Big news! I’m going to Geneva with Chasing Mercury next week. I'll be covering the 1st Conference of the Parties Signatory to the Minamata Convention on Mercury since the treaty went into force, August 16, 2017. The primary themes of Chasing Mercury were inspired by the signing of the Minamata Convention by a UNESCO initiative in 2013 at the Kumamoto Prefecture of Japan, nearly sixty years after the toxic effects of the persistent organic pollutant methyl mercury was found to cause Minamata disease— and forty-five years after a ballerina named Sicily met a powwow dancer whistleblower journalist name Forest.
Oh Lordy... I spent most of the day crafting a press release, learning about the rating system of Amazon, setting up my authors account on Good Reads. Searching for good reviewers for the book, answering my one reviewer on Amazon, and writing a press release for the reading at Inside story at Octopus Lounge in Oakland on 7/20.
In Chasing Mercury there are a lot of contextual references to pieces of art that were not well accepted because they were thought risqué or inappropriate for the stature of the subject. One of those is the sculpture of Louis Riel, a Metis man. It used to sit on the grounds of the Manitoba Legislature with Louis naked to the rath of the wind and those who killed him.
