Operation: Nebraska Author- The Clearwater House

I’m not exactly sure what genre to label the next book in my Operation: Nebraska Author project. The Clearwater House by Tammy Marshall could be labeled modern historical fiction if it weren’t for the paranormal elements of the story. It could be marketed as a romance, except the love story isn’t the focus. You could say it’s a mystery and leave it there, and while it is, it is so much more. Let’s work through this together.

Lillian is dissatisfied with her life.

She works at a job she neither loves, nor hates, she’s dating a guy she’s not sure she even likes anymore, and she rarely gets time to do the one things she really loves: painting.

Until a lawyer shows up at the art museum in Omaha, NE where she works informs her that she has inherited a house in Clearwater, NE from a woman that she had never heard of.

A woman who was still alive.

The mysterious woman combined with the fact that Lillian’s mother’s family was from the Clearwater area, her grandfather still lived there, and her desire to make some important decisions about her job, her boyfriend, and her art, made Lillian decide to get away from Omaha for a weekend.

Once she arrives in Clearwater, Lillian pays the lawyer a visit. In addition to the keys to the property, he gives her an escape plan. If she ended up not wanting the house, she’s not stuck with it. The house will revert back to the owner who will dispose of it another way. The one clause was, she had to spend time in the house before she decided to keep it or not.

Lillian is intrigued by the house as soon as she sees it. It is an old two-story farm house with a porch on the front, surrounded by trees with outbuildings and a stream bubbling nearby.

Almost as soon as Lillian steps into the house, strange things start happening. She feels faint while walking down the hall and imagines she sees the original wall paper and décor. When she sets up her painting in a room upstairs, she is pushed by an unknown force to paint scenes she doesn’t know and doesn’t remember doing.

She pushes it from her mind when the welcome distraction of the handsome Jake from across the road comes to introduce himself. Jake, recently divorced, is helping on the family farm until he figures out what his next step is. There is an instant attraction and he invites her over to his home for dinner and to meet his father and son.

By the time she leaves Clearwater that first weekend, Lillian has one question in her life figured out. Dump her boyfriend.

She returns the next weekend loaded down with more canvases and a burning desire to figure out just exactly what was drawing her to the farmhouse.

She takes Jake up on his offer to his spare room and spends the weekend with his family and painting more pictures. The first few were of a young girl and of a serious woman who, depending on the painting, was pregnant. The number of them grew as well as added a man to the trio. With each painting, Lillian is no closer to figuring out what was happening to her, but her need to know grew.

Lillian’s connection to the house is both solidified and confused even more when she brings her grandfather for a visit. She tells him about some of the strange happenings and shows him her paintings that are obviously of the house but are of people she doesn’t know. Paintings she doesn’t remember creating.

Her grandfather is surprised to find that the serious woman is his mother and the man is his father, people he knows Lillian has never met, nor that there were any pictures of.

Lillian decided to cash in her four weeks of vacation to spend more time at the house and to meet the woman who left it to her. She made arrangements through the lawyer to meet with Dorothy, Clearwater’s first librarian, and owner of the house. Lillian decides to take one of the paintings with her. A painting of the young girl.

She was pregnant.

The meeting did not go the way Lillian expected. She went there wanting answers. All she found was a haunted, old woman, black and white photos of her grandfather as a boy, and more questions.

The trances Lillian was pulled into when she painted the scenes of the house grew worse until the voices beckoned her even in her sleep across the road at Jake’s. More than once, Jake or his father Gerald, found Lillian in the house with her having no memory of going over nor how long she had been there.

Then, the paintings began changing. She would leave for the night with one half-finished and it would be complete in the morning. They even started changing when people were looking at them, begging for their story to be told.

Eventually, all was revealed.

A woman desperate to have a child but cursed to lose every one she conceived. A lecherous husband with a wandering eye. A young woman, who simply wanted to be loved, to have a place in the world, but was only taken advantage of.

And the tragic endings they suffered.

While I found some of the writing a bit formal for fiction and much of the dialogue wooden, the story more than kept me intrigued. The trances that Lillian was pulled into to make the paintings, the ghosts who did all they could to have their story known, and the surprise ending held me until the very last page.

After thinking about it while writing this review and flipping through the book again, I think the best label for The Clearwater House is paranormal fiction with elements of family drama and romance. But, as with any story, it is more than its label.

It is about a young woman struggling to find her path in life and the tragic family dynamics a generation past that unknowingly shaped the present.

I found The Clearwater House at the Nebraska Writers Guild 2016 Spring Conference. I think it was one of two books I bought that day and I am glad I did. It is a paranormal story without being scary, or erotic, or over the top as many in the genre are nowadays (not that any of that is bad). The paranormal element made it mysterious and enthralling. It was almost a character in its own right.

I think this would be a great book, not only for paranormal fans, but also of mystery readers, women’s lit readers, and family drama fans. I’d recommend the readers be 18+ or at least mature 16 year olds and up. It’s not excessively graphic but there are definitely some adult situations that might not be appropriate for younger readers.

More by Tammy Marshall:

How I Healed My Cyclical Vomiting Syndrome Through Diet and Exercise: I’m Now Living Better with Chronic Illness

“Novel Thoughts” column in the Norfolk Daily News

Blog: Read, Ride, and Roam With Me!

Operation: Nebraska Author-The Marrying Type

What would you get if you took Anne Elliot from Jane Austen's Persuasion, dropped her into the 21st century and made her into a wedding planner?

You would get Elliot Lynch from Laura Chapman's The Marrying Type.

Persuasion is one of Austen's lesser-known novels and, I am ashamed to admit (due to my adoration of the author), aside from Pride and Prejudice the only Austen novel I've ever read (Unless you count Pride & Prejudice and Zombies in that case, I've read 3). The short, short summary of Persuasion (because I read it in high school and don't remember the minutia of the story) is that when Anne Elliot was young, she fell in love with a boy and they planned to get married. Her family talked her out of it because they felt he wasn't good enough for her. He joined the navy (?) and made something of himself. They ran into each other again years later, she was still unwed, I want to say he was a widower (?), and the sparks were still there.

Picture from Lost in British TV blog and the 1995 movie version of Persuasion.
You can just smell the attraction.

