Kayla brought a new kind of atomosphere to our house. She was a beagle and she was filled with all those beagle nuances that distinguishes them from other breeds of dogs. The rest of our dogs barked, Kayla bayed.  She blared her excitement and playfulness. She was always a happy girl even when she was the only dog on a leash while the others roamed free.  We had learned that beagles like to explore following their noses wherever the scent took them. Living where we lived with bears and coyotes nearby, we did not want to take the risk.  But as time passed and even though she did not complain, we thought that it was not fair to her to have her tied while the others ran. We unleashed her and let her run.  And run she did with unbridled enthusiasm. She never really wandered far but she did stay away for long periods before she decided it was time to come home.  She was happy and we were happy as well although both Laura and I were concerned about the road. Kayla never showed any sense of it.  Anything that went down deserved to be examined or chased. Unfortunately after about a year of freedom our Kayla succumbed to it and dashed in front of a truck. She was killed instantly and is now forever gone, leaving both Laura and I tortured with both sadness and guilt.  She died May 30, 2011. I wrote the following tribute to her this morning.  It will never bring her back but I want the world to know how much she meant to me.

Beautiful Being

I want to write a tribute to you

That will resound around the world

And everybody would know you existed

I want them to feel the pain of your loss

And the joy that resided in your heart

Every moment of your brief life

I want them to experience your laughter

And your frolic that never abated

Even when the rest of us cried

I want them all to know

How much of a beautiful being you were

And that your spirit never sagged

I want them to adore you

As much as we did every day with you

You were the center of our lives

I want them to think about you

Now and then and keep your memory alive

Even though you are forever departed

I want to believe in a heaven

Where we all could be together again

And the sorrow I feel now will go away

Rest in peace little beagle, little Kayla girl

My love for you will never die

http://www.theauthorsshow.com/

Please go to the Photo Gallery to see the images.

Birds

Birds is my latest published novel.  It has been released through Author’s Den.  To purchase Birds go to the following link:

http://bookfactory.authorsden.com/BookStoreDetails.aspx?BookID=501&ID=513c0362-96de-425d-9f45-ad50dcf95046

The following is an excerpt from the novel:

A Bird in the Hand

                “Do you want to see something different?” Wigg whispered, drawing Finch’s attention away from the teacher’s lesson.  The youth’s eyes slid across the classroom and became focused on the desk adjacent to his where he saw the tall and lanky adolescent lift its lid only slightly and reach in with his free hand.

                Finch’s eyes watched with the disinterest of one feeling obliged to do so only to be nice while in reality he desired not to be interrupted.  Major Dagg, the teacher, was talking about patriotic duty and how even though most of the students in the room were not even eighteen years old it still behooved them to think first in terms of the country and not in terms of the self.  It was a lesson that was first taught when Finch was less than half his current age.  It was a lesson that the children at this academy were taught every year through the ten years that they were required to attend classes.  This was Finch’s tenth year.  After this year he would not be taught this lesson any more.   It would be expected that he had learned it.

                Wigg drew his hand out from his desk.  Hanging from outside his clenched fist was a pair of the strangest feet that Finch had ever seen.  He had never seen anything quite like them.  They were so small and possessed digits that seemed extremely nimble. His attention to Major Dagg dwindled to nil. 

“What is it?” he asked the teenager that sat next to him.  He and Wigg had known each other most of their lives but they could hardly be described as friends.  Wigg tended to be a loner but when he showed affiliation to anybody it would be with an older crowd than the more juvenile Finch.  Most of the time Wigg’s gang sought to ridicule and belittle Finch and his cronies.

                “It’s something that my brother brought home from the front,” Wigg said softly as not to draw Major Dagg’s attention.  “It’s a bird.”

“A bird!” Finch cried out in dismay.  His voice was louder than he had intended it to be.  He thought that it would be certain that Major Dagg would inquire about what the commotion was about.  Yet as he sheepishly raised his eyes to look at the former cavalryman he saw that the teacher was engaged in conducting his well-rehearsed rhetoric and that if the two boys had caught his attention he was at the moment not showing it.

“Not so loud Finch,” Wigg hushed, opening up his fingers to display a tiny yellow carcass resting on his palm.

Never had Finch beheld such delicacy and such a unique configuration of body parts.  He had been taught that birds used to exist in Kidane but that they had long ago disappeared.  He had always been told that birds were heinous and vile creatures. This was something that he had accepted without ever exploring the reason why.  But now as he looked at the small dead creature, he wanted to know more about it.  His immediate reaction was that it was a thing of beauty.  He could not help himself.  He had to reach across the aisle to touch it.  As his fingers lightly lit upon the bird’s yellow covering he saw that these tufts danced gently to the stir that his hand had inflicted upon the air.

