Old Year Ending

The year ends on a sad note - an unexpected death.  Sadness sits over Hunter Mtn like a dark, heavy cloud that will not blow away.  Sadness that overcomes sunshine and good snow.

Just before that, Christmas before that T'Giving, both joyous and both break-throughs in their own way for our family.

Before that, Italy with my love, as our way of celebrating our years together.  And before that, triathlon season, with amazing successes from Benjamin.  An athlete at the top of his game.  And before that, and before that and before that...

The next year begins with its challenges made clear already.

Let it be an Inconceivable! year for everyone, especially my readers.

-SMC

Good Book For Sale

Thanks for the support and requests.

Neither Amazon nor B&N have hard copy physical books.  Those sites as well as Ibooks, Scribd, KOBO, etc. only have digital copies.  We took great care to ensure the ebooks have the same illustrations and covers as the physical book.  The page count is different because the physical book is double spaced throughout, whereas the ebook can be changed by the user.

To purchase digital copies, you can go directly to Amazon or B&N or any other major ebook retailer and search Inconceivable by Steve Marshall Cohen.  You can also click this link which takes you to the book's home page Inconceivable by Steve Marshall Cohen

To purchase hard copies, send a check made to Steve Marshall Cohen for $23.00 ($16.95 plus $6.05 priority mail shipping) to Steve Marshall Cohen, POB 622, Hunter NY 12442.  Orders are shipped same day as check is received.

The comments reaching me are very positive, so I feel comfortable to say that you will enjoy the read.

Thanks again and again and again.

-SMC

Unbelievable as well as Inconceivable!

It's alive everywhere, as they say:

"I would read it if I were you."
Inconceivable! home page

been a long time coming...

iBookstore	Delivered 12/16/2014	Your eBook should be up for sale in approximately 1-2 weeks from when we deliver to them.
Amazon Kindle	Delivery in Process 12/19/2014
Barnes & Noble	Delivered 12/11/2014	Your eBook should be up for sale in approximately 2-4 weeks from when we deliver to them.
Kobo	Delivered 12/11/2014	Your eBook should be up for sale in approximately 2-3 weeks from when we deliver to them.
Baker & Taylor	Delivered 12/11/2014	Your eBook should be up for sale in approximately 2-3 weeks from when we deliver to them.
Copia	Delivered 12/11/2014	We do not currently have an estimate for eBooks going live at Copia. We are delivering eBooks to them but there is a delay in their process for making a delivered ebook available for purchase on their site.
Gardners	Delivered 12/10/2014	Your eBook should be up for sale in approximately 3-4 weeks from when we deliver to them.
eSentral	Delivered 12/11/2014	Your eBook should be up for sale in approximately 2-3 weeks from when we deliver to them.
Scribd	Delivered 12/10/2014	Your eBook should be up for sale in approximately 2-3 weeks from when we deliver to them.
Goodreads	Delivered 12/10/2014
Oyster	Delivered 12/10/2014
Flipkart	Delivered 12/11/2014
Ciando	Delivered 12/10/2014
EBSCO	Delivered 12/11/2014
ePub Direct	Delivered 12/10/2014

Today...

...nearly two feet of snow fell in Hunter, NY.

...the county snowplow operator clearing Ski Bowl Road built up a 4-ft wall in front of my truck

...the snow plow contractor failed to show up

...I heard the "Theme from Shaft" on Sirius radio

...the temp moderated, so the precip turned to ice, making a nice crust on top of the snowfall

...i cleared the snow so i could make shipments at the post office

...the local bakery gave me a large loaf of bread for the price of a sandwich roll

...I shipped several review copies of Inconceivable!

...I updated my profile on Stage 32.com

...I ordered a few christmas presents on-line

...it turned back to snow and is still snowing at 5pm

...I made a nice fire with real wood instead of an artificial log

...I opened a bottle of Italian wine and cooked dinner for one,

and

...I approved the corrected proofs for Inconceivable!

Novelist publishes first title at age 62! Gets rave reviews!

