Harvests of Starvation Lane

Traveling Away from the Ranch

2010-09-17T09:41:00.000-07:00

We're off to Greece for three weeks! Not the usual goings on at the ranch but a trip of a lifetime. We'll visit Athens and Delphi and hopefully the Acropolis then off to Crete for a week then onto a cruise of the Greek Islands and a short stop in Turkey, even! Wow! We are blessed to be able to take the time, to have our kids to stay at the ranch and look after things and to be traveling with friends we love to travel with.
We'll finish irrigating before the end of the month and pull the pumps and begin readying things for winter. Already the mornings are cooler and the vine maple (in the mountain passes) has turned red. No freeze yet though so my roses continue to bloom. this is a favorite time of year on the ranch. We'll be missing a bit of it by being in another country but we always come back energized by the richness of this world and its people.
I hope your autumn is memorable.

In Honor Of...

2010-08-17T14:25:00.000-07:00

This is the painting that Loeta McElwee painted for me and Jerry. She called it "In Honor of Jane and Jerry and the John Day River" She gave it to us as a ten year celebration for my helping with fund-raising for Albertina Kerr, an organization that serves children and adults with disabilities in Portland, Oregon. Great work of art!

Our Cows

2010-07-21T21:23:00.000-07:00

Yes, Jerry's brought them back into our lives. But that's all right. They'll eat the hay we didn't sell last year and keep the weeds down. We also found a new home for Stan the goat. He'll be happier with the neighbor's sheep and horses. It's the same neighbor who took Henry our pony mule in the day after we got Stan as a pal for him. Unknown to us, Henry didn't like goats so he traveled seven miles, crossed the river and made his way up the ravines to his new home. Sometimes the best of plans just don't work out and Henry took things into his own hands and found the neighbor with horses. This time, the neighbor delivered our cows and they took Stan home with them. I called today and he's happy. A fine outcome indeed. But I miss the old goat. Who would have thought? Sometimes getting what we wish for is a surprise.

Away

2010-06-29T10:21:00.000-07:00

   Being away has its charms. We're away from the hassles of the pump getting flooded and having to drive it two hours for repairs that weren't to be finished before we headed East. We're away from taking walks that require vigilance looking out for rattlesnakes. I keep Caesar on a leash when we walk now instead of letting him run so that he doesn't just jump on top of a snake waaaaay ahead of me. Bo stays a little closer to when I have Caesar on a leash. (the rhythm of that -- Caesar on a leash -- reminds me of the Minnesota State Fair's motto of everything on a stick: chocolate on a stick, deep fried butter on a stick...ok, maybe it's just me). We're also away from the routines: writing, exercising, paying bills, handling maintenance issues of relationships and living. Being away introduces us to new people, events, listening to others talk about their lives, seeing family, being reminded of my parents and sister no longer on this earth. And feeling good about cousins telling me I remind them of my mother. There might have been a time when I resented that but no more. I loved my mom and all her roles even if she drove me crazy when I was growing up. Away means new routines with Jerry, my brother and his family (walking through cornfields instead of through sagebrush trails) and meeting a cousin I didn't know I had.
   Being away is also sad at times. I miss the dogs. I miss knowing where my stuff is (and not having it in a suitcase). I miss the time I get up early and write even when I'm struggling with a scene or chapter. I miss the smell of pine and juniper and looking out at the deck with flowers I've planted to see if I can keep them alive.
   Today we'll be away from my brothers farm meeting my nephews half way between Red Wing and Mankato where Clayton attends school and is working. The other nephew (who came to my event in St . Paul, bless him) will meet us too. That'll be good.
   Being away for today means we will return. And tomorrow, we'll return to Oregon refreshed I think for having been exposed to the gifts of being away and having time to appreciate what we leave behind in both places when we go away.

Flooding

2010-06-11T09:07:00.000-07:00

Not since 1948 have we seen river flows at this level. 20,000 CFS (cubic feet per second) on Sunday. It's starting to go down now so we can begin to see the islands that have been underwater. Fortunately it only seeped against the dikes and wasn't pushing into the fields. I'm always amazed at the power of water. I don't even like to take the dogs for a walk when the river is that high for fear they'll decide to jump in after a floating stick and the current will be too strong for them. So I watch from a distance and am grateful that the flow is slowing. A very wet spring for us. But everything is green, green, green! I don't know what these are but I love the color. Nice.
Back to work.

coming to terms with child-less ness

2010-05-17T21:17:00.000-07:00

In an earlier post about women in history i mentioned that writing about Jane Sherar (A Sweetness to the Soul) helped me come to terms with my own childless-ness. Someone commented and asked me to talk about that more. So here I am, better late than never.
   First, I didn't know that the book would take me there. Jane Sherar had no children of her own but she'd adopted a girl and taken in another and eventually took in a niece as well. In the first draft, I remember not being sure whether to write her character as someone who wanted children but couldn't have them; or was she a woman unique for the period of the 1860s and someone who didn't want children in her life. She'd had a strained relationship with her own mother and three of her siblings had died within a week of each other and she'd seen the grief that a child dying can bring. My editor said to me at one point "You haven't really decided about the child less issue and I think you need to." So I went back and in the rewriting, she became a woman who wanted children and couldn't have them. And suddenly I knew that was true for me too.
   I'd been fearful of being a poor mother; wasn't certain I was self-less enough to give in that way, to put a child's needs above my own which is the absolute requirement for being a good parent i always thought. When my body presented serious problems and my husband, who had been married before, wanted no more children (he'd had a vasectomy years before) I made the decision to have a hysterectomy at the age of 30.
   But it wasn't until I was nearly 50 before I really dealt with that loss and writing the book helped me go there.
   What I discovered is that we do not always get what we want in life; and that I could still have children in my life if I chose. They would just be there in a very different way. For me, it was working in an early childhood center on the reservation, helping families with their kids, letting them open me up as I walked beside them as parents that helped bring children into my life. I still have some of those kids in my life. The families too. Jane Sherar had a relationship with the children of the same tribe I worked for so we walked together in that way.
   Then when the need arose, we took a grandchild in to live with us first when she was seven and then when she was 15. I discovered that one didn't have to have given birth to a child to fall in love with them, to ache with the smell of their hair after a bath, to hold them in their sorrow. Jane Sherar adopted a child when she was 13 or so and had to fight her mother over it to do it. There were custody issues in the care of our grandchild too, all this while I worked on that book. But Jane's willingness to be happy rather than being right; her willingness to accept what God had given her even though it wasn't all she thought she needed, both those pieces of wisdom entered my blood stream through the writing of that book. Getting clear about what mattered, identifying what I had control over and what I didn't, that all came through in the writing of that story, too.
   To receive letters from couples and from individual women telling me that reading that book brought them to new places of understanding about their own infertility has been one of the greatest gifts a story can give. I understand that some have been given the book by their doctors and by their therapists. That the story gives peace where there had been none is a great joy to me.
   That's how writing about Jane Sherar helped me come to terms with my child-less ness. I'll be forever grateful. I hope that helps! Thanks for asking.

Taking Time

2010-05-17T20:55:00.000-07:00

Today I never even walked outside. I opened and closed the door fifty times to let the dogs in and out and each time I inhaled the air, looked at the river deck with the flowers I'd planted, admired the newly mowed lawn and how the green took my eyes to the rose bushes and beyond to the river running through the ranch. It's high from recent rains. It's looking bluer than brown though. And I'm reminded that this is still an amazing place to have put down those "luminous fibers" that Barry Lopez speaks of in Arctic Dreams where he says some of us are not finished at the skin and send out fibers to a soil we've allowed to become a part of us. I don't have to walk outside to feel the dirt beneath my feet to know I'm connected here. And yet, all things change. Even the river. And our relationships to place. In the months ahead, there may be new changes to our relationship to this land. But no matter what happens, we will take with us a few of those luminous fibers with us. For today, I will let the fibers be my eyes taking in the blessing of a place.

Women in History - what they teach us all

2010-03-10T17:18:00.000-08:00

This is women in history month. How could I not blog just a bit about the many women I've been privileged to write about through the years. You can also visit a number of bloggers connected with women writing the west www.womenwritingthewest.org who are making March a special time to remember women's history.

Jane Herbert Sherar, who with her husband Joseph, and the help of Wasco, Warm Springs and Paiute people, helped build a bridge across a remote river to open up settlement into Eastern Oregon. She also helped build a bridge between cultures as this true story unveils how it is possible to live with integrity with your neighbors even when you don't share the same history or religion or even traditions. Jane lived in Central Oregon in the 1860s through 1906 when she died of an infection that today would be treated with antibiotics. Times have changed. This was the story that helped me come to terms with my own childless-ness and taught me that if you pursue your goal with strength, flexibility and faith you will find your sweetness to the soul and may touch the lives of others in the process.

Cassie Hendrick Stearns Simpson. Here was a woman who in the 1890s headed west with her new husband, her mother and her sister. What a honeymoon that must have been. Arriving in Hoquiam, Washington, Cassie soon found herself embroiled in poor decisions. She acts on some of those desires and has to live with the consequences. What I loved about discovering her life was how she redeemed herself with her daughter and also how she gave back to the community by working tirelessly to raise funds for the refugees in World War I. Today, we can all visit Shore Acres state park on the Oregon Coast and see the garden her husband developed for her. Five acres of absolute beauty and respite. Cassie reminded me that we all make mistakes and it's what we do about them that matters.

Emma Wagner Giesy. The only woman who with 9 male scouts set out in 1853 to find a new site for their religious colony. They headed to the northwest, Willapa Bay Washington. Things didn't go so well but she did deliver a baby in October and a in January of 1856, a baby girl was born. She had two more children after that and when I included her daughters in the novels a descendant said "I loved the book, but you made up the part about the girls, right? She didn't have girls, only boys." I shared the information I'd gotten in my search and she recognized the names. "We never knew they were related to Emma," she said. "We only heard about the boys." Maybe that's why Virginia Woolf wrote that "women's history must be invented, both uncovered and made up." Emma taught me the importance of being clear about what matters in your life and having the courage to act on that.

My own grandmother is a part of this women in history month too. She was an early photographer at the turn of the century and eventually owned her own studio in Winona, MN. She was 20 years old. The year was 1912. How she got there and what happened afterwards is the rest of the story but I'm hoping people will find the set, A Flickering Light and An Absence so Great worthy reading time. I'll be participating in One book One Community reading in Sherman County this month, spending a day at the high school hoping to get kids interested in their own family stories but also in the photographs that frame their lives. Lots of stories inside a photograph. If you scroll down, you'll see some photographs of my grandmother, Jessie Ann Gaebele. I wrote about her in part to discover memory DNA, the things we carry with us from ancestors that are more than what's in physical characteristics.

There'll be more! But most of all, remember your own women in history and write about them.

Three good things toward finding happiness

2010-01-08T10:23:00.000-08:00

I won't apologize.
It seems I'm always saying I'm sorry and really, how often I post doesn't need to be yet one more thing I tell myself I've failed at.
   So instead I'm going to tell you that I've been watching the PBS series called The Emotional Life and found it fascinating and yes, hopeful especially as Jerry and I think about our future, the sort of "what's next" on this ranch or in our lives as he turns 80 this year and we're no longer farming.
   One suggestion in the PBS section on finding happiness was to list three good things that happened yesterday and then see if one can identify what brought about those three good things, the circumstances. It's a way of gratitude and a part of my prayer life that I've skipped over of late (which could explain why I haven't been feeling so happy of late either, you think?).
   So here's my three good things from yesterday:
1) I walked on the treadmill for two miles. What led up to that was getting up and doing it; watching the PBS series while I walked which made the time go quickly and getting a good night's sleep the night before (and copying the series rather than staying up late to watch it.
2)Work went well on my book, I hit 16,000 words! What led up to that was just doing it, sitting in front of the computer, allowing myself to enter and live the story. It was staying focused, taking a lunch break that included a shower and connecting with Jerry and Matt then returning to work and not paying attention to emails until later in the day.
3) I got the bed made up and the guest room picked up. What led up to that was knowing our friend is coming to visit and bringing her dog that is a brother to our cavalier King Charles Spaniel. Jerry has finished the door heads and drawers in that room after all these years so the room for the first time looks completed. I could appreciate his efforts (I did help hang the doors in there :) and that the room looks inviting which is a nice thing to offer a friend when she visits. I also liked telling Caesar about his brother coming to stay and petting his little body.
   I think it's possible three good things could snowball into many more if I just pay attention and isn't that part of what makes up happiness, paying attention, being grateful for what is.
   I hope you take the time to find your three best things from yesterday and to remember to thank God for the pleasure. Jane

Christmas Past; memories of my grandmother

2009-12-08T16:49:00.000-08:00

Jessie Gaebele, right an left

These are photos of my grandmother. The one on the left isn't one we used in the sequel to A Flickering Light called An Absence so Great. It's one I wanted to save for moments like this. I suspect it might have been her "traveling dress" after she married. She looks pretty happy in this photo. The photo of her in the lovely white dress was used in A Flickering Light (which was named to Library Journal's Best Books of 2009, a lovely honor for my grandmother. She's a little older in the traveling dress photo, had owned her own studio at this point. She'd walked through fire, too and been strengthened by the process.

I'm just thinking of her as I prepare to write my annual Christmas letter, something I didn't do last year because I had atypical pneumonia.

this year, I'm feeling fine and I'm ready to send Christmas greetings your way. It seemed appropriate to do that with some pictures of my grandmother where I spent nearly every Christmas during my growing up years, at her big house in Minneapolis. I miss her. But that's what the holidays can do for us, remind us to remember.

May all your memories of Christmas past nourish and transform.

Sites and Stories; a nice recognition

2009-11-20T11:19:00.000-08:00

Kathleen Ernst, a writer friend and quilter, too, has posted an interview with me on her blog www.sitesandstories.wordpress.com She lives in Wisconsin and writes fabulous young adult and children's books that have won awards but more, touched the lives of young readers in powerful ways. She brings history alive for kids which isn't easy to do. Check out the interview.

As for my own writing life: today I'm working on finding a map of a railroad route in 1896 and trying not to get distracted from all the interesting historical pieces there are on the web. And I finished my final edits for An Absence so Great. Here's another photo of my grandmother, one we are not using in the sequel to A Flickering Light. That book, btw, was named to Library Journal's Best Books of 2009. Hurrah!

As part of ranch life, we're applying for an easement to put our irrigation pump lines into the river next year. We've been doing it for 25 years (we have water rights) but because the river we live on has been designated a "navigable river" , with the state owning the beds and banks to the high water mark, all owners along the river are now "using" public property when we have irrigation lines going into the river. So an easement (and a fee) is necessary. It's an indication of how things change. I actually think it's good that Oregon has this policy that people can't own the access to such rivers or the ocean beaches so we are all able to walk along the shore lines and appreciate the glorious creation we are blessed to live close to.

What we do hope is that with the increased public land (and our property went from 160 acres to 134 acres with that pen stroke) that there'll also be increased policing as people have a habit sometimes of leaving trash, camping where they aren't supposed to, having camp fires they neglect or just not paying attention to the beauty they drive so far to see and then leave evidence of their disregard behind. So it's the little details of every day life that I'm dealing with today.

