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Letting the Story Lead: Valerie Nieman and Upon the Corner of the Moon

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by Valerie Nieman

Writers are not our characters, most times, though these characters may draw upon our lives, our experiences, our quirks.

Macbeth and Gruach, the main characters of Upon the Corner of the Moon, definitely are not “me” except that I was drawn to the story and felt the urge to tell it – an urge that stayed with me for almost 30 years.

I first came across the facts about the historical Macbeths when I was researching an earlier novel. I did not realize how thoroughly this story had been reversed: Macbeth was a rightful king based on Celtic traditions and ruled for 17 years, being called “The Righteous” and “the ruddy king of plenty.”

How did he become a villain?

Macbeth was cousin to Duncan, and yes, he did kill him – but in battle when Duncan invaded his territory. Duncan’s son Malcolm Canmore eventually claimed the throne through primogeniture and the Celtic system of electing kings was erased. Chroniclers grafted Macbeth’s story with various legends to shape a monstrous, murdering usurper. Shakespeare found this tale in Holinshed’s Chronicles, shaped it to please King James and included the witches that so fascinated the king.   

As to “Lady Macbeth,” we know little more than her name and her father’s name. We do know that she was married to a man called Gillecomgan, also killed in battle by Macbeth, and then married Macbeth. I had to do a great deal of speculation in building a plausible life for her but drew on scholarship from a number of areas including archaeology of the Picts and the study of ancient goddess religions.

This book is the first of two telling the story of the historical Macbeths, hewing to the record where it exists and speculating to fill in the gaps. The Last Highland King will come out in 2027.

My earlier book with Regal House, In the Lonely Backwater, featured the distinctive voice of Maggie, who owes a lot to the solitary girl that I was, simultaneously lost and found between the wonders of the natural world and the books she carried everywhere.

I grew up in New York State, near the headwaters of the Allegheny River. My parents owned fields and woods that I knew well before I learned to read. I fished with my dad and wandered a patch of old-growth forest. Books sustained me — Twain, Poe, and Tennyson in addition to Shakespeare, all in the tall bookcase upstairs – along nature guides, and A Girl of the Limberlost that featured another rural wanderer. Like Maggie, I brought back my finds and interpreted them, generally to amused interest.

After high school and a few erratic years where I took jobs in factories and donut shops while in community college, I slid south along the Allegheny’s path to find myself at the other end of that river system, attending West Virginia University on the banks of the Monongahela. Propelled by the desire to write, I’d determined to become a journalist, as a blue-collar kid lacking mentors to help me along the path toward becoming a novelist and poet.

For nearly twenty years, I worked as a reporter and editor for daily newspapers in the northern coalfields of West Virginia, covering everything from train wrecks to murders to acid spills in the rivers, along with government beats and the “hook and bullet” column that let me hang with scientists at the Department of Natural Resources. During that time, I homesteaded a hill farm with my then-husband, building a house and barn, planting an orchard and organic garden — and, of course, wandering with my dog and gathering wild foods and always writing.

My first poetry chapbook and my first novel, both deeply engaged with the natural world, came out in 1988. Neena Gathering, a post-apocalyptic tale based on the landscape around that farm, was long out of print before being brought back as a classic in the genre. Like In the Lonely Backwater, it features a teenage narrator, though at its debut, Young Adult was not yet a thing and it was listed with general SF paperbacks. I still love that book, and it has many fans who’ve applauded its reissue.

Things change. The marriage ended and I found myself with a small farm I couldn’t manage and the editorship of a newspaper destined for sale. I headed to the Piedmont of North Carolina for a job with the News & Record, living outside of Appalachia for the first time in my life. The move brought new adventures, from getting my MFA at Queens University of Charlotte, to the publication of more poetry and fiction, to learning how to sail. A 25-foot Hunter docked at Lake Kerr was direct inspiration for Maggie’s world of the marina and the landscape of the farms and piney woods of the coastal plain.

I had the pleasure of working with Kevin Watson at Press 53 for all three of my full-length poetry collections and my novel Blood Clay, set in North Carolina. I was delighted when West Virginia University Press, which had also released my short fiction collection, decided to publish To the Bones, a horror/mystery set in the coalfields. It was acclaimed as “a parable of capitalism and environmental degradation” and in the sequel, Dead Hand, Darrick and Lourana flee to Ireland in search of answers to questions raised in the first book.

And then my Queens classmate Pam Van Dyk made me aware of Regal House, and I met Jaynie Royal and all the wonderful folks at my most excellent publisher!

Another marriage came and went, and I found myself freed to wander more widely. Solo hiking was pure pleasure, even when I was quite lost on the trails near Les Eyzies-de-Tayac, slogging through the rain along the Great Glen Way in Scotland, or following the music in Donegal and Dingle. Trailheads beckon me, from the Mountains to the Sea trail in North Carolina to the coastal vistas of San Francisco Bay.

