It's not 'just' Fiction

Super excited that my research and writing has led to a connection with the real person who inspired a fictional character in my 2022 novel, Crow Stone. My aunt, my mom’s youngest sister, had cared for a little girl during the life-changing 1945 winter trek in former East Prussia as they tried to escape the Soviet army to reach the rescue ships at the Pillau harbour. My aunt was still a teenager and this child she protected was a toddler between two and three years of age. What happened to my aunt and the child after 1945? While my mother spent the next 2 ½ years in the Urals as a Soviet p.o.w., (fictionalized in Crow Stone) her two sisters and this child stayed behind as northern East Prussia transitioned into the Kaliningrad enclave belonging to Russia that we know today. 

Crow Stone characters inspired by people still living

In 1953, after finding each other again, my mom and her sisters—once again homeless— immigrated to Canada. But the little girl, E.., by then about 10 years old, was left behind in Germany. I don’t know the details, but I think she was reunited with some family member in Schleswig Holstein, a province in northern Germany. This little girl, E. is coming to Canada next year and we’re going to meet up. She’ll be able to share with me some of the details of her tragic childhood that have been buried over the decades.  I’m just tingling with excitement. She’s read Crow Stone and I was quite nervous about how she’d react to this fictionalized account of those horrible times … but the fact that she’s eager to meet me and share more is a positive sign, right? I’m just thrilled!

My mom (right) and her youngest sister, 40 years after the war,
safely growing old in Canada

As we age, it’s childhood memories that creep back into the centre stage our consciousness. I may have been born and raised in Canada, but the leftovers of my family’s trauma have haunted my own life. Writing these trauma-focused novels has helped me process the dynamics of my family. Every family has stories worth exploring. We just need to ask the questions and remember to be kind, curious and brave. 

 

Newcomers still Struggle to Belong

This morning the announcer on my kitchen radio shared news that a 14-year-old girl had been assaulted and bullied in a local high school... supposedly because of her Ukrainian accent. This school is ten minutes from my home. All three of my kids attended the institution set in a middle-class neighbourhood. I assume that means the residents have some sort of higher learning.  How can war refugees be bullied? Where does this sort of attitude come from? 

In my novel, Waltraut (Heritage House, 2024), my protagonist also gets bullied and ostracized because of her immigrant background. But that story was set back in the sixties. Has our Canadian education system still not enlightened students about the challenges of immigration? Is our Canadian society still afraid of people who have an accent, or a difficult-to-spell name, or parents who struggle with English? Are we Canadians still afraid of people who are different?  Are our children learning intolerance from the adults in their lives?

As I did my daily walk in the woods close to Oak Park High this morning, I pondered the learning that happens in between the classes, between the official curriculum, in between the necessary bureaucracy.  What are schools teaching our next generation? How can Canada better embrace its newcomers?

Waltraut reflected my own uncomfortable school experiences. Has nothing changed in fifty years?  Shame on us. 

Curious About Emotions

Gritty and authentic, The Outsmarters by Deborah Ellis left me in tears … a curious emotional reaction for a book filled with rage. Ellis immerses readers into a hard-edged world of outcasts and promises no happy ending. 

The title refers to the rejection that the 12-year-old protagonist, called Kate throughout the first half, experiences. She’s been ostracized by her addicted mother, her rule-based school and peer bullies. Gran, her substitute caregiver. has not resolved her own rage and is not a good role model.  Kate avoids her whenever possible. With exquisite craft, Ellis lets the reader experience the determination, hope, disappointment and anger that powers the characters throughout a most engaging novel. 

I've also been reading The Emotional Craft of Fiction by Donald Maass and would have to say that Ellis, whether she knows it or not, has mastered the craft of employing emotion and inspiring readers with hope. He writes, "The spirit you bring is the spirit we'll feel as we read, and of all the feelings you can excite in your readers the most gripping and beautiful is the spirit of hope." (page 201). 

In my quest for improving my own writing through emotion,  I'm now reading,  The Nine Emotional Lives of Cats: A Journey into the Feline Heart by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson.  Curiousity leads me on. 

