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Book lovers gathered at Barnes and Noble in Pittsfield, MA to “Meet the Author” and have their books signed by Stephanie Abrams as she chats with those waiting for her to sign “RUMORS.
Photo image copyright 2013 by sabrams.com. All rights reserved.

It started with a marvelously successful Meet the Author book signing event in Barnes and Noble book store in Pittsfield, Massachusetts for my first novel, RUMORS, where the store’s management described the event as drawing the “biggest crowd into the store since Christmas,” a great review of RUMORS by critic Peter Bergman published in the Berkshire Eagle, the regional newspaper for Berkshire County in Western Massachusetts, which described the book as containing “fascinating stories. . .  .curious people caught in some deliciously intriguing situations. . . .a quick read. . . never drags or bores. . . .a story that is compelling.” With a constant thread in RUMORS of the lyric, “Who can ask for anything more,” I pose that very question. . . but more continued to arrive!

Stephanie Abrams at Barnes and Noble in Pittsfield, MA. Photo image copyright 2013 sabrams.com. All rights reserved.

At the book signing event at Barnes and Noble on March 23^rd, Donna, a medical assistant at a local medical practice remarked that she is an avid reader and read RUMORS 3 weeks ago.  Since then, she’s read 2 more books and RUMORS “is still out in the lead as the best!”

On Sunday evening, sitting at Gate 23 at JFK Airport at JetBlue’s gate area waiting for our flight to San Francisco, I got online to pick up my email that I hadn’t looked at yet that day. One of the earliest emails to arrive on Sunday, March 24^th came into my email inbox marked 3:07am as the arrival time. The email was from Pat Gormalley, who, with his wife, Marie, a retired elementary school teacher who taught for 41 years in Lee, Massachusetts, attended the Saturday event at Barnes and Noble. Pat and Marie left the book store with “RUMORS” in hand on Saturday and then headed for St. Joseph’s High School’s fundraiser event where local restaurants were serving their very best pasta and sauces. They arrived home late that evening and Pat decided he’d read a bit of RUMORS before calling it a day.

It appears that RUMORS was not a contributor to Marie’s search for a good night’s sleep as you’ll see below in her email to me:

“Well…it is now 2:45 a.m. and I just finished reading RUMORS…it has been a long time since I have picked up a book and not been able to put it down!!!!

This book holds your interest and the only way your mind wanders is by saying…”What next??”

As the story unfolds I found myself saying…”uh” or” Oh, no!” out loud.

I did not expect the story to end the way it did. I kept thinking…this story has to have a sequel.

Great job, Stephanie…great read. Can’t wait for your next book! Will the pass the recommendation along to friends.”

Marie also mentioned specific sections of  RUMORS that touched, awed, and surprised her and parts that she’ll remember forever, especially every time she takes a quarter from her pocket, which relates to a specific scene in the book.

I hope to hear your feedback when you’ve read RUMORS and hope you’ll take it with you in eBook form in Barnes and Noble Nook or Amazon’s Kindle format or in print. And don’t be surprised if you’re sitting beside a pool, on a beautiful beach, in an airport or on a plane and I notice you and offer to sign your copy! What a great introduction that would be.  Take a close look at my photo above so you accept no offers from some imposter! Ah, the germ of an idea for another intrigue! And there will be another book in the series with the next one titled, “SECRET.”  You will have a wonderful romp with that book too!

So happy to tell you that my new novel, “RUMORS,” is now available on Barnes & Noble’s Nook! Unfortunately, if you download it to your Nook ebook reader, I don’t know how to sign it for you! On the otherhand, I could use a permanent marker Sharpie and sign on your Nook’s frame! Could be different! Print copies are available at Barnes & Noble and if they don’t have it in stock they can order it for you or you can buy either Nook or print copies at BarnesandNoble.com. I’ll be at the Barnes & Noble book store in Pittsfield, Massachusetts today from 2pm to at least 4pm. . . and later if the vast crowds who come to drop by are still thronging in!  Every person who drops by to visit me at the book store can enter to win a one night stay at the Algonquin Hotel on W.44th Street in NYC, site of the rendezvous of 2 of the characters in ”RUMORS” and home-away-from home of Melanie, a lead character in RUMORS whose story continues in the sequel to RUMORS that I am writing! Please drop by if you’re in the region. . . and drive thousands of miles to get here if you’re not in the region! It won’t be fun without you . . . but if you don’t come, we’ll talk about you! And, as a bonus, I’ll be happy to answer your travel questions when I see you!

