Author Archives: Joan

Hilltown Postcards

Stacking Firewood

The wood stove we bought was our only source of heat in that funky house we rented in Ringville. It wasn’t our first go-round keeping warm this way. We did that when we lived for a year in a cabin in the middle of nowhere New Hampshire.

When we first moved to that part of Worthington, we bought long slabs of hardwood from a lumber yard. As you can see in the photos below, Hank used a chainsaw to cut the slabs into burnable pieces that were then stacked beneath the house’s front overhang. I don’t touch power tools, especially ones with a blade, so I helped with the stacking.

We brought in enough wood to last a few days or longer depending on how cold it was. The warmest part of the house was in the living room, which had the wood stove. The rest of the house, especially the bedrooms, was quite cold with ice on the single-paned windows. I seriously doubt the house’s walls had much if any insulation.

Fortunately, our thoughtful friend, Win Donovan came to our house to keep the fire going when we visited my parents at Christmas, the only time we were away during the winter. Otherwise the water pipes would have burst.

I recall someone saying you should only have burned half of your wood supply by Christmas. I always assessed the amount we had at that time. Fortunately, we never ran out.

As the years went on, we upped the quality of the hardwood we burned. It was necessary to burn seasoned hardwood, that is, logs that have dried at least a year after they were cut. (When we lived in Taos, New Mexico, we burned softwood in our passive-solar home because that was all that was available.)

Seasoned wood costs more than unseasoned. The smart thing would be to buy green wood, and then let it dry for a year. We weren’t able to afford that until we moved into the home we built — stay tuned for future Hilltown Postcards. We burned three cords to heat that house.

Each fall we bought firewood from Dean, who lived in town and cut wood year-round. One year we splurged and bought six cords of dry and green wood. We burned the dry wood and let the green logs be. Next year and from then on, we only needed green wood delivered because we were ahead of the game.

In the fall, the green wood was stacked in long rows for a year. We brought most of the dry wood into the house’s walk-in basement and stacked what couldn’t fit beneath the deck. We had to carry the logs to the wood stove upstairs although we also had one in the cellar for those really cold days. 

Yes, we moved those logs a lot.

The chore of stacking firewood fell to Hank and I although I recall our three sons were helpful. The girls would start and somehow wander off before the job was finished. We worked at it for weekends.

I’ve always liked the puzzle of making a free-standing stack. You need a solid base and crisscrossed squarish logs at the ends to keep the rows in place. I so enjoy that clocking sound of wood falling in place. 

It was satisfying to watch the neat stacks rise, and later in the winter, use the wood to keep us warm.

I was inspired to write this post the other day while stacking firewood that will heat Hank’s workshop in our home. He burns one cord max. A half cord arrived to replenish our supply, thanks to our town’s program that supplies up to a cord of firewood free to residents. (Thank you Buckland and the state Department of Conservation and Recreation.) The logs came from trees felled by the power company. Volunteers helped prep the wood.

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Hilltown Postcards

My Teaching Experience

Suddenly, Hank couldn’t work due to a serious injury that was no fault of his own. That meant, I had to step up to support our family. What I made writing stories for the local newspaper would only fill a bag of groceries. Thank goodness, the certificate I earned 18 years earlier as a college senior meant I could teach in public schools, and it was our good fortune, I was hired to fill in for a teacher on sick leave who decided not to return.

At Gateway Regional Middle School in Huntington, I taught fifth and sixth graders, who needed extra help with reading, and seventh and eighth graders, who needed the same for writing. They came in groups to the oversized room I shared with two other teachers. The students sat at tables on my side. 

It had been many years since I took the courses required for my minor in education or did student teaching. So, I counted on what I had learned from my own inspiring teachers. I was lucky to have had many. Plus, as the mother of six, I was used to kids. Five were now school age, including our oldest daughter in high school. One son was among my reading students.

I wanted to make the time my students spent learning a comfortable experience. For instance, I let them chew gum in my class. I figured it helped them relax. But I had one rule: I couldn’t hear or smell it. They caught on fast.

