Artania Chronicles: Inspiring Children

Why write about a world made of art? That’s different.

And unique, yes. Just like every child I’ve ever had the joy to meet.

In Artania, every time one presses crayon to paper, it births a wondrous being. Magical. Born of imagination and creativity.

What all children need.

Every child has such beauty inside but sadly so few see it. Their homes are fraught with neglect and abuse. Too many never celebrate their wonder.

Yet they should.

I’ve tried telling my students, “No one can draw, write, paint, sing, or dance just like you. You can create magic. If only you believe.”

Not enough.

So I wrote about an art-created world that needs them. That is in danger. And only the true art that comes from deep inside will save it.

“Like this Ms. Woodward?” One boy asks holding up a sketch.

And I nod hoping they will be inspired to create more.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B078RTXXDL?ref_=dbs_p_mng_rwt_ser_shvlr&storeType=ebooks

About Laurie: The author of Forests Secrets and Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry,  Portal Rift, Persistence of Memory, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, Laurie Woodward  is also a screenwriter who co-authored Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet,  and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at Author Laurie Woodward — Next Chapteria.net

Info Diving

Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m an info nerd. I love donning a couple of oxygen tanks, slipping into a wetsuit, and diving into a salty research. It’s my process for every short story, novel, and screenplay I’ve ever begun.

And it’s glorious!

All is silence as I swim through glide over brilliant coral reefs and through wavy kelp forest facts. The stresses of life might call but they are distant whispers at the surface of my joyful sea.

Artania has taken me from Egyptian pyramids to Gothic castles to surreal structures where I’ve been able to meet gods, goddesses, Mona Lisa, Dali, Monet, Gaudi, and so many more characters from art history.

Breathing in their stories and exhaling a few of my own.

Research. Friggin’ fun!

About Laurie: The author of Forests Secrets and Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry,  Portal Rift, Persistence of Memory, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, Laurie Woodward  is also a screenwriter who co-authored Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet,  and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at Author Laurie Woodward — Next Chapteria.net

Dementia’s Sieve: A Poem

Sieve separating

Moments in memory

And reality from delusion

Rinsing each synapse

Diluting connections

And

Leaving familial particles

Forever separated

By mesh

About Laurie: The author of Forests Secrets and Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry,  Portal Rift, Persistence of Memory, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, Laurie Woodward  is also a screenwriter who co-authored Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet,  and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at Author Laurie Woodward — Next Chapteria.net

New Screenplay Done!

I just finished my latest screenplay. Yahoo! Learning this art has been a blast of a challenge and with every new piece of work, I discover more about the craft. I still love writing novels, but variety is giving this gal’s life a little more spice.

Now what? It gets posted on Script Revolution a free script hosting platform that offers screenwriters a place to promote their scripts and filmmakers the tools to search through them. Then I dream…

https://www.scriptrevolution.com/

About Laurie: The author of Forests Secrets and Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry,  Portal Rift, Persistence of Memory, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, Laurie Woodward  is also a screenwriter who co-authored Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet,  and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at Author Laurie Woodward — Next Chapteria.net

Resonant Beats: A Poem

Their hearts once beat with mine

And now pulse with a strength

That resonates through

Bone

Sinew

And skin

Filling the air

With rhythms

And expansive

Dance.

My Children and I

About Laurie: The author of Forests Secrets and Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry,  Portal Rift, Persistence of Memory, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, Laurie Woodward  is also a screenwriter who co-authored Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet,  and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at Author Laurie Woodward — Next Chapteria.net

Artania V: Soon to Be Published!

My publisher said yes! They accepted my new novel, Artania V: Persistence of Memory and are now doing the final edits. Yahoo!

What is it about? Saving an art-created world changed little for Bartholomew Borax III. His germaphobe mother still makes him bathe six times a day. He can’t tell anyone about the mystical Artania. And he must secretly sculpt.  But then, Bartholomew is yanked, alongside skater-girl Gwen and fellow artist, Alex back into that world. Here much has changed.  Artanians are being infected with amnesia and no one can find a cure. With epic battles, surreal creatures, and a growing threat the trio race to save Artania from certain doom.

