Lifescapes

Gregg's mistflower: In bloom this week

It's the height of a very hot summer here in the Texas Hill Country, and the native flowers are past their prime. But not all. The drought- and heat-tolerant blue mistflower, Conoclinium greggii, is blooming, to the delight of the Queen butterflies, who cluster on it and rise up in a cloud of colorful wings when I walk past. The butterflies adore even the faded flowers and the dried brown stalks, a mystery that has always puzzled me.

Until I learned why, from an informative post written by Ray Conrow for the Native Plant Society of Texas. It turns out that most of the queen butterflies I'm seeing are males, happily tanking up on a plant chemical that they cleverly convert to a sexy perfume (a pheromone) that female queens find irresistible. The chemical (called intermedine) is poisonous to animals and birds, but not to the butterflies. When they mate, the male passes it on to the female, who passes it on to her eggs, which makes them less attractive to predators. In the process, the queens pollinate the mistflower, which returns the favor by helping their helpers produce more pollinators. A productive collaboration, don't you think? 

Book news. July was mostly taken up with Story Circle's biannual writing conference. (Story Circle is an organization for women writers that I helped to create 20-some years ago.) But I'm back at the computer, finishing up China's 27th adventure, A Plain Vanilla Murder, planned for May, 2019, in hardcover, ebook, and audio, via Persevero Press, my imprint. That's been an interesting book, featuring vanilla (derived from an orchid) and orchid smuggling (who knew?).

 I've also been working on getting the latest Dahlias mystery, The Darling Dahlias and the Poinsettia Puzzle, into the world. The book is now at the printer, so you can have it on October 16. If you're a Kindle reader, you can preorder it now. Use this link, and your purchase will benefit Story Circle. 

And be sure and tell your librarian about the book, so she can order it, too. The tenth book in the series is only a glimmer in my imagination right now, but the Dahlias have told me their title: The Darling Dahlias and the Voodoo Lily. Sounds like fun to me. I'm already curious.

It's been a chaotic summer nationwide, weather-wise and in the political landscape. Hoping for cooler weather and calmer heads--although I have the feeling that it's going to get worse before it gets better. There are plenty of political storms out there, and we haven't seen our first hurricane yet.

Reading note. America is a hurricane, and the only people who do not hear the sound are those fortunate if incredibly stupid and smug [people] who live in the center, in the serene eye of the big wind.--Norman Mailor

The Book's Look: Notes from the Cover Artist (1)

Let's be upfront about this. Book covers are billboards. Whether you're looking at them on a bookstore shelf or online, they're designed to show you what's in the book, invite you to open it, and seduce you into paying for it.

Now that we've got that straight, let's spend some time talking about the cover of my latest biographical novel, The General's Women, with the extraordinarily talented cover artist, Ann McMan.

But Ann isn't just a cover artist. She is also the award-winning author of six novels, Jericho, Dust, Aftermath, Hoosier Daddy, Festival Nurse and Backcast, and the short story collections Sidecar and Three. She was inducted into the Royal Academy of Bards Hall of Fame in 2011, and awarded the Alice B. Lavender Certificate for Outstanding Debut Novel. She has won four Golden Crown Literary Society awards, as well as numerous Rainbow Awards—most recently for Best Lesbian Book of 2016 (Backcast). Backcast was also the recipient of a Silver Medal in the IPPY (Independent Publisher) Awards for Best Northeast Region General Fiction. Her novel Hoosier Daddy was a Lambda Literary Award finalist. She lives in Winston-Salem, NC and is married to Bywater Books publisher Salem West.

So Ann knows about making a good book, as well as making an outstanding cover. Recently, I asked her several questions about her work. I'm delighted to share her answers with you.

Susan: How did you get involved in designing/creating covers?

Ann: I’ve always been a voracious reader—even before I became an author. Because I work professionally as a graphic designer, I’ve always had a keen interest in book cover design. Ever since childhood, I’ve paid close attention to what I think of as the "front door" of a book. What about this cover made me stop and look at that book? Why did this book catch my eye—while others blended into obscurity on the shelf? As Ella Fitzgerald sang, "It’s gotta be this or that."

