Seth Godwin urges us not to become cogs in a wheel. Those are not the kind of jobs that will last or that will bring satisfaction.
Instead, he urges employees to become linchpins--someone who brings something valuable and indispensable to the workplace. The employees which he also calls "artists" will be the the ones who will shape the future.
Linchpins take an ordinary job and become innovators.
Godwin names several well-known linchpins: Steve Jobs of Apple, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Richard Branson of Virgin.com but he also lists less well known ones, Anne Jackson Miller at flowerdust.net, Keith Johnson, a buyer at Anthropologie.
He explains why being good at what you do is not enough anymore. What employers need to be is more employees like Jay Parkinson, a medical innovator, Sasha Dichter, or Louis Monier who innovated their respective fields.
Though this is an older book, published in 2011. it's well worth reviewing at this time when many jobs are being replaced by automation.
The premise of Every Heart a Doorway is that the universe extends an invitation to certain children: a door to a new world. This new world, whether it be called Confection, or Prism, or Halls of the Dead is a magical place where the individual feels completely at home.
Some of these children are never seen again. Others are for whatever reason forced or told to return to real world for a short time. These children who have made this magical journey are heart-broken when they find themselves back in the real world
All of the students that end up at Eleanor West's School for Wayward Children want desperately to find the door and the world that claimed them.
Eleanor tells the parents of these children that she will offer group therapy and that she will shatter their delusions. Eleanor actually sees her school as a "way station." She wants nothing more than to help them find their door again, even if the odds are against it.
Just as Nancy, a new student, learns to navigate her way around the school, the unthinkable happens. Her roommate, Sumi, is murdered, the body mutilated.
Everyone suspect Jack (short for Jacqueline) because she has been to harsh world called the Moors. She and her twin sister were both in service to a Lord Vampire.
When two more bodies appear, the magical fantasy becomes a mystery.
Seanan McGuire who also writes horror as Mira Grant blends genres in this slim, yet well-plotted fantasy.
Every Heart a Doorway won a Nebula award in 2016 for best novella as well as a Hugo award(2017)and Alex award (2017).
Take a look at these exciting fictional debuts from Penguin Random House:
Debut Sampler
http://www.TinyURL.com/DebutSamplerFall17
Some of the best fiction comes from Appalachia; most likely, because of their storytelling habits. I've always been fascinated by folk medicine, maybe because it is similar to what my ancestors did in Louisiana. One of my ancestors was a traiteur, or faith healer. Granted, this is different from folk healing practices in Appalachia, yet both relied on medicinal plants and faith.
Lately, its hard not to notice an explosion of taleneted Appalachian writers--authors like Amy Greene, Joni Agee, Ann Hite, Ron Rash, Wiley Cash, Robert Morgan, and Daniel Woodrell.
These novels aren't simply set in Appalachia but are informed by the setting. These characters couldn't have lived anywhere else. In many cases, the folk healing is a significant part of the story or other aspects of Appalachia--mining and its effects.
Folk medicine:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/40932250?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
One of my favorite Appalachian novels, The River Wife.
https://chantalreviews.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-river-wife-by-joni-agee.html
Listening to Joan Bauer speak about her latest middle grade novel, Soar, made me realize that I want to write hopeful novels as well.
Jeremiah in Soar faces a lot of adversity, a rocky start in life and a defective heart yet he pursues his dream of coaching a baseball team.
Bauer spoke about her days as a writer and how she got her first breakthrough after adversity--an injury that made her determined to write. She spoke of hearing the character's voice in her head. That character became the protagonist of Squashed, Bauer's first young adult book.
What the world needs, Bauer says, is more kindness and joy.
Flora begins to have leadership problems with her crew when she accepts a man's place in the expedition for the money his sponsors can provide--Gilbert Ashbee.
Aniguin and her begin to drift apart after he returns from America. Armitage had taken him and a few other "eskimos" are tragically put on exhibit at the Natural History Museum.
This incident is reminiscent of events that actually occurred shortly after Robert Peary's 1897 expedition. Two books that chronicle the strange incident are Give Me Back My Father's Body: The Life of Minik and Minik: The New York Eskimo.
Aniguin does not seem to be based on Minik but some of the details are the same. In any event, the experience changes Aniguin as it had also changed Minik.
Flora feels estranged from Aniguin when he returns to Greenland. Her old friend, Tateraq, has also changed. He leaves Flora to die on the ice.
At this time, there was intense competition to reach the Pole, so much so that some scientists were willing to fake their results. Real life fraudster, Frederick Cook, claimed to have reach the North Pole before Peary.
His photographs and his story were later revealed to be hoaxes. Penney seems to base some of Armitage's chicanery on Cook or scientists like him.
Armitage, of course, goes a step further by not only claiming to have made discoveries he never made. By destroying Jakob and Flora's records, he tries to obliterate their work.
Flora revels in the one thing Armitage cannot take away--her time with Jakob in the valley. Though this is a doomed love story, it is an incredibly rich look at at the life of two explorers who were willing to risk so much.
Part 3
Part 2
Part 1
In the last half of the novel, a novel primarily focused upon desire, Flora finds herself caught up in a love affair with Jakob.
Their paths have crossed before. At Neqi, they felt a connection which resulted in a three year correspondence.
In Jakob de Beyn, Flora finds and rejects the love of her life. She has a five-day affair with Jakob. Soon afterwards, when her husband becomes sick again with a paralytic stroke, Flora makes a choice. She refuses to see Jakob again.
Here Flora resembles many of the Victorian and early twentieth century heroines literature so frequently portrays. There is a "price" she realizes she has to pay. She feels she owes a debt to her husband, Freddie, for funding her trip to the North.
Jakob, too, represses his desire for the illustrious "Snow Queen," as Flora is known. He chooses to become an engaged to a woman, Clara, who loves him as a friend. She is lesbian and will never desire him romantically.
(Part 2)
(Part 1)
This historical novel has an undeniable feminist bent. Flora gravitates towards a mentor who brings her to London and who helps her fulfill her long held desire to return to Ellesmere island.
(photo by Noel Bauza, https://pixabay.com/en/users/Noel_Bauza-2019050/
Sadly, in order to secure funding she must make a marriage of convenience with a man who shares her interests but who does not love or cherish her.
In becoming a "new woman" like her mentor, she has had to make some awful sacrifices.
Flora marries Freddie, for one thing, whose influence and money help her return to the Arctic. Though Flora can continue pursuing her career, Freddie cruelly mistreats her.
Though Flora is a friend and advocate of the Inuit, she finds herself removing their mummified remains. Bringing Inuit remains to Europe would raise the importance of the expedition or so she thinks.
(continued from Part 1)
