Our latest feature in the Memoir Showcase is another intriguing contribution from Susan Mellsopp, a regular supporter of our blog.  This is her third submission this year and many of her other stories have been included in previous anthologies.

You can read Susan's story Ghostly Apparitions here.

Susan Mellsopp is happily retired and lives in Hamilton New Zealand with her cream and gold Labrador guide dog Maya. Much of her life has been spent as a dairy farmer, and also working as a librarian, archivist and accessible transport researcher. She runs a writers group and is constantly being challenged to write in genres other than travel and memoir. Susan has published two school histories, written for an alumni magazine, and writes for a national magazine which is published monthly. Last year she had a story published in a book about pavlovas. She is a voracious reader; usually having two talking books and a kindle book on the go at once, loves to travel, listen to classical music, cook, spend time with friends and use modern technology.  Volunteering is important to Susan, recently she began tutoring at Senior Net teaching older people how to use their ipads and iphones.  
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It gives me great pleasure to feature another story from our most loyal supporter, Ronald Mackay. This is his sixth contribution to the 2024 Creative Writing Showcase and his fourth in the Memoir category.

I am sure you will find Ronald's latest recollections as fascinating as I have. 

​You can read The Hollow Mountain here.

Ronald Mackay 
 
Ronald has always enjoyed physical work. He started by labouring on farms at weekends and during school holidays in his native Scotland and then in the banana plantations of Tenerife in the Canary Islands. He paid his way through his studies at Aberdeen University in the ‘60s by working on building sites and once, excavating rock from a tunnel.

Alongside his professional work, Ronald has farmed in Mexico, Chile, Argentina and Canada. Today, he lives with his Peruvian wife in Voorburg, the Netherlands and looks after the garden.

The short stories in his recently published “Windows On My Worlds” tells more about his work experiences around the world.  LInk: mybook.to/WindowsOnMyWorlds
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Viviana and Ronald - April 2024
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Over the past couple of years, we have been privileged to feature a number of chapters from ​Captain Denis Dextraze's unfinished memoir Once upon a time in Cuba.

His latest contribution to the Memoir Showcase is the introduction to his book. As he explains, "it is meant to draw attention from targeted American readers unfamiliar with this mysterious island forbidden to average American citizens."

You can read Prologue - What is this book all about?  here.

The latest contribution to our Memoir Showcase is from Sue Wald and is a very recent recollection. As Sue explains, "It's very fresh, my birthday was on the 15th and I came home on Wednesday."

You can read The Birthday Massacre by clicking here.

The latest contribution in the 2024 Creative Writing Showcase is from Ronald Mackay. This is his fifth story this year and his third in the Memoir category.

I hope you enjoy Ronald's recollections from his early travelling days as much as I have.

You can read Of course, that includes hay for your donkey! by clicking here.

Ronald Mackay fell in love with the Iberian Peninsula when he was 17. Spain was a different world, back in 1959, as it was beginning to be readmitted into Europe after the Spanish Civil War and then the Second World War.

Ronald includes more memories of Spain and other countries where he has lived in his recent collection, “Windows On My Worlds”.

He has also written about 1960’s life in the Canary Islands in “Fortunate Isle, a Memoir of Tenerife” and in Romania and Bulgaria in “The Kilt Behind the Curtain”.
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Ronald in Spain 1960s

Our next contribution to the Memoir Showcase is from Captain Denis Dextraze. This is his first entry to the 2024 Creative Writing Showcase, but he has been a regular contributor in past years and you can catch up with his other stories in previous showcases and in our published anthologies.

To read his latest fascinating recollection, A midnight private dinner with Fidel Castro, please click here.

Author Bio

Canadian born Captain Denis Dextraze started traveling internationally at age 18 when he hitchhiked around Europe during the summer break.  After graduating from two U.S. universities, he specialized in international high-tech marketing which took him around the world.  He retired early to enjoy sailing his 45 ft. ketch.  Between his career and his port-o-calls on Aventura, he visited more than 80 countries.

“Once upon a time in Cuba” is being written so that an interesting two years capsule of Cuban history, starting in May of 1998, will not be lost forever. All events reported in this book really happened no matter how ludicrous, illogical or incredible they appear.
These years were times of changes and uncertainty for the Cuban authorities. They wanted our money but did not want us because we were “contaminating” the communist indoctrination of their controlled population. We were living interesting times, sharing the docks in Marina Hemingway with an array of adventurers not representing any normal and organized society in the world.  They ranged from millionaires, drug smugglers, Hells Angels members, pedophiles, smugglers, tough Vietnam vets, world class sailors, escaped refugees.  We were pioneers living interesting times and loving it!

During those days as it is still today, the Cuban society was segregated into two categories.  On the 0.3% upper side, the communist ruling party composed exclusively of militaries whether in uniforms or not were living in incredible luxury ironically just like their ousted predecessors of the Batista regime.  On the down side were the other 11 millions slaving Cubans living in desperate conditions.  We, as visiting foreigners, were odd-balls in this two class system.  Since we did not belong to either class, we were tolerated and generally allowed privileges that were reserved to the Cuban military elite and forbidden to the population.     [email protected]
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A warm welcome back to Ronald Mackay with his latest contribution to the 2024 Creative Writing Showcase.

Ronald's latest story, although fictional, is inspired by his experiences in South America. You can read In Praise of Whores by clicking here and then enjoy the photos he has shared with us.

Ronald Mackay

After Ronald retired in 2002, he and his wife Viviana, worked for a decade in Chile and Argentina. They were involved in the production of avocadoes, grapes, and olives. They learned much about both countries and came to understand some of the reasons why Argentina in particular has never fulfilled the potential it undoubtedly possesses. In both countries, they made many friends and enjoyed their lives there. Now they divide their time between the Netherlands and Tenerife.

Ronald is the author of: “The Kilt Behind the Curtain”, “Fortunate Isle, a memoir of Tenerife”, “A Tenerife con Cariño”, and “Windows On My Worlds”.

Viviana and Ronald - April 2024

As we near the halfway point of this year's Creative Writing Showcase, I am pleased to feature this third story in the Fiction category from Valerie Fletcher Adolph.

This contribution is very different from her previous two entries, but it made me smile. I am sure you will enjoy it as well. You can read Val's story Cinders Goes to the Ball here.

A warm welcome to Carly Standley, a newcomer to our writing features on Fred's Blog and the latest contributor to this year's Fiction Showcase.

You can read Carly's story Light Against the Darkness here.

Carly Standley, writing under the pen name Olivia Bey, seamlessly blends a full-time career as a Registered Nurse with the pursuit of her Master's degree as a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner. As a devoted mother of three in Colorado, she finds solace and joy in writing, a cherished passion that serves as her ultimate escape. Crafting stories is not just a hobby; it's her essential self-care in the demanding field of healthcare. 

For the latest entry in this year's Memoir Showcase, it gives me great pleasure to feature another contribution from Ronald Mackay.

You can read his insightful story Privileged by clicking here. 

Ronald Mackay
​In 1976, Ronald migrated from Mexico where he’d been working for two years, to Canada. For several years he worked in most Canadian provinces as well as all over the Canadian Arctic. Years later, he and his Peruvian-Italian wife, Viviana, moved back to Canada from Argentina where they had been growing grapes. Ronald enjoys a good relationship with his two stepdaughters. Having had no children of his own to bring up, he sometimes finds the situations into which he is drawn by his four grandchildren deeply puzzling.

Viviana and Ronald, April 2024, Buenavista del Norte, Tenerife