All Bets Off

Bookstore Reading/Signing

2011-06-13T07:39:00.000-04:00

Bookstore reading/Signing

Local author Bett Norris will read from her new novel, What’s Best for Jane, at the newly opened independent bookstore called Bookstore1Sarasota, located at 1359 Main St in Sarasota, on Wednesday, June 15, 2011, at 6 pm. The author will be available to sign books and to answer questions. There will be chocolate.

Norris will also be at Inkwood Books, 206 N Armenia Ave, in Tampa, on Thursday, June 23, 2011, at 7 pm.

Bett Norris, born and raised in Alabama a few short miles from the place where Harper Lee did the same, followed in the footsteps of her idol and inspiration by attending the University of Alabama, somehow managing to graduate with a degree in history and a burning desire to write. Real life intruded, but many years later, her first novel, Miss McGhee, a runnerup for the first annual Bywater prize for fiction, was published, a story set in the south during the decades of the civil rights movement. She dutifully set her second novel, What's Best for Jane, in the South as well, certain that the well of rich material to be found there will never run dry.

Find out more on the author’s web site, www.bettnorris.wordpress.com.

“Miss McGhee is a tender, complicated love story filled with real hurdles and triumphs. It is an absolutely engaging read. . .”

--AfterEllen.com

“An impressive, gifted story-teller.”

--Katherine V. Forrest

Bywater Books January 2011 Newsletter

2011-02-12T10:18:00.000-05:00

Welcome to Bywater Books

Dear Readers, Happy New Year! It's going to be a year in which we publish new titles by some of your favorite authors, and also bring first-time novelists to your attention.
This month, we are turning the spotlight on Bett Norris. Her first novel, Miss McGhee, will be the first Bywater title to be available as an e-book — from February onward. (Yes, we'll let you know.) The sequel, What's Best for Jane?, will be published in the Spring.
In the last newsletter we announced the return of the Micro-Fiction Contest, a challenge to write a story in just 250 words. The winner has now been chosen; see Micro-Fiction Contest (below).
Finally, a heads-up: we will be tweeting in March, as part of Women's History Month. Join us now — twitter@BywaterBooks.
As always, we at Bywater strive to bring you the finest in lesbian romance, mystery, and literary fiction.
Till next time!

Kelly Smith

Marianne K. Martin
Val McDermid

Author Profile

Bett Norris grew up in Alabama, making memories she understood only years later. Here's one, from 1965:

"That day, my mother told me that if there was any trouble at school, I should just come home. I didn't know what she meant. I was in the fourth Grade. Mid-morning, they came, long lines of marchers, right down the middle of the street, in silent formation. They marched to the schoolhouse door, where they were confronted and stopped by Max Woods, the elementary school principal. He stood with arms folded, and he wore a white, short-sleeved shirt with a tie. My classroom was on the very end of the building, so whatever transpired happened in silence for me. But the marchers turned away. I started crying. My teacher snapped at me, asked why I had burst into tears. 'My mama told me to come home,' is what I remember saying."

Just five years later, her school was integrated. But decades passed before Bett realized that it was Dr. King who had led the marchers. As she says now: "He was there, and I was there. We had met, my personal history intersecting with a piece of that movement, on that day, and I didn't know it."

In her writing, this is the point Bett returns to — that moment when personal lives spill into public history, and choices can be made. In her first book Miss McGhee, now available as a Bywater e-book, Mary McGhee can — and does — hide that she is a lesbian, knowing that this is a luxury not open to African-Americans. As Bett explains, "They could not hide who they were. That thought stayed with me as I began to think about and research the movement. In a way, that single perspective is what drove the writing of Miss McGhee."

What Bett also does in her writing is to celebrate "the work that women do. Women do the hard things. They bear the children, they carry the loads, women of color, lesbians, all women. They walked when the buses were boycotted. They send their kids to school when there might be trouble."

So yes, it was Bett's mother who got the first copy of Miss McGhee. She was a woman who raised nine children and "In her face, I saw the struggles of so many women who work and fight to raise their kids without help." Not surprisingly, she's Bett's inspiration:

"I write the things I write because of women like these, like my mother, who saw three of her children graduate from college; like Juliette Hampton Morgan, who killed herself; like Fannie Lou Hamer, and Rosa Parks, and Jo Ann Robinson, who actually started the bus boycott when the men wouldn't; and Lillian Smith and Virginia Durr, white Southern aristocrats who engaged when they had everything to lose, and did lose everything. Some of these women were lesbians."

And yet, as Bett notes, the role of lesbians in bringing change and shaping history tends to be forgotten: "Lesbians marched for the right to vote. They went to jail in protest. They fought for reproductive freedom. They did the hard slogging in the women's rights movement, fought for abortion rights and equal pay, and got shunned or left out, our own interests set aside. We did not get equal attention when it came time for our fights. The civil rights movement left us behind. The recent struggle over the right for gays to marry in California dissolved into a finger-pointing, blame-laying squabble when Prop 8 passed, many stating that blacks did not fully support this fight, blacks decrying the comparison of the gay rights struggle to the civil rights movement."

Bett — who once lived in a segregated housing project — now lives in Florida with her partner Sandy Moore, an artist: "She is simply the best person on the planet, and I am simply the luckiest." (And they don't have the right to marry.)

by Caroline Curtis

Spotlight

Miss McGhee
by Bett Norris Two women find love amid the stifling intolerance of a small southern town. When Mary McGhee moved to a small Alabama town shortly after the Second World War she was sure she could change her life for good: a new job, a new place, a new life. But then she met Lila Dubose, the wife of her new employer and it seemed that she hadn't really left anything behind her at all. They were still there — desires she couldn't escape, fears she couldn't control, and attitudes that threatened her every chance of happiness.
Yet, Mary McGhee dared to challenge the belief that women had no place in business as she took over the operational reins of a neglected lumber empire and brought it into the new era of profitability. And in the face of homophobia and racism she dared to love a woman and openly provided jobs and financial aid for the blacks of her southern community. A true heroine of her time, Mary McGhee quietly faced her fears and the prejudice and ignorance around her to make a difference.
Set in the shadow of the civil rights movement, Miss McGhee is a sweeping tale of forbidden love in a turbulent time.

$13.95
Lesbian Fiction 296 pp ISBN 978-1-932859-33-1

At fine stores everywhere
or order directly from Bywater Books.

Bywater Trivia

Every month, Bywater holds a Prize Draw! To enter, just answer a simple question. (It is simple: you'll find the answer on the website!) All the correct answers will be thrown into a hat. The first one to be picked out will win.
This month's question is:
Which state did Bett Norris grow up in?
This month, the winner can have the Bywater title of their choice.
Send answers to us by e-mail at trivia@bywaterbooks.com or by post to the address in the righthand column above — see To Order Books.

Congratulations to our most recent winner, Karen from Colorado.

Micro-Fiction Contest

Cynn Chadwick and Napping Porch Press, along with Bywater Books, are delighted to announce the winner of our second annual Micro-Fiction Contest. The winner was chosen by Colette Moody, author of The Sublime and Spirited Voyage of Original Sin, and the winner of the 2010 Lambda Award for Lesbian Romance.
Congratulations to Wade Berstler, of Florida, with his story Almost:
This was going to be the year. How many winters had it been that he stood inside his shop watching through filthy greased streaked windows, her skate amid the frolicking children on the big frozen pond just across the tracks? He didn't rightly know since no one in Little Bliss owned a calendar.
She was like a ballerina among the kids who looked like ponies trying to navigate a newly waxed linoleum floor. She took his breath away, and there wasn't much to take after all these years of smoking. He swore he'd give the cancer sticks up before he made his move, just another promise to himself he couldn't keep.
He never saw her with anyone. Bobby often wondered how someone so beautiful and sweet could not be spoken for. She'd always been more than cordial to Bobby when she came in for gas. At the holidays, she'd bring him by a plate of Christmas cookies, one year he came close to tears at the gesture. This was most assuredly the year.
Bobby tried his best to scrub the grit from under his fingernails. He donned the suit he bought for his mother's funeral. He dabbed on some Old Spice he saved for church. He looked in the mirror before he set out. His reflection asked the question, "What would someone like her want with someone like him?" He paid his image no mind. He might lose his nerve.
Poor Bobby didn't know he was coming back for her.
And congratulations to our runner-up, Annika Reinert of Germany, with her story A Little More Bliss:
The hour had been all about intercepting the cookies at that moment of their first lovely blush. The moment passed, they turned dark and, eventually, bitter.
The angel of the kitchen followed a trail of pine needles outside, where her husband was busy pouring gasoline on the tree in a muffled rage. The tongues of flame thawed his speech. "Might as well burn it all, eh, woman?" Smells of burning were behind and before her. Haltingly, a smile climbed her lips as he roared at her with more pleasure than he had felt all December long: "Santa isn't real, baby, Santa isn't real!"
And with that revelation, she walked back into her home. She cracked a Christmas bauble and poured him punch into the jagged film of silver glass. He took it for lack of a way to put it down. The woman laughed at him, but his rage was outside with the smoking stump. An amused burst of air escaped him like water from a demolished dam. As in a dance, she spun and took up another red glass ball from the floor. So light. She hurled the featherweight sphere at the stereo like a snowball. There, it shattered and finally shut up Billie Holiday, who enjoyed heartache too much.