“They are feathers,” Wigg whispered.

“And the carriers of all manner of infectious disease!” a sudden bellow blustered through the classroom.  It was Major Dagg.  He had somehow managed to traipse from the front of the room unbeknownst to Finch and Wigg and was now standing directly above the boys.  He took his handkerchief from his pocket and grabbed the dead bird from Wigg’s hand.  He held it up for all the class to see.  “This ladies and gentlemen is known as a bird.  To be more precise it is what is called a canary.  See how it is covered in a furry coating.  Can you imagine all the germs that can tuck themselves in the nooks and crannies of these feathers?  Vile disgusting things!  Our forefathers proved their wisdom the day that they eradicated these creatures from our land.  No longer is Kidane scourged by the disease that these foul creatures carry.”

The girl that sat directly in front of Finch started behaving erratically as if she were in imminent danger.  Major Dagg had been waving the dead bird almost on top of her.  With his frightening words, she must have gotten it in her head that the canary was suddenly going to come to life and spring upon her in a savage attack.  She got up from her seat and raced to the opposite side of the room.

“Sit down in your seat Tercel!” Major Dagg commanded in that booming voice of his.  “A Kidani never displays the fear that he or she feels inside!”

Tercel did as she was told.  She slinked her tiny frame back towards her desk, her arms and head held low, fearful that she might incur a wrathful blow from the riding crop that Major Dagg still carried from his glorious days as a cavalryman in the army.

“You are showing fear young lady!” Major Dagg roared, raising his riding crop in the air as if he was about to use it upon the frail waif that skulked in front of him.  “Never show fear in my class again!”

The riding crop came down.

But it did not strike the girl.  It came down onto Wigg’s shoulders.

“And never bring contaminated contraband carrion into my class again either!” Major Dagg thundered at the boy.  He threw the bird carcass into Wigg’s face.

Wigg’s mouth contorted into an expression of sheer animosity.  There was no fear in him.  He was bigger than the teacher and he was in fine, athletic shape.  He possessed the traits that made him appear the archetype of what a Kidani youth should be.

Finch was suddenly scared that Wigg would launch an attack upon Major Dagg and that all manner of trouble would ensue.  But the youth that sat beside him managed to take control of his rage and subdue it and sublimate it.  The fire in his eyes had become contained.

“Wigg, you will take that fetid object outdoors and bury it deep in the ground in a location far from the schoolyard,” Major Dagg ordered.  Finch thought that he caught a look of relief in the teacher’s face as if he, too, had been frightened about a physical attack.  “Afterwards, you will go to the lavatory and thoroughly wash your hands.  And then you will report after school for detention and reprimand.”  Then the teacher’s head turned.  “Finch, you will do likewise!”

The boy had not been ready for such treatment.  “But I did not do anything wrong!” Finch whimpered, knowing as he spoke that it was absolutely the wrong thing to say.  A Kidani never whimpers and complains about the treatment accorded to him, no matter how unjust that treatment may seem.

“You disrupted my class and I saw you touch that dirty bird! And now on top of that you have just behaved in a very un-Kidani manner!  Boy, you are in your final year of school.  Have you not learned anything about how a citizen of Kidane is expected to conduct himself in all of that time?  Now, go with Wigg and bury that bird.”

Finch was about to ask if the teacher did not want them to wait until today’s lesson was over.  But he saw it in Major Dagg’s eyes that they were to dispatch Wigg’s contraband immediately.

Wigg picked up the carcass from the floor and stood up.  He was brazenly close to the teacher and he made sure that Major Dagg was fully aware of the size differential between the two of them.  Their eyes were locked, their bodies were tense. And then the youth said, “Are you coming Finch?”

The smaller boy got up from his desk.  He was in a state of disbelief.  He did not know how he had gotten into trouble.  He had never been in trouble in the decade that he had been coming to this school.  His academic record was unremarkable as were his achievements on the field.  He had left little evidence at the Academy that he had ever been here.  Until now.

As he stepped past the teacher, he could feel more than see Major Dagg shake his head in disapproval.  He felt as filthy as the dead little thing in Wigg’s hands.

July 30, 2007
An Excerpts page was added to the site today.

May 7, 2007
Joe’s third published novel, Daughter of Thunder was released today.

