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Find Carolyn's Individual Books and Audios Here:
A complete chapter on writing media releases and putting together a media kit that lets editors find what they need may be found within the pages of The Frugal Book Promoter: How to Do What Your Publisher Won't. (-: Click here for Carolyn's first person essay, "Beating Time at Its Own Game." Click here for story ideas for the media.
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With Apologies to Steinbeck's Charlie . . . I mostly travel alone or with my spouse (also a writer), never with my Great Dane, Malibu. She's very large and would require an adult ticket. (-: Sometimes I write travel articles (scroll down for a sample of one) but mostly my travel inspires poetry.
Carolyn sails the Stars and Stripes of America Cup fame. Well, she got to help hoist a sail and stand at the helm. (-: (Above)
Below: My husband Lance with, for want of a better description the huge jeep sized Mercedes four-wheeler we toured Catalina in. Great fun putting our backs out!
Above: The beautiful Stars and Strips where it is docked in the San Diego harbor.
Making the Princess Fit:Or How a Girl Who Loves Museums and ArchaeologyCan Find Happiness On a Cruise
By Carolyn Howard-Johnson, award-winning author of This is the Place and Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered
In My Fair Lady, Professor Higgins says—with perfect diction that emphasizes his delight, “By George, I think she’s got it!” He isn’t, of course, referring to Eliza Doolittle’s finally learning how to fit the conventions of a cruise into her travel preferences but, nevertheless, it was an “Aha!” moment similar to what I felt this year when I finally figured out how a girl—well, OK, a woman—who loves to spend hours in museums and isn’t much on cutting her feet on coral or wrangling with jellyfish, could live with the cruises her husband likes to take. I admit to taking three cruises with my husband in six months. Maybe this is the kind of intensity required for me to learn how to make this kind of travel work for me, provide me with just such a moment of elucidation. Because my husband and I like to travel differently, we have taken separate vacations for years. He loves first class (He says he got enough roughing it in the Army.) I on the other hand, never tire of extended hanging about in foreign corners—out of the way spots if only the basement rooms of museums—by myself. I am not much on shopping, and hate to pay for the luxury of gold-plated faucets when I’m too tired to notice them. Still, we thought it was time for us to share some good times together. He—this new traveling partner of mine to whom I’d been married 45 years at the time—has always said, “Even lab rats learn to run a maze after a few tries.” I guess that applies to me. I’m a slow learner. But at least as capable as a white rat. Here are my secrets for adapting a cruise to my preferences:
§ Talk to a local. § Practice your Spanish with someone sitting on a park bench. § Play with children in the plaza. § And if you must buy something, nose around the shops that might be used by natives like the pharmacies or grocery stores. If you can’t resist a souvenir, buy from a local vendor and get a snapshot of yourself with her.
§ a tiny bottle of glue § double-sided cellophane tape § blunt-nosed scissors that security won’t confiscate § a couple of marking pens and plenty of pencils and ballpoints § maybe even a hole punch, miniature stapler and travel themed stickers
§ I learned Antigua is pronounce An-tee-guh, because the British, (I imagined a Rex Harrison kind of Englishman in 16th Century garb)—mispronounced it. I also learned the country recently became a fully independent state. § I discussed the recent election on the island with my tour guide and how “the lovely green stone” used in construction there was really limestone. § We encircled the entire island and I learned about their NASA tracking station from some locals at lunch. § And I wrote this poem, in spite of poor roads and a bouncy bus when it struck me that Antigua, in spite of a thriving tourist business, was indeed enduring economic woes often experienced by newly emerging nations:
Antigua’s HopeSweet Potato Man sits on the tailgate of his battered pick-up, parked near the road that tracks Antigua’s shore. Like a flower drawn to the sun, Sweet Potato Man turns his face toward traffic. Crumpled, brown as a prune it is. Languid he is. Waiting. Waiting for someone to pay for his crop. Nearly black-baked by the Carib heat as he, sweet potatoes lie on a blanket like twists of dark yarn. Sweet Potato Man’s legs dangle from his perch, limp, puppet limbs. His shoulders hunch, sweat glints on his cheeks, his eyes white buttons. I sense he wants me to stop, knows I will pass him by.