News from Bywater

Congratulations once again to Lisa Gitlin. Her novel I Came Out For This? was chosen as one of the Top 10 LGBTQ books of the year by Richard Labonte for Book Marks. Congratulations are due too to Mari SanGiovanni, who has been picking up awards for her (screen-)writing.
She has turned her first novel, Greetings from Jamaica, Wish You Were Queer, into a screenplay. In the past year, it was a Prelim-Finalist in the Creative Worlds Award Screenplay Competition, and a Top 10 Finalist in the New Hampshire Film Festival.
A second screenplay, The Sibling Rule, is the story of two women faking a lesbian marriage to keep their kids in school. All goes great until the two women fall in love… (That's the kind of story you can expect from Mari.) It reached the quarter-finals of NextTV Entertainment Writing and Pitch Competition and the semi-finals of both the BlueCat Screenplay Writing Competition and the Final Draft Screenplay Writing Contest. It was also a 2nd place tie for the comedy category of the Woods Hole Film Festival.
Mari has now landed an agent in New York to help get the screenplays into the right hands — to be made into movies. As she says, though: "I have learned in the movie biz that 'maybe' means no, and 'yes' means maybe … I have had some bites, but I'm still looking for the corpulent lady to sing!"
Here's hoping!

Bywater Events

Sally Bellerose
· will be reading from her forthcoming novel, The Girls Club, as part of the Forbes Library Local Novelist series, on February 2 at 7 p.m.
Forbes Library
Coolidge Room
20 West Street
Northampton MA, 01060.
For more information: 413 587 1017 or visit the website.

Cynn Chadwick
· has been invited by the Lambda Literary Foundation to read at Queer as a 3 Dollar Bill, a night of reading by 30 queer writers of both poetry and prose.
This is part of this year's Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) conference. This year it will be held in Washington D.C., held February 2-5.
The event will be held on Thursday, February 3, at 7:30-10:30 p.m. at the
Human Rights Campaign Equality Forum.
1640 Rhode Island Avenue NW,
Washington D.C.,
DC 20036. · will be part of the Queer Studies Conference at UNC Asheville, held March 31-April 2. Also attending will be Bett Norris and Joan Opyr.

The Virtual World

When they're not writing the books you love, your favorite authors are writing their blogs, creating websites, and updating their social networking sites.

Jill Malone

For her blog, click here.
You can also find her on Facebook and MySpace.

Marianne K. Martin
For her blog, click here.
You can also find her on Facebook, MySpace, and Red Room.
Val McDermid

For her website, click here.

Bett Norris
has two blogs. Click here and here.

You can also find her on Facebook.

Joan Opyr
For her website, click here.

Mari SanGiovanni

For her website, click here.

You can also find her on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter –

her user name is MariSanGiovanni.

Georgia Beers

has two blogs. Click here and here.

You can also find her on Facebook.

Lindy Cameron

For her website, click here.

Cynn Chadwick

For her website, click here.

Stella Duffy

For her blog, click here.

You can also find her on Library Thing and MySpace.

Elana Dykewomon

For her website, click here.

You can also find her on Facebook and Red Room.

Z Egloff

For her blog, click here.
You can also find her on Facebook and Red Room.

Marcia Finical
You can find Marcia on Facebook.
Lisa Gitlin
is about to start blogging. Watch this space! Meantime, you can find her on Facebook.
Katherine V. Forrest

For her website, click here.

Issue: 18

In This Issue

Author Profile

Spotlight

Bywater Trivia

Micro-Fiction Contest

News from Bywater

Bywater Events

The Virtual World

Quick Links Bywater Books
About Bywater
Bywater Prize for Fiction Submissions Bloody Brits

To Order Books Order online:
www.bywaterbooks.com
Order by phone:
1-734-662-8815
Order by mail:
Bywater Books
PO Box 3671
Ann Arbor MI 48106

click here to print order form Shipping Costs:
Book Post — $2.00*
for as many books as you order
Priority Mail — $7 for first book, plus $2 for each additional book
Overnight — $22 for first book, plus $3 for each additional book

* free shipping with coupon below

Booksellers:
Bywater Books are distributed to the trade by Consortium Books Sales and Distribution and are available through major wholesalers.

Click here for catalog.

Miranda Lambert - The House That Built Me

2010-11-11T10:22:00.001-05:00

This song is dedicated to all my sisters.

Bywater December newsletter

2009-12-02T03:58:00.002-05:00

Welcome to Bywater Books

Dear Readers,

The holidays are coming, the countdown begins!

This month, we're turning the spotlight on Katherine V. Forrest. She's one of the most significant writers of her generation, and we're delighted to publish a collection of her short stories, Dreams and Swords. She has also edited an anthology of short stories centered around the holiday season, All in the Seasoning.

Just in time for the holidays, Cynn Chadwick and Bywater have created the Micro-Fiction Mystery Contest. We're asking you to tell us whodunnit--in no more than 250 words. And you'll have to be quick: we take submissions for just 10 days. (Give it a go! I played guinea-pig, and had a lot of fun.) For more details, see Bywater News below.

In our last newsletter, we promised you that we'd have a link to the panel discussion our authors had with Kate Clinton. It's ready now, so for more details, see P-Town Live! below.

As always, we at Bywater strive to bring you the finest in lesbian romance, mystery, and literary fiction.

Till next time!

Kelly Smith
Marianne K. Martin
Val McDermid

Spotlight

Dreams and Swords
by Katherine V. Forrest

Once upon a time we were all children and short stories taught us how to read fiction. And in the hands of a true storyteller, they can still take us back to the very heart of why we love to read.

Katherine V. Forrest is one of those true storytellers. This collection of her short stories showcases the brilliance of her gift, displaying the scope of her imagination and the range of her voice. From the erotic speculation of O Captain, My Captain to the incisive investigation of homicide detective Kate Delafield; from moral dilemma to chilling horror; from peril to passion, Forrest takes us across the vivid landscapes of her remarkable mind.

A writer who has inspired both writers and readers, Forrest demonstrates her breathtaking versatility. Dreams and Swords is not only the perfect introduction to her work--it's also a delicious treat for her legion of fans.

So sit back and enjoy the ride.

Katherine V. Forrest is an author of international renown. A four-time winner of the Lambda Literary Award, she created the Kate Delafield mystery series, and the lesbian classics Curious Wine and Daughters of a Coral Dawn. Her novels are in translation worldwide, and her articles and reviews appear in both national and international publications.

$13.95

Lesbian Fiction 232pp ISBN 978-1-932859-37-9

At fine bookstores everywhere
or order directly from Bywater Books.

All in the Seasoning
edited by Katherine V. Forrest

Celebrate the holidays ... lesbian style!

Celebrate solstice with women journeying along California's rugged north coast ... With a firefighter on the job in New York City ... Overlooking a plain, filled with waiting children, north of Los Angeles. Experience Thanksgiving with a lesbian border patrol agent along the Arizona-Mexico border. Celebrate Hannukah, in all its ceremony and meaning, at a lesbian bar. Celebrate Christmas with a lesbian couple in South Africa ... in Death Valley ... in Los Angeles ... in San Francisco.

Here are the stories that the celebrate our own traditions. Our diversity and strength. Stories about our love and our families and our connections. Our own holiday stories.

Indulge yourself and those you love with this sinfully rich assortment of holiday-themed tales by authors tried and true--Jane Rule, Katherine V. Forrest, Val McDermid, Lee Lynch--and by the new writers you'll be glad you found.

Celebrate!

$13.95

Lesbian Fiction 280pp ISBN 978-1-932859-26-3

At fine bookstores everywhere
or order directly from Bywater Books.

Author Profile

Katherine V. Forrest

There's something about a 40th birthday that focuses the mind. At least, that's how it worked for one woman. She'd always wanted to write a book. So now, spurred on by her partner, she did.

It took a bit longer than anticipated: she'd figured on six months, ended up taking three years. But that 'it' was Curious Wine, and the author was Katherine V. Forrest. A pioneer of lesbian literature had emerged.

It was not long before she created another classic: the novella O Captain, My Captain. It became an instant favorite--it's even referenced by the writers of "The L Word"; "O Captain, My Captain" said one woman as she tumbled her lover into bed ... Katherine herself ranks it among her best work. In fact, she says, "I've often thought I should have written an entire novel about Captain Drake. Several novels, perhaps. I just might." (Yes, please!)

Until last year, though, the story had long been out of print. So Katherine was delighted when Bywater republished it last year, in the collection of short stories Dreams and Swords. (We were pretty pleased too.) The edition also features a new story, "A Leopard's Spots," which features "a couple of older characters I'm particularly fond of."

Katherine's skill as a writer meant that it was only a matter of time before she "crossed over" to a mainstream audience. It's not a notion that particularly interests her. She's proud to write for lesbian readers--hey, she created Kate Delafield, the first lesbian police officer in American fiction--and when she does consider "crossing over," the people she wants to reach are her gay brothers.

But it's not just as a writer that Katherine has served--and continues to serve--the gay community. For ten years, she was a senior editor at Naiad Press, and she is currently a supervising editor at Spinsters Ink. She sits on the board of trustees of the Lambda Literary Foundation, and is currently its interim president. (Not too busy, then.)

Katherine lives in Half Moon Bay, CA, with her wife Jo, and two cats.

Bywater Trivia

Every month Bywater holds a prize draw. To enter, just answer a simple question -- it's always about our authors or our books.

