Category: Authors and books

Posted on

Saxon Painting and its Hidden Language in When Secrets Bloom

ornamental old chest on ground

In the Carpathian lands wood was never only material. It was a way of life, forest turned into geographical landmark (Transylvania, Trans-silva, the land beyond the forest). Wood was shelter and church, and then it became memory.

With the arrival of German Saxons in Transylvania during the middle of the 12th century, the craft tradition of painted furniture started out of with necessity before it became decoration. Colours arrived later, as an afterthought to survival.

And yet it is colour that outlived so much else.

In my novels When Secrets Bloom and Beneath the Snow I draw on this medieval Saxon tradition: not as background detail, but as silent architecture beneath the lives of my characters. Because painted wood is never passive. It tells as much as it remembers.

Continue reading “Saxon Painting and its Hidden Language in When Secrets Bloom”
Posted on

One Morning in Provence by Lorna Fergusson, When You Need to Choose Change

One Morning in Provence by Lorna Fergusson

There are books that slip in quietly, carrying with them the warmth of distant sun and the faint hum of memory. One Morning in Provence, Lorna Fergusson’s collection of literary short stories, is such a read. When you see yourself in need to choose change, how do you know if you’re ready for it?

Lorna Fergusson also wove her voice into our new anthology Courage, Tales of History, Mystery and Hope, writing its introduction with a sensibility attuned to the fragile intersections between place and person.

Continue reading “One Morning in Provence by Lorna Fergusson, When You Need to Choose Change”