Vulnerability: This Writer is Sharing Her Fashion Sketches with You
As Thurston Gill would say, it's my birthday eve
People in the arts— and any kind person really— never fully understand how and when their actions impact other people. There are times when I am disappointed with how something turned out, or even with myself, and shortly thereafter, someone tells me what it meant to them.
In that moment, that one person kept me going.
Life is about those little moments, not the big ones.
When people tell you that your art spoke to them, whether you paint or shoot photos or draw, they are offering an emotional reaction that builds us up as creators.
So today I’m going to turn the tables. I’m going to show you my 20+-year-old fashion sketches that I drew when I first started the Fashion and Fiends series. This vulnerable gesture is part of our 50 books in 5 years celebration, in honor of the fifth volume of the series, Absolution, releasing tomorrow on my 51rst birthday in this fifth month of the calendar year. Order it on Bookshop.org here.
This is the darkest novel I have written, and it shows the depth of “wrong” when people who love each other have twisted priorities. Adelaide Pitney, the supermodel stalked by a supernatural threat in the first book, now tortures her former mentor, famous fashion designer Etienne d’Amille.
To all my readers of this newsletter, my birthday challenge to each of you:
Give yourself permission to enjoy hobbies where you will never excel. It’s refreshing to enjoy something just for the sake of the pleasure it brings.
It started with vampires
I can tell you the exact moment in time when I became obsessed with vampires. It was summer-ish time, circa 1990, and I discovered a campy Canadian television show, Dracula: The Series. The actor who played Max went on with his entertainment career to be a part of something you might have heard of Heated Rivalry. I discussed more of this cosmic convergence in this newsletter, We Too Have Hockey Fever Because of Vampires.
Because of actor Geordie Johnson and my impressionable teen mind recognizing the vampire as the perfect way to write about addiction (really, as the daughter of alcoholics, I pegged that right away— blood/beer), I started reading every vampire book at Waldenbooks in the Stroud Mall that I could afford.
Our public library was 20 minutes away and had no real useful books in their collection.
For those of you who read to the end, you may remember I mentioned adding lists to these newsletters, here’s the first one:
The first vampire stories I ever read
Anne Rice, Interview with A Vampire, read in front of the fireplace in the living room with a fire going
Anne Rice, The Vampire Lestat, now we take the whole vampire-with-a-conscious concept for granted…
Anne Rice, Queen of the Damned, and yes— I hung with Anne Rice for every new release up to Memnoch the Devil and Tale of the Body Thief but the quality of the writing plummeted and I hated them. Broke my heart.
Stephen King, Salem’s Lot, small town vampires, what’s not to love?
And of course, I read every book I could find with a vampire and most of them were not memorable. But the last one worth a spot on the list…
James and Deborah Howe, Bunnicula, because it taught me to think outside-the-box. Or rabbit hutch.
But, Angel, you say…
There are no vampires in the Fashion and Fiends series.
Blood magic, sure. But no vampires. Yeah, but in the first ten years of drafts, Galen Sorbach was a vampire (and an antiques dealer in Germany) and Kait (I should look up her full name but it’s very Irish and I’m lazy) who remains a character in the first five volumes was literally the Lamia. Originally, Galen was “sired” as they often say in vampire stories by an ancient Greek hero, maybe Hector? It was something from The Iliad.
And Etienne d’Amille was a small side character who slowly become too big for his britches and stepped into the spotlight as a protagonist.
Which brings me to…
The Fashion in Fashion and Fiends
Same era. Circa 1990. Somehow, I stumble upon Elsa Klensch on CNN and get a subscription to Vogue. Read Elsa’s obituary here on CNN. Haute couture becomes an obsession of mine.
Why? I have no clue. I saw beauty, and creativity, and France. I was in my early stages of learning French, thinking French would be something my mom and I shared. That’s another story.
I wove vampires and fashion into my creative endeavors, and after college, Darrell Parry encouraged me to learn more about haute couture and fashion illustration by buying me hard-to-find books on the topic…
Today, I share some of my favorites from my sketchbook.
First Sketch:
For a while, I worked on an erotic prequel to the series (I used some of those chapters in Absolution). The book ended with Étienne d’Amille’s wedding with Basilie Saint-Ebène. To write about that, I drew the whole wedding party, including Étienne and all Basilie’s sisters as bridesmaids. Yes, Jacqueline was the flower girl. I needed to know what the dress he made for her would look like. You know, to write about it.
