December Member News

Lots of possibilities to add to our last-minute Christmas shopping list! Congratulations!

NEW RELEASES

Susan Wittig Albert  A Wilder Rose

Brilliance Audio will bring out the audiobook edition of this historical novel, to be published at the same time (March 17, 2015) as the Lake Union reprint edition. The book tells the true story of the mother-daughter collaboration (Laura Ingalls Wilder and Rose Wilder Lane) that produced the Little House books.

Janet Jensen’s new release Gabriel's Daughters (Jolly Fish Press) has also won a silver award in religious fiction from Readers Favorites. The novel wrestles with issues of polygamy, homosexuality, and modernity through the lives of the large, loving, and polygamous Martin family. The story is told primarily through the eyes of Zina Martin, a young girl who, upon discovering she is impregnated by her "sterile" teacher—and will soon be married off to a man three times her age—escapes the enclosed polygamous town of Gabriel's Landing, Utah. Zina then embarks on a journey full of self-discovery, yet she can never completely escape the longing she has for her family and even the controversial and outdated lifestyle she once lived.

Leslee Breene “The Christmas Gift”, an Ebook short story for the holidays. In 1883, Miriam Cole travels to Denver at Christmas to deliver her orphaned baby nephew to her married sister. The sweetness of his touch upon her cheek makes her heart tighten. When the time comes, how will she ever let him go? “With both verve and delicacy, Ms. Breene reminds us that miracles are indeed possible.” ~ Jane Choate RWA author of Keeping Watch – Harlequin

Diane Gardner, OregonState Penitentiary (Arcadia Publishing)  As the only maximum-security prison in the state, the Oregon State Penitentiary (OSP) has housed some of the most violent criminals on the West Coast, including brutal serial killers Charley Panzram in 1915 and Jerry Brudos in 1969. Sixty men have been executed inside OSP. The prison was originally built in Portland in 1851 but moved to Salem 15 years later, after Oregon became a state. From that time forward, the Oregon State Penitentiary grew from 23 prisoners in 1866 to 1,912 by 1992. 

B J Scott The Rail Queen, fifth novel in his Tales of Strong Women series. This novel, set in 1884, tells the story of Montana schoolgirl Ryka Sundstrom's unquenchable dream to build her own railroad. Her struggle is interwoven with the blossoming of the American railroad as it knits together the east and west coasts in a brief glorious period when all things were possible, even for a teenager with an outlandish dream and the will to pursue it. bjscotthistoricals.wordpress.com, amazon.com createspace.com/5028104

Penny Sidoli The Intersection of Daydream and Driving Slow is a collection of short stories by, with the setting of the contemporary American West. The book is available on Amazon.com as either paperback or ebook.   “A collection of wildly original tales packed with descriptions of the broad landscape of the American West, and lively characters who jump off the page into your heart.” 

Patricia Grady Cox Chasm Creek A hangman's noose stands between Morgan Braddock and the family he loves. Esther Corbin clings to a marriage with a man who has abandoned her and their four children. Ruben Santiago scorns his native heritage after being kidnapped from the Navajos and raised in Mexico as a Roman Catholic. Three unlikely friends. Three lives based on lies. Until ghostly visitations and violent confrontations shatter their illusions, and each must find their place in the merciless Arizona Territory. Chasm Creek incorporates aspects of the Navajo Long Walk into a story of love, loss, and fates entwined.

AWARDS

Deanna Dickinson McCall Mustang Spring Stories and Poems  won Poetry Book of the Year at the annual Western Music Convention and Awards in Albuquerque NM. Mustang Springs is a book about the real people of the West. Their stories are told in poetry and prose that will make you laugh and cry. She also won the Georgie Sicking Award for an individual poem, “Cow Country Code.

Anne Schroeder's break-out novel, Cholama Moon, has been named favorite non-traditional Western novel in True West's List of Favorites for 2015. Cholama Moon is a gritty historical romance set in California's Central Coast.

Karen Casey-Fitzjerrel, ForgivingEffie Beck is a finalist for the 2014 EPIC Award for Historical fiction. In this Will Rogers Gold Medallion Award-winning work of fiction. Mike LeMay, a Federal Writers’ Project interviewer arrives in a small Texas town days before the town eccentric, Effie Beck, is reported missing. While conducting his interviews, Mike learns that the enigmatic, elderly Miss Effie has moved through the lives of the town’s populace "like brown smoke" after having suffered a harsh childhood under the discipline of a cruel father.

