FREE sample of a great summer read...

Hi there

There are so many wonderful books by so many incredible writers. I know I can't keep track of them all. So, since I'm a Montreal writer with a great book you may not have heard of, a book that might be your perfect summer read, I thought I would take this opportunity to tell you about it, and offer you a free sample.

The FREE story is here: http://bit.ly/zXV1ne; “Pie” won Gemini Magazine’s first flash fiction contest. I hope you enjoy it; it’s a story that has deep resonance for me.

THE MEANING OF CHILDREN is an award winning collection of 14 short stories, most of them published in CanLit magazines (The Antigonish Review, carte blanche, Descant, Exile Quarterly, The Nashwaak Review, The New Quarterly, Windsor Review, etc. etc. etc.).

It won the David Adams Richards Prize from the Writers Federation of New Brunswick, the Mona Adilman Prize for fiction on Jewish themes (a JI Segal Award), and made the 2011 CBC-Scotiabank Giller Prize Readers’ Choice Contest Top 10.

The Paperback is $14.40 and the E-book is $5.08 $2.99

"Beverly Akerman’s collection of stories THE MEANING OF CHILDREN manages to capture with both wit and wisdom the effervescence, the indignities, the curiosity, and the fear that are part of a child’s eye view of the world. This book is teeming with wit and quality observation."

~ JI Segal Award Jury

"A keen, incisive vision into the hidden world of children as well as intimate knowledge of the secret spaces that exist between the everyday events of life. A work with a brilliant sense of story…Magical, and so refreshing for me to read. I absolutely loved it and I hope it goes on to do marvellous things. Yours is a luminous talent."

~JoAnne Soper-Cook, Author and Judge, the Writers Federation of New Brunswick's 2010 David Adams Richards Prize

THE MEANING OF CHILDREN was favourably reviewed by The Globe and Mail, The Montreal Gazette, The Rover, and The Western Star, among other places...here are a couple more comments (many more, including the incredible Readers' Choice comments, can be found here):

“This isn’t the invented childhood of imagination and wonderment…[here] children both corrupt and redeem: each other, family relationships and the female body.”
~Katie Hewitt, The Globe and Mail

“Akerman holds up our greatest fears, not to dwell on them, but to marvel at our commitment to life, especially to passing it on to others.”
~Anne Chudobiak, The Montreal Gazette

“A collection of 14 short stories which covers the range of experience from the point of view of children, mums, and also aging parents as well. It’s all there in this lovely little book, short stories about life in a family that might just resemble yours. A wonderful gift for mother’s day, perhaps more long lived than the usual cut flowers.”
~Anne Lagacé Dowson, CJAD Radio journalist (Interview: http://youtu.be/djOXwJasZes)

Anyway, that's my spiel. Hope I haven't bent your ear too much and that you have a wonderful summer. 

And thank you for supporting great books and their writers!

Best wishes,

Beverly Akerman

PS THE MEANING OF CHILDREN would love to make your college or university syllabus!

THE MEANING OF CHILDREN: Amazon review roundup...

A few of the superlative reviews from THE MEANING OF CHILDREN'S Amazon.com review page

 

 

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful

 

5.0 out of 5 stars I can't stop thinking about this book May 2, 2012

 

By Martin Crosbie

 

It's been over a week since I read this collection of short stories and the characters are still with me.
These are stories about real people, real children, teenagers, adults, in real times. I went through a whole range of emotions when I read them, some good, some not so good. When the child was sitting on the stairs listening to her parents, I was right there with her. When the adult was sitting by the lake contemplating what happened years before and looking at her present day life, I was sitting across from her, doing the same thing. I can't remember a book, let alone a collection of short stories, where I could identify so heavily with the emotions and feelings of the characters.

As far as I'm concerned, this is what good writing, and a good book, should do for you. Yes, it entertained for sure, but it made me think and remember.

If you enjoy quality writing and a book that will make you think about where you've been and where you're going read The Meaning Of Children.
 

Highly recommended.

 8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

 

5.0 out of 5 stars A life-altering read is so rare for a writer ... May 25, 2012

 

By Michelle Greysen / Professional Freelance Writer

 

 

I reviewed this title on my Blog a while back and as you will read it has altered my own thoughts on childhood recollections. Thrilled to not only own a personally signed copy but to now have an iPad version to re-read these haunting stories. Not only for people with children, but for anyone who was ever a child.