Several had an I.E.P., that is, an Individualized Education Plan because they had been identified as special needs students. To me, it meant they learned in a different way than the larger pack. Two of my sons had I.E.P.s.

Fortunately, I worked with an aide who was a great teammate. I recall one fifth-grader, who I will call David, liked to stir things up instead of learn. So, my aide and I came up with a plan — she and David would trade places for a class. David would be my aide while the real one acted like him, being a disruptive pain in the you-know-what, even wearing his trademark suspenders. Was our idea a success? I believe so. At the end of the school year, I gave David an award for being one of my most improved students, which he accepted with gusto at a school assembly.

The curriculum was set for the reading students. My aide and I worked closely with them. However, it was up to me to come up with ways to inspire the writing students. So, I gave them writing prompts I felt would motivate them as they wrote on one of the classroom’s early model Apple computers. Here’s one prompt: “I am your worst nightmare” — the line from a Rambo movie. Yes, that was a hit.

In the spring, the school held a short story contest every year for the seventh and eighth graders, so my students worked on their entries during class. The contest was judged by people outside the school. Needless to say, I was thrilled when three of my students’ stories placed.

Meanwhile, Hank was healing from the torn tendons in his shoulder. He did what he was able to keep the home going. Our youngest was only a toddler. The next-to-youngest went half-day to kindergarten. Plus, we had moved Hank’s father, who could no longer live on his own, into a rest home in Northampton. 

We scraped by as best we could. Hank has always been a careful woodworker, but unfortunately someone on the contractor’s crew wasn’t, so he fell through a hole 18 feet onto his shoulder. The contractors declined to give him any money while he was unable to work because he was a subcontractor.

Yes, we contacted a lawyer, but any kind of settlement was at least three years off. Those who were treating Hank’s injuries agreed to wait for the money owed them. His goal was to get better, and he did finally, that summer when he returned to work. By the way, those contractors had the nerve to ask him back.

How did we manage on a starting teacher’s salary? Barely, but then household expenses were rather minimal. TV channels came free through an antenna on the roof. No cell phones or computers. (I wrote my stories for the paper on a funky laptop it supplied and transmitted the copy through the phone line.) No car payments and the vehicles had basic insurance. Water came from a spring in the cellar. We heated with wood. Our rent was $300.

I recall a few days before Christmas finding a box of food and an envelope containing $70 on our doorstep. When we asked around, no one would claim responsibility for this good deed.

My thoughtful mother sent boxes of quality clothes for the kids she found at rummage sales held in her town. She took them shopping at a jeans outlet in Fall River when we visited. One time she mailed me a box of clothing. My mother was a cafeteria worker, so she knew what would be suitable for a teacher to wear. I smile thinking of that.

The end of the school year was approaching. The district was having a tough time financially, so positions were being cut. I found out I wasn’t being hired back when a first-year teacher rushed into my room, saying joyfully her job was saved because “they were letting the reading teacher go.” I recalled saying, “That’s me.” Flustered, she left. Minutes later, the principal came rushing into my room to break the news in a more professional way.

For a while, I contemplated getting my master’s degree, soon to be a new requirement for a permanent teaching license, even taking night courses at a state college. I applied for an open position at Gateway, was a finalist, but didn’t get the job.

While I thoroughly enjoyed the classroom experience, I concentrated instead on finding opportunities in the field of journalism. Later, when I became an editor, then an editor-in-chief, I most often hired rookie reporters. I would tell those who were recent grads: welcome to grad school. Once again, I was a teacher.

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Hilltown Postcards

An Unfortunate Accident

It was supposed to be an ordinary Monday. Hank went to work that summer morning 36 years ago, doing finish carpentry for local contractors building a house in the next town. I stayed home with our six kids. 

But that day Hank got badly hurt because of somebody else’s carelessness. 

Hank and his helper were setting up to work on the house’s third floor, which required moving a pile of wood left on a large sheet of plywood in the room’s center. But when Hank lifted the plywood, he fell through the large hole it was covering. The sheet of plywood should have been nailed, but it wasn’t, so he dropped 18 feet through the hole and managed somehow to land on his shoulder on the first floor. If Hank hadn’t, he would have gone another eight feet or so to the cellar floor. 