Messages From the Past: Part IV

This final segment tells the “rest of the story” of my introduction to archival research.

by Teddy Jones

After immersing myself in those documents in the archive, I had gained additional knowledge of the group of intrepid women who were the real Sanctified Sisters. And beyond that, the questions formulated at the outset of my search for authentic voice were answered. 

From reading the numerous documents, I learned that Mrs. McWhirter was a very bright woman who had little formal schooling. By contrast, my character mentioned she was a reader and that she was concerned about her child’s receiving an education. Her words confirmed her care with language. For example, “I, Corrine Johnson Good, take pen in hand to set down some of the story of the Good women of Williamson County, Texas. On this same date, four years ago, 1876, six women left Bell County and traveled to Austin for legal purposes. Each of us, on the following day, in six separate courtrooms, legally changed from our several surnames to the name Good.”

 

I knew that a difference between the two voices would be the extent to which spelling and grammar would be correct—Mrs. McWhirter used incorrect verb forms frequently and some misspellings showed consistently. My character didn’t make those errors. Otherwise, sentence structure, rather formal, and tone of my character and the person in the archives were quite similar. Clearly, the grandmother’s voice, that dictation I received, fit time, place and other character attributes. Archival research assured me of its authenticity and, in the process, taught me that messages from the past, resting in archives, can benefit fiction.

Briscoe Center for American History. "A Guide to the Woman's Commonwealth Archive, 1760-1991." Briscoe Center for American History. 2 January 2014 <http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/utcah/01489/cah-01489.html>.

Schmidt, Laura Using Archives: A Guide to Effective Research. Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2011   http://files.archivists.org/pubs/free/UsingArchivesFinal.pdf

Teddy Jones lives and writes in West Texas. Her first novel, Halfwide was published in September, 2012 and her second, Jackson’s Pond, Texas, from MidTown Publishing, in 2013. Well Tended, her third, also from MidTown, will be released in December, 2014. Her short fiction has been published in 94 Creations, RealSouth Magazine, and Persimmon Tree and was short-listed for finalist in the Faulkner-Wisdom competition in 2011, 2012, and 2013, and named finalist in 2014. Jackson’s Pond, Texas was a finalist for the 2014 Willa Award in contemporary fiction. She holds the MFA in Creative Writing from Spalding University.  Find more on Teddy Jones at www.tjoneswrites.com.

Messages From the Past: Part III

Published with permission of the original site http://literarylabors.com// This post continues my praise of archives as source material for the fiction writer with details from my experience searching for authentic character voice.

by Teddy Jones

Fortunately, the researcher who studied the Sanctified Sisters extensively, Dr. Sally Kitch, documented the location of the archive mentioned in her work, The Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas. The Center’s website includes a finding guide to the Woman’s Commonwealth Archive detailing accession information, an abstract of the contents, the extent (4 ft. 10 in., the linear shelf space) and the language in which the materials are written. Also included are an historical note from the Handbook of Texas Online, a paragraph describing the scope and contents, restrictions, and the preferred citation. 

Two items on the finding guide prompted me to contact Briscoe archive personnel for further information about restrictions and digital access. I learned that one specified box of materials requires Dr. Kitch’s approval for use in publication, and that no material in the Commonwealth archive was digitized. With that, I had taken another step—identified potentially relevant archives. 

Because of staffing constraints, The Briscoe Center is unable to provide proxy research services. Their website lists of independent proxy researchers who are available to perform research activities at the Center for a fee. I knew the questions about the material that would help me confirm the authenticity of the character’s voice. But without additional information about the specific content of the archive, I wouldn’t know the extent to which I could find the answers. The Briscoe Center is more than four hundred miles from my home. Employing a proxy researcher to survey the contents seemed prudent. 

The researcher promptly reported which materials which were probably most and least useful to my quest. At that point, I made plans to visit the archive and also contracted with the researcher to assist me onsite—I wanted a guide in unfamiliar territory.

We spent two days in the Center. I found much of interest—subpoenas, newspapers from the late 1800s, photos, minutes of a meeting of a group of church elders withdrawing fellowship from a member, many letters, and other material.  I could easily have spent several days peeking into the pieces these lives left behind.