Some excerpts from my blog review pasted here (to read more visit my web site and blog):

"... A life-altering read is so rare for me, and I imagine for many writers, with a critical eye often hard to keep closed while hoping to get caught up and swept away while reading fiction for pleasure ... This collection of short stories is her debut into the fiction book world after a solid career in molecular genetics research. Her stories are as diverse as her changing career path and yet string together a theme as connected as a genetic chain.

Very few times in my life resonate so strongly to a past and a childhood that has me always facing forward and rarely wanting to look back. As I read Akerman's book instantly I am that child on the first page, in the first sentence, whose parents "When the arguing started would get louder and louder, till they broke into my dreams." As the stories moved along I, like her character, realized how much I learned from eavesdropping during the arguments, and sadly like the child I too knew "... where the patched holes were in the walls" and that "... it would be smarter to keep my opinions to myself." In the next few tales the loneliness hit home of a child walking along to school wishing for her own puppy and that she could write a book and feeling very misunderstood by grown-ups. Read more ›

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

 

4.0 out of 5 stars Akerman takes you back April 18, 2012

 

By twalker

Akerman takes you back to the time you were a child. No matter you did not grow up in Montreal or Jewish, the situations, conflicts, joys and fears are universal. Akerman grounds emotions with rich descriptions and a strong sense of place.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

 

4.0 out of 5 stars The Meaning of Children January 16, 2013

 

By Delinda L. McCann

My first impression of the book was, "Wow, this woman can write." The author's descriptions of settings are so vivid that I felt as if I was standing in the scenes of her stories.

In The Meaning of Children Ms. Akerman uses a series of short vignettes to explore innocence, violence and the human condition. For most of us certain scenes from childhood stand out as vivid memories. This book is a series of such memories--each of pivotal points in the life of a child.

This is not light reading as the stories deal with issues of self-image and sexuality by dramatizing how one seemingly small incident can shape a woman's image of herself and her interpretation of reality. However, I recommend The Meaning of Children to anyone who is a student of human nature.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

 

5.0 out of 5 stars Profound Vignettes of, about, or because of Children July 29, 2012

 

By Grady Harp HALL OF FAMETOP 50 REVIEWERVINE VOICE

 

 

At times chance enters our lives and we encounter moments created by a wordsmith that, like it or not, raise memories and experiences that we have either experienced, watched, heard about, or dreamed and the stories in Beverly Akerman's book of short stories THE MEANING OF CHILDREN do just that. They slowly creep into our psyches, clutch a holding place, and stay with us permanently. This collection of the whispers and screams, longings and needs of being a child and the responses of those closest to that child are the works of a magician, a writer of such substance that she is obviously headed to the top echelon of writers of our time.

Some critics are saying that this book is about the underappreciated world of women and perhaps that stance is valid: there certainly are enough tales of anorgasmia, to abortion, to preparing to say the final goodbye to a dying child to the vagaries of holding a household together despite the external (an internal) flaws that creep into crack marriages. But I don't see men being put into negative places just to serve the purpose of making a collection of stories hang together with a theme. No, these stories are all about the influence of bringing a child into the world and the benefits and consequences of the way life changes because of that. And overriding everything else is the panoply of forms of love that transcend all else.

I like the way the author (or agent or some caring one who seeks to gain our attention to this book) states it: `...a girl discovers a fear of heights as her parents' marriage unravels; a thirty-something venture fund manager frets over his daughter's paternity; an orphan whose hands kill whatever they touch is accused of homophobia; a mother of two can only bear to consider abortion in the second person; the wife of a retirement-aged professor finds him unconscious near his computer...The Meaning Of Children speaks to all who--though aware the world can be a very dark place--can't help but long for redemption.' I like this because in the end words fail in attempting to share the variety of emotions this book induces. Beverly Akerman simply knows how to write. She understands contemporary vernacular and uses it to embroider her stories, not to be `with it' like so many authors who seem to need to fill the quota of expletives. She also knows when to leave a story alone, to just let it lift itself and slip out the window, carrying the impact of our emotional changes with it.

