Prime the Pump and Take a Long Voyage

~ Janet Dawson ~ 6 Comments

It’s an old phrase: priming the pump. Back in the 19th century, it meant pouring liquid into a pump to expel the air and make it work. Even now, an internet search will tell us that before any centrifugal pump can be operated, it must be primed. Priming is the process of replacing air in the intake lines and portions of the pump with water.

But our subject is books and writing. Priming the pump also means encouraging the growth or action of something. In this case, my work-in-progress.

It’s a historical novel. I have a large pile of words that will eventually become a coherent first draft. Where the hell I’m going? How am I going to get there? Will it make any sense? It probably will, to me. Will anyone else want to read it?

Thus I prime the pump. I’ve been seeking inspiration in one of my research books, taking lots of notes. I’m paying attention to the timeline of actual events, in order to integrate my fictional characters into the crowded parade of real people who were doing things in my setting in 1878 and 1879. As I do this, I write notes to myself, usually set apart in brackets, outlining things I want my protagonist to do. Or learn.

There’s a lot going on, but it’s impossible—and improbable—for me to place her physically at all the significant events, much as I would like her to be an eyewitness. I must pick and choose the most dramatic scenes and figure out a logical reason for her to be there. The rest, she’ll have to learn from others. Besides, the book already looks like it will be long. Some events need to be mentioned in passing rather than detail.

So, reading a book, in this case, a research book. Or another book. Like this one. Years ago, I was going through a bad patch that soured me on life and left me feeling perpetually grim, grumpy, and depressed. A friend tossed me a lifeline, a book. It’s Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy, by Sarah Ban Breathnach.

I’m not one for touchy-feely, self-help books. Over the years, I’ve bought a few, gotten little from them, and quickly donated them, passing them on to other readers. But Simple Abundance spoke to me at a time when I needed it. It’s a collection of essays, one for each day of the year, looking at things like joy, gratitude, beauty, and so forth. I read one essay every morning. I’m always surprised and gratified when the essay for a particular day speaks to something that’s going on in my life. Such as the day my father died. That essay was exactly what I needed at the time.

One of the best takeaways is the gratitude journal. Each evening, I jot down three or more things that I’m grateful for—even if it just clean sheets on my bed, a quiet day at home, and especially a productive day of writing. I find that keeping the gratitude journal has changed the way I look at life. That helps immeasurably with my writing.

Simple Abundance also introduced me to the Greek poet Constantine Cavafy. On a date at the end of the year, the author quotes Cavafy’s poem Ithaka. During my trip to Greece in October 2023, my group visited the ancient theatre of Epidaurus, constructed in the late fourth century BCE. It’s considered the most perfect ancient Greet theatre with regard to acoustics and aesthetics. It is still used for the performances of ancient plays.

Our tour guide demonstrated the acoustics at Epidaurus by standing in the middle and reading a poem—Cavafy’s Ithaka. As we enter the new year, I leave you a few lines from the poem [translation by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard, C. P. Cavafy/Collected Poems, Princeton University Press, 1992.]

As you set out for Ithaka

hope the voyage is a long one,

full of adventure, full of discovery.

. . . .

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.

Arriving there is what you are destined for.

But do not hurry the journey at all.

Better if it lasts for years . . .

May your voyage this year be long, full of adventure and discovery. And productive!

Guest Blogger ~ June Trop

~ patyjag ~ 3 Comments

Meet Miriam bat Isaac

            I’ve modeled my heroine, Miriam bat Isaac, on the woman known as Maria Hebrea, who probably lived in Roman-occupied Alexandria (Egypt) during the first century CE. I encountered her work when taking a course on the Historical Development of Concepts in Chemistry.

Ordinarily chemistry is taught from the perspective of what we know now without delving into how the concepts evolved over the millennia. So, when the professor assigned a paper on a historically significant concept, I had no idea of a topic. That is, until in desperation, I went to the university library to roam the stacks.

