Canadian Authors Past and Present by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey--Alberta

http://www.bookswelove.com/donaldson-yarmey-joan/

Canadian Authors Past and Present

Canada celebrated its 150^th anniversary in 2017. To commemorate the occasion my publisher, Books We Love, Ltd (BWL) brought out the Canadian Historical Brides Series during 2017 and 2018. There are twelve books, one about each province, one about the Yukon, and one combining the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. Each book was written by a BWL Canadian author or co-authored by a Canadian and an international BWL author.

Each province and territory of Canada has spawned many well-known authors and my series of posts this year will be about them-one or two from the past and one or two from the present, the present-day ones being the authors of the Brides book for the corresponding province or territory. The posts are in the order that the books were published.

Alberta

Henrietta Louise Muir was born in Montreal on December 18, 1849, into a middle class family. When she was twenty-six-years old she and her sister founded a Working Girls’ Association to provide meals, reading rooms, and study class for young women. It became one of the first Young Women’s Christian Associations (YWCA) in Canada. Henrietta and her sister also published a periodical titled The Working Women of Canada. It highlighted the terrible working conditions of women in Montreal. The two young women financed these two projects from money they earned as artists.

     Henrietta married Dr. Oliver C. Edwards in 1876 and in 1883 they and their three children moved to Indian Head, Northwest Territories, now the province of Saskatchewan. She continued to advocate for women’s rights and when Dr. Edwards became ill in 1890, they moved to Ottawa, Ontario. There, Henrietta took up the cause of female prisoners. In 1893, she worked with the wife of the Governor General of Canada, Lady Aberdeen, to establish the National Council of Women of Canada. They also founded the Victoria Order of Nurses (VON) in 1897.

     Dr. Edwards was posted as the medical officer to the Blood Tribe in 1904 and they moved to Fort Macleod, Northwest Territories, now Alberta. She wrote Legal Status of Canadian Women (1908) about the legal problems she was trying to overcome for women. Near the end of the First World War, 1914-1918, when supplies and moral were low, the Government of Canada selected Henrietta Muir Edwards, as the only woman to be on an advisory committee on how to bring in stricter conservation measures. This was the first time that a woman had been appointed to review public policy with the government.

     Henrietta joined four other women’s rights activists, Louise McKinney, Irene Parlby, Nellie McClung, and Emily Murphy, to lobby the Alberta government for dower and matrimonial property rights for women. They became known as The Famous Five. Henrietta wrote and had her second book published, Legal Status of Women in Alberta in 1921.

     The Famous Five joined together again to fight the Persons Case in the late 1920s. Until then, women did not have the same rights as men to hold positions of political power. The case, officially known as Edwards v. A. G. of Canada, fought for the right of women to be appointed to the Senate. In 1928, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that women were not considered ‘persons’ according to the British North America Act and therefore could not be appointed to the Senate. The women took their appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London, England. The council reversed the Court’s decision in 1929 and this opened the Senate to women, enabling them to work in both the House of Commons and the Upper House.

     Henrietta died on November 10, 1931 and was buried in Mount Pleasant Municipal Cemetery, Edmonton. For some reason the memorial erected in her honour lists her death as Nov 9.

William Patrick "W. P." Kinsella was born on May 25, 1935, in Edmonton, Alberta. His first ten years were spent on a homestead west of the city where he was homeschooled. His family moved into Edmonton when he was ten and he started school in the fifth grade. His first story won a YMCA contest when he was fourteen. After high school he worked at various jobs in Edmonton, then moved to Victoria in 1967 where he drove taxi and ran a pizza restaurant. Three years later he enrolled in writing courses at the University of Victoria and received his Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing in 1974. He moved to Iowa and earned his Master of Fine Arts in English from the Iowa Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1978.

     Kinsella’s two favourite subjects for his stories were Indigenous peoples and baseball. While in Iowa, Dance Me Outside, a collection of stories as told by a young Cree boy, was published in 1977. It describes life on a native reserve in Alberta. W.P. returned to Alberta and taught English at the University of Calgary until his writing career took off. In the mid-1980’s, he moved to White Rock, B.C.

