The Creative Spark with Uvi Poznansky discussion

This thread is to share news about the publication and promotion process. If you are a published author, and wish to post advice about any aspect of bringing the book to public attention, this is the place to do it. If you wish to ask a question, I will do my best to answer.

Also, this is where I will post news about my book, Apart From Love.

For a writer just coming out of obscurity, how do you know you're starting to make a dent in the public mind? When you utter a whisper, how do you even know someone is listening? Well, in my case, the answer this: you know it when Beyonce and Marilyn Monroe start following you on Twitter! How cool is that! (And don't even bother hinting that Marilyn is no longer among us--she lives on!)

Look, this is what I find when I follow them back: both of these amazing divas have wise and poignant thoughts, which they express with the brevity necessary for Twitter communication.

Beyonce Knowles
@BeyonceKnowIess FOLLOWS YOU
Beyonce is a singer songwriter record producer actress,dancer choreographer model fashion designer vocals one of the biggest Artist of all time!
Los Angeles, CA

"You can close your eyes to the things you don’t want to see, but you can’t close your heart to the things you don’t want to feel."

"You say you missed me, well I missed me too, because I was never myself whenever I was with you."

"You’re everything I thought you never were and nothing like I thought you could’ve been."

Marilyn Monroe
@MarilynMonroeDC FOLLOWS YOU
Ego & love cannot exist together. They are like light & darkness: when light comes, darkness disappears. | Created by @jeremiah_alric | Owner by @sofiebilancia
Washington, DC · http://www.facebook.com/MarilynMonroeDC

"In life; Good experiences will produce memorable moments and bad experiences will produce lessons."

"Kindness should never be confused with weakness! What someone doesn't do shouldn't ever be confused with what they are capable of doing."

"God and the Devil both have the power to grant your deepest desires; in the end, it’s the price you pay for them that matters."

Tom Riddell describes himself as a a fairly easy going kind of guy who takes responsibility for his life and is interested in many things- everything from politics to books, to the super natural- paranormal. Who says that being 50+ can't be fun?He is currently working on a novel. He is also a TV Producer at SCCTV (Washington @ Work), a web site administrator, and a host Blog Talk Radio Show: The Writers' Lounge. I am very honored that he posted this ★★★★★ review on his site:

"The author has taken a very complicated premise, involving three complex characters and interlaced them all into a story that will seep into the hearts and souls of many readers. It is surely destined to become a novel that you will well remember for a long time to come.

The richness of this tale becomes beautifully evident in the way the author delves into every intricate detail of the story. Not overly done, the narrative fits perfectly, pulling you along, tantalizing you to want more..."

Tom concludes the review with these words:

If there are first time novels that truly belong on The New York Times Best Sellers List- this one is it! This read, from beginning to end, remained solidly at the very top of the star rating scale for me. Excellent work!"

To read the entire review: http://www.tomriddell.com/blog/?p=376

Wow! Amazing review!

Dave wrote: "Wow! Amazing review!"

Thank you so much, Dave!

I am so excited that my novel, Apart From Love, is listed on the Book of the Month, for the group Never too Old for Y.A. Books. So, I am ever so grateful that you are the first friends to help my book get selected. Thank you Dave, Tower, Crystal, and Gabby-Lily for your support!

And for all my friends here, this is where to join the Never Too Old for YA Books:
http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/5...

And this is where to vote:
http://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/69...

Thank you dear Rionna for your support!

A new review, titled "Wonderful!" Just posted for Apart From Love on Amazon UK and US:

