Spring Book Recommendations

It’s time for my quasi-seasonal  recommended books list. Luckily, I’ve had a spate of happy reading lately so there are some great books to mention.

1. Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill. I’m impressed beyond belief with this book and its deep, lengthy, complex look at one woman’s life. Aminata Diallo is only 11 years old when she’s snatched from her village in Africa and taken to Sierra Leone to undergo the Middle Passage to South Carolina. Moving from owner to owner and living through traumatic events, Aminata’s spirit and luminous grace carry her through. The author’s research was thorough to the point of Ph.D.hood, I’d think; the list of referenced nonfiction books in the Author’s Note was years’ worth of reading.

I enjoyed the fruits of that research: learning how indigo dye is made, what it was like to be a slave at the time of the American Revolution and all its rhetoric referring to Americans as “slaves” of Britain, learning about the different languages of Africa and having a Muslim woman as the protagonist, on and on. Every page is rich with information and a loving look at this intelligent woman (did I mention the author Lawrence Hill is male and writes this in the first person? What an accomplishment.)

With such a topic, you’d imagine the book might be too painful to read. It’s not. Hill has a deft touch so that while you agonize for the fates that befall Aminata, you continue hoping a good end will come. And you will cheer when one slender yet unforgettable piece of happiness comes (back) to her.

I honestly think this book should have received a Pulitzer or Nobel prize. Maybe both. I’ve never read such a thorough and heartfelt book about a slave. Hill truly did this fictional woman honor.

2. Splendors and Glooms by Laura Amy Schlitz. I LOVED this book. Pretty much perfect in every way, just like Mary Poppins. There are always books you read and enjoy, and then there are books that hit on topics that already fascinate you and seem tailor-made to you. For me, Splendors and Glooms was the latter kind of book. With Victorian orphans,  a mansion shrouded in snow, a locked tower, a character named Clara, dark magic, a smart and honest main character, inklings of romance and more….it was a sheer pleasure from page one to the end. I first learned of the book in the freebie magazine Book Page that my library carries; I dogeared the page it appeared on to remind myself, and then hunted down the book.  It’s considered a young adult book, but I relished it as an adult.

3. Mistress of the Revolution by Catherine Delors.

The tale of a country noblewoman’s life in the years leading up to the French Revolution, this book follows her path through an arranged marriage to a brute, her necessary turn to courtesanship to support herself, and her imprisonment during the bloodthirsty days of revolution. I won’t give any plot spoilers, so will silence myself there. One thing I appreciated about this book is that it didn’t, as many books depicting the Revolution do, gloss over the fate of the Princesse de Lamballe. The viciousness of the Revolution almost seems apocryphal; did people really dip their bread in the freeflowing blood from the guillotine and exultedly eat it? Was the Princess of Lamballe’s story exaggerated and blown up out of proportion? If not, Paris was a desperately violent place, and how could you continue to trust your neighbor even after events calmed? The term “The Terror” best illustrates the era. This novel is unflinching.

Friends’ Books: I’m lucky to be part of a writing community and to announce the release of books written by friends.

Quest of the Warrior Maiden by Linda C. McCabe: Based on the legends of Charlemagne and featuring a strong woman warrior protagonist. I met Linda years ago at the East of Eden writing conference; we were assigned to share a room at Asilomar, and a year later we voluntarily shared a room at the next gathering. We’ve kept in touch over the years and had a strange friendship involving the repeated loss of keys! Once her husband had to fly down in a Cessna to bring spare car keys to her. To his credit, he greeted her with a big kiss. Linda’s book is available through Destrier Books.

A Time to Cast Away Stones by Elise Miller: Elise’s novel is about the 1968 May Revolution in Paris, an event few talk about or know about. I heard snippets of it years ago in a writers group we both belonged to in San Francisco. Believe it or not, this group required writers to read their work aloud for critique; I’ll never forget how much my hands trembled in the beginning holding up my pages. Elise was confident and continued honing her novel, now available through Sand Hill Review Press.

Forged in Grace by Jordan Rosenfeld: Jordan’s novel is about a burn victim who learns she can heal people--but not herself--through supernatural powers. She also voyages to learn more about the events surrounding the fire, and the best friend who was there at the time. I met Jordan and was good friends with her during the time I lived in Gilroy and she was in nearby Morgan Hill. It was a bummer not to make her recent March 2 launch party, which I blogged about a few weeks ago. I read an early version of her novel, then called Little Alien, and thought it was great; I know the version she launched was much different and can’t wait to read it. Her novel is available through Indie-Visible Ink, a collective she formed with a wonderful roster of fellow women writers. (What a great name, a play on indivisible! Surprised it wasn’t already taken.)

Up in the Air  by Ann Marie Meyers. Anne Marie’s book is a children’s picture book. I know Ann Marie from the same group that Elise Miller belonged to as well. Such a fun community of writers! Ann Marie is from Trinidad and now lives in Toronto. What a climate change. Ann Marie invited me to guest blog at her site in a few days; I’ll provide a link soon. Her book is available from Jolly Fish Press. P.S. I was in error; her book doesn't launch until July. I'll show the jacket jpeg then.

Claws of the Cat  by Susan Spann: This is cheating, because Susan’s book isn’t out yet! But you can preorder it and then enjoy the best-ever summer beach read. Available through Minotaur, Susan’s novel is the first installment of a fantastic mystery series featuring a Watson and Holmesian combination: a samurai warrior (a shinobi, as I  learned, part of millions of fascinating facts Susan has hipped me to) and a Portuguese priest, set in medieval Japan. They’re great partners, because Hiro the shinobi is taciturn and very Japanese, hiding many secrets, while Father Mateo is a man of the cloth and concerned to do the right thing, even while violating cultural expectations. I’ve read two of her books in the series and am waiting expectantly for #3 (clearing throat)…they are wonderful books and I can’t wait for them to hit the world. Watch this space for lots of Hiro content as the launch date approaches. I met Susan at the Historical Novels Society conference in San Diego in 2011. We had a great time getting to know each other, and I was delighted to learn she lived near Folsom, a city my family was about to move to (and did). We’ve had many an impassioned breakfast talking about writing and publishing, many a hushed evening talking about the same, and a few great walks talking about…you got it…the same. Susan’s a dear friend and thanks to HNS for getting us together! (I’ll be blogging soon about the upcoming conference in St. Petersburg, Florida this June, which both of us will again be attending.)

Before I close, I want to say I saw an amazing documentary this afternoon, courtesy of my cousin who works at Intel, which sponsored the film: Girl Rising. It was emotional, stirring, and well worth its own blog post, which I’ll post in a few days once I get a chance to mull it over and think how to approach it. (This post on my book picks has been underway for weeks, a sad commentary on how slowly I create these posts.)

