NEW MOON RISING
My reluctant readers,
Soon your reluctance will change; I hope.
My novel, New Moon Rising, will appear early next year. It was selected for publication by Midnight Showcase which will soon morph into Mélange Books.
I thought I’d share with you the book cover.
READERS AND WRITERS FORUM
READERS AND WRITERS CORNER
FINDING AN AGENT
UPDATE
I have just finished the final draft of my novel, The Beast Awaits, and have once again started looking for an agent who would accept this book.
The reason for this update is that I find that the approach one must take has changed. In the past, you were able to search the website for The Association of Authors Representatives
http://www.aaronline.org/
for an agent. That is no longer the case.
I now find that the best site to search is Agent Query.
http://www.agentquery.com/This is where I recommend that you go first.
As always, do your homework! After you’ve settled on an agent to contact, go to Absolute Water Cooler and Predators and Editors.
http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/
Good luck, and wish me the same.
PUBLISHED POEMS
My reluctant readers,
As promised, here is another published poem.
For fifteen years a small press in Saddle Brook, New Jersey selected one or two of my poems to be published in their annual anthology. This poem was the first, published in 1974 in the anthology, Echoes of the Unlocked Odyssey
The Distant Jewel
Shimmering diamonds in the distance,
Gleaming pearls on an ebony sea,
The city lies ahead
Made lovely by the night and the span of miles,
Those who know her close
Have seen her decay,
Known her avenues littered
The debris of progress
The broken spirit of man.
Distance lends to a hazy beauty,
Close inspection
Horror.
PUBLISHED POEMS
My reluctant readers,
As promised, here is the first of my ancient published poems. This piece was published in The Clover Collection of Verse, 1976.
This poem has the distinction of being the only work for which I earned money. Not here, but published in another poetry periodical, someone liked the poem and sent me a dollar. Somewhere in our attic storage area, along with over twenty years of accumulated ‘stuff’ that dollar resides. It keeps company with a mound of rejection letters.
I hope you enjoy this effort of my ‘relative youth’.
THE WHEAT FIELD REVIELED
Friendless you toiled with palette and brush,
Forlorn amidst wheat fields with only mad rush
Of flying crows to mark the day,
Crossed paths unite yet yield no safe way,
Fulfillment pursued beneath sorrowful skies
Painting with troubled soul that once cries
Out for love yet finds only torment,
Thus your life spent.
Tramping through fields of cypress and corn
With stars and suns swirled in a morn,
Hatband-held candles yield flickering light
Sustaining your soul one last starry night,
Rooks swirled in violet a soul hungers still,
Standing alone – the wheat field revielded.
UPDATE
My reluctant readers,
Here is what I am up to and what you might expect in the future.
I have quit my part-time job and am now a full-time writer. Hopefully, that means you will have more to read on this site.
My novel, New Moon Rising, was due to be published by Midnight Showcase in January. Midnight Showcase is closing this December, and morphing into Mélange Books. I have signed a new contract so my book should still be published. I will keep you updated.
What I am really excited about is other novel that has now been edited and rewritten; The Beast Awaits is the title. Once I get what is necessary together, query letter, synopsis, stuff like that I will start trying to find a publisher.
To keep you occupied while this is in the works, I shall entertain you with some poetry. What the vast majority of the world does not know, and with good reason, is that I spent more than thirty years thinking I was a poet. During that time, I published poems in extremely insignificant anthologies. I am boldly going to share those poems with you.
Look for the heading, Published Poems. I can feel the anticipation.
Take care my friends,
Walt
JUMPERS A 9/11 POEM
9/11
I wrote this poem seven years ago.
Who alive on that beautiful September morning, other than the tiniest child spared the memory, could forget that day.
The vast majority of us carry the images of that fateful day. The one I remember most is the jumpers. Those desperate people, approximately fifty, who joined hands or made makeshift parachutes, only to meet the same fate.
This poem is dedicated to them.
JUMPERS
They were like birds flying,
Leaping from flaming windows,
No wings to purchase air,
No hope of flying home.
They were like birds flying,
Tumbling in twos, alone,
Flashing by in a smoke-filled sky
While crowds watched in horror.
They were like birds flying
Flights, imprinting the nation’s memory.
They were like omens flying,
Carrying us into a world of fear.
UNPUBLISHED WORKS
My Reluctant Readers,
Here is another unpublished offering. It never found a home.
The subject matter is dark, but relevant.
TWO LOVERS
She fondles the syringe
As she was once fondled
By a lover long ago,
For this is her new love now.
The product of her first love
Gently moves within,
The product of her new love
Scars arms and thighs.
She feels a kick,
A struggle for life,
She forgets the past
As another is robbed of a future.
She sends her new love coursing her veins,
There is a treble, then nothing.
All is quiet as the night begins,
All is quiet, The endless night begins.
UNPUBLISHED WORKS
Dear reluctant readers,
I have not visited my blog for some time now. I have been busy revising my novel, The Beast Awaits, and hope to, by the end of the year, start seeking a home for this work.
In the meantime, I thought I’d post some of my work that no one felt worthy of publication.
This offering is a poem, written some time ago. Now that my daughters are both adults, I feel a special kinship to this poem that was written when they were children.
TRANSITIONS
The years, they march forever,
Dreams flare, then fade away,
Some reach, some corner of my mind
Still plays with yesterday.
The years, they take their toll,
Hopes dim, then fade away,
My youth, now past now spent
Has abandoned me this day.
I pause, I catch the sound
Of small children, my children at play,
The world comes slowly full circle,
I pause, nothing what to say.
Their years, the grow they flourish,
Their dreams, they seize the day,
I retreat, then yield and vanish,
Hope fills their world today.
BIO
Greetings my reluctant readers. I thought some of you might want to learn a little more about me, then again, maybe some of you have had enough. JUST KIDDING!!
Walt Trizna, a scientist for thirty-four years, is now a full-time writer of horror and science fiction. He has published more than twenty stories, both online and in print. Early next year his first novel, New Moon Rising, will be published by Midnight Showcase. Currently, he is editing another novel, The Beast Awaits, a story where stem cell research goes horribly wrong and leads to a catastrophe of global proportions.
Walt lives in West Chester, PA with his wife, Joni. They have two grown daughters, Annie working in theater in NYC, and Lynn living in Pittsburgh and interested in ecology and urban farming.
Walttriznastories's Blog 