     Kinsella won the Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship award and the Books in Canada First Novel Award for his most famous baseball novel, Shoeless Joe (1982). It was also made into a movie titled, Field of Dreams in 1989 starring Kevin Costner. Another collection of Indigenous short stories, The Fencepost Chronicles, (1986) earned W.P. the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour in 1987.

     Box Socials (1991) combines baseball and life in rural Alberta in the 1940s. That same year Kinsella received an honorary Doctor of Literature degree from the University of Victoria. In 1993, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. Kinsella's eight books of short stories about life on reserves were the basis for the 1994 movie Dance Me Outside and the CBC television series The Rez, which aired on CBC Television from 1996 to 1998.

     In 1997, W.P. Kinsella was struck by a car and suffered a head injury. He lost his ability to concentrate as well as his sense of taste and smell. Unable to write his own stories he did keep in the writing community by writing book reviews. He was awarded the Order of British Columbia in 2005 and was presented with the George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009.

     In March 2010, Kinsella’s unpublished manuscript, Butterfly Winter, won Winnipeg publisher, Enfield and Wizenty’, Colophon award. They published the novel in September, 2011, fourteen years after his accident.

     Kinsella spent the last years of his life in Yale, a small village along the Fraser River northeast of Vancouver. He had suffered from diabetes since the 1980s and in failing health he opted for the assisted dying provisions of Bill C-14. He passed away on Friday 16, 2016 at 12:05pm.

Book 1 of the Canadian Historical Brides Series: Brides of Banff Springs (Alberta) - Victoria Chatham - January 2017

Victoria (Vicki) Chatham was born in Bristol, England and now lives near Calgary, Alberta. She grew up in an area rife with the elegance of Regency architecture. This, along with the novels of Georgette Heyer, engendered in her an abiding interest in the period with its style and manners and is one where she feels most at home.

     Vicki mostly writes historical novels but now and again will tinker with contemporary romance. Her stories are laced with a little mystery to keep her characters on their toes and, of course, in the end love has to conquer all. Cold Gold (2012), On Borrowed Time (2014) and Shell Shocked (2014) are the three books in her Buxton Chronicles series set in the early 1900s. She switched time eras for her next book Loving That Cowboy (2015) which is a contemporary novel that takes place in Calgary during the Calgary Stampede.

     Apart from her writing, Victoria is an avid reader of anything that catches her interest, but especially Regency romance. She also teaches introductory creative writing. Her love of horses gets her away from her computer to volunteer at Spruce Meadows, a world class equestrian centre near Calgary. She goes to movies often and visits her family in England when she can.

     She is a long time member of Romance Writers of America and her local RWA chapter, CaRWA, the Calgary Association of Romance Writers of America.

http://www.bookswelove.com/canadian-historical-brides-collection/

http://victoriachatham.blogspot.com/

The Mysterious Derec Pritchard by Diane Scott Lewis

For my Revolutionary War adventure, Her Vanquished Land, my main male character is a Welshman with a dark past. Let's find out more about Derec Pritchard with a Character Interview:

 

 

Derec, the Welsh don't care much fore the English, why do you spy for their cause?

The tall, lanky man took a chair. "Aye, I needed money, and to leave Wales after an...incident with my step-father, a horrible man."

An incident?

"He used his fists on my mum." His black eyes above sharp cheekbones burned fiercely. "I had to stab him, not to death mind. But scared him off. Now I send her money to keep her from being evicted."

I see. That was awful for you and your mother. What are your duties is the spying business?

"Code breaking. Stopping messengers, taking their satchels." He pushed back his three-cornered hat. "Sending the information to the British generals."

Is that how you met Miss Marsh?

"Not exactly. She's a hoyden, that one." A smile creased his face. "Dressed as a boy, said her name was Rowland. But I found out it's Rowena."

What did you think of Rowena?

"Thought her in the way at first. But then she was able to decode the new code in ancient Greek from the rebels." He nodded slowly. "An asset."

