Well, after 34 years plus, I have finally achieved my goal and had my first novel published. HUNTING THE KING hit the bookstores in April. It took equal parts luck and tenacity to get here. Now I think tenacity takes over.

Over three decades, the dream stayed the same. I would be discovered, sign my lucrative contract, and the royalties would start rolling in. The dream began to fade almost immediately. Reality set in very quickly, almost as quickly as the promoting. As any publisher will tell you, unless you’re Stephen King or John Grisham and your novels are sold the moment they are finished, you must self-promote in any way possible. And probably in ways you haven’t thought possible.

This is how my April has gone so far. I had a book signing in Lowell, Massachusetts at the local Barnes & Noble on April 11. It was my first signing. Friends showed up, because I work just down the street. We made a lot of sales, and the store, which prominently featured the novel, had to order more. On April 19 I did a signing at an independent bookstore in Salem, Mass, the home of Nathaniel Hawthorne and witch burnings. A lot of friends showed up there, too, and the store sold out. Unfortunately, I got a parking ticket for overstaying my two-hour welcome at a meter. So my royalties went to the City of Salem. For my third event, I traveled out of state to Falmouth, Maine (Home of LL Bean, a former employer). I am from Maine, so a number of family showed up there. The tolls on the highway plus the gas to fill the tank ate up those royalties. Next week I go to Augusta, Maine, the capitol of the state. Ditto, tolls, gas, royalties.

Sometimes I feel like a small-time band playing the backwater towns with the hopes of someday playing the Garden. But it’s all worthwhile. You never know who you’re going to meet. You never know when that one event or one blog or one returned message may lead to something more important, and your novel takes a quantum jump. The road is a long one. The march slow and uncertain. But so was the journey to get here. I continue to fumble with blogging but still reach out as much as I can. I call newspapers to do reviews. I will be going on the radio and local access tv. A star may not be born, but I’ll wear out my shoes trying.

Next month the Harvard Coop!

Update on Thursday, June 5, 2008 at 12:09PM by Author Editing

HUNTING THE KING has now been in the bookstores for two months. A year ago today I was still unpublished and still had no clue if I would ever be published. But apparently, HUNTING is doing well enough to have forced (by torture perhaps) a reprinting of the book. It is time now to thank everyone who has helped in the process.

 

I dedicated HUNTING THE KING to my parents, Esther and Martin Clenott. My parents were there at the beginning, the literal beginning and the literary beginning, and provided emotional and financial support all those many years when I was collecting my mountain of rejection slips. Even now, my mother has accompanied me to book events and has used her political clout to help me get interviews and reviews in Maine. She is now 84. My father will turn 87 this month and, while he has debilitating Parkinson's Disease, still follows my progress and always wants to know the bottom line: how much am I getting?

I always felt that friends were the key to a healthy stable life. I am blessed with some of the greatest friends in the world. Carol wants the casting couch when one of my books is turned to film. She hosted my first post-publication parties and has been a longtime supporter, reading many of my unpublished books. Carmen is my Puerto Rican buddy, a co-worker in Boston for many years. She is going to accompany me to Puerto Rico when I begin researching my next book. Nina is an attorney although she was a housing advocate when we first met. We share a love of terrible sci-fi movies. Alison has published her own book on her great-grandfather who wrote Gilbert and Sullivanesque musicals at the turn of the century (the 20th century). David is a playwrite who just finished filming his first independent film. There are all the friends I work with and have worked with, old friends and ones I have picked up while blogging for HUNTING THE KING. Through all the hard times, they have been there to pick me up and I will never forget any of them.

Thanks must also go to the wonderful people at Kunati Books. In case you missed it, Kunati has just been named the Independent Publisher of the year by ForeWord Magazine. Not bad for a company founded just about two years ago.

Update on Wednesday, September 3, 2008 at 01:59PM by Author Editing

Why is it that summers fly by so quickly? Every June 1, as my children close out their school year, I say to myself that the summer will fly by, and it does. I think it's because I live in New England and hate the thought of encroaching winter, the cold and snow, the shorter days.

This summer came and went in part because of all the hubbub around my novel and the book signings each weekend. I also finished a new novel called ALBERTVILLE , so it's been a busy summer at least.

Several years ago, in researching a book about the First World War, I came across a site on Wikipedia that lists the last survivors of the Great War. At the time, in 2005, there were about 75 veterans from around the world. Today there are twelve, all over 100 years old. If my summers have flown by, so have their lives. I would like to commemorate this blog to the 12 survivors whose summers and winters are coming to a close:

Claude Stanley Choules     Born March 3, 1901     Served in the English Royal Navy, now lives in Australia

Sydney Maurice Lucas         Born Sept, 21, 1900    Served in the British Army, now lives in Australia

John Ross Campbell           Born March 11, 1899   The last Australian Digger

Fernand Goux                        Born Dec. 31, 1899      Served in the ench Army

Pierre Picault                         Born Feb. 27, 1899       France's oldest man

Delfino Borroni                      Born Aug. 23, 1898       Italy's last veteran

Henry Allingham                   Born June 6, 1896        Last known survivor of the Battleof Jutland

Ned Hughes                          Born June 12, 1900      Served in British Army

Harry Patch                            Born June 18, 1898      Last British soldier who fought in the trenches

William Stone                        Born Sept. 23, 1900      Served in the British Royal Navy

John Babcock                       Born July 23, 1900         Last Canadian veteran, now living in Washington state

Frank Buckles                       Born Feb. 1, 1901          Last American veteran

The last female veteran, Gladys Powers, a Canadian, died in August at the age of 109. May they all be remembered for their service to freedom.

