Authorpreneur Dashboard – Jacqueline Cioffa
The Vast Landscape
Literature & Fiction
The Vast Landscape is a journey, a pilgrimage, a walk filled with doubt, mistrust, fame, self-discovery and a life lived, big and bold. The carnival ride comes full circle. The Vast Landscape sucks you in from the very first page and keeps you there, holding your breath. Harrison, the complicated, fearless, brash, messy heroine on her quest to find inner peace in spite of her flaws. Raw, emotional, honest to a fault, The Vast Landscape keeps you guessing and wanting more. A love story so bittersweet it leaves an acrid taste in the mouth and teardrops made out of sea salt. Can Harrison strip away the armor? Unmask the beautiful person hiding all along? It’s a simple question. All roads lead back to, Zack.
Book Bubbles from The Vast Landscape
Paradise Cove
The child in me will not let the possibility of hope and light go dark. She pushes and tickles even on the worst days showing me the crystals dancing in the garden while catching the sun's light. Before we look back the light has moved on. To remember on the skin precisely how it feels to be miraculously alive and waiting on the sun to come back around.
Afterglow
Someone asked today how much of Harrison is you? A lot, until you get to the extravagant, fame and fancy living part. Harrison is not like that at all and most like me in the fierce, loyal, forever ways she loved. The love carries on through those closest for they will remember and mention your name from time to time. Who and how will you choose to be loved? My very real tribe is my family, much like Harrison's.
BALL AND CHAIN SLINGSHOT
Love is the risk worth taking no matter the hurt, fear, what lies ahead. I remind myself, over and over. I am not a mother, I only understand the depths, beauty and bitter-sweetness from her side. It’s what I know. The one truth I’ve learned that matters. I write the complicated mother-daughter bond from both sides. The Vast Landscape dedication reads 'To My Mother' but belongs to us both.
Life after an empty chair
As far back as I can remember, my earliest memories and beyond I have loved water. The weightlessness, silky release, sun's silly shadow play. It is a world, an underworld I am welcome. As a child, teenager, young adult and grown woman I would swim laps as my father counted from the mesh chair by the pool's edge. I didn't need to look up, his omni-presence assured me he was there. I believed. When the chair remained and he didn't I can still feel him counting, smiling and rooting me on. The love lives long after under tidal pools of serenity and buoyant moments.
Let There Be.
"She searched the vast landscape without a map, the rough, scary terrain swallowing her whole." To let go, and 'let there be' is one of the greatest achievement's in life. Harrison is my guru, my imperfectly perfect hero and guide.
PLAY NICE
"High school sucks ass." Insecurities, bullies, liars and innocence thieves. At what precise moment does anyone outgrow their eighteen year old selves? Finally free to say I don't give a shit and I'm not apologizing. Harrison does, that's who.
SNOW DRIFTS
Truth sitting in raw, gut wrenching, heartbreaking, powerless fiction. The white blinding, all encompassing love, no matter the cost or the weight remains. my truth, his truth. Little girls grow up forever true loving their daddy's.
SUNSET MARQUIS
Most times the Bodyguard, flannel pjs and a cheap bottle of red are the best dates. Never met anything but a player in Hollywood.
Walk of Shame
Harrison despises that phrase. It’s stupid and demeaning. Who coined it, probably some asshole douchebag guy.
Georgia Pine
Literature & Fiction
THE VAST LANDSCAPE continues, alive in memory. The gatekeeper, fixer of Harrison’s family, Georgia Pine. Faint whispers drift from the stars into the evergreen, cottage bedroom. The Cove, a mystic beach, granddaughter’s refuge. The sea, sun, stars and moon welcome their return. The crimson child, with blazing hair and fire belly will do as she’s told, not before she’s ready. Pyre and brimstone, locks of ginger, gut instinct to guide her.
Book Bubbles from Georgia Pine
Froth and Foam
"At the top of the hill, she saw her. The distant shadow, erect. She stood stoic, watching. The long, envious curls air born, arms crossed, fringe shawl covering her body. Georgia started to bawl, too drained to move..." A mother knows. A good mother knows precisely when to push and when to pull. When to set aside their own pain and wrap their arms around their grief stricken child.
Astropop
Maxine's odd, peculiar personality infuriated her impatient, bossy, loyal, know it all older sister. Georgia felt responsible for Max the second she was arrived. Georgia Pine did not necessarily want the overwhelming responsibility, but Maxine was her sister for life. And Georgia was in it with her. More than any other, Maxine looked to Georgia for approval. It was a weighty, overbearing, beautiful, unordinary kind of sister love. P.S. I love Astropops.
Creole Colors
“Her grandmother explained she was refueling the tank, a spiritual tune-up. Max had to look way, way up, crook her neck to see Harry when she spoke. Rainbow chimes and crystals danced on the ceiling shooting flecks of light caught in their spell." I have always been attracted to the spiritual, the beautiful mystery that dwells inside the spirit. Children do not question intuition, trusting their instincts, and senses. They believe, effortlessly. Maxine is the girl that accepts mysticism and magic enthusiastically. She is ethereal and otherworldly, never doubting who or what she is.
Black Coffee
Love dies. There is no way around the pain one must move through it. Adjust somehow the best we can, and carry on. Legacy, deeply rooted complicated family bonds have been reoccurring tidal waves in my life. I hoped to recreate a world, a visceral place in "The Vast Landscape" and now, "Georgia Pine" where nature and the elements, the mystical powers of the sea come alive at the Cove. In a magical clapboard bungalow by the beach lives a sanctuary, to celebrate joy and come together to grieve a life. Harrison waits for Zack her one true love, leaving her other loves behind.
Miss Barbara
“Separated by a world of circumstance, color, racial barriers, Miss Barbara saw only who was standing in front of her.” My is father gone and I miss him. The inedible lessons he shared, remain. I write from emotion, respect, courtesy, honor and humility. The morally conscience way in which I was brought up. Black was not black in his eyes, nor mine. I loved a Miss Barbara once, deeply. I was smitten and colorblind.
One Times Four
"Georgia Pine" reader comment, 'she hoped younger generations could appreciate the deep bonds of family, legacy and tradition prominent throughout the story.' My hope was to create strong, flawed, devoted characters that experienced loyalty and acceptance within the complex, multi-layers of familial love.