Persuasion stuck with me over the years because it is one of the only/the only novels that Austen wrote where the heroine is an older woman (and by older, I mean Anne was in her 30s, rather more relatable to me now than when I read it), instead of a 19-21 year old and it called attention to rash decisions people are apt to make when they are younger.

In The Marrying Type, we find Elliot Lynch, wedding planner extraordinaire in Charleston, SC who is trying to bring her family's wedding planning business back from the brink of bankruptcy, fighting her family to make the necessary changes to do just that, and planning the picture-perfect weddings her clients demand, all while being filmed for her cousin's reality TV show "The Marrying Type" that is following wedding planners from all over the US, showing what it's like behind the scenes.

The wedding that Elliot spends most of the book working on is for an adorable couple, Sadie and Adam, who recently moved back to Charleston and want to throw together a huge, society wedding in three months. Elliot sets out to do it on her own as her father and sister are working on landing a huge PR gig for a local society matriarch and her assistant is busy not assisting.

Oh, and the bride's brother is Elliot's ex-fiance.

Elliot and Eric met in college, fell in love, and got engaged. Then, when the app he designed took off, he dropped out of college, and headed for California. Elliot planned to go with him but felt that 19 years old was too young to get married and, with her mother's death less than a year earlier, she wanted to be close to her family.

The Marrying Type was a great modern take on Austen's Persuasion. The gradual re-kindling of Elliot and Eric's love amongst the drama of reality TV, Elliot's aggravating family, the threat of a buy-out, and a wonderful cast of relatable characters made it a great read. It was very well written, the characters had great development, not to mention the many laugh-out-loud moments; it was hard to put down.

I discovered The Marrying Type at the Nebraska Book Festival, a day-long event full of workshops with dozens of authors and publishers on hand to talk writing and sell books. In the few minutes I had to talk to the author, Laura Chapman, she was a warm, down-to-earth Nebraska gal who was more than willing to share her experiences and offer advice.

Other books by Laura Chapman:
Hardhats and Doormats
First & Goal
Going for Two
Three & Out
and many others

You can also follow Chapman on her blog Change the Word.

Operation: Nebraska Author- The Reluctant Canary Sings

It has been over two months since I last posted here and a lot has happened in that time. In addition to an overall lack of satisfaction with my life, my roommate/landlord had some big changes happen in his life that rippled to include changes in the living situations of everybody in the house. Instead of attempting to find somewhere to live locally that I could afford (Kearney is notoriously expensive for housing and not very pet friendly), I started looking for a new job elsewhere. I got one with a large company in Lincoln, NE, packed up my entire life, and moved halfway across the state. Today marks week 5 in my new apartment and I feel my creative juices finally flowing again, abet slowly. I'm sure they'll pick up with some work (fingers crossed).

I read The Reluctant Canary Sings by Faith A. Colburn probably two months ago and due to everything above and not enough time in the day, I wasn't able to sit down to write a review until now. And I had to reread it a second time to give it justice with this review... and because it's great.

Warning: I personally know Faith. We met about two years ago when I joined the Central Nebraska Writers Group and we've grown into pretty good friends. I'm going to try to keep this review as unbiased as possible. Let's see how I do. 😁

The Reluctant Canary Sings follows Bobbie Bowen, a 15 year old girl growing up in Cleveland, OH in 1937. Bobbie had been blessed with the voice of an angel and cursed with a father with a gambling problem.

Would you just look at this beautiful cover?!

The book starts with a brief overview of what the city of Cleveland was like during the '30s. There was a serial killer called the Butcher of Kingsbury Run who not only was real, he was a significant factor in many things that happened in the book. The country was in the middle of "the second dip of a double-dip depression" and majority of the country's men, women, and children worried about where their next meal was coming from and if they were lucky enough to have a roof over their head, how long they'd be able to keep it.

It is here we meet Bobbie, enjoying what free or cheap entertainment she could with her friends in the summer, working at a popcorn stand and swimming in Lake Erie, dreaming of becoming an artist and only singing for herself. Her mom cleaned banks at night and pounded the pavement during the day looking for more work while her dad applied for any and all WPA jobs he could and tried to earn a little extra money betting the odds on the ponies.

When Bobbie's friends convinced her to enter a singing contest (the grand prize was $100 and a job for the summer) at the Pavilion , a local dance hall, she had never sang for anybody but herself but the lure of a steady income, even if it was just for the summer, was too good to pass up. Winning the contest set her on the path to becoming a canary (a band's singer) at a number of different clubs and eventually out on the road with a band that traveled up and down the eastern seaboard.

Russ Peterson's Big Band performing Blue Moon.

Blue Moon was Bobbie's theme song.

She was on the road when Pearl Harbor was attacked and as fear and the threat of war swept the country, jobs for bands and singers dwindled down to next to nothing. The band broke up with singles or pairs taking any and all jobs they could until the draft notices came in. Bobbie took a solo job in Buffalo, NY, spending almost all her cash on a bus ticket to get there and a room for the week just to find that the club that hired her was foreclosed. She called home to have her dad wire her enough money from her savings to pay for a bus ticket home and a few meals on the way only to find out he had lost her entire savings, almost $2000, at the tracks. Desperate for a job to earn enough for a bus ticket home, Bobbie went from club to club, nearing starvation with each passing day. After being turned down time and again and being attacked by one bastard club owner, Bobbie was reaching the end of her hope and her strength when she finally got a job at a club that paid just enough to get her home to Cleveland.

It was Buffalo that was the turning of the tide for Bobbie. She was tired of being force to rely on unreliable income, tired of wondering where her next meal was coming from, and tired of being groped, pinched, leered at, and taken advantage of.

It was 1942, America was at war and Bobbie joined the Woman's Army Auxiliary Corps.

I was constantly forgetting that for the majority of the book, Bobbie was only fifteen. Even from the beginning, she showed great sense and maturity that only grew with life's harsh lessons. She went from being a school girl to the family's major breadwinner in just a few short weeks and she surprisingly harbored very little resentment toward her parents for it, aside from the anger she had toward her dad for losing her savings. She faced a loss that almost broke her, and while she will probably feel the loss for the rest of her life, she eventually got up and faced the day.

