Translating a World on the Edge

Just after arriving home from a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend with my family, I was notified that I had won the Platinum Award for Screenwriting for “A Hunger in the Heart!” http://www.internationalmovieawards.com/ISENMA/winners_isenma.htm?fbclid=IwAR347h7UO-ZKowhs_T77Hb8a2PuYJL89wbbKhQtQyzVbbtR2f2MQ5FAFgqA

This is the second award the screenplay based on the novel has received. In October, it was also chosen for the Oaxaca Film Festival, and now is up for The UK Film Festival 2019.

“A Hunger in the Heart,” published by Tuscany Press in 2013, now has a sequel–“Bridge-Man Burning: The Sins of a Southern Man.” Both novels are southern fiction and center around Coleman Puttman Bridgeman, beginning in 1955 when he is a boy struggling with the consequences  World War II has had on his family. His beloved, shell-shocked, father is a decorated hero who stages continual games of war to train his son. His bigoted, alcoholic mother blames the misfortune in her marriage on the soldier whose life her husband saved. His manipulative grandfather stirs up trouble between mother and son, until the boy must fight a personal war just to survive–which Coleman means to do, no matter the cost.

In the sequel, “Bridge-Man Burning: The Sins of a Southern Man,” Coleman leaves his hometown as a man who carries with him the family blood that runs through his veins and voices of the past that run through his head. In marriage and in business, he faces love’s most powerful battles where he must confront the weakest and deepest, parts of himself. Honesty versus dishonesty, faithfulness versus betrayal, and courage versus cowardice, are all in play. And he must choose where his life will go.

Many of you know that my writing is faith-based; my belief in God and His divine presence in every human being. But I do not not sugar-coat my books. These are stories about fallible people, because that is what we all are. We often do terrible things. Yet, the stories are also about hope, and the possibilities of change. But regardless, whether we, or the characters, actually end up changing, my books are about the certainty of God and His love for us.  In my opinion, it would be wonderful, and beneficial for many, if  there were more movies and television that portrayed His great offer of love. And so, I will keep writing.