by Gail Ingis | Jul 28, 2014 | Events, News
PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
Connecticut Writers Welcome Bestselling Suspense Author to Teach Multi-Day Workshop
Cherry Adair to teach master class workshop to writers of all genres this fall
Meriden, CT–July 28, 2014–Connecticut Romance Writers of America (CTRWA) is pleased to announce they will be welcoming author Cherry Adair
Cherry Adair, Author
to teach a master level workshop, “Everything and the Kitchen Sink.” The workshop will take place at the Four-Points Sheraton in Meriden, CT, on September 13-14, 2014. Writers of all genres are welcome and can benefit from this workshop.
Adair will be teaching writers how to build 3-D characters who leap off the page, how to create luminous dialogue, and how to layer and texture your novel so that every word does at least two jobs. Students will learn the elements of plotting in order to write faster and smarter. Adair will even discuss how to construct a viable career plan so writers can have the career they want. Many CTRWA members have attended Adair’s workshops in the past and can attest to her passion for both writing and teaching.
New York Times/USA Today bestselling author Cherry Adair has carved a niche for herself with her sexy, sassy, fast-paced, action adventure novels which have appeared on numerous bestsellers lists, won dozens of awards and garnered praise from reviewers and fans alike. She hates first drafts, has a passion for mentoring unpublished writers, and is hard at work on three series – T-FLAC, CUTTER CAY and LODESTONE.
For more details on how to register for the workshop, as well as information about the hotel, please visit www.ctrwa.org and go to the heading “Cherry Adair Master Class.”
Cherry Adair is Imaginative, inventive, innovative and, oh yes. . .fun. She is patient, yet stirs things up. I speak from personal experience, Cherry was one of my teachers. She is lovable and as personable as it gets. And to add to the pot brewing great stuff, the writers you will meet at this workshop are some of the nicest, kindest, best people you will ever shake hands with, hmm, bump hands. (To avoid 90% of the germs you get with our traditional handshake.)
It’s easy to register, see the link above, or here it is again: www.ctrwa.org and go to the heading “Cherry Adair Master Class.”
What do you think? Want to have a wonderful day learning about writing? Now’s your chance. Go for it!
by Gail Ingis | Jul 23, 2014 | Events, History, News
I was alone. A sultry day in July, the air was blazing, the temperature in the nineties. Jumping into the giant soaring waves was revitalizing, refreshing, exciting. I waited for the next, then the next and jumped into it as it pounded down around me. Suddenly, I found myself under the waves gasping for air and flailing my arms as the force of nature pulled me under. Would someone see a child in distress and come to my rescue? I never noticed a lifeguard on duty, who even thought about it? I tried to scramble out onto the safety of the beach, but instead, the undertow pulled me further into the ocean. 
One more time, and I thought I would drown. With all my might, I pushed myself up towards the beach, then finally, finally I stood up and with difficulty moved by feet through the pull of the water to the beach. Are you questioning how I could remember? Since that day, I have told the story lots. Never, I promised myself, will that happen to me again. And it hasn’t. I don’t go into the ocean when the waves are bigger than me. I was pretty tall for my age of eight, and was a good swimmer, but it didn’t make a difference. I was at the mercy of the ocean. We had a cottage just up the street, in Rockaway Beach. That’s in Queens, New York. The experience put a damper on being an ocean lover. The almost drowning is what I think of when I witness gigantic waves like the ones at Jones Beach. I spent many a summer at Jones Beach watching my kids jump in and out of the waves. Can’t stop kid
s from doing their own wave challenges, but I was ready in a moment’s notice to jump in if one of my kids needed me.
New York beaches are far from innocent, not only are there dangerous undertows, but now there is an increase in shark population. Be on the lookout.
The beaches are rich in culture, have soft sparkly sand and clean water to swim. Jones Beach is actually a state park, founded by Robert Moses. It has bathhouses, an outdoor a
rena and a long boardwalk. When Moses’ group first surveyed Jones Island, it was swampy and only two feet above sea level; the island frequently became completely submerged during storms. To create the park, huge dredgers worked day till midnight to bring sand from the bay bottom, eventually bringing the island to twelve feet above sea level. Another problem that followed was the wind—the fine silver beach sand would blow horribly, making the workers miserable and making the use of the beach as a recreational facility unlikely. Moses sent landscape architects to other stable Long Island beaches, who reported that a beach grass (Ammophilia arenaria), whose roots grew sideways in search of water, held dunes in place, forming a barrier to the wind. In the summer of 1928, thousands of men worked on the beach planting the grass by hand.
