Saturday, April 30, 2016

Happy Mother's Day: what to expect

Can't wait for our celebration to begin...Can you? 
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In the spirit of Mother's Day, we have stories to tell you
And audiobooks to give
Who will the winners be? 
It may be you!
Want to increase your chances to win? 
Then come to the party and engage with us
Like, comment, and share our excerpts!

Sharing our stories
Starts Thursday, May 5 @ 2:00pm PST ✿ 5:00pm EST
Until Saturday, May 7 @ 3:00pm PST ✿ 6:00pm EST

Grand Finale
Starts Sunday, May 7 @ 4:00pm PST ✿ 7:00pm EST


Let's celebrate Mothers by giving you our audiobooks!

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

The last morning I spend with my mother



After a while, she stirs. Her hand hangs, for a moment, in midair, a motion designed to reach out to me, and hug me, perhaps, in her own manner. Yet I can see that it is only herself, in the end, that she embraces. “On me your sin,” she smiles sweetly, placing a hand on her breast, where the heart can be found. “Let your curse be on me.” 
The sleeve, meanwhile, continues to climb, as if of its own accord, over my shoulder. By now it is covering the entire length of my arm. To my amazement, a part of me seems to have disappeared. Esav’s arm is beginning to take shape in place of mine.
She leans over me and with a sharp eye, threads her needle. But for some reason, we cannot bear to look at each other eye to eye. “Give me one minute, let me mend it,” she says, removed from me, smiling to herself. “We don’t have much time, I’m afraid. Your brother is on the hunt, and so are we.”
I sit there at her feet watching her work. My mother is so skillful in manipulating that sleeve. Inside of it, my limb feels hot, suffocated. I let her control me, control my hand. It is no longer my hand. 
By and by, a perfect calm comes upon me. I have no thought in my head, no clue that this is to be the last sunrise, the last morning that I spend with my mother; no premonition that our time together is running out, and that I should kiss her, and hug her, and bid her farewell. 
Yet for some reason, glancing around me, I commit to memory every aspect of this scene, every detail: The vivid pattern of the rug, spread across the dirt floor. The embroidered silk pillows, leaning against the woven headrest. The little blemish, barely visible in the corner of the blanket. The silver thread coming apart, at one point, at the bottom of the canvas. The jug of water, half hidden behind the curved leg of the bed.
I can hear little noises: The occasional cry of a newborn baby, searching blindly for his mother’s breast. The light snores of the maidservants, some of whom are just starting to wake up, only to fall asleep again. The yawns of the shepherd boys, stretching their limbs lazily under the sheepskins in the neighboring tents. The unrest of the sheep, the lambs, the kids, the goats, all eager to go out there, to graze in the sun-flooded fields.  
Meanwhile the needle flies back and forth, forth and back, over my shoulder, catching the light in its path. I am transfixed. I wish I could stay here forever. This place is so full of charms. 
This hour is so intimate; so sweet, and it is fast coming to its bitter conclusion. 

Yankle, in A Favorite Son


I have long been fascinated with the story of Jacob and Esav. To me, it captures several layers of emotions which we all go through in our families: a rivalry between brothers, the way a mother’s love, unevenly divided, can spur them to action, to crime, even; and how in time, even in the absence of regret, a punishment eventually ripens. 

The story had been brewing in me for several years before I put pen to paper. Being an artist, I had expressed it through sculpture long before I wrote the words. So here you can see Yankle and his mother Becky, plotting to cheat the father. Out of a sense of shame, they are unable to look each other in the eye. 

Having been cheated, I found that the character I wish to explore is not the victim of the crime, but rather the perpetrator. What are his motives? Has regret set in? Does he love his father even as he is cheating him? Does he long for the early years when he still had a bond with his twin brother? 

I wrote the first chapter, Lentil Stew, and thought I got the story out of my system. But no, Yankle kept chatting it my head, demanding that I record his thoughts. I wrote the second chapter, and the same thing continued to happen. It was not until I wrote the last chapter, The Curse of the Striped Shirt, where I find a ‘poetic justice’ to conclude the story, that Yankle finally fell silent...

So when reading my story, do not seek clear distinction between heroes and villains: no one is wholly sacred, because--like Yankle, the main character here--we are all made of lights and shadows, and most of all, doubt.

