Shifting Sands Short Stories by Emma Palova

Shifting Sands is a collection of 13 short stories where heroes and heroines shift their destinies like sand shifts in time, grain by grain, often to the surprise of the reader. Like the sand in the hour glass on the cover, the characters go through narrow passages.They try to break away from the conformity of their lives and relationships as they struggle to find themselves. Sometimes, they get stranded on the edge of the intricate web of vices. They come out in different forms, transformed, victorious or condemned.
The short stories are divided into three circles, chronologically and thematically. They span 27 years.
The characters embody the state of impermanence due to their inner struggles, as in the first circle of stories based on immigration from the old Czechoslovakia to America. The first circle of stories includes: Danillo, Honey Azrael & the Temptation of Martin Duggan. The second circle of short stories is the circle of assimilation and adaptation of living in the USA and working in a Midwest retail chain. These stories include: Tonight on Main, Therese’s Mind, Boxcutter Amy, Orange Nights and the Death Songs.
The third circle of stories is based in the newspaper experience of a journalist. These stories include: Foxy, Iron Horse, In the Shadows, Riddleyville Clowns and Chatamal.
Based on the Riddleyville Clowns short story, I wrote a screenplay named Riddleyville Clowns.
The setting for most of the short stories is in Midwest America and on Main Street America.
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About the Author

Emma Palova, (Konecna) was born in former Czechoslovakia. She is a Lowell-based author, short story writer, novelist, screenwriter and a journalist.
Palova wrote for Czechoslovak Newsweek and Prague Reporter. She also taught English as a second language for Francophones and Somali, as well as for Russians in her homeland. She received bachelor’s degree from the University of Brno.
She started an eclectic collection of short stories during her studies of creative and journalistic writing at ICS in Montreal, and at the Grand Rapids Community College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The collection “Shifting Sands”:Short Stories now in its first edition 2017 continues to grow with new stories. Many of these stories are based in the Midwest town of Riddleyville, much like the screenplay “Riddleyville Clowns.”
“My love for hometowns in Midwest America shows in the majority of my writings,” she said. “My current work is a tribute to small town characters and personalities.”
Inspired by the Velvet Revolution, Palova wrote the novel “Fire on Water.”
Palova continues to work on the Konecny Saga, the story of the family immigration that spans three generations, under the working title “Greenwich Meridian, where East meets west.”
She has developed her own literary style influenced by Paulo Coelho, Ernest Hemingway, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Tennessee Williams, poet Stanley Kunitz and playwright, former Czech president Vaclav Havel.

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