Mr. Davis Has Left the Building

     Readers of this column will have noticed that over the last months, instead of offering my typical fare of marginally insightful commentary on crows or the challenging climate, on the vagaries of the writing life or what falls out when you shake a family tree, I’ve instead conducted interviews with writers who are meeting their deadlines and publishing actual books. 

     Maybe you’ve assumed that I’ve been so engrossed in the byline-touted novel I have in the works that I’ve hardly had time to come up for air, creatively speaking.  Any minute now, you might have surmised, the bugles will blare, announcing the soon-to-be-released opus by yours truly.

     Yeah, I didn’t think you’d buy that.

     I have made progress. And I do think this manuscript will see the light of day, preferably while I’m still above ground and can see it as well. But nearly nine years have passed since the publication of my memoir, and nine years might as well be ninety in the publishing world. And to come out with a “debut” novel at this age or older is ridiculous, isn’t it?  It’s a little late to become an overnight success.

    So I’ve been thinking about transitions lately, and about re-evaluating the meaning of success at a point when it’s not so easy.  In your 50s, the supports propping up the foundations of life are deeply cemented into place. The goalposts were established long ago.  The ruts are deeply entrenched as well.  Any sort of upheaval or extrication -- career or otherwise, even of a mindset -- won’t be simple or pretty. 

      Why should that matter?

      Mr. Davis had taught junior high science in lower Delaware for many years, and he was ready to retire. A big man, tall and broadly built, sporting a crew cut I recall a vibrant dark red in my mind’s eye -- for I can picture him fairly clearly, all these years gone by – Mr. Davis was a benevolent dictator in the science lab, ruling over a land of Bunsen burners, dissecting trays, and all too breakable flasks and beakers set out neatly atop high slate-gray workstations.  

Not Mr. Davis

    No stretch of the imagination grants me a scientific mind. But I loved Mr. Davis and enjoyed his class. It helped of course that my boyfriend, Kenny, was also enrolled.

     Kenny had a striking resemblance to Steve Martin, who was then the standup guy with the arrow through his head, and made the most of it, reciting for my amusement long excerpts from Martin’s and George Carlin’s routines.  He was all around terrific, and knew that a shared sense of humor forged a stronger bond than the clunky ID bracelet he’d given me, which I wore faithfully around my left wrist.

     “You gotta laugh,” my mother used to say, especially when times were tough.  Laughter is vital.

     That last year in Mr. Davis’s class, during those final weeks, the windows were open wide to the balmy mid-Atlantic late spring air. His instruction was equally breezy and warm; I can’t say I recollect the slightest anxiety about exam preparations or assignment deadlines.

     But I remember the still. 

     The distillation assembly, that is, of burners and beakers and tubing, set up along a wall, perhaps not in the classroom proper.  A long storage closet comes to mind.  A prior fermentation process took a while, I seem to recall.  This was a veritable project.

    We were allowed to sample the end result.  Just how much we tasted, I’m not sure. A tablespoon? A dram? My small sip carried with it an unpleasant rubber tubing aspect along with the burn on the tongue.  I was unimpressed, but it was great fun to be in the thick of the moonshiners.

Not Kenny

   The memories are blurry, fused as they are with Kenny’s rendition of Carlin’s Wonderful WINO and the acute longing to be set free from the monotonous cage of junior high.  But the mood is clearly etched in my mind: joyful, effortless.  A happy anticipation of what was to come. We were riding the tailwind of a powerful locomotive into the carefree summer months.

     Of course, it did occur to me that there was something mildly verboten about it all. Something askew in Mr. Davis’s management of his classroom at the end of that school year, in the jettison of rules and requirements, in his relaxed oversight of the growth of young intellects and curiosities.

     Mr. Davis, I’ve recently come to realize, didn’t give a flying fuck.

     There’s something to be said for not giving a flying fuck. For not being (overly) concerned with expectations and appearances, with foundations, with upsetting the less than satisfactorily full applecart. It can take some time for a person to realize this as well.

     Which is clearly not to say I advocate passing around a bottle of gin during study hall or condone the teaching of basic bootlegging to teenagers.  But I get Mr. Davis now in a way I did not then.  

Also Not Mr. Davis.

     A gift my father received upon his retirement from teaching junior high English for twenty years or so comes to mind: a Johnny Paycheck album.  You know the one.

