Drivenik Castle, as seen from the vantage point of Ebby the Magnificent and Skrufty Fluffbottom.
Artist? Vendor? Author? Tired.
As I mentioned in my last newsletter, I spent the month of August creating new paintings and participating in four art and music events. All together, I spent eight days in a tent in the company of amazing and talented artists. The experience was truly amazing, allowing me to meet incredible people and witness firsthand the festival-goers' perspective. Boy, oh boy, did it take a lot of energy. Now I am back in the Land of Stones, where everything flows at a different speed. Or does it?
As Time Goes By.
When not stopping to gawk at medieval fortresses on our way home from the grocery store, sometimes we leave the country to find interesting places to visit, as explained below.
An Underground Adventure worthy of Ebby the Magnificent.
The part of Croatia where we live is located in the Dinaric Alps, which runs from the northwestern part of Italy, through Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Albania in the southeast. This area is largely made of limestone, which they call "Karst." Karst is a dynamic geologic landscape where the rock is soluble by water and the water creates caves full of stalactites and stalagmites, sinkholes, sinking streams, and collapsed caves, among other fascinating features. The karst region can be found in an uninterrupted stretch 25 to 50 miles wide along the entire Adriatic coast and covers nearly 50% of Croatia's land territory.
There are a LOT of caves in this area, and so it was fitting to have some cave scenes in Ebby the Magnificent. I included an underground adventure in my book where Ebby and Skrufty Fluffbottom explore a series of caves to find a lost friend. The cave in my book was carved and sculpted by a raging river, a waterfall, and water seeping into the cavern drop by tiny drop. I wanted a cave that was too small for a dragon the size of Sofia to enter, so Ebby would have to face the adventure without the comfort of a dragon next to her. And yet, once inside the cave, I wanted there to be a place so vast that Sofia could have easily flown inside. As a result, Ebby finds small, narrow caves and an enormous cavern with a hundreds-foot tall waterfall and a raging river.
What I did not realize when I was writing my book from the confines of my studio in Vancouver is that such a place exists in real life! The place is called Å kocjanske Jame (or the Å kocjan Caves in English) and is a mere 60 miles (94 kms) from our house in Slovenia. As with the Badanj, we have probably passed the sign for Å kocjanske Jame on our way to Slovenia or Italy about 100 times over the last 14 years without giving it any thought. We didn't visit this incredible UNESCO site until Darko and Manuela, our lovely family in Croatia, treated us to a wonderful surprise for my birthday.
We visited Postojna Cave last year, and it was superb, and beyond my wildest imagination. It is where the olm was first discovered. If you don't know what an olm is, you can look up my earlier newsletter called "Olm, Sweet Olm" on the Blog page of my website by clicking on this link or by clicking on this link https://www.jwjulian.com/post/olm-sweet-olm. For no reason other than my lack of knowledge, I thought Postojna Cave was the only significant cave in the region. I was so wrong!
A short description of the Å kocjan Caves cannot do it justice, so if you click on any of the pictures, they will take you to the National Park's official website where you can find additional information, including a virtual tour of the cave. But I will do my best right now with some of the more mindboggling things I learned about it.
Å kocjan Caves is immense. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Natural Monument, and it has one of the largest underground canyons in the world that is 479 feet high (145 meters). The cave was formed by the flow of the Reka river. "Reka" means "river" so it is the River river. :-) It wasn't discovered in until the 19th Century when some extraordinarily courageous men explored it with torches and carbide lamps, and traveled into the cave by going down the river in wooden boats. Ancient civilizations who discovered the caves appear to have believed it was the entrance to Hades or the Underworld and left ancient artifacts in the area.
