I am no longer on Facebook. Please email me or text.

I will be updating website soon.

Denis.

What do writers do when they receive a response from an agent that reads:

Many thanks for giving me the opportunity to read a sample of your work.  I enjoyed reading what you sent, but I am afraid that after much consideration I am going to have to pass on it.

The agent gives no reason, no feedback, no opinion.

The writer takes these comments in stride and forges on with their work. If you as a writer have a thin skin or don’t like rejection, don’t sit down and write. Be a critic instead. Everyone is a critic but without writers there would be no critics.

As a writer you are your own critic and need constructive criticism. That’s where a writers’ critique group comes into play. After months of constructive criticisms and rewrites, your work gets better, more polished and then you resend it to an agent. Will they read it? Will they contact you for more?

Yes. That’s just the way it works in the hard world of getting published.

If you are a writer. Don’t get discouraged. Keep going. Persistence and polish will win the day.

In words.

Denis.

I recently attended a book club group in Decatur, as a guest, and discussed the book “Claddagh Pool.” The topic of shape-shifting and mysticism was discussed by a number of members. They really liked the crows and their appearance throughout the story. Also the idea of being able to shift from one level of being into another.

Before I completed “Claddagh Pool,” I decided to add this whole dimension to the story and the feedback has proved to me that my decision was the right one. The agents didn’t like it, but they are not reading it. My readers like it and that’s what matters.

When I complete this trilogy with “Retribution,” I am going to return to my Irish roots and write a mystical story with characters who have Celtic and Druid powers, and know how to use them.

Eyes in the Wood.

Someone said to go there.

To walk down the tree-lined lane

And enter the moss covered passageway

Of beech and hazel.

Deeper now with thicker moss beneath my feet,

I step back into the past,

And wonder whose steps I have followed

Into the darkening shadows.

Silence is everywhere.

Moss covered and listening always

To my next step back in time,

Where night creatures roam about.

I step around a lordly beech,

A master of this place.

And find myself inside a grove of hazel.

I pause and wonder what I heard.

The low grumble of a mighty crow,

Or something else.

The sniffing of a deer at sunset,

Or rabbits setting up a nightly watch.

Eyes dilated with tension building.

It is all around me.

The Druids are here.

They whisper with their ancient voice.

I move an eye deliberately and there it is,

Right in front of me.

A hooded crow with piercing eyes

And long black beak.

It speaks to me with one eye cocked awry.

With ancient sound and flash of beak.

I feel the words but do not hear them,

 Just deep vibrations echoing into the night.

Other waves of sound surround me.

More voices closer now,

Almost touching, but holding back,

To separate me from their pack.

Afraid no longer but unable to speak.

I let their world work wonders in the night.

I’m welcome here, I think.

To run is not a need to pamper.

The hooded Druid speaks once more

And then retreats back into his hazel maze.

Muffled silence wraps around me

As carefully I too retreat into the dying day.

Denis Hearn 2015

Slaney

Oily flows toward the widening space

Of the Norse Gods creeping below the tidal fall.

The boiling waves move inexorably downstream

As the exiting tide adds salinity to its fresh taste.

Deeper here and greener with a tinge of brown.

The folding wefts of water make rivulets

In the passage from brackish and then to salt.

The wind scurries across the uneven planes to rippling squall.

Dark stones watch from the ancient banks.

Glassless space where hope passed and left

To find a new and better space.

Past ancient woods of yew and tangled hazel.

Deep nets cast deep below the turning surface.

To snare and capture the giant of the depths.

Spawned in its bowels and carried back

To make a smothering trip to ancient mountain stones.

The dapple and dart of the fishers deep,

As they rest and wait below the barnacle cover

Of ancient stones arched in majesty over its mighty girth.

A slow splash of white flashes, as a swan bellies down in its coolness.

Morning cows wade stiffly in the flowing motion.

Drinking slowly with deep gasps of inhaled swallow weed.

They stand and watch as the Dublin train rattles overhead

And plunges steaming, into the black gash of deep cut stone.

Oars cut deep in early falling tide as a fishing cot

Turns ancient spiraling wake to complete the circle

And encase the meshed walls of entanglement.

To pull the hopeful catch onto muddy shores.

Wider, expanding and creeping slower with steady flow

It moves past the place where Harvey hung on the bridge of death.

Past the warm confessionals of the Franciscan fathers.

Past ancient barnacles standing safely on pitch pine timbers.

