The Weird Weird West

My newest WIP takes place in the weird weird west, when life was strange and marvelous and filled with outrageous scams and ideologies. Okay, so maybe it's not that different from today, but the distance of a hundred or more years makes it much more entertaining.

In the meantime, as I slog through my WIP, a crazy mad legend has landed in my lap as an assignment for a children's publication (I'll announce it when it's published this fall). It takes place in roughly the same era and region as my WIP, so I'm thrilled for the diversion. I did a cursory internet search of the legend, but found that only the old-fashioned, non-electronic kind would do. There's a library in Aberdeen that has the transcribed letters of one of the main persons involved in the legend—a diary of his journey across the Oregon Trail. Since the diary couldn't be checked out, I took off for the Washington coast to take a look for myself. Score one for bizarre legends with excellent primary source material.

The best part, though, is that this legend involves a rather unusual method of corpse preservation. The King County Medical Examiner's office has referred me on to a funeral home for answers to my questions. We'll see where this leads. The last time I researched corpses, I found myself under suspicion and feeling inexplicably guilty.

Historical research is not for wimps.

All in the Family

Author Deb Lund coaches her dinosailors

Olympia held its Second Annual Imagination Celebration at the downtown library last Saturday, with too many activities and performances to list (but if you click on the link you'll get the idea). Highlights of the event were performances and talks by Richard Jesse Watson, Jesse Joshua Watson, Brandon Mull, Deb Lund (and her dinosailor band, husband Karl Olsen and son Kaj Lund Olsen), Stephanie Lile, the magic of Jeff Evans, music by Eric Ode and Los Cavaleras, and a stellar puppet show by DanLuce Puppet Productions. Whew.

On a personal note, I enlisted a few family members to assist in the proceedings:

My boy Popeye works the information booth with his grandma

Empressive nephew Brendan (left) and his friend Cole

Sister-in-Law Kristi signs up kids to read with dogs

Brother Bob sponsored the lego station

There's one brother I have to call out for not showing up. Even though it turned out that he had a good reason, how was I to know? Every time I email him, he replies with a head-scratching poem. Like this one:

Roads ask for directions
Trees stop listening
Nay...whispers the song
Questions crawl like butter.

I told him that if he kept doing this, I would post his verses online. And so, here is his reply to my email, asking if he could lend a hand at the Imagination Celebration:

The Hand Lender

Who seeks the Hand Lender?
The waves dribble across the plains
Who seeks the Hand Lender?
The dry bones of cats drift across the cold, bumpy sidewalks,
Who seeks the Hand Lender?
Aye, nay, of ode…seeks none,
But of Lenders Hands,
Who seeks thee?
The old man eats his beans
Can you? Can you?  Can you?
Oh how the Hand Lender seeks

Maybe next year, we'll get him to host a poetry booth at the Imagination Celebration. Or not...

Friday Flash Fright

Check out my latest flash fiction, A Persistent Haunting, at Underneath the Juniper Tree. It will also appear in UJT's July issue, but for now it's disturbing their blog. (I absolutely love the illustrations by Rebekah Joy Plett!)

Imagine This

Last year, the South Sound Reading Foundation and Timberland Regional Library had such fun launching Olympia's Imagination Celebration, we knew we had to do it again.

This year's theme, One World, Many Stories, invites children and families to enter a world of imagination with a stellar line up of offerings that include:

Brandon Mull (FABLEHAVEN), Deb Lund (DINOTRAIN), Richard Jesse Watson (THE LORD'S PRAYER) and Jesse Joshua Watson (HOPE FOR HAITI)

Children's musician and author, Eric Ode

Magician Jeff Evans

Music by Los Cavaleros

DougLuce Puppet Productions of "Treasure-Bound: An Adventure in Literacy on the High Seas"

The Scoil Rince Slieveloughane Irish Dancers

Storytelling with Stephanie Lile, curator of the Washington State's History Museum exhibit, Wrapped! The Search for the Essential Mummy

PAWS to READ

Book Babies Storytime

Comic Book Making with cartoonist Chelsea Baker, and many more out of this world hands on activities.



See you there!