Interview with author, Lucy Middlemass

Hi Lucy,
Thank you so much for agreeing to give me an interview. I have admired your work for a couple of years. 

Last month, I had a chance to speak with Evangeline Jennings about the exciting publications produced by the Pankhearst Group. In addition to being a senior editor at Pankhearst, you have contributed quite a few stories. Most recently Pankhearst has released two new projects: the single, CONVERTIBLE, an extension on the CARS AND GIRLS theme, and MOREMAIDS, a continuation of the flood theme from MERMAIDS.

CONVERTIBLE starts with a hair-raising tale of two young women on holiday and a rusted out "Mazda", written by Jane Bradley and is followed by your novella. "Volvo" is a quirky whodunit with a twist, as a girl from the bad part of town teams up with a self-absorbed doctor's daughter to thwart a band of car thieves. The best surprise in CONVERTIBLE is the freebie, "Taxi", a fast-paced thriller also written by you.

Your contribution to MOREMAIDS is the short story, "Bad Little Pirates". I must admit I was shocked and somewhat disgusted by the surprise at the end. Your stories always seem to include a wicked twist, which is why I like them. 
Tell me more about MOREMAIDS. In MERMAIDS, there was a clear societal progression over time from one story to another. Is there a unifying theme to MOREMAIDS as well? 
Moremaids follows a similar progression. In a world like our own, there’s a great flood. Everything gets wet. Society breaks down. Things dry off a bit for some people, and they survive on boats and islands. 

In addition to Pankhearst, you chair the Young Adult Reading Group on the writer's web site, Authonomy.com. One of my favorite stories shared on Authonomy was your novel, JINGER BARLEY AND THE MURKLE MOON. I am delighted to hear that it is soon to be released by Pankhearst. 
Tell us more about Jinger. 
It’s a friendly, gentle story with lots of cups of tea and whimsy. On Millennium Eve, The Murkle Moon wanders away from its hometown and hundred-year-old Arthur Oldham needs to find out why. He returns to his observatory at Murkle Manor School to look for answers. Thirteen years later, for the first time ever, a child not from Murkle starts at the school and no one but the Moon knows why.

Editing a full-length novel is one of the least-enjoyed aspects of being a novelist. You had the opportunity to receive a professional review of JINGER BARLEY AND THE MURKLE MOON from a Harper-Collins editor. Did their feedback help you in your editing process? 
Yes, it did help. It highlighted parts of the plot that didn’t work, and I changed them. I also received a lot of useful feedback from members of Authonomy.

The predominant advice to writers is "Write what you know." You're life must be quite robust if you have intimate knowledge of the lives of both an escaped Russian convict and a blind Pakistani immigrant college student as well as all of the English characters you've brought to life ranging from the financially advantaged to the abysmally destitute.
Where do you get your ideas for all these complex and diverse characters? 

They’re the right characters for their stories. Sana, the Pakistani girl, belongs in the world I put her in. Those are her experiences and it’s her voice. All the things make her who she is – where she’s from, how she lives as a student with a visual impairment – are the same things that make her story. Like lots of people who write, my ideas for characters come from different places. 

How much time do you spend developing backstory for your main characters? 
Their backstories develop as I write, and are what I need them to be for the story. In Our Russian Soldiers, Viktor, the escaped convict, has a very different backstory to Hannah, the narrator. When it floods and they’re brought together, it’s their backstories that shape their relationship and what happens to them.

Let’s talk about Pankhearst. What excites you most about being part of the Pankhearst group? Most of my readers are writers, so what grabs your attention when looking at submissions to Pankhearst?
It’s exciting to work with talented writers and brilliant stories. That’s the main thing. I like attention-grabbing original work, but also new ways of telling the same stories. Some stories are important enough to be told over and over – particularly those told by women, because they’re not heard enough.

What do you look for in a story and what do you look for in a writer?
Voice. Attitude. And potential. Also an actual story. I like writers who care about their work. I don’t mind writers whose work needs a lot of time spending on it, or who don’t make all of our suggested changes, but it’s important they care about it.

Describe Pankhearst’s production process for accepted work.

Accepted work goes through numerous rounds of editing and proofreading. It gets easier with experience – spotting errors, applying grammar rules, understanding what a writer wants to achieve. It’s important to us to publish work that’s as good as we can make it. Although it’s irritating in everyday life, it turns out proofreading is an excellent outlet for pedantry so I’m pretty happy with that. Any mistakes in this interview are, of course, deliberate.