Visit for Barrington Stage photos.

What a wonderful, creative theater offering Barrington Stage’s “10X10 Upstreet” is!

Can you imagine how much more difficult it must be to tell a complete story, create an intense mood, move an audience to guffaws of laughter, tears of compassion, and deliver thought-inspiring tales in just 10 minutes?  Well, you can see ten of those 10 minute vignettes in Pittsfield, Massachusetts through today and tomorrow and I’d urge you to do what you can to get to see this dectet for theater!

While 10 minutes is the ideal and goal for each of the playlets, some are shorter and some run overtime but all are short, unique, complete, and touch the imagination and emotions of the audience. 

My favorites include in order of what I loved best:

“The Wilderness,” written by James McLindon and directed by Christopher Innvar: the slice of life, the end of life for one, of two Civil War soliders, both injured and facing death in the wilderness as a fire sweeps through the woods encroaching on Johnny Rebel and the Yankee.  Compassion and humanity find their way to the surface of these two men who recognize why they are on opposite sides of the war but on the same side of life. The bond created in this snippet of a play is so strong that gasps and tears were noticeable in the audience as The Wilderness’ abrupt conclusion was revealed. It’s no surprise to me, with my knowledge of Ireland and Irish emigration, that the Yank in Blue is an Irishman fighting with the north in the Civil War. The history of the persecution, mistreatment and starvation of the Irish by the English and mistreatment by conquerors before the English, clearly position the Yank of this story to be politically against issues of slavery. The contribution of Irish emigrants to the North’s army is historically documented and powerfully positioned in The Wilderness. Powerful!

“There’s No Here Here,” written by Criag Pospisil and directed by Christopher Innvar: While I have no insights into author Criag Pospisil’s inspriation for this wonderful, light, funny but thought-provoking itsy-bitsy bit of theater, I see this piece as an outgrowth of Woody Allen’s, “ Midnight in Paris,” and Steve Martin’s, “Picasso at the Cafe Lapin.” In Midnight in Paris, a 21st century visitor to Paris is magically swept off to Paris of earlier centuries and interfaces with Gertrude Stein, Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Degas, Renoir and other creative people long gone. In Martin’s play that takes place at the Cafe Lapin, the dialogue between Picasso and Einstein opens avenues to thought-provoking and imaginative fantasies of what would happen if two people of different eras and lifestyles got to meet.  Having been lucky enough to have seen Midnight in Paris 3 times in the theater and more times at home withmy DVD of the film, and, having seen Martin’s play Picasso at the Cafe Lapin in NYC, it was easy to see the connection of those pieces to “There’s No Here Here” as a young man, smitten with a beautiful and feisty French woman, is given advice from the dead, but very present, Gertrude Stein.  The acting was wonderful. The fast-paced story is funny, the characters are as real as a dead woman can be, and I hated that it had to end in 10 minutes.

“You Haven’t Changed a Bit,” written by Donna Hoke and directed by Kristen van Ginhoven: Harboring a hankering for a high school girl he always had his eye on at school, the male character in this vignette launches a campaign to get the apple of his eye from years ago to come to the 70thhigh school reunion of their class with the promotion of the reminder that “this could be our last chance.”  What follows is delightful, touching, and very funny.  Well acted by Matt Neely as the admirer and Peggy Pharr Wilson, the last of the red hot mammas in more ways than one, ‘You Haven’t Changed a Bit’ is a glimpse at what your high school reunion is, was, or could be like! I loved it!

“The Stand-In,” by Brett Hursey; directed by Julianne Boyd: this piece is the funniest and silliest of the 10X10 offering. Reminiscent of the trauma and stress of auditioning for a part in a theater production, this piece adds a Hitchcockian twist as the actress auditioning is cast in scenes with the leading man who is a sock puppet. The piece is hilarious! The silliness of the scenario, while elevating your spirits, is in a very different vain from the intellectually positioned but still hilarious “There’s No Here Here,” which is the top of my funny-favorites list for this year’s 10X10 offering. Emily Taplin Boyd did a grand job portraying the aspiring actress upstaged by Xocko the Sock Puppet!

