December 9, 2024: Just received the following feedback on Zoa's Arks:
In a few explanatory sentences, please share with the entrant 1-3 things that you enjoyed or that readers will find compelling about this book and why.
"This book has the power to actually enact change. I did not know about Laika before reading the book; now that I do, I will never forget her and her sacrifice. I did not know Amazon shipped live lobster in cruel conditions; now that I do, I have signed the petition for this cruel act to stop. Bilal's collection of stories are difficult to read--I cried and felt physically ill learning about the horrible ways that humans treat animals--but this is how people should feel. Otherwise, we will not realize what we're doing. It is difficult for writing to be strong enough to change someone's actions, but this book has the power to actually do so."
Judge, Writer's Digest 32nd Annual Self-Published Book Awards
August 21, 2024: It's amazing how, with the passage of time, it becomes easier to get rid of the clutter, the excess, and be able to describe each book more clearly and simply. With that in mind, I've revised my descriptions of each book on this website.
Posted to Facebook June 19, 2024:
At Concord Market Days this week, the NH Animal Rights League will share information about the intelligence and sensitivity of pigs, and the horrors of pig farming. I’ll share one more excerpt about these animals from Zoa’s Arks (“story” #20 from the novel):
Sometimes fiction foretells reality. That’s one of the benefits of fiction writing. This eerily prescient story was written before the COVID-19 pandemic. Then it actually happened:
A new virus emerged. Some believe it originated in bats at a wet market in China. But nobody is sure about that. Animals, including humans, harbor viruses, but their immune systems keep them in check under normal circumstances. It’s like the cold sores I get on my lip. The herpes labialis virus causes them. I will carry around this virus with me forever. Most of the time, the virus is quiescent, but at times becomes activated by physical stressors like excess sunlight or lip-biting, or increased mental stress. Animals taken from their natural habitats and kept packed closely together in captivity as they are at wet markets are under great stress, which brings out the viruses, which are then spread to other animals. And in this case in China, they may have been spread to humans, who then passed it around to other humans throughout the world in what became a pandemic.
To limit human-to-human contact in an attempt to slow further spread during this pandemic, human communities made the decision to shut down. Businesses closed or scaled back. Restaurants either closed or concentrated on takeout and tried limited outdoor dining. Grocery stores sanitized shopping carts and restricted the number of shoppers allowed inside. People became unemployed or had their hours cut back. Food pantry lines swelled. Slaughterhouses shuttered when hundreds of workers tested positive for the virus, many of whom became severely ill or died. Also, since restaurants were closed or scaled back, there were less places to send meat. Prices increased. Meat was rationed in grocery stores. There was a shortage of all kinds of products.
A crisis presented as pigs, who are in an 8-11-month birth-to-slaughter system, surpassed their human-engineered endpoint with nowhere to go for slaughter. The pigs, who had been strategically fed unnatural diets to get them so huge in as short a time as possible, kept growing beyond even that to become 300-plus pound, vastly overweight animals with health problems. And they needed to be moved out of their holding pens to make room for the incoming piglets.
Because of the pandemic, there was just no place to send them. Some farmers tried feeding them non-nutritious food like soybean hulls which are mostly fiber and low in calories that would satiate their genetically-bred prodigious appetites and therefore slow their growth enough to outlast the pandemic. Other farmers tried turning up the heat in barns to retard their weight gain.
But these measures could only go so far. The farms themselves were not set up to slaughter, package and distribute the meat. The huge pigs became increasingly more difficult to handle. And when you are in business, it takes a lot of time and effort and years to set up a supply chain and is not at all easy to change—you just can’t snap your fingers and immediately rearrange and un-disrupt your supply chain.
Farmers, who take pride in working hard to feed people and pets, now arrived at a point in their lives they never wished they’d see. As one farmer put it, “Every animal has a purpose. We raised these pigs within our food supply. And now they are being wasted. It is a tragedy.”
Farmers found themselves with no choice but to euthanize their animals. Pigs, chickens, turkeys, for example.
