Ireland will always be in my heart

You never know how the experiences of youth will sculpt the future. I took my junior year abroad in Cork, Ireland, mainly because I was following a guy, but can it be a coincidence that two of my novels feature Irish protagonists? I love the brogue but more than just the accent, it's the imaginative nature of the language. I will never forget sitting in the tiny living room in the rental flat in Prosperity Square (close to the Murphy's Stout brewery, and those hops are forever living in my nasal memory), watching the peat fire burn, and my Irish roommate said, "I watch the flames and I fall to dreaming."

I fall to dreaming!!!

And no, she was not in my poetry program, and no, she wasn't trying to sound poetic. She was a grownup with a regular job. That is just how people sometimes speak in Ireland, reared on a literary island.

I'd like to tell you a bit about my two Irish characters, each of whom wound up on American shores. One fictional and one based on a real-life historical character, the maid to accused murderess Lizzie Borden.

Dodge City prostitute that I saw as "Nora." Her image appears
on the front cover of Woman of Ill Fame

First, Nora Simms. She's part of a Boston Irish immigrant family and departs for California as soon as she hears the reports of gold. She's an unapologetic prostitute who wants to capitalize on the chance to make money, fast. She arrives in San Francisco when it's rough, crude and open to any possibilities. Unfortunately, Nora's path entangles with that of a killer targeting the women of ill fame (a euphemism for prostitute in that era), and she has to use her quick wits to ensure she's not the next victim. The novel Woman of Ill Fame launched a decade ago from Heyday Books, a small press in Berkeley that is still going strong after 40 years in business. Their rights in the book elapsed, and now the book is only available as an ebook under my steam. I'm hoping to repackage this with a sequel in the next year and give Nora new life.

The real Bridget Sullivan on the right. At left is actor Kristen Stewart
portraying her in the upcoming movie Lizzie,
which is not based on my book.

Next, Bridget Sullivan. She was the real-life maid in a household where a husband and wife were brutally murdered by repeated blows to the head with a hatchet. The younger daughter of the family, Lizzie Borden, was accused of the murders. That day, she and Bridget were the only people in the house besides the victims. After a circus of a trial (every major newspaper sent a reporter to Massachusetts to cover it), Lizzie was acquitted. Bridget provided testimony against her employer, and I can only wonder how nervous Bridget was for her own safety once Lizzie was released from jail. Legend says she returned to Ireland to buy her mother a farm. Her traces fade as there were many, many women named Bridget Sullivan in this late-1800s era. The Murderer's Maid: a Lizzie Borden Novel was my first book written involving real historical people, which definitely provided a challenge in terms of getting it "right." The Lizzie Borden story also has a following of many passionate people and I hoped I got it correct for them. A few months ago, I learned that a woman who loved the Lizzie Borden narrative so much that she got married in the murder house gave my book a glowing review: I felt jubilant! This book launched in October 2017, so apparently the trend is that I publish an Irish novel every 10 years. I'd like to carve that down significantly for the next one!

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!
Go wear your bra, Erin!

P.S. It wasn't until I started uploading the book covers below that I realized my two Irish books were both blurbed by the magnificent and generous Diana Gabaldon. Her Scottish kindness has reached across the sea to my Irish women. :)

P.P.S. I hasten to say I hadn't forgotten she blurbed them. Far from it!!!!!! I just haven't ever done a post before that connected the two books' Irishness.

AMAZON
BARNES AND NOBLE

AUDIO BOOK

AMAZON
BARNES & NOBLE
POWELL’S

. . . . .

2017: my writing year in review

This year I had three pieces of writing-related news.

1. An audio book of Woman of Ill Fame was released in May from Tantor. Confession: I still haven’t listened to it! At some point I will do a giveaway for one of the downloads. Perhaps 2018 will slow down enough that I can listen to it myself. I’d love to hear the narrator blustering through some of Nora’s creative Irish swearing. And I liked very much the new cover they gave the book.

2. In February, the third book in my Y.A. trilogy The Arnaud Legacy was released by Kensington Books, titled Avenged. It’s written under my pen name Lynn Carthage. This was to protect teen readers from my other books (see unapologetic Gold Rush prostitute novel, above), but I decided it was okay to publicize from Erika to Lynn, just not the other direction. I love this spooky neo-Gothic series and heartily encourage it for grown-ups as well. The sequence is: Haunted, Betrayed, Avenged. I think it’s okay to jump into the series with either Haunted or Betrayed, but probably more challenging to start with Avenged.

