More News & Confirmed Gossip from the Writing World

Ahoy, Buccaneers!

            Busy on the high seas this summer? Ai, me, too.

            This past weekend I was shanghaied by the Oregon Writers Colony crew to work at our annual Founder’s Day Celebration in Rockaway Beach. Saturday morn we offered a class on publishing non-fiction. After the noon meal, we gathered for a reading at the library followed by the dedication of a poetry pole at Colonyhouse, our OWC home. Sunday, fifty-five writers took over City Hall for presentations, book sales, good eats, and round table discussions. Here be the highlights according to yours truly:

At the Rockaway Beach Library

            Library readin’s began wi’ Barbara Corrado Pope (Pirate Award here for her name). She talked about research she did for her new novel Blood of Lorraine. She’s a right fascinatin’ woman with a bounty of information, no bones about it. Here be an interview with Barbara, if ye be interested in anti-Semitism in 19^th Century France following the Dreyfus Affair—oh, and a murder mystery. The story, besides being a damned good yarn and set in France, examines how suspicion and prejudice can seep into even those who fight against it. Forsooth, I be gobsmacked with her detail of place, a writer’s jewel of “place as character.”

            Oregon Poet Laureate Paulann Petersen followed Barbara.

Photos  by Sandy Schmidt Wilson

            Ai, I be a pirate who loves poetry. As a writer, I chum me prose by reading poetry, lovin’ it for its musicality and imagery. Paulann be everything a PL could be—gracious, classy, great sense of humor, and a Buddhist stillness combined with a brilliant mind and creative blood. I bought her first collection. But before reading her poetry, she offered this quote from Meister Eckhart:

"When the soul wants to experience something, she throws out an image in front of her and then steps into it."

Shiver! And not me timbers.

            Later, she dedicated our Colonyhouse poetry pole. Not familiar with poetry poles? They hold sheets of poetry for those hungry for a slice. Just drop by and take a page.

On Sunday

            Sunday at Rockaway Beach City Hall we opened the official Founder’s Day with author Bill Cameron. Blimey! What a funny bloke. A true pirate, that man! Readers can see his funny bones in the first few things he threw at us writers, includin’ this gem in the intro:

Writing is like religion; everyone has their own beliefs, so nay to right and wrong. Adopt what works for you. (I’m paraphrasing here, so correct me, Bill, if I’m a rogue and got it wrong.)

            Here be a few of titles of his “rules,” copyrighted, and small wonder:

• Misery begets plot
• Weakness is Your Plaything
• Loss is Character-Building

            If ye be a writer and interested in his two page pdf with all the “rules” and a few good writer’s tips, go to his website, contact him and ask for Whydunit_2p.

            Next, I sail the internet where I hear the latest on a few of me favorites.

            Chris Bohjalian as posted on Facebook August 18^th:

Today Lifetime is filming the "Secrets of Eden" Stephen Drew/Alice Hayward love scene.

             His latest novel The Night Strangers is a creepy ghost story.

            Alice Hoffman according to her page:

All the cover photographs on my new Kindle releases on Pisces Press are taken by me. I love making bookcovers!

Here be a few—

            Maties, what do you think of the covers?

            As a Francophile, I share Cara Black’s love of Paris. I gobble up her mysteries which are set there and have had the greatest fortune of spending time with her one afternoon and sharing our giddiness over the City of Light. The other day she posted this link on FB:

200-year-old Paris trouser ban for women may finally be repealed

Here at home …

… with me very own critique group. Huzza!

            One of our crew has boarded the agent ship of Donadio and Olson, a NY topnotch literary agency. They say her voice is one of the most original they’ve read. Our-member-who-remains-anonymous is waiting to hear about her first novel that’s out with editors as I write. Her agent is not only taken on her novel, but she’s looking at her short fiction and has offered to help her with social media. Here’s a treasure chest if I ever!! I can’t tell you her name—YET—as we writers tend to be superstitious about announcing anything until the check is in hand (and even then, we still are wary). So cross fingers and spit.

… with me best pal

            Jan Eliot, creator of the syndicated cartoon “Stone Soup,” will be traveling in November to Haiti with Jimmy and Roslyn Carter for Habitat’s Women Build. She’s been on a Women Build project in Thailand. Habitat uses her cartoon characters in their promotion. What a buccaneer! The question: does that mean Grandma in her strip with be travelin' to Haiti? Ah, me thinks she might.