Tomorrow it's off to the "valley" what we refer to as the population corridor of Oregon. I'll be making a presentation in Forest Grove home of Pacific University for a PEO fundraiser (they provide scholarships to women returning to school). On Sunday afternoon it's the Audubon wild Arts Festival at Montgomery Park in Portland. Come see artists and craftsmen and me! Signing books along with lots of other authors. Happy traveling if you are! Warmly, Jane

Emma's replica quilt

2009-11-11T10:30:00.001-08:00

This past month we gave away the replica of Emma Giesy's quilt (from the Change and Cherish Series) to a woman from the Northwest. Ramona Hugulet of Portland, OR was the lucky recipient. Her name was drawn by the publisher from several thousand entires from around the world. The Aurora colony quilters stitched the work on it! Pendelton Woolen Mills (100 years old this year!) donated the wool. In the photo, I'm on the left, Ramona is in the middle and Kathy Monaghan is on the right. Kathy is the project manager for Pendleton Woollen Mills. Emma's original quilt is on the right too; and the replica of Emma's Running Squares quilt, hangs to the left. The Aurora colony celebrated their 36th annual quilt show and the presentation of Emma's quilt was a part of that event.

We aren't certain when Emma's quilt was made. The plaid is found in quilts at both Bethel, Missouri and at Aurora so it may have been begun before Emma came west in 1853 as the only female scout with nine men sent to find a new site for their colony. The Auorora Colony, 20 miles south of Portland, OR, survived in the west for 20 years, the only utopian society to be successful for that long west of the Mississippi River.

If you're intrigued about utopian societies...my Change and Cherish series might satisfy some of your interest. Even better is Dr. Jim Kopp's new book Eden within Eden which features the more than 300 utopian groups attracted to Oregon over the past 200 years. Great reading!Jane

cousins on the book tour

2009-06-24T15:49:00.000-07:00

We've just been on a book tour in Minnesota. What a grand time! Not only did I have a stint on KARE 11 (where I met Bethany Frankl in the green room...a NY Times bestselling author of the Healthy Skinny diet and in the cast of The Real Housewives of New York and I didn't know who she was!) and was interviewed by Euan Kerr of Minnesota Public Broadcasting which aired during Morning Edition (regionally)hour. http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/06/16/kirkpatrick/ We had terrific coverage by the St. Paul Pioneer Press (Mary Ann Grossmann wrote the article), but I also got to see relatives. On the left in this photo is my aunt Corinne Kronen, the only child left of my grandmother about whom I've written in A Flickering Light. She and her husband drove us around and even hit a deer in the process! They're all right, thank goodness.

That's me in pink and next to me are the daughter's of my aunt Fern, Corinne's oldest sister. Fern was the writer and an artist...though Corinne is an artist as well. Next to me is Katy Anderson from Stillwater, MN and her sister Lynne Thomas from Minneapolis. I hadn't seen either of them for over 30 years. They joined me at the Barnes and Noble bookstore in Roseville, MN. That evening, we also connected with a relative of Winnie's (from the book) who saw the Press article, and realized the book was about her grandmother, too. Everyone had lost touch with Fran so we were pleased to meet her, her daughter and to make sure we didn't lose her again by getting her address!

From Minneapolis we headed to Winona, MN where we filled the Historical society and I told stories and showed pictures and talked about the passion of the book (passion for profession) and desire (the desire to do the right thing) and love (a word that the German poet rilke describes when two solitudes come together to border, protect and salute). We spent time with descendants of Mrs. Bauer (from the book) and with my brother and his wife and got to see my nephews, too and a few other cousins. Roots run deep in the Midwest and I am grateful for a supportive family as I tell this story.

Now I'm home, meeting some new deadlines, heading for book events and working on revisions for An Absence so Great, the sequel. Two books will mark this Portrait of a Heart series. I hope you'll look for it next April.

I also hope you'll visit Bo's blog www.bodaciousbothedog.blogspot.com where you can get a front row seat to what the dog thinks about this writing life.

Oh, and one more thing: consider calling in to OPB's think out loud program on July 2, 9-10 Pacific when I'm the guest author being interviewed. The number to call is 888-665-5865. You can also leave an email before during and after the show that encourages people to, well, think out loud. www.opb.org/thinkoutloud/northwestpassges. And in July, I'll be in Wisconsin. Please check my website schedule for details!

Happy writing or reading. Warmly, Jane

Bo's Blog, Texas Travel and Minnesota, here we come!

2009-06-04T09:53:00.000-07:00

This is summer on the homestead. what you can't see are the roses blooming profusely along the deer fence. But you can see the garden troughs, recycled from the cows we no longer have. They're the metal tanks to the left of the house. I'm looking forward to spending more time on the deck this year, just listening to the river and the birds.

I'm back from a book tour in Texas. Great fun and met many new fans and some faithful ones as well. One even drove 150 miles to attend a signing and two others drove nearly the same distance to share a lunch. The new independent store in Plano, TX called Legacy Books hosted my first signing there with wonderful participants who heard me talk about A Flickering Light.

Texans have big hearts and staying with writer friend Irene Sandell (River of the Arms of God and In a Fevered Land) made the time go quickly. I spoke at the Writer's Garret in Dallas and at the Heritage Village in Old City Park where the Aurora presentation was well-received. Seems there was a utopian community called La Reunion in the Dallas area about the same time as Aurora's origin. Small and connecting world.

By the way, Cindy (her nickname) Sandell has a signing this Saturday at Barnes and Noble in Plano, TX from 2a;oo-5:00. Stop by and say hi.

I'm back now, working on what I call my Oprah book. The working title is "Oprah Doesn't Know My Name" and it's about a writer seeking fame in all the wrong places. It's a departure from my historical novels but never fear, the sequel to A Flickering LIght will be out next April and it's been named: An Absence so Great.

Finally, Bo has begun a blog! It's at www.bodaciousbothedog.blogspot.com. I hope you'll visit now and again to get his side of the homestead story.

Happy writing for you out there and for those in Minnesota, we're coming soon! Please check my schedule at the website www.jkbooks.com. Thanks! Jane

Writing about Writing

2009-05-01T19:44:00.000-07:00

Christian book Distributors has an interview with me on their site as well as a feature about writing, my advice to aspiring fiction writers. I hope you'll stop by there and say hi.

Writers Corner:
http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/cms_content?page=2022914&sp=72136

Fiction Homepage:
http://www.christianbook.com/fiction

My Interview:

http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/cms_content?page=265453&event=67484

I'm also having some website issues so please bear with me...those words of encouragement will be posted soon, I promise. Meanwhile, these words might bring you nurture as well. Warmly, Jane

Release Day!

2009-04-14T16:02:00.000-07:00

Today is the official release of A Flickering Light. There's joy and a certain sadness. Now whatever it is I wrote belongs to readers who will make of it what they will. A cousin who I sent an advanced copy wrote to tell me of memories it brought for her about our shared grandmother. A twist of them will make it into the next book due out next year in April.
For today, I just want to say thank you to the readers who find my books and who share them with those they love. Happy reading and may you all have a good book to turn to after you've paid your taxes tomorrow (or are awaiting your return!). It's still bounty counting in my estimation and I feel blessed to be counting readers as a part of my writing wealth. Warmly, Jane

photo therapy, a Flickering Light, family photos

2009-04-08T11:18:00.000-07:00

I’ve heard that from several readers who have seen the advanced copies of A Flickering Light about the photographs I included in this biographical novel about my grandmother's life. I've shown a couple in previous posts. I'm glad I held out to include them in the ARC. Initially the publisher didn’t want to add them in the ARC and I thought it would really be missing something if we didn't include them. The main character, based on my grandmother's life, talks in first person about several different shots while the rest of the book is told in third person through the eyes of Jessie, her mentor, FJ Bauer and FJ Bauer's wife, Mrs. Bauer. I’ve added several more shots in the second book because of people’s responses.

The photographs are part of a family collection of glass plates from the 1900s. One blogger who did a review commented on how intriguing it was to read about a photograph from the character's point of view and also about a scene when my grandmother's mentor gives her a photograph he'd taken of her when she hadn't been aware, inserting it in a photographic case. She said she'd been moved by that scene then asked a question about fact and fiction of this book. Here's how I responded to her.

"As for the mix of fiction and fact: It isn’t a fact that he took a photograph of her that he gave to her for her birthday. But it seemed to me that this is how his relationship with her began, a collegial sort of contact, both of them liking photography, having some disagreement about the science of it vs the art, which was a part of the dialogue of the period and then moving toward where he enjoyed her company, could see the beauty in her, wanted to be a good mentor to her and then giving her gifts on the occasion of her birthday, perfectly innocent. Except that each had been denying a very strong attraction and sometimes the reality of those feelings aren’t even noticed but are difficult to hide inside a photograph.

I’m a mental health therapist by training and I took a continuing education class a few years back about photo-therapy, using photographs to help people get “unstuck” as they struggled with issues and patterns in their lives. Part of that project meant looking at photographs of myself and my family. I discovered during that time that in all the photographs of me and my mother, she never touched me, had never put her arms around my shoulder or stood close enough in a family shot to touch me. It had defined our relationship in many ways, this separation.

She was quite ill at the time and I made it a point to touch her, to get photographs of my touching her at least, even if she had difficulty touching me. The next months until her death were the very best between us. It seemed to me she rallied and we were able to do things together without her even carrying her oxygen with her. I have this terrific photograph of us both wearing cowboy hats as we attended an outdoor concert and my leaning into her, my hand on her shoulder, touching. I treasure it and feel strong about the importance of photographs as metaphors for our lives and that if we acknowledge the stories they tell in time, we can make changes.

My husband is a photographer and the best pictures of me have been taken by him; something about the eyes of the beholder bringing love into the picture. I was thinking of that when I wrote that scene you commented about.

The picture of her that is double exposed did get written up in the paper and was quite the invention for the time. I liked how there were two renditions, one with her nearly looking over her own shoulder which I think she did during that part of her life. (I tried to upload that picture today but given the size of it and the wind blowing my satellite dish around....you'll have to come read the book when it comes out next week to see it).'

It's getting exciting....the release is scheduled for April 14, the day before tax day! You can visit the blogger's review at www.thinkinggirlsguide.blogspot.com

Patty Hickman interview and A Flickering Light

2009-03-23T22:11:00.000-07:00

Very soon, A Flickering Light will be released. I hope you find it and enjoy reading it. When you do -- if you do -- I'd love to have you visit Good Reads and leave a review http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4916580.A_Flickering_Light. Each kind word helps spread the word so thank you in advance.

I'm also a guest on Patty Hickman's blog this Friday. Patty is known for her fine writing and as a member of the Women of Faith tour over the years. Her blog likes to introduce readers to the authors behind the books so this interview is less about writing than about faith experiences. You might win a book! http://www.wordsunwired.blogspot.com.

I'm nearly finished with the revisions of the first cut of the sequel to A Flickering Light. I keep learning about myself as I write about my grandmother. I think there's something to this theory of emotional DNA being passed down. Jane

Writing Cheerleaders

2009-03-11T15:47:00.000-07:00

Twenty-five years ago at this time I was busy moving my husband's shop equipment, packing our household goods into boxes, moving to my parents' home temporarily, finding a place for three mules and a horse (we had no fences to speak of on our property yet) AND trying to hold down my job as the director of the mental health clinic in Bend, Oregon while Jerry and friends came north to build the barn/shop/hangar on our homestead, 160 acres of rattlesnake and rock. I thought I hopped through a lot of hoops that year.
Here we are and I'm still hopping but with a lot more fun.
This week I wrote "The End" to the sequel of A Flickering Light that will be out in April. It's now titled "An Absence so Great;" and my author copies of A Flickering Light arrived on the homestead! Of course, it's not really the end: I have author notes and book group questions to write; there'll be revisions after my editor sees it; I'll be following up on questions raised by copy editors. Still, there is cause to celebrate.
We celebrate these moments (what I call the midwife role in writing) because if we wait until we achieve success -- give final birth -- we miss out on the joy along the way. We writers give our hearts to these stories and we need to find midwives who will cheer with us. My cheerleaders this week were the library staff of our new Sherman County Public School Library that we'll dedicate on Saturday. They've watched each of my books come out and made sure I saw the shelf at the new library where my novels now stretch. Pretty terrific. Books. What would I do without them.
Don't forget to take a look at the trailer for the book based on my grandmother's life as a turn of the century photographer. http://www.tangle.com/view_video.php?viewkey=225666529779c412cad0 Enjoy! And keep writing...

A Flickering Light

2009-02-09T11:30:00.000-08:00

My latest novel will be out a little earlier....April 14th is the newest date. Below is the latest review from Publisher's Weekly. It was starred and is always a waited for review. Fortunately, this one is a great review and I'm grateful. Makes working on the sequel that much easier. I hope your day is going well and thank you for being one of my readers/colleagues/friends/relatives :) Jane

A Flickering Light Pub Weekly review

2009-02-09T11:27:00.000-08:00

A new PUB Weekly review and a link to the book trailer for A Flickering Light. Enjoy while I work on the sequel! Jane

http://en-gb.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1033773417209&oid=6756687041

A Flickering Light Jane Kirkpatrick. WaterBrook, $13.99 paper (400p) ISBN 978-1-57856-980-9
Historical novelist Kirkpatrick (A Tendering in the Storm) is exceptionally authentic in her use of early 20th-century history. Virtually all the characters are real figures; protagonist Jessie Ann Gaebele is inspired in this “biographical fiction” by the writer's own grandmother. Jessie Ann loves photography, and when she is hired as an assistant to photographer F.J. Bauer, she learns about the field of her dreams and also about herself, as she finds herself attracted to her married boss, who battles his own feelings in return. Kirkpatrick renders the war among desire, duty and restraint with exquisite nuance. There are no unsympathetic characters in this tangle of relationships. Bauer's wife—also named Jessie—may be difficult to live with, but she has her reasons. The period detail—dangerous chemicals used in photography, debilitating and frequent illnesses, the routine constraints on women's choices—offers a compelling portrait of the time. Kirkpatrick deserves a wide audience for this coming-of-age tale that is aching and hopeful. (Apr.)

video trailer

2009-01-07T15:35:00.000-08:00

I told Jerry to come look at my new trailer. He looked chagrined and started to protest that I'd buy something like a hay or cattle trailer without confering with him! I reminded him I had. It was a video trailer I'd bought and we'd discussed the expense last year. Here are some links to be able to see it.http://www.shoutlife.com/profile_view.cfm?uid=136956&view_mode=video&folder_id=1551&vid_id=2480

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCwUjAhpm24&feature=channel_page

If any of you purchased one of my books from Amazon through the years, you'll get a notice of the video also being posted on that site. Let me know what you think! I personally think it's great. Have a good day, Jane

Dancing with my Grandmother

2008-12-31T15:01:00.001-08:00

First of all, Aurora: An American Experience in Quilt, Community and Craft is out! It was #8 on the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Bestsellers list for its opening week. Hurrah and thank you! I'm giving away four copies of that book so leave a comment (including your email so I can reach you to ask for your snail mail address to send you the book) and I'll select four people at random to receive this hardcover book.