Past the stone faced ballast bank with its stacks of stone.

Turning slowly to port and outwards to the open sea.

Passing shallows and channels.

Free now, it pushes east into the golden rising morn.

Denis Hearn 2009

The issue of child abuse by the clergy is brought to the forefront in this new movie.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/movies/spotlight-movie

Book signing in Decatur. What a great evening to introduce another adventure with Conor and Anne.

My latest book in the Conor and Anne trilogy has been released. It is available at Amazon or on Kindle.

Chapter 8

The cackling voices of fast flying puffins disturbed the morning scene as they approached the high cliffs on Bagger Island and began to descend onto the soft tufts of grass.  The comical birds returned from a fishing trip and were getting ready for their last few weeks of habitation on the island before going back out to sea until their return the following year.  Black and white coats made them look like waiters out for a day trip on the island, and their large orange and red beaks gave the impression that they were living too far north as parrots having missed their country.

The young puffins were ready for the ocean trip that lay before them and had learned to fend for themselves by diving deep into the water to find their prey.  Onshore they stood outside their burrows and watched the boating activity taking place below them on the slow rolling swells.

Two boats lay anchored below the cliff loaded with scuba divers and gear.  The divers stood around a chart laid out on the deck and were planning their next activity.

“That was a good haul last night,” said Soren to Ronan English, one of the divers, “Twenty gold bars and a bag of coins. We need to make another shipment to France by the end of the week.”

“The cave is getting full at this point,” Ronan replied.

Soren Van den Berg was working with the other divers to remove gold artifacts from a galleon wreck located just off the south of the island. The long red hair flowed around his face like Medusa’s nest of snakes.  His skin-tight diving suit gave him the appearance of a black seal basking in the morning sun.

The secret treasure hunt had been in operation for three years.  Soren and his partners, Ronan English, Redmond Doyle and Karl Kramer had been contracted by Don Rua, the owner of Bagger Island, to remove the treasure and smuggle it out of the country.

Don, the self-proclaimed Irish chief of the family Donal, operated the salvage company which had found the galleon using side-scan sonar, a remote underwater vehicle and a team of divers. They had set up a marine research business to hide their true purpose and so far it seemed to be working.

Bagger Island lay on the edge of international waters off the southeast of Ireland. Caves were visible on the south side and nesting gannets, puffins and other sea birds lived on the eastern side where the island’s back provided shelter from the prevailing wind.  Tourists visited the island frequently to observe the bird activity and recreational divers took part in organized trips to the underwater world below.

Nature had carved large blow holes and caves into the craggy terrain and when the tide was right the powerful waves would enter the hollow chambers and blow the water up into the air with a terrifying roar.

A large stone house above the layer of rocks had been built by the family centuries before. It sat behind a grass landing strip which had been shaped out of the thick sod along the back of the island. The strip was used by Don and previously, by his deceased father who had also lived on the island.  Don and his pilot, Joel, flew a Cessna 172 and housed it in a metal hanger at the end of the runway.

Tunnels populated the rock like an ant farm and drew spelunkers who often visited the island to explore the mysterious spaces.  Don allowed all this activity to take place, but also had other motives in mind. A busy tourist area was a perfect cover for the clandestine activity occurring beneath the waves. He knew he had to protect his cache or it would be over-run with treasure hunters.

In 1556 the Spanish galleon, Bella Maria, hadwrecked on a reef just off the south side of the island. She was filled with gold bars and coins from the New World which were destined for Spain but she never made it due to a huge storm in the Celtic Sea and sank off the island where she had remained, lying on the seabed for centuries like an unopened treasure chest. The wreck was covered with sand and kelp and difficult to salvage because it rested on the edge of a shallow shelf before the terrain plunged over eight hundred meters to the bottom.

The diving team lived in one wing of Don’s stone house and operated their dive business from there.  A perfect location on the high side of the island, it gave the inhabitants a 360 degree view around the island in case their activities were interrupted by some nosey government or meddlesome treasure hunters.

“That was a good night’s work!” said Soren as he eased the throttles forward on the service boat and headed for the small dock at the bottom of the rocky cliff.

“We’re goin’ to need more supplies from Cara Quay,” said Redmond. “Fuel’s getting low also.”

“We’ll get over there later today,” Soren replied. “Hey Red, don’t forget to buy more beer.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t. I’ve a couple of things on the boat to fix first, then we’ll be ready to get underway.”