What's next for Pankhearst?
Busy. Busy. Busy.

The Singles Club will continue. The next three will round 2014 off in style. October will be elegant and literary. Our Halloween single will be different again and exceptional. And the Christmas single may well blow up in our faces. In 2015 Ellie Mac will be picking up the pieces and shaping the year's singles. The Singles Club is permanently open for submissions.

Moving away from the singles, Halloween will be a big time for us because we will also publish our first standalone novel - Yuko Zen Is Somewhere Else by Simon Paul Wilson - and make our first attempt at some kind of Proper Book Launch. We're hoping people will be charmed by our shambling amateurism.

Following hot on Yuko's heels, November will see the release of Evangeline's Riding In Cars With Girls which is her personal sequel to the original Pankhearst Cars & Girls collection. It will feature six of her stories - all different and yet clearly hers - about ... um ... cars and girls and stuff.

Also in November, we launch our first Slim Volume - a collection of poetry and short fiction curated by the chart-topping poet Kate Garrett - complete with readings and other such larks in swinging Sheffield, England. Kate intends to publish two Slim Volumes a year. Submission for Slim Volume 2 (May 2015) will open in December and the theme will be travel and place.

Here's Lucy's author bio:

Lucy is a tidy and wise person living a 1970’s lifestyle in a 1980’s house. She's a parent of two cats, and she does have a favourite. Lucy doesn’t like travelling, or new experiences unless they are theoretical. Lucy edited and contributed to the YA collections HEATHERS, MERMAIDS, and MOREMAIDS. Her debut novel will be JINGER BARLEY AND THE MURKLE MOON.

Thank you for inviting me to contribute to your blog, Laura!

Follow the Pankhearst Group at http://pankhearst.com/.

Get your own copy of MOREMAIDS at http://getbook.at/Moremaids/.

Find a copy of CONVERTIBLE at http://getbook.at/CONVERTIBLE/.

Follow Lucy on Twitter at @lucymiddlemass.

Personal Opinion: Take a Stand America. Shun NFL Football.

I love American football, which is weird because I grew up in a house inhabited entirely by females. Growing up, my family consisted of my mom, my sister, me and assorted cats or dogs, all of whom were female. In Santa Monica, even our car mechanic was a woman. No one in my life watched football, or even talked about it.

Then I started high school and joined the marching band. As a member of the band I was required to attend every home game, and even some of the away games. The more I watched the sport, the more I loved it. When we relocated to Northern Virginia, I quickly adopted the Washington Redskins as my home team. Through the ups and downs, since 1978, I've always supported them.

Not anymore.

In future weeks my blog will feature interviews with some great authors: Lucy Middlemass, Simon Paul Wilson, and Liz Dejesus. While I wait for those scheduled interviews to occur, I've decided to fill this week's blog post with reflections on the state of professional American football.

Why do I love football? I find it more entertaining than all other sports. Baseball and golf move too slowly. Basketball and Hockey are too fast; I can't keep my eye on the ball/puck. Tennis is two-dimensional, which is not as exciting as other sports. Football has strategy, like chess, but in real-time. It features fantastic feats of athleticism. There is risk, because the players might get injured, like an action-adventure movie. It's well-defined, with rules and referees. I just love football.

In general, sports are an important part of life. In Gordon Russell's, The Social Psychology of Sport, he outlines all the different ways we use sports to fulfill our basic needs. By applying the aspects of sports to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, he explains how sports allow us to form social bonds, develop self-esteem and confidence through athletic success, and achieve recognition from others for our accomplishments in sports. He even explains why sports can alleviate frustration and stress from other aspects of our life by allowing us to assert ourselves physically against an opponent.

American football takes it one step further, because spectators can vicariously feel the same sense of self-actualization as their adopted team players. In his 2006 blog article, "Why do Men Love Football", Pastor Rich Vincent adds that football appeals to men's territorial instincts, allows them to participate in a military-like event, and "provides a window of meaning in an uncertain and chaotic world." 