Along the way, I’ve published poetry widely, in The Georgia Review, The Missouri Review, Chautauqua, and journals across the U.S. as well as Scotland, Ireland, and Greece. Work has also appeared in some fine anthologies, including Eyes Glowing at the Edge of the Woods and Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology.

I have been a creative writing fellow for North Carolina and West Virginia, the Kentucky Foundation for Women, and the National Endowment for the Arts. I’m professor emerita of creative writing at North Carolina A&T State University and continue to teach writing workshops.

Ease What Ails You at UpUp Books

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by Elizabeth Costello

Michelle Gutman; photo credit: Isa Hammond
Michelle Gutman; photo credit: Isa Hammond

I had a great time talking with Michelle Gutman of UpUp Books in Portland, Oregon, about how to bring people together through books. Gutman opened UpUp in 2023, after starting on a social service path during the pandemic. She was working with children, getting trained to address domestic violence and prevent suicide, and she was moved by connecting with others, but she felt that something wasn’t quite right. A lifelong reader who grew up with poets and artists, Gutman realized that what she always wanted to do was to open a bookstore — and that doing so would scratch her itch to bring people together.

“I realized…it’s not something I’m running but the community’s running, that I can have a bookstore that has a workshop space and functions like an apothecary,” said Gutman. “You come in and you’re not feeling so great, and you’re drawn to what’s going to ease your ailments.”

Gutman had previously lived in Buckman (in NE Portland) and knew right away that that was the neighborhood for her store. From the beginning, she approached UpUp as a place that would be responsive to the changing needs of the neighborhood. She was fully aware that Portland already had a thriving ecosystem of great bookstores and wanted to focus on small presses, local authors, and two-wheeled literary outreach.

“I quickly formed a relationship with Street Books, which is a bicycle-powered library for those living outside. They’re one block down,” she said, noting that the proximity meant she could make an immediate positive impact by serving as a conduit for book donations. “Because they’re so close and only open on Tuesday, I thought why don’t people just drop off books for them here. Then I did a fundraiser at my shop for their spring campaign, featuring local poets Matthew Dickman and Marcus Lattimore. Marcus is an ex-football player and an amazing spoken-word poet who takes a typewriter to different places in Portland, asks people to give him a word and writes a poem with it on the spot.”

Gutman knew that she wanted to have a “kickass” poetry section, but the business reality soon became apparent. As she started buying books for the shop, she discovered poetry volumes are expensive, and because they tend to be physically small, they are easy for the casual shopper to miss. After talking to a friend about the layout of the shop, she decided to put poetry on the new arrivals shelves that prop books up to showcase the full cover. When you walk into UpUp, beautiful poetry collections are the first thing you see.

I asked Gutman what she has found surprising in terms of sales, and I was pleased to learn that she sells a lot of fiction.

“It’s interesting to see what people gravitate towards,” she said, noting that she assumed there would be more interest in nonfiction. “Although there is interest in social justice and climate change, there is not as much as I thought, and people are more interested in local authors and fiction.”

UpUp: a cozy, welcoming space. Photo credit: Christopher Dribble
UpUp: a cozy, welcoming space. Photo credit: Christopher Dribble

I’m hoping people will pick up a copy of my novel The Good War at an event at UpUp that I’m offering there on March 6th with another Portland writer, Mary Rechner, whose most recent book, Marrying Friends, is out from local small press Propeller Books. I was inspired by UpUp’s eclectic programming to suggest that we discuss books that have had an influence on our work as well as reading from our own books. We will also invite the audience to share their thoughts about books that have made a big impression on them.

UpUp is the sort of cozy and attractive space that makes you want to engage with your fellow readers, writers, and artists. In the workshop space in the back of the store, paintings by Gutman’s father hang on the walls. There you can take a workshop such as “Eno/Ono,” which invites writers to employ some of the strategies musicians use to generate new work or participate in Gutman’s six-week series engaging with Julia Cameron’s The Artists Way. Gutman also offers a semi-monthly book club where she leads the conversation artfully — she comes prepared with great questions but knows how to pass the mike.

Gutman notes that everything in her store is on wheels, which makes it easy to rearrange the space for hosting events and gathering community. Her many upcoming plans for UpUp include hosting a roundtable discussion and fundraiser for local food magazine Kitchen Table on Thursday, March 27th, and a 15-year celebration for Street Books on Thursday, April 10th. She is also working on creating “book boxes,” artfully packaged sets of works that work well together — kind of like an herbalist at an apothecary, putting together the teas and tinctures to lift you up or calm you down. I recommend you check out UpUp when you’re in Portland — it’s a perfect place to browse and find that special something you didn’t know you needed.

Author of The Good War and RELIC, Elizabeth Costello was a finalist for the James Jones First Novel Fellowship and the Pirate’s Alley William Faulkner Award. She has written about dance, film, theater, and poetry for SF Weekly and 7X7. Her poetry has been published in venues including The Buffalo Evening News, Crab Orchard Review, Fourteen Hills, and the Solitary Plover.

