Happy New Year everyone!

It’s time again for New Year’s Resolutions. When it comes to Time, we know the saying: “Time and Tide wait for no man.” But Herodotus wasn’t talking about Kronos, or chronological time, when he warned us when to put our sails up to catch that wave. He used the word Kairos – a unique kind of Time. Kairos is the exact instant, the perfect moment, the turning point.
Let’s do it Today.

I Had a Dream

Hello everyone:
It has been three months since my last newsletter, and three years since my last book. I’ve been really busy: Building castles in the air. In my opinion, building those castles may be the most important architectural work that anyone can accomplish. Here are a few examples…

The Age Returns” ( Motto of Lorenzo de’ Medici)

Building Castles in the Sky

Dr Martin Luther King was inspired in his civil rights movement by the work of the great Indian reformer, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who helped begin South Africa’s move toward independence and who liberated India from centuries of British overlords.

But who inspired Gandhi?

The answer is to be found in Gandhi’s extensive correspondence, his newspaper, his documented writings on the topic of Satyagraha, “passive resistance.” His inspiration lay in the (today) little-read writings of one of America’s great maverick thinkers, Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau was jailed in 1849 for civil disobedience, like Gandhi in 1909. Today, to commemorate our current breakdown of outdated regimes, tidal waves of change, the merging and mingling of common goals, let’s put some Thoreau into our “ideas pipeline”

Henry David Thoreau:

- Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away.

- Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.

- There is an incessant influx of novelty into the world, and yet we tolerate incredible dullness.

- To be strictly just, the government must have the sanction and consent of the governed…There will never be a totally free and enlightened state until the state comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.

- Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place of a just man is in prison

- It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, but for the right.

And my favorite:

- If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

John Dee’s Birthday (?): July 18, 1527

Today marks the birthday of that great Elizabethan magus, John Dee.(Actually, recent research indicates that he was born July 13 (old calendar) or perhaps July 24 (today’s reckoning.) So let’s celebrate him all month. He deserves it–as you’ll soon see! As official philosopher, astrologer and alchemist to England’s Queen Elizabeth I, Dee was the first to conduct a documented survey of Stonehenge; his stellar readings of weather and naval expertise helped Elizabeth’s navy defeat the Armada and conquer half the world; he possessed one of the great esoteric libraries on record (until it was torched by his ignorant, superstitious neighbors, the ‘illiterati’ as I like to think of them); and he also claimed to have devised a way to communicate with other levels of universal consciousness: namely, he thought he could talk to angels. The mysterious ’scrying stone’ he used for this purpose still exists, and indeed drew headlines, just a few years ago, when it was stolen from the British Museum.

My longtime friend and colleague, bestselling Spanish author Javier Sierra (the first Spanish writer ever to hit the NY Times list) has just published a thriller – which landed at number one on Spanish charts – in which Dee plays a significant role: The Lost Angel. I’ll be giving away some copies of the English language version on the American pub date, October 4, 2011 (coincidentally, October 4 is the birth date of both of the daughters of my two main characters in The Eight and The Fire!)

For more info on The Lost Angel: www.JavierSierra.com
To learn more about John Dee: www.JohnDee.org

Caravaggio’s Death: July 18, 1610

This is a day of my favorite angels. Four hundred (and one) years ago, the famous painter, Michelangelo Merisi of Caravaggio, died while returning to Rome to receive pardon from the Pope for a murder he’d committed on a tennis court. Caravaggio was christened (like Michelangelo Buonarotti of Sistine Chapel fame) for the warrior Archangel Michael. But this painter archangel-namesake was was a difficult guy – no angel by our standards – always in and out of sword fights, court trials, you name it.

I’ve loved Caravaggio and his paintings ever since I saw my first one, nearly 50 years ago, at the Seattle World’s Fair. I’ve been reading and writing about him for three decades. So don’t be surprised if he makes a guest appearance in the book I’m working on right now: painters in the 1600s!

Dee and Caravaggio died within 18 months of each other. It marked the end of an era.