In short, football is supposed to be a good thing. It should be a safe outlet for controlled assertive behavior. It should allow us, the spectators, to relieve stress and resolve conflict without death or serious injury. To my mind, the players should be more controlled and relaxed off the field because they exert so much energy and assertiveness during the games. Notice I did not use the word 'aggression', because by definition, aggressive behavior includes the intent to harm another person.

Patrick Rishe, in an article written for Forbes titled, "Breaking Bad: The Economics, Sociology, and Psychology of Law-breaking Behavior by NFL Players," brings several disturbing elements of the NFL to light. Mr. Rishe quotes the following: 

Dr. Steve Ungerleider, a psychologist at the University of Texas, notes that academic literature has long pointed to a disproportionate amount of violent criminal behavior in NFL athletes.  “What you see in football players, from a young age is that they are trained to hit hard, be aggressive and take severe damage.  Not only are they bigger, stronger, faster, but they’re coached to hit harder and in many cases, illegally.”

He also quotes Dr. Lawrence Wenner, the Von der Ahe Professor of Communications and Ethics at Loyola Marymount University, asserting that NFL players are "privileged, protected and given special treatment...devoting disproportionate time to athletic activities, and not fully developing as a human being."

Mr. Rishe even cites statistics on the cultural differences in attitude toward violence between African-Americans and people of other ethnic or racial backgrounds, noting that two-thirds of NFL players are African-American.

None of that excuses what has happened the past two weeks in the NFL. There must be a distinction between behavior on the field and off it. As long as the NFL and the NFL Players' Association continue to degrade and demean women and children, as long as they condone league members committing acts of criminal violence off the field, we as fans and spectators have a moral obligation to show our disapproval. Both Roger Goodell, National Football League Commissioner, and Eric Winston, president of the players' association, are grossly disconnected from mainstream society and clearly clueless about how disgusting these acts of domestic violence seem to the average viewer.

Society offers us one appropriate response: shunning. That's why there will be no football airing in my house tomorrow. My son will not wear his Redskins t-shirt to "Support Your Favorite Team" day at school on Tuesday. We will not buy products from companies that support the NFL. Until detailed, appropriate policies are in place to immediately condemn players who commit criminal acts of violence off the field, both within the league and the players' association, my family will shun NFL football.

It is a sad, but necessary action if we expect the NFL to change whatever systemic problems lead to this type of widespread negative behavior. I urge others who agree with me to do the same.

Take a stand, America. Shun NFL Football.

Interview with author Laura Emmons

You are reading that right. This week I’m interviewing myself on the eve of the release of my second novel, HEALING HANDS. I’ve taken three weeks off from writing my blog. First I had to get my son settled into the fifth grade. Then my sister traveled all the way from Oakland to visit us. Finally, I’ve reworked the covers on all three of the novels in my Queen of the Night trilogy and have line-edited the first two books in that series. I thank you for your patience and look forward to offering many more exciting author interviews in the near future, starting with my own project.

In January 2001, author Ginger Strivelli posted a blog article that captured my attention. She titled the article “Appalachian Granny Magic.” Here’s an excerpt of what she said:

     The Appalachian Granny Magic Tradition of Witchcraft is very old, dating way back to the first settlers of the Appalachian Mountains who came over from Scotland in the 1700's. They brought along their even older magical traditions with them. Those 'old world' traditions were blended with a dash of the local tradition of the Tsalagi (aka the Cherokee Indians).     The Witches of the Appalachian Mountains called themselves 'Water Witches' and/or 'Witch Doctors' depending upon whether they were personally more gifted in healing, midwifery and such realms of magic, or if they were more in tune with dowsing for water, ley lines, energy vortexes and the making of charms and potions. Often a Practitioner called themselves by both titles if they were so diverse in their Magical practices.
     The Appalachian Granny Magic Tradition, like many of the older ones, was passed on from parents to their children for many generations, and generally was not 'taught' outside of the individual family structures. Because of the rural and secluded nature of the Appalachian community, the old customs, wisdom, and practices were not as often lost, forgotten, or 'modernized' as the 'old world' traditions that came over to other, more urban areas of the 'new world.' Therefore, one will often find that ancient Scottish songs, rhymes, dances, recipes, crafts, and 'The Craft,' are more accurately preserved in Appalachia than even in Ireland or Scotland.
     Many of these old traditions, both magical and mundane, were carried on in Appalachia until modern times. Some songs, spells, and such have been passed down for many years that way, though sadly, sometimes only by rote, with the original meanings beings lost in the shifting sands of time.