Usually, we're looking for a correct answer from you. This time round, we're just curious to know which of Katherine V. Forrest's many books is your favorites. So all who reply will get their names thrown into the hat. The first one out, wins!

So this month's question is:

What is your favorite Katherine V. Forrest book?

The winner will receive the Bywater Books title of their choice!

News from Bywater

Cynn Chadwick and Bywater Books invite you to submit to our First annual story contest, Micro-Fiction Mystery!

The challenge here is to write a piece containing all the elements of a traditional mystery story--setting, characters, whodunit, and a resolution--and all in 250 words.

We've done some of the work for you: the setting is the mysterious village of Little Bliss (see above). For more photographs, from the inspirational camera of Elenna Rybicki, visit Cynn's blog.

As for what happens there, that's up to you. And if you want to know what 250 words look like, that's exactly how many words we've used to tell you more:

Each year in early December, far off in the ribboned Blue Ridges of a mountain range, rising magically from misty hills, appears a village known as Little Bliss.

No one knows for how long the town has come and gone, just that it always emerges after the first snowy blast of winter turns the ancient hillsides a cool blue-white, freezing ponds and rivers. Houses and storefronts shimmer, trimmed with glistening icicles that dangle from gutters. The brush of wind paints frost across windowpanes that frame Christmas scenes within cozy homes.

Main Street, lined with shops and cafés, wraps itself around a wintry park where townsfolk gather at the skate pond to share hot cocoa. A Christmas-tree lot on the riverbank is run by two men, who have adopted a baby together. Bustling along sidewalks, villagers go about their business: shopkeepers greet customers, children build snowmen, a carpenter strings lights while her partner, the hockey coach, goes to the grocery. Mothers hurry baby carriages through flurries to cottages, and once warm inside they sip wine, waiting on husbands drinking up bonuses at the Blissful Pub.

Across the railroad tracks lies a ragged grid of dirty streets known as Tinker Town. Behind Bobby's Gas Station, gamblers and thieves count loot, hookers above the saloon rise after noon, and now there's a rumor going round: a stranger's on the way. If those townsfolk from Little Bliss get wind of it, they'll think twice before crossing the tracks for a jiffy lube and oil change.

Be quick! We're accepting submissions from December 1 to December 10.

Send them by e-mail to: Cynnchad@aol.com

Mark the subject line Micro-Fiction Contest. And in the body of the e-mail, don't forget to include your name and your snail-mail address.

The winning entry will be published on Cynn's blog, as well as here, in the Bywater Books Newsetter. And the winner will receive Cynn Chadwick's Cat Rising trilogy: Cat Rising, Girls With Hammers, and Babies, Bikes, and Broads.

The runner-up will receive a copy of Jill Malone's recently published second novel, A Field Guide to Deception.

Val McDermid will choose the winning submission!

First-round Judges include Cynn Chadwick, Mari Sangiovanni (Greetings From Jamaica), and Bett Norris(Miss McGhee).

Bywater Events

Cynn Chadwick
will be signing the books from her Cat Rising trilogy--Cat Rising,Girls with Hammers, and Babies, Bikes, and Broads. Come meet her at Malaprop's Bookstore and Café in Asheville on Friday, December 18 at 6-7 p.m.
55 Haywood Street
Asheville, NC 28001
For more information: 828 254-6734

Elana Dykewomon
will be reading and signing in the Distinguished Author Series at the Stonewall Library & Archives, on Thursday, January 7 at 7 p.m.
The venue is wheelchair accessible.
1300 East Sunrise Boulevard,
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33304
For more information: 954 763-8565

Z Egloff
will read from her first novel, Verge, at Copperfield's Books in Santa Rosa on December 9 at 7 p.m.
2316 Montgomery Drive
Santa Rosa, CA 95405.

P-Town Live!

As regular readers will know, Bywater Books teamed up with Kate Clinton to host the first annual Laugh Out Loud panel. Mari SanGiovanni played host, while Cynn Chadwick, Z Egloff, Marcia Finical, and Bett Norris talked about their experiences in today's book business. All the proceedings were videoed, and the film is now up on the web. A word of warning, though: the camera started rolling as the panel was setting up, and the video editor didn't get the scissors out, so press play, then go make yourself a cup of coffee. By the time you come back, the panel will be ready to start. Click here!

For a short, very silly recording of our authors getting ready to sign their books, click here. (You might like the cleavage shot.) You'll see Cynn, Z, Marcia, Mari, and Bett as well as Marianne K. Martin.

Bywater Media

In November, Lambda Literary News reviewed Verge, the first novel by Z Egloff, published earlier this year (and featured in our August newsletter). The verdict? A book that begins quietly before picking up pace and "sweeping the reader up in a whirlwind." To read the review, click here. And look out for another mention in December's issue of Curve.

Curve features an article with Val McDermid, who describes her childhood growing up in a mining community. The interview coincides with publication of A Darker Domain featuring a new character, DI Karen Pirie "as fascinating and nuanced as any McDermid character yet".

Crime fiction has become a talking point recently. In our November newsletter, we linked you to an article in The New Yorker. This time round, Val also features in a discussion about The State of the Crime Novel in the Huffington Post.

For an interview to tie in with last month's broadcast of A Place of Execution, Women and Hollywood, Val was asked once again about violence -- and women writing about violence. (And yes, she admits to getting pretty frustrated about being misquoted and misinterpreted.) She also gets to explain how the book was adapted for television. And she's got some great advice for any writer just starting out. Take a look!

Finally, you never know what you'll find on YouTube:
· Marcia Finical certainly didn't ever expect to see Hillary Clinton and George W. Bush discussing Last Chance at the Lost and Found. But seeing is believing -- click here.
· And Bett Norris was surprised that Sarah Palin took time out from promoting her own book to discuss Miss McGhee with Hillary Clinton -- click here.
(In case you're wondering, we don't know who set up the interviews, either ...)

The Virtual World

When they're not writing the books you love, your favorite authors are writing their blogs, creating websites, and updating their social networking sites.

Lindy Cameron
www.lindycameron.com

Cynn Chadwick
www.cynnchadwick.wordpress.com

Stella Duffy
http://stelladuffy.wordpress.com
You can also find her on Library Thing and MySpace.

Elana Dykewomon
www.dykewomon.org
You can also find her on Facebook and Red Room.

Z Egloff
www.zegloff.com
You can also find her on Facebook and Red Room.

Marcia Finical
You can find Marcia on Facebook.

Katherine V. Forrest
www.kvforrest.com

Jill Malone
www.jillmalone.com
You can also find her on Facebook and MySpace.

Marianne K. Martin
www.freewebs.com/mariannekmartin
You can also find her on Facebook, MySpace, and Red Room.

Val McDermid
www.valmcdermid.com

Bett Norris
www.bettnorris.com
http://bettnorris.blogspot.com
You can also find her on Facebook, MySpace, and Red Room.

Mari SanGiovanni
www.marisangiovanni.com
You can also find her on Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter -- her user name is MariSanGiovanni.

Issue: 7

In This Issue

Spotlight

Author Profile

Bywater Trivia

News from Bywater

Bywater Events

P-Town Live!

Bywater Media

The Virtual World

Quick Links

Bywater Books

About Bywater

Bywater Prize for Fiction Submissions

Bloody Brits

Win! Win! Win!

With every newsletter, you have a chance
to win.

This month we're giving away an i-Tunes gift certficate -- to the
value of $10.

Everyone who orders books from us during December -- whether online, by mail order, or by phone -- will be entered into a prize drawer.

To Order Books

Order online:
www.bywaterbooks.com

Order by phone:
1-734-662-8815

Order by mail:
Bywater Books
PO Box 3671
Ann Arbor MI 48106

click here to print
order form

Shipping Costs:
Book Post -- $2.00*
for as many books as you order
Priority Mail -- $7 for first book, plus $2 for each additional book
Overnight -- $22 for first book, plus $3 for each additional book

* free shipping with coupon below

Booksellers:
Bywater Books are distributed to the trade by Consortium Books Sales and Distribution and are available through major wholesalers.

Click here for catalog.

Free shipping	On orders inspired by this newsletter. Must be a Bywater Books newsletter subscriber. If this newsletter was forwarded to you by a friend, join our mailing list -- see link in the right-hand column above. Orders must be placed by telephone or mail to qualify and you must mention this e-mail. Please see ordering information in the right-hand column above.
Offer Expires: December 31 2009

Micro Fiction Contest!

2009-11-30T05:31:00.002-05:00

MICRO-FICTION MYSTERY CONTEST!!

Cynn Chadwick and Bywater Books invite you to submit to our First Annual Story Contest, Micro-Fiction Mystery!

The challenge here is to write a piece containing all the elements of a traditional mystery story–setting, characters, whodunit, and a resolution–and all in 250 words!
The winning entry will be published on Cynn's blog, as well as in the Bywater Books Newsetter! The winner will receive Cynn Chadwick’s Cat Rising trilogy: Cat Rising, Girls With Hammers, and Babies, Bikes, and Broads.
Be quick! We’re accepting submissions from December 1 to December 10.