Update on Sunday, September 7, 2008 at 12:44AM by Author Editing

I suppose it's time for someone from the Kunati herd to weigh in on Sarah Louise Heath Palin. Ms. Palin, if you are unfamiliar with the name, is currently the governot of Alaska and the running mate for Republican presidential hopeful John McCain.

Part of the controversy, of course, is that practically no one south of the Canadian border had heard of her prior to the Republican convention. She had been a small town city councilor for two terms, mayor for two terms, and ultimately governor. Now lack of public renown should not be a reason to criticize Gov. Palin. Nor should the inexperience card be played. I happen to think I'd be a great president, and who's heard of me? This country has been run by experienced men for two hundre years, and where has it gotten us? The Bush administration was rotten with experienced men, men who were rotten when they worked for Nixon and hadn't gotten any less rotten with age. They were just wrinklier. Experience without enlightenment and integrity is pointless. Four thousand two hundred young American men and women are dead in Iraq fighting a war we started under false pretenses. The planet is suffering the consequences of global warming and the experienced men of the Bush administration simply scoffed. Pro-lifers, they should look long and hard in the mirror at the lives they have spent and wasted and at the planet they will bequeath to their own grandchildren. Experience taught them only that power is all, and that they had it and could use it any way they pleased. Basically, to benefit themselves.

This brings us to 'hockey mom' and second place finisher in the Miss Alaska Pageant, Sarah Louise Heath Palin. Ms. Palin, its not your lack of fame that bothers me or your inexperience. It is that you are a Republican still. It is that you oppose abortion, that you support the death penalty, that you oppose same sex marriage, that you have supported the drilling privileges of oil companies in your own home state over the beautiful imperiled environment and wildlife of Alaska. More significantly, you continue to support a war which should never have been undertaken. You support a party that, while criticizing Democrats for being tax and spend, has thrown billions of dollars into this war while cutting taxes to the rich and creating the greatest divide between rich and poor in the history of humanity. Such economic policies make it impossible for your party to ever improve education, housing, employment, health care, or any of the basic needs and services that the vast majority of Americans rely on. And yet, for all of this, you and Sen. McCain proclaim yourselves independent, the candidates of change.

I will say this for Gov. Palin. With children named Track, Trig, Bristol, Willow and Piper, she obviously has a creative side. One of her children has Down Syndrome and her eldest is bound for Iraq in the fall. You would assume that she would be an empathetic person. She has a daughter who is pregnant out of wedlock and may have had an extramarital affair, as reported by the Enquirer. Whether or not that is true, Gov. Palin should certainly be able to draw on her own personal experiences to generate a more compassionate approach to the world. Regrettably, she has taken sides with the party of Bush-Cheney, may ascend in their wake to the second highest position in the land, perhaps in the world. I, for one, am not convinced that she's the right person for the job.

Update on Thursday, September 25, 2008 at 03:38PM by Author Editing

IS JOHN MCCAIN THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE?

Now that the nation is in economic freefall as a result of economic policies akin to open trough night at Farmer McDonald's, we Americans need to take a much closer look at those individuals who want to be president of the United States.

If it isn't clear now, it should be, that the Republican version of free market economics doesn't work, never has worked, never will work. Regulation and oversight by a reasonable and responsible government is vital and necessary. Candidate John McCain has long held the belief that government should not intervene in the market system, which, he believes, should self-regulate. The results have become all too clear lately. But why should we be surprisedat candidate McCain's failure to see the obvious.? McCain also supports a war that was started based upon a number of untruths.

In 1959 author Richard Condon wrote a popular thriller called THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, which subsequently became movies in 1962 and 2004. The novel revolves around a platoon of Amnerican GIs who were captured during the Korean conflict. During their captivity, they were brainwashed into thinking that one of their members, a Sgt. Shaw, had saved their lives. As it turns out, Shaw is an agent for the Communists. Under the tutelage of his mother, played in the 1962 movie by actress Angela Lansbury, Shaw is an assassin out to help destroy the American government.

So, maybe I'm being tongue-in-cheek. But wasn't McCain captured and held captive by Communist forces. And hasn't he been considered a hero. I have no way of knowing whether his mother is a domineering Communist agent, but certainly a McCain presidency would go a great way into destroying everything we hold near and dear. More war. Deeper debt. Could it get much worse?

So, I ask you: Is it possible, just possible, that the Republican candidate for the presidency of the United States is instead the Manchurian candidate? He ain't mine.

                                                                What to Write? What to Write? What to Write?

Surely this is a question that has gone through most unpublished writers’ minds when they are in pursuit of an agent or a publisher. Do I write a mystery? Should I throw down the gauntlet at Stephen King and write a horror tale? How about science fiction or the next Harry Potter?

