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Borders closing: an author’s perspective
Springfield, Missouri Borders on bankrupt chain’s closure list There is a tumult in my heart about the Wednesday (2.16.2011) announcement that Borders will be closing 200 stores, including the location in Springfield, Missouri, the store in which Moon City Press first launched my novel Morkan’s Quarry. The characters in my novel, the Morkans, owners of…
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Blogger, meet blogger; you both have a blog in common!
And a blog to blog about…. One of the heady pleasures of having a book published and marketing that book has been meeting the minds of others. I say minds because on the internet, in the blogosphere, you don’t get that old fashioned introduction, that face-to-face trust. You catch just a semaphore, a Morse code…
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Maybe the sequel to Morkan’s Quarry starts like this?
I Upon the death of the Old Morkan it was widely supposed in Springfield that his son, Leighton Shea, would quickly meet with calamity. Silent save when bossing laborers at Morkan Quarry, the young man struggled without the easy gab and foxy acumen of his late father. Those wartime comrades who hunted and killed bushwhackers…
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When two people cook, they make up stuff like this
My wife, Tammy, has really gotten into cooking in the last two years. And now she’s comfortable enough that we do what I grew up doing on Sundays with my father: Making up new dishes without a net or recipe. This, which we made today… amazing! We enjoyed ours with hunks of manchego cheese and…
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Notes on Civilians in the Civil War in the Ozarks
While I have not heard how Friday morning’s panel at the Words & Music Festival will be run, I figured I had better take some notes and share them here. I’m sure Howard Bahr, Roy Blount Jr., and Dr. Alecia P. Long will have plenty to say. 6-1 odds I won’t need any of this!…
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More on the miracle of readers
At the Eudora Welty Symposium, Tommy Franklin (Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, Smonk, Hell at the Breach, Poachers) said that it was a leap of faith to write a book, and an even greater leap of faith that anyone would ever read what you had made up. Perhaps the greatest leap of faith is that a…
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What I said about optimism at the Eudora Welty Writers’ Symposium 2.0
CAMPUS OF MISSISSIPPI UNIVERSITY FOR WOMEN Columbus, MS Thank you, Dean Richardson, for that warm introduction. And thank you to Kendall Dunkelberg, and thanks to your staff for all of the heavy lifting and logistics that I know will make this Eudora Welty Symposium such a success. It is an honor for the University Press…
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What I said about optimism at the Eudora Welty Writers’ Symposium in Columbus
CAMPUS OF MISSISSIPPI UNIVERSITY FOR WOMEN Columbus, Mississippi Thank you , Nora, for that introduction. And Kendall, Bridget, Tom, I am in awe of how smoothly and superbly the Welty Symposium is run. More than that I am bowled over by your students, the ways in which they gladly participate, the dreams they have shared…
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Connecting family to fiction: Inspiration for characters can come from Yellville or Yamhill
McMINNVILLE—Leading up to tonight’s signing at my brother-in-law’s Edward Jones office in McMinnville, Oregon, some editors and journalists have naturally asked, What is the connection of this story in your novel Morkan’s Quarry to anything in Yamhill County? When I was working with editors and agents on the book, my wife, Tammy Gebhart Yates, and…
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How you’ll know you’ve succeeded with your reader
McMINNVILLE—I have to admit some trepidation in coming to Oregon for a book signing for Morkan’s Quarry. The Ozarks in the Civil War has long been ignored. And civilian experience in the Ozarks during the war even more so. So now let’s carry Morkan’s Quarry to a place where readers are really far removed from…
Fiction and History 