Eagles I Have Known

My maternal grandfather, Frank S. Smerchek, was an Eagle, a Sokol. Although most sources say “Sokol” means “falcon” rather than Eagle. But we knew him as an eagle. His parents migrated from Moravia in the 1800s.

 His family belonged to that segment of Czechs known as “Freethinkers” who had revolted against the Catholic Church in Europe. Although many American Czechs were, and still are, devoutly religious, the Freethinkers did not join any organized religious group. The Smercheks were a pleasantly tolerant lot who simply avoided controversy, advocated sound character, and strived for moral principles. Later generations were quite religious.

 Sokol was a fraternal organization that embraced the Hellenistic ideals of “a sound mind in a sound body.” Some of my cousins remember grandfather’s fantastic gymnastic ability and his mastery of the difficult dance where one does alternating leg kicks while squatting. My mother’s side of the family was one disciplined bunch of people. And they disapproved of people who weren’t. They lived lives of moderation and didn’t think much of slackers and goof-offs.

I’m haunted by a remark an agent of some renown made about writers years ago. He said that as a group, we were among the most sickly he knew. Neurotics, alcoholics, depressives. Unable to sustain relationships. I didn’t know this agent personally, but he sounds as though he might have had a stomach ache.

 I’ve been in the game for quite awhile. I’ve been to a lot of conferences and know a lot of writers from about every genre. Truth is, I think writers are happier and healthier than most people. We have more control over our lives. That might sound crazy, but it’s true. We can’t control whether or not we get published. We can’t control where we get published, or coax people to buy our books in a down economy. But we can control whether we write or not. And what we write.

Most writers are eagles. Not because we soar, but because of our dedication to The Work. In fact, most writers are compulsively self-disciplined. We feel guilty if we don’t “get our writing done.” Lady Guilt is a vicious mistress. That can’t be good for us. So I’ll score one for the agent on that. As for nursing neurosis--in today’s mystery marketplace, there’s little room for too much carrying on. Agents and editors can easily replace prima donnas.

One of the unexpected bonuses from writing is the development of first class resilience. The real kind—not the pumped up positive thinking that’s sort of desperate.  I’m always stunned to find a writer whose career has taken a nose dive still hanging in there, year after year, and then ka-boom. It’s his time again.

The agent may have been right about sickly. It’s all too easy for writers to slither into poor eating habits and neglect physical exercise. Some days I forget to eat, or break away from the computer, or go outside, or get enough sleep. I might go blind if I read any more microfilm for my academic book.

Last week I went on a hike with friends. A long one. It was good for me. Good for my body, and good for my writing.

Some days I remember my grandfather’s motto--“A sound mind in a sound body.”  

Home for Friendless Women

In 1881, the Kansas Legislature voted a $5000 appropriation for a Home for Friendless Women. Wasn’t that lovely? What do you suppose that was all about? I doubt it was a home for soiled doves, or even women who had gotten themselves in a family way, because society didn’t hesitate to pin brutally accurate labels on people.

I don’t go hunting for these tidbits, I stumble across them while I’m doing research for an academic book I’m writing on 19^th century African American politicians. They haunt me, these curious little items buried in Kansas history. They find their way into my mystery novels and stories.

Lottie Albright, my Western Kansas historian specializes in African American history, as I do in real life. She collects family histories for a book about her county, as I once did. Whereas her academic life gets seriously side-tracked by her additional job as a Deputy Sheriff, mine gets derailed by more mundane interventions.

The Lottie Albright series is simultaneously contemporary and historical. A reviewer commented that it was unusual to find a series that features an amateur sleuth and is at the same a police procedural. One of my challenges is integrating the cold case plot into the present so that the old murders are causing new ones. It’s the universal dilemma of Pandora’s Box. Once family secrets are out, it’s too late to shove them back.

So how did I find myself wallowing in this complexity? I think it’s because I’m a native Kansan, who grew up in a very small town. Most of the merchants who have retail stores are fierce multi-taskers with additional occupations. For instance, in my home town, our undertaker is also our CPA. Our only computer store also sold doilies and Malaluka Oil.

From infancy, we learn that we expected to do it all—go out for a sport, be in the school play, and sew our own costumes. A peculiarly brave mentality develops because competency is never an issue. No one cares that you can’t run, can’t act, and have never sewn. Participation is mandatory so the school can field a football team, and cast the current year’s dramatic production , looking  half-way appropriate while we’re at it.

 What’s essential is getting job done. That attitude sustains me in the middle of books that seem to have unnecessarily entangled plots. The Kansas state motto is Ad Astra Per Aspera—Through the Stars Through Difficulties.

