BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--GUEST AUTHOR LIBBY HELLMANN

Award-winning author Libby Fischer Hellmann left a career in broadcast news in Washington, DC and moved to Chicago thirty-five years ago, where she, naturally, began to write gritty crime fiction. Fourteen novels and twenty-five short stories later, she claims they’ll take her out of the Windy City feet first. Learn more about Libby and her books at her website. 

Novels or Novellas? When Short is the New Long

I don't follow trends. In fact, I seem to catch on just at the moment the tide turns and starts fading. The same goes for my writing. I envy writers who can generate thick, 500 page thrillers. I can't. Happily, it looks like there's an emerging trend for short stories and novellas.

I love dreaming up plots and defining characters, figuring out who does what to whom and why. But the actual writing part has always intimidated me. It's still the hardest thing I’ve ever done, even after all these years. In fact, if I could write stories like a one-panel cartoon, I would.

The same goes for the subject of World War II. I love reading about WW2, and a vast amount has been written. Novels like Nightingale, All The Light We Cannot See, The Book Thief, Sarah’s Key, the Bernie Gunther and Alan Furst crime novels, Unbroken, and The Winds of War are awesome in their power and beauty. What on earth could I possibly add? 

On the other hand it's hard to resist. World War II was the last time when the distinction between good and evil was so clearly defined, with absolutely no gray areas. And that paradigm allows authors to create complex, conflicted characters as well as explore themes of heroism, cowardice, and sacrifice.

In the end it was another World War II junkie and prolific reader who inspired me to give it a go. The very first short story I ever wrote was set in 1930s Lawndale (in Chicago) a few years before the war began. After reading it, my reader friend nudged me to try another story. I was on an espionage kick and was researching WW2 espionage techniques. So I wondered what would happen if a German refugee was forced to spy on the early years of the Manhattan Project in Chicago. But a novel? No way. Far too scary.

I wrote a novella instead: The Incidental Spy, set between 1935 and 1942, about a German refugee who is forced to spy on the early years of the Manhattan Project at the U. of Chicago. I felt it turned out rather well, so I contemplated writing a companion novella. A visit to Bletchley Park in the UK had made an impression on me, but I couldn’t quite imagine a story that was so compelling I just had to write about it. Then I was in exercise class (See? there are benefits to working out) when, out of the blue, someone mentioned an old German POW camp a mile away.

The what? Where?

That’s when it happened – that tingle you get when you suddenly know you've found the right subject. Research revealed almost half a million German and Italian POWs were incarcerated in the US between 1943 and 1945. There were conflicts between the soldiers, but the US Army treated the POWs so well that many didn’t want to leave at the war’s end. Ultimately the companion novella, POW, more or less wrote itself. I packaged the two novellas together, added the short story I mentioned, and there it was.

Writing shorter eliminates a lot of pressure, at least for me. Given my insecurities about doing the era justice—indeed, about writing in general, it's a comfort to know I don’t have to write seventy thousand words. I can, as Elmore Leonard said, “leave out the part that readers tend to skip,” stripping things down to the essential elements of plot, character, dialogue, and narrative. It has been an eye-opener, and I'm growing fonder of the novella format every day.

As a reader, what's your opinion? Can two or three related novellas be as good as a single, thick novel?

War Spies and Bobby Sox

As World War II rages across Europe and the Pacific, its impact ripples through communities in the heartland of America. A farm girl is locked in a dangerous love triangle with two Germans soldiers held in an Illinois POW camp ... Another German, a war refugee, is forced to risk her life spying on the developing Manhattan Project in Chicago ... And espionage surrounds the disappearance of an actress from the thriving Jewish community of Chicago’s Lawndale. In this trio of tales, acclaimed thriller author Libby Fischer Hellmann beautifully depicts the tumultuous effect of war on the home front and illustrates how the action, terror, and tragedy of World War II was not confined to the front lines. 

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TRAVEL WITH SERENA--GUEST AUTHOR GEMMA JULIANA AND THE MAGIC OF TRAIN TRAVEL

Gemma Juliana is a multi-published author who lives in an enchanted cottage in north Texas with her handsome hero, teen son and a comical dog. She loves making new friends and hearing from readers. Exotic coffee and chocolate fuel her creativity. Today Gemma joins us to talk about the magic of train travel. Learn more about Gemma and her books at her website. 

The Magic of Train Travel

A few months ago my dear friend of forty years treated me to a train trip that started in Seattle and ended in Los Angeles. We took a break for a few days in San Francisco.

Maybe it’s because of The Orient Express of old, and more recently The Polar Express, but I have always considered trains a mysterious and glamorous form of travel that has languished in recent years.