Elephant Ear Books: Plymouth’s New Literary Haven

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by Megan Schikora

As someone who moved from Detroit to Plymouth as a kid, returned to Plymouth every time I moved away, and has lived here now since 2010, I have been asking the same question for years. “Why doesn’t Plymouth have a bookstore?” As an avid reader, I have felt the absence of such a staple in this otherwise vibrant downtown area, flush with shoppers and thriving shops.

Then, in November, a friend texted me. “Did you know a bookstore just opened in Plymouth?” The next day, I hustled over to Elephant Ear Books.

The store is part of a collection of businesses at Ann Arbor Trail and Harvey Street that look from the outside like cozy cottages nestled close. Inside, the gray walls, black shelves, and generous sunlight create an atmosphere both modern and warm, a combination of clean lines and soft touches. The comfortable minimalism of the space allows the books themselves to step forward as the focal point.   

The owner is Melissa Schabel, who doesn’t quite know how to answer when people ask, “Where are you from?” She’s lived all over, including New Hampshire, Boston, Arizona, New Jersey, Ireland, and Texas. In 2020, she had the opportunity to buy the house next door to her best friend in Saline, Michigan, where she now lives with her husband and two sons.

Melissa is a librarian, former bookstore employee, creator of her store’s beautiful handmade greeting cards, and a lifelong book lover who used to spend all her babysitting money in bookstores. She reads anything that strikes her, but she has a penchant for fiction, naming J. Courtney Sullivan’s The Cliffs and Liz Moore’s The God of the Woods as favorite recent reads. Though she loved her library work, she realized she wanted to open a store of her own and decided last year, “If I don’t do it now, it’s never going to happen.” Spurred on by the loss of her father, she committed to the undertaking. “You can’t have regrets. You have to jump.”

While looking for a space, someone suggested she visit Plymouth. Seeing it for the first time, she says, “My shoulders dropped. [I knew] this is the type of place I want to be in.” Her family was a huge help in preparing the store for opening, and Melissa DIYed whenever and wherever possible to keep costs under control. In November, she cut the ribbon on Elephant Ear Books, the name a fun nod to her love of elephants.   

Now, Melissa can be found behind the counter every day, greeting customers who tell her how glad they are that she’s here. She loves talking about books with customers and wants to know what they like to read. She’s also happy to place special orders and wants to expand her unique, thoughtfully curated inventory to reflect the tastes of the community. “I want to be the community bookstore.”

Like all independent bookstores, Melissa faces challenges around visibility, competition with retail giants, and the limitations of physical space. Down the road, she would like to host store events, and she will feature local authors, beginning with Michigan native Breeda Miller. The Plymouth Chamber of Commerce has been a great support, and word of mouth continues to spread. In the three weeks since Elephant Ear Books opened, the store already has repeat customers.        

About Elephant Ear Books, Melissa says, “It really is my happy place,” a realized dream of owning and running a bookstore in a walkable downtown area. And as someone who really values living in a walkable downtown area, I’m delighted that Elephant Ear Books has arrived. For me, there are few greater pleasures than walking into a bookstore. Entering that intimate physical space, touching and smelling the books, browsing and making selections – it’s a sacred experience. Now, to have it, I don’t have to leave my town.

Elephant Ear Books is located at 449 S. Harvey Street in Plymouth, MI 48170. (734) 453-4707. Find Elephant Ear Books at https://bookshop.org/shop/elephantearbooks

Megan Schikora worked in mental health and higher education for many years before turning her full attention to writing. Her short stories and personal essays have appeared in numerous publications, and her debut novel A Woman in Pink was a Writing Award Short List choice for the 2023 Page Turner Awards. She lives in Michigan with her daughter.

That’s My Story: David Ebenbach on Fiction, the Writing Process & Jokes You Love

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The RHP team sat down with David Ebenbach, author of Possible Happiness, to chat about fiction, humor, and the writing process.

We’ve all heard the advice that authors should “write what they know.” But fiction emerges from imagination and creation of new worlds. Do you feel a tension between what you’ve experienced and what lives only in your mind?

This question was a big one for me in the writing of Possible Happiness; on the one hand, this is definitely the most autobiographical novel I’ve ever written, with a protagonist who’s a lot like me and who’s spending his teen years coming of age in the same place and time that I did (Philly in the late 80s), and the character spends the book going through a lot of all-too-familiar dramatic emotional experiences. On the other hand, almost none of this book actually happened, or at least not in this way, or with these exact people, or in this order, and so on.

Let me explain. I started working on this book by thinking about what my teen years were actually like and writing down what the major events were. So that was the foundation. But I was aware from the very beginning that I was going to need to make major, fundamental, continuous changes to this raw material to make it work as a novel. Life, after all, has too many people in it, and in the real world things happen in chaotic and plotless and often meaningless ways. Life therefore isn’t the best material for fiction—unless you transform it, do whatever you need to do in order to make it work. So I changed people, events, timing, feelings, consequences. Everything.