Second Sketch:
In most of my first published novel, Manipulations, the staff at Chez d’Amille cannot come up with a name for the upcoming spring collection, which includes primarily dresses — casual dresses in shades of cream and fancier ones in white silk. Adelaide wears a dupioni silk dress at the party at the end of the book.
Third sketch(es):
As the French military enters the story late in book two, Courting Apparitions, and the military operations in Djibouti on the Horn of Africa become pivotal to the plot in the third book, Recovery, we see more personnel in military uniform. In the end of Absolution, after a military rescue, Étienne transforms the experience into inspiration for a future collection, Chicks with Swords, modeled after the uniforms of Dr. Jacqueline Saint-Ebène’s branch, the French Army Health Services (Service de Santé d’Armée) and the French Republican Guard.
Speaking of the Guard… here was my original depiction of a Guard… in Sharpie and charcoal. Why are the swords in charcoal? Not sure.
Fourth sketch:
Are you still with me? Because if you are a writer and you made it this far (in the newsletter), I want to remind you: WE ALL START OUT “BAD.”
“Vampire Bridge”
Last year, we released cosmic horror, Lovecraftian-with-hope novel Deadlights by Hugo Yelagin. He was in middle school when he started that novel. He published it at age 17.
I was 16 the summer I wrote “Vampire Bridge.”
And they say you should burn your first novel because it’s awful. I think, in many ways, I did “burn” this novel, but I’ve always saved it. I wrote it in two composition books— my English teacher Mrs. Herr probably gave them to me before summer vacation— for my cousin Amanda, who was eight at the time. There’s a massive scribble on the cover because the original title was Galen and Demetria. I have no recollection of who Demetria was.
Today, I plan to open these books, possibly for the first time in 25 years, and for the first time ever, share my baby-writer guts.
My goal this summer is to type this, but I am already unsure if I am going to laugh or cry after looking at the first 300 words.
Turns out, Demetria was the first version of Adelaide Pitney.
Here is the opening of that story (errors maintained):
(1)
It rained like water had been storing up for years on the day Demetria Ingemar, the far from average American girl, arrived in the small foreign town.
She knocked on the door of the friendly rooming house and welcomed the thought of drying out.
“Hello,” answered the short homely woman who came to the door.
“My name is Marcell Cummins,” lied Demetria.
“You have a room waiting.”
Demetria followed her into a corridor that lead to a sleeping chamber.
“Thank you,” smiled Demetria.
Rest never came to her in that night. Once the sun set, she shined brighter than any star.
She slipped under the covers and waited for the visitor who greeted the travelers who were still dumb enough to come here…
Goodness, this was a LOT about me. But it’s my birthday. It’s my party.
A reminder that all of my books and ebooks are available all-the-places and on Amazon.com. Find my Amazon page here. My novels are all available in KindleUnlimited and at the end of the month my second novel, Courting Apparitions, is free to download as an eBook.
This is an amazing story of how death impacts the relationships of the living. It’s a ghost story, with some magic, some heroism, and a werewolf.
Meanwhile at GLVWG
Parisian Phoenix Art Director Gayle Hendricks gave a great presentation to the Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group on Graphic Design Basics for Writers. We had a great time discussing C.R.A.P. (consistency, repetition, alignment and proximity) in the morning lecture and analyzing book design and covers in the afternoon session. Paid subscribers to this newsletter can access the slide decks from most of our workshop topics via the tab on the menu bar. If you or your group need a speaker, we have a wide variety of topics.
Thank you for your attention today. If you want to leave a comment, tell me:
What hobby do you have that you love but you are bad at?
I used to tap dance for the health benefits, because it incorporated all the movements I need to exercise my screwed up tendons and feet. But talk about bad… Watch a person with cerebral palsy tap dance…
As always,
— Angel
For today’s photo, I am including my 2007 self-portrait of me in my favorite boots (over-the-knee brown boots) and my brown dress with large green polka dots. I bought this outfit to attend Darrell’s cousin’s wedding in Jacobsburg Park.
If you didn’t know, I LOVE POLKA DOTS.
Here is one of my original drawings where I copied a photo from Marie Claire. I used pencil for the first drawing and replicated that with watercolors and ink.
The Remaining 50 Books 5 years Free eBooks
May 18-22: Free ebook of Any Landing You Walk Away From… written by former flight attendant Dawn O’Harra, who will be at the Barnes & Noble in Ledgewood, N.J., May 16. Clean historical romance full of airplanes, travel and flight crew adventures.