Unfortunately, we Kansans are also conditioned to believe if it’s not hard, it doesn’t count.

Our Kansas-Canadian Connection

Our Kansas Canadian Connection

I’m thinking of running away. To Canada--which is a time-honored American tradition. At the recent Left Coast Crime conference in Santa Fe, I met another group of writers from Canada. My first experience was at Malice Domestic last year. The Canadians were super friendly, unusually helpful, and urged me to attend Bloody Words next year. It’s  major Canadian conference for crime novelists. I intend to do just that.

We Americans have been running off to Canada since the 1800s. Although we might associate this flight with Vietnam draft dodgers, in fact before the Civil War, Canada was the ultimate destination for runaway slaves. It was the last stop on the Underground Railroad.

How did slaves know when they had reached their destination? Canadian novelist Louise Penney has a captivating series set around a tiny village of Three Pines. In one of the books, she stated that three isolated pines trees were a marker to slaves. At last, they had arrived in free territory. I can’t find anything that backs this up, but it makes sense. As with much of the information in African American history, we have to depend on the oral tradition and stories passed down. Separating fact from fiction is difficult

I’m a big fan of Louise Penny’s books. They are traditional mysteries—that is to say, whodunits—told in a unique captivating style. Recently, I was angry when I couldn’t find a single copy in our Loveland library. Then when I checked the card catalog, I learned the library owned every book. They were all checked out. Constantly.

Canadian author Vicki Delany’s book, In the Shadow of the Glacier, gives a dynamic look at Canadian’s attitudes toward American refuges during the Vietnam period. I never dreamed the country was so divided toward the fleeing Americans. Some of them stayed. In fact, not all Canadians welcomed runaway slaves. Some African Americans returned to the United States after the Civil War and some American citizens returned when amnesty was granted.

I was enchanted by the tales about the weather told by my new Canadian friends. But if they thought they could out-do me they had another think coming. No one can top a Kansans when it comes to bragging about adverse weather. It’s the way we start conversations. We check the weather the first thing when we get up in the morning. Our daily activities are dictated by the weather. And it changes. Drastically and instantly.

I grew to love the inconsistency of our crazy weather and the high drama of just getting up in the morning.

Living in Kansas has always been suspenseful.

The Kansas Colorado Connection

I’m a native Kansan with a flaming state loyalty. I moved to Colorado after my husband died, because I have three daughters on the Front Range and my only blood kin was in Eastern Kansas. But I yearned for the endless prairies of Western Kansas. Then a friend, who is also a historian, reminded me that Colorado was once part of Kansas.

Yes! That’s all it took to settle my mind. In territorial days, the Territory of Kansas cut a wide swath through an area that now includes Denver, and an impressive chunk of the Front Range. Kansas has never been a peaceful state. Ten different men served as governor of the Kansas Territory and no one was more frustrated with the chaos of Kansas politics than James W. Denver. The city of Denver was named after this man. He wrote his wife that if he could get rid of Kansas he vowed “never to put my foot inside of their territory again.” He added “it requires all the powers conferred on me by the President to prevent them from cutting each other’s throats.”

So when people ask me where I get my ideas—in all honesty, the state bristles with stories. A famous historian once said that whatever was going to happen in America, happened first in Kansas.

Lethal Lineage, the second mystery was just released. The murderous tensions within families provides intrigue. Twin sisters, Lottie and Josie Albright (a historian and a psychologist) become allies against common enemies on the plains. Lottie’s much older husband, Keith Fiene, would love to see his wife back in the ivory tower of historical research. But Lottie is drawn into an additional career as deputy, then undersheriff of Carlton County. She is drawn into deadly confrontations with other sheriffs, ranchers, historians, stepchildren, outsiders, and thrown into a stew seasoned with murder. The past is always present and murderous people set in a state referred to as “Bleeding Kansas” from its violent beginning with border wars before the Civil War is the perfect setting for families up to no good.

 Lethal Lineage begins in the tiny Episcopal Church of St. Helena, centered exactly on the corners of four counties in Western Kansas. The location was determined with a protractor and required the diplomatic skills used to divide up territory after World War 1. The first service, confirming Lottie’s and Josie’s niece should have been a celebratory day.. This is first time Lottie has seen her friend Mary Farnsworth in vestments. Mary is obviously distraught when she comes down the aisle. But from the moment Lottie a sinister bishop shows up and devastates the congregation with a blistering sermon, the event is doomed.  The day ends in murder. Lottie soon becomes ensnared by this smoldering bishop with unexpected links to a wicked family dynasty bent on destruction..