I think some people would try to label The Reluctant Canary Sings as a Young Adult/coming-of-age story but I don't agree with that. Yes, Bobbie is only fifteen and grows up during the course of the book, but even at the beginning she is far more mature than many adults are today, just because of the hard time she grew up in and while I think some older YA readers would be okay reading it, The Reluctant Canary Sings is for adults.

Now for my opinion of The Reluctant Canary Sings. Simply put, I loved it.

Faith is an avid historian and researcher (check out her multiple non-fiction books) but she does something that many scholars can't do, she created a rich story with rounded characters that continue to grow throughout the book. She gives the reader an entertaining story that also touches the soul. Her dedication to historical accuracy and detail only give the story more depth and perspective instead of drying it out.

I wholeheartedly recommend The Reluctant Canary Sings to anybody who likes historical fiction (Depression/WWII era specifically), stories with strong female characters, Big Band music, and stories of people overcoming the odds time and time again.

Hopefully, I managed to make that as unbiased as possible, and if it doesn't seem like it, I won't apologize. I loved the book and I admire the woman who wrote it.

Meet part of my writer's group (left to right): Wayne Anson, Jennifer Hansch,
Me, Mari Beck, and Bruce Schindler.
Front (left to right) Brook Brouillette and Faith Colburn.
I stole this picture from the Central Nebraska Writers Group Facebook page.
Mari, I hope you don't mind!

Other books by Faith Colburn:
Prairie Landscapes
Threshold: A Memior
Virtue and Faith
From Picas to Bytes: Four Generations of Seacrest Newspaper Service to Lincoln
Driving: A Short Story
Storm Watch

You can find out more about Faith on her website faithanncolburn.com and on her blog faithanncolburn.com/wordpress

Story Acceptance- Below the Stairs: Tales from the Cellar

http://www.ozhorrorcon.com/below-the-stairs

Better late than never, I am excited to announce that my short story "The Vaults" was chosen to be included in OzHorror.com's anthology, Below the Stairs: Tales from the Cellar, edited by Steve Dillon. Below the Stairs is the second in the themed anthology series, Things from the Well. Authors in this anthology include Clive Barker, Ramsey Campbell, Mark Allan Gunnells, H.P. Lovecraft, and many more.


Here is a short excerpt from "The Vaults":

"You should probably leave."I struggled to swallow as I nodded. I turned for the door and heard rubber gloves snapping against skin. It was all the urging I needed. I flew down the hall, up the stairs to the sidewalk. I blinked against the bright light and gulped fresh air, trying to control my stomach. I knew my uncle was into some weird shit, but I had no idea how weird.The room looked like it had been baptized in blood.

Below the Stairs: Tales from the Cellar was released October, 2017 and is available on amazon.com. You can also find the first in the Things from the Well anthology series Between the Tracks: Tales from the Ghost Train on amazon.com.

Operation: Nebraska Author- The Meaning of Names

I must apologize for being remiss in my blogging duties. A severe lack of writing motivation added to some serious life upheavals have left me with little time and little inclination to write anything more than writing prompts for my writers group. I finished the book for my next review more than a month ago and I have been staring at it sitting on my end table since.

I'm glad I found my motivation again because this next book is a must-read.

The Meaning of Names by Karen Gettert Shoemaker was the 2016 One Book One Nebraska Winner.

One Book One Nebraska is a book chosen every year by the Nebraska Center for the book.

"The Nebraska Center for the Book believes One Book One Nebraska demonstrates how books and reading connect people across time and place. Each year, Nebraska communities come together through literature in community-wide reading programs to explore a classic work by one of Nebraska’s best-loved authors, or a book with a Nebraska setting." (http://centerforthebook.nebraska.gov/programs/onebook.html)

My friend, Jen, and I went to see Karen Shoemaker speak at the Kearney Public Library during her One Book One Nebraska tour. she was very interesting to listen to, not only because of her passion about the subject matter, but also because of her personal connection to the story.

The Meaning of Names follows Gerda Vogel, the daughter of German immigrants  who settled in West Point, NE at the end of the 19th Century. Gerda incurred the wrath of her father and sorrow of her mother when she fell in love with Fritz Vogel (a German immigrant), married without their consent, and headed west. The young couple settled down on a farm outside of Stuart, NE.

Those of you who have experienced a thunderstorm on the
Great Plains are familiar with the cover picture. It is also
a great visual of what the characters weather in the book.

The story starts just after the USA joined the Great War. Anti-German sentiment was slowly growing across the country and the heart of the Great Plains was not immune.

Gerda was aware of the growing hatred of her people, but her first glimpse of the violence that it could cause occurred on the train on her way to visit her family in West Point. A group of young men, full of liquid courage, accosted a German man, beat him, and threw him off the train into the snow. Gerda was fearful for the man but terrified for herself and her three young sons who were with her.

The crowd in the car cheered.

Anti-German sentiment grew as the war continued. Violence against German immigrants was more and more common, neighbor turned against neighbor, and German descendants became more isolated as their language was shunned and German-language books were burned.

The fear grew as the first of Stuart's sons were killed in the war and more men were called up in an expanded draft.

Fritz, Gerda's husband, was old enough and valuable enough as a farmer to have been exempt to the first drafts, but as things in Europe got worse, he went back into the pool of eligible men. A moment of kindness to a man who lost a son in the war who had power on the draft board ensured Fritz's number was called.

Nebraska.

The seasons passed as the Vogel family survived the storm of hatred and work to keep their farm running smoothly. Fritz hid his draft results from Gerda but did all he could to prepare his family and farm for his absence.

Amidst this all, a silent evil crept its way north, taking thousands, sparing few.

Stuart was not immune to the influenza pandemic of 1918 that killed millions around the globe. The Vogel family was some of the lucky ones who fell to the deadly disease but managed to come out the other side. Even bringing a true miracle to their family in the process.

Gerda was pregnant when she fell ill but managed to give birth to a healthy baby who was raised by a family in Stuart until the Vogels were well again.

That baby was Shoemaker's mother.

Shoemaker did a wonderful job bringing the beauty and vastness of the Plains alive with her writing. Her words brought Nebraska alive.

Her characters: Gerda, Fritz, Dr. Gannoway, Alloys and Magaret Baum, and all the others came alive on the page and are so like the Nebraskans that I grew up knowing.