I don’t remember exactly how it happened—did I bump into a bookcase while looking to the heavens for inspiration?—but a moment later, a weighty tome fell on my toe and opened to a page about Maria Hebrea. And so, I began to wonder how a Jewish woman from Ancient Alexandria became the legendary founder of Western alchemy and held her place for 1500 years as the most celebrated woman of the Western World.

Sixteenth Century Depiction of Maria Hebrea

 In the alchemical literature, Maria Hebrea is also referred to as Mary the Jewess or Miriam the Prophetess, sister of Moses. Like her, all alchemists wrote under the name of a deity, prophet, or philosopher from an earlier time to enhance the authenticity of their claims or shield themselves from persecution. Although the tradition among all the crafts and mystical cults was to guard the secrecy of their work, persecution was a real risk for alchemists, who could be accused of and summarily executed for conspiring to debase the emperor’s currency.

Accordingly, Maria Hebrea worked anonymously. Hundreds of years later, however, another alchemist, Zozimos of Panopolis, celebrated her contributions. And so, with just a little tweaking, I had enough information to resurrect the once famous Maria Hebrea and create Miriam bat Isaac, my sleuth extraordinaire.

Miriam bat Isaac’s Adventures

Published in paperback and e-book by Level Best Books in February 2024

Miriam bat Isaac has recorded her nail-biting adventures in novels, novelettes, and short stories. Her most recent volume, The Deadliest Returns, is a book of three novelettes about returning, whether it means going back or giving back. In the first, “The Bodyguard”, Miriam’s brother, a renowned gladiator, returns from the dead to serve as a bodyguard back home when his employer retires Alexandria.

In the second, “The Beggar”, an old man disguised as a matronly beggar, returns to Alexandria to learn the fate of the lovechild he was forced to leave behind to escape the wrath of Roman law. And in the third, “The Black Pearl,” Miriam, having come into possession of the cache of jewels heisted from the Temple of Artemis, sails to Ephesus to return the treasure. The prized gem, however, a uniquely lustrous black pearl, disappears. With the power to heal the brokenhearted and restore the health of the one possessing it, could the pearl’s mystical properties be the motive for murder?

If, like Miriam, you thrive on uncovering the guilty longings, secrets, lies, and evil deeds of others, then as Miriam’s deputy, you will have ample opportunity to indulge your fancies. So, escape the monotony of everyday life and plunge into that rousing world of adventure in three of her most daring exploits.

To purchase The Deadliest Returns from Amazon

For the e-book, click here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CV4TTX3T

For the paperback, click here: https://www.amazon.com/Deadliest-Returns-Collection-Miriam-Novelettes/dp/1685125859

As an award-winning middle school science teacher, June used storytelling to capture her students’ imagination and interest in scientific concepts. Years later as a professor of teacher education, she focused her research on the practical knowledge teachers construct and communicate through storytelling. Her first book, From Lesson Plans to Power Struggles (Corwin Press, 2009), is based on new teachers’ stories about their first classroom experiences. 

Now associate professor emerita at the State University of New York, June devotes her time to writing The Miriam bat Isaac Mystery Series. Consisting of short stories, novelettes, and several books, some have won modest recognition, such as being named a finalist for the Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award. ​

June, an active member of the Mystery Writers of America, lives with her husband Paul Zuckerman, where she is breathlessly recording her plucky heroine’s next life-or-death exploit. She’d love a visit at www.JuneTrop.com or on her Facebook page, June Trop Author, https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100044318365389, where she publishes a blog every Tuesday afternoon about writing, the history of science, or life in Roman Alexandria.

Writing is a Business … isn’t it? By Heather Haven

~ Heather Haven ~ 9 Comments

From the very beginning, I was taught that writing should be a business. Good in theory, not so much in reality. If I think about my salad days, I made about 5¢ an hour. When I got a real job writing humorous ad copy for No Soap Radio, I made $125 a week. Even in New York City’s late 1970s that wasn’t enough to pay your bills, so I worked backstage doing costumes on Broadway to supplement my income. I was in my early 20s then and doing two jobs I loved was no hardship at all, especially if one was in the theatre. I love the theatre. Lots of talented people inhabit the theatre. I am proud to say I’ve met friends I’ve kept throughout the years. Certainly worth more than 5¢ on the dollar.

