Map Time!

Tags

Current River, economics, history, Jefferson City, lumber, maps, Ozarks, Poplar Bluff, railroads, Van Buren

My affection for old maps goes back a long way, as any of my longtime friends and family can testify. Maps are fuel for the imagination, and I still use historic maps a lot.

I’ve developed a new talk that I’m ready to start giving to libraries and civic groups – it’s about the timber boom in Missouri that began in the late 1880s and continued into the teens, and the cultural and environmental repercussions of that boom. Needless to say, historic maps play a part. The one shown here is an 1877 railroad map of Missouri.

The solid line is the Iron Mountain Railroad, which had only reached as far as Pilot Knob before the war, but had by 1877 been extended all the way into Arkansas. The dotted lines are “projected” railroads; and by “projected” we can go all the way from “overtly planned” to “wishfully imagined.” I re-read Dee Brown’s classic Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow recently, and it was striking in his research how haphazard the railroad expansion was; if a speculator could get enough backers, then a railroad in that area would be built, regardless of need or connection to existing lines. Railroad mania extended to the local level in the form of county governments that would grant all kinds of incentives to railroad companies, including bonds that would burden the counties for decades afterward when the company went bust. David Thelen’s Paths of Resistance describes many instances of counties across the state that gave tremendous financial assistance to sketchy railroad companies, often assisted by liberal amounts of graft, followed by taxpayer revolts in later years as the bond payments came due. Indeed, some of the incidents of courthouse-burning that occurred in the state during the latter part of the 19th century can be attributed to taxpayers trying to wipe out the county’s tax records in a spasm of felonious retribution. (Other instances occurred because of another type of crime-covering, which I will devote a later post to.)

For the purposes of my talk, though, the item of interest on that map is the projected railroad between Van Buren and Poplar Bluff. In 1877, it was an item of fancy, although lines would eventually be built from Williamsville to Van Buren and from Neelyville (not shown on the map) to Doniphan. But the central development in the timber boom was what became known as the Current River Line, which came in from the west, snaking in from Willow Springs to Mountain View to Birch Tree to Van Buren and eventually to a town that didn’t even exist yet, the timber-milling hub of Grandin. That was the line that opened up the southern Ozarks to the timber boom.

I gave this talk at the Missouri River Regional Library in Jefferson City last weekend and was fortunate that Gene Brunk, a longtime forester in Missouri, was in the audience. Gene’s grandfather was a fireman (a boiler-stoker, that is, not a firefighter) at the smaller of the two Grandin mills, and Gene had some wonderful photos and stories to tell.

 

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A Good Year in Ozarks Writing – Already

Tags

books, Brooks Blevins, history, literature, Ozarks, Phil Howerton, University of Arkansas Press, University of Illinois Press

2019 has barely begun, and I can already tell that it’s going to be a banner year for writing about the Ozarks.

I’ve been working my way through the first volume of Brooks Blevins’ A History of the Ozarks, entitled The Old Ozarks, and it’s a grand piece of work. Richly sourced, comprehensive, and adroitly written, it is the history we’ve all been waiting for. I’m eagerly waiting for the second and third volumes to appear so I can snatch them up, too. If you are interested in the Ozarks, or interested in history, you must get this book – or at least make sure your library has a copy.

And then next month, another landmark book will hit the shelves: The Literature of the Ozarks, a comprehensive anthology edited by Phil Howerton of Missouri State – West Plains. It’s been a long time since anyone attempted an Ozarks literary anthology, and I can’t remember if anyone has ever put together one of this magnitude, stretching from the early 19th century to the present day. It’s being published by the University of Arkansas Press, and although I haven’t seen a physical copy yet, I’ve seen the table of contents, and it’s magnificent. I say this with a blush, since a selection from one of my books is included. I’m thrilled to be among the company.

Two days into the new year, and already a memorable one. I’m eager to see what other reading treats await.

Who Loves Libraries?

Tags

Jefferson City, libraries, memory, The Language of Trees

I do! This photo was taken at the Missouri River Regional Library in Jefferson City recently, where I was participating in an author event. My college friend Wade Park showed up, much to my delight!

I’ve done events of all types at libraries all over the state, and elsewhere. A library is one of a community’s greatest resources, a place open to all, where knowledge, entertainment, and connection is free and cherished. I’m an unabashed fan of libraries, and anyone who knows about my upbringing can say I got it honestly. My mother, a long-time librarian, instilled that love in me from a very early age. I remember going to the Fredericktown library when I was a kid and loading up on books that were WAY over my age range. The checkout clerks passed a glance, then sighed, then checked them out for me. (They did, however, tell me that only grownups could check out the art prints that I had under my arm.)

