Kerry Radloff Author

I've just updated my author web page (and it's still a work in progress....) - so I can now add website designer to my portfolio!! :-) Go and have a looksee... https://kerrylynwr.wixsite.com/author

It occurs to me that if I am to claim that I. Am.An.Author, I need to wear it. It's hard work claiming it: I self-publish. On Amazon. I'm not a Best-Selling Author. Or even a House-Hold-Name. I battle with the idea that Vanity Press - which is what is is, really, when all is said and done - has value, but there we go - I am an author, because some of my stuff has been published. In a fashion. A "for-instance": I write poetry, too. I THINK in poetry - catching lines from the a...rdent arms of trees cradling a sinking sun, or the gaping wide of baby bird beaks, the hot smell of cows in a field...and sometimes my thoughts run away into an epic poem, where I can't think of anything else. Mostly, though, poetry is a way to force me to stop talking so much. The paucity of line, the need to tell an entire story in a sentence or two, the brevity of poetry - these things force me to slow down a little. On Amazon, too, then, you could find a collection of poetry "Missed Calls & Sad Americans" https://www.amazon.com/Missed-Calls-Americans//ref=sr_1_1

Should you be keen to read the chapters I've got thus far on The Afterlife of Kubra Benadam, feel free to pop over to Inkitt through the link below - it's a free read. https://www.inkitt.com/stories/romance/585512

So. Heat Stroke. A small "history." More than a decade ago, the outline of the story started thumping around in my head - hell, probably more like two decades ago. I wrote my thoughts down and, over time, pulled out each thought and fleshed it out. Finally, bored with my own nervousness, I decided it was Now or Bust. I finished Heat Stroke, designed a cover and sent it to Amazon. On the subject of which: I've always loathed the idea of self-publishing. It sounds better when i...ts called Indie Publishing - but it still smacks of vanity to me (which is the other name it has...Vanity Press.) This idea that what you write is remotely fascinating to other people...it sets my teeth on edge. I KNOW I CAN write. The funny stuff, the shit that makes people laugh. I'm good at that, even in my ordinary, everyday life. Writing the "other stuff" - the stuff of work like Heat Stroke - it comes easily enough: just not always convinced that other people will find it interesting. I had to get over that. If Heat Stroke was ever going to draw breath, I had to get over that. Heat Stroke is not a "nice" book - not by any stretch of imagination. And those of you who are familiar with my "funny" will probably wince at the first chapter and feel desperate by the third. The seventeenth will have you wanting to throat-punch Mariah Redfern because she is such a whiny, self-punishing bitch. And by the end you will wish a) you'd watched tv instead or b) feel you need to re-read Heat Stroke to find a way to forgive Mariah. Anyway. Heat Stroke. Thank you to those of you who took advantage of the freebie on Kindle reads - I'd be most grateful if you could write a review on Amazon in return. Even if you were less than totally impressed. There's no such thing as negative press, apparently. Those of you who bought a copy - whether e-book or paperback - thank you. (and FYI - especially if you're considering breaking out your Inner Author and plan to submit and sell through Amazon and then retiring to some lovely island somewhere: the price of the book? You look at it and think "Shit!! But she must be coining it at those prices"...umm, no. Amazon takes a goodly share....believe me.) And truth? Whilst cash is always going to be welcome, what's more vital in setting out to write and publish is the recognition: man, us writers crave it. (and I had originally written "man, us authors..." - and then I changed it to "writers' - yet another hurdle for me to climb: acknowledging that I am an author - not just a writer, when it feels I can't possibly be deserving of the title. All this growth stuff. Who woulda thunk it possible? https://www.amazon.com/Heat-Stroke-Kerry-Radl//ref=sr_1_2

So, I need input, please. Have been playing with covers for The Afterlife of Kubra Benadam... please take a look and "vote" for the one that works best for you. Vote 1, 2, 3 or 4 Synopsis of The Afterlife - to pique your interest and perhaps influence your cover choice. (The story is a speculative work: sort of a ghost story, definitely a love story, with murder and madness abounding.)... Who loves Kubra Benadam the most? Noah who has loved her from the first time he saw her when they were children? Or her brother, Ham? And why does she introduce herself as an orphan? Kubra seems the saddest woman on earth; strangely hollowed out, almost weightless when Noah wraps his arms around her. As she and Noah leave a tumultuous family celebration, where Noah first saw the shadows surrounding Kubra as she sat in a tyre-swing hanging from an old tree in the family garden, Noah admits his love for Kubra has developed a status quo in which he needs to accept whatever Kubra requires from him including her sudden insistence on her orphan state. In the face of her growing emotional absence, Noah begins to understand that his love for her has been skewed by this need. At this stage, he is not aware that she is dead. Kubra herself is not entirely aware that she is dead. The realisation coalesces as the novel progresses in step with the narration of her story by Noah and other characters. It becomes evident that Sibyl exists in a half-life in which she is physically present in the lives of certain people. Until her body is found and her murderer exposed Kubra cannot leave this afterlife life she is in. It is up to those investigating her disappearance and those still experiencing her in some physical manner to piece the story together in order to release her from her half-existence.

so, on the subject: through Amazon, too, I've published stuff for Moyo. Most of you know Moyo. Moyo is ...well, she's Moyo. The fat, friendly Labrador who Just Loves Me. And she Just Loves Cecil. Who is her BFF and Travel Mate (in various incarnations, granted: currently she has Cecil the Cloven Hooved Unicorn, Cecil the Filthy Sheep, Cecil The Rope (who used to be the leg part of a Cecil The Sheep until Rope and Cecil were split asunder), Cecil the One-Eared Rabbit (who spen...t some months buried in a snowdrift in Malakwa before being rescued and resurrected by Rita and Barry) and, last but not the least, Dagr-You-Cunt Cecil (so named because he looks just like the dog Dagr who belongs to Guy, and after whose steadily disappearing rump as he hives of, yet again, into the wilds after squirrel etc, and into whose deaf ears, Guy yells expletives, ever in the hope of getting Dagr to stop disappearing and come on home.) I'm her voice: her GhostyWriter. I tell her stories - stories about her Epic Adventure here in Canada, daily stuff - info about The Bastards (A.K.A. FatFuck&JesusJones) and Mom (that's me) who rants and swears like an out-of-work-trucker. I put some of her stories together into a book, stuck some pictures into it - and popped on over to Amazon to vanity-press the shite out of it. And given that not everyone is enamoured of my terribly soul mouth, I created a "santitised version" of Moyo&Cecil, too - for kids and Sensitive Souls. Here they are, then: (available in both paperback and e-book) Moyo&Cecil - for Adults https://www.amazon.com/Moyo-Cecil-1-Kerry-Rad//ref=sr_1_3 and Moyo&Cecil - the sanitised version https://www.amazon.com/Moyo-Cecil-Kids-Kerry-//ref=sr_1_4