From the Archives---November Past

 

Reminders

CROWS is getting some very nice reviews, for which I'm most grateful--reviews really help an author reach a wider audience. Of course, more would be welcome. On Thanksgiving night, I'll be drawing names for this handsome print, signed by the artist (Nancy Darrell.) To get your name in the hat, leave a review of Crows on Goodreads or Amazon, or Barnes and Noble, or on the Regal House page. A few words is all it takes--a review doesn't have to be a book report.  Leave reviews at multiple sites and I'll put your name in multiple times. Just email me  (vicki3laneATgmail.com ) and let me know where the review is.

AND I still have some book plates--I'll happily sign and personalize one (or more) for you if you send me a self-addressed, stamped envelope (590 Wool Branch Road, Marshall, NC 28763) and tell me how you'd like the book plate to read. (Wouldn't a copy of Crows with a personalized bookplate be a nice holiday gift for a reading friend?)

And that's enough Blatant Self Promotion for a while.

The Kittehs Consider Tradeoffs

The way I see it, Angeline, it's all a trade off. Yes, the Small Person takes up way too much of The Woman's time . . .

. . .  but on the other paw, we have this nice bed we didn't have before. And The Small Person is trying hard to pat me correctly--

Do you smell that, Cory? Tunafish! I thought I heard a can opener.

No doubt. And here comes The Woman, bringing us the tuna juice. Well, I say we ignore her, teach her a little lesson-- 

But, Cory, it's there! Now! In the cat room!

Dognabbit, Angeline, you have no pride.

As you said, Cory, it's all a tradeoff.

You greedy huzzy! Wait for me!

You know, we're only doing this to keep The Small Person from getting it. She would make a mess and it probably wouldn't agree with her. Tradeoffs.

 

Fan Fiction!!!

 This may be the first time I've had someone else's prose on my blog but I was so moved by Doug's piece inspired by CROWS that I asked his permission to post it here. He posted it already on Facebook and I shared it so this will be a repeat for some of you. But I wanted folks who don't do FB to see it too. 

DOUG PLEMONS Review for "And The Crows Took Their Eyes"

Posted on Facebook 10/12/2020

Davy must of heard a noise, for sudden he set bolt upright and found himself waking from a fever dream. Upon awakening it appeared that he was lying in the woods next to a small trail, mostly in a rocky ditch off to the side of the trail. He tried to wrap his thoughts around what might have brought about this strange circumstance. Why was he lying in the cold damp woods on a cold January day? He rolled his eyes to get the sleepy mist out and found that he could not. Wasn't sure why just yet. He looked around him to see a dozen of his friends and neighbors, a-lying there just as asleep as he had been.

 The light---and his thoughts---seemed dim and unfocused, like as through the thickest mountain fog. Like the steam you see when you blow out your breath of a sharpish cold morning, except everything he was looking at seemed soft around the edges. Was he still asleep and dreaming? The whole world looked steamy and hot, though he knew it was bitter January.

He got up and brushed the snow off himself and his ragged tattered clothes, such as they were. His pants were torn and his shirt front was all bloody with a great red stain and he couldn't move his arms, but none of that seemed to matter. Not his state of dress, nor his lifeless pile of friends and family, nor the cold. He rose to his feet, then without making any further inquiry of his comrades, began stiffly walking down the short side trail towards someplace and something he knew. It didn't matter that he had no use of his bullet-shattered arms, or that there was a hole he could have buried his fist in on his right leg, or that part of his face was missing. Didn't matter at all. He staggered on out of the side trail, got to the junction of the horse trail that led home, and stopped dead in his tracks.

 It seemed to him as he left the cover of the woods that something crucial was different in the world around him, something foundational to his world and his understanding of things. It was devil-moon quiet, for one thing. Too quiet. Usually of a morning a body would hear people on horses or a dog barking off somewhere.... nothing making a sound.

And now something new to consider.... down where this side trail ran into the main holler road, there sat a house setting at the corner where he didn't remember there ever being one. That was a stand of hardwoods he shot a boar hog at one time. But it didn't seem to matter, this difference between what was and what it seemed to be.

And the house....it looked strange and unworldly, made from materials he'd never seen before. Not at all like the old dogtrot cabin he'd grown up in and had began to plow the ground for himself with his papa gone to the war. At least this strange house had a big wraparound porch, looked like.

 And there was a rocking chair.