For more information:
http://cynnchadwick.wordpress.com/2009/11/27/micro-fiction-mystery-contest/

It Never Stops

2009-11-23T06:04:00.000-05:00

I am constantly learning. I can’t speak for all writers, but for me, there is always something new that helps technique, craft, helps streamline the process. I steal learn from other writers all the time. I got a reinforcement, a refresher, just this morning, about getting the first draft down on paper, from beginning to end, as quickly and completely as possible, because nothing is more painful than an unfinished, stops-halfway-through idea that dies right in front of you.
Once that solid foundation of beginning, middle, and end is in place, the real writing begins, at least for me.
So I am working, thinking, about the first draft right now. Usually, I start with the first scene, the one that I can’t get out of my head, and I write that fairly full, and polish it, and the rest of the first draft may not be as fully formed and complete, but the first scene or chapter uis usually critical for me. Once I get that down, I can push ahead and finish the rough draft.

This time, though, my thoughts are scattered and I have tried to get that initial scene down, but I am unsatisfied with the result. So I wrote the final scene. I thought, what if the story ends not when I imagined it would but some years later? How would my central character react to this event?
I wrote a conversation between two ladies having drinks in the living room, at night, after dinner, seated before a cozy fire. No descriptions, no transitional or internal thoughts, just dialogue.
It’s an experiment. Can I write the first draft with this target in mind? Can I write toward that final conversation?
I have no idea whether this conversation will fit, whether it will even be used, but it will serve a purpose. I will write toward it, like tunnelling, until I reach that point.
It’s bare bones. Only the words they say to each other. I often advise other writers to write one entire draft that contains only what is said and heard, only what is done. It not only speeds up the draft, it forces me to concentrate a lot of weight in dialogue alone, leaving out reactions, thoughts, descriptions, anything extraneous.
So here is that conversation, the point on te map I am trying to reach, which may or may not ever appear in the final draft.

“I should have died then. I should not be here to witness this. This is too much for a person like me.”
“You personalize and dramatize everything. ‘This’ isn’t happening to you.”
“A man gets a flat tire on his drive to work. While he’s changing it, he is struck by a car. His ambulance gets struck by another vehicle on the way to the hospital. After he makes it to the office on crutches, he gets fired for being late by his boss. Accident piled upon accident, followed by tragic and unfair results that add to the cycle of bad things happening.”
“And you’re the innocent bystander both fascinated and abhorred by the tragedy. But nobody ran over you.”
“But I am about to be fired, for arriving late to the scene. Because this time I can’t be a bystander. I can’t watch this. I have to do something.”
“You’re joining the march?”
“I don’t know. You don’t think I’m capable of it, do you?”
“I think you’re capable of a great many things. I don’t believe you should punish yourself for not doing some things which you could have done. We all could have done more then we have, and maybe it wouldn’t have reached this present event. It can’t be stopped now, and it won’t be stopped. Throwing yourself onto the altar of disappointment in your lack of involvement won’t help anything now, not even your conscience.”
“I don’t feel as though I would be sacrificing myself, or salving my guilt. I simply need to do something. If everyone did something, each of us some little thing, it wouldn’t have reached this big thing, marching toward us now, and we can’t get out of the way.”
“You’ve done enough, risked enough. You should feel absolved by having done what you could, when you could.”
“Branding myself a foolish, esoteric ninny by writing letters, sitting at home with my cat and my irascible mother’s constant haranguing, hardly measures up to a contribution. I’d have done better if I weren’t so scared.”
“You mother’s approbation wasn’t the only thing that cautioned you. Use a little common sense. A person must eat, and have a roof over her head.”
“I suppose so. Caution, self interest, common sense. I agree with my critics. I’ve read too many books.”
“Pull your chair closer to the fire and get warm. Walking along the highway in March weather is a cold prospect.”
“I can never tell when you’re being real or when you’re being sarcastic. I learned to drive in 1956, because I had to. I may as well put that hard-earned skill to use. I can ferry people back and forth, just like I did then, don’t you think?”
“You’ll get shot at. Some of these boys are good enough with guns to hit things even when they’re drunk, as I presume many of them are. Be very careful.”
“Do you mean that? You’re taking me seriously?”
“I’m giving you my heavy winter coat. Please keep in mind that it’s not bullet-proof.”

Geeky or Nerdy?

2009-11-15T06:49:00.000-05:00

I am so excited. A list of books I’ve been anxious to get finally arrived yesterday. Some were hard to find, some out of print. But I got them, and started immediately reading Journey Toward Justice, the biography of Juliette Hampton Morgan. I’ve been waiting for ages to sit down with this book. Get acquainted. See how we like each other. Find out if we’re going to be best friends.
Is that nerdy? Is is merely strange, or does it slip into the category of truly weird, that I think of books as companions, friends with whom I have relationships?
Let’s look at what I get from the relationship. A good book stimulates my thinking, makes me wonder and question, makes me want to know more. A good book can thrill me, as no long time friend whose quirks and habits become punch lines can. Old friends know each other too well, sometimes. On the other hand, I never get tired of my books.
I’d have to say yes, this leans toward the silly and ridiculous, thinking of books as my closest friends. Books don’t disappoint, and they don’t criticize. Wait, I take that back. There have been books that made me uncomfortable, made me re-evaluate my positions on things, that forced me to change my mind. Books have taught me a lot, come to think of it.
Books, I have often said, dramatically, can change people’s lives. Books certainly fill my life.
So why does a biography of a somewhat obscure and minor player in the civil rights movement exite me so much I feel like Christmas has come early? Because I am fascinated with her, this timid librarian, this person who really remained on the edges of the movement, who did not march or protest, who never stood with the ones who did, except in her own limited way. She took her own life, and there are those who count Morgan as a martyr to the cause, as much as any who were murdered for it. I want to know why.
Books can tell me why.

Bye Week

2009-10-28T06:34:00.001-04:00

It’s bye week. No game. Time to rest up. Time to reflect. If I remember correctly, it’s still a few weeks until the beginning of deer season. If they’re smart, towns schedule their fall festivals during this off week. It’s Halloween, and it’s getting a little colder, and soon, Daylight Savings Time will end.
Last year, my team, the Alabama Crimson Tide, went 12-0 during the regular season, and was rated #1. The whole thing passed by in a blur. I didn’t even watch the games. It brought back too many memories of sharing that experience with my mother, who loved Alabama football. I am glad that so far this season, the Tide has been able to repeat the effort, and this year, I am watching and enjoying the games again, only a little sad sometimes. Mama would have loved this team, so tough on defense, with a good running back, like the Bear Bryant teams of years ago.
So I am a little nostalgic, maybe a little homesick. That makes me think of growing up, of my years at college, then the years I spent in Montgomery. Those memories lead me to think about my next project, a novel set in Montgomery during the decades leading up to the bus boycott.
But I am feeling that itch to begin writing the first draft. Have I done enough research yet? There are a couple of books still on my list to read, that I feel I really must have. But the urge is there, the need to put the first chapter on paper, to establish a clear tone, a base note that will stay in my ear and guide me through. I want to know what this new book will sound like. That is the dilemma, to contimue gathering facts around me like a huge pile of raked leaves, to toss them up in the air and see where thay land, or to cast off and begin fishing for that style and tone that will sustain me through the first draft.
Wow, did I just mix a bunch of metaphors, or what? That tells me that I really need to start writing, and soon.
The plan is to have the first draft completed by May, so that I can go to Montgomery and do some on the ground research, delve into archives, take photos, and just see with my own eyes the places I am writing about.
Read some more books, or begin to write?

P Town and After

2009-10-24T05:53:00.001-04:00

It is not often that authors from a publishing house get together. Women’s Week in Provincetown each year makes that possible for the writers at Bywater Books, as we join together for joint book signings and panel discussions. This was my first time, and I had so much fun, and it was so energizing to get to talk and eat and play with the other writers, all of whom impress me. It’s a good group, and we learned about upcoming releases, and shilled each other’s works, and the camaraderie was worth a host of seminars.

I had breakfast with editor and publisher Kelly Smith, and she couldn’t stop talking about Cynn Chadwick’s next book.

And coming out very soon, like the first week of November, is Jill Malone’s new book, Field Guide to Deception.

Then, there is Mari SanGiovanni’s next book, Liddy-Jean, Marketing Queen, which promises to be as hilarious as her first.

I also got to eavesdrop as Marcia Finical discussed her next book with publisher Marianne K. Martin, and with Kelly Smith, the FG.

I was so excited about all this news, that I barely thought about my own next book, What’s Best for Jane. The editing process will begin soon, and I’m not nervous about it at all.

Much. A little. I have complete confidence that What’s Best for Jane is brilliant.

Marianne Martin is working on her next book, a sequel of sorts to the wonderful Under the Witness Tree. It focuses on the character of Nessie Tinker.

A lot of big, important books are on the way. Bywater is establishing its reputation as a company that seeks out great new writers, and they have found some through their annual fiction contest. They are finding and publishing quality fiction. I am happy to be a part of that group, even if I am a tiny bit intimidated by all of my fellow Bywater authors. Not much. A little.

The plans are to have four of these major events each year for Bywater authors, with the new releases scheduled around them. If we have as much fun at all of them as we did in P Town, you can count me in.

Let's Put on a Show

2009-10-10T07:48:00.001-04:00

lesficwritersguild
Mission Statement

The Lesfic Writers’ Guild is a professional association of writers of lesbian literature. Our goals are to advance work by, for and about lesbians; to advocate for the legal and artistic rights of our authors; and to collectively organize, advertise, promote, collaborate on and distribute the publications of our members. In our quest to promote the full spectrum of lesbian writing, we welcome authors, industry professionals and readers.