Night on Bald Mountain

Tonight is one of the oldest northern European holidays, the magical evening just before May 1st – a night with such ancient, pagan roots that (along with “May Day”) it hasn’t yet been “Christianized” into the Church calendar. In Teutonic lore, tonight, Walpurgisnacht- “Woods Purging Night” – is the night when the dark forces of nature are unleashed on the mountaintops. Bonfires are lit and spirits rise from the woods to float up the high pinnacles and into the night sky. Walpurgisnacht is the night when Goethe’s Faust traveled with Mephistopheles to the sacred German mountain, the Brocken, to seek powers from these same primal forces of darkness. In this Night on Bald Mountain - as so powerfully depicted in the Disney film Fantasia, accompanied by the pagan rhythms of Moussorgsky – we see the dark forces dispelled with the approaching dawn of May Day. Coincidentally, tonight, April 30, also marks the 66th anniversary (as described in my book,The Magic Circle) of the suicide in a Berlin bunker of someone who unleashed a dark cloud of his own over the past century: Adolf Hitler.

Perhaps on this particular May Eve, it is time to do a bit of purging of our own woods: weed out the dead wood from our past year – prejudice, resentment, hatred, envy, strife – any debris that wastes our time and burns a hole in our energies, our pockets or our hearts. Let’s break this all into kindling, toss it onto the bonfire, and help everybody illuminate the corners of the dark forest. Then let’s get the heck out of here and go build a maypole that we can dance around, all throughout the coming year!

The Lusty Month of May

May is named for Maia, mother of Hermes (an incorrigible child who grew up to be messenger to the gods and the father of alchemy.) Maia herself was a mountain nymph who later became one of the Pleiades, those stars called Seven Sisters. The first day of Maia’s month (in old Irish, Beltaine or “Bel’s Fires”) marked the beginning of Celtic summer, the time each year when love, lust and mating rituals flourish, along with plants, birds, bees and other critters. Just as Hermes played a key role in my book The Eight, so his mother Maia has likely inspired a few mating rituals in the book I am writing right now! Wish me luck!

Happy summer to all!

To see the winners of the Thriller contest click here: Thrillers: 100 Must-Reads (Giveaway)
Please visit my web site click here: KatherineNeville.com

Dr Dian Fetter: the artist in Santa Fe!

The photo of me here was taken in Santa Fe by my friend, the Egyptologist and art professor, Dr Dian Fetter. Dian (whose birthday is fittingly today – the first day of Spring) was a fascinating and colorful individual who’d taught art in Maryland and led tours of rivers in Egypt, islands in Greece, and mountains in China. When Dian became ill it never kept her down – she continued dashing all over the planet, opening the Great Library at Alexandria, Egypt, and – when forced to give up oil paints – she continued with collage and photography, some of these works inspired by trips to she made to my place in Santa Fe with her Greek daughter Melita. The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore did a memorial tribute to Dian’s life and work in November, 2010. I am now the surprised beneficiary of all Dian’s art supplies and equipment, which she hoped would inspire me (as they have) to start painting again to prepare for my next book, a novel about painters. I also inherited a piece from Dian’s last series of collage constructions (dubbed “The Katherine Neville Series”), that she created from some of the 1100 daffodils that she dried and pressed – gathered many decades ago from my woods at my first house in Virginia. More about Dian’s interesting projects will appear under The Quest when we revamp my web site during 2011-2012.

Left Coast Crime in Santa Fe!

The popular writers’ conference, Left Coast Crime, is held each year in various cities in the western half of the US: this year it is at the historic La Fonda hotel in Santa Fe, New Mexico – which was once a rail stop restaurant of the Harvey Girls of Judy Garland fame. (Remember, her song ends: “The Atchison, Topeka and the….Santa Fe”!) I was delighted to be asked by this year’s organizers to interview one of my favorite and most inspiring fellow writers (and former California neighbor), the wonderful Martin Cruz Smith – for his Lifetime Achievement Award.

Click here to learn more about this year’s Left Coast Crime and the amazing Mr Smith.

Thrillers: 100 Must-Reads (Giveaway)

I was thrilled to learn that one of my favorite books has been nominated for this year’s Edgar Allan Poe Award, presented by Mystery Writers of America in New York City on April 28: this is the (first-ever-in-history) compendium of groundbreaking thrillers: Thrillers: 100 Must-Reads, edited by David Morrell and Hank Wagner and published by Oceanview Press. And I was doubly delighted when I first learned that my own book, The Eight, had been selected by the International Thriller Writers to be included in the 100 Must-Reads! And I was triply thrilled when I myself was asked to write the article about one of the world’s all-time great Thrillers: the only actual novel that Edgar Allan Poe ever wrote.

