Maine arts multiple Ross Alan Bachelder, author of Happy Dawg Walks the Sad Man: The Remarkably Varied Adventures of a Confirmed Arts Multiple and Revenge: Tales Best Read in the Twilight Hours, celebrated the release of his new book Cecelia by Moonlight (The Problem with Intelligence) at the end of March.
Ross has enjoyed a long, rich life happily immersed in the fine and performing arts. A writer, musician, theatre professional and multimedia visual artist, he’s traveled extensively in the service of all things creative, attending concerts and plays, performing solo recitals, playing in pit orchestras, and touring museums in England, Scotland, New Zealand, Canada, Reykjavik, Paris, and Amsterdam. He’s also visited museums in Boston, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Detroit, Chicago, Indianapolis, New York, and many other cities.
He's currently working on his fourth book, Blue Collar Essays — an in-depth study of his blue collar roots and their effect on him in childhood, in high school, at Eastern Michigan University, and well beyond.
Like Mark Twain (1835-1910), who arrived on Earth the same year Halley’s Comet made an appearance, then died in the year of its celestial encore, he plans to go out with the same inexhaustible flash of creative energy that’s propelled him in all of his endeavors for so many years.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Cecelia by Moonlight (The Problem with Intelligence) is the poignant, star-crossed tale of Cecelia Middling — the unplanned product of a casual Fourth of July encounter — whose less-than-sophisticated West Coast parents, Clay Middling and Avis “Birdie” Guertner, soon discover they’re anything but ready to handle their highly temperamental, intellectually precocious daughter.
It’s when in a moment of reckless frivolity they escape trendy Sausalito, California, relocate in the politically conservative town of Minot, North Dakota, and enroll Cecelia in the local elementary school that their problems dramatically escalate.
Cecelia’s fourth-grade teacher, the well-educated, idealistic Alec Thornwood, can see right away how formidably intelligent she is, and against the wishes of her hyper-protective parents, a growing number of Minotians, and a clique of jealous, trouble-making teachers, goes out of his way to nurture the intellect of his prize student.
How the young, headstrong Cecelia Middling struggles to cope with the ever-growing hostilities around her is at the very heart of Cecelia by Moonlight, and should remind all of us that nothing warms the heart and nourishes the intellect of the young like fair treatment, respect for intellectual gifts, and unconditional love.
Special thanks to Berwick Community Media for filming this program.