Hank got himself out of there and drove to a hospital’s emergency room, where he was told it was probably a bad sprain, and then he went home. I was stunned when I heard what had happened.

But his injury wasn’t a bad sprain, as we found out during a visit a couple of days later to another hospital. The impact had torn muscles in his shoulder. He was in pain. 

It was obvious Hank wouldn’t be able to work for a while, so he reached out to the contractors to see if they could pay him until he was able to work again. But they said no. Hank was a subcontractor and not an employee. He had no benefits.

We were in a fix. Hank did his best to keep our family going with what he earned although we lived modestly, renting a small house in Worthington’s Ringville section. We had an old pickup and a station wagon. Most everything we owned used to belong to somebody else. 

I remember going to the house to help Hank remove his tools. I saw the piece of plywood covering the hole, now nailed in place as it should have been. On the advice of others, we contacted a lawyer, but our case wouldn’t be resolved for years. 

This accident also meant our plans to build our own home on land we bought the previous year would have to wait.

But more importantly, how would we be able to take care of our family. I was working as a correspondent for the local newspaper, getting paid by the story, but that was a pitiful amount of money. I would have to get a real job.

Fortunately, I had listened to my mother and got my teaching certificate, which in those days was permanent, when I went to college. You never know when you might need it, I remember her telling me in what turned out to be prophetic piece of advice. (Thank you, Mom.)

So, I applied to be a substitute teacher at the Gateway Regional School District. Hank would stay home with our youngest child who was not school age, plus the next-to-youngest who went a half day to kindergarten. We would live as simply as possible while he recovered.

Then luck was on our side once again. I had only worked a couple of days as a substitute teacher when I was asked to fill in for a teacher who would be on a six-weeks leave of absence for medical reasons. She taught reading to fifth and sixth graders and writing to seventh and eighth for those students who needed extra help. Later, the teacher decided not to return. 

This turn of events meant a steady income for our family and an experience I treasure still. More to come.

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Hilltown Postcards

Hilltown Postcard: We Buy a Piece of Land

Home ownership seemed to be an unreachable goal for our family. For many years, Hank and I had been restless souls, moving from one end of the country to another, even with all the kids we had. Then we moved to Worthington and enjoyed country living enough to set down roots.

Prices in homes had a big jump in the 1980s, nothing like the amounts we see now, but enough to put buying one out of our hands. The story I heard was that a property on River Road in West Worthington was sold for big bucks. Then everybody who had a house for sale, pulled it off the market and put it back on for a whole lot more money.

Our best bet would be to buy a piece of land and build a home to share with our six kids. 

Hank was doing his best to support us as a woodworker working freelance for contractors. I contributed a little as a correspondent for the local newspaper. We paid our bills on time, but we had zero credit. The only card we owned was one for JC Penny. That wouldn’t go far with a bank.

But then luck was on our side when I heard about a small piece of land, less than 3 acres on Williamsburg Road, that was selling for $20,000. Once owned by the Tower family, the lot was created long before the creation of the town’s zoning laws, which require 400 feet of frontage and a two-acre minimum. This one had 200 feet frontage, but was grandfathered in, as the saying goes.

The lot was mostly wooded with a small clearing and sloping driveway. It was surrounded on three sides by rough stonewalls put there long ago. I believe the Tower family once used the spot to contain farm animals. 

We scraped together enough money for the 10 percent down payment, and the Bank of Western Massachusetts, a local institution that no longer exists, gave us a loan. The closing date was July 28, 1987. 

That was a big, big day for us. 

Inspired, Hank got to work with his chainsaw cutting trees he decided could be used as lumber on our new home. He would have the logs milled locally, and a man who Hank had worked for, a newcomer with bucks, kindly offered to let the planks season in the top floor of his barn. I remember helping him unload and stack the lumber.