Enough said. This is a book of rare sensitivity and masterful creative writing and must surely be shared with as many friends and fellow readers as possible. Grady Harp, July 12

Self-publish your way beyond obscurity

To give away or not to give away, that is the question

I’ve decided to give away the e-version of my award-winning collection of short fiction, The Meaning of Children  - well, for a couple of days. The paperback, released in 2011 by Exile Editions, officially sold about 365 copies. At $2 per $19.95 list priced copy, I’ve earned about $730 in royalties from Exile’s publication, which doesn’t include the proceeds from the approximately 200 copies I hawked myself, or the $150 they paid me to publish one of the stories in Exile Quarterly. Somebody else—many somebodies—pocketed the remaining $12 to $18 per copy…or over $6500.

The economics of publishing, especially considering the hours put in writing, editing, re-writing, etc. are enough to make a grown writer weep.


In March 2012, posting on The New Quarterly’s Facebook page, I encountered Martin Crosbie, self-published sensation, Amazon.com poster-writer who earned $45,000 in royalties in February 2012 alone. I decided to self-publish the Kindle version of my book (to which I had luckily retained the rights).

It cost me nothing to self-publish (except for the commissioning of a new cover; Exile wouldn’t let me use theirs) and took about five minutes to accomplish. The self-published ebook, available exclusively on Amazon since March 2012, has been downloaded nearly 7,000 times. From this, I’ve earned about $500. So far.

I also wrote an article about Martin’s success and contrasted it with my own (“How to become an e-book sensation. Seriously”), published in The Globe and Mail Books section. The article was in the top 10 for its section for months.

As Martin and other successful indie writers, notably Robert Bidinotto, stress, the key to generating interest in your self-published book is to use Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing’s primary promotional tool: five free giveaway days per three-month period your book is exclusively available with Amazon.

The point of exclusivity? The free days, and the opportunity to be paid for allowing them to lend your book to their huge bank of subscribers, Amazon Prime members. For an annual fee, Prime members benefit from a number of advantages, including borrowing a book a month from the KDP collection. Some authors generate mucho dinero from these loans, especially genre writers: because genre readers need their fixes real regular-like. Over $2 per borrow, on average. For Martin Crosbie, this translated to thousands and thousands of downloads and dollars.

Giving away your book is an indispensable promotional tool. Many websites, Twitter accounts, and Facebook pages exist primarily to promote freebies. And thousands of free downloads rockets your book up the Amazon sales charts, which piques reader interest, generates those all-important reader reviews, and results in subsequent sales. Hopefully.

As Martin told me, “The rule of thumb is: For every three you give away, you’ll sell one. So give lots away!” Indie authors must be open, generous and giving. Remember, we’re channelling Oprah here.
Despite my modest success with self-publishing, I don’t suggest litfic writers take this route: my book won prizes (many prior to the book’s publication, and a couple, e.g. the J.I. Segal Award, as a result of being traditionally published). The traditional routes to recognition and sales—newspaper and magazine book pages—are sadly still unavailable to self-published authors. Of course, there’s a reason for this: many self-published books are pure dreck.

In any event, if your self-published book doesn’t manage to do as well as Martin’s My Temporary Life, you can always tell yourself it’s because

a. it’s not a genre novel, or

b. Amazon has changed their algorithms.

Hell, that’s what I do…

Beverly Akerman’s The Meaning of Children hit #1 on Amazon's Kindle Women's Fiction, Literary Fiction, & Short stories lists in her most recent giveaway (Nov. 2013), rising to #51 on their list of over 1 million books.

This article originally published on Montreal's arts and culture online magazine, The Rover.

First time FREE on Amazon: SIX PIXELS OF SEPARATION, my Pushcart-nominated essay

UPDATE: 6 pm, January 11th: "Six Pixels" just hit #1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Biographies & Memoirs > Arts & Literature > Authors. 

It's #16 in Kindle Memoir. Thanks for your support!
------------------------------------------------------------

 “What a fantastic essay! I love it more with each reading!”
~ Sylvia Legris, Editor, Grain Magazine

For the first time FREE on Amazon, my short essay SIX PIXELS OF SEPARATION. Love, literature, evolution, the Holocaust, Oregon, Quebec, the Nez Perce Indians, Wikipedia, AIDS, sex...in short, the whole catastrophe.




Then-editor Sylvia Legris liked it so much, she submitted it for consideration to The Pushcart Prize and Canada's National Magazine Awards (the latter in TWO categories!).