There is a connection between Girl Rising and this post: the idea that literacy, that reading, can change lives and improve lives. I’m so grateful that I live a life of words and joyous reading and happy writing. I wish this was a liberty people worldwide enjoyed.

More later!

. . . . .

Forged in Grace launch

Good friend Jordan Rosenfeld’s book Forged in Grace launches tomorrow at Booksmart in Morgan Hill. This novel is about Grace, irreparably scarred by a burn accident when a teen. Now an adult, she reconnects with the friend who was with her when it happened, and finally gets closure on their friendship and the circumstances of that afternoon. It’s psychologically complex: a great look at female friendships at the age when competition taints even the closest of relationship, and later at the age when one starts to assess one’s life and what’s been accomplished.

There are some amazing lyrical passages, and a nice reflective tone to the whole book. I had the fortune of reading this book in its early stages, and am so excited it’s out in the world now, much like tremulous Grace. The cover is a dream come true, eyecatching and aesthetically compelling! I was reflecting as I wrote this, that the cover must depict Grace…but then I wondered if maybe it was Marly, Grace’s friend. Or maybe we’re meant to wonder. Maybe Jordan can come do a guest post and talk about the book cover decisions.

Booksmart is a fantastic indie bookstore in charming Morgan Hill, just a short jump south of San Jose. Jordan used to work there so it’s the perfect place to launch her novel, embraced by the wonderful husband and wife owner team of Brad and Cinda Jones.

I got to know Jordan when I lived in Gilroy nearby. Many’s the long, complex talk we’ve had about the writing life and the craft of writing (she’s also the author of Make a Scene, a fantastic Writer’s Digest book on how to craft scenes. I always recommend it to my mediabistro students.) She’s been a fun and thoughtful friend, and I wish her all the best in her book’s success. If you live in the Bay Area, please attend her launch. If you don’t, please order her book to come to you.

3:00 Saturday, March 2

Booksmart

80 East Second St., Morgan Hill, CA

408-778-6467

. . . . .

Repost: abuse of child witches on the rise

I originally posted this May 18, 2009. After my last post about the woman burned to death in Papua New Guinea, a commenter asked if there was anything we could do. I remembered this post contained a link to an organization helping children accused of witchcraft, so wanted to bring it up to the landing page again.

From today's CNN wire, the article "Abuse of Child 'Witches' on the Rise, Aid Groups Say" addresses the horrible plight of children stigmatized by the name witch. It follows in particular the story of 14-year-old Christian Eshiett of Nigeria, whose "rambunctious" ways led him to be repeatedly beaten, and to run away from home as a 12 year old, spending the next two years on the streets.

The article states:

“Children accused of witchcraft are often incarcerated in churches for weeks on end and beaten, starved and tortured in order to extract a confession,” said Gary Foxcroft, program director of Stepping Stones Nigeria, a nonprofit that helps alleged witch children in the region.... The states of Akwa Ibom and Cross River have about 15,000 children branded as witches, and most of them end up abandoned and abused on the streets, he said.

Link here to Stepping Stones Nigeria, should you wish to donate.

Interestingly, Foxcroft feels the belief in witchcraft should be permitted to remain. I strongly disagree. As long as anyone believes another person wields supernatural powers, especially demonically-endowed powers, there is danger.

This is a very sticky issue for Africa and other parts of the world: Westerners don't wish to insist that such beliefs are superstititious or primitive. Medieval Europe found a way to extricate itself from such egregious beliefs (without the interference of colonializing forces). I honestly think the key is for economic conditions to improve. Crime rises when people are desperate--and accusing someone of witchcraft is a crime.

I don't support the belief in witchcraft. However, perhaps Foxcroft feels his best bet is to improve the system from within, allowing the belief to remain while removing children from its target:

“It is not the belief in witchcraft that we are concerned about,” Foxcroft said. “We acknowledge people’s right to hold this belief on the condition that this does not lead to child abuse.”

What do you think? I welcome comments--is the belief in witchcraft harmful in itself, or a benign belief system?

The image accompanied the article on CNN, with the caption "Children branded as witches protest on February 26, 2009, in the southern Nigerian city of Eket."




. . . . .

"Witch" burned alive in Papua New Guinea

How I hate, hate, hate to write this post. It's been a long time since a modern-day witchcraft execution showed up in the news...and this time it was more brutal than usual.

We think of witchcraft as a belief abandoned in the Dark Ages.

It wasn't.

The Associated Press reports today that a woman was attacked by a mob, tortured by being burned with a hot iron, doused in gasoline and set on fire on a pile of tires. Sound familiar? Yes, in two ways. One, the description of the torture sounds exactly like the torture applied centuries ago to medieval people accused of witchcraft. Two, a "witch" was burned atop of tires only about a year ago in Papua New Guinea. Here's the link to my blog post (and another) about that. It seems tire burning is their favored method there. Burning rubber to cover the stench of burning flesh? Perhaps.

Either way, it's horrible and kills me to read. Hundreds watched this woman's suffering and did nothing to stop it. They say it looked like fifty different people "had hands on her" during her time of torture. Imagine being the one small person in the middle of all that anger directed at you?

It is said she was accused of causing the death of a six-year-old child through sorcery. She herself was the mother of two, and it's said her husband was the main attacker against her.

I'm not a praying sort, but tonight my heart and my prayers go to her soul.



. . . .

Sutter's Mill

David Nicolai, former director of the Pardee Home Museum now living in China, was here visiting this last weekend and I took the opportunity to do some more history tourism with him, just like when he visited about nine months ago.

We now live in Gold Country, so it was a quick jaunt over to Sutter's Mill. Why is this place important? It's where gold was first discovered (well, by the people who cared) in California, setting off the Gold Rush and forever changing the landscape and way of life here. John Sutter had set up a mill simply to create timber...yet one day in the mill race (the water current running the water wheel) a big nugget sat shining and ready for the plucking. It was plucked and the world changed.

Here is David and my husband in front of a replica of the mill. The original was a bit further down the river and fell prey to time (it was understandably abandoned in favor of gold mining) and water deterioration. Here at the wonderful Sutter's Mill State Historic Park, there is a glassed enclosure of several beams from the original mill.

The next picture is my husband being a miner at the American River steps away. Glumly, he found no gold. We couldn't believe how blue and sparkling the water was. It is truly a gorgeous river, but we wouldn't want to stand in its icy waters all day to pan for gold, as the Gold Rushers did.


. . . .

Quotes

Often, a few perceptive quotes are all you need to get through your day. Here are a few that have recently arisen in my life.

Alan: My dreams are understaffed. I need five bunnies to drive the tractor, not four.

