Sheila Martin

    The following is another darling I had to kill. I deleted it from my novel because it didn’t advance the story. In it a Yiddish boarder is talking to my young narrator, Brooklyn. The Boarder is a mischievous trickster who lives in a junk-filled room in the family’s house and claims to be … Continue reading →

The following excerpt from my novel is from my young narrator, Brooklyn’s point of view. It was inspired by an abandoned subway station—Myrtle Avenue—a ghostly platform that the Brighton Beach Express sped past throughout my childhood.   At last I find a platform. I sit down on a bench and wait and wait, but trains just … Continue reading →

    The following is an abbreviated excerpt from my novel. Near the beginning, my young narrator, Brooklyn goes to her Uncle Max’s bar on the boardwalk (picture the Atlantis Bar from my previous blog). She’s looking for Lenny, the sleazy crooner who sang her a secret warning, but instead finds Mississippi.   I heard … Continue reading →

    The bar in the following excerpt from my novel is based on the Atlantis Bar as it was in the 1950s. It’s practically a character in itself.   “Sinners!” shrieked a paper-skinned preacher. He waved his hand to include the entire boardwalk. “Filthy degenerates!” He pointed a tremulous finger at the saloon, brazenly … Continue reading →

Here’s an abbreviated excerpt from my novel. My young narrator, Brooklyn wants to be a blues singer and pesters an illusive bluesman, Mississippi, who plays on the boardwalk, to teach her how.   By this time we’d turned the corner under the El and were walking along the front of the shantytown. The shacks were … Continue reading →

  The following is a condensed excerpt of my novel. It’s a story told by a Delta blues singer named Mississippi to my young narrator, Brooklyn, in her uncle’s boardwalk bar. The year is 1957.   “One night I was picking out a tune in a dive on some empty back street not a block … Continue reading →

A rough thumbnail I did of Lenny’s secret nature, though not the one I turned into an illustration. That one is still under wraps.   Lenny is a torch singer who sings at my eleven-year-old narrator, Brooklyn’s uncle’s boardwalk bar. He is far from what he seems, but she doesn’t know it yet or what’s … Continue reading →

The following are excerpts from early versions of my novel when I had a more poetic style. My husband, Jim cobbled some of them together because he missed them—after twenty years of writing this, on and off, I have a ton of this stuff.   In the small hours before dawn, the wind rattles Spook-A-Rama’s … Continue reading →

My painting “The Guardian”   In the following excerpt of my novel, the young narrator, Brooklyn is desperately searching for a dog she loves and seems to have the power to protect her from supernatural death threats.   I went to some of the places I’d gone to during my rambling days, which led me … Continue reading →

I painted this illustration for a now deleted subplot of my novel.   A gaunt lady wove in and out of the nighttime crowd on the boardwalk. I felt her eyes lock on mine with a look of unguarded desperation. A shiver ran through me: she looked like Rose, my godmother, but Rose was dead.   I grabbed … Continue reading →