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Excerpt from This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, Volume II, The Spanners Series: CHAPTER ONE Interview with Zephyr Branon, 38, child of Dr. Clara Ackerman Branon, Ph.D., Chief Communicator

CHAPTER ONE
Interview with Zephyr Branon, 38, son
of Dr. Clara Ackerman Branon, Ph.D., Chief Communicator

Excerpt from

This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, Volume II, The Spanners Series
by Sally Ember, Ed.D.
Copyright 2014 Sally Ember, Ed.D.
St. Louis, MO

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Interview Date: May 20, 2018

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ZEPHYR: Espe gives me and all my cousins this questionnaire and tells us she’s going to call us and interview us on these questions. She tells us that Earthers–—that’s what everyone on our planet is now referred to, including communicative and intelligent nonhuman species, like whales, squids, dolphins, orangutans, bonobos, chimps, parrots and gorillas–—want to know what The Transition is like from the points of view of younger people, particularly those close to my mom, the Chief Communicator. Well, I guess I’m the closest young person to Clara Branon, since I’m her only child.

I don’t feel that young, though. I am 32 when the MWC holos first come to her and I’m 38, now. But, I guess by Spanners’ standards, I’m young.

Espe is asking us to speak in the present tense (for those of us who understand that, I suppose), to keep with the timultaneity (HA! That’s MY word!) awareness that is everywhere, now. It’s weird, but I say I try. I know Espe fixes it afterward.

We are each responding to the same ten questions, which Espe tells me are like those “Ten Questions for….” famous people interviews that TIME magazine uses. That’s fine. But, I tell Espe I’m going to say what I want. If a question doesn’t lead me where I want to go, I’m going, anyway.

She agrees that my perspective is unique and I am generous to share it. Generous. Sure. Opinionated, more like it. And, very informed. My mom and I talk. A lot.

Most of my numerous cousins are significantly younger than I am. Lavi Ackerman is one year older and his brother, Agam, is one year younger than I, but the rest stair-step down from there, all the way to the Aunt Violet’s twins, Dara and Shira, over twenty years younger. This makes sense when you know that Violet is eleven years younger than my mom and has four children.

Uncle Thomas, one year older than my mom, also has four children. Cousin Lav is his eldest. Aunt Cassie, about six years younger than my mom, has three. [See Appendix E for Family Tree.] Basically, there are a lot of Ackermans.

Kayla Marsh, my wife, and I are married in 2015. She and I are together but we’re not married when The Transition starts.

So, Ten Questions for the twelve of us each to answer. We’ll see how that goes.

[Editor, Esperanza Enlace‘s, note: anything in printed square brackets or signaled at start and finish by the “bing” signal, for the vision-impaired or those who are listening rather than reading, are the Editor’s comments or explanations and not the Interviewee’s words.]

10 Questions for Clara Branon’s Son: the Transition, 5 Years Later

1. How old are you when the Transition begins, winter, 2013, and how old are you now?
ZEPHYR: I am 32 when The Band comes to my mom (I name the group that!), in late December, 2012. I am now 38, since this is mid-May, 2018, and my birthday is May 1. [Zephyr names the MWC delegation “The Band” since they all choose nicknames that belong to famous 1960’s pop or rock & roll band members: Led for Led Zeppelin; Ringo for Ringo Starr of the Beatles; Diana for Diana Ross; Mick for Mick Jagger; Janis for Janis Joplin.]

2. What is your favorite part of the changes since The Transition? Why?
ZEPHYR: I really love it when all the Xchanges begin, first Earth Physics & Astrophysics, in early 2014, then all Physical Sciences throughout that year, then Social Sciences and ESP [Excellent Skills Program] studies in 2015, along with Communication & Technological Innovations, Arts, Writing & Music, Cultural Collaborations.

They have one or two each season until we have them all in a regular rotation. I attend the first one of each Xchange, and now I go to about three a year. They’re like TED talks on acid!

My favorite ones are the Technology and Arts/Music ones, because I work in the first area and play in the second, but I like them all. Inventions/innovations are awesome. I especially like going when they have them on planets or locations that are new to me (all of them, almost!).

Space travel is the BEST! I hope every Earther gets to go off-planet at least once. Going “out” changes us. If anyone wants to know more about any Xchanges, use your iDs and Access them.

One story and then I’ll move on.

********

For the first Technology Xchange, which is on Kepler 22 d in the Earth summer month of July in 2016, I am one of only a handful of Earthers invited and able to attend. We travel there in various ways. I go with my mom, you [Espe], and a few others. When we arrive, many are not feeling so great, especially my mom and I. Something about our livers, a genetic predisposition to problems there for us both, affects us during the off-p traveling experiences.

Knowing that some of us are physically less than optimal seems to instigate a fly-over: We have on our OPTS [Optimal Personal/Positioning Travel/Temporary Suits] for the gravity differential (about 25%), but we’re carrying the head gear since the air is breathable and many of us are reducing our sleeves since the temperature is about 77F/25C.

Led and a few others who are there in physical form (our first time meeting most of them except as holos) come to the enclosure (which has no roof) in which we are staying and hover over us. While they are hovering, a kind of mist or drizzle of some bluish substance begins to emanate, falling towards us from their bodies. When it reaches our heads or arms or wherever it first touches us, it enters our systems via our pores, hair follicles and scalps.

We are immediately calmed, soothed, happy. We are also no longer nauseated, tired, or strained. I mean, like, in one second, human time, from contact to relief.

Amazing. Best drug, EVER. Not a high, but a very soothing relief.

********

I find out later that this is something they call, in English for our sake,”Travelers’ Juice,” even though it’s composed of something akin to nanobots suspended in a liquid medium. Hilarious.

Led tells us we could drink it, bathe in it, wear it or let it touch us: works in all those ways. Is Travelers’ Juice [TJ] something that falls within technology, health, science, chemistry, or what? You decide.

Whichever it is, Earthers start making and using it from that day onward, as we all know, now. For free. Anyone can go to a TJ bar or fountain. Stores that carry TJ offer it cheaply or free, the way people could get matches, napkins or water a while ago. Widely available.

TJ is a soother, kind of like aspirin if you have a headache, but better. No ill effects, no addiction possible. Excellent. Don’t leave Earth without it!

TJ also works for all types of motion or altitude sickness and depth diving since TJ balances nitrogen to oxygen and rectifies all neurotransmitting chemicals, inner ear workings and whatnot for humans. I have no idea what it does to other species, but all of us seem to dig it.

3. What Transition changes have been the hardest or least favorite for you, and why?
ZEPHYR: Well, it’s very weird having the CC [Chief Communicator] for a mom, or having my mom become the CC, however you want to look at it. It’s not all good or all bad. It’s unique.

People bug me a lot asking for information I don’t have or rudely invading my privacy. I can’t really blame that on The Transition, exactly, but I kind of have to, right? I mean, she wouldn’t be CC if there is no Public Contact. Anyway, I’m not the only one with this exact problem or situation, but I think it’s worth mentioning.

It’s also so WRONG, to make her into a doll or, worse, a teddy bear [Zephyr is referring to the “Clara-Bear,” which comes out as a toy and collectors’ item late in 2013]. Would you like to see one of your parents’ likenesses starting at you from a toy’s face, especially a bear’s? Downright spooky. On the other hand, our daughter, Kendall, who is almost eighteen months old, receives a few every month.

Kayla, my wife, laughs when I get all creeped out by having my mom’s face all over Kendall’s toys. For this, the CC’s son needs intensive therapy. Kidding.

Now that she can talk a little, Kendall calls these dolls or toys and my mom CAH-LAH, since she can’t manage “Clara,” yet. Kendall also calls my mom CeeCee ’cause she hears others call her that. My mom prefers “Grandma,” though. We’re working on it.

Unfortunately for my mom, I think “CAH-LAH” may become “Grandma” for my kids. It’s a tradition in my mom’s family that the oldest grandchild nicknames the grandparents, and since I’m my parents’ only child, it’s all on Kendall.

More seriously, about The Transition and my mom as CC: it is upsetting and scary to hear about all the deaths and psychotic episodes people are having during those first few weeks and even months, APC [After Public Contact]. My mom and I talk during this and she explains what’s going on, but, still, I am very unsettled by all that.

We all know people who die, go berserk, can’t handle the T [Transition]. My dad [Abraham Wood Branon] loses a lot of friends, mostly because his friends are a lot older than my mom, as he is [ten years older].

Some of my tech and music friends are cool with it, but a few are quite rigid in their thinking. Their minds can’t cope with the new info–—aliens, other species communications with fish on Earth, off-p travel–—the whole deal. They freak out.

Some join the Fraggers [Fragmenters] so they can find people who agree with them to join them in yelling or writing public letters about it. They’re angry, but mostly harmless. The scarier ones become Trenchers, fighting the T all the way until they get ReInvolved or Qed [Sequestered].

My cousin, Moran, and the other MWC Psi-Warriors plus my mom and The Band have a lot to do with how nonviolently this all goes down. I’m glad that almost no one is killed during the Psi Wars without a chance for ReInvolvement or the choice to be temporarily Qed.

I know my mom does everything she can in advance to help prevent and reduce the numbers of people adversely affected, so no one can say it is her fault or responsibility, although some people DO. Those must be the same people who blame President Obama for Hurricane Katrina’s devastation on the USA southern coastal cities even though he isn’t even President when it occurs, or who blame the hurricanes on homosexuality.

I know my mom still feels badly about not being able to save more people. She’s very sensitive that way. I understand that.

4. Where are you and what are you doing when you find out about the Many Worlds Collective and that your mom is the liaison/Chief Communicator?
ZEPHYR: My reaction is not the same as anyone else’s because my mom starts sending me the “story” as if she’s writing science-fiction novels, in February, 2012. I have a feeling, knowing my mom, that a lot of it is true or about to be true. I don’t say anything like that, at first.

But, when things start happening for her and you, Espe, and for her and Epifanio, just as she writes, I ask her about the rest.

So, around October, 2012, she tells me the MWC are actually coming. I get about a two-months’ head start on most people, about a year to get mentally ready.

I’m all in favor of it. Membership in the MWC, I mean. Earth really needs help. No question.

I know how my mom explains it but I still do not understand why they choose her, of over seven billion humans and all the other, in my mind, more obvious choices among Earthers who could have been chosen. Why not one of the dolphins, for example? No offense, Mom.

But, I’m getting used to it and glad she is CC, in some ways. I get some really cool tips, “toys,” experiences and privileges as the CC’s only child that no one else gets.

5. How do you feel about Clara’s role when it starts? How are you affected immediately?
ZEPHYR: I think I previously answer this. Move on.

Oh, all right.

I feel downright special.

There. Happy, now?

[I nod.]

ZEPHYR: OK, wait. There is one thing. Some people I know start to treat me differently. The way I could compare it might be this: if I had won the lottery, certain people would come out of nowhere and claim to be my friend, but they just want money.

In that vein, some people I haven’t talked to or don’t know well are suddenly going on and on about what “good friends” we are. Some of them go on the media and talk about knowing me and my mom, being at our house when I was growing up, being my girlfriend or best friend, or hers, and stuff like that. When it’s true, I don’t mind. But, some of them are actually lying or wildly exaggerating and that burns me.

My mom convinces me to let them be, so I do. I just don’t get the point: are they that desperate for attention? What tools.

Something else occurs to me, right now, though: I’m glad I’m already with Kayla before all this happens, or I might never know why she’s really into me, right?

In the department of stalkerville: even though our relationship is long-term, committed, monogamous, and known to the public, I still get invitations, sexual and personal, almost every month or so, from some whack-job or another. My mom’s security team collects them; I don’t even read them. Every now and then, my mom or Moran or one of the other OSes tells me to BOLO [Be On the Look Out] for some of these “fans.” When they have show me what these oddballs write to me so I can recognize their “signatures,” I am appalled. That is some crazy shit.

6. How do you feel about Clara’s role, now, 5 years later? How does her role affect you now?
ZEPHYR: I will add to what I say before this question that I am very proud of my mom. I think she’s doing an amazing job. Really. I am a very strong critic, usually, especially of my parents. [Laughs.] She says if I think she’s doing “all right,” she must be doing great.

Sometimes we have disagreements about what to do, when to do it. She calls me her “best informal informant.” She comes to me quite often, especially when things are going down that affect those my age or younger.

Because of her hearing loss, we have hilarious misunderstandings. Once, recently, I tell her the reason she can’t hear me is that her ears are too far from her head. We both laugh about that for quite a while. Another time, because of her mis-hearing me, we go ’round and ’round and don’t get anywhere in our conversation. Exasperated, I say that talking to her is like talking to a bicycle. That sends us into gales of laughter for another few minutes. So it goes.

My aunt Violet, being so much younger than my mom and not at all hard of hearing, says talking to my mom is like using the auto-correct feature in early cell phones: many ridiculous messages transpire.

It’s a lot like that when my mom and I talk, because of the randomly occurring hearing loss effects. She hears some things perfectly clearly and others very garbled, but she doesn’t know how garbled until we talk about it.

I tell her: “Mom. Get a hearing aid.”

She answers something along the lines of: “When they make better ones, I do.”

Another age-related problem: increasingly silly texts are sent when my mom doesn’t wear her reading glasses when she’s typing or reading her texts. In 2015, when she gets her personally-adjustable, digital hearing aids and corneal transplants, we all breathe sighs of relief, across the multiverse.

The hearing aids amplify only what she needs exactly as much as she needs, which is what she is holding out for all along. She knows they’re coming so she won’t put up with the substandard ones before 2015.

We all suffer.

On a good note, she knows when she needs help and asks for it. My mom consults with me, some of my cousins and some of her younger friends for tech help and to discuss how current policy discussions might be perceived or impact non-Spanners (people around my age and younger). Most often, she talks to me and Epifanio for informal feedback or ideas.

The CC has all these advisors, contacts, others–—you know–—for formal consultations.

And, you, Espe. You’re great!

7. Which of the MWC members or other species visitors do you have contact with? How and why, and how is that for you?
ZEPHYR: Again, I’m in a unique position. The Band delegates are kind of like relatives to me, at this point, like uncles and aunts, almost. Not that I see them often, but I hear about them a lot and I am “with” them many times, as holos and off-p. I am one of the first non-OS trainees, adults, to be enrolled in ESP [Excellent/Extraordinary Skills Program] training, so Mick and I are quite close, I think, since he runs it.

When Kayla, Kendall and I move to California, right near The Campus, in the summer of 2015, that is right before The Campus has its big blow-out celebration for my mom’s birthday. So, we’re here for that. Things heat up, so to speak, right after that regarding the Psi Wars and lots of other stuff.

What I mean by that is, my family and I are spending a lot more time being directly involved in MWC activities and with things at The Campus now that we’re so close.

And, Espe, well, you’re like a sister. Right, E? You call me a lot, we hang out, we email and text.

When you have trouble understanding my mom, I am the translator. I think part of it is that we’re the same age, so we get each other. I often have to explain you to my mom as well.

[We both laugh.]

ZEPHYR: Plus, you and Kayla are great friends. Sometimes I think you and Kayla get together so you can vent about the Branons. I don’t blame you!

Of The Band, I think Mick and I are the most “in tune,” since he’s the main tech guy and he also, like me, is very into music. But, I really enjoy the pairPartners [Janis–—Diana], and since Kayla is a dancer, they groove with each other very well, too.

When I want to know more about how my mom’s doing or feeling: I ask Janis–—Diana.

When I have questions about protocol or Re-sets, issues or politics, Led is my man.

For the ESP training “insider” stuff, like cheats and shortcuts, I go to Ringo. Ringo also knows a lot about what’s happening back on the IGC [InterGalactic Council] mainframe, so to speak, so for up-to-the-minute news about Xchanges, innovations and such, I ask Mick or Ringo.

Most Earthers have to use their iDs, but because I’m, well, me, I have special Access to each of them, directly, you know, telepathically. Only Moran, my mom and I have that, I think. Or, maybe, Epifanio does. I don’t ask him about this, actually.

You can’t ‘path The Band, right E?

ESPE: I cannot. They can ‘path me, though. Usually, they don’t.

ZEPHYR: As far as communicating with other Earthers, especially non-humans, that depends on what I’m doing, I guess, and where I and they are at any given time. Some of the Primates make music with me. The best are the cephalopods, especially some of the octopi. They are remarkable!

I get together with musically inclined off-worlders at every Music Xchange. I record some of that, which is so cool. With music, we don’t even need to use the fish [Interspecies Communication System]. Tell listeners/readers to check out my music site, OK? [zephyrbranonmusic.mwcw]

8. What transforms your life more: your fish [Interspecies Communication System], your iD [Individual Access Devices Interface], or travel to other planets/moons? How?
ZEPHYR: Obviously, I love my iD and use it constantly. I love the way my iD has a wireless hook-up to my music players, both at home and when I’m out, so I can get music from ANYWHERE, any time. That is sweet.

I use the fish a lot when I travel or am out in nature. We use it at home to talk with our cat and dog, but not often as an ordinary translator. With telepathy, once I’m at Level 2 solidly, I can understand most species on Earth or off-p, one-on-one, without the fish.

Interplanetary and intergalactic travel are the most amazing addition to our lives that anyone could imagine, and I am still humbled and excited every time I get to go out. I never get tired of that and hope to make many more off-p trips. I want to bring my family on some, too.

We don’t do that, yet, although Kayla goes out and we make one trip together, also. Got to bring the kids, right? It’s what families do on a family vacation, like going to the Grand Canyon or whatever, only infinitely more cool.

As far as transforming my life…that’s harder to see, for me. I’m sure my life is transformed, and not only on the surface, but how to explain that?

I can’t imagine my life without it, all of it. Timulting isn’t my thing.

We change every day, every minute. How, specifically, does The Transition change me…? I’ll have to get back to you on that.

My dad has a hard time with some of it, like many people his age–—he’s ten years older than my mom, so almost 70 when she starts being the CC. They talk a lot, which I think helps, at first, but then she gets so busy she doesn’t check in as often, and he’s kind of a hermit-type.

I think my dad is kind of awed and mystified, but he is that a lot, anyway, about many things and people. He’s a Sufi. A mystic. He whirls. Like they do in Turkey. With the big hat and skirt with metal in the hem. Ever see him do that?

[Yes.]

I zoom in on him a lot these days, and I worry too much, probably. Try to imagine: my dad is one of the oldest Spanners, born in 1944. What he’s lived through, the changes he’s seen! I can’t really grok it, myself.

It’s harder for him after we move here, so I visit him a lot. That’s another thing I appreciate: off-p travel methods work on-p as well, so getting to and from, say, old California to old New Hampshire: just a thought and a movement away. No TJ needed, either!

9. How do your friends, family, wife and children feel about your mom as the CC and how does this affect your own relationships?
ZEPHYR: If you want to know how Kayla feels, you best ask her. Kendall has no clue, since she’s not even two. To Kendall, the famous Chief Communicator is just my mom and her grandmother.

My friends are mostly jealous. Completely.

Some of them say things like: “We’re so NOT surprised that your mom is doing this; she’s always been…unusual.” They’re right, of course. My mom is always the one who is way over in the red zone on the Strange Meter compared to my friends’ moms. Good strange, though, not awful strange.

I feel kind of badly when friends ask me stuff and I’m not allowed to say, but they understand, by now. I am allowed to talk to Kayla about things that I can’t talk to anyone else about (I get permission, and so does my mom, early on), and also, to my dad. My mom also talks directly with my dad, so that’s cool.

I don’t know what my dad tells his brother and sister; my grandparents on that side are dead already before the changes set in (my grandfather is dead almost ten years before; my grandmother is already demented and then dies early into The Transition), so, in a way, that’s good, or this would kill them, for sure. They never liked my mom.

I think this would be a lot harder without those permissions, though. That would suck. I know about that a little since I am not allowed to say anything to Kayla or my dad until December, when I know since October, in 2012. Those two months last FOREVER.

Once I am able to talk with them, though, especially Kayla, everything is much easier. She really helps me adjust to the “fame.” I am not expecting that. I blame my mom; she doesn’t put my fame problems in Volume I, which is the only one I see BPC [Before Public Contact]! [laughter]

I do have questions I can’t ask her. Here is one exchange I can share in which I ask some key questions.

********

During one of my ESP training sessions, I ask Mick: “Why does the MWC only come to one member of the dominant species on each member orb to be the Liaison for Transition and after that? Isn’t that a lot of pressure on that one being, their family and friends?”

Mick replies: “Every time we try working with more than one being as Liaison, we have to do extensive Re-sets. This happens on my planet, my CeeCee tells me [The Chief Communicator on Mick’s planet is a relative of his, like an uncle].”

“Problems are two-fold,” he continues. “One, consistency of information dissemination; two, reliability of witnesses.”

I start to ask a follow-up, but Mick’s on a roll, as he often is: “As soon as you have more than one individual telling any story, you run into contradictions and disparities. These widen out the further you go from each individual until the distortions are unacceptable. It’s like your game of ‘telephone,’ yes?”

I nod. I see the problem clearly as he describes it. I know he can tell I understand, because he nods and says: “So, one Transition, one Liaison. Information flows in a straight line from the MWC to the Liaison, from the Chief Communicator via her media contact to the orbs’ inhabitants. Works best. Protocol, now.”

I believe him.

Mick then gives me a nodding gesture with his headpiece and says,”You are our second choice.”

I feel as if he punches me in the gut with that. No way! I could never…

Then, Mick makes his laughing noise.

Whew! Just kidding!

********

Sick sense of humor. Gotta love that.

I do wonder who else is on their short list, though? No pun intended, Little Mom.

10. What else do you want to tell us about your experiences of Clara as the CC or the Transition?
ZEPHYR: When I am a kid, my mom and dad raise me to be different from mainstream people in about a hundred ways. For example, they really talk with me from a very young age and still do. They and all their friends raise kids the way they raised me, communication-wise. For a while, I don’t know how different I and my peers in this community are.

