Giving Emma a Shout-Out!!!

Working out how to set up static pages on blogspot has been a challenge for me. HTML!!! Are you kidding? Maybe in my next life...or a parallel life totally unknown to this me (fat chance!). But I persevered, and in my determination I've managed to toot my horn.

I published a middle grade historical novel in 2001 that almost made it to the top of the heap for two annual awards. Emma and the Civil Warrior has sold lots of copies in a five-state area. The novel continues to sell today. I visit classrooms every year to talk to excited readers about Emma. Those visits are standout events for me! My readers pump me up and give me the encouragement to sit down and work on new novels, work long and hard.

Please visit my Books page. One day soon I hope to expand that page with tidings of a new novel!

The Dam Novel

So what do I do to pass the time as I wait to hear from my agent that THREADS is ready for an editor's eyes? I work on The Dam Novel. No joke!

This is an aerial view of the tallest dam in the Eastern USA. Fontana Dam. Ever heard of it? If so, you're one of the few. It's located in a remote area of the North Carolina mountains and was constructed in only three years (yes, that's right, three!) during the height of World War Two, January 1942 - January 1945. This photo was taken in early 1945. To give you a sense of the 480-foot height, notice the "tiny" building at the base of the dam to the right. That building is seven stories tall. Behind the dam is huge Fontana Lake, a man-make lake created when the dam was completed and water from the Little Tennessee River backed up and flooded over 7,276 cleared acres, including seven former towns. The lake extends 30 miles into the mountains, and its shore line measures 240 miles.  

The building of Fontana Dam was a miracle. After Pearl Harbor was attacked in December 1941, the need to build a dam near Welch Cove, North Carolina became urgent. ALCOA plants demanded a tremendous increase in the amount of electricity to run their plants that produced aluminum. Aluminum for war machinery.

One month later, in January 1942, the first workers arrived near Welch Cove, lived in tents, and began construction on the dam. In six short months, the tiny cove was transformed into a town. 6,000 workers lived in homes in a community that boasted two schools, a grocery store, a post office, a barber shop, sports facilities, dormitories for single workers, a large cafeteria, a community building, and a hospital. These workers, who came from 46 of the country's 48 states, worked in three shifts every day of the week, 24 hours a day (one of the most intensive work schedules known in the engineering field). Their children attended good schools, church, dances, baseball games, tennis matches, and winter ice-skating outings - all in a brand new, thriving community on a mountain hillside.

My latest work-in-progress features ten-year-old Joe Miller. He reluctantly moves to Welch Cove in January 1944 for his mom and uncle to work on the Fontana Dam project. The mountains are a challenging place for Joe. He has intense fears of heights and water. Can he control these fears and his stutter and fit in with his fifth grade classmates? Can he earn the respect and friendship of Frankie, the outspoken Irish/Cherokee Indian girl, whose family and heritage he grows to admire? Can Joe and Frankie solve a local mystery and save the lives of men who work on the monstrous dam hundreds of feet above a dry river bed? 

I have spent much time at Fontana Dam. I have had the great honor and privilege to interview multiple Dam Kids - men and women, now in their 70's and 80's, who lived as children in Welch Cove during the actual building of the dam. They have shared their unique lives and stories and memories with me so willingly, so unselfishly, that I am forever indebted to them. Many of them I call my friends.

I am happy to introduce Doris, Homer, Mildred, and Harvey!

   



Swinging in a Grapevine...Wuh?

You may be wondering where I came up with my blog's title.

I've just sent a revision of my complete manuscript, THREADS, to my new agent, Erzsi Deak, of Hen and Ink Literary. Here's an encapsulated description of this upper middle grade/lower YA novel:

In 1909 during the industrial revolution in North Carolina, a powerless 14-year-old girl has little more to hope for than work in a factory under manipulative mill bosses. But Trilby King, with a voice like a nightingale, has dreams: dreams of going to music school, of teaching others to sing, of leading choirs. When fate disables her parents, Trilby must somehow keep the family afloat. How can she possibly make her dreams come true now? THREADS is a story of determination, family love and conflict, and budding romance. Ultimately, it is the story of how one girl conquers the odds stacked against her and literally finds her voice.

At the beginning of each chapter, I include a stanza from a southern poem from the late 1800's/early 1900's. Here are the lines from Chapter One from a poem, The Grapevine Swing, written in 1892 by an Alabama poet, Samuel Minturn Peck:

Swinging in the grapevine swing,

Laughing where the wild birds sing,

I dream and sigh

For the days gone by,

Swinging in the grapevine swing.

I love the past. I love to read about it and research it. I dream up interesting characters and place them in very particular circumstances, in places and time periods that highlight the significance of that slice of history not only for my characters, then, but for us, now.

I have loved swings all my life, especially the one my father made in the backyard of my childhood home. Constructed of tall steel pipes and thick metal chains, I could swing so high, I felt part of the trees at the top of the arc. The one in my yard today is not as exciting, but it's a great place to curl up with a good book...and it does have a vine growing over it!

Taking the Plunge...Finally!!!

Forever and a day. That’s how long I’ve been needing to have an online presence. But, hey, I live in the worlds of yesteryear. I’m a novelist who loves writing middle grade and young adult historical works, and although the world was harder in many ways way back then, it wasn’t nearly as confusing. Cyber anything did not exist.

This is a big step for me. Hear the dinosaur stomp!

I hope to post news about my current projects, what amazing new insights I’m learning about my profession, and musings on anything that comes along and tickles my fancy.

Join me for the ride!