If there’s no way for you to get to Barrington Stage in Pittsfield, MA for performances today and tomorrow, make sure you check out their website at www.barringtonstage.org and mark your calendar for 2014’s run of 10X10. This is my second trip to this “second annual” event and I can’t wait to see the next go-round! 10X10 is a marvelous theatrical romp that takes you on a rollercoasterride of emotions from highs to lows and turns that you just don’t expect packed into the time it takes to board and take an amusement park ride! But this trip leaves you with something of value to remember beyond the dizzying effect of the event! And it gives aspiring playwrites and directors an opportunity to explore contemporary avenues to reveal the long-known truth that, ‘The more things change, the more they remain the same” as audiences identify with the themes reflecting the human condition. . .and limited to 10 minutes!

Bravo, Barrington Stage! Well done!

It didn’t take long!

Sequestration has resulted in travel and tourism being dealt its first blow with the cancellation of Passport Day which had been planned for Saturday, March 9th in US Passport Offices nationwide. Designed to assist individuals, couples and families apply for passports and renew passports with help and assistance at a number of levels, this exciting program to encourage those without passports or with expired passports to  get ready for international travel, even travel as close as Mexico, Canada, Bermuda, Bahamas and Caribbean destinations, has been given the axe due to Sequestration.

I wonder how many congressmen who flew out of the Capitol today are heading to the airport to take a nice winter break in a warm destination with their passports in hand. They’re all set!

We have met the enemy and it is us.

Image Copyright 2013, sAbrams.com. All rights reserved.

Read my lips! They are smiling benevolently upon my accommodations. I can tell you that my lips and my shades are very pleased with what they are experiencing in Boston. The Aldo purse that I bought in the Dundrum Mall in County Dublin just down the road from The Beacon Hotel, a member of the Fitzpatrick Hotel Group, and my Blues Brothers shades that were a gift to me by the “Blues Brothers” at Legends in Concert in Branson, Missouri,  clearly are pleased with the suite I just checked into at the Seapor Bostont Hotel . My well- traveled purse is throwing kisses and sharing its love with the Hull Suite at the Seaport Boston Hotel fabulously located across from Boston’s Seaport World Trade Center where major conventions and exhibits are held. Views of Boston’s harbor and Boston’s skyline are spectacular but if you check into the Hull Suite, you’ll find that pretty spectacular as well.  Book early if there’s a convention, exhibit, or event at the Seaport World Trade Center because it’s the most convenient place to stay. But check out those times when there is no event scheduled at the World Trade Center because you’ll have less competition getting space at the hotel!  Sometimes the Law of Supply and Demand work in your favor so look for those opportunities! The neighborhood has grown up around the hotel and convention center and shops and restaurants are in close proximity for an easy walk to meet you immediate needs.

Image Copyright 2013, sAbrams.com. All rights reserved.

I got very busy as soon as I settled in at the desk, trying hard not to be distracted by the million dollar view. You can see how comfortable the bed is just by looking at it! It screams “marshmallow heaven!” But my favorite part of this comfy and spacious suite, right after the incredibly thin super hi-res plasma screen televisions that grace the living room and bedroom, is the bathroom’s shower! Oh, my goodness. Notre Dame’s entire football team could shower at the same time in this bathroom and those waiting their turn at the water supply could sit on the club-chair-sized built-in bench in the shower! I just love places that like to spoil guests and exceed their expectations!

Image Copyright 2013, sAbrams.com. All rights reserved.

Hungry? Too tired or lazy to go out? Check out the Seaport Boston Hotel’s dining choices. You can count on the quality, service and presentation in Aura, the fine dining restaurant, but if you are looking for lighter fare served in a relaxing atmosphere, try Tamo’s, just steps away from Aura in the hotel’s lobby level. As you enter, you’ll find a contemporary style gas fireplace that’s perfect for warming the heart and the body! And whether there’s a chill in the air or not, you’ll want to order the New England clam chowder. . . after all, you’re right beside the Boston’s seaport! And if you’re really lazy or have lots of work to catch up on, like writing your sequel to your first novel (did I mention “Rumors”?), try room service. There’s a wonderfully decadent feeling that goes along with ordering room service!

Next time your plans take you to Boston, check out the Seaport Boston Hotel. You’re near every place you want to go in Boston but, when you’re done with your hectic business day or a packed schedule of sightseeing and shopping, nothing is as lovely as the feeling of being at the water’s edge!

