Knox Box of Miscellany

Dawn Knox – A rearranger of words into something hopefully meaningful…

Kissing Frogs and Other Quirky FairyTales

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Kissing Frogs and Other Quirky Fairy Tales –
One good thing which has come about during the restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic has been that despite living thousands of miles from Hawaii, I have joined a Hawaiian book club. And that means I have made new friends, and that has led to me submitting stories to a fractured fairy tale anthology which the Hawaii Fiction Writers have put together to raise money for the Aina Haina Public Library (where Hawaii Fiction Writers met during “old-normal” times) and Kapolei Public Library (where they did book and story readings for Halloween and Valentine’s Day during “old-normal” times).

Cover for Kissing Frogs and Other Quirky Fairy Tales
Cover for Kissing Frogs and Other Quirky Fairy Tales

My two stories Worse Than Bungling and Rivalry Most Royal have been accepted for Kissing Frogs and Other Quirky Fairy Tales which was released yesterday as a paperback.
You can find it here on Amazon

So how did that happen? Well my friend in Hawaii, David Jones and I have been in contact via email for many years, although we’ve never met face to face. During the first British lockdown, David selected my book The Basilwade Chronicles as his book choice of the month for his book club. Because of the pandemic, his book club were not able to meet in person in the Coffee Talk shop in Honolulu, where they usually gather, David planned to set up a virtual meeting via Jitsi and he invited me to join in too.

David and I had a preliminary meeting to see how good the link up would be and for the first time for the dozen or so years since we’d been emailing, we finally spoke face-to-face.

And then I met other members of the book club at the meeting when they discussed The Basilwade Chronicles. At the end of the meeting I was asked if I would like to join their book club and of course I jumped at the chance!

Never having belonged to a book club, I wasn’t sure what to do but David‘s wife, Shauna, sends out emails and I am included in those. During the meetings I’ve met Michael Little who is the editor of Kissing Frogs and Other Quirky Fairy Tales and I’m thrilled that he accepted two of my stories for his anthology.

Just in case fractured fairytales is not a term you’re familiar with, it takes a classic fairy tale or children’s story and adds a twist, changes characters, or makes it more modern. Michael and Gail Baugniet edited the book and I understand that another member Carole Catanzariti was involved as well. Sadly Carol passed away a few weeks ago. She was obviously well-loved judging by the messages in the emails in which I have been included. You can read the title story of the Kissing Frogs anthology and see the book’s table of contents here on the Hawaii Fiction Writers blog.

As well as editing, Gail designed the cover and Michael formatted and uploaded the finished manuscript to Amazon to be published.

The foreward was done by Jane L. Mickelson, a cultural mythologist and the longtime host of the radio show Questing on radio station KWMR, interviewing people who use mythology and story in their work. Jane interviewed Michael a few weeks ago on her radio show and they discussed the forthcoming Kissing Frogs anthology.

So, I’d like to thank all my friends in Hawaii for welcoming me into their community. Find out more about them:

David W Jones

Michael Little

Gail Baugniet

Hawaii Fiction Writers

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