Category: My Kingdom

Should we pray?

Should we pray?

Having chosen their course, they stood staring at the path ahead, the shadows lengthening. Only the near horizon was visible.

“Should we pray?” she offered.

“Prayer changes only the clock.”

“And the clock changes anyway.”

She reached for his hand.

“Let’s go then.”

“Let’s go.”

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Enjoy more of my flash fiction, poetry, and short fiction in my latest collection, My Kingdom, now available in paperback and Kindle editions. ~

I could not put the book down! I read the poems out loud to my kids as though I am Cyrano on stage! Inspires me to be the best I can be! Love it! ~ Heather Pendaris

If you enjoy life and a positive view of mankind, if you are a valuer and enjoy reading uplifting works, you’ll love this collection of short works by Quent Cordair. This is a great book when you just want a short read that will leave you feeling better than when you started, when you need a little emotional fuel. No need to read it as a whole, just enjoy a little morsel when you need it. You will find yourself going back for more, over and over. I have thoroughly enjoyed Quent’s longer works, but they are a deeper dive. This collection can be enjoyed even if you have only short spurts of time available for reading. I highly recommend it. ~ Steve M.

I can only say, if like me you admire human independence and have a belief that each of us are sovereign individuals and that the greatest joy can be found in seeing something admirable, reward yourself with a few hours of pleasure. Buy the real book .. read … enjoy. ~ Garrett Seinen

The My Kingdom collection is now available in paperback and Kindle editions. ~

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If you prefer novels, I write those too. I recommend starting with Genesis, the first part of my five-part Idolatry saga. ~

Genesis

Part I of Idolatry

In the twilight of the Roman Empire, a sculptor struggles to keep an 800-year dream alive while honoring the love of his life and raising his adopted son. Part I of the epic five-part Idolatry saga, the story of a wealthy young heir and a devout Christian girl who find themselves at the heart of a 2400-year struggle for the soul of Western Civilization.

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“Beautifully written, on the order of Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth, with the historical insight of James Michener, it brings to life a time of great thought, great art, and its clash with religious fanaticism. Cordair writes with a poet’s sense of scene and nuance and gives us a great deal of insight into the mind of a sculptor; I found this an exciting and easy read.” ~ Alan Nitikman

Enjoy Genesis in paperback, Kindle, or Audiobook today. ~

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Quent Cordair Fine Art, located in beautiful Napa, California, was established by artist Quent Cordair in 1996. As a premier provider of contemporary Romantic Realism in painting, sculpture, and drawing, QCFA has grown to serve an international clientele of private and corporate collectors. Explore our select offerings today at cordair.com. ~


Save the Tigers (free fiction)

FeaturedSave the Tigers (free fiction)

Judging from my social-media feeds, some of my friends are either reaching the bottom of their entertainment barrel or have already poked right through the bottom and started digging. (I wouldn’t name any of the TV shows being mentioned, but let’s just say that even the tigers are reportedly embarrassed to be in one of them.)

Let me help. I’m going to start making some of my 5-star fiction free to download, for a limited time, to help get us through these surreal days with minds and souls intact. I’ve made “Mujahid” a complimentary download through midnight Pacific tomorrow, April 5, 2020. You can read it on any smartphone, iPad, laptop, or desktop using Amazon’s Kindle app.

A wonderful new review of “Mujahid”:

5.0 out of 5 stars. “Efficacy, brilliantly dramatized. I read this screenplay during a layover in the city it is set in, Chicago. Somehow that brings the story closer. It’s a tight, powerful, well done screenplay that dramatizes the fact that your choices and actions do indeed make a difference. As I finished reading, getting to cruising altitude out of Chicago in that collection of a million parts each individually decided upon and assembled into a jetliner taking me affordably across the entire continent in less than a day, I got to observe a toddler stand up on his mom’s lap in the row ahead of mine. He was reaching up and learning that the buttons and vents above him had predictable, repeatable reactions to his manipulations, and his joy at the discovery was brilliant to behold. This resonated so powerfully with what Quent dramatized in his screenplay. The scope of my abstract understanding of human efficacy was expanded, and my perception and appreciation for the joy of it in the concrete was also expanded. Thanks for that, Quent! And hey, without all that “waxing philosophical,” it’s a rocking good tale, too!” ~ Erik Wingren.

Thanks, Erik!

To enjoy “Mujahid” today, click here.

 

The Gravity Field

FeaturedThe Gravity Field

She lay naked, face up, head to the north, feet to the south, arms outstretched, hands east and west, eyes full of stars. Beneath her back the lumped clods of dirt and broken carcasses of last season’s grain, moist from the night’s dew, served well enough for pillow and mattress, meshed with her hair, pressed against her bare skin. The cloudless sky offered no protection. She needed none. She took in the universe until she found her place again in the solar system, in the galaxy, feeling the earth and all its round wholeness—the mountains, the oceans, the molten core—not beneath her but behind, between her body and the sun. She had worked to shift her perception until she experienced the earth’s sphere as it was, tilted, turning on its axis, her body held against its side by gravity alone, its surface curving down and away below her, leaving nothing beneath her feet but the great void. But she wouldn’t fall. She was as attracted to the earth as it was to her, and she was dazzled by the distances the stars had come that night, each and every one, to kiss her body with light.

She lay there until the earth began to chill. When she rose, she brushed the straw and dirt out of her hair, off her body. She dressed and walked back to the limousine, shoes in hand. Her driver would follow the car’s tracks back out to the road. She might not return for another year, or for three, but she would return, as she always did. Why else, but for this, would she have bought the field?

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Enjoy more Quent Cordair flash fiction, short stories, poems, and short plays for stage & screen, in paperback and ebook editions. ~

He Completes Me

FeaturedHe Completes Me

I’m very pleased to present the world premiere of “He Completes Me,” for voice and harp, my poem as set to music by composer and creator of new musicals, the excellent Mr. Eric Rockwell. The poem is from the MY KINGDOM collection of poems, short stories, & short plays for stage & screen, now available in paperback and ebook editions at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07SVGNQG6

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And Again the Angels

And again they called to heaven
When around them rose a hell;
Again the angels came from earth
In answer to the bell.
While flesh and blood fought smoke and flame
And kept the black line manned,
The thanks went to the god by whose
Own breath the fires were fanned.

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“And Again the Angels” ~ Quent Cordair, My Kingdom, 2019

“Firefighter Rick Blakemore protects a structure along Highway 128, south of Pine Flat Road, northeast of Healdsburg, on Sunday, October 27, 2019.” (Christopher Chung/ The Press Democrat) 

Castle Walls

FeaturedCastle Walls

 

Castle Walls

Peace, peace, but not a moment to be found,

No closet or armoire is free from the sound,

For now your enemies live here in your head—

Sitting at your table—

Waiting in your bed—

And who is to blame for their being inside?

What use, castle walls,

When the gate’s open wide?

~ Quent Cordair

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“Castle Walls” is from the My Kingdom collection of poems, short stories, & short plays for stage & screen, now available in paperback and Kindle editions.