As for writing ad copy for No Soap Radio, every morning in a round table sort of setting – literally – is where I learned it was my job to produce something, whether I felt like it or not. For decades after that’s how it went. Recently, however, I took on the luxury of writing when I felt like it. It’s only been for the past 4 months and hard though it is to admit, now writing feels more like a hobby than a job. It comes, it goes, and so what? This hobby approach to things is not my style. I’m a workhorse type of person. I need to feel useful and committed. And as John Adams said, one of our founding fathers and presidents, “There are only two creatures of value on the face of the earth: those with the commitment, and those who require the commitment of others.” I knew I liked the man.

I’ve discovered — or rediscovered — it’s not the money that spurs me on. It’s the commitment. True, this has been an important break after 40 years of daily writing no matter what was otherwise going on in my life. It’s been a test of what writing means to me. But this new thing, writing whenever the mood strikes me, just isn’t working. I need to get back to work, scheduled and at the forefront. I need to get up every morning and feel driven. I need to rekindle the fire in the belly. In short, pass me the matches.

I write because I love it. I write because I have to. I write because it’s me. So I greet 2025 most welcomingly. A new year and back to being me — a crazy, driven, committed writer — who puts her work above everything else except for maybe the occasional glazed donut. Well, come on. Let’s get real.

Happy New Year to all the other crazy, driven, committed writers in my life. 2025 is going to be great.

Guest Blogger ~ Midge Raymond & John Yunker

~ patyjag ~ 3 Comments

The Devil’s in the Details: Eco-fiction in the mystery genre

When my husband, John Yunker, and I embarked on a four-day hiking trip in one of the most remote areas of the world, we had no idea we’d bring home the idea for a novel we would write together. (We also had no idea we would survive writing a murder mystery together.)

But though Devils Island is our first co-authored book, it’s not our first collaboration. In 2011, noticing a dearth of opportunities for authors writing environmental fiction, we co-founded Ashland Creek Press, a boutique publisher focused on books about the environment and animal protection. From the day we opened for submissions, we’ve received far more environmental novels than we could ever publish — and now, thirteen years later, “cli-fi” has become a genre of its own.

Both John and I have written our own novels about endangered species — John in The Tourist Trail, and me in My Last Continent and Floreana — and once we learned about the plight of Tasmanian devils in Australia, we knew we’d found our next project.

But we had to ask ourselves: Can a serious environmental topic like endangered species be addressed in a genre often considered “beach reading”? The answer we came up with is: Absolutely. And perhaps it’s even more effective than tackling such subjects in a more “literary” genre.

Here’s why: We’ve seen, over the years, as both writers and publishers, that readers can be wary of environmental books. When it comes to climate change and animal protection, the news out there can be difficult: the planet is heating up; species are disappearing. Readers like to read, in part, to escape to somewhere else — mentally and emotionally, even if not physically. So we aimed, with Devils Island, to write a story that offers a fun escape (a glamping trip in one of the most beautiful places in the world), while also sharing what makes the real-life island of the novel so important (it is part of the conservation effort to save Tasmanian devils).

Maria Island

What we learned during our journey to Maria Island, a tiny island off the coast of Tasmania, is that Tassie devils are being reintroduced there because it is so remote; it’s the one place offering them hope for survival from a contagious facial tumor disease. To give ourselves literary freedom, we call our fictional island Marbury, and we created Kerry, a naturalist-turned-guide who herself is escaping the tough world of rescue to lead tourists on a trip where she’ll get to feel the optimism of sharing a place of hope with travelers. (Little did she know one of her guests would go missing, and a storm would cut off all communication with the outside world.) The secrets and lies of the hikers — and the disappearance of one of them and the death of another — is the focus of the story, but along the way, we’ve snuck in myriad details that will teach readers about the amazing Tasmanian devils (among other creatures) and the efforts to protect them.

