Tag Archives: rural life

mothers

Mothers in My Books

Happy Mother’s Day to moms everywhere. I could say the same to the many mothers who are characters in my books. Certainly, mothers and those mother-like people are important figures in our lives. The same goes for my fictional mothers who have to deal with the situations I cook up for them. Here is a rundown.

ISABEL LONG MYSTERY SERIES

Isabel is a mother of three grown children — one of whom doesn’t approve of her sleuthing — but the major mother in this series is Maria Ferreira, who advises her daughter on her cases. Maria, who came to live with Isabel, turns 93 in the series. But despite her advanced age, Maria often accompanies her daughter to interviews. She could be called her ‘Watson’, a role she so enjoys. She says it’s boring without a case. Maria is a big reader of mysteries and smutty romances. She also has a great sense of humor, especially dealing with living in the sticks and Isabel’s choices in life. Maria is such a popular character, so many readers have begged me not to ever let her die. I promise.

Also in the series, two mothers are victims in the cases Isabel is hired to solve, including Finding the Source, the eighth book, coming out June 4. More soon on that book. Another mother had her infant daughter kidnapped from her front yard in Following the Lead.

THE SWANSON SHUFFLE

In my latest release, Bia Fernandes comes to work at Swanson House, a psychiatric halfway house. Among the former mental hospital patients are two mothers who suffered the tragic loss of their babies. The impact on their mental health was severe.

NORTHERN COMFORT

Willi Miller is a single mother living with her son in a small rural town. She does her best by Cody, who was brain-damaged at birth. Their home is a cabin left by the grandfather who took them in after Willi’s husband deserted them. The book begins with a tragedy: Cody dies when his sled sends him into the path of a pickup truck as Willi chases it down a steep hill. How Willi overcomes this tragedy and confronts a dark piece of her past is the focus of this story.

There is another mother in this book, Willi’s, who unfortunately is cold, selfish, and not a help at all during this difficult time for her daughter.

THE SWEET SPOT

Edie St. Clare is a woman constantly on the go in her small town, pretty and direct. You’ll find her on weekend nights at the Do-Si-Do Bar or behind the counter of her in-law’s general store. But Edie can’t let go of an old sadness — the death of her husband in Vietnam. She and her seven-year-old daughter Amber live next to her father, a crusty guy who runs the town dump, and her wisecracking aunt. Edie’s life changes dramatically when she is caught up in the town’s biggest scandal.

THE SACRED DOG

Verona Hooker is the ex-wife of Frank Hooker, owner of the bar he named The Sacred Dog. Actually, the bar used to be named for her, but he changed it in honor of his dog, Louise, after she left him. Verona is the mother of Crystal, who Frank considers as his own daughter although the actual father is a secret she keeps. Verona fled the town of Holden to get a fresh start but returns in this book. She realizes Crystal would be better off being closer to her father. Too bad things don’t turn out that way. By the way, Verona is a character in the book I am currently writing, The Unforgiving Town, a sequel of sorts.

PEACE, LOVE AND YOU KNOW WHAT

This is the second adult novel I wrote that is not set in the fictional hilltowns of Western Massachusetts. It is inspired, sort of, by my college experience. On her last weekend in college, Lenora and her hippie friends have a three-day bash where she has a great deal of “fun” with three guys. She’s on her way to Europe after graduation. Fast forward many months to the funeral of a popular professor, and everyone is surprised when Lenora shows up with a baby. She lives in a commune in the country.

THE TWIN JINN SERIES

Mira, like the other members of her family, is a magical being in this series written for middle grade readers. A jinn or genie, she is the mother of twins who are as gifted as she is with magical powers. Elegant and wise, she and Elwin helped the family escape from their evil master. But there are challenges to remaining safe as her children are mischievous and naïve.

MY BOOKS

That gives you a quick summary of mothers in my books . Here’s the link to my books on Amazon. By the way, the flowering bushes in the photo above grow in our yard.

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Hilltown Postcards

Hilltown Postcard: Maple Sugaring

I recall the late Win Donovan saying when we moved to Worthington that the hilltowns have two seasons — winter and the Fourth of July. Then I learned about another: maple sugaring season, which typically straddles winter and spring. And when I was a reporter, it was part of my beat covering small towns in the western part of the state for the local paper.

Maple sugaring season happens when the weather is warm enough during the day to get the maple trees’ sap flowing and cold enough at night that it stops. A lot of work goes into getting those trees ready and then boiling their sap into maple syrup that is sold in jugs to customers.

Each year, I tried to find a different angle and hilltown maple sugarers were very accommodating. Of course, Mother Nature had a hand in that. My story could be about the season starting early or late. The season was long or short. 

By the way, the official end to the season is when the spring peepers — small tree frogs — begin making a high-pitched “peep-peep.” Yes, I learned that from a sugarer.

