Book Details
- Title: Falling Water: Stories & Poetry
- Author: Blaine Coleman
- Genre: Anthology, Spiritual
- Publication Date: December 9, 2014
- Length: 166 pages
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Synopsis
Most of the stories and poems in this audiobook were compiled from handwritten notes in journals I’ve been keeping for several years. The title story, “The Waterfall”, is a powerful study of loss, acceptance, and growth. In “Butterflies”, a young boy learns a lesson about acceptance and appreciation of what he has been given. “The Lighthouse” is a moving tale that’s as close to poetry as prose and offers a beautifully upbeat ending. “Grandma Brown” is a nostalgic and emotionally moving tale of familial love. “A Boy and His Dog” tells the story of a young boy learning to accept that nothing is ever truly lost. “Waiting” is an incredibly powerful and moving tale of a man’s love and acceptance in the face of the finality of dying. “The Source” is a classic short horror story. “And When I Got Home” features a young man finding his own path to spiritual enlightenment. A short collection of poems range from the unusual to the more traditional and beautiful. And “Wisteria” is a moving story of a man visiting his now abandoned childhood home and realizing that nothing ever truly dies. I think there’s something here for every taste and hope that all who listens to these words will find meaning in them!
This eclectic collection of short stories and poems examines the universal truths in every person’s life: living and dying, love and loss, grief, understanding and acceptance, hope, spiritual rebirth and happiness through beautifully-written, deeply moving prose and dramatically realistic imagery. Three of the stories in this book were previously published in ‘The Adventures of Roland McCray’ series, but the other works are published here for the first time. The poems were compiled from handwritten notes in journals I’ve been keeping for several years. Some of the stories are heartbreakingly-sad, while others have a definite upbeat ending. One is a classic horror story, yet it suits the direction of the book, and the poetry ranges from strikingly unusual to the more traditional. This book touches on universal truths in a powerful way. I think there’s something here for every taste and believe that all who read these words will find meaning in them!
I’m actually reading this as slowly as I can because I don’t want it to end! I feel as though each tale should be savored and thought about.
~ By1D82 Many
The vivid descriptions are captivating, and I found myself immersed in the rich imagery.
~ Estela Vazquez Perez (Author of “Light & Shadows”)
The tales will swirl around the edges of your consciousness, striking in their familiarity yet fresh and evocative. From the first well-crafted word to the end of every thought provoking tale, I remained bemused and seduced. I think you will too.
~ J Kelly Accinni (Author of the “Alien Intervention” series)
Excerpt
“Look Dad,” Josh called out, “down here! There’s an overlook.” I got out of the car and walked down the gravel road to him. A low stone wall bordered a small graveled lot, to keep people well back from the edge. But unlike the other overlooks we’d stopped at, here was no sweeping vista of mountain and valley. Instead it overlooked a narrow ravine with a steep, brush-covered slope to the stream at the bottom, a sheer cliff on the other side. And from the top of that cliff, out of the shadowed woods a stream flowed, cascaded over the edge and sprang free of the earth. The waterfall. The same one Matt and I had discovered by accident years before. Now Joshua and I had, somehow, found it again. By accident, it seemed. There was now an information sign: “Falling Spring”. The timber company that owned the property had opened the view to the public. Josh, of course, stood on top of the wall and stared at the water cascading from the dense forest into the late afternoon sun. “Josh, this is the waterfall I told you about, the one Matt and I found. It’s really something, isn’t it?” Josh just stood on the wall, looking at the water flowing from the shadow-darkened forest on top of the cliff. “You said you climbed to the bottom. Can we do that, too?” “I did, but I don’t think you can get to the bottom anymore,” and I pointed towards the woods. “They’ve put up a fence in the place where Matt and I went down.” “That’s okay Dad,” he said. “This is still great.” “Worth the long trip?” He smiled. “Definitely.” Then he jumped to the ground and picked up a rock, quartz, walnut-sized and good for throwing. I thought he wanted it for his collection, but he climbed back onto the stone wall and faced the falling waters. “This is for you, Matt,” he shouted, as though Matt might somehow hear him. Then he threw the quartz across the ravine; it arced high into the air and dark against the sky, fractured the sunlight, then fell like water into the falls and crashed on the rocks below.
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About the Author
Okay, this is where I’m supposed to say something about myself… A lifelong resident of Virginia, I grew up in the rural southeastern part of the state with a large extended family. As a child, I attended a Baptist church with my mother and two sisters until I stopped attending at age twelve. After high school, I was foolish enough to drop out of college after one year to get married. The marriage didn’t last, but I was blessed to have a wonderful son, Jason Adam. Over the years, I’ve worked as a busboy, dishwasher, cab driver (a difficult, low-paying and potentially dangerous job which I wouldn’t recommend to anyone), a delivery driver and once worked a four week night-shift stint in a ball bearing foundry where the melted steel was so hot that large bay doors along both sides of the building were kept open all night even during the winter, a retail clerk, garden center helper then manager, retail store manager, regional manager of a retail chain, manager of an auto repair shop, an independent courier and an independent contractor/landscaper. At age 35 I opened an antiques mall which I sold in 2006. Those disparate job experiences provided me the opportunity to meet and interact with a wide range of people in all socio-economic brackets and learned that the old adage is true- people are people and if you skim away all the trappings of materialism, we really are all the same. I try to put that ethos to good use in my daily life and writings. I sincerely believe that all people are loved by God, are Children of God, and will, eventually at least, find God and that there are many paths, so I won’t denigrate anyone’s chosen path since God has a plan for us all. When I was thirty, I returned to school at Virginia Commonwealth University, in Richmond Virginia, where I majored in Religious Studies and minored in Creative Writing with a focus on fiction. I attended evening classes and worked a full-time day and part-time evening job so that I could attend VCU while raising my then 7 year old son on my own. I was fortunate to have incredible writing teachers, one of whom helped me appreciate the power of poetic prose, another who inspired in me a love of southern fiction. I now live in a rural area near Richmond where my beagles, 5 year old Leah and beagle puppy, Sage, have room to run and I’m able to spend my time gardening, reading voraciously and writing as often as possible. I write more than southern fiction, but in 2012 I began a series of short stories, “The Adventures of Roland McCray”, which I want to develop into a trilogy of stories about a young boy growing up in the south and learning to question the religious beliefs he has been taught in church as well as the race and class divisions he sees in his everyday life. My latest release, “Falling Water: Stories & Poetry”, examines the challenges we all face in life, the joy and the grief, suffering and happiness, loss and healing, and the inherent goodness in life that underlies it all.
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Falling Water - Stories & Poetry - WritersPayItForward
Falling Water is an eclectic collection of short stories and poems that takes an incisive, penetrating look at life and examines the universal truths every person must face.
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