I recall the day we attempted to burn a pile of small branches and a useless picnic table. Hank and I had to work like mad with shovels to stop the fire spreading through tree roots of the pines. We were successful, but we wouldn’t be doing that again.

I decided to record our progress via photos. Above is a photo of our two youngest sons, Zack and Nate, so happy as they sit on one of the logs their father cut.

But the house’s construction didn’t happen until two years later. Something happened, something serious, that interfered with our plans. I’ll tell you about it next time.

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Author Interview

Interview with Author Helen Matthews

I have read all of Helen Matthews’ novels, which have found a new home at Bloodhound Books. Here I use the 6 Ws format — who, what when etc. — to let her tell you about Girl Out of Sight, which was re-released July 29 by Bloodhound Books, and how she writes.

Who is author Helen Matthews?

Thanks for inviting me, Joan. I’m a British author, originally from Wales but I now live with my husband in a village in Hampshire, about an hour away from London. My son is a journalist and my daughter’s a police officer – handy when I need some detection and crime scene details checked. 

My novels sit within the crime genre but are page-turning psychological suspense and domestic thrillers rather than police procedurals. Although people die or face life-threatening danger in my books, investigating a crime isn’t the main plot driver. The books are more whydunnit than whodunnit. I’m fascinated by the darker side of human nature, flawed characters, unreliable narrators and how a life can change in an instant.

What is your latest book?

My latest book Girl Out of Sight was re-released July 29 by Bloodhound Books. It’s a suspense thriller with a theme of human trafficking and tells the story of seventeen-year-old Odeta, who leaves her remote village in Albania with a man she believes is her boyfriend. She thinks she’s going to begin an exciting new life and career in London, never imagining that her dream is about to descend into a nightmare. Odeta’s life isn’t especially grim but it’s colourless and lacks opportunity. Since leaving school, she’s been working in her father’s shop and thinks nothing interesting will ever happen to her again.

Girl Out of Sight is a human-scale story not a vast-canvas thriller about international organised crime. I wanted readers to relate to Odeta, who could be you or me or one of our daughters, and walk in her footsteps, sharing her hopes and dreams as she travels to England and discovers what awaits her behind the doors of an ordinary London street.

Odeta is the central character but there’s a second storyline about Kate, a London journalist, whose  seemingly perfect life is filled with anxiety for her son, Ben. He’s obsessed with online gaming but struggles to make friends. Kate comes from a village in Wales and wants her son to experience the simpler childhood she enjoyed. In desperation, she disconnects her family from the internet and tries to build a community on her London street so her son can make friends in real life. It doesn’t go well for her marriage. And danger lurks behind closed doors. Perhaps Kate’s neighbours are not the friendly community they seem …

This book was first published in 2017 by another press, under the title After Leaving the Village, and won first prize in the opening pages of a novel category at Winchester Festival. Time moves on but the struggle to raise awareness of the hideous crimes of human trafficking and modern slavery continues. I’m delighted Bloodhound Books is publishing this new edition to bring the book to more readers.  

When did you begin writing?

I might seem like a late starter but I think of myself as someone who has served a long apprenticeship to get my novels published. From early childhood, throughout my teenage years and into adulthood I was always writing. I won a few competitions and had pieces published in teen magazines. A first degree in English was a setback due to years spent reading great literature which made me wonder how I could have the arrogance to write. The urge to write didn’t go away. After long days in a busy corporate career, I wrote late at night after my children were in bed, a glass of wine by my side. My job conditioned me to write in business-speak and legalese, empty of emotion. I found it harder to write fiction but I didn’t give up. I switched to writing non-fiction and had some success with articles accepted by family and lifestyle magazines, a couple in national newspapers and even recorded some columns for BBC Radio.

Finally, when my children were almost grown up I quit my day job with no redundancy package, too young for my pension and went to Oxford Brookes University to do an MA in Creative Writing. I was lucky to get freelance consultancy work which kept me going for several years while developing my writing career. Eventually I switched into copywriting which sat well alongside novel writing.

How do you write?