Wonderful!, 14 Aug 2012
By ShonUK
Amazon Verified Purchase(What is this?)
This review is from: Apart From Love (Kindle Edition)
"`Apart from Love' is quite unlike any story I've ever read, and I enjoyed every moment of it. The writing is full of lyricism and imagery, melancholy and hope, whilst the story seldom wanders very far from one cramped apartment in Santa Monica.
It is not a book that will take you on a journey through a place or an era, but rather through the minds of three people.
Anita, Ben and Lenny are undoubtedly connected through kin and marriage, yet are so sadly disconnected by their individual histories, secrets, guilt and remorse. They find an obscure way with which to communicate and reach out to each other, recording their voices and thoughts on an old tape recorder. The fact that they share this tiny living space, yet are so far from understanding each other is beautifully delivered through Poznansky's prose and style.
Anita is Lenny's second wife, articulate and eloquent with her desires and despairs despite her dreadful English, brash ways and lack of education. Ben, only a year older than Anita, is Lenny's son. He is recently returned after years estranged from his broken family. Natasha, Ben's mother and Lenny's first wife, is the white elephant in the room, her absence enormous and tangible.
`Apart from Love' is a clever, in-depth, unadulterated exploration of the thoughts of these individuals as they flow unheeded through their minds, allowing the reader to float, swim, wade, and splutter along with these oft times drowning characters.
The story wraps up in a wonderful way, pulling the threads together to make sense of the way the book has been structured.

I noticed that Poznansky is also the painter of the stunning cover design, her gift with word images spilling into visual art, proving herself a very talented artist."

As you may already know, I'm hard at work on a new book, a vessel holding poems and prose. Today I have spent the entire day working on the design of the front cover.

To see it, click the link http://uviart.blogspot.com/2012/08/ho...

Yesterday when I posted the front cover of my upcoming book, Home, a reader wrote to me saying she was so ready to read it! So I am working as hard as I can, designing the back cover. While the image on the front is based on my oil painting, the one on the back is conjured out of thin air...

To read more, click the link:
http://uviart.blogspot.com/2012/08/ho...

Listen tonight - 7pm Central Time USA to my interview at the Writer's Lounge:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/the-writ...

Hello, Uvi.

I am writing in the wrong place to comment on the cover of "Home" (I got lost and wound up here).

I noticed that all those who commented on the cover praised it as it is, suggesting no changes at all. I love the piece of art as much as they do, but as a fan of yours who has also laid out covers professionally since 1982, I must share two small points with you.

First, I would move the text 1.5 inches down toward the bottom of the cover. This will reduce interference with the beautiful painting, which is the proper center of attention, and make the page more balanced and composed.

Second, I would change the font to one that is less usual, one that is not normally used for the text inside the book. This will give it a more professional look.

But these are small details compared to my love for all your brilliant and inspiring work.

Dear How, so very nice to hear your voice here! And I thought you have forgotten to visit me here. Are you all settled at long last? I love reading about your adventures, please feel free to post them here.

I appreciate so much that you are sharing your professional experience with me. The font is actually one I like, called Baskerville. Reason I like it is because it self-corrects graphical 'densities'--by which I mean problems such as this: when you type 'fi' for example, the line crossing the f is too close to the dot on the i, causing an interference. But in this font, the line is graphically merged with the dot, creating a pleasant graphical combination.

As to Home at the bottom, I have thought about it. But I think that Home is at the center of the 'lens' through which one sees this image. So the graphical placement is symbolic, too. The center of the lens in this image is also the only place where the image is not contorted.

All that said, I will certainly consider all the changes you suggest.

Howard, one more thought: the bottom quarter of the cover image is 'prime read estate' because it shows the hands gathering the blank pages, upon which my father will never draw another letter. So I intentionally kept the title & author names away from this area. There is little wiggle room if I wish to keep the ideas of this cover intact...

And here is the text blurb for the back cover, as it stands at this moment. Please look at it, I would love to hear your comments before I commit it to paper!

"Home. A simple word; a loaded one. You can say it in a whisper; you can say it in a cry. Expressed in the voices of father and daughter, you can hear a visceral longing for an ideal place, a place never to be found again.
Imagine the shock, imagine the sadness when a daughter discovers her father’s work, the poetry he had never shared with anyone during the last two decades of his life. Six years after that moment of discovery, which happened in her childhood home while mourning for his passing, Uvi Poznansky presents a tender tribute: a collection of poems and prose, half of which is written by her, and half—by her father, the author, poet and artist Zeev Kachel. She has been translating his poems over nearly a year, with painstaking attention to rhyme and rhythm, in an effort to remain faithful to the spirit of his words.
Zeev’s writing is always autobiographical in nature; you can view it as an ongoing diary of his life. Uvi’s writing is rarely so, especially when it comes to her prose. She is a storyteller who delights in conjuring up various figments of her imagination, and fleshing them out on paper. She sees herself chasing her characters with a pen, in an attempt to see the world from their point of view, and to capture their voices. But in some of her poems, she offers you a rare glimpse into her most guarded, intensely private moments, yearning for Home."