All those little details ... they matter

I've just finished reading a most unusual book by Walter Kempowski, titled, Schule: Immer so durchgemogelt.  It's filled with short snippets of German society, through the school system, by students during the Nazi years. I picked this up mostly to imagine my dad as a student in northern Germany (Schleswig Holstein). He was eager to join the Luftwaffe and was obviously influenced by the Nazi visions as a young student ... although ... I'm grateful to say, he never joined the party. 

The book's worth reading, but a tad repetitious. It's curious to see what stays in a person's memory about school. The authenticity of these memories is was kept me reading. 

Walter Kempowski wrote many books about the Nazi years. After reading his 1991 novel, Mark und Bein, I've been determined to read more by this author.  His interest in details has made the atrocities under Hitler become more real and relevant. Little things do matter. 

Waltraut or Waltraud?

Finished reading Waltraud by Tammy Borden from my summer reading list, just before fall is set to officially begin. What an amazing book and I’m so grateful to have read it. The author tells the life story of her mother, born in 1927 in the Braunschweig area of Germany. 

Told in first person, it follows Waltraud from BDM days through the war, the confusing time after the war, until her immigration to Wisconsin in the USA.  I picked up the book because of the similar-sounding titles … my Waltraut vs. Tammy Borden’s Waltraud. My book is a novel for middle-graders and stays solely in the voice of an eleven-year-old Canadian girl while Waltraud’s voice moves from young child, to young woman.

It’s very well written and carries an emotional wallop, revealing complicated family relationships that were exasperated by war.  The author does an amazing job of stepping into her mother's world, in a succinct, yet compelling voice.  

I needed five middle grade and YA novels to depict my mother’s journey from 11-year-old Ukrainian kulak to being the mother of an 11 year-old North American girl.  Borden's one book covers decades of her mother's early life. Our protagonists share some similarities (one born in Soviet Ukraine 1919 and the other in Germany in 1927) with both stories being told in first person and written by their daughters. An interesting study in itself. 

I'm delighted to put Waltraud next to Waltraut. Whether it's Waltraut with a t or Waltraud with a d, both spellings mean 'strong' and each girl has a compelling story to share. Read them both!  

Walk, Read, Hope

A friend borrowed this idea from a friend and I will pass the theme on right here. My three words of summer? Let me reflect.  Waiting, caring, reading?  Or maybe, worrying, healing, reading? Or walking, reading, hoping.  Always reading, always hoping, always walking. 

The walking got slower and slower as my dog got weaker and weaker. Slow walking strengthened my patience. It became a way for me to focus on the journey and not the destination.  

Resting during one of our last walks together

Reading. I love how the private act of reading becomes a portal to worlds beyond. Books are my preferred tools of engagement with ideas and other worlds. I read to understand both myself and those around me. Books give me hope.

Hoping. It’s been a strange summer. Even sunny days in July were overcast with grey, ash-filled clouds from northern wild fires. Dark clouds hovered in my family, too, as a dear family member struggles with mental health issues. But hope brightens even the darkest moments.

Summer morphed into fall with some chilly, near-zero overnight temperatures. Today I’ll spread our dog’s ashes in the places we used to walk. I’ll shift the remainders of my summer reading list over onto my fall reading pile, and I’ll continue to hope for light … even as days shorten and darkness falls earlier and earlier. 

Ominous clouds hover everywhere. What stormy times we live in. Take time to walk, to read, and to hope.

Downtown Winnipeg in smoky haze

Shade gardens and reading

Ain't gonna lie ... it's been a difficult year .... caregiving while managing my own health issues.  Grateful for the dappled shade of a garden and a pile of books.  

                                    

José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro /
CC BY-SA 4

Like Cicero said,   “If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”

   ― Cicero (born 106 years before Christ - so that's 2131 years ago and still relevant)

I've got the garden ... 

and I've got my stash of summer books!  

So I'm all set. See you in the fall! Stay curious, be brave and practice kindness! Hope it's a good summer for us all.