Maybe I wrote about the business of maple sugaring, including those folks who have a seasonal restaurant serving breakfast with the syrup they made. 

Then there were those optimistic folks who have been sugaring for decades. Paul Sena in Worthington was one of my go-to sugarers. Hank and I still drive there to buy syrup, my favorite sweetener, from him.

I recall going out with a sugarer as he started tapping maple trees, that is, attaching the tubing that will run sap downhill to a large vat. I hung out when the first batch of sap was hauled back to a sugarhouse and boiled into syrup in a wood-fired flat-panned evaporator that billowed slightly sweet steam.

One story was about a new system that used reverse osmosis to pre-concentrate sap, which shortens the process of boiling and saves on firewood. That was a far cry from the very old days when people used oxen to haul the sap that was collected in buckets.

Maple sugaring was also the inspiration for one of my novels, Northern Comfort. Using what I learned from the maple sugarers I interviewed, I tried to capture the process of stringing lines, tapping trees, and boiling. Miles Potter, one of the main characters, helps his buddy, Dave, a relative newcomer who is enamored by the old-time ways including sugaring. He taps the trees owned by a doctor in town. For Miles, the work is cathartic since he was involved in a tragedy. Here’s an excerpt:

Yesterday, when the temperature rose into the forties and everyone’s houses dripped melted snow, some sap collected in the vats at the bottom of each sugar bush. Today, the run was full-blown with two thousand gallons ready to be boiled into syrup.

Dave was full of local lore as he moved around the sugarhouse after Ruth and the girls went home. He talked about how farmers in New England used to make maple sugar, forming it into hard cakes. Maple syrup became popular in the late 1800s when someone invented the evaporator, which resembles a flat-bottom boat when it’s empty.

Miles glanced up from the firebox’s door. He raised a gloved hand.

“Dave, you’ve told me this story six years straight. Why don’t you tell me this on the third week when we’re so sick of this stuff and pulling all-nighters we vow never to do it again? Or better yet, save it for the doctor. I bet he’d love telling his buddies back in New York all about it.”

Dave studied Miles.

“Shit, you can be such a spoilsport sometimes.” He reached for his leather gloves. “Anyway, around the Civil War people up North began using maple sugar instead of cane sugar and molasses from the South. They used to call it northern comfort.”

“Yeah, yeah, I remember that from last year.”

The sugarhouse, only yards from Dave’s house, was unheated, except for the evaporator’s fire box. Step a few feet outside at night, and the cold had a punch, but next to the evaporator, all was humid and hot like a woman’s mouth. The swirling sap in the pan gave off a bank of steam, which rose to the sugarhouse’s vented roof.

They fired up the evaporator about an hour ago. It’d be another two before Dave could pour the season’s first syrup. As Dave reminded Miles, the first boil sweetens the pan, so it takes longer than the next firings. They’d be here until ten or so and resume boiling the next day.

Miles helped Dave build his sugarhouse seven years ago. They took measurements from an abandoned shack in South Hayward that had collapsed from heavy snow the year before Dave’s was built. Rough-hewn boards nailed vertically covered the rectangular building. On the wall near the shelf for the radio, Dave penciled the starting and ending dates for each season, and how many gallons of syrup they had made. Today’s date was Thursday, March 5.

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Podcast

An On-Air Conversation about Writing

I can’t ever resist an opportunity to talk about writing and in particular my books. That’s happened at readings and various interviews. Recently, I was invited to be on a podcast, my first, for Greenfield Community College’s Backyard Oasis with host Denise Schwartz.

Backyard Oasis’s podcasts cover a variety of topics although it focuses on people with some miles on them aka older adults. Denise reached out after a mutual friend, Jim, who had read one of my books, suggested I would make a good podcast interview. When Denise and I met in person at a holiday party, I knew this would be a fun experience. I was right.

As a long-time journalist, it’s always interesting to be on the other side of an interview and even put on the spot with an unexpected question, so I would have to do some fast thinking. I knew Denise and I were going to talk about my writing experience, but I purposely didn’t overthink it. Of course, I wasn’t given the questions ahead of time, a rule I followed as well as a reporter.

It was obvious to me Denise did her homework, including reading books in my Isabel Long Mystery Series, so she was well prepared.

The podcast’s title is: “Meet Isabel Long: Investigator of Mysteries and Solver of Cold Cases in the Homey Hilltowns of Western Massachusetts.” It includes my photo, so maybe some people will think that I am her. That’s okay. To be honest, there is a great deal of me in Isabel, the protagonist in my Isabel Long Mystery Series, since she tells the stories. (By the way, no. 8, Finding the Source, will be out this spring.)

Here is the pitch by Backyard Oasis for the podcast: “Denise talks with author Joan Livingston about the art and business of writing, how ideas for her novels pop up in the strangest places, and why small towns, people watching, and experience as a newspaper reporter covering rural villages help her create authentic characters — including private investigator Isabel Long — and solve mysteries!”

