Signed contact with Literary Agent: Tracy Crow LLC!

 Excited to report that representation has been found 

for THE LONG REACH OF THE ANCIENT GODS!  

  Watch this space!  And wish us luck!

   Tracy Crow Literary Agency, LLC 

    (727) 742-8346

        tracy@tracycrow.com

LOOSE FISH (Volume 2) Released 2/27/19

Happy to announce that Volume 2 is now available in Paperback and Kindle 

on Amazon.com

Loose Fish - Volume Two (Buy here)

Loose Fish, the Rest of the Story, Volume 2, of a woman who swims solo, seeking ballast, in the shadow of a dead-war-hero father she can’t remember, and a battered mother refusing help, takes us to France, Italy and around the U.S. in a potpourri of connected short stories, poetry and photographs. Sojourns into the world of est, Hollywood celebrity, the backgammon circuit, drugs, gambling, a mental ward, and a tumultuous family showdown take the reader for an unforgettable foray into the life of a ‘loose fish.’

LOOSE FISH (Volume 1) Released 12/24/17

Thrilled to announce that the first Volume of Loose Fish has been indy published on Amazon, and is available for purchase.  

Check out the FIVE-STAR reviews!

BUY IT IN PAPERBACK OR KINDLE ON AMAZON:

Loose Fish by Beverly A. Jackson

In a series of connected stories, modeled on literary fiction, Loose Fish takes the reader through an unorthodox odyssey of an ex-military brat seeking ballast, with the loss of a war-hero father she can’t remember, and the burden of a hapless mother she wishes she could forget.

• In Madrid, she spends a sexy teenage summer with Spanish bullfighters and has her own skirmish with a bull—kept secret from a tyrannical stepfather.


• In Morocco, the family’s off-base home invasion by Arabs exposes a coward.


• In Bermuda, her honeymoon is complicated by the paranormal “Bermuda Triangle” mystery and the story of a disappearing ship.


• In New York, on the heels of a divorce, she has a romance with a struggling actor named Dustin Hoffman.--Her wannabe acting career culminates in dancing “the pony” on the Ed Sullivan Show in a Wayne & Schuster comedy skit.


•  In Greenwich Village, the coming of age sexual escapades in 1960s saloon society as well as an assortment of other transformative experiences, and quirky characters bring her to life-changing decisions.

Co-Facilitator of Naples-Bonita Springs Advanced Writing Group publishes NEW book in time for Christmas!

For immediate release to news@naplesdailynews.com Michelle Caffrey 730 Grand Rapids Blvd Naples, FL 34120 Phone 262-374-2657 www.MichelleCaffrey.com www.BringJadeHome.com

Just published—New book offering by Naples writer in time for Christmas:
BRING JADE HOME: The True Story of a Dog Lost in Yellowstone and the People Who Searched for Her. Michelle Caffrey’s heartwarming recount of a family and their Australian shepherd, lost for forty-four days is a seasonally joyful tale for all ages.

BRING JADE HOME. (226 pp. $15.95, and Kindle $9.99 and free on Kindle Unlimited) To obtain a copy of the book in either paperback or PDF format to review, or for an interview, contact Michelle Caffrey at MichelleLCaffrey@gmail.com or phone at (262) 374-2657. Additional photos are available to help illustrate a feature article.

Mary McCluskey, award-winning novelist, says, "Bring Jade Home is a true story that reads like a literary thriller. It’s a page-turner of a book with a mystery at its heart and a cast of well-drawn characters. The central character, of course, is Jade herself, a beautiful, blue-eyed Australian shepherd, who, after a terrifying traffic accident—chillingly described here— runs off into the stunning wilderness that is Yellowstone National Park. Bring Jade Home is the perfect book for animal lovers, particularly dog lovers, but it has a wider appeal—it is uplifting, and shows to what lengths we as humans will go to help each other when moved to do so. An inspiring story for just about everyone.”