And yet still—the novel is kind of true all the same. In fact, that’s exactly why I changed and falsified so much: to make it true.

What’s the role of humor in Possible Happiness?

I think humor is a very serious thing. I didn’t think so when I was just starting out as a writer, when I was very concerned about being taken seriously, and so a lot of my early work is a bit humorless, which I can now see made it more one-dimensional than it had to be. But I now see that humor is crucial to fiction. It’s crucial in part because it’s a big part of life, not to mention a significant source of pleasure and meaning in my own experience. It’s also crucial because, as the writer Dylan Krider once observed, humor intensifies surrounding emotions. He said, in a lecture I once heard, something like, “If you want to make a story sad, make it funny. If you want to make it scary, make it funny.” I guess it’s like adding salt to a recipe; you add humor to make everything else more vivid. You probably also do it because it’s funny.

How long did it take you to write your book? How many revisions has it undergone so far?

Oh, boy. I started writing this book in 2018. So that’s six years ago! And—*consults notes*—the final version of the novel is apparently version #22. Though that doesn’t mean that I wrote twenty-two full drafts of the novel—not at all. I just like to create a new draft (with a new number) whenever I make any kind of significant change, even if it’s just to a single chapter or scene. So that number means that there were twenty-two times when I made a big-enough change to save the document as a new draft. But the book certainly did go through a lot of revision. Characters were dropped altogether, events rewritten or replaced, threads added. Scenes and sentences interrogated like murder suspects. It’s part of the deal. I passionately hate revision, but I do it because the book needs it, and my job is to make sure the book gets what it needs.

Do you belong to any writing groups or communities, either online or offline?

Yes! I wouldn’t be any kind of writer at all without community. For starters, I am buoyed every day by the positivity and energy of my online communities on various social media platforms. (I’m not kidding! I know people say terrible things about social media, but I get a lot of positivity from my connections there.) But I also depend on feedback and support from the more focused writing group I’m in. We meet about once a month to share prose, and the people in the group—Angie Chuang, Melanie McCabe, Emily Mitchell, and David Taylor—are not only wonderful writers (go check out their books if you don’t believe me—or even if you do believe me!), but also incredibly wise readers with excellent advice, and lovely human beings who help me stay at it when I’m thrown off by doubt. Without them, Possible Happiness probably wouldn’t exist, and, even if it did, I bet it wouldn’t be worth reading.

What’s your favorite joke?

Do you know the one about the duck who goes into a bar to ask if they have any grapes? I love that one. That duck is so persistent! Do ducks even eat grapes? The first time I heard the joke, I laughed off and on for several hours. I won’t bother you by retelling it here, though, because it’s long and not too many other folks think it’s quite as funny as I do. But, if you’re interested, you can find a retelling of the joke in my short story “Out of Grapes,” which is in my collection The Guy We Didn’t Invite to the Orgy and other stories (which, maybe it goes without saying, is not a YA book). And anyway I’m a big believer in holding tight to a joke that you love, even if (especially if) you love it more than anyone else does. And maybe, now that I think of it, that advice applies to a lot more than just jokes.

That’s My Story: Beth Castrodale on Literary Adventures, the Importance of Friendship & the Influence of a Depression-Era Corset Maker

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In the lead-up to the publication of her novel The Inhabitants, Beth took part in a virtual sit-down to discuss her writing process, the role of friendship in her writing, and more.

What’s your process for writing: do you outline, create flow charts, fill out index cards, or just start and see where you end up? Do you use the same process every time?

I find rough outlines invaluable for working out story arcs for first drafts of novels, and for helping me complete those drafts in a reasonable time frame. In the absence of such advance planning, I once spent 12 years writing and revising a novel, which I vow to never do again.

But I never hew strictly to outlines. They’re just general guides, and once I get down to writing, stories and characters inevitably take on a life of their own, which is one of the things I enjoy most about writing.

I’ve created a rough outline for every novel I’ve written since the one that took 12 years to finish, and I can’t imagine I’ll ever skip this step in the future. My life isn’t getting any longer!

We’ve all heard the advice that authors should “write what they know.” But fiction emerges from the imagination and the creation of new worlds. Do you feel a tension between what you’ve experienced and what lives only in your mind?

Personally, I find it most engaging to write about situations–and from perspectives–that are quite different from what I’ve experienced. To take my most recent novel, The Inhabitants, as an example, the protagonist is a portrait artist, and she moves into a house built by an architect whose creations were said to influence the mind. Although I’m not a visual artist, and the protagonist’s house is purely my own invention, I loved the possibilities that arose from placing someone who’s visually attuned into such a mentally, and emotionally, stimulating space. (And the space is haunted, no less!) To give some examples from my other novels, I’ve also written from the perspective of a (male) rocker-turned-gravedigger and a Depression-era corsetiere.