Probably due to my corporate background, I’m instinctively a planner. I’d say I’m 70 per cent planner: 20 per cent free flowing ‘pantser’ and the remainder is just generally confused. I don’t always stick to my plans. Once my characters take on a life of their own, the book can go in an unexpected direction.

I keep a notebook with me and jot down ideas as they occur. Sometimes, if I’m out walking my dog I’ll record thoughts on my phone. When I have an idea for a new novel I do some pages of mind mapping, assemble my notes and start initial research. Then I’ll do character sketches and a rough plan before starting to write to see if the idea has legs and will sustain 90,000 words. Not all stories can. I don’t use any tools like Scrivener just Word on my laptop and lots of notebooks and post-it notes. 

Where do you write?

I’ve tried writing in cafes and on the move but I’m distracted by noise and other people’s conversations so I write better at home where I can close the door. I tend to move around rooms so I might write in the kitchen or dining room for a while or move upstairs to my daughter’s old bedroom. Oddly, I never write in the study perhaps because it has an in-tray full of admin and bills needing to be paid shouting for my attention. In summer, I  write outside in the garden if I can keep the glare of sunlight off my screen.

My ideal working environment is when I’m alone in my house so I can go deep into the world of my characters and live with them while figuring out their lives, plot and conflict. Having an empty house is rare  unless my husband goes to France without me for a week or two. The minute the door closes behind him I whizz around and tidy up so I’m not distracted by dirty dishes or piles of ironing. Then it’s head down and on with the writing all day and late into the night.

Why do you write?

No one holds a gun to our heads and forces us to write but, for me, writing is a habit that’s impossible to kick. It’s even harder than ignoring that bottle of wine in my fridge that will be empty before bedtime. On a bad day, the urge to write feels like a disease: a virus that inhabits my body and steals my soul.  When pitching to publishers is going badly, feelings of rejection can be crippling. It’s tempting to despair, press delete or stick an unfinished novel in a drawer. But do we give up? Of course not.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that writing can be both a painful addiction and a source of joy. The writing life might not be lucrative but it’s a total privilege. As well as the creative aspects, I’ve met some amazing author friends on my MA course, in local groups and in the online world – a whole new network of support through the tough times.

More about Helen: parting words; links to your books; social media

My back catalogue is in slight disarray at the moment as three of my novels have left their previous publisher, Darkstroke and are moving to Bloodhound Books. Girl Out of Sight is back on sale this week but the other books won’t be on sale for a few months. Façade, to be republished in December, is domestic suspense about a family whose lives seem perfect on the outside but everything is rotten at the core. The Girl in the Van will be republished in January 2025. It won the crime and suspense genre prize in the 2022 international Pageturner Book Awards. It has a theme of modern slavery around young people being groomed by gangs to deliver drugs out of cities into small towns and rural areas. In the UK, this is called ‘county lines’ exploitation, named after the mobile phone lines gangs use to control their young victims.

My novel Lies Behind the Ruin and short story and travel writing collection Brief Encounters will continue to be available from Amazon. 

As well as novels, I occasionally write short stories and flash fiction and these have been shortlisted and published by Flash 500, 1000K Story, Reflex Press, Artificium and Love Sunday magazine.

Homer, my rescue dog – originally a street dog from Romania – keeps me fit as he needs to walk at least three miles every day. I also swim, cycle long distances with my girlfriends, sing in a choir and once appeared on stage at Carnegie Hall, New York in a multi-choir performance. In the year 2000 my husband and I impulse bought a tumbledown cowshed in France to renovate into a holiday home. It took years! We’re still tinkering with it now and love spending time there each year.

When I was researching the original version of Girl Out of Sight I became a supporter of the charity Unseen UK which supports trafficking survivors and works towards a world without slavery. The charity has since appointed me an Ambassador and I donate a percentage of royalties and fees from talks, in which I explain modern slavery as well as talking about my books.

You can download Girl Out of Sight at: https://geni.us/GirlOutofSight. Check out my other novels by clicking through to my Amazon page. 

Find out more at: https://www.helenmatthewswriter.com

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