Click here to enter the contest to receive one of twelve free copies of this wonderful compendium: Thrillers: 100 Must-Reads.

Click here to learn more about the 2011 Edgar Awards.
(As chair of the Best Short Story committee this year, I will be in New York hanging out with fun writers and presenting the Best Short Story and Robert L Fish Memorial awards.)

Happy Groundhog Day!

“How much wood would a Woodchuck chuck If a Woodchuck could chuck wood?” – Children’s tongue-twister

The Woodchuck (from its Cree Indian name “Otchock”) is a large North America Marmot that today we call Groundhog, for its habit of hibernating in deep underground tunnels. Woodchuck, or Groundhog Day, was originally the ancient Celtic festival of Imbolc, celebrated as Brigantia in Northern Spain and Ireland, and later as Candelaria (Candle-Mass) in the early medieval Christian church. Whatever its symbolism has been for various cultures, in today’s Western folk wisdom, February 2 remains the day when we learn whether winter is over, through “rodent prognostication”: If the Groundhog surfaces and sees his shadow, he retreats back underground for another 6 weeks of winter. If it’s cloudy out, we may assume that sunny skies are just ahead. If you planted a Solstice Money Tree 6 weeks ago and watered it (see my Dec 21 Solstice Newsletter ) then now, on Groundhog Day, you may be just about ready to pluck the fruits of your winter labors. If not, you may want to go back under and encourage some of those roots to start growing!

Here are two trees that I’m nurturing, which I hope will produce something great::

Love Letters For Literacy:

The Washington Literacy Council is a volunteer-based organization with one mission: it trains illiterate adults inside the District of Columbia (Washington DC) to read. It is hard to imagine – while living in a free and democratic country in the modern world – that Our Nation’s Capital has the highest percentage of illiterate adults of almost any city across America: more than 36% of adults in DC cannot read. Each Valentine’s Day week we have a dinner, “Love Letters for Literacy,” to raise money for this critical mission. This year our “honorary” co-chairs are the Speaker of the House of Representatives (Republican) and the House Democratic Leader (and Former Speaker.) Which just goes to show that if you plant the right tree, people will even walk across the aisle to water it. For those who want to learn more, or attend the dinner, please go to: www.WashingtonLiteracyCouncil.org

Smithsonian Institution Libraries

Some of the most fascinating books on the planet are located within the 20 libraries of the Smithsonian Institution’s Museums. These include the libraries of the National Air and Space Museum, the Dibner Library of Science and Technology, the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery, the Cooper-Hewitt, as well as museums of African art, Asian art, Natural History, and so on. ALL THE BOOKS IN THESE MUSEUMS BELONG TO US, the citizens of the United States. We can see them and touch them and do research with them whenever we want. As taxpayers, we already foot part of the bill for the support of the libraries, since our government provides some percent of support for the museums where they are housed. As of January 1, 2011, I am on the Libraries’ Board, and will be sending updates from the field. Meanwhile, if you want to learn more about the Smithsonian Libraries and their fabulous books, please check out: www.sil.si.edu

Please visit www.KatherineNeville.com for upcoming details

Coming in future Newsletter:

March: Katherine interviews Martin Cruz Smith at LEFT COAST CRIME in Santa Fe

April: “THE 100 MUST-READ THRILLERS” (including THE EIGHT) is nominated for an Edgar Allan Poe Award

The Solstice Money Tree

All my friends, both spiritual and material types, have asked me to write something about Money. So here it is. The first day of winter, the Solstice*, is the shortest day of the year, the day when we have the least sunlight. At this year’s solstice (tonight) we have a full lunar eclipse that can be seen throughout western Europe, North and South America, and eastern Pacific. This means that our major celestial lights, the sun and moon, at precisely the same moment are “on a dimmer.” So let’s take this opportunity, as we head into winter, to close our own eyes, enter the quiet darkness, and reflect upon what we’ve been doing this past year – especially with regard to Money. Everyone seems concerned about money right now, and in my opinion, it’s about time. Many of us have recently realized that we may not have “squirreled away” quite enough nuts to last us until Spring. But hoarding things only benefits animals that hibernate. (I only suggested that we should close our eyes, not crawl under a rock!).