People in the know advise to look at what’s on the best-seller lists, what’s hot, what’s in. The problem for me has always been that, by the time I tried to write what was hot or in, the subject was no longer hot or in. I’m still on Shakespeare while the rest of the world has gone on to Diablo What’s-her-name. I figured, as well, every other budding author is doing the same thing I am. Looking at Dean Koontz’s success or John Grisham’s and trying to follow down their golden paths. But you can’t. Because everyone else is going down that same well-worn path. How do you separate yourself from the crowd? How do you make yourself stand out so that an agent or publisher will choose you over the multitude? Not without a great deal of difficulty, obviously.

Other people suggest, ‘Write what you know.’ Well, okay. Except, what I knew bored me. Why do I want to write about things in my life? That’s why I write. To get away from those things.

Having dispensed with that thoughtful bit of advice, I chose to go my own way. Write whatever interests me at the moment. No matter what. If it’s not best-seller material, so what? If I’m talented enough, surely some agent or publisher will recognize my genius and scoop me up in a chariot filled with royalty checks.

So, here’s what I wrote about:

PAN DORA ISLAND: Chimps in the wild taught how to use sign language by a madman. When the madman commits suicide, the chimpanzees are left to evolve with this newfound skill of communicating with words.

LIGEIA: A studious slave teams up with her favorite author, Edgar Allan Poe, to uncover the killer of president Zachary Taylor.

GOSPEL OF HANNANIAH: The ‘autobiography” of Jesus’ illegitimate daughter.

PRETTY IN PINSK: Two CIA operatives start a dating service in post Cold War Russia.

You get the idea. Eclectic. Don’t pin me down to any genre. Distinctive. And this is only the tip of the creative iceberg.

Where did it get me? Back to looking up what was on the best seller lists.

Ultimately, I drew this conclusion: you have to write what gives you joy, no matter what the consequences. You have to love the characters you give life to and the worlds they inhabit. Writing has to give you pleasure. You have to long to be in the places where your writing takes you. If it’s not good enough for publishing houses or agencies, so be it. I don’t think you can write a good publishable novel if you are not enjoying the experience. Many published authors who write series or stay within a particular genre run out of juice, and their novels, while published, even successful, are no longer particularly good.

So, I went back to the drawing board, which in the old days was a lined notebook and a portable typewriter. In the early 1990s I read an article in the Boston Globe in which a prelate of the Catholic church stated he had the right and power to deny congregants access to God if they belonged to organizations he disapproved of. In other words, he was going to deny members of the Church access to the sacraments, the rites and rituals of the Church if they were pro-choice. That was when I decided to write TRACES OF A LIFE, the precursor to my debut novel, HUNTING THE KING.

TRACES concerns an archaeologist, Molly O’Dwyer, who is a passionate seeker of knowledge but who remains at the same time a loyal observant Catholic. Her mother had been a pagan but died when Molly was a child. Molly was then practically raised on the campus of the Jesuit institution where her mother had taught. Her conflict throughout both TRACES and HUNTING is that of an intelligent being who questions her organized religion when it comes into conflict with her own morality. In TRACES, Molly is assigned to a dig on a Boston harbor island and there, coincidentally, begins to uncover the truth about her own past and what her mother was doing in defiance of the Church and common law. In short, I decided to write a mystery with an important moral spine. I wanted to challenge the Church and the arrogant position of those who felt they could deny people God because they had a degree in theology and a position of political power within the Church.

At the time, by coincidence, I had an agent. And she wasn’t from Arkansas either. Not that there’s anything wrong with Arkansas. I had an agent from there once, too. In fact, at one time or another I’ve had four agents, all from different states. This particular agent was a New York agent, so I was excited for the first time in many years that my novel, TRACES, might actually be sold. Only it wasn’t. My agent quit. She was so frustrated by the publishing business that she decided she wasn’t going to represent fiction anymore.

Bereft and alone again naturally, I returned in my own frustration to the Best Seller list. DA VINCI CODE happened to be the hot thing at the time, so I took my lovely red-haired archaeologist Molly O’Dwyer and sent her on an expedition into war-torn Iraq in search of the remains of Jesus. I figured, surely this can’t miss.

Well, surely it can and surely it did. For two years, during which time I wrote two more novels, all the while sending out that all too familiar deluge of letters to agents around the globe. I wrote an anti-war novel aimed at Bush/Cheney, THEY WERE CALLED TO DUTY, and a sure-to-reach Oprah novel called ALBERTVILLE.

Letters went out. Letters went unanswered. Same old story. No one wanted anything that I wrote, no matter what genre I wrote in. Finally, luck stepped in like a swaggering pimp in a Blaxploitation flick. I found Kunati Books on a web site called FirstWriter. Sick and tired of agents, cynical about the book business in the US, I searched for a publisher or an agent in Canada that might be more amenable to what I was trying to do. I hit on Kunati. They were looking for cutting edge fiction, page-turners that had the feel of a Hollywood film to them. I knew right away what I was going to send them. Molly O’Dwyer in Iraq. This happened in late March of 2007. In August Kunati’s publisher Derek Armstrong contacted me by email and offered me a contract. I had been writing for 34 years.

