Our latest contribution to the 2019 Authors Showcase is a fabulous piece from Adrian Sturrock. It encapsulates his quirky sense of humour.

Enjoy his memorable life experience My first clear vision of 2019 here.

Adrian Sturrock is a writer, occasional musician, teacher, and ethnic minority (except when in Wales), specialising mostly in observation and unconsidered opinion. He currently lives in Buckinghamshire, UK, with wife Natalie: his travel companion, best friend and the person responsible for keeping him out of trouble on social media. They have three children between them. Oh, and he once had a horse fall on him.

Adrian has written articles for a variety of online publications, as well as having his poetry/lyrics displayed alongside those of Benjamin Zephaniah, in Luton Town Hall (though it is very unlikely that Benjamin is aware of this). He has also contributed to the 2019 edition of Travel Stories & Highlights, edited by Robert Fear (currently available on Amazon). His other claims to fame include being smiled at by Madonna, and having once spent an afternoon watching Ace Ventura, Pet Detective in Barry Gibb’s living room, where Bee Gee’s manager, David English, remarked on his shoes.

His first book, The Sat Nav Diaries has been well received on both sides of the Atlantic, gaining a string of 5 star reviews, and was nominated for the 2018 Kindle Book Awards. His second book, RANDOM, is also now available on Amazon. 
​

It is wonderful to welcome a newcomer to our Authors Showcase, Tina Mattern.

I am sure you will enjoy Tina's memorable life experience as much as I have,

Read The Summer of ‘58 here.

Tina Wagner Mattern is a 68 year old Portland, Oregon writer. She has been published numerous times in anthologies such as Chicken Soup for the Soul, The Maine Review and A Cup of Comfort. She dabbles in short, humorous fiction but her main focus is on finishing her memoir-in-progress, “Butter Side Up.” This memory, “The Summer of ‘58” is a scene from that work.
​

A warm welcome back to James Robertson with his second contribution to this year's Authors Showcase.

Read and enjoy his latest story Leonard Cohen’s Greek Hideaway here.

I hope you are enjoying all of the memorable life experiences that are being submitted to our 2019 Authors Showcase. I certainly am!

This latest contribution is the second from Ronald Mackay and is a revealing insight into life in Argentina. Read and enjoy his story Viveza Criolla here.​ 

Ronald Mackay

For a decade this century, Ronald Mackay and Viviana his wife, owned, developed and operated a 35-acre vineyard near San Rafael, the city in which Viviana’s mother had been born in 1928, in the province of Mendoza, Argentina. They grew high quality cabernet sauvignon and malbec grapes and marketed their wines under the brand name Caledonia. Ronald has worked all over Latin America as a specialist in the evaluation of agricultural R&D projects. When he was a very young man, he worked in the banana plantations on the island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands. Later, he lived and worked in Bucharest, Romania under Ceaușescu’s brutal communist regime. He has written books about both of these escapades. Viviana and he now live on the north shore of Rice Lake, Ontario, Canada.
​​

It is my pleasure today to feature the second contribution from Roger Knight in our 2019 Authors Showcase.

Enjoy his latest story ​True tales of a former medical recruiter here.​

A warm welcome to Liliana Amador-Marty, a newcomer to our blog and it's travel writing features.

Liliana has submitted a fascinating contribution to the 2019 Authors Showcase entitled Blood Memory. You can read it here.

Liliana Amador-Marty started journaling at the age of ten when she began training as a dancer. Born in Barranquilla, Colombia, her parents immigrated to North America when she was two years old. As a teen, she trained & performed with The Inner City Ensemble, a youth arts organisation in Paterson, New Jersey where she was raised. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre from Bates College where she learned to craft her writing and a Master of Fine Arts in Acting from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis where she had a successful acting career in the Theatre and voice-over industry. Upon returning to New York City, she appeared in independent films, and performed in various theatres  appearing in the Public Theatre's production of, Henry VIII at the Delacourt in Central Park. Liliana was a certified NYC Dance & Drama teacher as well as a Union Leader for the United Federation of Teachers and worked as a dramaturge/director with The 52nd Street Project in the Hell's Kitchen neighbourhood of Manhattan where she lived. She has worked as an Adjunct Professor, was a member of a Choreographer's League, and co-founded Amador/Oakes Dance Collaborative together with creative partner Alison Oakes-Charbonnier, making dances for the past twenty years. Their work has appeared in America throughout NYC, NJ & Connecticut. Liliana is a founding member of the Inner City Ensemble, Inc. in her hometown reinstated by alumni. She is currently living in London, England with her husband and her two boys, continuing to collaborate with her artistic partner and living a creative life; traveling, documenting her life-experiences, new ventures, her ancestry and reflections. Liliana continues to write daily and is currently writing a Memoir. 

To celebrate May Day and the second month of our 2019 Authors Showcase, it is a real pleasure to feature this memorable life experience from Celia Dillow.

Read and enjoy Being enchanted again here.

A warm welcome back to Helen Bing, a regular entrant in last year's travel writing competitions. Read Helen's introduction to her Authors Showcase contribution below, before reading her fascinating story here.

My name is Helen Bing.  In the early hours of this morning, I was listening to the radio.  A reader was sharing his story about a visit to Maromaku, a small settlement down in the valley from Towai, Northland, NZ, where I did my Country Section back in 1970.  In those days I was at North Shore Teachers’ College, in Auckland, New Zealand, part way through my second years training.   It was assumed that we would all end up working in a country school, as this was the only way to advance through to the higher pay scales.  When I look back at my 18-year-old self, I can’t believe how young and naive I was.   

I have a real treat in store for you today. The next contribution in our 2019 Authors Showcase is from Syd Blackwell, who has previously entered both prose and poetry in our travel writing competitions.

Syd's submission today contains six poetic images from his travels to Portugal in the hot summer of 1991. I became thoroughly absorbed reading his recollections and they reminded me of my own travels to this beautiful country. Enjoy Syd's images of this memorable life experience here.

It is an honour to feature this latest submission in the 2019 Authors Showcase.

This story is entitled A Practical Joke and is from Ronald Mackay, a regular contributor to our competitions in previous years. I really enjoyed Ronald's latest contribution and I am sure you will too. Read it here.

Ronald Mackay

Ronald Mackay held many and various temporary jobs before adopting a career.

He started by shopping for his neighbours in Dundee, Scotland when he was still a child when that meant standing endlessly in endless queues after World War II. He graduated to seasonal farm labour and then to swinging an axe to limb felled trees. He delivered medicines for a pharmacist and meat for a butcher, worked in a market garden, delivered newspapers and managed raspberry fields. He loaded and unloaded lorries, worked on fishing boats, constructed banana plantations and packed bananas for export from Tenerife to northern Europe. Ronald writes plays and short stories and is the author of: “A Scotsman Abroad: A Book of Memoirs 1967-1969”; “Fortunate Isle, a Memoir of Tenerife”; and “A Tenerife con Cariño”.

This new story is about a joyous period in his early life when he worked as a porter in the Sterile Unit at Guy’s Hospital in London just south of the River Thames.

Ronald and his wee brother, Euan