Aline Soules

Poet and Fiction Writer

Starting Out the New Year

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Brugmansia “Charles Grimaldi,” known as “Angel’s Trumpet”

Talking to a writer friend, she told me that at year end, she writes about ten things that made an impression on her during the previous year.  I think that’s a great idea and as I prepare to re-start my blog, which will focus on stories connected to the novel I’ve finished, I shall emulate my friend (with modification) and note my top five remembrances for 2021 and my top five goals for 2022.

  1. I’ve written a novel, one I’ve dreamed about writing for years.  It’s taken me more than a year, but what’s enriched my novel is participating in a novel revision class with Elizabeth Stark, an amazing writer and a fabulous teacher.  Out of that process, I received half a dozen excellent critiques of my novel that spurred me to improvements.  I’m grateful.  Now all I need is an agent, a process that’s daunting and time-consuming, but I’ve begun.
  2.  I’ve been more politically active this year than ever before.  Key issues for me have been redistricting, voter rights (both of which are connected), and the environment.  I glued myself to my television screen to watch as much reportage on COP 26 as I could.  John Kerry is optimistic (more than I am) and I’m grateful.  Greta Thunberg says it’s a failure and she may be right, but I suspect the truth lies somewhere between Kerry and Thunberg.  I know we’re in trouble and I’m doubling my efforts to try to do better and to help organizations that make a difference.  We are our own last hope.
  3. As a writer, I’ve signed up with George Saunders’ story club on Substack.  He started this recently.  He is a master story writer and a master story analyzer and I know I can learn more about writing by reading and thinking about his analyses of stories.  I’m a week behind (and it isn’t even New Year’s yet), but I will catch up on New Year’s Day.  My plan is to re-read the sections on his analysis of Ernest Hemingway’s Cat in the Rain and finish reading all the sections about that story “in one go” so that I really follow the flow of Saunders’ thinking.
  4. My grandson’s visits are highlights of this year (as I suspect they will be for every year). He is four now, so he isn’t vaccinated and I live in fear that he’ll catch COVID before he turns five next February and gets his first shot.  Fortunately, he has wise parents who will make sure he’s vaccinated as soon as possible and keep him masked and fairly isolated, but, until then, I live on tenterhooks, hoping he will be safe.
  5. I’ve read books and watched programs.  I’ve become a huge fan of Richard Powers.  I read his Pulitzer-prize winning novel, The Overstory, and was subsumed by it.  Since then, he’s written and published Bewilderment, which I read and know I’ll have to re-read to grasp its import fully.  On the program front, I’ve relied heavily on PBS.  I watch the NewsHour every day with gratitude for their presentation of multiple sides of each story (anything to mitigate our current polarization).  I also watch many other programs, but one that stands out for this year is an episode of In Their Own Words, on Angela Merkel.  She resigned as Chancellor of Germany, but oh how I’d love a leader like her.  

And moving on to 2022:

  1. I’m writing a novel (are you sensing a theme here?).  My first draft will go to an alpha reader in mid-January.  Once I have a discussion with her (probably in February or March), I’ll enter my revision stage.  In my ideal world (when does that ever happen?), I’ll be ready for beta readers in August and finish it by the end of 2022 or early 2023.  All this while I continue to seek an agent for my finished novel.
  2. Politically, I will work on mid-term elections.  I anticipate involving myself in the “get out the vote” process, but I’ll see what’s needed closer to mid-year.  I also plan to continue my financial contributions.  I value democracy and want to work to ensure we continue to enjoy that state.
  3. I’m going to reactivate this blog — seriously.  In writing my last novel, I remembered stories from my family and found small unique stories in my research that will make interesting posts.  The stories didn’t fit into my novel, but they’ll be great ancillary tales.  I look forward to writing them.
  4. I’m going to spend more time with family and friends.  With the pandemic, it’s been hard, but there’s hope as we vaccinate and boost and come to terms with what I suspect will be a permanent fixture in our lives.  My brother-in-law has planned a family reunion in June.  I am considering driving, as I haven’t seen this country “on the ground” in a long time.  It’s been too easy to fly over, but I would like to “see” the country again.
  5. I intend to get my garden in better shape in 2022.  In case you’re wondering why I have a picture of Brugmansia Charles Grimaldi flowers at the start of this post, they’re mine.  I planted my Brugmansia over a decade ago and it never flowered and never flowered and never flowered — until this year.  It’s not the bush it’s supposed to be because I was afraid to prune it, so the leaves and half a dozen flowers sit on top of a stalk that’s about six feet high.  I’m going to learn how and when to prune it and pray that it will give me its beautiful flowers and scent again next year.  We’ll see.