The 2010 Fishtrap Fellows Cabin, Fishtrap Writers Conference & The Gathering, Wallowa Lake, OR

Excerpt:

SIX PIXELS OF SEPARATION

I: Irrigator evolution

A couple of summers ago, I flew from my home in Montreal across the continent to Oregon for the first time, on points cadged from my husband. He travelled a lot for work. Because I quit science to pursue art several years back, I sponge off him shamelessly these days. And not just for plane tickets.

From 32,000 feet, it was clear how parched the West is. I flew over mountains and deserts, greys and browns and ochres interrupted by the occasional mystifying emerald disk, round as a wedding ring. Until I saw the incomplete ones, pies with a serving removed, I thought the circles were waste pools, for mine tailings, say, or reservoirs of nuclear leftovers. It turned out they were crop irrigation circles, verdant patches in the desert created by enormous metal irrigators. Later, seeing these behemoths up close, I was reminded of bicycle wheel rims—the irrigators appeared to be composed of hundreds of them, as though the wheel rim was some missing link that the irrigator had ascended from via dark evolutionary forces of increasing complexity.

The next day, Rich Wandschneider—the outgoing, founding, and soon-to-be-ex-executive director of Fishtrap,¹ the conference I was attending—drove a group of us  from Portland, 260 miles inland, to Wallowa Lake, the site of the conference. Only the third owner of an irrigation system ever makes any money with it, Rich confided, “The first two owners go bust."

...Tonight, reading a collection of Raymond Carver’s short stories, I discover he is from Oregon. Clatskanie, according to the book jacket, not far from Portland. Born in 1939. Because these facts come from a book, I may have more confidence in them than in those gleaned from Wikipedia. Wikipedia is unreliable because, as Conrad Black wrote me, it “can be written by anyone.”² In this new knowledge economy age, though, large-scale creative collaboration is also considered a strength. The Carver book is What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.

Actually, this piece you are reading might just as properly be called “What we talk about when we can’t make love.”

 
             My husband and I could not see eye to eye tonight and so I am in my son’s bedroom, seeking consolation from Raymond Carver...

Always free for Amazon Prime Members.

The Meaning of Children and The Bad Review

The Meaning of Children is divided into three parts, featuring stories with protagonists who are children, in the parenting years, or elders. Though I wish it were otherwise, many of the book’s stories are dark, reminding me of that Tolstoy maxim “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” and its corollary, “If it’s happy, it’s not literature.”

Growing up, without the rose coloured glasses. To paraphrase Katie Hewitt in The Globe and Mail, these aren’t the wonder years.

But reading a book is like taking a Rorschach test: what you get from it is deeply entwined with what you bring to it, with who you are. 

 

Which brings us to The Bad Review. Writers are usually admonished to ignore The Bad Review (hopefully, there will only be one!) and focus on the good, and there is much wisdom in that advice. I have also been blessed to have received so much wonderful, positive feedback. But there is also much to be learned from the negative review…and so, despite the kerfuffle between Michael Lista in the National Post and CWILA, based on the earlier call and response round between Jan Zwicky and Zach Wells, I believe in writing, reading, and acknowledging, the bad review. And so, here is a discussion of mine.

Bee Markus oversimplified terribly when she wrote “what the fourteen stories in Akerman’s collection do is describe the myriad ways that mothering and marriage can damage and destroy a woman’s soul and spirit.” (B.A. Markus, mRb, vol. 14, no. 3, Summer 2011. Reproduced below; archived here).

There’s no doubt in my mind “that mothering and marriage can damage and destroy a woman’s soul and spirit (emphasis mine).” Not always, but sometimes. The thing is, my work doesn’t shy away from that. My book takes on the female experience, leaving behind the rose-tinted glasses. Maybe, deep in the heart of the mothering years, it can be hard to appreciate what, exactly, one is sacrificing. Maybe a little denial is not a bad thing.

But (in my opinion) there is much more in the book than what Markus saw; maybe the review says as much about her as it does about the book. That she saw the child point-of-view stories as introducing “the mother as a resentful victim” completely misses the point: that to grow up is to peel a series of layers of knowledge gleaned from experience. That growing up doesn’t end with an eighteenth birthday. It’s a lifelong trip.

 

Markus’s real problem may have been with the paperback’s cover: all those happy photos suggesting a light-hearted tiptoe through the parenting tulips. This was my publisher’s choice, part of the Faustian bargain that must be struck between gaining the reader (and, more importantly, the bookseller marketing department’s) interest and giving the flavour of the contents. I love the paperback cover and gave it my blessing, though I also warned it might lead to exactly the sort of reaction Markus appears to have had: the suggestion “that the stories behind the cover will most certainly be heart-warming vignettes celebrating the innumerable gifts that children bring to our lives.”

