Blog

Books, Art, and Maisie

Talk about living on the edge. This young woman paints on the edge of books. It is beautiful. Check it out.

Maisie Matilda is an art history student who is reviving the medieval art of painting on the edge of books. When she put her work on TikTok she got nearly five million viewers. She deserves that fame—her art is beautiful. One of her TikTok videos is embedded below.

@maisie_matilda

“Harry’s heart did beat for us. For all of us.” #foreedgepainting #harrypotter #BOSSMoves #potter #deathlyhallows #hogwarts #potterhead #snape #dobby

♬ Dumbledore’s Farewell – Nicholas Hooper

You can learn more about Maisie in this BuzzFeed article about her. Or check her out yourself @maisie_matilda.

Ted Macaluso is the author of Seeking Cézanne: A Children’s Mystery Inspired by Paul Cézanne and Other Artists. He lives in Northern Virginia.

Text copyright (c) 2021 by Ted Macaluso.

Enter The Book Giveaway

Owls Cove Press is giving away six signed first editions of Seeking Cézanne: A Children’s Mystery Inspired by Paul Cézanne and Other Artists.

The giveaway is hosted at Goodreads.com and ends on December 4, 2021.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Goodreads giveaways are very straightforward. One signs in to Goodreads and enters the contest. At the close, Goodreads randomly chooses six of the people who entered and copies are mailed to the six winners. The only requirement is that people who enter agree to list the book as “want to read” on their Goodreads page. They do not have to buy the book or pay anything.

Seeking Cézanne: A Children’s Mystery Inspired by Paul Cézanne and Other Artists is an adventure story about a brother and sister lost in a world of paintings and trying to get home. Grades 2 to 4, but anyone who appreciates beautiful art will love it.

CLICK HERE TO ENTER

An insect in a van Gogh? Another one?

Something about wet paint must be irresistible.

Martin Bailey, a leading van Gogh specialist, reported some interesting news.

According to his blog, Adventures with Van Gogh in The Art Newspaper, a three-year research project by an international group of experts found traces of a small insect walking through the paint of van Gogh’s Olive Grove (July 1889).

You can read about it here.

It’s not the first time. A grasshopper did it as well.

Cézanne is coming

Happy to announce that I have a new children’s book in production and it will be available very soon.

Seeking Cézanne: A Children’s Mystery Inspired by Paul Cézanne and Other Artists.

When Jamie and her brother Billy are trapped inside a painting, they want nothing more than to get back to the real museum. But every time they try going back, the museum disappears. They need to find Paul Cézanne to reveal the trick to getting home–and that’s not easy. To find him, they need to learn how to experience and appreciate artistic works. Grades 2 to 4.

Here’s what the cover will look like.

Stay tuned for more info!

“It felt like an ordinary day on campus when the bridge appeared out of nowhere.”

So starts the message from Elizabeth’s dead boyfriend.

He was a victim, caught in the crossfire between two artificial intelligences that learned to perform sorcery and magic. Elizabeth wants to escape the crossfire. But she–and the world’s survivors–may have no way out. Or at least, no ordinary way out.

My science fiction story, The Bridge Between, is available now on Kindle Vella. Read it here.

digital_book_cover

Kindle Vella—stories told one short episode at a time—is  a new reader experience from Amazon.com. The first few episodes of every story are always free. After that, purchase Tokens and redeem them to unlock episodes. To get you started, Amazon gives 200 tokens free with your first Vella experience.

I’m proud to be one of the hundreds of authors published on Kindle Vella. You can find every genre: romance, fantasy, thriller, science fiction and more. So consider checking it out.

You can read all six episodes of The Bridge Between by clicking here. Thanks—and if you like it, please remember to give the story a thumbs up so other readers can find it too.

.

What? Van Gogh Times Five?

The immersive van Gogh experiences are coming and, if you’re confused, you’re not alone.

Turns out, there are five big-screen, multimedia van Gogh shows competing with each other.

Author Selene San Felice of Axios explains it all here:

https://www.axios.com/van-gogh-exhibit-immersive-scam-real-1c7e6cf4-b8a2-4bc7-8013-4d00cb2ea7e1.html

To be honest, even with five competitors and a bit of controversy, I can’t wait to go to the immersive show coming near me.

An Interview With Ted

…plus information about writing that goes back to ancient Greece: Ekphrasis.

Possibly the oldest form of writing about art is known as ekphrasis. I am excited and pleased that The Ekphrastic Review published an interview with me about my book, Vincent, Theo and the Fox, which is inspired by the paintings of Vincent van Gogh.

You can read the interview here.

Carol Scheina, the interviewer, is a marvelous writer. You can find links to her imaginative and delightful stories here.

If you want to find excellent ekphrastic poems and stories (as well as podcasts and writing challenges), consider subscribing to The Ekphrastic Review.

For people interested in the craft of writing, you can’t go wrong reading The Ekphrastic Writer: Creating Art-Influenced Poetry, Fiction and Nonfiction by Janée J. Baugher.

Professor Marjorie Munsterberg created a website, Writing About Art, for her course of the same name at The City College of New York. You can read what she writes about ekphrasis here.

I’m sure your favorite search engine will reveal more. But first, if you haven’t already done so, please read the interview (it is about me, after all).

Thanks.

Ted

%d bloggers like this: