You may or may not remember reading about my friend Gustav Potthoff in The Not-So-Lost Soul Companion. He was captured by the Japanese and forced to work on the construction of the Thailand-Burma Railway when he was just 18.

Back then he survived scorpion bites, malaria, jungle rot, cholera, and dysentery, and, now, to help remember all of the prisoners who didn’t make it out alive, Gustav obsessively paints.

A while back, to help him tell his story to a larger audience, I started a short video project for my local cable access TV station, but I never finished it. Instead, a couple of my friends — and a slew of war veterans, professional television folks, and kindly donors — stepped in to create something much, much better. It took several years, but eventually “Lest We Forget” was completed and aired on WFYI.

And now I ‘ve just learned that many other public television stations across the U.S. are planning to run “Lest We Forget,” and the film has earned a Cleveland Regional Emmy Award for Best Special Program. Fantastic!

I am usually up for just about anything, but when James asked me if I would tattoo him I was a little reluctant. After all, I may *have* a tattoo of my own and a background in art, but does that qualify me to prick him full of holes and simultaneously flood said holes with ink? Well, he really wanted this design (Indiana love!) and he didn’t want to actually spring for a pro. You know what they say… you get what you pay for. Man, do you ever.

OK. So I was able to draw the design and transfer it to his side with no trouble. Feeling pretty confident by this time, I wielded his (rather unwieldy!) tattoo gun. Dip into the ink. Hit the foot pedal. Bzzzzzz. Bzzzz!! And then I hurt him like no else ever had (and he is someone with a considerable number of tattoos.) I had to go over my lines several times, and yet they still look like one of my pen-and-ink drawings — tentative, spindly, and awkward. Needless to say, he’s going to end up paying a pro to fix my “work.” Still, he claims it was “a good experience,” and I learned that I should stick to works on paper rather than works on rib cages. (Sorry, James!)

Just finished Mikey the Monkey for my friend’s little boy, since the last monkey I knitted for him scampered away. That first monkey’s name was Maurice, and he was a vision. He was made of the softest, burgundy yarn, and he had the shapliest little ears. Anyway, sometimes I wonder who found him, and what they thought at the time. I wonder if — wherever he is — he is loved. . .

Well, take two. Mikey the Monkey is new and improved — his tail is long enough to wrap around his little keeper’s wrist, so that he cannot get away. Ha!

–S.

When I began The Lost Soul Companion Project, I knew I would want to self-publish  rather than wait around for some traditional publisher to “discover” me. So now every few weeks I get emails from lost or not-so-lost souls seeking advice about publishing their first novel or non-fiction book. It can be rather overwhelming — especially now that there are scads of print-on-demand and self-publishing houses in business. Nevertheless, I still offer the same advice. Namely, get yourself to your local library or book store, plop down with The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing by Tom and Marilyn Ross, and read the whole dang thing. Here’s why: there are many companies preying on a would-be self-publisher’s lack of experience. Their websites offer some good information, but many are simply well-disguised sales pitches for their goods and services. That’s not to say that all companies offering self-publishing support services are bad. Rather, if you know what’s involved in publishing your own book, you’ll be able to differentiate between necessary expenses and what I like to call Flim-Flam.

More on this soon…

 –S.

It’s that time of year for the 4th Street Festival of the Arts in lovely Bloomington, Indiana. I pop in year after year, and, year after year, I am just a little more disappointed. Disappointed that the glass, ceramics, textiles, watercolors — all of it — are so cookie-cutter slick. Disappointed not to see anyone really taking some creative risks. And disappointed in the judging, since artists purveying any originality, passion, or raw vision are invariably overlooked. At least there was something I knew I could do about the judging. I decided to create and present SusanLand National awards to my three favorite artists at this year’s festival.

Armed with handmade ribbons for Most Spectacular, Most Visionary, and Most Imaginative and a few gift copies of The Not-So-Lost Soul Companion, I waded through the crowds to look through each booth for something — anything! — that could be considered spectacular, visionary, or imaginative. And as much as I hate to say it, I never found them.

–S.

Being something of a tinkerer, Ol’ Petie brought a homemade periscope over the other day — to better see all of the fish, tadpoles, crawdads, and frogs holding down my pond’s murky bottom during these hot, summer days.

Pretty cool, but it leaks a bit and the mirror is set at sort of a weird angle, so it doesn’t work quite as well as he would’ve liked. He’s now busy guzzling another carton of milk so that he can go back to the drawing board. I’ll keep you posted…

–S.