I carried this curiosity with me into adulthood—and now it informs my work as a cover designer. The questions for me as a consumer of books remain the same. How well does the design approach reflect the theme or content of the work? How successfully does the cover catch the eye of a potential reader? How well does the artist use color, imagery and typography to evoke a sense of the story? And more importantly, how much do trends in book cover design dovetail with other trends in graphic forms of communication (i.e. film, social media, magazines and newspapers, etc.)?

Book cover design is appealing to me for many reasons. It’s very direct. It’s kind of an in-and-out medium. That means you must make your best argument for why someone should pick that volume up (or click on its icon to learn more) in just a few seconds. I like that. It’s a constant challenge for me to work to pare a complex story down to its one or two essential elements—then find the best and most striking way to communicate that message.

Susan: What goes into your cover designs? Tell us about your process.

Ann: My role as a designer is to stay out of the way—to tell potential readers what they need to know about a book as simply and directly as possible. That means avoiding clutter. Not having too many things going on. Using clean and simple typography. And making certain that the design in its entirety stands up, has integrity, and is accessible and makes sense at any resolution or size.

My design mantra? If you notice the design more than the message it’s intended to convey—it’s likely overdone, and I’ve failed.

I think readers today have much more visual sophistication than most authors realize. They don’t need to be spoon fed. They don’t need to understand every nuance of a title. They are used to seeing and processing billions of bytes of information at light speed. It’s safe to say that the average consumer today views more graphic images in one hour than a person living in the Victorian age saw in an entire lifetime. That makes my work simpler, and harder, at the same time.

I find that I do my best work when my clients trust me to make the right choices for their books. It’s also helpful when an author has done the heavy lifting about essential themes before they approach me. That's what happened with The General’s Women. In fact, I almost think I should pay you for making that part of my work so easy. Of course, at the same time, that complicated matters.

Come back tomorrow to find out how my notions about "essential themes" complicated Ann's work. (Hint: it had to do with those people photos on the cover.)

Reading note Judging books by their covers is seriously underrated, and any book nerd who claims never to have done it is probably lying.--Amy Smith, All Roads Lead to Austen: A Yearlong Journey with Jane.

In bloom this week: Turks Cap

Turks cap (Malvaviscus arboreus var. drummondii) is at the top of my favorite wildflowers list. It grows under our cedar trees, in very dry shade. The red blossoms are like rubies, or like frosting roses on cakes. (Choose your metaphor.) The hummingbirds adore the nectar and will hover for long moments, sipping. The flowers, roots, and leaves are edible (you can make jelly from the blossoms) and the plant has some limited medicinal uses. It blooms all summer for me, and by early September, it may be the only thing blooming in the garden. I can't ask for more from a native plant.

Work In Progress. I finished "Calico Stars," the most recent needlework project--a charted needlepoint, with threads from my stash. Fun and interesting. To see what I'm doing with it, go here.

Book report. The General's Women is coming back from its beta readers, and I'm working through their suggestions. I've started the 2018 China Bayles mystery, Queen Anne's Lace. It's another duplex mystery (like Widow's Tears) with dual plots, contemporary and historical: China and Ruby in modern time, another plot set in Pecan Springs in the 1880s, with the two stories coming together at the end. That's the plan, anyway. We'll see how that works out.

Other doings. I enjoyed my visit at Landa Library in San Antonio--standing room only (honest!), an engaged and interested group. Fun for me to talk about the changes in the publishing world over my 30+ years of active writing/publishing. And the Girls produced so many extra eggs last week that I baked a quiche. With all the political sturm und drang, it feels good to retreat to the kitchen.

Reading note. I got the blues thinking about the future, so I left off and made some marmalade. It's amazing how it cheers one up to shred oranges and wash the floor.--D. H. Lawrence

 

Works In Progress

The current fiberwork WIP is cross stitch--and a very large project (11" x 19"). Love the detail work and the precision, but I have to confess that without my magnifying lamp, I couldn't do this. It's 18-count Aida cloth, so the stitches are very small.