For me, novel writing is perhaps my greatest source of adventure–a way to immerse myself in diverse characters’ inner lives and to see how they confront various challenges, both internal and external. To my mind, writing about someone who’s a lot like me, and who shares many of my own experiences, would be the opposite of an adventure, and I think I’d lose interest pretty quickly.

I wouldn’t say that there’s a tension between what I’ve experienced and what lives only in my mind, because when I’m deeply immersed in my writing and in a character’s world, I kind of lose my sense of self. However, I certainly draw on my own experiences when I’m writing about characters who are grieving, falling in love, dealing with an upheaval in their lives, or going through just about anything else that most of us typically face over time.

What role has friendship played in your evolution as a writer?

A huge role. I’m thinking in particular of a dear friend, the poet Beth Gylys, whom I’ve known since first grade, when both of us attended a since-demolished elementary school outside of Pittsburgh. When Beth and I first met, I’m not sure that either one of us sensed that writing would be the thing we most wanted to do with our lives. But storytelling was part of our relationship from the start. For one thing, we used to wander around a cemetery near our suburb, read the names on the gravestones, and make up stories about some of the people buried on the grounds.

During recess, instead of playing hopscotch or kickball with the other kids, or swinging our way across the monkey bars, we’d make a wide circuit around the playground, talking and talking. I can’t remember the topics of our conversations, but it seemed as if nothing could be more important than whatever we were discussing. Through experiences like this, we built a bond that lasted for years and across many miles after Beth’s family moved back to New Jersey and mine moved to Ohio. Beth has remained a beloved friend and an inspiration to me as a writer, and we’ve supported each other through many ups and downs when it comes to writing and life in general. Beth has also been a thoughtful, insightful, and generous commenter on my work.

What surprising skills or hobbies do you have?

One of Beth’s hand-sewn dresses, based on a forties-era pattern

One kind of odd hobby I have is sewing dresses by hand. Although I have a sewing machine, I don’t like being rushed by the mechanics of it, and I find it far more relaxing and rewarding to set my own pace and to have the sensory experience of working with a needle and thread.

This all started when I was working on my début novel, Marion Hatley, whose eponymous protagonist is a Depression-era corset maker. The retro nature of the novel inspired me to order some vintage patterns and sew some older-style dresses. It’s been a lot of fun, and I love it that so many old-school patterns are available online.

What’s next for you?

A scene from the family farm that inspired Beth’s novel-in-progress

I’m in the early stages of writing a novel that’s set on a farm inspired by a fourth-generation farm in my family. The story involves a land dispute that threatens the ongoing existence of the farm, which the protagonist has been left to run by herself, for the most part. The dispute stirs the protagonist’s great-grandmother to return to the world of the living and step into the action, on the protagonist’s behalf. But it turns out that she wants more than to just save the land, setting the protagonist up for a struggle that’s far bigger than what she’d bargained for.

Beth Castrodale is the award-winning author of three novels: Marion Hatley, In This Ground, and I Mean You No Harm. Her latest novel, The Inhabitants, will be released by Regal House Publishing in fall 2024.

That’s My Story: Sandy Grubb and Just Like Click

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We recently interviewed Sandy Grubb, the 2022 Kraken Contest winner for her middle-grade novel, Just Like Click, which released yesterday, April 16, 2024. Just as Sandy has been inspired by so many talented authors who came before her, her adventure story with heart and humor is certain to inspire a new generation of readers. We hope you enjoy the conversation.

RHP: Your book is out in the world! How does that feel?

SG: I’m elated. I’m humbled. I’m jittery. I have all the feels, all at once. But I’m so grateful to my family and friends who encouraged my dream of publishing a children’s book. And I’m grateful to my agent, Stephanie Cardel at Lighthouse Literary, and you, Fitzroy Books, for picking my book out of the masses of manuscripts you receive every week and recognizing something special in my pages. I wrote a story about fifteen years ago that slightly resembles Just Like Click. I would pull it out every couple of years and play around with it, making minor changes in my characters and plot. In the meantime, I began really studying writing and realized what a mess that story was. I started all over about seven years ago, and my debut is the result.

RHP: We’ve all heard the advice that authors should “write what they know.” But fiction emerges from imagination and creation of new worlds. Do you feel a tension between what you’ve experienced and what lives only in your mind?

SG: I believe a writer should definitely write what she knows but shouldn’t stop there. A writer’s life experiences inform and enhance her imagination. The more experiences she has, the more her imagination will range far and wide to create exciting stories and intriguing characters.

Imagination is a mysterious phenomenon. No doubt we draw from all the movies, books, and TV shows we’ve consumed along with our real-life relationships and activities. In a way, it’s like having our own personal version of AI running full-time in our brain. For Just Like Click, I drew from my childhood love of Superman comics and our family’s favorite vacation spot at Black Butte Ranch. My characters in the story are a conglomeration of my own family, friends, students I’ve taught, and myself. Ideas may come to me when I’m poised with my fingers hovered over my keyboard, when I’m out for a walk, or when I’m about to fall asleep at night. Imagination is at work all the time. When ideas come, I quickly write them down.