Is it because we are all in such a hurry? Sure, you can fly from Seattle to San Francisco in two hours as compared to a day and a half on the train. Granted, it doesn’t make sense to take the train if you are on a business trip or are limited for time. It’s not even the way to go if you are on vacation unless you envision the train ride as part of the joy of your time off.

  

For me, I haven’t been on a train in about twenty years. The last train I rode was in Europe, and that was an entirely different “high speed” experience.

Driving down the west coast was always on my mental list of dream things I’d like to do one day when I had time. When my friend suggested this train trip, I jumped for joy like a girl again. It would be better than taking a car. I’d get to spend quality time with my friend, chat, doze, play games, read… we could eat in the dining car—another dream experience for me—and watch the scenery change from urban to rural, flatland to mountain, field to forest.

Trains are romantic, and an aura of déjà vu cloaks them in a mystique that belongs to bygone times. As we move ever faster in our very functional world, we risk losing appreciation for things that take time. We can even forget that it isn’t always about getting from A to B, but sometimes it’s about the journey itself.

When I was invited to contribute a short story to Volume 1 of A Holiday Anthology by Exquisite Quills, my summer train ride came to mind right away and my contribution, Shooting Star Holiday Express, was born. This time I saw the journey as a winter trip. Bella White and her daughter Julie were traveling south to San Francisco for Christmas. Julie doesn’t know her mom just lost her job, and Bella doesn’t have the heart to cancel the trip. Since her husband died, nothing has brought a sparkle to Julie’s eyes except this train trip. Christmas magic blends with train magic when something unexpected happens on their journey.

If you like a slightly longer read, I’ve written an autumn novella, AutumnMasquerade, and a Christmas ghost love story, Christmas Spirits.

Do you have a train trip to share with us? 

BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--ANASTASIA TALKS ABOUT MOSAIC MAYHEM

Every once in awhile, an author booked to do a guest post disappears. Repeated email reminders go unanswered. Such was the case with today’s scheduled guess. However, sometimes the universe works in mysterious ways, and that, too, is the case today because it enables me to tell you about the latest way author Lois Winston has put my life in danger.

When I discovered Lois had decided to have Zack Barnes, my tenant-turned-lover, jet me off on a three-day romantic European getaway, I figured it was her way of making up for all the crap she’s dumped on me over three books and a novella.

Boy was I wrong! Within hours of arriving, Lois has me staring down the barrel of a gun. I should have known I couldn’t trust her.

Parc Güell

Mosaic Mayhem is the second of the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mini-Mysteries and takes place in Barcelona, Spain. Here’s an excerpt to whet your appetite:

Not again! I stared down the barrel of a big black bad-ass gun pointed at my chest. Ever since last winter when Karl Pollack, my not-so-dearly-departed husband, died suddenly, people have been trying to kill me. First, Karl’s loan shark. Then a crazy co-worker. Most recently, a hired assassin.

My name is Anastasia Pollack. I’m a debt-ridden, pear-shaped, middle-aged single mom, and crafts editor at a woman’s magazine. I’m also apparently a killer magnet, not only in my home state of New Jersey but also across the Atlantic Ocean in Spain.

Worst of all, unlike my three previous run-ins with killers, I had no idea who this guy was or why he wanted me dead. He apparently didn’t speak English, and my Spanish is limited to a few words and phrases picked up from watching Sesame Street years ago with my kids. My Catalan is non-existent.

So much for a quick getaway to Barcelona.

After the relief of finding that my passport hadn’t expired, I thought my biggest problem would be arranging extra care for my semi-invalid mother-in-law during my three-day absence. Silly me.

I landed in this situation thanks to Zack. When Karl dropped dead, leaving me with debt that rivaled the gross national product of an average third-world country, I was forced to rent out the apartment over my garage and move my studio to my dingy, unheated basement. Little did I know at the time that my new tenant, award-winning photo-journalist and possible spy (although he vehemently denies the latter) Zachary Barnes, would segue from renter to lover.

Zack looks like his DNA cavorted in the gene pools of George Clooney, Pierce Brosnan, Patrick Dempsey, and Antonio Bandares. What he sees in me, I’ll never know, and yet here we are—a couple. I’m not complaining.

I’d spent most of the summer working a second job every weekend, and I was beyond exhausted. So when Zack invited me to tag along with him while he photographed architect Antoni Gaudi’s Parc Güell for a National Geographic spread, I cashed in some of my comp time and packed a bag.

