New Edition of Der Keltenschimmel (deutsch)

Has it been twelve years? I remember the summer day in 2013 like it was yesterday. There I sat transfixed, perplexed, in a daze, staring out the window. A writer’s life is a hidden mystery, isn’t it? My internal world was a well-kept secret until then. Since that anxiety-ridden launch, I have made a new edition of Der Keltenschimmel (2025) with a new cover.

Fiery dragons, lusty maidens, lecherous strong men, skeletons in the closet, broken taboos, absurd inceptions, unbelievable truths—all in a person’s head. Going on a wild goose chase in my mind, reassembling shards of reality that didn’t necessarily match. Seeing the world anew, maybe in a critical way. Secretly escaping on a fantastic island unbeknownst my fellow travelers? Forbidden territory? Shouldn’t it remain that way? Well, but we weren’t talking about me. This was about feisty Katrina and her turbulent years.

Dumbo! It’s called (German) Fantasy these days–although my ghosts were all too real.

I was about to reveal my truth in Der Keltenschimmel (The Celtic Stallion). And I did not feel comfortable about the public reading, although aside from a fast-paced adventure story and commonly known myths my novel wasn’t really a “Book of Revelations.” The grey, cloudy sky outside did nothing to improve my mood and faith.

First edition of Keltenschimmel

I had strung together some local German myths around a Celtic chapel. My main character Katrina writes passionate but “impossible” stories for the Essay Marathon in school. She fails miserably by not using research and facts. But she gets lucky with her grades after she pirates her deceased grandmother’s diary. Her story even wins a prize in the local paper. But, oh boy, is she in trouble with the village now.

Things continue to get worse. Katrina keeps on writing about dragons, witches, mayhem, the ghost stallion, and many other semi-fictional characters. As her love interest Mike drifts away from her, she starts mingling with “foreigners.” That unwelcome move gets her under criminal suspicion. Her father throws her out of the house. She moves into the lonely forest cabin. Twice the supernatural knocks on her cabin door, and once her speechless, brooding grandfather.

Katrina and Her Grandfather–An Unlikely Pair

The hen house of many absurd stories

On a small farm, privacy is at a premium. Katrina has repurposed the empty hen house to meet with friend Luise and write her whacky stories. Katrina clanks on the Adler typewriter, while her grandfather outside hammers on the scythes. He is the only one who still peens them. Together the unlikely pair create a cacophony of rhythms and sounds, but luckily both their crazy thoughts are drowned out. Soon the two get drawn into an unforeseen confrontation.

Was the subject matter too close to home? It seemed so, especially when I was facing the first public presentation (or humiliation) in my hometown. But what else can one write in an authoritative voice than the familiar or well researched? My mom had read an earlier draft and seemed appalled. Many changes later, my writer friend Georg still laid certain doubts to my craftsmanship. While he had edited the manuscript twice, I had learned a lot from him.

Georg finally convinced me to go through with the launch. He had written four murder mysteries himself (a veterinarian by trade) and gathered solid public performance experience. So he instructed me to launch the book in the lion’s den, my hometown parish hall. Right, at least my school friends would come.

That afternoon at teatime, a clumsy little blackbird in flight training crashed into my mom’s living room window. The bird was stunned and did not recover. Was it a sign of things to come?

Georg and I settled in at the parish gathering room. One by one the 30 seats or so got filled. Yes, my people had come. I was among friends. And Georg and I read together the cleanest passages that we could have picked for a church environment. This actually turned into a cheerful, nostalgic party.

“I had no idea that listening to a reading could be this enjoyable,” my mother praised. I exhaled and wiped my brow. Apparently, I had passed the test.

In English