Cathy Marie Buchanan, author of The Day The Falls Stood Still, offers an impassioned plea to preserve the environment and natural beauty of Niagara Falls and prevent the planned high-rise development at the brink of the Falls.....

Lady Howard of Glossop, in her travel journals, published in 1897, describes Loretto Academy as "superbly situated on the highest ground, just above the Horseshoe Falls, commanding the whole bird's eye view of the Falls."   Because of its choice setting, Loretto was host to a steady stream of visitors including literary luminaries, ecclesiastical dignitaries and even, in 1901, the King and Queen of England.  Unfortunately, its choice setting has come into play once again, this time with a hotel developer planning three high-rises for the seven acres of treed green space surrounding the academy.
          
The idea of concrete and glass replacing the foliage that today frames Niagara Falls does not sit well with me.  I was born and bred in Niagara Falls and have stood at the brink of the falls countless times, filled with wonder, filled with awe.  What's more, my debut novel, The Day the Falls Stood Still, opens at Loretto Academy in 1915, and I'd spent countless hours immersing myself in the history of the place.  And I have a natural conservationist sensibility.  How could I not, after growing up with a natural wonder of the world in my own backyard?

I set out to learn more and discovered the high-rises will spoil more than just the view.  Their shadow will fall upon the parkland surrounding the Falls and the Falls themselves, and will likely increase the number of rain-like days at Niagara Falls, as has been demonstrated by recent high-rise development downriver of the Falls.  The idea that I must use whatever public profile I might have to stop the ill-conceived development came to me as more of a responsibility than a choice. Friends of Niagara Falls was born, a nonprofit organization working to preserve the environment and natural beauty of Niagara Falls.  Our first task:  To stop the high-rise development at the brink of the Falls.

Visit FriendsofNiagaraFalls.org to learn more, and please add your voice to those opposing the development by signing our petition.

Thank you!

Cathy Marie Buchanan

Cathy Marie Buchanan's debut novel, The Day the Falls Stood Still, is a Barnes & Noble Recommends Selection, a Barnes & Noble Best of 2009 book, and a New York Times bestseller. Steeped in the intriguing history of Niagara Falls, The Day the Falls Stood Still is an epic love story as rich, spellbinding and majestic as the falls themselves. Born and raised in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Cathy Marie now lives in Toronto.

Elif Shafak, the most widely read woman writer in Turkey whose books include The Bastard of Istanbul, explains how Sufism influenced her latest book, The Forty Rules of Love ...

My interest in Sufism began when I was a college student. At the time I was a rebellious young woman who liked to wrap several shawls of "–isms" around her shoulders: I was a leftist, feminist, nihilist, environmentalist, anarcho-pacifist.... I wasn't interested in any religion and the difference between "religiosity" and "spirituality" was lost to me. Having spent some time of my childhood with a loving grandmother with many superstitions and beliefs, I had a sense the world was not composed of solely material things and there was more to life than I could see. But the truth is, I wasn't interested in understanding the world. I only wanted to change it.

I loved books. I had started reading fiction and writing short stories at an early age, not because I wanted to be a professional writer at the time, but because I found my life dull and boring. I enjoyed living in the stories I wrote. I was an only child. I was raised by a single, working mother who could not spend much time with me. Due to my mother's profession we lived in different countries. Wherever I went "imagination" was the first suitcase I took with me.

Little by little, I had built a private world, an inner space where stories floated freely. This was my life before college and when college started, old habits did not change. Whenever I could I retreated into that private space and I read, read, read. Books were the bridges that connected me to the world. It is no wonder, then, that my interest in Sufism, too, began with books.

It wasn't one particular book, but a series of books. I started reading on Sufism out of intellectual curiosity. One book led to another. A scrap of information in a footnote in one book guided me to another book. The more I read the more I unlearned. Because that is what Sufism does to you, it makes you "erase" what you know and what you are so sure of. Then you start thinking again. Not with your mind this time, but with your heart.

Among all the Sufi poets and philosophers that I read about during those years there were two names that moved me with their words: Shams of Tabriz and the great Rumi. In an age of deeply-embedded bigotries and clashes, they had stood for a universal spirituality, opening their doors to people of all backgrounds equally. They spoke of love as the essence of life, love that connected us all across centuries, cultures and cities. As I kept reading the Mathnawi, Rumi's words gently removed the shawls I had wrapped around myself, layer upon layer, as if I was always in need of some warmth coming from outside.

I understood that whatever I chose to be, "leftist", "feminist" or anything else, what I needed truly was the light inside of me. The light that exists inside all of us.  

Thus began my interest in Sufism and spirituality. Over the years it went through several stages and seasons. Sometimes it was more vivid and visible, sometimes it receded to the background, but it never disappeared.          


Elif Shafak was born in Strasbourg, France, in 1971. She is an award-winning novelist and the most widely read woman writer in Turkey. Her books have been translated into more than twenty languages. Her English language website, including a comprehensive biography, can be found at www.elifsafak.us/en/

Shortly before my first novel was published, I walked through a bookstore with my son. "Once my book is published, I'm not going to be able to do this any more," I told him. Wander into a book store and pleasantly meander the aisles. It was hard to articulate, but suddenly I realized that the next time I walked into a bookstore -- and likely all the times thereafter -- I would be self-consciously focused on one thing: my own book. Did they have it? Where was it placed? Should I offer to sign it? (Was I presentable?)

And it was true ... Going in and out of bookstores became stressful, loaded with angst. I felt I'd been robbed.