     My father and mother eventually sold our farmstead – we raised chickens and sheep -- in Sussex County, moved to the coast of Maine, and enjoyed many years as antique dealers, buying and selling highly collectible porcelain and paintings through auction houses such as James D. Julia’s, Bourne’s, and Christie’s East.

    I don’t know what became of my science teacher, and Kenny’s family moved away that summer.  I’ve imagined good things for both of them: lots of laughter in any household Kenny called home. And there was certainly no rocking chair for Mr. Davis.

     Fitzgerald was wrong.

     Maybe it’s okay to take a decade to write a novel after all.

Images of "Not Mr. Davis" from the Library of Congress. Image of "Not Kenny" from a blogger who calls himself Robot Cosmonaut, who provides a link to Steve Martin's website from whence presumably the photo came. Or perhaps from Steve Martin himself, as -- who knows? -- maybe he and Robot Cosmonaut are good friends.  It could happen. Regardless, this #vintage photo does not seem to be one of the 10,576 likenesses of Steve Martin owned by Getty Images.  This column appears, in a slightly less offensive form, in the August 2015 issue of The North Star Monthly.  Check out their site: www.northstarmonthly.com

Dancing Toward a Dream: Lucy Sanna’s THE CHERRY HARVEST

Photo: 

Hope Maxwell Synder

     “I’m a lover, not a fighter,” goes the Skeeter Davis golden oldie, which touts a woman’s “soft and tender” side.  Lucy Sanna is an excellent example of what having a foot in both camps can do for a person.

     Sanna, whose writing career spans three decades and has been featured on national television and radio and in the pages of Playboy Magazine, has just seen the publication of her first novel, THE CHERRY HARVEST, by HarperCollins.

     Nobody handed Sanna her success.  A co-founder of the Gold Rush Writer’s Workshop, she is a writer’s writer through and through, constantly working  (she’s written everything from poetry to short stories to self-help books translated into multiple languages), continually honing her skills while building on past accomplishments, always endeavoring to make the next dream come true, and mentoring other writers along the way.

     While her winning smile and warm embrace attest to that tender, sensual side, there’s an admirable toughness at Lucy Sanna’s core. The writing life can be a series of near knockout punches. Sanna knows not only how to keep getting up, round after round, but the fancy foot work that makes it all look so easy.

This month you'll see the publication of your first novel. Tell us about THE CHERRY HARVEST.

It’s 1944. While the battles of WWII are raging overseas, the tension of war is felt across America. Rural America, in particular, feels a tight economic pinch. Men have gone to war, migrant workers have found steady jobs in factories, and there is no one to harvest the crops.

On a picturesque cherry orchard in Door County, Wisconsin, farm life is desperate. When Charlotte Christiansen learns that German prisoners of war are to be housed in a nearby camp, she persuades the county board to allow a group of them to live on the family orchard, to tend the trees and pick the cherries.

The presence of the POWs acts as a simmering backdrop to other pressures visited upon the Christiansen family.  While Charlotte and her husband Thomas struggle to pay bills and put food on the table, their beloved son Ben is away fighting the Nazis. Preoccupied by money troubles, they fail to notice daughter Kate becoming a woman, consumed by her budding relationship with the wealthy son of a Senator. When Thomas befriends Karl, one of the POWS, and brings him home to tutor Kate, the gesture seems innocent enough, until Charlotte finds herself unexpectedly attracted to Karl.

I understand that THE CHERRY HARVEST had its beginnings in Vermont.

The idea of the book came to me when I received a note from a friend: “Did you know there were POWs in Door County during WWII?” No, I didn’t know, but I immediately saw potential conflict, which is the basis for any good story.

I was living in the San Francisco area at the time, packing for a month-long winter stay at Vermont Studio Center to work on another project. But while in Vermont, while I watched the minks run in the snow along the river, THE CHERRY HARVEST percolated in my mind. Charlotte brings POWs to the family orchard while her son is fighting Nazis in Europe. That’s how it started. Once I finished the other project, THE CHERRY HARVEST was two years in the making.

I had no idea POWs were detained in Wisconsin.

Not only in Wisconsin, but in just about every state across the country, including New England states. By the end of the war, in fact, the US Army housed more than 400,000 POWs, mostly German, but also Italian, Russian, and Japanese. They were initially housed in military camps—Camp McCoy in Wisconsin being one of the first—but as their numbers grew, and as many of them were deemed safe enough to pay their own keep, they were housed in schools, on fairgrounds, and—as in THE CHERRY HARVEST—in migrant worker camps. The Army was concerned about the general populous learning of the POW camps. So they made sure that branch camps were in rural areas, away from public scrutiny, and they asked the media to suppress the news. After the war, after the prisoners had been sent back to their native countries, military records regarding the prisoners were destroyed.