How cool is this? Every genre has a professional organization, from the Mystery Writers of America, the Romance Writers of America, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Horror Writers Association, you get the idea. There has never been a professional association for the writers of lesbian literature, a small niche, you might think, but I know how large it really is. It’s time the writers get organized and pool information and resources for marketing and promoting our work. Most of us are published by small independent presses with little or no budget for marketing, ads, certainly no money for book tours and the like. Mid list publishers are in the same boat. The economy has put virtually every publishing house, big and small, in the same boat, and some wonder if it is sinking, facing the monolithic amazon.com, which ofers huge discounts, cutting into publishers’ profits, crushing independent booksellers where our work lives, feminist and gay bookstores, with the rise of E Books, the used boook market that resides cheek-to-jowl on amazon’s site with new books, and the litany of woes and dire forecasts could go on. Shrinking dollars in every household budget, shrinking economy, the purchase of new, print books is a luxury.

So, we writers have decided to band together and pool our resources to help ourselves out. This is in the tartup stage, and for now, it exixts as a Yaho group:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lesficwritersguild/

So new, we haven’t built the web site yet. This has happened in the past few days. We have a domain name, a logo, a mission statement, and server space for the web site. It’s sort of like Judy and Andy Hardy, let’s all pitch in and make a show in the barn.

We’ll buy ads. We’ll do things together and share the costs. We’ll promote each other’s work, we’ll act collectively to market and sell, we’ll do joint appearances.

I get a feeling like they must have had in the sixties, when women formed groups and marched and sat on committees and did things together to advance civil rights, women’s rights, peace, so many things. The energy and excitement is contagious.

I’ll keep you updated about the web site, and as you can see from the mission statement, readers are invited, and indeed, essential to that mission. It’s you we are trying to reach, after all.

Now I have to pack and get ready for Women’s Week in P Town. If anyone who reads this will be there, please catch one of Bywater’s events and step up and introduce yourself. We’ll talk.

How it Starts

2009-09-29T06:26:00.006-04:00

From the foot of Dexter Avenue, looking toward the capitol.

Sometimes, it begins with an image in my head, sometimes, it starts with stumbling across an old photo, like this one.

I lived in Montgomery for 13 years, and worked in a state building behind the capitol. No one can resist being struck by the juxtaposition of so many interconnected and disparate reminders of Alabama’s past, and her role in history. Being surrounded by the physical emblems, the buildings, historic markers, monuments, forces one to confront, or at least contemplate that past, so at odds that it seems there were two paths, two states, two histories, and indeed, there were. Two peoples.

For some unknown reason, this old photo of what Dexter Avenue looked like in 1906, right about the time the dastardly state constitution was rewritten, the one that had such an impact on Alabama for the rest of the century, and still affects it today, this photo churned up emotions and feelings. I returned to look at it often, letting the feelings swirl and coalesce. I started looking at other photos, and I got some books on Montgomery and started reading. This place began to resonate, to hum, and I could feel a shimmer, a vibration of excitement, as I read and studied old pictures of what Montgomery looked like years ago.

The feelings got mixed up with my strained relationship with my home state. I love it, the places and its people, my relatives, and it will always be home to me.

At the same time, I am torn with exasperation, frustration, anger, guilt, shame, and real pride at some of the things my state has done, some things it has accomplished. I used to moan and wail that the only time Alabama ever made national news, it was bad news. That is simply not true, though. In accepting that Alabama is the starting place for some horrible things, I have to acknowledge that it is also the beginning and ending of some very good things, some accomplishments that helped shape the direction of the nation.

So the research began, with that photo and some very mixed feelings that I wanted to examine, if not resolve. Do I have a right to claim personal pride in the good things? Do I get to share in the legacy? Or should I stand aside, and let all the sense of achievement go to those who walked the walk, who were there? Does the color of my skin bar me from sharing the good?

Alabama is not the only southern state to have this dichotomy, the multiple personality disorder that is our history, but the case can be made that it was the epicenter of much of the good, and much of the bad, all the contrasting things that make southern history so tortured and fractured. We have gold stars embedded in marble, we have monuments and memorials that attest to our service on the highway to a more perfect union.

If the color of my skin doesn’t disqualify me from looking at this history and claiming part of it, does the fact that I am a woman shut me out? History is still, by and large, written by men, about men’s accomplishments. So where does my female image fit in Alabama’s twisted route to where we are today?

I found some excellent books that examine those things, fascinating reading, urgent stories that also made me think. What do I have to add, as a novelist, a writer of fiction? How do I speak of all that I am feeling and thinking, in a way that encompasses everything I’ve learned?

Written by Lynne Olson

I find a story, a simple story of one person, that I want to examine and explore. I think I have found it, and indeed, not just the story of one woman, but three.

I also found a bookstore, one located in Montgomery, a wonderful source for books about Alabama and Alabamians, that has been of inestimable value.
Emails back and forth to Cheryl Upchurch, the owner, with her husband, of Capitol Book & News on Fairview Avenue. Please drop by of you’re ever in Montgomery. “Cheryl, I can’t find this book anywhere, it may be out of print, can you help?” Cheryl writes back, having contacted the author, to tell me yes, or no, or she can get it, should she order and ship it? She recommends other books that might help. She waits until my payday. “Cheryl, I need to know more about Mary Stanton, the author of From Selma to Sorrow, and all I can find is about another Mary Stanton who apparently writes YA fantasy. Can you help me find the right Mary?”

And this is how it begins. A burning desire to see, really see, in my head, these women and their lives and the story I need to tell, because it will be my story too. And while it burns in my gut, while I feel it tingling, itching, forming, shaping, moving from the back to the forefront of my consciousness, that is when it is born, and lives. While it burns.

Bywater Books/Women's week in P Town

2009-09-01T06:03:00.003-04:00

Join us for book signings, a wine and cheese party, and an event with comedian/author Kate Clinton on Saturday, October 17, at the Paramount Showroom in the Crown and Anchor. From 10:30 am till noon, we'll have a lively discussion of our history, called Herstory/Yourstory.

2009-08-12T05:06:00.004-04:00

I am so proud to announce the release os Beside Myself, a memoir written by Sandy Moore. It is a book about Moore's childhood, growing up on a cotton farm in Frost, Texas. Using the voice and perspective of the little girl, Moore gives us a remarkable look at a time and place, a community of people, of her family. Her obvious love of the land, her family, the animals, and the people of Frost shine. The book also contains photos and drawings by the author.
It is funny, original, insightful, taking the reader to a magical time of being a child. The stories are at times both hilarious and moving.
http://www.amazon.com/Beside-Myself-Sandy-Moore/dp/1448635063/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249893591&sr=1-3

Family

2009-08-02T05:56:00.005-04:00

Family
Posted at 06:59 AM on May 15, 2007

You know, this past week has been amazing, and in many ways, life altering. I want to tell everything that happened, to leave nothing out, but as I sit here, back at home after the literary conference in New Orleans at which my novel Miss McGhee was launched, I find myself thinking of very personal things.

There's a page of acknowledgements in the book. I wrote it and rewrote it many times, for fun, for inspiration, over the years. It was like writing your acceptance speech for the Academy Awards before you ever land an acting role. It was a way to keep myself motivated.

Sometimes I began it this way: "It takes a village to raise an idiot."

Or there was the version that didn't really thank anyone at all, but in a back-handed way, sneered at those who never supported or believed in me.

Then there was the secret version, the one I never committed to paper, in which I thanked my family. The one I knew I'd never put in any book I wrote, because I didn't really believe my family would ever accept or appreciate what I write, because I write about lesbians.

So here's what happened: I met some amazing people, writers I admired, and signed my book and gave it to them. I sat in some wonderful workshops, listened to some pretty smart people talk about writing and craft; I gave a reading from my novel to a room full of people who laughed and applauded. I sat on a panel with three other writers and had a very interesting discussion.

I also had several meetings with my publisher and editor from Bywater Books, and really came to know them as people rather than scary, power-wielding types who hold my writing career in their hands to play with like a toy. And this is what I learned.

Kelly Smith and Marianne K. Martin are very smart, very concerned, and very, very good at what they do. They are committed to finding and publishing the best work in this segment of the publishing industry, books by and for lesbian women.

We talked at length about what I did wrong and what I did right with Miss McGhee, and even sat and went page by page through the editing decisions that were made and told me why and how they made those decisions. They taught me to look at my work differently and to do some of that editing myself. It was an intensive seminar with professionals who want to help make me better at my craft. I don't know of any other publisher that would do that. Most would probably say, your first book took too much work, so go away and get better before you submit anything again. Instead, Kelly Smith, who I have to believe is a brilliant editor, patiently explained what she did with my manuscript and exactly how she improved it and made it into a book.

Then, Bywater spent a couple of hours of time that is limited and precious at these events to listen to me tell the story of my next novel, then they told me they are accepting it!

I'm exhausted, but elated. Home, but still stuck back there reliving everything that happened.

Now here's the good part. I forgot to call my mother on Mother's Day. I was too excited, nervous, too caught up in what was happening. I lay in bed late Sunday night, and thought about that acknowlegments page, in which I did not mention the name of any family member, and I thought about those to whom I owe the most.

I called my mom very early Monday morning, told her all about the conference and the book, and she was so happy for me. My mother said she was going to have someone sit and read every word of the book to her. (My mother is virtually blind, distinguishing light and dark, some color, but is long past the point where she could read the book herself or even see my name on the cover.)

