Mark David Gerson Wins 2008 New Mexico Book Award for The MoonQuest

Friday, November 21, 2008 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

Mark David Gerson’s win, for The MoonQuest: A True Fantasy, was announced on November 21 at an Albuquerque awards banquet designed to honor authors in more than 30 categories from New Mexico and beyond.

His award, in the statewide contest, was in the Fantasy/Science Fiction category.

The MoonQuest, Gerson’s first novel, is part of a fantasy pantheon that includes The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia.

It’s the compelling tale of a young bard’s quest to restore vision and imagination to a mythical land where stories have been banned and storytellers put to death.

This is The MoonQuest’s fifth award and its second this year. In March, it won a Gold Medal for Visionary Fiction in the Independent Book Publisher Awards.

The fantasy, popular with adults and young adults alike, has also been recognized in the USA Best Book Awards (visionary fiction), the Reader Views Awards (young adult fiction) and the New Mexico Discovery Awards (unpublished fiction). This is its first fantasy/science fiction prize.

As well, The MoonQuest has been lauded by U.S. critics as “an evocative and emotionally moving tale of adventure” (Midwest Book Review) and “an exceptional, timeless novel” (The Mindquest Review of Books). Library Journal praised it as an “emotionally solid tale” whose “songlike prose [offers] a match for its ethereal characters and allegorical message of inner truth.”

For Gerson, who moved to New Mexico in 2005, this award carries particular significance. “This is where I finally finished The MoonQuest,” he says. “It’s also where I finished my second book, and hope to complete my third!”

Gerson is also author of The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write (LightLines Media 2008), based on his 15-plus years of teaching creative writing in the U.S. and Canada. He is now seeking a producer for his screenplay adaptation of The MoonQuest and is working on a sequel to the novel.

This is the second year for the New Mexico Book Awards, established to acknowledge the best in New Mexico books. Over the next year, The MoonQuest will be featured, along with other winners, in special displays in bookstores and libraries across the state, including in all New Mexico Borders outlets.

Both Gerson’s books are available from Amazon.com and other online retailers, from the publisher at www.lightlinesmedia.com and at selected U.S. retailers coast-to-coast.

Everything Old Is New Again

Wednesday, November 19 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

Everything old is new again, as the Peter Allen lyric suggests. Here I am, back in Albuquerque, my unexpectedly brief journeying complete. And I move into a new rental here on Monday.

When I left town on September 30, I didn't know if I'd ever be back. All I knew was the call to the open road, a call I (once again) had no choice but to obey.

Through 40 days of driving, I traveled south and east into Texas, then back north into Louisiana, crossing it and the Mississippi before veering up through Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Colorado. After a pit stop in Albuquerque, I continued west into Arizona, then south toward San Diego and north to Sacramento.

That rainy night in Sacramento, dining with a minister friend and her husband (who, themselves, are planning a move to Albuquerque), I knew that Albuquerque was calling me home.

As if to emphasize the point -- and to remind me that I wasn't going back, I was moving forward -- I woke up two mornings later with "everything old is new again" playing in my head. (And in case I missed the message, the song reprised itself for me the following morning.)

I don't like the expression "coming full circle" because it suggests that we're returning to a place we've already been, having learned nothing and grown not at all. My preferred image is that of a spiral, where we return to a place along the same axis, but at a higher level of consciousness and understanding.

As I wrote in The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write, "Each cycle’s completion returns you not to where you began but to a higher level of awareness, mastery, openness and trust." I wrote that about the creative process, but isn't life the ultimate creative process?

So here I am, ready to embark on my own version of the Peter Allen song. Everything old is new again.

For a start, I'm committed to returning to The StarQuest, the first of two projected sequels to my novel, The MoonQuest.

The StarQuest has been in my life for more than a decade, having begun to work its way out of me before The MoonQuest was finished (even if, at the time, I thought it was finished). I've worked on it in fits and starts since then and have yet to complete a first draft.

This week, I began reading through its 200-odd manuscript pages. The book is far from complete. But it is ready to be birthed, and I'm ready to be its midwife. Everything old is new again.

Another renewal is my relationship with the Sandia Mountains. This magical range, which marks the eastern boundary of Albuquerque, is a large part of what keeps calling me back to this place.

Like my previous home here, my new condo is in the Sandia foothills. As wonderful as my last location was (half a mile from a trailhead), the new one's is even better: nothing across from it but open land and mountain trails. Everything old is new again.

This past Sunday while at church, the passenger-side rear-view mirror assembly vanished from my car. I don't know whether it was an accident, vandalism or theft, but a way of looking back -- into the past -- was taken from me. A new mirror was installed yesterday. Everything old is new again.