How did you research this little-known area?

To learn the truth, I went to the source. My daughter and I traveled to Door County and interviewed people who had grown up on cherry orchards while the prisoners were there. I also befriended a librarian who oversees a room full of historical materials on Door County, and I interviewed people at Camp McCoy. Once my manuscript was finished, the curators at the Door County Historical Museum did a thorough fact check.

One fact I purposely changed: The POWs picked cherries in Door County in 1945; but I wanted the tension of war, so I brought them a year early, in 1944.

You're not a newcomer to the writing world.

I’ve worked most of my life as a science writer, ghost writing journal articles and executive speeches, among other things. I love research. My two self-help books were based on nationwide surveys. The first, a how-to-romance-the-woman book, started as a lark to give a certain fellow a few pointers. Then my publisher asked me to write the how-to-romance-the-man book. That was more of a challenge, but I worked with a couples’ therapist in putting together the men’s survey and then again in interpreting the results.

My first love, however, has always been the novel. I’ve enjoyed writing poetry and short stories along the way, but now I feel I’ve broken through to my dream world.

Tell us about those dreams.

When I was eight years old, I knew I wanted to write stories, and I’ve never put the pencil down. In my mind or on paper, I’ve been writing, journaling, doodling words, surreptitiously jotting down notes about people and feelings and scenes that might one day make it into a story. When I feel anger or hurt or joy or whatever, I try to remember to focus on the physical sensations I’m feeling as well as the emotional ones. I can use it all—the good, the bad, and the ugly—grist for the mill.

I’m not very “goal oriented” but I’m “dream oriented” if that makes any sense. Rather than doing things in scheduled steps, I dance around it and eventually get to a good place from which to throw out a line and build a bridge to the end of the rainbow.

I always knew I could do it, write stores, and luckily for me, my family and friends are some of my biggest fans, cheering me on. I started a long time ago, but I never stopped believing.

My sister Mary recently asked me what it feels like to reach my dream. For me, this is just the beginning. The dream has only gotten bigger.

I understand you’re working on a new novel that is set in New Hampshire. 

Coincidentally, the origins of my next historical novel started through a Vermont connection as well. I was invited to participate at Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf in Sicily last September. There, under the guidance of Jay Parini, my workshop leader, I turned away from the project I had brought with me and began searching for a new one. By the time I returned home, I had it.

I don’t want to say too much about the next novel because I’ve just begun, but yes, it’s set in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Again, it’s an historical novel that takes place in the WWII era. Because my mother is from Portsmouth, our family visited Portsmouth and the surrounding New England area often. I feel as if that’s my second home.

I will be going to Portsmouth in the fall to dig into the history of the town. I expect to make some appearances with THE CHERRY HARVEST while there, but I haven’t yet put together my schedule. In the meantime, you will be able to hear me on the Literary New England Radio Show in mid-July.

This interview appears in the July issue of The North Star Monthly.  Check out their site:

http://www.northstarmonthly.com/

Magic, Myth, and Mystery: World Building with Cynthia DeKett

It’s an enchanting, fantastical world Cynthia DeKett has created for her Three Sisters Trilogy – a magical environment full of physical dangers as well as treachery and betrayal. But what a courageous trio the author empowers to save it from the Reign of Shadow.

     Emrysia, a shifting landscape of fairies, mermaids, and fauens, brings to mind the richly imagined worlds of Tolkien and C. S. Lewis.  The first volume, Awakening, introduces all three sisters while focusing on the “luminarie” named Aryelle; Lament, the newly-released second volume, explores the land of the Mer and its princess, Lureli.  The final installment, in which Eleanor takes center stage, is well underway.

     Writing as C. A. Morgan, author DeKett, a mother of five with a background in commercial art and a profound love of literature, brings a perceptive eye and keen ear to her work.  And while she calls herself an “armchair theorist” -- someone, she says, “who thinks about things and has a lot to say, but who doesn’t really DO much” – she clearly sits still very little.  The Michigan native, who has made her home in the Northeast Kingdom for over twenty-five years, pursues all manner of creative and entrepreneurial avenues while reveling in a homesteading lifestyle. Yet in all she does, her motto is simple: to help others and make the world a better place.