Here's what it will look like when it's finished.

 

The previous WIP--Calico Stars, a needlepoint--is finished! 

If you'd like to see what I've done with it, look here: http://www.storycircle.org/raffle/ 

Book report. Also in progress, the 2018 China Bayles mystery, Queen Anne's Lace--working on Chapter Four. But I need to put it aside this week and work on the copyedited manuscript of The Last Chance Olive Ranch, which flew here from New York yesterday. I'm hoping to wrap that up by Monday. Another WIP that you'll see next April, as a book.

Homestead report. Rain, rain, 7" of rain so far this month. The fire danger is down, and everything is a green jungle. The garden is in its usual summer dormant state, but The Girls are laying nicely and Bill is looking forward to a giant pecan crop. We're keeping an eye on the Gulf of Mexico, which is likely to send us even more rain next week. If it does, that may cool the soil enough to allow me to plant the fall potatoes.

We live in a culture that thrives on thrills, craves crises, and delights in debacles. What goes on here at Meadow Knoll in the summer may, in contrast, seem boring and blah. But for me,these days of quiet, slow, measured life offer opportunities for finding small pleasures. The gleeful cackle of a chicken who's just laid an egg. A silent visit from two does and their four spotted fawns. The sight of a Cooper's hawk on the fence post, of a painted bunting at the feeder, of a spiral of buzzards riding an invisible thermal into an infinite sky. The remarkable, extraordinary variety of very ordinary days. This is my world, a work in progress. I love it.

Reading note. Everything happens in life. Some of what happens is terrible. We know this is true because it has always been true. But there is another truth available, an inexplicable and sometimes crazy truth that is no less compelling. The living of a life, day by day and moment by moment, is also wild with joy.--Reeve Lindbergh, Forward from Here

 

Latest Needlepoint WIP Finished!

It's finished! And I've given it to Story Circle for a raffle.  Story Circle is the women's writing organization I've worked with for the past 20 (gasp!) years. They'll put the money to good use to fund their women's writing support projects. The winner receives the needlepoint and a signed/personalized hardcover copy of Loving Eleanor, my latest biographical/historical fiction.

Homestead report. A rare August rain today, a spin-off from the deadly flooding that hit Louisiana this weekend. Not nearly so intense (we hope) and badly needed. The waters in the Gulf are very warm (even for August), and if this storm track had been just a little further south, it would have been a hurricane. As it is, we're expecting a couple of inches. The trees are rejoicing.

Book report. The beta readers of The General's Women (the group of careful, skilled readers who agreed to read/critique the final draft) have all reported in, and I've made their corrections. I'm especially grateful to the experienced copy editors among them, and to the military historian who pointed out a couple of important historical issues. It'll be another few weeks before I decide whether to submit to publishers or publish this under my own imprint, Persevero Press. Now we're getting to the fun part! I'll keep you posted.

Reading note. Publishing a book is like stuffing a note into a bottle and hurling it into the sea. Some bottles drown, some come safe to land, where the notes are read and then possibly cherished, or else misinterpreted, or else understood all too well by those who hate the message. You never know who your readers might be.--Margaret Atwood 

Work in Progress: Needlepoint

I'm all but done with this project, which I started at the beginning of May, with threads--both perle cotton and embroidery floss--out of my stash. It was finicky work, a lesson in patience, but that's what it's all about, isn't it? Patience and paying attention. Paying careful attention, because when your attention wanders, you lose your place in the pattern, and what you have left is a scramble. A helpful life lesson, perhaps.

Book report. I finished the full draft of The General's Women, sent it out to beta readers, and have gotten helpful responses. I'll go back to it when all the other responses are in--in the meantime, I did some research on Queen Anne's Lace and have started writing. This will be another "split-screen" story, one mystery happening in the distant past, the other in the present. If I get it right, they'll dovetail into a single story in the final chapters. I used this structure for Widow's Tears and Nightshade, two of my favorite China Bayles mysteries. It's a little more work, but there it is again: patience and paying attention, so that it doesn't end in a scramble.