Several women, some “of a certain age,” as we say here in French, actually commented that the book was so much better than they thought it would be, based on the cover. They’ve had enough of the saccharine view that a woman’s life is consummated by motherhood. Which is one reason why I had a problem with Richard Wright’s Clara Callan, where Clara’s inner life, as represented in the series of letters she’s been writing, ends with the birth of her child.

I heartily acknowledge that my book probes the dark hearts of growing up and of mothering, but I also feel that the book as a whole is a much more balanced portrayal than Markus—and mRb--let on. Happily-ever-afterish stories do appear: “Paternity” and “The Woman with Deadly Hands” spring immediately to mind. What I’ve tried to do is to show you my 14 snapshots of life, with compassion. And without glossing over the hard parts.

So, there you have it. My take on The Bad Review. Of course, every writer should be grateful for every single review, good, bad, or indifferent. It means that serious readers seriously considered your work. Which is what every writer dreams of...or, at least, what this writer dreams of.

Thankfully, there are a number of other, much more positive takes from reviewers and other readers. You may find many of them here.

The Meaning of Children is available as a paperback (~$15) or an e-book ($5). Decide for yourself.

One step closer to "becoming an e-book sensation. Seriously"?

It has certainly been a great few days!

A fantastic long weekend spent with friends, including 

the lovely, amusing, erudite, and 

always effervescent Miss Pauline...

(above with hubbly and bubbly!)

AND

an INCREDIBLE 

4,354 copies 

of 

THE MEANING OF CHILDREN 

downloaded during my latest Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing Giveaway,

which ending Sept. 2nd...the book peaked at #11 in Free Literary Fiction, and #73 in Free overall.

Which, considering there are thousands of free books on Amazon, is pretty amazing...

I am grateful, touched, and humble in the face of this interest in my book, and I sincerely hope everyone who downloaded it enjoys the book immensely!

And, for making it easy for readers to connect with my book, I cannot say enough about Ereader News Today.

Indie writers: find ENT and submit your free promotion information to them early.

No other single website was more important than ENT in ensuring the success of my promotion. In fact, they only posted my book on Sept. 2nd, scant hours before the end of my free download period. If it had been posted at the beginning, I think the downloads would have been well nigh stratospheric (how's that for an enthusiastic endorsement?)

And now, let the paying sales begin, I say! :0) (And they have.)

I hope many copies are soon #seenreading, too (NOTE: my use of this hashtag has nothing to do with the book by the same name). Although this suggests a problem: will e-books be visible to others sitting nearby? It's probably often impossible to tell what people are reading on e-readers--one more argument in favour of old-style printing...

Which may partly explain the popularity of 50 Shades of Grey: soft-core right there out in the open...though I can't imagine doing so, myself.

But I, as I am wont to do, digress...

More reasons to be happy with the last few days: didn't cook (again) last night--treated to dinner at Peking Garden by the one and only Sandy Dubya--thank you, Sandy!

And then this morning, the doorbell rings; Canada Post, delivering a copy of the new book Skill Set with Grammar: Strategies for Reading and Writing in the Canadian Classroom (2nd edition) by Lucia Engkent, and published by Oxford University Press (in 2013!).

Why should this have me excited? I mean, grammar doesn't usually yank my chain. But THIS book just happens to feature my first professional article, "White Tops, Grey Bottoms," originally published in Macleans Magazine...please find it here if you're interested. 

Inspired by my one and only #2 son ("the spare," we call him. Not), who managed to snag a detention for having his shirttail untucked. Of course, I only discovered later that the dastardly punishment was meted out only after the same teacher caught him twice on the same day committing said heinous infraction. 

Some things parents only find out later...sometimes, MUCH later. 

There are times it is a relief to be out of the loop.

A distinct relief.

All told, over 5,000 copies of The Meaning of Children are now in readers' hot little hands, both paying and non-paying. A Canadian best-seller? 

Not quite. 

4,354 copies is almost chump change compared to my friend Martin Crosbie, for example, as detailed in my April Globe and Mail article on self-publishing.

But I'm still hoping I have mountains of positive reviews to  look forward to...and many more downloads. Paying ones this time...one lives in hope, of course.