 And there was a young woman with dark hair and steady eyes, busy with her nose in a book. As he approached the house, he caught sight of a flagpole and a flag waving in the breeze. And how many stars were on that flag? Didn't matter. He had to find out why everything was so different. Maybe this woman would know. Something was drawing him to her, and she looked up, looking straight at him and showing no fear. Or, for that matter, that seeing him was unusual.

 "Hello, the house," he cried out.

 "Well, howdy yourself. Who be you?"

 "Well I'm Davy...uh, Davy Shelton and-----"

 She looked away from the book with a benevolent, knowing half smile, as if she did know something he didn't, and he had to think it, who did she think she was, the Mona Lisa herself? but thought it best to keep quiet and learn what he could. He needed to know something, and there was something unusual about her on that porch, in the same way that his own situation resonated within him. She spoke calm-like, "I think we've been appointed to meet, Davy. I believe you are the very one I am reading about in this very book."

 "How so, ma'am?" He was curious. "I don't have a clue even what I'm at...er what day it is."

 "Well, Davy, I think the reason for our appointment is for me to help send you to someplace you know. I think maybe you have got stuck between." She said this last with a calm air, like she was talking about hanging out the clothes.

 "Between what?"

 " Between your life and your passing."

 "Wha----you mean I feel like this because I might be dead and cain’t quite get there. Why?" He didn't feel dead but had to admit he had nothing to compare it with. He wondered about the others all piled up back yonder and said, "If that be true then I ain't the only one."

 "That's what I'm reading here. You might like this book a lot, Davy. It talks about your folks and your life here in the Laurels, and about them folks over in Marshall and why they're acting up the fool. There's a lot of why's and what-fers as to why everybody has done gone out of their mind over the state of the Union. You do know you are only standing here and us meeting like this because the nation is in a war with itself, for its soul and honor, don't you?"

 He had forgotten about the war but somehow seemed to be separate from its pain and anguish here in this strange fog talking to this woman who said she was reading his life in some book.

 She went on. "Honey, this book writer has got herself some common sense about the war and why your neighbors here in the county have run you out of your house and laid you dead in a ditch. There's some things I ain't gonna pass on, no need to hear it all , but do hear this. Enough to get you on your way. This war has got ever'body ground down to the bare stones, but you do need to know that Marthy is just mad with wanting to track down your killer and that her plan will succeed, but not exactly how she figgered. And you need to know that those who died with you shall all be buried together. And they will always be remembered even in times way down yet from ourn. "

 'Well, if I’m dead and I'm able to talk to you, as if something bad happen to you, too?"

 She looked at him for a long second then laughed and changed the subject saying, "Don’t none of that matter, Davy. I'm here to point you to where you’re headed. First thing you do is go back up there where you were and y'all will go together. So, run along and go be dead so's you can be buried with the other twelve. Go on now.... they’re waiting for you and they cain’t go till you get there."

 "You sure?"

 "It's the way of it."

 Hmm. Seemed like that most settled everything he could think of just now so he said his goodbyes to the young lady on the porch of that house he'd never seen before. A place where he knew to be tangled woods run wild with all manner of God's critters but.... everything seemed to be resolved. That old ground was indeed calling him and so went back towards a place where time had cracked open, and his last thoughts before setting back down in the snow with the others were of the woman.

 "I'm from over Kona way. My name is Frankie."

If that last sentence puzzles you, go HERE.

On a Late Autumn Day

 

New Online Writing Class

I'm sorry to say that I won't be offering a class at John C. Campbell in late May as planned. I'm not comfortable with the risk at this time. 

But, beginning  January 28, I'll be leading another critique workshop for UNC-Asheville's Great Smokies Writing Program. Completely online, it's a chance to join in what is always a very enriching experience for a writer. And since it's online, we could have folks from Boone to Brasstown to New Bern and points in between joining in. (Or beyond, but it's a tad pricey for out of state folks.)

Here are the details.:

Lang 473: Workshoppers at Home: Online Creative Prose Workshop

Instructor: Vicki Lane
Starts January 28, Thursday evenings, 6:00-8:30 p.m.

Here’s your chance to have up to sixty pages of your creative prose – novel excerpts, short stories, essays, memoir – carefully line edited by the instructor and thoughtfully assessed by a group of your fellow writers, concentrating on what is working and what needs attention. And all in the comfort of your home! We will meet online though Zoom, a venue that allows you to see and hear your fellow classmates.

