Tag Archives: writing history

Write-by-the-Lake Writer’s Workshop and Retreat, June 26-30, 2017

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Winter weather already getting you down? Looking forward to spring?

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Registration has just opened for a great writer’s retreat on June 26-30, 2017, in Madison, WI.

I’ll be leading one of the new workshops, Writing Women’s Lives. Plan now to join me!

The 19th annual Write-by-the-Lake Writer’s Workshop & Retreat has expanded to 14 sections. There are several new instructors and topics, including children’s picture books, poetry writing, and a new step-by-step system to plotting fiction with urgency.

This national retreat offers something for all writers. Most of all, it offers the opportunity to work, work, work on your writing.

Plus, by popular request from past attendees who didn’t want the week to stop and who wanted ideas for their next steps, the program added a new special bonus Saturday workshop on July 1 with Tim Storm.

And the famous writing doctor, Kevin Mullen, is back!

Wait, there’s more! Someone who got her start here and is now a big success–hitting the USA Today list with her fiction–will deliver the keynote address and teach one of the new sessions. That’s right. Wisconsin’s own Ann Garvin is on board this year.

UW-Madison’s Memorial Union and its lakeside terrace have been renovated just in time for us to test out the new amenities. We can watch the sailboats go by as we share writing ideas over a glass of something good or a cone packed with the famous Babcock Dairy ice cream.

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Please join me and your fellow writers from across the country.

Enrollment is limited in each section to maximize the attention on your writing.

Click here for full details.

 

 

 

Reflections on a Bookversary

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One year ago today, Angels of the Underground launched into the reading world.

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It’s been an exciting year, and not because Angels is my first book. It’s my third–the final volume of my historical trilogy of the wartime Philippines.

Rather, it was exciting because this was my first book to be shopped by an agent and sold to a big publisher. (The whole process, including writing the actual book, took years.) I received an advance. I did not quit my day job.

Angels attracted more attention than my previous books. There was a review in Publishers Weekly. The Midwest Independent Booksellers Association selected Angels as a January 2016 Midwest Connections Pick. Vick Mickunas interviewed me for his Book Nook show on WYSO. I appeared on various blogs: Daily History, RA for All, Historiann, and History News Network. There were fun posts for Campaign for the American Reader.

I was invited to be part of a World War II symposium at the MacArthur Memorial, and C-SPAN was there to film it.

I was also invited to write a Five Best Books column for the Wall Street Journal.

Bookmarks! I had bookmarks made to hand out at events and just to hand out.

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Looking forward into 2017, I’ll be giving a few more talks about Angels to different audiences. While I continue to promote the book, I’ll be working on a new one that will most likely center on women and war.

Two things I recommend about promotion. Have a book launch party.

Book Launch InvitationZazzle.com

Whether you host it yourself or have someone do it on your behalf, have one. It’s the best, most festive way of introducing your book to its potential reading audience.

Hand out bookmarks. Readers always need bookmarks. (Well, unless they read exclusively on e-readers.) These are relatively inexpensive yet useful “swag” items. Make use of both sides of the bookmark. For mine, one side was based on the book cover (see above) and the other provided contact and purchasing information. A good bookmark should sell you and your book.

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I’m Working Here

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This summer I had the good fortune to meet author James Duffy. Most recently, he wrote this fascinating book about the Pacific theater in World War II:

He’s written more books than I ever will, and he’s done so while working a full-time job. James frequently turned down speaking engagements because he didn’t have the time. He was always working, whether at his day job or nights and weekends at his writing.

Now, whenever I hear the phrase “I’m working here,” I think about the life of a writer. We’re always working. The day job pays the bills. The writing, well, it both keeps us sane and drives us crazy.

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Right now, it’s keeping me sane. I’m doing what I think of as preliminary writing: working on a book proposal. Still, it’s writing and it’s history. It keeps my mind off the great swirl of contemporary politics. As a historian, I’m more comfortable dealing with events that happened in the past. For now, I keep the radio and the television turned off and keep my eyes and fingertips on the keyboard. I’m working here.

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More on the Writing Life of a Historian

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For historians who research, write, and publish, the entire process can take years. First you think of a topic. Then you poke around to find out what’s been done and what’s still left to do. You figure out what you can bring to it that will be fresh and interesting and that will matter.

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Then you research and you start writing. Somewhere along the way you start talking to people about what you’re working on. You get advice (some good, some not so much), you get encouragement (some enthusiastic, some not so much).

You keep writing. Then you ask people you know and trust for feedback. You rethink, you revise.

You keep writing. Then you have a finished manuscript and it’s time to find a publisher.

I love success stories. My current favorite is Megan Kate Nelson’s. You should read her wonderful article about how she secured her book contract. And not to take any drama away from her story, there was bidding involved. Bidding! That’s one of the things that puts the cherry on the top of the years-long effort to write a book–more than one publisher wants the book and they are willing to pay a steep price to get it.

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So, with eyes on the prize, I continue to work on my book proposal.

 

 

From Expert to Novice and Back Again

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So I’m still here, at the start of a new project. I’m trying to stay focused on phase one: pull enough stuff together to write a winning book proposal.

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It’s strange to be back at the beginning where I’m still learning. Since the publication of my first book

PIP cover

I’ve been an expert on this one thing: the history of American women in the Philippines. I wrote two more books about them, so I’m not exaggerating the expert thing too much.

With the new book project, I only possess a very basic knowledge of the subject, barely enough to write a cohesive introductory paragraph. So I’ve been researching like mad, trying to get a feel for a new place and time, trying to understand the lives of a different group of women.

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And already I’ve been stunned by the professionalism and generosity of archivists at two different institutions who have responded to my inquiries with lightning speed, offering to get items to me as soon as possible and even offering additional suggestions. I wish I could name them right now, but that would prematurely give away my book’s topic. I’m already keeping a list of names to include in the book’s acknowledgments. It’s a small way to pay a big debt. (That, and maybe a free copy of the book.)

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I know the archivists aren’t working just for me, but it seems like they are. No one writes a book alone, and archivists are an essential part of the book creation community. I’m fortunate to be able to tap into their expertise. Pretty soon, some of that will rub off on me.