Come April, I'll do the same for my novel, A Flickering Light.

Several years ago a reader in Alaska asked for permission to use my book, A Burden Shared, as part of a conference with native American women of the Cauluka tribe called "To Dance with our Grandmothers: a gathering of women for wholeness" Of course I consented. I'd written that little book (that is now called A Simple Gift of Comfort) to bring nurture to people dealing with various kinds of challenges and grief. I loved the title of their conference. The presentors hoped to help these women see the strengths within themselves that had been handed down to them from their grandmothers but they also planned to offer strategies so that memories stirred up would heal rather than hold them hostage. The organization sent me a book bag and a sweatshirt with the title on it and a pin, a symbol of the Cauluka tribe. I treasure them all still.

During these past months of working on A Flickering Light, I've become more aware of my own grandmother and the dance I have with her. I try to gather as much history as I can when I'm researching actual historical women and then speculate about the missing events, or ask myself questions about why she was where she was when and what must she have been thinking?

That last question is especially important as I've asked, "what must my grandmother have been thinking to allow herself to become so enamored with this unavailable man?" or "What was she thinking setting aside her own passion for photography to risk a relationship that had no future?" The questions have morphed into my thinking about the kinds of decisions I've made through the years and wondering why I did what I did. I suppose that's a risk of history, or at least of personal history. I wonder how much like her I am or whether the evidence for her life she left behind is really who she was?

There are discrepancies in this dance of her life. For example, I have tapes of interviews with her and her adult children and some of what she says doesn't jibe with the facts. Did she forget or did she wish to mislead and if the latter, who was she protecting? Herself or someone else?

That led me to think about a story that theologian Deidrich Bonhoffer told, about a teacher who asked a boy if his father had been drunk the night before. The teacher knew the answer: the boy's father had been publically drunk. The boy stood before the class and said his father hadn't been drinking. He told a lie. So the question Bonhoffer posed was whether it was more moral for an honest person to tell a lie, e.g. the boy, than for a dishonest person, e.g. the teacher, to tell the truth.

Bonhoffer's conclusion was that it was more moral for an honest person to tell a lie because usually he/she does so out of love, to protect another; whereas a person who frequently lies uses the truth as power, to control another person just as the teacher had done to the boy, humiliating him before his peers as he let him know that he knew the truth of his father's state.

I've thought about that often as I dance with my grandmother. What would I lie to protect? Have I told the truth in order to control? What legacy did she mean to leave and what will I leave behind?

A Flickering Light explores some of this as I tried to answer the questions my grandmother's life raised. It is also a story I hope that encourages us to ask ourselves why we do what we do, how we sometimes sabatoge our best hopes and what we can learn from those experiences. I hope you'll look for it in April.

Meanwhile I also promised to tell you about the writing process. The galleys were sent well before Christmas; I've sent them back with my corrections and just last week added a few more. Endorsers are being asked to read the book and see if they're willing to have their names attached to it, always stressful as they may just decide it's not up to their standards or the story is so far removed from the kinds of books they write that their endorsement would mislead their readers if it appeared on my title.

We finished the maps for the book and in the process of proofing them I located a photograph of streetcar bridge across Lake Winona. That set me to wondering when that bridge was built and should I have it on my map or was it torn down by then? That discovery led me to make a little change in the text because the bridge did exist then and we also added it to the map. A detail, I know. This is the stage where I have to watch my tendency toward OC (which is not Orange County!). I have to let go and realize there may be errors or mistakes but I've done the very best I could to make it authentic and a worthy read. The best thing to do now is to keep writing the sequel, take my mind off the book that is "finished."

In a few days, I'll post more about this process. Maybe you'll stop by and share a bit of your own. Happy New Year! Don't forget to say hi and in so doing register to win an Aurora book!Jane

The cover, A Flickering Light

2008-11-25T14:12:00.000-08:00

Here's the cover for my latest novel. I hope you like it! We're in the "gathering endorsements" phase right now, asking people whose work I admire if they'd be willing to read the book and perhaps say something nice about it. Of course, they may hate it and they don't have to say anything good! This is always a time of angst for a writer. The book is finished. It's gone to galley format. A few changes can be made at this point but otherwise, it's finished. Perfection doesn't mean "without errors" it means "complete." So the book is complete. And I work even as we speak on the sequel...I hope you enjoy this little insight into the next book. Keep writing your own, though! Never stop. Jane

A Flickering Light, first photograph

2008-11-25T14:01:00.000-08:00

This is my grandmother, Jessie Ann Gaebele. She either took this photograph herself (she was a photographer at the turn of the century) or it was taken of her by the man she worked for. I love this photograph. She told me that her mother called that dress her "kept woman dress" which really annoyed her no end because she said she saved $.25 a week for six months to buy that dress herself.

In my novel about her life, A Flickering Light, I use this photograph along with four others. My grandmother is the narrator for these photographs but the rest of the story is told in third person through her eyes, her employer's eyes and the eyes of his wife. It's an intriguing story I think and I hope you'll like it when it comes out April 21, 2009.

In the sequel I'll be using additional photographs. The process of exploring the pictures, glass negatives I had developed, has been an interesting journey. I've been "reading" the images and unveiling her mystery but also mysteries of my own. I think that's what happens when we read. Who knows what mysteries you'll discover about yourself as you read her story.

WILLA Literary Award in San Antonio

2008-11-06T13:57:00.000-08:00

Yes, we went to Texas! We already had tickets to attend the Women Writing the West conference when we learned that A Tendering in the Storm had won the WILLA Literary Award for Original Softcover Fiction. You can see me holding the trophy (and it covers up my cleavage so nicely, don't you think?) The pin is the symbol for the association and once you've been a board member you get to wear the stylized one as I have on. The earrings were carved for me from mammoth ivory by my friend Elfi Gross. Jerry rarely smiles in photographs...he was acutally having a great time. We visited the Alamo, attended great workshops and he and Bob Foard, husband of the new President of WWW, Sheila Foard, talked guy stuff. My agent and her husband made the trip as well. It was a great evening and a honor to have a book of mine earn the award.

We walked a lot in San Antonio, the weather was perfect for touring both the Alamo and the Menger Hotel. A great city with a fascinating history. The riverwalk is a relaxing place whether walking or taking the boat ride through that portion of the city. We flew hom on Monday (via Atlanta, Salt Lake and Portland!).

Three days later I was back in Texas for the Houston Quilt Show. I spent an evening with my godson Erick Fredstrom and his wife. It was great to see them and have a personalized tour of Houston. If you ever wish to treat yourself to a quilt show where people from around the world teach and display their wares and where you can see quilts hung like paintings in a gallery, well, you should plan to attend the Houston show (that next year will be October 14-18 and you'll need to plan ahead to get a place to stay).

Right now I'm waiting on pins and needles to see the hardcover copy of Aurora: An American Experience in Quilt, Community and Craft. Should be receiving it before long as it'll be in the stores by December 16th. You can scroll down and see Emma's quilt that started it all. I hope you're all writing...and finding things to be grateful for.

I've also posted my "monthly words of encouragement" on my website www.jkbooks.com so please stop by. Have a great day. Warmly, Jane

Columbia River Glacier

2008-11-06T13:43:00.000-08:00

Here at last is that photograph of Jerry and me at the Columbia Glacier in Alberta, Canada. It still amazes me that we were there where the Columbia River begins. Our John Day River flowing past our ranch flows into the Columbia 29 miles from here. I tried to load this on my website but failed so here it is thanks to my friend Loris Webb from Edmonton.

Jerry has gone off elk hunting and I'm hoping to catch up on some writing projects as well as teach a class at the Wordstock festival in Portland. I'll also have a signing there in the morning, 11:00 AM should any of you be available to stop by and say hi! Stay well, Jane

Alberta Canada in October

2008-10-05T16:21:00.001-07:00

Our trip to Alberta, Canada...a treasure from my writing chest. A bugling elk, at dusk. Yes, we were this close! Jerry didn't like the color of this photo but I love it. It's almost sepia tone but it was actually the way the evening melted into night: soft and slow and restful.

The view of Edith Lake, Jaspar National Park, Alberta, Canada. This was our view when we awoke each morning. Spectacular. Our hosts have a family cottage on this lake where we heard elk bugle and watched ducks make perfect v's across the water. The landscape reminded me of Wisconsin and Minnesota but with mountains.

Meet Loris and Gary Webb of Edmonton, Alberta who treated the us to a wonderful time in Canada in October. While things were going awry in the stock market in the states, we visited a small museum in Jasper, the Royal Alberta museum in Edmonton, drove up to Maligne (pronounced ma-lean) Lake and Medicine Lake, names familiar from my research for the Tender Ties series; and walked up close to the Columbia Ice Fields and relished the granduer there. Sadly, all the shots we took at the ice fields became blurs of white: too much sun and too much ice! Oh, that's me on the right looking very grateful I hope for Loris taking the time to write to me some years back after reading A Gathering of Finches. It was her first book of mine but happily, not the last. We've corresponded through the years and when they learned that I would be keynoting a writer's conference in Edmonton, extended an invitation to Jerry and me to spend a few extra days with them. She's generous with her books, giving me a couple to read while we stayed at their cabin on Edith Lake. Gary is a marvelous story-teller and we laughed, ate very well, and relaxed. A perfect time of restoration.

Blogger Interview with Heidi Thomas

2008-09-05T09:42:00.000-07:00

Hi all.

Heidi Thomas has interviewed me the last couple of days about writing and about A Tendering in the Storm winning the WILLA Literary Award for Best Original Paperback for 2008 --Yeah!

Her questions and my answers are on her blog at http://heidiwriter.wordpress.com/ Heidi also just signed a contract for a book which is a big hurrah for her! She's been working as an editor and a writer for a long time and this will be her first novel. Perseverance pays!

As for me, I'm heading off to teach a writing workshop this weekend then flying to Minnesota for research and a brief visit with my brother and family and aunt and uncle then on to Madison and Lodi Wisconsin for events there. Check my schedule at my website www.jkbooks.com.

One other addition: I learned that rattlesnake poison must be willfully released from a live snake according to my vet. If a dog eats a dead snake, one dead for the past week that he dug up after I buried it! Then likely the venom will be absorbed into his stomach without hurting him. But in case you're worried, you can force the dog to throw up by having him lap up a tablespoon or so of hydrogen peroxide. He is not happy with you once you have done this, and you must quickly go through what he desposited on the carpet before he eats it again. I know, gross. If you're lucky, you'll find bits of snake but no head which means he probably didn't eat the head in the first place.

Ah the wonders of living on Starvation Lane. Happy happy. Jane

Chocolate and Friends

2008-09-01T19:15:00.000-07:00

Well, here we are on the Oosterdam. Blair and David Fredstrom, our good friends are in the top picture. And we're at the chocolate extravaganza on board ship in the second. That's me with the chocolate smile and if you do a close up you can see the ribbon of dark chocolate that is giving me that chocolate look. We had a grand time. Thanks to my friend Gayle Gresham for teaching me how to upload pictures to my blog. Next step, figuring out how to do it on the website! Jane

Back to Kindness

2008-09-01T11:19:00.000-07:00

Late in August we finally lured two of our friends from French Prairie to come to visit and have dinner with us. The Howards, Brenda and Roger, helped us immensely in working on the Marie Dorion series and we’ve remained friends ever since. It’s one of the great gifts of the writing life, meeting good people who you take into your circle and whose circles occasionally cross with others.
They arrived later on a day when 12 intrepid readers from Beaverton caravanned down the reptile road. They were part of a church group who had read my books and Dave Swehla has followed Emma’s story all over the country I think. He organized this journey. Both that group and the Howards met at the Sherman County Museum on the same day and discovered their mutual connection. I wish I could have been a mouse in the corner to see what the Beaverton crowd had to say about the road!
Brenda told me that earlier she and her sister had been going over old monthly memos posted on this site and now renamed as “words of encouragement” and how they liked the essays especially when I talked about the Psalms. I just finished reading Kathleen Norris’s new book and she’s a great lover of Psalms too and I realized then that I hadn’t been reading them much of late. So Brenda and her sister Judy turned my path back to them.
I chose Psalm 106 and discovered that while it begins with praise it quickly provides a litany of all that God did through the ages for the Israelites and then how the people would forget. They’d praise, be happy, then “turned back to their craving.” I do this so much! What a great phrase: turned back to their craving. And what do we crave for?
Recently in a magazine article that I now can’t find to provide the source for you, a man wrote that this was his philosophy of life: “to do what you can; love what you have; be who you are.” Such a spare and splendid life mission. A grand reminder for the days in which I forget how blessed we are. Jerry’s elk hunting (black powder); our kids are clean and sober; our other kids we’ll see again in September for a wedding of a grandson; a granddaughter called to thank us for her birthday gift; the other granddaughter got a job; we’ll be meeting Canadian readers who I’ve corresponded with for several years and spending time in Jasper, Alberta for a few days following my keynoting Inscribe, a Canadian writer’s conference in Edmonton. Next week it’s a workshop in Hood River and then family time in Minnesota and research along with a quilt presentation in Wisconsin at Quilt Expo. We have so many blessings.
For that Wisconsin event, I bought a new projector and lap top so I can make the presentation. But my computer guy says the projector is so powerful we can do movies in the park here. Or rather, movies in the canyon and show it on the rocks! Yet another adventure.
I digress.
There was another day in August that touched me greatly and reminded me of all we have. We were getting ready to go on an Alaska cruise with our friends from Bend, Blair and David Fredstrom. Yes, we’d gone three years ago but Jerry was very ill then and this would be a different trip. No flying anywhere. We got to spend a night with friends in Everett who kept our car for us and picked us up when we came back. Blair’s in a wheelchair so I planned to spend time with her while Jerry and Dave went into the towns that I’d seen before but Jerry hadn’t spent much time in. And we did have a grand time despite fog, high winds and seas for 36 hours. Blair and I did “On Deck for the Cure” the last day with her pushing herself around every other lap and me pushing her on the others. We did 5K which is 9 laps and 3.5 miles, or so we were told as we pumped away. It was great to have a week with good friends just hanging out.
Anyway, before we left Jerry wanted new jeans and he wanted me to go pick them up at Tony’s Town and Country in The Dalles, a clothing store. I could see all the possibilities of choices that I could mess up so I asked him to call in and tell them exactly what he wanted: size, boot cut or not, stretch or not, brand, etc. He did.
When I went in to pick them up, the female clerk was helping two little boys look at jeans. They were maybe 7 and 9 and had crew-cuts that needed mowing but they were bright and energetic and knew what they wanted. They bounced around and reminded me of my nephews when they were that age. I watched as she helped them. So respectful she was of them, asking what kind of pants they liked, size, etc. One of them said he wasn’t sure of the size so he scampered past me to go upstairs to the women’s section to ask his mother. The clerk made eye contact with me then and she continued to help the other child for a bit. He kept looking so she politely told him she’d just help me and be right back if that was all right with him. He said it was.
Jerry’s pants were at the cash register and she rang me up as the owner came in. She told him the two little boys needed help and he turned to go do that as I gave her a compliment.
“I want to thank you for being so kind and respectful to those little boys,” I said.
Her face opened up in surprise. “Why wouldn’t I be?” she asked.
“Sometimes adults aren’t.”
“Oh, but how will children know what kindness and respect are if they don’t experience it themselves,” she wisely said. “If they don’t see it they can’t give it away. If they experience kindness they’ll be able to pass it on.”
I said it was just so wonderful to see. I reached out to take her hand and squeezed it and apologized for the tears that I didn’t expect to be flowing (and are now as I write this).
“I have a new grandbaby,” she said. “Just born and that’s what I want him to know. “ She was tearful now too.
“What a lucky baby,” I said.
We blubbered for a bit, reaching for tissues, laughing at this moment of camaraderie standing at a counter.
I took my package, nodded to the owner who was chatting with those boys still. (Respect is obviously something modeled from the top down in that store) and headed off to pick up Jerry’s prescriptions still wondering why I was so tearful at seeing compassion expressed in everyday life like that.
At the pharmacy, it turned out that Jerry’s prescription had a problem. His insurance card that had always worked, didn’t. The clerk was very apologetic and had this look of fear in her eyes about what I’d say to this glitch in my day. But I’d seen kindness just minutes before and I said, “That sort of thing happens. I’ll have to call the insurance company and figure it out.” Her shoulders actually sank in relief. “Thank you,” she said. “It does happen and it’s no one’s fault. Thank you.”
Ordinarily I might have been annoyed, maybe even shown it or expressed it to the clerk even though it wasn’t her fault. Like everyone else I get stressed. But for some reason, there was this calm. That clothing saleswoman had given me a great gift in modeling kindness and it was really easy ten minutes later to pass it on.
I still think about the tearfulness. Maybe those tears arose because I’ve seen children abused and hurt or watched them be ignored in stores or heard someone say in harsh tones, “Where’s your mother?” Or maybe it was my acting on the witness I’d seen and telling her. It’s not always easy to give a stranger a compliment but I do try to do that. In a course I took some years ago we’d occasionally be asked to tell different people in the group, one on one, something to make them feel good about themselves. The instructors called it “gifts of confidence.” It forced us to pay attention to who that person was and what their journey was during the rest of the class so we could give away a gift to build their day. It also gave ourselves something: pleasure at noticing something in someone else that is admirable. We always ended feeling lighter, happier, just for giving kindness away.
Whatever it was, it has stayed with me, that woman’s gentle spirit. And Brenda and her sister commenting on reading old monthly memos and how they affected them, that’s a gift of confidence they gave to me that sent me to the Psalms, reminding me now of the richness of everyday life and how small things do truly make a difference not only in the lives of those boys, but in the pharmacy clerk later and in my own as the memory of that good day stays with me.
You can guess what I encourage you to do this month!
My website is nearly completed and I’m learning how to add things on my own. We’ll see if this arrives at all J I still don’t have adding photographs down so you’ll have to wait with that.
Meanwhile, as many of you head back to school with your children take a deep breath, compliment a teacher or two as they’re likely as rattled as you are and maybe together we can pass along that kindness and respect that truly does reduce the “craving” reminding us to be thankful for all we have.
Thanks for visiting the site! Warmly, Jane