3. The Murderer’s Maid: A Lizzie Borden Novel launched in October. The book has received some wonderful trade reviews and some good press.

NewYork Journal of Books, Kirkus, Foreword, Booklist, A&E, The Millions

And thanks to Diana Gabaldon and Kathleen Kent for the fantastic bookjacket blurbs.

I did a big round of events in the San Francisco Bay Area, my courage rising despite intimidation by natural disasters (sorry if that sounds overblown...I love that line from Pride and Prejudice). The Santa Rosa wildfires affected attendance at two events (at one in Sausalito, Peg Alford Purcell’s lovely Why There Are Words monthly reading series, air quality was so bad I couldn’t stand outside for more than a few minutes. Litquake’s Litcrawl in San Francisco was similarly affected by the smoke). I felt awful for people who had lost much more than attendance because of the fires. One dear friend even came to my event although she had evacuated to a hotel; she wanted some “normal” in her life (and thank goodness, her home survived, as did Peg Alford Purcell’s!)

Then, more significantly, the hurricane delayed unloading at port of the cargo ship that happened to have my books on board. Again, I realize this is a very negligible “loss,” but it did mean that books were not available for two weeks of front table display at Barnes & Noble as previously scheduled, and undoubtedly affected sales. My sister had preordered on Amazon, and since the book was so delayed, she was sent an email offering to cancel the order. I shudder to think of how many people may have done just that. Luckily, my publisher had rush-ordered a substantial number of early copies, so we had enough to sell at the launch events. We held or participated in events at a haunted museum in Oakland, an art gallery after hours in San Francisco, and of course multiple bookstores. I had a great time talking about the bewildering, complex case that is the Borden family murders. It’s always cool to see what questions people come up with.

The Murderer’s Maid was my first stab (oh please, no pun intended) at writing a “marquee novel”—one about someone who is already famous enough that there could be some built-in readership. I’m excited that a movie about Lizzie Borden is showing at Sundance in January 2018. I cannot wait to see it! Even just a trailer would probably keep me happy for a week.

***

In 2017, I presented at several conferences, the Gold Rush Writers Conference in downright adorable Mokelumne Hill, California, and Summerwords, a literary conference hosted by American River College in Sacramento.  I joined a new local group organized nationally by Jonathan Maberry called the Writers Coffeehouse and continued attending a small monthly meeting of local historical novelists. I did radio spots (I'll post clips in another blog post) for Beth Ruyak's Insight program on NPR's Capitol Public Radio in Sacramento, Rich Ehisen's podcast, Tim Weisberg's paranormal show Spooky South Coast, and guest host Joey Garcia on KFBK. Many writer friends had launches this year and have my congratulations and support, too many to name here. I feel invigorated by my community and by the privilege of being able to focus on what I love so sincerely: words.

 
Wishing you and yours the very best for 2018. Happy New Year, everyone!

….

A new voice for Nora

Seems like just a few months ago I signed a contract with Tantor Media for an audiobook to be made of Woman of Ill Fame...and it officially releases in three days! That company moves quickly. (It has to have been longer...these days are just flying by!)

I love the new cover they designed, and can't wait to hear the narration by Tiffany Morgan. It will be exciting to see how an actor interprets Nora. Back in 2008, an audiobook was made of The Witch's Trinity, but only in the U.K. I remember driving around in my car listening to it--such a strange thrill to hear one's words read back to one.

I really like this new cover: gritty, stark...and with a nicely unadorned Nora. That image is a photograph of a Dodge City prostitute nicknamed Timberline. If you're interested in her story, please see my previous posts here and here.

. . . . .

Five Interesting Facts about Lizzie Borden

Lizzie on the left, Chloe Sevigny on the right

1. She was very active in the church.

An avid volunteer at the First Congregational Church, Lizzie served on the Ladies' Fruit & Flower Mission (organized to take fruit and flowers to sick people in hospitals or at home) and the Women's Christian Temperance Union (anti-alcohol). She also taught Sunday School, including to young Chinese boys who were the sons of immigrants. 

Is it any wonder the jury had a hard time seeing this diligently benevolent woman as a murderer? It must've been a long con.

2. She had a taste of the good life.

Two years before the brutal murders of her father and stepmother, Lizzie took a "Grand Tour" of Europe with some distant cousins. She was gone for a full 19 weeks, from June 21 to November 1 of 1890. Probably a wonderful time in which the household in Fall River took a few, calming deep breaths, while she witnessed the wonders of the Continent and the British/Irish isles. 

