Festoon Publishing Blog

Today marks the end of months of hard work in bringing a book to publication with some amazing stories of God working miracles. Today the book “Miracles Do happen” by retired Salvation Officer, Major Allan Kerr, becomes available for booksellers around the globe to sell in their stores or online as a paperback or as an eBook. Most people may hear of a miracle happening somewhere or at some time in the distant past, but Allan has had the extraordinary opportunity to be a witness of dozens of miracles happening every year of his life since becoming a minister of the Gospel of Christ. The very transformation of Allan’s life in itself was a miracle. Were they really miracles? Or were they just coincidences happening? There is no doubt that the miracles were genuine as other Salvation Army officers give testimony to what they have seen and witnessed for themselves. The many miracles recorded in this book is but a selection of miracles chosen for their succinctness in the telling – there were so many more stories that were just as amazing but were dropped in the final edit. Why not include all the miracles in the book? Well, some

Sentences are more than just a set of grammatical rules. There are some things that just can’t be messed with, and with some sentences, phrases, or even books, it would be a travesty to meddle with it – it is perfect as it is – even with its human violations of ‘incorrect English’ incorporated into its message. If I can use an analogy; it is somewhat like adding another dob of paint to the Mona Lisa, or a few extra bars to one of Mozart’s symphonies, or perhaps taking a hammer and chisel to Michelangelo’s sculpture of David (where the hands are out of proportion to the rest of his body). We can all have our “very good reasons” for doing a “final touch” to a masterpiece, but at what cost? Does the chiselling away of the “rude bits” on the statue of David make it better? Or the removal of the horns on the statue of Moses? (Which he admitted was a mistake, albeit, not his initially). Some things are best left alone – warts and all. When it comes to expressing a thought, or an emotion, in English writing, sometimes (or even most times) the rules of grammar,

New book release to be announced shortly. ‘Miracles Do Happen’ is a book that has been a work-in-progress for several months, and is now finally approaching the completion stage before eventually being submitted to the printers. You may be thinking that several months is an awfully long time between the manuscript stage, and the pre-production stage for just one book of about 130 pages, but this is where attention to detail and getting the story to “flow” takes up so much time. The original manuscript went through an initial grammar and spelling check (auto-generated text from grammar checker programs do not always get it right) and then was read by several people for an initial feedback. It needed to pass the “Is this a book that I would recommend to friends and strangers” check before it went anywhere further. Having passed that initial hurdle, the book then goes to a committee of half a dozen authors who had critiqued the book at some earlier stage. The committee would then see if each of their personal comments would stand up to the combined opinions of others. This could be rather daunting for the author as he listens to the brutally honest

ANZAC Day is only a week away so today I’m dedicating this blog to all of those men and women who have served their country by enlisting, or by being conscripted into the military forces. I salute you. Here are some of my reflections from someone who served – but not in a combat zone as was the misfortune of some. Not every soldier who dies heroically in battle receives a medal, but ironically it is the military staff officers that somehow gets a chest full of medals for participating in each campaign, usually from the secure position of their HQ command post. It is all too easy to forget the heroic deeds of those who laid down their lives for the “good cause” proclaimed loud and long by their political leaders. Many men died simply by following orders, orders given by a higher command – whether the command was foolhardy or not. The order had to be obeyed. Such is the nature of military command. We honour those who march as a sign of respect, respect that they do not seek for themselves, for those who return from battle know full well that the greater honour belongs to those

In times of war information is gold. It can be the difference between victory and defeat. For any decision to be made in a time of conflict, knowing the truth about the enemies plans, the weather, the topography of the war zone, the morale of the enemy’s troops, their armaments, their defence budget, their allays, their…. etc. Such is the value of reliable information, a.k.a. intelligence. Communications within military outposts is often encrypted, and to make things doubly difficult for the opposing side, a good deal of misinformation is “allowed” to slip into the enemy’s war office. Today we are at war, whether it is an officially declared war or not. But who are the combatants? There may be a lot in the press about the war in the Middle East which is forcing countries to take sides, either with the predominant American/Israeli alliance or with Iran. This conflict is dividing not only the nations of the world, but also all those who have an opinion on the subject, and to the degree that neighbour is against neighbour is the degree that neighbours are at war with each other. Did the war begin in the Middle East when the first