Prelude to a Change of Mind : The First Book in the Lands of Nod

by Stikmanz, Robert

• ISBN13: 9780974070360
• ISBN10: 097407036X
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-02-03
• Publisher: Dalton Pub

Summary

Robert Stikmanz's Prelude to a Change of Mind: The First Book in The Lands of Nod is a quiet, intimate, and delightfully quirky novel from the dreamtime that does not fit handily into familiar categories. It is simultaneously a sweet and terrifying coming of the ages story that examines the use and misuse of the human imagination. With grace and wry humor, this tale comes to life in the mountain fastness of a possible recent past-or parallel history-to evoke a world in which elves and dwarves burst from legend into life. The "change of mind" of the title belongs to Meg Christmas, firewatcher in the forest ranges of a western sierra. When crisis threatens the strange, small folk who befriend her, she must plumb within herself for abilities to confront, accept, and save a reality previously unsuspected. This brilliant work from poet and artist Robert Stikmanz blends fantasy, speculative science fiction, and social critique into a unique call for an imaginative leap of faith in the belief in pleasure and compassion, into a realization that the ages-old longing for a paradise of flesh and soul is not a fairy tale but a destiny.

Author Biography

Rob Lewis (aka Robert Stikmanz) has been active in the Austin creative underground for three decades. His poems and other writings appeared in the Sleepy Tree anthologies, and in Aileron, The Argonaut, VfAtzlan, The Cannon, and Vowel Movement, among others. Texas presses produced three chapbooks of his poems. Lewis's visual work has ranged from cover illustrations for Albert Huffstickler to political posters, digital drawings, and ambient video projections.Involved in small press publishing since college, at different times Lewis was part of the editorial/production collectives of Window Magazine, The Lone Star Socialist, and The Iowa Idea. From 1983 to 1988 he and partner Michael Ambrose owned and operated Liberty Graphics, a design and pre-press production studio. They published chapbooks of poems by Ed Buffaloe, Michael Ditmore, Joe Ericson, and, under the imprint, ôRob Lewis, Publisher,ö Amerikan Journeys::Jornadas Americanas, by Ricardo Sßnchez.In 1999 Lewis shifted focus to live ambient video performance. As half of neverthesameriver, he mixed projections in real time for dance events, gallery performances, festival installations, and private parties. The Austin Museum of Digital Art featured neverthesameriver as video artists at its first anniversary showcase in 2002. Lewis lives in Austin, Texas. Prelude to a Change of Mind is his first novel.