In June, Joe will be doing a book signing at Country Corners at Nogie’s Creek, Ontario. For more details visit www.countrycorners.ca.

Also, throughout the month of June Joe will be featured on www.trentsevern.com.

April 13, 2007
An article about Joe appeared in the Kawartha This Week on April 6, 2007. To read it, please visit the Press page.

April, 2007
Joe and his books are featured on www.countrycorners.ca.

December 14, 2006
PublishAmerica announced today that it will publish the sequel to “The Little Boy of the Forest”. Titled “Daughter of Thunder”, this 500 page thriller follows the life of Thora Meadowford from the funeral of Samuel Angus Meadowford II in 1929 to the year 2000. “Daughter of Thunder” reveals that the whole story was not told in “The Little Boy of the Forest”, some of Jack Thurston’s saga could not have happened without Thora’s unwitting intervention. Look for “Daughter of Thunder” to be available in the spring of 2007.

June, 2006
Joe took part in a health charity campaign by having a book signing. Joe donated 100 percent of the profits to the Federated Health Campaign.

May 1, 2006
PublishAmerica released Joe’s second book Corman the Carp.

March 30, 2006
Joe has joined with a group of six other authors from Canada and the U.S. to create an anthology of short stories based on Armageddon. Each of the authors will be using the same characters and the same general plot idea. Joe’s submission to this anthology is called “Hounds of Perdition”. Look for Publish America to release this compilation sometime alter this year. The other authors’ in this group are Karen Gallant and Donna Shaw, from Trenton, Ontario; James Duncan from Baltimore, Maryland; Jim Spence from West Virginia; and Ray Mallotte from Maine.

If you want to read some of Joe’s short stories go to www.nicestories.com and you will find ten tales penned by J.A. Aarntzen.

The poetry book, Reflections In Time, is still currently in the works.

Currently Joe is working on the sequel to The Little Boy of the Forest. The title of the new work is not surprisingly called “The Little Girl of the Forest”.

February 27, 2006
Joe has a forum. This forum can be found on James D. Duncan’s Book of Legends Trilogy forum page. The web address is: http://s3.phpbbforfre.com/forums/index.php?mforum=legendstrilogy

October 24, 2005
Current Writing Projects:

The sequel to “The Redeemer” has been completed. The new 1500-page manuscript is titled “Iron Horse Country”.

Currently Joe is working on “The Fall of ’29″ which is the follow-up to “The Little Boy of the Forest”. The setting returns to 1929 and focuses on Thora Meadowford, Jack’s cousin.

October 19, 2005
Joe presented his writing at a conference held at Trillium Trails. Joe read one of his poems and an excerpt from The Little Boy of the Forest. His presentation was enthusiastically received by the audience of 70 people who stood in line for an autographed copy of the book afterwards.

Some pictures from the event:

October 15, 2005
Sheila Jupe of the Kawartha Lakes Author’s Association is going to publish a book of Joe’s poems in the near future. The book tentatively named “Reflections In Time” covers 35 years of Joe’s poetry.

October 10, 2005
Joe Aarntzen has agreed to release a book of poetry with Sheila Jupe. The book is tentatively titled Reflections In Time. More to come.

July 12, 2005
New article posted on the Press page.

June 23, 2005
Joe held a booksigning today at Mike’s Place in Oshawa, Ontario. The turnout was excellent and many people asked questions regarding ‘The Little Boy of the Forest’. Sales were better than Joe believed they would be.

Here are some pictures from the event:

June 20, 2005
Joe will be at Mike’s Place in Oshawa on June 23rd to sign copies of ‘The Little Boy of the Forest’.

April 29, 2005
The Storyteller On The Lake website was launched. Many thanks to Paul Aarntzen for all the hard work in developing the site. Thanks as well to Michelle Bragg of PublishAmerica for designing the artwork and cover to The Little Boy of the Forest. And thanks to Karen Richards for the photograph of me on this website and the book jacket.

April 27, 2005
The Kawartha Lakes Authors Association invited J.A. Aarntzen to join their organization. This association is comprised of local writers in the Kawartha Lakes region of Ontario, Canada. J.A. Aarntzen gratefully accepted the invitation to membership.

April 25, 2005
PublishAmerica will officially release The Little Boy of the Forest on June 20, 2005. But you do not have to wait until then. You can order your copy of J.A. Aarntzen’s first published work by following the links on this website or by clicking here.