Student in my class: What would unite our world?
Another student: Brainwashing.

And in case you can’t read my teabag, it says “Advertising may be described as the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it.” –Unknown. 

Please note the Lake Merritt Breakfast Club mug, a gift for presenting to them long ago for the Oakland Hills book. The club is a hugely benevolent group in Oakland, responsible for establishing and maintaining Children's Fairyland and fundraising to reinstate the necklace of lights around Lake Merritt. Club members start each meeting with a rousing rendition of Oh What a Beautiful Morning from Oklahoma...and yes, they meet really early. For breakfast.

. . . . .

Witchcraft panel

What will you be doing on the afternoon of June 22? Will you be in the environs of St. Petersburgh, Florida?

If so, please consider signing up for the Historical Novels Society conference, where I'll be part of a witchcraft panel titled The Witchcraft Window: Scrying the Past. It takes place at 1:30 p.m. on June 22 . . . right after lunch. I don't think I'll be able to eat a thing.

My fellow panelists are Kathleen Kent, Mary Sharratt and Suzy Witten. I'll be discussing some of the choices I made in the writing of The Witch's Trinity, my novel set in medieval Germany about an old woman accused of witchcraft by her own daughter-in-law. And I can't wait to hear what the others have to say. From Salem, Massachusetts, to Pendle, England, and Tierkind, Germany: we all have different settings and approaches to our novels.



. . . . .

Sacramento train station

This weekend I picked up an old friend at the train station in Sacramento, David Nicolai. He now lives in China and was visiting for a few days before returning back.

I made a point of parking so that I could go inside the train station and wait for him...and I was rewarded by the sight of a vaulted ceiling and what was once a very grand station indeed. It needs some work--and that scaffolding looks like it's been there a while. But I could see past all that to something beautiful that just needs a little rehab work.

There was also a fantastic mural depicting the arrival of the first transcontinental train. I asked David if George Pardee (Oakland mayor and Calfornia governor) would have been in the picture, and he scoffed and said no, far too early. And maybe even too early for Enoch Pardee, George's father and also an Oakland mayor. More on my adventures with David soon.



. . . . .

Pardee porcelain on display

The Pardee Home in downtown Oakland---home to California governor George C. Pardee and his globetrotting, antiques-collecting wife--is hosting an afternoon tea with the chance to look over Mrs. Pardee's wonderful collection of porcelain. If tea isn't your thing, simply take a tour to see the exhibit.

The home itself is well worth exploring, with intact furnishings from the time of the Pardees (turn of the century collections that the Pardee daughters never changed. The last of the Pardee line died in the 1980s, and the home was then turned into a museum.) "You won't want to miss Miss Helen Pardee's collection of exquisite demitasse cups, teacups and tea pots." www.pardeehome.org.




. . . .

Package for Indiana Jones

I'm coming to this late and some of you may have already seen this...

Someone sent a package to the University of Chicago addressed to Henry Walton Jones, Jr. The label is typed and of a vintage style (rectangular, with trimmed edges, limned in black), and the stamps and postmarks are from Egypt. The handwritten zip code doesn't appear to be vintage handwriting (and zip codes wouldn't have existed at the time this package would have been sent to Indy--1917 or so)

Henry Walton Jones, Jr. is of course Indiana Jones, and now the U of C is trying to figure out who sent the package, full of goodies like Abner Ravenwood's dusty diary with narratives like discovery of the Staff of Ra and what the Holy Grail might be made of, and photographs of Marion Ravenwood.

Here's the university's announcement of the wonderful, strange package. The school asks, "If you’re an applicant and sent this to us: Why? How? Did you make it? Why so awesome?"


. . . . 

Sacramento Train Museum...and its Oakland lamp

Long before Thomas the Tank Engine entered my life, I experienced an attraction to the railroad. In high school I had a gorgeous Art Deco poster of a Wagons Lit poster on my wall, and I've always thought longingly of what it would be like to travel in the golden days of rail.

The Sacramento Railroad Museum shows amazing examples of cars, engines, and even....the element I most remember from my first trip a decade ago....the china and flatware used on various trains. An entire dining car is set for a meal with each seat showcasing the place setting of a different line throughout the U.S.

We visited again in December, and the car that is "dressed" for night, with windows blackened and occasional lights flashing, that rocks as if you are underway, was a real thrill for the younger set that accompanied me. In fact, I think we went through that train at least ten times. There's even a fellow (mannequin) sleeping in the lower bunk bed in the last car.

And right outside it, I noted a gorgeous dome lamp hanging from the ceiling: enormous, municipal and simply ravishing. And it turns out it is from the 16th Street station in Oakland, one of three chandeliers that once hung there. The station was damaged in the 1989 earthquake and I believe was recently restored and used in several movies as it is a truly grand example of a light, airy aesthetic station.

Although it's hard to tell in the photo, the lamp's glass looks like mother of pearl, and indeed a plaque at the museum notes that it was created at the Kokomo Opalesescent Glass Company in Indiana in the early 1900s. I love finding Oakland reminders, and this was a lovely one.


. .. .

Louis XVI's blood in hollowed-out gourd

It's strange to imagine that a man who so mightily ruled France might be reduced to the blotches on a handkerchief, dipped in his blood post-guillotining, and then stowed in a gourd kept by an Italian family for over 200 years--until it underwent DNA testing recently to be confirmed as his blood.

Here's the link to the BBC news article.

Accounts of the French Revolution reveal an appallingly blood-thirsty populace. Wow, just typing that made me go to the kitchen to pour a glass of wine. I'm not kidding.

But it's white wine, not red.

The squash was inscribed, "On January 21, Maximilien Bourdaloue dipped his handkerchief in the blood of Louis XVI after his decapitation."

I can't help but imagine the crush of people at the scaffold. How and why did Bourdaloue get close enough to dip his handkerchief? And what do you do afterwards: fold it up and put it in your pocket, or carry it aloft all day long as you sing revolutionary songs, waving it like a flag as its drops fly? Shudder.

I also looked at a Telegraph article which added a little more information, such that the handkerchief itself has long since decomposed and it was the bloodstained interior of the squash that was tested. The bloodstains were a close enough match to the DNA of what is believed to be the mummified head of Louis IV, an ancestor of the Sixteenth's, to call it conclusive.

Fascinating.



. . . .

Having crushes on Victorians

Have you ever had a crush on someone of the past? A daguerreotype that you couldn’t stop staring at?

A number of years ago there was an exhibit at the Oakland Museum of California called Silver and Gold: Cased Images of the California Gold Rush.

As I wandered around the exhibit, I found myself suddenly arrested by a group shot of men. There were maybe five men in the image, and one of them: well, he stared right out at me and I felt a jolt of recognition.