Then, at about fourteen, I go out “into the world,” away from the private, Waldorf-education-“bubble,” away from our hippie community, into public schools, cities, etc. I am amazed at how different I am from those teens and how far my families in our community are from those families. Values, lifestyles, attitudes, sex and relationships, personal choices, money use, decision-making processes, dealing with emotions, clothing, music, reading materials (that we read for fun at all!), cable TV vs. NPR [National Public Radio]: countless differences that, one at a time, don’t seem significant, but add them all up and we are worlds apart.

Being an adult seems to be more of that same experience: I still see a huge disparity between me and most people, even guys my age “Western” Earth societies. Kayla agrees: I am Clara’s son and it shows.

There is one guy I feel a kinship with, even though we’ve never met: Matt Damon. When I’m a kid, my mom tells me about this feminist researcher on gender roles who writes about her son who wants to wear barrettes in his long hair to keep it out of his face. Since I have long hair (my choice) from age three to sixteen, I am interested. She goes on. This writer explains how much crap the school teachers and others give them, but she and her son were quite happy with his choices. This writer/researcher/mom produces several books about masculinity, raising sons, war toys and other topics in the category of feminist parenting that are dear to my mother’s heart.

Who is that feminist parenting icon? You guessed it: Matt’s mom [Nancy Carlsson-Paige]. I know, if we ever get to talk, we find we have a lot in common.

With who my mom is and her being CeeCee, I feel unique, but this feeling is not unfamiliar, you see? For example, I can cook, do laundry, balance checkbooks, play with kids, plan a schedule, hold a job, manage my life, deal with emotions, communicate clearly (even though I do yell a lot for a while), all by the age of 16. We know people, especially men my age NOW, who can’t do most of those things.

Kayla says I am “the only man she’s ever known who… ” Fill in the blank, with about ten useful or appealing (to her) characteristics or behaviors. Her parents don’t know quite what to do with me or my mom, even now, five years later.

Kayla’s parents are nice, mainstream, good people. That’s the thing. Regular. I don’t mean commonplace or average, just, well, ordinary. Not unusual in any large ways. They are unique, of course; everyone is. But, you know what I mean? They blend.

My mom, even before she is CC, says about herself: “I’m so far from the mainstream, I can’t even hear the river running.”

So, imagine coming from a mainstream upbringing and marrying into this family? Holy shit! I hand it to Kayla: she’s courageous! I tell her, all the time. She laughs at me. In a nice way. With hugs.

Kayla and her parents are offered a trip out with me about two years ago, when Kayla is only a few months pregnant, to go to one of the Xchanges (Cultural collaborations) on Led’s planet, Gliese 581 d. Kayla says “yes” and she does go.

She really tries to talk her parents into coming, but they can’t wrap their minds around it. Won’t come. And, they’re younger than my mom, so it’s not age that’s making them less flexible, less open to change.

Also, Kayla’s parents seem kind of spooked by the whole ESP training and are uncomfortable around me in new ways once I’m in the Program. I think they believe I’m reading their minds or controlling Kayla or something. Sheesh.

The Transition and its opportunities are not for everyone to embrace equally.

Me? Mostly, I love it all. And, I love my mom.

I feel very lucky, all around.

Are we done?

This is fun, E. Thanks.

[hugs]


final cover print

Intrigued by multiple timelines, aliens, psi skills, romance and planetary change? Clara and the alien “Band” are back in Volume II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, of The Spanners Series.

Now as Chief Communicator, Clara leads the way for interspecies communication on- and off-planet. Fighting these changes are the Psi-Defiers, led by one of the oldest friends of the Chief of the Psi-Warriors, its reluctant leader, Rabbi Moran Ackerman.

Stories from younger Spanners about the first five years of The Transition fill Volume II.

How would YOU do with the changes?

Sci-fi/romance/utopian/multiverse/psi/paranormal for adults, new adults, young adults, now in ebooks and paperbacks, Volumes I, II, III:
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PAPERBACK on CreateSpace: Volume I, $17.99 https://www.createspace.com/5837347 

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AMAZON: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HFELTG8   
SMASHWORDS: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/376197

And on ibooks, Kobo, nook: look right, scroll down for all links for Volumes I, II, III, interviews, book trailers, reviews, more:
http://www.sallyember.com

Spanners - volume 3 cover final

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All art for The Spanners Series by WillowRaven
http://www.willowraven-illustration.blogspot.com/

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I CONQUERED #CreateSpace! This Changes Everything, Volume I, The Spanners Series is in Print starting November 13, 2015!

I CONQUERED #CreateSpace! This Changes Everything, Volume I, The Spanners Series is in Print starting November 13, 2015!

This-Changes-Everything----web-and-ebooks

FYI: Margins for 5″ x 8″ book with 543 pages need to be:
1.25″ inner, 0.5″ for the rest.
0 for gutter.

This Changes Everything, Volume II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, and III, This Is/Is Not the Way I Want Things to Change, of The Spanners Series by Sally Ember​, Ed.D., will be available as print editions!
$17.99 for Volume I, starting in early November! Check Amazon or my website http://www.sallyember.com (look right; scroll down) for links.
Other two to follow closely thereafter, probably at around the same price.

Yippee! Thanks, everyone, especially authors Madeline Duffy on Facebook, Dana Delamar at http://danadelamar.blogspot.com/p/createspace-tips.html and Megan at http://Toadyland.com plus the people in the CreateSpace Community forums!

If you still prefer ebooks and/or love a free one, Volume I is permafree; Volume II is $3.99 and Volume III is now in half-price pre-orders ($1.99) through 12/7/15; Vol III ebook goes into full release on 12/8/15 @$3.99 as an ebook. Website for links: http://www.sallyember.com (look right; scroll down).

Buy your sci-fi-lovin’ family and friends one of the best utopian, romantic, multiverse, psi-infused, scientific, alien-filled, Jewish/ Buddhist and absolutely unique novels you’ll ever read or give as a gift when you invest in The Spanners Series from Timult Books.

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Consider purchasing BOOKS or gift cards to Amazon for whatever birthdays or holidays you celebrate!

More FYI for ebook Indie Publishers/Self-Published Authors, if you might need better distribution:
To place your book(s) on all Amazon’s Kindle Stores (USA, UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, Brazil, Japan, India etc.), and in North America, via Apple, Baker & Taylor, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Ingram, and in Europe, via Askews & Holts, Blackwell’s, BlioBook, Depository, Kalahari.net, Waterstones, Whitcoulls, WH Smith, you can use BookBaby or .eBookpartnership, for example. There are others.

You have to have your ebook files in the appropriate formats ready to upload. They do not help with that, but there are many forums and communities online who do.

Their yearly fee is less than $100 and you can save LOTS of hours for uploading your book and for tracking accounts with these retailers.

They do not take commissions, such as Smashwords and Kindle do. You keep 100% of the revenue from online retail.

However, you should buy your own ISBN’s, preferably a block of ten ($295 for ten vs. $125 for one as of November, 2015), on Bowker.

Remember to register your book(s) (print and electronic) worldwide with Bowker’s database because that is used by bookstores and libraries around the world.

Unknown's avatar

Preorders @50% for #ebook This Is/Is Not the Way I Want Things to Change, Volume III of The Spanners Series

#Preorders @ 50%, $1.99, for 11/1/15—-12-7/15 on #Smashwords, #Kobo, #iBooks and #nook as well as #Amazon is Sally Ember, Ed.D.’s third #scifi/ #romance/ #paranormal #ebook, This Is/Is Not the Way I Want Things to Change, Volume III of The Spanners Series, which releases 12/08/15 @$3.99.

Spanners - volume 3 cover final

Getting 4- and 5-Star #reviews in pre-pub: see snippets from reviews, below and links to reviews on http://www.sallyember.com (look right; scroll down).

Volume III, This Is /Is Not The Way I Want Things to Change
Pre-order and Purchase LINKS HERE
SMASHWORDS (all ebook formats): https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/588331
AND
AMAZON: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0177Z1KRM

Clara, Moran, Espe, Epifanio and the alien Band of holos are back in This Is/Is Not The Way I Want Things to Change of The Spanners Series. The Psi-Defiers launch increasingly violent protests during this five-year Transition, attempting to block Earth’s membership into the Many Worlds Collective. To join, Earth’s nations and borders must dissolve and the Psi-Warriors must prevail in their battles against the rebels.

Clara, continuing as Earth’s first Chief Communicator, also juggles family conflicts and danger while managing and being one of the instructors of the psi skills training Campuses to help Earth through the Psi Wars. Clara timults alternate versions of their futures as the leaders’ duties and consciences force them each to make difficult choices across multiple timelines while continuing to train and fight.

Will the Psi-Warriors’ and other leaders’ increasing psi skills, interspecies collaborations and budding alien alliances be enough for Earth to make it through The Transition intact? If there is no clear path for Clara’s and Epifanio’s love, does she partner with Steve or go it alone?

What do you do with wanted/unwanted changes?

Volume III Book Trailer

REVIEWS of Volume III:
“Because this reads like documentation of actual events, I came away from it feeling like my own little life is petty and trivial and a waste of ‘time.’ Like, I’m not part of The Movement and I ought to run right out and start a victory garden or a recycling program or find an ESP trainer and get started learning how to TK or….
“The entire series is such an astounding creation it amazes me that it’s the production of just one person.”

—Devorah “Dee” Fox, Dee-Scoveries, fantasy/thriller author, journalist, columnist, 9/25/15

http://devorahfox.com

ALSO: Volumes I, II and III are soon available in both PRINT and ebooks versions by 12/8/15!

logo_1833057_print high rez  transparent

This Changes Everything, Volume I, The Spanners Series, is Permafree in ebook format and $POD

This-Changes-Everything----web-and-ebooks

Volume I, This Changes Everything
PERMAFREE ebook LINKS HERE:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HFELTG8   
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/376197

Dr. Clara Ackerman Branon, 58, begins having secret visits from holographic representations of beings from the Many Worlds Collective, a consortium of planet and star systems in the multiverse. When Earth is invited to join the consortium, the secret visits are made public. Now Earthers must adjust their beliefs and ideas about life, religion, culture, identity and everything they think and are. Clara is selected to be the liaison between Earth and the Many Worlds Collective and she chooses Esperanza Enlaces to be the Media Contact. They team up to provide information to stave off riots and uncertainty. The Many Worlds Collective holos: train Clara and the Psi-Warriors for the Psi Wars with the rebelling Psi-Defiers; communicate effectively with many species on Earth and off-planet; eliminate ordinary, elected governments and political boundaries; convene a new group of Global Leaders; and, help Clara deal with her family’s and friends’ reactions. 

In what multiple timelines of the ever-expanding multiverse do Clara and her long-time love, Epifanio Dang, get to be together and which leave Clara alone and lonely as the leader of Earth? This Changes Everything spans the 30-year story of Clara’s term as Earth’s first Chief Communicator, continuing in nine more Volumes of The Spanners Series.

Are you ready for the changes?

REVIEWS for Volume I:
“[This Changes Everything] is highly-imaginative, but for so many different reasons, and outside of the normal scope. There are times when I felt that I was reading an actual research report of true to life events. Honestly, I’m sitting at my laptop, questioning if Clara has provided this work to Ember, or if the two are one in the same. The experience is mind-altering, and would challenge readers to think beyond the bubble that we live in. I would surely recommend This Changes Everything to anyone that enjoys a a well-written and researched Sci-Fi series. I will point out that it pushes the envelope, and toys with one’s perception. Well done! 5 Stars.”

–Janice G. Ross, author, 11/11/13

http://jgrwriter.wordpress.com/2013/11/11/review-this-changes-everything-by-sally-ember-3/

This Changes Everything by Sally Ember is a well-written, complex work that is going to add a strong title to a genre that can sometimes become bogged down with the same old, same old. This Changes Everything is a book that I am very happy to have had the chance to read and I would recommend it to any sci-fi/fantasy fan.”

–Zach Tyo, Indie Reviews, 10/4/13

http://indiebookreviewer.blogspot.com/

“You have created your characters very well. I feel for Clara, I imagine her alienating a lot of people because her enthusiasm and drive and ability to push herself makes her someone who doesn’t suffer fools gladly. I would have liked more of the reporter’s life and I didn’t like Epifanio at all. He sounded arrogant and selfish. I loved that the aliens were chosen by lottery. You had so many good touches like that, which made the book a continuing surprise. I…have to say it is one of the most challenging, exciting and original books I’ve read.”

–(Mary) Josephine O’Brien, author, Sharing Skies, 9/14/13

“You have written a wonderfully imaginative and original story with plenty of twists and turns. I really like your multiuniverse setting with different timelines and the concept of the ‘Many Worlds Collective.'”

–Sophekles, author, The Serotonin Transfer, 10/8/13

“I love your sense of humor. I literally laughed out loud when Clara said that she had given him the name ‘Led.’ I also like that this is an alien story where the aliens are helping, rather than trying to take over the world. It’s a refreshing angle.”

–S.M. Koz, author, Pangalax, 9/4/13

[after reading 1st 20 pages only] “…In a lot of ways I’m at a loss to critique this because it’s quite different than what I’m used to encountering. It’s a more immediate version of Stranger in Strange Land by Heinlein. Now, what I say next is strictly speaking off the cuff at 11 PM after a couple of rum and cokes, but as it stands I’d probably rate this either three or four stars, depending on how it develops. Once I got into the ideas behind it all, I found it personally fascinating. I’m not sure how that would translate to a broader readership, but it’s nifty stuff. I like alternate timelines and the like…”

–Alexander Crommich, reviewer @ Crommich Industries

“The writing is complex and done extremely well….There were times when I almost forgot I was reading a work of fiction and not a news account of real events, and I would consider that to be skilled writing indeed….[D]id I enjoy more of it than not? Yes. Four stars. Did I like the overall content? Most of the time. Three stars. Was the writing of good quality? Oh, definitely yes. Five stars. My overall rating: four of five stars.”

–Lynda Dietz, Easy Reader

ilovetoreadyourbooks.blogspot.com, 11/4/13

Volume II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, is $3.99 for ebooks and $POD.

final cover print

Volume II: This Changes My Family and My Life Forever [released 6/9/14, Smashwords, Amazon and elsewhere]
Ebook LINKS HERE:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KU5Q7KC
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/424969  

Intrigued by multiple timelines, aliens, psi skills, multiverse romances and planetary changes? Clara and the alien Band of holos are back. As Earth’s first Chief Communicator, Clara leads the way for interspecies communication on- and off-planet and for figuring out how to deal with simultaneous time and multiple timelines in the ever-changing multiverse.

Fighting to support these changes are the Psi-Warriors, led by its reluctant leader, Chief OverSeer Rabbi Moran Ackerman, against the Psi-Defiers, led by one of the oldest friends of the Chief. Moran reveals his struggles and successes with his Excellent Skills Program training experiences on the new Campus and at home.

Stories in This Changes My Family and My Life Forever come from younger Spanners as well as Clara via “Snapshots” of her earlier life with anecdotes from Epifanio Dang, her on/off lover, and Esperanza Enlaces, Earth’s Chief Media Contact, and others about the first five years of The Transition.

What would you do with the changes?

REVIEWS for Volume II:
5 Stars for This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, Volume II, The Spanners Series
“One thing I like very much about The Spanners Series is the message that we can all live together in peace, learn from each other, be there for each other. All differences (religious, racial, gender, and even between species and inhabitants of other planets) are overcome. I mean, how cool would that be to be able to communicate with animals – and not in a jokey, Eddie Murphy-Dr. Dolittle-kind of way, but accept them and their needs / interests as equal to humans? And those people who resist change (yes, there will always be those, even if it is clear that the change is for the better) will not be eliminated, but gently persuaded to recognise what is best for them.”

–Peggy Farooqi, The Pegster Reads, 5/31/14

http://thepegsterreads.blogspot.co.uk

About the Author
Sally Ember, Ed.D., has been passionate about writing since she was nine years old. She’s won prizes for her poetry, stories, songs and plays. She began meditating (right after The Beatles) in 1972.

Now, Sally delights fans of paranormal and romance by blurring the lines between fact and fiction in a multiverse of multiple timelines, often including exciting elements of utopian, multiverse, science fiction and Buddhism. Her sci-fi /romance/ speculative fiction/ paranormal ebooks for New Adult/adult/YA audiences, The Spanners Series, are unique, exciting, thought-provoking and amusing.

Visit her Youtube Channel for book trailers, author readings, and a live Q & A with Sally plus more: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqnZuobf0YTCiP6silDDL2w

Born Jewish on the cusp of Leo and Virgo, Sally’s life has been infused with change. She is a long-time Buddhist meditator who writes, swims, reads and hosts her Google+ Hangout On Air (HOA) CHANGES conversations with authors, LIVE almost every Wednesday (but on hiatus for November & December, 2015), 10 – 11 AM Eastern time, USA. Join in the fun by commenting and asking questions during the live show on G+ or Youtube, or visit archived CHANGES shows: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPbfKicwk4dFdeVSAY1tfhtjaEY_clmfq

If you are an author or know one, learn more about and get yourself scheduled on or recommend someone as a CHANGES guest: https://sallyember.com/changes-videocasts-by-sally-ember-ed-d

Sally blogs regularly on wide-ranging topics and includes reviews, interviews, guest blog posts, and excerpts from her ebooks. Visit and comment, follow, “like,” and share! http://www.sallyember.com/blog

In her “other” professional life, Sally has worked as an educator and upper-level, nonprofit manager in colleges, universities and private nonprofits for over thirty-five years in New England (every state), New Mexico and the San Francisco Bay Area before returning to live in St. Louis, MO, in August, 2014. Sally has a BA in Elementary Education, a Master’s (M.Ed.) and a doctorate in education (Ed.D.).

Interacting With and Finding Sally Online

Please write a review and give Volumes I and II and then this one, III, a rating on SMASHWORDS, iBooks, Kobo, nook, Amazon, whatever retailer you use for ebooks, as well as many other sites that bring readers to this book: Library Thing, Wattpad, Indiebooks, Goodreads, Booklikes, Shelfari, and her blog, http://www.sallyember.com/blog. Help bring people to The Spanners Series via any other website that invites readers to post comments and reviews of Sci-Fi novels, especially if you LOVE it!

Thank you for reading and considering the implications of The Spanners Series. Talk it up! Tweet! Post! Write to Sally! Blog your opinions and responses!

Sally wants her readers to know: ‘”I change my books based on readers’ suggestions! Also, I would be delighted to visit your Book Club or class if you are using one or more of the books in The Spanners Series. Ask me to co-develop curricula, projects and activities for your group/class members!”

You will want to visit on Facebook, where she is known as “Sally Sue Fleischmann Ember,” and has a Spanners Series page: https://www.facebook.com/TheSpannersSeriesbySallyEmber
or her website to find out when the next Volumes will be available.

She is also very active on Google+ as “Sally Sue Ember” and on her Spanners Series page: https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/115730970500394047116/115730970500394047116/about

Follow Sally on Twitter @sallyemberedd and please Tweet about this book and The Spanners Series!

For photos, images, music, bios and other memes relevant to Sally as an author and directly to The Spanners Series, please visit her boards on Pinterest: “The Spanners Series includes…”; “Inspirations for the Earth locations in The Spanners Series“; “Music of The Spanners Series“; “Space Shots I like”; “Books that changed my life”; “TV shows and movies I actually like”; “Writers I Love”;”Resonating Pins” (from others’ boards); “Blog Posts”; CHANGES Episodes; and, “Flora and Fauna that amaze me.” She also puts up promos for her own and other authors’ books on occasion via “Book Billboards ” and other sites favoring Indie Authors. Please follow her Boards on http://www.pinterest.com/sallyember.

News and Other Information

Sally is experimenting with CROWDCREATING sections or upcoming Volumes VIII (for and seeking youth and New Adults) and IX (for and seeking adults) of The Spanners Series. If you’d like to participate by making story or character suggestions, writing a portion or an entire chapter, or collaborating in other ways, please email sallyember at yahoo or ssfember at gmail and tell her a little about what Volume or portion you’d like to help create! Put “CROWDCREATOR” in the subject line.

Must contact Sally by January 1, 2017, for Volume VIII and July 1, 2017, for Volume IX to be considered for inclusion in the CROWDCREATION.

Sally is also running a CROWDFUNDING campaign to get her ebooks into print, improve the audio quality of her talk show, fund the next books covers and cover other expenses on Patreon. Donate $4 or more and get Rewards: a free ebook, discounts on her editing/proofreading/writing tutoring services and more: http://www.patreon.com/sallyember


The Spanners Series‘ covers and logo #art by WillowRaven: willowraven-illustration.blogspot.com

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All published by logo

Unknown's avatar

This Changes Everything, Volume I, The Spanners Series, sci-fi/ romance/ utopian space opera, is featured on eReader Obsession today and is FREE!

This Changes Everything, Volume I, The Spanners Series, sci-fi/ romance/ utopian space opera, is featured on eReader Obsession today and is FREE!

This-Changes-Everything----web-and-ebooks

Just in time for you to get started on The Spanners Series and be ready for 11/1/15 pre-orders for Volume III, This Is/Is Not the Way I Want Things to Change, which is 50% off through 12/7/15, @$1.99, then $3.99 for release on 12/8/15.

logoAuthorsDen

Volume II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, is $3.99. All ebooks on Amazon, Smashwords, iTunes, nook and Kobo.

final cover print

http://www.ereaderobsession.com

Unknown's avatar

“Fall into #Reading” #Sale at Clean Indie Reads: 9/23 – 9/27/15!

CIR Fall into reading 2015
the “Fall into #Reading” #Sale at Clean Indie Reads: 9/23 – 9/27/15!

