T is for Twain and U, V, W, X, Y, Z

Okay folks, I'm going to be gone for awhile.Wanna guess where I'll be? Hint, hint the initials are V. I.

I did plan to finish the A to Z Challenge, but as I won't be around to return comments and such, I'll give you my final six letters today.


I want to thank all my NEW Random Followers and as for you old ones... you're the best!

Thank's to Arlee Bird, the inspiration behind the A to Z Challenge, for another wonderful year.

May there be many more.




And here they are, my final letters.

T is for Mark Twain. Writer extraordinaire.

If you haven't read INNOCENTS ABROAD it's a humorous look at his travels in Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Holy Land.

And, if you want to know what Twain really thought about the "damned human race,"  his last novel, which he spent approximately  20 years writing, is called THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER.











U is for the Uncle Remus stories as compiled by Joel Chandler Harris. We owe him thanks.






The Uncle Remus stories are variations on the Anansi stories that came out of Africa with the slaves. Instead of Bru Nansi the spider as the trickster, we have Brer Rabbit.




















V is Voltaire, a prolific writer who supported social reform and gave us the classic Candide.
























W is for Oscar Wilde. It is difficult for me to express how much I love and adore Wilde. His wit, his insight, his fairy tales and plays, his one novel, the beauty of his writing, the tragedy of his life...


X is for Xerxes I King of Persia. Though technically a historical figure, I've ALWAYS loved this name. The battle at Thermopylae is one of the greatest in history, with  King Leonidas and and handful of Spartans holding back Xerxes' vast army.  I read about it when I was quite young and it made a huge impression on me.  Even though the Spartans lost, it gave the Greeks time to reorganize and, over the course of about a year, they eventually defeated the Persians in a series of three more battles. Bigger doesn't always mean better.




Y is William Butler Yeats whose poetry I adore.





He Wishes for Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heavens' embroidered clothes,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dream under your feet;
Tread softy because you tread on my dreams.










And Jane Yolen, who during a three day work shop taught me a WHOLE bunch.

Z is Zorro, the original masked man, the mysterious hero who saves the day from evil doers. We just can't have too many heroes.


Bye-bye for now. See you sometime in June.