In the United States, some estimated that between 60,000 and 70,000 animals needed to be culled daily. How do you do this? Slaughterhouses tried to pitch in. They stopped processing meat completely and solely began euthanizing, using skeleton crews. One plant hoped to euthanize 13,000 hogs every day, but found it could only do a few thousand. Some farmers sealed up their barns or loaded the animals into enclosures on trucks and pumped carbon dioxide inside. Inside the barns, they called it ventilator shutdown and it would take less than an hour for the gases to do their thing; any animals still alive would then be shot with bolt guns. Another farmer was forced to kill each of his 3000 pigs by shooting each in the head with a bullet. He insisted that they were his responsibility and refused to allow anyone else to help. He said it broke his heart and took him all day to do.
And then, of course, there was the problem of what to do with all the dead bodies. It was too slow and expensive to incinerate them. To bury them was the cheapest solution, but it created problems with underground water being contaminated when nitrates and other things leached out. Composting required supervision by experts to ensure the piles were constructed properly. You could try to salvage some of the byproducts as pet food and such, but there were not enough of these rendering plants to meet the demand.
How did we set up a system so unfair to animals? Couldn’t we have some sort of backup in place, ready to be implemented in cases like this? Shouldn’t we have planned better? Our system is like a big machine we can’t easily turn off—all these parts depend upon one another, with little latitude with which to play.
They say they expected mental health issues after all this. I just kept thinking about that unfortunate farmer who said it took him all day to get it done. Hard to imagine what that must have been like. I figured if he worked ten hours straight that day killing each of his 3000 pigs, that would be 300 per hour, or five every minute. That gave him about eleven-to-twelve seconds to look each one in the eyes before pulling the trigger. How was he able to keep going?
I also wondered if his finger got sore from so much pulling. Did his back ache by the time he was done for the day?
How did he get through this ordeal?
I wondered if maybe it helped a little if he tried not to look too much at each animal before firing off each round.
***
Posted to Facebook June 7, 2024:
Here’s another excerpt about pigs from my novel, Zoa’s Arks. After you read this, click the link, close your eyes, and listen to the music by the Polish composer, Henryk Gorecki, which is featured in the story. The soprano enters at 12:39. The 1st movement ends around 27:00. If you can get fully into this, it will be a notable experience.
That day, I was playing children’s games with my two little cousins, Jung-hoon and Cho-hee, who were visiting for the week. They laughed so hard when I chased them around the evergreen shrubs. The sun shone, adding warmth to the cold winter air. In time, we went inside and I read to them a simple, short story from a book my parents borrowed from the library. I was amazed at how attentive they were, for their young age.
After my parents, aunt, and uncle returned from the shopping mall, I went to my room. I was home from music college for a few days. I got an email from a friend. He tipped me off that pigs were to be culled because a few tested positive for foot-and-mouth disease, a virulent, highly infectious disease of livestock that has a high mortality rate and could devastate agricultural economies such as ours in Korea. My friend found out that the authorities were to bypass the usual methods because it was such an extensive outbreak and it became imperative to act swiftly. In addition, there was a shortage of workers and euthanasia drugs. He explained the likely alternative process, and I could not believe it. The place where it would happen was only a short walk through the woods from where I lived, so I went there with trepidation.
When I arrived, I hid behind trees and low brush at the crest of a knoll in a place that gave me an ideal view below. It began snowing. To my horror, I saw a large pit, perhaps thirty by ten meters in length and width and ten meters deep. Pigs were packed into a truck and two men were using metal rods to force them out of the truck and down a short, narrow ravine carved out of the dirt by the men, with steep walls and a downward slope that led directly into the cut-out earth. They were hitting and pushing the animals so they would slide down and tumble into that pit. Sometimes only one pig would drop at a time, but at other moments a whole group would fall together. Eventually, the floor of the pit was completely filled and the workers continued pushing more into the ditch so that these animals landed upon a squirming mass of bodies below. The noise as they screeched became unbearable as more were added to this massive ditch.
I saw a mother still on the bed of the truck with what seemed to be her piglet because of how he was clinging closely to her and the way she seemed to be trying to protect the little one amid the chaos. They looked afraid as they stood in line. Their turn to leave the truck approached. My eyes kept returning to them even though I was trying to survey the entirety of the scene that was playing out.
One of the workers began yelling to the other. I looked his way. I heard another voice talking loudly, so I turned around in the other direction and checked to make sure no one had seen me. Everything was fine; I was undetected.
It began snowing harder now. When I looked back to where I had stared a moment before, I could not see the pig and her piglet. I tried desperately to find the two animals again, but they were lost in the crowd.