I hung up the phone, and my partner Sandy said, you want to go see your mom, don't you. I took a deep breath.

I thought, in a moment of clarity and courage very rare in my life, (through which I usually muddle by keeping silent about what matters most, hoping for good things but not expecting them, and by dodging important issues because I don't give anyone enough credit to understand what I need them to see) that my mother is proud because I wrote a book, but she has no idea of the subject matter. If anyone is going to tell her what it's about, it should be me.

I had chickened out over the years, and when anyone in my family asked what I was writing about, I told them it was a novel about the civil rights movement. It is, but it is also about two women who fall in love. It is a novel about what I know best, living in fear.

Folks, my mother is a champ. I took my book and put it into her hands and she held it up to her face. I read the title and my name for her and told her what it looked like. Then I sat down and read it to her. I told her the whole story. I read the inscription I'd written to her.

Ladies and gentlemen, I cried through the whole thing. My mother hugged me, and said she was proud of me. That she'd always been proud of me.

One by one, my sisters, my brother, and my nieces gathered as the word spread. They all looked at the book and hugged me, squealed and exclaimed. They promised to buy many copies, so it's destined to be a best seller.

They all were so pleased and happy. I sat there feeling like the biggest idiot in the world.

It's the best Mother's Day I've ever had.

Women's Week In P-Town

2009-07-19T10:51:00.007-04:00

Women’s Week in P-Town

July 19, 2009 by bettnorris | Edit

July 19, 2009, 7:20 am
Womencrafts Bookstore
Womencrafts Bookstore

Here’s the Bywater P-Town schedule for Womens’s Week. We are looking forward to a great week of promotion and fun, so come join us!

Thursday, Oct 15

2-4pm: Bywater authors signing at Womencrafts Bookstore. Marianne K. Martin, Cynn Chadwick, Mari San Giovanni, Z Egloff, and Marcia Finical, and myself.

6-8pm: A Night of Wine and Cheese with Bywater authors at Womencraft

Friday, Oct 16

11-1: Master Writers Workshop with Cynn Chadwick at the Level. Chadwick is a lecturer at University of North Carolina-Asheville. She has both an M.A. in literature and an MFA in fiction, and teaches both undergrad and graduate courses in writing. http://cynnchadwick.wordpress.com/ptown-womens-week-master-fiction-workshop/

2-4pm: Bywater authors signing at Womencrafts

Saturday, Oct 17

10:30-12:30: Stonewall 40/Herstory Panel with Kate Clinton & Bywater authors at the Wave Bar of the Crown and Anchor

1;30-3 pm: Bywater authors signing at Womencrafts

Womencrafts Bookstore

376 Commercial St

Provincetown, MA 02657

508-487-2501

http://www.womencrafts.com/

info@womencrafts.com

http://www.bywaterbooks.com

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TwoThings at Once

2009-07-04T06:56:00.004-04:00

I'm at an odd place, editing the latest draft of What's Best for Jane, doing research for my next book, as yet untitled. Going back and forth between the two tasks, it seems that one is infusing the other. How did that happen?

At first, it would seem logical that this cross pollination would occur, because the research is for an historical novel set in Montgomery during the decades leading up to and including the civil rights movement, and the main character in What's Best for Jane was involved in that struggle too.

But Mary McGhee is a complete, finished character with a very specific history and personality. One reason I wanted to return to this era was because I still feel connected to it, and the story of my first two novels didn't lend itself to more depth and breadth regarding that long fight. A lot of the research I did for those two books didn't find its way into the story.

Casting around for a subject that interested me enough to write about, I found that all the passion I have for that era, that place, and that struggle still burned.

So I'm doing two things at once, together, and both are helped, I hope, by the research. It happens that most of the facts, the information, the details of research don't often end up in the novel. Some are simply fact-checking, making sure there are no anachronisms. Then, a lot of work is done just to get the time right. You can't have a character storming the Bastille if she lived in the 19th century, for instance. She can't be talking on the phone before phones were common in households, or driving a particular make and model of car if it didn't exist at that point in the novel.

Fitting a fictional character into actual historical events can be tricky also. If the character is based on a real person, you risk crossing the line between fiction and history. Stealing certain acts committed by real people and pinning them on to a fictional character is dangerous, especially if you're dealing with an era such that those actual participants may still be living.

You also don't want to manufacture fictional events so that your fictional hero can be in them. Unless you're writing science fiction, I suppose.

So you pick a person whose participation was minor or overlooked, not generally known, one of the grunts instead of one of the giants.

And that's where my dilemma starts. As I am discovering, the civil rights movement was one of massive, in the trenches, local feet on the ground, action. The people we study and read about today, the giants of the movement, the leaders, were very often a few steps behind the locals who reached a point where they simply couldn't wait any longer. There certainly can be no more eloquent spokesman for the time than Dr. King, but when he showed up, there were hundreds and thousands behind him, and they had already been marching for a while when he stepped to the front of the line. Which is not to belittle his importance or his contribution. He drew national attention to local injustices, he drew federal attention, and he drew support and money and publicity, all of which were vital and necessary. He was uniquely suited, talented, and a wonderful writer and speaker. He risked his life and gave his life to the cause. But so many others did too, and they haven't had books written about them or national holidays named for them.

There's a wonderful book called Freedom's Daughters, written by Lynne Olsen, that has become my Bible. So many names, so many women who were there first, and longer, and were never known. IN many, many of those public marches, the hundreds were mostly women, for a number of reasons. Men had a lot more at risk. Men got lynched. While so many of the women suffered jail and beatings and abuse right along side everyone else, very few lost their lives. Many lost their jobs, and suffered horribly.

Mary McGhee's dilemma was that she didn't suffer. She prospered. And she felt guilty for the rest of her life, and wondered whether her contribution achieved anything at all.

Miss Mary Leila McLeod, 1917-2009

2009-06-30T04:59:00.002-04:00

Miss McLeod was a formidable woman whose family was very prominent and respected, who owned what was once the largest house in town, right next to the post office. The house, a huge, two-story Victorian, and the lot take up most of a city block. Miss McLeod lived at home with her parents all her life, and never married. I have no idea of her personal life. There were never any rumors about her. She walked across the street to the Methodist church every time its doors opened. She taught generations of barely literate and hardly interested children the discipline and beauty of language, though they did not know it. When you left her class, you spoke correctly, though you may not have learned to appreciate literature. Language to Miss McLeod was a matter of personal pride, as much a part of your appearance and conduct as good grooming and good manners. I remember endless hours working on grammar, learning how it all fit together like a puzzle, like a math equation, diagramming hundreds of sentences on her blackboard. She wanted us familiar and comfortable with the tools she gave us. As long as we became practiced and sure with them in our hands, she would let somebody else worry and fret over our creative efforts. She cared about us, the children of her town, that we conducted ourselves with respect, and that we knew how to speak as though we had been raised and taught properly. Miss McLeod prepared us for the lives she knew we would live, most of us right there in that town with her, no slouching, no mumbling, no disagreement between subject and verb, ever. When we left her class, we represented her work, and she wanted us to represent her well, and we did.
I admit I sometimes wondered about her, even as I began to wonder about myself. At times I rebelled against her adherence to the discipline in language, and I thought she would probably have corrected Shakespeare. She taught me about Emily Dickinson, and oddly, this is the only writer I can remember from her class. I wonder about that now too. Did she feel a certain parallel with her own life? I saw a similarity, and then of course applied that same pattern to my own life. I can’t say that I ever developed a crush on Miss McLeod, as students sometimes do. She was far too intimidating to inspire worship like that. When I think of her, I remember being almost afraid of her. If I know anything about how to construct a sentence, then it is due to her. Other teachers may have taught me to write, but she taught me to love the way words fit together. She gave me the tools to work with, while others may have tried to give me style and feel. Miss Mcleod gave me a hammer and a saw. I did sometimes wonder about why she never married, why she lived at home in her parents’ house, whether there may have been some tragic love affair that ended badly when she was young, some boy of whom her parents could not approve, or better, some form of love of which she herself could not approve. The discipline in which she lived would not have permitted indulgence of that sort. But Miss McLeod did not inspire the imagination. She was no Emily Dickinson. If there was tragedy or unrequited or forbidden love in her past, she never hinted at it.I remember how much she seemed to enjoy catching us napping. She seemed to really like teaching, and seemed not to notice our boredom, did not care that we were bored. She did not whine about it, she just taught what interested her, and soon enough, we came to care deeply about not getting caught by her in lazy, half-hearted work. We came to care about the appearance of things, about how we said what we had to say, because she made us care.

Twice now I have tried to approach her inner life. And each time I have veered off into her work, teaching. She would approve of that. As I said, she did not inspire speculation. Even now I can’t bring myself to do it. I wonder though if she ever speculated about us, her students. I wonder if she made assessments and assumptions, and I wonder how accurate they were. I wonder if she would be surprised about me. Probably not.

In Miss McLeod’s class, you sat up straight and cut out all foolishness, the posturing so integral to the maturing process of teenagers. Later, as a teacher myself, the respect she demanded, and gave, remained a mystery to me.

My first novel was published in 2007. That achievement, the fulfillment of a lifelong dream, was due in large part to Miss McLeod’s influence. I named the main character, a woman of singular strength of will and determination, after Miss McLeod. The book is dedicated to women like her, who made their own way in the world when it wasn’t easy to do.