This book came along at the perfect time. When there is so much anti-Muslim, anti-Middle Eastern, and anti-outsider sentiment in the world, it is disheartening to see history repeat itself. Shoemaker did a fantastic job of putting the reader into the Vogel's shoes, to show them what the Germans were going through during WWI (and what they would see again during WWII) and what people are going through today.

The Meaning of Names is a great study into, not only rural life in Nebraska during the nineteen teens, but also of human nature. I strongly recommend reading it.

Other Books by Karen Gettert Shoemaker
Night Sounds and Other Stories
Shoemaker also reviews books

Operation: Nebraska Author- Steam on the Horizon

Do you know what steampunk is?

Until about 4 years ago, I had never even heard of steampunk. The problem is, I actually loved it. How does that work exactly? I knew I loved corsets and goggles, gears and airships, spyglasses and fingerless gloves, really anything that spoke of the Victorian era but not one in the history books, a Victorian era of fantasy.

I just didn't know that there was a whole movement of people like me who liked it.

Picture from The Ministry of Particular Occurrences.
Not the most Steampunk-y picture on the internet...
but Nathan Fillion.

Then my bestie and I went to the very first British Fest in Omaha, NE where we attended a panel put on by Melissa Ann Conroy, steampunk author.

I finally had a name for it.

Steampunk is past meets future in a cloud of steam. If the clock had stopped spinning sometime between 1837 and 1901 but steam-powered technology leaped forward to unknown bounds. (Think of the movie Wild Wild West and you'll have an idea of what steampunk is. Not a very good idea because it was a terrible movie, but an idea.)

Picture from Geek Serious
Kato, Queen of Steampunk and
one of the pioneers of Steampunk Couture.

Steam on the Horizon by Melissa Ann Conroy is the first book I have ever read that was steampunk. It follows Captain Gavin Roberts and his crew of the airship the Horizon as they work to repair the ship after a boiler explosion, unwanted notoriety of being the fastest airship in England- possibly the world- and hunting for jobs to keep food in their bellies and the ship in the air all while trying to avoid the attention of Sir Smothers, the businessman who controlled the majority of all shipping-marine and air- in the world.

For some reason steampunk just goes with hookah.
Opium would have been a better fit but there is a distinct
lack of Victorian-era opium dens in millennial Nebraska.

Why would Smothers care about one single airship?

He used to own her when she was the Lucky Lady... and that boiler explosion killed his son who was the captain of her at the time.

There is no love lost between Roberts and Smothers and their relationship worsens when Roberts' friend from childhood turned mad inventor puts a whole new boiler and engine in the Horizon, making her the fastest and most fuel efficient airship in operation.

This being my first foray into steampunk, I was a little afraid that Steam on the Horizon would be all gears and goggles but little substance. I was very happy to be wrong. Roberts is a good captain. He cares for his crew, loves his ship, and tries to keep everything in the air, but he's not afraid to fight when necessary to defend what is his. The crew of the Horizon are all wonderfully written characters from the stoic first mate Oboe who would follow Roberts to the end of the earth to green-and-eager-to-please Bloomberg, the slightly mad Barking Jack, and the unwilling crew member: inventor and cocaine addicted Halloway.

Conroy has a great understanding of airships and is the master of the universe she has created for the Aether Saga. I can't wait to read more. The second in the series, Clouds of War is currently living on my bookshelf, begging to be read, but it will have to wait a bit until I get some others read. No word on more books in the series yet, but hopefully soon.

Operation: Nebraska Author- Sky Rider, the Story of Evelyn Sharp, WWII WASP

Every summer, the Trails & Rails Museum (the museum I volunteer at) has a big festival called Wagons West where they celebrate Buffalo County history, westward expansion, and local trailblazers that came before us.

A few years ago, the director had everybody pick a person from Buffalo County's history to "be" at the festival as part of the children's scavenger hunt. The kids had to find the people wearing wristbands, asked who they were, and learn about that person's life. Every year since, I have been Evelyn Sharp, aviatrix and local heroine, which made my next book for Operation: Nebraska Author so important to me.

Last October, while attending the Nebraska Writers Guild Fall Conference, I happened to notice a book on an authors table that had a picture of a woman pilot on it. When I read the title, Sky Rider: The Story of Evelyn Sharp, World War II WASP by Dr. Jean A. Lukesh, I knew it was going home with me. Unfortunately, I had to wait a few hours because Dr. Lukesh was not at her table at the time. In fact, I pounced on her as soon as the conference was over while she was packing up her table and ended up taking up about fifteen minutes of her time. In the course of our conversation, I found out that she was a historian and had written a number of books on notable Nebraskans and Nebraska Adventure, the textbook that all Nebraska fourth graders use while learning about our state.

Back to the book.

Sky Rider is about Evelyn Sharp, one of the first, youngest, and most experienced female pilots that our country has seen. She was born in Wyoming and after moving around a lot when she was young, her family settled just up the road from me in Ord, NE. It was here where she decided she was going to "drive an airplane."

A stroke of luck when Evelyn was fifteen had a flight instructor offering to give her flying lessons in exchange for a room at her parents boarding house. Evelyn's drive from that moment on was toward one goal: to spend her life flying. With quite a bit of turbulence to get through, Evelyn went on to own a succession of planes, gather a number of different licenses (instrument and commercial being just two of many), and eventually join the 99s, a national organization for female pilots (she was the youngest in Nebraska). From there, she became a flight instructor for the Civilian Pilot Training Program (she was the youngest instructor in the country), even training men who would go on to be pilots in the military.

With WWII looming on the horizon, Jacqueline Cochran called upon other members of the 99s to join her to create a group of women pilots with the job of ferrying military planes all over the US and Canada just like they were already doing in England. While Cochran's group did not get military approval, Evelyn was later asked to join a similar group that was organized by Nancy Harkness Love, the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS). At just shy of 22 years old, Evelyn became one of the "Originals," the first 25 women who passed the training and requirements to join the WAFS.

Evelyn worked hard to prove that women pilots could do everything the male pilots could do. She qualified to fly large transport planes like the C-47, bombers like the B-25 Mitchell, and attack planes like the A-20 Havoc. She was even one of the first women to become certified to fly pursuit planes like the P-51 Mustang and the P-38 Lightning.

The WAFS were so successful at proving their skills that the military decided to bring them into the fold. The WAFS were combined with Jacqueline Cochran's group and renamed the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs).