My clay sculptures of Jacob, asking, "What if my father touches me?" 
and of his mother, saying, "On me your sin, my son"

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Monday, April 25, 2016

I reckon she saw some clue of what was coming



Lenny’s gone, but still, I’m thinking about him, about how he’s touched on that time, the lost time nearly five years ago, when I went out the door, swearing I ain’t gonna come back to him, not ever. What he hasn’t said—and what left such a bitter taste in my mouth—is how he told me, back then, “You are a nice kid, Anita. Go, go back to where you came from. Go back to your mama.” 
And what he don’t know is that ma wasn’t all too happy to see me, “Because,” she said, “I told you so, didn’t I? Didn’t I say, he’s gonna grow tired of you, and dump you before you know it? He’s gonna go back to his wife, ‘cause it’s her that he wants—not you! And if not her, then—then, it must be something else with him, always something else, like, looking for other women. Maybe they remind him, somehow, of that thing, who knows what it is, which he found in her. Maybe what he’s really looking for is just, like, the idea of her.” 
And when I mumbled, “Whatever,” ma said, “I knew it! She can twist him around her little finger, if she wants to.”
She didn’t tell me nothing else about this thing, this idea of her, which ma thought was fixed, somehow, in Lenny’s head, like some piece of music; and I, I didn’t ask. Instead, I bought a six-pack for her and a six-pack for me, and we sat down on her pillows, on the narrow iron bed, drinking beer; she talking, me weeping all night, after which ma wiped my face, and grabbed the palm of my hand—like she used to do in the old days—to read it. 
And she told me to stay put, to wait for her, ‘cause she had something crucial, something real big to tell me, like, about the future. I reckon she saw some clue of what was coming—but didn’t quite grasp it, not in full, anyway, ‘cause the next thing you know, ma went out, came back a second later, picked the empty beer bottles, and took them with her. Along the way she gave me a peck, smack in the middle of my forehead, which surprised me. 
Then, having kissed me goodbye, she went out again, and then... Then, on her way to work, right there on the corner of Euclid Street—Bang! I could hear the sound, out there—she was killed in a car accident.


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Friday, April 22, 2016

This is more than a game of chess

This is more than a game of chess
Your move is more than just a guess:
Our party is so fine
Join us, let us pour the wine!

We’ll bring sweets to celebrate
A hard-fought battle… So don’t be late! 
Meet us here, be our knights
Lets move across the blacks and whites!


Vote for A TOUCH OF PASSION here:

The Romance Review

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Muse

The lamp swings like a pendulum, pictures sway on their nails 
Then slip down the walls, leaving scratched trails 
Amidst the quake, the grief, the confusion and scare 
Slowly ascending is my father's armchair 

And beyond all these outlines of what I see there 
Beyond the sofa, the knickknacks, the old furniture 
Light pours in, and it paints something new 
It reveals, it unveils at this moment a clue 

The clue to a presence only he could once see 
A presence he longed for, because only she 
Could call him back home, and envelop him so 
Touching-not-touching, her hands all aglow 

These pages, upon which he'll never scribble a line 
Are floating from the shadows, into the shine 
Only she can now read the blanks, she and no other 
He's ascending into the hands of his muse, his mother.




Here is a detail from the top center of my oil painting, My Father's Armchair, and a detail from its bottom. These details are also visible on the cover of my poetry book, HomeWhile everyone notices the hands at the bottom, few discover the subtle appearance of the face at the top, because it exists in a different layer than reality, hinting at the presence of a muse... 

 It is extremely difficult to photograph this piece, because the layer of gold, which is exposed in places, reflects light in unpredictable ways. So I snapped the picture in one room, then another, with diffused daylight coming from the side, the front, the top, with and without flash, then took it outside and snapped it in sunlight, in the shadow, here, there and everywhere... You get the picture.

At last I found one version that looked fine to me. First I had to fit the image to a prescribed size (according the book size I have in mind.) Then I created the shadows of the lettering. You may notice that the shadow's color is not black, but rather it is the darkest purple of the painting (which can be seen in the lower left corner.) Also, I blurred these shadows, so they do not have hard edges, but fuzzy ones. Then I selected a soft yellow, with which I typed the title, Home; and a less bright version of this yellow, with which I typed my name and my father's. Being brighter, the title 'comes forward' in relationship to the author names. 

Normally I would make sure that all text fields are of the same width, or that they are arranged in a way that the one on top has the shortest width, and the one at the bottom has the longest width, which creates a sense of stability. Not so here, because I view my childhood home through the shaky lens of memory...

★ Inspired by poetry? Treat yourself a gift ★
"Not only does the author take the reader into a wonderful world where words are like music, ebbing and flowing with a rhythm that is captivating and beautiful, but she also gives life to her father's writings"

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Make no mistake: this is a war

Make no mistake: this is a war
Everyone's fighting for a score!
Shall I hide here, in the dungeon
Wait for my foe to raise his bludgeon?

No! My secret weapon let me wield 
And come out on the battlefield!
With you by me, let's make history
And charge ahead to victory!


Our secret weapon, you ask? It is your voice!
Please help us, help A Touch of Passion win, by voting here: 


Vote and join our 
For a chance to win our books!

Monday, April 18, 2016

Superb and unique

I love the reviewer for reading all three of the novels in my historical fiction series, and in particular for his review of the last King David's novel in the series, The Edge of Revolt:


on February 26, 2016
This is the third book in a series about the life of (King) David. Read the others first. I LOVED all three. The reader gets to see inside Davids's head about everything that is going on in his life. It is enlightening and entertaining. I had a hard time putting the books down (well my phone). This book is not at all about the details in doing anything David talks about. By that I mean you never get to hear how his breakfast is gotten together and cooked and served. Or how he gets his armies together and how he feeds them But you get to see inside him - his fears, his loves, his hates, his dreams. I wish there were more like ethis.