2009-05-27T05:04:00.004-04:00

This photo is looking east, up Dexter Avenue from Commerce, in 1906 Montgomery, toward the state capitol. The Dexter Avenue Baptist Church is on the right, at the top of Dexter, not seen in the picture here. Is it my imagination or is that lamp post to the right of the fountain leaning? You can see the electric streetcars. There seem to be a lot of people downtown, so I would guess that this is a Friday or Saturday morning. There is water in the fountain but it's not running.

Bookstores and Libraries

2009-05-22T05:38:00.003-04:00

It is amazing to me how helpful people are. Librarians and bookstore owners, in particular, will burn with my same enthusiasm when I ask for help. The other day I called Capitol Book and News in Montgomery, Alabama. I know they carry a lot of regional books. I was looking for books about Montgomery in the early decades of the twentieth century, particularly books with photos showing how the city looked in the twenties and thirties. Research for my third book. Still in the thinking stage, but as I explained what I needed, Cheryl Upchurch, the owner of the bookstore, caught on and suggested several books that might have what I want. She called again a day later to say she had found another one. I don't know how long she'll keep searching, but I love her now.

Back From the Conference

2009-05-19T06:22:00.004-04:00

Back from New Orleans, safely, after driving twelve hours through thunderstorms. Tired, but energized and eager, as these conferences always affect me.

Friday Master classes: I first sat in Jess Well's class about writing credible, creative historical fiction. (I am thinking about my next book already, which may return to the civil rights era, or be set in the 1920's-1930's.) First, let me say that Jess Wells is a brilliant writer. If you haven't read The Mandrake Broom, and you are considering historical fiction, you really will enjoy this book. It could be used as a template on how to write historical fiction well. Her class was tremendously helpful regarding research, how to make it come alive in the story, how much is too much, and she provided a gold mine of useful tools.

Next I sat in Ellen Hart's class on the art of revision. Ellen teaches writing, and she is good at it. I took notes. I consider myself the queen of revision, but torturing a good story through endless revision that is not producing a better manuscript also tortures the writer, and Ms. Hart gave detailed instruction on specific goals to be accomplished through revision, so that one is not simply spinning wheels and getting nowhere. (Kelly Smith of Bywater Books asked me to type up my notes on this class, as a means of future torture methods she can perhaps inflict on me and other writers. Let it be known that some editors do have a sadistic streak, which combined with the power they already hold over a writer's lifeblood poured onto paper, is a nasty mix. This is a joke, people!)

Saturday panels: I sat in the audience as Ellen Hart, Anthony Bikula, Jeffrey Round, and Gary Zebrun discussed the mystery novel. Even if you don't write mysteries, there is a lot one can learn from masters of this genre regarding plot and pacing and tension, which all good books need. These writers are also very charming and witty, so it was a delight to hear a group of mystery authors talk about their craft.

Next, I attended a discussion of groundbreaking lesbian literature, which was a look back at the beginning of lesbian fiction, and the panelists were Radclyffe, who has an extensive personal library of many of the early works and is a walking encyclopedia about them, Elana Dykewomon, who wrote a couple of those groundbreaking novels herself, and accepted an award at te conference because of her contribution to the literature, JM Redmann, whose award-winning Mickey Knight series has just added a fifth installment, and the afore-mentioned Ellen Hart, author of 25 books. The panel was moderated by Fay Jacobs who asked some pointed questions, and classics of our body of literature were discussed, and Elana Dykewomon made a poignant and eloquent plea for us not to forget those early writers. We must keep their names and their work in our mouths, she said.

Next I attended a lively debate on art and entertainment in fiction, which was the old, never-resolved argument between popular fiction, genre fiction, and "literary" fiction. Canadian writer Peter Dube spoke most to the point about this, when he said the who proposition is moot, good writing is good writing, whether it is found in erotica, the mysery novel, science fiction, poetry, or in the literary novel. The distinction is, he said, and the other panelists agreed, a false premise. categorizing work is a necessary shorthand for bookstores and readers, so they can find what they want to read easier, but the argument has no place is discussing quality. Jane Austen wrote genre fiction. If she were writing today, you'd find her work in the bookstore next to Danielle Steele. And fifty or a hundred years from now, some of our work may be found in the classic literature section, if we write well enough. It all comes down to the work.

Sunday: I attended a very informative workshop on the art of self promotion, got a ton of helpful information from panelist Michele Karlsberg, a working publicist, on what to do, and what not to do.

Finally, I attended a panel discussion about capturing the past in prose, during which panelists Jess Wells, Justine Saracen, and Jim Duggins totally enthralled me about why they write historical fiction, and why I should too. Lively conversation about combining research with imagination.

I skipped the discussion of the realities of the market in these economic times, by publishers Linda Daniel and Kelly Smith. I didn't want to hear bad news. For that, I have royalty statements.

I'm Off

2009-05-14T05:37:00.004-04:00

Today I leave for New Orleans and the Saints and Sinners conference. I love the place and I love this writer's conference, which serves as a fundraiser for NOAIDS. I'll be meeting with my publishers, Bywater Books, and that's always fun. A writer doesn't normally get many chances to meet face to face with editors and publishers.

I'll also get to meet up with some friends from my Montgomery days who I haven't seen in many years.

I'm excited about some of the panels and workshops, so I thought I'd let you know some of the ones that particularly interest me. Writing Credible Historical Fiction, a master class taught by Jess Wells, who certainly knows what she's doing. The Art of Revision, taught by the extremely talented Ellen Hart, who has written 24 books and won 5 Lambda literary awards, so she ought to know something about this.

There's a panel discussion called Art and Entertainment, delving into the timeless question of literary fiction versus genre writing. There's a panel called Tales of the New Depression, with various publishers, including Kelly Smith of Bywater Books, talking about how thw economy has affected the book market, as well as online vendors who offer used copies for sale right along with new. Not naming names. Mid-Career Blues, with Elana Dykewomon, who has a new book out called Risk, which I highly recommend. A panel discission of the origins of lesbian literature, discissing the sixties and seventies and those great early books and writers that began our canon of literature.

I'll be busy, totally immersed in conversation about books and writing. What could be better? Drinking and talking about books and writing, at the opening and closing receptions, of course.

More about New Orleans conference

2009-04-03T10:35:00.003-04:00

I thought I'd share a little more about the Saints and Sinners conference. This has become an annual event for me. When I first attended, I was an unpublished, unknown writer, there at the insistence of a friend of mine. By the next year, I had a contract for my first novel and was there to meet with my publisher and editor. The next time I attended, it was to meet them again and receive the very first copy of my book, do a reading, and sit on a panel for the first time.

This conference holds a special place in my history, then, and it is always a special time.

This year, I meet with my publishers to present them with the final, rewritten, finished ms of What's Best for Jane.

I've been talking to my oldest and dearest frined Lori. She and I are trying to coordinate plans to meet in New orleans during the conference. I've haven't seen her very often since moving to Florida, so that will be a big thrill. I have another reason for hoping Lori can attand, and it has to do with What's Best for Jane. My friend already knows that she serves an an inspiration for one of the characters in the book, but I don't think she knows just how significant a role this character plays, and I think it would be interesting to do a reading with her in the audience, or discuss the book and the character on a panel while my friend listens in.

2009-03-24T04:19:00.001-04:00

Plan now to attend the 2009 Saints and Sinners Literary Festival!

Ellen Hart

Benoit Denizet-Lewis

Yes, it's time to start making your plans to join us in the French Quarter for Saints and Sinners 2009! This year, we've bowed to pressure and moved the Festival back a week--so instead of Mother's Day weekend, this year it's the weekend of May 14-17. We're putting together a pretty amazing line-up of panels and speakers this year, and you definitely don't want to miss out! Speakers this year will include Michael Thomas Ford, Michael Lowenthal, Elana Dykewomon, Jess Wells, Greg Herren, Radclyffe, and a whole lot more!

This year's master classes are pretty amazing--here's the line-up: Michael Gross from the Authors Guild: Book Contract Workshop; Ali Liebegott: Me, Me, Me, and More About Me: A Personal Narrative Workshop; Jess Wells: Writing Credible, Creative Historical Fiction; Michael Thomas Ford: Reality Check--Can You Really be a Full-time Writer?; Benoit Denizet-Lewis: Telling (True) Stories: Researching and Writing Compelling Nonfiction; Radclyffe: The Truth about Blood and Guts: Writing Realistic Medical Scenes; Greg Herren: Let's Talk ABout Sex: How to Use Eroticism Effectively in Prose; and Ellen Hart: Learning to Love the Wastepaper Basket: The Art of Revision. The master classes are always interesting and in formative. They also tend to fill up fast, so definitely get your tickets sooner rather than later!

As you know, Saints and Sinners was originally founded not only to provide a place for LBTQ writers, editors, and publishers to get together, network, and share experiences in this crazy publishing business, but also to raise money for the NO/AIDS Task Force as it continues its ongoing struggle to fight this epidemic, prevent new infections, treat and assist those already infected, and spread awareness in the New Orleans community.

The Gut

2009-03-17T05:46:00.002-04:00

I'm sitting here with a file open, waiting, waiting. Where to begin? I am about half way through the rewrite. I should push forward to the end, right? I quote John Steinbeck in Writers at Work, Penquin edition: "Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on."

So I should keep going through to the end. But my instinct, my gut, is telling me I missed something, that I should go back and correct it. Sometimes, craft and a sense of duty override instinct. I make notes about the thing my gut is screaming about, that visceral, feral, not-a-step-further feeling., and keep going. That is the smart thing, the professional thing, right?

