by Gwendolyn M Plano

Greetings, all.

I'm a member of the Rave Reviews Book Club, a club that actively supports its author members. This week the club is sponsoring a Blog Hop to showcase the RRBC sponsors of the 2017 Writers' Conference and Book Expo. The author I'm privileged to showcase is Pamela Schloesser Canepa. She donated her support by way of a gift card or a Kindle e-book, both of which were included in the Gift Basket Raffles. 

Her book, DETOURS IN TIME, has received very positive reviews. Here's the Blurb: 
 
Young, fiery Tabitha takes a whirlwind trip to the future with Milt, an awkward Science professor. Wonders and curiosities abound. However, their amazing journey soon becomes a race through a maze of challenges and difficult decisions. When an unplanned detour occurs, the two set events into action that may have saved one life only to destroy another. Can these friends of completely different mindsets agree on a course of action that will get them back home without undoing the future they're growing so attached to?
 
Detours in Time is a fantastic escape that presents many moral dilemmas and surprises that will either destroy the strongest of friendships or bring two people even closer.  

There are several books on tour today, so please visit the HOP'S main page to follow along.  

Also, for every comment that you leave along this tour, including on the HOP's main page, your name will be entered into a drawing for an Amazon gift card to be awarded at the end of the tour.

For a glimpse of the book, check out the trailer: 

Each week author Ronovan Hester hosts a Haiku Poetry Prompt. This week's challenge uses these two words: goddess and worship. Perhaps you'd like to know more about Haiku. If so, just click on Ronovan's name, and you'll be taken to his site and to his explanation of this art form. 

​My poem focuses on the power of innocence, seen most recently in the March For Our Lives movement.

​I grew up in the wild west, on an isolated farm in the California desert.

My dad left the house before daybreak and returned as the sun set. He spent each day in the fields, managing the water, driving the tractors. My siblings and I helped on the farm. I’ve been up to my knees in mud trying to fill a gopher hole, I’ve walked the fields to check on the irrigation, I’ve picked cotton.

Always Dad carried a shotgun in his pickup. And, he made sure each of us knew how to use it. When he took us into the Chocolate Mountains, however, he brought his pistol. We'd climb into his homemade dune buggy and drive through the rugged terrain. On one such trip, we discovered a cave and my sibs and I decided to explore the darkness. The chilling sound of rattles drove us back out. I never liked snakes. Dad didn’t like snakes either. He took his pistol, walked into the cave, and one shot later he emerged holding the rattlesnake by its tail.

I have many stories like this. Gun stories. But, I also have car stories.

By the time I was eleven, I knew how to drive. Dad showed me the gauges and taught me to manually shift gears. This proved invaluable one day as I needed to drive mom to the hospital fifteen miles from our home; I was just twelve at the time.

Dad made sure his kids knew how to handle guns and cars. They were a necessary part of our lives on the farm.

I currently live in the mountains, in a bountiful hunting area. Children are taught how to use a rifle and or a bow. It is part of their lives. There is nothing sinister about this practice.

Over the span of my career in higher education, I’ve been bedside in hospitals dozens of time with college students who drank too much, who drove foolishly, who got in fights, who overdosed on drugs, or did something else foolish. Young people do foolish things, especially when they are not taught consequences.

Guns and cars are dangerous in the hands of those who do not know how to use them appropriately. They are not partisan objects. Democrats and Republicans own guns and cars.

We must to do something about gun violence, rhetoric simply divides and most of us are sick of  it. Why are assault weapons legal, why are high capacity magazines available, why are guns sold to the unstable? The answer, from my vantage point, is that people would rather point a finger than insist on appropriate legislation. Our children are demanding change, and they deserve our thoughtful response through our elected representatives.  

Each week author Ronovan Hester hosts a Haiku Poetry Prompt. This week's challenge uses these two words: chance and equal. Perhaps you'd like to know more about Haiku. If so, just click on Ronovan's name, and you'll be taken to his site and to his explanation of this art form.

​My poem focuses on diversity and our God-given equality.

This week, poet Ronovan Hester offers a Haiku Challenge Prompt of slim and chance. If you are inspired to try Haiku, just click on Ronovan's name and you'll be led to his site where he explains the rules. 

We live in a time of environmental challenges and my poem is about one such traumatic occurrence. During the 1930s, the Dust Bowl drove hundreds of millions from their homes. My father's family was one of them. According to Doyle Rice of USA Today, this was one of the top environmental catastrophes in world history. It is difficult to imagine but in a single year, more than 850 million tons of topsoil blew away. 80% of the United States was in a drought. 

I've entitled this poem, Tomorrow?

Recently I was asked, "when you wrote your memoir, what section was the most difficult?"   

This was an interesting question for me to consider, because my book is about the journey of life, and as any of us can attest, the journey includes deep sorrows. I cried a lot when I wrote my book, because my heart was free to do so. But, my struggle was not about sorrows. 

The most difficult writing task for me was sharing experiences of angels. My career in education was built on logic and proven facts; my experiences of angels defied such knowledge. To publicly share these encounters meant risking credibility. The angel visitations were like nothing I had ever known, and I felt very vulnerable writing about them. Yet, these ethereal beings were integral to my life story, so in the end, I chose to speak my truth and let readers decide as they may.

This past week I have been with my mom as she gave her final goodbyes. Her strength, courage and faith brought me to tears many times. Perhaps hardest to endure was seeing her suffer. Today she was freed of that suffering, freed of confusion, freed of all binds. With just one slow exhalation, she left us. 

And then we felt it, joy. And many sensed it, angels. And, together, we cried. 

Mom's tiny body had carried nine children and held dozens of grandchildren. In the end, there was little left of her body; but, those fragile remains held a mighty spirit, a spirit that reached through our tears and offered consolation. When visitors stopped by to see mom, many mentioned celestial beings. 

C.S. Lewis wrote, "Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see." And so I wonder, what would our world look like if we could see these miracles? Would we realize that we are never alone? 

Each week Ronovan Hester offers a Haiku Prompt Challenge. This week the two words are SNEAK and NIGHT. All sorts of images come to mind when I consider these two words, but one image in particular stands out: toddlers sneaking out of their crib while everyone else sleeps.

As a mom of four (three of them boys), I tried everything to keep my little angels in their crib. It was a battle I never won. And, so, here's my Haiku, which I've entitled:  Mama's Angels.