Evelyn would go on to become the WASP in command at the base in Palm Springs, CA for a short time before it was turned into a pursuit base and she was transferred back to Long Beach. She began training to fly the B-17 Flying Fortress so she could pass the Fifth Rating which was the highest rating a female pilot could get.

Before she could complete her training, she was given the order to fly a P-38 from Long Beach to a base in New Jersey. The trip would take five days. While most of it was smooth sailing, she ran into some bad weather on the second to the last day of her trip and had to put down. The last day of her trip started well, the plane was in good working order and the weather was clear. She took off just before 10:30 in the morning. Shortly after take-off, one of the engines stopped. She did not have enough altitude to use her parachute so Evelyn did all she could to put the plane down safely, but it was not enough. When she landed in a field near the airport, the landing gear punched through the bottom of the plane, knocking her seat loose and up through the canopy. Evelyn was killed on impact of a broken neck.

She was 24 years old.

Even to this day, Evelyn Sharp is a favorite daughter of Ord and of Nebraska. Just a few years after her death, Ord renamed their airfield to the Evelyn Sharp Field and there is a monument there dedicated to her that features two propellers, one from her first plane and one from a P-38. Her name also appears twice in the Nebraska Aviation Hall of Fame, first on her own, and second included in the 19 names of WASP pilots from Nebraska.

While Sky Rider was written for kids ages 11-12, I enjoyed learning about Evelyn Sharp and all of the amazing things she was able to accomplish in her short life. I definitely recommend it for really anybody wanting to learn more about Evelyn herself, the evolution of the WAFS and the WASPs, and the history of women in aviation.

Dr. Jean A. Lukesh has done nearly every job you can think of in the book industry from librarian, media specialist, teacher, writer, editor, and publisher. She has won many awards for her writing including the Nebraska Library Association 2010 Mari Sandoz Award.

Other Books by Dr. Jean A. Lukesh:
Lucky Ears: the Real Story of Ben Kuroki, World War II Hero
Wolves in Blue: Stories of the North Brothers and their Pawnee Scouts
Secret Brother: the Story of Solon Borglum "Sculptor of the Prairie"
My Name is Shawnee: A Horse Story with Photographs
and many more

Operation: Nebraska Author- All the Gallant Men

My third choice for Operation: Nebraska Author is actually my first recommended book since starting this project. It came via text from my dad:

"Must say, quite the experience. If you get a chance to read it, I would sure like to discuss the book with you. The impact on his life, the life-long scars both physical and mental, the desire to tell the story and people not forget. The arousal of a sleeping giant after being sucker punched. The information that was not acted on, the collision that changed the timeline, new facts I learned. Great read!"

I agree with his assessment, wholeheartedly.

Helpful hint: Read with tissues handy.

All the Gallant Men is the memoir of Donald Stratton, a man who fled the Great Depression that had taken hold of his hometown (and the rest of the country) of Red Coud, NE and found his way into the Navy in 1940. It was quite an adventure for a small-town farm kid from Nebraska who had never ventured far from home.

After training in Illinois, Stratton and his shipmates rode the train all the way to Washington where they caught their sight of their new home, the USS Arizona (BB-39). They would take the 608 foot long, 97 food wide, 33,000 ton heavy battleship (the Arizona and the Pennsylvania were the largest battleships in the Navy) to their new berth at Pearl Harbor to train for the war on the horizon.

WWII, Pearl Harbor, and the Arizona.

You would be hard pressed to find anybody who doesn't know the significance of those three things.

I'll admit, it took me a couple of days to start reading the chapter titled December 7th because I knew the horror that awaited me.

Stratton had been one of the lucky ones who was on deck when the Japanese Zeros first attacked. He quickly made it to his battle station in the port antiaircraft director so his team could return fire.

They ran into two problems: if they fired on the Zeros that were wreaking havoc on the fleet, they risked hitting other American ships in the harbor and personnel on Ford Island and they couldn't reach the high-altitude bombers that were flying high above the chaos. They did what they could "throw[ing] our shells into the sky, as many as we could, hoping the shrapnel might shatter a cockpit, rupture a fuel line, clip a propeller, It's all we could do. Shoot and hope."

Stratton was still in the turret when a 1760 lb armor-piercing bomb fell, penetrating four decks and exploding in the ammunition magazine. It was this blow that ended the Arizona.

Stratton fled the turret, looking for any escape possible. He and his crew mates now had another threat to deal with: fire.

Badly burned, Stratton and five of his mates found sanctuary on the Vestal, a repair ship that had been moored to the Arizona. As soon as they boarded, the Vestal pulled away and headed for safety.

Stratton was one of the lucky ones, but his battle wasn't over. He had been burned on over 65% of his body and months of painful healing was ahead of him.

Stratton's time in WWII didn't end with his injuries at Pearl Harbor. After a medical discharge and a year back in Red Cloud, he reenlisted. He needed to do it for his mates who didn't leave Pearl Harbor.

Stratton returned to the Pacific, even having an emotional return to Pearl Harbor, his first time seeing the Arizona after the Vestal pulled away, but not his last. He fought in some of the most intense and bloodiest naval battles the world has ever seen.

He is one of the few men to have been at both Pearl Harbor and Okinawa. He saw the first shots and the final battle of America's time in WWII.

Now, I have spent most of this review talking about Stratton, and that doesn't really convey the spirit of the book. It is called All the Gallant Men and it struck me in reading it, that Stratton doesn't seem to count himself among the "gallant." He spends much of the book praising those he thought went above and beyond, those unsung heroes, and those who never made it home.

The amount of reverence he uses when he talked about the band of the Arizona (all 21 were lost when the magazine exploded) brought me to tears many times.

All of the tears.

The respect and awe he showed when talking about Joe George, a fighter and trouble-making sailor from the Vestal who not only disregarded a direct order, but fought furiously with a higher-ranking officer while doing it. It was Joe George who threw the rope over to the Arizona which was used by Stratton and five of his mates to cross from certain death on the Arizona to the uncertain safety of the Vestal. George saved their lives, against direct orders.

The respect for the nurses and doctors who worked furiously to save the lives of all caught in the attack along with the warm feelings for the doctors and nurses in California who helped Stratton in his healing.