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The archbishop of St. Paul, Minnesota, and a deputy bishop resigned Monday after prosecutors there charged the archdiocese with having failed to protect children from unspeakable harm from a pedophile priest.

The Vatican said Pope Francis accepted the resignations of Archbishop John Nienstedt and Auxiliary Bishop Lee Anthony Piche. They resigned under the code of canon law that allows bishops to resign before they retire because of illness or some other “grave” reason that makes them unfit for office.

Earlier this month, prosecutors charged the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis as a corporation of having “turned a blind eye” to repeated reports of inappropriate behavior by a priest who was later convicted of molesting two boys. No individual was named in the indictment.

The resignations came just days after Pope Francis approved the creation of a new tribunal inside the Vatican to hear cases of bishops who failed to protect children from sexually abusive priests. Francis’ decision followed years of criticism that the Vatican had never held bishops accountable for having ignored warnings about abusive priests and simply moved them from parish to parish rather than report them to police or remove them from ministry.

In April, Francis accepted the resignation of U.S. bishop Robert Finn, who had been convicted in a U.S. court of failing to report a suspected child abuser.

The criminal charges against the archdiocese stem from its handling of Curtis Wehmeyer, a former priest at Church of the Blessed Sacrament in St. Paul, who is serving a five-year prison sentence for molesting two boys and faces prosecution involving a third boy in Wisconsin.

Prosecutors say church leaders failed to respond to “numerous and repeated reports of troubling conduct” by Wehmeyer from the time he entered seminary until he was removed from the priesthood in 2015. The criminal complaint says many people — including parishioners, fellow priests and parish staff — reported issues with Wehmeyer, and many of those claims were discounted.

A smoke in Aran

Background grumbling

Brings closer words around me.

A slow stream of familiar scent

From plug tobacco packed loosely in a pipe.

I turn to see this silent silhouette

Swaying slowly at the bar.

Aran jersey pulled, blue colored,

Under a grease stained jacket.

Another sip of the black stuff.

Another puff on the pipe

Anchored by well-worn teeth

In a salt-cured face.

Nicotine stained fingers press tightly

On the crinkled cap.

A red glow.

Another blue cloud backlit against the open door.

No voice. No flash of eye.

A dark pillar of a man.

Like upturned currach

Black-bellied to the western sky.

The pipe goes down

As the pint goes up.

Memories and taste

Blend together in remembered motion.

A shuffle of a weathered boot.

A cough.

A well-aimed spit,

Like hardened plug, finds home in ancient brass.

A push of the glass.

Another pint.

No words spoken

And silence never broken.

Eyebrows like thatch above

Those dark brown eyes,

Buried in a wrinkled world

Of terror in a black night at sea.

Hands worn like burled hazel.

Worn smooth and hard

From years of oars

And pounding surf.

No separation between

Nails and skin.

Deep ridges from years of hauling stinging meshes

On fingers, gnarled and almost gone.

A movement, slow and even paced.

He pushes away into the night.

And casts off from the bar.

Like moon warmed skins of tar.

Denis Hearn 2015

Claddagh Pool is available at Barnes & Noble.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/claddagh-pool-denis-hearn/1112331233?ean=9780615631301

Eyes in the Wood.

Someone said to go there.

To walk down the tree-lined lane

And enter the moss covered passageway

Of beech and hazel.

Deeper now with thicker moss beneath my feet,

I step back into the past,

And wonder whose steps I have followed

Into the darkening shadows.

Silence is everywhere.

Moss covered and listening always

To my next step back in time,

Where night creatures roam about.

I step around a lordly beech,

A master of this place.

And find myself inside a grove of hazel.

I pause and wonder what I heard.

The low grumble of a mighty crow,

Or something else.

The sniffing of a deer at sunset,

Or rabbits setting up a nightly watch.

Eyes dilated with tension building.

It is all around me.

The Druids are here.

They whisper with their ancient voice.

I move an eye deliberately and there it is,

Right in front of me.

A hooded crow with piercing eyes

And long black beak.

It speaks to me with one eye cocked awry.

With ancient sound and flash of beak.

I feel the words but do not hear them,

 Just deep vibrations echoing into the night.

Other waves of sound surround me.

More voices closer now,

Almost touching, but holding back,

To separate me from their pack.

Afraid no longer but unable to speak.

I let their world work wonders in the night.