Homestead report. The usual July heatwave is upon us, with a high pressure dome squatting over us like a giant placid toad. The garden is done for the summer; I won't be putting in the fall garden until the soil temps fall back into the non-combustible zone. The Girls are allowed out early in the afternoon, because they will roast if I leave them in their coop--and while we like roast chicken, these hens are here to make eggs. The wild pigs were holding nightly let's-dig-up-the-grass parties in our back yard, until Bill hooked up the varmint repeller, which emits a very loud clacking and some ultrasonic noise. The pigs decided to take their party elsewhere.

Yes, it's hot. Nothing new about that. But August is butterfly month, and the Swallowtails--Giant, Black, Spicebush, and Tiger--are lovely to look at and plentiful this year. This is a Spicebush catching a snooze on a juniper twig. Gorgeous.

Reading note, on patience: Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day. A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh 

In Bloom This Week: Daylilies

The daylilies are blooming beside the creek. The petals of this lovely hybrid remind me of peach-pink taffeta. If they remind you of salad, that's okay too: the petals are edible, either fresh or dried. And yes, they do make a lovely addition to a fresh green salad. The buds are edible too. Harvest them while they're green and firm and steam, boil, or stir-fry them. Or pickle them, if that takes your fancy. (Some people are allergic: if this is a new food for you, snack first to see how your system responds.)

In the West, daylilies never quite caught on, medicinally speaking. But in the East, in China and Japan, they have been used for centuries as a diuretic, and for urinary tract disorders, uterine bleeding, vaginal yeast infections--also to treat cancer. The next time you meet a daylily, remember that she's not just a pretty face. Treat her with respect.

Book report. Still chugging along on my current work-in-progress, The General's Women. This is a long book: about 120,000 words. That's some 40% longer than my usual mysteries--but understandable, since there's so much more to cover. I enjoy digging deep into a time period and a place--and this novel involves plenty of both. It covers the time period of America's engagement in WW II: 1942-1945, as well as the post-war lives of the three main characters: Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower and Kay Summersby (Ike's WW2 driver). It is set in Washington, London, Algeria and Tunisia, and Europe. There's a wealth of resource material, of course. For me, the big challenge is pulling it all together into a coherent story that focuses on the emotional lives of the characters within a fascinating historical setting. I've been doing some chapter restructuring this week--hope to be finished with this run-through by the end of June. I'll make another, cleanup pass in July.

Reading note: I learned that you should feel when writing, not like Lord Byron on a mountain top, but like a child stringing beads in kindergarten - happy, absorbed and quietly putting one bead on after another.--Brenda Ueland

In bloom this week: New Dawn Heirloom Rose

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So many beautiful flowers this spring--but this is one of my very favorites, a New Dawn heirloom rose, blooming on the trellis on our deck. We've had lovely rains all spring, and (thankfully) escaped the flooding that has plagued so many. I'm grateful, and grateful for every beautiful day, sunny or cloudy, rain or shine. The bluebonnets have been especially gorgeous, and the paintbrush, blackfoot daisy, huisach daisy, and more. Simply heaven. 

Garden report. We'll be digging the early spring potatoes in a couple of weeks, the later bed toward the end of May. The beans (Kentucky Wonder) are climbing their trellis, the peas are blooming, and the tomatoes (the early Porters) have begun to set fruit. We're a couple of weeks early this year, thanks to the warm temps (March was the warmest ever) and the El Nino rains. The Highland Lakes are full and the LCRA (Lower Colorado River Authority) is opening floodgates. Our lake is full and our creek is running sweet and clear, bank to bank. (Much less happily, atmospheric CO2 is off the charts. Not good news for the residents of our planet on Earth Day 2016.) 