And this is where eco-fiction meets mystery — in the details. Locked-room and closed-room mysteries are nothing new to the genre, but by setting a suspense novel on an island where conservationists are rehabilitating an endangered species is a detail that goes a long way toward readers’ understanding of the issues. And while the human characters are center stage in Devils Island, an individual devil character plays a small but important role — and myriad other animals make appearances as well.

Mystery novels include plenty of red herrings — but these don’t have to be limited by human plot twists. We decided that one subplot of Devils Island would be all the more resonant if it was about another issue facing Australia, that of poaching and wildlife smuggling.

Maria Island Lagoon

And mystery writers never neglect setting — and this, too, can be effective in an eco-mystery. Nearly every part of the world is suffering the effects of climate change, from stronger hurricanes to increasing wildfires. In Devils Island, it wasn’t a stretch to conjure a storm that would cut off all contact between the hikers and the outside world. Alternatively, climate change can provide an atmospheric backdrop, as in Jane Harper’s bestseller The Dry, in which the tinder-dry farming community that has suffered from years of drought reveals the stress of the climate crisis on this community and ratchets up the tension in the story as well.

Characters, of course, propel stories forward — and they can also provide details of context and backstory for animals and the environment. In Devils Island, Kerry brings both naivete (this being her first time around as a lead guide) as well as expertise (she knows everything about devils and most of the wildlife from her former job). Another thing characters provide is conflict, and author Cher Fischer provided plenty of this in her eco-mystery Falling Into Green (published by Ashland Creek Press) in which ecopsychologist Esmeralda Green, a vegan with an electric car, falls in love with a carnivorous, Hummer-driving television reporter.

Mystery novels are all about figuring out who did what, and an eco-mystery is no exception. But adding details that reveal environmental issues, the plight of animals, and our changing world can create stories that are not only fun to read but make us think about our planet as well. 

Devil’s Island

On a remote island off the coast of Tasmania, an Australian wilderness guide embarks on a four-day hike with six guests—and arrives at their destination with only two.

Devils Island is home to abundant wildlife and is the ideal place to re-introduce endangered Tasmanian devils. It’s also a region where travelers can see firsthand the unspoiled drama of Australia’s wild places. For naturalist guide Kerry, the trip offers a respite from the grueling work of trying to save an endangered species. American college classmates Brooke and Jane have a chance to reconnect after years of estrangement. Two Australian couples hope to escape their big-city lives and enjoy the company of longtime friends.

When Jane disappears on the first night, the group assumes she has wandered too far in the stormy weather. Yet it turns out she has a secret connection to one of the other guests—and when another hiker is found dead in camp, the group finds itself isolated by the worsening storm and wondering who among them might be responsible.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Devils-Island-John-Yunker/dp/1608096149

Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/p/books/devils-island-midge-raymond/21171253?ean=9781608096145

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/devils-island-john-yunker/1144401474?ean=9781608096145

Oceanview Publishing: https://www.oceanviewpub.com/books/devils-island

Buy a signed copy: https://midgeandjohn.com/purchase.html

Devils Island is the debut collaboration by Midge Raymond and John Yunker. Midge is the author of the novels Floreana and My Last Continent and the award-winning short-story collection Forgetting English. Her writing has appeared in TriQuarterly, American Literary Review, Bellevue Literary Review, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, Poets & Writers, and other publications. She earned a certificate in private investigation from the University of Washington. John is the author of the novel The Tourist Trail; editor of the Among Animals fiction series and a nonfiction anthology, Writing for Animals; and his plays have been produced or staged at such venues as the Oregon Contemporary Theatre, the Source Festival, the Centre Stage New Play Festival, and Association for Theatre in Higher Education conference.