So what do you do when the moment comes? There you are, all confused, faced with the dubious gift, which has been dropped at your doorstep (or rather, on your book page): a 1-star review. What should you do?
Nothing!
Nothing? But—

To read more, click the link
http://uviart.blogspot.com/2012/08/on...

A new ★★★★★ book review has been posted today on Amazon for Apart From Love:

"The story is told from the viewpoints of Ben and Anita. Ben is the adult son of Lenny who has been estranged from his parents for the past ten years, with Ben blaming his father for the break up of the family when Lenny and Natasha divorced. Anita is Lenny's new wife who is pregnant, the same age as Ben and also has an uncanny resemblance to Natasha, so much so they could have been taken as sisters - but in appearance only. Natasha was a beautiful and talented concert pianist with elegance and grace to match. Whereas Anita is rough, ill educated, dresses brashly and her speech is no better than `street talk'. What Ben didn't know was that even when he was a child at home living with both his parents, his mother was in the early stages of Alzheimer's Disease and that this progressed to the stage where Lenny divorced her and had her cared for in a home. The marriage wasn't always happy with Lenny having many affairs and flings but Anita, one of his flings, had been around for ten years or so before he married her following an unplanned pregnancy.

Without giving more of the story away, there are many facets to each persons story and all have their hopes, fears and revelations. The love between Ben and Anita which both of them hide as much from themselves as each other, is a slow burn, almost dangerous dance that is more in their heads than physical. Lenny is a little bit like a spy listening to tape recordings of both Ben and Anita's thoughts, playing and rewinding the tapes over and over, torturing himself in preparing their words for the novel he is writing.

Uvi Poznasky is a very talented lady, not only is she a very accomplished writer, she is a poet, sculptor, artist, teacher and much more. The beautiful cover of the book is of one of her works of art and after visiting her website I see that she is indeed gifted and worth taking a look at uviart.com . This is a beautiful and sophisticated novel of love, loss and torture and well worth reading."

She's so right - you are a very talented lady!

Kaye wrote: "She's so right - you are a very talented lady!"

Awwww.... Thank you so much, Kaye!
More importantly, good to hear your voice!

Are you a competitor? During a race, are you reaching out for the target with all your being? If you are, we are alike, so here's a glimpse of the finish line, and of how I feel when I fall short of my target.

To read more, and to see the results of my book promotion, click the link
http://uviart.blogspot.com/2012/09/a-...

Publishing a book is a complex undertaking, and one task among many is setting up a book page on major reading networks. So now, you are the first to know: the new page for Home on one such network is up! It includes the book description, the cover image, and--get this--the first review, written by renowned Israeli author Revital Shiri-Horowitz. She says:


To read more, click here:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

What is the Next Big Thing? It is a ripple of creativity, spreading across the new writers of today! Each one gives an insight to her upcoming work, then tags her fellow writers to do the same.

To read more, click the link
http://uviart.blogspot.com/2012/09/th...

You may ask, what is the 'interior design' of a book? It is the graphic arrangement of the text, and of every piece of information printed in it, from the title page in the front to the period on the last page. This includes the choice of font, the size...

To read more, click the link
http://uviart.blogspot.com/2012/09/ho...

The 'Look Inside' feature of both the paperback edition and the Kindle edition of my upcoming poetry book, Home, has just gone live! I invite you to check it out.

To read more, click the link
http://uviart.blogspot.com/2012/09/be...

★★★★★ Book Review:
A Literary Symphony, September 14, 2012
By Ashley Fontainne "Ashley"
This review is from: Apart From Love (Kindle Edition)
Uvi Poznansky has penned a literary symphony, complete with a cast of likeable yet bruised characters.

To read more, click the link:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R3QXIDLM...