This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, Volume II, The Spanners Series, by Sally Ember, Ed.D., usually $3.99, is now $1.99
if you use this coupon code MT97Q on Smashwords only: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/424969

final cover print
This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, #scifi, #romance, #utopian, #multiverse #psi
for Adults, YA/NA
Volume II, The Spanners Series, by Sally Ember, Ed.D.

Intrigued by multiple timelines, #aliens, psi skills, #romance and planetary change? Clara and the alien “Band” are back.

Now as Chief Communicator, Clara leads the way for interspecies communication on- and off-planet. Fighting these changes are the Psi-Defiers, led by one of the oldest friends of the Chief of the Psi-Warriors, its reluctant leader, Rabbi Moran Ackerman. Stories from younger Spanners about the first five years of The Transition fill Volume II.

How would YOU do with the changes?

Volume I, This Changes Everything, is permaFree everywhere ebooks are sold!
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HFELTG8 
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/376197

This-Changes-Everything----web-and-ebooks

Volume III, This Is/Is Not the Way I Want Things to Change, goes into pre-orders 11/1/15 – 12/7/15 @$1.99 and releases 12/8/15 @$3.99 on Amazon, Smashwords and its affiliates, including Kobo, iBooks/iTunes and nook. Check http://www.sallyember.com for links after 10/31/15.

logoAuthorsDen
Cover art and logo by Aidana Willowraven: http://www.willowraven-illustration.blogspot.com/

Cover reveal for Volume III happens on 10/26/15: http://www.aleshaescobar.com

Check out all the other ebooks and print books for the “Fall into Reading” Sale at Clean Indie Reads.

Sale runs from noon, 9/23/15 – midnight, 9/27/15, Eastern USA time!
http://www.cleanindiereadsale.com

CIR LOGO

Clean Indie Reads is a great group of independently or self-published fiction and children’s book authors who write in a variety of genres and styles, always keeping it PG- or G-rated. Promising “flinch-free” fiction, we who belong to CIR provide stories without graphic violence, blatant traumas, detailed sex scenes, or gratuitous swearing.

Visit us any time! http://cleanindiereads.com/

CIRlogowithbook

Unknown's avatar

Science Fact or Fantasy? 20 Imaginary Worlds

I came across this post and laughed! Also, considered my own Spanners Series alternate history/future of Earth in a new light!

Science Fact or Fantasy? 20 Imaginary Worlds
by Charles Q. Choi, Live Science Contributor | January 08, 2012

Star Wars; Jurassic Park; Star Trek; Narnia; Firefly; Oz; Tolkein’s Middle Earth; The Matrix; Niven’s Ringworld; Fantastica (Neverending Story); Avatar‘s Pandora; I, Robot; Minority Report, Stargate, 2001: A Space Odyssey; Blade Runner; Alien Nation‘s LA; The Terminator; 12 Colonies of Kobol; Alien

http://www.livescience.com/17796-science-fiction-imaginary-worlds-countdown.html

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Find out more about my sci-fi/romance/multiverse/utopian ebooks: Volume I, This Changes Everything, The Spanners Series, which is permafree;

This-Changes-Everything----web-and-ebooks

Volume II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, $3.99;

final cover print

and the upcoming release of Volume III, This Is/Is Not the Way I Want Things to Change, which goes into pre-orders at half-price, $1.99, for 11/1/15 – 12/7/15 and releases at $3.99 12/8/15
at: http://www.sallyember.com
Look right; scroll down for links, reviews, interviews, book trailers… MORE!

Unknown's avatar

#BookMarketing: What I haven’t done and intend to do soon

Thanks to Doris-Maria Heilmann of Savvy Book Writers for her Free Checklist for “Passive” Book Marketing, I now have (and am sharing) a great list and resources within it. Link below.
http://www.savvybookwriters.com/free-checklist-for-passive-book-marketing/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SavvyBookWriters+%28Savvy+Book+Writers%29

#BookMarketing: What I haven’t done and intend to do soon

Never heard about this!

Bowker’s Worldwide Listing
http://www.bowkerlink.com

Bowker Link logo

“You may know Bowker from ordering your ISBN numbers, but they are also the provider for “Books In Print and Global Books In Print” that contain listings of bibliographical information for international book titles available in the USA or any other part of the world, in bookstores and libraries. Setting up a new book on Bowkerlink is easy and FREE. Read more in this blog post: http://www.savvybookwriters.com/is-your-book-listed-worldwide/

I felt better when I went to the link, above, and read the intro:
“Few authors have ever heard about BowkerLink: a source for publishers and distributors seeking to update or add to title listings, found in ‘Books In Print,’ ‘Global Books In Print,’ and the ‘Publisher Authority Database.’ How can readers, bookstores or librarians in Japan, Australia, UK or Belize find your book and read, buy or lend it?”

Doris-Maria Heilmann provides a step-by-step sequence for putting a book on Bowkerlink right here. Do it and whatever else you have neglected to do to market your book from her great list.

Check out the rest of her site as well, with many archived posts that are still relevant and useful (this one is from 2013)! http://www.savvybookwriters.com

Luckily, I am not new to marketing, so as I ramp up for the release of my third ebook, Volume III, This Is/Is Not the Way I Want Things to Change of The Spanners Series (sci-fi/romance, adults/YA/NA), which goes into pre-orders @ half-price on 11/1/15, $1.99 through 12/7/15, then becomes $3.99 on release day, 12/8/15, with a cover reveal on 10/26/15 on http://www.aleshaescobar.com), I am pleased to discover that I have already accomplished (but need to update) most of what’s on the above list.

logoAuthorsDen

Volume I, This Changes Everything, became permafree when I released Volume II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, in the spring of 2014, which is also $3.99.

This-Changes-Everything----web-and-ebooks
All links, reviews, author interviews and updates: http://www.sallyember.com

final cover print

Unknown's avatar

Looking for reviewers who like utopian science-fiction, and seeking book bloggers

PLEASE SHARE! Vol III, This Is/Is Not the Way I Want Things to Change of The Spanners Series, ebook by Sally Ember, Ed.D., releases 12/8/15.

Looking for reviewers who like utopian science-fiction/romance with multiverse and psi elements, and seeking book bloggers to help with Volume III’s release. ARCs and info ready in late Sept. through early December.

Pre-orders: 11/1 – 12/7/15

Release date: 12/8/15

sallyember AT yahoo DOT com if you’re interested and available!

logoAuthorsDen
Cover art and logo by Aidana Willowraven: http://www.willowraven-illustration.blogspot.com/

This Changes Everything, Vol I, is a perma ‪#‎free‬ ‪#‎scifi‬ ‪#‎romance‬ ebook

This-Changes-Everything----web-and-ebooks

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HFELTG8
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/376197

Vol 2, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, is $3.99

51-N7O96ZSL._UY250_

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/424969
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KU5Q7KC

Always love reviews for the first two volumes (free to reviewers), of course! http://www.sallyember.com/Spanners-2

Unknown's avatar

Giveaway 2day only (7/4/15): Celebrate my topping 5K Tweeps and get #Free #scifi #Ebook!

To celebrate that I just topped 5K Tweeps (no ‘bots! no Twitter sharks!) on Twitter, I’m giving away one of my Spanners Series #ebooks!

Contact me: sallyember@yahoo DOT com for a coupon on ‪#‎Smashwords‬ to get Vol II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, #free today, 7/4/15 only (usually $3.99)

final-cover-print

Intrigued by multiple timelines, aliens, psi skills, romance and planetary change? Clara and the alien “Band” are back in Volume II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever of The Spanners Series. Now as Chief Communicator, Clara leads the way for interspecies communication on- and off-planet. Fighting these changes are the Psi-Defiers, led by one of the oldest friends of the Chief of the Psi-Warriors, its reluctant leader, Rabbi Moran Ackerman. Stories from younger Spanners about the first five years of The Transition fill Volume II. How would YOU do with the changes?

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/424969  
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KU5Q7KC

Vol I, This Changes Everything, is ‪#‎permafree‬

this-changes-everything-cover

Dr. Clara Ackerman Branon, 58, begins having secret visits from holographic representations of  beings from the Many Worlds Collective, a consortium of planet and star systems in the multiverse.  When Earth is invited to join the consortium, the secret visits are made public. Now Earthers must adjust their beliefs and ideas about life, religion, culture, identity and everything they think and are. Clara is selected to be the liaison between Earth and the Many Worlds Collective and she chooses Esperanza Enlaces to be the Media Contact. They team up to provide information to stave off riots and uncertainty. The Many Worlds Collective holos train Clara and the Psi-Warriors for the Psi Wars with the rebelling Psi-Defiers, communicate effectively with many species on Earth and off-planet, eliminate ordinary, elected governments and political boundaries, convene a new group of Global Leaders, and deal with family’s and friends’ reactions. In what multiple timelines of the ever-expanding multiverse do Clara and her long-time love, Epifanio Dang, get to be together and which leave Clara alone and lonely as the leader of Earth? This Changes Everything begins the 30-year story of Clara’s term as Earth’s first Chief Communicator, continuing in nine more Volumes of The Spanners Series. Are YOU ready for the changes?

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HFELTG8   
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/376197

‪#‎scifi‬ The Spanners Series by Sally Ember, Ed.D.

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http://www.sallyember.com FMI, reviews, more links

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**** 4 Stars for This Changes Everything from Dee Fox!

**** 4 Stars for This Changes Everything, Volume I, The Spanners Series by Sally Ember, Ed.D.
Reviewer: Dee (Devorah) Fox

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Some books are like a train. I hop on and let it take me for a ride, I just go where it goes. Spanners asked me to get in the engine compartment and help the conductor. I felt that I had to sign on to the concepts and by believing, be part of the story. I liked what the author was trying to do by writing in the present tense. It never stopped bringing me up short. However every time I had to reorient myself I found myself thinking about time and how it’s just a construct. I also appreciated the humor in the depiction of how throughout history our society’s thought leaders and innovators were participants in the Many Worlds Collective. Of course they were! The series is ambitious and thought provoking. Not an easy read. I’d even say it takes a little work but well worth it for the experience.

TSS v1

Thanks, Dee! Dee Fox was a guest on Episode 18 of CHANGES conversations between authors: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPbfKicwk4dFdeVSAY1tfhtjaEY_clmfq  
#Authors, especially those in sci-fi/speculative fiction and who blog, learn more about and get yourself on CHANGES, and #Readers, recommend an #author to be scheduled as a guest: CHANGES G+ HOA  https://sallyember.com/changes-videocasts-by-sally-ember-ed-d/  

Read this and more reviews and download Volume I for FREE on Amazon:
http://goo.gl/0yN5GE

For other formats, Volume II purchase links, reviews, interviews and more, visit my website; look right and scroll down on http://www.sallyember.com

TSS v2

All logo and cover art for The Spanners Series by Aidana Willowraven.

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Never-before-released Autobiographical Info about ME in Today’s Feature

Look who’s featured on today’s “Wednesday Writer’s” slot on Jnana Hodson​’s site? ME!

Never-before-released autobiographical info about ME in today’s feature!

Please visit, comment, follow:

https://frugaljnana.wordpress.com/2015/02/04/1812/

Unknown's avatar

“Imaginative #SciFi Work of Art”: Positive #Reviews for both Vol I and Vol II of The Spanners Series!

Unknown's avatar

Preliminary Glossary for The Spanners Series

This is a repost from 8/27/13, since so many new readers are finding The Spanners Series, especially This Changes Everything, Volume I, after its PERMAFREE status began 4/1/14 and have asked for a Glossary.

This-Changes-Everything----web-and-ebooks
FREE everywhere ebooks are sold. All links, reviews, author interviews, readings and more: http://www.sallyember.com/Spanners Look right; scroll down.

In the back of each Volume, I do update and add to the Glossary, but here you go:

As explained by Esperanza Enlaces, sometime narrator, Journalist and Media Liaison for Chief Communicator, Dr. Clara Branon, Ph.D. [See “The Dark Side” for other terms and explanations not found here]

ALT = According to Linear Time. Use to explain temporal sequences as opposed to simultaneous nowness, and the use of past or future tense in verbs.

APC = After Public Contact. APC becomes “AppCee,” whose logofication becomes a stylized English “A” superimposed over a lower-case “c.” Vocalize as “AppCee.”

BPC = Before Public Contact (see APC, above). Vocalize as “BeepCee,” spell as “BeePCee.” Logofication is a stylized English “B” over a lower-case “c.”

CC or CeeCee = Chief Communicator. Main Earth Liaison selected by the MWC (Many Worlds Collective) to relay information and be the unofficial leader APC during the Transition and then official Leader for the Member once the MWC membership is established, for a limited term. Dr. Clara Branon, Ph.D., is Earth’s first CC.

ESP Training = Excellent Skills Program education, with 12 levels of paranormal, psi, and extraordinary skills and abilities/talents, details depicted in Volume IV. All forms of what many human Earthers from Western cultures consider extrasensory, siddhis or yogic, in Eastern cultures, or psychic skills by many others, are included. ESP Training is mandatory for all CCs (Chief Communicators) and Officers or Psi-Warriors (see “The Dark Side” for list), and offered to many others APC (After Public Contact).

fish = IntraPlanetary Communication System. Also known as the Interspecies Communication System begins as a semi-acronym, “IntraPlanCS,” which morphs into “i-planCS,” which becomes “i-planX,” and then logofies into a slanted, stylized “i-“ beside an “X,” which Zephyr Branon names the “ifish,” and then simply the fish. (Thanks to Douglas Adams’ five-volume “trilogy,” The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, in which he introduces multi-language, internal translators called “Babel fish.”)

iD and Access = Individual Access technology. Gives Earthers Access to all information, links, media via one’s own internal Access point or iD to the MWC Resource Library. Symbol is just the slanted “i” leaning onto a very fat “D,” pronounced “eye-Dee,” with the emphasis on the first syllable instead of the second, not to be confused with “Eye-Dee,” for “ID,” emphasis on the second syllable, which still means personal identification for many MWC-ers.

IGC = InterGalactic Council. Governing body of the MWC (Many Worlds Collective), whose reports, Implementations, adjudications and decisions appear in most of these Volumes.

MWC = Many Worlds Collective. Interplanetary association of all sentient beings in the multiverse. Membership is voluntary, to an extent, and usually by issued invitation preceded by many informal and perhaps secret visits/contact over a specified period of time, resulting in the selection and training of a Chief Communicator for that Member (Earth’s first CC is Dr. Clara Branon, Ph.D.).

mwcw = Many Worlds Collective Webview. Also called the ‘verse web, or just the verse. Similar to the Earth’s Internet from the 20th – 21st Centuries, but interplanetary. iDs Access (see above) information from the mcwc, mostly.

Re-set = Changing a timeline’s circumstances, outcomes, or trajectory by focusing on the events’ “previous” “fork” and then changing a pivotal circumstance, choice, decision that precedes or coincides with that fork. A Re-set allow all “future” (ALT, or According to Linear Time) events to unfold slightly and perhaps quite differently, from that fork “onward.” Beings who have the ability (very advanced in the ESP [Excellent Skills Program] training, levels 11 or 12) may focus on a multiverse “fork” and allow for alternate timeline(s) to emerge for experiential, educational or actual living purposes, then choose or collaboratively select which timeline to make primary.

Return and Reinvolvement = A sentient being’s consciousness is separate from its physical form and therefore may be released (“die”) at any time. If the consciousness is going to take physical form again, there are several possible options. The heart/mind may be constrained to Reinvolvement (must become newly incarnated or “born” into a physical form, often a similar species form, due to lessons unlearned or karma unfinished; usually do not retain memories and may lose skills and abilities depending on karma). The heart/mind is eligible to choose to Return (become incarnated with full retention of previous memories, skills, abilities, in order to be helpful to current beings; may change forms from previous depending on need). The heart/mind remains free of physical form for the rest of its awareness, blending with oneness for those who do not incarnate.

<strong>Snap = used to describe the sound and the action of bringing an object to oneself using telekinesisl also, a general term for the sound and effect of using other ESP (Excellent Skills Program) skills.

Spanners = Earthers who are alive as the century turns from twentieth to twenty-first, especially those who live almost equal numbers of our lives’ years in both centuries. Also, all those who are alive both before and after the Transition (see below). For a longer description of all that Spanners signify, see Volume I.

Timult and Timultaneity = Noun/verb, adjective. The act of intentionally viewing, being aware of, knowing of events, people or possibilities occurring in more than one timeline; also, that these multiple timelines exist and have varying circumstances. Terms invented/coined by Zephyr Branon. Also, timulting and other verb forms exist.

final cover print

Timulters = Beings who can perceive more than one timeline’s occurrences among the multiverse. Dr. Clara Branon is the first known intentional timulter who has no ESP (Excellent Skills Program) training for her first timults, beginning when she is a child.

Transition = first 5 – 10 Earth years APC (After Public Contact) with the MWC (Many Worlds Collective) for Earthers.

Unknown's avatar

**** for This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, Vol II of The Spanners Series

**** for This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, Vol II of The Spanners Series! by Sally Ember, Ed.D.

Review by: Brenda McCracken on Nov. 09, 2014: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/424969

and

http://www.amazon.com/Changes-Family-Forever-Spanners-Series-ebook/dp/B00KU5Q7KC/ref=cm_aya_orig_subj

I found this to book to be a very imaginative and creative story. Ms. Ember’s Jewish faith shines through her characters in this book. This is the first I have read from the series and I found the uses of telepathy within her characters and the plot interesting. I love sci-fi and fantasy and this is the real deal. Although I disagree with the cover art. As someone who has dabbled with Poser and Daz, those characters on the cover give me the willies. No offense!

Thanks for the review, Brenda! Glad you enjoyed it, but I LOVE the cover art, by Aidana Willowraven!

final cover print

Volume II is available everywhere ebooks are sold (links on http://www.sallyember.com on the right of every page) for $3.99.

Volume I, This Changes Everything, is FREE! Good idea to start with this one!

This-Changes-Everything----web-and-ebooks

Unknown's avatar

**** for This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, Vol II of The Spanners Series

**** for This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, Vol II of The Spanners Series! by Sally Ember, Ed.D.

Review by: Brenda McCracken on Nov. 09, 2014: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/424969

and

http://www.amazon.com/Changes-Family-Forever-Spanners-Series-ebook/dp/B00KU5Q7KC/ref=cm_aya_orig_subj

I found this to book to be a very imaginative and creative story. Ms. Ember’s Jewish faith shines through her characters in this book. This is the first I have read from the series and I found the uses of telepathy within her characters and the plot interesting. I love sci-fi and fantasy and this is the real deal. Although I disagree with the cover art. As someone who has dabbled with Poser and Daz, those characters on the cover give me the willies. No offense!

Thanks for the review, Brenda! Glad you enjoyed it, but I LOVE the cover art, by Aidana Willowraven!

final cover print

Volume II is available everywhere ebooks are sold (links on http://www.sallyember.com on the right of every page) for $3.99.

Volume I, This Changes Everything, is FREE! Good idea to start with this one!

This-Changes-Everything----web-and-ebooks

Unknown's avatar

FALLING LEAVES, FALLING PRICES: CLEAN INDIE READS (#CIR) Fall #Book #Sale Blog Tour

cir-fall-sale-graphic
http://arcaniarts.com/index.php/fall-clean-book-sale

FALLING LEAVES, FALLING PRICES
Clean Indie Reads, the home of Flinch-Free Fiction, is having a #Fall #Book #Sale 

October 5 thru October 11!

Check out all the sale books HERE! http://arcaniarts.com/index.php/fall-clean-book-sale

Or, if you would like to go directly to Amazon and peruse the sale books by genre, check out these on Listmania: http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/listmania/byauthor/A1DSK2JI3W8GDJ/ref=cm_aya_bb_lists

To celebrate, we are having a #blog #hop where you can learn more about some of our authors and their books. Our bloggers will also be answering the question: “Do the changing seasons influence your writing and/or choice of books to read?”

Please join the discussion on this site by commenting, below, and please visit all the participating blog sites: you might win a prize or two! Happy Hopping!

My post:

The Sirian Experiments‘ Take on Changing Seasons

The best science-fiction series I have ever read that utilizes the idea of changing seasons is Doris Lessing’s The Sirian Experiments, which won the Man Booker Prize in 1981. It is Volume III of her Canopus in Argos: Archives Series, a masterwork of new ideas in philosophy, gender identity, sexuality, social relationships, ecology, geology, psychology and so much more. I highly recommend you start at the beginning and read the entire series. Then, start over. Really.

The main premise of The Sirian Experiments which relates to today’s thematic question is this: Humans and Earth itself are an experiment conducted by those from the planet Siria. Part of that experiment was to tilt Earth on its axis, creating seasons in most parts of the planet, and then to track the effects of this tilt on humans.

The main way that humans responded to this tilt was that we developed varying emotions. According to the Sirian experimenters, humans’ becoming emotionally labile, meaning quite reactive, sometimes inexplicably positive or negative, was a direct result of the planet’s switch from having temperate, monochromatic climates to having changing/seasonal climates.

Fascinating, right? After many centuries of observation, the Sirian experimenters further theorized that the more extreme the climate seasons changes were, the more radical the changes in the emotions of the humans living in those latitudes became. Those that lived closer to Earth’s equator and therefore experienced fewer and smaller annual seasonal changes were the least emotional, for example.

With the more recent understandings of the ways reduced sunlight affects many people, bringing to our attention extreme reactions, such as SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) and high rates of suicide in latitudes of Earth that have fewer annual days/hours of sunlight, we now have support for Lessing’s “far-fetched” propositions.

Interestingly, SAD wasn’t “discovered” until after Lessing’s books had been published (SAD was formally described and named in 1984). Hmmmm…..

I recently moved from a more monochromatic climate (the San Francisco Bay Area) back to a more temperate/seasonal climate (Missouri). I wonder if I will become more “emotional”? I grew up here and I lived in temperate climates for most of my life, only inhabiting the more monochromatic climates for the last 15 years or so. However, that time also coincided with intensification in my Buddhist meditation practice, higher attendance at more and longer meditation retreats, many periods (years, not months) of unemployment, and fewer intimate relationships, so the experimental “controls” fail for THIS experiment.