All in all, my last cruises couldn’t have been better if I’d been trekking overland by train or zipping by rented car because, well, I finally learned that when I cruise I can combine the best of both worlds. I even came to appreciate the enforced days of relaxation at sea. They are very fine additions, indeed. --------------- (Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s first novel, This is the Place, has won eight awards. Her newly released Harkening, a collection of stories, has won three and her poetry and short stories are frequently seen in review journals. She is an instructor for UCLA Extension Writers’ Program and her practical and detailed how-to books are THE FRUGAL BOOK PROMOTER: HOW TO DO WHAT YOU’RE PUBLISHER WON’T, the winner of USA Book News’ “Best Professional Book 2004” and the Irwin Award and THE FRUGAL EDITOR: PUT YOUR BEST BOOK FORWARD TO AVOID HUMILIATION AND ENSURE SUCCESS. They are available at Amazon.com and some university bookstores.
Sidebar /RecipeColima’s Coconut TreatA recipe within a poem dedicated to Roberto, a former schoolteacher turned tour guide in Manzanillo, Mexico
Roberto used a machete. (Substitute a sharp carving knife in your kitchen at home.) With one swift stroke he scalps a coconut pod, instructs us that the head must be green. The juice sweet water then, no deadly cholesterol he assures us Americanos.. When in Mexico do as the Mexicans do, they say: We drink the fruit’s gift, retain liquid at the bottom of our new chalice, slice chunks from the hat Roberto removed from the fruit, place them in the bowl we made, sprinkle with a pinch (no need to measure) of chili powder. Roberto says La via de Mexico, sure he and his countrymen are genetically programmed to appreciate its bite. Now you have, red and white, two-thirds of Mexico’s national bandera. Green. We still need green, to complete our patriotic salute, the sap from limones de Mexico. Sweeter. Juicier than limes at home. We, Diego Reviras at work, perch twists of color on the summit of our coconut bowls, sprinkle rock salt to intensify the flavor. Margaritas. Tongue to salted edge of the glass, bests tequila itself. We eat with our fingers, mimic our host. Dip the last coconut shards into the juice left at the bottom hand-feed our lovers who suck the flavor from our fingers—one piece at a time. Even Mescal could not improve the flavor. An easy morsel, eaten at a stand by the side of a dusty Mexican road. Memory’s favorite souvenir. The essay and accompanying poem above is available for reprint at no charge. Please include the tagline and byline. Please inform me that you are using it and where. If you need to make changes, please check with me and I will try to arrange that for you.
Ellie, Carolyn and Gracie with a friendly stingray in Carib waters, Nassau, Bahamas. 2007
Vegetarian I've eaten animals disguised by deceitful words. Beef not cow, pork not pig, mutton not sheep, calamari not octopus. Octopuses blush before, during and after they make love. A pretty name or breading will never again be masquerade enough for me to dip their curls into hot sauce. I fed a stingray today, held it in my arms, it's skin silky as a soft, wet kiss. Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of an award-winning chapbook of poetry, Tracings The poem above is available for reprint at no charge. Please include the tagline and byline. Please inform me that you are using it and where. If you need to make changes, please check with me and I will try to arrange that for you.
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Purchase THE FRUGAL BOOK PROMOTER as a thick, full-size e-book priced to accommodate the budgets of starving students and authors at Star Publish. Purchase THE FRUGAL BOOK PROMOTER and THE FRUGAL EDITOR in trade paperback at Amazon. The Amazon Short, THE GREAT FIRST IMPRESSION BOOK PROPOSAL, too! Purchase THIS IS THE PLACE, HARKENING and TRACINGS at Amazon. Purchase CHERISHED PULSE at the Compulsive Reader. Purchase and find all the audios for writers at Double Dragon Publishing.
This author is founder and a proud member of Authors' Coalition. (Directors: Joyce Faulkner and Pat Avery) This site is powered by Dianna Faulkner, carmelfaulkner@aol.com Studio photography by Uriah Carr Logo by Lloyd King Future Plans for How To Do It Frugally Series: The Frugal Amazon Promoter, The Frugal Retailer Promotes, The Frugal Author Builds an Agent-Friendly Package Carolyn's Books: Buy Them on Amazon
Copyright ©2006 Carolyn Howard-Johnson
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