I don’t think I believe in reincarnation and yet I’m obsessed by the idea. I love the concept that you might encounter the same souls again and again in different incarnations. And if there is any truth to the idea, then for sure I was looking at someone I once knew.

The image isn’t online, but I just now realized there was an exhibition book that went along with the exhibit. I know what to put on my birthday wish list! I’d love to see him again…again.

* * * * *

I was reminded of this exhibit recently for a few reasons. One is that I wrote a gothic novel in which someone looks at a black and white photograph with a loupe and has a moment somewhat reminiscent of my experience.

The other--and the reason that I actually googled around and located the website for the 1998 exhibit at the Oakland Museum--is that I found this guy pictured above. And he gave me a similar sort of jolt--not necessarily the “I know you” jolt, but the “I would like to know you” jolt.

This is Charles Keeler circa 1895, an early Berkeley poet and a founding member of the Berkeley Hillside Club. I’ll blog more on this historic club later.

This photograph seems so contemporary to me, almost like it was staged to look Victorian. Charles isn’t necessarily my type, but something about his probing gaze is saying, “Let me set down my cheroot so I may better address my attentions to you.” I picture him saying all sorts of banal things but with an undercurrent of “I’m a gonna take your clothes off, layer by lacy layer, stripping off that shirtwaist and throwing your whalebone corset across the room.”

Charles: I’ve checked with my husband and timetravel hooking up isn’t really cheating. I’ll meet you in 1896, okay? New Year’s Day? Right by the oak tree in the Oakland City Hall plaza?

. . . . .

Grief

Novelists earn their keep by imagining themselves into other people’s circumstances. We professionally emote. We empathize by trade.

Several weeks ago, I was in the middle of drafting a blog post, when I clicked over to another screen and learned the news about Newton, Connecticut.

I grieved for those parents and those children and those teachers with my entire body. Not just tears, not just sobs: entire back-breaking heaves that I only hoped could somehow ease something there, just a bit, somehow. If I took on one woman’s pain, just one tiny atom of its immense and universe-sized volume, I hope I helped her.

Their world was altered in mere minutes and they will spend lifetimes trying to return to the moments before that man entered the schoolyard with his assault guns. They will never succeed.

My love and my grief to you, town of unspeakable misery.



Poem for Newtown, Connecticut



A dimple
that is what they can remember
maybe it will be her cowlick
or her arm really at the wrong angle

to write correctly, coming down
to the paper, not up to it. That report card.
She was supposed to improve
her sloppy handwriting but they didn’t
get around to it yet.

She was wearing spirit wear.
Her room is still messy.
She had that light husky cough.
They talked of keeping her home.

They can’t really remember those
who passed, elderly parents and neighbors,
without photographs. And so it will be
with her.

It will someday be impossible
to conjure up exactly how she was.

They will study
the worksheets and the papers
with their dotted lines inside solid lines
like a road, really, an escape route
that showed her how to correctly form
her letters. They will scrutinize
the drawings: mermaids with wings,
fairies with crowns, beetles crawling
the margins. They are going to try
very, very hard to retain her.

They are going to fail.

She was brevity itself.

She is already unsnatchable
from the air, a vapour,
a hint of something dear,
something so wrenched
from their very blood,
their breath,
the threads of their meat,
the throb of their pulse,
the water that still

rocks inside them,
like they are oceans set
askew, tilted.

They will comb the air
for her, they will claw
the air, they will scry
the air for her,

they will look
and look and look
and look and look

and look
and



. . . . 

Nanowrimo 2012

 

Now that I’m (slowly) coming out of my sleep deficit for Nanowrimo, I wanted to post about my inaugural experience with it.

Nanowrimo is short for National Novel Writing Month, and it’s an initiative invented by Chris Baty, a wacky Berkeley guy. When I interviewed him for Oakland Magazine, he said, among many witty things, “In every group of friends, there’s someone who says, ‘Let’s dress up like donkeys and go down Market Street.’ I’m that guy.” After that, I knew I had to participate in Nanowrimo myself.

In essence, each November 1, thousands of people around the world drop everything and try to write a novel—well, at least 50,000 words—by Nov. 30.

There’s a supportive, cheerful website that fuels the whole endeavour, www.nanowrimo.org. You sign up for free, and once the month begins, you are able to update your word count (obsessively, in my case) in a display next to your name/photo. Your page includes a bar graph showing your progress and the expected progress, and your statistics show you the date you can expect to finish if you continue at the same rate. You can add buddies and track their progress too. You can attend local write-ins, where you meet up with other nanos and write together; I went to one with a group that wanted to talk rather than write, but I really liked the concept anyway. At the end of the month, you cut and paste your novel into a little text box, and within seconds your word count is verified and you’re announced a “winner.”

If you hit 50K words, that is.

And it’s….really….just not that….easy.

To hit 50K words in 30 days, you must write 1,667 words per day. That’s about six double-spaced pages. For me, six pages represents not just a good writing day, but a great writing day. And therefore, during November, you must have a great writing day every day. That’s hard.

Right away, I felt overwhelmed. By Day One, I was already behind. By Day Two, I was thousands of words behind. By Day Three, I thought, “I might not be able to do this.”

On either Day Four or Five, I invested in myself. I parked the children at a drop-in daycare center and hied myself to a café. There I worked for 1.5 hours, writing steadily, then walked down the length of the little strip mall to a taqueria, where I spent the next 1.5 hours, again writing steadily. In three hours, I wrote 5,000 words. That was enough to almost catch me up. Not quite, but enough to feel like I was in the running again.

My month continued like that. Days where my word count was abysmal, and then days when I would write hell for leather and almost catch up. “Almost” being the key word. I kept watching that darn diagonal line in my bar graph and trying to reach it.

I came up with a few strategies to up my word count:

1. If your sentences are excessively wordy, great! Don’t fix them. Plenty of time to do that on Draft 2. Just let them stand. Every word counts in Nanowrimo.

2. Find some kind of gimmick to up the word count. My novel is set in Ireland so I hit on the idea of including characters from some of the fantastic Irish ballads. Nancy Spain? Why yes, there she is on page 125, trying to hawk her ring. The Star of the County Down? That pretty lady appears too.

3. Try writing from another character’s point of view. All along, my novel was written first person. When I decided to write a few scenes from another character in third person, suddenly pages came pouring out of me, and I had a couple of 2K word days. I think those scenes enrich the book and they’ll stay.

By the last week of Nano, I was exuberant. I knew I could make it. I had to stay up to midnight to do it (my target bedtime is 9:30, wild life, right?) and I’m still reeling from that. But it was worth it. It was just one month out of the year, and I threw myself into a project with a zeal that has previously only come from doing writing retreats where I was by myself and someone else fed, sheltered and studio’d me.