RHP: Which author most influenced you?

SG: In the eighth grade I discovered Charles Dickens. When I finished Great Expectations, at first, I was just impressed with myself for reading such a long book. But that story and Dickens’ writing have continued to inspire me. When I was applying to colleges, the Stanford application asked me what kind of book I would write. I told them, I’d write a story that reflects today’s society the same way Dickens did for his time. I can’t match Dickens’ genius, but the books I write for children are all contemporary stories with universal life themes showing struggles kids face today. I recently listened to the audio version of Tale of Two Cities. It played like a movie in my head. Dickens swept me into his vivid world. I hope I can do that for the readers of my books.

RHP: What’s your favorite joke?

SG: It turns out laughter is good for our health in many ways. Humor is just as essential as breathing. I take it seriously and work it into my writing and my life. The humor I enjoy best springs up organically, often from the quick wit of a friend or within the dialog of my story. Those are the kind of laughs we explain by saying, you had to be there. I also appreciate slap-stick humor or stand-up comedy, in the right place. If I were trying my hand at writing a stand-up routine, I may deliver something like this:

I told my husband I’d like to fly to Paris for the weekend to gain inspiration for a story I was feeling stuck on. When my husband called me delusional, I almost fell off my unicorn. I explained that if I don’t fly business class, our kids will. My wonderful husband agreed. I wanted to blend into the Paris scene, so I shopped for some camo pants, but I couldn’t find any. On the flight, a lively little girl ran up and down the aisles, disturbing everyone. Eventually she ran into the flight attendant and knocked a cup of hot coffee out of her hand. As the attendant was cleaning up the mess, she glanced at the little girl and suggested, “Look, why don’t you go outside and play.” In Paris, I began posting videos on TikTok, thinking it would help spark my imagination. I was addicted to the hokey pokey, but then I turned myself around. When my husband told me to stop impersonating a flamingo, I had to put my foot down. I finally came home when I broke my arm. I explained to my doctor I had broken it in two places. He told me to quit going to those places.

RHP: What difference do you hope your book will make?

SG: Recently, blogger Melissa Taylor (Imagination Soup) listed many reasons children benefit from reading, including cognitive development and increasing their capacity for empathy. As a former teacher, I understand how literacy opens doors of opportunity throughout life. So, first of all, I hope my book will spark more children to become life-long readers. Sometimes it only takes one special book to get them started. My world growing up was not much bigger than my neighborhood, but I “traveled” around the world in the books I read.

More specifically, I hope readers of Just Like Click will come to realize that they have superpowers and can choose to use them to change their world, to help themselves, and to help others.

RHP: What advice would you give to an aspiring author?

SG: Live generously. Practice bravery. Read widely. Write even when you don’t feel like it. Find your writing people. Don’t forget to laugh. Don’t be afraid to start over. Never give up.

Indeed, writers are among the bravest people I know. We compose words from our hearts and put them out to the universe for review. When rejection comes, we tell ourselves it’s not personal, but it almost always stings. Perhaps it’s the rejection that makes praise all the more glorious. When Fitzroy Books chose my novel as the winner of the 2022 Kraken Book Prize for Finely Crafted Middle Grade Fiction, my joy broke loose in tears.

FLAGSHIP BOOKS: A Vibrant Addition to an Old Kansas City Neighborhood

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by Catherine Browder

Flagship Books celebrated its second anniversary in the historic Strawberry Hill district of Kansas City, Kansas, on January 27, 2024. Brothers Ty and Joel Melgren left a more residential block and moved uphill to their current storefront in April of 2023. The old downtown district of Kansas City, KS, with Strawberry Hill nearby, is perched on bluffs overlooking the confluence of the Missouri and Kansas rivers. This once Central European neighborhood is enjoying a multi-national renaissance.

“Here, we’re in the heart of Strawberry Hill,” Ty explains.

Currently, at 510 N. 6th St., they enjoy steadier foot traffic, a third Friday Arts Walk, burgeoning and established businesses, and a busy Mexican restaurant across the street. Next door you can find a hairdresser, an auto body shop and a gym. The Strawberry Hill Neighborhood Association meets at Flagship, as does a monthly Big Open Book Club, where patrons “come and hang out and talk about books.” They are a neighborhood business and proud of it.

During the recent AWP#24 conference, Flagship hosted off-site readings for Indy and university presses, including three Canadian presses. In its short life it has offered book launches for several local authors and is scheduled to do another in early Spring of ’24 for veteran KC poet, Trish Reeves. A table to the left of the entrance features local authors. Indeed, its support of local writers is one of its great appeals.

