The Truth About Katie

     When I look for a book on the shelf in a bookstore, I often pay attention to both title and the general looks of the cover. I think I was lucky when I published The Truth About Katie because my publisher actually let me choose the cover photo from a website she subscribed to, and I found the one for the book. But even before that I chose the title, not from a quote, but just  because of the situation. My character had disappeared, leaving her husband and family. They had not heard from her for a couple of years, but then she showed back up and reunited with her family. As you can imagine, she was not well-received by some of her neighbors. But the reader soon learns that even she is questioning why she “panicked” and ran away from home. The reader is taken on a journey with her to investigate her past and learn why it happened. The title makes the reader curious, and the cover adds to the mystery and fits in well with what the character learns about her past. 

    Sometimes all we know about a book is its title. Recently someone gave me a book title and said, "I'm not sure who the author is," but it's a good book. Sometimes a title helps the reader to become interested. As writers, it's always important to give a lot of thought to the choosing of a title. When I mention The Truth About Katie, people almost always want to know more, and I consider that a good thing.

The Title May Be Important

     Since I spoke of the title of one of my books in the last blog post, I wanted to follow up regarding titles of books and poems. For a long time, I’ve been fascinated by titles. When I started writing novels, I realized again how important a title can be. 

    In my next few blog posts, I would like to share with you my reasons for selecting the titles of my novels. Let’s just begin with my first novel, The Welsh Harp. Now you may be thinking, “Well, now there’s nothing complicated (or even important) about that title.” And you may be right, but I chose that name for a reason. As I’ve told many of my readers, this story is based on a history my husband Bill’s aunt wrote about their family’s journey from Wales to the U.S. in the early 1900’s. I didn’t meet his aunt until the 1960’s, when I started dating Bill. I went to her house often, and there was a harp (a photograph of it is on the cover of the novel) sitting in the corner of her living room. I don’t remember her ever talking about it, and as far as I know, she never played it, but she was an accomplished musician and taught piano to many children in the little town where she lived. 

    According to her history, she was a young girl, maybe eleven or twelve when the family came to live in Southeastern Kentucky and the dad and sons worked in the coal mines for several years. They had been coal miners in Wales and thought the mines in the U. S. were safer. Anyway, when I decided to write the novel, I decided to make the young girl the main character in the story. The harp was the perfect item to stand as a symbol for what the girl wanted to do. She wanted to learn to play the harp. 

Our Pebble in the Pond

 

    One of my best books is often overlooked, and I’m not sure why, but maybe it’s because it features homeless people as characters. The title, Our Pebble in the Pond, is based on a quote by an American journalist and social activist, Dorothy Day, which impressed me, but may not reflect the thoughts and feelings of some of my readers. It is quoted in the front of the book, but I’ll provide it here: “What we would like to do is change the world—make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended for them to do. And, by fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, of the poor, of the destitute...we can, too a certain extent, change the world; we can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world. We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever-widening circle will reach around the world. We repeat, there is nothing that we can do but love, and dear God, please enlarge out hearts to love each other, to love our neighbor, to love our enemy as well as our friend.”

    When I was writing the book, I came upon Dorothy Day's quote and realized that it reflected so much of what I’d learned as I’ve interacted with people in the homeless shelter that was named for my husband in 2003 (William S. Davies Shelters in Rome, Georgia. While the situation in my book is completely fiction, it reflects some of the things I’ve learned about homeless people and the way we tend to think of them.

    If you get a chance, and haven’t read Our Pebble in the Pond, I encourage you to read it, and let me know what you think! If you live in Rome, it is available at Dogwood Books and Georgia's Rome Gift Shop. Otherwise, you can find it on Amazon.

A Bit of Flash Fiction

 

Trying her best not to look homeless, Jessica made her way down the street past several stores. It was early enough in the morning that no one saw her come out of the alley where she had slept. She thought the nice woman had given her enough money yesterday to buy her breakfast at the little place three blocks from where she’d slept. If she could just get a good breakfast maybe she would have the energy to go for another interview today. She might even be able to get a job at one of the stores which were on the next block. She knew the clothing store was out because she looked too bad, but maybe they would hire her at the hardware store or the pet store on down the street. She’d even take a job cleaning up one of the stores if they’d hire her.

