Stredwick

One of my collection of short stories is called 'Taking a Short Cut Home.' It is in honor of all the boys and girls who attended St. Mary's College at Above Rocks and to walk through Cudjoe's Hut to reach home. How it got that name I have never found out. It shortened our journey by at lest two miles. However sometimes we would come through Cudjoe's Hut only to find the Big River(Rio Pedro) in spate. We had to turn back and walk all the way around Zion Hill, a distance of about five miles. Incidentally we had to cross two rivers but sometime one was just a spring. If we felt that it was raining in our area or in St. Mary we took the long way around. When we came the bridge at Zion Hill we could tell if we had made the right decision. Of course sometimes when we reached Zion Hill the river was as calm as ever.

I am in the process of editing this story. I need to use more pronouns. I don't know where I got the idea to write this novel from. Anyhow my humble opinion is that it is a very good book. It is not doing well on Amazon. I hope that it will do better after I launch it again. Essentially it is about Morgana Simmonds and Stewart Brown. He's a player but she is a very loyal woman. The story opens with her send off party as she has won a scholarship to study in the USA. She gets a promise from him that he will behave during her sojourn abroad. She was hardly in the States when he starts going around with sex bombshell, Bobbette Greene. You can read the full story by reading the book. It is not all about Morgana and Stewart but about relationships. There are several other interesting characters in the book.

In the sixties and early seventies we had to go to the bushes to look firewood. We didn't have gas or kerosene oil stove. We had to use wood to cook our food. So on Saturdays I had to go to the bushes to get the wood and bring it home. We had only a half acre of land but our nearby relatives had twenty acres. So most of the firewood came from their lands. Jamaica is really a land of wood and water. We had a lot of springs and rivers. Dried wood was plenty as they would fall off trees like the coconut. Later in the seventies we graduated from firewood when my grandmother bought a kerosene oil stove. To this day there are people who believe that wood fire cooks better than gas stoves.

I will soon be republishing my novels, Undercover Soldier and Uptown Lovers. I am asking my readers to look out for them by giving a read. They are two very interested books. In the meantime I have some very interesting collection of short stories on lulu.com and Amazon. Just type my name Austin G. Mitchell. I thank all by readers for the support by reading my blog.

I notice that none of my readers are reading my blog.Because of my work it is difficult to keep up to date with my blog. There are a lot of stories that you can still read. I go to work very early and come off very late most days.

I am really glad for readers to support me by purchasing my short stories and my novels. As readers may know I am an Accountant/ Auditor. It's very difficult for me to post anything or even to write. I have not written any new stuff in over a year. I have a lot of stuff stored up but don't know when I'll get the time to write those stuff. I would really like readers to starts giving me reviews. I thank all those who have read my stories.

I know that persons have bought my books on Amazon and Amazon kindle. If you have bought my book on any other media, I would like to say thanks.What I needs for readers to do is to write reviews of my books and stories. You can find a lot of my stories on typotic.com. These can be read for free.

I know that I have written some delightful short stories. These stories are available on lulu.com, Amazon, Amazon kindle, create space. As I said in an earlier post I am revising Undercover Soldier and Uptown Lovers. Just search for books by typing in my name Austin Mitchell books and stories in the search engine.

I don't see anything happening for Jamaican writers. There are a few workshops but we are left to go it alone. I don't know if any writers are making it just by being a novelist or short story writer. Maybe the playwrights are the ones making it. Or it could be the writers of music.

I am a die hard fan of cricket. As you know cricket is now played in many formats. At one time the West Indies was the best team in the world in any format of the game. Now we can't even make the top eight best team in the world. I feel disappointed that the Champions League cricket championships is being played in England and we are not involved.