Several minutes went by. As more pigs were dumped, a small space opened up. I again saw the mother and her piglet, still clinging to each other. Yes, it was them. Others around them were eventually pushed out of the truck. The piglet suddenly became more vocal, squealing louder than before. He kept close to his mother. Then they were knocked down by the worker, falling together into the mass of wriggling animals.
I could still see the two amidst the others and my eyes remained transfixed on them.
But then it became too much to bear and I closed my eyes. All I can remember is that, even above the deafening cries of so many animals, somehow I could hear inside my head the first movement of Gorecki’s third symphony—the movement entitled “Lamentation of the Holy Cross Monastery,” in which the Mother of Christ begs her dying son to speak to her. I was very familiar with this composition, as I had practiced and performed it during the previous semester at my college.
Above that pit dug into the earth, I said the words aloud, as a prayer, perhaps.
“My son, chosen and loved, let your mother share your wounds and since, my dear son, I have always kept you in my heart, and loyally served you, speak to your mother, make her happy, though, my dear hope, you are now leaving me.”
I could only cry in disbelief when I reopened my eyes and watched them bury them alive. It was a very sad time.
***
May 23, 2024 Posted to Facebook:
Just reporting how it is in most places, as discovered by Bilal in my recent novel, Zoa’s Arks. Here’s my lucky-thirteen checklist of things to do to most efficiently and profitably get the best bacon, ham, and pork chops from pigs on factory farms:
1. Pack as many pigs as you can into an indoor confinement space.
2. Get the female pig pregnant as soon as possible (at 7 months of age) via artificial insemination, pen mating, rape rack, etc.
3. Put her into a gestation crate during her 4 months of pregnancy. Inside here, where there is just enough room for her to stand up or lie down but not turn around or do much else, she’ll be safe from being bitten by other pigs (they tend to do this when jammed so close together). Slatted plastic, iron, or concrete flooring provides openings that allow most of her urine and feces to drop below, where waste accumulations can then be flushed out with water, from time to time.
4. Put her into a farrowing crate just before she gives birth. Leave her there until her 10-12 piglets are 3 weeks old. Inside here, where there is just enough room for her to lie down on a slatted floor, locked into a fixed position on her side that constantly forces her teats to be available to her newborns, she’ll be prevented from inadvertently rolling over and crushing any of her piglets.
5. Take her piglets away from her when they are 3 weeks old.
6. Immediately reimpregnate her. During her 4 years of life, she’ll be pregnant about 6 times, yielding 60-72 babies, after which the process is no longer worth continuing.
7. Thump unwanted runts: grasp hind legs firmly and swing the piglet so the head is struck against a flat, hard surface. Repeat as needed. As an alternative, a blow to the head with a heavy, blunt instrument may be employed.
8. Alter the piglets’ bodies by castration (makes the meat taste and smell better), tail docking (cutting off the tail eliminates the risk of other pigs biting it), ear-notching (for identification purposes), and needle teeth clipping (to discourage biting other pigs).
9. Grow them as fast as possible (via genetic manipulation, use of antibiotic and pesticides, etc.) to get them to market weight (250-270 pounds) in as short a time as 6 months!
10. Don’t pay too much attention to the physical pathologies that growing too fast too soon brings, such as heart problems, leg pain and arthritis from their efforts in trying to support such an unnaturally large obese body, and respiratory disease from constantly inhaling the harmful gases from their wastes. No worry—for many pigs, these diseases won’t progress far enough to mar the final product during the short time that we need to keep them alive.
11. Don’t pay too much attention to the mental illness from being inside crates or packed into stalls where their natural behaviors are disrupted and they suffer from chronic boredom and become frustrated, inactive, unresponsive, and depressed, and may carry out meaningless, repetitive abnormal behaviors such as continuously biting the cage's metal bars, head weaving, tongue rolling, and sham biting (repetitive chewing of nothing, when they have no food in their mouth). Many remain passive when poked or when a bucket of water is thrown over them. Unfortunately, these neurotic behaviors can also lead to other physical trauma, such as sores from frequent contact with the metal bars.
12. Transport them to the slaughterhouse, often taking more than 24 hours, during which time many become exhausted, ill, or injured due to the added stress and overcrowding, and the fact that they are not fed or given water at this time. It’s estimated a million die enroute each year.