… Your Captain’s News

            This week I be off to the fine port of Waldport, Oregon to seek privacy for four days with a writer pal. I be headin’ into the final chapters of me novel and will immerse in all things non pirate to bring to life my last climactic scenes.

For now, I tip me hat to ye all. Thanks for bein’ on board and sailin’ w’ me. You’re a mighty fine crew!

Yours through storm and smooth sailin’,

Captain Val

COMING UP!

Fashionable Writer-Pirates: What They're Wearing This Season

Readers Beware! What you need to know about reviews and recommendations

What it Takes to be a Writer

And … an unusual interview with cartoonist Jan Eliot of “Stone Soup”

Runnin’ for Me Life: Tsunami! Part II

Gobsmacked continues, maties with the tale of a writer's retreat interrupted by tsunami warning. Now you scallywags know that writing, as is pirating, is a dangerous profession. My pirate pal, Grace Castle and I are fleeing up the hillside from the impending tsunami.

__________________________

             A man with a bottle of wine walked past, joking how he’d been pulled from the bar and was missing a pool tournament and the Detroit game. Someone yelled, “Save some of that wine for me.” I was surprised it wasn’t a bottle of rum.

            Grace and I stopped a fireman and asked how high we were. “Maybe Seventy-five feet,” he said. “We’re okay here.” I looked back at the water. I wasn’t reassured.

            I was, however, happy the earthquake hadn’t happened at the Oregon coast or there'd be no time to escape. Recently, a PBS program focused on the Northwest being overdue for an earthquake. Our fault line, the Cascadia subduction zone, causes a devastating earthquake every three- to six-hundred years. Indian lore agrees with the science. I remember when I first arrived in Oregon how lucky I felt; at that time there was confusion about the plates, and as explained to me at that time, the plates moved away from each other, so there was no possibility of a major earthquake in the Northwest. That, of course, was wrong.

           Grace and I stopped and looked back. The ocean appeared to be far enough away, but I didn’t trust myself with measurements. Grace and I talked. No reason not to head up higher.

            Near the top of the road we finally stopped at a newly graveled, vacant house lot. Not only did this look high enough from the ocean but it looked like the perfect place to set up camp. I checked my watch. Eight thirty.

            The man next to us had his hands stuffed in his jean pockets and his suntanned face was tight with misery.

            “Are you from Rockaway?” I asked.

            “Yes.”

            “Are you okay?”

            “My house is about one-hundred feet from the ocean.”

            I didn’t have a house at the ocean, but I did have a car. More important to me as a writer, that car held my laptop and all my writing, including my novel. I’d left my external hard drive at Colonyhouse, so my laptop was my only hope. Even leaving my wedding ring behind didn’t matter at the moment. (I take my rings off when I work.) Truth is, I could replace a wedding ring, but I’d never be able to rewrite the novel.

            Was my car high enough to survive the tsunami? Plus, I wondered why no one else was driving up to this vacant lot or the driveway behind it. I asked the man next to me how high we were.

            “We’re okay here, maybe fifty feet above sea level.”

            Okay, I wasn’t the only height-challenged one among us.

            I turned to Grace. “I think I’m going to move my car up here.”

            She nodded.

            No one tried to stop me. No one even copied my move. I pulled my Honda into the gravel-filled lot and felt relieved. We would not only have our laptops, we’d have water and shelter.

            As I slid out of the car, a young couple walked out of the woods with backpacks. Where the heck did they come from? They knew nothing about what was happening. We told them. Nearby, a young couple and their children were struggling, the mom pushing a stroller with a year-old boy, the dad carrying a three-year-old girl. They said they never heard the siren, the kids were asleep, and they were watching a movie. Someone called them. The mom couldn’t keep the blanket wrapped around her little boy. Neither she nor her husband had a jacket or blanket. Nearby, a woman who had seen better days was trying to hold onto five leashed dogs. When the young woman said, “What if we have to sleep here tonight?” to her husband, I told them they could crowd into my back seat. That started me thinking: Do we share our water? With whom? How much? How do we dole it out? Will we give the children our blankets and jackets? How long will we be here? Days? Weeks? How will we be evacuated?

            Just as I was mentally preparing for the worst, a firefighter walked by and shouted, “The warning has been cancelled. There will be no tsunami. Everyone can go home.”

            Grace and I looked at each other. What?

            No one moved. Everyone had kept an eye on the ocean and now were suspicious of what it would and could deliver. Sure it looked serene, but how did they know there was no tsunami?