So, what to write? My experience may be unusual. At least, I hope it is. Maybe I did things all wrong, I don’t know. I still say you have to write what is in you to write. Not what you know, but what matters to you. If I hadn’t stumbled upon Kunati Books, I would still be floundering to this day. I’m convinced of it. But if HUNTING THE KING doesn’t do well and Kunati doesn’t offer me a contract on a second novel, I will persevere. I always have. And I will continue to write what matters to me.

Next up: COMRADE LOLITA. Via con dios.

Update on Thursday, April 10, 2008 at 12:49PM by Author Editing

Molly’s Blog

I apologize if I haven’t blogged since my initial entry. My life is always chaotic. I don’t know particularly why. It just is. As a scientist, I pride myself in logic and order. In my own life, I’m like the cat who got into the catnip.

Archaeology is in my blood. Really. I love sifting through time, pulling back of old floorboards and discovering centuries old secrets. I live in an old Victorian in Boston, which suits my personality. It’s big and spacious and I can roam from room to room when I’m in one of my frenetic moods. It’s also cozy with three working fireplaces. Tabby, my six year old cat, and I love to curl up on the couch under a blanket and read together. Not always science. Sometimes a good romance. (Trust me, I’ve had my share of hunks.) I have pried into every wall space in the house, dug up the front and back yards, gained a following of the neighborhood dogs who come sniffing by, to Tabby’s great chagrin, to see what I’m up to. The men in my life understand. At least, they better.

How did I come to archaeology? As I said, it’s in my blood. My mother was an anthropologist. I never knew my father. Mom was the youngest tenured professor at Mt. Auburn College. I was a campus rat. Everybody in the science department knew me. And everybody on campus knew my mom. That was in the 70s. She was a campus radical. Outspoken. Daring. Always smiling. What memories I have of her are dim but pleasant and colorful. Singing. Swinging in this hammock somewhere near a beach. She died when I was four. In a fire. And I still miss her. She was a hippy, a wiccan, a believer in the Earth Mother, which was strange and daring because she was teaching at a respected Jesuit college and had the admiration of a very rigid administration. What they thought when she delivered me out of wedlock I’ll never know. She was fearless.

Me, I was a troublemaker. Still am in some ways, I suppose. The seed not falling far from the tree. Though as I’ve gotten older I’ve tried to rein in my grossest impulses. When she died, (I’m told because I don’t have many memories of that time), I descended into darkness. I was out of control. No amount of medication or therapy could help. People tried. My aunt and uncle raised me. All of my mother’s old colleagues adopted me. Mt. Auburn College became my home, but it took the Church of all things to return me to sanity and to get me into archaeology. I am a scientist. But my loyalty to the Church remains strong for what it did for me in my darkest days.

My aunt Kathy and Uncle Frank are Catholic. Kathy’s a nurse and as devout as St. Paul himself. Frank’s a cop. He likes to dig, too, only his digging usually involves murder. We share war stories. He nods off in church. But he tells me how I used to sit in the front pew, eyes wide, fascinated by the sermons that Fr. Lunt used to preach. I especially loved the stories of the Old Testament. Frank tells me the moment we got home, I’d take a pail and shovel meant for Carson Beach in Southie and start digging up the flower garden. Searching for the remains of Ur or Sodom among Frank’s prized begonias took my mind far from home, far from my mother’s ghost, and into a world that has captivated me ever since.

Thanks again to Peter for giving me this opportunity to speak to you guys. It’s therapeutic in some ways. I know Peter knows something about therapy as he works with homeless folks. A good man. Check out his web site at http://www.peterclenott.com and remember to blog me at http://gospelofhannaniah.bolgspot.com.

Next time.

Update on Friday, April 18, 2008 at 02:57PM by Author Editing

My Other Life

Once you get published you don’t suddenly enter a brand new world, with royalties pouring in, kudos and awards. Unless you score a huge contract, life goes on. Writers have families. Families include children. Children need to be fed. (I’ve tried intravenous feeding with the kids, but it doesn’t work long and your reputation as a parent takes a hit.)

For the past nine years I have been doing the two-job shuffle. And both jobs are in the non-profit world. So, guess what? Those royalties are lookin’ real good. No matter unroyal they may be. In Lowell, I work for Community teamwork Inc, which is the local CAP agency. CAP agencies are the local war-against-poverty service organizations. I work on a daily basis with people in crisis. (Hello?) People who are facing eviction, foreclosure, utility shut-offs, domestic violence, you name it. I’m the guy people come to for money. On weekends I work for a wonderful organization called Emmaus Inc. I do overnight shifts for a long-term residents for people with a dual diagnosis. (Drug or alcohol abuse plus schizophrenia or depression or something else) It makes for a busy schedule.

Then there are the kids. My 11-year old daughter Leah is a big time reader. She has been through the entire Harry Potter series at least ten times. But she doesn’t like to write. Or do homework. My nine year old twins, William and Stephen, like doing their homework. But they prefer eating. Stephen is a monster to potatoes. William is a monster to everything.

All in all it makes for a bust life. When do I get to write? Shhh. Don’t tell the bosses. That’s when.