Wishing you Sweet Dreams from your Personal Travel Expert bringing you worldwide travel tips and recommendations not far from home, too!

Stephanie Abrams

Author of “Rumors” (www.sAbrams.com/rumors)

Twitter@iTripU

If you’ve got a case of the Winter Blahs, try this as an antidote:

Go to Berkshire County in Western Massachusetts, stay at  lovely hotel or historic and charming inn, or opt in to the Berkshire Crowne Plaza Hotel in Pittsfield, MA, the heart of the heart of Berkshire County, using your frequent traveler points, where you’ll find a wonderful indoor pool, eat yummy food at restaurants offering every flavor of every continent, and see “The Liar” now being performed at Shakespeare & Co. in Lenox, MA.

Above: The perfect stairway for the perfect wedding, family, corporate or organization’s group photo at the Berkshire Crowne Plaza Hotel in Pittsfield, MA.

If you want to be near the pool, request a poolside room at the Berkshire Crowne Plaza Hotel! A perfect place for your cocktail party event!

Now for the details:

“The Liar” is hilarious! The costumes are fabulous and the set design creatively whisks us from The Tuilleries in Paris to indoor palatial living. The actors are terrific (kudos to David Joseph and Elizabeth Apenlieder) and demonstrate great skill and enormous energy levels in a play written in rhyming couplets by David Ives. The play is based on a play written in 1643 by Pierre Corneille and is as riotous as any British farce you’ve ever seen with a decidedly American-French flavor. You will laugh your sox off! Get tickets and dash off to see the play because it is scheduled to close on March 24th! If you could use a boost out of the winter-blues, this is the prescription!

If you are coming from New York City, Boston, Albany, or a wider driving-distance range to visit Berkshire County, you can find any number of wonderful places to say  but let me mention 3 I know you will enjoy:

Firstly, as mentioned above, if you are looking for a modern full-service first-class hotel with fantastic food if you decide to dine in or munch a lunch in the hotel, stay at the Berkshire Crowne Plaza Hotel in Pittsfield. You’ll find friendly service, the One West Lounge for your “chic bistro” needs and the Underground Pub for a British Pub casual experience with all of the food coming out of the same kitchen under the supervision of their marvelous Executive Chef, Mike Mongeon who does a superb job with food selection, preparation and magazine-photo-quality presentation.  Bring your bathing suit and enjoy their indoor swimming pool that is crowned with a domed glass roof. On a sunny day, all that’s missing is a palm tree to help transport your imagination to a Caribbean island! Remember that if you have Priority Club points you can use them toward the cost of your stay!

Looking for an authentic historic hotel experience? Try the Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge, MA, where you’ll be welcomed by a lovely crackling fireplace in their lobby reception area.  Be sure to have lunch of dinner in their wonderful restaurant. The combination of the atmosphere and the delicious menu items that cover a range that will please every palate is certain to please! My favorite is their spaghetti with mussels in a white wine sauce! Yum, yum and yum! And it is so beautifully presented with the mussels lined up like little soldiers around the edge of the deep dish that it is served in. Looking for lighter fare? Try the authentically wonderful Widow Bingham’s Tavern at the Red Lion Inn. You’ll feel like you’ve stepped back in time to the 1700’s and any time now George Washington will tie his horse up to one of the posts outside and stride in! If you’re looking for that “quiet little table in the corner,” call ahead and reserve the table in the alcove in the bar area. Four slim people can sit there comfortably. Burgers, sandwiches and other pub-grub items are available but my favorite is the sliced turkey sandwich on dark break with cranberry-mayo dressing! So good! And this is not that processed deli-turkey! Lovely slices of freshly roasted turkey will grace your sandwich. And, don’t worry, there’s something for every vegetarian and vegan so no special needs are ignored. Note that if you want to be in the the tavern but you’ve got an appetite for something from the dining room menu, you can order from that menu too and have it served in the Widow Bingham’s Tavern. The best of all worlds!

Above: Exterior of Blantyre, Lenox, Massachusetts.