I can hardly begin to list the libraries I have visited as part of my book efforts. Some of the bigger ones have nice speaker budgets, and I always appreciate being invited to talk where there’s a check at the end. But many of the little libraries are scratching by with no spare money at all; I usually give a talk at those libraries for free, or for gas money. Libraries have given me so much over the years that I consider myself in a permanent state of debt to them. Plus, when I visit a library there’s always a chance that an old friend will appear!

Making Poetry Matter

Tags

art, criticism, poetry, The Atlantic

I’ve been meditating for the past couple of weeks on a recent article in The Atlantic entitled “How Poetry Came to Matter Again.” If you didn’t see it yet, that’s ok. The article is a breezy lope through a half dozen contemporary poets, and it quotes only tiny snatches of their poetry, so it’s really quite impossible to tell from the piece whether their work is any good. From the slender supporting evidence of the article, the way a poet “matters” is by obtaining grants, being appointed to university positions, getting on award lists, and developing a large YouTube following.

Of course, those grants, positions, and awards have been with us for quite some time. These poets “matter,” in contrast to the poets of previous generations, the author tells us approvingly, because “They are immigrants and refugees from China, El Salvador, Haiti, Iran, Jamaica, Korea, Vietnam. They are black men and an Oglala Sioux woman. They are queer as well as straight and choose their personal pronouns with care.” In other words, they are poets who matter because of their identity.

I don’t feel any need to critique the nonsensical assertions of the article (I’ve been choosing my personal pronouns with care for years!), and I don’t know the work of the poets mentioned in it; for all I know, some of them could be quite fine, although the tidbits quoted in the article are uneven. It does trouble me, though, that a magazine which purports to be a champion of culture would give itself over to such shallow assertions. Even The Atlantic feels a need to prove its cutting-edge bona fides, I suppose.

The way that a poem matters – a poet matters – a school of poetry matters – is by actually mattering, across generations and across cultures, by being repeated and quoted in new contexts, spoken by others and taken to heart. Do these poets and poems matter? I don’t know, and no one else does yet, either. For now, I’m going to try to keep my eye on the page and not on the CV entries. Emily Dickinson didn’t have much of a resume, as I recall.

Thoreau

Tags

American literature, biography, books, literature, nature, Thoreau, Walden

Henry David Thoreau was my first literary hero. We had a hammock in our yard, and in summers I would lie in the hammock and read my ninety-five-cent copy of Walden and Other Writings (yes, that’s an image of it, now some forty-plus years old, complete with duct tape holding it together). In the winters I would move inside and read it while I perched over the furnace grate, the waves of superheated air wafting up around me as I readied myself for the inevitable farmhouse chill once we had shut our bedroom doors.

I only got about half of it, of course. A kid of fifteen will miss most of the dry humor, skip through much of the close and precise description, and fail to appreciate the vast range of references that are dropped into every paragraph with such ease. But I did get Thoreau’s immense and uncompromising individualism and his insistence on the primacy of his own conscience. Over the years, I’ve returned to Thoreau again and again, understanding him a little bit more each time, appreciating his formidable intellect and powers of observation. People look at me in disbelief when I say Thoreau is a funny author, but honestly, I always get a laugh when I read Walden.

So I was eager to read Laura Dassow Walls’ new biography of Thoreau, and it did not disappoint. Walls’ biography is subtitled “A Life,” and it does indeed focus on the life of Thoreau, rather than his philosophy or literary work, although those intellectual matters do figure into the book since they were central to Thoreau’s life. But we are constantly reminded of Thoreau as a living person, an individual with friends, detractors, passions, and faults, and reminded that far from being the solitary hermit of Walden Pond familiar from popular myth, Thoreau lived a vibrant and engaged life, full of aspiration and struggle. He loved many people and was loved by many.

Thoreau remains one of my literary heroes. The bicentennial of his birth was last month, and it’s hard to think of many other American writers who remain so essential and relevant, or who will remain so two hundred years after their birth.

The Film Version

Tags

authenticity, Facebook, Missouri, movies, Scott Miller, television

I recently re-posted an article from The Daily Beast on my Facebook page, and it ended up generating a lot of discussion. Essentially, the article is the latest in a series of pieces by authors with Missouri ties, lamenting the portrayal of the state in movies and TV. I’ve contributed my own bit to this discussion, and in my Facebook post I was likewise sympathetic to the author’s complaint.