“The writing is smooth and commercial. These pages are funny, quirky, and sweet and yet they have an oddly foreboding quality to them. The book has a nice pace and an engaging writing style. Both Helene and Greco are intriguing. I found this entertaining from beginning to end.”


“The strongest thing about Inconceivable! is that it takes a very singular issue, i.e. Helene and Greco’s anxiety about their pregnancy, and branches out from that into a detailed journey through their pasts and heritage. The method of using short chapters to juggle viewpoints from multiple characters works well and kept me interested throughout. I was impressed by the overall scope of the story and more specifically, by the skill with which the author has developed a dozen (or so!) key characters. By the epilogue, everything came together nicely and I wasn’t left wondering about loose ends. It’s an interesting story and fun to read!”


“I have read Inconceivable! and enjoyed it very much. Can't understand what is taking these publishers so long to publish it.”

“This book is so much fun to read you don’t realize how much you’ve learned or how deep the themes are until two days later. Even the chapter titles are clever.”

“The problem with this book is that I can’t identify a genre. It’s funny, but it’s not a comedy. There’s a love story, but it’s not a romance. It’s not chick lit, but it deals with serious female issues – pregnancy, self-image, relationships. It’s a mystery without detectives. There’s history, genetics and medicine, but not dry. There are social issues, but it’s not preachy. I give up.”

“I laughed out loud a few times, some tears here and there and cheered at the ending. In the final chapter, I thought I knew everyone and I wanted to be there with them.”

Loved reading Inconceivable! Good story, fascinating twists, kept me engaged all the way through. Its author comes across as highly intelligent and sensitive; in fact, a bit of a polymath. So many different facets of life, and made part of the story in a coherent manner.


“I very much enjoyed reading Inconceivable! The story development kept me interested, which must mean that the writing was good. The breadth of knowledge that went into the book is impressive. You learn various national cultures, ethnicities, peculiarities, aspects of the Holocaust – even life on the banks of the East River. The characters are believable. A natural for the movies.”

 

Why Do Mothers Kill Their Children? It's Inconceivable!

TABERNACLE, N.J. (AP) — Mourners said their goodbyes Saturday to three children fatally shot by their mother before she killed herself at their southern New Jersey home.

----------------------

VANCOUVER - A young Vancouver woman who killed her two infant sons was afflicted with a "disturbed mind" in the moments following childbirth, a judge concluded Tuesday as she imposed a five-year prison term for infanticide.

But the judge could offer little else to explain why Sarah Leung killed the babies, giving birth twice in the bathroom of her parents' home before wrapping each baby in plastic. She left one propped against a neighbour's house in the spring of 2009, while she threw the second, born less than a year later, in the trash.

---------------------------

LONDON - A Latvian migrant living rough in a city graveyard has admitted burying her newborn baby alive after police decided they couldn't help her.

Elita Amantova, 39, was living off berries and bread left out for the birds in Tooting, south-west London, before she gave birth to the child in 2012, a court heard.

The tragic death was discovered after a fox dug up the baby on Tooting Common and dumped body parts in a nearby tractor yard.

At a hearing at the Old Bailey, Amantova admitted infanticide and was sentenced to a hospital order.

The court heard she had been diagnosed with a schizophrenia-type mental condition in Latvia in her 30s but it was exacerbated by childbirth.

----------------------------------

BEIJING - Police have arrested a 15-year-old girl in connection with an infanticide case in Sau Mau Ping on November 26. At about 12.44pm that day, the girl and a newborn girl were brought to United Christian Hospital for medical treatment. The baby was unconscious and was later certified dead. Initial investigations revealed that the girl put the baby girl into plastic bags after she gave birth to it.

Backed up!

Dear Steve,
We apologize that you have been waiting for your new proof. The changes you
requested to the genre and last two pages are in production. We will notify you
as quickly as possible when your revised proof is ready for your review.
While it can always take up to ten business days to generate a new proof we
always try to get the proofs back to their authors as quickly as we can.
Please let us know if you have any other questions, and how we can help.
Thank you,

What's in a back cover?