Melgren brothers: Ty (l) and Joel

What was once a grocery and bar in the 1950s later became a yoga studio and then a real estate agency. The pressed tin ceiling, the polished hardwood floors and brick walls are original.

Over five years ago, Joel Melgren joined the real estate agency that had offices in the space. When the space became available to rent, the brothers thought it fit their project: to build a business that was both fun and community-oriented. The space is modest, but deep and airy. Displays racks, shelving and tables are movable, and the arrangement was different each time I visited.

Joel is the financial half of the enterprise, the one originally interested in establishing a business. Ty, with a side-job as an ESL teacher, makes the literary choices, revealing wide-ranging taste. On a day I visited, among a selection of popular new books, I found Clare Keegan’s latest and Danny Caine’s updated How to Resist Amazon and Why, while Sarah Smarsh’s work appeared on the regional author table. A “small book” title by Wendell Berry, Think Little, sat on a wall shelf. Ty has developed an interested in physically “small books.”

In the center stands a tall multi-sided display of well-curated used books, both recent titles and classics. In the rear, beyond a settee and chairs, is the children’s section. An enormous map of Wyandotte County, KS, covers the north wall and was in place when the brothers moved in. On the north side, is a table for meetings or art activities. The wall behind the table is covered in a white board where, that day, a drawing of Strawberry Hill was displayed. Children are free to draw on the board. Flagship recently hosted a clay artist.

Ty standing with wall map of Wyandotte, Co, Ks.

Ty points out the art work decorating both north and south brick walls: framed paintings by local Croatian artist Elaine Grisnik. Grisnik has been documenting Kansas/Missouri buildings for years. And on the central table displaying cards and stationery, puzzles and journals, Ty selects a postcard featuring work by Grisnik. The painting replicated on the card depicts Weiss Market and Bar, where Flagship Books now resides.

Strawberry Hill was settled in the late 1800s mostly by immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe: Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Poland, and Russia. The area is situated close to the West Bottoms of Kansas City, MO. Most of the newcomers were employed in the meat packing industry, located across the river in the Bottoms. Although the stockyards are long gone, the West Bottoms, now mostly warehouses, has burgeoned into a new art and entertainment district.

Early on, these European newcomers to Kansas City, KS, lived on the riverfront close to their stockyard jobs in Missouri. The 1904 flood destroyed these homes, forcing the community uphill. Highway and viaduct construction in the 1950s further intruded on the old Central European communities. Somewhat later Strawberry Hill became home to a sturdy Mexican-American community. And nowadays, Ty informs me, the area has become home to recent Burmese immigrants.

Even today, established communities in Strawberry Hill belong to two Catholic churches that anchor the area. The Croatian community still attends St. John the Baptist, and Holy Family Catholic Church, visible from the bookshop door, remains the Slovakian parish. St. John’s Park offers an impressive view of the Kansas City, MO, skyline.

A visiting humorist once referred to Kansas City as “a burgh the size of Asia.” He was referring, probably, to the larger Kansas City, in Missouri. But the Kansas City Metropolitan area, in fact, includes two states, both Kansas Cities and their suburbs, housed in five counties. “Spread out” is an understatement.

A patron looks over a table of Kansas City related books

Flagship Books, actually, began its life in a different part of the greater Kansas City Metro: North Kansas City, MO. Ty had recently been brought home from a State Department teaching job in Tunisia because of the pandemic. Home at that time was family, living in Mission, KS. He continued remote teaching for the State Dept, but online teaching was not something he enjoyed.

The brothers began brainstorming ideas for a business they might both support and enjoy. When Joel, the real estate agent, sold a duplex, they had the money to invest. The Iron District in NKC was geared for an outside space since the pandemic was still an issue. Businesses and patrons were looking for outside spaces, and the Iron District offered unique shipping containers. The Melgrens started tentatively, but people did come. Since the shop was housed in a shipping container, they thought the bookstores might best he named for a ship.

“But not a battleship,” Ty adds with a laugh. “Eventually we settled on Flagship-Joel had the idea. It served us well even though we outgrew the original space.”

They remained in the Iron District for nine months. Since they lived in Kansas, they felt motivated to return. When the first Strawberry Hill location opened, they were ready to move. Eventually, the real estate agency space on N. 6th St. became available, and the Melgren brothers willingly moved once more.

“We are more visible here,” Ty explained during one of my visits. “We have people in their 60s or older stop by to chat because they remember the location, remember Weiss’s grocery store or the people who lived upstairs.”

A 2023 book launch for The Manning Girl

This connection to Strawberry Hill’s past appeals to the brothers. Yet Flagship has both the comfortable, and comforting, atmosphere one expects of a bookshop, as well an as appealing community engagement and youthfulness. They’ve hosted local artists and printmakers as well as indie bands as part of the annual music festival organized by Manor records. They even offered a Chilean Music Night with the Kansas City Latin Jazz Orchestra.