But my friend Scott Miller, himself a St. Louis-based author with a series of novels set in that city, took a different view. He commented on my post that Missouri as a setting, like all settings, gets exaggerated and simplified for effect, and we should (basically) quit whining about that. He’s got a point: Works of fiction are, after all, works of fiction, and most people get that. We don’t expect to encounter a thousand-year-old vampire when we visit New Orleans or louche murderers when we visit Miami, even though prominent fictional works might suggest such. Still, I can’t avoid wondering what kind of image is being presented of my home state and whether the accumulation of rednecks and meth-heads has an eventual impact.

Still, it would help if my fellow Missourians would quit living into that stereotype, especially those in the limelight. I rant occasionally about our legislature, which seems determined to out-idiot the other idiotic legislatures around the country from time to time, passing laws that allow people to carry guns basically anywhere they please without a minute’s training and protecting us from mythical United Nations interference. I suspect that such actions in the news contribute as much or more to people’s perceptions as the occasional movie or TV show, which tend to be set in fictional towns like Ebbing or Wind Gap and are typically not even filmed in the state.

But here’s an interesting thought experiment: If you could wave your hand and create a movie or TV show set in Missouri, one that conveyed an authentic sense of the state, what would it involve? I have a few ideas. I’d love to see a show that engages with present-day St. Louis – the way that King of the Hill and White Palace did for the time periods they dealt with. There’s such drama in the present condition of the city. And I think of all the Missourians who would make interesting biopics, like Scott Joplin, Walt Disney, or Kate Chopin. But to get the “authentic” Missouri, I think you’d have to mix city and country, past and present. The contradictions of the state can’t be captured in a simple story.

What do you imagine the ideal “Missouri” show to be?

Favorite Ozarks Books – 10

Tags

anthologies, books, Don West, Donald Harington, Eugene Doty, Harry Minetree, Jack Butler, Jean Bell Mosely, Jim Bogan, Jim Hamilton, Langston Hughes, Leonard Hall, Miller Williams, Ozark Ozark, Paul Johnson, Roy Reed, Speer Morgan, Thomza Zimmerman, University of Missouri, Vance Randolph, Walter Bargen, Ward Dorrance

I’ve been thinking about Ozark anthologies lately, and have been re-reading a couple. Ozark, Ozark, edited by Miller Williams, came out in 1981. I have a vague recollection of being an intern at the University of Missouri Press when this book was in production, but I don’t believe I worked on any of it, except perhaps for helping to proofread the Acknowledgements page or something equally forgettable. That’s too bad, because I would like to be able to claim some small amount of credit for this very memorable anthology.

Williams employed a sort-of chronological approach in this anthology, organizing by author birthdate starting in 1869 and ending in 1949. Like all structures, this approach both confines and provides framing; there’s no Schoolcraft or Turnbo, but the early- to mid-part of the century is well represented. Vance Randolph is in there, along with Ward Dorrance and Donald Harington. But I’m more taken by the less-familiar names in the collection, authors I hadn’t known before: Don West, Jack Butler. Some people I’ve known personally are welcome inhJabitants of these pages: Speer Morgan, Eugene Warren (who writes as Eugene Doty nowadays), Jim Bogan, Paul Johnson, Walter Bargen. An occasional ringer fills out the pages as well, like Langston Hughes, who yes was born in Joplin, making him an Ozarker by birth, but who high-tailed it for Mexico, Europe, and New York as quick as he got the chance.

I particularly like the inclusion of some accomplished newspaper columnists in the anthology. The newspaper column is a demanding craft, with strict word counts and unforgiving deadlines, and it’s easy to become a hack at it. Even the best columnists occasionally write a bad one, but the good ones somehow manage to find grace or insight in the everyday rhythms of life. The Jean Bell Mosely/Thomza Zimmerman alternating column, “From Dawn to Dusk,” which appeared in Cape Girardeau newspapers and was syndicated regionally for 21 years, was such a column. So too were the columns of Jim Hamilton, the longtime editor of the Buffalo Reflex, who later collected some of his best ones in a book entitled River of Used to Be, which is one of the prizes on my shelf. We don’t have selections from either of those in this anthology, but we do have columns from Leonard Hall and Roy Reed, and a short magazine piece from Harry Minetree.

The anthology is a reflection of its time, overwhelmingly male and white, and that’s a weakness. I also spotted a few errors in the introduction and notes, but despite those difficulties, Ozark Ozark: A Hillside Reader is still a pleasure to dip into. It’s out of print, as far as I can tell, but used copies can be found for not too outrageous a price.

 

 

 

 

A Fine Collection That Will Leave You Touched

Tags

books, Caitlin Hamilton Summie, farming, rural life, short stories, To Lay To Rest Our Ghosts

If you’re a fan of short stories, especially ones with a modern rural base, you’ll like this book.