Most of all, his respect and love, sadness and anger for all of his friends and mates that were killed at Pearl Harbor and throughout the rest of the war.

All were gallant.

All the Gallant Men is definitely one of the best books I have ever read. I don't know if it was the style, the subject matter, the story itself, or a combination of the three, but it is well worth a read.

Donald Stratton currently lives with his wife Velma in Colorado Springs and has been able to attend all of the reunions at Pearl Harbor, his last one being the 75th Anniversary in December, 2016. He was there with the other last four Arizona survivors.

Ken Gire is an author of religious books who found his way to Stratton after his daughter heard about Stratton on the radio. There are few-if any- memoirs written by survivors of the Arizona and Gire knew he had to get Stratton's story down before it was too late.

Other books by Gire:

Moments with the Savior
Windows of the Soul: Experiencing God in New Ways
The Centurion
Answering the Call: The Doctor who Made Africa his Life
The North Face of God

and many more

A Word of Warning...

I spent last weekend enjoying the absolutely beautiful weather and visiting wineries with my bestie, Jessi. One of our scheduled stops was in Seward, NE. I had heard from a fellow Nebraska Writers Guild member that there were writers in abundance speaking in Seward and I talked Jessi into going with me (like it took a lot of convincing).

Our first stop was at Chapter Books bookstore where Joe Starita gave a wonderful talk about his book A Warrior of the People, which is about Susan La Flesche, the first Native American doctor in American history (I'll be talking about it in a later post-I can't wait to read it!).

The second stop was just down the street at the Red Path Gallery & Tasting Room which is an adorable place full of amazing artwork done by local artists-like my former art teacher, Mrs. T (I'm not even going to attempt to spell her last name, it's longer and scarier than mine is-okay I'll give it a shot Tomasevicz... I had to look it up, I wasn't even close) and features many different Nebraska wines to sample. That day's events featured readings by poets Charlene Neeley and Laura Madeline Wiseman who shared both their own poetry and some of their favorites by other poets.

One of the poems Charlene Neely wrote and shared with us reminded me of a fairly well known fact: writers find inspiration everywhere. In this case it was the quote "Poets have been mysteriously silent on subject of cheese" by G.K. Chesteron that lead to a fun poem about cheese.

My family understands why that would stick with me and for the saner ones in the audience who don't know, it involves an article about the great Velveeta shortage of 2014 and subsequent cheese-smothered emails on the topic.

But back to the topic of inspiration, I've talked about it before, but I wanted to revisit it for the non-writers in the group.

And here is where the warning part comes in:

If you spend any time at all around a writer, I can nearly guarantee that something you say, one of your mannerisms, a physical feature you posses, or an event you witness with your writer will end up in one of their pieces.

Who knew the sign my sister gave me for my birthday a
couple of years ago would come in handy for a blog?

You just have to ask them. They'll probably tell you, unless it's embarrassing or they killed you off... or they hate you. In that case, back away slowly throwing chocolate and fancy pens.

Ask my bestie (poor transition, sorry Jessi), more than one of our conversations have ended up in my stories. I usually ask her first, just so she can't sue me someday when she comes to her senses and realizes she doesn't need a crazy-cat-lady-hermit in her life.

Artists, especially writers, are anthropologists by nature if not by education. They study people and everything is fodder for their creative fires.

You may have ended up in somebody's story because of what you ordered in the coffee shop one day, or are the heroine of an epic poem somebody penned because the sun hit you in just the right way and you were wearing your best chain mail-er- green dress.

Now be honest, because if you lie, you'll get stabbed.
#MedievalHumor

Now, I don't say this to make you think that writers are all creepy stalker people hiding in plain sight with their notebooks and pens, furiously scribbling down all the details of your life so they can write you doing anything they want because they thrive on the power of control... okay, not all of us do that... all of the time.

And I'm not telling you this so you know to be on your best behavior around writers so they don't use you in a story. First, they spend time with you because you're interesting. Second, how boring would that be for both you and them?

No, I'm telling you this because for that split second, a second that you probably don't even remember, a writer noticed you and for that one second, you became the most important thing in their universe.

This is one of the things I love most about being a writer, taking those tiny, innocuous moments and turning them into something immortal. Making a split second last an eternity.

That's right. I'm a friggin superhero.

Operation: Nebraska Author- In Cold Storage: Sex and Murder on the Plains

The second installment in my 2017 New Year's resolution, Operation: Nebraska Author, took me about as far out of my comfort zone as I can get (I think political writings or philosophy would be the extreme for me) and while I enjoyed it a lot, I don't know that it is a genre that I will continue reading.

In Cold Storage: Sex and Murder on the Plains by James W. Hewitt is a true crime book about a pair of grisly murders that happened just down the road in McCook, Nebraska in 1973.

Creepy dead hand. I got some strange looks reading 
this in the break room at work.

Just days after Edwin and Wilma Hoyt were reported missing by their family, body parts began washing ashore at a nearby lake. The following investigation delved into the scandalous lives of some of McCook's citizens and revealed the inadequacies of pre-DNA/technology criminal investigating and small-town Nebraska law enforcement.

The investigation, which started with the identification of the body parts using rings that were still on Wilma's hand, quickly turned into an investigation of the Hoyt's daughter, Kay, and her lascivious activities, especially those with Harold Nokes and his wife Ena. What had started as an affair morphed into a mènage á trios, then a violent lover's spat and finally murder.

Harold Nokes eventually confessed to killing Edwin and Wilma Hoyt, dismembering them, and disposing their bodies in Strunk Lake. He swore that his wife, Ena, had nothing to do with the murders besides wrapping the body parts in freezer paper and then helping him throw them from their boat into the lake. With his confession, Harold was convicted and sentenced to life in the penitentiary. Ena was only charged with two counts of wrongful disposal of a dead body.

One thing I really liked about the book was how much time Hewitt spent on the discrepancies between the stories told by Harold (about three different versions between his first confession, his recorded confession, and the interview Hewitt conducted 40 years later) and questions raised by the lack of evidence.

One thing I found frustrating (no doubt from too many years of watching Law & Order and NCIS) was that there was no clear-cut answer to what had happened to the Hoyts. Even with Nokes' confession, there were still too many questions left unanswered. Too many suspicious things left uninvestigated.