Caffrey is a Naples-based freelance writer, the author of Just Imagine: A New Life on an Old Boat. She is currently marketing two novels. ###

Jellyfish Review published another flash fiction piece on my birthday! (July 24th) and I was tickled at the timing.

Clicky--> THE RAPTURE


Another piece accepted by Matter Press - Journal of Condensed Creative Arts! (I shall post the link when it's published)

While Literary Agents Shilly Shally with my Query Letters, I Collage!

Especially for a dear, dear friend of mine who likes....you guessed it.....horses!

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Robert Boswell - A Writer's Writer

When I was a publisher, INK POT LITERARY JOURNAL I was really thrilled when in 2004 I got a short story submission from Robert Bosworth. It was one of the best things I ever published at the time and I became an instant fan of his. It was about a mentally damaged woman who lived in the country, written from her point of view, in her own "damaged" (gorgeously poetic) language. She mixed up words and images and spoke her own odd language, and it was heartrending and beautiful. Over the years, I lost that story in the changes of computers and archives and backups. It was titled "A Sketch of Highway on the Nap of the Mountain." I can't tell you how upset that made me. How often I wanted to read it again and see if it was as good and unique as I remembered. Well, I found the story! It's in his collection of short stories and I've got the story again. HERE.

Boswell's married to the equally talented Antonya Nelson and it must be wonderful to have their lives!

At any rate, I just read an old (2011) interview with him ON MYSTERY AND DRAFTING -- and I fell in love all over again and ordered a couple of his books. A short story collection, "The Heyday of Insensitive Bastards" (gotta love that title) and a craft book "The Half Known World" on writing. He's got some fascinating things to say about editing. He calls it transitional drafts, and this:

"I revise a lot. I write thirty, forty, fifty drafts of every story. There are a few, a very few, exceptions. Every now and then I just scribble down a story and I’m done with it. That has happened maybe three or four times in my life. And, really, those times make all the rest of my work more difficult.

My revision process characteristically involves the gradual, draft-by-draft casting off of the intellectual ideas that got me going, permitting the narrative to find an independent life of its own. The decisions I make while revising tend to be related to specific matters of craft—investigating a specific character, sharpening dialogue, reworking sentences to make them resonant and pleasing to the ear. If I can write a better sentence, I’ll do so even if the revised sentence changes something essential in the story. All of which is to say: if I feel constrained by the ideas that produced the particular draft, I will give up those ideas. Of course, I save every draft. They’re all floating there in my computer like little life rafts. It’s rare that I go back to an earlier draft, but having them there permits me to attempt wild revisions."

Rewrites, Queries, Political Angst and Courage!

It's sort of funny how things seem to cling to like things...birds of a feather and all that. And cycles of events. So here I find myself finishing the second rewrite of Canyon Flower (improved, improved) and starting to send out queries to agents. I find all of it rather difficult. The rewrites push me to kill my darlings, the queries push me up against that predictable wall of rejections, and the political angst I am feeling, daily, is an almost unbearable push, push, push.

Still, I suppose I have to be grateful to FEEL. I watched a video by Harvey Klinger this morning, a literary agent who said that if you really want to write fiction, you write from passion - not by formula. I guess most of us know that formula usually equates predictable (and sometimes popular) fiction. But for me and people who love literature, passion is the keyword. I like that a lot. Passion is what I like to feel when I get into a story. So that works for me. I suppose angst ultimately leads to passion, no? That's how I'm holding that one! Ha!

A new book is bubbling in my head...and it will involve a family (MY family) in ways that will not be appreciated. Not that much of that family is still alive. Still it gives me a little rush to think about fictionalizing some of the thoughts I've had over a lifetime about certain family members. If it turns out to be black comedy, don't be surprised.