Experience tells me that when something is screaming at me, it's too real and immediate to pass by, that getting that screaming thing on paper will have more vitality than the slogging forward because it's the right thing to do. Pressing onward will produce dull, listless writing, but the thing that screams at me, what will that bring forth? I have to go and see.

2009-03-16T05:07:00.002-04:00

Red Audrey and the Roping has just made the short list for a Lambda literary award in debut fiction. I am very excited about this. I found Jill Malone's first novel surprising, written with a sure hand to complex character, style, setting, tone. Go find this book.

Butt in the Chair

2009-03-09T05:50:00.005-04:00

I had a fun and interesting talk with the women's book club of OutLoud Books in Nashville yesterday. They seemed intrigued by my routine of getting up at 2 or 3 am every morning to write. I verified that this is absolutely true, every morning, seven days a week. They seemed to think this indicates great dedication. Maybe, but for me, as I tried to explain, writing is a habit, an avocation, a necessity. My routine does not work for every writer, and your not getting up so early each and every day does not indicate you are less devoted to your craft. Ideas and inspiration, the enthusiasm and passion for writing don't always magically appear at the designated time. But being there, in the chair, every day, making it a habit so ingrained that I can't do without it, means that I am open to it, and that the sometimes hard slogging, the mundane and dreary tasks of writing, editing, etc, gets done while waiting. I quote author Cynn Chadwick, who quoted Flannery O'Connor: writing is a habit of being.

As we began our talk, I pointed out that yesterday was the 44th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, that day in 1965 when about five or six hundred peaceful marchers were beaten back at the Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma, dozens sent to the hospital, and all of it shown on the national news. That is the day I chose for the ending scene in Miss McGhee.

I talked a little about the progress on What's Best for Jane. Set a decade ahead, the new novel opens in 1975, and moves from a great national force that swept the country to the affects on the individuals in the small town, from the political to the personal. I talked about that narrowing of focus and about writing from the point of view of a child, which I found very difficult.

A very interesting discussion.

2009-03-05T05:19:00.003-05:00

See the cover of the new book? The one that's not out yet, because I've had some trouble, and because of it, I've been struggling with writing. See the manila folder? That's where outlines, ideas, notes, are stashed. The photo was taken at an authors' event at Java Nirvana in Gulfport, FL on Feb 15th, as I waited for it to begin. I sat fiddling and tweaking and writing yet more notes to myself about what comes next. I came to the event hoping to be energized and inspired by watching other authors read from their work and answer questions from the crowd. And I was rejuvenated. It was so helpful just to be there in the audience and to listen and get to talk a bit with other writers.

Gulfport is a lovely little village, a gem, one that I hope keeps on the wayside of the mainstream of tourists to Florida, though it has a beach, a pier, and inns, and wonderful shops and places like Java Nirvana. It's our secret here in St Pete, and I would hate to see this place change.

So I am writing again, pushing forward after the trouble, getting somewhere with the rewrite of What's Best for Jane. The new, and final, target for release is October 2009. Of course, troubles are never over simply because you declare them to be over. They have a way of popping in on you, no matter how determined you are to put them aside and move on. It has been my experience that the moving on occurs without pause or consideration for our individual stumbling blocks.

2009-02-02T04:35:00.000-05:00

Sunday, Feb 15th: 10 am till 2 pm: three authors, Lee Lynch, KG MacGregor, and Ruth Perkinson, will be at Java Nirvana in Gulfport, Florida. Come join them for coffee and conversation. They will read, sign books, answer questions.

I'll be there, in the audience, lending support and taking notes. Stealing ideas and inspiration.

2008-12-03T02:00:00.000-05:00

Some good news, after a long summer aand fall of not-good things. Go to this link:

http://browse.barnesandnoble.com/browse/nav.asp?visgrp=fiction&exp=900002&N=712556+907132&Ne=900002+712556+907132&z=y

and you'll find Miss McGhee at #8 on the Barnes and Noble bestseller list for gay/lesbian/fiction/romance/ something else. The subcategories are several but meaningless to me. I can honestly claim that I have a book in someone's top ten best sellers, at least for today.

It makes me feel great. Better than I have felt for a long time. Personal, family losses that I won't go into here have made struggling with the rewrites for What's Best for Jane a real trial. Just lately, that dam seems to have been breached and so the work is going forward.

And hey, we have a new president. So we'll soon be done with George W. Bush.

Odds and Ends, Dots and Dashes

2008-07-29T05:31:00.000-04:00

I just read Cavedweller and Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, both excellent books that I missed when they were bestsellers. Why am I reading? Because I just sent in the ms of What's Best for Jane, and I am languishing in the desert, that barren, desperate place, waiting to hear from my editor.

The GCLS conference is this weekend in Phoenix, and I can't attend, for financial reasons. I really, really wanted to, because Miss McGhee is a finalist for an award. I shall make it a policy to always show up whenever anyone wants to give me an award, but my bank account just did not cooperate this time. If by some miracle, my book should win, I will post an acceptance speech of the highest order here.

While waiting for the editing process to begin on Jane, I have been thinking about the next project. A few people have suggested that I write a memoir, the story of my childhood, growing up in a large family in south Alabama. I have given it some thought, to the extent that a 150,000 word draft sits waiting to be dusted off and revamped. I think that the only way I could do this is to distance myself from it, to create a fictional version of myself, thus gaining leeway to make me so much more interesting than I am, and also insulating those friends and family who might not be pleased to find my cockeyed perceptions of them in print.

It would be like looking at a picture within a picture within a picture. Stretching the truth into an unrecognizable shape, creating a behemoth from a gnat. Lying through my teeth. I am beginning to like this idea.

Saints and Sinners literary conference

2008-04-14T06:06:00.000-04:00

I'll be attending the Saints and Sinners literary conference in New Orleans May 8-11. This is an extraordinary gathering of GLBT authors, editors, and publishers. The conference serves as a fundraiser for NOAIDS.

This year Bywater Books, my publisher, will have a strong showing at the conference, with six or seven authors. Last year's winner of the Bywater Prize for fiction, Jill Malone, will be there, promoting the release of her debut novel, Red Audrey and the Roping. The 2008 prize winners will be announced at the closing reception.

The schedule is still be firmed up and completed, but I'll be doing a reading, and maybe sitting on a panel. Here's the bio from the program:

Bett Norris graduated from the University of Alabama with a BA in history and a burning desire to write, having grown up just down the road a piece from Harper Lee. She drew heavily on her Alabama roots for her first novel, Miss McGhee, a runnerup for Bywater Books prize for fiction, set during the civil rights movement of the fifties and sixties. She dutifully set her second novel, What's Best for Jane, in the South as well, certain that the well of rich material to be found there will never run dry.

I'm in the process of selecting an exerpt from What's Best for Jane to read. This is harder than you might think. First, I have to read the section aloud and time myself. Accounting for reading much too fast, the reading should be no more than ten minutes. Nest, choosing a piece that needs very little setup or explanation. Then, practice. None of this really helps my nervousness.

Scheduled speakers and panelists this year in clude Val McDermid, Dorothy Allison, Cynn Chadwick, Jewelle Gomez, Jim Grimsley, and many others.

Centered in the Bourbon Orleans Hotel in the heart of the French Quarter, this thing is always a lot of fun. Yes, I learn a lot from the workshops. But it is New Orleans, you know.

Welcome

2008-03-25T06:02:00.000-04:00

Everybody has a blog, right? So here goes. I'll try to answer questions that any of you may have, try to keep it interesting, if not always amusing.

There's so much I could talk about. The election campaign season is upon us here in America, and it should be an exciting time, with two viable candidates for the Democratic party's nomination for president, the likes of which we've never seen. Frankly, like most of the country, I am tired of the news coverage of the primary marathon.

I'd rather talk about writing. One of the most frequently asked questions of any writer is "where do you get your ideas?" Like most writers, I steal them. Just kidding, mostly. The answer is complicated. The idea for my first published novel, Miss McGhee, came from a character in another novel I wrote, the soon-to-be-released What's Best for Jane. So where did the idea for Jane come from? A dream. An image. And one fragment, a phrase, that kept repeating in my head.

Some books are driven by plot and action. My novels are character-driven. I think about a situation, sure, that I'd like to have a character address, an issue maybe. But usually it's all about a particular character, which I then put in a particular place and time.

Let's use Miss McGhee as our example. I had this woman in mind, and I put her in a particular era in American history, when there were rough and scary times, terrible and wonderful things happening in the country. The decades of the 1950's and 1960's then dictated some of the plot. The particular setting, Alabama during those decades, also demanded certain impacts on the plot.

I knew my character right down to the bones. I've often said that I know Mary McGhee so well, knew so deeply what I wanted her to say, that I could have put her in any situation, any time and place, and told the story I wanted to tell about her, simply because I knew her. I could make her a NASA scientist, an attorney, a school teacher, a wife and mother, a cop, a cab driver in New York, an insurance adjuster in California, a deep sea diver. For me, as a writer, it is all about knowing the character and knowing what I want to say about that character.

Some who have read this novel say that is is a romance, a love story. Some call it historical fiction. For me, it was simply about a woman coming to terms with herself.

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The Gut

Butt in the Chair

Odds and Ends, Dots and Dashes

Saints and Sinners literary conference

Welcome