Nanowrimo will certainly humble you if you can’t make space in your life to achieve that “ridiculous” (Chris Baty’s word) word count. A good friend’s father went into the hospital this November and she had to suspend her nano writing or I know she would have made it (yes, he’s fine!). It’s fun, zany, serious, debilitating, exhilarating, all-consuming. Thanks, Chris Baty, for a fantastic month.

What about you? Are you on board for next year?

. . . . . .

Literary Joke

The other day I was looking at a list of donors for a local school’s funding drive, and on one line by itself was this donor:

Magwitch.

I laughed with delight. I love finding literary jokes hidden in the real world. Magwitch of course is the character in Great Expectations who is a secret donor funding Pip’s education, although Pip believes it is Miss Havisham (sorry for the plot spoiler, but the book is 200 years old!)

I wish I’d thought of it.

Anyone have any literary jokes they’ve come across over the years?

Historical Novel Society conference

The Historical Novel Society conference takes place June 21-23 at St. Petersburgh, Florida. I'm excited to report I'll be participating in a panel titled "The Witchcraft Window: Scrying the Past." This panel will talk about witchcraft in fiction, and features Kathleen Kent (The Heretic's Daughter), Mary Sharratt (Daughters of the Witching Hill), Suzy Witten (The Afflicted Girls) and me (The Witch's Trinity).

Each of us has a slightly different take on witchcraft and already via emails we've had some thought-provoking conversations, so I think this will be an interesting panel. Some of us believe in witchcraft; some of us don't. Some of us see it as a feminist issue; some of us don't. Some of us descend from women accused of witchcraft; some of us don't. Come to find out which is witch....er, which!

Kathleen and Suzy's books look at the Salem hysteria, Mary's book is about the Pendle Witch trials in England in 1612, and my book is a fictional account of a woman accused in Germany in the early 1500s.

The link to the conference is here. It's for both readers and writers--and agents and editors will be there too. I attended in 2011 and met fantastic people, one of which is now a very close friend. It's a fun time to get together with people who love history and love reading: a powerful combination.


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Artwork based on Timberline photo

It' s been amazing how many little bits and drabs of information file in sporadically on the woman known as "Timberline," the Dodge City prostitute whose image adorns the book jacket of my novel Woman of Ill Fame.

When I asked Heyday Books to use her photograph for the book jacket, all I knew about her was what I just typed in the previous paragraph.

Over time, readers have contacted me with different little tidbits to add and/or directed me to other references that source her. That was how I learned her real name was Rose Vastine, and that she had tried to kill herself: both facts that I found shocking. She does not look like a Rose to me! And I was very upset to learn that such a strong-looking woman had succumbed to such despair. I learned that Timberline was her nickname because she was over six feet tall.

Recently someone named David Huerbin contacted me to let me know her full name was Rosanna (again: surprise!) and that her nickname arose because she would ferry whiskey and girls to men living in the mountains above the timberline. That seems more plausible to me. She somehow just doesn't look six foot in her image, and given that people were even less tall in the 1800s than today, I just found the other explanation hard to swallow.

Just like me, this person was intrigued by her image and in fact has created a piece of art based on her. With his permission, I am attaching it here. The letter next to her image is a "suicide letter" he created for her. This piece was showcased in The Basement Gallery in Flagstaff, Arizona in 2002. More later.


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The A/C Ratio and being thin as a playing card

I think I first heard this phrase from a buddy in my old writers group, author Kemble Scott.

The A/C Ratio is terribly important for writers. It is a part of everything they do. It's integral to productive work days.

A = Ass. And C=Chair.

It's monumental. It's cataclysmic. One has to actually SIT DOWN to write.

Sure, you can dictate while you breeze through your workout. You can certainly come up with devastatingly clever dialogue while standing talking to someone who is boring you. But at the end of the day, at some point: yes, you must sit.

I love this bit from Stephen Koch's The Modern Library's Writer's Workshop.

And you must sit down and write. It doesn't even really matter if you feel like writing. As Tom Wolfe says, "Sometimes, if things are going badly, I will force myself to write a page in half an hour. I find that can be done. I find that what I write when I force myself is generally just as good as what I write when I'm feeling inspired."....Joyce Carole Oates agrees: "One must be pitiless about this matter of 'mood.' In a sense, the writing will create the mood....I have forced myself to begin writing when I've been utterly exhausted, when I've felt my soul as thin as a playing card, when nothing has seemed worth enduring for another five minutes...and somehow the activity of writing changes everything."

Let's see if we can all improve our A/C Ratios in the upcoming weeks. I know I'm working on it.



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Three week class...and fun link

Oftentimes, we want to take a class but just can't commit to the weeks of work involved. So....how about a three-week class?

There are still a few spots in two of my online (wear PJs!) mediabistro classes: "How to Research and Write Historical Fiction" and "Nailing the First Pages of your Novel" July 16-Aug. 1. It is a mini-class as part of the online Literary Festival. Susan Orlean is our keynote speaker! We'll have two hour-long live chats on July 16 and 23 (historical class) and July 24 and 31 (first pages class). Info is here: http://www.mediabistro.com/literaryfestival/?c=bclftw

 And just so this post isn't completely self-serving, here's a link I recently discovered that I just LOVE. Make sure not to visit until you've got a good mug of coffee with you because you will probably be glued to your seat for hours cruising through the archives. It's a wonderful look at the past (my favorite place!), and with a tagline I find irresistible: "the past is a foreign country. This is your passport." I give you: Retronaut. 

Governor's mansion in Sacramento

David Nicolai, former director of the Pardee Home Museum in Oakland, California, now living as an ex-pat teaching English in China, recently came to visit. We took full opportunity of historical sites in the area and "geeked out historically." We visited three sites in two days: the first was the governor's mansion in Sacramento, now a museum and no longer a residence.

Governor George Pardee (1903-07) was the first to use this as a gubernatorial residence; it was initially built for another family. Of course, we were interested in this house given our interest in George! He brought his wife and four girls in from Oakland and installed them in the three-story mansion.

Over the years, time has taken a toll on the building despite its still-stellar exterior. You can only visit the first two floors, although the third is due to open soon from water-damage reconstruction. We toured the building with the belief it was to close on July 1; our tour guide reassured us that the museum had been given a temporary stay of execution, operating with reduced hours. Yay!

The coach house, too, is fantastic viewed from the outside. Note the horse head over the entrance, still original. Inside is a nice gift shop. This coach house is larger than many homes. Must've been nice for the horses.



. . . . .

ONLINE summer literary festival

I love literary festivals...but it never occurred to me one could happen online. Luckily, the idea did strike someone at Mediabistro, and I'm excited to be teaching several classes for this cool concept.

