Hi, and welcome to the new website.
Same URL but brand new look and I’d like to thank my nephew, Garry Finch, back in England for that. Not only did he design and build the site but he took the picture at the top during a back-country camping trip we did together with my kids.
As I move forward with my writings its my intention to keep folks updated via this site and via my Wanderings and Sojourns facebook page (linked at the side of each page on this site which also connects to my twitter account @tortolajim. Things are moving well with my poetry gaining recognition in the Ontario poetry scene even though its contemporary classical style is not one of the poetic genres generally fashionable here….. which only goes to make its success even more significant.
The long overdue book 2 “On Tropical Islands and Sparkling Waters” (which is actually the 3rd book in the series to be published) is now at the publishers and we are going through the lengthy back and forth of lay-up – proofing – correction -re-proofing – more correction -more re-proofing, etc which is the drawn-out technical stuff that must come at the end of all the interesting work of writing it if it’s going to be presentably readable.
Book 4, which is all about my travels around the Iberian Peninsular (Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar) and surrounding waters, is now well under way and I’ll be teasing you with items from that one on this blog from time to time. And you cannot write about Iberia without some inclusions from North East Africa, where I also traveled, for the influence of the Moors, the Barbary Pirates, etc is woven intrinsically into the tapestry of that part of Europe, and indeed, the history of Iberia is written into that part of the world as well.
The first book of the “Earth Elves” series of illustrated environmentally messaged children’s books is ready to go to the publishers, but I need to either find a publisher, or come up with the funding myself to get it in print, so that one may be a little while before it sees daylight. Meantime I will continue writing subsequent volumes in the series ready for when stars are aligned and they can hit the presses.
So keep watching for updates on this blog. Whether they be about my work, the work of others, opinions about pertinent topics, guest posts, etc, I’ll do my best to keep them interesting. And if you would like to be notified by email when a new one is posted please let me know by sending me an email to [email protected] from the account to which you would like the notification sent requesting to be put on the mailing list.
Cheers for now, but hope to bump into you back here again often.
Jim.