13. At the slaughterhouse, stun them before slitting their throats, and then move them through scalding water to remove their hair. A thousand can be killed like this per hour. The rapid speed of the slaughter line makes it nearly impossible to ensure every pig is properly stunned, so many are able to see, hear, and smell the pigs around them being killed, and they will still be alive and conscious when they reach the scalding tanks. But just do the best you can to minimize this.
Yes, yes, I know this ordeal of events is not what they’d experience in nature, where they would touch dirt and grass, feel the sun, roam around exploring, forage for their own food, socialize in better settings, nurse their young for at least 10-17 weeks, sleep comfortably next to each other, wallow in mud, and live to be much, much older…but the whole ingenius process is worth it to us. But I’m glad I’m not a pig lol.
***
May 3, 2024. This morning, I spent some time with the New Hampshire Animal Rights League (NHARL) at the Farm, Forest, & Garden Expo in Deerfield, NH. NHARL's topic was "dairy." I figured now's a good time to share an excerpt from my novel, Zoa's Arks, that tries to capture a little bit of how we treat our beloved cows in this world:
“Fair enough. That’s fine. That’s exactly what I’m looking for. Tell me about milk.”
Oh, dear Diary, that is when I said to Ryan and Burt, “A cold glass of milk is so perfect with cookies. And of course where would our wine-tasting parties be without all the wonderful types of cheese we get from milk.”
Ryan Talks About Milk
Ryan nodded in agreement as Burt politely smiled. “Cow milk has been consumed by humans for centuries. A cow would select a mate in the pasture, get pregnant, and give birth to a calf nine months later. Then the cow would produce a gallon of milk for its calf every day for six to ten months—any leftover milk went to us. In more recent years, however, we modified the process to become more efficient. To a lot of farmers, one memorable improvement is zero-grazing, a system in which cattle are confined indoors where feed and water are brought to them. This method stands in stark contrast to old-fashioned open-field grazing, which many farmhands now regard to be too time-consuming and more expensive to operate. With the zero-grazing system, you don’t have to bother with cultivating a pasture or spending time herding animals, and the animals are safe from predators and tick-borne diseases. And by feeding them in stalls instead of letting them graze in the pasture, you know exactly how much food they are consuming. And since you’re not using land for grazing, that land is now available for other purposes.”
“So cows never stand on grass? They spend all their days indoors? Or in stalls?” I had to ask.
“Pretty much, but as I said, there are all kinds of variations and hybrid methods depending on the farm’s preferences, so some cows may sometimes walk on grass. But the vast majority of them don’t.”
“Oh, I see,” I said.
“Another vast improvement is that, nowadays, through selective breeding and the feeding of a high-protein grain diet, in addition to the administration of antibiotics and hormones, a daily yield of over seven gallons of milk can be obtained, sometimes even as high as twelve gallons. That’s right—seven to twelve gallons a day, compared to only one gallon just a relatively few years ago. That is a huge increase from what we got in those less efficient days.”
“Isn’t this high-protein grain diet unnatural to them?” asked Burt.
“Correct, it is not their natural diet. However, we have made it natural for them. After all, we are part of nature, too; the things we do to influence other components of nature are part of nature’s mechanical scheme, if you think about it, just like an ant colony’s use of aphids is natural as well.”
“Okay.” Burt scribbled a few notes onto a miniature composition tablet.
“Shortly after a cow turns one year old, it is artificially inseminated. This is a wonderful invention of ours. A farmer sticks his or her arm up the cow’s rectum while using the other hand to insert a gun into the vagina to deliver semen obtained from a bull. In the hands of a skilled operator, the procedure can go quite smoothly and the cows don’t seem to mind. As I said, the pregnancy will be nine months long.
“Once it gives birth, a farmhand takes the calf away within twenty-four hours, often as soon as minutes after birth. The mother cow lactates for ten months after giving birth. And since we’ve taken away her calf, we now can actually have all of her milk, not just leftovers. We can hook her up to a milking machine two or more times a day to get that milk even more efficiently. That machine is another ingenious invention by us.”
I had to interject, asking, “What happened to her calf?”
“The calf may be used as a dairy cow just like its mother. Or the calf may be taken immediately, or after fattening with nutritious milk substitute, to slaughter so its meat can be used in fast food restaurants or for pet food.