Not that the characters in these stories are all farmers; in fact, few are. Instead, many are that more common species, the offspring of farmers, women and men who went off to college or who have been squeezed out economically, and are now making a living in “the city” – Minneapolis/St. Paul or elsewhere – and feeling the loss and vague guilt that comes with being severed from those roots.

To Lay To Rest Our Ghosts is full of hard feelings. Siblings hold grudges; parents cling to unreasonable expectations; neighbors misunderstand and judge. But below these hard feelings is the longing to make things right. This is a lovely book of stories, in which the drama, unforgiven wounds, and generational misunderstandings of family members are balanced by their halting attempts to heal those wounds and slights. The characters are drawn with a quiet deftness that sometimes make you forget that they are characters at all, in prose that is likewise quiet, not showy, but always well targeted.

“Fish Eyes In Moonlight” was my personal favorite of the collection, a monologue from the point of view of an old man facing mortality, counting up his losses, mistakes, and moments of redemption. But all ten of the stories have a similar yearning for the moments of harmony that occasionally — but only occasionally — counterbalance our stubbornness and failing. A fine collection that will leave you touched.

Interview: Ed Protzel

Tags

books, Civil War, historical fiction, Missouri, mysteries, racism, reconstruction, writers, writing

My fellow historical novelist Ed Protzel has a new book out today. It’s called Honor Among Outcasts, and it follows his very successful The Lies That Bind. Ed and I have mined similar veins in our work (Missouri during the Civil War), although Ed also has a mystery/thriller coming out this year, also. So it was a real pleasure to visit with him recently about his new release. Here’s our interview:

SW: Thanks for joining me on my blog today, Ed! To start out, I wonder if you could tell us a little about your new book, HONOR AMONG OUTCASTS, and how it connects with your previous novel, THE LIES THAT BIND.

EP: Thanks for having me, Steve. In HONOR AMONG OUTCASTS, the second book in my DarkHorse Trilogy, a Southern abolitionist and a group of runaway slaves form a Union colored cavalry regiment in western Missouri, plunging into the most brutal guerilla war in U.S. history. When the abolitionist and his fiancée are accused of spying for the Confederacy, they must face a corrupt military justice system and other obstacles.

Book 1 of the trilogy, THE LIES THAT BIND, centers on the relationship between these men and their efforts to build their own egalitarian plantation in slavery-dominated Mississippi. HONOR AMONG OUTCASTS begins two years after the end of THE LIES THAT BIND, with the group working as contraband laborers attached to the Union army in Missouri. Both books work as stand-alone novels or, even better, in tandem.

SW: What drew you to this time period in the first place?

EP: I read a lot of history, including the Civil War. Being from Missouri, it felt natural to set HONOR AMONG OUTCASTS in that time and place. However, in my research, Missouri’s terrible neighbor-against-neighbor guerrilla war really caught my attention; it said much about the depths to which hatred could debase the most noble cause. Great material for compelling storytelling. Actually, the periods depicted in the three books — antebellum Mississippi, Civil War Missouri, and Reconstruction Mississippi — form an arc through this pivotal time in American history.

Additionally, all of the DarkHorse novels decry violence, with the main characters attempting to avoid being victims of it. With HONOR AMONG OUTCASTS set during a brutal war to resolve slavery, I didn’t want to resolve the myriad conflicts in the book through violence. Instead, I chose to play out the conflicts  through a courtroom, which tied the plots together very neatly. My characters are seeking justice, and what better place for justice to prevail than a courtroom?

SW: I see that you have a third novel on its way. Did you envision this series as a trilogy, or is that something that just happened along the way?

EP: Yes, I am now happily completing SOMETHING IN MADNESS, the final book in the trilogy. Actually, I imagined the “DarkHorse” concept as a trilogy originally, but had only written the first book (THE LIES THAT BIND). Still I pitched it to my agent as a trilogy, and she pitched the trilogy to the publisher (TouchPoint Press). It’s certainly been an adventure, and I’ll miss the characters once I’m finished, they’re so real to me after all these years.

SW: On a similar note, are you someone who likes to plot your storylines out carefully in advance, or do you discover things as you’re writing? What’s your creative process like?

EP: Actually, I don’t plot out my storylines in advance. Usually, I come up with a strong concept that offers lots of possibilities and powerful themes, plus good main characters that fit the situation. I also come up with an idea for what I think would be a terrific ending, one which will reveal my themes, and I try to keep that ending in mind as I create the story.

