Movie Review: Hieronymus Bosch: Touched By The Devil
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Movie Review: Hieronymus Bosch: Touched By The Devil

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Hieronymus Bosch: Touched By The Devil pleased me enormously. I love Bosch’s work, and there were several moments during this documentary when the camera lingered adoringly over his paintings.

The film tells the story of gathering Bosch’s paintings for a 500th anniversary show in Den Bosch. A group of museum guys—archivists, restorers, historians—track down the works, and then have to wheel-and-deal with assorted other museum types in order to borrow the paintings. The Venetian museum director said, “These paintings cannot leave the Galleria L’Academia unless they are restored.” That was a thinly veiled shake-down—the Dutch team had to pay for the restoration. Leave it to the Italians.

The Prado bureaucrats were hilarious. A lot of delicate negotiation happened off-screen, but was implied. I chortled a few times.

A painting and a drawing were newly attributed to Hieronymus, and one painting was de-attributed. There was a scene when the team was asking, “Who will call Ghent to tell them?” Meaning, what poor sap would have the misfortune of telling the museum in Ghent that their Hieronymus Bosch wasn’t painted by Hieronymus Bosch? The team leader, they decided.

Meantime, a painting in a Kansas City museum was newly confirmed as a Bosch. That was fun. It makes me imagine finding a dusty, cracked old painting in the attic…and having it attributed to a great master. I could write a novel about that. Maybe I will.

It is, ultimately, Bosch’s imagery that is the star of this film. I was delighted to realize that not all the fantastic figures hail from the astral plane. Many do, of course; you can see the same demons there, if you alter your consciousness so as to perceive the astral plane. However, several figures are actually from the Devic Kingdom. I exclaimed out loud, right there in the Film Forum theater, when I realized that. How cool! The Devic Kingdom represented in a painting from 500 years ago!

The Garden of Earthly Delights ranks among my top 10 favorite paintings, it’s just ravishingly beautiful, a feast for the senses. I get lost in it.

If you like Bosch or love art, then go see Hieronymus Bosch: Touched By The Devil. It won’t disappoint.

Hieronymus Bosch: Touched By The Devil

Enchantment Overlooking Magic Mountain
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Enchantment Overlooking Magic Mountain

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Enchantment Overlooking Magic Mountain

Some lovely and generous-hearted friends invited us to stay in their beautiful Vermont home while they were elsewhere. So Sabin and I drove up and found ourselves in a sumptuous and homey palace. There’s a view over the rolling green hills and trees onto Magic Mountain, and a private pond with lights for night time swimming.

I find myself so relaxed that my adrenal glands are pulsing with let-down. My creative angst is nearly replaced with languor. Sabin has set himself up in the dining room to draw the relief panel for the WW1 Memorial.

Our labs Molly and Gabriel are ecstatic. I took them to the pond yesterday and Molly, our chocolate lab, ate some little green frogs before swimming around to look for ducks. Gabriel joined her. Then they ran out of the water to jump on me and I had to laugh even as their enthusiasm ensured that I was wet and smelly.

There are a zillion of these little green frogs, and when do you ever see frogs anymore?

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Modern Masters: Sabin Howard, Sculptor, on Fox TV
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Modern Masters: Sabin Howard, Sculptor, on Fox TV

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I am so delighted to announce that my husband, classical figurative sculptor Sabin Howard, was profiled on Fox Television in their beautiful Modern Masters series. Modern Masters: Sabin Howard, Sculptor aired on Friday, March 11.

Modern Masters: Sabin Howard

In this wonderful segment, Sabin relates the story of his origins and being influenced by the powerful and gorgeous architecture of Torino and Italy. He talks about how he dropped out of college and then decided, at age 19, that he wanted to go to art school. He laughs at how his parents, who are both PhDs, wanted him to go somewhere like Harvard. “That wasn’t going to go down,” he says.

He was filmed sculpting, showing his process of breaking the body into cubes. The camera pans over him drawing. He speaks of the importance of the figure, and how it shows us as we can be. “Art has the ability to transform and elevate your spirit,” he states.

The World War 1 Memorial also came up. “World War 1 is a war that needs to be remembered because it changed the course of history,” Sabin says. He talks about how the figures in his design concept are relational and taking care of each other–the glorification of the human spirit.

Watch the piece, it’s amazing!

Modern Masters: Sabin Howard

BLOOD SKY is 2015 Indiefab Finalist
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BLOOD SKY is 2015 Indiefab Finalist

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BLOOD SKY named Foreword Reviews’ 2015 INDIEFAB Book of the Year Awards Finalist

New York, New York —Today, Parvati Press is pleased to announce BLOOD SKY has been recognized as a finalist in the 18th annual Foreword Reviews’ INDIEFAB Book of the Year Awards. Here is the complete list:

https://indiefab.forewordreviews.com/finalists/2015/

Here is the page for Traci L. Slatton’s novel BLOOD SKY:

https://indiefab.forewordreviews.com/books/blood-sky/

Each year, Foreword Reviews shines a light on a select group of indie publishers, university presses, and self-published authors whose work stands out from the crowd. In the next three months, a panel of more than 100 volunteer librarians and booksellers will determine the winners in 63 categories based on their experience with readers and patrons.