The bridge shown in the third photo is 154 feet (47 meters) above the Reka river. In September 1965 the river flooded the cave with 354 feet (108 meters) of water. That enormous cavern was filled, almost to the top, with water! I tried to imagine that much water being in a place so large, but I could not wrap my mind around it. The lighted path you can see in the first picture is the path they have created for tourists to walk on the one and a half mile (2.5 km) guided tour. If you look closely at the top quarter of the second and third pictures, you can see the wire ropes and rock path the earlier explorers carved into the side of the cliffs. Seriously insane folks!
Everywhere you look, there are awe-inspiring stalagmites and stalactites, some of which rank among the largest in the world. But that is not the end of the tour. After you leave the cave, you can walk another 1.5 miles along the path of the Reka and encounter these scenes. Ebby and Scrufty strongly recommend you read the book first, then explore this cave and imagine them trying to find Nikola. What an experience!
Ebby the Magnificent will have a national (Croatian) audience!
On October 9, 2024, at 9:00 a.m. (ZST), I will be interviewed live on HRT in Zagreb, Croatia by Ivana Vilović (pictured below) about Ebby the Magnificent and related topics on their morning program "Dobro Utro Hrvatska" (Good Morning Croatia). HRT is the Croatian public radio and television station and has a free app for you to watch the interview and see all of their programming. I will included a link to the video taped interview in my next newsletter, or you can download the app here and watch it live. Be sure to use the translate button if you don't speak Croatian.
I am so excited to tell the Croatian people why I love their country and why I set my book here.
Ebby the Magnificent and related artwork will be on display in Istria!
From October 18 to October 31, Ebby the Magnificent and a number of my original paintings and Giclée prints from the book will be on display at the  DLS Pazin Gallery in Pazin, Croatia. I hope to be there in person several times and will post when I will be there on Facebook and Instagram as soon as I know the schedule, or you can contact me at jessica@jwjulian.com for more information. I am absolutely honored to have been asked to do this event and I hope everyone who is in the area will stop by and say hi.
Archival Quality Prints of my Paintings are available!
I now have Giclée prints of my paintings for sale! Giclée is the term used for fine art prints using a specialized high resolution inkjet printer. These Fine Art Giclée masterpieces are printed on heavy weight museum grade, archival fine art watercolor paper and will last for generations if properly handled and displayed. This barred owl painting turned out so great you would be hard pressed to pick the print from the original! The print captures every detail, every brushstroke, and the color is exact. These Giclée prints will be available for purchase at my in-person events, or by contacting me directly. An 11" x 14" unframed print is only $125.00 in the United States. Prices may vary if purchased outside the United States. Larger sizes can be ordered as well. I currently have several of my most popular paintings available in an 11" x 14" print. They will be added to my website soon, but in the meantime, if you would like to order a Giclée print of any of one of these paintings, or any other painting I have done, please reach out to me at  jessica@jwjulian.com. I will number and sign each print.
Ebby is the perfect gift for every occasion.
Ebby the Magnificent is available in a First Edition heirloom quality hardcover edition or a deluxe softcover version. Both versions include a sewn and glued seam, heavy, high-quality paper, gorgeous, full-color images, and a map of the Land of Stones on the front and back covers so you always know where you are. Because it is a one hundred percent positive, bright, hopeful and cheery book, full of adventure, beautiful illustrations, and valuable life lessons for all ages, it is the perfect gift for weddings, baby showers, graduations from 1st grade to PhDs, birthdays, and any other reason you might have to give a beautiful and thoughtful gift. Available only at www.jwjulian.com and select independent bookstores now listed on the Stores page of my website. I am happy to custom autograph your book.
We LOVE our readers and LOVE getting reviews!!
Reviews are a great way for you to tell other people about the book and are extremely important for independent self-published authors. If you enjoyed Ebby, please consider sharing your thoughts with your friends, your book club, your colleagues, on Amazon, Goodreads, with me, or wherever you write reviews. As an independent, self-published author, word of mouth is my BEST advertisement. This is a review I received recently from Mak, aged 7.
Happy reading and hoppy adventures!
J. W. Julian
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