Emma's quilt, blog lesson, Women Writing the West

2008-08-04T10:50:00.000-07:00

Here is the photograph of Emma Giesy's quilt that first inspired me to write the Change and Cherish historical series. It was made perhaps as early as 1850 and shows the initials "CG" for her husband or her son, it's not certain which. You can't really see them here, but the cover of the book shows them off well. Few of the Aurora colonists distinguished their work by initials. Emma did.
I saw a photo of her quilt (not this one) in a book by Mary ByWater Cross (Treasures in the Trunk) and the rest is history. My husband took this shot at Aurora, Oregon and off to the left is a small glimpse of Emma's house that still stands on the Aurora Museum grounds. What I love about this shot is that you can see the wreath quilting that Emma did in the red and plaid blocks. She used another kind of quilting pattern for the plaid border. Incidentally, the plaid was of teal and green and the wool was grown in Aurora, dyed there and woven there, too.
We are having a replica made of this quilt and YOU can sign up for a drawing for it. Nothing to purchase, just a great opportunity for a beautiful quilt. Pendleton Woolen Mills, the last Northwest Woolen Mill (and one of only a few family owned mills) has donated the wool for this quilt so it won't be exactly like Emma's, but close.
To sign up for the drawing which is being offered by my publisher, WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group a division of Random House, just go to http://www.waterbrookpress.com/ and click on the "contests" page. That's it! The drawing will be sometime early next year after the December 16, 2008 release of my book Aurora: An American Experience in Quilt and Craft that will feature some of the 60 quilts done by the historical women of the Aurora colony, the only successful utopian community in the west. There'll also be photographs of the many other crafts created by the men and women of the colony.
I hope you'll look for the book but also just enjoy this beautiful pieced quilt fluttering in the breeze.
Also, thanks to my friend at Women Writing the West Gayle Gresham, I learned how to post this photograph! My posts should be so much more interesting now and I'm pleased to say I learned something new. Always good. Even old rats when given new mazes to learn grew new brain cells. I've always been encouraged by that. Have a great day, Jane

The Work before the Harvest

2008-07-31T10:46:00.000-07:00

I had intended to write this truly inspiring piece for you to announce my revitalized website designed by Stonecreek Media. I wanted my first memo to be truly inspiring. And I thought it might be.
Walking the dog yesterday in the morning brought me images of the stacks of hay taken from our alfalfa field lined up against the base of the ridge like green sugar cubes, one on top of the other. They reminded me of how much work had to go into getting them there: seeding the field last year; getting the Verminator (yes that’s what it’s called) to destroy the gophers; irrigating, irrigating, moving wheel lines and hand lines; keeping the tractor, swather and bailer ready to use. And then there are the days of actually cutting and baling and then picking the 75 pound bails up with the bale buggy and unloading them at the base of the hill.
Work before the harvest marks almost every endeavor. Many pitfalls have to be tended to as well. Will it rain on the hay when it’s down? The river ran higher than normal with episodes of very high water this spring that required we remove the pumps then put them back when the river level lowered. We used the internet to check the stream flow at places upriver to gauge whether we could put the pumps back or get ready to take them out yet again. We got through the first cutting and most of the second cutting before the swather lost a part (that we’re waiting for even now). We expect two more cuttings so it has to get repaired. Our neighbor is buying all that we have so there’s a contract that needs to be met. A contract. A commitment.
These are not unlike the work before the work of harvest in writing.
This has been a busy time of writing for me but also completing that early work. Researching for the next book. Revising for final edits for the current novel about my grandmother (A Flickering Light due out next April. Confirming quilt sizes and details for the quilt and craft book that goes to press the end of August. Preparing for September events –a retreat, a writer’s conference and a quilt-speaking event in Wisconsin, all had their time on my “to do” list this month. None of that looks a lot like “writing.”
Publishing issues, working with my team of agent, editors, sales people and more, played parts in my life this month. While in Florida I wasn’t actually “writing.” I attended a Christian writer’s retreat and a convention. Lynn Austin won the Christy for her fine historical novel A Proper Pursuit and I didn’t feel badly at all! It was a delight to have breakfast with her and to share in her acclaim. I was happy to be on the short list for best Historical Fiction, truly. I’ve hung my Christy Finalist medal on the wall already. Jerry had time with his daughter and family who joined us for the Christy banquet (and I shared a room with my agent and her associate across the street from Disneyland so we watched the fireworks each night. During the day I met with editors and marketing and publicity people and marveled that Floridians actually live year round in a place where when you leave an air-conditioned hotel and step outside your glasses steam up!
All those things can seem not like writing at all, right? Writing is that time when one gets to sit and dream and look out over the rimrocks and river but only for brief moments before becoming lost in the 1870s or 1910 and the lives of men and women who somehow seem to speak to us and keep us from being writers who feel life is solitary and lonely. I’m never less alone than when I’m writing, if that makes sense. Writing is getting to see your book or article in print, right? Writing is when you’re gifted with a letter from someone who read your book or article or heard you speak who says what they just read was your best ever and that what you had to say “spoke specifically to me.”
it’s that work before harvest, the tedious, daily, get up and repeat, cope and adapt kind of work that makes it possible. I must remind myself of that sometimes.
My little words line up to make a sentence and then a page and then a chapter and then a book reminding me of that stack of hay ever-growing until completion that later will be consumed (by cows , not ours thank goodness!) and people will be fed from the result. A very agrarian image but one every one of us who wishes for a harvest understands. The daily tasks aren’t always easy or pretty or inspiring but it’s what we do if we’re to meet our “contracts” however we have made them, with whomever we have made those commitments.
That’s what I thought I’d be writing about, encouraging you all to keep going, toward that harvest.
Instead I’m sitting here with a black eye, bruised forehead, cheek and nose, a black and blue swollen thumb, skinned knee and a scrape on my shoulder that looks that that tubby tabby of 44 pounds who was on the news yesterday used my right arm for a scratching post. And my head hurts. And my glasses that actually survived with lens intact have been redone by Jerry to get the bows somewhat parallel and the nose pieces back into place but they aren’t fitting well. They’re trifocals so we’ll have to get them officially adjusted or I’ll be looking through the wrong places…which is probably why I have the headache.
We leave for an event in Portland tonight and it’s our 32nd wedding anniversary so we’re going to do something to celebrate afterwards though I don’t know what, now. I hope my head stops hurting. Tomorrow Jerry will get to meet a reader-writer-turned-friend I met back in St. Louis at a signing last year who flew out for the Willamette Writers conference hoping to connect with an agent for his own book.
So here’s how the egg-plant color of my eye came about: Bo, our wire-haired pointing Griffon is involved. Out of pity I took him outside last night to tend to his daily duties even though he probably didn’t need to do that. It was late. Ten-thirty. But he’d been whining and pestering and I figured that’s what he wanted. I put the choke collar on him and the leash and we walked down the ramp from the swing-deck of the house just fine. But then a streak passed in front of us (a chipmunk who has been teasing Bo often hiding up in the frame of the pick-up truck where Bo can see him but not reach him. We’ve seen a lot more of those rascals since Diego our cat died). Anyway, Bo bolted. I jerked, grabbed a second twist on the leash (big mistake) and tried to pull him back but instead he pulled me forward, right into the ground, shoulder and face first while the leash twisted free but not before twisting my left thumb.
Bo happily chased his chipmunk neither caring nor noticing that I lay there, head throbbing, glasses somewhere in the darkness beyond the porch light. I shouted for Jerry who heard me inside the house and came out to rescue the glasses and help me up. Bo circled the yard a few times and then did decide to do his duty which enabled me to get his leash and bring him back in. He’s clueless of my current discomfort.
So instead of merely packing for our anniversary weekend (that my friend says sounds more like work to her than play since it involves writing events and that I really do need to learn how to play more!) I’m coping. Changing directions quickly without a lot of friction as my infamous coping saw reminds me.
I’ll consider this interlude – the headache and bent glasses – as yet another piece of the work before the work knowing that there are always glitches, always things to distract us. But most of all, knowing that I have much to be grateful for. I didn’t break a bone. The lenses stayed in the frames. The dog didn’t run too far away. Jerry heard me shout. Looks to me like all in all a very good outcome. Jerry’s seen me with a black eye before and he loves me anyway. What could be a better anniversary present than that!
I hope you enjoy the new website design. Hopefully we’ll be updating more frequently now. Please check my schedule for events near you and thank you all for making my writing life one filled with treasures of connections that keep me ever faithful toward that harvest. Warmly, Jane

podcast, A Mending at the Edge

2008-07-01T14:42:00.001-07:00

Diane Eble has posted her podcast of an interview she did with me about my latest book, A Mending at the Edge, writing and life. You can listen to it at http://www.reviewyak.com/ and also at her blog which is www.yourbookpublishingcoach.com and eventually Abundant Gifts blog at www.abundantgiftsblog.com. ("I'm a bit behind on posting my audios there" Diane notes. Enjoy! Jane

Joy in the Journey

2008-07-01T13:44:00.000-07:00

Hazy smoke from the California fires has settled into our canyon. We smell it in the air that is still as a rabbit watching the passage of a slithering snake. Yesterday it was windy and very, very hot (113 degrees) and we lost power at one point. Breaking the stillness inside, Bo, the wire-haired Griffon, leapt from the couch and rushed to the covered deck door, barking, something he rarely does. Jerry opened the door, Bo bolted out and there on the deck was a snake. Jerry thought it was a rattler, yelled for me to bring the .38 which I did but when I got there, he saw that the snake was a bull snake and wouldn’t shoot it. Bo, meanwhile, barked and baited it until it worked its way down the steps then fell through onto the dirt below. The dog barked, I tried to grab him, it made this hissing sound that to me sounded like a rattler, but Jerry insisted it wasn’t and he wasn’t going to shoot a snake that could eat mice (something we’ve seen more of since the cat was lost to coyotes).
Anyway, I finally grabbed Bo and dragged him from the snake; we came back inside sweating now from our exertion in the heat, and pondered our dog’s intention. Had it been a rattler, he might well have been bitten though he seemed to be just the distance necessary to avoid contact. At the very least, I think we’ll get another cat.
So begins our July. The river is still high so we have many more floaters than usual and expect quite a bunch come this Fourth of July weekend. I hope they bring their SPF 30. We’ve completed the first cutting of hay and are irrigating again. I’m home from a week in Grove City near Pittsburgh where I taught at the St. David’s Christian Writer’s Conference, visited with my agent and her book group then flew home for four more events. This is the first full week to be on the ranch since May and I like it, even without power sometimes.
Next week we leave again for Orlando where I’ll attend another writer’s retreat (I don’t have to do anything except write at it J), participate in the Christy Awards banquet, and attend several receptions, breakfasts, and have a signing while at the large trade show. A Tendering in the Storm is a one of three finalists for a Christy. My titles have been finalists for five national awards without being chosen as the winner and that’s all right with me. Jerry will attend the banquet and so will his daughter and son-in-law who we haven’t seen in awhile. Jerry will spend most of his time with his daughter while I’m chattering with other authors, hanging out with publishers, seeing what’s happening in this sometimes strange industry that makes it possible for my books to reach your hands.
Then later in the month I’ll be at Aurora hopefully fact-checking material for the quilt and craft book. It’s a very good life we lead and I am grateful.
The theme of the Pennsylvania conference was “Joy in the Journey” and as it happens, everything seemed to come together for that event with our discovery of joy along our writing way. I got to remind people to think “midwife” and not just wait until we’re published before finding that joy; we need to celebrate successes along the way. I don’t think that refers to the writers among us but to the parents, the teachers, the windmill operators, but for police and politicians, ranchers, laundry mat owners and on-line entrepreneurs as well. Other faculty, Gayle Roper, Barbara Hirshbaum, Lisa Crayton, Sally Stuart, inspired us and laughed with us opening doors to creativity.
Sometimes when I’m traveling (read that ‘journeying’) I don’t take time to enjoy. I’m concerned about getting to the airport on time, getting through security, hoping my bag will fit as a carry-on, wondering if the weather will affect my connection and who my seat companion will be and whether I’ll arrive safely at the other end.
But if I set a new attitude before I travel (the work before the work) it changes the entire journey for me. In Dallas, on the way to PA, the zipper on my favorite purse broke. But when my friend Bobbi Updegraff picked me up, she had a dozen purses for me to choose from, all made by a mission in Honduras that she supports. She travels and writes for Presbyterian Disaster Assistance and has a special interest in Honduras where women there make purses from men’s ties. (For $25 you can have one too!). It was perfect! I didn’t even have to go to the mall to get a replacement and my effort helped a mission project in Central America.
At the conference, I found joy in listening to other faculty like Gayle Roper and Barbara Hirshbaum, Lisa Crayton and Sally Stuart and reading first chapters of participants. A couple of fans drove 4 hours from their homes in Ohio to listen to my presentation and we spent time just connecting. I wasn't rushed and so could also walk beside someone who was troubled and pray with her as she took next steps on her writing journey. I nearly froze back there (it was 54 degrees several days!) but I'd thrown in a shawl at the last minute and was fine, just fine.
Coming home, I had a joyful journey too. I sat next to a Texan who was in “gas and oil” and we shared the exit row seats with extra leg room. I got bumped up to that flight and avoided a storm delay. Turns out that oilman hated take-offs and I hate landings so we offered good support to each other.
While at the airport in Dallas, I bought Jerry’s birthday present. Jerry also checked in early at the hotel in Portland so when I called his cell to tell him I was there and couldn’t get through because Mariah had had that cell and it was full, the hotel put me through to him so he could come and get me. And when we got home, Bo was happy to see us both. All things worked on this journey.
Once, earlier in my life, while living in West Bend, WI, I’d made my then husband drive the 40 miles to the airport a day early, rent a motel then show up at 6:00 AM for a noon flight to Florida – before homeland security. The airport wasn’t even open at 6:00 AM! But I was so anxious I pushed us to get there early and so fearful that I wouldn’t know how to manage if something went wrong that I rarely enjoyed those journeys nor even the vacations. Now I do.
So this is a month in which I can encourage you all to remember that things do change; we do survive inconveniences and sometimes even disasters. Small doors open when we take the time to notice them. Rattlesnakes turn out to be friendly bull snakes; and dogs that get close can be caught and brought back. At least sometimes. This time. And smoke in the canyon isn’t always from a close fire; sometimes the smoke is from a trial far away where finding joy is a challenge.
In his song, "Joy in the Journey," Michael Card writes that "there is a wonder and wildness to life, and freedom for those who obey." Perhaps that’s the key this month, to allow the wonder and wildness to permeate the everyday and bring joy to whatever journey you’re on.
Next month I’ll have a new website. I hope you’ll come by. Meanwhile, thanks for your constant support of my work, interest in our lives and prayers for continued joy on our own Starvation Lane journey. Warmly, Jane