This fifteen-session workshop is aimed at writers with work (novel, short stories, memoir, or other creative prose) in progress, almost completed, or completed but in need of a final polishing. Each student will submit up to sixty pages (twenty at the beginning of the course, twenty during weeks 6-10, and the final twenty during weeks 11-15) for discussion and critique by the class and close editing with written comments by the instructor. We will focus on the effective use of key techniques such as creating an intriguing opening line and a compelling first chapter, creating a likable and/or engaging protagonist, weaving in back story in small, manageable doses, setting up a dilemma that begs to be resolved, making the most of action scenes—in general, producing a page-turner. We will attempt to weed out the mistakes that mark the amateur writer and turn each student into a discerning editor of their own work.  The goal will be to polish those pages till they are ready to catch the attention of an agent, an editor, a publisher and make them ask for more. The reference text will be the highly acclaimed Don’t Sabotage Your Submission by career manuscript editor Chris Roerden (Bella Rosa books –ISBN 978-1-933523-31-6.)

   If you have questions about the class, I'm happy to answer. You can learn more HERE

The pictures are of Lake Logan--from the archives.

Another Busy Day with Josie

Cheesy eggs and buttered toast fingers are my new favorite breakfast. And I can help!

I put in the cheese and stir up the eggs Very Carefully.

I love this breakfast  so much that sometimes I also have it for lunch. 

I started making music-Meema said it was a racket--banging my fork on things. When I banged it on the light socket Meema said Stop but I went on banging. Then she yelled STOP! and I did but it hurt my feelings and I started to cry.

Then we had a Conversation and Meema told me how if my fork had gone into the light socket, it could have hurt me and so she had to yell so loud to make me STOP right away.  Then we talked about loving. Meema said she always loves me but she will YELL at me if I'm doing something dangerous.

I felt better.

After breakfast, I went in the living room where my castle people were having an adventure. They had to walk carefully around and through things to get to the castle.

My blue fairy climbed to the top and then we heard someone saying LET ME OUT!

It was a pretty lady with a fancy hairdo! She was in the top of the castle and we saved her!

Then I took the blue tissue paper she was wrapped in and spread it out to be a lake. I lined up the castle people all around it. It made a rectangle.

Then they all had a dance to celebrate.

Also I worked in a workbook and Meema and I read books. I know lots of words but I want Meema to do the reading.  I played with Legos too when I was supposed to take a nap. Meema was a little cranky but she loves me even when I act crazy and even when I don't take a nap. I love Meema, even when she's cranky because I know it's hard being an old woman.

We did play dough and bubbles out on the porch.  Meema blows the bubbles and I pop them. It is a fun game.

Later I watched a video on Grumpy's computer. He has some notes struck on it so while I watched, I made more little yellow notes for him and stuck them all over. I think he will like them.

Remembering . . .

 

 Remembering those who served, who put their country before themselves. They were not suckers or losers, no matter what the Loser in the White House says. 

Col. Keith

If you've read And the Crows Took Their Eyes, you'll note some discrepancies. As I said in the afterword, even the primary sources don't always agree. Makes one wonder how history will record 2020. 

 From the November 8 Mountain Xpress:

Asheville Archives: Initial reactions to the Shelton Laurel Massacre, 1863

Posted on November 8, 2020 by Thomas Calder

CALLING THE SHOTS: Lt. Col. James Keith, an impressively bearded native of Mars Hill, was in charge of the North Carolina 64th Regiment, which carried out the Shelton Laurel Massacre. Photo via Mrs. James F. Arnold, El Paso, Texas; courtesy of Southern Appalachian Archives, Mars Hill University

On Jan. 15, 1863, amid the Civil War, The Asheville News reported that enemies, “not in the shape of Northern soldiers, but … of disloyal men from Tennessee and our own State,” ransacked the nearby town of Marshall. Confederate soldiers, the article noted, were headed to Madison County to “restore order and security.”

Additional information, the paper continued, “will be fully known in due time.”

Subsequent reports explained how the region’s Union sympathizers, including those living in Shelton Laurel, were denied salt from Confederate commissioners. With food in short supply and salt critical for preserving meat, individuals took matters into their own hands.

Two months later, on March 17, 1863, The North Carolina Standard, based in Raleigh, shared an account from an unnamed source residing in the state’s western region. According to the individual, Confederate soldiers “shot down in cold blood” a number of Shelton Laurel residents accused of the January raid.

The source asserted that the officer who ordered the executions (identified in subsequent papers as Lt. Col. James Keith) “knew that the only object of the raid made by these [Shelton Laurel] men was to seize the salt, which they believed was wrongfully withheld from them.”