Website: https://midgeandjohn.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/midge_and_john/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MidgeandJohn/

Endings

~ susanoleksiw ~ 3 Comments

Beginnings and endings are the hardest part of writing for me. (That’s today. On other days it’s the muddled middle.) Some writers have arresting, captivating openings that grab the reader and carry her along into a ninety-thousand-word novel. I’m not one of those, but I can eventually get a few words on the page to get the story moving. For me the greater challenge is endings.

Some years ago I listened to Andre Dubus III talk about his new book, House of Sand and Fog, which led him to talk about how he’d grown as a writer. He didn’t like his first book, Bluesman, because he considered it sentimental. His disdain for this failure in craft was obvious, and when I met him at a writers’ event years later, the subject came up again. As I listened to him touch on the challenges in his work, I understood that for him an ending that is sentimental is also in some ways dishonest, an inability to reach deeper for something that was true. I had just purchased TheGarden of Last Days, and read it with that in mind. There is nothing sentimental in that book, least of all in the ending.

Several critics have explored the link between the traditional and cozy mystery and comedy; noir crime fiction has been linked to tragedy. At the end of the cozy mystery, the world is set right again; the villain has been identified and brought to justice of some sort; the lesser crimes of other characters are brought to light and justice is visited on them in various ways, perhaps public censure or shame or remorse; and the minor romance barely acknowledged sometimes comes to light and there is a new beginning for a young couple. All is right with the world. From Restoration Comedy to Agatha Christie and writers today, it is hard for a reader of cozies or traditional mysteries to be satisfied with less. An unrequited love or an unchallenged con artist will annoy some readers as much as a dangling participle will menace the peace of mind of a copy editor. And I understand this. There is something deeply satisfying about the comedic ending, a moment that reassures us that the world aslant can be righted, that our inchoate ideals can be realized.

So how does a writer of traditional crime fiction compose an ending that is both true to the story being told and unsentimental? Sometimes I think this question is just one more obstacle to writing a satisfactory ending, and all I’m doing is complicating matters, making life harder for myself. I’m not unsatisfied with the ending of Family Album, the third in the Mellingham series, but I acknowledge that it is a tad sentimental (maybe more than a tad). But readers loved it because it fulfilled one of the hints at the beginning of the story, and a promise fulfilled, particularly about a possible romance, always brings a frisson of delight. But it was sentimental. At least it wasn’t mawkish.

I don’t remember most of the endings in my books and stories but some stand out, for me at least. The ending of When Krishna Calls in the Anita Ray series required research, rethinking, and stepping back. A woman sentenced to prison looks out on her new world, listening to another prisoner, and is satisfied with the choices she has made. She won’t forget why she is where she is, and she won’t regret it. The ending of Friends and Enemies in the Mellingham series required several versions before I finally landed on the one that worked and fit with the rest of the story. An editor who read the ms and considered acquiring it mentioned how much she liked it (but not enough to take the book). Another ending that satisfied me is that in “Coda for a Love Affair,” in Devil’s Snare: Best New England Crime Stories 2024. The ending is simple, clear as cut glass and sharp.

Endings are hard because the easy ones come fast, are easy to write, and sit well on the page. And that’s the problem. They tempt us to take them, give a sigh of relief, and pat ourselves on the back for coming up with (rather than running carelessly into what looks like) the perfect line or paragraph to close out three hundred pages. Depending on how tired we are of the story and working on it, that ending will appear reasonable, acceptable, or a gift from the writing gods. So this is where I step back and wonder what Andre might think. I don’t have to get far into that mental exercise to admit that the first or even the thirtieth ending is not what I want. 

If nothing else, writing keeps us humble. In our heads we hear perfect dialogue, snatches of prose so brilliant we’ll never need the sun again, but on the page, our pen does not cooperate (or the computer keyboard), and we end up with the mundane, the ordinary, the usual. I keep working on endings but I know I fall short most of the time. As do we all. It’s encouraging to know that greater writers have the same struggles, the same challenges, the same doubts. With one eye on writers whom I admire, I keep at my own work, striving to meet my standards even if that means sometimes disappointing some readers. If I want better endings, I just have to keep at it until I get there.