That sums it up nicely.

By the way the podcast was labeled “clean” by Apple Podcasts, which means, thankfully, I didn’t use any curse words.

The podcast was produced by Alex Audette in the Teaching and Learning Innovation Center’s Multimedia Studios at GCC. He oversaw the recording and editing.

It is obvious from our conversation that Denise and I were enjoying the experience. I hope those who listen to it feel the same.

(Interestingly, the podcast went live on the same day the audiobook for Professor Groovy and Other Stories was released on Audible.) 

So here are those links, and if you are so moved, please give the podcast a five-star review.

Apple Podcasts: 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/backyard-oasis/id1713761468

Spotify:

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Hilltown Postcards

Hilltown Postcard: Following the Plow

When I worked as an editor for a daily newspaper in Western Mass., I drove a good country road, Route 143, from the small hilltown where we lived through two others to a valley city. Most of the year, it was a pleasant 45-minute commute with long views, deep forests, occasional wildlife, and very few vehicles. A traffic jam typically involved three cars stuck behind a logging truck on one of the route’s steep hills.

But then, there was winter.

I dreaded November. Rain that month meant black ice. And that was just the start of a long season of digging ourselves out of deep snow. I constantly kept tabs on the weather.

Prior to working as an editor for the Daily Hampshire Gazette, I was its correspondent for the town of Worthington where we lived, being paid by the inch, and after several years, I was on staff covering two more hilltowns — Chesterfield and Cummington — plus regional news. Today, so many people work remotely, but Jim Foudy, who was the editor-in-chief then, said it didn’t make sense for me to cover those towns in the newsroom. I called a corner of our bedroom, where I kept my desk, the Hilltown Bureau.

I was frequently put in charge of any bad weather coverage. Typically, I would call a few of the highway superintendents for an update on road conditions and how their crews were handling them. Here’s a memorable example: during one ice storm, the highway trucks had to be driven backwards to spread sand on the road to give their wheels traction, and sometimes, the conditions were so dangerous, they were called back to the garage.

The highway supers didn’t mind taking a break to chat with a reporter. Sometimes I felt they were expecting me to call. I also called people who might have driven in the storm or worked outside or had an interesting perspective. Of course, Donald Ives, who kept daily weather records in Worthington for decades, was on my list.

But that changed when I became an editor, and I assigned those stories to reporters. Also, I had to commute to Northampton.

I left for the newsroom at 6:10 in the morning. I knew by then the plow trucks were out on the roads. I had faith when I reached the town line, the Chesterfield crew had taken care of a steep hill my car would climb. I kept going until I reached the Williamsburg aka Burgy line. Here was another hill, this time down to Route 9, a state highway that took me to Northampton. As I approached each town line, I asked myself “Did they make it? Did they make it?” It was extremely rare they didn’t.

When freezing rain or snow fell, the highway crews hit the steep hills first so they wouldn’t lose them. That included the one in front our house in Worthington. When I saw a truck’s strobing yellow lights move down that slope I knew for sure a storm had arrived.

One time, the police were on top of Burgy Hill telling people to take it slow since the road was icy. But as I did just that, the town’s highway truck was spreading salted sand on its way up.

Lucky for me and other drivers, those little towns spend a good chunk of their money roads. And the men who maintained the roads — yes, there were no women — took their jobs seriously. In Worthington, three men took care of 57 miles of roads in the winter.

The worst snow storms of the season were the first and last. During the first, it seemed people forgot how to drive on snowy roads. On the last, everybody, including the highway crews, was sick of snow.

Often I met the plow and gratefully followed it uphill all the way to the next town. Or its driver deservedly got a wave and toot of my Subaru’s horn when we passed in the opposite direction. At the end of winter, I sent a thank you card to the highway department in the three towns.

Sometimes we got hit with a storm when I was at work and my boss let me leave early. I recall one April 1 watching serious snow falling outside the newsroom’s windows. It was obvious this wasn’t going to be the flurries that had been forecast. In fact, it was such a fast-falling wet snow that when I turned left on Route 143, a tractor trailer was jackknifed on the road. But my all-wheel-drive Subaru managed to get around it.

After depending on these crews for so many years, I also got to know their work habits. For instance, I learned I shouldn’t drive home at noon. No matter the weather the guys took their lunch break then. If I waited until 1, they were back on the roads.

The crews also inspired characters in my Isabel Long Mystery Series, including one guy, Cary Moore, who worked on a town’s highway department and wrote poetry good enough for a famous poet to steal. That was in Checking the Traps.And in case you’re wondering, that character is not based on anyone real.

Here’s a poem Cary — well, I, actually — wrote about his highway super called The Peerless Plowman:

Night and day the Peerless Plowman sees the road ahead.