            When people began to leave, Grace and I headed to the car, saying nothing. My mind switched gears. Should we go back to Colonyhouse right away? What if they’re wrong? What if there’s another quake? How will we find out if we have no television or radio? What do we do when we get back to the house? Do we stay? Can we sleep now? Should we go home? What do we tell our families? What’s the smartest thing to do? Is that the cautious thing to do?

            At Colonyhouse, the questions changed. How are we going to feel if we stay? There was a quake in San Diego on Friday, now this one on Tuesday. Is this a series of quakes working its way up the coast? Are we next? Is this a prelude to the big one? We’ve spent money coming over here to hold up and write. Are we going to just throw that away?

            Inside, Grace and I talked, but we had no answers. She told me about the time she was in San Francisco at a conference and a quake hit. Not being a drinker, she wasn’t in the bar that night and had no idea what to do during a quake, so she burrowed into her bed and fell asleep. Fell asleep? How did she do that?

            Grace and I went back and forth—go or stay, go or stay? I called Dan. He said, “If you have to, go inland and get a hotel. Take your laptop and leave the rest. Then you can go back and pack up if you want to come home.” I hated to tell him there was no “inland,” that inland here is a hike up a mountain. I promised to call him when we figured it out.

            I made a cup of tea. By now I knew I was staying. I just couldn’t live in fear.

            Grace finished the salad she left and then changed into her pajamas. She brought down pages of her novel to edit. I called Dan back to tell him about the woman fire department chief I met on the way down after the warning was cancelled.

            The fire chief had said, “Rockaway Beach is the only fully tsunami-prepared community on the entire Northwest coast.”

            I believed it.

            After we hung up, I lay down on the couch and was reading a New Yorker article by Edmund White about the women he’d loved when Grace said, “I think maybe I should sleep in my clothes.”

            I can’t sleep in pajamas or clothes, so when I went to bed at eleven-thirty, as I undressed, I laid my clothes on the other bed in the order they came off. If there was another evacuation, my clothes would at least be easy to jump into.

            The next morning, we learned that the earthquake in Northern California didn’t produce a tsunami because the plates moved back and forth, not up and down like pistons. In the reports to come, I would learn about police having to block entrances to the beach of those who wanted to watch the tsunami in Coos Bay. Cannon Beach right up the road from Rockaway Beach experienced traffic jams and people had to abandon their cars.

            The day after the tsunami warning, I wrote about the evacuation. I couldn't let the fear of a tsunami make me scared of the ocean. I just couldn't. An earthquake wasn't the ocean's fault. I had to do something that gave the ocean back to me, its life force, not its destructive force. I had to love the ocean again without condition because the ocean meant too much to me. 

             That afternoon, I walked down to the beach and the water's edge, and I danced. I let myself go, choreographing a modern dance with a few jazz steps. I leaped, circled, and swept across the sand.  And I didn’t care if anyone saw me. I danced and thanked the life force of the ocean, for giving us food, for giving us the tides, for giving us more than it took away.

* * * * *

            Ai, me love of the ocean is still in me heart. 'Tis the life blood of a pirate and I ne'er dismiss the pleasure it gives. Fear can only taint the well. Here's to the sea!

            Yours,

            Captain Val

 

COMING UP!

More News & Confirmed Gossip from the Writing World
Fashionable Writer-Pirates: What They're Wearing This Season

What it Takes to be a Writer

And … an unusual interview with cartoonist Jan Eliot of “Stone Soup”

Runnin’ for Me Life: Tsunami! Part 1

Me alter-ego, Writer Val, tells this true tale:

           The June day was what the Brits call brilliant. Blue sky with powder puff clouds, sparkling ripples of ocean waves, an almost-deserted long stretch of beach. My face had that just-right sun-kissed pink from sitting against a driftwood log for a half hour, reading John Daniel’s Rogue River Journal, after finishing a day of writing. Once again, I was luxuriating in a writers’ week at Colonyhouse, the Oregon Writers Colony house at Rockaway Beach, Oregon.

            After the beach, I ate a simple dinner and then decided to call home. Fellow writer Grace Castle was fixing a salad as I walked outside to call my husband. At eight o’clock, the June evening was still sunny and warm, and I faced a tranquil ocean. Dan and I were talking about our son’s job when a siren sounded, one that made my arm hairs stand up.

            “Can you hear that?”