“Or the calf can go to a veal crate where it will be isolated from other calves in tight confinement for up to eighteen weeks in semi-darkness in a space too narrow to turn around in, tied at the neck, fed a diet low in iron so its skin remains pale, and without bedding, which it may try to eat if present. It may sound harsh to some ears, but it’s well worth the sacrifice—veal is rich in protein and iron, much more so than chicken or beef. And veal has less calories than beef. Very good for the human diet.”
“I do love veal. So tender,” I exclaimed, “but I didn’t know it had to be in that crate to get it.” I was taken a bit aback. I asked, “But do you have to take away the baby from the mother like that?”
“We’ve found that the sooner you take the calf away, the better it is for both of them, since insufficient time is allowed for a bond to be established between the mother and calf. Even with this, though, it is true that mothers often seem affected by the separation. You’ll see a mother bellowing and looking around helplessly for the newborn for days, even many weeks. Sometimes she may seem to eventually forget about it but then suddenly begin acting like she’s in acute grief, bellowing again in the same way for hours. Or you’ll see her staring blankly, standing in the same place, not even moving from there unless a handler guides her to a different location within the pen. So yes, the process has its negatives, but the benefits far outweigh those.”
“Wow,” said I as Burt continued taking notes.
“Now let’s go back to our cow who gave birth. It does what cows do—lactates for ten months after giving birth, after which time it ceases making any more milk. Cows must give birth to be able to make milk, so to keep things moving seamlessly and not lose the opportunity for even more milk production, the cow is artificially impregnated again as early as two months after giving birth. Then the same cycle is repeated. It is repeated over and over again continuously until the cow reaches five to seven years of age, at which time it can no longer sustain the unnaturally high rate of milk production and becomes what we call a ‘spent cow.’ That cow is no longer useful to us, so usually, it is transported to be slaughtered.”
Checking off another box on his paperwork, Burt asked, “These are fairly large animals. How do you kill cattle here on Earth?”
“At some farms, the process can be handled right on the premises, so no transportation is required. If a trip to the slaughterhouse is needed, it can be cramped for space and can sometimes take days in whatever extremes of weather may present at the time. We prefer to try to avoid extremes in this process, however, because we know that to preserve the quality of the meat it is best to do everything we can to avoid inflicting stress on the animals. Along this line of thought, we try not to mix animals from different groups, since unfamiliarity might elicit stress or combativeness. It’s also best to provide adequate ventilation.
“Unfortunately, you can’t avoid the unfamiliarity of being on board a transport truck that makes noises, stops and starts, and jolts as it rolls along the roads, and this heightens the stress the animals feel. Many of them may also suffer from motion sickness, something they would never have had to deal with before. If it is very hot outside, and they are crowded together, they can only try to dissipate the heat by panting. In cold temperatures, they are vulnerable to hypothermia.
“Typically the cows go without food or water twelve to twenty-four hours prior to slaughter to assure complete bleeding out and ease of evisceration. Upon arrival at the slaughterhouse, the cow will be exhausted and possibly ill or injured from the adverse conditions, but not always.
“At the slaughterhouse, procedures vary but one common method is to have the cattle move through chutes that limit their movement. At the end of the chute, a worker usually fires a steel bolt that dents the animal’s skull but does not penetrate the brain. This stuns them. You’ll see their eyes instantly close, mouth open, and neck go lax. Usually, this is successful at rendering them unconscious so you may proceed to hang them upside down by a leg so another worker can use a knife to sever the carotid artery and jugular vein. This allows their blood to flow out of their body onto the floor. Down the conveyor line, other workers will strip off the hide to make it into leather while other workers cut the parts off to get the meat.
“I would sum it all up by saying that human ingenuity and entrepreneurial skills have combined forces to create greater efficiency in the food chain that ultimately benefits consumers. In nature, a cow could expect to live over twenty years, producing milk only up to the age of eight or nine and at a significantly lower overall yield. Through our enterprise, we’ve drastically reduced costs and only need to keep a cow around for seven years, during which time it gives birth five times and generates a lot more milk, all of it for human use.”
“Very well,” Burt said.
***
Cool! My book sits between tutoring services and vegan condoms! (March 14, 2024)
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January 4, 2024: Although my book is concerned with the mistreatment of people deemed Other, the greater portion of the plot becomes tangled in the mistreatment of nonhuman animals. Because of this, I am now happy to announce I will be partnering with PETA.