He drives alone

Pushing snow aside with his truck’s long blade.

No harm will come to those who follow.

The Peerless Plowman watches the weather.

Hey, guys, a storm front’s moving in, he tells us,

Get the trucks ready before it does.

We can’t let the people down.

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Isabel Long Mystery Series

Transferable Skills

Isabel Long, the protagonist of my mystery series, was a long-time journalist before she became a private investigator. So was I, but I don’t plan to become a P.I. Instead, I will continue writing about one.

The series is set in the small, rural hilltowns of Western Massachusetts, where I got my start in the newspaper biz. I was hired as a correspondent — paid by the inch — to cover the hilltown where I lived, Worthington, population 1,200, for the Daily Hampshire Gazette. I had no previous experience, except for reading neswpapers, but that didn’t seem to matter to the editor who hired me.

That experience grew into a 35-year career working for newspapers. including as editor-in-chief for The Taos News in Taos, New Mexico — an immensely interesting experience. My most recent gig was an editor-in-chief overseeing three daily newspapers in Western Mass. — Greenfield Recorder, Daily Hampshire Gazette and Athol Daily News.

But back to the start, I reported first on Worthington as I learned the ropes and eventually covered several towns, plus did regional stories. I loved breaking a news story and getting to know what people did. I went to town meetings and reported what interested the community from truck pulls to school events to country fairs. I covered fires and what little crime there was. I did profiles. A few of my stories went national. I even went to the White House.

One of the greatest benefits was listening to the way people talked and writing it down. I believe it has paid off with realistic dialogue in my fiction.

It also gave me insight into how people behave, and certainly I had a total immersion into the hilltowns of Western Mass., which I use as a setting for much of my fiction.

And as an aside, working as reporter broke a 25-year writer’s block.

Back to Isabel, who also covered the hilltowns of Western Mass. until, like me, she moved up to being the top editor. She lost her job managing a newspaper when it went corporate. (To set the record straight, that didn’t happen to me.) In Chasing the Case, no. 1 in the series, Isabel decides to revisit her first big story as a rookie reporter — when a woman went missing 28 years earlier from the fictional town of Conwell.

She relies on the skills she used as a journalist for that case and the ones after. The first three in the series were recently re-released by Bloodhound Books: Chasing the Case, Redneck’s Revenge and Checking the Traps.

By the way, since Isabel snagged a bunch of cold case files from her newspaper, it was an opportunity for me to write news stories again — although for made-up subjects. Here’s the start of one with the headline: Conwell woman missing.

CONWELL — Police are investigating the disappearance of Adela Snow Collins, 38, a Conwell native, who was reported missing Tuesday, Sept. 15 by her family when she failed to show up for work at the town’s only store.

State Police, who were called to assist the Conwell Police Department, issued a statement they are treating her disappearance as a missing persons case and at this time, do not suspect any criminal activity.

Her father, Andrew Snow, said in an interview he became concerned when Collins wasn’t on time because she was always prompt even during bad weather. “She only lives three hundred yards from the store,” he said.

Snow said he walked to his daughter’s house on Booker Road when she didn’t answer the telephone despite calling several times. He said he thought maybe she was ill although she seemed fine the day before.

But Snow said he couldn’t find his daughter or her car in the garage. Her purse was on the kitchen table and her dog was inside the house.

“That’s when I called the police,” Snow said. “This isn’t like my daughter at all. The last time I saw her, I was locking up the store. She always tells us where she’s going especially if she’s leaving town, and she didn’t say anything. We’re all so worried for her. Please, if anyone knows anything, call the State Police.”

Customers at the Conwell General Store also expressed concern for Collins, who has worked in the family’s business since she was a teenager. She grew up in Conwell and attended local schools. She has one son, Dale, 10, who was staying overnight at his grandparents’ house, according to police.

“You couldn’t ask for a sweeter person,” said Thomas MacIntyre, who works on the town’s highway crew. “We‘ve known each other since we were kids. I hope she’s okay.”

Franny Goodwin, who was Collins’s first-grade teacher, says she can’t recall anything like the woman’s disappearance happening in the small town.

“We only have a thousand people living here,” she said. “How can a woman just up and disappear? You tell me.”

State Police say anyone who may have information about Collins should call the barracks in Vincent.

So what skills would Isabel find transferable? Certainly, breaking down the elements of a story and figuring who to contact. Good interview skills are a must. Developing a network of sources for tips is another. And she’s got to be good kind of nosy.

And there are times when a journalist has to be a bit brave. For Isabel, that means talking with somebody who has something to hide — like maybe murdering another person. By the way, she’s really good at that.

IMAGE ABOVE: That’s my first press pass. By the way, I only had to use it twice to prove I was a journalist: at the White House and Cummington Fair.

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