Victor Verney
Some tech-savvy folks I know, hearing me gripe about restrictive word count limits, wholesale alterations by editors, rejection letters and stingy pay scales, have urged me to take advantage of the opportunity freelance writers now have to self–publish their work. Seeing the ever-increasing popularity electronic reading devices like Kindles, I finally decided to step on to that media platform, beginning with the nine short pieces illustrated below.
In the course of my writing career, beginning in grad school, I’ve produced seminar reports, conference papers, magazine articles, essays and reviews on a variety of literary and historical topics. Most of these, after their initial presentation, have been relegated to the virtual dustbin of my hard drive, which seems a bit of a shame. After all, these were pieces on which I did some serious work; I took pride in that work, and still do.
These ten offerings are equivalent to mid–length to long magazine articles, ranging from 2,000 to 5,000 words, and I think they strike a nice balance. Readers interested in these topics, while they may not necessarily care to dig through a full–length book on them, might want something a little more substantive than what they might get by Googling up a Wikipedia entry. And at only 99 cents each (well, except for one at $1.99 and another at $2.99), how can you go wrong?! Click on my cover images below — as a self-publisher, I also get to be my own art director — and check a couple of them out.
You say you don’t own a Kindle? Well, that’s no problem: you can can download the Kindle reading app for your PC, at no charge, by clicking on the image at right. It’s a very easy installation process, and you’ll then be able to read Kindle e–books on your computer or laptop. Amazon also offers other free apps that let you read Kindle e-books on smartphones and tablets, as well as Macs.
My E-Books on Kindle Direct Publishing
My most recent publication:
Emil Viklický:
Patriarch of Czech Jazz
Emil Viklický, jazz pianist and composer extraordinaire, was born in the former Czechoslovakia in 1948 — just as that country was taken over by the communists. A math prodigy during his schoolboy days, Emil abruptly abandoned his dream of becoming a professor when he learned that, under Stalinist communism, Marxist dialectics were more important than synchronous polynomials. He'd already begun playing jazz piano around Prague, and after his talent was recognized in Europe, in 1977 he came to the U.S. to study jazz at Boston's prestigious Berklee School of Music.
After returning home to Prague, over the next three decades he proceeded to amass an impressive list of ensembles, performances, compositions and awards, establishing a preeminent position as "The Patriarch of Czech Jazz" while becoming renowned for his use of Czech and Moravian folk music. This unique style has earned him a second nickname, "The Janacek of Jazz" — a flattering comparison to Leoš Janáček (1854-1928), a Czech composer who used Czech folk songs as inspirational themes for classical music.
This would have been a notable achievement in any case, but Emil did so under the smothering presence of communist totalitarianism, which pervaded Czech jazz clubs as much as its university campuses. Emil shares some personal anecdotes of life as a jazz musician behind the Iron Curtain and comments on the storyline of a 2009 Czech film, Rytmus v patach (The Rhythm on the Heels), built around this subject, to which he contributed a musical score. (3,100 words with 26 illustrations)
A Brief History of the Pseudonym:
Pen Names & Personalities
Most of the general reading public knows that "Mark Twain" was a pen name, or psuedonym, used by Samuel L. Clemens. Pseudonyms such as George Orwell, Dr. Seuss, Anthony Burgess, O. Henry and George Eliot have been adopted by authors for a wide variety of reasons.
This whimsical essay briefly examines this time-honored and very colorful literary practice, and focuses on two of the more singular examples: the Frenchwoman known as Reage, author of the notorious The Story of O, and Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. (2,200 words with 5 illustrations)
Petr Chelčický & Pacifism:
Unity of the Brethren & Lost Hussite Roots
Petr Chelčický was a 15th Century scholar and religious thinker who lived in Bohemia (present–day Czech Republic). A pacifist and socialist well in advance of the famous individuals usually associated with the origins of those philosophies, his thought strongly influenced Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy.
Although today only sketchy details are known of his life, Chelčický left behind a large body of writing, much of it still untranslated into English. (3,200 words with 13 illustrations)
Although Martin Luther is today the best known theologian to have dissented from Christian orthodoxy, he was neither the first nor the last to do so. Since Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in 312 CE, men of conscience have felt compelled to protest against the corruption and abuses of institutional religion.
The German Luther was preceded by reform-minded clerics like Englishman John Wycliffe and Czech Jan Hus. The civil disobedience and pacifism of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., was influenced by Tolstoy and Thoreau, who in turn were inspired by Petr Chelčický, a 15th-century Czech contemporary of Hus, as traced by this 3,700-word essay with 8 illustrations.
Religious Dissenters, Prominent & Obscure
Charting Billy Budd, Sailor :
Melville's Inside Narrative as Parable
This 10–page literary essay examines the history of the various opposing critical interpretations of Herman Melville's late novella Billy Budd, Sailor. It suggests reading this work as a parable, a perspective that has been constructively applied to Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener" and might be a useful contribution in the ongoing debate about this, his final work (5,000 words with 11 illustrations).
Franz Kafka:
An Amerikan Perspective
While working as a journalist, I covered an exhibition at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library in Cedar Rapids, IA. Titled "20th Century Sensations: Czechs–Slovaks–Popular Culture," it highlighted individuals of Czech & Slovak ancestry who'd made significant contributions to America's contemporary culture, including such diverse figures as astronaut Eugene Cernan, baseball star Stan Musial and pop artist Andy Warhol.
One in particular, Franz Kafka, was of special interest, as I'd been transfixed by his surreal parables since first discovering him in my teens. When a University of Iowa literature professor scheduled to deliver an accompanying lecture cancelled due to illness, I volunteered to fill in. This e-book is a transcription of my presentation, giving an overview of Kafka's biography, historical background, and his unique position in American popular culture, including Hollywood. (8,000 words with 16 illustrations)
Hawthorne's Marble Faun :
Art, Eros & Italy
This essay discusses Nathaniel Hawthorne's final novel, The Marble Faun, inspired by a trip to Rome, making it his only novel not set in colonial New England. The novel's main characters, and their real-life cognates, are examined as reflections of Hawthorne's ambivalence about the relationship between art and morality.(4,600 words with 7 illustrations)
The Influence of Puritanism on American Literature
This essay briefly traces the influence of America's Puritan heritage on its literature, using leading authors as examples from the Colonial period to the final decade of the twentieth century. (2,650 words with 10 illustrations)
This article recounts the singular history of the gigantic statue of Jan Žižka by Czech sculptor Bohumil Kafka that since 1950 has overlooked Prague from atop Vítkov Hill. This was the site of the one-eyed general’s first great victory in 1420 over Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund and an army of some 80,000 foreign crusaders bent upon burning Prague to the ground and slaughtering every man, woman and child in the city.
The history of this monumental artwork is a story-within-a-story that could easily support a book in its own right. (5,000 words with 16 illustrations)
The Romantic poet Lord George Gordon Byron (1788-1824), who has been called "the First Rock Star," electrified people with his poetry while shocking them with his personal life. After going into self-imposed exile in Italy, as this article briefly recounts, Byron went to Greece to join its fight for independence against the Ottoman Empire.
While the in the village of Missolonghi, he died from a fever he contracted — and the ineptitude of his doctors — and today is revered throughout Greece as a national hero. (2,000 words with 7 illustrations)