But it's all fair game: (so said Sylvia Plath)

“And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”

― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

So, I guess I'm seeking the courage to keep trucking with the books I've written (three to date), and the goal I've set for myself (of selling my books to good publishers via the traditional route) and living through these beastly times. I got hit in 2011 by the last recession, so beastly times are sort of my everyday now.

2017 Brings New Challenges

As writers, everything in life is "fodder" for our craft. People have to be careful around us (or at least respectful) or they'll wind up as villains in a novel.

But the political climate of 2017 since January 20th ushers in a whole new level of fodder. If you had made it up, nobody would believe it, they'd say "Naw, Over the Top!" and it would never sell. When truth becomes less believable than bad fiction, what do you do?

(Well, for one thing, you march. The Women's March in little Naples produced 2500 determined citizens, working together for change. We shall see.)

For another thing, you write. Write, write, write. Writing well is the best revenge. That and signing petitions.

Christmas Cheer = Editing and Cooking

Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah,  and may 2017 give us some relief from 2016!  (I never want to discuss politics again).

I am spending this holiday editing my new book "Canyon Flower" with a piece of new software I found online called "ProWritingAid.com."  It's a little marvel of an editor's aid, checking overused words, "sticky" sentences, grammar, adverbs, etc. etc.  I am SO pleased with it.  And it's given me plenty of rewriting to do over the vacation.

Besides editing and curling up on the couch for binges of TV series (like OA), I have done some cooking too.

For gifts this year, it was chocolate truffles.

For Christmas Dinner, it is Chicken Paprikash with nockrl (or as they said in my stepfather's family: haloopsi.)

Free Memoir & Historical Fiction Contests (Writers' Digest)

"Loose Fish" is on its way to a free contest -- nothing ventured, nothing gained.

28th Free "Dear Lucky Agent" Contest

Judged by Jennifer Wills, agent of The Seymour Agency, it promises to be a step for some lucky winners to get published. Hey, give it a go!

Flash Fiction in FriGG Literary Journal

"FLAT ON MY FACE" by Beverly A. Jackson <--Clicky"

A Tip for Writers re Editing Your Manuscript

When you are doing that all important editing, after you have a rough draft in place, it seems reasonable to be going through the manuscript many times, sometimes with the help of others' critiques, sometimes with fresh ideas for development. At any rate, almost all writers know the drill. We fix, we move, we check, we re-write, ad nauseum.

Here's a new twist! Because my eyes are poor, I find reading on a Kindle (where the font can be made larger, and is backlit in a way that my eyes are soothed) much easier than reading a computer screen. So I started transferring my documents to Kindle via Amazon's free service. (each Amazon customer has their own special email address). It takes two seconds to download a document.

Here's the kicker! Something must happen in the brain, because I find that the manuscript has a whole different "way of being" in the Kindle format. My EYES READ IT DIFFERENTLY than on a computer screen, and therefore I find many, many, many more edits that need fixing. This may sound peculiar, but I announced it to my writing group, and one by one they too are trying it, and are simply astounded that it is a fact. Editing via Kindle gives you different and better results than editing the usual way.

I can't expect you to take my word for it. Just try it!

(instructions for downloading "Documents" to your Kindle are available on Amazon. It's a pretty simple process.)

Glenn E. Miller Nominated for Pushcart Prize

I'm so proud to report that Glenn Erick Miller, a member of the North Naples/Bonita Springs Advanced Writing Group, was just nominated for the Pushcart Prize by R.K.VR.Y. Quarterly Literary Journal for his flash, "WEIGHTLESS".

Notes on How I Spend My Time

I figure I'm going to just write for the next four years until it's over.

I worked on my memoir LOOSE FISH from 1999 to 2015. That is a good 16 years. That took me through DoubleEw Bush and Obama.

It took me from June 2015 to October 2015 to write BLUE LAKE . That is just 5 months, maximum. Easy Obama.

CANYON FLOWER started in November 2015 until November 2016, so almost one year to the day. and more Obama.

