AUSXIP Starship Auction – Authors and Artists Shout Out! Please Share

It's that time of year again when I put a call out to authors, artists and readers. Our annual AUSXIP Starship Charity Auction is fast approaching (way way too fast IMO). The 2015 AUSXIP Starship Charity Auction is dedicated to the show we love and to the Xenaverse which is one giant family.

Come join me in raising a lot of money for Starship in honour of the Warrior Princess and her Battling Bard!

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Since 2006 when we had our first Starship auction we have raised $115K+ which is pretty nifty. I know the Starship Foundation is so appreciative of this annual event. They have gone out of their way to help and support it. This annual event will be held once again on 21-27 March 2015.

As in previous years I am accepting donations of books and this year I'm going to make it easier by including ebooks into the mix. If you would like to donate your books (whichever flavour they are in), I'm more than happy to accept them!

In previous years we also had authors donate a character's name to the auction. That has been so successful where the winning bidder gets to name a character in an upcoming novel KG Macgregor has done this on a few occasions and other authors as well). So if you are an author and would like to donate a character for your next book, please and thank you!

If you would like to help other budding writers with some help with their writing or give them a helping hand etc etc – that too would be super. In a previous auctions we had Steven L. Sears and Katherine Fugate donate their time to look at and help a couple of script writers.

Are you an artist and would like to donate your work? Yes please and thank you!
Some ideas (other than donating your digital or physical art) would be to help a budding artist learn from you.

The goal is to raise as much money as possible for this very worthy organisation. I've gone to Starship a few times and they are an amazing group of people so it's a real pleasure to hold this auction for them.

So. Spread the word, donate your books, artwork or a fictional character or offer to help a budding author or artist with getting their work off the ground – I'm more than happy to accept your donation!

Thank you and please share my note with any groups you belong to and your friends. Let's spread the word and get ready for a 20th Anniversary Blast Off!

Email me for more information!

Interview: MediaBlvd Magazine Interview May 2006

Here's an old interview I gave for MediaBlvd Magazine from May 2006.

INTERVIEW FROM MEDIABLVD MAGAZINE
22 May 2006

Intertwined Souls: An Interview with Author Mary D. Brooks
By Kenn Gold

main.phpSet against the historical backdrop of a German occupied village in World War II Greece, Mary D. Brooks’ novel, In the Blood of the Greeks, is a love story. It is the tale of two women, seemingly from very different worlds, finding each other and themselves as everything is falling apart around them.

Sixteen-year-old Zoe Lambros is from the village of Larissa, and has seen most of her family die at the hands of the Germans. Eva Muller is the daughter of the major in command of the occupying force. In the first chapter of the book, Major Muller shoots Zoe’s mother in front of her. As Zoe is holding her dying mother in her arms, she thinks she hears Eva laughing; this causes Zoe to despise Eva, and even to plot to kill her. Later, Zoe takes a job as Eva’s maid and plans her revenge, but things are not at all as they seem, and the two women find unexpected love in extraordinary circumstances. The book is the first in the series called Intertwined Souls.

Brooks, an extraordinarily likable and outgoing person, is a woman of many talents. In her spare time, she is the webmaster of the largest and arguably best-known fan web site (ausxip.com) for the television show, Xena- Warrior Princess, and its star, Lucy Lawless. The website is a shrine to the entire Xenaverse, and to all of the various other projects that Lawless has been involved in, including her role as a Cylon agent on Battlestar Galactica.

Though Brooks has written several books about the lesbian couple, Eva and Zoe, she is heterosexual. She laughs at the question as to how a straight woman can possibly write a realistic portrayal of a gay couple and their relationship. “I don't think we set out to choose the characters but the characters choose us,” she says. “I don't really know why. I can't tell you where those characters came from but they just did, and they just happened to be lesbians. The fact that I'm a straight woman shouldn't even be a factor. Storytellers are there to tell the story. The story and not the storyteller is the important part.”

Brooks is of Greek ancestry and has long had an interest in the stories of the unsung heroes who suffered through the war. “I have a Greek background and that time period fascinated me,” she says. “I've had a special place in my heart for people who had gone through the horrors of the war. When I was 16 years old I read a book called Rosemarie, which was about a fiction account of a teenager growing up in that time-period, and also going through the concentration camp. Followed that up with the real story “Anne Frank's Diary”, which horrified me. I realized that many people suffered but we didn't know their names. Also there were many that tried to save people from the Nazis; the priests, the nuns, ordinary people who did extraordinary things.”

