How do you keep writing after a huge life change?

That's the question I've been asking myself for about as long as it takes for a baby to cook (nine months gestation, guys. I'm not actually cooking babies. If you think lobster screams are bad when you drop them into boiling water... kidding).

Be it marriage, kids, or, like in my case, a new job and the subsequent life upheaval that came with (my last day at my old job was six months ago today), how do you keep writing?

I went from a town where I had a solid friend base, a full time job I hated, and a part-time "job" that I couldn't spend enough time at. Now, I have a job I like, in a city with a ton of things to do where I know approximately 6 non-work people and regularly see two of them.

Writing was my escape. It was the happy place that counteracted the 40 hours a week that drained me. It gave me the control that "superior customer service" robbed me of. I've had the thought more than once that maybe I can't write anymore because I'm not miserable. Such a cliché artist thing to think but some of the greatest artists were the most haunted people. Not that I'm putting myself on the same level as Dickinson or van Gogh or anything.

I keep trying to tell myself that it's simple paranoia and panic. One of these days, I'll start believing it, for no other reason than the fact that my liver could never hold up to Hemingway's "cure-all".

But seriously, now that I am in a good place mentally and emotionally, how does writing fit in?

Honestly? I'm trying to figure out the answer to that and I may have found a small piece of it.

This past weekend, I road-tripped to Denver with my best friend to see Hamilton (it's amazing, drop everything and see it right meow) with my sister and brother-in-law. Denver has always been a bustling city but it has grown exponentially since the last time I spent more than a few hours there, which, interestingly enough, was pre-marijuana legalization.

I was terrified about driving in the city and all the tru-crime podcasts I've been listening to have made me hyper-aware and slightly (depending on who you talk to) more paranoid. All these things considered, we all survived, nobody got more hurt than when they arrived (Walt, I'm looking at you), and we got to see some pretty amazing things: from the natural beauty of the Rockies, to incredible art at the Denver Art Museum, and of course, Hamilton.

I'm not obsessed. You're obsessed.

Monday at work, I was struck with the strongest desire to write. I don't know if it was the dreary weather, the ghost stories on a podcast, or something else, but I just needed to work on a story that I had started last summer from a writing prompt for writers group. (The prompt was "take a folk belief and write a story where it is true" if you wanted to know.) I wrote more on Monday (including majority of this post) than I have since NaNoWriMo, if not before.

So what was different about Monday?

We've had more cloudy, dreary days than I can count and creepy shit on a true crimp podcast is nothing new. The only thing I can think is, this people-en-mass hating, run-away-and-hide introvert needs to get out among people more.

*car crash, screams, sirens, and somewhere in the distance, a baby cries*

It was a terrifying realization and one that shouldn't be surprising to anybody, especially me. I love people watching and people studying. I label myself an amateur anthropologist because I love learning about people and cultures. I am a very character-driven writer and need the fodder that being around people provides.

Meanwhile, I was trying to write with the lowest level of human interaction I've probably had since I was in diapers.

So, what does this realization mean? That I will be fully immersing myself into society for my craft?

Ah... no.

Because I still hate being around lots of people, but, now that I know part of the problem, maybe I will sojourn out of my apartment more to recharge the creative batteries.

More importantly, what does this mean to you?

Probably nothing, because no matter what all the writer help books and articles (and blogs) say about defeating writer's block and finding your muse (which you shouldn't be hunting anyway because they follow the writing, not the other way around), it all really is person- specific. What works for me might be detrimental to you.

All I'll say is, figure out what makes you tick as a writer and try to make it happen as much as necessary. Whether it's taking trips to exotic places, reading every book at your local library, or forcing yourself to leave the safety of your apartment and the painless judgement of your cat to sit at the mall and creepily watch people for a few hours, do it as much as you are able.

As for sitting alone at the mall with a notebook and a pen, a shirt that says "I'm a writer, not a creeper" couldn't hurt, right?

From Zazzle.

2017: A Year in Review AKA Better Late than Never

That was kind of a crazy year wasn't it? A lot of stuff happened, some good, a lot bad.

Lots of famous people died.

Even more non-famous people died.

Donald "You're Fired" Trump took office as president of the United States.

Rompers for men.

Brexit.

Irma, Harvey, and Maria.

Chris Pratt and Anna Faris split.

Still crying about that last one.

Millions of dollars in donations flooded (probably a poor choice of words) in for the victims of Irma, Harvey, and Maria in one of the largest outpouring of support I have ever seen.

Disney and Amazon now own approx. 106% of all the things.