All that being known, I am interested to find out how returning to a place that has actual seasons affects me. I’ll let you know!

First: have to buy some new winter boots. Mine rotted and molded from lack of use. LOL.

Second: get some more good books!

If you, as I do, like to curl up with a good book as we sit by a warming fire or other heating source as the weather gets rainier, colder, snowier or frosty, please consider getting the volumes in Lessing’s Sci-Fi series.

Then, for even more fun, download the first volume of my own sci-fi/ romance/ multiverse/ utopian Spanners Series, This Changes Everything (which is free) and then, Volume II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, as well. Also, please try some of the others’ books in this CIR Blog Hop!

Here are my books. All links can be found on my website: http://www.sallyember.com Look right and scroll.

This-Changes-Everything----web-and-ebooks

Now PERMA-FREE everywhere ebooks are sold.

final cover print

Now $3.99 wherever ebooks are sold.

logoAuthorsDen

Volume III, This Is/Is Not the Way I Want Things to Change, due out early in 2015. Volumes IV – X in process.
All Spanners‘ cover and logo art by Aidana Willowraven.

As always, REVIEWS ARE APPRECIATED!

Blog Hop Schedule
(please note: not all bloggers will be offering giveaways):

Check out all the sale books here.

Disclaimer: Comment by 11:59:59 PM Central time on October 10, 2014 for your chance to win. Please leave your email address with your comment. Winners will be contacted by the blog owner by October 13, 2014. Only one entry per ISP address. The contest is open to international readers unless stated by the blog owner. No purchase necessary to enter. Odds of winning depend on number of entries received. The giveaway is the sole responsibility of the blogger. Clean Indie Reads is in no way responsible for providing prizes during this blog hop. Void where prohibited

 
Please visit the other sites in this Blog Tour! Schedule/URLs above and here: http://lindacovella.com/events-news/clean-indie-reads-fall-sale/

Many thanks to Linda Covello for organizing this and to all who participate as bloggers, all of you who visit, and especially all of your readers who comment, buy, download, read, and review our CIR books!

Enjoy your Clean Indie Reads!

Share /reblog this post!

Proud member of Clean Indie Reads!

CIR_Logo
 

Unknown's avatar

FALLING LEAVES, FALLING PRICES: CLEAN INDIE READS (#CIR) Fall #Book #Sale Blog Tour

cir-fall-sale-graphic
http://arcaniarts.com/index.php/fall-clean-book-sale

FALLING LEAVES, FALLING PRICES
Clean Indie Reads, the home of Flinch-Free Fiction, is having a #Fall #Book #Sale 

October 5 thru October 11!

Check out all the sale books HERE! http://arcaniarts.com/index.php/fall-clean-book-sale

Or, if you would like to go directly to Amazon and peruse the sale books by genre, check out these on Listmania: http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/listmania/byauthor/A1DSK2JI3W8GDJ/ref=cm_aya_bb_lists

To celebrate, we are having a #blog #hop where you can learn more about some of our authors and their books. Our bloggers will also be answering the question: “Do the changing seasons influence your writing and/or choice of books to read?”

Please join the discussion on this site by commenting, below, and please visit all the participating blog sites: you might win a prize or two! Happy Hopping!

My post:

The Sirian Experiments‘ Take on Changing Seasons

The best science-fiction series I have ever read that utilizes the idea of changing seasons is Doris Lessing’s The Sirian Experiments, which won the Man Booker Prize in 1981. It is Volume III of her Canopus in Argos: Archives Series, a masterwork of new ideas in philosophy, gender identity, sexuality, social relationships, ecology, geology, psychology and so much more. I highly recommend you start at the beginning and read the entire series. Then, start over. Really.

The main premise of The Sirian Experiments which relates to today’s thematic question is this: Humans and Earth itself are an experiment conducted by those from the planet Siria. Part of that experiment was to tilt Earth on its axis, creating seasons in most parts of the planet, and then to track the effects of this tilt on humans.

The main way that humans responded to this tilt was that we developed varying emotions. According to the Sirian experimenters, humans’ becoming emotionally labile, meaning quite reactive, sometimes inexplicably positive or negative, was a direct result of the planet’s switch from having temperate, monochromatic climates to having changing/seasonal climates.

Fascinating, right? After many centuries of observation, the Sirian experimenters further theorized that the more extreme the climate seasons changes were, the more radical the changes in the emotions of the humans living in those latitudes became. Those that lived closer to Earth’s equator and therefore experienced fewer and smaller annual seasonal changes were the least emotional, for example.

With the more recent understandings of the ways reduced sunlight affects many people, bringing to our attention extreme reactions, such as SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) and high rates of suicide in latitudes of Earth that have fewer annual days/hours of sunlight, we now have support for Lessing’s “far-fetched” propositions.

Interestingly, SAD wasn’t “discovered” until after Lessing’s books had been published (SAD was formally described and named in 1984). Hmmmm…..

I recently moved from a more monochromatic climate (the San Francisco Bay Area) back to a more temperate/seasonal climate (Missouri). I wonder if I will become more “emotional”? I grew up here and I lived in temperate climates for most of my life, only inhabiting the more monochromatic climates for the last 15 years or so. However, that time also coincided with intensification in my Buddhist meditation practice, higher attendance at more and longer meditation retreats, many periods (years, not months) of unemployment, and fewer intimate relationships, so the experimental “controls” fail for THIS experiment.

All that being known, I am interested to find out how returning to a place that has actual seasons affects me. I’ll let you know!

First: have to buy some new winter boots. Mine rotted and molded from lack of use. LOL.

Second: get some more good books!

If you, as I do, like to curl up with a good book as we sit by a warming fire or other heating source as the weather gets rainier, colder, snowier or frosty, please consider getting the volumes in Lessing’s Sci-Fi series.

Then, for even more fun, download the first volume of my own sci-fi/ romance/ multiverse/ utopian Spanners Series, This Changes Everything (which is free) and then, Volume II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, as well. Also, please try some of the others’ books in this CIR Blog Hop!

Here are my books. All links can be found on my website: http://www.sallyember.com Look right and scroll.

This-Changes-Everything----web-and-ebooks

Now PERMA-FREE everywhere ebooks are sold.

final cover print

Now $3.99 wherever ebooks are sold.

logoAuthorsDen

Volume III, This Is/Is Not the Way I Want Things to Change, due out early in 2015. Volumes IV – X in process.
All Spanners‘ cover and logo art by Aidana Willowraven.

As always, REVIEWS ARE APPRECIATED!

Blog Hop Schedule
(please note: not all bloggers will be offering giveaways):

Check out all the sale books here.

Disclaimer: Comment by 11:59:59 PM Central time on October 10, 2014 for your chance to win. Please leave your email address with your comment. Winners will be contacted by the blog owner by October 13, 2014. Only one entry per ISP address. The contest is open to international readers unless stated by the blog owner. No purchase necessary to enter. Odds of winning depend on number of entries received. The giveaway is the sole responsibility of the blogger. Clean Indie Reads is in no way responsible for providing prizes during this blog hop. Void where prohibited

 
Please visit the other sites in this Blog Tour! Schedule/URLs above and here: http://lindacovella.com/events-news/clean-indie-reads-fall-sale/

Many thanks to Linda Covello for organizing this and to all who participate as bloggers, all of you who visit, and especially all of your readers who comment, buy, download, read, and review our CIR books!

Enjoy your Clean Indie Reads!

Share /reblog this post!

Proud member of Clean Indie Reads!

CIR_Logo
 

Unknown's avatar

“Quick Book Reviews” Gives “Thumbs Up” to This Changes Everything, Vol I, The Spanners Series!

This Changes Everything, Vol I, The Spanners Series, gets a great review from Quick Book Reviews back in January but I just found out this week!

Here are two quotes from the review:

“I found the story itself to be one of the most immersive and original ones I have read recently. Amongst the sea of science fiction novel clones, there is This Changes Everything, a book in which old ideas are taken in completely new directions (such as the whole intergalactic committee actually trying to help the humans), and new ideas are spawned by the dozens.”

This-Changes-Everything----web-and-ebooks

This Changes Everything is certainly much more than what I expected from it, presenting us an enthralling and original storyline set in a majestic and extremely-detailed world, populated by many characters that will stay with you once the last pages are closed. I wholeheartedly recommend the book to science-fiction fans, especially the ones who prefer their literature to explore ideas and concepts through words rather than actions.”

This Changes Everything is now PERMAFREE everywhere ebooks are sold and Volume II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, is $3.99.

final cover print

Volume III, This Is/Is Not the Way I Want Things to Change, is due out early in 2015.

Read the full review here:
http://quick-book-review.blogspot.com/2014/01/this-changes-everything-volume-one-by-sally-ember.html

Unknown's avatar

“Quick Book Reviews” Gives “Thumbs Up” to This Changes Everything, Vol I, The Spanners Series!

This Changes Everything, Vol I, The Spanners Series, gets a great review from Quick Book Reviews back in January but I just found out this week!

Here are two quotes from the review:

“I found the story itself to be one of the most immersive and original ones I have read recently. Amongst the sea of science fiction novel clones, there is This Changes Everything, a book in which old ideas are taken in completely new directions (such as the whole intergalactic committee actually trying to help the humans), and new ideas are spawned by the dozens.”

This-Changes-Everything----web-and-ebooks

This Changes Everything is certainly much more than what I expected from it, presenting us an enthralling and original storyline set in a majestic and extremely-detailed world, populated by many characters that will stay with you once the last pages are closed. I wholeheartedly recommend the book to science-fiction fans, especially the ones who prefer their literature to explore ideas and concepts through words rather than actions.”

This Changes Everything is now PERMAFREE everywhere ebooks are sold and Volume II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, is $3.99.

final cover print

Volume III, This Is/Is Not the Way I Want Things to Change, is due out early in 2015.

Read the full review here:
http://quick-book-review.blogspot.com/2014/01/this-changes-everything-volume-one-by-sally-ember.html

Unknown's avatar

Latest #Author #Interview with Sally Ember, Ed.D., on Connie Dunn’s page, goes live TODAY!

Thanks for a fun and great #interview, Connie, conducted/recorded on September 4, 2014, despite numerous technical difficulties!

My interview goes live TODAY, September 29, 2014. We talked about #writing, #science-fiction, The Spanners Series and its #aliens, the Series’ #cover art and Aidana Willowraven as the cover artist,

logoAuthorsDen

my #utopian views, writing in the present tense to emphasize the #multiverse/#paranormal/#psi elements, #science/#research, book #reviews, “crowd creating” and other #collaborations, ghost writing, #series writing, writing across #genres and for multiple audiences/age groups, inspiration/creativity, my writing history (from age 9 on), #editing, #indie publishing and much more.

http://publishwithconnie.com/mondaymorning is the link to Connie’s website. Please visit, look at her books and what she offers to authors!

From there, you can go listen to my interview: http://publishwithconnie.com/teleseminar-dashboard/sally-ember/

Unknown's avatar

My post for the Goodreads’ Genre-Specific Review Group’s Fall 2014 Blog Hop Tour: “COMFORT” is this year’s theme.

Do you like to read and/or write: mysteries, fantasy, science-fiction, romance, children’s, young adult (YA) or any combination of these? Genre is what we call those types of stories and novels, and if you say “YES!” then this Blog Tour is for YOU! Visit, read, comment, LIKE, share, reblog!

My “COMFORT” post appears today, on Sept. 27, so visit other sites, below, also!

THE COMFORT THAT COMES FROM WRITING AND READING
UTOPIAN SPECULATIVE FICTION

by Sally Ember, Ed.D., author of The Spanners Series ebooks, blogger and host of CHANGES, almost-weekly Google + Hangout On Air (HOA)

When I’m discouraged, disheartened, heartbroken, experiencing achingly painful unrequited love, unemployed, displaced, uprooted, tired, in physical pain, lonely, confused, disempowered and in despair about the state of world affairs, our climate and so much more, what do I do? I write my way out of this mess into my imagined (and actual, according to multiverse theories) utopian near-futures in The Spanners Series ebooks (full-length novels) and short stories.

Why be “here” when I can be in a better “there”?

logoAuthorsDen

Some of the themes and problems I “tackle” and “solve” or at least improve via my plotting in The Spanners Series via extraordinary applications of science, intervention of the paranormal, including the newly or not-yet invented and/or the embellished, are:

  • homophobia/heterosexism and gender biases due to intolerance and ignorance of actual diversity in sexual orientation and gender identities
  • violence, depression, and anti-social tendencies caused/fueled by excesses of testosterone and other imbalances in body/brain chemistry
  • species-ism and the inability of humans to communicate well with and respect other species (on Earth and elsewhere)
  • habits of thinking that embed humans in linearity, singularity and other mistakes due to misunderstandings of physics and/or lack of knowledge of simultaneous time and the multiverse
  • motion/travel sickness and altitude sickness
  • political corruption and inappropriate, sociopathic leaders in positions of power and authority
  • greed and unequal distributions of all finite and necessary resources
  • unequal access to education, health care, housing, training and opportunities
  • inability to recognize and honor multiple forms of intelligence, talent and usefulness among individuals of many species, especially humans
  • intolerance and hatred due to limited or incorrect understanding of facts (of origins, science, truth) and lack of acceptance of differences in beliefs and values that inspires violent attempts to stay entrenched despite evidence to the contrary
  • fear-based decision-making and false narrowing of options due to willful or accidental ignorance of choices
  • and even more.

    It is SO MUCH FUN as well as comforting to write my way out of difficulties we face into better circumstances, situations and experiences.

    Or, if I’m not in the mood to write, then I go searching for others’ “solutions.” I need to read some stories with a “happy ending” or immerse myself in other uplifting genre or humorous modern fiction to COMFORT my spirit during these awful times. Fiction’s positive possibilities are endless: the love is sublime, the heroes and “good” guys/women prevail, the “bad” guys/women are caught/stopped. Aaahh.

    hope love and happy endings

    image from: http://hopelovehappyendings.blogspot.com

    I rely on getting to the beneficial outcomes: all is made right by the last page (or as right as it can be). I sigh with contentment, relief, happiness as I read/write.

    What about you? What in your writing and reading comforts YOU? What do you look for in genre fiction to soothe your spirit?

    Leave comments and suggestions here, please! And, don’t forget to visit and comment on the other sites’ posts in this blog hop tour! Thanks!

    Goodreads’ Genre-Specific Review Group’s Fall 2014 Blog Hop Tour: “COMFORT” is this year’s theme.

    GSRG-blog-hop-Sept

    TOUR DATES and SITES
    (Posts are still LIVE or available in archives on and after the listed date, so visit any time!)

    September 23http://www.elainepcantrell.blogspot.com

    September 24https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/387792.Marilyn_Peake/blog
    http://www.marilynpeake.com

    September 25http://rjcrayton.com/blog

    September 26http://www.susandayauthor.com

    September 27http://www.sallyember.com/blog
    http://michelle-abbott.weebly.com/

Unknown's avatar

My post for the Goodreads’ Genre-Specific Review Group’s Fall 2014 Blog Hop Tour: “COMFORT” is this year’s theme.

Do you like to read and/or write: mysteries, fantasy, science-fiction, romance, children’s, young adult (YA) or any combination of these? Genre is what we call those types of stories and novels, and if you say “YES!” then this Blog Tour is for YOU! Visit, read, comment, LIKE, share, reblog!

My “COMFORT” post appears today, on Sept. 27, so visit other sites, below, also!

THE COMFORT THAT COMES FROM WRITING AND READING
UTOPIAN SPECULATIVE FICTION

by Sally Ember, Ed.D., author of The Spanners Series ebooks, blogger and host of CHANGES, almost-weekly Google + Hangout On Air (HOA)

When I’m discouraged, disheartened, heartbroken, experiencing achingly painful unrequited love, unemployed, displaced, uprooted, tired, in physical pain, lonely, confused, disempowered and in despair about the state of world affairs, our climate and so much more, what do I do? I write my way out of this mess into my imagined (and actual, according to multiverse theories) utopian near-futures in The Spanners Series ebooks (full-length novels) and short stories.

Why be “here” when I can be in a better “there”?

logoAuthorsDen

Some of the themes and problems I “tackle” and “solve” or at least improve via my plotting in The Spanners Series via extraordinary applications of science, intervention of the paranormal, including the newly or not-yet invented and/or the embellished, are:

  • homophobia/heterosexism and gender biases due to intolerance and ignorance of actual diversity in sexual orientation and gender identities
  • violence, depression, and anti-social tendencies caused/fueled by excesses of testosterone and other imbalances in body/brain chemistry
  • species-ism and the inability of humans to communicate well with and respect other species (on Earth and elsewhere)
  • habits of thinking that embed humans in linearity, singularity and other mistakes due to misunderstandings of physics and/or lack of knowledge of simultaneous time and the multiverse
  • motion/travel sickness and altitude sickness
  • political corruption and inappropriate, sociopathic leaders in positions of power and authority
  • greed and unequal distributions of all finite and necessary resources
  • unequal access to education, health care, housing, training and opportunities
  • inability to recognize and honor multiple forms of intelligence, talent and usefulness among individuals of many species, especially humans
  • intolerance and hatred due to limited or incorrect understanding of facts (of origins, science, truth) and lack of acceptance of differences in beliefs and values that inspires violent attempts to stay entrenched despite evidence to the contrary
  • fear-based decision-making and false narrowing of options due to willful or accidental ignorance of choices
  • and even more.

    It is SO MUCH FUN as well as comforting to write my way out of difficulties we face into better circumstances, situations and experiences.

    Or, if I’m not in the mood to write, then I go searching for others’ “solutions.” I need to read some stories with a “happy ending” or immerse myself in other uplifting genre or humorous modern fiction to COMFORT my spirit during these awful times. Fiction’s positive possibilities are endless: the love is sublime, the heroes and “good” guys/women prevail, the “bad” guys/women are caught/stopped. Aaahh.

    hope love and happy endings

    image from: http://hopelovehappyendings.blogspot.com

    I rely on getting to the beneficial outcomes: all is made right by the last page (or as right as it can be). I sigh with contentment, relief, happiness as I read/write.

    What about you? What in your writing and reading comforts YOU? What do you look for in genre fiction to soothe your spirit?

    Leave comments and suggestions here, please! And, don’t forget to visit and comment on the other sites’ posts in this blog hop tour! Thanks!

    Goodreads’ Genre-Specific Review Group’s Fall 2014 Blog Hop Tour: “COMFORT” is this year’s theme.

    GSRG-blog-hop-Sept

    TOUR DATES and SITES
    (Posts are still LIVE or available in archives on and after the listed date, so visit any time!)

    September 23http://www.elainepcantrell.blogspot.com

    September 24https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/387792.Marilyn_Peake/blog
    http://www.marilynpeake.com

    September 25http://rjcrayton.com/blog

    September 26http://www.susandayauthor.com

    September 27http://www.sallyember.com/blog
    http://michelle-abbott.weebly.com/

Unknown's avatar

5 Stars for This Changes Everything from “Raving in Alaska” on Amazon!

5 Stars for This Changes Everything, Volume I, The Spanners Series, by Sally Ember, Ed.D., from “Raving in Alaska” on Amazon!

Here is his/her review:

After seeing all the other reviews why did I give this one five stars? Because it was not light entertainment and did cause me to think. Much like a role-playing video game, the entire book shifted perspective, past, present, future, within a page or paragraph. Interesting concept. And, at times I had to put it down and think about what I just read. Intriguing and with a bit of a twist. How would I react in the given premises? Very good question indeed.

Read review and my response here: http://goo.gl/e47jZ6

This-Changes-Everything----web-and-ebooks

Now Permafree everywhere ebooks are available!
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HFELTG8?tag=viewbookat0e-20

More links for purchase of Volumes for the series and much more info: http://www.sallyember.com Look to the right and scroll down!

Unknown's avatar

5 Stars for This Changes Everything from “Raving in Alaska” on Amazon!

5 Stars for This Changes Everything, Volume I, The Spanners Series, by Sally Ember, Ed.D., from “Raving in Alaska” on Amazon!

Here is his/her review:

After seeing all the other reviews why did I give this one five stars? Because it was not light entertainment and did cause me to think. Much like a role-playing video game, the entire book shifted perspective, past, present, future, within a page or paragraph. Interesting concept. And, at times I had to put it down and think about what I just read. Intriguing and with a bit of a twist. How would I react in the given premises? Very good question indeed.

Read review and my response here: http://goo.gl/e47jZ6

This-Changes-Everything----web-and-ebooks

Now Permafree everywhere ebooks are available!
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HFELTG8?tag=viewbookat0e-20

More links for purchase of Volumes for the series and much more info: http://www.sallyember.com Look to the right and scroll down!

Unknown's avatar

5-Stars for Volume II of The Spanners Series on Goodreads!

John Betts’s review of This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, Volume II, The Spanners Series, from Aug 01, 14 on Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/983982709?book_show_action=false&page=1

5 of 5 stars

Read from July 09 to August 01, 2014

I enjoyed reading this following on from book 1, book 1 give the groundwork so you really get into book 2 quickly and understand what is going on from the very beginning, if I had more time to spare, this is a book I would have read cover to cover non stop.

final cover print

Cover art by Willowraven

Thanks, John! More info about and links for author, John Betts, below.

Twitter https://twitter.com/JohnArthurBetts

LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/home?trk=nav_responsive_tab_home

Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/johnarthurbettsfantasyworld

Google+ https://plus.google.com/u/0/115539396811049169679/posts

Mia’s Legacy
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mias-Legacy-John-Betts-ebook/dp/B00MDIQ0CE

The Twin Rings of Ra https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/327514

An Adventure of Bunny Bertie and Blueberry Elf http://www.amazon.co.uk/Adventure-Bunny-Bertie-Blueberry-Elf/dp/1784075965 and
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/407885

Unknown's avatar

5-Stars for Volume II of The Spanners Series on Goodreads!

