Golden Box Book Publishing December Special Issue, 2016 | Page 10

Klarissa Kocsis has been a resident of Campbellford for 10 years and came here from Toronto to escape the city. Kocsis is an avid painter and has an extensive collection. Kocsis had no idea when she started to put together a photo book of her paintings for her daughter that the little project would develop into a book and would be number one on Amazon.com in the Art/Photography Department, the second day on the site.

Klarissa Kocsis’ daughter, who writes under the pen name of, Shebat Legion and was in a writing group with poet, Michael H. Hanson. Hanson saw Kocsis’ paintings on Facebook and began writing poetry inspired by the paintings. Kocsis and Hanson started to correspond and he suggested that they write a book together, his poetry and her paintings. Legion had bigger dreams and invited writers she knew to write about the 32 paintings that had been selected. From that the book Klarissa Dreams was born.

Kocsis said,” I was terrified! Who were these people, strangers, who wrote in many genres and how would they interpret my paintings.” Fraser took on the role of producer/project manager of the book, which allowed Kocsis peace of mind. “The book hasn’t gone viral but in my life it is has gone viral.” said Kocsis jokingly. “It sure has changed my life.” There are 40 contributors from all across the world, many are bestselling authors and poets.

Kocsis said, “I must admit that before this book I never read poetry ever! However, I have since learned to appreciate the poet’s ability to express his views in a succinct fashion.” Michael H. Hanson’s poem “Because a Dream is Just a Dream”, is quite fitting to this situation. The first two lines are

Every dream, so it would seem,

Gleams with hidden apparitions.

ANTHOLOGY

"I was stunned by beauty and emotions evoked by this collection of art, poetry, and prose assembled from an incredibly talented group of artists."

"Putting together art, poetry, and short writings is just genius. Getting so many artists to display their works in one book is magical."

Available at AMAZON