Starting the Year

Well, in spite of my best intentions, the last week of December and the first week of January zipped by, and I didn't get a lot of the items on my to-do-list crossed off. I did go to Virginia last week to visit my family. While I was there I spent some time in the public library. I had been using the New York Times for research on 1939. A terrific newspaper that I turn to often for all kinds of research -- but not a researcher's friend if she is trying to read (or, at least, scan the headlines) of an entire year. I can search by topic, but I wanted to see entire issues of a newspaper. So I spent five hours going through as much as I could of my hometown newspaper and getting a better sense of how the news of the year was being reported. That worked well because one of my characters departs from "Gallagher, Virginia" en route to New York City. It also worked because the Danville Register used the same wire services as the big city newspapers. I'm hoping to get the microfilm through interlibrary loan and continue reading.

Now, I'm juggling -- going back and forth between the 1939 book, my dress and appearance in crime justice book proposal (the first draft is done), and editing the manuscript of the third book in my Lizzie Stuart series (that is being reissued). I also have several backburner projects that I need to get started, and school is about to begin. So I'm taking a time-out next week to simply focus on finishing everything I can get done. I'm going to check my email only once a day -- in the evening. I am going to work at home and in the library. And I'm planning to get the updated proposal for the dress and appearance book and the first 50 pages of the 1939 book out to my agent before our upcoming lunch in NYC.

The good news is that an anthology to which I contributed a short story is now available. It was such a fun story to write. This anthology features "The Bronze Buckaroo" (and is available in both print and ebook. The Bronze Buckaroo was a "singing cowboy" who appeared in a series of movies in the 1930s. These movies was intended for an African American audience. The "race" movies in various genres featured mainly African American casts and played in segregated theaters.  In his other life, the actor, Herb Jeffries, was a smooth-voiced singer who signed with Duke Ellington in the late 1930s. My story is a genre-blender -- western/mystery/romance -- inspired by the films and by the cowboy serials that I used to watch as a kid. The movies can be found on YouTube.

My other good news -- something I'm excited about -- is that I've been invited to join the 2019 faculty for the Yale Writers' Workshop this summer. I'll be one of the instructors for Session II in June, devoted to genre fiction and nonfiction. I've already started to prepare. I can't wait to see the Yale campus and hang out with writers from different genres and students from all over the country and international. If you are interested the website is up and registration is open.

But right now, I've got to get to the office before the day is over and do some work there.

Not There Research . . . and a Question

I've been following the discussion about research and setting, and it reminded me once again of the dilemma I've created for myself. I use real places, but because of my slowly-developing series arcs and my reluctance to write in a "present" that can change in a moment, I can't physically be in the places I write about at the time of the story.

When I write about Gallagher, Virginia, my fictional stand-in for my hometown, Danville, Virginia, I can go home to Danville and walk through history. As in this photo of the courthouse. The statue is of Mayor Harry Wooding, who was a young officer in the Civil War and served as mayor for over 40 years.

But then there's the matter of  Danville/Gallagher in 2004. I have no memories of the city or the state during that era because I lived in Albany, New York. I made occasional visits home, but I don't have the same sensory memories that I have of the years when I lived in Virginia. When I write a Lizzie Stuart book, I need to rely on newspaper accounts of the city to provide the chronicle of changes and fill in the empty spaces based on what I know and remember.

The books set in Albany in the near-future are a different matter. I can see what exists now, and I need to walk into an imagined future. I imagined what Central Avenue would look like if the traffic pattern changed. I imagined a building downtown with a vertical garden and an attached restaurant.

Now, I'm imagining what urban explorers would find inside a deserted building. Sometimes, I'm ahead of the curve. I gave Albany a convention center because it was being discussed. Now, there is one. Not my convention center because my Albany exists in a fictional, parallel universe. But it's a little creepy -- if I conjure it, will it come?

I have another unrelated question. Tomorrow, the Mavens of Mayhem (our Sisters in Crime chapter) will host our first, "annual" Murderous March afternoon event at a public library (East Greenbush). I think we know why writers attend such events even if they aren't on panels. I've been thinking about readers. What brings readers in, even when the weather outside has a hint of spring, and there are other competing events?  Thoughts?

Libraries and the World

I'm been reading the wonderful stories my colleagues shared about the libraries that played such important roles in their childhoods and development as writers. I've been debating whether I would share my early library memories. But I think they're worth sharing.

I loved the public library in my hometown, Danville, Virginia. When I was a child and teenager, the library was housed in the Sutherlin Mansion on Main Street. That section of the street was known as "Millionaires' Row" and is now in the Historic Register. The Sutherlin Mansion was unique in the role it had played in American Civil War history. During his retreat from Richmond, Jefferson Davis stayed there. Danville is known as "the last capitol of the Confederacy." Today, the Sutherlin Mansion is the home of the Danville Museum of Fine Arts and History.The public library moved to a modern building up the hill from the courthouse.

I don't remember the first time I went to the old library in the Sutherlin Mansion. This is rather odd because during the Civil Rights movement, integration of the library became an issue. But I was young enough during that era not to be able to drive myself into town. We lived about five miles outside the city limits, in what was then called "country" (before the city expanded outward when the mall was built). There was no way for children to get into town unless adults took them. So I missed much of the discussion about the public library. I got my books from the school library.

I don't remember when I went to the public library and got my card. I do remember being a teenager and browsing through all of the books in the adult section. I remember discovering books that I loved. I checked The Day Must Dawn by Agnes Sligh Turnbull out every few months. And then there was Mary Stewart's My Brother Michael. And all the books with titles that intrigued about subjects that seemed fascinating. I love nonfiction as much as fiction.

What I remember about visiting the library was that the librarians sometimes looked at what I was checking out and offered smiling observations. What I remember is that they seemed pleased that I was leaving with my arms full of books.

What I remember is that a library that was of the time and place in which it existed became one of my "good places" where I could go and discover other worlds.