            Dan said, “Yeah. Maybe there’s a tsunami coming.” He was half joking.

            When the siren shut off, I said, “Whew. That must have been a test.”

            We picked up the conversation where we left off, but half a minute later, the siren sounded again and this time stayed on.

            “I need to hang up. This is serious.”

            Inside, Grace was about to eat her salad.

            “The siren. What do you think?” I asked.

            Outside, nothing had changed. No cars. No people fleeing. Grace said, “If it’s an emergency, we’ll find out soon enough.”

            The sharp wail continued and sent me scurrying to the coffee table and the new tsunami brochures. Nowhere did the brochure say, “When you hear an ear-splitting alarm, run for the hills.” My reptilian brain said “Flee!” but my rational side said, “Don’t be wimp. It’s just a drill.”

            I called three numbers listed on the pamphlet and reached, “If you know your party’s extension. …”

            Grace calmly ate her salad. “If it’s not a drill, someone will come by and tell us over a loud speaker.”

            At that exact moment, an emergency vehicle drove by, lights flashing, speaker system on. “Evacuate your homes! Tsunami warning! This is not a drill!”

            Evacuate? Tsunami? Television images of the Asian tsunami flipped across my brain.

            Grace and I grabbed laptops, tennis shoes, purses, blankets, and jackets. “We’ll take my car,” I said as we ran down to the road where the cars were parked. I had water in my trunk.

            As I pulled away, I tried to remember where I saw evacuation signs. Which road would take us up the mountain? Before we turned onto Rt. 101, the emergency vehicle made another sweep of the area, and I flagged it down. “What road do we take?”

            “Turn left onto Sixth.”

            We did. Cars were leaving Sixth. It was a dead end. From a car passing us going in the opposite direction, someone yelled, “Third Street.” We turned around.

            The siren continued to shriek. When we reached Third Street, the town seemed to be funneling up the road.

            Up ahead, people left their vehicles in a church parking lot to walk up the hill. No one was giving directions on what to do. I wanted to go higher, but we came to a crawl as people walked in front of us. I decided to park along the road between the church and the fire station as no one seemed to be driving to the top of the hill. Grace and I put on our sneakers, grabbed coats, blankets and shoes. We decided to leave our laptops in the car. But what about the water? The family in the car in front of us was making similar decisions on what to take while one of their girls sobbed uncontrollably in her father’s arms.

            Grace and I couldn’t lug the water, so we locked up, and joined the fleeing townspeople. One man had a cat wrapped inside his jacket. An elderly couple, both frail and white of hair, trudged silently beside us, the woman following the man. Neither carried anything. Someone had a radio handset so I asked what he was hearing. “We can’t hear anything. The frequencies are jammed, overloaded.” A man behind us said a Northern California earthquake was expected to cause a tsunami forty to forty-five feet high. I noticed a uniformed woman speaking on a radio and walked over. “How high are we right here?”

            “About forty feet.”

            I looked back at the ocean. Not high enough. I began tallying up everything we needed and didn’t have: water, flashlights, protein bars, warm enough clothes, waterproof matches, water purification tablets, first aid kit, candles, everything I keep at home.

            My cell phone rang. “Where are you?” It was Dan. “I can’t believe I … … … Kristy just called from Portland … … … was being evacuated.” I told him what was happening and tried to reassure him we’d be okay, but the reception died. Grace tried to call out on her cell, but no signal. I thought of loved ones speaking to people in the Twin Towers before they were cut off forever. Grace and I put our phones away and kept walking.

            We continued our climb and learned from others that the whole coast from California to Vancouver, B.C. was being evacuated. “Where was the quake?” I asked. Northern California, someone said, Eureka, no Yreka, no Brookings. On the border of California and Oregon. The tsunami was supposed to hit our coast around 9:26 p.m. I checked my watch. Only 8:23.

            “This is what you could call an adventure,” Grace said.

            “If we survive, it’s an adventure,” I said. “If we die, it’s a disaster.”

* * * * *

            Ai, me beauties, it’s not over. The tale continues next week. And even then, it's not the end. There's another story that raises the arm hairs.

          Until then, me maties, stay strong and bless the sea,

          Captain Val

COMING UP!

