The Gemwriter

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Category: Uncategorized

  • Digging Deep: Freeing the Ghosts from Our Past

    Digging Deep: Freeing the Ghosts from Our Past

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    by

    Frances Brown
    in

    We all have them. For some, they constitute nothing more substantial than the imagined boogie man in the closet, or under the bed. For others, the childhood fears are bigger, more powerful, more damaging, usually involving a situation with our parents, siblings, or peers. The end result is the same: we carry these ghosts, either…

  • An Unexpected (and a little eerie) Side Trip

    An Unexpected (and a little eerie) Side Trip

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    by

    Frances Brown
    in

    As a left-brainer by day, I tend to be a planner: reservations, time schedules, itineraries–even for a casual weekend trip. But sometimes even the best-laid plans go awry. Thanks to a harried schedule and a little trick Travelocity played on me, my husband and I ended up this past Saturday night, in the middle of…

  • I Can Hear You Better Now

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    by

    Frances Brown
    in

    I stopped eating toast and cakes and pies, and I can hear you better now. Deafness runs in my family. My younger brother suffers considerable hearing loss. He has one daughter who is profoundly deaf and had to attend a special school. My older brother has been wearing hearing aids for twenty years. My “deafness”…

  • So . . . About Vincent . . .

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    by

    Frances Brown
    in

    Anybody else out there a huge Van Gogh fan? I’ve been fascinated . . . okay, obsessed with his art, his life, his history, since I was a little girl. I’ve read a number of books, watched a number of movies about his life. Was he insane? Or just a frustrated artist who sadly failed…

  • Gargoyles!

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    Frances Brown
    in

    Welcome Chris Redding to my blog with her new release, DESTINY OF A GARGOYLE, Book One of the Series, “When Gargoyles Love.” Donal Foley was born in a time when magic ruled the Earth. Gargoyles protected fairies from goblins. His family was a group of elite gargoyles who were assigned to protect a specific fairy.…

  • New Inspirations

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    by

    Frances Brown
    in

    Most of my fans know that it takes an energetically charged location to inspire my stories. Up until now, those places have been old libraries, abandoned hotels, crumbling asylums, even an antebellum mansion. After reading this article this morning in Observer-Reporter, I believe I may have found my next inspiration. From a memory. The article…

  • Tech-Savvy Ghosts?

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    Frances Brown
    in

    This year’s Mother’s Day was not the most festive I’ve experienced. I spent the day at the funeral of a friend of the family. This incredible lady (we’ll call her Sally), who was stolen away from us at ridiculously young age from a sudden illness, has touched the lives of hundreds, if not thousands in…

  • The Mysterious Fate of Talcott Hall

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    by

    Frances Brown
    in

    I grew up in Middletown, N.Y., a medium-sized burg about sixty miles north of NYC. We had an insane asylum there at one time . . . well, it actually went by the name Middletown State Homeopathic Hospital. Basically, it was a place where they sent those suffering from illnesses not of the body, but…

  • Island of the Dead

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    by

    Frances Brown
    in

    Hart Island, a sliver of land in Long Island Sound in New York, is eroding away. Nature reclaims its own, right? What’s heartbreaking–and eerie as hell–about the natural reclamation of this particular island into the sea? The fact that along with the dirt and sand, the ocean is reclaiming the remains of the dead buried…

  • Sucked Through the Veil

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    by

    Frances Brown
    in

    After the release of my last Haunted Voices novel in April, I took a few weeks off from writing. Yeah, I’ve blogged. I’ve doodled around with a couple of short stories I had brewing. But starting another book? It just wasn’t happening for me. Not yet. Then, there is the conundrum: what do I write…