Day 6 of the WordCrafter “Where Spirits Linger” Book Blog Tour
Posted: September 25, 2021 Filed under: Blog Tour, Book Promotion, Books, Ghost Stories, Giveaways, Paranormal, Stories, WordCrafter Book Blog Tours, WordCrafter Press | Tags: Christa Planko, Enid Holden, Ghost Stories, Kaye Lynne Booth, Paranormal, Roberta Eaton Cheadle, S.L. Kretschmer, Short Fiction, Short Stories, Stevie Turner, Where Spirits Linger, WordCrafter Book Blog Tours, WordCrafter Press 2 Comments
To wrap-up the WordCrafter Where Spirits Linger Book Blog Tour, we have a guest post by contributing author, S.L. Kretschmer about the inspiration behind her story, “The Final Portrait”. I hope you all have enjoyed following this tour with us. Don’t forget to leave a comment. Every comment at each stop earns an entry into a random drawing for a free digital copy of Where Spirits Linger.
Guest post by S.L. Kretschmer, author of The Final Portrait
The Final Portrait evolved from prompts I received in round 1 of the 2020 NYC Midnight Short Story Competition – Ghost story, a monument, deodorant. My mind immediately flew to the Western Front of World War I and the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme in Northern France. I was fortunate to have visited the memorial in 2011, boarding a bus in the French town of Lille, and travelling south towards the battlefields. Little could prepare me for the emotion I felt on the trip. The scars across the landscape, now lush and green, could be easily identified, and it was not difficult to imagine the horrific scenes of trench warfare.
I began to research World War I paintings and came across a particularly moving one by the Irish artist William Orpen. Orpen was an official World War I Artist, and his depiction of a soldier, bloodied and lying in an alien landscape, devoid of nature and pitted with craters and pools of fetid water, was confronting. Orpen struggled with the brutality and grisly sights he documented for those back home and claimed to have been struck by a phantom force while painting in an abandoned field.
These nuggets of information were gelling into a thought. What would those painted in death have thought of the depiction? Of family and friends who might recognize their loved one? Of who they were, compared to how they are remembered in this final rendering? The Final Portrait.
S. L. Kretschmer is a born and bred South Australian, recently embracing both a tree change and becoming an empty nester in the beautiful wine region of the Barossa Valley. She has a BA in Creative Writing, and Graduate Certificate in Museum Studies. Her stories have been featured in the anthologies A Flash of Brilliance and Tales from the Upper Room, and have also been published by Haunted Waters Press, Two Sisters Publishing, 101 Words, Beyond Words Literary Magazine, Bluing the Blade and inScribe Literary Journal.
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Buy Link: https://www.amazon.com/Where-Spirits-Linger-Lynne-Booth-ebook/dp/B09GNZJVJ5
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Thanks for joining us today! And if you missed any of the blog stops along the way, you can find them at the links below. Drop by and catch the ones you missed, and leave a comment to let us know you were there and get a chance for the free didgital copy of Where Spirits Linger.
Sept. 20 – Intro./Enid’s promo – Writing to be Read/Review – Undawnted
Sept. 21 – Guest Post – Roberta Eaton Cheadle/Review – The Showers of Blessings
Sept. 22 – Guest Post – Kaye Lynne Booth – Patty’s World
Sept. 23 – Interview with Christa – Roberta Writes
Sept. 24 – Guest Post – Stevie Turner/ Review – Zigler’s News
https://ziglernews.blogspot.com/2021/09/where-spirits-linger-wordcrafter-book.html
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Writing to be Read 
Hi Kaye, it is very interesting to learn what inspires other writers stories. A great post.
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Thanks for your comment and all your support of the tour, Robbie. 🙂
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