Are you attracted to her?
"Wasn't." Derec shifted in the wooden chair. "Never bothered with a lasting relationship with a woman, and she was still a girl. Barely eighteen."
But she grew on you...?
"Aye, I must admit, her bravery and stubbornness impressed me. I still resisted. I didn't want to be tied down."
Did she convince you to start a relationship?
"That's not her way. No flirt, that one. Besides, I don't want to settle down in one place. Women want that."
So you'll--
"I must continue my duties to the Crown." He squared his shoulders in his dark frock coat. "The rebels grow stronger, winning more battles. The British troops are stretched thin." His voice softened. "Rowena has left with her family to find safety."

Then there's no happy ending?

"We will see. First, I must join the fight, which could be the death of me." Derec stood and strode from the room.

 



  

Purchase from BWL site.

For more information on me and my books, visit my website: Diane Scott Lewis

 

Diane Scott Lewis grew up in California, traveled the world with the navy, edited for an on-line publisher, and wrote book reviews for the Historical Novel Society. She lives with her husband and one naughty puppy in Western Pennsylvania.

 

Christmas with George Washington by Diane Scott Lewis

Since I'm writing about America during the American Revolution, and Christmas is close, I delved into the traditions following one of our famous heroes, George Washington.

The turn of the tide for the Patriots: General, and future first president, George Washington, spent a freezing Christmas crossing the frozen Delaware River in 1776. His rebel forces fought the Battle of Trenton in New Jersey, which led to a string of victories. The holiday was forgotten amidst the chaos of battle.

The famous painting of this event wasn't produced until 1851.

Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Leutze

In happier times, at his Virginia estate called Mount Vernon--a great place to visit if you have the chance--Christmas was a popular holiday.

Mount Vernon, VA

Washington spent a typical Christmas season foxhunting on his estate with friends and family, visiting his grist mill, and attending services at the Pohick Church. Food and alcoholic drinks, especially rum punch, were in abundance.

Throughout his life, Christmas, or close to Christmas, would impact George. In 1740, on Christmas Eve, his home at Ferry Farm across the Rappahannock River from Fredericksburg, VA, (where I used to live) burned down. He was only eight years old. His family took shelter in the detached kitchen and "...spent a cheerless Christmas day."

In 1751, George and his half brother were returning on a ship from Barbados (Lawrence had gone there, hoping the climate would help his consumption, later called TB.) Washington wrote that they ate Irish goose and toasted absent friends.

In 1753, young George was fighting in the French and Indian Wars. They spent Christmas Eve in a place called "Murdering Town." That doesn't sound pleasant.  On Christmas day, they gave gifts to an Indian "Queen."

Lt. Col. Washington by Reǵnier, 1834

 

In 1759, George married the widow, Martha Custis, on Twelfth Night, the last day of Christmas celebrations.

Colonial Christmas traditions were to attend church, decorate windows with greenery and berries, and invite family and friends for dinner. Fish, oysters, brandied peaches, and mincemeat pies were popular dishes.

In my novel Her Vanquished Land, I tell the Loyalist side of the American Revolution as seen through the eyes of a young woman, Rowena Marsh, who decodes messages for the British. These people who didn't wish to break away from England were shocked by the uprising, bullied, hanged, or forced to flee their homes.

"Rowena is a star. Readers will love to read this alternative view of American history." InD'tale Magazine

To purchase from Amazon

 

For more information on me and my books, visit my website: Diane Scott Lewis

 

Diane Scott Lewis grew up in California, traveled the world with the navy, edited for an on-line publisher, and wrote book reviews for the Historical Novel Society. She lives with her husband and one naughty puppy in Western Pennsylvania.

Poop Detail

See all my historical novels @

http://julietwaldron.com/books.htm

KOBO

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"Women's work is never done" goes the old saying. Women's work also, seems to me, to be heavily oriented toward cleaning up stuff that comes out of other people (or pets) in one form or another. Tina Faye told Jerry Seinfeld on a recent "coffee date" that at her house "I am in charge of feces." 

