Unabashed personal favorite happenings. This is now in chronological, event-based format.
Sept. 6, 2024. My children’s fantasy novel, The Voice of the Wooden Dragon, was published by NFB Publishing in Buffalo. It is beautifully illustrated by Lane Waldman.
July 19, 2024. Congratulations to Eliza and the Organix and all the New York City musicians who were nominated for WAVY Awards! Eliza and the Organix was nominated for Production of the Year for their single, “No Contact.” The awards were presented September 14, 2024 at the Abrons Art Center in New York City. Congratulations to the winners!
May 17, 2024. Sarah Mantell’s play, Everything That Never Happened, will have its East Coast debut at Baltimore Center Stage’s 2024-25 season. https://www.centerstage.org/24-25-season/. Directed by Jessica Kubzansky. February 13, 2025 – March 9, 2025. “Audacious, imaginative and moving.” –Los Angeles Times. The play’s West Coast debut was at Boston Court Pasadena in 2018. It was performed in the Folger Shakespeare Library’s Reading Room Festival on January 28, 2024 (directed by Johanna Gruenhut). It was to have been performed at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland in 2020, but the festival was cancelled due to COVID. Sounds like things are finally getting back to normal! https://www.sarahmantell.com/
May 11, 2024. Congratulations to the Francis Bacon Society (FBS) for publishing its 2024 Francis Bacon Edition of British barrister N. B. Cockburn’s 1998 book, The Bacon Shakespeare Question: The Baconian Theory Made Sane, with biography of the author by Sally Gibbins (FBS Principal) and foreword by me. Both Brian McClinton and Barry R. Clarke gave Cockburn’s book credit for inspiring them to write their own books on Bacon-Shakespeare authorship. Cockburn’s stated aims were twofold: “to cut a swathe through all the nonsense, to get at the points that matter both for and against the Baconian hypthesis, and to state them fairy and accurately” and “to cover, as far as possible, the whole field of the Bacon-Shake-Speare controversy” (Cockburn, pp. 6 and 7). Your purchase supports the Francis Bacon Society. https://francisbaconsociety.co.uk/bookstore/
Feb. 15, 2024. For fans of co-authors Eric Mayer and Mary Reed, authors of the acclaimed John the Lord Chamberlain Byzantine mystery series (One for Sorrow, Two for Joy, etc.,) and two “Grace Baxter” WWW II mysteries (by “Eric Reed”): “In 2005 Poisoned Pen Press held an online mystery convention. For its virtual goody bag we contributed an e-chapbook of essays. It’s now available at: https://efanzines.com/EM-MR/Ragbag.pdf. We’ve also assembled the essays in the 2022 run of Orphan Scriveners into a handy e-booklet: https://efanzines.com/EM-MR/Orphan%20Scrivener%202022.pdf. And finally, a collection of Eric’s essays selected from Vexed, his fanzine: https://efanzines.com/EM-MR/VexedAnnual.pdf.” (Orphan Scrivener, February, 2024. https://reed-mayer-mysteries.blogspot.com/ and https://ericreedmysteries.blogspot.com/
Jan. 19, 2024. Eliza’s new single got a write-up by Jesse in “Singles! Eliza and the Organix, No Contact,” Rock and Roll Fables. Here’s the Spotify link for “No Contact.” Here’s her accoustic version for the NPR Tiny Desk Contest 2024 on YouTube (with the quilt I made her displayed in the background!). Here’s the recorded version at “Find a Song” on YouTube. Also, congratulations to Eliza for being voted 2023 Songwriting Teacher of the Year by her students at Lessonface! Also she teaches private lessons and runs a rock band camp for young students at the Birch Walthen Lenox School. And here’s her recent visual art-music collaboration with Sketch Viral on Instagram. For show information, check out https://elizaandtheorganix.com/ and https://elizaandtheorganix.bandcamp.com/.
Congratulations to watercolor artist Judith Alsop Miles for having the French town of Quillan choose one of her watercolor paintings for the cover of its official 2024 diary! https://www.jamilesart.com/. She lived in the Languedoc region of France (now called Occittanie) for ten years. https://www.facebook.com/jamsketch/
Congratulations to playwright Sarah B. Mantell for winning the 2023 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for their play, “In the Amazon Warehouse Parking Lot” which will be performed at Playwrights Horizons in New York City in the fall of 2024! Wow! Sarah is originally from Rochester, New York. https://www.sarahmantell.com/.
November 2022 was the 25th year of the fabulous annual Rochester Children’s Book Festival, in Rochester, New York! The 2023 event was back at its usual location at Monroe Community College. Keep it in mind for next year. Bring the kids to meet the authors and get signed copies of books to give children for Christmas. There are always plenty of kid-friendly activities going on.