Runnin’ for Me Life:  Tsunami! Part II

More News & Confirmed Gossip from the Writing World

A Fast Getaway in the Middle of the Night

And … an unusual interview with cartoonist Jan Eliot of “Stone Soup”

Adventures at a Writer’s Residency: Captain Val Goes to Vermont Studio Center

Ahoy, ye shipmates!
     Today I take you on a past adventure, one from 2007. Writers often need to flee ship and crew, go far away to capture treasure on paper. The place they go? A residency. This, me scallywags, is a place for contemplation, immersion, communing with the story. Residencies are applied for and often denied as the need is high, writers many, and possibilities limited. Aye, I've been lucky and nailed many a residency, and one of my favorite was a month in winter at Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vermont, a wee hamlet that echoes me own home town in spirit, where you'll still find stenciled on the sidewalks "Kill Your TV."
      Me choice is to show ye the place, the pirates I was on board with, and the flavor of a what a month with the muse is like. Here ye be. Enjoy!

I arrive in Burlington, Vermont, and spend a few days with me best pal from high school, Christie, and hang out with her hubby and grandchildren. Christie takes me to Johnson for me first day and for most of the month I'm there, the bloody place looks like Antarctica.

 

 

The photo to the left is of the writer's building, fairly new, and accommodating up to fourteen writers. The Gihon River runs through Johnson and was frozen over in most places. Aye, we had some sun, and for those liverbelly landlubbers who find themselves chilled to the bone from just settin' eyes on these pics, well, toss yer eyes on the ones below from the Vermont Studio Center website:

The Red Mill building, dining hall, rec room, offices, gallery

VSC

The Writers Building on a better day

Aerial view of VSC

    

     "Founded by artists in 1984, the Vermont Studio Center is the largest international artists' and writers' Residency Program in the United States, hosting 50 visual artists and writers each month from across the country and around the world. The Studio Center provides 4-12 week studio residencies on an historic 30-building campus along the Gihon River in Johnson, Vermont, a village in the heart of the northern Green Mountains. "

     Aye, maties, that's the gist o' it. The month I was there, I and the writers worked with Andrea Barrett, author of Ship Fever and Servants of the Map, a hearty wise and wonderful woman who upon our first workshop with her, pulled out a beautious silk Chinese bag full of found objects and covered with dragonflies. Seein' me totem is the dragonfly, I blurted out, "My totem!" and then explained, whereupon, she emptied the bag and handed it to me. "It's yours." I almost threw meself down on the floor from worship of this magnificent wench. She then spoke of found objects, how they spawn the novels she writes. In the past, at other VSC residencies, I've had me the privilege of working with Rick Moody, who played guitar while we sat around a rousing bonfire and sang along, and Joanna Scott, a  masterful author with many novels to her name and a hell o' of a ping pong game.

      Residency days are spent either in your bedroom writing or in your writing studio. Me favorite way to start the day is to make me a cuppa tea and climb back inta bed with the laptop. I'll be gobsmacked if this doesn't tap into the writin' faster 'n gettin' dressed, havin' breakfast at the dining hall, talkin' to the artists, and headin' o'er to the studios. By then I've done left the magical world of half dream, half reality that so primes me writin'. Here's what me bedroom looked like:

     I had me no trouble lovin' this room. It felt like I was back in college. That of course was exactly what made us act in such ... well, juvenile manner at times. We had our parties, oh, yes, indeed, and they were of fine spirit. As an instigator o' fine partying, believin' we need to reward ourselves for the hard work we put in day after day (and it not be easy, I can tell ye; there be a fair bit of groanin' goin' on o'er missin' muses, troublesome verse, and lackluster prose), I felt we needed succor. So me specialty being the bright pink cosmo, I sailed down to the liquor store and bought me  the ingredients. The night of the party, I set up the bar and began mixin'. Now, I best be tellin' ya, I not be the only pirate of the sort. Me cosmos disappeared down the gullet of all me fine messmates, dancin' ensued, people grabbed the basement poles and did a turn or two. The basement rec room filled with laughter and merriment. When me vodka ran out, someone whispered to check the fridge. 'Tis a crazy cache of liquor and beer, and plenty of vodka. Aye, we partied to the wee hours.

Me and the fine Andrea Barrett

No comment on these merrymakers!

     Throughout the month, the artists at VSC hold studio tours, a fine way of seein' works in progress. As writers, we share our work by reading at the community center on designated nights along with our visiting authors. During one of the readings we posed for a group portrait. A few of my pirate pals I offer here.

