The being that Iho Grace is writing the book of poetry called, A Dance Called Dwarka for has been absent from my life experience for around six weeks. I ventured into the memory of that life more than once in that time to recollect the sensations, the feelings, and awe that the Mauritian merchant felt when he saw the being from a watery world in …
Markus, is a character from the Harmon Sueno novel, United, who came to me when I heard about the Pentecostal snake handlers in the Appalachian mountains quoting this verse from the Gospel of Mark, Mark 16:17–18 ‘17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick …
I have various degrees of affiliation with the characters of the books I write. The experience of being the character, occupying their bodies, mind, and spirit is not a unique experience unto me. Many, if not most writers of novels, short stories are granted this gift when they scribe the narratives of their stories. However, for me, this experience …
I just received the pencil sketch of the cover of A Flickering Light Called Fate, by Iho Grace from Amber Coubrough my cover illustrator today. She’s due with her third child, so the effort to get this sketch out is simply heroic. I’m so grateful that she has given me a glimpse of what the cover will look like. There is a …
Taking the Oho Ake universe into Amazon KDP exclusively wasn’t a move that I had strategised. With Draft2Digital, I would have had a wide distribution for the ebooks, across the world, including with Amazon, as well as dozens of other digital book retail stores. Due to their censorship of some of the content in the books (which was taken completely …
My whakapapa on my father’s father’s side of the family goes back to Opunake, Te Atiawa (Taranaki Maori Iwi/tribe). I’ve felt that connection flowing through my veins like a persistent warmth for my entire existence in my body, but not as strong as when I came back to Te Ika a Maui in late 2002 from Vancouver, …
In my writing process, I will often take nights, days, and weeks away from a narrative of a novel so it can formulate for me. Holding down a very physical day job means that I’m reluctant to come home and write at night. I wrote Sanctum (2nd edition) in a blur of nights, over months of toiling away as it flowed …
During solitary confinement, what was the global smackdown, that has played itself out during the plandemic I had some friends who were buying into the fear portrayed in the media in ways that were crippling their sense of being. So, I decided to make the most of this strange and ridiculous situation and began to send Whatsapp messages to these …
I have just finished a small book of poetry writing with Iho Grace, whose poetic tones matched my own. The book is a reflection on my relationship of two years which ended in January of this year. My muse, my former paramour, Inge Laan. The book is called A Flickering light Called Fate, and it’s written in three parts. Rhapsody, Reconcile, and Rekindle. It’s the first …
Part of creating the Oho Ake Books publishing and the creative universe was to get as much exposure for the work as possible. Naturally, given the market for ebooks, I would want to find a platform on the internet that would allow me to have the largest distribution across the planet, with numerous retail sellers (not just Amazon …