With a new recording, a new book, and a new lease on life, Boynton Beach-based blues vocalist, bassist and guitarist Mark Telesca (marktelesca.com) has hit a figurative trifecta. Higher Vibrations is his first recording of solo acoustic blues as a singer and guitarist, and that new lease on life is chronicled in Telesca’s debut as an author. Available in online and … [Read more...]
Harris’s Gunnie Rose is a protagonist with legs (and weapon)
By Sharon Geltner Could the latest Charlaine Harris fantasy series evolve into True Grit meets True Blood? It’s possible. There are similarities between the Sookie Stackhouse and the new Gunnie Rose series. (Harris wrote the Southern vampire series about the telepathic Louisiana barmaid inspiring the HBO series, True Blood. She’s published more than 40 books, some in … [Read more...]
Poetry Festival salutes the art of saying the unsayable
By Christina Wood Angela Narciso Torres admits she wrote some pretty bad poetry when she was a kid. Unlike countless other teens pouring out their hearts or communing with their angst in late night writing sessions, however, Torres returned to poetry later in life. She was living in New York with a husband and kids of her own, when she decided to sign up for a creative … [Read more...]
Man-girl love story isn’t about perversion, author insists
By Sharon Geltner Timing is everything. In this #MeToo era, how does an author announce her book, The Best of Crimes, is about a man in love with a 13-year-old girl? With a spoiler on the cover. “This is … about a man who is faced with temptation but does not succumb.” Yet bloggers, who may not have read the entire book, are already disparaging it and chatting about … [Read more...]
Season Preview 2019-20: Literary events show South Florida’s culture isn’t written just in the sand
By Christina Wood The annual Ernest Hemingway look-alike contest held in Key West isn’t exactly what you could call a literary event. (But, if you’re interested, Sloppy Joe’s Bar will host the 40th annual contest July 23-26, 2020.) It is, however, a reminder of South Florida’s long literary legacy. First came intrepid individuals like Hemingway (A Farewell to Arms, in … [Read more...]
Gripping ‘Nickel Boys’ tracks racism’s reach in the Panhandle
Colson Whitehead won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for his novel The Underground Railroad, a compelling story of slaves escaping from Southern plantations on a fictional below-ground train. Now he follows that masterpiece with the story of a brutal boys’ reform school in the Florida Panhandle. The central character is a black … [Read more...]
Journalist Brooks finds service is the true road to character
New York Times columnist David Brooks won wide praise for his 2015 book The Road to Character, which celebrated the happiness found in personal achievement. He now believes he was wrong and that “the rampant individualism of our current culture is a catastrophe.” He argues in his new book that true joy comes from service to others. Brooks cites … [Read more...]
‘Palm Beach Wife’ a fun beach read, but could have been edgier
By Sharon Geltner The heroine of A Palm Beach Wife, Faith Harrison, lives in a stunning, $10 million mansion on the Intracoastal in Palm Beach. She doesn’t wrinkle or gain weight. She wears designer gowns to fancy charity galas that she co-chairs with her rich, handsome spouse. And Faith owns a luxury goods consignment shop on Worth Avenue where, “husbands with twitching … [Read more...]
Writer T Kira Madden: Leaving Boca, opening doors for ‘Fatherless Girls’
The tattoos dotting T Kira Madden’s arms may not symbolize everything you need to know about her, but they unlock a number of doors. They include likenesses of the Hawaiian islands, her ancestral homeland; the key to her father’s apartment in New York City; a top hat, tipped in reference to her passion for stage magic; and a hot air balloon, which she and her parents … [Read more...]
Palm Beach Book Festival, at FAU this weekend, features Albom, Orlean
Everything good that’s ever happened to Mitch Albom happened in Detroit. Or so the best-selling author of books like Tuesdays With Morrie says. He’s likely to talk about that next month at Florida Atlantic University, when he joins the lineup for the fifth annual Palm Beach Books Festival. The one-day festival, set for March 16 at FAU’s University Theatre, will feature … [Read more...]