The delay is the back cover. Bookbaby, the company i chose to convert my .doc to .mobi and epub, is having trouble with the back cover. Because it is one piece of art,  ereader functions won't work and so we have recreated the back cover as interior pages.  Alas, delay.

So much about a book is sold by its cover. Therefore, naked breasts! Better yet - naked breasts in public! - better yet - in moonlight!

The back page portrait of the author:  photo, sketch, cartoon, silhouette? Bio: leave it in, take it out, how long, what to mention, where do I live and what do I type on.

It was all set-in-stone-submit-as-required-format, ready-to-roll, go-with-it, locked-in release on November 27. What can go wrong, did go wrong!  Mr. Murphy, a free copy of Inconceivable! is on its way to you!

The back cover of Inconceivable!

Reflections on Self-publication

Now that I have paid to have Inconceivable! printed and bound, I am an indie publisher. I have a beautiful physical version of Inconceivable! that I can use in whatever way I want to promote the property to agents, publishers, magazine editors and contest judges.  I drop a copy in the mail and there you are, without cost or obligation, on the threshold of an adventure in literature.

To some, the indie model is an inferior or stigmatized publishing model.  Their view is that unless the manuscript is represented by an agent who has brought it to the attention of a publisher that in turn brings it to the attention of wholesale buyers, it can't be a valuable property.  The anguish of screening works to protect the public from the unworthy, they say.

Not with the internet! The publishing food chain has been completely disintermediated by the digitization of manuscripts.  As an author who seeks validation, an editor's praise would be nice, an agent's energy is appreciated.  A publisher's investment is expensive, but to an author, the resources of a mainstream publisher are worth it. Without an agent, editor or publisher, what have I got?

A franchise completely within my control, with no rights granted to anyone, with a path up to me to navigate.  Not to mention 200 copies for sale at $16.95 softcover or $6.95 electronic in the format of your choice.

Nothing stands between me and my fantasy executive producer, Barbra Streisand! All rights reserved, Barbra, and all rights available. I wrote a character thinking you would play her.

[Several of you have back-channeled your praise for the book. Thanks! Please review it when it finally appears for sale on the ebook site of your choice.]

Inconceivable! But almost digital...

• Amazon Kindle: Your eBook should be up for sale in approximately 2-4 business days from when we deliver to them.
• iBooks: Your eBook should be up for sale in approximately 1-2 weeks from when we deliver to them.
• Barnes & Noble: Your eBook should be up for sale in approximately 2-4 weeks from when we deliver to them.
• Kobo: Your eBook should be up for sale in approximately 2-3 weeks from when we deliver to them.
• Copia: We do not currently have an estimate for eBooks going live at Copia. We are delivering eBooks to them but there is a delay in their process for making a delivered ebook available for purchase on their site.
• Gardners: Your eBook should be up for sale in approximately 3-4 weeks from when we deliver to them.
• Baker & Taylor: Your eBook should be up for sale in approximately 2-3 weeks from when we deliver to them.
• eSentral: Your eBooks should be up for sale in approximately 3-4 weeks from when we deliver to them.
• Scribd: Your eBook should be up for sale in approximately 2-3 weeks from when we deliver to them.
• Flipkart: Your eBook should be up for sale in approximately 2-3 weeks from when we deliver to them.
• Oyster: Your eBook should be up for sale in approximately 2-3 weeks from when we deliver to them.
• Ciando: Your eBook should be up for sale in approximately 2-3 weeks from when we deliver to them.
• ePubDirect: Your eBook should be up for sale in approximately 3-4 weeks from when we deliver to them.
• EBSCO: Your eBook should be up for sale in approximately 2-3 weeks from when we deliver to them.

Be Careful What You Ask...it could lead to blintzes

How to start compiling your medical family tree:

Begin your medical family tree by making a list of your blood relatives, both living and deceased:

First-degree relatives: your parents, siblings, and children

Second-degree relatives: your grandparents, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and half-siblings

Third-degree relatives: great-grandparents, first cousins, great-aunts and great-uncles

Jot down birth dates and death dates wherever you can.

Do not include people who are related to you by marriage or adoption.