Lizzie's scrapbook of this visit, replete with photographs pasted in and her careful writing beneath, still exists in the archives of the Fall River Historical Society. Of course, it must've been difficult to settle back into her narrow life when she returned: no more of the grandeur of museums and statuary.

April 1912 (22 years after Lizzie was there).

3. She was bossy.

Multiple accounts exist of her being proud, haughty, and willing to speak her mind. Once she returned from the Grand Tour, she had so many souvenirs and gew-gaws to display, that she and her older sister Emma swapped bedrooms. It's important to note that one larger bedroom funneled into a smaller one—almost as if the second bedroom were a closet to the first. Lizzie had traditionally slept in the smaller room, but somehow a change was effected after her return. Did Emma offer, or did Lizzie demand? 

Gimme your room! And this chair!

4. She loved animals.

The largest bequest in Lizzie's will was to the Fall River Animal Rescue League ($30,000 in 1927 dollars!). She was known to love and cherish the pets she had after the murders; there is no mention of pets beforehand. Was part of the "problem" that she wasn't allowed to keep a dog in the house? Lizzie ordered expensive, carved tombstones for her dogs. 

And of course: the pigeons. Lizzie kept pet pigeons in the family barn. Two months before the murders, her father killed them all because neighbor boys had been breaking into the barn to mess with them. Apparently, her father hadn't understood the sentimental value and care she lavished on them (or did he?) Was the pigeon slaughter just one more straw that was put upon the proverbial camel's back?

No...don't...it hurts... [from thriveumc.org]

5. It is possible she tried to poison the family.

Eli Bence, a druggist in Fall River, tried to testify that he had seen Lizzie try to purchase prussic acid (click link for more on this), but his information was suppressed during the trial. When was she trying to buy this poison, more commonly known as cyanide? Oh...just THE DAY BEFORE THE MURDERS. 

In writing The Murderer's Maid (my novel about Lizzie Borden from the maid's point of view), I had to decide how to tackle this sticky issue. Did she really try to purchase poison? Why did the judges (three of them!) decide the jury shouldn't hear Bence's testimony? And isn't it interesting that in the days before the murders, the entire household was vomiting, and Mrs. Borden even told the doctor she thought someone was trying to poison them? 

Typical drugstore of the era

I get tense just typing all this, want to go back in time and throttle the judges! Ha ha. This is when history is at its best, when our emotions get caught up in it. 

If you enjoyed this post, you may wish to read Five Interesting Facts About the Real Bridget Sullivan. You may also wish to read my novel based on the case:

Buy links for the Murderer's Maid are here:

AMAZON
BARNES & NOBLE
POWELL’S

. . . . .

My other historical novels:

A medieval German woman is accused of witchcraft by her own daughter-in-law.

"A well-constructed novel and a gripping, well-told story of faith and truth."

           —Khaled Hosseini, international bestselling author of The Kite Runner

“Beautifully written, nary a word out of place, and with a few moments that throw you beyond—the way good books do.”
           —San Francisco Chronicle
A San Francisco Chronicle Notable Book of 2007

Buy links for The Witch's Trinity:

AMAZON 

BARNES AND NOBLE

 

A Boston prostitute shows up in San Francisco at the very beginnings of the Gold Rush, and quickly learns she's in dangerous territory with a killer targeting her kind.

"LOVED Woman of Ill Fame! Nora Simms is hilarious, heartbreaking, tough, perceptive...
and one of the most engaging characters I've ever met between the pages of a book." 

                   —Diana Gabaldon, author of Outlander, now a Starz miniseries

"Mailman serves up vivid description, sparkling prose and a Gold Rush prostitute as scrappy as Scarlett O’Hara."

                    —Oakland Tribune

Buy link for Woman of Ill Fame ebook:

AMAZON

 . . . .

Timberline's true name

For those of you coming to this blog because of the Book Bub promotion, I wanted to repost something about the woman depicted on the cover of Woman of Ill Fame.

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 had 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.

. . . . .

Woman of Ill Fame ebook sale

The Woman of Ill Fame ebook is on a Book Bub promotion Dec. 9-14 for only $1.99. If anything says "the holidays" more than a Gold Rush prostitute learning a serial killer's after her, I'd like to hear what it is! Check Amazon or B&N Nook to get your copy.

