51 stories started off as a challenge – to write stories for my granddaughter which would give her a glimpse of my life. After all, she has a Dutch grandmother, a Dutch/Iranian father and an English step grandfather, an Iranian Grandfather and step-grandmother, and two German grandparents, a German mother - somehow or other I feel responsible to help her sort it all out!
This blog provides the vehicle to keep alive the ambition to write. 51 is an odd number, you can tell stories in so many different ways. Here I post my thoughts on the books I read, on other people’s writing that help me find my own way into my own stories. In between the reviews there may be snippets about my life and daily encounters that I use for the stories that I am writing in the background, about the countries that I was born in and have lived in but also countries that I have visited or may want to visit, about people I have met or may still meet. Writing the blog keeps me alert, sharpens my pencil and keeps me in touch with like minded people who love words, books, stories and writing. Furthermore, it provides me with the necessarily balance with a full time working life as a professional consultant in education.
Well, this is my comment. Someone that has been living in three different countries must necessarily have much to tell. I am adding your blog to my blogroll. Will be in touch from now on. Best wishes.
By: Jose on March 11, 2007
at 12:00 pm
By the way, why 51 stories?
By: Jose on March 11, 2007
at 12:01 pm
It was something that flipped out: 50 is too neat I suppose, I simply meant there were lots of different ways and whether you write 20 or 200 stories or anything in between, the possibilities are endless…. Hope that makes sense.
By: seachanges on March 11, 2007
at 2:42 pm
Love your perspectives, I do. When my mom comes to visit in a few days, I’ll send her over here to have a good look around.
*smile*
By: E.W. Spider on January 9, 2008
at 1:44 pm
I am glad that I came across your blog which is very interesting to read and very informative. The ‘recommended reading part’ and the reviews were very useful. I am sure to be back regularly. Thanks for sharing!
By: meghnak on February 6, 2008
at 2:06 pm
Hello,
I am new at blogging and have started 3 new blogs, one in English, one in french and a movie blog. i am very interested in your blog, i just started a novel by Ali Smith, my first one by this author, very promising! I would like to add you to my blogs (english and french). My name is Sylvie Sevigny and I live in the States, Virginia, I am originally from Paris.
Please let me know if it is alright to add you, thanks,
Sylvie (my blogs are under my middle name MADELEINE)
By: Sylvie on February 8, 2008
at 7:06 pm
Hi there,
I really like your writing. it`s so well-written and thoughtful. I am new in WordPress. I just used it recently for the discussions my friends & I have on Literary topics…
I just wonder are you Iranian?
By: ourclass82 on April 27, 2008
at 8:46 pm
Seachanges-
Drop me a line at peter AT FlashlightWorthy DOT com. I’d like to discuss having our site feature a list of your book selected by you.
-Peter
By: Peter Steinberg on September 8, 2008
at 11:14 pm
I’m adding you to my blogroll and bloglines feeds. I love how your banner matches your moniker–very cute! (BTW–you put 3 d’s in straddles).
By: chartroose on November 1, 2008
at 8:57 pm
Seachanges-
you have a very interesting site. I’ve just got going with WordPress – very useful. I’m an Aussie author and I’m searching out some good writing sites and yours popped up out of the blue!
- Sheryl
By: sherylgwyther on December 17, 2008
at 10:31 pm
Hi there,
I apologize for doing this through comments, but I can’t seem to find any other link to contact you through. My name is Jaime and I am putting together a virtual book tour for Shaila Abdullah. http://www.shailaabdullah.com/ She mentioned this site specifically as a place she would like to be featured in her March tour. If you are interested in reviewing her book, Saffron Dreams, please let me know.
Thank you for your time,
Jaime
By: JM on February 3, 2009
at 5:01 am
Dear Sir
I wondered if you might like a mutual link to my English word website or press release details of my ensuing book with Penguin Press on amusing and interesting English vocabulary?
http://www.thewonderofwhiffling.com
with best wishes
Adam Jacot de Boinod
(author of The Meaning of Tingo)
(www.themeaningoftingo.com)
adamjacot@fastmail.co.uk
or wish to include:
The Wonder of Whiffling is a tour of English around the globe (with fine coinages from our English-speaking cousins across the pond, Down Under and elsewhere).
Discover all sorts of words you’ve always wished existed but never knew, such as fornale, to spend one’s money before it has been earned; cagg, a solemn vow or resolution not to get drunk for a certain time; and petrichor, the pleasant smell that accompanies the first rain after a dry spell.
Discover why it is you wouldn’t want to have dinner with a vice admiral of the narrow seas, why Jacobites toasted the little gentleman in black velvet, and why a Nottingham Goodnight is better than one from anywhere else
By: Adam Jacot de Boinod on August 9, 2009
at 8:59 pm
Adam – Have responded directly
By: seachanges on August 11, 2009
at 7:56 pm
re: book review request by award-winning author
Dear 51 Stories:
I’m an award-winning author with a new book of fiction out this fall. Ugly To Start With is a series of thirteen interrelated stories about childhood published by West Virginia University Press.
Can I interest you in reviewing it?
If you write me back at johnmcummings@aol.com, I can email you a PDF of my book. If you require a bound copy, please ask, and I will forward your reply to my publisher. Or you can write directly to Abby Freeland at:
Abby.Freeland@mail.wvu.edu
My publisher, I should add, can also offer your readers a free excerpt of my book through a link from your blog to my publisher’s website:
http://wvupressonline.com/cummings_ugly_to_start_with_9781935978084
Here’s what Jacob Appel, celebrated author of
Dyads and The Vermin Episode, says about my new collection: “In Ugly to Start With, set in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia, Cummings tackles the challenges of boyhood adventure and family conflict in a taut, crystalline style that captures the triumphs and tribulations of small-town life. He has a gift for transcending the particular experiences to his characters to capture the universal truths of human affection and suffering–emotional truths that the members of his audience will recognize from their own experiences of childhood and adolescence.”
My short stories have appeared in more than seventy-five literary journals, including North American Review, The Kenyon Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, and The Chattahoochee Review. Twice I have been nominated for The Pushcart Prize. My short story “The Scratchboard Project” received an honorable mention in The Best American Short Stories 2007.
I am also the author of the nationally acclaimed coming-of-age novel The Night I Freed John Brown (Philomel Books, Penguin Group, 2009), winner of The Paterson Prize for Books for Young Readers (Grades 7-12) and one of ten books recommended by USA TODAY.
For more information about me, please visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Michael_Cummings
Thank you very much, and I look forward to hearing back from you.
Kindly,
John Michael Cummings
By: John Michael Cummings on December 20, 2011
at 11:49 pm
Have responded to you directly
By: Corri on December 23, 2011
at 3:43 pm