The Sarton Prize

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I was invited to be a second round judge for the Sarton Prize for 2020.  The winners were just announced and you can find them at https://www.storycircle.org/contest/story-circle-womens-book-awards/. It was a privilege to read three of the finalists and to see these wonderful books get the recognition the authors have earned.  If you’re looking for a good book to read, I recommend any of these titles–official winners and finalists.  

Tupelo Press 30/30 Project

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Here I go again—for a third time.  The 30/30 project for Tupelo Press is a wonderful opportunity to spur your poetry forward and help fund a fabulous press.  After your application is accepted, you write a poem a day for a month.  There are generally 8-10 participants each month and each day’s poems are available here: https://www.tupelopress.org/the-30-30-project-january-2021/  

I’ve participated in the 30/30 project twice before and it has always deepened my work and helped me expand my vision and my writing to new levels.  I treasure each opportunity to participate in this program.  I’m grateful to Tupelo Press for their innovative thinking in creating this program and accepting me as a participant.  

Check out our work at the above link in my post.  If you’d like to chip in a few dollars to support the press, pick the name of a poet whose work you like and contribute those dollars to Tupelo in that person’s honor.  Both will be delighted.  And you have my thanks.

Why Historical Fiction? Part II

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In Part I, I addressed the issue of “truth” in historical fiction, focusing on facts and bias.  I promised to address the “emotional truth” of historical fiction in Part II.  

Emotional truth is about feelings which may or may not have anything to do with actual facts.  An author attempts to convey how characters “felt” about their time and the facts, the research, provides the context for those feelings, whether those feelings relate to the character’s family, historical events, or the character’s philosophical beliefs.  

And that’s the key. How characters face the challenges of their own time and how they feel as they wrestle with ethical dilemmas and make decisions help us to understand issues of our own time.  The distance of history and the mask of fiction enable us to draw parallels to our own time and consider our problems through a new lens.  That’s the joy of both the “history” and the “fiction” aspects of this genre of writing.  

Growing up, I devoured historical fiction.  I read works by Jean Fritz, the American children’s writer of biography and history, and learned about the founding fathers of this country.  As a teenager, I read the historical novels of Jean Plaidy (real name, Eleanor Alice Hibbert) and remember particularly her novels about the Tudor period.  I loved the intrigue and the romance, no matter how badly it ended up.

Now, I read historical fiction all the time.  I still enjoy the adventure and romance, but I value what it teaches me about my own world.  I’ve read a lot of historical fiction about World War II as part of the research for my own novel, as well as history and biography and reports and diaries,  because I wanted to know how other authors present their “emotional truth” of the period.  I want to add my own perspective of that truth, based on what I read and what I learned from the stories my parents and their generation told me when I was young.  

We are at a point where the survivors of WWII are now dying.  Shortly, their time will be fully “history” and we will no longer be able to hear their stories directly.  We will have only written, oral, and media presentations of that time.  This is my chance to add a perspective from what I read and from what I learned from those who lived through that time and conveyed their stories to me.  I want to honor that gift in my work.  I anticipate completing my novel in 2021 and look forward to sharing it with the world, adding my own perspective to the collective view of that time in history.

Image: https://celadonbooks.com/what-is-historical-fiction/ 

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