The Tree of Life:

In ancient times, ” Matter” (materia=matter=mater=mother=the earth) was always connected with “Spirit” (idea=sperm=seed=thefather=the sky). This time of year, the Solstice, when the sun “stops”, is the perfect time to connect spirit and matter. One of the five pillars of Islam requires us to provide money to help others. The Confucian philosophy requires balance between yin-yang (female-male.) And when it comes to investment, maybe Jesus threw the moneylenders out, but he advocated dividing our loaves and fishes, and casting our bread upon the waters. So let’s take a look at our own “bread” and figure out how to make the world a better place. People always say that money “doesn’t grow on trees.” But money does grow AS a tree grows. Maybe we need to plant flowers or grains after the danger of frost, but right now – between Solstice, December 21, and Candlemas (Groundhog Day), February 2 – is the best time to plant trees, when the earth is cold and the roots have many months to establish, before the tree is required to expend its energy in producing leaves. flowers, and fruits. It’s also the optimum time to plant money. So this newsletter is about how each of us can plant and grow a Winter Solstice Money Tree that makes the world a better place for us to live. (Personally, I own a 20-year-old car that still gets 36 miles to the gallon. I’m not buying a new one to aid the automotive industry. But I’m “planting” books in libraries and educational grants in the arts, for what I might have spent on a new car and unnecessary gas.) So in this next six weeks – from Solstice to Candlemas, as the sun returns – let’s see how much bread we can cast forth. And how much we get back.

You’ll be amazed.

Winners of the TURNING THE SOLOMON KEY contest have been posted here.

*For the ancient meanings of Winter Solstice, see my 2009 Solstice Newsletter.

Happy Hallowe’en!

These three days mark a critical point in the year–days which we call, in the Western Christian calendar: All Hallows Eve or Hallowe’en (October 31), All Saints Day (November 1), and All Souls’ Day (November 2 ). In most ancient calendars, these were “days out of time,”–set aside from the calendar as the turning point marking the transition from the old year to the new year. In the Celtic calendar, this was the start of the month Samhain (pronounced “sow-ayn” for the wild boar goddess), and in ancient Egypt it was “The Isia”–the festival of the goddess Isis, celebrating the dismemberment (and her reassembling) of the god Osiris. Throughout Europe, these few days marked one of the four important annual fire festivals–in this case, the time each year when ghosts were permitted out of the ground to flit around loose, and bonfires were tended throughout the night to cleanse the earth and prepare the way for new crops in the coming year (which began November 3.) So it is appropriate that our national elections, here in the U.S., which always take place on the first Tuesday in November, will this year fall on November 2! Regardless who wins or loses the race, during each cycle when the leaves fall, old ghosts can take their departure and new crops can be made ready for a fresh new season. This year, revitalization of our nation’s soil carries us across the threshold of a new Celtic year.

To learn about ancient Native American festivals and my own town, Washington, DC, check out my novel: THE FIRE.

Freemasons and Washington DC

I was honored, many years ago, to be asked to write the foreword for a fascinating book. Many books have come out lately–both fiction and nonfiction– about freemasons, secret symbols, and Washington, DC. But this one preceded them all. Turning the Solomon Key by my friend, Robert Lomas, is the story of George Washington’s fascination with Freemasonry; it contains much fresh, original information from the Library of Congress and GW’s own personal daybooks and almanacs. Robert Lomas is the top-selling Freemason author in history. He has written many books–some with his fellow Freemason, Christopher Knight–that have inspired many of my friends and fellow novelists, far and wide with their colorful theses about the dawn of Freemasonry and its connections with Christianity and ancient Egypt. Some of these titles are: The Second Messiah, The Book of Hiram, The Hiram Key, and my own personal favorite: Freemasonry and the Birth of Modern Science. In my foreword to Turning the Solomon Key, I describe a meeting with Robert Lomas and Chris Knight in the Orkney Isles, and how we went on foot together through the fog, for a private midnight visit to the oldest existing Freemason lodge in the world. Indeed, I may be the only woman to have laid eyes on the Kirkwall Scroll, which reveals the ancient history of masonry!