Update on Friday, April 18, 2008 at 02:58PM by Author Editing

My Other Life

Once you get published you don’t suddenly enter a brand new world, with royalties pouring in, kudos and awards. Unless you score a huge contract, life goes on. Writers have families. Families include children. Children need to be fed. (I’ve tried intravenous feeding with the kids, but it doesn’t work long and your reputation as a parent takes a hit.)

For the past nine years I have been doing the two-job shuffle. And both jobs are in the non-profit world. So, guess what? Those royalties are lookin’ real good. No matter unroyal they may be. In Lowell, I work for Community teamwork Inc, which is the local CAP agency. CAP agencies are the local war-against-poverty service organizations. I work on a daily basis with people in crisis. (Hello?) People who are facing eviction, foreclosure, utility shut-offs, domestic violence, you name it. I’m the guy people come to for money. On weekends I work for a wonderful organization called Emmaus Inc. I do overnight shifts for a long-term residents for people with a dual diagnosis. (Drug or alcohol abuse plus schizophrenia or depression or something else) It makes for a busy schedule.

Then there are the kids. My 11-year old daughter Leah is a big time reader. She has been through the entire Harry Potter series at least ten times. But she doesn’t like to write. Or do homework. My nine year old twins, William and Stephen, like doing their homework. But they prefer eating. Stephen is a monster to potatoes. William is a monster to everything.

All in all it makes for a bust life. When do I get to write? Shhh. Don’t tell the bosses. That’s when.

Update on Thursday, May 8, 2008 at 11:57AM by Author Editing

MONTH ONE

Well, after 34 years plus, I have finally achieved my goal and had my first novel published. HUNTING THE KING hit the bookstores in April. It took equal parts luck and tenacity to get here. Now I think tenacity takes over.

Over three decades, the dream stayed the same. I would be discovered, sign my lucrative contract, and the royalties would start rolling in. The dream began to fade almost immediately. Reality set in very quickly, almost as quickly as the promoting. As any publisher will tell you, unless you’re Stephen King or John Grisham and your novels are sold the moment they are finished, you must self-promote in any way possible. And probably in ways you haven’t thought possible.

This is how my April has gone so far. I had a book signing in Lowell, Massachusetts at the local Barnes & Noble on April 11. It was my first signing. Friends showed up, because I work just down the street. We made a lot of sales, and the store, which prominently featured the novel, had to order more. On April 19 I did a signing at an independent bookstore in Salem, Mass, the home of Nathaniel Hawthorne and witch burnings. A lot of friends showed up there, too, and the store sold out. Unfortunately, I got a parking ticket for overstaying my two-hour welcome at a meter. So my royalties went to the City of Salem. For my third event, I traveled out of state to Falmouth, Maine (Home of LL Bean, a former employer). I am from Maine, so a number of family showed up there. The tolls on the highway plus the gas to fill the tank ate up those royalties. Next week I go to Augusta, Maine, the capitol of the state. Ditto, tolls, gas, royalties.

Sometimes I feel like a small-time band playing the backwater towns with the hopes of someday playing the Garden. But it’s all worthwhile. You never know who you’re going to meet. You never know when that one event or one blog or one returned message may lead to something more important, and your novel takes a quantum jump. The road is a long one. The march slow and uncertain. But so was the journey to get here. I continue to fumble with blogging but still reach out as much as I can. I call newspapers to do reviews. I will be going on the radio and local access tv. A star may not be born, but I’ll wear out my shoes trying.

Next month the Harvard Coop!

Update on Wednesday, October 1, 2008 at 03:24PM by Author Editing

I HAVE AN AGENT!

I have chronicled in the past my somber attempts at getting representation for my writing. Like most writers out there I have written thousands of query letters only to receive the wearying form letter back that I just didn't make the cut. I have had representation in the past.

AGENT 1: From New Jersey but not mob-related. She must have been just breaking in to the businnes at the time. But at the moment she has the reputation for being the worst agent in the country. I will protect her identity, but many of you may know her.

AGENT 2: She lived in LA. When I ripped the suicide note from her death grip, I was touched by how she blamed me for everything from her demise to that of Greek culture.

AGENT 3: From West Virginia. I suppose I should have known better than to get enthusiastic about being represented by a woman who owned seven cows, but I signed on the dotted line. She dropped out after rewriting my novel without my knowledge. I did get a package of manure as a poarting gift.

AGENT 4: From New York. New York, for God's sake! How could you go wrong with a New York agent? To be fair, she is reputable. Unfortunately, she became more frustrated than I was by my rejections. She is now doing only non-fiction.

But now I have a real agent. At long last, I feel I have entered the world of literature. her name is Anne Hawkins and she is with John Hawkins and Associates, which is the oldest agency in the country. She is thoroughly professional and my hopes for success have never been so high. Please, everyone, just don't tell her about AGENT 2. I couldn't go through that again.

The main character in my novel HUNTING THE KING is Molly O'Dwyer. I have known Molly for over ten years. She teaches archaeology at a local college and has traveled trhe world in pursuit of knowledge. She is a fascinating woman who has found Viking artifacts in Greenland, burial sites in Israel, and, most recently in Egypt, the exquisite scrolls of a woman who claims to be the daughter of Jesus Christ.

