Fiction:

CHILDREN OF THE GODS $18.95 - OldCastle ISBN 0-932529-57-7
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"Poetry is our original language. Poetry is our basic connection between our sense of self and the cosmos. Poetry is a thin, disappearing bridge which may be our only escape at that final moment when we realize that we are about to be lost forever in banality; sucked away from our life-force by compromises upon the alter of the mediocre. Poetry can save us just before we breathe our scared, efficient, reasonable last."

Winston Churchill.

The following is part of an introductory speech by the author to an adult-education writing course based upon her book Children of the Gods.

I can tell by the questions that people ask that what they really want to know first about this book is the nitty-gritty of how, exactly, it is doing. I can understand that. Reputation is often our first introduction to a book. When Children of the Gods, was published there were advance sales of 300 books and promises from my distributor that Barnes & Noble and Walden both "loved the book" and would order. Actually it was Crown books that loved the book the most, and ordered more than anybody else. And I was very excited when Children of the Gods won a San Diego Book Award. We were all wondering why the sales in Hawaii were so high and found out quite by accident that there was a wisdom course on Maui that used the book as a text and as a result of that, many people who took the course bought it to give to friends. There have also been continuing orders from psychologists and psychiatrists who give copies to their patients. One psychiatrist said that it was "the most profound book" she had ever read. This was extremely gratifying to hear, as you may imagine. Since I am a psychotherapist, it may be that some flavor of my consuming interest in the psychological reaches out to like-minded people. One bookstore called me for permission for a customer to inscribe one of the verses on his wife’s tombstone. This was very humbling. This is the verse.

"I love you and l leave you
Only to become a part of all that will comfort you.
So do not look for me in closed places
Like a mourner at a tomb.
When I leave you I will be completely free,
A part of all you are and all you see.
And because I have gone first,
When you weep,
Even the dust will care, as I will be caring.
And when your heart is full,
Even the stars will sing, as I will be singing."

On one hand I am grateful for the positive feedback I have had so far. On the other hand I am also frequently terrified as only an author can be who continues to send work out into the world for its judgment upon it. Will the words ring true or brand it a pretentious failure? It is the readers over time who decide, and not reviewers. Although I am happy to have received some good reviews.

Unknown and out of the big publishing loop for so many years I always took comfort in the words of Timothy Foote, chair of the fiction award panel for the National Book Awards. And I want to pass this comfort on to those who write diligently without knowing whether the immediate work of their hand will ever see the light of day. As reported in the American Booksellers Association Bookselling This Week, Foote complained that "too many fiction books deal with newspaper-headline issues, feature a rote skepticism about anyone in a position of authority, and encourage hyperbolic jacket copy."

"Acknowledging the work of yet-undiscovered authors, Foote dedicated the awards proceedings to 'a few serious writers of notable talent, working alone and hoping for the best.'" That such a group exists in form enough to be thus recognized gives at least hope to every serious unpublished writer that one might dare to include oneself a fellow in that distinguished number and thus partake a bit of Foote's blessing.

Keep writing. I don’t care if you write poetry or novels or essays. I don’t care if you write on your computer or by hand. I don’t care whether you print it up at Kinko’s and hand it out to all your friends; or simply put your comments in a notebook, and put the notebook in your dresser drawer. Keep writing. Because serious unpublished writers are the real guardians of literature. Big publishing has not shown itself to be that in the past few years. Big publishing today must keep its eye on the bottom line, which is not necessarily the top of great literature. And too often published writers are overly influenced to bend their work to that bottom line. The boards of these large conglomerate publishing firms are no longer made up of people who have a great interest in literature. They are made up of business people.

There are great books which have risen up from some dusty box of letters or hand-written journals found in unlikely places, alive with that magic creative spark of truth that speaks to every heart. There are books like Jonathan Livingston Seagull that received 100 rejections before it was finally published. Peter Rabbit and the first Harry Potter book were rejected by all the major publishers. Walt Whitman had to self publish. Edward Fitzgerald was so unsure of the public’s reception of his Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam that he published it anonymously. He was glad he did because it languished in embarrassing obscurity when it first came out and did not receive any real notice until it was "discovered" by the then well-known poets D. G. Rossetti and Swinburne. Things like this will continue to happen. This is the magic of the art form. What you are writing today may not have immediate acclaim. But if it will give hope and direction and joy to those sometime in the future, you should not be discouraged. That you may not be singled out today for the fame and fortune that lies on the New York bestseller list should not keep you from pursuing your craft. It is a noble craft. Someone once said that "not all bestsellers are masterpieces. But, sooner or later, all masterpieces are bestsellers." That your work will someday find its rightful readers is all that any real writer dare ask.