“There were heroes whose deeds went unnoticed by history but they shaped the lives of many people. So I wanted to write a story that brought those elements together – the time frame of the war and beyond, and to bring those unsung heroes to the surface. The more I researched the more horror stories I read – and I figured if one of those characters have gone through the horrors then it would be an interesting storyline, to see how they would react, how they would survive mentally and physically when faced with other obstacles. Would they just shut off emotionally or would they want to move forward – try to live their lives the best way they can? Would they regret the hand that life dealt? Greece's part in the war wasn't well known so I set it there, researched it, and brought it into the story.”

The horrors of what both women had gone through, which are touched on in the first novel will be explored in the following novels in the series. Both women are survivors in their own way.

Locations and actual events in the book were researched quite extensively. Brooks says “Some of the events depicted in the novel “In the Blood of the Greeks” were very real; such as the treatment of the Greeks by the Germans, the repercussions of the Greek Resistance against their occupiers, the blowing up of the bridge, etc. Athanasios Klaras was head of the communist resistance group that was around Larissa at the time. I just took liberties with the characters like Klaras to weave them into Eva and Zoe’s lives.”

Eva and Zoe first appeared in 2001 and were published that year by another publishing company. Since then Brooks has worked on more of the storyline and has a new publisher, Cavalier Press. The next book that will be released this month is called “Where Shadows Linger”.

The year is 1948. After fleeing Nazi-occupied Greece, Eva Muller and Zoe Lambros are still very much in love, wanting nothing more than to fulfill their dreams and hopes for the future. Emigrating to Sydney, Australia, the two women find themselves making new friends and forging a new life together. However, it is not long before their happiness is marred by prejudice, and the machinations of old enemies that plunge them into mortal danger. Will their unique connection be destroyed? Will they lose their new-found friends? Or will Eva and Zoe's love prove strong enough to overcome the shadows of the past that continue to linger in their lives?

It takes Brooks between three to six months to write a novel. “I try and write it the same way life happens – it evolves. Sometimes an idea would morph into something else that I hadn't thought of and I go with the flow. Sometimes the characters take me places I hadn't thought about. It takes on a life of its own,” she adds.

Brooks has received encouraging feedback about her novels, and her fans are both male and female. “I had feedback from one woman who told me that her grandmother suffered during the war and this gave the granddaughter an insight. The story may not have been the same but the impact was. I have had people tell me that they loved the fact that Eva never gave up. The audience is mixed – I've had men write to me to tell me they like the stories as well as women, but I suspect there are more women than men.” Unfortunately, she will not be doing a book tour for Where Shadows Linger, but hopes to do one for the third book in the series.

Brooks plans to finish the Intertwined Souls series, and then has other characters in mind that she may explore. “At the moment Eva and Zoe are keeping my head busy but I do have other characters that I would like to explore, but their turn will come when I'm done with the story of Eva and Zoe. I have plans on releasing three more books – Where Shadows Linger is the next one, and another two that will round out the story of the women, and will come full circle.”

You can check out Mary D. Brook's Official website at http://www.nextchapter.net/

Interview originally published at
http://www.mediablvd.com/magazine/Magazine-Home/MBMag_20060420159.html (now via the Internet Archive)

 

Auschwitz: Tourist Attraction Or Memorial?

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The Sydney Morning Herald has an article about Auschwitz and whether it should be a tourist “attraction”. Click here to read – it’s a very good article.

My thoughts on this is that I’m torn between yes, obliterate that place from the face of the earth and let’s keep that place as a memorial. It’s an issue I raise in the sixth book of my Intertwined Souls Series “Into the Light” – should we leave places of murder and barbarity in place as a memorial or do we obliterate them.

My question is…What needs to be done with places like Auschwitz?

On one hand the woman that opened my eyes to the horrors of the Holocaust when I was 15 was a survivor. I doubt very much my next door neighbour (Mrs Elephan passed away when I was 16 years old) would think making that hell on earth place, a tourist attraction.

On the other hand not having Auschwitz can lead to holocaust deniers claiming it never happened, it’s propaganda and their usual insane claims.