Why does it matter? I'm not totally sure, but I want to keep tabs on this kind of data for future reference.

Maybe it's a question of nature or nurture - a glimpse at posterity. Ha ha ha.

I've published poetry, short stories, flash fiction, and some creative non-fiction. I published a chapbook of poetry. And now it's time to find a sympatico agent and get these books off the hard drive.

I'D BETTER COME UP WITH A REALLY GOOD STORY FOR THE NEXT FOUR YEARS.

Canyon Flower completed!

I am thrilled to announce that I have just completed "Canyon Flower" (my second novel and third book)

CANYON FLOWER (65K), a work of literary fiction edged with magical realism. The novel, set in the spectacular red canyons of Moab, Utah, is written in three sections from three points of view to unravel the ‘Rashomon effect’ of subjective and objective realities.

SKYLAR Lancaster and Jango Norton work as guides for a white-water rafting outfit running the notorious Cataract Canyon rapids. Skylar moved to Moab after her father died from oil fracking toxins. She is comforted by Jango but wants more than friendship from him. They are dedicated to keeping the Canyonlands free of environmental pollution, but find their newest rafters strange and possibly dangerous.

MICHAEL Shimizu, a Japanese-American investment banker, plans a rafting vacation as a side excursion after covertly scouting real estate on behalf of an oil and gas company determined to mine in Moab, where drilling is unwelcome. He and his colleague invite two Kyoto geishas to accompany them. Michael plans to propose marriage to Kimi, one of the geishas, with whom he is obsessed.

ISHI Atero, the other Japanese geisha, has clairvoyant visions and grapples with incest in her past. She is the conduit for a chorus of ancients: Anasazi Indians, ancestral Japanese kami, and nature’s own inexplicable forces who shadow the group’s voyage down the river. Michael’s business associate, Buyo, gives Ishi a reason for reassessing her despair and her life.

When the intentions and cultures of the group diverge–tragedy lies in wait. Whether it’s murder, suicide or a grievous accident depends on who is doing the telling: Skylar, Michael or Ishi.

-------------------------------------------------------- The query process (for representation) will begin soon!

New Flash Fiction Review - Micro Flash "133 Words I Lost in My Memoir"

                                                 

  133 Words I Lost in my Memoir ---CLICK TO READ

NEW FLASH FICTION REVIEW - AUGUST 2016

MICRO FLASH (133 words limit)

"Kickin Bossa Nova" at Jellyfish Review

Flash Fiction at JellyFish Review ---Click to read

Another little flash pubbed with one of my fave ezines.  For their "Bad Sex" series.

Literary Reading - June 6, 2016

Euro Pianos Naples extended an invitation to the North Naples/Bonita Springs Advanced Writing Group to provide a literary evening, in their efforts to promote the arts in Naples. Beverly Jackson and Cary Barbor were the only two members available on a day of tornado warnings, and read they did.

Cary read an excerpt from Bob Erickson's novel, on his behalf, "Murder in Packingtown," and read two essays of her own, which were wonderfully received.

Bev read a prose poem, a standard poem and a piece of flash fiction.

Wine and finger foods were provided on the buffet table, and the guests (about fifteen of them)stayed and talked, an exhuberant and appreciative audience.

Our hostess, Sunny Reuter, the V.P. of Euro Pianos Naples, was pleased with the turnout, and said we'll do it again!

Photographs by Ivan Seligman. Thank you for them and for attending!

A Home of Our Own (Writer's Group)

The Writer's Group discovered a little library nestled in the back of the Club House where we had been meeting (but were frequently interrupted by visitors and residents ambling in and out). It is so nice to have the privacy and "book-ness" of this cozy room.

Doug Williams

Cary Barbour and Michelle Caffrey

Cary, Michelle and Bev Jackson

Glenn Miller

Doug & Glenn

We are missing Bob Erickson, our sixth member who is globe trotting (Canada, Arizona) at the moment, but we hope to see him soon!

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