My Father - a Tribute

My dad, Gregory is one of the most loving, nurturing fathers I know. His life would read like a novel. He was born in Cyprus, emigrated to London as a child, survived the blitz, served in the British army and came to America after the war. After moving his family back to Cyprus in the 60's, his life was again marked by war when the Turks invaded Cyprus and chased all the Greek Cypriots away from their homes and lands.

At 40 he found himself with nothing. With four children, some of them college age, he started again from scratch. We returned to America where he worked as a waiter. He and my mom worked and saved and bought another home for the family. All four children graduated college, three of us with graduate and professional degrees.

My father Greg is a man of honor, kindness, loyalty and hard work. He's a great storyteller and I'm always surprised that even after all these years of hearing his stories he occasionally still come up with a new one.

I love you dad,

Maria

Writerly woes!

As I may have mentioned, I'm a writer. Yes, obviously I write this blog, but there's more. I have a completed novel in the hopper, a second novel that I'm working on, as well as a number of essays and short stories. Sometimes, I even delve into poetry. But, I'm not a poet. I'm a fiction writer. What does that mean really? I just found out that even Hemingway wrote some poetry.

My novel, "Archangel", is about Juliana Petresku, an American art dealer who buys a set of Byzantine mosaics in a shady international deal and discovers that they are stolen. The story is inspired by true events and the Byzantine mosaics are based on the Panagia Kanakaria mosaics that were stolen from a church in Turkish occupied Cyprus after the Turkish invasion of 1974. Above is one of the stolen mosaics depicting the Apostle Matthew.


For five years I worked using photographs of the mosaics given to me by my good friend, Petros Petrides, the first photojournalist to photograph the mosaics after they had been recovered by the Church of Cyprus. When I finally had the opportunity to travel to Cyprus and visit the Byzantine museum where the mosaics were kept, I felt ambivalent. After conjuring the amazing icons through the photographs for so many years, I was afraid that seeing the real icons would be a let down. You know how what you see with your minds eye is always more spectacular than the real thing.



My worries turned out to be unfounded. Seeing the actual mosaics on the walls of the museum in Cyprus, the land where they originated, was elating. They were more brilliant, more vivid and alive than I had ever imagined. That was a great day for me!



I have since rewritten the mansucript, sent it to agents, other writers, friends and acquaintances looking for someone to publish it. So far, no takers, but I still believe in it! It's a good story, worth reading!

Maria