In 1930, Robert Moses hired Rosebud Yellow Robe as Director of the Indian Village at Jones Beach State Park. Rosebud became a public celebrity to thousands of children who visited the village every summer from 1930 to 1950, It was created as a Plains Indian village with three large tipis. The large Council Tipi contained museum cases with artifacts borrowed from the American Museum of History. The other tipis served as clubhouses for the children. Rosebud told stories and folklore of the Lakota and local Eastern Woodlands tribes.
Rosebud worked as Director of the Indian Village
Rosebud
for years, and taught tens of thousands of school children and several generations of New Yorkers about Native American history and culture. Rosebud recalled, “When I first lectured to public school classes in New York, many of the smaller children hid under their desks, for they knew from the movies what a blood-thirsty scalping Indian might do to them.”
Jones Beach is accessible by car
, boat bicycle, and in the summer season by bus or even the Long Island Rail Road to Freeport and then a bus. There are fire works at Zach’s Bay on July 4th. There is a $10 cost for parking. A $65 New York State Empire Passport can be used to park for free.
New York beaches are all over the state. Do you like the beach? Where would you go?
by Gail Ingis | Jul 16, 2014 | Events, History, News
I grew up in my beloved borough of Brooklyn. It was just over the bridge to the city where I visited museums, art galleries, shopped Bloomies, boutiques and did design school. Don’t ask–I practically lived in the city. After today’s lecture at the Lockwood Mathews Mansion Museum in Norwalk, CT, I learned about a whole new Brooklyn and New York that I never knew. Historian Justin Ferate talked about hidden houses, insider’s clubs, offbeat treasures, secret gardens, and things like the monument dedicated to the our soldiers that died in the revolutionary war.
Monument was designed by architect Stanford White
The Prison Ship Martyrs’ Monument in Fort Greene Park, in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, is a memorial to the more than 11,500 American prisoners of war who died in captivity aboard sixteen British prison ships during the American Revolutionary War. The remains of a small fraction of those who died on the ships are interred in a crypt beneath its base. The ships included the HMS Jersey, the Scorpion, the Hope, the Falmouth, the Stromboli, Hunter, and others.
The column carries this inscription: “1776 THE PRISON SHIP MARTYRS MONUMENT 1908”. The grand staircase of 100 80-feet-wide granite steps rises in three stages. At the foot of the staircase, the entrance to the vault was covered by a slab of brown sandstone, now in storage, that bears the names of the 1808 monument committee and builders and this inscription: Their remains were first gathered and interred in 1808. In 1867 landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, designers of Central Park and Prospect Park, were engaged to prepare a new design for Washington Park as well as a new crypt for the remains of the prison ship martyrs. In 1873, after urban growth hemmed in that site near the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the remains were moved and re-interred in a crypt beneath a small monument. Funds were raised for a larger monument, which was designed by noted architect Stanford White. Constructed of granite, its single Doric column 149 feet (45 m) in height sits over the crypt at the top of a 100-foot (30 m)-wide 33 step staircase. At the top of the column is an eight-ton bronze brazier, a funeral urn, by sculptor Adolf Weinman. President-elect William Howard Taft delivered the principal address when the monument was dedicated in 1908.
Plaque at the bottom of the monument
A plaque was added in 1960 located across from the front label on the monument. The plaque reads:
In memory of the 11,500 patriotic American sailors and soldiers who endured untold suffering and died on the prison British ships anchored in Wallabout Bay during the Revolutionary War 1776- 1782. Their remains lie buried in the crypt at the base of this monument which was dedicated on November 14, 1908. This plaque was afforded by The Society of Old Brooklynites on June 1, 1960. Farelly Crane M.D. President.
18th century ships
During the Revolutionary War, the British maintained a series of prison ships in the New York Harbor and jails on the shore for captured prisoners of war. Due to brutal conditions, more Americans died in British jails and prison ships in New York Harbor than in all the battles of the American Revolutionary War.