Your Captain at the helm

Great mate Lesley Howard gracing us with her story

Justin Quarry, gobsmacked us with his reading

Writers, one and all

     But the beginnin' o' each day was always 'bout the work, putting our fingers to the keyboard, pen or pencil. Here's me writing desk at the studio, along wi' an obsession of mine:  takin' photos of shoes  and also the books I happen ta be readin'.

My favorite? The Last of Her Kind

Pre MacBook

What we wore to the writers' studio

Debby, Kent, me, Chris and Jeff

Me, Chris and Debby

Falling out the door?

Before the end of the month,  me brothers and their wives came up  for a day from New Hampshire, and we pirated around Stowe and I'm happy to report I kicked derriere in pool. Yo, ho, ho!!

So that be it for me log this week, hearties. Come back next week for the two-part adventure "Runnin' for Me Life: Tsunami!" a story rife with tension and worthy of a read.

      Until then, I remain always yours,

      Captain Val

COMING UP!

Runnin’ for Me Life:  Tsunami!

More News & Confirmed Gossip from the Writing World

And … an unusual interview with cartoonist Jan Eliot of “Stone Soup

Lucille Ball and Brenda Starr’s Love Child: Interview with Jessica Maxwell

Ahoy, me Gobsmacked Crew!

Jess Maxwell

            Yer in fer a treat. On May 27^th, Jessica Maxwell, author of the wildly successful Roll Around Heaven: An All-True Accidental Spiritual Adventure (phew!), sat down with me at Bella Vita Spa in Salem, Oregon, to answer a few questions. Instead of the usual interview—ar-ha-ha!—me pirate’s playful nature needed a playground. Seein’ twas still me birthday week, and Jess was treatin’ me to a pedicure, why not ha’ our brilliant nail technicians (who know Jessica and RAH) ask the questions? (Aye, captains love ta leave the work to the crew!)

            So wi’out further ado, here be the interview!

            Elena Leo, Jessica’s Bella Vita nail technician.

            Elana Leo:  How old were you when you decided to be a writer?

            Jessica:  A good question, because until I was sixteen I wanted to be a doctor. I always wanted to heal people. But when they were handing out math brain cells, I got back into the poetry line, and I didn’t get any math brain cells.

            So at sixteen, I knew I couldn’t do medicine, and I said to myself, I’m good at English, was even in honors English. Plus, I’m a redhead. I can be either Brenda Starr or Lucille Ball.

            Brenda was more appealing because she had all these exotic assignments all over the world. Plus, she had Basil St. John, this tall boyfriend who always showed up wherever she was, and he wore an eye patch, which I found intriguing. She had these fabulous clothes, and I thought what a great job! I ended up doing all this without the Basil part.

            Now, Lucille Ball was not a part I counted on. I had assignments for serious stories. The first one was on the LA sewer system, and I wanted to do an environmental story. But when I arrived, it’s Girl Scout day and only Girl Scouts could tour the sewer system. So I pretended to be in one of the troops. While I was on one of their tours, I noticed the workers at the sewer had big fancy rings. I said to one of them, “Man, they must pay you well,” and he said, “Oh, no. It’s finders keepers.”

            Then I interviewed the supervisor of the LA sewer system. I sat down with him and interviewed him very seriously. After, I asked, “Okay, what is your name?”

            He said, “Arthur F. Sewer.”

            I laughed, and he didn’t. “Is that your real name?”

            He nodded. 

            “How do you spell that?”

            “Suhr.”

            See? I tried to do a serious story and ended up with outrageous comedy. I was Lucy from then on.

             

            Michelle Moore, me Bella Vita nail technician asks her question.

            Michelle: What flower do you most identify with?

            Jessica: I adore flowers. And old Indian master Swami Satchidananda once said, “Flowers are God smiling at you.” And I thought that was so neat because you look at a flower, and it’s so beautiful and happy, even in the middle of yuck!

            What flower do I identify with? For some reason I love violets. When I lived in France my junior year of college every February-March is violet season, and they have little bouquets of violets. I actually have a little bouquet of faux violets I pin on my dresses all the time. I think they’re just so … so French! I love lilac time, too. I love cherry blossoms. What I love about flowers is they represent blooming again, every year, and if you think about it, it’s amazing we can count on spring bringing us again so much hope. I mean, what if flowers never bloomed again? In terms of a spiritual symbol, the lotus flower is the symbol of what the Eastern people call enlightenment. I don’t know if you know this, but the lotus floats on top of water, and its roots go down like jelly fish into the mud. So it gets its nourishment from the mud of life and then blooms forth on the surface. I think that’s perfect. Our feet are in the mud. Life’s messy, yet we can still bloom. So I love that. I have a lotus on my keychain.

