Paris 2024 in the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens. 

And that's where The Boy in Two Minds begins, in both the ancient and the modern stories.

For Suzanne, in the modern story, the stadium looks like in the photo above. But for Themistokles, in the ancient story in 432 BCE, this was just a small valley. A road ran up it from the lower end (farthest away in the photo) where there was a bridge over the River Illisos, which flowed from right to left. Nowadays there's a six-lane city street built over where the river once ran. In the Prologue of The Boy in Two Minds the action switches from then till now and back again ...

This duality gave rise to the marketing idea of pairing up modern photos of places that appear in the books, each captioned with a quote, usually from the ancient story. Sometimes quite a lot of imagination may be necessary to 'see' in the photo what's going on in the quote ...

Example 1

    photo taken 2012, Panathenaic Stadium

    432 BCE

   Looking along the bridge, Themis saw Straton and his two elder brothers walking towards him.

   Efsevios leaned towards Themis' ear. 'Drawing insulting pictures can get you into a lot of trouble,' he whispered.

   'Only if they lie,' said Themis with a grin, stepping back.

   'Don't go out alone,' threatened Straton as they turned away.

Example 2

  photo taken 2024, possible remains of the Painted Arcade in the Ancient Agora/Market place

    432 BCE

   Phidias took [Panainos'] arm and they walked down the steps to the roadway. 'It would be helpful to know when you think you can come to Elis and help me finish off the Zeus at Olympia,' [he said].

   'So Olympia is a place,' thought Themis, 'not a god. But it seems Zeus is there.'

My thanks to Brian for this idea and the 'bridge' photo above, and to Michelle and Ralph of The Book Dragon for their input. A new venture for me...

Please let me know, dear readers, what you think. The photos and quotes will appear on Twitter/X, my 'J M Newsome, author' FaceBook page, LinkedIn (Julia M Newsome), and anywhere else I can manage at regular intervals this summer. The hashtag for The Boy in Two Minds is #AncientOlympicBoy. 

See you on the Web ...

All photographs © Julia M Newsome unless otherwise credited.

May at last ... and signs of new life

It’s May at last! There are bluebells in the grass; the apple trees are blooming; there are new leaves and flowers everywhere. This year, the oak came out before the ash, so “there will be a summer splash” - hopefully signalling more sunshine and a good grain harvest. ("If the ash comes out before the oak, there will be a summer soak", according to the old rhyme.) So, in spite of so many horrors in the outer world, my corner of Cumbria feels optimistic at present.

Another sign of new life is my signing up to The Book Dragon in Stockton-on-Tees in April.

Official logo of the Book Dragon

I met The Book Dragon founder, Kirsty McKay, at the London Book Fair in March. After years of toiling on the outer fringes of the mainstream world of publishing in UK, I was thrilled and amazed to discover that there is someone - in fact, a group of passionate and knowledgable someones - supporting and selling exclusively indie and self-published books. If that’s something you are also excited by, have a look at what they offer (at extremely reasonable rates!) on their website, www.thebookdragon.co.uk.

As I have said elsewhere in this blog, my motivation for writing and publishing my Connection Trilogy is not to become rich or famous. I was a teacher and a text book publisher, and my students taught me something - that they learn best from exciting stories. So, now that I’ve retired, I've started writing stories about living this confusing life we've been gifted, discovering tolerance, facing danger, learning from mistakes, solving mysteries, falling in love, doing careful research. Writing is teaching me, too!

Meanwhile, to be supported at every stage of producing and marketing my books by others with similar motives feels like coming home.

As a result of this cooperation, I’ve started an on-line ‘campaign’ to tell the world again about the book now called The Boy in Two Minds, just because Themistokles son of Kallistos' story takes him to Ancient Olympia during the Games, and because it's Suzanne Short's ambition to take part in the modern Olympics. I believe that reading about them both will add extra dimensions to the thrills of the Olympic Games in Paris for fans of athletics. This book's hashtag on Twitter/X and beyond is #AncientOlympicBoy. I'll write more about this campaign in my next posting here.

Lastly, today is not only my personal celebration of the blooming of spring in UK, but it is also Easter weekend in Greece, a confirmation of new life beginning. I wish all my readers a very happy holiday and the best possible summer in the circumstances ...

All photographs © Julia M Newsome unless otherwise credited.