Find that book on Amazon here.
May 23-27: Free ebook of Splintered River by E.H. Jacobs, in anticipation of his sophomore novel later this summer.
Find that book on Amazon here.
And our final free book of the celebration—
May 27-31: The second volume of the Fashion and Fiends series, Courting Apparitions, a ghost story that explores grief and how it challenges our relationships with the living.
Find that book on Amazon here.
Don’t forget— Paid subscribers can reply to this newsletter and request any ebook from Parisian Phoenix as part of the 5 years/50 books celebration.
The Event Schedule
May
May 20: Publisher’s Birthday and FIFTY BOOKS IN FIVE YEARS: Angel Ackerman will release her fifth novel in her Fashion and Fiends series, Absolution. Sisters Basilie and Jacqueline set out to save fashion designer Étienne d’Amille from his former protégé/supermodel Adelaide Pitney who has been rather foolishly resurrected after her murder.
May 21: Madeline Marriott debuts her watercolor-illustrated picture book, Operation Hug, in which the creatures of the forest explore how to hug their porcupine friend.
May 23: 1 to 4 p.m., Special Pre-Launch Event of Stewartsville/Greenwich Township (N.J.) Historical Society’s Hometown Heroes book at the local American Legion, Stewartsville, N.J.
May 27: Writing drop-in at Mary Meuser Memorial Library, 1803 Northampton Street, Easton, Pa. 4 to 7 p.m. in the annex. Come for the whole time or come for a portion of it… All are welcome.
May 27: Mark Luebbers (with Ben Goluboff “Zooming in”) as featured readers at Tidal Pool Book Shop in Worcester, Mass., 5 to 7 p.m. They will be reading from Group Portrait and some of their other books followed by a talk about their approach to speculative biography.
May 31: Official Release of Stewartsville/Greenwich Township (N.J.) Historical Society’s Hometown Heroes book, transforming their military service banners into a special commemorative hardcover volume.
June
June 6: Poet Brian Mahoney reading at Vargtimmen King Koffee in Emmaus, Pa. 7 p.m. Fantastic venue, if you’ve never been, but small, so come early.
June 11: The End Bookstore in Allentown, Pa., hosts its Local Author Reception, with Brian Mahoney as one of 10 authors invited.
June 13: Release date of McKenna Graf’s final Archive of Adolescence poetry series, which began with Writing Over the Word Limit her freshman year of college; continued with Parisian Phoenix with Mortals, Myths and Maybes and The Depths; and now concludes with What’s Left?
June 13: First book signing for Operation Hug with Madeline Marriott at the Newtown Bookshop in Newtown, Pa. Details to come.
June 13: Brian Mahoney to read at Boyertown Community Library, 3 p.m.
June 14: R. Diskin Black reading from The Night of Swaying Grass at the Bureau at the Center, details to come.
July
July 1: Official release of Into a Wider Sky by E.H. Jacobs, a novel about mental health therapists who bend the rules. Jacobs’ first novel was Splintered River, released in September 2024.
July 2: Another bookstore visit with E.H. Jacobs promoting his second novel, Into A Wider Sky, at Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord, N.H. Signing begins at 6:30 p.m.
July 16: 6:30 p.m., book signing and reading for Into A Wider Sky with E.H. Jacobs at Andover Bookstore, Main Street, Andover, Mass.
July 25: E.H. Jacobs attending the Local Author’s Book Signing at the Mall of New Hampshire, Manchester, N.H., from noon to 4 p.m. He will be signing copies of Into A Wider Sky, his second novel and new release, and Splintered River, his first novel which examined political manipulation after a racial violence incident.
August
Official release of 2062, Allison Stein’s debut middle-grade novel. This episodic futuristic story includes illustrations by Joseph Swarctz, creator and illustrator of the Echo City Capers series.
September
FIFTH ANNIVERSARY of Parisian Phoenix Publishing
Debut of The Curse of Our Profound Disorder by Marilyn Jaye Lewis, a rich, almost-erotic, coming-of-age novel about the illegitimate daughter of a preacher.
My grandmother and I used to watch Dark Shadows together & it may have been around 1990 as well. I loved Anne Rice’s novels, but also fell off with the last two. They didn’t hold for me.
Anyway- Happy early Birthday to you. 🤩💗
Mrs Herr <3