Greetings!
It has been a hot second since the last time we connected. I have to apologize for that. The last couple months have been all kinds of busy. With school and a new writing gig. But I do have several things written and ready to go for you.
That’s a big reason why I’m writing you today. I’ve been mentioning this for some time now, but the day is finally here. I have my book cover as well as a launch date!
The cover you see above (what do you think?), and the launch date, from Pandamoon Publishing, is August 23.
Pre-order is up! The print version will go live on the launch day. However, I have two special things for you. If you pre-order the book and email me a screenshot of the purchase (just send it over to me a greysonferguson@gmail.com) I will give you a free eBook of my memoir travel book, “Travel for the Soul (Even if You Don’t Have One), or of one of my romance books, “The Forbidden Bookclub” or “A Photo to Die For”. Just tell me which one you want in the email and I’ll send it right out to you.
And, a little thing that I’m doing. If you order two copies of Humanity: Devolved, I will donate 100% of my earnings from the second book to the local Humane Society.
I like to call it a give one, gift one.
So Pre-order today! And, when you’re done, here’s a fun little story I wrote recently.
A Crossword of Life
Sixteen down. Español for grapefruits. Seven letters…Pomelo! No, no, that’s singular. Pomelos...one two three...five six...seven! Pomelos. Grapefruit. I hated grapefruit as a kid. Mom said they were healthy, but that didn’t make them taste any better. Probably made them taste worse. Unless they were cut in half and dipped in sugar. Then I’d mash the juicy innards into the sugar bag, suck off the top, and repeat. But now, now I don’t mind grapefruits. I’ll eat them with a spoon, but the pulp is dangerous. Perhaps I should wear protective goggles when eating my morning breakfast. Maybe that little four-digit sticker on grapefruits should include a warning label as well.
Pulp burns. But it doesn’t burn as much as laundry detergent. As a child, how old was I? Five? Six? I can’t remember. But as a child, my older sister and I were mixing detergents and all kinds of other chemicals into the plastic cup-top of an empty laundry bottle. Somehow it spilled right into my eye. It burned. I thought I was going to go blind. I didn’t, but thus started a lifelong hatred of doing laundry.
I’ll never forget that burning. It was a different burning from when I slapped my hand onto a stovetop burner. I was small. Smaller than when the laundry detergent fell in my eye. I couldn’t see over the top of the stove. Not even on my tippy-toes. My mom was making stovetop popcorn. I stood at her feet, watching. Some popped kernels fell out of the pan onto the stovetop. She picked them up and ate them. I wanted to join. I reached above my head and felt around for loose kernels. I didn’t find any. But I found the burner.
My mom rushed me to the hospital. I don’t remember the doctor, or being examined. I only partially remember my hand wrapped in gauze and bandages. I do remember the room. It was yellow. Yellow like the stuffed animal giraffe someone at the hospital gave me. It was a flat giraffe. Like they took a three-dimensional animal and ran it over a few times. It’s the only stuffed animal I remember from childhood.
Well, not exactly. I had a Michelangelo Ninja Turtle stuffed animal. Or, more accurately, it was a pillow cut out to look like him. He had an orange bandana. One day I came home from school and my older sister told me not to be upset. Never a good sign. I asked why? She showed me my Michelangelo. She had knocked over a candle onto him. It looked like someone shot him with a flaming arrow in the middle of the chest. I screamed. My parents promised they’d buy me a new one, but the stores were all out. I was stuck with a purple Donatello.
Years later my younger sister bought me a gift for Christmas. It was the Michelangelo pillow and a fire extinguisher. Two decades later I finally had my Michelangelo back.
Michelangelo. That’s thirteen across! Painter of Sistine Chapel.
Don’t forget to Pre-Order Humanity: Devolved
Then email me and let me know which free eBook you’d like as a thank you!
-And for anyone who would like to stop by, visit, and say hello, I’ll have updates about book event(s) in the coming weeks.