Professor O'Dwyer has not been one to avoid controversy. She has often stirred it, somewould say recklessly. I leave that to you, my guests, to decide for yourselves. Professor O'Dwyer has agreed to take time out from her busy schedule to be a regular contributor to this blog. I hope you will join in with her as she opens up the doors to the greatest mystery of all time.

Professor O'Dwyer, the floor is yours.

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Thanks, Peter. But I hope you guys out there won't stick with calling me professor O'Dwyer. Way too stodgy. My name is Molly. That's what the pizza delivery boy calls me. That's what my students call me. Unless they want a bad grade. Peter's just being polite, which is unusual for him.

Yes, it's true. I have traveled quite extensively. Since I was in high school actually. I went on my first dig the summer of my junior year, as a student volunteer on a dig out of harvard University. I made my first real discovery that July: a doll buried with a child. I never looked back. I was hooked. And just as I felt forthat little child lost so many years ago, I have felt the same for all of the ghosts I have uncovered ever since. I think it's part of my personality. I make a connection with these people. I sense them. I feel them. I know instinctively where to look for them. Some people think it's spooky. I think it's a gift. My cat would disagree. He's afraid to take his eyes off me for fear that I'll be gone the moment he looks away to scratch or lick. And, truth to tell, I just might be. Poor Tabby.

I love being out in the field. I don't care about the weather. Too many academic tours of duty give me the wanderlust. I love sifting out history one grain iof sabd at a time, getting filthy and hanging out with other archaeologists. The real textbook is the desert, or the mountaintop, or the great plain. That's where you learn. That's where the truth is hidden.

Yes, it's also correct what Peter said about my throwing fat on the academic fire. While my career has been more eclectic than most, I have focused on biblical archaeology particularly since my discovery in Egypt of the scrolls of hannaniah, who calls herself the daughter of Christ. I am not a headline grabber. But sometimes you have to get at the truth no matter what. Whether it sets you free or not, and, trust me, it may not, we have no business hiding from the truth. Don't ask why. Look at history.

The truth means everything to me. So, when I discovered the scrolls of Hannaniah, I didn't bury them. I didn't hide them from the world or allow them to be boxed and locked in some museum archive by those in authority who see the truth as dangerous. I published. You will understand why when you read my translation of hannaniah's gospels. They were transcendent.

The first moment I laid hands on her writing, I bonded with her. I can't explain it other than to say, I felt her in a way I have never felt with any other ancient author whose works I have translated and enjoyed. Hannaniah is different. It is as if she still lives and will always live.

Some say that i was overzealous, that I manufactured her words for some academic award or because I had some spiritual ax to grind. Believe me, nothing can be farther from the truth. I am a loyal observant Catholic. What you will read in future blogs is what she wrote, excerpts from her gospels. She will transport you just as she did me. Now, whether or not she was telling the truth, if she truly is the illegitimate child of Jesus of Nazareth or if that is just her misguided belief, that you will have to judge. I, for one, believe her.

Thank you, Peter, for giving me this space to reach out to your readers. HUNTING THE KING will be as controversial as anything I have written. But I am honored, and somewhat amused, that Peter chose to write about me. The Kunati fellows were smart to take us on. Next time, I will tell you how I came to be an archaeologist. You must get to know me just as you would get to know Hannaniah. Because we are sisters of the blood in ways you would not believe.

Until then, Shalom my friends.

Molly

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You will be able to find the incredible Molly O'Dwyer's blog on http://gospelofhannaniah.blogspot.com. Learn more about Molly and about the woman who claims to be the daughter of Jesus, Hannaniah.

HUNTING THE KING may appear at first hand to be a pure adventure, a page-turning thrill ride meant to ride the successful coattails of books like DA VINCI CODE. My actual motivation for writing this novel and others connected to it came in the early 1990s long before Dan Brown published.

At the time I read an article in the Boston Globe in which a high official of the Catholic Church declared that he had the right to deny someone access to God if they belonged to an organization he disapproved of. What he meant was he could deny someone access to the rites and rituals of the Church if they were pro-choice or something else. Take your pick.

At the root of this arrogant statement is the problem with organized religion, the attitude that 'you're either with us or you're agin us'. That there is only one right religion in the entire universe, and it is mine. Yours is wrong, whatever it is. And if you sway one tiny iota from the way I practise our religion, you aren't practising it correctly. All of which, of  course, is nonsense.

In the process of reaching out to people on the internet regarding HUNTING THE KING, I occasionally get feedback from people who do not share my belief that all faiths have equal value and that none is superior to any other. I have had an interesting long-running back-and-forth on MySpace with a young man who calls himself Noah. He is a very sincere man who believes that the Bible is the direct word from God and that every word, sentence and paragraph should be taken literally. In our debate over true faith, he is constantly quoting chapter and verse from the Bible to make specific points. I have not been able to get through to him that I suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder and couldn't get past 'In the beginning...' His point to me is that salvation can only come if I accept the word of the Bible and  accept Jesus as the Son of God. My point to him is: people have the right to believe what they want so long as they don't interefere in other people's beliefs. His belief is fine. If it gets him through life, gives him comfort and solace when he needs it, gives him happiness and contentment, great. But other people have the right to get the same things out of different beliefs. We are all different. Our needs come out of who we are and what we have experienced. Each of us is unique. Our needs are unique. And so our faiths will by neecessity also be different.

