Janet Evanovich Used Salem Secret Underground: The History of the Tunnels in the City to Research Wicked Charms!

Never Know Who is Reading Your Books...

When I was reading Wicked Charms by Janet Evanovich I was surprised she mentioned research I had written about in my book, so I sent her a signed copy along with an early copy of Sub Rosa its sequel.

Here is the letter from Janet Evanovich:

Here is a page from her Wicked Charms book mentioning research in my book:

Pick up the book that mystery writers dig; Salem Secret Underground: The History of the Tunnels in the City and Sub Rosa! Available at all good book sellers!

Salem Smugglers' Tour and Salem Secret Underground Mentioned in Another Book!

Another book cites Salem Secret Underground:The History of the Tunnels in the City and the Salem Smugglers' Tour.

In Wicked Truths:Book 3 of the Wicked Cries series  has the characters taking the tour and talking about info from the book. Also Janet Evanovich in Wicked Charms, The Librarians TV Show, and Carol Perry in her Witch City Mysteries. Have you read the book these people really dig yet? Check out The Wicked Truth Series....

Dowgin Name Used in Grave Errors by Carol Perry

Carol Perry in her newest book in the "Witch City Mystery" series have created a cast of characters using my families surname. In her previous work she used Salem Secret Underground: The History of the Tunnels in the City as research to understand the tunnel routes inside the town. Even Janet Evanovich has used that book to study tunnels in Salem for her book Wicked Charms.

It is cool to see who is reading Salem Secret Underground and how mystery writers are building tales of the tunnels I helped to bring to light.

You can buy Salem Secret Underground: The History of the Tunnels in the City today at Salem House Press or Amazon.com. Pre-orders for Grave Errors can be purchased here on Amazon.com.

Just Wrote a New Book

I'm back at investigating tunnels in Salem MA and the rest of the country. The new book Sub Rosa is the sequel to Salem Secret Underground: The History of the Tunnels in the City. This time instead of focusing on vignettes of houses connected to the tunnels and those who built them, Sub Rosa goes beyond Salem and shows how those people who owned these homes shaped American history from its foundation to the current day.

Tales about how the Federal Reserve was created, the real murder behind the game Clue, three unaccounted presidential assassinations, cycles of economic collapse, and the inventions and inventors from Salem.

For now you can read Advance Reader Copies before its official release on July 4th 20017.
Click here to get a copy today!

Dean Morrisey: Illustrator of the Week

I am Back...
Been a while. I just found time to commit to the 6 blogs I have.
Dean Morrisey I first encountered doing puzzles with my mother when I was a kid in the 80's. In fact that painting of a wizard which the puzzle was based on I got to see while on a Hulton family reunion while in Annapolis at the Green Dragon art gallery.

Then Dean would pop up in my mother's Greenwich Workshop catalogs with other fine artists. Then I got his Ship of Dreams book many years later and his Christmas Carol. Both are excellent.

Take a look at his art:

For his bio and more of his images check out this link!
 

Where Does your Imagination Bring You?

Tell us your story about this picture...

 

 

Let us know below.

Illustration from Gang Stories available on Amazon.com. The story in which your child gets to make up 4 stories about 4 stuffed animals adventures during the night.

Ellen Raskin: Illustrator of the Week

Little Nobody

Sometimes I think she is the little nobody.  Several times I have looked up the illustrator of my favorite book as a child Moose, Goose, and Little Nobody. What kept me from finding anything at first I thought it was Moose, Goose, and the Little House... which they are looking for Little Nobody in his gable. I am glad to see she did several books. Thanks to the site listed below I can now go off and find the rest of her books. It has a complete list of her picture books and chapter books. It is the best bio I found on her yet.

Below are some examples of her work:

 For More Info:
https://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/authors/raskin/bib.htm

Where Does Your Imagination Bring You!

Hmmm....

 

Where does your imagination bring you? What is on the other side of the door? Would you walk in? How long has the door been there? These are all questions you can ask. What are the answers? Share your answers below. Does this illustration create a story in your mind? Share it below with us.

 

Cheers,

Chris

Illustration from Mr. Pelinger's House & Intergalactic Roadshow available on Amazon.com.

Cosmic Play: New Album by Chris Dowgin

Incense and Peppermints...?

Have a listen. My first album of flute and piano was released this week. It is music to ease the soul in a hectic world. It is entrancing. Music from simpler times. Cosmic. Pulling traditions from traditional Japanese music and Native American. A blending of jazz sentimentalities of Jaco Pastorius and Classical tastes of John Cage. Throw a little Robert Fripp, Brian Eno, and Peter Gabriel and you will have my ice cream Sunday of inspirations.

Available at Open Mics around Salem and at Salem House Press.
Only $5

Limited Time Preview:

On Soundcloud

James Bama: Illustrator of the Week

Cowboy, Indians, and a Savage...

James Bama is another artist I had admired throughout the years within the Greenwich Workshop catalogs my mother got over the years in the 80's and early 90's. I am always surprised to find one of their artist in another venue. Sometimes their work was starring me in the face on books or movie posters I owned, never knowing they were the same people from the catalog. Speaking of which I do have the Turn Me On Book below...