blogger interview with Cindy Swanson

2008-06-04T14:52:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile, I know. But here for your viewing and listening pleasure is an interview I did with Cindy Swanson a fine interviewer out of Chicago. We spoke about writing and life and I thought you might enjoy this conversation.

http://www.101qfl.com/voicetracks/CindySwanson/Jane Kirkpatrick.mp3
http://cindyswanslife.blogspot.com/2008/06/jane-kirkpatricks-mending-at-edge.html

I'm also going to bring you my monthly memo for June in about three days. Travel is taking me from blogging; but hopefully I'll meet some of you in Newberg, Stayton, Independence, Portland, Florence (Oregon) and in Pennsylvania in the next two weeks. Please visit my website schedule at www.jkbooks.com. Thanks!

Meanwhile, keep writing or pursuing that which brings you nurture. Jane

Blog tour links for A Mending at the Edge

2008-05-05T15:41:00.000-07:00

Christy awards, heart stories, bobcats, listening

2008-05-05T15:26:00.000-07:00

May 5, 2008. Today the power went off around 1:30 AM. We had power to the irrigation pumps but no power at the house. The electric company spent the morning and finally found the cause: apparently some coyotes had likely chased a bobcat up the power pole and he had met his demise by chewing into the power link that went to the house. Poor thing! "I suppose he died?" I asked. "He is still there at the scene of the crime," announced the power company. They have to drive over 50 miles to get to us but he seemed pleased to have had a reason to come down the reptile road, watch the river rise from the snowmelt in the mountains and eat his lunch overlooking the alfalfa field. Power is back. I can get back to writing.

this is the montly memo that will eventually be posted on my website www.jkbooks.com. Please visit there and check out my schedule. I'll be in Portland, OR tomorrow evening (May 6) for the Willamette Writer's gathering there. Hope you'll stop by.

Earlier this year I took an on-line class from writer/artist mary anne radmacher (she writes her name with all lower case letters, by the way). It began January first and required writing three paragraphs a day and sending them to her. I didn’t think I could manage that with the novel being due, working on the quilt book and Jerry’s January surgery, but I thought it would inspire me and it did.
At the same time, along with several other Christian novelists, I committed to writing 2000 words a day hoping to finish that novel before I went to Italy. I made it! And I’ve kept up the practice mary anne began, a little. Not every single day, but often.
Today I pulled up the phrase “Let your heart instruct you. Listen well. You will know your way.” It’s from one of mary anne’s little boxes of sayings from her site, www.wordshop.com. It seemed especially fitting this month.
May it seems is a month of good news for me. A Mending at the Edge has been on the Pacific Northwest Booksellers bestsellers list since it was released in mid April. The third book in a series often doesn’t sell well so this is great. Along with it, we’ve seen more people at events and signings, too, which is sweet. Then early this week we learned that A Tendering in the Storm, the second book in the series, is a finalist for the Christy Awards, a national award for the best in Christian fiction. The first book in the series didn’t make the Christy cut but it was a finalist for the WILLA Literary Award so it’s amazing to me that this has happened now, after all this time. The list of all the finalists is pretty impressive if you’d care to visit the Christy site. It could make up your reading list for the year! www.christyawards.com
When I read mary anne’s words, I was reminded about the importance of that heart instruction. Since I began this writing journey, I’ve tried so hard to listen to the stories that really called my name, the ones that “instructed my heart” so I could write them down and share them when I’m off on my adventures speaking to writers groups or to educators or to people who just love stories. I’ve tried to do the same when I’m asked to read a book or explore with someone how to get a book published or whether I could endorse their latest work.
The book that was nominated was a hard book to write because of the sadness of the woman’s life at that point. It’s a book about grief and its many siblings and it’s a book about the price of independence and the costs of compliance to a devastating act. Those are hard subjects and I struggled with whether to tell much of that part of her story. But readers have said even though it was a difficult (as in sad) book to read that it was worthy of their time. Several on the blog tour said the series as a whole had truly affected their own life journey.
Still, readers said they’re looking forward to A Mending at the Edge because they have confidence that Emma’s heart will be restored, that she will find her way. And so she did through the arts, through her faith, through community and through her listening to her heart.
This all speaks, though, to the continuing need to listen to my heart. I have to listen when requests come in that I can’t always fill, for events or to speak. I have to learn how to say “No” which I realize I didn’t do so well if you look at my schedule! I have to learn when to say yes as well.
Today I learned that the release date of the quilt book I’ve been so absorbed in for the past 18 months has been put back to January of 2009. Oh how my heart ached when I learned this! Within the hour of discussion with my editor I went through all the stages of grief: anger, denial, bargaining, depression and finally, acceptance.
While my mind was racing, my heart was saying “what’s the best thing for this story?”
It is the best thing to be able to have the best product possible, the best way for pre-sales, for getting the book into places we hope it will reach people. The more we talked, the more my heart settled. Yes, I have to disappoint people who hoped to have the book to give as Christmas gifts! Yes, I had to change some dates already scheduled for events related to it. But on the plus side, the entire team can do the work they want to do to make this book their best and publishing really is a team sport. All the facets must come together or we’re lost.
On the plus side, Oregon celebrates its 150th birthday next year and the quilt book will be available for that, a perfect way to memorialize Oregon’s history with this historical/quilt/inspiring book. The national association of communal societies will meet in the fall next year and the publisher hopes to do additional promotion through the year so that will be a good linkage. It’s actually a plus that I’ll have “an Oregon Story” (though it’s much more an American story) since my next novel will be set in the Midwest and my Northwest fans might feel slighted a bit. Now they won’t be. They’ll have their own book to devour (hopefully) for 2009 and still have an appetite (hopefully) for my grandmother’s story set in Minnesota and Wisconsin, my home state, when it comes out in April of 2009.
Plus, I’m in the midst of having my website revamped and I’ll be learning a new program so I can post my monthly memo and keep my schedule up instead of having to bug my very busy niece. And I’m already busy researching the second novel in the “Portrait of a Woman” historical series so really, as Jerry said, everything will work out.
It’s really nice to have his support and to know that he, too, can adapt to this change. We’ve been having quite a good time on our journey of travel this year, sometimes with the dog, sometimes not and we’ve discovered that spending that much time together is really pretty special. We’re fortunate indeed.
I don’t know what sort of things may be happening in your lives right now but I do know that taking that deep breath and listening to your heart is a truly good thing to do. You will find your way. And you will not be alone.
I do have lots of events in May so I hope to see you at some of those. Most of all I thank each of you for making room in your heart for my stories.
Warmly, Jane

blog tour, transportation, quilt show and spring

2008-04-18T10:17:00.000-07:00

My dear webmaster still hasn't loaded up on my site www.jkbooks.com so I appreciate you waiting for that first chapter read. It won't be long and I'll have a new webmaster (my niece with her five kids is moving on to other things!) but thanks for your patience until then.

On Tuesday, my newest book released! It's called A Mending at the Edge and there's a great review of all three books in the series at www.burlysue.blogspot.com written by Kim Ford. I hope you'll go visit it. Tonight I have a signing at Powell's Bookstore in Beaverton, OR. Powelle's is one of the world's largest independent bookstores. I won't be in the downtown store. My first and only visit there was two days after 9/11 and 125 people came, seeking comfort I think and because all the airlines were cancelled.

I had a great trip to Chicago at the quilt show and some other events there. But I was booked on American Airlines and was on the first flight cancelled out of Portland on Tuesday and on the last flight cancelled on Saturday night getting out of Chicago. They flew me to Dallas where THAT flight was cancelled. They found another plane, and we took the skytrain to the new gate and the skytrain stalled! People don't like to get behind me at the copy machine...but this time it wasn't me! Still, we formed a community we people trying to get to Portland and stuck in the world of transportation.

Today it's beautiful on this ranch, white fluffly clouds shadowing the growing alfalfa and the newly seeded sections of the fields. We're fortunate to be here yet another spring. I hope wherever you are today you are inhaling the goodness in your life. Jane

Italy and the next book

2008-04-04T06:25:00.000-07:00

Italy was Bella! We had a wonderful time, walking everywhere (except when we took the bus or the train). On Easter in Sorrento, the church bells start clanging at midnight and ring on the hour with fireworks at noon. At the hotel, each room was served a lovely traditional Easter bread shaped like a cross (I didn’t eat it but my traveling friend, Sandy, did and announced it bella!). Behind our hotel a series of steps, hundreds, made their way up the steep mountain side and at different landings were the fourteen stations of the cross. Someone had placed a flower in a vase at each station and at the top there were bouquets of flowers inside the small chapel there. We could see out over the Bay of Napoli to Vesuvius (we could also see Vesuvius from our hotel room window, just lying in our beds!) and view the town of Sorrento with its red-tiled roofs and olive and orange groves throughout the city. Easter morning we kept walking up along a path that eventually took us to another road and there we walked another hour or more past olive groves and orchards where both oranges and lemons grew on the same trees. We carried our umbrellas that day but didn’t need them. It was truly a lovely day of newness all around and I felt so blessed to be spending Easter Sunday in Italy.
At the noon meal later, the hotel brought in a huge (the size of a five year old child) chocolate egg. They then cracked it open and we all got sheets of dark chocolate as dessert for our meal. In Sorrento, they also have a custom where smaller chocolate eggs (the size of footballs) are filled with trinkets, little bracelets or toys for children, and the stores the day before were filled with these presents wrapped like we wrap roses with colorful cellophane paper. Easter Monday is also a holiday there. And by the way, the lemons are the size of grapefruits. We learned that they’re on steroids, really, and people buy them for the novelty of the size but they also cut them open, take out the pulp and put in lemon sorbet that is then frozen and the dessert is served in that huge lemon half with a tiny piece of chocolate for color. I loved that sorbet! It didn’t have flour in it either the way gelato does.
Good Friday was a special day as well as most of the small towns held processions to the church carrying a statue of the crucified Christ. We arrived late on Good Friday and were caught in the traffic jams following those processions. Believe me, the streets are very narrow in places and our driver knew the back roads or we’d still be there waiting for all the little Smart Cars and scooters and three-wheel vehicles to make their way through the maze of alleys and roads so narrow I could stand in the middle and almost touch both sides of the walls lining some of them!
But it was the people and their dogs we loved the best! Of course we were meeting people from around the world, especially Europe, at the conference; but the community of Sorrento was filled with warm and helpful people too. No one every groused at us when we had to ask for directions or asked what something was. I ate gluten-free and only had one bad day (and that might have been from the excess chocolate!) We took some side trips along the Almafi coast, the Isle of Capri (pronounced with the emphasis on the first syllable, Cap) and into Rome and even there we figured out how to adapt when the bus we’d planned to take back to Sorrento decided to leave two hours before their printed schedule. So we took the trains and walked back up to our hotel after 10:00 PM feeling very safe (and escorted by some of the street-savvy dogs who show up often to check out the scrap-department. Sadly, we left them few!)
I told Jerry our next project should be to photograph “The Dogs of Sorrento” as they were many and varied but also well-behaved. And it would get us back to Italy!
Maybe I was thinking dogs so much because while I was gone our old lab, Brody, had another stroke and lost control of his functions and Jerry had to have him put him down. I’d said a good good-bye to him before I left thinking that at 14, he might not make it many more months. He didn’t. He was such a good dog and we’d had him at least three years longer than we’d thought we would by giving him what we called “Happy Pills” for his arthritis and other pains. He eventually stopped going on walks with me and with Bo, but before then, he’d walk as far as the two trees that were on the property when we bought it, hackberry trees, growing on the ridge below the house. He’d lie there in the shade and wait until we made the river loop and came back by to pick him up, often having to get the six-wheeler so he could just step in and ride back up the hill. Brody came to us when Mariah did the first time, when she was seven. She’ll be 21 this year so we’ve had a long and loving time with Brody. He’ll be missed.
My sessions at the conference went well. Talking about Enduring Stories or The Seven Thoughts that Hold us Back and how we can transform them, appear to be universal issues. The women from Qatar spoke to me afterwards (there were three of them attending the conference) about how fear and anxiety and unworthiness have to be addressed as their country undertakes an amazing commitment to education bringing six American universities in to provide degrees in medicine, engineering, architecture and more at the upper end while committing to extensive early childhood education and on up to stop what they called the “brain drain” of their countrymen and women who leave to study abroad and often don’t come back. They hope to educate their citizens there and keep them there to continue to advance this small Middle Eastern nation rich in natural gas reserves. The head of their ministry of education is a woman whom these women said was truly a model for them. It was a delight to discover that the material I had to offer, the material that is both a part of my mental health life and my writing life and homestead, too, can speak to people on the other side of the world, about changing how we feel and changing the lives around us by how we live our own.
The main presenter was Erik Weihenmayer, the first blind man to climb all seven of the world’s highest mountains including Mt. Everest. His presentation brought both tears and laughter along with awe of the power of the human spirit to dream big, to gather up a team of remarkable people (19 of the 21 person team also summitted, the greatest number of team members to do so on any expedition) and to learn to reach further and higher and to inspire those around them to seek greater heights as well. He also showed video clips of some of the challenges of the climb; but also of new technologies that showed that the brain continues to “see” even when the eyes don’t and he is testing a device where he holds a sensor on his tongue which is connected to a computer carried on his back that sends him messages where he can “see” to play tic tac doe with his daughter and see well enough to catch her cheating! He did have three O’s in a row before her three X’s! Ah, the amazing brain.
His story also spoke to me of the work I did with families challenged by developmental disabilities and several other presenters spoke about educational successes around the world in serving students with special needs. The head of the Perkins School for the Blind also presented and gave a horrifying statistic that over 6 million blind children world-wide are not involved in any educational programs because in many countries they do not believe they are entitled to education. Through Erik’s non-profit foundation, he took six blind Tibetan students on a rock-climbing expedition. Imagine the soaring of their spirit to know that they could indeed learn to do things that even sighted people (like me!) quiver at doing, climbing some huge rock, and be successful at it!
So this April, I hope you’re ready to see how eariler inspiring moments and beliefs of my life and Emma’s history got translated into A Mending at the Edge. It’ll be out in two weeks! You’ll be getting a postcard if you’re on my mailing list and there are a number of events where I hope to see you including the coast launch of the book sponsored by Time Enough Books in Ilwaco, WA, not far from where Emma and Christian lived their lives (at the Heritage Museum there, April 20th at 2:00 PM) and of course in Aurora itself on Mother’s Day at 2:00 PM. A new exhibit is opening that weekend as well “All About Emma” and I believe there’ll be tours of some of the museum sites including the house that Emma once lived in. So if you’re in the Northwest….come visit.
I’m scheduled for a number of blog tours during the next weeks. I just have to figure out how to let you all know that! Hmm, maybe posting them on my own blog? You think? I’m still getting the hang of all this!
We’ll be back on the Oregon Coast on April 26th in little Toledo, OR at 1:00 at the Methodist Church there. We’re (Jerry and me) invited back by the Serendipity Book Group that’s been meeting for many years and one of their members, Dixie McKay, is the mom of the woman who invited me to Sorrento as part of the European Council of International Schools. Her daughter is second from the left in this photograph (with new friends Fran (on the far left) and Adelle, next to me, also presenters at the conference). This was at the gala on Saturday night where we were serenaded by waiters who sang so beautifully they could have been on stage. Maybe during the day, they are! Dixie, the mom, rounded up close to a hundred people in that little church the last time we came. We hope we can repeat it!
Very soon, the first chapter of A Mending at the Edge will be posted on my website, www.jkbooks.com I hope you’ll be interested enough to want to read more and then this fall, will also want to see photographs both old and new of the quilts and crafts for which the Aurora colony was known regionally in the book Aurora: An American Experience in Quilt and Craft. We hope through the photographic non-fiction book to let people around the country (maybe the whole world!) know of this group of Christians who sometimes stumbled and fell but who picked themselves up and did their best to live out their Christian beliefs including the Diamond Rule, where they hoped to make others’ lives better than their own. It’s a worthy effort to pursue and this month of spring I hope to do something each day that just might make another’s life better than mine. It will be a challenge for I am humbled by the richness of my own life.
I hope you’re humbled by your own as well. Ciao for now!