He won't buy it.

He is not the problem. I suspect he would never take up arms against anyone who disagreed with him. He would just keep quoting from the Bible. The problem is and has always been with people who would take up arms against those of different faith. Such as the Catholic prelate from somewhere in the American midwest who got his degree in theology from some American university and who now feels he has the power and justification to deny another Catholic access to God. It is those who have Noah's strict faith but who also have the power and eminence of authority to legislate religious law or to gather forces behind them who are dangerous. History is filled with religfious repression and violence. The Inquisition and the Crusades may have occurred centuries ago, but the hearts and minds of man haven't changed. And they must.

Which is why I was compelled to write HUNTING THE KING and its two predecessors and companion piecesTRACES OF A LIFE and THE GOSPEL OF HANNANIAH. To create dialogue on the issue of religious faith. God knows, if Noah doesn't, that that discussion needs to go forth and multiply.

Last night, I found myself thinking about a young boy I used to know. He was called Peluchi, though that wasn't his real name.

On the tough streets of the Cathedral Public Housing Development in Boston's South End, all of the Hispanic kids had nicknames. Coco, Fonzi, Macho. There were various gangs living in different projects in the neighborhood, across Washington Street at Casa Borinquen, down at Camden-Lenox, up Columbus Avenue at Tent City. All of the aging developments were hold-outs, built in a by-gone era meant for veterans returning from WWII. Now they were crumbling eye sores being surrounded by a gentrifying city, high-priced condos replacing lower rentals, displacing poor and working people.

I had been involved with tenant organizing when I first came upon Cathedral. I first visited the Boston Housing Authority development for a job interview, but I had seen it in passing many times, riding on the old overhead down Washington Street towards downtown Boston or out to the richer suburbs south of the city. I thought the development looked like a dismal, forlorn and depressing prison. Tall towers of yellow brick. Concrete floors. Broken up tarmac. Absolutely no green.  Grafiti all over the place. Cathedral was in line for federal funds to undergo major rehab. Several of the tall buildings, which might otherwise house forty to sixty families, were now vacant, except for the drug users and pushers who could easily get in. To walk up the stairs in those buildings was to skirt needles and human feces, sometimes a sleeping homeless person or a drug deal in process. You climbed without looking into anyone's face. You went about your business in silence.

Peluchi was about 12 years old but was very short for his age. From a distance, he might have appeared to be eight or nine years old. And he acted it. He had a volatile temper. He once went after another kid with a baseball bat. I had to pull him off. This was around 1990. Floyd, that was his real name, was living with grandparents. His oldest brother was serving time for drugs. His older brother, Fonzi, who was 13, was bound for jail for raping a girl in the project. Peluchi's father never existed and his mother lived on the street, a drug-addicted prostitute. His grandfather was an alcoholic.

Peluchi was a handsome boy, dark black hair and dark eyes. When he smiled, it was a child's bright and easy smile. He loved playing, and he often hung out with me in the community office. I worked for the tenants as their liaison to the Housing Authority and to the architects who were planning the redevelopment. I remember walking home with him one day, carrying him on my shoulders and taking him out for ice cream. He helped me and a character named Richard Martinez move some furniture. Richard used to do only two things when he left his cluttered apartment at the top of one of those Cathedral towers. Paddle his canoe in the Charles and drink Ballantine Ale. He was an alcoholic who believed if he ever stopped drinking, he would die. To my knowledge he's still alive and guzzling. Peluchi spent the day with us and was very happy. As we were walking down Washington Street, he happened to spot his mother outside the offices of the South End News. Instantly, he took to his heels, ran for her, and leaped into her arms, shouting, "Mommie! Mommie!" She hadn't bathed for days, was dressed in rags, was hanging out with other drug users, but the two, mother and son, shared this one brief embrace that spoke of their humanity, the what-might-have-beens had their lives been different. The police found her dead shortly after, murdered by some unknown drug user or rapist. And Peluchi returned to his way of life.

I know he stole money from the office once. He had been with me helping run a food day. We brought in fresh produce from Chelsea, and for $1 people could come in and fill two bags with food. Peluchi loved being involved. After we collected the moneym, we put it in a cash box and hid it in a closet. The next morning the box and money were gone. The office door was locked, but there was a way of getting in through another building which was connected. I asked Peluchi if he took the money and he denied it. But I accepted his word and we remained friends. Not long after my funds dried up, the agency I was working for was defunded. I held on for as long as I could doing my own fundraising, but I had no health insurance. When another job came along, I had to take it and said good-bye to Cathedral.

Writing novels is still my way to salvation, my way to escape a world that is sometimes overwhelming and difficult. Peluchi didn't have that outlet. What he had was what he had. I came to find out later that he had been killed by a rival gang, shot over drugs. But I still remember the hard-edged little boy, the street-wise and street-naive kid whose true innocence was exposed that one summer morning in the arms of his dying mother. You are not forgotten, Peluchi. This book is for you.

