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Words and Wine

Each month Kona Stories hosts an event with local and traveling authors. This event happens the First Tuesday evening of the month starting at 6 PM. Authors are available to talk story while you are getting your plate of appetizers and glass of complimentary wine. Authors then give a 15 minute talk about their book and themselves, the writing and publishing process or a short reading from the book. After all the authors presentations there is a time for individual questions and book signings with the authors. Expect 2 - 3 authors to attend each month and the evening to wrap up around 8 PM. Dress is Aloha casual wear.

October Authors Are:

Duncan Dempster is a freelance writer who, having spent the major part of a lifetime employing words and language as a matter of vocational expedience, has discovered late in life the joys and challenges of juggling words and ideas in a purely avocational mode. A retired career Naval officer and later a bank property manager and internet service technician, he is now fully retired in the institutional sense and totally immersed in his newfound career of developing his dream retirement on the Big Island of Hawaii. His passion for writing in general and fiction, in particular, knows few bounds save those imposed by the necessary daily routines of eating, sleeping and exercising, and even then, words and ideas rattle around in his head like stray atoms vying for escape. He is an avid believer in the power of words to evoke emotion and its corollary, the power of emotion to inspire words.  Thus he strives to use language as a tool to paint the landscapes of human relationships and feelings and to employ those feelings to flesh out and define the limits and boundaries of words. Other than a few stabs at poetry and lyric writing, Chapel on the Moor is his first serious attempt to trace the outlines and color the contours of relationships through the telling of a story. As a follow-up, he recently published a sequel, Where Are You?, which follows the lives of Chapel's two main protagonists some fifty years later as they venture back through time to revisit the chapel site as well as their youth. In the process, they struggle to reconcile their increasingly ambivalent feelings for each other. Though steeped in mystery bordering on fantasy, both stories can be as real or as fanciful as the reader chooses to imagine. In this author's view, both are valid interpretations of reality. 

 

Where Are You? Is a sequel to the novel Chapel on the Moor, which follows the lives of the two main protagonists a half century later in a quest to discover what, if anything, might remain of the Chapel. In the first novel, two young adults, Merritt Geary and Frank Dole, met by accident on the occasion of the renovation and rededication of a long-abandoned rural chapel built one hundred years earlier by Merritt’s great grandfather. At the end of the story, the chapel suffered complete destruction in a colossal storm, and the two parted ways after a brief but intense summer romance. Now, fifty years later, the sequel finds a happily married Frank and newly widowed Merritt in their early seventies, thrown together once again by pure chance. They decide to explore their separate curiosities and motivations by revisiting the scene of the chapel and reliving the days of their youth. Although the chapel no longer exists, and nothing was found except the mysterious underpinnings of its creation, the complex relationships between and among Frank, Frank's wife, and Merritt undergo separate epiphanies and resolutions.

 

Benjamin Cohn, author of The Depth Of Synchronicity, builds on Jung’s foundational concept, adding scientific explanations to his personal subjective experience in an engaging discussion regarding the greater spiritual consciousness that generates synchronicity. Cohn weaves in his wild personal tale in which he follows synchronicity like a path, conveying the existence of a subtle force connected to the body and mind. In his own words, “…the depth of synchronicity developed into an idea that synchronicity is a communication from a greater depth of intelligence or consciousness beyond the human-ego mind.” Benjamin Cohn is an author and award winning documentary film maker; raised in Holualoa and currently residing in Kealakekua with his wife and two children.

One of the founding fathers of modern psychology, Carl Gustav Jung, first coined the term synchronicity to describe “meaningful coincidences”. His east meets west acknowledgement of synchronicity in 1930 was a profound revelation for the western psyche. Jung’s concept of synchronicity created a foundational terminology for the modern experience of meaningful coincidences and associated mysterious phenomena.

“The Depth of Synchronicity is a book about spiritual alchemy. It’s a primer on how to turn the lead of ordinary human desires into the gold of interconnection with others, nature, and the universe. The author, Benjamin Cohn, tells his personal story of transformation beginning with his time in Hawaii’s mysterious Waipio Valley, and how he learned to take note of the synchronicities (meaningful coincidences) that have given his life guidance and direction. He tells the story of how he personally integrated the wisdom of time-honored teachers such as Lao Tsu (Tao Te Ching), Carl Jung (Synchronicity), Bruce Lipton (Biology of Belief), and Michael Talbot (The Holographic Universe).

Subtitled, Memoirs of An Alchemist, Ben’s book reminded me greatly of Dan Millman’s, Way of the Peaceful Warrior, in how elegantly simple and beautifully written it is. It is a small book (170+ pages) that is a quick read. In an age of many disturbing revelations and dark secrets about to be exposed, The Depth of Synchronicity will help many find their way forward in treacherous times. This is a book that will change many lives. Do yourself a favor and read it.”

 

-Michael E. Salla, Ph.D. 

 

Shay Bintliff grew up in a male oriented family in Texas.  As a child she felt shushed when she tried to speak which she believed was because she was female and too short.  Her love of poetry began as a teenager when her favorite aunt gave her an Elizabeth Barrett Browning poetry book and told her to  “Find your voice in  writing!”.  As a young adult she was determined to be a physician so her energy and focus shifted to getting into medical school.  Now Doctor Bintiliff graduated from University of Washington in Seattle in a class of 76 physicians where she was the only female. Dr. Bintliff returned to Hawaii and practiced medicine over all the Islands including Molokai and Lanai.  She specialized in both Pediatric Birth Defects and Emergency Medicine. Three years ago at age 80 she retired and devotes herself to paddling, working on her Sandalwood farm and writing poetry.   Dr. Bintliff says she writes for herself now, waiting on inspiration from emotions and rainbows and the words just come. 

 

Soular Rainbows a collection of poems devoted to nature, love and passion.  This is her second published poetry book.

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Date: 10/01/2019
Time: 12:00pm - 2:00pm
Place:

78-6831 Alii Drive
Suite 142
Kailua Kona, HI 96740
United States