Wikipedia states the following, under the heading of Granny Woman: “Granny women were healers and midwives in Southern Appalachia and the Ozark Mountains, documented as practicing from the 1880s to the 1930s. They were usually elder women in the community and were often the only practitioners of healthcare in the poor rural areas of Southern Appalachia. They seldom expected or received payment, and were respected as authorities on herbal healing and childbirth.”

Through the University of North Carolina Press, Anthony Cavender documented many oral histories and herbal remedies of Granny Magic practitioners in his 2003 book, Folk Medicine in Southern Appalachia.

My father insists that his entire family, including me, has the magical gift of Dowsing, i.e., they are water witches. My maternal grandmother insisted that her father was a Mayan shaman who had psychic visions, and told me that I had visions too, when I was a small child.

After moving to a part of the Appalachian region, in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia, and seeing the beauty of the natural environment, how could I not latch on to the concept of Granny Magic? In my fertile imagination, the story of Maggie Stewart was born.

HEALING HANDS is the second book in the Queen of the Night series. It is not necessary to read the first book, SEEING MAGIC. However, those interested can find it available for free this weekend on Amazon.com. 

     Last summer Maggie found out three things. First, magic exists. A whole community of magical humans and non-humans use magic to keep the balance of nature intact. Second, she is the daughter of two powerfully magical people. Her father was a Seer, a psychic, before he died in combat as a member of the Army’s Special Forces. Her mother is a Healer, she can direct spirit energy through her hands to heal the sick and injured. Maggie developed a magical gift no clan member had ever encountered. She can see both a person’s aura and any illnesses or injuries in their body. She calls it her Healer Vision. Third, her mom is sick. She battled breast cancer last summer, and won, but a tiny four millimeter tumor in the other breast made Maggie constantly vigilant.

     Now she’s sixteen, smart, athletic and devoted to her eleven-year old brother, Corey. She’s wanted to be a doctor since she was five; her unconscious mind accepted her future as a Healer even then. She matured over the summer, she doesn’t hold material things in as high a regard as the beauty of nature. She accepts responsibility and understands duty. Maggie is even able to hold her hormones in check, because the clan forbids a romance with Evan, so she agrees to be his best friend instead.

     Evan Keach is a seventeen-year old Seer. He was forced to grow up too soon when, at the age of fifteen, he was chosen to become a member of the clan council in his highly-secretive, tightly-knit, magical coven, the Cacapon Clan of Appalachia. Evan is more powerfully magical than most in his clan. As a result, they treat him strangely. They are afraid to get close to him because of his remarkable gift of premonition. At the same time, they are drawn sycophantically to his influence in the community because of his position in the local government. In particular, Madison, a twenty-six year old clan member, is obsessed with him to the point of stalking. Only Maggie and her Great-Aunt Fiona treat him normally. That’s why he’s devoted to his mentor, Fiona, and his best friend, Maggie. Secretly, he aches for a closer relationship with her, but clan law and the moon goddess forbid it.

     Two months ago, Maggie attracted the goddess’ attention. The Queen of the Night was outraged to learn that Maggie’s parents had a child. Knowing the legend of the Destroyer, Maggie lied to the goddess’ heavenly face. She told the goddess she had no siblings. Now she has to keep her brother off the goddess’ radar, and the best way to do that is to fulfill her own destiny and become the next Great Healer of Cacapon. The Queen of the Night has spies everywhere, and one of them seeks to win Evan for herself. Both Maggie and Evan are torn between their duty to the coven, their fear of the goddess, and the irresistible pull of their hearts. 
     On Halloween night, while her brother was trick-or-treating, her mom developed terminal cancer. Suddenly, Maggie's an orphan, a mid-year transfer student to a high school in eastern West Virginia, and the only person who can keep her little brother from destroying the cycle between Night and Day. 

     This year, Maggie is supposed to develop the crucial skill of energy-touch therapy (aka Healing Hands) so she can become the next great spiritual healer of the Cacapon clan of Appalachia. She also has to help her brother cope with the loss of their mother so he doesn’t turn evil. Furthermore, if she doesn’t find out who’s been murdering members of her family for the last seven generations, she’ll probably be next.

For more information on the Queen of the Night series, visit http://www.facebook.com/seeingmagic/.