...if there are gaps in your family tree, your parents or siblings may be able to supply some of the missing information when you speak to them.

- Excerpted and edited
- Courtesy of the Genetic Disease Foundation

Read Inconceivable! and your journey will include (this is not the Table of Contents)

	Inconceivable!
Chap 1	Helene and the window diorama
Chap 2	Anatomy of the Auricle
Chap 3	Inside the police station
Chap 4	Helene on the bench with Albee
Chap 5	Giuseppe Fiore
Chap 6	Alais Peltze
Chap 7	Greco on a busy city bus
Chap 8	Patience and Fortitude
Chap 9	Dr Arnez
Chap 10	Dr Portney
Chap 11	Retsina and Appollonaris
Chap 12	Healthy infant
Chap 13	Althea Talos
Chap 14	Exterior of Colnyn Castle, Westmeath, Ireland
Chap 15	Heidi Weiss nursing Gustav at Nosidam
Chap 16	Dr CC
Chap 17	Helene being beaten on the riverbank
Chap 18	Greco at the banquet in Dallas
Chap 19	The riverbank crime scene
Chap 20	St Bernadette of Lourdes
Chap 21	Paradox
Part II	Second trimester
Chap 22	Bayonets at his back
Chap 23	Siobhan Peltze
Chap 24	Shaina Jaantee
Chap 25	Exterior of Colnyn Castle
Chap 26	Exterior of Airplane
Chap 27	Jewstown
Chap 28	Wolfhound running on the the Irish Greenway
Chap 29	Exterior of The Abbey of Monte Cassino
Chap 30	An unnamed grave at Arlington national cemetery
Chap 31	Madame Bernaudaud’s double exposure
Part III	Third trimester
Chap 32	Shayla Willians
Chap 33	Helene waiting alone at a dark, cold city bus stop
Chap 34	Cedric Willians
Chap 35	Wig Shop
Chap 36	Ambulance at accident scene
Chap 37	Full moon over Manhattan skyline
Chap 38	Helene with fawn
Chap 39	Lucky Cheng’s
Chap 40	Helene imploring the moon
Chap 41	Glenda, the good witch
Chap 42	Ruth Willians in agony
Chap 43	Helene in a wheelchair
Chap 44	The Alps
Chap 45	Gifts in the Lobby
Epilogue	Blackboard specials at Protector of Crete diner

Pregnant? No, not me!

Newborn Baby Girl, OC Homicide No. 13: Young Mother Held

Fullerton Police detectives believed Valderrama hid her pregnancy from her parents, who the then-19-year-old was living with on Sept. 4, 2009, when she gave birth to a baby boy in her bathroom around 10 p.m.

According to prosecutors, when Valderrama heard her mother trying to enter from a connecting bathroom, the teen stuffed her baby in the toilet until her mom left. She is accused of then wrapping the newborn in a t-shirt and tossing the little bundle of joy in a bedroom trashcan. Valderrama went on to expel the placenta, hiding it under the bathroom sink.

Later that night, Valderrama's mother walked into the same bathroom, saw large amounts of blood and called 9-1-1. Paramedics took the teen and the placenta that mom found under the sink to Anaheim Memorial Hospital. Doctors examined Valderrama and determined that she had just given birth and alerted police.

Cops found the deceased newborn in the bedroom trash can.

Does Helene Talos do the Inconceivable?

Neonaticide, in the news almost every day:

Prince George’s County authorities charged Sonya Spoon, 24, with killing her two toddlers — Ayden Spoon, 1, and Kayla Thompson, 3 — in their Cheverly home on Sept. 7. 

On Sept. 16, District police filed murder charges against Frances Lyles, 25, in the fatal beating of her son Xavier, 3, in June. 

Earlier this year, Montgomery County police brought murder charges against a Germantown woman who allegedly killed her two toddlers because she believed they were possessed by demonic spirits.

Phillip J. Resnick, a professor of psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University’s Medical School who is considered to be an expert in the study of filicide, distinguishes between neonaticide, a term he coined to describe the killing of an infant by its parents within the first 24 hours of birth; infanticide, which involves a parent’s killing of a child less than 1 year old; and filicide, which is the killing of a child up to 18 years old by a parent, stepparent or guardian.