John Betts’s review of This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, Volume II, The Spanners Series, from Aug 01, 14 on Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/983982709?book_show_action=false&page=1

5 of 5 stars

Read from July 09 to August 01, 2014

I enjoyed reading this following on from book 1, book 1 give the groundwork so you really get into book 2 quickly and understand what is going on from the very beginning, if I had more time to spare, this is a book I would have read cover to cover non stop.

final cover print

Cover art by Willowraven

Thanks, John! More info about and links for author, John Betts, below.

Twitter https://twitter.com/JohnArthurBetts

LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/home?trk=nav_responsive_tab_home

Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/johnarthurbettsfantasyworld

Google+ https://plus.google.com/u/0/115539396811049169679/posts

Mia’s Legacy
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mias-Legacy-John-Betts-ebook/dp/B00MDIQ0CE

The Twin Rings of Ra https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/327514

An Adventure of Bunny Bertie and Blueberry Elf http://www.amazon.co.uk/Adventure-Bunny-Bertie-Blueberry-Elf/dp/1784075965 and
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/407885

Unknown's avatar

“Would I rather…? or…?” We had such a rollicking good time! Listen to Sally Ember’s on-air Author Interview!

Catch Sally Ember’s #Author #Interview with the funny and insightful Scarlett and Nathan from the UK on their amusing, informative, unique site, Intertainment Hub, on their Youtube channel.

The interview (audio only) goes live on 8/2/14.

http://www.youtube.com/intertainmenthub

Intertainment hub logo

Intertainment Hub’s logo

Please listen, then comment there and here! Thanks!

Unknown's avatar

10 Ways to Celebrate #Indie #Authors

Re-posting this to keep supporting the Blog Hop sponsored by Julie’s Book Reviews! #Rafflecopter Give-Away info at the end of this post!

So many #Indie #Authors, so little time! However, WE Indies deserve and need your attention for all our hard work!

Celebrate Indie Authors July 6 posting 2014

Please take a few minutes, maybe every day during these LET’S CELEBRATE INDIE AUTHORS event days’ blog hop, organized by Julie’s Book Reviews, hosted here: http://juliesbookreview.blogspot.com/, July 1 – 14.

AND please do one or more of these supportive actions:

  • 1) Visit, comment, follow, subscribe to the author’s website/blog.
    Here are mine: http://www.sallyember.com and http://sallyember.tumblr.com

  • 2) Go to the author’s books’ sites and CLICK to them on your Wish Lists or download them or buy them on Amazon, Kobo, iBooks, Barnes & Noble’s nook, Smashwords, other sites that sell ebooks and print books by Indie Authors. All of my books’ links are available to the right of this post and on my main website (if you’re not there, now).

  • 3) LIKE/1+/become a Follower (“Friend” or “Fan” the author’s and/or book’s or series’ pages) on Facebook, Google+, Amazon, Goodreads, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, Shelfari, etc.
    Most authors’ websites, like mine, have places for you to link to, click on, or do this right there, or the sites’ links will take you there. Add our books to your “shelves” such as “to read” or “currently reading” and post about them on your social media sites: “I’m reading…. by….” is a great Tweet! So is “I just bought/downloaded… by …..!”

    BTW: if the author’s site has a “Tip Jar” or “Donate” button, especially when s/he has offered free books/ebooks or other content, please consider leaving a donation, however small. Much appreciated!

  • 4) Leave comments, reviews, rankings, ratings!
    Vote our books UP on Listmania lists on Amazon, Listopia lists on Goodreads, Booklikes’ lists: EVERYWHERE you can help us shine, please do! You can find what lists a book is on by scrolling down on its book page on that site.

  • 5) Admire and comment on our series’ logo and/or cover art.
    Visit the cover artist’s page and comment (if you know who it is). Aidana Willowraven is mine, and she ROCKS!

    logoAuthorsDen

    This Changes Everything cover
    Now PERMAFREE everywhere ebooks are sold!

    final cover print
    http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KU5Q7KC @$3.99
    The Spanners Series logo and cover art by Aidana Willowraven

  • 6) If we Indie Authors post excerpts, read, comment on, review, “Shelve,” “Like” them.
    Join free sites to do this, such as Wattpad, Authonomy, Bublish, many other sites. Some, like me, post excerpts on our own websites or Facebook, G+ or other sites. Go on a hunt by author’s name/pen name and become a critiquer/beta reader/fan!

  • 7) Whether or not you’re a blogger or “professional,” you can become a reader/reviewer by commenting, rating, reviewing every Indie book you read, whether it’s from a library or your own download. We LOVE seeing what you think as long as it’s fair and honest, of course. Please give reasons, even if you LOVE the book. Also, even if you don’t become a reviewer, you can read and LIKE/vote up others’ reviews.

    bookreviews_logo

  • 8) If you are also a writer, join a writers’/authors’ support network, such as an online group or social media boosting group on Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Goodreads, Booklikes, Kindleboards or blog/site OR (shocking, I know), attend an in-person support, critique, sharing group via your local library, your state/regional writers’ clubs, MeetUp: SO MANY! You can do more than one!
    Shout out from me to Clean Indie Reads, Rave Reviews Book Club, Enovel Authors At Work, lots more.

  • 9) Talk Indie Authors up!
    Tell your family, friends, colleagues, neighbors, gym or walking buddies, dog walkers, babysitters, postal carries–EVERYWHERE, EVERYONE–about your favorite, most recent or all-time beloved Indie Author! End every text, phone call, party, visit or work day with some comment about an ebook or print book you recommend. Inspire more readers!

  • 10) Join/participate in Indie Authors’ Blog Hops, Facebook or Google Hangout Events (Cover Reveals, Launch Parties, Events of many types, such as THIS ONE).
    Enter to win prizes, receive giveaways (such as a $5 Amazon Gift Card from MY site!) and make connections/friends!

    Click on THIS Rafflecopter giveaway

    Thanks for your celebrating and supporting Indie Authors today and every day! Share!

Unknown's avatar

Through 7/31/14 only! 2014 Summer/Winter Promotion on #Smashwords!

Through 7/31/14 only! 2014 Summer/Winter Promotion on #Smashwords!

Many ebooks are FREE, 25%, 50%, and 75% off!

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The Spanners Series. Sci-fi/ romance/ utopian/ multiverse/ paranormal/ speculative fiction ebooks for adults, YA, NA

logoAuthorsDen

Intrigued by multiple timelines, #aliens, #psi skills, #romance and planetary change? Clara and the alien “Band” are back in Volume II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever. of The Spanners Series. Now as Chief Communicator, Clara leads the way for interspecies communication on- and off-planet. Fighting these changes are the Psi-Defiers, led by one of the oldest friends of the Chief of the Psi-Warriors, its reluctant leader, Rabbi Moran Ackerman. Stories from younger Spanners about the first five years of The Transition fill Volume II. How would YOU do with the changes?

50% off Vol II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever
Sale only on Smashwords for Vol II with this coupon code: NH97X
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/424969

final cover - digital and web

Vol I, This Changes Everything, is always FREE!

Dr. Clara Ackerman Branon, 58, begins having secret visits from holographic representations of  beings from the Many Worlds Collective, a consortium of planet and star systems in the multiverse, in Volume I, This Changes Everything. When Planet Earth is invited to join the consortium, the secret visits are made public. Now Earthers must adjust their beliefs and ideas about life, religion, culture, identity and everything they think and are. Clara is selected to be the liaison between Earth and the Many Worlds Collective and she chooses Esperanza Enlaces to be the Media Contact. They team up to provide information to stave off riots and uncertainty. The Many Worlds Collective holos train Clara and the Psi-Warriors for the Psi Wars with the rebelling Psi-Defiers, communicate effectively with many species on Earth and off-planet, eliminate ordinary, elected governments and political boundaries, convene a new group of Global Leaders, and deal with family’s and friends’ reactions. In what multiple timelines of the ever-expanding multiverse do Clara and her long-time love, Epifanio Dang, get to be together and which leave Clara alone and lonely as the leader of Earth?

This Changes Everything begins the 30-year story of Clara’s term as Earth’s first Chief Communicator, continuing in nine more Volumes of The Spanners Series. Are YOU ready for the changes?

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/376197

This Changes Everything cover

All ebook formats available.

All cover and logo art for The Spanners Series by Aidana Willowraven.

Unknown's avatar

RT and SHARE: Release Date is TODAY! #THISCHANGESMYFAMILYANDMYLIFEFOREVER, Vol II, #THESPANNERSSERIES on sale NOW!

Looking for some great summer reading in the sci-fi/ romance/ paranormal/ multiverse/ utopian/ speculative fiction genres? Adults, Young and New Adults will all be intrigued and entertained, informed and inspired by The Spanners Series, by Sally Ember, Ed.D.

Just released for sale TODAY, 6/9/14, is This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, Vol. II.

for RELEASE DAY 6/9/14: GIVEAWAY RULES:
1) Visit my website sallyember.com or my boards on Pinterest.com/sallyember, sallyember.Tumblr.com or Google+ or FB Spanners Series’ page and FOLLOW no later than midnight PDT (California, USA) 6/9/14.

2) DM me on what you Followed

3) and what you thought of your visit!

4) I will then DM you a coupon for FREE download of Vol II!

Sci-fi/ Romance /Multiverse/ Paranormal/ Utopian ebooks, The Spanners Series, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, is on sale EVERYWHERE ebooks are sold starting today, 6/9/14, when all Pre-orders download! Smashwords, Kobo, iBooks, nook @ $3.99, while VOL I, This Changes Everything, is permafree!
http://www.sallyember.com/ for all links, OR qualify for the GIVEAWAY!

Or, be a GRWAT supportive fan and PURCHASE/DOWNLOAD, RANK/RATE, REVIEW, SHARE about my ebook on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KU5Q7KC

How would YOU do with the changes after finding out we are not alone in the multiverse?

This Changes My Family and My Life Forever is the story of the first five years After Public Contact with the Many Worlds Collective (2013-2018), “The Transition” to full membership for Earth. Many of the changes, reactions, struggles and circumstances accompanying these years are related from the points of view of the main character, Dr. Clara Branon’s, adult son and his cousins as well as some of those cousins’ children. One of Clara’s nephews in particular, Moran Ackerman, who becomes Chief of the Psi-Warriors and all OverSeers, tells of his experiences and training in assuming those roles for Earth after having been a Rabbi and middle school teacher.

TCMFandMLF‘s content is edited/curated and also partly narrated by Esperanza Enlaces, Clara’s Chief Media Contact, a contemporary of Clara’s son, so some of Espe’s story and many parts of Clara’s are included as well.

final cover - digital and web

all cover and logo art by Aidana Willowraven

Reviews, Excerpts, Interviews, and more, including all buy links: http://www.sallyember.com Follow Sally on Twitter @sallyemberedd or this blog on WordPress or Tumblr http://sallyember.tumblr.com/ for excerpts from and news about upcoming Volumes!

Only $3.99 everywhere ebooks are sold.

Vol I, #THISCHANGESEVERYTHING, is PermaFree!

This Changes Everything, Vol I, The Spanners Series, includes anecdotes and events from the entire span of the series, with specific details as to how it all begins. Dr. Clara Ackerman Branon, 58, begins having secret visits from holographic representations of  beings from the Many Worlds Collective, a consortium of planet and star systems in the multiverse.  When Earth is invited to join the consortium, the secret visits are made public. Now Earthers must adjust their beliefs and ideas about life, religion, culture, identity and everything they think and are. Clara is selected to be the liaison between Earth and the Many Worlds Collective and she chooses Esperanza Enlaces to be the Media Contact. They team up to provide information to stave off riots and uncertainty.

The Many Worlds Collective holos train Clara and the Psi-Warriors for the Psi Wars with the rebelling Psi-Defiers, communicate effectively with many species on Earth and off-planet, eliminate ordinary, elected governments and political boundaries, convene a new group of Global Leaders, and deal with family’s and friends’ reactions. In what multiple timelines of the ever-expanding multiverse do Clara and her long-time love, Epifanio Dang, get to be together and which leave Clara alone and lonely as the leader of Earth?

This Changes Everything begins the 30-year story of Clara’s term as Earth’s first Chief Communicator, continuing in nine more Volumes of The Spanners Series.

This-Changes-Everything----web-and-ebooks

Thanks to everyone in my family, friendship and authors’ support circles on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest and LinkedIn for helping these Volumes and future ones get into YOUR hands! Special thanks to Aidana Willowraven, Cover Artist Extraordinaire!

Are YOU ready for the changes?

Unknown's avatar

5-Star #Review of #THISCHANGESMYFAMILYANDMYLIFEFOREVER, Vol II, #THESPANNERSSERIES

TITLE HERE

June 4, 2014

“Clara Ackerman Branon is back, and Earth’s Transition continues.

final cover - digital and web
cover art by Aidana Willowraven

“I actually read Vol I and Vol II back to back, so for me it was like I’m reading one continuous book. I think though that one would need to read Vol I really to fully understand what is going to happen.

“In this volume, we get introduced more to Clara’s family (they are a large family!) who all get interviewed about how they experienced Clara’s first contact with the aliens and earth’s transition (when the news first broke, what changed for them, any difficulties, what are they planning for the future). One of the main narrators is Clara’s nephew, Moran, a Rabbi before Transition, who will now become the Chief in the fight against those who resist and fight the transition. There is also more info about Clara, snippets about her life from young woman to past transition, we learn about her jobs, relationships with both man and woman and in communes, what does she listen to, read etc. Though I’m still confused about her relationship with her lover / not lover, Epifanio – but hey, more volumes are to come.

“One thing I like very much about The Spanners Series is the message that we can all live together in peace, learn from each other, be there for each other. All differences (religious, racial, gender, and even between species and inhabitants of other planets) are overcome. I mean, how cool would that be to be able to communicate with animals – and not in a jokey, Eddie Murphy Dr Dolitle kind of way, but accept them and their needs / interests as equal to humans. And those people who resist change (yes, there will always be those, even if it is clear that the change is for the better) will not be eliminated, but gently persuaded to recognise at what is best for them.

“Another thing I really like is the cover artwork and I hope the author doesn’t change the cover art throughout the series, that would be a shame. It’s pretty , imaginative. once you read the first few chapters and about the first encounter with ‘The Band’, have a look at the cover again and you will go ‘ahhhh’.

“I very much enjoyed this series and the somewhat unusual structure of the book with interview. It is blurring the lines between fiction and non-fiction. One of the great pluses for me was that abbreviations or foreign language used (one of the main characters is Hispanic) are always explained in brackets straight away. Because of the non-fiction style, it does not halt the flow of the story at all, but is in fact very helpful. On the minus side, as there are several of Clara’s relatives are interviewed, it can sometimes be a bit ‘samey’ at some stage. But the writing is easy to read, so it is not a big deal and I found myself skipping over a few pages.

“A satisfying continuation from Volume I – let’s see what’s coming up in the next volume.”

[NOTE: Please forgive her English mistakes: English is not her first language.]

Visit Peggy Farooqi’s Reviews and blog: http://thepegsterreads.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/review-this-changes-my-family-and-my.html
and on Amazon.com

Her review of Vol I, This Changes Everything, appeared last month (May, 2014)!

TCE is PERMAFREE everywhere; TCMF&MLF is in Pre-Orders through 6/8/9 @$1.99 and releases @$3.99 6/9/14. Links, excerpts, more reviews and info: http://www.sallyember.com/spanners

Unknown's avatar

3 Reasons That This Changes Everything, Volume I of The Spanners Series, is Permafree

Before I put my first sci-fi/romance/multiverse/paranormal/speculative fiction ebook, This Changes Everything, Volume I of The Spanners Series, up for sale, I attended free webinars, read guidebooks and blog posts and did a lot of research to find out how other fiction ebooks authors managed this journey. I discovered many techniques, procedures and tips which I employed, including what price to use for sales, how to use a pre-order period, and when to offer a book for free (and why).

I have blogged about some of these topics already, but I haven’t written, yet, about why I decided to make Volume I “permafree” last month. I just did it. Now for the explanation, which is then going to be further explained and augmented by the article I’m including a link to, below.

As a new fiction author, I do not yet have a significantly sized “following” or “fan base.” So, I spent a lot of time finding out how one acquires readers and keeps them coming back for subsequent books, since I planned a 10-Volume series. I read others’ stories of their journeys, articles about successes and failures, and took extensive notes I still refer to, from the many webinars I attended.

    Here are the 3 reasons that This Changes Everything, Volume I of The Spanners Series, is permafree:

  1. Well-timed permafree works. Pricing is variable year to year, but market research has shown that series authors have been doing well to make the FIRST volume free, forever (permafree) AFTER later volumes come out. This brings in new readers consistently.

    logoAuthorsDen
    cover art for all covers by Aidana Willowraven.

  2. Permafree brings in the curious and good content keeps them coming back. If the first volume in a series is good enough evidenced by its having a sufficient number of UNPAID and UNFAKED reviews showing that the book is well-written and worth reading, more and more readers will come to download it. This creates the beginning of the author’s fanbase and followers. There will also be those readers who just download anything free, which is also great (but works best if they actually read the ebook after downloading it, like it, and decide to look for and purchase subsequent volumes.

    This Changes Everything cover

  3. Diversified authors attract new fans constantly; permafree gives them as easy way “in” to a series. If the author continues to offer good content BETWEEN books (via a blog, postings on social media sites, email newsletters, author interviews on others’ sites and/or Blog Talk Radio and the like, podcasts, Google On Air Hangouts, and perhaps short stories or other genre fiction) and continues to come out with good writing for each subsequent volume, by Volume III or IV, that author will have a solid following, loyal fans and great sales, all still being “fed” by the permafree Volume I.

final cover - digital and web

So, The Spanners Series now has Volume I, This Changes Everything, in permafree status everywhere ebooks are sold because Volume II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, entered its pre-order period @$1.99 on April 1 and goes on sale June 9 at $3.99.

Since Volume I went free, the number of potential readers (reckoned by the number of downloaded volumes) has gone up 4000%. I am not joking.

I can’t see how well the pre-orders are going for Volume II, yet, or know what the sales figures will be. Reviews for it are due any day, now, and will keep coming in over the next several weeks, if all goes as planned.

I plan to post Volume I on more freebie sites and keep doing interviews, blogging, “creating and posting good content” as I work on Volume III, This Is/Is Not The Way I Thought Things Would Change, which is due out late in the fall of 2014.

I will check in periodically here to let you know how sales and downloads are going and what else happens.

Until/unless I become a gazillllllionaire author who doesn’t need to “bring in new readers” (when does that happen?), Volume I will remain free.

All downloading and purchase links for The Spanners Series as well as links to bloggers’ reviews, interviews and my archived blog posts are at http://www.sallyember.com on the right side panel.

If you want to learn more about Book Marketing, #authors, http://buildabusinesswithyourbook.com/access/aff/go/sallyember It starts this week/weekend!
Silver passes are FREE. Gold passes cost money, but I’m on Silver and it’s great! Lots of blog posts, interviews, videos, and more to help us do better with marketing wherever we are in our process. Check it out! Here’a a list of what’s offered just via the blog, just week one!

Sharon Williams: Developing Your Author Platform and Social Media Presence
Deborah Bateman: Building Your Online Platform as an Author
Eric Van Der Hope: 5 Steps to Developing an Effective Author Platform
Gina Akao: Marketing Your Book with a WordPress Blog
David Wogahn: SEO for Books: Optimizing Your Amazon Book Listing
D’vorah Lansky: Harness the Power of Your Amazon Author Central Page
Ellen Violette: How to Market Your Print Book or eBook in Just Minutes a Day
Penny Sansevieri: Harnessing the Power of Goodreads
Leeza Robertson: Quote Yourself on Goodreads
Amy Harrop: Leveraging the Author Tools of Goodreads to Promote Your Books
Michael Bloom: Promoting Your Book on Your Facebook Author Page
Bryan Cohen: Sixteen Heads Are Better Than One, on Facebook

Want to know more about making books permafree and see if these principles apply to YOUR books? Check out this article, linked to below.

Best to you all!

Why Free Is Your Best Marketing Tool And How To Harness It from The Future of Ink by PENNY SANSEVIERI

Great ideas, examples, and info as well as links to other helpful articles for authors like me who are doing our own marketing:
http://thefutureofink.com/free-is-best-marketing-tool/

Unknown's avatar

3 Reasons That This Changes Everything, Volume I of The Spanners Series, is Permafree

Before I put my first sci-fi/romance/multiverse/paranormal/speculative fiction ebook, This Changes Everything, Volume I of The Spanners Series, up for sale, I attended free webinars, read guidebooks and blog posts and did a lot of research to find out how other fiction ebooks authors managed this journey. I discovered many techniques, procedures and tips which I employed, including what price to use for sales, how to use a pre-order period, and when to offer a book for free (and why).

I have blogged about some of these topics already, but I haven’t written, yet, about why I decided to make Volume I “permafree” last month. I just did it. Now for the explanation, which is then going to be further explained and augmented by the article I’m including a link to, below.

As a new fiction author, I do not yet have a significantly sized “following” or “fan base.” So, I spent a lot of time finding out how one acquires readers and keeps them coming back for subsequent books, since I planned a 10-Volume series. I read others’ stories of their journeys, articles about successes and failures, and took extensive notes I still refer to, from the many webinars I attended.

    Here are the 3 reasons that This Changes Everything, Volume I of The Spanners Series, is permafree:

  1. Well-timed permafree works. Pricing is variable year to year, but market research has shown that series authors have been doing well to make the FIRST volume free, forever (permafree) AFTER later volumes come out. This brings in new readers consistently.

    logoAuthorsDen
    cover art for all covers by Aidana Willowraven.