I'm teaching "Nailing the First Pages of Your Novel" and "How to Research and Write Historical Fiction"--and there's a host of other classes. The festival takes place July 16 through August 1. Forget reading summer beach reads: WRITE one!

 Learn more here.

Sneak peek at Pixar campus

All my life, I've loved being around creative people. Last week, thanks to a freelance assignment, I gained access to the closed campus of Pixar Studios in Emeryville, California.

This was incredibly exciting to me. I love the playfulness and true drama of Pixar films, so yes, it was worth it to me to travel four hours round trip (and squeeze in a visit with a few old wonderful friends too) to be on campus for a few hours and watch a thirty-minute teaser clip of the new movie Brave.

Driving through the monumental front gates (and seeing each car ahead of me really get grilled; there is no such thing as being waved through here), I felt the thrill of being in a place where everybody is thinking story.

I parked (even that was exciting) and waited in line to enter the main building. In this photo, you can see that it contains an atrium with lots of light. That room was filled with hanging banners for Brave (set in old-world Scotland) and almost has a Hogwarts kind of feel. Backing up a bit, in the photo you can see the tiered seating of an outdoor amphitheater. For this visit it held a Stonehenge-like circle of stones, and across the meadow, a bunch of archery targets. Having not yet seen the film, I thought these were, respectively, permanent art and a recreation opportunity for staffers.

Waiting in line to enter the main building, the woman ahead of me chanted to her friends, "We're at Pixar! We're at Pixar!" I felt the same way but curbed myself, since I was alone and you never look healthy when chanting to yourself. Immediately inside, you're greeted by giant replicas of Scully, Woody, Buzz and other buddies from the oeuvre. There's also a glass case of trophies including six Oscars and a million other glinty pieces.

Security to enter the theater itself was much stricter than the airport. All cell phones had to be turned in to a sort of coat check for electronics, and when they look through your purse, it's not a cursory glance. They are moving things around and really looking. I had not thought of my Garmin nuvi ("Jack") as a person of interest, but I had to go back and add him to coat check too!

The director and producer made wonderful introductory remarks, the movie clip was delicious, and we were all escorted to another building for a lavish refreshments spread. This was held in an open-air patio reminiscent of the Standard Hotel's rooftop in L.A. A great view of the campus could be had from here: I saw one guy swimming lonely laps in the pool, and there is a volleyball court, basketball court, gym, and cafeteria: basically, Pixar is a village and no one need go home until their creativity lapses.

Thanks, Pixar, for the opportunity to visit this incredible facility. (Now, would you like to hire me?)

National Keep Your Chin Up Day for Writers

I originally wrote this post as an email to a Facebook acquaintance, who was clearly getting depressed about his inability to find a traditional publisher for his novel, but as it lengthened I thought it'd be worth posting here. I remember those dark days myself very clearly, and my heart goes out to anyone in this situation--because getting a novel published isn’t just something that would be cool for us; it’s something that validates how we see ourselves.

I remember that if I met someone new and identified myself as a writer, they’d invariably ask, “So have you published anything?” and then you have to embark on the Road to Apologia, why this is, and how hard you’ve tried, and you came close with that one agent, and you attended that conference and had a nice talk with that publisher, and how you keep trying and you…

Yes, it sucks.

So I’m appointing today National Keep Your Chin Up Day for Writers. I have a few thoughts to share that hopefully will serve as a bit of a pep talk.

1. Nearly every published writer I know (myself included) had about six novels under the bed when they finally got that offer. Count up your own manuscripts: two? Three? You may need to keep churning them out, because with each novel your craft improves. Writing is mysterious, and I do believe in innate talent, but as with everything single thing in this life, we get better with practice. So keep practicing.

It occurs to me that this bit of cheer may backfire, that a writer may say, “I can’t keep doing this to myself! I just finished my third book, and that’s IT. You’re telling me I have to write three more?!” Someone who really cares about their career will nod philosophically and take the long view that it’s worth it to keep working, keep improving, and finally get a publication contract for a book that’s your best effort.

And after all, you can’t force a book to sell. You can revise based on editorial feedback, you can try again; you can try multiple times! But at some point, you have to cut your losses and start the next project. Soon, the joy of creating a new world within your novel will ease your feelings of feeling frantic about the previous book. And with what you learned from the new novel, you may wish to launch another revision on the old. But at least you’ll have another fresher, better book to try to publish.

2. Joining a writers group really helps with the emotions of being unpublished. Kvetching together, sharing the anticipations as queries go out, consoling each other when rejections happen, cheering each other on to try again: that’s something that non-writers can’t really offer. They don’t “get” what’s so important about being published.

I heartily recommend finding a real-person writers group, but online works too. For those in the San Francisco Bay Area, I have just the group for you. It’s led by Tamim Ansary, it meets for free every Tuesday night, and there’s incredible camaraderie and support. Tamim’s an incredible mentor and generous critiquer (generous in terms of the thoughtfulness involved in his responses, not that he necessarily praises) and your writing will improve if you listen to him.

The other thing about joining a writers group is that suddenly the idea of being a writer becomes more real. It’s one thing to type away in your home, but when you’re sharing your work with other writers, equally serious about their craft as you, your idea of yourself as an author gains more weight, validity. It will seem more possible that you can do this successfully.

3. Keep reading books you love. It’s not escapism, it’s not a reason not to write. It’s research--because every single sentence you imbibe resides in you. The more you read, the more those different ways of constructing a sentence moil around in your head. You give your brain more options. You are tutoring yourself subconsciously.

4. “It only takes one person to say yes.” I’m sure you’ve heard that dozens of times, but it’s so true in the publishing industry. It doesn’t matter that 50 agents sent you form rejections, if one says, “I love it!” Your onus is to find the person most likely to say yes. Like I said in #3, keep reading…and when you find a book that’s similar to yours in tone or aesthetic, look at the Acknowledgments section to see if the author thanked their agent. That’s a good person to target.

Another good tactic is to subscribe to Publishers Marketplace (you can do it for $20 for one month, jam through the archives, and cancel, if money is an issue): you can see what’s selling right now to editors, and which agents are doing that selling. See an agent’s name several times, linked with books that are similar to yours? That’s another good person to target.

You can also look through those thick tomes of agent directories (or better yet, www.agentquery.com), but that doesn’t give you a feel for what the agent likes. Just knowing they represent historical fiction, for instance, doesn’t necessarily mean that they like books set in Colonial America. Look at the agent’s website and rifle through their client list. Can you get a sense of the agent’s personality through the books he/she has chosen to represent?