     In her visionary trilogy, DeKett has set her charges upon a frightening path, one colored by more than a touch of Grimm. Luckily, the young heroines embody the author’s heart and “can do” spirit.  Even their names speak to their strengths and to the meaningful detail imbued at every turn. If anyone can rescue Emyrsia from the darkness, these three sisters, under DeKett’s ingenious direction, surely can.

You’ve just published Lament, the second volume of the “Three Sisters Trilogy.” Tell us about Emrysia and the characters you’ve created.  

Emrysia is an uncharted continent in the Chimera Sea, peopled with mythical races and a yet to be revealed connection to our world. When against her father’s wishes, a winged luminarie named Aryelle empathetically heals a wounded messenger, she awakens an age old prophesy, and must embark on a quest to save her world from the Kra’nochta Empa’ana, or Reign of Shadow. Her first encounter with the other inhabitants of Emrysia is almost her last!

There’s something fishy about Lureli of the Mer, who’s been keeping secrets even from herself. When fierce little Eleanor, a fauen of the Aurrac clanherds joins them, the situation goes from desperate to deadly. Their journey becomes a race against time and memories in the second book, Lament, and the focus shifts from Aryelle to Lureli, though the story weaves in and out of the lives of all three main characters, or “sisters” in every volume.

With this series, I wanted to create characters that were at the same time fantastic and relatable. These three could be teen-aged girls anywhere struggling with how to fit in, figuring out just who they are, and learning to play the hand that life has dealt them. But they happen to live in a world steeped in magic, myth and mystery. Each possesses traits both positive and negative, and - no surprise!- achingly familiar.

Some of my favorite characters to write though, play only minor roles, like the Omnicients - three cannibalistic hags who speak only in verse, loosely based on Shakespeare’s stygian trio. Oh, and Althea, Eleanor’s mother, who wears her heart on her sleeve (though she sports a halter) and has a distinct mountain twang.

Cannibalistic hags and a mountain fauen in a halter?

The Omnicients, keepers of the “Dire flora,” are a nod to two of my favorite writers, William Shakespeare and Dr. Seuss. The Swamps of Dire, their home, is a creepy, sentient bog which takes our young trio hostage at their bidding. The Omnicients are just as they sound; “Never changing. Ever growing. With wisdom ranging and knowledge knowing”… and an insatiable appetite for fresh and tender meat!  

Althea, an Aurrac fauen, is the bountiful common-law wife of Nodd as well as Eleanor’s mother. She personally nursed to health all of the cast-off offspring of the Upper Village who have been floated down Mt. Cor with each spring melt. She’s sassy and sentimental, and boss of the cook-fire. You’ll never leave her kitchen hungry  - for food or conversation.

 How did the books come into being?

The books percolated for a long, long time. They began with letting my mind wander while creating a pencil drawing of Aryelle about thirty years ago. Drawing is, for me, a very contemplative activity. As I sketched and shaded, I imagined a world where she would be at home, and adventures she might have. Four or five years later, after moving east, I drew Lureli, and immediately knew they were connected. It took another ten years to complete the trio with Eleanor. But all that time their story was brewing.

The year my fourth child (who was then my youngest) started Pre-K, I finally began to assemble it into something coherent. I still have little scraps of paper and napkins full of notes. Before I began writing in earnest, I developed a five generation genealogy, and a language based on the meanings of the luminarie ancestors’ names.  Originally, the plot centered more around Aryelle’s parents’ relationship, but just like real life, once the kids showed up, their story took center stage. It took me about a year to write the initial manuscript. I sent copies to friends and relatives- a few of them industry professionals – and got feedback. Then came editing, and looking for a publisher. What a bear that is! I soon realized an agent was necessary to get my work past a slush pile, but they were almost as hard to come by.

Finally, I reached out to Reeve Lindbergh, who has always been very gracious and supportive. She taught me the importance of connectivity. I acquired an agent, but long story short, life (and death) got in the way, and no publishing contract came of it. However, the marketplace was changing: rather than start back at square one, I decided to self publish. And now, here I am with two books under my belt and a third in progress. They will form the backbone of the series, but I hope to do a prequel and sequel to round it out, and weave in a little background material that was edited out. And who knows, maybe I’ll do a spin off in another direction with one of the minor characters. But… there are a lot of other stories I want to write too.

How has self-publishing worked for you?

There are pros and cons. Having my druthers, I would have gotten a nice, fat advance and publishing contract. I’m not a fan of the “who do you know” game, and would rather not have to sell myself at every opportunity. I would gladly give up a little revenue for being able to focus more on writing. That said, having more control really appealed to me, especially since I knew how I wanted my series to look.