Below: Interior drawing room at Blantyre, Lexox, Massachusetts

If you are looking for that big splurge, a super romantic place to stay, are celebrating a great occasion, trying to get out of the doghouse after not bubbling over with bubbly on Valentine’s Day, or you know how to live and won’t settle for less than magnificent, the place for you is Blantyre, a Relais & Chateaux property in Lenox, MA.  Ann Fitzpatrick Brown, owner and executive overseer of all that happens at Blantyre, has created a truly Gilded Age oasis in a maddening world. At the end of a long, long, long meandering driveway, Blantyre comes into view: a Cinderella castle whose architectural design alerts you at once that you are in for a special treat. The antique-filled establishment becomes your home the second you enter as all things are touchable and welcoming with vases and bowls overflowing with fresh flowers in traditional Gilded Age arrangements. The service is impeccable; the food is magnificent; the experience is remarkable and memorable; and you won’t want to leave! If you can tear yourself away from your accommodations and the castle, try their spa!  Blalntyre is the place to be for people with high expectations and I expect that those expectations will be exceeded if you chose to stay at this fairytale-maker!

If you need any insights into places to go, where to eat and things to do 12-months of the year in Berkshire County, click on FORUMS and post your question at Ask Stephanie. I promise to get back to you with answers designed to meet your customized needs for your Berkshire County visit or your visit anywhere else in the world!

When cruise ships approach ports where the harbor is not big enough, deep enough, wide enough or it doesn’t have enough berths for all the ships that want to visit that port on a particular day, the passengers line up in the stairways leading to the hallway that merges into the gangway to exit the ship onto tenders.  Sometimes, the tenders used are the lifeboats on board.  Sometimes the ship/cruise line rents or leases tenders from local companies in the port city/town to ferry the passengers from the ship anchored at sea to the shore. Wouldn’t it make sense to tender the folks on board the Carnival Triumph ashore to get them off of that ship and on land with a welcome the equivalent of what one might find at a midnight buffet on board a ship waiting for them?

It’s clear that people and their luggage could not go ashore in a ship evacuation by tender but it would be glorious for the passengers to get to shore, have a good meal and bowl of hot soup, and wait on land for their luggage to be disembarked and identified by each passenger before they depart for home. With land in sight, no different from the view of a Caribbean island or the Mediterranean shoreline where there is no possibility of bringing a huge ship into the port, these passengers could easily be accommodated by being tendered now so they don’t have to spend one more minute on board.

The passengers are so lucky that their inconvenience was not due to an accident or other event that caused the ship to take on water and sink. Other than the threat of illness or disease that may exist due to lack of proper sanitary conditions on board, the lives of those on board are not in any particular danger. The big danger is for those who got on board with just enough medication for their medical needs and now may face not having enough medication to keep them healthy until they reach shore. Lesson: Always have at least enough medication for a week or two beyond the duration of your intended travels. You never know where you can get stuck or what  circumstances will prevail that keep you from being able to refill a prescription.

One little girl on board noted that the part she disliked most was “doing her business in a can.” As indelicate as that may be, I think this child needs to go camping to learn how to deal with what you do when everything is not handed to you on a silver tray.

This is an incredibly important point in the rearing of children who have the privilege of living well and traveling well. Because my children often stayed in luxurious hotels with twice the square footage of a NYC apartment and bigger than most people’s houses, enjoyed flowers and rich chocolates being delivered to suites in marvelous destinations globally, having butlers routinely bring snacks, hors d’oeuvres, bouquets of exotic fresh flowers to the suites we stayed in,  I pondered the question of how they would deal with coping with having to sort out living without these pampering amenities.

The result of those ponders was the purchase of a pop-up camper, the kind that hitches on the back of your car and looks like a rectangular tin can.  For about five years, in addition to some over-the-top luxury land and sea travel, we went camping as many weekends as we could. While we didn’t do “primitive camping” since our Rockwell pop-up camper, when opened, housed a queen sized bed, a double bed and the kitchen table folded down with its benches flanking its sides and became a twin bedded camper complete with electric refrigerator, propane-tanked stove, a heater and a screen door.

After a number of road trips that included Acadia National Park in Maine and other campgrounds along the east coast, we rented a site at the Bonnie Brae Campground in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. We selected a campsite that was about one-third of an acres, set up our camper for the summer and spent every weekend, holiday and spare time when we weren’t traveling elsewhere between May and October at Bonnie Brae Campground for two years. After that, we decided we loved Berkshire Country so much that we wanted to have a home here so we bought a place not far from the city of Pittsfield.