A statistical analysis by Brown University researchers of more than 15,000 homicide arrests over 32 years found that about 500 parental filicides occur annually, or about 2.5 percent of homicide arrests.

Fredrick Kunkle

Reporter,Washington Post

Why do Mothers kill their Infants?

One of the themes of Inconceivable! is the unspoken crime of infanticide, which occurs in conjunction with post-partum depression, sometimes, but other times in an attempt to deny pregnancy ever occurred.  And while Inconceivable! is fiction, the following is an example of the reality of maternal infanticide.

KEARNS, Utah (AP) — A newborn baby was in extremely critical condition Tuesday after her 24-year-old mother left her in a neighbor's trash can in Utah, a state that allows mothers to drop off newborns at hospitals without consequences, police and health officials said.

A woman heard what she thought was a kitten meowing in the trash bin in the Salt Lake City suburb of Kearns on Tuesday morning and found the baby, Unified Police Detective Jared Richardson said.

Richardson says the girl was airlifted to a hospital in Salt Lake City, where she's now on a ventilator and fighting for her life.

Her mother, who was being questioned by police, later returned and told officers she had left the baby about an hour before the child was found.

Salt Lake County Sheriff Jim Winder, who oversees the Unified Police Department, said authorities believe the baby girl was born Sunday.

Winder said at a news conference that investigators did not have any information about where the mother gave birth or why she may have left the baby in the trash can.

An unidentified woman is escorted from a home by a police officer after a baby was found in a garbage …"We had a young lady make a very, very terrible decision," he said.

Police would decide whether to arrest the mother after interviewing her, Winder said. Generally, anyone who abandons a child can face felony charges, in addition to any abuse or neglect charges, he said.

There were no visible injuries to the child and no information about the child's father, Winder said.

At the news conference, Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams and health officials listed resources available for expectant and new mothers, including a crisis hotline and the state's safe haven law, which allows mothers to leave newborns at hospitals, no questions asked.

Inconceivable! by Steve Marshall Cohen

Hunter Weather Report

High wind and heavy rain today brought ducks, geese, turkeys, frogs and rifle shots throughout the day, followed in the evening by the sound of fat raindrops hitting the last few leaves and the leaves thudding to the ground. Temps in mid 60s. Watch for slippery conditions as the leaves float on the road on their way to a winter resting place.

Coming to Life Soon

Thanks to the beta-readers of Inconceivable!  These readers received a pdf with no cover art, interior illustrations or author bio of any kind and were asked to comment. Selected excerpts in order of receipt.


“The writing is smooth and commercial. These pages are funny, quirky, and sweet and yet they have an oddly foreboding quality to them. The book has a nice pace and an engaging writing style.  Both Helene and Greco are intriguing.  I found this entertaining from beginning to end.”


“The strongest thing about Inconceivable! is that it takes a very singular issue, i.e. Helene and Greco’s anxiety about their pregnancy, and branches out from that into a detailed journey through their pasts and heritage. The method of using short chapters to juggle viewpoints from multiple characters works well and kept me interested throughout. I was impressed by the overall scope of the story and more specifically, by the skill with which the author has developed a dozen (or so!) key characters. By the epilogue, everything came together nicely and I wasn’t left wondering about loose ends. It’s an interesting story and fun to read!”


“I have read Inconceivable! and enjoyed it very much. Can't understand what is taking these publishers so long to publish it.”


“This book is so much fun to read you don’t realize how much you’ve learned or how deep the themes are until two days later. Even the chapter titles are clever.”


 “I very much enjoyed reading Inconceivable!   The story development kept me interested, which must mean that the writing was good.  The breadth of knowledge that went into the book is impressive. You learn various national cultures, ethnicities, peculiarities, aspects of the Holocaust – even life on the banks of the East River.  The characters are believable.  A natural for the movies.”