 And The Meaning of Children is always a FREE borrow for Amazon Prime members...

FREE for Amazon Prime members!

THE MEANING OF CHILDREN: 1000+ downloads on current FREE promotion

Just wanted to say a big THANK YOU to all the many literary fiction and contemporary fiction lovers out there who have downloaded THE MEANING OF CHILDREN during the current free promotion on Amazon worldwide (Canada, USA, UK, Germany, India and everywhere else!!)


Eleven hundred downloads is no small potatoes for an unknown literary writer from Montreal, Canada! I really appreciate all the feedback, including the latest review from Steve of Highland Park, NJ:

•  "Grace, subtlety, and emotional precision. Years ago, I read a remark to the effect that great writers are people who never forgot what it was like to be a child. Beverly Akerman remembers her childhood in every detail. She also remembers mine, and probably yours as well. She also remembers that for a parent there is no such thing as an unmixed emotion, and in these stories she uses emotions the way Monet used color. A collection to muse on, to savor, and to re-read." 

We've made it to #16 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Literary Fiction, right after the old masters (Dickens, Bronte, Austen, Dostoyevsky, etc.).

The giveaway concludes Sept. 2nd, end of day, so please keep downloading and passing along the link to those you know who love heartfelt stories that are worth reading, that stick with you, and help illuminate your own experiences... Have a wonderful long weekend, everyone!

FREE on Amazon.com Aug. 29th to Sept. 2nd: THE MEANING OF CHILDREN

2010 David Adams Richards Prize Winner

2011 CBC-Scotiabank Giller Prize Readers’ Choice Top 10

 

2012 Honourable Mention, Eric Hoffer Award Finalist 

(General Fiction)

 

The Writers' Union of Canada's Short Prose Contest Finalist  2005 & 2007

 

and many other honours

 

And you are cordially invited to download a FREE copy 

Aug. 29th to Sept. 2nd.

 

“A luminous talent...A keen, incisive vision into the hidden world of children as well as intimate knowledge of the secret spaces that exist between the everyday events of life. A work with a brilliant sense of story.”

~JoAnne Soper-Cook, Judge, 2010 David Adams Richards Prize

“Profound...a writer of such substance that she is obviously headed to the top echelon  of writers of our time...a book of rare sensitivity and masterful creative writing [that] must surely be shared with as many friends and fellow readers as possible.”

~Grady Harp, Amazon.com Hall of Fame Reviewer, ***** (5 stars) on Amazon.com

“This isn't the invented childhood of imagination and wonderment...[here] children both corrupt and redeem: each other, family relationships and the female body.”

~Katie Hewitt, The Globe & Mail

“Loved your book; read it in one sitting.” 

~Mutsumi Takahashi, Anchor, CTV News Montreal; Interview

“...this lovely little book, short stories about life in a family that might just resemble yours...A wonderful gift for mother's day, perhaps more long lived than the usual cut flowers.” 

~Anne Lagacé Dowson, CJAD Radio

“Akerman engages with dichotomies. Childhood is that safe, magical, carefree time and place — but it’s also risky, threatening, ominous and dangerous — full of impenetrable mystery around things seen and experienced, but beyond understanding. And if it’s not too much of a simplification or stating the obvious, life and the world are not gentle on children simply for being children…If, as Dostoevsky once remarked, and as is quoted on the collection’s frontispiece, “The soul is healed by being with children,” it is the tragedy of adulthood that we become so isolated from childhood — and what children offer us. Artfully, evocatively, Beverly Akerman’s The Meaning of Children reminds us of that.”

~Darrell Squires, The Western Star

“Beverly’s background as a scientist, MSc and twenty years as a molecular researcher, inevitably spills into the stories…characters, the settings and her style. Intelligent, objective, open-minded but not clinical, her prose is refreshing and unprejudiced. Her characters are frank and genuine ...With The Meaning of Children, we get a beautifully written exposé on the meaning of life.”

~Francine Diot-Layton, The Rover

“I can't stop thinking about this book...I can't remember a book, let alone a collection of short stories, where I could identify so heavily with the emotions and feelings of the characters.” 

~Martin Crosbie, author of My Temporary Life, ***** (5 stars) on Amazon.com

“Remarkable in its intensity and craft, The Meaning of Children is a book that bears discovering, and Akerman a writer to watch.”