Kunati Books specializes in working with authors making their debut. I don't want to tell you how long I was waiting in the wings to make my inaugural swing onto the literary catwalk. Suffice to say I know what side of the horse Washington liked to mount.

All of us who have gone through the process of submitting to agents and publishers know what it's like to wait and wait, build up hope, only to have it dashed by form letters that tell you they hate to send form letters but have to send form letters because they're too busy to send anything else.I don't know about you. But I work a hard day job (two, in fact). I'm busy. Yet I manage return phone calls, return emails, and send out letters that are original and sometimes clever.

In waiting all that time for the one letter that means something, I wondered what that moment would be like when I would get that glorious alternative message. Would it come in a phone call? Would it be an email or a letter? How would I react? I imagined I would be sitting at my desk. When the word came that someone wanted to publish me, I would jump out of my chair, run down the hall to my boss Jennifer's office, yelling, "I did it! I did it!"

Of course, the moment never came. Jennifer died (way too young). I was fired. (Won't go into that). And the hits just kept on coming in. I wrote two more novels, went through another agent, found another job, and one Thursday morning, not unlike the previous thousand, I was sitting at my computer, opened my email, and there was a message from Derek Armstrong of Kunati Books. Well, I didn't want to open it up. I knew, just knew, it was going to be another polite 'No thanks.' So, I diddled and daddled and did everything I could think of to avoid opening the message. I saw another client, went to the bathroom, shuffled papers, returned phone calls until I finally got up the courage to take a peek.

Imagine how you would feel if you had waited years, dreamed for years, never really expecting the good word to ever come, knowing in your heart that the dream was just that. A foolish odyssey. A pointless effort. Destiny, fate, whatever, always favored the other guy, never you.

Then when it happened, when I read Derek's words, 'Call me. I'd like to discuss making an offer.', I was stunned. Where were the blaring horns? Where was the triumphal light? Why was I just sitting at my desk on a typical work day, my co-workers all around me going through their regular daily rituals? That's it? I think it has taken a while for everything to sink in. It is still just sinking in even after the edits and the galley review and learning how the hell all of this publishing business works. I can only wish that all of you trying to break in experience what I have. I would like now to be able to leap out of my desk, run down the hall, and dash into my boss Jennifer's office and scream what I never could in all of those years we worked together and became good friends. In my book HUNTING THE KING, past lives play an important roll. So, Jennifer, while I don't know if such things as past lives or reincarnation or heaven actually exist, if you can see me this morning, punching the keys on my computer, if you can read my mind and see into my heart, Jennifer, "I did it!"

And so will you all. Best of luck.

Author really has a nice ring to it, especially if you've been dreaming about becoming one for so long. People who don't write think getting published is as easy as going to the market and buying Fritos. Right. Here's my story.

I began writing after I took my last college exam. (Isaac Newton it, which only goes to show you.) Before that I had no idea I wanted to be a writer. I took no literature courses, hardly even read. So, I can't tell you why I sat down and wrote THE THIRD WORLD. I just did. And wrote, and wrote, and wrote. And these were the days before computers. So editing was white-out and re-writing meant buying extra ribbons with the ink smearing your hands and getting all over the paper.

I got my first agent way back when. I think she meant well. She did submit the manuscript, and I did get replies. But, turns out years later, she is considered one of the worst agents in North America. I won't give you her name. She's from New Jersey and, in her spare time, breaks knee caps for the Gambino crime family. I escaped with a bruised spleen.

My next agent came during my screen writer phase. I figured I was having no luck with my novels, so I would try Hollywood. This agent also meant well but quit within weeks of signing me on. I warned her not to date OJ, but would she listen? I did write a few good screenplays and visited LaLa land. But the closets I came to success was when Barbra Streisand told me to get off her lawn.

Next I got an agent from Arkansas. Now, you'd think I'd know better than to entrust one of my novels (I was back into novels now) with someone from Cow Hoof, Arkansas. But when she said the book was the best thing she ever read, you bet I jumped. She tried, too. Found out later that she did a little rewriting on her own without letting me know and that she belonged to a cult that believed that the end of the world would follow a Red Sox victory in the World Series. She was wrong about that (I hope) and wrong about my novel.

Finally, at long last, a light shone at the end of the tunnel when I got a New York agent. New York, of course, being the ticket to fame and fortune. This agent was legit. But she quit after several months saying she was going to concentrate her efforts on non-fiction. So, I said, "Can't you just pretend my book is non-fiction?" She didn't bite.

Bereft and on my own yet again, I did what every other unpublished writer does. I searched high and low for an agent, contacting hundreds, always getting the same reply. What a shock. I wasn't right for their agency. I didn't fit. I wasn't what they were looking for. Read, I wasn't Brittany Spears.

I found Kunati Books by saying, the hell with agents and the hell with American agents. In the Firstwriters web site, I located publishers in Canada, read the description of Kunati and what they were looking for-- controversial, cutting edge, page turners-- and I thought I had just the right thing. HUNTING THE KING. And, by God, it was the right thing.

Later, I wil describe that moment when Kunati first entered my life. For now, thank you Kunati Books. You give a lot of writers hope.