Keep your chin up. There’s a part of this process you can control, and you should: the rest of it is out of your hands. The best thing you can do is move to the next project, and let the current novel marinate. Mark your calendar for six months from now, and re-read it.

Is that chin in the air yet? Higher! Like Cora in Downton Abbey, let me see that plastic surgery scar! I offer you an e-hug and a rueful e-smile, because I’ve been there. Believe me, I’ve really, really been there… and I hope the Gods of Publishing will soon smile on you and your novel.

. . . . .

Getting down at Downton

This is a post on Downton Abbey, because I’m in love with the screenwriting…and frankly I can’t stop thinking about the show.

Last year, someone told me I would love Downton Abbey, and that she’d watched each episode of Season 1 four times. Four times! I thought that was quite a ringing endorsement, but I still dragged my feet because I don’t watch much TV.

Then another friend recommended it again this year. I was inspired one evening to look for it on Netflix, but spelling it Dounton or whatever I was doing (Dontown?) yielded no results so I gave up.

A while passed before I tried again…and honestly, I’m so happy. Being a “late adopter” meant that I could watch all of Season 1, and then dive instantly in Season 2. I’m going to start watching Season 1 again--I don’t know if I’ll manage four viewings like my friend, but most definitely I want to go back “knowing what I know” and watch how things unfold.

Julian Fellowes is an incredible storyteller. I loved Gosford Park (and was influenced by it in my current novel-in-progress), and Downton Abbey is more of the same delectable upstairs/downstairs drama. So many of the things I find fascinating about the past are included in the show: the sinking of the Titanic, the 1918 flu.

And more recently I learned that the Crawley family is in part based on the Carnarvon family. SWOON. EXCITEMENT. The very name Carnarvon elicits a Pavlovian response in me: that sense of awe as I imagine that solitary candleflame flickering for the first time in centuries on pharaonic gold.

Lord Carnarvon was financier to Howard Carter, discoverer of King Tutankhamen’s tomb in 1922. I’ve been obsessed with this discovery since I was a child. I remember on my wall I had taped up a kids funny pages article about it. My very first signed book was David Macauley’s Pyramid, and he signed it to me, “Greetings from the tomb.” I love ancient Egypt.

Howard Carter’s story is so compelling. He was told the Valley of the Kings was “exhausted,” and everyone considered him a fool for continuing to dig. He kept spending Lord Canarvon’s money, and this was to be his very last season as Carnarvon was withdrawing support. And then a staircase appeared in sand…and they dug…and they dug…and Howard Carter looked through a chink in the wall to the Treasury.

He was asked if he could see anything, and famously answered, “Yes, wonderful things.”

Ah, so pithy! How I love you, Howard Carter.

So, now knowing that Downton Abbey may show us a beautifully-filmed version of this moment…oh it’s making my heart race. There’s so much good stuff here: commoner Howard Carter’s gossiped-of romance with Carnarvon’s daughter Evelyn (a close match with the name Edith?) which had to be quashed, Carter’s illicit smuggling out of the country many antiquities, and… well, no plot spoilers but two words: mummy’s curse. I do hope we get to see this!

But even if we don’t, I know whatever Fellowes cooks up for us will be devoured with great gusto. (And don’t even get me started with the news that his next series will be about the Titanic. I was such a Titanicophile--that doesn’t look right--that watching James Cameron’s movie, I instantly noted that he had hired actors who looked like photographs of the actual crew members. The Titanic story is deep in my blood for some reason, and I was disappointed Downton Abbey only glossed over it. How extraordinary will it be when Fellowes actually focuses on it!)

I was marveling the other day that somehow with this gigantic cast of characters (looking at the most recent cast picture, I count 18, and that doesn’t include dear Bates or lost Lavinia) we understand each person’s story and care deeply about them. What a feat, to balance such a volume of stories.

My favorite character? Mrs. Patmore. Lesley Nicol is an incredible actress, with an expressive face. She so perfectly expresses the staunch demeanor of someone who knows her place, but can wiggle a little to assert herself. I will never forget her lost expression as she sat on the bed by herself, Anna having left her, to await her dreaded eye surgery.

There are a few things to quibble with. For instance, Matthew’s constant popping in from war (“The trenches? Oh, yes, I’ll go back in just a moment. But in the meantime, I’m terribly interested in my own love story, and I’ll surely avoid shellshock by holding onto this stuffed puppy”). For another, the lack of resonating emotion for very big events, like Lady Crawley’s miscarriage (of the very vaunted male heir!), or the in-house death of a diplomat. We go so quickly from thing to thing, and it’d be great to slow down just a little and digest these momentous plot twists.

But they are just quibbles. Downton Abbey is the best fun I’ve had with TV in quite a long time, and like I said at the top of this post, I’m thinking about it all the time. I can’t believe we have to wait (sob sob) until next January to see Season 3. I may just have to move to England to see it earlier.

. . . . . .

Storybook architecture

A reader emailed me recently. She had remembered my (long ago! dating to 2002) Montclarion column about Storybook architecture in Oakland. This style is near and dear to my heart. The article is not cached online, so I’m going to post it here on the blog, slightly rewritten from its original text.

Storybook is the style of architecture that makes you feel like you suddenly slipped into the Germanic forest of Hansel and Gretel, and are peeping at a quaint cottage in the clearing. The Montclair neighborhood boasts two wonderful public examples, pictured here.

At top is the firehouse on Moraga Road. Its roof is not supposed to be painted white to represent snow, but should rather shine with its original copper finish to represent flames –see them roaring up at either end of the building-- quite appropriate for a firehouse. Note the scalloped roofline, the heart above the entry, the tiny windows in the eaves: all illustrative of that olde worlde charm.

The other structure is the library on Mountain Boulevard. Its roofline was built to look like it was already sagging for centuries, although the library was quite new at the time of this photograph. You can see the clinker brickwork behind the bushes and its general homespun, European appeal.

I must credit the coffeetable book Storybook Style: American's Whimsical Homes of the '20s by local architect Arrol Gellner. It’s filled with gorgeous photos by Douglas Keister of many Bay Area buildings, including private residences in Oakland, Berkeley, Piedmont and Alameda. In an email interview, Gellner told me that he thinks "Storybook Style homes, more than any other, represent the embodiment of the builder's personality, creativity and sense of humor. They're also a snapshot of an optimistic era when anything seemed possible, which no doubt appeals to people in these jaded times."

So what defines Storybook? Gellner calls it a "rambunctious evocation of medieval Europe" and sets the three criteria: an overstated rendition of medieval forms, use of artificial measures to make the building look extremely old, and the third, amorphous quality: "whimsy."

