Love is a central theme in fiction. This theme has been woven into Greek tragedies, plays by Shakespeare, and novels by Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Steinbeck, and Hemingway. The depiction and exploration of love and the resulting plot twists create the dramatic moments that draw readers to these stories. These stories also portray the many faces of love, including romantic love between partners or lovers, as well as familial love between a mother and a child, a father and a child, or … [Read more...]
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Why We Love Romance Stories
Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: love, love theme, romance author, romance fiction
Catskill Vacations of Yesteryear: From Boarding Houses to Bungalows
Anyone who spent summers in the Catskill Mountains as a child or teenager remembers this vacation area as a virtual paradise. That was in the late 1940s to 1960s. My earliest memory of this sacred summer retreat takes me back to a room in a large clapboard boarding house with no air conditioning, no TV, no telephone, and a bathroom in the hall that we shared with other guests. I was very excited about being crammed into a small room with my mother, sister, and brother. At the time, I thought it very cozy. … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: bungalow colonies, Catskills, kuchalyns
Remembering the Heyday of Catskill Mountain Vacations
It was the 1950s. Where would anyone who lived in Brooklyn, the other four boroughs, and the surrounding states go for a summer vacation? The Catskills, also referred to as “The Mountains,” of course. About a million people a year spent some time vacationing in the Catskills in the summer according to Philip Ratzer’s book, Bungalow Kid: A Catskill Mountain Summer.1 Why did so many people flock to the playgrounds of theCatskill Mountains? If you ask people who vacationed there, they will look dreamy-eyed and … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Catskill Mountains, Catskills
A Conversation with Elaine Bossik, Author of The Last Victim
Scriptologist.com, an online magazine, spoke with Elaine Bossik about her new novel, The Last Victim. Scriptologist.com (Q): Where did the idea for The Last Victim come from? Elaine Bossik (EB): I was in a writing workshop where writers share their writing and offer critiques and suggestions. I wrote what I thought was a short story, but it was really a vignette. The group encouraged me to continue the story and develop the characters. This vignette turned out to be the first chapter of my novel. Q: … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: The Last Victim
