Woodstove I just installed a woodstove in the studio. In honor of flames and firelight, particularly at a very quiet 9pm, when the kids are safely asleep, here’s a quick new tune: Woodstove. Cello was actually the first instrument I had formal lessons in. That lasted about a year. My parents finally realized that the instrument was about twice my size. Woodstove is more of a piano piece, just some improv to test one of the piano sounds in the keyboard I’m using. The cello tone is from a sample collection done by the Prague Philharmonic.
The sound of you on the ivories brought forth nostalgia I am slow to confess:) What the mind forgets the heart remembers – thanks for sharing that with us. We will listen to it tonight as we read our advent reading of the Christmas Mystery. Love to all
Remarkable how the years have gone by. Do you remember those jam sessions with everyone at the chalet? And the birthday songs, of course… Happy Advent!
Thank you Christopher, wonderfully relaxing.
Glad you like it.
Christopher,
I just finished the Tormay Trilogy. I don’t generally write to authors as a rule, but I had to write to tell you that I found the series to be absolutely flawless. It was progressive and well paced. The plot was riveting, the language picturesque. The characters were complex and real, without being confusing or tiresome. The journey was epic, in the vein of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, yet at a level that made the work approachable to the average reader. I tried to put it down so many times, but found myself driven to read just one more page … and one more… and one more…
I went online to find more of your work, but found only (apparently) trite, works children’s literature. It was only then that I realized that what I had read may have been meant as children’s literature as well. As much as I appreciate good kiddy lit (I am a teacher, after all) I cannot abide such an atrocity. This was a work of art, and should be offered and received by the world on the larger stage of fantasy literature as a whole. I would hate to think that some poor adult reader out there might choose not to read this book due to the misguided idea that it is “children’s literature.” More importantly, WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO WRITE MORE STUFF FOR US ADULTS?!
With sincere admiration,
Jim Cross
Hi Jim,
Thank you for your note. I’m very glad you enjoyed the trilogy. Writing books is an odd sort of thing, done in a silent vacuum. Hearing from even a single reader goes a long way to mitigate the silence. Anyway, when I set out to write Jute’s story, I had no intention of writing children’s literature. My primary audience was myself (40s). Since the books have been published, however, they’ve been read by an increasingly wider array of ages. I’ve been written to by people in their seventies who have enjoyed them, as well as children as young as twelve. Honestly, I never gave much thought to demographics when I was writing. I was just writing the story I wanted to read and, after a while, the story that the characters demanded be told. While I certainly don’t mind children reading the trilogy, I would be distressed to see it pegged solely as children’s literature.
The other stories I have published currently are either humorous short stories (very light-hearted, inconsequential stuff) and some fairly dark, short science fiction stories (unsuitable for children, for the most part). That said, I am working on some additional books that are definitely not aimed at kids: another Tormay book and a scifi thriller. I am not a quick writer, but I do get things done. Hopefully both will be finished sometime in 2012.
Thank you again for taking the time to write!
regards,
Christopher Bunn