I was struck by how lovingly-yet truthfully- he described western Nebraska, McCook specifically.

Hewitt accepting his award at the
Celebration of Nebraska Books.

Rolling hills and weathered canyons eroded by wind and water surround McCook. Too difficult to cultivate, much of the land is used as pasture.

What few trees there are, mostly cottonwoods, line the bakes of the region's streams and rivers. Many of the pastures and canyons are dotted with scruffy red cedars, a tree that most farmers and ranchers view as an invasive pest.

The Republican River, which flows eastward out of Colorado, at McCook is a puny littler water course. Democrates say that it is a toss-up whether the Republican was so named because it was so shallow or so crooked. The water moving down the stream bed past the southern edge of McCook is about thirty feet wide, but it occupies only part of a much wider channel now nearly choked with weeds and grasses.

I discovered In Cold Storage at the Celebration of Nebraska Books where Hewitt was presented with the award for best book in the Nonfiction: True Crime division. I strongly recommend it for any true crime and mystery readers or Nebraska history fans.

Other books by James W. Hewitt:
Slipping Backward: A History of the Nebraska Supreme Court 

You can find Hewitt's books online at University of Nebraska Press, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble in addition to many local bookstores in Nebraska.

Something Slightly Political: the NEA, the NEH, & budget cuts Part II

After posting about the possibility of the presidential administration cutting the budgets of the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, I've had a few people ask for more information and what they can do to help save the NEA and the NEH.

The number one thing you can do is contact your congressional representatives and express your concerns. Here is a great link to find out how to contact your respective representatives. From what I have seen, phone calls are best but emails work also.

The second thing you can do is talk about it! Tell your friends about what the NEA and the NEH do and why they should be saved. Share articles on social media about it. Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper. Do whatever you are comfortable doing. Word of mouth is a powerful force. Use it!

Picture from Mrs. Osborn's Class“The arts are essen­tial to any com­plete national life.
The State owes it to itself to sus­tain and encour­age them….
Ill fares the race which fails to salute the arts with the
rev­er­ence and delight which are their due.”
-Winston Churchill,
speech to the Royal Academy, April 30, 1938

Here are some talking points about what the NEA and the NEH do:

• "It was a National Endowment for the Humanities grant that helped pay for the “Treasures of Tutankhamen” exhibition to travel to six American cities from 1976-79. That groundbreaking exhibition, heralded as one of the first museum blockbusters, drew 1.36 million visitors to the Metropolitan Museum alone." (New York Times article from January 30, 2017)

• "The agencies [NEA, NEH, and Public Broadcasting] are particularly proud of programs they run to benefit veterans, such as the National Endowment for the Arts’ creative arts therapy project for military personnel at a hospital at Fort Belvoir in Virginia." (New York Times article from January 30, 2017)

• "Some 40 percent of the arts and humanities agencies’ budgets go directly to state and regional arts councils across the United States." (New York Times article from January 30, 2017)

• "The NEA is the single most important source of institutional support for the nonprofit literary field, which includes independent presses, literary magazines, book festivals, literary centers, service organizations, and reading series." (Elliot Figman, Executive Director Poets & Writers)

• "Each year, the NEA also offers creative writing fellowships to individual writers; since its founding in 1965, the agency has granted over $45 million to more than 3,000 individual writers." (Elliot Figman, Executive Director Poets & Writers)

More talking points- these came in an email I received from Humanities Nebraska Executive Director, Chris Sommerich:

• State humanities councils like Humanities Nebraska play a key role in our local communities through programs that promote literacy and other employment skills, boost local economies and our quality of life, and explore history/culture.

• State humanities councils reach people of all ages and walks of life with programs in libraries, schools, museums, senior centers, cultural centers, and other places.

• State humanities councils are independent nonprofits governed by local boards who determine appropriate programming in each state.

• State humanities councils receive essential funding from the NEH, which enables them to reach rural areas, urban centers, and everything in between.

• Total FY 2016 funding for NEH was $148 million. This is only 0.003% of federal spending, but makes a big difference in the cultural health of our nation.

• Please thank your representatives for their service and support for the humanities!

More places to check out:

• LitNet: The Literary Network
• Humanities Nebraska (or if you don't live in Nebraska, your state humanities organization)
• National Endowment for the Humanities (of course)
• National Endowment for the Arts (this one too)

Something Slightly Political: the NEA, the NEH, & budget cuts

I really try to stay out of the political talk, especially when it comes to places that I present myself as a semi-professional author, but I am breaking that rule to address something that hits extremely close to home.

It was brought to my attention yesterday that the new administration of the United States is considering cutting the entire budget of the Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).

I know some of you gasped and are filled with the same outrage as I was, while some of you are shaking your head in confusion because you don't understand the significance of it.

The National Endowment for the Arts helps fund programs that encourage the arts across the country. They support art, music, theater, dance, writing, and cultural studies. There is also a huge push within the NEA to study how the different art forms affect and help unrelated subjects like education, health care, and business.

Without the NEA, there will be a huge cut of art programs in schools and communities across the country. There won't be the money for school bands, art classes, local theater, writing workshops, or dance programs. Without the exposure to the arts, it will be the end of people like Frank Loyd Wright, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Misty Copeland, Stephen King, Beyonce, Suzanne Collins, Robin Williams, and thousands of others.

The National Endowment for the Humanities encourages and funds projects that deal with history, languages, archaeology, cultural heritage, comparative religions, ethics, and anything else dealing with humans as a whole. They promote programs at cultural centers like museums, colleges, archives, public T.V./radio, etc.

The NEH is all about learning and educating the public about who we are as a people and how we fit into the grand idea of humanity as a whole. It helps celebrate our differences and helps bridge the gaps to encourage understanding.

Without the NEH, many small museums would lose the grants that help them get wonderful traveling exhibits and presenters. Some even rely on the NEH for grants to keep the doors open. Small libraries would not be able to afford to bring in nationally renowned speakers, authors, and educators. Without the NEH's funding of preservation projects across the country, thousands of pieces of America's history in the form of interviews, oral histories, newspapers, books, letters, and photographs would be lost.

Please follow the links to what these two organizations have done in the last year alone: NEA's website and the NEH's website and explore the rest of their sites to see everything they have done in the past and what their plans are for the future.