heart disease, children, Ghandi, good reads,

2008-03-18T10:29:00.000-07:00

Some of you know that March, in the past, has often been a difficult month for me. Both of my parents died in a March. We survived an airplane crash in March of 1986. And then there are those Ides of March…I used to call it Murphy’s March for all the things that could go wrong.
But over the past few years I’ve decided that I gave March a bad rap. It’s really quite a remarkable month. We do our “bounty counting” in March now (preparing our taxes!). The yellow bells, first signs of fragrant spring, sprout, reminding me of a time I went walking with my dad and stuck that tiny flower in my dad’s shirt pocket. All day he commented on how good everything smelled and only later realized that it was that tiny yellow bell that gave the gift.
There are birthdays that are special in March. Jerry’s mom’s birthday was in March. So was my mom’s. Matt’s birthday is in March. Bo will be 22 months old on the 17th! A great niece, Sarah Hurtley, will turn 17 in March and her Dad will be…well, older in March.
Winter wakes up this month and finds itself transformed into new beginnings and treasures.
I won’t know for another week or more about my heart test results but while they were being done no one said “Oh my!” or “I think you better wait until I share these with the radiologist” you, know, those certain looks suggesting maybe things are worse than I’d thought. So I’m not worried. After all, I took my own advice and guarded my heart and it’s March when I’ll learn the results so I think things will be fine.
We spent a few days last week on the Washington coast not far from where Emma had spent some of her days along the Willapa Bay (my Change and Cherish series). We walked on the beach, picked up sand dollars, ate seafood (lots of it) and read. I finished Robin Cody’s Ricochet River a book that like Sweetness to the Soul made the “100 best books about Oregon list.” Robin is coming to Sherman County on March 3 to spend the day with kids and the evening with adults and kids at the library and he and his wife invited Jerry and me to visit Sherar’s Bridge with them and talk stories. What fun that will be!
I started reading The Florists Daughter by Patricia Hampl, a memoir about her parents living in Minnesota (where my mom grew up) and brought along to keep reading – depending on my mood – The Hardest Time, Dance of the Dissident Daughter, The Audacity of Hope, The Path, The Hidden Wholeness, Bring Warm Clothes i(That one’s about Minnesota winters) and Eat, Pray Love (it was suggested I read this before leaving for Italy in two weeks), and Lee Iacocca’s newest Where Have all the Leaders Gone? You never want to be without books.
And we rented movies on the rainy afternoons. We don’t watch many movies on TV and going to them is a 100 round trip so DVDs at the hotel works well. I could enjoy them more too because I’d finished the rough draft of my 2009 novel just before we left! My goal had been to finish it before I leave for Italy so it was a gift to have it this far along! Lots of revising will be done, editorial comments etc., but this phase is finished and it is a milestone I celebrated walking on the beach.
Anyway, the theme of the weekend and the movies seemed to be the importance of childhood and protecting children but also about the gifts of childhood. Maybe I was just being open to these issues this month thinking of myself as a ‘daughter,’ orphaned now but then we are all orphans in some ways, seeking to find our way home.
Robin Cody’s book was a moving story of teens and love and life and hope and trials, about salmon runs and dams, about small towns and Indians and the stories we tell ourselves and how the lives we live tell stories, too. It was a compelling read and without a doubt I easily set aside all the other books in order to finish Ricochet River. I highly recommend it from young adult on up.
Anyway, the most profound film we watched was called Water. It’s an East Indian production, subtitled, set in the 1930s. It’s about a young widow (age 7) being sent to live in the community of widows which is what happened for Hindu wives whose husbands died. They could die with them, be sent to this widow’s town, or if the family allowed, be given in marriage to the younger brother of the deceased husband. It was a strict caste system and the story suggests it changed with Ghandi’s influence but as late as 2000 was still practiced by some Hindu people. This is women in history month and I couldn’t help but note that women, young women and old women still struggle in many places around the world, even in my neighborhood though we have no widow’s community.
Into this mix came the 7 year old widow. There were women who had been there for many years, who had also come at the age of 7 or 8, some of whom had never known the husband whose death had sent them there. It was not always a bad place but the wrench of being left there by her in-laws and the way that lives changed there because she was being a child and because these widows had to find ways to survive, moved me deeply. I think the last time I’d cried that hard at the end of a film was at the movie “The Deer Hunter” back in 1979 and it was probably as much as the power of the film as the fact that Jerry was having cervical surgery the next day…life seemed so fragile and of course, it is.
But I was held by someone who loved me while I cried and our friend who was with us, who also shed her tears, reached out to touch my hand and I felt so grateful, so blessed at my childhood, my life, my choices, my chances to lead the life I do, loved as I am.
My admiration for Ghandi’s work grew, too. Such a profound weight Ghandi took upon himself to change a way of life, to make a small dent in colonial influences left by the British in that nation (who had certain advantages by these widows needing to earn money for food), by the weight of generations of Hindu tradition that accepted how these widows of all ages should be treated. His faith and personal conviction were never displayed in the film; it was all about this one child but it personalized how a single life and the lives of those around her were changed and needed to be changed by Ghandi’s listening to his heart, by people knowing he was out there moving to make life better for the smallest child. The law was changed but it was another widow’s act of compassion that truly changed the child’s life, her act of courage to defy the rules and order on behalf of a child’s need.
Or maybe I was so affected because I’d also just come from leading a Presbyterian women’s retreat and as a way to get to know them, I’d asked the women to share their name and share something they loved doing as a child. As I always am at these events, I was moved by the diversity, the range of happy and sad childhoods but also that each could name something they had once loved to do, lost themselves in doing, remembered with fondness what they’d done.
Several said they didn’t do that activity much anymore and I suggested that maybe we ought to. Maybe a way to celebrate the gifts of childhood, (which to me are wonder and passion, un-conditional love, easy forgiveness of ourselves, siblings and even our parents!) is to once again engage in roller skating, horseback riding, reading for pleasure, taking walks with our grandmother, “playing church”, singing, trying something new even if we look foolish. If we were fortunate enough to grow up with at least one person whom we knew loved us, would be there for us, to “protect, border and salute” us (From a Rilke poem), then maybe as adults we could salute those times by repeating them or better yet, giving a child a chance to do those things too.
Someone in one of those books I’m reading said that if we are engaged in parenting, teaching and healing, then we are engaged in meaningful living. So that’s my task and joy this month: to look for ways to enrich the lives of others by parenting, teaching and healing in the best way I know how.
It’s Women in History month and I’ll be speaking at a few events this month and traveling to Italy at the end of it. But I think I’ll make a little more time to go walking with Bo and urging the old dog, Brody, to walk a little further than the deck. I’ll read for pleasure and not just research or to meet contracts. And I’ll be a little more grateful that I grew up as I did running free on a farm protected not from all the tragedies that can affect a child but protected in ways that allowed me to dream and to discover a faith that sustains and urges above all in this world to “love kindness, seek justice and walk humbly with your God.” We are so many of us, profoundly blessed even in this month of March, even with struggles yet for women’s voices to be heard. I am blessed beyond measure and I hope to do a better job of remembering that. Have a wonderful month!

Note and update: The heart tests I had revealed an enlarged left ventricle probably caused by untreated high blood pressure (which is now under control) or from my having had rheumatic fever as a child. And my EKG was abnormal…but apparently it’s always looked like I’ve had a heart attack! At least the one done in 2002 had the same strangeness that brought the doctor back into the exam room saying “Has anyone ever told you about your abnormal EKG?” They hadn’t but now they have. I’m ok. I just need to keep my BP under control. There was no evidence of buit or stroke-like stuff so I’m back on the treadmill my 4 miles a day and heading for Italy on the 20th! Thanks to all for checking in with me. I’m sorry this hasn’t gotten posted on my website yet but my webmaster had some trials at her house. It’s what living looks like.

Finishing Things

2008-03-13T16:49:00.000-07:00

I've been remiss! I'll try to do better. My husband had a second surgery in January and I was busy trying to finish my novel due April 1 that will come out in April of 2009. It's based on my grandmother's life -- she was a photographer in 1910-1915 in Minnesota. I have a couple dozen glass plates that either she or my grandfather took and I've worked five of them into the story. Getting them printed was a treat and it was done by a local photographer so I didn't even have to travel more than 50 miles to get them. My husband is doing well!

I had line edits for a book coming out next month, A Mending at the Edge, last in the novel series due too this past month. That will be followed in September by a nonfiction book about the Aurora Colony in Oreogn that inspired my Change and Cherish series. That book is called Aurora: An American Experience in Quilt and Craft. I hope you'll look for it. My husband took a lot of the photographs and I just finished the line edits for it too. Now we have the photographic part to manage. The museum is quilting a replica of one of the original quilts done by Emma Wagner Giesy, the woman I've written about in my novel series, and there'll be a way for anyone to put their name into a drawing for that quilt come December...no purchase required!

In between I taught a class on writing with a mentor of mine, my first writing instructor, Bob Welch. That was pretty amazing, humbling and encouraging all at the same time.

What I wanted to say though is how good it feels to finish something. I know the novel comingout NEXT April is in it's first draft stage and I'm now doing revisions before sending it off to the editor. And I'll get to relook at it after she's considered it and makes suggestions. But there is something truly liberating about reaching for something I wanted -- like finishing the book before I leave for Italy next week for a conference I'll speak at but will also be a time of relaxation. For a lot of writers, that "finishing" thing is really tough. I try to remind them and myself that perfect does not mean "without errors" but rather "complete." Things that are complete are perfect. It helps me actually write "the end" and it helps me keep going even on the days when the Harpies sitting behind me are saying that what I've written is drivel.