I burst out laughing when I heard that, as it's all too familiar to me, and, I'm sure, to women everywhere. At least, familiar to the kind of ordinary women who don't have servants.

Back in baby days, I was the caregiver--as the task is now called. Husband at work, Mom at home, that's the way it was for some years. I cooked, cleaned, washed dishes and clothes and wiped away spit-up and freshened adorable baby butts--which become far less adorable when they are covered in you know what and need a good wash and dry before you can begin to contemplate putting a diaper back on. In the meantime, the boys might also send a high pressure jet across the room, a hazard I (an infant care novice) learned about the hard way.

These days it's just the usual housework--babies and their cute butts are long gone from my life--but that doesn't mean my woman's work poop detail has ended. There are still bathrooms and more particularly toilets that require not-that-pleasant close up work. As I scrub, I often remember working as a waitress long ago in a little restaurant where we had to clean the bathrooms after closing. The ladies who didn't sit could make quite a mess. The gentlemen's room, though, could be extra special sometimes, despite a sign over the hopper which admonished: "We aim to please. YOU AIM TOO PLEASE." 

Long ago

Besides human clean up, there's cat clean up too, at our house. We have three cats, all indoor these days, for their safety and for the safety of the local chipmunks, squirrels, moles and birds. There are other outside cats around here devouring everything in sight, but at least my three are no longer part of the general extermination. Our newest, Tony, is a small healthy young cat, but, I swear, this guy counts as at least two cats when it comes to his box filling abilities. I may miss days at the gym, but as long as I have to lug kitty litter into the house and then back out again on a daily basis, I think I'm nevertheless keeping up with my weight lifting.

Whenever I'm inclined to feel sorry for myself, I tell myself to imagine what the "good old days" must have been like for women. Today, most of us have hot and cold running water in good supply; we have washers and dryers and laundry products galore. But in the 18th Century this was not the case. A diaper change is the kind of day-in-a-life task a middle class woman might have to regularly undertake.

So here's a little slice of A Master Passion, where Elizabeth Schuyler tends the newest Hamilton baby, James. It's already a busy day when her sister Peggy visits unexpectedly.

The whining from the next room suddenly grew to a wail. James, when his first grumbling summons hadn’t been answered, was angry now. With a sweep of skirts, Betsy marched into the room, scooped her howling son from his cradle and plumped herself down in a comfortable wing chair. Her mother would never have undertaken such a task in the good parlor. After all, with a new baby, the risks of spills from one end and leaks from the other were high, but Betsy couldn’t bring herself to walk another step. As a piece of insurance, however, she snatched up his flannel wrap.

Unbuttoning her dress, she got bellowing Jamie in place, experienced the sharp tug and the answering flesh gone-to-sleep prickle of the let-down. Then, one end of the cloth pressed to stem the flow from the neglected breast and the rest tucked strategically around James, she watched her newest son’s jaw work as he mastered the initial tide. He was round and fair, even balder than Angelica had been, but a similar halo of red fluff had begun to rise upon his pink skull. As different in some ways as the children were, there was a certain sameness in the general outline: gray eyes, long heads, a kiss of red in their hair.

Betsy leaned back, relaxing into the comforts of nursing, when she heard a knock at the door.

“Davie!” When she called out, James startled. “Una! Gussie! The door!”

In stretching for the bell on the end table, she dislodged James. He promptly set up a renewed cry at this sudden, rude interruption of his dinner.

“Temper, temper!” Betsy rubbed his open mouth—and the yell—against the nipple. She noticed, with amusement, that his bald head instantly went scarlet with rage.

She decided to ignore whoever it was. If they wanted in badly enough, they’d go around to the kitchen. Then she heard rapid footsteps in the hallway, the sound of Davie running, followed by voices. Soon, the parlor door opened and Peggy poked her head in.

“May I?”

“Of course, Peg. Heavens! I didn’t know you were in town.”

“It was spur-of-the-moment. Stephen is having trouble with Mr. Beekman and decided to come down and straighten it out face to face. I thought I’d come too and see what’s in the shops. The first of the London fashions are arriving.”