            The other thing that comes to mind about flowers is my dad. He was born in Honolulu and lived in New Zealand, and any South Pacific flower—the pikake, gardenia, tiare—their beautiful fragrance, it’s like you’re smelling heaven right here on earth.

            I was on assignment and remember getting off the plane in Tahiti. They have tiare flowers planted everywhere. It’s very smart. And it’s not sickly sweet. They say the masters produce a fragrance, and that’s wild. All in all, I associate flowers with the highest, deepest level of awareness that we can attain on this planet here and now.

 

            I, as Gobsmacked Captain, could not be left out of the interview. I’ve known me shipmate Jessica for years, know the quest she was accidentally dropped into, and ha’ seen the results. She might write for all the big mags—National Geographic, Esquire, Audubon, Forbes, Gourmet, Outside, Town & Country  to name a few—but her True North is not of this earth, at least not that we know of. Being a witness to these adventures, I had one burning question.

            Captain Val:  Of all the questions in all the interviews you’ve done, what question have you not been asked that you would have liked to answer?

            Jessica:  (a long pause; a faraway look in the eye; husky low voice)

            What no one has asked me and what I have not volunteered is what I’m going to do in the next book. I’m going to write about what I really know—what I really know—because I don’t go around talking about it because it is so out there, or in there, and it’s not about me; it’s what we know, we’re always dancing around, even with the concept of enlightenment or samsara. The reason that I know what I know is that I live and I experience it, but I don’t talk about it. It’s so profound. And I don’t mean I have any big secret. I mean these trappings we give to the real stuff is the best we can do.

            It’s like when you’re writing. You have your idea and who the characters are, but what is their story? We call it inspiration, this unbelievable knowingness that comes through, and you write and write, and somehow a paragraph happens, the best you’ve written in years, and it glows. What is it, Val, really? We’ve tried to put words to it, but if you say “I’m channeling,” well …

            The words that come close are tainted by religious history, which makes intelligent people throw the baby out with the baptismal water. And what I’ve really come to understand didn’t come like a lightening strike.

Lama Karma

            What’s interesting is watching how people respond to my workshops. I’m giving them information, and we have a wonderful time, but certain people get that it’s literally coming through me, and it’s like transference. Like I say to them, “I’m the spiritual FedEx girl and don’t crown the messenger.” It’s a very interesting situation to be in because I instinctively know what people can take and not take, what you can offer and what you can’t because you don’t even talk about it. What you’re offering is something deeper but you don’t even talk about that because it comes with it.

            The closest I have found to a description of what that is I found in this book Glen, Randy’s* husband, gave me on Tibetan mysticism. How they understand the sound of chanting is bringing you and your mind to this place of peace—and that’s hackneyed too—but it’s literally medicine for your soul. Even that’s not it. But it’s starting to describe the undercurrents that are at work. A baby monk will be taught a chant, and the energy of the sounds, the rhythms and the cadence, will take the monk to this place.

            The first time I “got” it was when Lama Karma on New Years was chanting and I listened and was taken to a place where I understood the design within the chanting.

            Back to me, the Captain. I can tell no more o’ this interview because Pirate Maxwell asked me to keep the rest confidential so it is saved for her next book.

            But I ha’ to throw in me pieces o’ eight. Me thinks what she’s sayin’ is like when sailors thought the world flat and they’d fall off the end of the earth if they went too far. That’s where we be in the spiritual realm. We’re just waitin’ to find out the earth is round, and we’re spinnin’, and we can’t fall off because the design is so freakin’ awesome. And, nay, I be non religious, just a spiritual pirate spoutin’ similes.

            Ah, but I must ask one last question of Jess. Can’t resist.

            Captain Val:  What is your dream?

            Jessica: To have a farmhouse in the beautiful Paro Valley of Bhutan.

            So for ye on a spiritual sail, bon voyage!

            And “Stay tunaed,” as Miss Maxwell is fond o’ sayin’. The Gobsmacked is headed for adventure! With a private peek at me month at Vermont Studio Center and a frightenin’ tale of me run-in wi’ a tsunami. Shiver me timbers!

            Until then, I remain your

            Captain Val

*Randy is Jessica’s best friend.

COMING UP!