I hope whatever your harpies are telling you that keeps you from feeling the joy of being finished that you'll put Duct tape on them. Someone gave me red duct tape and it really quiets those voices. But if you don't have real duct tape handy, just put a mental tape across their mouths and keep going until you've, well, finished! Stay well, warmly, Jane

Edge, the unfamiliar, newness, mending, quilts

2007-12-27T14:27:00.000-08:00

This morning Bo and I took our walk together. Instead of walking along the river I decided to instead walk up one of the ravines. The wind felt cold though it was only 38 degrees out, but in the ravine, it was still.
We walked a deer trail. We haven't had much rain but I noticed the deer had been on it when the path was wet because their hoof prints sunk into the soil. Rocks had tiny shadows perfectly surrounding them that revealed themselves as space; the cold ground moving back from the rocks. Or else those stones were shrinking!
Bo stayed closer than usual to me. On more familiar ground he ranges far out ahead of me and the other day dug up a hole and caught a field mouse before I could get to him, so this "staying close" was nice. Probably because the new place made him a little cautious. Me too.
I thought about my latest book coming out in April, A Mending at the Edge. This little favine felt like "the edge" with it's ups and downs of deer paths. When I arrived at the upper end of the ravine, it turned out to be the sharp corner where a few years ago the trailer sank over the side and four calves got a reprieve. Jerry opened the door and the calves mosied out to munch while we spent quite a bit of time getting the trailer out.
Last year about this time we were finalizing the title for the book that is coming out in April. After much thought, we'd chosen “A Mending at the Edge.” I like it. In part because it is a book about a woman’s healing, her coming to terms with the mistakes of her past while moving forward. I’m reminded of Acts 26:2 in the King James version where Paul says “I think myself happy…” I love the idea that we can change how we feel, that we can think our way into a better, more hopeful place. Mending involves that kind of re-thinking, pulling threads across the tears and making something whole again.
I like the idea of an edge as well because this woman was at the edge of her religious colony. She didn’t always see eye to eye with the leader and yet she found herself needing the security and comfort that the colony provided to a woman with four children in the 1860s whose husband had abused her. She was marginalized in some ways, at the edge.
But in backwaters -- as in little visited ravines -- it’s the edge that promises the most intriguing bits of flora and fauna. Rich life goes on at the edge of things and contributes greatly to the health of the entire river. I like the idea that this woman will find her way toward spiritual health and in so doing, she will bring good things to the rest of the colony as they make their way.
There are quilts in the story too, so mending and having a tight, well-stitched edge, just stands for quality, doesn’t it? And perseverance.
I've decided to take that route again, just to see if the dog stays close or if with one exposure to the new his confidence has grown. I'm pretty sure I'll see something new as I walk along too. Not a bad thought considering it's the new year soon....when all will be new if not unfamiliar. Walking into it with Bo will be a delight.
I hope your new year is filled with new things whether you're living at the edge or in the middle. Jane K www.jkbooks.com

Trees and letting go

2007-12-21T14:58:00.000-08:00

My friend, Sally Freeman, is a Park Ranger at Ft. Clatsop, the wintering site of Lewis and Clark on the Pacific Coast. This is her fine piece gleaned from the wisdom of trees. It's also a site where Marie Dorion, the subject of my Tender Ties Series spent some time in the winter and summers of 1812-14.

sally freeman <youngsriver@yaho o.com> 12/15/2007 08:48 AM PST During the Advent storm of December 2-3, 2007 in Clatsop County, high windsstarted late morning on Sunday and finally finished Monday evening (somegusts were 120-140 mph). This was the longest, strongest storm in memory.Many trees broke or fell and many did not. The following thoughts were given to me December 10 while carefully walking through a forest nearYoungs River.-
Don't be surprised by a gust from an unexpected direction. Not allstorms are predictable. Be prepared.- It is hard to tell who will stand and who will fall in a crisis. Many trees that look strong and beautiful fell, while many that appear weak had no damage.- Let go of your excess baggage before the storms come. Maple, oak, and alder trees drop their leaves in the fall so when the storms come, they suffer less damage.- A storm may break off sections that used to be vital to you; let them go.If you are still standing, you'll be okay and better able to endure the next storm.- If a neighbor falls, catch him/her if you can, but be prepared to hold them for a long time. If you fall, God might provide caring people to catch and hold you; don't resist their help.- If you are falling, it is useless to struggle to hold onto the earth.The world is not able to help you.- If you are falling, relax and let God catch you in His arms and set you down where your weakness will cause little damage.- If, after years of braving storms with God's help, you collapse, you are not a failure if you have provided shelter, fresh air, and beauty to those around you. Sally

Her line about the storm breaking off sections "that used to be vital to you; let them go. If you are still standing, you'll be okay and better able to endure the next storm" really touched me. How often we hang on to that which was once vital but has been damaged, perhaps compromised and yet we hate to let it go. It worked for us once so we hold tight. Letting go. Perhaps that is my lesson from this Advent Storm...

Have a good day, each of you. Warmly, Jane

Snow on Starvation Lane

2007-11-29T12:28:00.001-08:00

It's been more than a month since I last posted here. Since then, I've mingled with some fine writers at the Women Writing the West conference in Colorado Springs; met with my editors there, flew home and the following day my husband developed severe abdominal pain. We ended up calling the ambulance and air life who transported him 160 miles to the medical center where he'd been treated for cancer. They discovered a blown colon and fixed it! Hallelujah! He's had some setbacks with bladder infections but we're hanging in there and we're back home. If you want the details you can visit my website www.jkbooks.com and click on the November Monthly Memo.

Yesterday I drove 52 miles to do the grocery shopping, run errands, mail letters and paid bills, take the dry cleaning in and made it home before the snow began. Today the canyon of the photograph is covered with fresh snow. I can barely see the tops of the breaks as the foggy horizon has blanketed the ridge tops. Only the rocks jut out like cold noses from the white hills. It feels warm and safe here at the moment. A refuge which is exactly what we had always hoped this place would be and so it's been these last 22 years.

So now I'm trying to attend to deadlines for books and commitments I've made. I did want you all to know about a writer's workshop I'm teaching with Bob Welch, winner of a Gold Medallion Award for several of his non-fiction books, winner of the Columnist of the Year award from Newspaper columnists (his peers) and a winner in my heart because he was my first writing instructor when I walked through the door of a community college with fear and trepidation and signed up for a creative writing class back in 1982. He was a sports writer for the local paper then (the same town where Jerry was recently hospitalized). I broke out in a sweat; hated it when he read my work out loud because I knew it meant someone would see me for the fraud I was. Instead he encouraged me, suggested I try to sell come of the pieces and I did and thus my writing career began. He's a fine man, great sense of humor and as our brochure says: we're doing this weekend workshop on the Oregon coast (February 8-11) "to help you write better, believe in yourself and realize that in small, bug significant ways, your words can change the world." I hope you'll think about joining us. For more information contact info@bobwelch.net. He can answer your questions. It's limited to 50 people so expect some personalized attention!

For now, I better give my husband some personalized attention. It's time for lunch and since he's been ill, he hasn't complained about my cooking, not once! Just one more side benefit of catastrophic illness! Stay warm and well. Jane

stepping into wilderness places

2007-10-14T17:28:00.000-07:00

It's been quite awhile and I apologize. I did meet my September 1 deadline for the Quilt and Craft book and then headed out for events in Wisconsin then back to Seattle and California. The first week in the month of October was deer season (if you're squeamish stop reading now!) and while helping cut up our deer (we do our own butchering and wrapping, too) I cut myself with a sharp knife. It didn't go to the bone but it did cut the knuckle of my pinkie so it needed stitches. They're supposed to come out this week. But I can still type...so here I am.
I also head for Colorado Springs this week for the Women Writing the West conference. This group of women have really added to my literary life. I'm going to get to meet Susan Tweit who is offering a course. She has a great blog I've mentioned before. There'll be women I've met only on line who will have faces and voices and laughter I'll come to recognize and be grateful I have a writing life that includes such fascinating writers.
I'll be receiving a Finalist award for the book A Clearing in the Wild for the WILLA Literary Competition. Jerry isn't going with me and my editor has left the house for a new publishing house (boo-hoo). So I invited the president of WaterBrook Press, Steve Cobb and he said yes! He's going to come to lunch so I'll have someone there to applaud on my behalf..
There have been lots of changes this month. Our granddaughter moved into an apartment as she started her second year of art school. We sold all the cows (well, we have three steers and some calves that will go to market later this next month); bought a different hay bailer and in my writing life, I now have two new editors: one for the quilt and craft book and one for the novels.
I also began research on the next novel that will be a bit of a stretch for me, out of my comfort zone. The series will likely be called "A Fully Developed Woman" I'm calling the first book Where the Heart Hesitates from the line of a Derek Walcott poem that says where the heart hesitates "there lies your next frontier." For me that's certainly been so. I always hold my breath and wonder if I should take that next step into the wilderness...but I eventually do. I'll keep you posted on why it's a stretch but for now, I'm also working on final edits of A Mending at the Edge that will be out in April so I'm not thinking TOO far ahead.
Meanwhile, you are free to join the discussion at the Women Writing the West website where we host a book group. You don't need to be a WWW member to participate and we're reading my book this month, the one that is receiving the WILLA finalist award. So come join us at www.womenwritingthewest.org. Click onto the reading group.
Janet Rhiel of www.rhielife.org also reviewed the book.
Meanwhile, I hope your own writing is going well. I've heard from some of my Canadian friends and am pleased to know that they've found some ways to silence the harpies of fear. I hope you're silencing them as well. Jane

the publishing life; following your dreams

2007-08-29T14:27:00.000-07:00

I have been so remiss in not writing here! I can't even remember my random facts. I've been diligently working on the layout of my quilt and craft book to send to the publisher tomorrow! Hurrah. Then the edits for my novel coming out next April arrived with a few more redlines than I like so that'll be lots of decision-making. The Approved Reader copy has arrived at the local Variety Store where UPS and FED EX like to leave things rather than drive the 25 miles out here from town. Fed Ex does sometimes...they delivered my passport before I left for Canada. The audio of A Clearing in the Wild and A Tendering in the Storm are also ready to be listened to. We leave for Portland tomorrow, spend the night, leave early for St Louis and will listen to the audio as we drive from St. Louis to Bethel, MO, the site of my first novel in ths Change and Cherish series. There's a heritage festival going on and we'll get to see where my character, Emma Wagner, once lived and visit with the oldest living descendant of the Bethel Colony. Jerry's going with me; our children will stay here and look after the cows and dogs and our single cat, Diego.

I'm pretty much brain dead at this moment but that is the part of writing that seems to be lots of feast and famine time. Meanwhile, I've had a chance to read a book called "A Book is Born: 24 Moms Tell All" that will comeout this next month from Wyatt-Mackenzie Publishing. Nancy Cleary pulled these writers together and it's full of good information about publishing and marketing and about pursuing your dreams. They did and that's what they are telling all about.

That's what I'm doing too. I sometimes forget that in the midst of the chaos and deadline crunch but when I take a breath and remember, I must say how amazed I really am that so much could be going on at a place called Starvation Lane. I hope your summer is busy in the best way. Thanks for your patience at my tardiness! Jane

Blog interviews

2007-08-09T09:58:00.001-07:00

Today http://favoritepastimes.blogspot.com/ and http://storieshappen.blogspot.com/2007/08/jane-kirkpatrick-tenders-tale.html both have interviews with me up on their sites. I'm keeping this brief as I'm still on that deadline for quilts and crafts. I hope you're writing is going well! Warmly, Jane

The fire is out, hallelujah!

2007-08-08T13:52:00.001-07:00

First I apologize for posting then not getting back to people. I'm still learning this blogging thing...
The fire was put out on our ranch about 150 yards from the barn on Saturday evening about 8:00 PM. In the picture on the blog you can see the wide sweep of hillside. That's all black now. The ridge that rises up from the barn that's in the lower right hand corner is where they stopped it. Three fire trucks drove across the river from another county and about 8 more trucks -- three official though still volunteer fire trucks and ranchers and neighbors -- worked above to sort of "herd" the fire toward the rocky ledges. At least that's what I called what they were doing, using shovels at the fire line to push the burn toward the edge they wanted. One of the ranchers used his disk to work a fire line in the grasslands. Then the men and women marched down the edge with shovels pushing against the fire and smoke as they went. Water from the trucks at the bottom sprayed up and they got it out.
After that, they decided if they wanted to get any sleep that night after being up for 30+ hours straight and not wanting to worry about an errant ember firing up in the night and starting all over, that they would backfire a section. So about 25 men and women stair-stepped up the hillside dragging a fire hose and shovels and then they began setting flame to the grasses and pushing it back so it burned the green area until it reached black.
At times, because of the wind, the fire moved both up and down river at the same time. The BLM figured 15,000 acres had burned. We had power the entire time which was fortunate. Most of our neighbors didn't because over 36 power poles had burned as well, some falling across the road as firefighters drove past them to fight the fires. We get our power from across the river and it is underground at our ranch so we were all right and it allowed us to continuously irrigate around the house and around the haystacks and the barn and corrals where we had the cattle holed up.
This is the third fire in 22 years we've endured here. It's the second major fire that began burning far away but was put out on our ranch. We're so grateful for the firefighters and our family who helped and all the others from dispatchers and beyond who kept us abreast of where it was and how fast it was moving. We lost no buildings though our neighbors did. We may have lost some fence posts and our big irrigation gun has to be reworked today since in moving it the an out of the way place (behind the barn to pump water onto it instead of on a flat alfalfa field!) the wheel got bent. But all in all, we were most fortunate.
Once everything was over we fell into bed and then I was off finishing the photo shoots for the quilt and craft book so...I didn't get back to you all. Thanks so much for noting your concern.
Now if I can just finish this book....Warmly, Jane
Oh, here's a link to see the movement of the fire and a small photo of what it looked like in the wheatlands on top http://sherman.oacd.org/swcd.html If I knew how to attach it on my blog,I would!

Fire

2007-08-04T07:06:00.000-07:00

We got the call at 1:25 AM telling us that the wildfire we thought had been contained late last night wasn't. Instead it is moving toward us. The ridge in the picture is the ridge it will come over much as it did six years ago when it took out our vineyard, all our fences but not our buildings. This fire has already taken several outbuildings of ranchers upriver from us; so far, no houses, but thousands of acres of rangeland. At least today the winds are lying low.
We've spent the morning moving big irrigation guns off the alfalfa fields and onto places that we want to water down to protect the barn, haystacks, cattle in the corrals. We'll move the goat into the yard shortly. At the house we've been running irrigation sprinklers in the "green space" as we call it for several hours now and set up special sprinklers up under the deck to keep them wet. All windows and doors are being kept closed as much as possible because as the fire moves forward it sends advance-men out, so to speak, of sparks and hot ash and open doors and windows can suck that inside the house. Fortunately we don't use the area under our decks for storage so they are clear of things that might otherwise catch fire.
I'm not sure there's much more we can do now except to wait. It's been 6 hours since they called; we can see the smoke now above the ridge but if it moves as it did the last time -- there's no telling it will -- it will be another six hours before it reaches the ridge next to the house. By then, the fire department will be down here and hopefully backfire as they did last time to divert the wall of flames twenty-feet high as it raced toward the house.
We've put things into the car but the reality is there are few things that are just critical that must be saved. Or else there are simply too many to sort. The dogs are agitated. Too much activity in strange places. So now we wait.

Piloting

2007-08-03T16:17:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd be more up to date writing a blog but I'm on some deadlines and life has intervened in other ways, too. There's a fire upriver from us...and the wind is blowing hard. This is a bad time in the west.
But for fun today, I had lunch with a retired pilot in Wasco a little town 25 miles from our ranch. She's now the editor of the Historical Society journal and we sponsored a writing contest for local students so today we were going over the results, having lunch at the Lean To Deli and Goose Pit Saloon, our "external office." We talked about other things too, of course. And it was while at the post office as she was sending her uniforms to a friend that I disocvered she'd retired and was no longer a commercial pilot.
That sort of fits in to my second random fact. I am a licensed pilot but since the accident in 1986, I haven't piloted. I have flown and even that took me lots of hyperventilating and practicing imagining the pilot doing everything he or she was supposed to be doing so that we could lift and descend without incident. There's only been one incident since our accident and that was a faulty hydrolic that squealed and the engineer came to sit by my seat to assess the problem. I was sure I was supposed to have died in our small plane crash and had somehow survived and now because I was on this commercial flight, the entire plane would go down! Funny how we have delusions of power at the same time that we feel totally power-less!
But all went well.
Our own accident took us between three houses in the middle of town, missing power lines. We had no fire. We'd hit a clear air wind shear. Our friends in the back seat, one who was seven and a half months pregnant, didn't have a scratch; she didn't deliver early. She doesn't remember the accident nor anything that happened for two days after it. The baby in utero is now 20 and doing well indeed.
For me, the idea of piloting again means relearning what I once knew in order to fly. It's pretty much for me "use it or lose it." I suspect that's why "writing every day" is such a mantra. If you don't, you lose the edge. For me and flying, I feared more than losing the edge. I suppose sometime in the future, when I'm no longer focused on writing and less life-threatening possibilities, I might take lessons again. I don't like the idea that fear would keep me from doing something I once enjoyed. But for now, I'm not going to take that fear of flying class for fear someone else will discover I'm a pilot...and that wouldn't engender much confidence in the profession at all.

addendum to random facts

2007-07-15T18:40:00.000-07:00

You'd think I knew how to spell! Bobbi's website is http://www.earthly-gardener.blogspot.com. Sorry for that glitch. She has a number of other sites as well as she's a pretty versatile woman.
Donna's Sheep to Shawl with the Europe connection will also be phased out but if you go there to see her gorgeous photos of her European trip and its connection to sheep and wool and her writing and knitting, you'll find your way to her other sites.
I can add Dani to my Tagging too. http://loveofplace.blogspot.com/

And finally, I forgot to give you the RULES.
Here are the rules for Eight Random Facts:
Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Eight Random Facts

2007-07-15T17:45:00.000-07:00

1. I don't have a belly button.
2. I'm a licensed pilot who hasn't piloted since surviving an accident in 1987
3. I'm gluten-intolerant
4. My sister and I used to sing duets
5. Our wire-haired pointing Griffon is the third dog we've had in a year; the youngest of the two we still have.
6. I always wanted to be a stand-up comic.
7. If I went back to school it would be in spiritual counseling.
8. I like to eat salt from the palm of my hand.