During this speech, her younger sister settled on the facing sofa. She was very much the lady of leisure, in a gown of peach satin layered over an ivory petticoat upon which hundreds of tiny birds in flight had been painted. As she removed the long pins which held her broad-brimmed straw hat, she revealed a wealth of chestnut hair.

“Davie says I just missed Colonel Hamilton.”

“Yes. Not half an hour since he rode off with John Jay and Cousin Bob Livingston. I confess I’m worried about what will happen in the legislature. There are only nineteen men who are for the new Constitution.”

“I am concerned, too, though I’ve never really understood politics. Still, we’ve all had an education in the science of government. Papa, for one, is absolutely relentless on the subject.”

“Yes, that’s all Alexander ever talks about, too, either to me or anyone else.”

“Well, thank heaven there are women to keep the day to day world going ’round.”

Peggy moved closer to get a good look at the new baby. He was now happily gulping again.

“What a big strong fellow! I swear, Sis, you’re as good at this as Mama ever was.”

Although their eighth anniversary wouldn’t come until Christmas, James made the fourth little Hamilton. Peggy, on the other hand, had carried only one, Stephen, the precious son and heir to the ancient line of van Rensselaer. There had been nothing afterward but a sad string of miscarriages.

The very elegant Angelica Schuyler Church, maid and baby

Mindful of her sister’s feelings, Betsy simply said, “Thank you, Sis.” She sat Jamie up and patted his back. As he slumped into her hand, his big eyes goggled.

“That one is going to take after Mr. Hamilton for sure. Look at those blue eyes.”

“Well, perhaps. But our babies seem to come fair and then darken up, all except for our Angelica.”

“Are she and Phil upstairs?”

“Yes.”

“Well, in a minute send one of your girls to bring the darlings down to their adoring aunt.”

Tea came in, with Una’s thoughtful addition of some fine English sweet biscuits that had recently arrived from London, sent by Angelica Church.

“Shall I take James, Missus?”

“No, he’s quiet and you’ve got enough going on. Where is Alex?”

“He be watchin’ Gussie scrub.”

“I’ll take care of Jamie,” Betsy instructed, “but if you hear Fanny squawk, let me know.”

Peggy poured tea while Betsy laid the flannel upon the upholstered sofa and then proceeded to quickly change James atop it.

“You are a lucky girl, you know.”

Betsy looked up from wiping a pasty yellow smear from Jamie’s cherub’s bottom.

Peggy giggled. “Why, I mean Alexander the Great, of course. He’s a kind of knight of the round table in our benighted modern age. Papa is quite tiresome on the subject.”

“True, but being the wife of Alexander the Great isn’t easy. I mean, look.” Betsy gestured at the little parlor with its few furnishings.

“Money isn’t everything.”

“Only to those who have enough.” Betsy wrapped the diaper up carefully before setting it on the floor. “And I don’t think I shall ever get used to living in this city. There are times when I do so envy you. Your husband is with you almost all the time instead of riding off on crusades. Even when Hamilton is at home, half the time he’s tied up in knots and might as well not be here at all. Day and night are the same to him when he’s working. This whole winter and spring it’s been nothing but those Federalist Papers..."

~~Juliet Waldron

See all my historical novels @

http://julietwaldron.com/books.htm

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Show, Don't Tell Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Session 2 -  Actions Speak Louder than Words

Body language and facial expressions play a large part in our conversation, they are natural reactions to what we speak and hear. Our characters should react the same way. If we forget these important elements, our dialogue will appear flat, boring, and our characters dull. Even setting plays a part in every day conversation. 

 Did you ever avoid someone’s eyes – focus on a picture or a lamp - maybe even lowered your eyes or stared at the ceiling? We tend to focus on things other than the person speaking to us if we are uncomfortable with either the situation or the person.

We wave our hand, cross our arms, tap our foot, or raise our eyebrows to show impatience. Maybe we wrinkle our brow, scrunch up our nose, and let out a deep sigh when we're doubtful. We cross our leg, wiggle our foot, or tap our fingers when we're nervous.  All of these actions show something about our moods, our reactions to conversation and even about us. We react differently when we're nervous, upset, irritated, happy, sad, or doubtful. These actions show what dialogue, alone, cannot. Our characters need to do the same.