Adventures at a Writer’s Residency: Captain Val Goes to Vermont Studio Center

Runnin’ for Me Life:  Tsunami!

More News & Confirmed Gossip from the Writing World

And … an unusual interview with cartoonist Jan Eliot of “Stone Soup

Oh, Google, My Name Is ...

            Back when I was a young lass, just getting’ me feet wet, testing the waters of art and writing, an aunt sent me mother an article from Ballet News or some such magazine. The article was a review of a book about ballet, written by Valerie Brooks. Mum thought it had to be me because 1) that was me name, and 2) I love ballet and had taken ballet lessons from the time I was four. ‘Tis a sad day when ye ha’ to disappoint a mother.

            No, ‘twas not me, I had to tell her. ‘Twas not me article.

            I thought no more about it until years later when I began to call meself a writer. “You have the perfect name for a writer,” many said. Aye, I thought so, too.

            I thought no more of it. ‘Twas me name. A good hearty name. Valerie, French for valorous, strong. Brooks, traced back in our ancestry to the Normans when they conquered England in 1066. Thanks, mum! Thanks, Dad!

            I wrote for ten years without losing a sail. I had published and illustrated the first textbook for women in non-traditional careers. I’d been editor of a literary magazine. Then I began seriously writing fiction.

            Ah-har, I’d get to use me name soon!

            So I sailed to the internet to claim it on a URL.

            What? Bloody hell! Some dirty thieving pirate stole me name! Me heart sunk. I was forced to use me middle initial. Valerie J. Brooks.

            Who would know that?

            Then a fishbait troublemaker took it on Twitter, only this time, the name Valerie Brooks was followed by “freak” and some cartoonish #$%&. Wait ‘till I get me hands on that …

            Ah, but ‘twasn’t enough of a floggin’.

            Me son was tellin’ a friend o’ his about me writin’. His friend wants to be a writer, too, so he gives her my name and says to look me up for a chat. Blimey! She stops by me son’s house and says, “I ordered your mom’s book.”  Me? I ha’ no bloody books yet. What infernal nonsense be this? She shows him the book.

            Tantric Awakening: a Woman’s Initiation into the Path of Ecstasy

            And no mistake. Was written by Valerie Brooks.

            Well, I can’t say I wouldn’t mind writin’ a book like that, but …

            another one by me name?

            Arrrrgh!

             So I be thinkin’, okay, you’re not the only one. No need to sink your ship and be done wi’ it. When your novel comes out, maybe you should be V. J. Brooks, you know, like those who try to cover their gender?

            I be no lily-livered female, and you know it. I’m a pirate, for Neptune’s sake! I’m proud to be female.

            But, alas, it not be done there.

            Another curst pirate moves into me territory with me name. She even goes to my dentist and wanted to meet me! Harkee me, the rogue!

            Nay, I say. Be enough of a curse I be asked now whenever buying boots, or books, or paper, “Which one are you?”

            ‘Tis enough to make me blood boil.

            Then one day, a call comes. “Hello, this is Springfield Cleaners. We have your wedding dress and want to know if you’re coming to pick it up.”

            Be this a jest?

            Nay. Seems the dress has been there for months and “Valerie Brooks” has not claimed it. I say, “Look, lad, I’m not the Valerie Brooks you’re lookin’ for.” I give ‘im me dentist’s number to find her.

            And if this doesn’t make me yell, “Enough!” a recent Google alert for me name (oh, yes, we writers do that) pops up with this:

Find valerie brooks on WhitePages. There are 223 people named valerie brooks through regions like Baltimore, MD, Chicago, IL, Dallas, TX, Detroit, MI, ...

            ‘Tis a sad thing not to be able to own me own name. A writer needs their name to be recognized. Hemingway. Margaret Atwood. Virginia Woolfe. Herman Melville. What chance there be they ha’ me troubles. Ah, well, someday I be publishin’ and maybe I be using me full name. I dare some dung-souled imposter to show up with that!

Until next time, when I be interviewing the fair and lovely Jessica Maxwell, fair winds and followin’ seas to ye,

Captain Valerie Joy Brooks

To find out what your Pirate Name is click here!

NEW! To listen to an audio excerpt of my memoir "Liberté" from France, a Love Story, click on the mp3 player to the right!

Coming Up!

Finally, my interview with the fair and lovely Jessica Maxwell

Residency Adventures: Photos and Inside Tales from a Writer's Residency

More News & Confirmed Gossip from the Writing' World