The Choreo-novel, “Big Auntie’s Pearls” is my attempt to expand upon the form of dramatic expression known as “Choreopoem” which combines poetry, dance music and song with traditional African-American storytelling. My story’s implied plot uses theme elements with specific characters to hopefully create an emotional response from readers also its listeners. Nontraditional spelling and vernacular are written in the Concert format with each chapter called an Opus with three different movements as found in a Sonata or acts of an Opera or Ballet. The four Opuses are infused with Intermezzo and in Three-quarters time giving those of us with short attention spans maybe a twelve-hour read or an hour for one movement. This Google interactive version contains links to music; fashion; food and culture with also fast cars of the times to enhance the readers experience and maybe even do a little shopping. My story is Historical "Inspirational Fiction” using pseudonyms of persons and Venerable Institutions in a respectful fictitious manner to help Annamitta (Anna-mē-ta) tell her story of her Big Auntie’s whispered “High Pearls of Burden.” I invite you on this journey to my native Southwest Georgia in the “Morning Star Suite” and a debut recital in the Southern hamlet of Boston before spanning through time with stops in Washington DC, Miami until Annamitta’s “New Day” at Savannah’s College by the Sea. * Inspirational external links included for entertainment, educational and historical reference.

The Choreo-novel, "Big Auntie's Pearls" is my attempt to expand upon form of dramatic expression known as "Choreopoem" which combines poetry, dance, music and song. This term was first coined by the Great Ntozake Shange in her usage of traditional African-American storytelling in entertaining and for teaching. My story with its implied plot uses theme elements with specific characters to hopefully create an emotional response from readers or from its listeners. My story uses nontraditional spelling and vernacular written in Concert format with each chapter called an Opus with three different movements as found in a Sonata or acts of an opera or a ballet. The four Opuses are infused with Intermezzo written in three-quarters time giving those of us with short attention spans maybe a twelve-hour read or only an hour for a movement.The characters are mostly of imagination fused with a matriarchal surname in a fictitious manner in helping Annamitta (Anna-mē-ta) tell her story of Big Auntie's whispered "High Pearls of Burden" as combined with pseudonyms of persons and venerable Institutions so not to disparage. I invite you to join this journey leading into the early 1900s in my native Southwest Georgia in the "Morning Star Suite" with Big Auntie's debut piano recital in the Southern hamlet of Boston before heading to college in Washington DC. Annamitta enters the story as a six-year old as her "Sonatina" begins with a Polonaise North with her Mama Minnie Lou where she learns dignified protest and discovers a talent for sewing.Annamitta's adult dance kicks-off in what I like to call the "Honey Pot Suite" where a visit with her big sister Suzie Mae in Miami leads to an altercation with Trixie Dupree causing concern over Mr. Buddy J.Big Auntie's Pearls journey into a "New Day" of late 1959 when Annamitta's skills help secure her admittance into Savannah's College by the Sea where after their rocky start she and her roommate W. Joan from New York find shared dismay over Institutional formalities. Though disagreeing over some "Politics of Fashion" the roommates form coalition to combine academics with having a good time while easing pressures of taking on more traditional roles amongst "Precious Pearls of the Sea!"

Impulsive, budding artist, Pearl, jumps on a bus headed for the driest place she knows, Australia’s Nullarbor Plain, to escape a terrifying undersea curse, only to find it waiting for her in a fish tank when she arrives. In her Aunty’s derelict roadhouse, she amuses and outrages the local misfits by seeing their hidden traumas in watery visions – which she paints. Eddie, a hot, young windmill repairer, shows interest, but soon must vie for this amazing artist’s attention with Italian cave diver, Massimo. Tempting as they may be, Pearl can’t go there, not while this family-seeing curse is ruining her life . . . unless it’s a gift? Just in case it is, Pearl risks her life to solve the mystery that has plagued all the women in her line, starting with her long-dead Great-Grandma Pearl.

Pearl returns to her native Penang and her parents after nearly ten years in Sydney, Australia. She brings with her a son from a hasty marriage, and a suitcase of repressed emotions. However, the skeletons in her family's closet far outnumber hers, and as her family implodes upon itself, it becomes a race against time to save the family business, and ultimately, her family.

Eleven interlinked stories tell the tale of a boy coming of age in Kailua-Kona, a Hawaiian fishing village. Sonny Mendoza is a little different from the rest of the men in his family. Salisbury explores characters like Aunty Pearl, a full-blooded Hawaiian as regal as the queens of old; cool Jack, from L.A., who starts a gang and dares Sonny to be brave enough, cruel enough, to join; mysterious Melanie, who steals his heart; and Deeps, the shark hunter. But the most memorable character is the sea itself: inviting, unpredictable, deadly. Mendoza men are brave men, but Sonny's courage is of a different kind. Why can't he love and trust the water as the men of his family are meant to do?

A luminous and courageous story about the hopes and dreams we all have for our lives and relationships, and the often fraught and unexpected ways they may be realised. Angela Savage draws us masterfully into the lives of Anna, an aid worker trying to settle back into life in Australia after more than a decade in Southeast Asia; Meg, Anna’s sister, who holds out hope for a child despite seven fruitless years of IVF; Meg's husband Nate, and Mukda, a single mother in provincial Thailand who wants to do the right thing by her son and parents. The women and their families' lives become intimately intertwined in the unsettling and extraordinary process of trying to bring a child into the world across borders of class, culture and nationality. Rich in characterisation and feeling, Mother of Pearl, and the timely issues it raises, will generate discussion amongst readers everywhere. ‘This is a story of family and motherhood, and also a story of culture and exploitation that asks us to think through the costs of our insatiable desire in the West to have everything. What I find remarkable about this novel is how it refuses easy and lazy judgement, how it takes seriously questions of loss, longing, and our human need to connect with each other.’ — Christos Tsiolkas, author of The Slap

Amy Chan Zhou’s searing memoir about growing up in rural Communist China features descriptions of pastoral beauty and tales of the simple joys of raising farm animals or catching fish in a local river. However, her childhood is scarred by the primitive conditions, her family’s everyday struggle to obtain food, and the horror of witnessing relatives being tortured on a stage during “public denouncing” meetings. As the Communists take control of China in 1949, we follow the harrowing experiences of Chan Zhou’s great-grandparents, grandparents, father, and mother during the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s when landlords, business owners, artists, and scholars were branded as “bad elements” and “class enemies.” As a teenager in the 1970s, while selling vegetables on the black market, Chan Zhou is accused of being a “little capitalist trader.” The death of Mao ultimately saves Chan Zhou from being sent to a detention center, and her family’s destiny is forever altered by Deng Xiaoping’s reform that allows her family to reunite in Hong Kong, and subsequently emigrate to the United States. A blend of Wild Swans and The Red Scarf Girl, Flowing with the Pearl River is a vividly accurate portrayal of one family’s painful experiences during Communism and the Cultural Revolution in China, and their eventual escape to freedom.