I’ll be so excited to see what covers they come up with!

About Laurie: The author of Forests Secrets and Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry,  Portal Rift, Persistence of Memory, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, Laurie Woodward  is also a screenwriter who co-authored Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet,  and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at Author Laurie Woodward — Next Chapteria.net

Blazing Solstice: A Poem

With Winter Solstice looming near

And summer a long gone mariner

He finds power in the darkening malcontent

That traps a gaze this autumn

Above an umbrage of blazing ice clouds

Lucifer burns in the frozen star

Grinning as he weaves the death shrouds

For men’s hibernal coffins

Oh for a voyage ever southward

To a kindred hemisphere

Where azurean waves

Reflect the waxing moon

And ice surrounds no heart.

But setting sail is no easy task

In hoary waters

And dimmer skies

Where even the breath

Of mermaids’song

Hangs suspended

Like frozen desires.

For smoldering long

In the soul of man

Lingers the cryogenic star

Waiting for a time

When glaciation reigns

And the Arctic Age returns.

These celestial collisions

Bear fireballs

To illuminate and warm

A mortal sea

Eroding ice floes

That bar the way

For the long journey

Homeward.

(Photos by David Stroup)

About Laurie: The author of Forests Secrets and Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry,  Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, Laurie Woodward  is also a screenwriter who co-authored Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at Author Laurie Woodward — Next Chapteria.net

Velveted Blades: A Poem

Skin of blades

Velveted by day

Sheathed under layers

Of false smiles

And soft words.

But as night falls

Hinge outward

Extending scythes

Of umbrage

Razor-sharp

Piercing embrace.

Photos by David Stroup

About Laurie: The author of Forests Secrets and Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry,  Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, Laurie Woodward  is also a screenwriter who co-authored Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet,  and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at Author Laurie Woodward — Next Chapteria.net

Thorns: A Poem

I have been on a path to find my way back to myself
But I’m so lost that I can’t tell if this bramble covered ground
Is a road, a garden, or a kingdom.
I reach for shears to cut through the thorny vines
But they have long since rusted
And crumble in my hands.
I try wading through the woody sharpness
And look down to find my feet torn and bleeding.
I remember Jesus imploring me on that night
So long ago.
With unspoken words that touched and terrified me.
And decide that this is not a path
But a snare.
I entrap myself in again and again.

Photo by David Stroup

About Laurie: The author of Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry,  Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, and Forests Secrets.  Laurie Woodward  is also a screenwriter who co-authored Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet,  and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at Author Laurie Woodward — Next Chapteria.net

Review of The City of Dreaming Books

This book by Walter Moers is wonderful combination of fantasy and ridiculous farce. Probably the most imaginative book I’ve ever read with absolutely unique settings, characters, and symbolism. It is told in first person by an author-wannabe-dinosaur named Optimus Yarnspinner. He begins his tale in Lindworm Castle at the deathbed of his authorial godfather, Dancelot Wordwright. Wordwright gives him a manuscript, which he claims to be the greatest piece of writing ever. Upon reading the manuscript, Yarnspinner is so blown away that he feels he has to go to the City of Dreaming Books to find its author. There, Yarnspinner meets the shark grub Pfistomel Smyke, who offers to help find the author. Unfortunately, Smyke is not who he seems; he poisons Yarnspinner with a hazardous book, and maroons him in the city’s catacombs. Here he must watch out for bookhunters, harpies, the fearsome booklings, and the legendary Shadow King.

Will he ever find his way out to become the writer he has heretofore only dreamed of? Read this amazing tale and find out!

About Laurie: The author of the recently released Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry,  Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, and Forests Secrets.  Laurie Woodward  is also a screenwriter who co-authored Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet,  and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at Author Laurie Woodward — Next Chapteria.net