Al right. I think how this works now is that I'll be writing about these random facts for the next few posts. And I'm letting Susan and Velda and Bobbi and Janet and Dani and Donna know. Here are their blog links so you can meet up with them all!
Susan is http://www.communityoftheland.blogspot.com
Velda is http://www.vbrotherton.blogspot.com
Janet is http://www.riehlife.com/
Bobbi is http://www.earthly-gardner.blogspot.com
Donna is at http://sheeptoshawl.com/blog/europe.php

Now I'll discover for myself what this is about.
1. I don't have a belly button. For years my parents thought I was allergic to milk and since we owned a dairy, this was a problem. So they tried other things: soy milk, lots of rice etc. I apparently cried so much that I developed a hernia and when I was twelve, they decided to fix it by taking out my appendix at the same time. They went in through the navel. It wasn't an artist's work. The scar is about six inches long and looks like a railroad track. I've thought about have a tattoo of a small train put on with the words from that children's book, the Little Train that Could...I don't wear bikinnis and never did so that's not a problem. But I once took belly dancing classes -- great exercise, and there was always something, well, missing. Maybe I do sometimes see my body as missing something now that I think of it. I have an increase appreciation for surgeons with fine scalples and an awareness of the aftermath on a young girl's sense of self.

Mid-wife and creative expression

2007-06-22T12:22:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd be leaving messages more frequently...but I forgot about traveling. I'm just back from Write! Canada, a writer's conference at which I taught five classes on writing the historical novel and one class about putting duct tape on the harpies, those negative voices that keep us from writing. I had a grand time! Canadians are kind, there's just no other way to say it!
One of the things that happened was my awareness that mid-wife, as a metaphor for the work we writer's do, is very fitting. I've been reading Jan Richardson's work Sacred Journeys, A Woman's Daily Prayer Book that is filled with great insights and connections about women and life. In that book she notes that mid-wife means "with-woman" and that mid-wives give everything to bring that baby to life, all along the way, not just at the delivery. They'll even set aside their own families to make sure the delivery goes as well as they can make it. It's holy work, that's how Jan described it.
One of the class participants, a writer, told me that she'd been asked to submit her manuscript to an editor and I cheered and said how wonderful, good going! She was sort of ho hum about it, saying it would probably come back, she probably wasn't serious etc. etc. Well, that mid-wife image jumped right out at me. We wouldn't wait until the baby took it's breath before we celebrated, would we? We have to celebrate each step of the way. When that ultra sound picture of our friend's baby is shown to us we don't say, well, gee, I can't really see what you see, and it's only a picture and pretty small at that so let's wait until the baby is delivered before we cheer, ok? None of us would do that and yet with our creative efforts we often do.
So this week I'm cheering steps along the way. I finished my manuscript and sent the revisions off to my publisher. I taught in Canada! And survived! Yesterday a very famous sculpture who has connections to Aurora, the little town where my characters live in this last series said my work reminded him of the writing of Cormac McCarthy (who happens to be the national book award winner and current author of the bestseller, The Road.) So ok, it's just one person's opinion but for just a little moment, my name was in the same sentence as a National Book Award Winner. You can't beat that!
This week I also opened a www.shoutlife.com page. It's another connection with other authors and readers that I hope will make new strides in marketing for me. My publisher also has set up a blog tour. I'll keep you posted but for sure I'll be on 10 blogs and one you can link to on the 28th of June is Margaret Daley's blog www.margaretdaley.blogspot.com. Join me there.
Meanwhile, we're baling alfalfa hay this week hoping the rain stays off. We've had equipment problems but looks like things are working. Some friends from the Seattle area are coming for their annual "testosterone poisoning" weekend: seven guys in a camper who'll fish and lay around and enjoy the sunshine. It's been in the 90s so I hope they're ready for heat.
Hope you're ready for heat too...heating up your writing life or whatever it is you're about. Jane http://www.womenwritingthewest.org http://www.jkbooks.com

Being Home

2007-05-28T12:30:00.000-07:00

It feels like weeks since I've been home but it's only been a few days. After Chicago I headed to Sunriver and Redmond for book groups and events then Jerry drove me back to the airport for a trip to St. Louis. I loved both cities, by the way. Especially St. Louis. Everyone there was so friendly. The staff at the hotel, people riding the elevator, people at the restaurants, really, it was very small town-like. I commented about that to the events coordinator at the Missouri History Museum and he said it was a way of disarming people, that when they greeted them with exurburance then walked away the person was too stunned to do anything criminal to them. I think he was kidding. My publicist and I also did a little tourist trip up the arch. The sign at the ticket counter said "conditions at the top: movement. Enter at your own discretion." Gee, that could describe my life sometimes....though the movement part hopefully is a good thing. We did take the ride up the tram, felt the arch movement at the top, looked out two windows then walked to the other side and rode down. Flying is fine...standing on top of a moving piece of cement at 680 feet isn't.
We had a brief tour of the Missouri History Museum built during the time of the 1904 World's Fair. As we moved into one of the sections I noticed a glass case housing red and crystal glasses, shot glasses, tumblers, etc. with "1904 World's Fair" written on them. I have one of those in my own cabinet at home and I realized at that moment that my grandmother, from whom I received it, must have been here! It was a delight, really and made me ask about photographers at the fair. I learned there was only one official female photographer and that got me thinking along a story line since my grandmother was a photographer (not the official one!) and so was my grandfather. It peeked my interest anyway and who knows where it will take me.
Meanwhile, I signed a contract for my quilt book! What follows is the official news release.

Jane Kirkpatrick, author of thirteen award-winning and bestselling historical novels and three non-fiction books has just signed with WaterBrook Press/Random House for a new project combining history, quilts and crafts. Her agency, Hartline Marketing and Literary Services announced the agreement today. Stitching Stories: The Quilts and Crafts of the Aurora, Oregon Colony will be published in the fall of 2008.
Both a gift book of inspiration and a tribute to the longest-surviving communal Christian colony in the western United States, Stitching Stories is set to coincide with renewed interest in the American craft movement as well as the 150th anniversary of Oregon's statehood in 2009. Kirkpatrick's Change and Cherish Historical Series is based on the life of the only woman sent west to help found the western colony in the 1850s. Book three in the fictional series, A Mending at the Edge will be released by WaterBrook/Random House in April, 2008. A Tendering in the Storm, book two, has received critical acclaim since its release in April.
Settled in 1856 as a German-American Christian community whose members traveled from Pennsylvania and Missouri to Aurora, Oregon, its artisans were known for their weaving of beauty, faith and function through their colorful quilts and fibers, unique basketry, fine music, hand-tooled furniture and the culinary arts that served their neighbors and each other. The colony disbanded in 1884 but the town it founded continues on the historic register as one of the oldest settlements in Oregon and its history is one of a faith community living with relevance to the outside world. A fine museum houses the artifacts including more than 80 original quilts many of which will be highlighted with photographs in this coffee table gift book.
Keep your good thoughts coming for me as I finish the final revisions on A Mending at the Edge and begin work in earnest on the Quilt book.
Hope your days go well.

Tendering: a book event, a meaning, a transition

2007-05-14T12:21:00.000-07:00

tomorrow I fly to Chicago. If any of you are near the Wheaton, IL Borders at 7:00 PM I hope you'll look for me. It could be lonely if no one comes. That is one of the unknown's we writers live with though. Carolyn See who wrote Making the Literary Life says you should always travel with an entourage and bring your friends and relatives to signings. My publicist will be with me but I suspect I'll have to go around and herd people standing in the stacks and ask them if they're in that select group of millions who have never heard of my work!
Regionally, my books do well so yesterday at the Aurora museum, we had close to 100 attend. They were good sports since we held the event outside and it was in the 50s and chilly. But people brought their mom's for Mother's Day as a surprise to come hear me speak and several said they need an annual "Jane fix" so keep track of my schedule. It's great.
So if it's lonely in Chicago I'll think of all those people who braved the chill with me and stood in line to get books signed.
There has also been a nice response to people who have read my interview at www.faithfulreader.com. I hope you'll take the time to read it. Cindy Crosby was the interviewer and she asked great questions. On top of that, she did a review that I think I'll take with me to Chicago so when I'm there by myself I can be reminded that someone who likes books and reads many of them found A Tendering in the Storm worthy of her time.
One last little note: I chose the title with tendering in it because a tender is a small ship that goes between a larger ship and land, a transition, if you will. My character was in a transition in her life. I also liked the meaning of something fragile being tender and my character was fragile from grief and disappointment. How she chose to deal with that created additional problems for her. Then last week I was reading the glossary of a history of fabric book and there I found the word tendering again. It means the shattering of a fabric when exposed to toxic chemicals. It was perfect! My character was exposed to toxic relationships and it did shatter her. But she came through and it was a transitional time for her just as we have those transitional times in our lives. I took finding that meaning as a small gift from the universe.
Hope your day goes well. Thanks for stopping by. Jane

Strange appearances

2007-05-07T07:32:00.000-07:00

I'm not talking about UFOs here with strange appearances but rather the unusual places where my latest book might appear. The cover is the lead photograph in the Aurora Antique's newsletter snuggled there between Shaker furniture and old dolls. It's like being on Antique's Roadshow, one of my favorites on OPB. The cover is also on a lovely invitation to a salon in Portland, OR where I'll be meeting with people and talking about community, especially the community of my latest series. Their invitation compared my work to an Armani suit...I'd post these (you can see the Armani suit invitation at my website www.jkbooks.com on the schedule but I don't yet know how to add pictures here.)
We spent the weekend on the coast for a book signing and then drove up the Pacific before heading inland. As we drove up the coast, we watched gas prices go up too and wondered how long book tours will really be feasible. One more reason to know more about blogs.
Today I'll be spending the day indoors revising my latest then head to a library board meeting in town, 25 miles away. That's a drive that allows me to watch the progress of the wind farms going up in our county. There's a place where the green spring wheat covers the rolling hill and behind it you can only see the tops of the windmills turning, turning. They remind me of slender children dressed in silver performing cartwheels across the grass. Always a reminder too, to find time to play. I hope you will today. Thanks for stopping by.

Editors and self-editing

2007-05-02T08:07:00.000-07:00

I've been fortunate to have great editors in my writing career. They have the ability to give me an overview of how my story comes across and what I need to keep and what might be able to leave and best of all, give guidance about how to do that. Ultimately, it's my task to perform but a good editor makes all the difference. They ask the right questions: "I wonder what would happen if you had that character do this or that?" or "I didn't feel finished with that issues and maybe you could..."
I live too far out to really be part of a critique group even though one meets in Moro every week. I once signed up for an online group but realized I couldn't make the commitment to write a chapter or a piece a week for comment and also comment on all the others who were making submissions. If I sent in what I was working on for a publisher, I could see myself getting fifteen points of view and getting really lost in them. But I do think there are great ways to find a way to look objectively at our woek even if we aren't part of a group or don't have the gift of an editor awaiting the manuscript.
One of those ways is by reading books about writing and revising. Two that I'd recommend are Elizabeth Lyon's A Writer's Guide to Fiction (she also has a guide to non-fiction) and Renni and King's Self-editing for Fiction Writers. I haven't read James Scott Bell's book on writing but those I know who have also rave about it. He writes for Writer's Digest as does Elizabeth Lyon. Each offers practical ways to look at what you've written with a new eye.
That's what I'm off doing today: looking at my WIP with a new eye that this time includes my editor's eyes as well since we talked at length yesterday.
Stay posted, too, as I just completed an interview with www.Faithfulreader.com that will be posted sometime next week. Great questions I thought; I hope I did the answers did them justice. Be inventive in your writing! Jane

My Editor's Notes

2007-04-30T08:38:00.000-07:00

Today I received my editor's notes from the manuscript of A Mending at the Edge, the third and final book in my Change and Cherish series. I crave this kind of feedback and am so grateful that she gives me both an overview of what she likes and what she hopes I won't delete and where she thinks the story lags or needs improvement. Both are valued. For some writer friends I have, their agent acts as an early editor but I've been privileged -- and I do feel it is that -- to have had really fine editors who give me their studied and experienced response so I can make changes before submitted for acceptance and meeting my deadline.
Before these comments arrived, I'd read Elizabeth Lyon's A Writer's Guide to Fiction so I already knew something I needed to work on: clarity of protagonist purpose. You'd think after spending months writing the book, then sending it off, that I'd have figured that out! But it was only AFTER I sent it off and have a few weeks away from it and had read Elizabeth's book that I realized what was missing. I'd highly recommend that book but also the use of freelance editors if you don't have the gift of a publisher's editor to work with.
I've printed my editor's comments out and will now let them "cook" as I drive the 100 mile round trip to the nearest store where I can access yogurt and sweet potatoes as part of my errand-running day. I do some of my best thinking in the car and often tell people if they see me pulled over to not stop as I'm probably making notes. For a writer, a hybrid is a good thing because when I do pull over to write a note or two, the car turns off!
But before I leave I need to write my monthly memo for my website, update some scheduled events I added over the weekend so my webmaster/niece can add them, send some addresses from my guest book signed at events I had last week (to my other niece who keeps the mailing list) and work on the class I've agreed to teach at Write! Canada in June and write the three posts I'll send to http://Charisconnection.blogspot.com a blog for those interested in Christian and inspirational writing. I'd best get at it. I hope your day goes well. Jane

Entering the blog age

2007-04-29T17:05:00.000-07:00

As I wrote "blog age" what I heard was "blockage" and that's part of what has kept me from creating a blog, a blockage of skill and information and not wanting to look foolish as I try out these new things on the computer. But my friends at Women Writing the West, a writers group I belong to, have spurred me on so here I am. I even added a photograph that seems a little large but maybe I'll find a way to reduce it. Later. Right now I will celebrate that I've learned something new and didn't have to break my arm to do it! Afterall, even old rats grow new brain cells when given new mazes to learn. This is my newest maze.