Birds of a Feather

 

“The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn, the bird waits in the egg, and in the highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities.” James Allen

 Emily Dickinson wrote that hope is the thing with feathers, and every debut author hopes they’ll find the perfect thermal to help their literary dreams soar. Feathers and fingers crossed.

 Recently, I read about a fun experiment that taught parrots to FaceTime new feathered friends. The parrots loved their parrot-to-parrot video-calling system and could peck at a screen line-up of birds like an old-school gym class picking candidates for a team. How did the parrots feel when they didn’t get selected? Lousy. I would know from personal gym experience!

 I don’t consider myself a birder. Still, birds are always on the fringe of my consciousness. I hear them, even when I can’t see them. I find a closed window, a form of imprisonment, and an open window, the gateway to chatter and birdsong that punctuates my life. When I travel to Costa Rica, the mewling song of the toucan is ubiquitous and soothing. In Florida, finding a sleeping osprey on the railing of my balcony is like avian nirvana. But there’s no yin without yang because birds on the balcony leave poop. Good and bad experiences are almost always intertwined. Every radiant peacock feather has a pointy end.

 While writing my novel, I discovered that being a bird brain is considered a compliment. That’s because I read The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman while writing and, believe it or not, used the book as research for my paranormal sci-fi novel. My alien protagonist, Dob-Dec, loves birds, and even though he isn’t impressed with human brains, he thinks that bird brains are very significant and intelligent for their diminutive size. I do too. The intelligence of birds is a thread throughout my novel, and if my book had a soundtrack, it would be the exotic, undulating whoop of an oropendola. As an author, I hope to have a career as varied as the song of mockingbirds. I want every novel to have a different genre or melody.

 And don’t get me started on the beauty of birds. And speaking of flight, my ARC copies are flying into the inboxes of early readers, blurbing authors, and book review websites. Keep your fingers and feathers crossed that my book garners some good peeps and chatter! My next newsletter flies into your inbox on July 17.

 “Each day has a story that deserves to be told, because we are made of stories. I mean, scientists say that human beings are made of atoms, but a little bird told me that we are also made of stories.” Eduardo Galeano

Visit Sharon Wagner Books!