SirBacon.org celebrated 25 years in October, 2022! Check out the amazing new content! There are over 1000 pages of quality, Google-indexed content on SirBacon.org.
May 2022. Congratulations to The Dady Brothers, an Rochester Irish folk musical duo, The Dady Brothers, for being inducted into the Rochester Music Hall of Fame in 2022. Although Joe Dady passed away in 2019, his brother John continues the work they began together. https://dadybros.com/.
2022. Simon M. Miles’ book is out, The Map and the Manuscript (Mossley (UK): Ignotum Press, 2022). It “sheds light on the historical mystery of Rennes-le-Château in France: Breakthrough solutions to one of the great unsolved enigmas of our times.” (press release).
2021.Andrea Padovani has a new book, L’Insegnamento Del Diritto A Bologna Nell’età Di Dante (Bologna: Societa Editrice Il Mulino, 2021). It is about the teaching of the law in Bologna during the time of Dante. Italian Canon Law Prof. Padovani is an author whose writing I greatly admire. He wrote the first chapter, “Irnerius,” in Law and the Christian Tradition. I am going to have to learn to read Italian!
“Castalian Spring” blogs Francis Bacon’s essays at “Essaying Bacon: Initiative Essays on Bacon’s Essays.” https://medium.com/essaying-bacon.
2020. May I recommend to you Orazio Condorelli and Rafael Domingo‘s book, Law and the Christian Tradition: The Legacy of the Great Jurists. London: Routledge, 2020. https://www.routledge.com/Law-and-the-Christian-Tradition-in-Italy-The-Legacy-of-the-Great-Jurists/Condorelli-Domingo/p/book/9780367857103. It is remarkable that a U.S. law school graduate such as myself would first learn of world-changing jurists like Irnerius and Azo only by following clues in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice! I would not have gotten far without Daniel R. Coquillette’s articles and book, Francis Bacon (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992) which alerted me to the civilian law influence on Francis Bacon. Just as the rediscovered texts of the Code of Justinian revitalized the law of Europe in the twelfth century, beginning in Bologna with Irnerius, so too, I believe, can universal truths reach across the centuries to shed new light on modern legal problems. I highly recommend this book to all who are interested in law, legal history, and “students interested in the interplay between religion and law in the era of globalization” (Routledge). https://www.routledge.com/Law-and-the-Christian-Tradition-in-Italy-The-Legacy-of-the-Great-Jurists/Condorelli-Domingo/p/book/9780367857103.
Sept. 3, 2019. The witch is a hoot in Lane Waldman’s story, “Tower,” Uncanny Magazine, no. 30 (Sept. 3, 2019). Sandra Odell interviews Lane in the same issue. https://uncannymagazine.com/issues/uncanny-magazine-issue-thirty/. https://lanewaldman.wordpress.com/.
April 1, 2019. Fabulous Rochester guitarist Kinloch Nelson‘s CD, “Partly on Time,” reviewed by Frank De Blase in City, https://www.roccitymag.com/music/partly-on-time-recordings-1968-1970-9977075
Rochester, New York lost a great musician when Joe Dady, one of the Dady Brothers musicial duo, passed away on May 18, 2019. https://www.rochesterfirst.com/news/local-news/rochester-musician-joe-dady-dies-at-61/; https://geneseesun.com/conesus-may-18-2019-joseph-bernard-dady-joe/.
2018. “The Bathtub at the End of the World, Or, How Mr. Whittaker Achieved Knighthood,” Tales from the Lake, The Horror Anthology, vol. 5, edited by Kenneth W. Cain (Crystal Lake Publishing, 2018). For truly,” said Mrs. Tibblekins, raising her paper cup, “he was the best of us all.” Reviewed at Sci-Fi and Fantasy Reviewer, Sept. 28, 2018, https://scifiandfantasyreviewer.wordpress.com/2018/09/28/tales-from-the-lake-volume-5-kenneth-w-cain-ed-review/. Really and truly, I love this story. “With any Tales from the Lake volume you’re guaranteed a great product–quality stories, smooth editing, gorgeous production values….”–Tim Lebbon, author of RELICS.
Dec. 8, 2018. Diana Hockley reviewed An Empire for Ravens, written by my good friends Eric Mayer and Mary Reed. “This twelfth story in the John, the Lord Chamberlain, series does not disappoint….Recommended!” http://kingsriverlife.com/12/08/an-empire-for-ravens-by-mary-reed-and-eric-mayer/. The book received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, as had their previous Nine for the Devil. These books have beautiful covers, inspired by 6th century Byzantine mosaics. Eric and Mary’s books in their “Grace Baxter” series are also excellent: Guardian Stones and the newest, Ruined Stones, set in England during WWII (Poisoned Pen Press).