  2. Permafree brings in the curious and good content keeps them coming back. If the first volume in a series is good enough evidenced by its having a sufficient number of UNPAID and UNFAKED reviews showing that the book is well-written and worth reading, more and more readers will come to download it. This creates the beginning of the author’s fanbase and followers. There will also be those readers who just download anything free, which is also great (but works best if they actually read the ebook after downloading it, like it, and decide to look for and purchase subsequent volumes.

    This Changes Everything cover

  3. Diversified authors attract new fans constantly; permafree gives them as easy way “in” to a series. If the author continues to offer good content BETWEEN books (via a blog, postings on social media sites, email newsletters, author interviews on others’ sites and/or Blog Talk Radio and the like, podcasts, Google On Air Hangouts, and perhaps short stories or other genre fiction) and continues to come out with good writing for each subsequent volume, by Volume III or IV, that author will have a solid following, loyal fans and great sales, all still being “fed” by the permafree Volume I.

final cover - digital and web

So, The Spanners Series now has Volume I, This Changes Everything, in permafree status everywhere ebooks are sold because Volume II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, entered its pre-order period @$1.99 on April 1 and goes on sale June 9 at $3.99.

Since Volume I went free, the number of potential readers (reckoned by the number of downloaded volumes) has gone up 4000%. I am not joking.

I can’t see how well the pre-orders are going for Volume II, yet, or know what the sales figures will be. Reviews for it are due any day, now, and will keep coming in over the next several weeks, if all goes as planned.

I plan to post Volume I on more freebie sites and keep doing interviews, blogging, “creating and posting good content” as I work on Volume III, This Is/Is Not The Way I Thought Things Would Change, which is due out late in the fall of 2014.

I will check in periodically here to let you know how sales and downloads are going and what else happens.

Until/unless I become a gazillllllionaire author who doesn’t need to “bring in new readers” (when does that happen?), Volume I will remain free.

All downloading and purchase links for The Spanners Series as well as links to bloggers’ reviews, interviews and my archived blog posts are at http://www.sallyember.com on the right side panel.

If you want to learn more about Book Marketing, #authors, http://buildabusinesswithyourbook.com/access/aff/go/sallyember It starts this week/weekend!
Silver passes are FREE. Gold passes cost money, but I’m on Silver and it’s great! Lots of blog posts, interviews, videos, and more to help us do better with marketing wherever we are in our process. Check it out! Here’a a list of what’s offered just via the blog, just week one!

Sharon Williams: Developing Your Author Platform and Social Media Presence
Deborah Bateman: Building Your Online Platform as an Author
Eric Van Der Hope: 5 Steps to Developing an Effective Author Platform
Gina Akao: Marketing Your Book with a WordPress Blog
David Wogahn: SEO for Books: Optimizing Your Amazon Book Listing
D’vorah Lansky: Harness the Power of Your Amazon Author Central Page
Ellen Violette: How to Market Your Print Book or eBook in Just Minutes a Day
Penny Sansevieri: Harnessing the Power of Goodreads
Leeza Robertson: Quote Yourself on Goodreads
Amy Harrop: Leveraging the Author Tools of Goodreads to Promote Your Books
Michael Bloom: Promoting Your Book on Your Facebook Author Page
Bryan Cohen: Sixteen Heads Are Better Than One, on Facebook

Want to know more about making books permafree and see if these principles apply to YOUR books? Check out this article, linked to below.

Best to you all!

Why Free Is Your Best Marketing Tool And How To Harness It from The Future of Ink by PENNY SANSEVIERI

Great ideas, examples, and info as well as links to other helpful articles for authors like me who are doing our own marketing:
http://thefutureofink.com/free-is-best-marketing-tool/

Unknown's avatar

19th Serialized Excerpt: Vol. II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, The Spanners Series, by Sally Ember, Ed.D.

Vol. II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, The Spanners Series, by Sally Ember, Ed.D.

final cover - digital and web

Cover and logo art by Willowraven.

19th Serialized Excerpt, 4/14/14

CHAPTER SNAPSHOT #2

Snapshots of Clara’s Daily Life: Fourteen Octobers, 1963 – 2017

October, 1968

(continued)

“I get sent to the office on several occasions because my skirt or dress is deemed ‘too short.’ This designation is made first by a teacher. Once at the administrators’ office, accused offenders have to kneel on the floor. If our skirt or dress does not touch the ground, we are to be sent home to change (meaning, someone has to come pick us up in a private car, since there is no reliable or close-enough public transportation), unless we opt to wear our hideous ‘gym suits’ the rest of the day.”

“Ironically,” Clara goes on, showing me with her hands how this outfit works, “this jump suit is a sleeveless top with shorts, so it shows more of our legs than any permissible skirt would. Since my mom is home with my youngest sister and often one of them is sick, I can’t get picked up, so gym suit it is.”

“‘Getting suited’ occurs on numerous occasions for many of us ‘popular’ girls. This circumstance, wearing our horrible gym suit around school for the rest of a day, becomes like wearing a badge of honor. We are the ones who dare to wear a skirt that we know in advance is too short (some of us roll the waistbands after leaving home in order to achieve a shorter hemline) and which ‘dooms’ us to wearing our gym suits. Everyone knows this must be intentional. My friends and I make ‘getting suited’ cool.” Clara laughs. “We’re such trend-setters in 1968!”

“You won’t believe the P.E. [Physical Education] classes’ misogynistic and unfair fashion policy: Here it is, summary fashion,” Clara says. “The boys get to wear a comfortable, regular T-shirt and shorts (in white and blue, respectively, our school colors) for P.E. Girls, however, have to wear these ridiculous gym suits. This detested thing is a one-piece, blouson number in an almost-royal blue color. It has an elastic waist and snaps on the too-loose sleeveless bodice with medium-length shorts attached. It has to have been designed to make every girl look terrible in it regardless of body type, which I suppose is a great leveler.”

“As I explain earlier,” Clara reminds me, “if girls forget this monstrosity at home or don’t wash it, don’t have it or don’t wear a clean-enough suit to every class (each girl is issued two and must have one to wear for each P.E. class, every day), we are marked down in our grade and also, made to stay after school (like, a detention).”

“These administrators are so uptight, they treat these infractions the same as forgetting homework or vandalizing the bathrooms. Earn enough detentions and we have to come on a Saturday, too (like the movie, The Breakfast Club), just for “not suiting up.” If we get marked down enough, we could flunk this required class and have to take it again in summer school. I am not kidding!”

Clara is still indignant, these 45 years later. “Lowering academic grades for appearance issues, particularly failing a student for noncompliance to a dress code, becomes illegal, but not yet.”

“Back to the dress code,” Clara goes on. “The only short skirts girls are allowed to wear to school have to be culottes, which are split skirts or skirts with shorts inside (sound familiar?), but only cheerleaders are allowed to wear them. Now you’re starting to understand some of the reasoning behind my wanting to be a cheerleader,” Clara tells me.

“In a typical fall or winter month, once a week all through 9th grade (on “game days,” meaning, a day the 9th-grade boys’ team of the season has a football or basketball game, usually a Friday), I get to wear my cheerleader’s outfit. The rest of the year I am at war with the skirt police and usually ‘get suited.'”

“I wear my gym suit proudly, regularly showing it off in defiance of the school’s absurd policies. There are usually a group of us on any given day. We walk down the halls showing off our legs and laughing at the adults for being such dimwits,” Clara explains. “We show more of our legs wearing these gym suits than we do in any skirt!”

I say mildly, “Quite the rebel, eh?”

Clara misses my light sarcasm, so intent on telling her story of these years. “Some teachers think I’m ‘interesting,’ ‘intelligent’ and ‘fun.’ I know because they tell me or my parents. Others detest me and the feeling is mutual.”

Clara grimaces. “Wearing short skirts and being a ‘smart-aleck’ are what passes for rebellion for a teenage girl in my era, in this town. So, yes. I am a ‘rebel.'”

Guess she does catch my sarcasm. I move to apologize, but she smiles at me and goes on.

“I earn a reputation for ‘being sassy,’ a term only applied to girls who talk back to authority in southern-bordering or actual southern states. In contrast—more sexism, here—a boy who talks back is told to stop ‘giving me lip’ by the adult who is being challenged.”

She looks at me, making sure I understand, then continues. “Disobedient girls are ridiculed and patronized; impertinent boys are given grudging respect by being viewed as threatening. See the difference?”

I nod.

Clara goes on with her reminiscing. “At one point in my dress-code and behavioral scofflaw years, my cheerleader’s status is jeopardized because I refuse to back down in some argument with the chorus teacher about where I am supposed to sit. I dimly remember that she is trying to separate me from my friends because we are ‘disruptive,’ meaning, we are talking and having fun in class. For these ‘bad behaviors,’ she wants to move my seat. I am an alto but she wants to move me to the second sopranos, which is not the part I sing. I refuse to move, declaring that we are now engaged in a ‘sit in’ (which are big in the civil rights and anti-war movements by now) to protest her unfair discrimination against my having friends, or something to that effect.”

“What happens next?” I ask. I am curious how much trouble she gets in.

Clara laughs. “She sends me to the office. I go off, waving derisively at her and happily at my friends. When I get there, the harried assistant Principal threatens to suspend me from being a cheerleader because he has nothing else to hold over me. What’s so ridiculous about this threat is that we’re already in March by now and the only sports ‘season’ left for me to cheer in is track and field, which we really don’t do cheering for, anyway. The Principal can tell his threat is not upsetting me, but he doesn’t know why.”

“When I get home, I tell my father. He decides to come in and threaten them with a lawsuit (he is an attorney by training but not by trade at that point), just for fun (for him, that is). My dad is not very involved in my life or even around much, but he does love a good fight.”

“The day of their meeting, I sit outside the Principal’s office and eavesdrop on the ensuing discussion. It is very funny, to me. My dad talks circles around these guys. They really do not have a leg to stand on, so to speak, since I have done nothing to get myself suspended from being a cheerleader, applying their own rules, my dad points out perfectly: I never smoke, drink alcohol, have public sex, skip classes, vandalize school property or commit any other school ‘crimes.’ There isn’t a policy that calls for a suspension of privileges for being disrespectful or having a ‘bad attitude,’ but they wish there have one, I’m sure.”

“As I see it clearly, now, I am an ‘impudent’ female who regularly gives certain adults much-deserved backtalk and ends up ‘getting suited’ for wearing short skirts (along with dozens of other girls) several times every month. I also have excellent grades and attendance and never forget my gym suit. I am a very good ‘bad’ girl and they don’t have a punishment for someone like me.”

“My dad prevails, but this does not endear me to my chorus teacher or the administrators. I’m glad to get out of that school and on to high school a few months later.”

“What is high school like at the end of the 1960s in the USA Midwest?” I ask.

Clara responds: “In the fall of 1969, losing the fashion battle and the legal war, unintentionally catching up to the rest of the country (at least, the coasts), the Roanne school board President announces that all dress codes are to be discarded across the school district.”

Clara is gleeful, remembering this “victory.”

“Within a few months of entering high school, we girls are wearing cut-offs, halter tops, going barefoot and bra-less to classes. The biggest change for boys is that no one forces them to keep their hair short enough not to touch their collars any longer.”

Clara recalls: “My sophomore year is quite fun and such a shocking contrast to the years of ludicrous restrictions by the fashion police that we are giddy with freedom. People are smoking pot in the courtyard, hanging out the windows playing rock music in the hallways, and generally being rowdy and undisciplined. I love it, but I don’t get into the wildest behaviors, myself.”

“It’s difficult for me to imagine having those restrictions at all,” I say, shaking my head. “By the time I get to kindergarten, we wear whatever we want. 1987, for me.”

Clara shakes her finger at me and exhorts: “Thank a feminist!”

“Thanks!” I tell Clara. I mean it.
************
“Here is the poem that won my spot in the statewide poetry magazine in 1969.” Clara reaches into a paper file folder and hands a yellowish page to me.

The poem is written in cursive writing on manila lined paper in blue ink. It has her teacher’s red-inked comments on it. I point to one part, silently asking Clara to explain.

“Mrs. Hay crosses out the last stanza all together, so I do not include it here, since it is not part of the winning poem’s form,” Clara tells me. Here is the poem.

TO DIE IN VAIN

by Clara Ackerman, 2/21/69, age 14

Sitting on a stool of self-pity

I glance up, casually,

To see if anyone had seen me

Dying.

(I wasn’t really dying, only dreaming of how much

They

would miss me) If I did

Die.

*******

“You could not pay me enough money to be 14 again,” Clara says emphatically.

“Nor me, either.” I agree wholeheartedly.

*********************************

Stay tuned on Sally’s blogs on WordPress (which has all links) and Tumblr, and on The Spanners Series‘ pages on Facebook and Google+, for each of the upcoming Excerpts from Volume II from March 16 – April 18, about one/day.

4/18/14, Volume II becomes available for Pre-orders via Smashwords, Kobo, iBooks and nook for half-price: @$1.99, through June 8, 2014.

On 6/9/14, Vol. II goes LIVE everywhere ebooks are sold for $3.99.

#THESPANNERSSERIES #THISCHANGESMYFAMILYANDMYLIFEFOREVER #THISCHANGESEVERYTHING

Unknown's avatar

19th Serialized Excerpt: Vol. II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, The Spanners Series, by Sally Ember, Ed.D.

Vol. II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, The Spanners Series, by Sally Ember, Ed.D.

final cover - digital and web

Cover and logo art by Willowraven.

19th Serialized Excerpt, 4/14/14

CHAPTER SNAPSHOT #2

Snapshots of Clara’s Daily Life: Fourteen Octobers, 1963 – 2017

October, 1968

(continued)

“I get sent to the office on several occasions because my skirt or dress is deemed ‘too short.’ This designation is made first by a teacher. Once at the administrators’ office, accused offenders have to kneel on the floor. If our skirt or dress does not touch the ground, we are to be sent home to change (meaning, someone has to come pick us up in a private car, since there is no reliable or close-enough public transportation), unless we opt to wear our hideous ‘gym suits’ the rest of the day.”

“Ironically,” Clara goes on, showing me with her hands how this outfit works, “this jump suit is a sleeveless top with shorts, so it shows more of our legs than any permissible skirt would. Since my mom is home with my youngest sister and often one of them is sick, I can’t get picked up, so gym suit it is.”

“‘Getting suited’ occurs on numerous occasions for many of us ‘popular’ girls. This circumstance, wearing our horrible gym suit around school for the rest of a day, becomes like wearing a badge of honor. We are the ones who dare to wear a skirt that we know in advance is too short (some of us roll the waistbands after leaving home in order to achieve a shorter hemline) and which ‘dooms’ us to wearing our gym suits. Everyone knows this must be intentional. My friends and I make ‘getting suited’ cool.” Clara laughs. “We’re such trend-setters in 1968!”

“You won’t believe the P.E. [Physical Education] classes’ misogynistic and unfair fashion policy: Here it is, summary fashion,” Clara says. “The boys get to wear a comfortable, regular T-shirt and shorts (in white and blue, respectively, our school colors) for P.E. Girls, however, have to wear these ridiculous gym suits. This detested thing is a one-piece, blouson number in an almost-royal blue color. It has an elastic waist and snaps on the too-loose sleeveless bodice with medium-length shorts attached. It has to have been designed to make every girl look terrible in it regardless of body type, which I suppose is a great leveler.”

“As I explain earlier,” Clara reminds me, “if girls forget this monstrosity at home or don’t wash it, don’t have it or don’t wear a clean-enough suit to every class (each girl is issued two and must have one to wear for each P.E. class, every day), we are marked down in our grade and also, made to stay after school (like, a detention).”

“These administrators are so uptight, they treat these infractions the same as forgetting homework or vandalizing the bathrooms. Earn enough detentions and we have to come on a Saturday, too (like the movie, The Breakfast Club), just for “not suiting up.” If we get marked down enough, we could flunk this required class and have to take it again in summer school. I am not kidding!”

Clara is still indignant, these 45 years later. “Lowering academic grades for appearance issues, particularly failing a student for noncompliance to a dress code, becomes illegal, but not yet.”

“Back to the dress code,” Clara goes on. “The only short skirts girls are allowed to wear to school have to be culottes, which are split skirts or skirts with shorts inside (sound familiar?), but only cheerleaders are allowed to wear them. Now you’re starting to understand some of the reasoning behind my wanting to be a cheerleader,” Clara tells me.

“In a typical fall or winter month, once a week all through 9th grade (on “game days,” meaning, a day the 9th-grade boys’ team of the season has a football or basketball game, usually a Friday), I get to wear my cheerleader’s outfit. The rest of the year I am at war with the skirt police and usually ‘get suited.'”

“I wear my gym suit proudly, regularly showing it off in defiance of the school’s absurd policies. There are usually a group of us on any given day. We walk down the halls showing off our legs and laughing at the adults for being such dimwits,” Clara explains. “We show more of our legs wearing these gym suits than we do in any skirt!”

I say mildly, “Quite the rebel, eh?”

Clara misses my light sarcasm, so intent on telling her story of these years. “Some teachers think I’m ‘interesting,’ ‘intelligent’ and ‘fun.’ I know because they tell me or my parents. Others detest me and the feeling is mutual.”

Clara grimaces. “Wearing short skirts and being a ‘smart-aleck’ are what passes for rebellion for a teenage girl in my era, in this town. So, yes. I am a ‘rebel.'”

Guess she does catch my sarcasm. I move to apologize, but she smiles at me and goes on.

“I earn a reputation for ‘being sassy,’ a term only applied to girls who talk back to authority in southern-bordering or actual southern states. In contrast—more sexism, here—a boy who talks back is told to stop ‘giving me lip’ by the adult who is being challenged.”

She looks at me, making sure I understand, then continues. “Disobedient girls are ridiculed and patronized; impertinent boys are given grudging respect by being viewed as threatening. See the difference?”

I nod.

Clara goes on with her reminiscing. “At one point in my dress-code and behavioral scofflaw years, my cheerleader’s status is jeopardized because I refuse to back down in some argument with the chorus teacher about where I am supposed to sit. I dimly remember that she is trying to separate me from my friends because we are ‘disruptive,’ meaning, we are talking and having fun in class. For these ‘bad behaviors,’ she wants to move my seat. I am an alto but she wants to move me to the second sopranos, which is not the part I sing. I refuse to move, declaring that we are now engaged in a ‘sit in’ (which are big in the civil rights and anti-war movements by now) to protest her unfair discrimination against my having friends, or something to that effect.”

“What happens next?” I ask. I am curious how much trouble she gets in.

Clara laughs. “She sends me to the office. I go off, waving derisively at her and happily at my friends. When I get there, the harried assistant Principal threatens to suspend me from being a cheerleader because he has nothing else to hold over me. What’s so ridiculous about this threat is that we’re already in March by now and the only sports ‘season’ left for me to cheer in is track and field, which we really don’t do cheering for, anyway. The Principal can tell his threat is not upsetting me, but he doesn’t know why.”

“When I get home, I tell my father. He decides to come in and threaten them with a lawsuit (he is an attorney by training but not by trade at that point), just for fun (for him, that is). My dad is not very involved in my life or even around much, but he does love a good fight.”

“The day of their meeting, I sit outside the Principal’s office and eavesdrop on the ensuing discussion. It is very funny, to me. My dad talks circles around these guys. They really do not have a leg to stand on, so to speak, since I have done nothing to get myself suspended from being a cheerleader, applying their own rules, my dad points out perfectly: I never smoke, drink alcohol, have public sex, skip classes, vandalize school property or commit any other school ‘crimes.’ There isn’t a policy that calls for a suspension of privileges for being disrespectful or having a ‘bad attitude,’ but they wish there have one, I’m sure.”

“As I see it clearly, now, I am an ‘impudent’ female who regularly gives certain adults much-deserved backtalk and ends up ‘getting suited’ for wearing short skirts (along with dozens of other girls) several times every month. I also have excellent grades and attendance and never forget my gym suit. I am a very good ‘bad’ girl and they don’t have a punishment for someone like me.”

“My dad prevails, but this does not endear me to my chorus teacher or the administrators. I’m glad to get out of that school and on to high school a few months later.”

“What is high school like at the end of the 1960s in the USA Midwest?” I ask.

Clara responds: “In the fall of 1969, losing the fashion battle and the legal war, unintentionally catching up to the rest of the country (at least, the coasts), the Roanne school board President announces that all dress codes are to be discarded across the school district.”

Clara is gleeful, remembering this “victory.”

“Within a few months of entering high school, we girls are wearing cut-offs, halter tops, going barefoot and bra-less to classes. The biggest change for boys is that no one forces them to keep their hair short enough not to touch their collars any longer.”

Clara recalls: “My sophomore year is quite fun and such a shocking contrast to the years of ludicrous restrictions by the fashion police that we are giddy with freedom. People are smoking pot in the courtyard, hanging out the windows playing rock music in the hallways, and generally being rowdy and undisciplined. I love it, but I don’t get into the wildest behaviors, myself.”

“It’s difficult for me to imagine having those restrictions at all,” I say, shaking my head. “By the time I get to kindergarten, we wear whatever we want. 1987, for me.”

Clara shakes her finger at me and exhorts: “Thank a feminist!”

“Thanks!” I tell Clara. I mean it.
************
“Here is the poem that won my spot in the statewide poetry magazine in 1969.” Clara reaches into a paper file folder and hands a yellowish page to me.

The poem is written in cursive writing on manila lined paper in blue ink. It has her teacher’s red-inked comments on it. I point to one part, silently asking Clara to explain.

“Mrs. Hay crosses out the last stanza all together, so I do not include it here, since it is not part of the winning poem’s form,” Clara tells me. Here is the poem.

TO DIE IN VAIN

by Clara Ackerman, 2/21/69, age 14

Sitting on a stool of self-pity

I glance up, casually,

To see if anyone had seen me

Dying.

(I wasn’t really dying, only dreaming of how much

They

would miss me) If I did

Die.