 
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Zoa's Arks excerpt:
In this excerpt, Bilal asks about the unusual name of an animal rights group, Charlie Don't Surf:
Monique explained, “It’s from the line in Apocalypse Now where the commander decides to have his troops surf in a dangerous location where the enemy can attack. Since Charlie—the nickname for the enemy—does not surf, he was saying that you won’t have to worry about encountering the enemy surfing out there on the water while you surf. Nothing to be afraid of. Screw Charlie, we’re going in. A brazen disregard for possible danger.” Karen added, “And sometimes you’ll hear one of us shout ‘Charlie don’t surf’ as we are about to go into a No Trespassing area. Dikembe is famous for yelling that out—sometimes too loud.”
“Yeah, we often find ourselves having to shush the big baby or else risk blowing our cover. He just has a hard time restraining himself.” Monique laughed as she chalked up a way to get even with the college boy.
“But that’s not the whole story,” Dustin said. “The line really means Charlie don’t surf but we do and we will because we have American exceptionalism and are better than them, superior to them. We surf. Charlie don’t. They are different from us, below us. Not cool like us. They are The Other, and that ain’t good. Therefore we are justified to annihilate them, to do whatever we want with them. We’ll dominate them, bomb them, and use their water to help ourselves to a little surfing.”
Dikembe continued, “The Clash put the line into a song and expanded it into ‘Charlie don’t surf and we think he should,’ bringing out all that American exceptionalism and imperialism. He should be like us. He’s not, though, so fuck him.”
Dustin said, “Most humans view animals as the Other. They are not like us. They can’t do what we can. Hell, they can’t use a surfboard like us. And they don’t cry. They don’t feel pain or experience emotions like we superior beings do because they’re not as advanced as we are. Charlie don’t cry, so let me oppress and exploit him.”
“And that certainly is not what we in animal rights believe. We know they have emotions and feel pain,” Karen said.
“Exactly,” said Dustin, “The ironic name was chosen carefully to accentuate that repugnant way of thinking. I don’t know, maybe we picked a name that’s too complicated and stupid. Sometimes I might wonder about that.” He laughed. “But then, I think it sets us apart from the other groups with predictable names. I think it’s good, all in all.”
“Simplicity in life would be nice. It would be the opposite of everything that super-selfishness represents. Simplicity would exist when everyone had the freedom to pursue personal dreams; when everyone was truly happy, confident, and at ease; when everyone was healthy and safe; when everyone exercised self-restraint, abandoned selfishness, and became mindful to cause no harm; when everyone was free from discrimination and injustice. Simplicity would exist because everyone would feel loved and significant in a world infused with respect and kindness.” And then, in a stunning bit of performance art, she offered a poignant encore.
“But today our lives are not bestowed with simplicity. We remember Vincent Chin and his family and friends; Matthew Shepard and his family and friends; Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Carol Denise McNair and their families and friends; Victor Jara and his family and friends; Balbir Singh Sodhi and his family and friends; Dr. Chee Long Tong, Wong Chin, Wing Chee, and the sixteen others and their families and friends; Rami Arafat Rajabi and twenty-eight others killed and one-hundred twenty-five who were wounded, some left paralyzed, at the Cave of the Patriarchs; we also do not forget their families and friends; Trayvon Martin and his family and friends; Big Foot and the nearly three-hundred other people killed and fifty-one wounded, some who died later, at Wounded Knee; we also do not forget their families and friends…”
Santagato, while continuing to recite names of victims of bias-motivated violence to highlight the darkest side of systemic hyper-selfishness, stood up from her seat on stage and began distancing herself from the mic, her voice trailing off in the distance the farther she moved away from it.
“Genevieve Bergeron and the thirteen other young women murdered, and the fourteen other people wounded in Montreal, and their families and friends.”
Entirely out of the microphone’s range, she continued slowly walking offstage while raising her voice to acknowledge more names.
“Anne and Margot Frank and the others hidden behind the bookcase, and their families and friends; the people from the Cheyenne and Arapajo tribes, mostly women and children, killed and mutilated at Sand Creek, Colorado, and their families and friends; Truganini and her family and friends…”
As these uncomfortable minutes continued, she eventually returned to the stage, still calling up from memory names of individuals badly treated on this Earth. No less than sixty incidents were enumerated. She finished in a whisper at the microphone, out of breath as if drained and disgusted by such a huge list bleeding out, reminding everyone of situations that happened, and apologizing for not being able to finish the recitation, “which would likely take me fifty years.”