I’m welcome here, I think.

To run is not a need to pamper.

The hooded Druid speaks once more

And then retreats back into his hazel maze.

Muffled silence wraps around me

As carefully I too retreat into the dying day.

Denis Hearn 2015

My second book in the Conor and Anne, murder-mystery series is complete and will be released in April.

Details later in the month.

Stay tuned.

Denis.

Skipper Bill Blake eased back the throttles and slowed Girl Anne to a workable speed.  The crew hustled to their stations as the giant winch slowly began to coil the grinding cables over the rusty stern, pulling the giant orange meshes on board. The dripping net slid over the aft deck, loaded with herring sparkling like treasure in the evening sun.

“Stand by for the end of the trawl,” said Eamon, as the voluminous orange meshes coiled around the well-worn spool. He directed the crew to manhandle the pregnant purse onto the rolling deck.

“Wait! Stop the winch!”  He shouted. “There’s something’s stuck in the net!”

“What the hell is that?” shouted Gerry, the chief deckhand, as he moved closer to the pile of quivering scales. First mate, Padraig, helped Gerry push some of the fish out of the way, “Jaysus, looks like a feckin’ body in there!”

The crew tore into the orange meshes, cutting, hacking, scattering net and herring everywhere, freeing the body which slid slowly from beneath the massed pile of shivering fins and glazed eyes.  The torso was badly bruised and its arms wound weirdly around the remaining semblance of the person to whom they had at one time belonged.

Still recognizable as a portal of the body, the person, with one eye horribly bruised, and the other gaping wide open, stared up at its saviors.  A dark smeared mass of hair lay across the chapped and battered face. Gerry and Padraig rolled the body over and noticed a Celtic knot tattoo emblazoned along the man’s upper back.

“Hold everything!” Skipper Blake demanded as he rushed down the aft companionway, past the berthing area.  He grabbed the digital camera and hustled back outside onto the rolling deck as his crew worked feverishly to stow the haul of fish and separate the body from the catch.

“Drag him over here,” he shouted amid the chaos, “I’ll take some pictures.” Gerry and Padraig moved the body away from the pile of fish still streaming around it and rolled the body onto its back in order to see the face again. Its head in weird rotation, ended up with the good eye staring vacantly at the two men.

“My God, what happened to him?” asked Blake, moving the man’s arms from behind his back. The flash of the camera interrupted the crew as Blake recorded the ghastly scene. “OK. That’s enough,” he said. “We’ll need these for the Garda.”

He pulled out his mobile and dialed the emergency Garda number; no service. Then ran back up the stairs and onto the bridge. I’ll try VHF. That should work. Blake lifted the mike and called in his location, the name of his craft and a brief description of the grisly discovery.  “Girl Anne, did I hear you say you’d pulled a body out of the water?” asked the radio operator.

“Roger,” responded Blake.

“What’s your closest port of call?”

“About two hours from Cara Quay.”

“Make way for CQ. I’ll get the Garda and the coroner to meet you there,” the operator replied.

“Roger,” Blake placed the mike back in its cradle.

“Stow the rest of the catch,” he hollered over the intercom, “We still have to make a living.” The speakers crackled once more. “Get ready to make port at Cara Quay in a couple of hours.  Ice the body and wrap it in one of the tarps until we get home.”

He pushed Girl Anne’s throttles forward; black smoke belched out of her two stacks. Her bronze propellers bit into the rising sea and drove her westward towards the approaching land.

The crew worked quickly, piling the catch into the nearly full hold. They washed down the decks and stowed the gear.  Padraig and Gerry carefully slid the body onto a green tarp and wrapped it in ice. When they finished, the crew surrounded the shrouded figure and lowered their heads in the mariners’ tradition of respectful silence.

Enjoy.

Denis.

DUBLIN

Stone statues view strangely the sights below

Copper dye melts around the hallowed heads

And drips down to form pools of green.

They sit upon the ancient stones

And watch the urgency far below.

Tram tracks now covered deep.

The old ways  buried with layers of seasons past.

Dublin watches with her dons of old

Her Georgian facades hide songs of older times

She moves within her cast of sculptures; frozen.

Rusty steel arches stands proud and red above the fray

Placed over swirling Liffey, green. A path for trade and friends alike

They join her North and South.

Welcome lines hide ages in their grace.

Many crossed its spans for love or on the run.

Pillared columns stand haughty against the ages

They define the day. They fix the view.