“The 2015 INDIEFAB finalist selection process is as inspiring as it is rigorous,” said Victoria Sutherland, publisher of Foreword Reviews. “The strength of this list of finalists is further proof that small, independent publishers are taking their rightful place as the new driving force of the entire publishing industry.”

“I am honored and delighted to receive this recognition,” said author and publisher Traci L. Slatton. “Foreword Reviews is the ‘Library Journal’ for independent publishing, and this kind of spotlight is encouraging and gratifying.”

Foreword Reviews will celebrate the winners during a program at the American Library Association Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida in June. We will also name the Editor’s Choice Prize 2015 for Fiction, Nonfiction and Foreword Reviews’ 2015 INDIEFAB Publisher of the Year Award during the presentation.

About us: Parvati Press is an independent press with a vision of quality books in print, ebook and audiobook format. These books are often playful, metaphysical, serious, and thought-provoking; they will enrich your life.

About Foreword: Foreword Magazine, Inc is a media company featuring a Folio:-award-winning quarterly print magazine, Foreword Reviews, and a website devoted to independently published books. In the magazine, they feature reviews of the best 170 new titles from independent publishers, university presses, and noteworthy self-published authors. Their website features daily updates: reviews along with in-depth coverage and analysis of independent publishing from a team of more than 100 reviewers, journalists, and bloggers. The print magazine is available at most Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million newsstands or by subscription. You can also connect with them on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest. They are headquartered in Traverse City, Michigan, USA.

Indiefab Finalist

Sculptor Sabin Howard and Architect Joe Weishaar win WW1 Memorial Commission
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Sculptor Sabin Howard and Architect Joe Weishaar win WW1 Memorial Commission

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I am overjoyed to announce that my husband classical figurative sculptor Sabin Howard and his partner architect Joe Weishaar won the WW1 Memorial Commission.

There will be more on the World War 1 Memorial Commission website.

Vice Chair Edwin Fountain spoke beautifully about the team and their design and a few minutes was captured on Periscope. Watch for yourself!

I am the first to acknowledge Joe Weishaar’s unusual brilliance. His design conception has an extraordinarily graceful simplicity and elegance that bespeak his genius. However, I am Sabin Howard‘s wife, and I am incredibly proud of him. Here’s a quote from the Chicago Tribune:

Officials of the U.S. World War One Centennial Commission, which approved his team’s design on an 8-1 vote, said Weishaar’s decision to include on his team Sabin Howard, an experienced classical sculptor from New York City, was pivotal to the win. The commission voted after an independent jury of seven experts earlier this month unanimously picked the team’s design.

The story was picked up by news organizations around the country, indeed, around the globe. Articles appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Reuters, and Curbed. The Twitterverse was alive with the news. By the way, if you’re on Twitter, Follow @SabinHoward and @WW1CC The WW1 Centennial Commission!

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Three Recent Beautiful Reviews of BROKEN
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Three Recent Beautiful Reviews of BROKEN

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Here are two three recent beautiful reviews of BROKEN, my historical novel set in occupied Paris.

This morning the lively Underground Book Reviews site posted Katie Rose Guest Pryal‘s review of BROKEN. The review snippet on the front page of the site said, “This book is beautifully written. The history is magnificent….”

What really thrilled me was Ms. Guest Pryal’s comment within the review: “Throughout it all, the author manages some truly gorgeous turns of phrase. In explaining why she can speak any language with perfect precision and accent, Alia refers in this fashion to her former ethereal status: “I am exempt from Babel.”

As a storyteller, I prioritize Story. Story must come first in a novel (or screenplay). As a writer, however, I am warmed in the deepest cockles of my soul when I hear my prose praised. These good words are especially appreciated because Katie Rose Guest Pryal is herself an author; she even writes books about writing. ! She is an educated consumer. So her statement about “truly gorgeous turns of phrase” simply ravishes me.

See the full review here.

Review of Broken by Traci L. Slatton

OneBookTwo Review Blog also recently posted a lovely review of BROKEN, starting off by saying “This is a fantastic book of love and light.”

Fickle Fiona went on to say,

Traci Slatton does a fantastic job of recreating Paris 1939 – 1942 with the fear and torture of occupied France…

To be honest there was nothing about this book that I didn’t like. It flows beautifully and it is one of those books that stays with you even after you are done reading it. For this reason I give this book five stars! I will reread this book more than once and recommend it to all my friends and, readers; I highly recommend it to you too.

To hear that my book will be recommended and re-read is a special joy and pride for an author.

Read OneBookTwo’s full review here.

These two reviews exemplify the kind of review that delights, thrills, humbles, and inspires me!

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I had to edit this post after publishing it because another wonderful review of BROKEN came in today from HighlightingtheMind Blog. Sarah Oliverson wrote,

This book did exactly what it was supposed to and it left me breathless. I say this because this was one historical fiction that sucked me in throughout the book. As she spun this historical fiction in Paris, starting in 1939, she made it possible to walk side by side with the main character Alia A. K. Mercier. These are the type of books that grab my attention, she nailed it.

When reading I find it rare that a writer holds my attention through the book. When I have a book that my nose is glued to and my eyes don’t stop moving until the pages run out, I keep that author in my favorites stash. Because of how well this book was written and the historical significance this book holds, I give this book a 5 out of 5.

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How cool is that???!!! Maybe I should go buy a Powerball ticket?

Pick up a copy of BROKEN on Amazon.