“I am no apologist for these miserable ignorant thieves,” the source continued. “But I hold that the Constitution and the laws of this country guarantee to every man and woman in the Confederacy, no matter what their crime, a fair and impartial trial.”

The North Carolina Standard agreed. The men accused of the raid “committed a great wrong against society,” the paper wrote. Along with the stolen salt, the article noted damage to private property and at least two wounded residents.

The men deserved lawful punishment, The North Carolina Standard continued. But instead, the paper observed: “The musket did the work. The red hand of vengeance was triumphant, and the voice of mercy, which is heard everywhere except in hell, was raised in vain.”

Because these men were denied a trial, the paper deemed the 64th Regiment’s actions “both cowardly and wicked.”

By the summer of 1863 several newspapers — including the Baltimore Sun and The New York Times — picked up on the story and ran a syndicated article describing the January killing of the 13 men and boys, which became known as the Shelton Laurel Massacre.

The piece features gruesome and dramatic details about the executions, including alleged pleas made by one of the youngest victims, 12-year-old William Shelton.

“Poor little Billy was wounded in both arms. He ran to an officer, clasped him around his legs, and besought him to spare his life. ‘You have killed my father and my three brothers; you have shot me in both arms — I forgive you for all this; I can get well. Let me go home to my mother and sisters.’ What a heart of adamant the man must have who could disregard such an appeal! The little boy was dragged back to the place of execution; again the terrible word ‘fire!’ was given, and he fell dead, eight balls having entered his body.”

The syndicated report went on to note that a number of Shelton Laurel women were also brutally “whipped and hung by the neck till they were almost dead.” Among the assault victims was an 85-year-old resident. “And the men who did this were called soldiers!” the article decried.

No members of the North Carolina 64th Regiment were ever tried for the deaths of the 13 people killed in Madison County on Jan. 19, 1863.

Today, the Shelton Laurel Massacre continues to inspire debate, research and publications, including the most recent work of historical fiction And the Crows Took Their Eyes by local author Vicki Lane. (See “Author Vicki Lane Takes Multiple Views of the Shelton Laurel Massacre,” Oct. 23, Xpress)

Editor’s note: Peculiarities of spelling and punctuation are preserved from the original document.

Four Years Later--and Fifty-Seven Years On

Four years ago, John brought a celebratory meal he'd cooked to the nursing home where I was recovering from multiple injuries. We were neither of us feeling particularly cheerful after Clinton's defeat in the Electoral College, but it was our 53rd wedding anniversary and we were celebrating, dammit!

This year we'll celebrate whole-heartedly. I have Josie today so the Eggs Benedict and champagne breakfast is out, but we'll raise a glass this evening--to ourselves, to our family, to the coming administration, and to all the folks who voted for them. Keep on keeping on!

Here Comes the Sun!

I pried myself away from the computer and was out pulling weeds and getting rid of dead branches when the election was called so didn't find out till half an hour later. But I like to think there was something symbolic going on--maybe even sympathetic magic.

We're not out of the woods yet--there's going to be whining and litigation and tweeting yet to endure. But the end is in sight.

And I am so happy. It's been lovely to hear from friends all over--even in in England, France, Austria, Canada, and New Zealand--who share my joy and relief. 

Now comes the hard part--bringing this divided nation together. 

 

Comfort Cooking--Soul Food, Part 2

The book I blogged about a few days back (The Best Cook in the World by Rick Bragg,) turned my mind to the food of my youth and last night we had fried pork tenderloin (in my grandmother's iron frying pan,) greens (in a wok from Iowa City, 1969.) The greens are kale, stir-fried with onions and garlic and a bit of hog jowl. My grandmother would have used collards or turnip greens and would have boiled them into submission.

Also the traditional baked sweet potato with butter and a side salad of spinach, tomatoes, and homemade ranch dressing (Homemade mayo, yoghurt, dill weed, and lots of garlic. My grandmother would have preferred some iceberg lettuce, a slice or two of tomato and mayo or homemade Thousand Island dressing.)

There should have been corn pone-- one of my favorite things from my grandmother's table. But it needs really fresh white cornmeal, preferably water ground, and I don't have any.

There were, however, black-eyed peas, swimming in their pot likker. They were on my grandmother's table four or five times a week till I had had enough. But I made a special effort with these--more hog jowl, onion, garlic, hot pepper, and a bay leaf. Yep, that works!

Keeping our spirits up as we wait. . .

 

A Fairly Accurate Picture of My State of Mind