Bama’s activities during this period were highlighted by artwork for the New York Giants football team, the Baseball and Football Halls of Fame, the U.S. Air Force and The Saturday Evening Post. Fans of pop culture may know him best as the artist who portrayed Doc Savage on sixty-two memorable book covers. Then Bama decided it was finally time to do what he most wanted to do. He moved west to Wyoming, where an artist “can trace the beginnings of Western history; see the oldest weapons, saddles and guns and be close to Indian culture.” He sold his first Western fine art painting soon after the move. The distinctive work of James Bama combines tradition with modern realities. In his much-acclaimed studies, Bama shows the contemporary West preserving its traditional culture. His portraits of inhabitants of the plains and mountains capture the true character of the West. Today the paintings of James Bama are part of many prestigious collections. Bama has been represented in major exhibitions throughout the West and has been presented in one-man shows in New York City. Bantam Books published The Western Art of James Bama in 1975 and The Art of James Bama in 1993. Jim was inducted into the Illustrator’s Hall of Fame June 28, 2000. Through his portraits of real people of the new West re-creating their history and heritage, Bama pays homage to the Old West and is renowned in yet another realm of the art world.

For More Info:

Gallery of Prints for Sale

Profile on Greenwich Workshop

Early Musician

Can You Play Jethro Tull...

No. My flute style is influenced by Native American flute, John Cage, and the Japanese styles of Noh and Shakuhachi.  I have been playing for 24 years. I started when I was admiring a collection of Herman Hesse books and moved a flute off the shelf. My friend gave me that flute and her Herman Hesse collection.

I started out when I was tiny with the guitar, but I think somehow my parents made it disappear. The drums my uncle gave me vanished even quicker...

My parents did buy me a Casio PT80, I only learned Greensleeves (which sneeks out on the flute at times). Though the only one that stuck was the flute. Well the piano snuck in last year.

 

Cheers,
Chris

Joe Petagno: Illustrator of the Week

Iron Horse We Ride...

To honor the passing of "Lemmy" Ian Kilminster we look at the art of Joe Petagno who created Snaggletooth. He also helped design several Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd covers.

Petagno was born in Portland, Maine and left the United States in 1972. He worked with Hipgnosis before meeting Lemmy in 1975. He designed "War-Pig" (aka Snaggletooth, The Iron Boar, The Bastard, or Little Bastard) for the band's Motorhead album and has continued to design the majority of the album and single sleeve covers for the band. Petagno refers to Motorhead's mascot as The Bastard (or Little Bastard). Joe Petagno came up with the concept after studying skulls of wild boars, gorillas, and dogs.

 

For more info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Petagno

Aubrey Beardsley: Illustrator of the Week

Such a Gaunt Guy...

 

Aubrey Beardsley (21 August 1872- 16 March 1898)

Aubrey was an English illustrator and author. His drawings in black ink, influenced by the style of Japanese woodcuts, emphasized the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic.e was a leading figure in the Aesthetic  movement which also included Oscar Wilde and James A. McNeill Whistler. Beardsley's contribution to the development of the Art Nouveau and poster styles was significant, despite the brevity of his career before his early death from tuberculosis.

 For more info:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey_Beardsley

Biggest Collection of Illustrated Fairy Tales

Grim, Eat Your Heart Out...

 

Surlane Fairy Tales

Here is a treat for you. This website is filled with fairy tales from around the world with several illustrators works exhibited. You can read the European version of Cinderella and then the Japanese next. Many of the tales are annotated and come with a comprehensive list of illustrators who illuminated them. It is a gorgeous site.

So Now Go Check Them Out:
http://www.surlanefairytales.com

Henry J. Ford: Ilustrator of the Week

All Those Tails...

Henry J. Ford

Henry Justice Ford (1860–1941) was a prolific and successful English artist and illustrator, active from 1886 through to the late 1920s. Sometimes known as H. J. Ford or Henry J. Ford, he came to public attention when he provided the numerous beautiful illustrations for Andrew Lang's Fairy Books, which captured the imagination of a generation of British children and were sold worldwide in the 1880s and 1890s.

I always loved his work in the colored fairy tales books of Andrew Lang. I hope you will too!

 Wikipedia Entry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Justice_Ford

Free Download of his illustrated books:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/26630

Introduction to Illustration Video

Wow....

 

Some tricks to the trade.

Ted Talks and The Journey of the Hero

Once Upon a Time...

Joseph Campbell had identified a pattern in all great myths, fairy tales and religious stories. George Lucas made a fortune after he learned the pattern. Disney revitalized a failing company after they followed it. So if you are writing, you should follow it too. Tolkien, Rowling, Lewis, and many more have!

Enjoy these animations about the pattern from the famous Ted Talk series.

How to Build a Fictional World

 

 

How Fiction Can Change Reality

 

 

What Makes a Hero

 

Paint Dancing

Pretty Darn Cool..

Here is something I started years ago with the Bogus Quartet back in the Bleacher days...
I learned it from watching That's Incredible in the 80's.

Creation of a Beautiful Illustration!

Look at all of the colors...

This is a pretty cool watercolor video of the process of illustration. Have a look and tell us how you liked it below.

Some Cool Old School Animation

Creepy....Cool....

 

Fran Kafka's Metamorphosis!