Dear readers:
I wish you all a truly lovely Thanksgiving. We all know it's a weird holiday season, so please keep doing your part to spread love and compassion.
Hopefully, you will have some downtime today. When I have downtime, on Thanksgiving especially, all I want to do is crawl into bed and read, how 'bout you?
Enjoy this excerpt from Opulence, Kansas, by Julie Stielstra. (Or scroll to the bottom to hear the author reading this excerpt and a bit more!) Readers of all ages love this story. Don't forget to check out our specials in the Meadowlark Bookstore.
So that, in a way, is how I ended up getting off a plane at the Wichita airport, lugging shoulder bags with my laptop and my camera stuff. Len and Maggie were picking me up—they said they’d meet me at the baggage claim.
“Which one?” I’d asked.
Maggie had laughed. “Don’t worry, we’ll find you.”
I live in Chicago, okay? Which means the airport I’m used to
is O’Hare. Five terminals, like a hundred and fifty gates, and banks of screens
with lists and lists of planes arriving and departing. Mobs of people, all in a
hurry, lines into the restrooms, six dollar coffee and no place to sit. You
have to look at more screens to figure out which baggage area your luggage will
be at (hopefully), where you pay a buck to use a cart because it’s like a mile
to where your car is (if you can find it). So I get off in Wichita—with a dozen
people—and walk out into this empty concourse. There were only two. We stroll
along past a couple fast food places, down some stairs and there’s the baggage
claim. Just one. And there are Maggie and Len, and we wait about five minutes
and there’s my big suitcase.
Maggie already had a cart.
“I wasn’t sure how much stuff you’d have,” she said. We
trundled out the door, across the drive, and there’s the parking lot (just one)
and a big, red, dusty crew-cab pickup. Len set the suitcase in the back and
held out a hand for my other bags.
“Um, this is my computer and camera stuff,” I said. “Can I
just keep it with me? You know, so it doesn’t bounce around too much?”
“Sure,” he said.
“You okay back there?” asked Maggie into the rear-view mirror. “Len needs to shove his seat back so far he’d squish you.” She was driving.
The winner of a free copy of How Time Moves: New and Selected Poems by Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg is.....
November marks the 5 year anniversary of To Leave a Shadow, the first of the Pete Stone novels by Michael D. Graves. Join us in celebrating by giving the gift of Pete Stone this holiday season.
Friday, April 30, 1937
I was awakened in the morning by clanging bars and voices clamoring for breakfast. I was stiff and sore. I wasn’t hungry, but I needed a cigarette and coffee more than my next breath. I didn’t have either, so I sat up and kept breathing. I heard footsteps followed by a voice. The voice belonged to Lieutenant McCormick. The bars slid back, and he came into the cell and stood over me.
“Jesus, Stone, you look like hell.”
“That makes sense. I feel like hell. It’s a package.”
A deputy was with Mac, standing a few paces behind him. I
sat up on the cot.
“Well, you’ve really screwed yourself this time, Stone,” Mac
said. “What the hell were you thinking? You’ve pissed off some pretty important
people. You’ll probably lose your license, and you may do some time.”
“Aren’t you the bearer of good news?” I said. “Have you got
a cigarette?”
He did, and he gave me one. I inhaled deeply.
“Anything else?” I said.
“Yeah, somebody named Veatch wants you put away. He’s some
big hotshot at Stearman Aircraft.”
I nodded.
“Yeah, I’ve met him,” I said.
Mac grinned.
“Well, that would explain why he hates you, I guess. You
need to work on your manners, Stone. What’s up with you? Why did you break into
one of their offices? I’ve got a night watchman who claims he caught you
red-handed. Veatch claims you were stealing top secret plans. Veatch says
you’re a threat to the security of the United States of America. I think I
agree with him. I know you’re a threat to Wichita. This has something to do
with that Hamilton suicide, doesn’t it?”
How many months of social distancing does it take for this publisher to get onboard with online events? Six. Or six and half, depending on what you consider day one. Shortly after my last note, I got to do an interview with Ande Bozarth of Kansas AARP. It was a whole lot of fun. Left me wanting to do more, and boy oh boy did I get the chance.
As a member of the team that helped bring the annual Kansas Authors Club convention online, I got in some Zoom training and practice and became—more or less—a convert! We are so fortunate to live in times when we have the technology for great substitutes to in-person gatherings.
In fact, our publicist, Linzi Garcia, organized a fantastic virtual book launch, our first, for Arlice Davenport and his new book of poetry, Setting theWaves on Fire. And then three Meadowlark authors and I got right to work on a presentation for the Kansas Library Association, which was also moved online this year.
We
also launched/are in the process of launching our second YA book, A
Time for Tears, by Jerilynn Jones Henrikson. It’s a title that is proving
popular with all ages.
Kansas Library Association - Tracy Million Simmons, Julie Stielstra, Jerilynn Henrikson, and Michael D. Graves Presentation
Much
love and good reading.
Tracy
Million Simmons
Meadowlark
Press
As night falls on this, Friday, the 13th day of November, the year we are still enduring, 2020, superstitions may be running high. We asked our Meadowlark authors and staff if superstitions have a place in their, or their characters', lives. Here's what they had to say:
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, author of Everyday Magic and How Time Moves
I love imagining where I was on a particular date, such as the last Friday the 13th I experienced. Or I look up when the next one might be, then project what I would like to see happening on that date. I also like asking myself where I was 10 years ago, 40 years ago, even more years ago on this particular date.
Lisa Stewart, author of The Big Quiet
Here is a horse superstition (which has been documented and researched by acclaimed equine physical therapist and trainer Linda Tellington-Jones and animal researcher at Colorado State University Temple Grandin). It goes like this:
