Unabashed personal favorites. This is now in a chronological, event-based format, with newest items at the top.
Feb. 15, 2024. News from my author friends Eric Mayer and Mary Reed (authors of the John, the Lord Chamberlain mystery series) from their quarterly newsletter, the Orphan Scrivener (2/15): “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.”
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”! 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. The Rochester Irish folk musical duo, The Dady Brothers, were inducted into the Rochester Music Hall of Fame in 2022. Sadly, Joe Dady passed away in 2019. Learn more about what “John Dady and Friends are up to” (and a scholarship in Joe’s honor) at https://dadybros.com/.
2022. Simon M. Miles’ new well-researched and well-written book, The Map and the Manuscript (Mossley (UK): Ignotum Press, 2022). From the press release: “New book sheds light on the historical mystery of Rennes-le-Château in France: Breakthrough solutions to one of the great unsolved enigmas of our times. https://www.prlog.org/12930110-new-book-sheds-light-on-the-historical-mystery-of-rennes-le-chteau-in-france.html. From the book: “An intricate game has been played across decades, even centuries, to preserve the knowledge and simultaneously conceal it …. But how could I describe such a thing, and how would I share it? The only way, I decided, was to start at the beginning.” Simon Miles wrote the foreword to my book, Francis Bacon’s Hidden Hand, in 2018.
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” has a two-year project, “Essaying Bacon: Initiative Essays on Bacon’s Essays,” which began July 5, 2021. “Castalian Spring,” 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 great 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/. “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). See also their books’ reviews at Goodreads and Amazon. You can find out what time it is in Constantinople at their website, http://reedmayermysteries.000webhostapp.com/. They also write at http://ericreedmysteries.blogspot.com/.