Bilal found it intriguing how Ramona made a point of including family and friends as victims too. He was fascinated by her leaving the microphone and stage while continuing to try to make her way through all the names, as if indicating the list is so long that an allotted time to present onstage would never be adequate, the task instead incessantly ongoing, following you everywhere you go.
He listened to the entire discussion and Q&A session, thinking to himself, wow, I see my old friend has a lot to say. That is not how I remember her; she was always taciturn.
By the conclusion of the program he was visibly affected, recognizing that Ramona had just evoked many of the same issues with which he too had become particularly concerned.
October 27, 2023 Zoa's Arks is published.
New Novel About Wanting So Badly To Get to a Better World.
A Victory for Animals.
An Opportunity for Humanity.
Now available at amazon, barnes and noble, etc.
October 19, 2023: Zoa's Arks is now in production and should be out in November. Here's a fun excerpt:
In Australia, a surfer half-jokingly alerted stunned, just-arrived travelers that koalas were refusing to allow tourists to snap the expected, customary photos with them. The creatures were rudely turning their heads away from the cameras right before the moment the shutter was depressed. Not even the best professional photographers could figure out what to do to coax them into a renewed cooperation. As one disgruntled world traveler conveyed to everyone around, “What an embarrassment. I came all the way Down Under, spending I don’t care to remember how many countless god-forsaken hours stuffed inside a plane so I could get at least just one pic with a koala. I’ll be the laughing stock in front of everybody at the garden club back home.”
Her husband, sympathetic to her frustration but even more so wanting no part of being on the receiving end of her scorn for the foreseeable future should they fail, motioned to her to hold the harmless, cuddly animal even closer. He offered encouragement as he suggested, “Let’s just try this one more time. Come on, let’s do this. We can do it.”
Click. Click.
“The little monster did it again?” she guessed, hoping it wasn’t true.
“Yes, he did it again,” confirmed the husband who was striking out as a photographer but willing to try yet again. The marsupial had turned his head to the side with perfect timing before the desired image could be successfully captured. His wife looked down to the ground as she shook her head in disgust and shooed the animal away, before storming out of the room to try to find someone in the crowd who could snap a picture of her hugging a jar of Vegemite.
June 17, 2021: A novel entitled Zoa's Arks is now entering the final stages of the writing process!
March 23, 2019: The World is Around You but You are in Your Car and Yes You Are Home will form the basis of a fast-paced 5-minute micro-TED talk-like presentation by the author tonight on finding simplicity in the complexity of life. Twenty images were selected to be projected overhead to accentuate the presentation. A different image advances every 15 seconds. Looking forward to what the other speakers have to say as well and it should be a lot of fun! Check out the website! And hopefully you can attend this interesting event, Ignite 2019: A Night of Simplicity, at Millspace: Center for Art, History and Culture in Newmarket, NH.
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The William Fogg Library in Eliot, Maine held its first Author's Fair on Monday, October 28, 2013, featuring 20 local authors, including Jane Harper, Layne Case, Eileen Doyon, KD Mason, and W. Trently. The event was held in the library proper and the historic Fogg Homestead which is adjacent to the library.
New from the author! Snapshot: Ship's Dentists is a nonfiction book published in July 2011. The ADA New Dentist News (December 2011) featured Drs. William Trently, Jennifer Friedman, and Brian Tuttle in an article entitled "Transitioning From Federal Service Dentistry."
On Tuesday, May 3, 2011, the Wiggin Memorial Library in Stratham, New Hampshire hosted its Local Authors Night. Authors Lara Bricker, Pat Parnell, M.F. Bloxam, William Trently, and Norman Phillips read from their works and engaged in an interesting discussion of the writing process and business.
A short presentation by the author and book-signing was held January 13, 2010 at the Lamprey Professional Building in Raymond, New Hampshire for an audience of about 23 people. The book's framework was discussed, including the blending of fiction with nonfiction.
RiverRun Bookstore in Portsmouth, New Hampshire hosted a Local Authors Night on Monday, August 31, 2009 at 7 PM. There was wine and cheese and a chance to discuss books, writing, and publishing. The World is Around You was one of the books featured.