A saucy reading at HNS conference

A year ago, I attended the Historical Novels Society conference (then held in St. Petersburg, Florida; the next stateside one will be Denver in 2015). It's an infamous custom that Diana Gabaldon hosts a Saturday Night Sex Scenes Reading where participants gamely step on stage and read a short sex scene from their fiction (no memoirs please!)

Diana selected a bunch of us randomly and emailed us to let us know we'd been picked. I never got a chance to say hello to her before the night of the proceedings. I sat at my table between Kathleen Kent and Alison McMahan (Xina Uhl was there too), nervous beyond measure. I wasn't going to permit myself a (badly-needed) drink until after I had gone up to the stage, and wouldn't you know it....I was picked second to last! I was a frayed nerve bundle sending random neurotransmitter blasts by the time my name was called.

So, picture the scene. We're in a hotel ballroom that holds 600 people. The acoustics are tough, and let's face it: a sex scene read into the vastness has special challenges as opposed to one read from a pillow. I knew that from the last Sex Scenes I'd watched in San Diego a few years earlier, so I'd deliberately chosen a funny scene. Many people can get away with breathy voices into the microphone (including La Dame Gabaldon herself) ...but I knew I couldn't. My best best would be to go with a scene where the sex didn't go right.

Although it was nerve-wracking for me to wait so long to be called, it was ultimately in my favor as many people had imbibed generously and were, let's say, receptive to my reading in a way they may not have been an hour or so earlier. My friend Alison offered to tape my reading on her phone and I shuddered as I declined. I would come to regret that, though, since the official conference video left an unused microphone in the middle of the shot... but at the time I didn't know the performance was being taped.

Diana introduced me and I climbed the steps to the stage without tripping (it's things like this I worry about) and began my little jokey introduction, channeling Justin Timberlake.When I sang the first line of "I'm bringing sexy back" there was one beat where no one laughed and I died a million deaths in that interstice. People were just not expecting something funny as previous readings that night had been intense, romantic, sexy, hot...everything but silly. And then, thank God, laughter came and I launched into the scene.

To be honest, I was surprised by how much people laughed (I've consulted with experts and we all conclude: alcohol), but it made me feel great.When I finished, one person sprang to his feet and gave me a standing ovation. It was C.W. Gortner, a writer I absolutely admire and look up to, and to get his endorsement meant everything. I'm thinking about engraving him clapping on my tombstone when that sad piece of rock is eventually required. Whatever ills may befall me in the coming years, you can't take that away from me.

I went back to my table where congratulations happened, so I didn't hear what Diana said in response. It was only after I got a copy of this tape that I realized she said, "Well, I hope that book's on Kindle so I can read it on my way home tomorrow."

Oddly enough, the book was not on Kindle. It had been published by a small press in Berkeley and the subsidiary rights still belonged to me, so I thought, wow, maybe I should release this as an ebook. And maybeeee that wonderful Diana Gabaldon would be willing to blurb it?

She was!

I sent her a copy, and she read it in the midst of all the hurricane of the Starz casting and filming. I can't to this day believe her generosity in taking the time to read my book and to give such an extravagantly kind blurb. I'm going to need a second gravestone to engrave her on, or maybe I should install some Scottish standing stones, some dolmens, maybe a variation on Stonehenge to thank her. (Yes, I'm morbid; this is the way I roll.)

Diana, if you read this long-ass post, thank you a million ways to Sunday for your hand extended to me. You are a rock-star author and you act like you're in the slushpile: humble, kind, giving, warm, real.

So, the last thing I have to address is, why did I not release the video until literally a year later? One might think I waited to time this with the Outlander Starz release, which would have been smart of me, but the reality is far sadder. The conference was in June 2013, and it took me a while to figure out there was a tape, order it, and then get working to have someone edit it down from literal hours to a brief clip (thank you, Jai Jai Noire!). I'm a natural procrastinator. And so by the time things were underway, I had learned about Jennifer Kranz's diagnosis with DIPG, a fatal brain tumor, in October. Jennifer was a six year old, the daughter of a friend. And suddenly promoting my video seemed endlessly vapid and stupid, so I put it aside and grieved along with everyone who followed Jennifer's rapid decline. She died Feb. 12, 2014. I hope you will watch my video, but I hope even more strongly that you'll visit www.unravelpediatriccancer.org to learn how you can help combat this vicious, despicable disease.



. . . . .

