April 2022 – Sandy Cumberland

You have two lives. The second one begins when you realize you only have one.
Confucius

The initial plan was to make the next book in the Behind the Scenes Publishing series a novel based on the lives of the characters in the opera Carmen. I struggled for weeks trying to find a spark of life in them. Should be easy, right? Smugglers, bullfighters, what’s not to be inspired there? But they just didn’t step onto the page.

So instead, I have turned my heart to the gentle souls that make up Rudolfo and Mimi’s friends – their “family” – in the beautiful opera La Boheme. Marcello, Colline and Schaunard are finding their way, through their youth, into the young adults who formed this collective of friendship, and then beyond.

Come join them on their journey. The early 1800’s in Paris was a fabulous time to be young and alive. I hope you will step inside their world and walk the paths of their lives alongside them.

Bohemians Collected (working title) will go to press and be available for purchase by Spring 2023. Meanwhile watch out at bohemianscollected.com for updates.

My very first piece of writing that I remember, and that I also remember as being something I was proud of and wanted to share, was from about age 7. It was titled “How the Earth got its Equator” and it was about the North Pole and the South Pole were having a fight and they couldn’t settle the argument. Finally the Sun drew a line around the planet and said, “There! Now you both stay on your own side of the line.” And thus the Equator was created.

Since then, I have dabbled off and on, and always, in the back of my mind, considered myself a “writer”. In my 20s I wrote a one-act play that went on to be workshopped with a staged reading at the Muskoka Festival north of Toronto, Canada. When that play received multiple rejections from theatre companies in Toronto, I decided that maybe I wasn’t a writer after all, focused on stage managing, and did a fair bit of work as a proof-reader, copy editor and dramaturge.

Somewhere around 60, an idea came to me. Being a firm believer in “You’re never too old (or too young) to try something new”, I set to work on my first novel. A year later Circling Butterfly was born. I am very proud of my work, and have the plan for a series, each one based on a different major opera. I am currently working on Bohemians Collected – which may or may not be the finished title – and hope to have it out by Spring of 23.

In the meantime, I hope you will wander through my websites from time to time. I will keep you updated on the writing, will post backstage stories from my life in the theatre, and hopefully entertain you with some musings…

Month: April 2022

Book update

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