July 6, 2015: The following quote from Bill Nye succinctly captures much of the essence of Yes, You Are Home:
"Researchers have proven scientifically, that humans are all one people. The color of our ancestors' skin and ultimately my skin and your skin is a consequence of ultra-violet light, of latitude and climate. Despite our recent sad conflicts here in the U.S., there really is no such thing, scientifically, as race. We are one species. Each of us is much more alike than we are different. We all came from Africa. We're all made of the same star dust. We're all going to live and die on the same planet---a pale blue dot in the vastness of space. We have to work together!"
June 12, 2016:
"If we wish to avoid being numbered among the oppressors we must be prepared to rethink all our attitudes to other groups...If we can make this unaccustomed mental switch we may discover a pattern in our attitudes and practices that operates so as consistently to benefit the same group--usually the group to which we ourselves belong--at the expense of another group." ---Peter Singer
From the Portsmouth Herald, Thursday, August 13, 2009:
LOCAL MAN PUBLISHES FIRST BOOK
Wiliam M. Trently has penned his first published book. "The World is Around You, but You are in Your Car" is a work of fiction wrapped around an essay about what he sees as an American problem — the relentless pursuit of the perfect life and its negative consequences that adversely affect progress and behavior toward the rest of the world.
"I want it and I want it now," with its shortage of self-restraint, has been taken to levels not reached before, says Trently in a press release. The ramifications are eye-opening: the easy disposability of people or principles if these should obstruct the path to the perfect life, the mental depression from the strains of struggling to keep up with the neighbors, or the isolation from reality as people become more and more comfortable in their plush living rooms and cars.
The tale brings back to life history's great philosophers for one week to Portsmouth to sound an alarm and talk about ways to slow the relentless pursuit. In the book, a symposium is presented at the Sheraton, followed by a performance of Beethoven's "Tenth" Symphony at The Music Hall. Local readers may appreciate the descriptions of the city.
Born in Scranton, Pa., in 1960, Trently is an Eagle Scout, has a bachelor's from the University of Scranton and DMD from the University of Pittsburgh. He served 20 years as an officer in the U.S. Navy. He resides in Stratham with his wife, Bertha, and son, Devin.
The book is available at Riverrun Bookstore in Portsmouth, Water Street Bookstore in Exeter, and williamtrently.com.
Olyphant native's book questions cultural behavior
By Chris Glynn (Staff writer)
Published: August 2, 2009 Scranton Times
Some people help their communities by doing volunteer work or coaching children's sports teams. Former Olyphant resident William M. Trently sees his writing as his contribution.
Mr. Trently used to write short stories for enjoyment as a teenager, but "The World Is Around You, But You Are in Your Car" is his first published book.
Mr. Trently's book is described as "a work of fiction wrapped around a kind of essay about the relentless pursuit of the perfect life." The unique title was something he saw written on a billboard in graffiti while driving his car. Mr. Trently said in a phone interview from his home in Stratham, N.H., where he is a dentist, that readers will see how the title ties in to the material. The book is about how Americans are sheltered from reality, and how the relentless pursuit of the perfect life affects Americans' behavior toward the rest of the world.
Mr. Trently's inspiration to write this book comes from wanting to pitch in to his society, with the hope that it could contribute to ongoing discussions on current events. Current events were the driving force behind the writing of the book. The process was on-again, off-again for some time, but everytime he had let it lapse, something in the news would inspire him to start again.
Born in Scranton but raised in Olyphant until he was 22, Mr. Trently remembers playing pick-up baseball and basketball games, and taking part in the Pocono Century Tour when he was in ninth and 10th grades, attending Mid Valley High School. He attended the University of Scranton from 1978 to 1982, and went on to attend the University of Pittsburgh from 1982 to 1986, graduating with a degree in dentistry. He served 20 years as an officer in the Navy and now has a dental practice in Stratham. He resides there with his wife, Bertha, and son, Devin.
Mr. Trently enjoyed writing as a child. "I always loved playing with words and spellings when I was kid and always wanted to write something like this," he said.
The book can be found on Mr. Trently's Web site, williamtrently.com, and the sites of two booksellers: BarnesandNoble.com and Amazon.com. "The World Is Around You, But You Are in Your Car"
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