Book report. I'm delighted to tell you that Loving Eleanor (available in print, ebook, large print, and audio) has won an IPPY silver medal--and plenty of praise from readers. Those Amazon reviews will make a difference in the long-term future of this book, so if you've read it, please go over to Amazon and leave a comment. If you haven't, well, now's a pretty good time.

On the bookshelf: I'm collecting material and doing research on another Roosevelt-related project, the life of FDR's cousin and friend, Daisy Suckley. Daisy was charmingly played by Laura Linney in Hyde Park on the Hudson, but that movie was far more fiction than fact and full of historical errors, to boot. Unnecessary errors, that weren't even in the service of the dramatization. I know it's Hollywood, but can't they do better?

On the desk: "The General's Women" is still in the works: Eisenhower, his driver Kay Summersby, and his wife Mamie--a wartime romantic triangle. I took several weeks out to work on the Story Circle conference, but I'm now about 70% done with a first draft and plan to have a finished manuscript by the end of the year. Then it's on to the next mystery, China Bayles' 26th outing, Queen Anne's Lace. I feel incredibly blessed to be able to work on a book and look forward to another project or two at the same time. Doing what I want to do and choose to do and loving it, with no end in sight...

Meanwhile, Blood Orange was just published this month, in ebook, print, large-print, and audio. And the Robin Paige Victorian/Edwardian mysteries (yes, the entire series) is being reprinted by a British publisher. It's nice to see that older series given a new lease on life.

Teaching, Talking, Traveling. Lots of other things going on in the next few months, too. If you're in the Houston area, please join me for a book talk/signing at Murder by the Book on May 1. I'm speaking to the Austin Herb Society on May 3 and to the Pioneer Unit of the Herb Society of America on June 9.  And I'm teaching an online class on dialogue for Story Circle. It's a busy spring!

Reading note. The truest art I would strive for in any work would be to give the page the same qualities as earth: weather would land on it harshly, light would elucidate the most difficult truths; wind would sweep away obtuse padding. Finally, the lessons of impermanence taught me this: loss constitutes an odd kind of fullness; despair empties out into an unquenchable appetite for life.--Gretel Ehrlich

 

First Daffodils and Other Pleasures

Here at Meadow Knoll, we measure the turn of the seasons in flowers. It's daffodil season in the Texas Hill Country now, and our earliest bloomers, always, are these lovely daffodils, brightening the edge of the woodlot, among the fallen leaves under the trees. A delicious sight, and a reminder that winter is on the wane. As if we needed one: the temperatures this week have been in the upper 70s, too warm for February. And dry, as well: no rain in the past 6 weeks. El Nino seems to have missed us, but it's still out there, so we're hoping for rain soon.

Homestead report. The potatoes I planted at Christmas are up, and I've planted another couple of rows. The perennial walking onions are flourishing (if a bit untidily), and I'm using them in just about everything but desserts. (Sweet onions work in desserts, green onions not so much.) Next on the planting list: peas. The Girls are up to full production: a half-dozen eggs a day. We eat a LOT of omelets.

Book report. Loving Eleanor is out, to excellent reviews. A Wilder Rose hit the top of the Kindle charts last week, thanks to a hard push from its publisher (Lake Union, an Amazon imprint), in honor of Laura Ingalls Wilder's birthday. I'm moving ahead with the historical, a World War II romantic triangle. I'll be working on it for the rest of this month. Then I need to go back and pick up The Last Chance Olive Ranch, the 2017 China Bayles mystery--it's finished but needs another run-through before it lands on my editor's desk on its due date, March 31. The upcoming mystery, Blood Orange, will be out the first week of April. 

Story Circle This year is extra-busy for me, since I'm serving as the current Story Circle president. Stories From the Heart, our biannual conference will be held April 15-17 in Austin, Texas. I'm keynoting, along with SheWrites publisher Brooke Warner. I'm also offering a workshop on publishing and a presentation on crafting dialogue (one of my favorite topics to teach). This is an all-woman, women-only conference, one of a very few offered in the U.S. April is a lovely time of the year in the Hill Country--hope you'll consider attending the conference and spending a few days in China Bayles backyard. Check out our conference program for a look at the workshops you can choose from.