~ Samuel Peralta, poet, author of Sonata Vampirica & other books, ***** (5 stars) on Amazon.com

More reviews HERE!

(Please note: you don't need to have a Kindle to be able to download my book. Check out their free apps for phones, tablets, and computers HERE)

NEW: The Mysteries FREE on Amazon.com, Aug. 1st to 5th

Here's the headline:

THE MYSTERIES is FREE on KINDLE 8/1 to 8/5. Vol. 1 in The Meaning of Children series http://amzn.to/Qi3sUy 

Book trailer http://bit.ly/OpMcaz. 

• Winner of the David Adams Richards Prize for fiction
• Top 10 CBC-Scotiabank Giller Prize Readers' Choice Award.

For those with a little more time:

I'm trying something new to bring my book, The Meaning of Children, to more readers. The strategy was suggested (and aided and abetted!) by Samuel Peralta, award winning poet and Facebook friend, author of the amazing poetry collection Sonata Vampirica and several others, flying off the (virtual) shelves--if e-books can be said to do such a thing...

In addition to being an amazing, award winning writer, he's a shining inspiration of the indie author spirit--take advice and help as it's offered, pay it forward, pay it back...always ready with assistance and encouragement.

What did I do to merit such kindness? I was so affected by the personal story of e-book sensation Martin Crosbie that I wrote an article about him for The Globe and Mail, chockfull of self-publishing advice (his book, My Temporary Life, has been downloaded about 100,000 times since February. Still AMAZING, Martin!).

Coincidentally, I met both Martin and Samuel at The New Quarterly's Facebook page, if memory serves...

But, to get back to my original point, and I do have one, about my new marketing modus operandi: I've divided my book into three e-volumes, each titled for a pivotal story in the section, and will be offering them as independent e-books on Amazon. The Mysteries is volume 1 or 'Beginning', consisting of 4 stories told through the eyes of the child protagonists.

The stories are "Tumbalalaika," The Mysteries," "Broken," and "Pour Un Instant," first published in Canadian literary journals The Antigonish Review, The Dalhousie Review, Windsor Review, and The Nashwaak Review.

A few words about the story that lends the volume its name, "The Mysteries," from my first review, by Katie Hewitt in The Globe and Mail:

• "...in "The Mysteries," Akerman perfectly captures the anxiety of second-grader Rebecca after the birth of her little brother. Left to walk to school alone by her beleaguered mother, Rebecca meets a strange man who talks of hot chocolate and puppies. Her inner monologue runs wild wondering if the “don’t talk to strangers” rule applies when the stranger talks first. (“Why don’t they tell you what to do about moments like this when they tell you so much other stuff?”)" Rebecca’s innocence, her perception of the horror laced in her teacher’s silences, and ultimately her fear and a slight exaggeration of events to the police leave the reader almost as confused as Rebecca about the man’s intentions, all because Akerman writes as a believable eight-year-old."

Three volumes on Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing Select Program means three times as many giveaways! And the first one starts tomorrow, August 1st. Free, too, in the UK!


The other two volumes are Lighter than Air (six stories), and What I've Prayed For (four stories) Of course, the entire book is also still available as a single volume. (And all are also available at Amazon in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain...)


Please accept this as a personal invitation to try my book. GRATIS!

Here's the latest 5 starreview of The Meaning of Children by Amazon hall of fame reviewer Grady Harp (more recent ones here):

[Profound Vignettes of, about, or because of Children

At times chance enters our lives and we encounter moments created by a wordsmith that, like it or not, raise memories and experiences that we have either experienced, watched, heard about, or dreamed and the stories in Beverly Akerman's book of short stories THE MEANING OF CHILDREN do just that. They slowly creep into our psyches, clutch a holding place, and stay with us permanently. This collection of the whispers and screams, longings and needs of being a child and the responses of those closest to that child are the works of a magician, a writer of such substance that she is obviously headed to the top echelon of writers of our time.

Some critics are saying that this book is about the underappreciated world of women and perhaps that stance is valid: there certainly are enough tales of anorgasmia, to abortion, to preparing to say the final goodbye to a dying child to the vagaries of holding a household together despite the external (and internal) flaws that creep into crack marriages. But I don't see men being put into negative places just to serve the purpose of making a collection of stories hang together with a theme. No, these stories are all about the influence of bringing a child into the world and the benefits and consequences of the way life changes because of that. And overriding everything else is the panoply of forms of love that transcend all else.

