Dancing with my Grandmother

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

WILLA Literary Award in San Antonio

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

Being Home

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.