The cut stone gates of Trinity.

The cobbled stones of streets of old.

Where iron shod feet once plied their trades.

Fanlights now illuminate the carpets thick.

In rooms where tailored suits and money meet.

The tea maids are gone. The scones are cold.

The silver set, now frozen behind the water glass.

Portraits watch with moldy eyes, from plastered walls.

New blood moves quickly beneath her veins.

Her structure hardened by shells of old.

Her nature, pure, for all to see.

Her ancient stones laid stately, by the Norse.

Her history still defines her course.

Denis Hearn 2002

Is there a write (pun) way  to procrastinate or does it come naturally?

Yes. I do it while I’m thinking about the next rush of words that fills a sentence or paragraph.

Procrastination helps me look at a sentence from many points of view. Does it stop me writing?

No. I think it makes me more focused. So why am I writing this post instead of finishing my novel?

I am doing both. If words are coming out of me: its a good day.

My job is to put them in the correct order and keep pumping life into my characters.

Denis.

I noticed that traffic to my webpage from Brazil has dramatically increased.

Why is that?

Why the interest?

I need some feedback.

Thanks.

Denis

We need new leaders in Congress and the White House, I don’t see any in either arm of the government. We need leaders who lead according to conscience, not religion. Defending our country, Cutting spending, Not writing legislation for the people who paid to get them elected. Considering ALL the people not just the rich or the poor but all of us. There are leaders in other countries that see us a weak nation. We are NOT a weak nation and we need to stand up and prove it.

Denis.

As a writer you spend months writing the first draft of your manuscript.You type the last word and part one of the process has been completed. That is a huge accomplishment in itself, but it’s not over yet.

Now you have something to work with: something to edit and polish. Will it change? Will the story hold up to scrutiny and to the feedback of editors, readers and critiques? Time will tell.

This is the best part of writing. The polishing and detailing of the work. The excitement grows. The anticipation of an agent. The rejections of some agents who like to live in their own comfort zone and play the odds to put money in their pockets OR the acceptance of your manuscript by an agent who sees a new writer emerging from the throngs of formatted prose and  safe subject matter.

Writing is not for the faint-hearted. It is all about persistence. It is all about great characters and a fast-moving story. But primarily it is all about the prose.

We as writers need feedback. We hunger for it. We need it to grow. If we didn’t write anything then there would be nothing for the critics to extol their criticisms as non-writers. They are the ones who buy books. Let’s not forget that.

And keep writing.

Denis.

The most interesting thing about southern Spain is the architecture. It tells the story of the Visigoths. The Romans. The Moors and the Catholics. It’s all here in every city expressed in tiles, scrolls, gold,  statues and buildings. The most incredible mosques; some with Catholic cathedrals inside them. Others as stand alone expressions to their Catholic faith in Sevilla. Roman remains in gardens and a beautiful bastion in Granada- The Alhambra. Water, peace, protection and vestiges of power and wealth.

What a great real-time history lesson! Religions. Architecture. Art. Politics. All rolled together in a harsh landscape covered by olive trees and served with great food.

Spent some time in Ireland with my best travelling companion. We stopped to edit the final re-write of Bagger Island and spent a morning of total detachment overlooking the quiet water. What a magical place!

More later when we visit southern Spain.

Denis

Stone Journey

(The Clare Poem)

What is it, Anu?

This water pouring across the plain

Of Desmond to the sea.

Down the limestone steps of karsted hills.

Through furrowed fields and into the wild Atlantic’s glare,

Below the sculpted cliffs of Clare.

Rushing now with meter in our steps.

Gunneling. Running, and forever onward.

Why me? Why did you love me back there?

Why did you hide our passion in your shawl?

Why did we venture into the race?

Water and the speed of foam still fill our space.

What made us one within our wetness?

Ferdiad, and the hounds of love

Came bounding out of me and down the craggy slope.

I made it there with you.

We thunder downward and pour out into the plain below.

Anu and I. Loins locked together in the flow.

Karsts bear hard around us. They crack and crumble.

Crushing anything that ventures in their space.

But we have courage. We have the inner power,

Of mystery with the magic, now dark within the glens.

Together we take this solid sight.

And out-pour each other in the stoney forms of our delight.

Denis Hearn 2013

Just returned from Seattle. Spent some time on Bainbridge Island. What a great place! Water. Mountains. Trees. Ferries and fun.