Leia Organa is officially a Disney Princess, so is Ironman.

We lost both Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher.

More broken up about that one than all the others.

All of this and more happened last year for us as a whole but 2017 was pretty groundbreaking in my own life.

The first half of the year is pretty hazy, probably erased by everything that happened after. In June, I decided to move out of Kearney, NE where I had lived for about 8 1/2 years and chose Lincoln, NE as my new home. I gave myself until the end of September to find a new job and apartment. It was one of the most nerve wracking things I've ever done, but I managed to pull it off and I feel like I earned the "I Adulted" first place trophy. I have a tiny apartment that suits Toothless and I just fine and I have a job that I actually enjoy where I don't talk to people for most of the day. It's fantastic!

It was also probably my most successful year as a writer. In September my short story "The Vaults" was selected to be included in Below the Stairs: Tales from the Cellar, a horror anthology produced by Oz Horror Con, I released my sixth e-book, Shenanigans & Jello Shots, and an excerpt from my work-in-progress, The Whiskey Widow, was selected to be included in the Nebraska Writers Guild's first members-only anthology, Voices from the Plains.

Find it on Amazon.

Find it on Amazon.

Find it on Amazon.

Oh and my best friend and I nearly completed the Nebraska Wine Tour, I had a sister get married, and another give birth to another absolutely adorable little boy.

Just a little busy.

I also attempted my own challenge of only reading books by Nebraska authors, Operation: Nebraska Author. I didn't do as well as I wanted but I don't think I did too bad either.

Operation: Nebraska Author Books:
Blissfully Married by Vicotrine E. Lieske
In Cold Storage: Sex and Murder on the Plains by James W. Hewitt
*All the Gallant Men by Donald Stratton and Ken Gire
Sky Rider, the Story of Evelyn Sharp, WWII WASP by Dr. Jean A. Lukesh
*Steam on the Horizon by Melissa Ann Conroy
The Meaning of Names by Karen Gettert Shoemaker
*The Reluctant Canary Sings by Faith A. Colburn
The Marrying Type by Laura Chapman
The Clearwater House by Tammy Marshall
Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Ogalala Sioux by Nicholas Black Elk and John Neihardt
(* indicates my three favorite books of the year, in no particular order)

I had so much fun with this project. I read a lot of books outside of my normal genres and I really got to see the amazing talent we have here in the Cornhusker state. My stack of books by local writers more than doubled in 2017 so I've decided to extend my project into Operation: Nebraska Author 2018. I gave up TV and Netflix for Lent so we'll have to see how many books I can plow through in the next 40 days.

I think 2017 was the perfect shitstorm of good and bad that allowed me to grow as a person and get me ready for whatever life will throw me next. I don't know if we, as a society, will recover as quickly or as well as I did (hello Tide Pod challenge), but I do know there are millions of people like me who decided that they were going to stand up from the mess stronger than before instead of burrowing deeper into it. I just hope their voices rise to be heard over the moaning of those who chose to stay down.

2018, don't let me down.

Operation: Nebraska Author- Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Ogalala Sioux

Today, I finally finished my last book for Operation: Nebraska Author and 2017. I know we're a week into 2018, but I started the book three weeks ago so I'm counting it.

My final book of 2017 was Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux by Nicholas Black Elk and John G. Neihardt.

I first heard about Black Elk Speaks at the 2016 Celebration of Nebraska Books that was put on by the Nebraska Center for the Book. It was chosen to be the 2017 One Book One Nebraska.

"The One Book One Nebraska reading program is entering its thirteenth year. It encourages Nebraskans across the state to read and discuss one book, chosen from books written by Nebraska authors or that have a Nebraska theme or setting." (onebook.nebraska.gov)

Black Elk was born in 1863 in the Ogalala band of the Lakota Sioux. He was born into the time when the Wasichu (white people) were spreading across the Great Plains, depleting the buffalo herds and, mile by mile, taking the land the Plains Indians had occupied for centuries. When he was six years old, he was taken by a sickness that swelled his limbs and face and brought a great fever. During this fever, he had a vision where he was taken to the center of the world, which was in the holy Black Hills, and shown and taught many things from the spirits. He was to become a very important man to his people. When he finally woke from the fever, it had been days and his parents feared that he was dead, but he miraculously recovered in very little time.

Black Elk remembered the vision when he woke, but he was scared. He didn't know what it meant and didn't know if he was the right person to complete the tasks laid out for him. He waited many years before finally telling a medicine man about his vision, and only told because he could feel that the time was coming that the spirits had warned him about. The medicine man worked with Black Elk to make his vision come to life so they all could see it and from this, came the Horse Dance.

