Joan Hall's Home Page

This is Joan Hall's informal newsletter to you, inviting your input (see guidelines below). Click any of these links that interest you:

READERS' INPUT is welcome. State one of the above topics in your subject line (no attachments please). Please keep responses short.I reserve the right to edit for clarity and correctness--it's the old English teacher in me.

If you want to submit an article regarding the main topics above, query first. If printed, your byline and website will be posted with your article.

Joan is proud to announce the publication of The Shadow of Excalibur, Book 2 in her Arthurian trilogy. Please visit her books page to see the cover image and details. Those of you familiar with Book 1, Arturo el Rey, know that this urban fantasy saga begins with the idea: "King Arthur promised to return when we need him. How bad does it have to get?"

Whether or not you've read the first book, and whether or not you know Arthurian legend, the reincarnated characters placed in a new and bleak setting offer plenty to keep you turning pages. In Book 2, Arturo el Rey (Arthur the King) and Queen Shanna have established an orderly post-plague civilization. But on top of new baggage, the reincarnated characters must meet dilemmas from their past lives: The Arthur-Guinevere-Lancelot love triangle; an ex-mistress's vengeance; and an illegitimate son's drive to takeover the throne, to name a few.

At this writing, my new book has no reader reviews yet on Amazon, but I'd love to hear what you think. Want to see what other readers thought of the first book in this trilogy? Check a few reviews at: "ARTURO" Reviews

Think green! Try ebooks and save a tree or two. But if ebooks aren't your thing, you can probably find a print version of the title you want.

Choices, Choices

I've just discovered a very user-friendly site that not only expands the many forms the ROMANCE GENRE can encompass. It also offers an affordable ebook form. Go to: http://allromanceebooks.com, which opens with the quote: "Welcome to All Romance eBooks the Best Book Store of 2007 according to the Preditors and Editors readers poll!

ARe is proud to bring you all the romance you need from all the publishers you love. All sub-genres and categories, all sensuality levels, all your favorite authors...All Romance eBooks!"

If you thought all a romance offered was "boy meets girl and falls in love," take a look at the list of categories named on the site. It's not just your Aunt Martha's reading fare, and whether you like your romance hot or understated, the site has a "Heat Index" to guide you.

Montana's territorial prison at Deer Lodge is not the state's only place where things go bump in the night. The gold rush bred a violent past and a history fraught with spectral visits and many haunted places. One grisly murder and the subsequent hanging of Peter Pelkey in Lewis and Clark County was the catalyst for the well-publicized appearance of ghost lights in the Helena Valley. The lights appeared on the ranch of Charles Tacke, Pelkey's victim. They played around Tacke's ranch every night for several weeks in the spring of 1881 following Pelkey's execution. The spectacle drew crowds who drove their buggies out to park along the road and watch. The lights appeared, moving over the fence posts and corrals and in the barn and outbuildings. They moved inside Tacke's house, flitting from room to room as if looking for something. Some believed the lights were the ghost of Tacke, watching over his property. Others thought they were the ghost of Pelkey, searching for the money Tacke reportedly had hidden away. Still others maintained, with all the interest in the new electric lighting, that ghost lights had escaped from Thomas Edison's laboratory. Whatever they were, the lights eventually faded. Father Lawrence Palladino, S.J., Peter Pelkey's confessor, wrote in the 1920s that the lights were then, and remained to that day, a mystery to him.

Read more about the ghost lights in Ellen Baumler's Beyond Spirit Tailings, available in both print and audio book form, on website: montanahistoricalsociety.com/pub/press/newbooks.asp
Ms. Baumler is the recipient of a 2006 Award of Merit from the American Association for State and Local History.
(Read also her chapter about the Montana Territorial Prison in Ghostly Tales from America's Jails, soon to be released.)

While in Gettysburg, PA, I stayed alone at The Farnsworth House, a bed and breakfast famous for the number of haunting experiences. After arriving, I strongly felt a woman's presence, warm and helpful, in the room with me. I mentioned to her aloud that I will be staying in this room and that I wasn't there to wish her harm or compromise her status in any way.

On the first night, I heard what sounded like children's marbles on the hardwood floor above me. The clock read 12:30 AM. Was there an actual child playing upstairs at this hour? Or was it the sound of the young boy, reported to be present?

The following night, I awoke around the same time, to the sound of a cracker being eaten by the foot of the bed. Because I was tired, I returned to sleep. I then fully awoke from a dead sleep to discover someone was sitting on the bed against me. I didn't feel frightened or nervous; however, I felt very vulnerable having just awoken. This spirit's energy was the same energy as the woman's the day before. Should I turn around and look? What would I see? I turned my head and although I still felt this energy against me I saw nothing but am indentation. I thanked this spirit for allowing me to stay here and returned my head back and went back to sleep feeling relieved. (Read also her chapter about the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, PA in in Ghostly Tales from America's Jails, soon to be released.)

Debating about creating a website of your own? Revamping one you already have? Joan's article published in the Jan. '06 issue of ByLine magazine, "This Little Writer Had a Website…" could be quite helpful. It was later reprinted in The Scribe, a monthly magazine published by The Writers' League of Texas. To read it, click Writer..Website.

Ask the Book Doctor
Click “Ask Doc” Q&A's for other issues
Address questions and comments to: “Ask the Book Doctor,” Joan Upton Hall PO Box 179, Hutto, TX 78634, or email Joan.

Do demons bedevil your writing? Similar, confusing words? Grammar, punctuation, or capitalization rules? Freelance editor, Joan Hall, will demystify the problem (primary reference: Garner, Bryan A. Dictionary of Modern American Usage. N.Y.: Oxford University Press).

Address questions and comments to: Ask the Demystifier, 30 Wildwood Dr. #21; Georgetown, TX 78633, or email: jmuHall@aol.com. More problems like the one above are demystified in the booklet, 50 Writers' Tips. Find a few of them at "books, etc." and click "Samples" beside the cover on website: www.JoanUptonHall.com.

Read the current issue of the newsletter, PageTurners, by a staff of 12-authors. We sincerely want to connect with readers. In the newsletter, you'll see directions to get a FREE subscription (which you can cancel at any time). Hope to hear from you!

What's showing at a theater near you? At least in Texas, you can find a whole list of vintage Texas theaters by going to the books page. Just click the cover of Grand Old Texas Theaters That Won't Quit. Many of the theaters listed there have a website link.

GHOSTLY TALES FROM AMERICA'S JAILS
(Atriad Press) Coming winter, '06:
JUST VISITIN' OLD TEXAS JAILS
(State House Press, McMurry U.) Coming spring '07