The important part of the five year period during which we went camping regularly is that my children learned to be creative in their approach to dealing with and coping with what one would call inconveniences in living as compared to the ease of flipping a switch and accomplishing your goal.  While we had an electric refrigerator, there was one outlet for that so electricity was used at a minimum in our camping life. And on the subject of taking care of sanitary needs, the shower house and toilets were half-a-block away!

Breakfasts were easy. Lunches were a snap. Dinners required more planning and creativity so menus were simple. The simplest was when we went out for dinner and to a movie! No, again, we were not primitive camping. But what we did was fun, memorable, and delivered life’s lessons in how to manage without electricity and a cupboard full of conveniences!

While the Carnival Triumph’s non-delivery of the anticipated dream vacation created a nightmare for the passengers, for those who get off of that ship alive and healthy I am thrilled.  To paraphrase Forrest Gump said, “Stuff happens.”  For me, as long as you are not reduced to wishing, hoping and praying in a hospital emergency room, you haven’t hit bottom  yet!

On the other hand, there is a certain cavalier attitude by the cruise line in its minimal offering of what it is willing to do to compensate passengers for the extremely unpleasant experience aboard the Carnival Triumph.  When added to the fiasco of the incompetence shown that resulted in  Carnival Corporation’s Concordia in, a ship that is part of Carnival’s Costa brand and ran aground and partially sank in 2011, and the Carnival Ecstasy that  had an engine room fire in 1996 stranding the ship and its passengers 23 miles off the coast of San Salvadore in the Bahamas, and fires that Carnival has had in the engine room of The Carnival Tropicale, Carnival Splendor, and Costa Allegra.

May I ask the question, “What the Fudge!” Is there a pattern here?

The lives of ordinary people living in a quiet Long Island suburb are turned into chaos as a web of intrigue ensnares them and it all starts with rumors. . . “Rumors,” that is. . . my first novel, now available in print and as an eBook for Kindle at Amazon.com, at BarnesandNoble.com, Xlibris.com and other online book retailers. The story and characters are a work of fiction inspired by many personalities, interesting and unique people, and incidents that I have stumbled upon in my life and travels.  With the freedom of adding dramatiztion, fiction and fantasy to the mix of life-inspired incidents,  the business and personal lives of  the characters spin into situations that are far beyond the norm and their lives become jigsaw parts that fall together in a snuggly fit puzzle made up of very colorful incidents propelled by secrets, lies, conspiracy and rumors that create a complex series of life-altering events in the lives of the characters.

Author, television and film actor, and talented wit, Malachy McCourt, had this to say about ”Rumors”:

“Stephanie Abrams is a world traveler in full possession of sharp ears, of sharp eyes, of a sharp tongue, and of sharp senses. She is an acute observer of life and it’s no surprise she has penned a novel. Give yourself a free trip to Mysteryville!”

If you’ve ever spent any time on Long Island, New York, you know that Newsday, the regional newspaper, plays an important part in the daily lives of the residents as a unique means of keeping up with what’s going on and what’s important to know and you’ll find the characters picking apart the newspaper to keep up as their routine lives procede down unpredictable and dangerous  paths. Stories that I’ve read in Newsday stayed in my mind for years as I toyed with them as inspiration for a broader, fictional story that grew from those seeds. I’ve already had some wonderful feedback from people who have read “Rumors,” and I look forward to your feedback. It’s encouraging to have some who have read the book already asking about a sequel, a series, and when  the film is coming out!  I actually think it would make an exciting film not only for the story but to create the visual scenes that I know your imagination will be excited by! I’ve got another book in production at the moment that is a travel guide but when that’s done the next novel will get underway! I’ve been having some fun mentally casting the book’s characters for a film! When you read the book, post me a note at Ask Stephanie in our Forums with your thoughts but this is who I currently have fantasized as the cast members:

Christine Baranski would be great as Hilda and Robert De Niro would be sensational as her husband, Nate, a retired member of the Nassau County Police Department.  Al Pacino would be wonderful as Dugan, the head of the firm RCA&D, and Bradley Cooper would be a perfect fit for the role of quiet but motivated Frank who marries the young, buxom and flighty, Maisy, which I see played by  Jennifer Lawrence. And the parts of Rose and Trevor Winston would be so right for Viola Davis and Cuba Gooding, Jr.  If you conjure up your own ideas of who could/should be the actors who fill the roles in “Rumor,” please let me hear your ideas! I could see Anne Hathaway as Melanie! But you have to read the book first to let me know what you think!