I worked with local publishers, and with this second book greatly appreciated the dedicated professionalism of Neil Raphel and Janis Raye of Brigantine Media. Their new division for self-publishers, Your New Book, made the process of getting my manuscript to print fairly painless. If only there was a similar magic bullet for marketing, I’d be all set! For any would-be authors out there, forming a marketing strategy ahead of time is a really good idea. Writing is the fun part; it takes a lot of hard work to make a go of it.

You’re from the Midwest. How did you find your way to the Northeast Kingdom?

That’s a great story! I’m from Michigan originally, and came out here for a painting workshop in 1989. I was kind of at a crossroads, looking for a change, and had to choose between a watercolor class in Arlington, VT and an oils class in Mexico City. Vermont won out with the added appeal of a certain young man who had sung a duet with me in our local community chorus before he moved out here. (He had also unexpectedly kissed me on stage in front of a large audience, and I’d never forgotten it!) I dug up his number, and arranged to visit. I flew into Burlington and drove a rental car over, taking Route 2 the entire way, enchanted by the mountains and all these little towns hugging the road. It was so picturesque! I spent a day hiking with Roger, who is a Soil Scientist with the USDA, then attended my workshop, but ended up leaving it early to spend more time with him.

A month after flying back to Michigan, I quit my job, loaded up my little hatchback, and never looked back. Roger and I have been married for twenty-two years and counting. We live on a quiet hillside, raising much of our own food and our five children in one of the most beautiful places in the world. We’re still singing together, leading music at St. Elizabeth’s in Lyndonville. I also sing with the hospice choir, Continua, and even stepped back on stage a few years ago with the St. Johnsbury Players in Jesus Christ, Superstar. Rog and I work hard, and have great friends here. Life is good.

You mention raising much of your own food.

Last year we had a smaller garden and no livestock because I just didn’t have the energy for it. But we usually raise veggies to spare, and either chickens or pigs. We glean what we can from the land – berries and such, and of course, maple syrup. I cook and bake mostly from scratch, and can or freeze food for winter. My husband is a hard worker too, and the kids help. We’d like to keep bees, but haven’t gone that far yet – there’s only so much we can manage at a time. I still spend way more than I’d like to at the grocery store, but… gotta keep those local businesses afloat too, right?

Tell us about your artwork.

My background is in Commercial Art, but I always wanted to be a writer/illustrator. When I first came to Vermont, I worked part-time for Stephen Huneck as a painter and finisher. I also helped start a co-operative gallery in East Burke, but we weren’t very organized, so that didn’t last. My forte is pencil drawing, though I work in a variety of mediums including pen & ink, watercolor and acrylics, woodcarving (Stephen taught me his technique), paper and clay. I don’t do oils much; I’m pretty sensitive to the fumes. My favorite art projects in recent years have been “illuminating” antique wood furniture using mixed media. I’ve created several pieces for charity - even though I’m fan of making money using my talents, art is very personal, and I do my best work when it’s for something or someone I care about.

Do you feel your singing and artwork influence your writing? 

Most creative people I know are creative in a variety of ways. There is something about the sheer act of bringing things into being, whether art or music or even a loaf of warm, crusty bread, that satisfies like nothing else. I’m never truly happy unless I’m creating in some form or fashion, and would hate to have to choose only one means of expressing myself --- it would be like having to choose a favorite child! Also, I believe we all have talents for duel reasons; to make ourselves happy and to share with those who need or appreciate them. Using them is like flexing a muscle, so yes, they definitely feed into one another.

As I mentioned, my drawings led to stories about the sisters’ adventures. Since writing about them, I’ve done sketches of some of the other characters. Singing ties in more loosely, but I do include a lot of poetry, and Lureli sings a lullaby in Lament. (Can’t have a siren who never sings!) I actually came up with a melody for it, and have shared a recording of it with some of my readers as an extra incentive. My youngest often asks to listen to it when I’m tucking her in at night. Singing, understanding rhythm and flow, definitely makes me a better writer. So does appreciating the beauty all around me. It makes me more detail oriented.

When can readers expect the final volume?

I’m hoping in time for Christmas this year, barring any unforeseen difficulties --- though life is stranger than fiction, as they say.

To find about more about Cynthia DeKett, aka C.A. Morgan, and her work, check out her website.

http://www.camorganwrites.com/