Raff Ellis: My Story, My Roots, The Book. Born in USA 93 Years Ago; I Feel My Lebanese Blood (Part 1)
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Part 2:
   • Raff Ellis: My Story, My Roots, The B...  
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Raff Ellis, a former computer industry business executive, whose writing credits include many short stories, magazine articles, columns, essays and three books.
Ellis' first full length book, Kisses from a Distance, published in 2007 by Cune Press, Seattle, WA, was nominated for a National Book Award and won the prize for adult nonfiction given by the AANM of Dearborn, MI.
His second work, Dam Foolishness, also published by Cune Press in 2011, is a memoir about growing up in small town America. This work has often been greeted with accolades for Mr. Ellis' storytelling ability.
Ellis' most recent effort, The Bishop's Curse, (Prolix Press LLC, 2012), was the culmination of over twenty years of sporadically researching and collecting information about the 150 yearold story he first heard as a youth growing up in Carthage, New York. His research took him to libraries and historical centers across northern and central New York as he acquired histories of the period, biographies of church personages, archival letters of the principals involved, and material scanned from microfilms of old newspapers.
Raff Ellis is a graduate of LeMoyne College with a BS in Pure Science and also holds a MBA from the University of Central Florida. He spent his entire business career in the computer industry, rising from the ranks of computer programmer to CEO of an Information Technology R & D firm.
Mr. Ellis, along with his wife Loretta, their dog Abla, and two cats, Lenny and George (apologies to Of Mice and Men), reside in Central Florida.
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https://www.amazon.com/KissesDistanc...
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Kisses is an award winning literary memoir that follows the turn of the 20th Century American immigration experience to of two destitute Lebanese families. The tale begins in 1885 with the abduction of the author's grandmother from a remote Lebanese convent in the mountains of Lebanon, where she was taken into a marriage, for which she was illprepared and did not desire.
Filled with the drama of young men forced to leave home for a foreign land because of rampant poverty, and a series of natural disasters including a scourge of locusts, WWI, persecution, famine, and pestilence. Add in the uncertainty of going to a land where they knew not the language or customs, or whether they would ever see their families again.
Many readers, of various ethnicities, have said they couldn't put the book down, and were reminded of stories of their own ancestral experiences. Helen Thomas, of White House reportage fame, said, "It brought tears to my eyes...and is beautifully written."
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He has always been interested in, if not fascinated by, the history of his Lebanese ancestors and the environment from whence they came. Mr. Ellis is the son of Toufic Kmeid Ellis who emigrated from the little village of Bqaatouta, Lebanon in 1914. He has as his namesake one of his father's two brothers who perished in Lebanon during World War I. His mother Angele came to the States from the Hobeiche clan of Ghazir, Lebanon in 1926. Although he didn't know at the time that the information he was gathering would prove invaluable for researching his book, Mr. Ellis began recording both his father and mother's oral histories some twenty years before their deaths. He also taped the recollections of Harris Kmeid, his first cousin once removed, in Bqaatouta, Lebanon in 1998, two years before his death at age 97. His book was born of the discovery of correspondence his mother had saved over the years from family and friends in Lebanon. After reading the letters several times, the notion that they would form the basis for a narrative took wing. An additional eight years of research and writing finally culminated in Kisses from a Distance. Kisses from a Distance chronicles a Lebanese immigrant experience. It begins with the kidnapping of the author's grandmother from a remote convent in 1895, and explores the difficulties which culminate in her husband's tragic attempt to find success in America. In the meantime, the oppressive rule of the Ottoman Empire, the ravages of the First World War, and natural disasters take their toll on the vulnerable people of Lebanon. Employing traditional Lebanese proverbs and folk tales, Kisses from a Distance also weaves the author's extensive research and visits to Lebanon into the narrative. This journey, so worthwhile for him, will reward the reader as well.
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