The Melgren brothers’ commitment to local writers is proving to be another strength. One of the newest bookshops in the Metro, you increasingly hear people refer to Flagship. More readings and book launches are scheduled. Its social media sites are appealing and up to date. And more writers and writers’ organizations, as well as readers, are beating a path to its door.

Catherine Browder lives and writes across the river in Kansas City, MO. Her novel, The Manning Girl, (winner of the Petrichor Prize) was published by RHP in November of ’23 and has been selected by the Kansas City Public Library as a Book Club Book. She has published four collections of short fiction, including the award-winning Resurrection City: Stories from the Disaster Zone, about the NE Japan disaster of 2010. She is a recipient of fiction fellowships from the NEA and the Missouri Arts Council, and her work has appeared in anthologies and been nominated for a Pushcart.

Eat, Drink, and Storytell: Life’s Essentials at M. Judson Booksellers

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by Beth Uznis Johnson

The exterior of M. Judson Booksellers impresses with 1918 architecture.

The women who founded M. Judson Booksellers in Greenville, SC, were not deterred by the economic reality in 2015. At a time when many indie bookstores were closing across the US, and amid the rise of a certain-unnamed-profit-gobbling-ecommerce-giant trying to force customers to buy and read books on screens, they accomplished an incredible feat: bringing the experience of books and stories back to downtown.

In a ‘go big or go home’ move, M. Judson Booksellers opened its doors in the historic courthouse building in the center of Greenville. The store’s exterior is impressive, with brick pavers, antique street lamps, grand stairs, and 1918 architecture with its ivory-colored façade and terra cotta ornamental trim in the Beaux Arts style. Once inside, the landmark experience of M. Judson continues to inspire not only readers of all ages, but lovers of food and drinks, and anyone looking for the perfect South Carolina gift.

“You’ll find our shelves bursting with books we can’t wait to tell you about, bestsellers and new releases, everything from poetry to Southern Lit to cookbooks, as well as gift items gathered from all over the Upstate. We’re proud to be more than just a bookstore; we’re a home for stories,” says Ashley Warlick, an M. Judson founder, novelist, and creative writing professor.

M. Judson event manager Alyssa Fiske showcases the fiction section.

The store is named after Mary Camilla Judson, a historic Greenville feminist and the first Lady Principal (they really called her that!) at the Female College of Greenville. Camilla Kitchen is the café inside M. Judson serving up delicious treats and drinks with stories of their own.

M. Judson is a general interest bookstore with selections in every genre. The children’s section is huge, with areas to read and play at a 14-foot community table. It is built around themes children love, such as cooking, STEM, art, trucks, and animals.

Guests attend a Sunday Sit-Down Supper to enjoy a literary-themed meal.

Literary-themed events are an important aspect of the M. Judson experience, with most events requiring tickets, including a book, and selling out. These are not your traditional bookstore events with an author behind a table signing books. Most are interactive, such as the Sunday Sit-Down Supper series where a chef prepares a meal inspired by a novel and attendees gather around a beautifully set table to dine and discuss. Camilla Kitchen offers book-themed cooking classes or demonstrations. The events calendar is packed with experiences, like an evening with symphony music, open-mic nights for writers, book and wine pairing events, and more.

“I think we have found the way to connect with our community and our readership here in Greenville and show them how to better support the literary world. Our goal is success for the people who are making and telling these stories. I do feel committed to that mission,” Ashley says.

The community component of bookselling has surprised her the most, with deepened ties as the store pivoted during the pandemic to meet its customers’ reading needs. Some patrons have continued having M. Judson staff read, select, and recommend books for them long after shutdown ended. Greenville is also a popular tourist destination, with M. Judson a must-visit destination for travelers. Ashley describes a beloved customer, who actually lives in California and saw on social media that the store offers book recommendations. Three years later, M. Judson still sends her books.

Author Katherine St. John discusses her book with event guests.

Nine years after opening an independent bookstore at a seemingly impossible time in history, M. Judson and Camilla Kitchen are thriving businesses in downtown Greenville. Firmly rooted in books and storytelling, often centered around food and drink, and providing a breathtaking experience both inside and outside the store, it is woven into the fabric of the city.

“We believe that stories don’t just come wrapped in book jackets. Sometimes they’re bottled in a wine, roasted in a bean, baked in a bread, woven into a tea towel, or created in a moment,” Ashley says.

Learn more about M. Judson Booksellers, upcoming events, or contact them to send you one of their famous “blind date” book selections to change things up in your reading life. You won’t be disappointed.

Beth Uznis Johnson’s fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Massachusetts Review, Broad Street, Mississippi Review, Cincinnati Review, Story Quarterly, Gargoyle, Southwest Review and elsewhere. Her essay, “Your Friend/My Friend, Ted,” was included in The Best American Essays 2018, edited by Hilton Als. Beth is the author of Coming Clean, released by Regal House Publishing on January 9, 2024.