Chris Delyani's Blog

My novel Norma and the Blue Hour features a strong-willed feline by the name of Harry Winston. I based Harry on my cat McGee. Read all about him here:

https://chrisdelyani.substack.com/p/l...

Reading Nook was kind enough to interview me about my career and my latest novel, Norma and the Blue Hour, which is launching today. I hope you enjoy!

https://readingnook84.wordpress.com/2...

Thanks,

Chris

I’m so pleased to announce that my fourth novel, Norma and the Blue Hour, is now up for sale. Links to some good reviews, plus the link to the Amazon sale page, are available here:

https://open.substack.com/pub/chrisde...

Thanks!

Chris

Back in high school I watched more hours of the nighttime soap opera “Dynasty” than I care to admit. I distinctly recall Mrs. Sherr, my European history teacher, expressing surprise and shock upon learning that I couldn’t wait for Wednesday night to watch (as she put it) such a “vile” show. Forty-plus years later, I can see Mrs. Sherr’s point. All the same, I couldn’t help feeling a flood of pleasant “Dynasty” memories on my impromptu visit last week to Filoli, the San Mateo County mansion that appears as the stand-in for the Carrington abode in “Dynasty”’s opening credits.

Click the link for more:

https://chrisdelyani.substack.com/p/a...

I can’t believe that the day is almost here: the publication date of my fourth novel, Norma and the Blue Hour.

Click the icon to read the advance reviews:

Norma and the Blue Hour

The book is available for pre-order on Amazon at the introductory sale price of just 99 cents. Paperback versions will be available on Amazon or $12.99 on pub date. Click to pre-order here:

https://www.amazon.com/Norma-Blue-Hou...

Thanks to you all for your support!

Chris

I hadn’t planned to design another anti-fascism poster so soon after the gigantic October 18 No Kings protest marches. Then I saw online, or thought I saw online, a notice for democracy-lovers to gather at any branch of the Oakland Public Library at 5 p.m. on Friday, October 24, only six days after No Kings. The OPL’s Temescal branch library, a quaint brick building at the corner of Telegraph Avenue and 52nd Street, is about a five minute walk from where I live. But it’s a small library. Would there really be a protest in front of that library at 5 p.m. on Friday night? I walked over there thinking no one would be there, that I must’ve made a mistake.

Click to read what happened:

https://chrisdelyani.substack.com/p/b...

My fourth-grade self would much more enjoy a field trip to the Salem as I found it this past summer, on a blazing hot day in June. The anti-witch crusaders of 1692 would no doubt be horrified to discover that their project to eradicate witches from Salem has had the opposite effect. Thanks to their paranoia, Salem is today a veritable Las Vegas Strip of all things witchy—a never-ending Halloween party, running all year long.

Click the link for more pictures:

https://chrisdelyani.substack.com/p/y...

I attended the No Kings rally in Oakland last Saturday. My third protest of the year. You know a movement has broad appeal when even the middle-aged word nerd crowd shows up. Click for pictures of my favorite signs:

https://open.substack.com/pub/chrisde...

I first learned of the existence of Lake Titicaca the way I think most people growing up during the 1980s learned it—as the giggle-inducing answer to the Trivial Pursuit geography question, “What is the world’s highest lake?” That’s how I remember the question, anyway. Turns out that Lake Titicaca, at around 12,000 feet above sea level, as the world’s highest navigable lake, straddling the border between Peru and Bolivia. After nearly two weeks of hiking mountains and wandering around Inca ruins, we finished our Peruvian odyssey on a boat, cruising the placid sapphire waters of Lake Titicaca.

https://chrisdelyani.substack.com/p/r...

Over two weeks of hiking in Peru, I collected flowers that became a diary of the trip. In our starting point of Cusco, my flower-gathering began early with the ubiquitous flower known as qantuta, the red trumpet-shaped blooms that were once sacred to the Incas and are now, according to our Cusco guide, Peru’s national flower.

Click for wild orchids and other flowers from Peru:

https://chrisdelyani.substack.com/p/t...