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My

 Have you been Ozed? Convinced that someone else’s judgment is vastly superior to yours when it comes to your own work? As a native Kansas with a flaming state loyalty, I know how powerful myths can be and writers’ overwhelming yearning for the powerful Wizard who will help us go home—show us how to get published.  

But beware of the Wicked Witch of the West who makes you feel like the Scarecrow; your work isn’t smart enough, literary and “lacks depth.” Her approach can be lofty, academic, and extremely judgmental. You will never, never make the grade. You haven’t the brains, my dear.

Under another guise, the Witch might appear as a free-spirited bohemian who admires total spontaneity. She has total disdain for your preoccupation with craft. She makes you feel like the Tinman; if you must toil, learn the craft, if you weren’t born with the inherent talent, then it’s false. You either have it or you don’t. You will never, never make the grade. You haven’t the heart, my dear.

Then there’s the ultra practical witch. She’ll make you feel like the Cowardly Lion; have you heard the statistics on number of writers who actually get a mystery published? It’s dismal. Not for the likes of you. It’s all a matter of connections. You have to know someone in the business or you don’t have a chance. Getting an agent is even worse. Besides, you’ve never been very successful at anything you’ve tried, now have you? Doesn’t take much to make you quit, and publishing a book is tough. Very, very tough. You will never, never make the grade. You haven’t the courage, my dear.

I wish I could warn all newcomers about the pitfalls. I’ve sat in on writing groups and heard comments that were just plain mean. Worse, they were wrong. I’ve listened to persons with a suffering artist approach who never finish a piece of work. I’ve heard a plethora of reasons as to why it’s impossible to get published from people who have never sent in a manuscript. Here’s a rule of thumb; whenever a person, a group, a situation makes you feel like not writing, get out. You don’t have to understand it, just do it. You’re being Ozed.

Oh there’s lions and tigers and bears along the yellow brick road all right. And at the end the wizard is a sham. He can’t help you get home. There’s no magic for learning to write. It’s a process, and a long one at that. The magic is in the wonder of work so engrossing that you feel transported into another time and place and encounter characters simultaneously strangers and part of your own soul.

             
Flee from all the Wicked Witches of the West. Don’t ever let anyone take your ruby slippers from you. They’re yours. They’re magic. Just click them three times and you’ll be back home where you belong. In your own head, writing books the books you want to write, and developing your own special talent.

Prickly Kansans

Kansans are a touchy lot. They don't like it all when people make fun of the state. There has been intense attention focused on the state since before the Civil War. We were "Bleeding Kansas" because of the unbelievable violence of the Border Wars. National editors wrote breathless and exaggerated columns about the wild new state where the fate of slavery might be determined.

Editors started noticing other things. Our states had four constitutions due to fraudulent elections until we settled down politically. The premier national magazine Harper's Weekly couldn't resist writing about Kansas

The bloody saga of the Butterfield Overland Despatch Express cinched our reputation for violence. Begun as a 1865 freight and passenger route between Atchison and Denver, in November a reporter for Harper's riding on the stage sent a breathless dispatch about an ill-fated journey where they came upon at trail of dead bodies, burned stations, missing wagons, and mutilated corpses.

And then there was our weather! By the time we were Ozed our fate was sealed.
From the Heart of Kansas

http://www.charlottehinger.com/

Deadly Beginning

     Greetings to all history and mystery fans and thank you for reading my new blog. I'm a Western Kansas historian specializing in African American history. I have a mystery series with Poisoned Pen Press featuring Lottie Albright, a historian who added law enforcement to her resume to trap a murderer. She is assisted in her efforts by her twin sister, psychologist Josie Albright.

    The first book in the series, Deadly Descent, won the 2010 AZ Book Publishers Award for Best Mystery/Suspense. The second, Lethal Lineage will be published March 2011. Lottie combines historical methods with police procedure and Josie contributes psychological expertise. As editor of the county history books, Lottie is well aware of the tangled web of secrets binding generations. She struggles with her difficult marriage to a older man and his family by a previous marriage. Her obsession with locating a killer is destroying her marriage and her reputation as a historian. The Albright twins are draw into a deadly game of cat and mouse when they join forces and endanger their own lives to connect past, present, and future. 

   My biggest thrill with Deadly Descent was a starred review from Kirkus Reviews. They wrote that "historical research is anything but dull in Hinger's debut, which holds your attention every exciting step of the way."

   Leave comments and questions. I welcome input. I'm deeply grateful for the opportunity to publish with Poisoned Pen Press.