2. Lindsay Daily Post – Wednesday, April 27, 2005
- Catherine Whitnall Daily Post Reporter

(Click image to enlarge in new window)

3. Kawartha This Week – April 6, 2007
- Deb Bartlett, Staff Writer
Click Here to Read Article.

J A. Aarntzen has done it again!

At first I was unsure about reading a book called “Corman the Carp”. My usual taste in books falls into the Horror/Fantasy genres. However after reading “The Little Boy of the Forest” and loving it I thought that I would give this one a try.

With his newest novel “Corman the Carp” Mr. Aarntzen has crossed the boundary of the world of humans and into that of the aquatic life of the Kawartha Lakes. The plight of Corman, a rather average seeming fish, is detailed through 17 chapters (each one it’s own story). Having his home invaded by the dreaded zebra muscles Corman sets off to find his lost harem. His journey through the lakes is fraught with peril, unexpected friendships, and startling lessons. The characters are interesting and well rounded, and coupled with Aarntzen�s unique style of writing make this a hard book to put down.

I would highly recommend the writings of J.A. Aarntzen to anyone who has a love of classic literature. The beautiful prose is comparable to a skillfully woven fabric. It ensnares the senses and demands attention and respect.

Now, having read two completely different novels by Aarntzen, I consider myself to be a huge fan and eagerly await anything that this artist has in store for us in the future.

Currently I am working on the following:

Books – Hugo Furst

The first draft of this murder mystery is now complete and I am half way through its rewrite.

The Men From Faraway – I am finished the rewrite phase of this epic-length poem.  Someday I plan to publish it through Author’s Den.

My Newest Releases on Author’s Den (www.authorsden.com)

Stories:  The Redeemer Part 33

Poetry:  Us and Them

My next releases for Author’s Den:

Short Stories – The Legacy of Hickory Robinbreast Part 31

Poetry – Grease Pan, Here and Now

One thing that Author’s Den does not provide its readers with is a listing of what are a particular author’s most popular work.  It does provide this information to the author and I thought that I would relay this information to you with a regular update of what are my top 25 stories and what are my top 25 poems.

As of July 10, 2011 my top 25 stories are:

1. Talking Libra     3,268 hits

2. The Lonely Elf  1,595 hits

3. The Legacy of Hickory Robinbreast, Part 5     1,510 hits

4. Swimmer, Swim   1,383 hits

5. The Last of the Airplanes  1,355 hits

6. Corry  1,350 hits

7. The Rabbit and the Farmer  1,274 hits

8. KZ is going Home   1,263 hits

9. Raccoon Pizza  1,249 hits

10. Up the Hill  1,165 hits

11. Ploughman’s Yoke  1,135 hits

12. The Legacy of Hickory Robinbreast Part 1  1,089 hits

13. Nebraska  1,044 hits

14. Excerpt from Heritage Heretics  962 hits

15. A Lucky Fox 937 hits

16. Rita’s D’Artagnan 907 hits

17. Storm Rider 905 hits

18. Border City 881 hits

19. A Meeting in the Flesh  874 hits

20. The Redeemer Part 1  869 hits

21. The Legacy of Hickory Robinbreast Part 4 862 hits

22. Excerpt from Kawartha Catharsis 849 hits

22. Excerpt from The Gods of Orillia 849 hits

24.Excerpt from One of the Flock  808 hits

25. The Redeemer Part 2 795 hits

My top 25 poems as of July 10, 2011 are:

1. Lonely Boy 1,042  hits

2. Cup of Tea  899 hits

3. Song to a Distant Lover 877 hits

4. Mythical Warrior  864 hits

5. Lugubrious 853 hits

6. The Quiet Time 814 hits

7.  A Young Man’s Wit 756 hits

8. Backyard Chipmunk 732 hits

9. Ballad of Baby Bumpy and Bunny the Shower Boy 711 hits

10. The Rubric 694  hits

11. Lion at My Throat 689 hits

12. King Archibald’s Thaw  591 hits

13. Midnight Upon the Moor 589 hits

13. Looking for a Clearing 589 hits

15. Kite’s Day 575 hits

16. Of a Man 560 hits

17. In My Milieu 553 hits

18. A Vision 542 hits

19. The Longing 524 hits

20. March of the Zebra Mussells 523 hits

21 . Abrupt and Resonating  521 hits

22. Birds of Gold 518 hits

23. And So We Continue 512 hits

24. Things 507 hits

25. Wisher 501 hits

Total Site Hits as of July 10, 2011:  176,789 hits

Thank you to everybody that has taken the time to read my work!