Reading note. A daffodil bulb will divide and redivide endlessly. That's why, like the peony, it is one of the few flowers you can find around abandoned farmhouses, still blooming and increasing in numbers fifty years after the farmer and his wife have moved to heaven, or the other place, Boca Raton. If you dig up a clump when no one is nearby and there is no danger of being shot, you'll find that there are scores of little bulbs in each clump, the progeny of a dozen or so planted by the farmer's wife in 1942. If you take these home, separate them, and plant them in your own yard, within a couple of years, you'll have a hundred daffodils for the mere price of a trespassing fine or imprisonment or both. I had this adventure once, and I consider it one of the great cheap thrills of my gardening career. I am not advocating trespassing, especially on my property, but there is no law against having a shovel in the trunk of your car.--Cassandra Danz

 

 

A Researcher's Treasure

I learned to love research when I was in grad school at Berkeley, a couple of centuries ago. There's something deeply satisfying about digging around in manuscripts, old books, and diaries--finding forgotten or lost or never-before-discovered gems of information. This week, almost by magic, a wonderful document landed on my desk, just in time to serve as a valuable resource for The General's Women, the current biographical/historical novel I'm working on. Featured in the magazine is the torpedoing of the troopship Strathallan on Dec. 22, 1942. Kay Summersby, Eisenhower's Irish driver and one of the characters in my novel, was on that ship, on her way to join Ike, who had arrived in Algiers with TORCH, the first Allied campaign of World War II.

The Allies didn't publicize the sinking of their troopships (such admissions could lead to low morale at home) so most of the documentation of the Strathallan's sinking (like the stories on the wonderful website, www.thestrathallan.com) is compiled long after the fact. Hence, descriptions are usually rather general and details are fuzzy. However, by an interesting coincidence, a LIFE magazine photographer named Margaret Bourke-White was on that ship with Kay. When I learned that, I did some more digging and learned that Bourke-White's photos of the event were featured in the Feb 22, 1943 issue of LIFE. I ordered a copy (bless the Internet!), which arrived last week. When I opened it, I was delighted to discover not only six fascinating photos but a lengthy and sharply detailed report of the sinking, the hours on the lifeboat, and the rescue--all written just days after the event, when the details were fresh in Bourke-White's mind. Here's a sample:

In the lifeboat [No. 12, before it was lowered] I was astonished to find myself in water up to my hips. The torpedo splash had flooded the lifeboats on the port side aft. I hugged my cameras to my chest to keep them dry but as we made our quivering descent, columns of water began pouring down on us from lifeboat No. 11, which was swinging over our heads. Its crew was pulling out plugs to empty the hull before lowering away... Just then the attention of all of us was caught by a heavy, dangling chain which swung cruelly back and forth while we ducked and twisted our heads out of the way. We were in the water at last...Just as we had created a small margin between ourselves and the big ship, down came lifeboat No. 11 with its load of British [nursing] sisters. Its crew had been unable to replace the plugs properly and it filled to the gunwales. A couple of dozen sisters were washed over the side. Some of them were carried immediately back into their flooded boat on the next wave. Others started swimming toward rafts which were tossed from the upper deck...

The description of the sinking in Kay Summersby's two memoirs is interesting reading, but it's not nearly as compelling as Bourke-White's, which is a researcher's treasure. Even more intriguing, Bourke-White's LIFE photo-feature had an important repercussion back home: Mamie learned from this magazine feature that her husband's "pretty Irish driver," the "beauteous" and "comely" Kay (Bourke-White's published descriptions) would be a member of his headquarters staff in North Africa. Ike had neglected to tell her about this--an omission that is bound to tug at a novelist's eager imagination.

Bourke-White wasn't just a gifted photo-journalist--she was a talented writer, as well. In another post, I'll tell you more about her work, and more about the sinking of the Strathallan. Stay tuned.

Reading note: The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.--Dorothea Lang