I like the way the author (or agent or some caring one who seeks to gain our attention to this book) states it: `...a girl discovers a fear of heights as her parents' marriage unravels; a thirty-something venture fund manager frets over his daughter's paternity; an orphan whose hands kill whatever they touch is accused of homophobia; a mother of two can only bear to consider abortion in the second person; the wife of a retirement-aged professor finds him unconscious near his computer...The Meaning Of Children speaks to all who--though aware the world can be a very dark place--can't help but long for redemption.' I like this because in the end words fail in attempting to share the variety of emotions this book induces. Beverly Akerman simply knows how to write. She understands contemporary vernacular and uses it to embroider her stories, not to be `with it' like so many authors who seem to need to fill the quota of expletives. She also knows when to leave a story alone, to just let it lift itself and slip out the window, carrying the impact of our emotional changes with it.

Enough said. This is a book of rare sensitivity and masterful creative writing and must surely be shared with as many friends and fellow readers as possible.]


 Finally, here's a new little book trailer I made at Animoto.com. I'd love to know what you think:

‘THE MEANING OF CHILDREN’ E-BOOK FREE on May 25th & 26th!

‘THE MEANING OF CHILDREN’ FREE to download on May 25th & 26th! 

PLEASE SHARE!

"A luminous talent." ~JoAnne Soper-Cook, author of 'Waterborne' and Judge, 2010 David Adams Richards Prize

If you don't have a Kindle, Amazon.com has free apps for phones, tablets, and computers

34 LIKES, 4.6/5 STARS (5 reviews) for 'The Meaning of Children'

Readers call 'THE MEANING OF CHILDREN': "captivating," "pitch perfect prose," “resonates with the sad truth of being a grownup,” “touching without being maudlin, a true literary feat.”

Some recent reviews:

"I can't stop thinking about this book. It's been over a week since I read this collection of short stories and the characters are still with me.

"These are stories about real people, real children, teenagers, adults, in real times. I went through a whole range of emotions when I read them, some good, some not so good. When the child was sitting on the stairs listening to her parents, I was right there with her. When the adult was sitting by the lake contemplating what happened years before and looking at her present day life, I was sitting across from her, doing the same thing. I can't remember a book, let alone a collection of short stories, where I could identify so heavily with the emotions and feelings of the characters.

"As far as I'm concerned, this is what good writing, and a good book, should do for you. Yes, it entertained for sure, but it made me think and remember.

"If you enjoy quality writing and a book that will make you think about where you've been and where you're going read The Meaning Of Children.

"Highly recommended." ~Martin Crosbie on Amazon.com (5 stars)

"Akerman takes you back to the time you were a child. No matter you did not grow up in Montreal or Jewish, the situations, conflicts, joys and fears are universal. Akerman grounds emotions with rich descriptions and a strong sense of place." ~twalker on Amazon.com (4 stars)

"Entering the world of 'The Meaning Of Children' is like wrapping myself in the blanket my grandmother knit for me.I can feel every word, hear every sound, and be taken to a familiar place in my soul. You are a brilliant woman with a great spirit whose writing will resonate with many. Thank you." ~Judith Litvack on Facebook


PLEASE VERIFY "$0.00" BEFORE HITTING "BUY" AT Amazon.com: http://amzn.to/KznFvA

The Meaning Of Children: it's getting hard to keep up

D'oh! Just discovered my CBC radio interview of yesterday, about my experiment in self-publishing the Kindle version of The Meaning Of Children, is, in fact, already accessible on the Cinq a Six web page: click on the blue link "Cutting out the middle man," on the lower right (black background).

http://www.cbc.ca/cinqasix/

Read the incredible feedback from readers and reviewers of The Meaning Of Children here.

But one-word summaries include "captivating," "touching," "amazing," "lovely," "extraordinary"...(I'm stopping here because I'm getting choked up AND my head is swelling, not the best combination, I fear...)


The second piece of good news is a new essay that summarizes my life as an emerging writer, just out in The Montreal Review. It's part of their "The Writing Life Series" and features other intriguing writers like Doug Harris, the author of YOU comma Idiot (not the title of my biography...though maybe it should be).

As always, any comments or questions would be much appreciated, either here or you can find me on Facebook, Goodreads, or Twitter (@beverly_akerman). Oh and my book's Facebook page is http://www.facebook.com/TheMeaningofChildren.