“The problem with this book is that I can’t identify a genre.  It’s funny, but it’s not a comedy.  There’s a love story, but it’s not a romance.  It’s not chick lit, but it deals with serious female issues – pregnancy, self-image, relationships.  It’s a mystery without detectives.  There’s history, genetics and medicine, but not dry. There are social issues, but it’s not preachy.  I give up.”


“I laughed out loud a few times, some tears here and there and cheered at the ending. In the final chapter, I thought I knew everyone and I wanted to be there with them.”


"Loved reading Inconceivable!  Good story, fascinating twists, kept me engaged all the way through.  Its author comes across as highly intelligent and sensitive; in fact, a bit of a polymath.   So many different facets of life, and made part of the story in a coherent manner."


“An artfully crafted a story, the constituents of which are rarely combined in today’s literature. Historical events and contemporary family drama take the stage against the backdrop of New York City as characters struggle with  unique issues and uncover painful truths. From the holocaust to rural Ireland, cultural stereotypes to modern yuppie values, Inconceivable! is a journey that is a natural for the big screen.

Judge this book by its cover, please. Would you be motivated to read it?

Final Installment, Songs Inspired by True Events

#3 Why You Blue?
by Steve Marshall Cohen
Copyright 2014

(To a rock-a-billy beat)

Chorus:

Aint lost your job
Aint lost your girl
Aint lost your dog

So why you blue?

My paycheck’s pretty OK
Clears the bank - I get decent pay
And outside it’s a beautiful day
So why’m I so blue?

            Chorus

My girl is hot, I love how she sways

She got sexy eyes and legs for days
And she loves me true, so she says
So why’m I so blue?

Chorus

My dogs a drooler, his name is ol’ Rick
Wags his tongue - loves to slobber and lick
Chases rabbits and catches ‘em quick
So why’ I got the blues?

Chorus

Gonna tell you the sad news
‘Bout what’s got me down and blue
Some dumbass joker without a clue
Went and stepped on my blue suede shoes!

Second of Three Songs Inspired by True Events

#2 Wal-Mart Mama
by Steve Marshall Cohen
Copyright 2014

(To a country rhythm)

Oh I love my Wal-Mart mama
Oh I love my Wal-Mart mama
She goes shopping in her pajama
She goes shopping in her pajama

(background vocal): And what did she come to buy?

She got a cart full of cheese whiz and blonde hair dye
Cart’s piled high with bacon, chips and cherry pie
Cases of  Banquet Coors for her guy
Jerkys and turkeys and now you know why…

Oh, I love my Wal-Mart mama
She goes shopping in her pajama
She’s my Wal-Mart mama
She shops in fuzzy slippers and her pajama!

(background vocal): And what did she come to buy?

She buyin’ a tablecloth? – no, it’s a sweater!
Whatever she wants – you’d better let her!
Whatever she points at – you just go get ‘er
Watch them boys – they just wanna hit ‘er

Oh, She looks very cool in the checkout line

Too many items – she can’t count to nine!
She’s in no hurry – yeah, she takes her time
That big ole’ Wal-Mart mama of mine!

Three Songs (over three days) Inspired by True Events

#1 Toss My Keys

By Steve Marshall Cohen
copyright 2014

Toss My Keys
(to a blues beat)

I saw you toss my keys, baby
Yeah, I saw you toss my keys
Leavin’ the bar, into the trees
I saw you toss my keys
background vocals: (So I know you won’t be comin’ home)

I saw you call your man, baby
Yeah, I saw you call your man
Near my car, where you threw the keys
I saw you call your man
(So I know you won’t be comin’ home)

I saw you drive away, baby
Yeah, I saw you peel away
Wasn’t my car, but you had the keys
I saw you speed away
(So I know you won’t be comin’ home)

You said that you love me, baby
You said it was just you and me
But now I know you're just a tease,

'cause I saw you toss my keys.
(So you aint welcome home)

Things I've Always Wanted To Say

To Jesus, "Thank God you never wore socks with sandals!"

To Louis Armstrong, "Would you please clear your throat."

To Billy Joel, "Date a Jewish Girl, would you please."

To Moses, "Roman numerals? Are you kidding me?"

To Madonna's father, "Well?"