Excerpt from Contemporary Writer Donna Thompson

Meander a Moment and Muse About Life

An excerpt from Contemporary Author Donna Thompson’s newest full-length work in progress:

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The Concentric Circles
~1~
Wireless Fidelity

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow,” said Albert Einstein.
Accept the past, manage the present and work hard towards the future, #inspiration.

Overseas or unemployment, it’s a no brainer. Thursday, I am still indisputably Elena Lambert. 2C or not 2C is the apartment door of it all, upon my return from the Asian continent. I am stationed at my computer wearing the latest style of face, Eleanor Rigbyish, “All the Lonely People,” but with quite a few contemporary upgrades. I have successfully avoided a rhinoplasty for the horn that is my nose. The jar, for the visage, has been replaced by a cloud as I upgrade my portrait pics across the range of social media from the grinning selfies in my photo stream. Yesterday, the Face had been carefully raised, without the use of botox but with a revitalizing facial waxing, a kind of thorough vacuuming of the porous surface that has left a healthy hairless sheen to my skin, despite a sleepless night.

“Elena” feels authentic to me despite the long list of words and identities, Helens, Elainas, Eleanor, Eleva, Els, Aliena, Es, and even a few Alans that cling to it. These names, though beautiful in themselves, constitute the trail of cracked or morphed misnomers of the naming journey that I have experienced from birth. Despite this, my assigned letters E-l-e-n-a are firmly affixed to me like a label on the inside of a stylish new jacket. I give thanks to the data base, a birth certificate, and a perfect stranger for this name. This measure awards stability to an eroding sense of self, mine.

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Be sure to catch Donna reading from her first release The Glitch Factory at On The Bean in Aurora on April 26th, starting at 3pm.

“What’s In A Name…”

“that which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet.”

Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet

Why JUzDIzRTS as the name for an author event?

It works well on a few different levels.  The spoken name “Just Deserts” has dual meaning in that not only are the events being held in a Café/Coffee House known for selling deserts and other tantalizing treats, but the concept that every author deserves his or her “just deserts” for all the hard work put in to making a published work of literature just seemed to fit well.

Okay, so why not call it “Just Deserts” then?

My gut response to this question is simply, “What would be the fun in that?”  I believe that writers need to have some reservoir of humour to pull from in order to be able to ‘plug through’ and ‘carry on’ in the face of adversity – yes adversity.  Writing anything is difficult enough with all of the plotting and organization that is required just to get a work completed, and then writers today (be they self-published or newly published traditionally) now have to become publicists.  If the struggle is worth it, most writers will be able to find a moment from that time of adversity to laugh at themselves and delight in the print volume they now hold in their hands.

Vanity plates on motor vehicles draw the eye of drivers and passengers alike.  The promise of something more hidden in the jumble of letters begs viewers to figure out the hidden message.  Authors, too, work on the same premise – Not only has their work been pared down and edited into a new form and reborn for the world at large rising like the phoenix from the ash of what used to be, but the idea that there is always more to a story or poem than at first meets the eye is what often draws readers in. 

Therefore, in celebration for all that authors are, I wanted to highlight in a subtle way those crucial traits that make them unique and give them their well-earned JUzDIzRTS.

Melissa Moores, Event Director