But now -- now that I've four novels published and am writing my fifth -- I've discovered that it is possible (sometimes!) to return to that pure reader-state once again, to completely forget to check to see if my titles are in stock. Or even, if I do see them there, to chose not to offer to sign them (feeling like a lazy author, feeling that I'm shirking my responsibility). Authors are not movie stars by any means, but going in and out of a bookstore incognito has a certain thrill, I confess.

But there is, as well (another confession), a thrill in being recognized. The bookstore clerk who asked, "Have you been waiting long for the new Sandra Gulland?" (Yes, I have!) The bookstore owner who told me her staff had titled a certain customer look of furious frustration when told a book wasn't in "The Gulland look" -- because that's how their customers responded when told that my books weren't in stock. The drugstore clerk who took my Visa and said, "There's a good author whose name is Sandra Gulland."

This is the fun part -- and it helps off-set the readings where only three people show up (and one falls asleep, snoring).

But becoming published surprised me in other, much more significant ways. I never expected the connection with readers to be so profound, so intimate. Letters from readers sometimes make me weep.

While I was writing the second novel in the Josephine B. Trilogy, a man wrote to me that his mother had read and loved the first in the Trilogy. How soon would the next be published? She was dying, he confessed, and she longed to read it. My heart sank: Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe wouldn't be out for well over a year, and so ...  And so I sent her the unfinished draft I was working on. Drafts are messy, and I dearly hope it didn't disappoint her.

One writes very privately, for years. Curiously, I never expected readers. They are an important part of my personal universe now, angelic presences, wishing me well  ... cheering me on. I rarely meet them, but when I do, it's very special.

--- Sandra Gulland


Sandra Gulland is author of the Josephine B. Trilogy, internationally best-selling novels about Josephine Bonaparte, now published in 14 countries. Her most recent novel, Mistress of the Sun, is set in the 17th century court of Louis XIV, the Sun King. Deemed "dangerously seductive," it too has been on best-seller lists and is presently published in 7 languages. For more information about the author, her research and her work, see her website: sandragulland.com. She can be contacted online in a number of ways: she blogs at sandragulland.blogspot.com, and can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

The dedication in Roses has inspired interest. It reads: For Janice Jenning Thomson . . . a friend for all seasons.  Readers ask: "Who is she and why a friend for all seasons?"

Without Janice--her encouragement, faith, and belief in the book from its inception--Roses might not have been completed. Our friendship is going on thirty-two years.  She is thirteen years my junior.  We met when our husbands were serving as pilots in the US Air Force.  Bonds were established immediately--I, a teacher, and she, an attorney.  The years brought many changes in her life, but never was I one of them. She once said, "Friends come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime."

At my age, I know what she means. Friends can be for all time, but not necessarily for all of a lifetime. They can appear only for a moment on our journey, or walk with us for a certain period of time and then, as many of us have experienced, "way leads on to way." But then there are those who travel with us all our days and are good for any season of the year.  My friend Janice is one of those.



Leila Meacham is a writer and former teacher who lives in San Antonio, Texas. Spanning the 20th century, her novel Roses (Jan 2010) takes place in a small East Texas town against the backdrop of the powerful timber and cotton industries, industries controlled by the scions of the town's founding families. Publishers Weekly describes it as "an enthralling stunner enthralling" and "delicious doorstop epic", and Library Journal rates it "highly recommended" in its starred reviews saying that "readers who like an old-fashioned saga will devour this sprawling novel of passion and revenge."

More about Leila, and an excerpt from Roses at the publisher's website

It's been snowing here since before Christmas. Not much for some parts of the world, admittedly (I sent a picture of my kids sledging to a friend in Canada and she emailed back 'nice frost') but, for us on the south coast of England, it's a totally new experience.

Things I like about the snow:

1. The quiet. No cars, no school run, just that all-enveloping white blanket. Comforting and scary at the same time.
2. The kids playing outside all day in a huge feral gang. This is what childhood should be like (this attitude gets me into trouble at parent/teacher evenings)
3. Not having to shop.
4. The beautifying effect. Our garden is full of rusty toys and dead plants – under the snow it looks like a winter wonderland.

Things I don't like:

1. Worrying about my mum, who is housebound. Luckily she is just an hour's trek away and I've done this every day. Her first words to me: 'where are the mince pies?'
2. Being cold.
3. Having to wear hundreds of layers. Getting ready to go out is a major undertaking and earmuffs are not a good look on a forty-something woman.

I'm trying to write a book. It's the third in the Ruth Galloway series and is tentatively entitled The House at Sea's End (my publishers invariably don't like my titles). The trouble is, it's set in the spring and I keep wanting to make it snow...

My favourite snow scenes in books:

1. Lucy meeting Mr Tumnas in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Apparently C.S. Lewis suddenly had a vision of a faun in the snow, carrying parcels and an umbrella – this was the start of the whole Narnia series.
2. James Joyce The Dead
3. Lorna Doone "...the snow came on again, thick enough to blind a man..."
4. Any detective story where they are snowbound in a spooky old house but, especially, C J Sansom's Dissolution.
5. Any scene in Anna Karenina – I bet she never wore ear muffs.

Elly Griffiths' is the author of the Ruth Galloway novels which are set on the Norfolk Coast of England. The books take their inspiration from Elly's husband, who gave up a city job to train as an archaeologist, and her aunt who lives on the Norfolk coast and who filled her niece's head with the myths and legends of that area. Elly has two children and lives near Brighton. The Crossing Places, the first in the series, is just published in the USA, and has received extremely positive reviews from BookBrowse's members. Visit Elly online at ellygriffiths.co.uk