Sounds like wish

Esme’s Wish is the first novel in a series by Elizabeth Foster, published by Odyssey Books in 2017. It was written for older children or young teenagers. The protagonist is a 15-year-old girl who has two friends about the same age. The book’s focus is the fantasy world that Esme slips into after her father’s second marriage, and since it does not deal too much with the emotional dramas that can accompany a new family arrangement, including a mean stepmother, I see it as more suitable for pre-teens.

I liked the focus on individual Gifts, reminding young readers that we each have one, but for some of us it takes a lot of living to discover it. While the Gifts in Aeolia are magical – various inhabitants breathe under water, walk on top of it, cast songspells, are not burnt by fire – the inference is that every human has a gift. As a teenager I would have liked to be told this. Another truth in Esme’s Wish is that we don’t know everything about our parents’ past lives and it might be painful to go searching. But I also liked knowing that Esme’s friends, Daniel and Lillian, supported her when she was searching for her mother.

For young readers, the many references to Greek mythology are a great introduction to the epics and the terms that have become part of Western language and culture. Also valuable to dwell on is the Pearl of Esperance that represents all those temptations we encounter, things that are sweet and hard to resist but do us harm in the end. It represents addictions, or even promises that we will get what we want if we just do this one forbidden thing. Esme’s Wish reminded me of Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis in which some children escape reality through a painting, and there are ships and water and dragons in it, too. These are my kinds of story.

I really enjoyed the first half of the book that included Esme’s earthly family and her thoughts in Italics as she (and I) tried to understand the turn of events. In the second more fantastical half, the pace increased but the obstacles were quickly overcome and I was no longer guessing. I was keen to come to a resolution of Esme’s problem with her new family and how they would react to her discovery. However, I’ve just learnt that many novels are now published in series form, and it’s normal to leave things open at the end of the first one. I expect all will be revealed in the next book or books.

My favourite line is: ‘Just goes to show that you shouldn’t worry too much about whatever Gift you get. It might be the best thing that ever happens to you.’

What to do, what to do, when a small achievement cheers you but someone in the world says Bah?

There are writers out there who pooh-pooh the Pushcart Prize which honours the best poetry, short fiction and essays published in the American small presses over the previous year. One such writer has a piece that appears first in a Google search with the title 'Open Letter to Pushcart Nominated Folks'.

Roughly 10,000 nominations a year, he says, are contributed by small literary journals and presses for this prize, and therefore being nominated doesn't matter. Only winning matters. He begs: Stop adding 'Pushcart nominated' to your résumés and cover letters. To him it's nothing, it's not a big achievement. We click on his site and straight away are dressed down for feeling good about a piece of work that someone not only wanted to publish but also to nominate for a prize. His rant is thick with bitterness and editor's fatigue.

Of the 93 comments to his post, some express agreement, others say he disrespects writers who have written for long hours to earn those nominations, not to mention all the small presses working diligently to choose a few stories to nominate from hundreds they've published.

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The best comments are from those who say: Let us enjoy good things.

A few years ago my translation of 'Princess Mandosiane' by Jean Lorrain was nominated for a Pushcart prize by the journal Eleven Eleven. I didn't win anything but it was an extraordinarily sweet surprise. At the time, I did what others do, I went to Google for information and stumbled upon the result with the magnetic title of Open Letter to... I read to the end, and walked away from the screen feeling tainted, like I'd been fooled.

That was then, this is now, and just last week another of my translated stories was nominated. I went to Google again for information and was disappointed to find that very same Open Letter come up first, even after all these years. It's a wet blanket of a blog post. But there are many commenters now who assure the nominees that the small victory must be celebrated and must be included in résumés. My second nomination was by Sunspot Lit for 'Other People's Land', a translation of 'La Terre des autres' by the New Caledonian author, Claudine Jacques. Simply having it published after many rejections makes it a winner for me.

In the ebook, 365 writing prompts, there is a task:

"The internet is full of rants. Help tip the balance: today, simply be thankful for something (or someone)."

Today I'm thankful for the Pushcart prize nomination for 'Other People's Land'.

Sunset, Noumea, New Caledonia

‘Contemplation’ by M. H. Gray, illustration for ‘Le Manteau de Joseph Olénine’ in ‘Les Lettres et les Arts’, Paris, 1 July 1886