As I was wondering this afternoon, in the midst of writing this piece, how I would be supported in this re-newed Albuquerque life, I received a phone call from a local magazine that is seeking an editor, its content similar to one I worked on in Toronto more than 15 years ago.

I don't know whether I'll get the job -- or will even want it if it's offered -- but it, too, suggests that everything old is new again.

The turn of the spiral is complete, and here I stand at the threshold of a new life that resembles the old one in surface details only. Where do I go from here? Across the threshold and into a beginning still veiled but replete with the promise that all new beginnings offer.

Once again, from The Voice of the Muse: "From silence to silence, word to word, trust to trust -- the spiral is an infinite one, carrying you from one beginning to the next and one ending to the next on a journey with no beginning or ending."

The spiral is an infinite one... How perfect that through my 40 days of travel I, somehow, unconsciously, drove an infinity symbol through those 10 states, with Albuquerque as its center point.

Photos (c) 2008 by Mark David Gerson: #1 Sandia foothills, Albuquerque, NM; #2 Myriad Gardens, Oklahoma City, OK; #3 Stone cairn, Meditation Mount, Ojai, CA; #4 Sandia foothills, Albuquerque, NM; #5 Winterville Mounds, near Greenville, MS.

More photos from the journey at "Forty Days on the Road."

Forty Days on the Road

Tuesday, November 18 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

A selection of photos from my recent journey.







Photos (c) 2008 by Mark David Gerson: #1 Salida River, Salida, CO; #2 Downtown water towers, Pratt, KS; #3 Sunset near Marfa, TX; #4 Hot Springs Mtn., Hot Springs, AR; #5 Hwy 49, near Bear Valley, CA; #6 Stupa of Enlightenment, Crestone, CO.

A Prayer for Prosperity

Friday, November 7 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

Geri O'Hare and her husband, Art, have been dear friends and great supporters of my work and my writing for quite some time now.

When I visited them in California last month, Geri handed me this Science of Mind treatment for prosperity she had written some years back as a Religious Science Practitioner. It's been such a powerful inspiration for me that I asked her if I could share it with you here. It feels particularly relevant in these times.

After you read it, use it or meditate with it, please return here and share your thoughts, comments and experiences. Our shared stories are always part of the healing and transformation.


A Guest Post by Geri O'Hare, R.Sc.P.

Prosperity Treatment

I know that within me there is a Universal Power which is God.

It is Infinite Spirit and I am one with this Spirit. It is Universal Mind, Intelligence and Love operating through me at all times. It guides me into Right Action, prosperity, greater abundance, peace and harmony. It knows no limitations and recognizes no lack. It knows exactly what I need and when I need it. I only have to believe, and I do this ardently.

With childlike faith I now state that all my affairs are in order. No longer do I harbor fears for my future. Instead, my heart is filled with confidence and certainty.

I am aware that Divine Intelligence is my partner and we are never separated. Together we accomplish everything, and my todays and tomorrows are assured.

Every move I make is for the best. I always have an abundance of money or whatever it is that I need to make my life happy and complete. The supply is constantly moving towards me because my Divine Partner knows exactly what to do.

All my anxieties and fears have evaporated. I see that I have everything and that I am lovingly protected at all times.

Thank you, Infinite Spirit, for the tremendous changes in both my life and in my thinking.

I now enjoy perfect abundance and perfect prosperity. All the good in the Universe is my good now and there is no limit to it.

It is my birthright because God and I are united in Spirit and I am deeply grateful.

I know, I believe and it is so!

Lovingly,
Geri O’Hare, R.Sc.P.

Photo of Geri O'Hare by Mark David Gerson

TGIM

Monday, November 10 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

TGIM? Don't you mean TGIF?

Well, my colleague Scott Stratten would like you to start thinking about why we bless Fridays and curse Mondays. More importantly, he'd like to help us bless all days and to praise Mondays with the same passion we now praise Fridays.

Check out Scott's message, "Thank Goodness It's Monday" and be part of the paradigm shift.

Yes, You Can!

I think I can
I think I can
I think I can
I know I can
~ The Little Engine That Could

Tuesday, Nov. 4 ~ Needles, California

On this historic night in the United States, it's important to remember that whatever our dreams, whatever our challenges, whatever our hopes, whatever our fears, yes we can!

Yes, I can.

Yes, you can.

Whatever it is, however unlikely it seems, it is possible. For you...for me...for all of us.

Believe it.

Know it.

Embody it.

Be it.