Several hours into my second day at the Briscoe Center, I found the item that proved most useful—a handwritten journal of more than 75 pages, written by the founder of the Woman’s Commonwealth, Mrs. Martha McWhirter. It offered a clear example of the voice of a woman in the same place and time as my fictional character. Photocopies of the journal’s pages, combined with documents I had photographed and notes I made about other items in the archive, filled a four-inch wide ring binder. 

Please check this blog tomorrow for the finale to this article.

Teddy Jones lives and writes in West Texas. Her first novel, Halfwide was published in September, 2012 and her second, from MidTown Publishing, Jackson’s Pond, Texas in 2013. Well Tended, her third, also from MidTown, will be released in December, 2014. Her short fiction has been published in 94 Creations, RealSouth Magazine, and Persimmon Tree and was short-listed for finalist in the Faulkner-Wisdom competition in 2011, 2012, and 2013, and named finalist in 2014. Jackson’s Pond, Texas was a finalist for the 2014 Willa Award in contemporary fiction. She holds the MFA in Creative Writing from Spalding University.  Find more on Teddy Jones at www.tjoneswrites.com.

 

 

Messages From the Past: Part II

With the overview in the previous post, this segment suggests how to best prepare for an adventure searching archives for authentic character voice. Published with permission of the original site http://literarylabors.com//

by Teddy Jones

 

In a publication of the Association of American Archivists, Laura Schmidt explains, “Archives exist both to preserve historic materials and...to make their collections available to people, but differ from libraries in both the types of materials they hold, and the way materials are accessed…Archives can hold both published and unpublished materials, and those materials can be in any format.”   Some libraries may also hold archives as may some museums. Other archives are separate institutions housing numerous collections on a variety of topics.

The writer seeking authentic voices through archival research can gain maximum benefit by careful preparation prior to visiting the site. Preparation should include:

• ·         identifying questions to guide the search,
• ·         locating archives that may contain relevant material,
• ·         gaining access to the archives,
• ·         and planning for a visit to the archives if onsite work is needed. Those latter three steps are discussed in detail in Schmidt’s work.

Too much information can daunt even the hardiest of writers. To narrow the focus of her search, a writer should identify questions which, answered, would offer guidance to creating the character’s voice. My questions were: “In letters or diaries, do people in this place and time write formal, complete sentences? Is vocabulary common or elevated? Are spelling errors common? Is grammar correct? Is colloquial language frequent?” One further question was, “what types of materials from the time and place which might contain answers to those questions?” After this preliminary phase, the writer is prepared for the next steps. 

Schmidt lists several websites that offer links to archives and descriptions of their holdings, a useful starting point for locating potentially useful archives. A good reference librarian can aid in locating archives, also. After potentially relevant archives have been identified, the next level of important information resides in “finding guides” that describe the extent and type of materials in the specific archives’ holdings. The guides describe the number of boxes of materials, the types of materials, and any restrictions on use. If materials have been digitized and/or can be photocopied, they may be available remotely. If not, they may be only available onsite. Further, the writer can query reference personnel at the archive to gain details about the holdings of interest. The archive’s website may also contain information about research services provided by archive personnel. These preparatory steps help the writer decide whether to plan an onsite visit.

If an onsite visit seems important, the writer should seek several items of information ahead of the visit. Those facts include location, hours of operation, rules about use of personal cameras and recording equipment, how to notify personnel of an upcoming visit, whether materials may have to be brought from storage, and other operating procedures. Whether a trip to an archive proves fruitful can hinge on the writer’s awareness of this information. 

Using materials, whether accessed onsite or remotely, is probably best accomplished through immersion, followed by analysis. View, read, listen, sift, then sit back and ponder before focusing on the questions formulated at the outset. Since authentic voice is the treasure, “eavesdrop” broadly among your archival sources before making choices about the character’s voice. 

Please check back next week for the next two installments of this informative article.

Teddy Jones lives and writes in West Texas. Her first novel, Halfwide was published in September,

2012 and her second, from MidTown Publishing, Jackson’s Pond, Texas in 2013. Well Tended, her third, also from MidTown, will be released in December, 2014. Her short fiction has been published in 94 Creations, RealSouth Magazine, and Persimmon Tree and was short-listed for finalist in the Faulkner-Wisdom competition in 2011, 2012, and 2013, and named finalist in 2014. Jackson’s Pond, Texas was a finalist for the 2014 Willa Award in contemporary fiction. She holds the MFA in Creative Writing from Spalding University.  Find more on Teddy Jones at www.tjoneswrites.com.