There has to be a middle ground. That middle ground is where Auschwitz are as they were in the 1940’s but not be a tourist destination. It should be a place to show respect, to treat it for what it is – a cemetery and a reminder we must never let this happen again.

The article mentions that there are 1.33 million visitors last year. Out of those 1.33 million were there people who didn’t fully realise the horrors of the place? Were they moved to tears at arriving at such a place and seeing what they saw? If one person’s opinion was changed because they walked through the iron gates with the infamous “Arbeit Macht Frei” above it, then it’s worth it.

We must not let Holocaust Deniers have the loudest voices. Once you lose the narrative and the lies, repeated often enough and loud enough, become the ‘real’ story. It’s only giant step towards obliterating history and rewriting it to suit the narrative of the time.

When Worlds Collide

This is an episode of the Twilight Zone Mary Style – my wonderful (and very industrious editor) has found these AMAZING headstones today that totally blew me away. These are REAL people who I had no clue who they were when I made up the names of my characters. I was FLOORED. I shouldn't be, of course, since these are common names, right? I'm tickled and floored (can you be tickled and floored?)
The first picture is of Captain Hans Muller – the REAL Hans Muller (who doesn't look very Aryan to me)..plus the grave stone of Hans Muller.


Now the third picture is…Alexander Muller. I just thought up this name for my first novel and it was Eva's grandfather. Rosa found Alexander's grave! Notice the date of the real Alexander Muller's death – 1935. That's when MY Alexander Muller died. When Eva was 15. Eva was born in 1920 and her grandfather passed away in…1935! SPOOKY!


and now for the picture that had my jaw on the floor. The grave stone of Wilhelm Becker. Yep another character of mine – Wilhelm was Eva's best friend / brother. Aye curumba but it gets better!


The final pic is FATHER Johan Theo FABER. Father Faber is one of my dreamed up characters in the book Hidden Truths. I just put two names together I liked and that was that….obviously not. I think if Rosa finds Eva Lambros or Zoe Lambros, I'm going to go and have a bag of black jelly beans.

 

 

The Perfect Aryan Baby? Goebbels Thought So…He was Wrong

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Sometimes a story comes along that you just have to smile about. We all know the story of how the Nazis wanted the perfect Aryan race and the horrific methods they used to create this new society. This article (originally posted in the NY Post) proves that not even the Master of Propaganda Goebbels knew what an Aryan baby was supposed to look like OR he was having a bad day and just rushed something. Either way seventy nine years later, the truth comes out.

A BABY in a photo chosen by Nazis as the perfect Aryan baby has been revealed to in fact be Jewish, not German. Hessy Taft, who was six months old when the picture was taken, found out about the photograph after an aunt recognised her on a postcard, the Telegraph reports.

But apparently the Nazis had no idea that the precious baby they deemed the “perfect Aryan” was actually a descendant of the House of David.

Taft lived with her parents, Jacob and Pauline Levinsons, in Berlin during the height of the Nazis’ takeover in 1935. While anti-Semitic attacks were taking place all over the city, her mother decided to have a well-known Berlin photographer take her picture. Months later, she found out that the Nazis had thrown the picture on a cover of Sonne ins Hause, a major Nazi family magazine.

Scared of being noticed by others, Taft’s parents hid her away inside their home, hoping her secret would never be known.

They angrily confronted the photographer, Hans Ballin, asking for an explanation. But, unbeknownst to her parents and the Nazis, Ballin had known that Hessy was Jewish, and submitted the photo to the most beautiful Aryan baby contest on purpose.

“I wanted to make the Nazis ridiculous,” he told Hessy.

The picture ended up winning the contest, and was even thought to have been specifically picked by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.

“I can laugh about it now,” Taft told Germany’s Bild newspaper. “But if the Nazis had known who I really was, I wouldn’t be alive.”

During a presentation of the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Israel, Taft showed guests a Nazi magazine that featured the picture on the cover. The one-time Nazi poster child is now a professor of chemistry in New York, and admits that it was nice knowing that she helped put one over on the Nazis.

“I feel a little revenge,” she said. “Something like satisfaction.”

This story originally NYPost.com.
http://nypost.com/2014/07/02/baby-chosen-as-perfect-aryan-by-nazis-was-jewish/

Video
http://youtu.be/UeKlz1WTFGk

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