Announcing a Beast

Writing | New Book Announcement

I finished a book. It’s the heaviest book I have ever written — the result of the longest research. Time well spent. For 5 years, I compared, noted, and retold folk tales from a few small islands. The manuscript, well fed, grew into a heavy 300-plus-page beast.

How can I announce a beast?

It growls for itself:

“On the pages that follow, old tales mix with newer ones.

One after another appear: a wolf, a princess, and a mighty ox.

The devil sits quietly beside the witch and the goat; wind bends,

giants fall, St. Peter makes mistakes, and the elements dance

around them all. Everything is mixed in a well-planned

disorder — led by a storyteller’s voice.

And for folk tales, what other order

could be better than this one?”

It looked and yawned, tucked its tail, and disappeared back into the cave of editing. Forgive my beast; it still waits to get its fur trimmed. Then we will fly to hunt some publishers.