PLEASE WELCOME Canadian author FRANK TALABER! Take it away, Frank==and yeah, why Felicity??
You hear the phrase all the time; “it’s a man’s world”. Only sometimes it’s not. We can’t do the one most profound thing in all of humanity. Give birth. Okay, we have a part in it, obviously. But it’s a very small part.
I’m sure there are very many other examples, but the fact is there are a lot of areas
where being a woman is the best thing in the world. Now I know you will think this is a trivial point, but what about romance? We are very bad at it. We really have to learn about it and work at it. Apparently, we are even very bad at writing about it.
Booking into a romance writing convention in Calgary, the lovely lady receptionist was looking for my name tag and it was taking a while. The other lady bumped her arm and said, “he’s the other guy registered here.”
“Just the two of us?” I asked.
“Yeah. Bit of an unknown having even one, y’know. Most guys can’t do romance, let alone write it. Or want to write it!”
Julia-Rae is a highly talented businesswoman who runs a very successful travel magazine; editor, marketing, layout, she does it all. Even the photoshoots, this one in particular at the heady location of Machu Picchu. (So here is the main need for the re-write; cameras. Technology has advanced by leaps and bounds and the very well-written scene of Julia-Rae struggling to change the 35mm film in full Mexican sunlight was, sadly, left on the cutting-room floor.)
Whilst at said shoot, she meets a handsome, crazy man that sweeps her off her feet. Literally. Especially when he takes her bungee jumping (although she does get her revenge later by insisting he attend a cross-dressing party with her, but that’s another story.)
They begin to quickly fall for each other but there is a problem. Both have pasts; pasts that mean neither of them was looking for love so of course it just falls into their laps. Or does it? Julia-Rae is skeptical of his feelings when she finds out he is after something very precious to her. So, was their meeting high on a remote mountainside truly spontaneous? Or was there a sinister reason for it. Well, you’ll just have to enter their world to find out!
So that’s the beginning of the writing life of Felicity Talisman. Frank Talaber (me. As me!) has ventured into many other genres; urban fantasy, crime thrillers, spiritual thrillers (one based on science fiction), comedy, erotica and some non-fiction, basically everything except westerns (although I can dance Gangnam style, does that count?).
Very many times I’ve thought of hanging up my pencil, as it were. I was at that point a few years ago. Well, 398 rejections is an awful lot to take. But then I read a story. A true story. A mother who frequented a warm, dry café somewhere in England, nursing one cup of lukewarm coffee. She graduated from university, but just seven short years later, she had suffered a failed marriage, was jobless and with a small child dependent upon her. Well it is no wonder she was suffering clinical depression and sometimes, in the wee small hours when sleep eluded her, she even contemplated suicide. But despite all of this she knew in her heart she was a writer. How easy it would have been for her to give up and then the world would never have met Harry Potter.
Further research found other similar stories. War and Peace, the great literary classic by Leo Tolstoy, was rejected by over a hundred publishers before it was accepted.
If it weren’t for perseverance, Stephen King’s Carrie would not have seen the light of day. He dumped it into the trash along with the words, “I give up. I’m going to stick to being a teacher.”
Although the perseverance in question was not his but his wife’s. “You tell me you’re a writer. Dust off that blown, crumpled and withered ego and put it out there. AGAIN.”
The very next publisher accepted the book, otherwise only the children of some Eastern American state would know him at all, and then only as a stuffy English teacher.
Dr. Seuss of Cat in the Hat fame did give up. Fortunately for him, he left his rough draft to be found by a fellow during a house party, who just happened to work at a publishing house. The rest is simply Green Eggs and Ham.
So, I persevere. Several of my novels have been picked up, and Felicity Talisman has now been accepted by a publishing house. So, although I am not yet up there with the Rowlings and Kings, I will be one day. Just gotta keep going!
OUR STORY:
She only wanted Not to fall in love with him. He only wanted to steal her company.
Roy only wanted to seduce Julia-Rae and convince her to sell him her company. Julia-Rae wanted to shut him out of her heart like every other man that ever got close. Only what do you do when you fall in madly in love with the enemy and the enemy with you.
Will the dark secrets they hold tear them apart or bring them closer together?
A romance novel for women seeking, love, marriage and family while fulfilling the adventures of their heartfelt desires and dreams.
BIO:
Born on the wild Canadian prairies but tired of the winter months in Edmonton, Frank immigrated to the more temperate cedar forests of coastal British Columbia. Yes, they get snow in Chilliwack during the winter months, and on that odd occasion Frank is forced to search out the snow shovel, dust off the cobwebs and have a go. At the snow, not the cobwebs.
His run-of-the-mill day job of auto technician/service advisor seems at odds with being an inspired, off-the-wall, author, but his zest for life, the environment, and the little muses that won’t let his pencil stay still, spring from his mother’s Hungarian ancestry. It’s the Gypsy blood, he says, which pounds through his veins with wild abandon, driving him to the realms of fantasy.
This is the muse inside, the essence of Frank Talaber.
People who have read Frank’s books describe him as a natural storyteller who writes like his soul is on fire and his pencil is his voice screaming. They go further to say that they find his books grabbingly intense and hilarious at times, screaming everyday life from such a realistic viewpoint you’re drawn into his world, hook, line and plum bob, unable to stop; almost cursing that they can’t set the book down, page after page. Frank takes great pride in the realism of his work, painstakingly visiting most of the locations, (obviously, only the “real-life” ones!) and he is so thorough that many readers have remarked that they can hear, taste, visualize, smell and feel the essence of the place. “It really is like being there” one remarked. There isn’t a greater compliment to be made.
His tagline is Canada’s Foremost Off-beat Author (also the name of his YouTube channel; check it out for his witty and informative videos) who writes in urban fantasy, science fiction, crime, spiritual, romance, erotica and comedy genres. Well, anything that comes to him, basically! Except westerns. Although he does like to ride Gangnam style; does that count?
Literature written almost beyond genres, whose compelling thoughts are freed from the depths of the heart and subconscious before being poured onto the page. Or, as he often says, “you don’t have to be mad to be a writer, but it sure helps”.
Email: twosoulmates@shaw.ca
My webpage https://franktalaberpublishedauthor.wordpress.com
My novels on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/stores/Frank-Talaber/author/B00UC407R0
My Youtube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCx5ki4gpdokN-9KAIZzu53w
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/franktalaber
Twitter
Linked In https://www.linkedin.com/in/frank-talaber-6a594481
Ebooks on Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/Frank38
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/franktalaber58
tiktok https://www.tiktok.com/@franktalaber
Alana Lorens, author 