IRELAND

     Grew up in Inwood in NYC where Manhattan was bought from the Indians who thought they were just sharing. The neighborhood was mixed--descendants of immigrants from Russia, Germany, Greece and Ireland and I decided that someday I would visit the places where my friends grandparents had once lived. In 2005, my husband and I took a trip to Ireland.
     The town of Ennis--the home base for the tour,  grew around the friary in the heart of County Claire. The 13th century friary has many sculptures and there's a walk along a sculpture trail. From Ennis we went west to the lofty, 650-foot-high Cliffs of Moher--the highest in Europe and a nesting site for thousands of seabirds. Below  the billowing ocean presents a spectacular picture. A walk along the coast introduces us to a limestone landscape called the Burren with white, deeply crevassed limestone that's hospitable to semi-tropical and arctic vegetation growing in close proximity .
     No visit to Ireland is complete without a stop at Blarney with its famous castle. One hundred and twenty seven steps up a tower is the Blarney Stone. Legend tells us that anyone who manages to lean backward and kiss the stone will receive the gift of Blarney--a smooth, endearing way with words. Almost impossible to resist is a shopping trip to the Blarney Woolen Mills--I've used my sweater whenever the cold hits our city.
     Cobb is on our agenda--the port where many an Irish immigrant looking to make a new home in the new world embarked in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was also the last port of call for the Titanic and the Lusitania.
     Travel along the coast of the Iveragh Peninsula is a visual adventure combining oceans, coasts, mountains and the ever changing weather and light with a long pause in Kells to see Ireland's Border Collies working at a sheep farm.

                                                SHEEP TO THE LEFT
                                                SHEEP TO THE RIGHT
                                                WHEREVER WE LOOK
                                                 THERE'S A SHEEP IN SIGHT
       One of our last stops is Tralee and the Kerry County Museum--a living history museum that explores life from 7,000-years ago, the Mesolithic hunters and fishermen, and later settler including Celts and early Christians. We end our journey in Dublin. We walk along the same streets as Joyce and Yeats, see the Book of Kells and take in a show at the Abbey Theatre. Of course, no trip is complete without a walk along the River Liffey.

Do you enjoy travel?

Elise

TRAVEL BUG

    
     I'm hooked on travel. It's a bug, it's a virus, it's something I look forward too. Travel to distant lands, short excursions to a nearby spot, I've somehow missed--museums, parks, city streets, unexpected adventures and meeting with new friends. Traveling has led to articles about places, food and people and short stories when something I've seen or heard about invades my thoughts and won't leave until I find an ending that leaves me satisfied.

     On a wall in my living room are paintings from my travels--one from Pompeii, several from Sydney, Melbourne, NY's Greenwich Village, Florence, Italy, London, Paris, all places I love and can never get enough of. Stirring up images that he;p me in my writing.

What stirs your imagination?

Bests,

Elise

Time and Place

I have the travel bug. I've always love travel through the United States and Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand. I find it exciting to learn history, meet people, gaze at mountains and oceans and let my mind wander. It leads to non-fiction articles and stirs my imagination leading to fiction.

Articles have been written about the monasteries in Greece, the amphitheatres in Syracuse, and the Gelato in Rome, Italy, Shakespeare Globe in London, and Gillette's Castle in Connecticut. My eBook cozy, Scene Stealer, takes place, here at home, in New York, short stories on Manhattan's streets and one influenced by a garden that was in the back of my apartment building. A mystery takes place in an affluent community in New Jersey and another in an abandoned mill in Sorrento many centuries ago.

Does travel and a sense of time and place influence your writing?

Bests,

Elise

NEW YORK NEW YORK

Today I'll be interviewing Willow, a calico cat who decided New York City was the placeto be.

"Willow, why did you choose New York? Weren't you afraid of being a little cat in a big city?"

"Since cats have nine lives, I decided to live mine to the hilt. I wanted to make it big in the big city. Like the song says, "If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere..."

"Wasn't there another cat who went to London to visit the Queen?"

"I don't want to get into politics but I happen to be a Democrat."

"Everyone is wondering how you managed the 1,800 miles between Colorado and New York. Did you hitch a ride? It's a long walk even with four paws. Or did you travel with some handsome Tomcat? and if you did, will we get to meet him?"

"A lady that will tell that will tell anything."

"Are you looking forward to going home?"

"It will be nice to see family and friends again. Of course, once you've been bitten by the travel bug, you keep getting the urge to see the world. Italy, France, Australia...who knows what tomorrow will bring."

"Thanks for visiting with us today, Willow. Have a safe journey home and wherever your travels may take you."

Bests,

Elise

My cozy eBook mystery is available at Barnes&Noble, Amazon, Carina Press and wherever eBooks are sold. An audio version has been produced by audible.com


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Catch Up

Piles of magazines by the bed--New Yorkers, Smithsonians, American Heritage, and Writers mags. Scores of Books on my bedside table. My Nook holds ten more that I look forward to reading. Just finished In Plain View--a torrid romance by Taryn Kinkaid. I'm now reading To the End of the Land, a brilliant novel and Golden Earth written by Norman Lewis that takes the reader along as he travels in Burma. Golden Earth, first published in 1951, was recommended by a friend. I shall have to read all the Lewis books.

Isn't it a shock to wake up one day and realize you can't read every book that's ever been written?

Bests,

Elise

My cozy eBook mystery titled Scene Stealer is available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Carina Press and wherever eBooks are sold. An audio version has been produced by Audible.com