Storybook homes, at their most extreme, have crooked chimneys, lopsided walls, roofs that undulate like the wind making waves on a pond, misaligned shingles, askew shutters, clinker brick: all things to suggest antiquity, as if the very house is settling due to its age. Some homes have drawbridges (like Humphrey Bogart's Hollywood home) or streams with bucolic bridges over them, reminiscent of a pastoral Europe.

Gellner presents an interesting reason for why Storybook architecture arose. Even dating to the 1700s, people were fascinated by the Middle Ages (my dictionary says the Middle Ages ended in 1500, so the fascination began 200 years later). For instance, Marie Antoinette's famous "farm" at Versailles was her interpretation of a medieval countryside hamlet. The 1869 castle Neuschwanstein (which Disney later based his Sleeping Beauty castle on) is in essence fake, because it purports to look far older than it is.

Gellner points out that because Victorian style was so fussy, with its overwrought gingerbread detailings and interior doilies and tassles, people longed for a return to simpler times, like the society of a medieval town where goods were made by hand rather than in a factory. This was the basis of the Arts and Crafts movement, which valued craftsmanship. By the 1920s, people were ready for Storybook architecture, which allowed them to pretend they had stepped back in time. However, it seems to me that storybook architecture is a little fussy on its own, with turrets and eaves and different roof levels. Gellner says Storybook architecture relies on Craftsman ideals (like using natural materials, buildings of a small scale and architecture that appears organic to its setting) that were "recast in a rather more theatrical style."

And why theatrical? A major factor contributing to the rise of Storybook was the indomitable presence of Hollywood. By the 1920s, talking movies had created the first "stars" – people whose homes needed to reflect their unique standing in life. Moreover, there was a ready workforce that was used to creating fantasy sets – or was inspired by them – builders whose dials were already set on creative. Hollywood is indeed, as Gellner says, the "epicenter of Storybook style," although I did see at least 10 Oakland buildings featured in the book, as well as a handful from other Bay Area cities.

Another reason for this style? Men returning from WWI with memories of appealing European villages.

Sometimes entire housing tracts were built in Storybook style. Three are local, and were all based on designs by Oakland-based architect W. W. Dixon. One is Stonehenge in Alameda, another is Normandy Gardens in Oakland, and the third is on Oakland's Ross Street. This street was chosen because its electrical and phone cables had already been undergrounded by the time of the construction, and the street had pleasant light standards, rolled curbs and concrete pavement rather than asphalt. Part of the Ross Street tract, built by R.C. Hillen, was removed during freeway construction in the 1960s.

A few other streets host Storybook enclaves. One is 75th Avenue near MacArthur Boulevard. This stretch is called Holy Row, Gellner says, because at one point many of the homes were lived in by various church leaders. These homes were built in the early 1930s. Another street is the charming, tiny Veteran Way in the Dimond District, with three full-fledged Storybook homes and several "almosts."

Storybook architecture was gone by the late 1930s when Art Deco took over—a style that was also revivalist, looking in part to Egyptian motifs after the 1922 discovery of King Tutankhamen's tomb. Unfortunately, there are few buildings left. Gellner told me "Sometimes we (he and photographer Keister) had to spend days just to find one good one. It was like finding a diamond buried in a sand dune." So Oakland should certainly appreciate its good fortune in having many structures!

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Timberline's True Name

--This is a reposting; I know there is renewed interest in Woman of Ill Fame and so I'm going to put this blog post up again.


This blog is currently about witchcraft persecutions, ancient and modern, but now and then I will dip into material regarding my first novel Woman of Ill Fame. The novel is about a Gold Rush prostitute in a dangerous, brand-new San Francisco.

A few days ago, someone was in my archives and saw my post about the real-life prostitute whose image is featured on the cover. All I knew was that her name was Timberline, she was a Dodge City prostitute, and her image is in the collections of the Kansas State Historical Society.

Well, the anonymous commenter wrote that her name was Rose Vastine.

That for one thing totally threw me. Although I fashioned my character based on this photograph and named her Nora, for some reason I had “felt” that this real woman’s name was Kate.

Secondly, the commenter wrote that she earned the name Timberline for being 6’2” in height. Another big surprise. In my mind, the nickname had dirty connotations!

Armed with her real name, I consulted Professor Google.

The first link I accessed made me gasp out loud in the café I was working in, and literally grab my forehead. According to Linda Wommack’s Ladies of the Tenderloin, “Timberline climbed up into the hills above Creede and shot herself not once, but six times.”

When you have spent so much time staring at someone’s photograph and constructing an entire novel around them, you develop a strange and intense connection to them. It was almost as upsetting as hearing this news about someone I knew…but not only was Timberline a stranger to me, but she died 150 years ago. Whatever sorrows she endured, they are dust now.

I dedicated the novel to two wonderful women the world lost at an early age, and on the second line dedicated it to “Timberline and the other girls of the line: I hope the world was kind to you.”

And here was evidence that the world had not been kind to her.

The link went on to say that Timberline did not die from that suicide attempt, but strangely enough, another link had her recovering from an “intended overdose.” Is it apocryphal that she tried to kill herself with such vastly different methods and survived both times? Whatever the truth is, she must have been an unhappy young woman.

Several sources have her living in Creede, Colorado, a silver mining camp 420 miles from the Dodge City that her photograph is labeled with. Sure enough, the website for Creede, Colorado mentions Timberline on its “About Creede” page. Bat Masterson too (whose biography the commenter mentions) lived in both cities, so maybe she hitched a ride with him.

If anyone has any more information on her, I’d most definitely love to know it.

. . . . .

Germanic wood sculpture

Sculptor Stefanie Rocknak makes the incredible life-sized pieces you see here, inspired by the medieval art of Germany.

I was so taken with these images (seen in my alumni magazine, Colby: we both attended the same college) that I contacted Rocknak to rave. There's so much emotion captured in these faces and in their body language. I feel like I could stare at them for hours to try to figure out what their individual stories are.

There's something about these figures that is timeless and we see they are the same as us today...but deep in the wood is the darkness of their shortened, brutal lives. They lived in a world where superstition reigned, where food was scarce, and where they couldn't even use logs to warm their huts (only nobles could burn logs; peasants were reduced to whatever branches they could scrounge on the ground).

These sculptures visually show what I tried to convey with words in The Witch's Trinity. In fact, had I known of Rocknak's work in 2006, I would have begged and pleaded with my editor to have one of her pieces on the cover --or maybe even this triptych, which to me looks like the priest, Gude and Irmeltrud.

Check out Rocknak's artist statement on her website. I love her eclectic, whimsical look back at what fueled her work (like her brother's wooden robot, or a face she carved with her dad as a child), rather than some high-flung attempt to interpret her philosophy for others.

This image of her is from the Colby magazine article by Pat Sims. I love how the statue in the background is arching around to look at the camera too.