“Meet the Author of Rumors” salons are being planned by Company4Desserts. The first three are already on the calendar for March 6th in Hartford, CT, March 7th in New Haven, CT and March 8th at The Algonquin Hotel in NYC, the  rendezvous site of  the characters Allison Shapiro and David King, two of ”Rumors”  Nassau County, Long Island residents who have a clandestine meeting at The Algonquin. Their encountertakes place at Table #3 in the lobby of The Algonquin so if you’re going to be in NYC, be sure to stop by, ask to sit at Table #3 in the lobby lounge area and order a drink and something yummy while you enjoy this special corner of the hotel’s lobby lounge!  Better still, have your eBook or print copy of Rumors with you and read the book snug in the lobby’s “quiet table in the corner.”

If you’d like to attend one of the salons  planned for Hartford, New Haven and at The Algonquin in NYC, the historically literary hotel on 44th Street where the event will take place in the Oak Room, contact Toby Nadler at :  info@Company4Dessert.com

The international book launch of “Rumors” will be at The Morgan Hotel in Dublin, Ireland in late March and I’ll let you know the date as soon as it is written in the head of a Guinness to lock it in! Maybe  you can plan to join me!

If you’d like to plan a Meet-the-Author Chat and  Book Signing event for your organization or destinatinon, post a note at Ask Stephanie at stephanie@sabrams.com and we’ll get back to you to discuss possibilites!

Who could ask for anything more?

Your personal travel expert for worldwide tips and travel advice you can have confidence in,

Nationally syndicated radio show host and travel media guru,

And now novelist!

Stephanie Abrams

Photos: Nettie Washinton Douglass and her son Kenneth B. Morris in Ireland at Glasnevin Cemetary

We were driving from Sandyford, County Dublin, having just checked out of the wonderful Beacon Hotel (love that place!) to visit Newbridge House and Farm, an historic estate home where families love to take their children to get up close and personal with the farm animals in Donabate, C ounty Dublin. I was listening to my favorite radio station, Newstalk Radio, that has national feed in Ireland so no matter where you are you can get that station. In the late afternoon, George Hook, host of  ”The Right Hook,” came on the air and was interviewing a number of people who have written books on a variety of subjects. Many of the authors were American. One author’s subject rambled into a connection with American abolitionist Frederick Douglass who is one of the four people from any time in history that I would invite to a dinner party if I had the chance to do that! (You know that dinner table game of asking everyone whom would you invite to dinner. . . dead or alive. . . if you could!). I’m not sure if the author, or George Hook, for that matter, know of the Irish connection with Frederick Douglas so I sent a text to the station with a wee bit of an explanation but, for everybody else, you can actually hear a couple of interviews that I did with Nettie Washington Douglass and her son, Kenneth B. Morris archived here at www.sAbrams.com and at www.Travelers411.com.

I refer to Nettie as American Royalty as she is the grand-daughter of Booker T. Washington and the great-great-granddaughter of Frederick Douglass!  Frederick Douglass learned of Daniel O’Connell’s struggles in Ireland and saw the parallel between the experiences of those enslaved in America and the struggles of the Irish. My friend, Derek Warfield, one of the founders of the Wolfe Tones and founder of The Young Wolfe Tones, has said to me that, “The Brits freed the slaves in the Caribbean Islands they controlled and elsewhere in 1841 because they didn’t need slaves anymore. . . they had the Irish!” You have to love how Derek cuts to the chase!

Douglass and O’Connell corresponded, bonded, became great friends and Douglass sailed to Ireland, when crossing the Atlantic was not in the style of a cruise ship, to meet O’Connell. Douglass commented that it wasn’t until he reached Ireland that he was treated as a man and not as a black man. When you visit Glasnevin Cemetary in Dublin you will see in the visitors center a display devoted to Frederick Douglass and his relationship with Daniel O’Connell. O’Connell was responsible for the creation of Glasnevin Cemetary, an non-sectarian cemetary with the remains of people from over 80 religions, which was established so that Catholics could get buried without having to pay a burial tax to be buried in a Protestant cemetary. In doing that, his idea was to make such access available to all religions. You’ll find Irish greats in all fields buried there including authors, musicians, political activists of all persuassions who fought one another all their lives and now lie side by side for eternity.