Torre Rosa ceiling

We arrived in Barcelona early in the morning, dropped our luggage at a hotel off Plaça de Catalunya, and headed to the park, a fairytale inspired masterpiece that resembled a miniature city. While Zack took a meeting with the director in Torre Rosa, the park’s museum and former Gaudi home, I wandered the enchanting grounds and buildings, snapping photos of the whimsical Hansel and Gretel gatehouses, the Sala Hipostila marketplace with its multi-domed ceiling, and the main terrace, ringed with an intricately decorated serpentine bench—all embellished with Gaudi’s trademark mosaics. I planned to use the photos as part of a feature on mosaic art for a future issue of American Woman, the magazine where I worked.

Sala Hipostila mosaics

Afterwards, I set off on one of the many trails weaving through nearly forty acres of steep hillside in order to enjoy some of the spectacular views of the city spread out below. I was in a secluded area with no one else around when a bear of a man with a short dark beard that did little to hide his acne scarred cheeks stepped from the wooded area onto the path in front of me. Like so many other men on the streets of Barcelona, he wore a red and gold soccer jersey, but unlike all the others, this guy accessorized his outfit with a deadly weapon.

A gasp froze in my throat.

He might as well have been speaking Swahili for all the good my Sesame Street Spanish did me. Zack had warned me that pickpockets trolled the streets of Barcelona, preying on hapless tourists. He hadn’t mentioned anything about armed gunmen, but common sense told me I was being robbed.

“Take it,” I said, dropping my handbag at his feet. But this was no robbery. He didn’t scoop up my bag and run. Instead, he grabbed both the bag and my arm.

Mosaic Mayhem is a novelette, available as an ebook.

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DECORATING WITH JEANIE - GUEST P.A. BEES ON ANGELS

When we think of Christmas decorating, we often think of angels. Today author Patricia Bohnert shares with us some interesting facts about angels. Writing as PA Bees, Patricia is a published short story author and an aspiring novelist. Her published works include Marjorie's Art Find and Intersection of Intent. Learn more about her at her website. -- AP  

December seems a good month to talk about angels.  Whether you have an angel tree topper with white lights under her robes and she holds her own lit candles in her hands (yes, I have this angel) or like to join in to sing “Angels We Have Heard On High” on the radio because of the melismatic rise and fall of the ‘O’ in the refrain Gloria, (melismatic, that’s a cool word) angels are all around us in December.

Have you ever heard of the book The Watkins Dictionary of Angels by Julia Cresswell?  I do not know how many of these books were sold, but I picked one up at a used book sale and it looked like it had never been opened.  What a shame!  It is fascinating reading. 

There are over 2,000 entries, in alphabetical order, relating to angels and angelic beings.  That is a ton of research.  Something the author, Ms. Cresswell, must be very good at as she has a number of books in print having to do with names including three books dedicated to Scottish, Irish, and British first names.  Two of her other books are The Penguin Dictionary of Cliches and A Dictionary of Allusions.  I need to find both of these books; my curiosity is aroused!

Back to angels for a minute, many angels seem to be in charge of a specific month, day of the week, or location.  Nonanrin presides over Friday.  Really?  Was the word Friday established when this angel was named?  Perhaps I am taking this too literally.  Days of the week must have been designated in some way and somewhere there is a translation.  But, if we are to use the name Nonanrin, then I want to know the REAL name of Friday back when it was decided Nonanrin was in charge.  (Writers can be such a pain, can’t we?)

And take Rasliel, for example.  What a self-promoter he was.  Rasliel was one of the angels of the eighth lunar month.  If you say the name of Rasliel, and presumably the others of the eighth lunar month, ‘in each thing that thou wilt do … thou shalt profit.’  Who wouldn’t go around mentioning Rasliel’s name?  That is, if you can pronounce it correctly.  I am sure the charm does not work if you mispronounce his name.  I hate that, don’t you?

This is not a book I read every day.  But, when I want to use a symbolic name in a story I often turn to it.  In my short story “Daniel” (God is my judge) there are only two characters, Daniel and Sahaman.  It is a story about coincidences, geocaching, and finding love.

Sahaman (an angel of the ninth lunar month) is a name I can see being used today.  Putting her in the story gave me a chance to play up the significance of the number nine.  Without The Watkins Dictionary of Angels and Julia Cresswell this story would never have been written.

 

Thank you Ms. Cresswell for an interesting read and a fun short story idea!   And know that at least one non-academic has thoroughly thumbed your book.  And keep up the good work, after all, ‘Hey, you’ as an email address would never work for millions of users; we need names.

Have a very Merry Christmas.

Intersection of Intent

One woman’s desperate act starts an apocalypse of events for the residents of New Minden, Ohio. Twenty years later deceit, hidden motives, stale leads, and fresh clues intersect with murder and mayhem when Jacob, Keith, and Bobby, three of the town’s sons, look for the truth. All have their eyes on the young librarian, Colleen – not all for good intent. Intersection of Intent.

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