The British quickly disposed of the bodies of the dead from the jails and ships by quick interment or throwing the bodies overboard. Following the end of the American Revolutionary War in 1783, the remains of those who died on the 16 prison ships were neglected, left to lie along the Brooklyn shore on Wallabout Bay, a rural area little visited by New Yorkers. On January 21, 1877, the New York Times reported that the dead came from all parts of the nation and “every state of the Union was represented among them.”
If you ever have the opportunity to hear Justin speak, run and sign up. He is a font of information presented with great spirit. All spoken off the cuff, no notes in his hands, only a powerful power point presentation with beautiful images.
What secret places do you know?
by Gail Ingis | Jul 9, 2014 | Events, History, News
Hampden Robb Mansion by Architect Stanford White, 1891, in Murray Hill, Manhattan.
Here’s a lecture you might want to hear. Especially if you love historic explorations. New York city is filled with historic wonder. Urban historian Justin Ferate — described by The New York Times as the “revered city Tour Guide among Tour Guides” — will give an “insider’s virtual tour” of the “Nooks and Crannies of New York City.”
On Wednesday, July 16, Ferate will present a lecture at the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum. The event will include lunch and a tour of the first floor at the National Historic Landmark. Reservations will be accepted through Friday, July 11.
“Ferate will take attendees on a virtual tour through some of New York City’s rich, secretive landmarks, many unknown to even the most diehard New Yorkers. He will reveal fascinating, yet lesser-known points of interests in one of the most iconic cities in the world, including some of New York’s more offbeat treasures, secret gardens, hidden houses and covert byways,” according to the museum.
Ferate is director of Tours of the City, a specialty company that has created educational tours of New York, focusing on the architectural, social, ethnic, literary and cultural histories of the city for more than 30 years.
Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum, 295 West Ave., Norwalk. Wednesday, July 16, 11 a.m. $30, includes a great lunch and first-floor mansion tour that will dazzle you. 203-838-9799, ext. 4 or email: info@lockwoodmathewsmansion.com.
by Gail Ingis | Jul 2, 2014 | Events, History, News
Penny-farthing, high wheel, high wheeler, and ordinary, are all terms used to describe a type of bicycle with a large front wheel and a much smaller rear wheel that was popular after the boneshaker, until the development of the safety bicycle, in the 1880s. They were the first machines to be called ‘bicycles’. 
Although they are now most commonly known as “penny-farthings”, this term was probably not used until they were nearly outdated; the first recorded print reference is 1891 in Bicycling News. It comes from the British penny and farthing coins, one much larger than the other, so that the side view resembles a penny leading a farthing. For most of their reign, they were simply known as “bicycles”. In the late 1890s, the retronym “ordinary” began to be used, to distinguish them from the emerging safety bicycles, and this term or Hi-wheel (and variants) is preferred by many modern enthusiasts.
Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum in Norwalk, Connecticut had their ice cream social on Sunday, June 22, 2014. Reminiscent of the days long, long ago, so many women were dressed in their Victorian day dresses, men in top hats, and James and his penny-Farthing.
James on his own Penny-farthing
What a strange name for this mode of transportation from the late 19th century. Although the trend was short-lived, the penny-farthing became a symbol of the late Victorian era. I asked James to demonstrate the penny-farthing for me. He had to run next to it in order to get on. Then he mounted it while running, drove around, came back and dismounted, sliding off over the small wheel. Strange, but it didn’t seem too difficult, as long as you don’t ask me to do it. He told me he rides every weekend, and that he belongs to an antique bicycle club called the “Wheelmen.” 
In 1888, when John Dunlop re-invented the pneumatic tire for his son’s tricycle, the high wheel was made obsolete. The comfortable ride once found only on tall wheels could now be enjoyed on smaller chain-driven bicycles. By 1893, high-wheelers were no longer being produced. Use lingered into the 1920s in track cycling until racing safety bicycles were perfected. Today, enthusiasts ride restored penny-farthings, and a few manufacturers build new ones.
Have you ever tried to ride a penny-farthing?
“Ferate will take attendees on a virtual tour through some of New York City’s rich, secretive landmarks, many unknown to even the most diehard New Yorkers. He will reveal fascinating, yet lesser-known points of interests in one of the most iconic cities in the world, including some of New York’s more offbeat treasures, secret gardens, hidden houses and covert byways,” according to the museum.
Recent Comments