Release day -- Time and Circumstance by Theresa Milstein -- guest post.

Hi all!

This year I've made a commitment to read and review more blogger books and do the occasional host post on bloggers whose books I've read.

Today I'm hosting a blogger I've known for years, fellow teacher Theresa Milstein. She was kind enough to send me a copy of her book, Time & Circumstance for review, which I devoured very quickly, being a huge fan of flash fiction and poetry. And, great news, it's released TODAY!

Here's my very short review, already posted on Goodreads:

Time and Circumstance is especially interesting, as we don't often see a compilation of both flash fiction and poetry. PART ONE - TEMPO ADAGIO is prose, cutting edge slices of life, beautifully written, at times humorous, at times poignant, at times sad. Theresa captured my attention right from the first story - RESOLUTION - told from the POV of an 18 year old college student. The protagonist is torn between the nostalgic TV shows she finds addictive such as Bewitched and her college attendance. I love the lines: 'Who wouldn't perform magic to make their lives better?' Who indeed?

PART TWO - TEMPO ALLEGRO, is the poetry selection. Theresa's love of poetry shines through. I was taken by her (I'm not sure what they're called in the US,) shape poems, especially the PERFECT STATE OF BEING where she writes about Spirit Mind Body. I love the poem and how it appears on the page.

I hope I've given you the tiniest taste of Theresa's excellent book. I hope you'll support her on her blog tour (go HERE for the times/dates/hosts) and be convinced to buy her book.

So, over to you, Theresa!

The ways these stories came about are as varied as the stories themselves. After writing full-length manuscripts for children and teens seriously for five or six years, I finally started writing short stories. I’d heard I would learn to make every word count. Also, I wanted to start being published, and Stephen King started by getting short stories published.

Around the same time I began writing short stories, I wrote some flash fiction based on some blog challenges and I took a poetry workshop series. Then Jessica Bell began Vine Leaves Literary Journal to promote the vignette. Realizing there could be pieces where the main goal wasn’t beginning-middle-end was freeing for me. I enjoyed taking a small space and expanding on mood, setting, character.

The first part of my book, Time and Circumstance, is dedicated to prose. I included “Daisy,” which is the first story I ever submitted and which got published. It was originally in an anthology 100 Stories for Queensland to raise money for flood victims. It was the first piece I’d ever written for adults, and it’s deliciously dark. The original inspiration is from a TV show called L.A. Law. I can’t say which episode, or it will give the ending away! The pieces included in that section were also inspired by picture prompts, blog challenges, and events in my own life.

The second part of the book is dedicated to poetry. There too is the first poem I ever got published, “Dark Days,” which appeared in Vine Leaves Literary Journal. That poem explores a broken family from the perspective of a teen. I often paired the poetry in this section with picture prompts from a now inactive blog called “Magpie Tales.” Sometimes I wrote the poem first, and when a photo or painting posted that seemed to fit, I connected them. Other times the paintings and photos inspired me to write a poem. But many poems are inspired by my own life.

When I began pulling pieces for the collection, written over five years, this theme of the unrelenting passage of time surfaced.  In these last couple of years as my children are growing, it’s been weighing on me what a short gift I had to have this family of four. People we love come into our lives just as easily as they leave it. No matter how much we want to hold onto time, every moment is just a phase. And we are a product of our time, our circumstance. So my favorite quote by James Baldwin became the title to bring these small pieces together.

Theresa Milstein writes middle grade and YA, but poetry is her secret passion. Her vignette collection, TIME and CIRCUMSTANCE, will be published by Vine Leaves Press on March 21, 2017. She lives near Boston Massachusetts with her husband, two children, a dog-like cat, and a cat-like dog. For her day job, she works as a special education teacher in a public school, which gives her ample opportunity to observe teens and tweens in their natural habitat. 

TIME and CIRCUMSTANCE 

$3.99 AUD (eBook)
Kindle AUS
Kindle US
Kindle UK
Kindle CA
iBooks | Kobo | Nook

$12.99 AUD (paperback)
Amazon US
Amazon UK
​Amazon CA
Barnes & Noble
Book Depository
Chapters Indigo

Leave a comment  and you’re eligible to win a prize during my blog tour!

1 $25 Amazon gift card

1 signed paperback copy

1 ebook

Answer the question:

“If you could relive any moment in time, what would it be?”

Extra entries if you share on Facebook or Twitter and link it to me.

@TheresaMilstein on Twitter.

@Theresa Milstein on Facebook

#ReliveMoment or #TimeandCircumstance

Winners will be announced on April 5, 2017

Thanks so much for dropping by and telling us more about yourself, your writing, and your book, Theresa. I wish you happy trails and happy sales! 

I'm especially interested in how many of your stories/poems were the product of participating in blog challenges etc. I can say the same thing happens with me.