Teamed up with dialogue these expressive actions say more about our character, their setting, and their dialogue then the typical he said, she said and their counterparts -replied, asked, responded. These are unnecessary words. Also, other than said, they put the author into the story – something we never want. Said, on the other hand, disappears into the story and most readers don’t notice it. Although, overusing said puts the author in the story, too. Most times we can avoid using it.

 Think of a strong dialogue scene as having three elements:  words, visuals, and thoughts.” Let’s see how it works.

How often have we created dialogue like this?

“I can’t believe you said that,” he said.

“Why not, it’s true,” she replied.

     “But, you didn’t have to say it,” he answered.

“No, I guess I didn’t,” she said.

We tag the dialogue with he said, she said so our readers do not get confused about who is speaking. We vary said with replied, answered, snapped or other like words. The dialogue is boring. We know nothing about the characters. We can change the he/she to Tom and Laura, but it won’t change the dialogue. All we have are words. We can add adverbs to the tag lines to tell us what they’re feeling as in the following example.

“I can’t believe you said that,” he said angrily.

Now we know he is angry, but you, the author, told us that, not the character and we still have he said. Our characters are not showing us anything. And we already learned about the misuse of adverbs in lesson one. We know that doesn’t work. It’s telling, not showing.

 Next step adding visuals. We add visuals by setting a scene - Tom and Laura sat in a restaurant. Sure, we can do that, but then the author’s voice is back in the story. Remember, we want to stay out of the story as much as possible. We want our characters to show us the scene.

Think about a conversation with your spouses or good friends. While they were speaking, you formed your answers in your mind. And you watched their face, noticed their body language at the same time. Maybe their body tensed, their jaw set, their brow furrowed or they frowned. Through their body language you knew they were upset or angry, happy, or sad. Other thoughts flowed through your mind. Maybe you were angry too or thought they were wrong. The interchange included words, body language and your thoughts. Many things happened during that conversation.

Now, let’s add some visuals and body language to our earlier conversation and see how it plays out.

“I can’t believe you said that.” Tom stared at her.

Laura looked at the waiter, avoiding the hurt look on Tom’s face. “Why not, it’s true.” She watched him out of the corner of her eye.

Tom’s jaw tightened. He picked up his cup, took a sip. “But you didn’t have to say it.”

“No, I guess I didn’t.”

Notice how we eliminated the he said, she said completely. Yet, we still know who is speaking. We can see and hear their emotion. Examine what the above exchange shows us, based on the criteria. We had the conversation in the first dialogue session but it showed us nothing but the speakers. In the example above, we added a visual and a scene, the restaurant.

We know this because she stared at a waiter and he picked up the cup.  We've added tension with body language - His jaw tightened. We know she is our POV, because she sees the hurt. We see the scene and hear the words through her. We see her visually ignoring him, yet watching his reaction. We vary the length and pace of the sentences to keep the reader’s attention. Sometimes, as in the case of his last comment, it is more powerful not to add a visual or tag line. If we add visuals or tag lines to all dialogue, it becomes monotonous and boring and can even disrupt our story.

We now have two elements, words and visuals. Let’s add the third, thoughts.

“I can’t believe you said that.” Tom stared at her.

Laura looked at the waiter, avoiding the hurt look on his face. “Why not, it’s true.” She watched him out of the corner of her eye. He’s angry.

His jaw tightened. He played with his cup. “But you didn’t have to say it.”

“No, I guess I didn’t.” She stood up. She had enough. Glaring at him, she pulled some change from her purse and threw it on the table. It’s always about him. Time to leave before she said something she'd regret.

We have completed the elements. We hear the characters voices and see their emotions. They have showed us the scene and their reaction to the words and we have her thoughts, paraphrased - we don't have to say she thought, we know she's thinking. Our characters have brought the scene to life, and you, the author did not tell us anything.

Next time: The Senses