Virtual tour schedule

For the next two weeks, check out these reviews, interviews and giveaways each day at different book blogs. Thanks so much to Amy Bruno of Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours for being my tour guide.

Virtual Book Tour Schedule

Monday, December 9
Giveaway at Passages to the Past

Tuesday, December 10
Guest Post & Giveaway at HF Connection

Wednesday, December 11
Review at Flashlight Commentary

Thursday, December 12
Interview & Giveaway at Flashlight Commentary

Friday, December 13
Review at Historical Fiction Obsession

Monday, December 16
Review at A Book Geek
Review at Unabridged Chick

Tuesday, December 17
Review at Book of Secrets
Interview & Giveaway at Unabridged Chick

Wednesday, December 18
Review & Giveaway at Peeking Between the Pages

Thursday, December 19
Review at A Bookish Libraria

Friday, December 20
Review at CelticLady's Reviews
Review at Confessions of an Avid Reader

E-tour begins Monday!

I'm going on tour---virtually!--for two weeks, starting on Monday. The cause? The launch of Woman of Ill Fame in e-book form. Forget paper, spines, book glue, stitching...now prostitute Nora Simms gets to please the fellas in electronic form.

In celebration of the e-launch, we slightly adjusted the book jacket with a new quote...from...yes....yes....I can hardly believe it....Diana Gabaldon. If there is a kinder, more generous, more charming author than her, I'm in disbelief.

I met her at the Historical Novels Society conference this summer, where I read a brief passage from Woman of Ill Fame at the Sex Scenes Readings she hosts annually. She kindly agreed to read my book in the midst of trying to finish her own book, and in between shifting geographically, and in between sharing the constantly-updating news about her Outlander books becoming a Starz series...I frankly can't believe she extended such a favor to me. And then when the blurb came. Oh.My.Goddess! Thank you, Diana, and I owe you a million glasses of Glenfiddich when next we meet.

So on Monday, check with Passages of the Past, where Amy Bruno is hosting a giveaway of the ebook! (If you don't own an e-reader--I've asked for one for Xmas myself--you can always download the free previewer app and read away on whatever device you do have.)


If you prefer, click below to download immediately. Thanks!

I'm touring...virtually!

I have just released an ebook version of Woman of Ill Fame (traditionally published by Heyday Books in 2007)...for the first time, Nora gets to please the fellas in electronic form!

I'll be touring in early December with the wonderful Amy Bruno of Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours. She's promised to be a wonderful media escort and separate the M&M chaff from the wheat (ie., only green M&Ms!!! Or I'm gonna trash the green room, no pun intended!)

I'm looking forward to giving Nora Simms a second launch. She really is a delightful Gold Rush woman of ill fame, and she deserves a chance to wiggle her way into your Nook or Kindle.

Here's the link to the tour.

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.


. . . . .

Oakland Tribune blurb

In today's Oakland Tribune, reviewer Kathleen Geib says:

Mailman serves up vivid description, sparkling prose and a Gold Rush prostitute as scrappy as Scarlett O'Hara.

I like the reference to Scarlett. I love GWTW and I believe the melodrama of the movie has somewhat cheapened what is an incredible historical novel. I have always loved how unashamed Scarlett was--if she needed to steal her sister's fiance to put food in everyone's mouth, so be it. If she had to trick Rhett Butler into thinking she's rich so he'll marry her, so be it. I was definitely inspired by this headstrong heroine.

And there's more... throughout my novel Nora uses unconventional expletives. I had a great time making these up (and I have a list somewhere of the ones I had to cut...an agent who once represented the book thought it was overkill, rightly so)... my favorite is "Donkey's funeral!" I could just picture the sad circle of donkeys in the middle of the dusty street, looking down at their fallen comrade.

I think I was inspired by an expletive Scarlett uses: "God's nightgown!" The idea of the old-style big-bearded majestic God feminized by wearing a frilly 1800s nightgown; it just cracked me up. I still don't know if that was a typical irreverent exclamation or if Margaret Mitchell made it up; whichever, I was charmed.

I also remember my nana saying "Well, good night!" as her own interjection of surprise or disbelief.

Colorful language is so pleasurable... I once worked for a boss who would coin things on the fly while talking on the phone. I recall him calling someone a "son of a sea biscuit."

Next reading: Tonight! Thursday, Feb. 22, 2007. Reading at Books Inc. in Alameda, 7:30 p.m., 1344 Park Street, Alameda. 510-522-2226