As for the rest of it, once I set the story in motion, the characters and the plot take over—that’s the fun of it for me: the reader discovers as I discover. The novel usually morphs into complex plots that gain power as they go forward, with lots of twists and surprises along the way. THE LIES THAT BIND and another novel, futuristic, that was just picked up (THE ANTIQUITIES DEALER) were written like that. Interestingly however, with HONOR I didn’t have an ending in mind when I began, just a number of conflicts and historical events, all of which I had to tie together and resolve. HONOR is quite atypical for me in that respect.

SW: So, you’ve also got a futuristic thriller coming out. I think working on two such disparate genres would make my head spin! Do you see connections between the two types of writing, or do you keep those creative endeavors in separate compartments?

EP: Good question, Steve. Writing THE ANTIQUITIES DEALER was a nice break from writing historical fiction and refreshed me, cleaned out my head. Historical fiction has so many constraints, including language and character viewpoints that can’t be used because they’re too modern, they’d be anachronistic. No such problem with futuristic and sci-fi genres. Further, I wrote THE ANTIQUITIES DEALER first person, which was also liberating, letting me get into the main character’s head in his own words. Also the contemporary setting (St. Louis) is relatively familiar to the reader, mixed with exotic portions in Israel, and partially in Paris and London. And taking place in modern times, with sci-fi-like elements, I was able to really let go and come up with imaginative plot devices that the reader won’t guess. I really enjoyed this genre and have another, EARTH EXCURSIONS, laid out and ready to jump on when I finish SOMETHING IN MADNESS.

SW: Finally, and I know it’s always a little presumptuous asking authors to comment on “themes” and the like, but what are you hoping that readers will take away from HONOR AMONG OUTCASTS?

EP: I hope readers will see a parallel to today’s world and its own set of challenges. I want them to grasp how HONOR AMONG OUTCASTS illustrates that no matter how unjust society may be, love and friendship can enable men and women, regardless of color or class, to stand together and to prevail. And that evil deeds and the lies upon which they depend can and will eventually collapse of their own weight. Think of our country’s advances in civil rights and the women’s movements, gay rights, etc.

Call me an optimist, but history does bend toward justice over time.

Find Ed Protzel at:

Website: http://www.edprotzel

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/edprotzelauthor/?ref=settings

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Honor-Among-Outcasts-DarkHorse-Trilogy/dp/1946920312/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1517584302&sr=1-1&keywords=ed+protzel

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14757802.Ed_Protzel

The Pulpwood Queens, Pt. 2

Tags

novels, publishing, Pulpwood Queens, reading, Texas, writers, writing

My author panel at the Pulpwood Queens weekend

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my upcoming trip to the Pulpwood Queens Girlfriend Weekend. That trip has been completed now, and I’m here to report that it was quite an experience!

The event was held at the Fredonia Hotel in Nacogdoches, Texas, a 1950s-era hotel that has been renovated and modernized. I understand that the hotel hasn’t been open long in its new form, but it was a terrific location! Congratulations to the owners on the job they did, and to the Pulpwoods for choosing it.

The Girlfriend Weekend is a gathering of club members, who hailed from all over the country, and the authors they read. In that respect alone it was a unique event. I’ve never attended an event that had so many avid, enthusiastic readers from such a wide location.

The authors were also a varied group, and I had a good time making new acquaintances. Here are a few photos: The one at the top of the post has Clea Simon, the author of World Enough (she’s a mystery writer), and Reavis Wortham, who writes Texas-based thrillers. At the end is the Pulpwood Queen herself, Kathy Murphy (more about her in a minute). I enjoyed meeting scads of other authors who work in a wide variety of genres: Lorna Landvik (contemporary novels with a humorous twist), Bren McClain (whose debut novel, One Good Mama Bone, was the Queens’ Book of the Year, Tamra Bolton (children’s), Rickey Pittman (children’s ABC books), Romalyn Tilghman, Man Martin, Lisa Wingate (whose latest book, Before We Were Yours, has hit the well-deserved bigtime), Alice Hoffman, and many, many more.

Me with Lorna Landvik, who was the high bidder on my gift basket to raise money for the Pat Conroy Literary Center.

The orchestrator of this event is Kathy Murphy, who is a tireless advocate for books, reading, and literacy. She put the whole event together, co-hosted with author Jamie Ford, and somehow managed to keep this enormous herd of cats pointed in the same direction! It was a delight to meet her. We ended up having dinner together on the night before the event got started, and I was immensely impressed with her verve and zest for the literary experience. There’s a movie in the works about her story, and she’s an author herself!

The Texas Ornithological Society was holding its winter meeting that same weekend, and the hotel staff helpfully directed us. As if the tiaras weren’t enough of a clue!

It was a long drive, but an unforgettable event! I am hugely grateful to have been invited and excited about a return trip!