My New Flip-Books

I’ve been experimenting with flip-books to share excerpts from my independently published books. Click on the links below to read samples:

“Elusive Lifelines” (dance performance, When We Believed in Magic)

“Elusive Lifelines” originally appeared in Arella’s Repertoire (2012), my first novel. The dance performance was republished in When We Believed in Magic (2014), a retrospective in three acts that brings together four of the six imaginary dancers who debuted in Arella’s Repertoire. Each act is devoted to a different dancer.

Known by the colors of their costumes, the three featured dancers stand in for the protagonist as a child (Dancer in Rose), a teenager (Dancer in Blue), and a young woman (Dancer in Plum). The senior member of the troupe (Dancer in Gold) participates in all the performances as a compassionate guide. Voice-over readings based on my own journals inspire the choreography. A travelogue, a memoir, and a screenplay all in one, When We Believed in Magic can also be read as a preliminary script for interactive digital platforms or as a sketch for an actual dance performance.

The excerpt I’ve selected features the teenage Dancer in Blue. The star of act 2, she commemorates her high school years in South Florida during the late 1960s and early ’70s. She explores the counterculture in Coconut Grove and reflects on the writers, artists, thinkers, and other visionaries who inspired her to change her worldview.

“Beyond Our World” (short story, A Child’s Personal Twilight Zone: Imagining New Possibilities) 

“Beyond Our World” originally appeared in Reimagining The Twilight Zone: A Young Fan’s Stories (2021), my speculative memoir. The story was republished in A Child’s Personal Twilight Zone: Imagining New Possibilities (2023–24), a volume that highlights three selections from my memoir featuring children and young adults in leading roles.

“Beyond Our World” shifts my focus to speculative fiction. I was inspired to write the story after watching online a 1962 episode of The Twilight Zone titled “Little Girl Lost.” My retelling introduces nine-year-old Abbey, a dimension-hopping storyteller I created who falls through a portal in her bedroom wall and discovers a magical island where she meets characters from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland; Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There; The Wonderful Wizard of Oz; and some of her other favorite books and movies.

In addition to being available as a paperback and an ebook like my other books, A Child’s Personal Twilight Zone is available as an audiobook that includes a professionally narrated recording of “Beyond Our World.”

Video-Graphic Alchemy: Transforming “Dear Diary” (artist’s book)

Video-Graphic Alchemy: Transforming “Dear Diary” (2012) explains how my experiments with life writing began. The excerpt from this multimedia retrospective provides a context for the books in both my collections:

From Miami to LA: Personal Storytelling in the Digital Age (four books, 2021–24)

Autobiographical Fiction: Transforming Personal Diaries and Other Archival Treasures (five books, 2008–14)

I’m now finishing a novel that taps into my entire memory bank (Arella’s Encore Act).