I am probably not in the right mood to talk about the possible loss of these two amazing organizations. As a writer, a museum volunteer, an art lover, a student of history, and a humanity watcher, I am terrified at what this news means, I am angry at the potential loss, and I am frantic with the unknown timeline of the budget cuts.

If you feel any sort of connection to either of these two organizations, please, do what you can to help save them. Together they make up less than a half a percent of the national budget, but without them, this country would be a darker place.

Operation: Nebraska Author- Blissfully Married

After my blog post last week about wanting to share books by my fellow Nebraska authors with you, I stood in front of my bookcase and tried to decide which one to start with for Operation: Nebraska Author.

Do I go with a system like:

• Alphabetically by the author's last name/first name/astrological sign/book title
• Put the names in a hat and draw
• Try to remember which one I got first and start there
• Chronologically by publish date
• In order of cover color and where they fall in rainbow order

Or something different?

And then I realized, that would not really be any fun for me. I'm very much a pantser and setting up some sort of plan like that would not work.

So I stood in front of my books and decided that I was in the mood for something fun and lighthearted. 

My eyes fell on Blissfully Married by New York Times best selling author Victorine Lieske. My choice had been made.

Picture from my Litsy page
The little gargoyle lurking in the background is my
roommate's Bug, Riley.  Isn't she cute?

What I did not realize (and should have) is that Blissfully Married is actually the fourth in Victorine's (can I call her by her first name if I've had a conversation with her and I feel like she'd recognize me if we ever ran into each other again? I'm going to.) Married Series. The other books in the series are Mistakenly Married, Reluctantly Married, and Accidentally Married.

Thankfully, I was not lost at having not read the other three books. I think some of the characters cross over, but they are stand-alone stories in their own right.

In Blissfully Married, we meet Sidney who runs a match making business named Blissfully Matched. She has a gift for matching people up, but her lack of a significant other makes her clients a little uneasy about trusting her abilities. Enter Sidney's friend, Mia, who offered an obvious solution: get a fiance.

Toothless is a terrible book holder.
I think its the tail.

Or, to save on time, make one up.

One quick photo shoot with Mia's sweet and nerdy brother, Ted, and a fake diamond ring later, Sidney is ready for business.

Or she was until a not-so-blast-from-her-past Blake walks into her office looking as swoon-worthy as he did when he walked out of her life years before.

A whole lot of awkwardness with a huge helping of pride on the side takes our leading lady and the man she's loved since she was a kid through a series of hi-jinks and misunderstandings that would make Shakespeare proud.

Blissfully Married is a fun, lighthearted romance with real and entertaining characters. It was a fast read for me, only taking two days (would have been only one if I didn't have to do stupid things like go to work) because once I got started, I didn't want to put it down.

I definitely recommend Blissfully Married for anybody who likes romance stories with quirky characters, Comedy of Errors-esque action, and is light on the bodice busting (genre-ly: Clean Romance, I had no idea this was a thing, but it makes sense). And I definitely will be checking out Victorine's other books.

I got to meet Victorine at the Nebraska Writers Guild 2016 Fall conference. She gave a presentation on BookBub and how authors can utilize the newsletter to get word about their books out to the masses. It was very interesting and I learned a lot. She was great to chat with later on also. As a former Nebraska Writers Guild president and a New York Times Best Selling Author, she is very much a down-to-earth Nebraskan, warm and welcoming. She was inspiring and I hope you enjoy her books.

See! I met her!

Other books by Victorine:

The Married Series:
Mistakenly Married
Reluctantly Married
Accidentally Married
Blissfully Married

Not What She Seems (spent 6 weeks on the New York Times Best Selling eBook list)

The Practice Date

The Truth Comes Out

The Overtaking

How to Find: Success Selling eBooks

You can find Victorine's books on Amazon and cleanromancebooks.com.

Learn more about Victorine Liesk on her website, on Facebook, or on her blog.

Operation: Nebraska Author

Happy 2017 everybody!

In addition to the standard New Year’s resolutions: save money, get healthy, take over a small country, and FINISH WRITING A BOOK ALREADY!!!! I have added another project to my list for the new year. 

I am calling it Operation: Nebraska Author.

After a year of being active with my writer’s group, finally getting active with the Nebraska Writers Guild, and looking for the time to be active with some other local groups, I have discovered that there are many very talented authors in my neck of the woods. And I would not be surprised to hear that none of you knew that either (well, I would be if you read my Celebration of Nebraska Books post or have seen any of my gushing). 

So, this year, I have made it my goal to read at least one book a month by a (mostly) contemporary Nebraska author and talk about it here. Most of the "Nebraska Author" stack on my “books to be read” shelf that I have collected over the past few years are outside of my usual genre so I am looking forward to stretching myself a bit. I’ve got biography, autobiography, true crime, suspense, humor, romance, steampunk, fantasy, family drama… and only two of those genres are what I’ve read regularly since I grew out of picture books.

Some of the books I plan on reading this year!

In no particular order, I present the books...

Physical:

The Meaning of Names by Karen Gettert Shoemaker

In Cold Storage by James W. Hewitt

Born to be a Warrior by Lynn O. High

Recipes for Revenge by G. M. Barlean

Blissfully Married by Victorine E Lieske

Sky Rider: The Story of Evelyn Sharp by Dr. Jean A. Lukesh

Dust & Cannibals by Bruce Schindler

The Downeys Trilogy by Genevieve Dewey

Steam on the Horizon & Clouds of War by Melissa Ann Conroy

Diary of an American Witch by Heather Stowe

Audio Book:

One Two Kill a Few by John Achor

E-books:

Broken Road by Mari Beck

Thorns of Rosewood: Book 1 by G. M. Barlean

Plus the six or so books that I need to get my hands on, including the 2017 One Book, One Nebraska book, Black Elk Speaks by Black Elk and John Neihardt.

I would not be surprised if I add to my stack over the course of this project and it may grow into a regular thing beyond 2017. Heck, I might even add a book of poetry (nothing against it, just not my thing) if I’m feeling a little adventurous.

If you have read/written a book that I absolutely must check out (mainly by Nebraska writers for this, but I'll always take recommendations), let me know either in the comments below or by email, Facebook, Pintrest, Litsy (K.Wielechowski), smoke signal, carrier pigeon, etc.