Saturday, April 16, 2016

The Inspiration for A Touch of Passion

Suzanne Jenkins, my good friend and the author of the Pam of Babylon series has just posted an interview with me, which she preceded with these heartfelt words:

You may have noticed I’ve linked to Uvi’s blog a lot recently. She’s the force behind the two boxed set anthologies, At Odds with Destiny, and A Touch of Passion in which my books are included. Uvi is a fierce advocate for authors and sacrificially works to promote the books of so many of us, asking very little outside of our participation in promotion in return. Recently I asked her to share what inspired her to begin the process of organizing the boxed sets. Her reply explains in part what drives her to the selfless work she does on behalf of me and many other writers.

What to know my answer? Check it out here:

The Inspiration for A Touch of Passion




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Friday, April 15, 2016

Beautifully lyrical story of love and loss

I am thrilled to find a great review for my novel, The Music of Us. It is written by top Amazon reviewer and author Sheila Deeth. In addition to her novel, Divide by Zero, she has written The Five Minute Bible Story Series, and many other books. With a Masters in mathematics from Cambridge University, England, she is a a top reviewer for Amazon, Goodreads, Gather and other reading sites. Here is her review:


VINE VOICEon April 15, 2016
Uvi Poznasky’s The Music Of Us is a beautifully lyrical story of love and loss, covering the years from the Second World War to Vietnam and the 1970s. The novel builds a great sense of time and place from smooth, well-chosen details. Never intrusive, but always totally convincing, the threads of real events weave between the dance steps of love and the music of a wonderful soundtrack that frames the tale. The Music of Us is a sweet, sometimes crazy romance, with heart-warming longing, hilarious accident, and wonderful scenes that stick in the mind afterward. It’s also a beautiful walk into memory, haunted with those questions of loss that hide behind music and love.

The Music Of Us is the third in a sequence of novels, and a wonderful crown to the tale. Readers certainly don’t need to have read Apart From Love beforehand, and Music is hauntingly complete in its own right. It deepens the story of the earlier novel by adding time’s perspective, setting up the scene from which Apart begins. But it tells so story all its own, achingly lovely and sad.

Lyrical, musical, and hauntingly genuine, told in a voice that ages convincingly and loves completely, The Music Of Us lingers beautifully in the mind, long after the story’s told, and is a truly great read.

Disclosure: I thought I was just getting more of the original story, but this is so much more!

Monday, April 11, 2016

Call to Arms: fighting alone is far from enough

We’re honored to compete for the Readers Choice award
But fighting alone is far from enough
To win we need not a shield, not a sword
But rather your voice, in a battle that’s rough

So join us here, and make your move now
‘Cause in this war, your voice will sure count
Cast it for A TOUCH OF PASSION and we vow
To ride to victory with you! Horses ready to mount

Call your friend here, let’s forge an an army
With your love behind us, come and disarm me.


Please help us, help A Touch of Passion win, by voting here:
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Such A Lovely Children's Story

Here is a beautiful review by Robin Lee, a Top 500 reviewer, for my children's book, Now I Am Paper:

TOP 500 REVIEWERon April 11, 2016
This is a kind of bittersweet, sorrow short, bedtime story, by author Uvi Poznansky............It's metaphor fro a longing for a child .....Also, a hidden meaning about society and our destroying of trees.......The entire story rhymes in flowery prose, even though the words are easy to read....I appreciate that the author took the time to put the words right along with the illustrations.....The illustrations are lovely, big, bright and colorful......Rhyming tend to hold children's attention span more and make them giggle.....It looked nice on my kindle........

The story is about a Tree and it's longing for the child who used to touch and climb it's branches.....As, seasons and years go by, the Tree is alone and getting very old......One day someone will come and chop it down.......Even though I felt that was a sad part in the story......Something magical happens afterwards .....You need to read to find out..........

At the end of the book, the author puts the whole entire poem there, so you can read it again........

For children ages 4-6 ........

E-copy given to review by author,

Let me introduce you to my author friends

My author friends have joined forces with me!
We bring you amazing stories
Narrated by great voice actors
just in time for Mother's Day. 
Click the profile image or the name of each one of us 
to learn about our work
Then join us for a weekend of love
for a chance to win our stories!

Join us here:




"I paint with my pen, and write with my paintbrush"



"What would you do if you could see other people's dreams?"




“Addictive, award-winning fiction. You'll fall in love with the characters and love to hate the villains.”



Bestselling author of novels from historical to fantastical.”



“Author of compulsively readable thrillers”



“Escape with a book by Angela Ford.”



Multi-genre, multi-language, multi-profession and fearlessly going wherever the next book takes me.

Blog 


Sharing stories about love, secrets and the messiness of life.



Roller coaster rides of twists and turns.



Welcome to the world of Inola Walela as she faces peril and intrigue head-on. Retribution with a bullet.