Black Elk's childhood was spent moving around the upper Plains, which was not unusual for the nomadic tribes, but the time had come where they were not just following the bison herds, they were also dealing with the encroaching tide of Wasichu and the US government. When gold was discovered in the Black Hills and yet another treaty was broken by Wasichu, the Lakota found themselves losing the battle for their lands, their freedom, and their way of life.

"I guess they got enough to drink, for they are drinking yet.
We killed them in the water."
-Iron Hawk, "The Rubbing Out of Long Hair"
Haunting.

Black Elk was just a boy when he took part in the Rubbing out of Long Hair (Custer's Last Stand/The Battle of the Little Big Horn) but he was quickly learning the hardships that were sweeping through the tribes. He was a cousin of Crazy Horse and was with him shortly before he was killed at Fort Robinson, NE.

Black Elk was seventeen when the weight of his boyhood vision became too much and this is when his parents asked Black Road, a medicine man, to help Black Elk. The Horse Dance was the first thing he gave to his people but it was just the beginning of his life as a holy man. He had a vision that led him to a flower that cured all who were ill and he began curing any who would come to him, but he did not feel that he was doing enough for his people.

When Black Elk was twenty-three, he decided to join Buffalo Bill Cody's troupe and visit the place where the Wasichu were from, Europe. By this time, the Lakota's culture was rapidly being stamped out by the influx of Wasichu, hunger due to the diminished bison herd, and because many of the bands were giving up the fight. Black Elk thought that if he visited Europe, he could discover a secret that would end the Wasichu hold over the Lakota and return prosperity to his people.

Black Elk spent many months in London and then a few more in Manchester, he even met Queen Victoria who rather liked the Ogalalas in the show and they liked her in return. When it came time for Cody's troupe to leave Manchester, Black Elk and a few other men got lost and separated from the troupe. They found two Lakota men who could speak English and the group made their way to London so they could earn money to get home. There they joined Mexican Joe's show and saw more of Europe, including Paris and Germany.

Caption: "Black Elk and Elk as they appeared when
touring Europe with Buffalo Bill's Wild West. Used with
the permission of the Smithsonian Institute, National
Anthropological Archives, 81 negative no. 72-7016."

After more than two years away, Black Elk grew more and more homesick, even having a vision of his family while visiting a girl he met with the show and her family. He was unconscious for three days during that vision and they feared for his life. Eventually, Mexican Joe's show cross paths with Cody's show and Black Elk went to visit Cody, who was excited to see him. Cody offered him a job but when Black Elk said he wanted to go home, Cody gave him money and sent him on his way.

By the time Black Elk returned to his family, the remaining nomadic bands of Lakota were in dire straights. Few bison to hunt, a hard winter, and constant broken promises by the US army lead to the loss of many people. Black Elk did what he could, but the Wasichu hold on the Plains grew with each passing day.

There were only a few bands of Lakota still free when the Massacre at Wounded Knee happened. Black Elk was not far away when the fighting started and he and other warriors raced to help. They were able to save a few, but 200-300 men, women, and children perished. Black Elk also nearly died during the fight when a bullet ripped open his stomach, but he recovered.

The Massacre at Wounded Knee signaled the end of the the resistance. The brutality of it broke the spirit of those who had withstood the force of the Wasichu and ended the era of the Plains Indians.

This was just a brief overview of the book but there are so many more great things contained within its pages that I can't express. The beauty of expression many times left me speechless, wither it was Neihardt's poetic pen or Black Elk's voice I don't know, but I do like to think it is Black Elk's for the rhythm and imagery is nearly alien to me as a native English speaker.

I now understand why Black Elk Speaks saw a surge in popularity during the 1970s when the Civil Rights Movement was changing the way we looked at our fellow man and the infancy of the Environmentalist Movement was changing the way we looked at our surroundings. The way that Black Elk and his people honored the Earth and the spirits and how their tribe wasn't just their community, it was their family, both lessons that we sorely need today.

I'll stop there before I step further over the line of political/societal commentary, I'll just say this: Black Elk Speaks was an amazing book. The imagery was beautiful at times and heartbreaking at others. It gave me more insight into a culture that I first experienced in college when I was befriended by two Rosebud Lakota women and a culture that I wish to learn more about. I strongly recommend it to anybody who is interested in American History, Native American History, Native American Mythology/culture, Civil Rights, or Environmental preservation.

What is good in this book is given back to the six grandfathers and to the great men of my people. 

-Black Elk, inscription in Black Elk Speaks

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.