Children of the Gods has not had as wide an audience as I would have liked. Probably because it was self-published. It continues to sell on amazon.com though so far there have been no modern-day D. G. Rossettis or Swinburnes to focus the public’s eye upon it. But Perhaps now that I am being published by Hyperion, a literary arm of Disney Publishing, the book will receive more notice in the future.

MORE ABOUT CHILDREN OF THE GODS:

On rare occasions there comes along a profound original, an odd little book that appears out of nowhere, from the pen of some obscure story-teller, and once you have read it, you will never go completely back to where you were before. The kind of book you may hesitate to lend for fear you might miss its company. The kind of book that echoes from the heart of some ancient knowing, and whispers from time's forgotton cave that life may be more than it seems, and less.

In 1929, a retired newspaper editor vacationing in the archeological digs of an old Mayan ruin has a preternatural vision that "tells him" Earth was created as an experiment in altered consciousness by children of higher beings who then forgot their original awareness.

Although the vision occurred over a six or seven day period, the writer spends the next forty years of his life transcribing his original notes into two large journals. The journals are illustrated with ancient pictographs the editor is led to find in prehistoric ruins, old museums and libraries which, mysteriously, further inform his translation and his understanding of the vision.

Some fifty years later the journals are mailed anonymously to the writer's only grandchild as part of a strange inheritance for all mankind.

THE CHILDREN OF THE GODS is a book- length epic myth written in the ancient language of poetry

"Across my mind there came a rush of wild imaginings
Voices spoke, events revealed their genesis and their conclusions.
And what was truth and what were my delusions, I can't say.
When Creation speaks with many voices,
Who can tell where credit lies,
Or separate the True Creator from his natural disguise?"

The children conceal a psychic journal of the project in the universal consciousness in such a way that it will reappear at the millennium and remind them if they "forget" their way back home.

"Regard now this Journal from its creators
and the plans and every importance.
You who listen, remember now, and hear well
From the twelve who sign our names below.
You will not believe our words, we know.
But in a way we do not speak to you
But to the lost self which you have forgotten,
That part of you which always feels alone,
A little lonesome for some unremembered home.
So listen! Seek you the sailor of your soul.
For only the wise, who can sort riddle from the rhyme,
can run before the wind of changes
and make the journey back from time,"

The vision reveals the original plan and the beginning and the end of the world.

"We will have society most intricate.
So civilized, we'll play at war and wonder why we lose.
So desperate, we'll fight at love and wonder why we're scarred...
Houses like raw toothpick staves will scatter in the wind
And people will be parted from their purchases
with knives of understanding when they see the shattered baubles
which they traded for their lives."

BOOK REVIEWS:

New Age Retailer

Children of the Gods
A. B. Curtiss

ISBN 0-932529-57-7 18.95 Hardcover OldCastle Publishing

Reviewed by Dennis William Hauch
Athanor Books
Sacramento, California

Children of the Gods is a fictional story in the format of a journal of a retired newspaper editor. The editor experienced a series of supernatural visions about the creation of the earth and the origin of mankind. These visions occurred during one week in 1929, while the editor was vacationing in the archeological digs of an old Mayan ruin. He spent the next forty years of his life transcribing his original notes and illustrating them with mysterious pictographs found in prehistoric ruins from around the world. Fifty years later, the journal was mailed anonymously to the editor’s only grandchild as part of a strange inheritance for all mankind.

The journal turns out to be the translation, in the ancient language of poetry of the psychic records of the "Erthe" experiment, a lesson in altered states of consciousness for children of higher beings. But the children (humans) have forgotten their original awareness, which is now secreted away in the deepest layers of their minds, in the very fabric of universal consciousness. That superluminal awareness is scheduled to reappear to remind us who we really are.

There are hints of ancient, mythic wisdom in Children of the Gods, but those seeking simple steps to transformation will be disappointed. This poetry speaks to a hidden corner of our minds.

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