To Brie or Not to Brie

| Sharon Arpana Edwards

I can’t think of a better way to celebrate Shakespeare’s birthday than by parodying his most famous line.

Well, I can’t say for sure it is Shakespeare’s birthday. That fabled baptismal record could be just that: a fable. But let’s play along and say today is the playwright’s 462nd birth anniversary. And, as the story goes, his 410th death anniversary.

What I can say for sure is that I’m not the first person to parody Shakespeare’s most famous line. Who knows, maybe Shakespeare himself did it after Hamlet premiered in 1600.

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’Twas Great to Be Alive in 2025

| Sharon Arpana Edwards

One brief post cannot do justice to this great year, but as a writer I must assay it. Even if I am not writing an essay on it.

On the first Sunday of the year, I attended a conference at the Cross TV studio, where I got to do one of my favorite things: give a prophetic word to a stranger. It was a mere five words—“Put on your dancing shoes”—but the lady was delighted. After recording it in her Bible, she informed me she was a dancer, and she’d given away a pair of gold ballet shoes just the day before!

A few minutes later, a different stranger was prompted to pray for me, and he used his prophetic gift to confirm something I’ve been praying for myself! Two days later on January 7, I was still basking in the glow of the spiritual fire when my city was ravaged by a physical fire.

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July 17 Memories

| Sharon Arpana Edwards

I have loved today’s date for seven years now. I was in prayer one morning in 2018 when I happened to open my eyes and look at my clock at 7:17. I sensed the number was significant, so I asked the Holy Spirit to show me what it meant.

I have shared the revelation in this video, but the gist is that the Holy Spirit led me to Genesis 8:4, where we are told that Noah’s ark came to rest on the seventeenth day of the seventh month. For this reason the Gregorian July 17 has a special place in my heart.

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Without You: A Letter to My Mother

| Sharon Arpana Edwards

My dearest Mummy,

This is now my fifth Mother’s Day without you. I want to tell you how I spent it, but first let me tell you how I spent this year since my last Mother’s Day without you.

You’ll be happy to know it’s been my best year since you left me on May 5, 2021. (I know the correct term is “left us,” but from my perspective, you left me more than you left all of us.)

I’ve spent this year working on the childhood dream you always believed would someday become reality. I wish you were here to see it, but you’re in good company.

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My Year in a Dream

| Sharon Arpana Edwards

Last night I dreamt of Mummy again. It was a brief scene—a dream within a dream—and it opened with a glass vase perched atop a round mahogany table in a church foyer.

The vase contained a bunch of delicate pink and white roses. I was pleased to see them, and heartbroken to learn that they were for my sisters and I to lay on our mother’s coffin.

The table in my dream was a richer hue, but this was the closest I could find in my app.

I picked out a rose and stepped inside the church sanctuary, where Mummy’s memorial service was being held. My sisters and I were about to take our seats when all of a sudden, Mummy herself appeared in the front!

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On World Tourism Day

| Sharon Arpana Edwards

While thinking about a release date for my debut novel, The Superiority Contest, I discovered there is such a thing as World Tourism Day. And that is today, September 27.

World Tourism Day would have been an appropriate occasion to release a world traveler’s tale, but the novel wasn’t ready, and it’s more important to get that right. Over my long adulthood I have learnt that Hamlet was right when he said, “The readiness is all.”

In this discussion with his bestie, my favorite literary character was referring to his impending duel with Laertes, which could possibly end in his death. (Which it does. The play can’t go on forever.)

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Your Upcoming Swoon

| Sharon Arpana Edwards

A new book is coming quite soon.
I hope it will be a big boon
To your reading time.
It does have some rhyme
So prepare for your upcoming swoon!

The book is my maiden novella.*
Though it isn’t a jolly good fella
I hope it is good.
I wrote best I could
While guzzling down tea with vanilla.

The story recounts a world trip
That wasn’t a hop, jump, and skip.
My topmost priority
Was finding Superiority
Where the vice has its vile viselike grip.

My findings may shock you, dear reader.
I wish that the world had been meeker
But alas I did see
In country upon country
That pride rises up as the leader.

While wandering from clime to clime
As Odysseus did once upon a time
I also met folks,
Some gals and some blokes,
Whom I cannot describe all in rhyme.**

The dedication’s first line bears the name
Of the one who was twice my ex-flame,
A lover of levity
And fanboy of brevity—
My loquacity bears some of the blame.

So at least let it make me some moolah
With this, my forthcoming novella.
When it’s widely read
I’ll get me some bread
And spread it with golden Nutella.

*The manuscript was a novella when I composed this announcement. It’s a novel now but to quote David Copperfield, let it stand.

**Hence the prose.

(c) 2024 by Sharon Arpana Edwards. All rights reserved.