November Giveaway: Turning the Solomon Key
To sign up to win one of twelve free copies of the story of George Washington’s Freemasonic DC (winners will be announced in December) please click: Turning the Solomon Key

October Winners are Chosen:
To see who won a copy of Masters of Technique, the Chess Anthology, with my short story, En Passant, click here: En Passant

The Lewis Chess Enigma

Years ago, thanks to my friend Katherine Falk, Lady Barrow, founder of the Romantic Times – I became a supporter of the National Museums of Scotland where my name now appears, along with many fellow authors, on a chain link on the museum’s floor of benefactors. I’m therefore delighted to share the National Museums of Scotland’s year-long traveling exhibition, in conjunction with the British Museum - The Lewis Chessmen: Unmasked – which includes an interactive web site with games, archaeology, and more. These enigmatic 12th-century chessmen, carved of whale and walrus ivory, were discovered in 1831 on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland, and they were one of my big inspirations for writing The Eight and The Fire. They were last seen appearing dramatically as wizard chessmen, in the first Harry Potter film.

To glimpse the Lewis Chessmen on my site, click here to watch the one-minute film trailer for The Fire

To follow the real chessmen across the British Isles, visit The Lewis Chessmen: Unmasked

The Lewis Carroll Enigma

I wrote the first story in this fresh new collection, Masters of Technique: the Mongoose Anthology of Chess Fiction – called “the first chess fiction anthology of contemporary short stories, ever published.” Tales range from esoteric gambits to smothered mates, from witchcraft in New England (Stephen Carter) to Sherlock Holmes in Olde England (Mark Coggins.) My own story, En Passant, takes place on an important day in May of 1873, when the Oxford Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) receives a mysterious summons to a game of chess in the garden of the Deanery – by none other than the Dean’s enchanting, and now very grownup, daughter, Alice Liddell (Alice in Wonderland.) I was helped in my most intriguing research for this story by the Lewis Carroll Society of North America, which also (especially since the recent Disney movie release of Alice) has been holding ever more wonderful get-togethers and research trips!

To learn more about the Lewis Carroll Society’s fascinating activities, visit: www.lewiscarroll.org

To read the Lewis Carroll Society’s blog on Masters of Technique, click here

SEPTEMBER GIVEAWAY: Masters of Technique
To sign up to win one of twelve free copies of the new anthology of contemporary chess tales from Mongoose Press (winners will be announced in early October), please click: Masters of Technique

August Winners are chosen:
To see who won a copy of Chesapeake Crimes with my Foreword, click: Chesapeake Crimes Winners

HAPPY SEPTEMBER!

August 8, 2010

THE EIGHT was honored twice this past month – nationally and internationally!

THE EIGHT: National Public Radio’s Top 100 ‘Killer-Thrillers’!

This July, in a national poll by National Public Radio, more than 117,000 fans voted to select their 600 all-time favorite Thrillers, then they picked the top 100 Thrillers of all time. The Eight (most mysteriously) landed at Number 88! I am astonished and delighted to be one of only ten female writers on this list of 100- along with luminaries like Agatha Christie, Daphne du Maurier, Laura Lippman and Patricia Highsmith. And many thanks to my pals and fellow mystery writers, Louis Bayard, Marcia Talley, and Daniel Stashower, who told me of this contest just in time for my lucky 8/8 newsletter!

For those who wish to check out the other 99 books chosen by National Public Radio listeners around the country, please click here: NPR Killer-Thriller Contest.

THE EIGHT: International Thriller Writers’ Hundred ‘Must-Read’ Thrillers!

At this July’s Thrillerfest in New York City – during a sign-in cocktail party, with dozens of the world’s favorite writers, all of whom contributed to the book, signing in clusters at tables around the room – the International Thriller Writers organization officially launched the first-ever ‘encyclopedia’ of thriller fiction, Thriller: 100 Must-Reads (edited by thriller master David Morrell and Hank Wagner, published by Oceanview Press.) I am literally thrilled that The Eight was chosen – alongside books like Gorky Park and The Odyssey – as one of the ‘100 Must-Read Thrillers.’ Another thrill for me was being asked by the editors to contribute the article in the book on Edgar Allan Poe’s one and only novel: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym.

Stay tuned: During the holidays, we’ll be doing a giveaway of the hardback on my web site.

AUGUST GIVEAWAY: Chesapeake Crimes 4: They Had it Comin’

I wrote the Foreword for this fun collection of 20 short stories – perfect for beach reading – from Sisters in Crime, Chesapeake Chapter, published by Wildside Press. To read my Foreword, see the book, and sign up to win one of twelve free copies, click here: Chesapeake Crimes

July’s Winners are chosen :
To see who won a copy of Thriller, containing my story, click here: The Tuesday Club Winners.

HAPPY SUMMER! Please visit me at KATHERINENEVILLE.COM