We at Light and Shadow Publishing & Illustrating have released my new chapbook of poetry, Garden and Sun, in early March. For its initial public presentation we took it to Elizabeth City, NC for the First Friday Art Walk in that city, where it was available at Studio 511. We sold our first copies to the public in a city where, on our first day there, temperatures were in the 70’s, a welcome change from the zero and subzero temperatures we had been experiencing at home. A new venue, warm temperatures, and the opportunity to talk about poetry to people we had never met was an opportunity we were glad to experience.
At Light and Shadow Publishing & Illustrating, we are busily putting together a book by Paul Dudley Bishop called The Florida Years, a small book filled with color illustrations and his description of his experiences of his many years as a wild bird artist in Florida. The several color reprints of artwork included are, in his words, but “a sketch” of some of that art that sold by the thousands as etchings and prints in his years as a printmaker in the 1970’s through the 1990’s. However, they are a sampling and representative of his wild bird art and his accompanying descriptions tell of his knowledge and experience with wild bird art. In those years, he traveled throughout many of the eastern seaboard states to art shows selling these and many other works of bird art.
Now, we will be taking our work on the road and doing arts & craft shows and sales with our books and art illustrations produced here at our publishing company. Both Garden and Sun and The Florida Years will be available for sale for $10.00 each in these venues. You may also contact us directly through the website at www.charlottedickens.com, where you may find author information about me. You may view Paul Dudley Bishop’s
website at www.pauldudleybishop.com for more biographical information about him.
There will be more publishing efforts coming soon here at Light and Shadow. We will be posting future endeavors and events in addition to a blog on my website. If you wish to sign up for future e-mails please visit the website at www.charlottedickens.com to be added to our e-mail list.
A sample poem from Garden and Sun— I AM A STALKER By Charlotte Jane Dickens
Quietly I move—
To evade discovery,
I find myself hiding,
Moving slowly,
Deliberately,
Every move calculated.
You, my prey, seem to have seen,
As you flit about,
Here, there, everywhere,
But you keep returning
Back to the nectar,
Drawn by its power,
All the while elusive,
But finally—
I capture you on film
For the world to see Diabolical activity
As you drain from the lily Some of its life-force
And deposit what you can.
me you fly
Somewhere else
And I do not follow.
Your mission done.
I have an image, Proof of your deed, Black Butterfly.