Daniel O’Connell’s tomb is located just outside Glasnevin’s Visitors’ Centre, designed and created by Martello Media, owned by my good friend Mark Leslie whose family owns Castle Leslie in County Monaghan where Paul McCartney married the woman who didn’t work out so well!

Nettie Washington Douglass and her son, Ken Morris, went to Ireland a couple of years back to lay a wreath on the grave of Daniel O’Connell in honor of the relationship between O’Connell and her great-great-grandfather, Frederick Douglass.  Photos of that event and the archived audio of my interview/conversation with Nettie are all available here at our family of award-winning websites.

I hope George Hook gets my text message and that he visits Glasnevin Cemetary as an extension of the interview he did yesterday that mentioned Frederick Douglass. If you’ve never read Frederick Douglass autobiography,  Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, you need to treat yourself to this experience. It’s about 100 pages of the most powerful story you will every read!

I’m off to visit more places I’ve never been in Ireland today. . . can you believe that?!? There are still so many nooks and crannies to explore!

Image Copyright sAbrams.com 2012. All Rights Reserved.

I can’t help but think back over some of the outstanding moments of 2012. Among them was the memorial celebration for the fourteen people from Addergoole Parish in County Mayo, Ireland who saved their money to book passage on the Titanic to sail to America. In Lahardane, the small town with huge spirit, in Addergoole Parish, the townspeople and the Addergoole Titanic Society, who for decades have memorialized the sinking of the Titanic with a service in the churchyard at the town’s St. Patrick’s Church,with  great effort, creativity, and money from serious fund-raising, created an emotionally charged park that commemorates the departure of the fourteen local residents. You can see the symbolic bow of the Titanic in the background and the foot of the mountain Croagh Patrick. We were on hand to experience this amazing experience which started at 9pm on Saturday evening, April 14, 2012 and continued into the night with the speeches, poems, music and ringing of the churchyard bell three times for each person who sailed on the Titanic until each name was remembered which took the event well past 3:30am on April 15th. The Titanic sank at 2:20am.

The photo above was taken on Sunday, April 15, 2012 during a ceremony  that started at 2:30pm to dedicate this memorial park which followed a Mass at St. Patrick’s Church.  What makes this particular photo of special interest to me is that, if you look through the space between the statue’s arm and her face, you will see framed in that space Enda Kenny, Ireland’s Taoiseach, the name for the position of head of Ireland’s government. Enda Kenny was one of the honored guests who participated in the dedication of this special memorial park in Lahardane.

Make sure that your plans to visit Ireland include a stop in the wee town of Lahardane and be sure to visit this park, easily found on the main street and about a block away from Leonard’s Pub. When you leave the park, walk to your right, pass Leonard’s Pub and continue walking for another block or two, not more, and you’ll come upon St. Patrick’s Church. Inside you’ll find the first two stained glass windows on the right side of the church have been replaced with new windows, designed by a “blow-in,” someone who moved to Ireland from elsewhere, commemorating the departure of the 14 from Lahardane and their embarkation from County Cork on the Titanic.  As amazing luck would have it, the “blow-in” is Michael Coleman from Pittsfiled, Massachusetts in Berkshire County where my radio broadcasting studio is located! Michael’s father, Don Coleman, Jr., was the engineer who set up WBRK, one of  the radio station coast to coast that carries both Travelers411 and Travel WITH Stephanie Abrams.  While Don Coleman, Jr., worked at radio stations stations WBRK AM & FM , and his grandfather, Don Coleman, Sr., was a newsman for The Berkshire Eagle, the regional newspaper! I found out all that information in St. Patrick’s Church in Lahardane, County Mayo in December, 2011 when I went to check out the park, then under construction, see the church and it’s new stained glass windows which had just been installed, and meet the key people involved in spearheading this wonderful addition to commemorating Ireland’s history of emigrants. It was at this event that I met Sheila Moffatt and invited her to come and visit us in Berkshire County with the dancers from the award-winning Moffatt School of Irish Dancing! Seventy-five people from Mayo came to visit us in Berkshire County in October, 2012, among them 41 members of the dance company and friends and family. They are another piece in a puzzle that’s not done yet! More to come on that story!