*******

“You could not pay me enough money to be 14 again,” Clara says emphatically.

“Nor me, either.” I agree wholeheartedly.

*********************************

Stay tuned on Sally’s blogs on WordPress (which has all links) and Tumblr, and on The Spanners Series‘ pages on Facebook and Google+, for each of the upcoming Excerpts from Volume II from March 16 – April 18, about one/day.

4/18/14, Volume II becomes available for Pre-orders via Smashwords, Kobo, iBooks and nook for half-price: @$1.99, through June 8, 2014.

On 6/9/14, Vol. II goes LIVE everywhere ebooks are sold for $3.99.

#THESPANNERSSERIES #THISCHANGESMYFAMILYANDMYLIFEFOREVER #THISCHANGESEVERYTHING

Unknown's avatar

18th Serialized Excerpt: Vol. II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, The Spanners Series, by Sally Ember, Ed.D.

Vol. II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, The Spanners Series, by Sally Ember, Ed.D.

final cover - digital and web

Cover and logo art by Willowraven.

18th Serialized Excerpt, 4/12/14

CHAPTER SNAPSHOT #2

Snapshots of Clara’s Daily Life: Fourteen Octobers, 1963 – 2017

October, 1968

    Age and Living Circumstances/Location:

9th-grader in Roanne Junior High School, Missouri; living in Bayonne, suburb of large city in family home with her: father, Isaac; mother, Rose; older brother, Thomas; and, two younger sisters, Cassie, 8, and Violet, 3; and, a dog.

One boyfriend, ongoing since beginning of 8th grade, and many local friends from school, Camp Cedar and same Sunday School as earlier.

    Writing:

stories, articles, songs, poetry (poem selected as winner and published in Missouri’s Youth Writes).

    Books:

Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clarke; More than Human, Theodore Sturgeon; Pilgrimmage: The Book of the People, Zenna Henderson; Sword of Aldones, Marion Zimmer Bradley; The Time Machine, Jules Verne.

    Music on the Radio:

“Hey, Jude,” The Beatles; “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay,” Otis Redding; “Bend Me, Shape Me,” The American Breed; “Born to be Wild,” Steppenworlf; “Build Ne Up, Buttercup,” The Foundation; “Can’t Take My Eyes off You,” Andy Williams; “Chain of Fools,” Aretha Franklin; “Do You Know the Way to San José,” Dionne Warwick; “Hello, I Love You,” The Doors; “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida,” Iron Butterfly; “MacArthur Park,” Richard Harris; “Mrs. Robinson,” and the Bookends album, Simon & Garfunkle; Piece of My Heart,” Big Brother & The Holding Company (Janis Joplin); “Stoned Soul Picnic,” The Fifth Dimension; “Sunshine of Your Love,” Cream (Eric Clapton); “The Weight,” The Band (Bob Dylan); “Young Girl,” Gary Puckett and The Union Gap; Bonnie Raitt; Linda Rondstadt; Bob Dylan; Peter, Paul & Mary; Little Stevie Wonder.

    Popular Songs in Sheet Music:

“I’ve Gotta Be Me,” (sung by Sammy Davis, Jr.); “The Look of Love,” Sergio Mendes and Brasil 66; “Eli’s Coming,” Laura Nyro; “For The Good Times,” Kris Kristofferson (sung by Rita Coolidge); “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again,” Burt Bacharach & Hal David (sung by Dionne Warwick)’ music from Cabaret (Kander & Ebb), Hair! (Jerome Ragni, James Rado), Man of La Mancha ( Joel Darion, Dale Wasserman); Yellow Submarine (The Beatles).

    Activities:

► Taking Honors classes, including Spanish
► Cheerleader
► Member of chorus and selected for performance ensemble
► Taking weekly piano lessons; wins 2nd place at regional classical piano competition for ages 12 – 14.
► Attending Jewish religious classes every Sunday morning (Sunday School) (under duress); wins engraved Bible in essay competition
► Playing outdoors, tennis, softball, soccer, field hockey
► Indoors, competing on balance beam/gymnastics
► In summers, bike riding; waterskiing, canoeing, Israeli folk dancing, swimming at Camp Cedar (Jewish residential camp, Lake of the Ozarks) and local outdoor pool

ESPE: For junior high school, Clara tells me, her 7th-grade year is pretty awful. She has braces on her teeth, her hair is curly when having straight hair is fashionable, she is slightly overweight, she has no boyfriend, she is in all Honors classes with almost none of her former friends. This school serves students from five other elementary schools, so it is quite large and most of the people and the entire set up are unfamiliar to Clara.

Each student is assigned a 9th-grader as a “Big Sister/Brother” for the first month or so. Clara gets one of the cheerleaders as her Big Sister. One Friday, which are “game days” for football in the fall, Clara immediately timults herself as a cheerleader: she sees herself walking down the hall, laughing and talking with her friends while wearing her uniform, just as she sees her Big Sister, Cindy, doing on that Friday between classes. It is the first time Clara is aware of timulting something about her “future” which turns out to occur.

After losing the extra weight during 7th grade and having a very successful summer at Camp Cedar, Clara is set for a change. At the beginning of 8th grade, Clara gets the braces off, she learns to straighten her hair, makes some new friends. Her social life changes to the point that she becomes “popular” and a leader, again.

Clara says she gets a “great” boyfriend with whom she “goes steady” through all of 8th and half of 9th grade, when they break up amicably because they’re “both tired of each other,” she tells me.

Near the end of 8th grade, Clara practices for months so that she and nineteen other girls are nominated by adults (from “try-outs” of over fifty girls) to be voted on as cheerleaders in the election for class officers and other positions.

Clara, with seven others, is elected to be a cheerleader. As one of the leaders of her class, Clara also ran for “Pep Club” President. Clara cultivates many friends in order to get selected by the committee to be a finalist and elected by the students.

Her popularity ensures that she is elected to both positions. However, the Principal makes her choose between these rather than allowing her to be both.

Viewing being a cheerleader as the pinnacle of female achievement for that era and since she already timults that outcome two years before this, Clara chooses to be a 9th-grade cheerleader. Bonus: one of her friends, her “opponent,” becomes Pep Club President.

However, Clara tells me, “After learning all the cheers and being so excited to be elected, turns out that being a cheerleader is usually quite boring for me because I don’t actually like or care about team sports. Joke is on me.”

“I continue to want the status and there are not many routes to status for girls in 1968 in Missouri public schools. We aren’t allowed to run for President of the Student Council or our Class. Secretary; for ‘higher office,’ is the top slot we can run for, and only Pep Club is considered appropriate for a girl to lead. But, Pep Club is hardly the same thing as those other two, which actually have governing functions. Plus, sitting around in meetings seems much less interesting than going on buses with the team and being the center of attention as a cheerleader. I am a Leo, after all! These experiences help build up the feminist in me, as they do for Gloria Steinem, Robin Morgan and many other second-wave feminists, all cheerleaders!”

What happens when Clara gets to high school?

Clara explains: “Although the entire squad of us tries out for the sophomore squad, which is to be at the high school in which we will be combined with the other junior high school for tenth, eleventh and twelfth grades, only one of our school’s squad (not I) along with seven out of the eight cheerleaders of the other junior high school’s squad become the cheerleaders selected by the panel of adults. There is no election since the two 9th-grades’ students don’t know each other, yet.”

“Patently unfair,” Clara says to me, “but, not being selected to continue being a cheerleader is the best thing that ever happens to my personal development. I become more involved in debate, chess, theater, music, books and writing. These are much better choices for me. I become a ‘hippie-intellectual’ instead of a ‘jockette.’ Since I am very good in school, this is a more comfortable role. I can get excellent grades and make a better, more suitable group of friends in my honors classes than I can ‘on the field,’ so that is what I do in high school.”

Here is a poem Clara writes (after studying Julius Caesar in English class) about her feelings and experiences during and after this social transition. Clara goes from occupying the “popular” slot due to being a cheerleader to becoming involved in “cool stuff” due to her other (forced) choices. The “insider” becomes a different kind of “insider,” almost an “outsider,” but this time, mostly by choice.

Clara wants me to remind everyone that she makes no claims to being a great poet. However, it is significant to note that this and another poem she writes in 10th grade are submitted by her English teacher to a state contest. The other poem wins the Missouri’s Youth Writes competition and is published in the state students’ literary magazine in 1970, which is Clara’s first publishing credit.

Clara says: “It’s quite funny to me that I am first published as a poet, since I think my poetry is mostly mediocre to horrible.”

The poem is written on blue, lined spiral notebook paper (the left edge where it is removed from the notebook is ripped in spots) in cursive writing.

RUBICON SURPRISE

by Clara Ackerman, 11/11/69, age 15

Walking on my road

the way is easily seen.

Around the bend, the light

dims

and is gone.

Continue to walk, though

the way grows steep and feels

unfamiliar,

yet exciting.

Forge on through the dark,

stumbling over rocks and into

gullies

and potholes; what

is that swaying sensation?

Ah! The light returns,

only to show the way

already traveled to have been a

bridge,

smoking to ashes as I watch.

The light again dims,

but remains a dusk-glow,

enough to show me the

mockery

free will and decisive action

really are.

What else about your junior high years do you want people to know?

“I experience more misogyny, more restrictions, more unfairness due to gender than in grade school. I have two years of male science teachers and all three years of male math teachers who despise girls, even or especially those of us in Honors classes,” Clara complains.

“Furthermore,” Clara remembers, getting somewhat agitated in the remembering, “our 9th-grade biology teacher is so mean to the only three girls in a class of twenty-four boys that we generate ‘solidarity,’ which is great. We stick together even though we’re not previously close friends. Those girls and I create an informal support group, my first one.”

Also, Clara reminds me, there are more clothing issues; again, only for girls.

*********************************

Stay tuned on Sally’s blogs on WordPress (which has all links) and Tumblr, and on The Spanners Series‘ pages on Facebook and Google+, for each of the upcoming Excerpts from Volume II from March 16 – April 18, about one/day.

4/18/14, Volume II becomes available for Pre-orders via Smashwords, Kobo, iBooks and nook for half-price: @$1.99, through June 8, 2014.

On 6/9/14, Vol. II goes LIVE everywhere ebooks are sold for $3.99.

#THESPANNERSSERIES #THISCHANGESMYFAMILYANDMYLIFEFOREVER #THISCHANGESEVERYTHING

Unknown's avatar

18th Serialized Excerpt: Vol. II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, The Spanners Series, by Sally Ember, Ed.D.

Vol. II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, The Spanners Series, by Sally Ember, Ed.D.

final cover - digital and web

Cover and logo art by Willowraven.

18th Serialized Excerpt, 4/12/14

CHAPTER SNAPSHOT #2

Snapshots of Clara’s Daily Life: Fourteen Octobers, 1963 – 2017

October, 1968

    Age and Living Circumstances/Location:

9th-grader in Roanne Junior High School, Missouri; living in Bayonne, suburb of large city in family home with her: father, Isaac; mother, Rose; older brother, Thomas; and, two younger sisters, Cassie, 8, and Violet, 3; and, a dog.

One boyfriend, ongoing since beginning of 8th grade, and many local friends from school, Camp Cedar and same Sunday School as earlier.

    Writing:

stories, articles, songs, poetry (poem selected as winner and published in Missouri’s Youth Writes).

    Books:

Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clarke; More than Human, Theodore Sturgeon; Pilgrimmage: The Book of the People, Zenna Henderson; Sword of Aldones, Marion Zimmer Bradley; The Time Machine, Jules Verne.

    Music on the Radio:

“Hey, Jude,” The Beatles; “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay,” Otis Redding; “Bend Me, Shape Me,” The American Breed; “Born to be Wild,” Steppenworlf; “Build Ne Up, Buttercup,” The Foundation; “Can’t Take My Eyes off You,” Andy Williams; “Chain of Fools,” Aretha Franklin; “Do You Know the Way to San José,” Dionne Warwick; “Hello, I Love You,” The Doors; “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida,” Iron Butterfly; “MacArthur Park,” Richard Harris; “Mrs. Robinson,” and the Bookends album, Simon & Garfunkle; Piece of My Heart,” Big Brother & The Holding Company (Janis Joplin); “Stoned Soul Picnic,” The Fifth Dimension; “Sunshine of Your Love,” Cream (Eric Clapton); “The Weight,” The Band (Bob Dylan); “Young Girl,” Gary Puckett and The Union Gap; Bonnie Raitt; Linda Rondstadt; Bob Dylan; Peter, Paul & Mary; Little Stevie Wonder.

    Popular Songs in Sheet Music:

“I’ve Gotta Be Me,” (sung by Sammy Davis, Jr.); “The Look of Love,” Sergio Mendes and Brasil 66; “Eli’s Coming,” Laura Nyro; “For The Good Times,” Kris Kristofferson (sung by Rita Coolidge); “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again,” Burt Bacharach & Hal David (sung by Dionne Warwick)’ music from Cabaret (Kander & Ebb), Hair! (Jerome Ragni, James Rado), Man of La Mancha ( Joel Darion, Dale Wasserman); Yellow Submarine (The Beatles).

    Activities:

► Taking Honors classes, including Spanish
► Cheerleader
► Member of chorus and selected for performance ensemble
► Taking weekly piano lessons; wins 2nd place at regional classical piano competition for ages 12 – 14.
► Attending Jewish religious classes every Sunday morning (Sunday School) (under duress); wins engraved Bible in essay competition
► Playing outdoors, tennis, softball, soccer, field hockey
► Indoors, competing on balance beam/gymnastics
► In summers, bike riding; waterskiing, canoeing, Israeli folk dancing, swimming at Camp Cedar (Jewish residential camp, Lake of the Ozarks) and local outdoor pool

ESPE: For junior high school, Clara tells me, her 7th-grade year is pretty awful. She has braces on her teeth, her hair is curly when having straight hair is fashionable, she is slightly overweight, she has no boyfriend, she is in all Honors classes with almost none of her former friends. This school serves students from five other elementary schools, so it is quite large and most of the people and the entire set up are unfamiliar to Clara.

Each student is assigned a 9th-grader as a “Big Sister/Brother” for the first month or so. Clara gets one of the cheerleaders as her Big Sister. One Friday, which are “game days” for football in the fall, Clara immediately timults herself as a cheerleader: she sees herself walking down the hall, laughing and talking with her friends while wearing her uniform, just as she sees her Big Sister, Cindy, doing on that Friday between classes. It is the first time Clara is aware of timulting something about her “future” which turns out to occur.

After losing the extra weight during 7th grade and having a very successful summer at Camp Cedar, Clara is set for a change. At the beginning of 8th grade, Clara gets the braces off, she learns to straighten her hair, makes some new friends. Her social life changes to the point that she becomes “popular” and a leader, again.

Clara says she gets a “great” boyfriend with whom she “goes steady” through all of 8th and half of 9th grade, when they break up amicably because they’re “both tired of each other,” she tells me.

Near the end of 8th grade, Clara practices for months so that she and nineteen other girls are nominated by adults (from “try-outs” of over fifty girls) to be voted on as cheerleaders in the election for class officers and other positions.

Clara, with seven others, is elected to be a cheerleader. As one of the leaders of her class, Clara also ran for “Pep Club” President. Clara cultivates many friends in order to get selected by the committee to be a finalist and elected by the students.

Her popularity ensures that she is elected to both positions. However, the Principal makes her choose between these rather than allowing her to be both.

Viewing being a cheerleader as the pinnacle of female achievement for that era and since she already timults that outcome two years before this, Clara chooses to be a 9th-grade cheerleader. Bonus: one of her friends, her “opponent,” becomes Pep Club President.

However, Clara tells me, “After learning all the cheers and being so excited to be elected, turns out that being a cheerleader is usually quite boring for me because I don’t actually like or care about team sports. Joke is on me.”

“I continue to want the status and there are not many routes to status for girls in 1968 in Missouri public schools. We aren’t allowed to run for President of the Student Council or our Class. Secretary; for ‘higher office,’ is the top slot we can run for, and only Pep Club is considered appropriate for a girl to lead. But, Pep Club is hardly the same thing as those other two, which actually have governing functions. Plus, sitting around in meetings seems much less interesting than going on buses with the team and being the center of attention as a cheerleader. I am a Leo, after all! These experiences help build up the feminist in me, as they do for Gloria Steinem, Robin Morgan and many other second-wave feminists, all cheerleaders!”

What happens when Clara gets to high school?

Clara explains: “Although the entire squad of us tries out for the sophomore squad, which is to be at the high school in which we will be combined with the other junior high school for tenth, eleventh and twelfth grades, only one of our school’s squad (not I) along with seven out of the eight cheerleaders of the other junior high school’s squad become the cheerleaders selected by the panel of adults. There is no election since the two 9th-grades’ students don’t know each other, yet.”

“Patently unfair,” Clara says to me, “but, not being selected to continue being a cheerleader is the best thing that ever happens to my personal development. I become more involved in debate, chess, theater, music, books and writing. These are much better choices for me. I become a ‘hippie-intellectual’ instead of a ‘jockette.’ Since I am very good in school, this is a more comfortable role. I can get excellent grades and make a better, more suitable group of friends in my honors classes than I can ‘on the field,’ so that is what I do in high school.”

Here is a poem Clara writes (after studying Julius Caesar in English class) about her feelings and experiences during and after this social transition. Clara goes from occupying the “popular” slot due to being a cheerleader to becoming involved in “cool stuff” due to her other (forced) choices. The “insider” becomes a different kind of “insider,” almost an “outsider,” but this time, mostly by choice.

Clara wants me to remind everyone that she makes no claims to being a great poet. However, it is significant to note that this and another poem she writes in 10th grade are submitted by her English teacher to a state contest. The other poem wins the Missouri’s Youth Writes competition and is published in the state students’ literary magazine in 1970, which is Clara’s first publishing credit.

Clara says: “It’s quite funny to me that I am first published as a poet, since I think my poetry is mostly mediocre to horrible.”

The poem is written on blue, lined spiral notebook paper (the left edge where it is removed from the notebook is ripped in spots) in cursive writing.

RUBICON SURPRISE

by Clara Ackerman, 11/11/69, age 15

Walking on my road

the way is easily seen.

Around the bend, the light

dims

and is gone.

Continue to walk, though

the way grows steep and feels

unfamiliar,

yet exciting.

Forge on through the dark,

stumbling over rocks and into

gullies

and potholes; what

is that swaying sensation?

Ah! The light returns,

only to show the way

already traveled to have been a

bridge,

smoking to ashes as I watch.

The light again dims,

but remains a dusk-glow,

enough to show me the

mockery

free will and decisive action

really are.

What else about your junior high years do you want people to know?

“I experience more misogyny, more restrictions, more unfairness due to gender than in grade school. I have two years of male science teachers and all three years of male math teachers who despise girls, even or especially those of us in Honors classes,” Clara complains.

“Furthermore,” Clara remembers, getting somewhat agitated in the remembering, “our 9th-grade biology teacher is so mean to the only three girls in a class of twenty-four boys that we generate ‘solidarity,’ which is great. We stick together even though we’re not previously close friends. Those girls and I create an informal support group, my first one.”

Also, Clara reminds me, there are more clothing issues; again, only for girls.

*********************************

Stay tuned on Sally’s blogs on WordPress (which has all links) and Tumblr, and on The Spanners Series‘ pages on Facebook and Google+, for each of the upcoming Excerpts from Volume II from March 16 – April 18, about one/day.

4/18/14, Volume II becomes available for Pre-orders via Smashwords, Kobo, iBooks and nook for half-price: @$1.99, through June 8, 2014.

On 6/9/14, Vol. II goes LIVE everywhere ebooks are sold for $3.99.

#THESPANNERSSERIES #THISCHANGESMYFAMILYANDMYLIFEFOREVER #THISCHANGESEVERYTHING

Unknown's avatar

17th Serialized Excerpt: Vol. II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, The Spanners Series, by Sally Ember, Ed.D.

Vol. II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, The Spanners Series, by Sally Ember, Ed.D.

final cover - digital and web

Cover and logo art by Willowraven.

17th Serialized Excerpt, 4/10/14

CHAPTER TWO

Leah Iris, 29, Niece of Clara Branon, Ph.D., Chief Communicator

Interview Date: May 26, 2018

10 Questions for Clara Branon’s Niece:

the Transition, 5 Years Later

(continued)

9. How do your friends, family, sig other feel about your aunt as the CC and how does this affect your own relationships?

LEAH: Here’s the story of how I meet Josh. It shows some of the ways things are going during the Transition for my family.
********
Zephyr and Kayla aren’t ever going to get married and then they change their minds. I’m not sure why. They already have Kendall, so it’s not about the parenting-marriagebond. Anyway, we’re all—my giganza family—invited.

At large family events we do several things: eat, play and make music, laugh, talk and play games (all at once, usually). As the cousins all get older, we usually play cards with the older adults, definitely Hearts.

If any of us brings a newbie, like, a new sig other or spouse, they can opt out once, but, after that, they HAVE to play Hearts. It’s required. The Hearts games are a kind of trial-by-fire for joining our clan.

At someone’s Bar/Bat Mitzvah, that’s part of the teen’s new status. You can’t play until you’re about 13; it’s that heavy! It’s a kind of initiation-hazing ritual-inclusion thing. When we play Hearts, many cry. Always from laughter, and sometimes from being freaked out at how mean we all get. Or, being on the losing end of a vicious pass or strategy. Usually, no outsiders are invited to play: no random guests or friends, just family and sigs.

I’m at the wedding weekend in old New Hampshire, where they and Zephyr’s dad live, Zef is born and grows up, Aunt Clara lives while Zef is growing up. Summer there is beautiful and I’m glad to be there.

The wedding is on Sunday, but we do things all weekend since people come from far away. I’m noticing this one guy I don’t know who keeps appearing but doesn’t talk to me. Very appealing, to me, somehow.