There are over thirty eloquent, beautiful reviews on Amazon for my novel Apart From Love, but I have just received the one I consider the most rewarding of all! Check it out; this is why a writer writes:

http://uviart.blogspot.com/2012/09/th...

So, you ask, what is the plan for Home? Are we going to have a launch party On Oct. 10, or what?

What a question! We are, and this is the way I see it...
http://uviart.blogspot.com/2012/10/so...

Thank you for sharing your memories--in photographs and art--describing your home. I have woven them together, into a quilt. Today--while we are still here, celebrating Home--I present it to you.

http://uviart.blogspot.com/2012/10/th...

I truly enjoyed reading the following review because it suggests a blending of the subjects found in my two recent books, Home and Apart From Love. While the two are distinctly different, there are naturally some themes that can be found in both of them. Apart From Love is a work of fiction. Lenny, the father in this novel does share one trait with my father: he is a writer.

To read more, click the link
http://uviart.blogspot.com/2012/10/a-...

Hello everyone! Only one week remaining to enter the Writing Contest!

In honor of my book event, Our Family Tree, which will come to its high point on Thanksgiving weekend, the contest is centered around the theme of the event.

To read more, click the link
http://uviart.blogspot.com/p/contest_...

Home, with a cover image based on my oil painting, is in a cover contest! Currently is in fifth position (out of 90 books) on Goodreads' Best Illustrated Book Covers. If you are a Goodreads member and you like the cover, please vote for it.
http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/33...

This year is not over yet, but here are some interesting numbers I wish to share with you. Here are some 'behind the scenes' details about the number of visitors that have come to my art and writing blog over the last year. As you can see, the monthly number has skyrocketed! It has gone up from 0 to nearly 9000 visits per month.
(Note: only your visits count here. I have set it up so it does not count my own visits.)

Pageviews today
485
Pageviews last month
8,314
Pageviews all time history
31,339



For more information click http://uviart.blogspot.com/2012/12/th...

Join my ebook launch event for A Favorite Son, here:
http://www.facebook.com/events/438708...

The cover of my upcoming ebook is based on a mixed media paining I painted not long ago. In it I floated various paints on the paper, letting them drizzle and mix, to create an intricate, fiery flow of color. Then when they dried out I came in with a black pen, and drew just a few lines to suggest the figure.

To me, this is what this image means: looking directly at yourself, facing the pain and the ugly imperfections within, without any attempt to mask who you are—even if you find yourself on the verge of a meltdown. Which is the process the protagonist, Yankle, is going through in this story. He finds himself coming to terms with his core being, with how the tension between his emotions and needs has driven him over a lifetime.



As in my previous book cover designs, the font of the book title and the author name casts a subtle shadow over the image. However, One detail is different here: Two of the letters of the author name cast a shadow like all the other letters, but the two glyphs themselves—the objects that cast the shadows--are intentionally missing. Why? For two reasons.

First, because often in my art I discover that the eye is drawn to the unexpected, and the brain rises to the challenge when there is a missing link to resolve. The observer, then, becomes engaged with the art, and in a sense, becomes its creator.

And second, because this missing detail is a symbol, an indication of the flawed character in this story. Stay tuned for more...

It feels so rewarding! My blog, which is centered around themes of creativity in art and writing, has been in existence for barely a year, with traffic sky-rocketting to 8,875 visits during my launch event last month--and now it has been tapped by fellow author and blogger Colette L. Saucier for the Very Inspiring Blogger Award.



To read more click the link:
http://uviart.blogspot.com/2013/01/th...

:) Thank you Angela!

Here is a great blog with a long, yet catchy name: AoBiblioClassique. It has a leathery look, which appeals to me. The first letter of my post is an adorned O, pressed into the same hide. I can nearly smell its leathery fragrance.



Best of all, this blog is bursting with information about books, reading and writing... So I am excited for opportunity to do a guest post there, in which I describe what inspired me to write my novel, Apart From Love.

Check out the blog, as well as my guest post, here.

http://aobiblioclassique.blogspot.com...

On 03/06/2013, my gift to you: ALL THREE WILL BE FREE!
http://www.amazon.com/Apart-From-Love...
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AUZ3LGU
http://www.amazon.com/Home-ebook/dp/B...