Soon she saw the little place where she planned to eat breakfast. She noticed that several people were standing outside the place. What was going on? As she got closer, she realized there was a long line waiting to get in. They must have really good food. As she got in line, some of the people seemed to move away from her, making her think she may have smelled from not having a bath lately. The line moved slowly, but finally they got in the door. Smells of delicious eggs and bacon were evident inside the little restaurant. People were talking to one another now, asking what they were getting to eat. After what seemed like another half hour, she was at the counter ready to order. “What would you like?” asked the lady at the counter. She looked up at the menu and realized that there was no item that the five dollar bill in her hand would buy. “Oh, I don’t believe I need anything this morning,” said Jessica as she turned away. Just as she turned around an older looking woman in the line behind her looked up at her and handed her a five dollar bill. "Here honey," she said. "Why don't you and I have breakfast together?"

 

World Building Is for Me, Too!

 

Most of the time when I see “World Building” as a break-out session at a writing conference, I assume it is designed for the science fiction or fantasy writers, and for the most part I may be right. However, world-building is often also important for literary fiction writers, especially if they’re writing historical fiction. First of all, it helps if writers of historical fiction understand that their readers don’t want a course in the history of a period in time, but they do want the story they are reading to reflect what could have happened during that time period. It’s important to focus the research for the story on what would have been possible at that time. Since we often become so accustomed to our own period in time, it’s easy to over look some things. I can think of two examples in my last novel where I overlooked this fact.

            Fortunately, the first one was identified early by one of my readers. I had one of my characters make a phone call on his way home from the western part of the U.S. in the mid-1930’s. One of my readers said, “I don’t think his family would have had a phone at that time.” It didn’t take me long to determine that she was right, so I made a change in what he did.                              Another example, in the same novel, was identified after publication. Although most readers would overlook it, as I did, there’s always one or two. After reading the book, my brother-in-law said, “I found a mistake in the book. You said the character bought a 1929 model of a car that they had already stopped making by then. Now, I could have easily avoided that mistake by just saying he drove that model of car, which would have solved the problem, but I didn’t! Research can be helpful, but thankfully, writers only have to research what they actually include in their descriptions. Often, it’s easy to avoid errors with a slight altering of what is said. It is important, however, to do your research and build a world where your events could have happened.

Take Me Back to Tulsa

     

When I was a kid, I learned that, when he was in his early 20’s, my dad had disappeared for seven years, and over time I realized that he’d spent most of that time in Tulsa, Oklahoma. So, when I decided to write a novel inspired by his life, I knew I’d have to make a trip to Tulsa. Before that, I spent time researching Tulsa on the internet and talking with various historians in the area in order to formulate an itinerary for my trip. 

            On one occasion, when I told a lady at the Tulsa Historical Society Museum that my dad had always talked about seeing Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys in person, she said, “Oh yes, Cain’s Ballroom. That place is still going.” And so it was. It still looks much like it did in the 1930’s too!

When Bill and I went to Tulsa we met some friends and attended a show. We also bought a book at their office—Twentieth-Century Honky-Tonk, by John Wooley & Brett Bingham (2020). Cain’s is often referred to as “the Carnegie Hall of Western Swing,” and our visit there helped me understand a lot about why my dad said (and did) the things he did when a Bob Wills song came on the radio. If you’re unfamiliar with Bob Wills, go to YouTube and hear a little of his music (https://youtu.be/uUPrVzNb8_g).

 CAIN'S BALLROOM

https://www.cainsballroom.com/

Tulsa in the 1930’s

    In my upcoming novel, Tulsa Times, Jonny, my central character, spends 1929-1936 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. At first Tulsa didn’t seem to be affected much at all by the Depression that was ripping through the rest of the country, but as time went on it was evidenced by the long soup lines in front of the hospital where Jonny worked.

     Jonny was concerned about the young children he saw. They looked “hollow-eyed” and sad to him. Because he had young brothers back home in Kentucky, he couldn’t help wanting to help them in some way. He often bought shoes for them in the winter and bought them ice cream during the summer months. This experience made a great impact on Jonny in future years. 

     In doing research for the novel, I learned a lot about what was called the “Dust Bowl” in the 1930’s. I had, of course, read about the dust storms during this time in books like The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck and Four Winds by Kristin Hannah, but I had not read much about how it affected Tulsa. What I’d read seemed to indicate that Oklahoma was mostly affected out in the Panhandle area, so I had not anticipated that it had been a problem in Tulsa. However, in doing my research, I learned that the storms were indeed a problem in Tulsa, especially in 1935. You can learn more about the Dust Bowl here: https://drought.unl.edu/dustbowl/ .