During meals, I make sure I sit where I can see him. For “down” time—no scheduled thing happening—I look to see what group he’s hanging with and nonchalantly join on the fringes. Or, if I’m already in a group, I notice he drifts over to it. We’re like non-acquainted, exopod dolphins, swimming closer and closer to one another, playing and eating in the same area, but no direct contact.

Lots of smiles, some eye contact (he has amazing, green eyes), electric charges abound. No words. I find myself wanting to rub against him the way a dolphin would do to signal interest in being friends or starting to play, but I restrain myself. I also have the urge to try whistling and squeaking, just because, but I don’t know he could answer me, so I do not do it.

Josh says later he wishes I do these things! I don’t realize at the time that he is a Cetacean specialist and through my unconscious use of some of my Excellent Skills, I’m tuning into this affinity we share.

I don’t ask anyone who he is. I’m enjoying the “dance,” we’re engaged in, which is pleasantly and intriguingly intensifying from Friday to Saturday. Saturday, late afternoon, when we’re getting together for the third or fourth Hearts game of the weekend, when it peaks.

People are setting up the large outdoor table, counting and shuffling cards, talking, laughing, organizing who’s playing and making sure the cards are set up right, removing 2s, doubling the decks, etc., for however many are playing. We’re about to start. All available and eligible in the family are at the table. That’s about a dozen for this particular game.

We’re watching my brother and my mother share the dealing when this guy I am hyper aware of comes over and asks if he can play. Nice chutzpah [audacity, courage, Yiddish].

Zephyr and Kayla look at him, at each other, then at me and say “Yeah! Sure!”

Aunt Clara gives him the eye and asks, “Josh: are you sure you want to do this, now, today?”

She is deliberately daring him. Why? His name is “Josh.” I like that name.

My mom, still dealing, says: “No way; family only!”

A few others murmur their opinions, mostly “no,” a few “next game, maybe.”

Aunt Clara holds up one hand, looks at me, at me, and says: “It’s up to you, Leah.”

Why me? But I nod. It is up to me. I accept that.

CeeCee, my mom, my aunt Violet, Zephyr smile in a way that makes the butterflies in my stomach wake up and start flying around chaotically.

Oh, oh.

The dealing is over but no one moves to take their cards or push the hands out to us. I count silently: fourteen. There is one extra hand. Shit!

Everything stops, then. No one talks or laughs, which is a minor miracle in my family. I swear, even the breezes stop blowing and the birds stop singing for a couple of seconds. I know that’s not likely, but that’s how it seems to me. Time strrrr-etch-es out and slows down, you know?

Josh looks at me and I look at him.

I know.

And, I can tell, he knows.

Given the way ES run in this family, most of us know.

So I, being somewhat an introvert (I know, not obvious, but I am), and a bit wary, blurt out: “But, who are you?”

Josh comes closer to me, gets down on one knee so that he’s eye-level with me, extends one hand to hold mine, and says, “I’m your sig, Leah. I’m Josh.”

All the breath whooshes out of me as if I am a balloon letting go. Then, I can’t breathe right. I’m hot, I’m shivering, I’m dizzy. I stare at him, at his wonderful, interesting face, at his hand holding mine with his beautifully tapered fingers, at his clear, green eyes.

I can feel everyone staring at us, waiting for me to respond. I reclaim my hand. Why does this look and feel like a marriage proposal? We just spoke for the first time!

I reach across the table and grab my cards, trying to make the game start. I look wildly at everyone, but no one is meeting my eyes. I could ignore him, but I am drawn back, against my will, to stare into his eyes. I’m speechless.

I’m so hot and my face is so red I’m sure I am about to catch fire or something. Then, right after I put them into my hands, my cards explode all over the table. Everyone but I and this guy gasps.

I am sure Zephyr has something to do with that trick. I turn to glare at him. He smiles sweetly at me. The picture of fake innocence. I may have to hurt him.

But, I am paralyzed. I stare at the scattered cards and can’t pick any up.

Josh is able to move easily.

Why is that? What’s wrong with me?

He takes both my hands, since I no longer have any cards in either.

Josh says, “Whenever you’re ready, let me in.”

So, Zephyr, being Zephyr, says: “‘Not by the hair of my chinny, chin, chin!'”

We all burst out laughing which takes the pressure off a lot.

I breathe. Once, twice, three times. I look over at Josh. He’s so patient, so kind, so right for me. Why am I resisting?

This has been coming all weekend. Carpe Diem!

“OK. Fine. You’re in.” I say it fake huffily, as if I object, but no one, including me, is the least bit fooled.

I pat the chair that suddenly snaps into place right beside me (Zef’s work, again) and say, “Deal Josh in.”

Caleb snaps the extra hand over to Josh’s place at the table.

Everyone else puts their cards down and applauds. The silence broken, everyone is now talking, laughing, smiling at or groaning about their cards.

Josh plops into the chair, smiles at me, picks up his cards and starts arranging them as if he’s always been here, at our Hearts game.

Maybe he has. CeeCee winks at me. Sheesh. She hears that.

I lean over to squeeze Josh’s shoulder. “Welcome,” I say, more warmly.

He leans into me but keeps arranging his cards.

Oh. It’s like that, is it? Game on!

And, that’s it. Josh is in. In every way. We play Hearts. We start being together. He’s a great dancer, too.
********
LEAH: The rest is, well, private. [laughs].

10. What else do you want to tell us about your experiences of Clara as the CC or the Transition?

LEAH: I can add one important thing: Aunt Clara is the best choice Earthers could have. I know not everyone understands that, so let me explain.

She is off-the-charts in honesty, courage, integrity up the whazzoo. She is dedicated to benefiting all beings—the Buddhist thing, you know? Those all contribute, but most important, Aunt Clara has a humongous heart. She is fiercely protective and loving when she takes anyone or anything on.

Earthers are lucky she took us on. For sure.

*********************************

Stay tuned on Sally’s blogs on WordPress (which has all links) and Tumblr, and on The Spanners Series‘ pages on Facebook and Google+, for each of the upcoming Excerpts from Volume II from March 16 – April 18, about one/day.

4/18/14, Volume II becomes available for Pre-orders via Smashwords, Kobo, iBooks and nook for half-price: @$1.99, through June 8, 2014.

On 6/9/14, Vol. II goes LIVE everywhere ebooks are sold for $3.99.

#THESPANNERSSERIES #THISCHANGESMYFAMILYANDMYLIFEFOREVER #THISCHANGESEVERYTHING

Unknown's avatar

17th Serialized Excerpt: Vol. II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, The Spanners Series, by Sally Ember, Ed.D.

Vol. II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, The Spanners Series, by Sally Ember, Ed.D.

final cover - digital and web

Cover and logo art by Willowraven.

17th Serialized Excerpt, 4/10/14

CHAPTER TWO

Leah Iris, 29, Niece of Clara Branon, Ph.D., Chief Communicator

Interview Date: May 26, 2018

10 Questions for Clara Branon’s Niece:

the Transition, 5 Years Later

(continued)

9. How do your friends, family, sig other feel about your aunt as the CC and how does this affect your own relationships?

LEAH: Here’s the story of how I meet Josh. It shows some of the ways things are going during the Transition for my family.
********
Zephyr and Kayla aren’t ever going to get married and then they change their minds. I’m not sure why. They already have Kendall, so it’s not about the parenting-marriagebond. Anyway, we’re all—my giganza family—invited.

At large family events we do several things: eat, play and make music, laugh, talk and play games (all at once, usually). As the cousins all get older, we usually play cards with the older adults, definitely Hearts.

If any of us brings a newbie, like, a new sig other or spouse, they can opt out once, but, after that, they HAVE to play Hearts. It’s required. The Hearts games are a kind of trial-by-fire for joining our clan.

At someone’s Bar/Bat Mitzvah, that’s part of the teen’s new status. You can’t play until you’re about 13; it’s that heavy! It’s a kind of initiation-hazing ritual-inclusion thing. When we play Hearts, many cry. Always from laughter, and sometimes from being freaked out at how mean we all get. Or, being on the losing end of a vicious pass or strategy. Usually, no outsiders are invited to play: no random guests or friends, just family and sigs.

I’m at the wedding weekend in old New Hampshire, where they and Zephyr’s dad live, Zef is born and grows up, Aunt Clara lives while Zef is growing up. Summer there is beautiful and I’m glad to be there.

The wedding is on Sunday, but we do things all weekend since people come from far away. I’m noticing this one guy I don’t know who keeps appearing but doesn’t talk to me. Very appealing, to me, somehow.

During meals, I make sure I sit where I can see him. For “down” time—no scheduled thing happening—I look to see what group he’s hanging with and nonchalantly join on the fringes. Or, if I’m already in a group, I notice he drifts over to it. We’re like non-acquainted, exopod dolphins, swimming closer and closer to one another, playing and eating in the same area, but no direct contact.

Lots of smiles, some eye contact (he has amazing, green eyes), electric charges abound. No words. I find myself wanting to rub against him the way a dolphin would do to signal interest in being friends or starting to play, but I restrain myself. I also have the urge to try whistling and squeaking, just because, but I don’t know he could answer me, so I do not do it.

Josh says later he wishes I do these things! I don’t realize at the time that he is a Cetacean specialist and through my unconscious use of some of my Excellent Skills, I’m tuning into this affinity we share.

I don’t ask anyone who he is. I’m enjoying the “dance,” we’re engaged in, which is pleasantly and intriguingly intensifying from Friday to Saturday. Saturday, late afternoon, when we’re getting together for the third or fourth Hearts game of the weekend, when it peaks.

People are setting up the large outdoor table, counting and shuffling cards, talking, laughing, organizing who’s playing and making sure the cards are set up right, removing 2s, doubling the decks, etc., for however many are playing. We’re about to start. All available and eligible in the family are at the table. That’s about a dozen for this particular game.

We’re watching my brother and my mother share the dealing when this guy I am hyper aware of comes over and asks if he can play. Nice chutzpah [audacity, courage, Yiddish].

Zephyr and Kayla look at him, at each other, then at me and say “Yeah! Sure!”

Aunt Clara gives him the eye and asks, “Josh: are you sure you want to do this, now, today?”

She is deliberately daring him. Why? His name is “Josh.” I like that name.

My mom, still dealing, says: “No way; family only!”

A few others murmur their opinions, mostly “no,” a few “next game, maybe.”

Aunt Clara holds up one hand, looks at me, at me, and says: “It’s up to you, Leah.”

Why me? But I nod. It is up to me. I accept that.

CeeCee, my mom, my aunt Violet, Zephyr smile in a way that makes the butterflies in my stomach wake up and start flying around chaotically.

Oh, oh.

The dealing is over but no one moves to take their cards or push the hands out to us. I count silently: fourteen. There is one extra hand. Shit!

Everything stops, then. No one talks or laughs, which is a minor miracle in my family. I swear, even the breezes stop blowing and the birds stop singing for a couple of seconds. I know that’s not likely, but that’s how it seems to me. Time strrrr-etch-es out and slows down, you know?

Josh looks at me and I look at him.

I know.

And, I can tell, he knows.

Given the way ES run in this family, most of us know.

So I, being somewhat an introvert (I know, not obvious, but I am), and a bit wary, blurt out: “But, who are you?”

Josh comes closer to me, gets down on one knee so that he’s eye-level with me, extends one hand to hold mine, and says, “I’m your sig, Leah. I’m Josh.”

All the breath whooshes out of me as if I am a balloon letting go. Then, I can’t breathe right. I’m hot, I’m shivering, I’m dizzy. I stare at him, at his wonderful, interesting face, at his hand holding mine with his beautifully tapered fingers, at his clear, green eyes.

I can feel everyone staring at us, waiting for me to respond. I reclaim my hand. Why does this look and feel like a marriage proposal? We just spoke for the first time!

I reach across the table and grab my cards, trying to make the game start. I look wildly at everyone, but no one is meeting my eyes. I could ignore him, but I am drawn back, against my will, to stare into his eyes. I’m speechless.

I’m so hot and my face is so red I’m sure I am about to catch fire or something. Then, right after I put them into my hands, my cards explode all over the table. Everyone but I and this guy gasps.

I am sure Zephyr has something to do with that trick. I turn to glare at him. He smiles sweetly at me. The picture of fake innocence. I may have to hurt him.

But, I am paralyzed. I stare at the scattered cards and can’t pick any up.

Josh is able to move easily.

Why is that? What’s wrong with me?

He takes both my hands, since I no longer have any cards in either.

Josh says, “Whenever you’re ready, let me in.”

So, Zephyr, being Zephyr, says: “‘Not by the hair of my chinny, chin, chin!'”

We all burst out laughing which takes the pressure off a lot.

I breathe. Once, twice, three times. I look over at Josh. He’s so patient, so kind, so right for me. Why am I resisting?

This has been coming all weekend. Carpe Diem!

“OK. Fine. You’re in.” I say it fake huffily, as if I object, but no one, including me, is the least bit fooled.

I pat the chair that suddenly snaps into place right beside me (Zef’s work, again) and say, “Deal Josh in.”

Caleb snaps the extra hand over to Josh’s place at the table.

Everyone else puts their cards down and applauds. The silence broken, everyone is now talking, laughing, smiling at or groaning about their cards.

Josh plops into the chair, smiles at me, picks up his cards and starts arranging them as if he’s always been here, at our Hearts game.

Maybe he has. CeeCee winks at me. Sheesh. She hears that.

I lean over to squeeze Josh’s shoulder. “Welcome,” I say, more warmly.

He leans into me but keeps arranging his cards.

Oh. It’s like that, is it? Game on!

And, that’s it. Josh is in. In every way. We play Hearts. We start being together. He’s a great dancer, too.
********
LEAH: The rest is, well, private. [laughs].

10. What else do you want to tell us about your experiences of Clara as the CC or the Transition?

LEAH: I can add one important thing: Aunt Clara is the best choice Earthers could have. I know not everyone understands that, so let me explain.

She is off-the-charts in honesty, courage, integrity up the whazzoo. She is dedicated to benefiting all beings—the Buddhist thing, you know? Those all contribute, but most important, Aunt Clara has a humongous heart. She is fiercely protective and loving when she takes anyone or anything on.

Earthers are lucky she took us on. For sure.

*********************************

Stay tuned on Sally’s blogs on WordPress (which has all links) and Tumblr, and on The Spanners Series‘ pages on Facebook and Google+, for each of the upcoming Excerpts from Volume II from March 16 – April 18, about one/day.

4/18/14, Volume II becomes available for Pre-orders via Smashwords, Kobo, iBooks and nook for half-price: @$1.99, through June 8, 2014.

On 6/9/14, Vol. II goes LIVE everywhere ebooks are sold for $3.99.

#THESPANNERSSERIES #THISCHANGESMYFAMILYANDMYLIFEFOREVER #THISCHANGESEVERYTHING

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16th Serialized Excerpt: Vol. II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, The Spanners Series, by Sally Ember, Ed.D.

Vol. II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, The Spanners Series, by Sally Ember, Ed.D.

final cover - digital and web

Cover and logo art by Willowraven.

16th Serialized Excerpt, 4/8/14

CHAPTER TWO

Leah Iris, 29, Niece of Clara Branon, Ph.D., Chief Communicator

Interview Date: May 26, 2018

10 Questions for Clara Branon’s Niece:

the Transition, 5 Years Later

(continued)

5. How do you feel about Clara’s role when it starts? How are you affected immediately?

LEAH: Let’s see. How do I feel, not what do I think? OK. I feel kind of proud. I mean, my aunt is now the most important person on the planet. Right? That’s amazing! [laughs] And, yet, somehow, not as surprising as it might be. [laughs]

What does that make me, besides her very proud niece? Besieged.

Immediately, I have to change my cell number and make all my online and personal privacy settings more stringent because I am getting a zillion calls and messages from media people, almost as many as Zephyr (we compare). My boss starts saying I’m “out for the day” when I’m right there. The paparazzi can’t reach Aunt Clara because Espe is handling all that, but the rest of our family: we’re on our own.

Since I have a different last name (and I don’t even use mine), I’m not as battered by media contacts as Zephyr or any of the Ackermans are, but they do find me and my brothers pretty fast, through my being one of the main online posters, or through my mom, I guess (not that she gives me up; the ‘razzi always keep digging).

We all decide not to give out any interviews because we learn that, if one of us does, we’re all doomed. That refusal is your suggestion, E: Thanks! You are brilliant about all that. Precisely right.

Once media ghouls believe we won’t talk to them, they go away. Eventually. Bigger news stories than our reactions are happening, anyway, with the Transition issues, the Qings and ReInvolvements, and then the psi Wars, so relatives of the CC move lower on the ‘razzi’s priority list. Zephyr and the rest of us are “up” again when everyone gets Tinted, but that’s all right.

Then, I meet Josh, oh, about two years APC [APC, After Public Contact], and my life changes even more! We meet at Zephyr and Kayla’s wedding. So cool. Okay that I tell our meeting story later today, right?

[See Question # 10 for story.]

6. How do you feel about Clara’s role, now, 5 years later? How does her role affect you now?

LEAH: It’s funny. Not funny-“ha ha” but funny-peculiar. There are many months lately when I do not think about the MWC or Aunt Clara’s role or any of the larger goings on. Josh and I are involved with our jobs, our friends, each other, our family members as people, not as CC network nodes. Does that make sense?

Then, something will come on a vid or over the ‘net and we’re drawn into it, tractor beam on full speed. Occasionally, when I’m talking or having vid calls with Aunt Clara, she gets a visit from one of The Band and we all talk for a while. That’s cool.

I think, because of Josh’s work with the cetaceans and other marine beings, we’re invited to go to Janis—Diana’s planet any time we want. We plan to go this year or next. He probably would not be on the fast track for interplanetary travel if he works in some other field. Also, if he and I never meet Janis—Diana, we probably do not get to go as soon, either. So, being related to the CC can be useful!

During the height of the psi Wars, there is a lot of talk about assigning me and my brothers, our mom and everyone in Aunt Clara’s family protective OSes. She always has them, of course. And, Zephyr and Kayla, now Kendall, do for a while. And G-ma Rose. And, Moran’s family. We seem to have some for a while, but it’s kind of hush-hush. I really cannot remember what that is like, now. I think only Aunt Clara. you, Epifanio, Zephyr and his family have protection, these days. Right?

Mostly, I see Aunt Clara and my mom—that entire generation of women—as incredible role models. I hope to be like them as I get older. They’re awesome! So courageous, so innovative, so, well, uniquely themselves. [laughs]

7. Which of the MWC members or other species visitors do you have contact with? How and why, and how is that for you?

LEAH: Angelina, Meryl and I are good friends early on because of Aunt Clara. Then, Josh, a marine biologist and Cetacean Communicator before we even meet, introduces me to more cetaceans who become our friends. I already know ASL [American Sign Language] and Hebrew, so learning CetSS [Cetacean Sound-Sign] and PrimS [Primate Sign] aren’t horribly hard for me. I’m not as good a swimmer as Josh and many others, so the body language and positional parts of CetSS are like baby talk when I do it, but we manage.

Do you know how many spoken languages (not English), like Navajo, Mandarin and other Chinese dialects are tonal, so every inflection and pitch change makes and alters the meaning? Body position, directionality and angles are like that in CetSS, especially when the speaker is completely submerged. With our newer OPTS (thanks, Jessica!), which fit almost like a second-skin, humans underwater are completely visible and flexible enough, but I am such a klutz. I make hilarious clumsiness-induced blunders that Josh and I spend time rectifying regularly.

I feel that it’s more respectful and fun to attempt to speak with each being in something closer to their languages. I like the challenge! I always have the fish when I falter. Cetaceans are very forgiving, which is great. Some things just don’t translate well, even with the fish, and then add in my inadvertently mixed-signal comms and we’re often in confusion and amusement.

At first, I don’t know how we’ll be friends, exactly, given our different environments, but it gradually unfolds, mostly because of the tech: OPTS, iD and the fish are crucial. We message, we exchange info, we meet up in person when we can, and we use the interspecies versions of social media networking sites, which are ‘way cool. We joke about calling the Cetacean-Cephalopod-Pinniped site “Snoutbook,” but it does not catch on. Wonder why? [laughs]

The CHAT (Cetacean Hearing and Telemetry) humans create right BPC morphs into the sono-picto-graph machine which becomes the co-locating use of the fish: so amazingly cool. Wanna hear my name as whistled by Angelina? [I nod. Leah whistles a high-pitched, long note followed by 3 short blasts, laughs].

For Aunt Clara and Josh, interspecies interactions are a combo of professional and personal; for me, just personal. It’s important to me to know them as individuals, not for any “cause” or job. We play, we talk, we share our lives, as any friends do. It’s species-ist to assume otherwise, right?

8. What transforms your life more: your ifish [Interspecies Communication System], your iD [Individual Access Devices Interface], or travel to other planets/moons? How?

LEAH: I was so hopped to leave Wikijism behind and use my iD all the time. It’s is so much better than anything we have BPC! Josh and I are considering getting the implant iDs soon. Before we go off-p again, for sure. I never go anywhere without my fish, since we often interact with non-humans and humans who speak languages better than English for the purposes we’re engaged in that day. We aren’t regular off-p travelers, yet, but plan to be, soon.

I can’t say which is more important in general, but, for me, definitely the fish. I’m constantly communicating. [laugh]

*********************************

Stay tuned on Sally’s blogs on WordPress (which has all links) and Tumblr, and on The Spanners Series‘ pages on Facebook and Google+, for each of the upcoming Excerpts from Volume II from March 16 – April 18, about one/day.

4/18/14, Volume II becomes available for Pre-orders via Smashwords, Kobo, iBooks and nook for half-price: @$1.99, through June 8, 2014.

On 6/9/14, Vol. II goes LIVE everywhere ebooks are sold for $3.99.

#THESPANNERSSERIES #THISCHANGESMYFAMILYANDMYLIFEFOREVER #THISCHANGESEVERYTHING