My 2014 Reading Retrospective

I got quite a response with my reading retrospective last year, so I thought I’d do it again.  These books were not necessarily published in 2014, but they were the best books I got to experience over the course of the year. 

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black - Just when you think nothing new or good can possibly come out of the vampire genre, along comes a book like Coldest Girl in Coldtown.  It’s so good, I’ve already read it twice.  It’s one of the smartest, most sophisticated YA novels I’ve ever read—not to mention one of the sexiest.  (It features a kiss that melted even my cynical and jaded heart.)  The author, in her acknowledgments, cites influences like Anne Rice and Poppy Z. Brite.  Black does them proud, combining the best elements from these predecessors, with shades of the zombie apocalypse and Dante’s Inferno for good measure. 

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green - This is a believe-the-hype novel.  So many people describe this book as a tear-jerker, but it’s so much more than that.  As someone who has dealt up-close and personal with long-term illness at a young age, this book hit very close to home for me.  Green really nails the small details:  the best and the worst aspects of healthcare professionals, the family trying to be supportive, the use of humor as a coping strategy, and trying to take whatever modicum of control you can over your own life and health.  And, of course, a touching love story.  

Citrus County by John Brandon - This book reminded me, thematically, of Camus’ The Stranger, which is to say, it’s one of the most fascinatingly nihilistic novels I’ve ever read.  Love and desire end in disaster or emptiness.  Brandon perfectly captures the particular pain of being a bright, sensitive adolescent living in some miserable backwater, and the extreme ways said adolescents might lash out.  Brilliantly written and unsettling. 

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz - You’ll fall in love with the fantastically geeky Oscar and his family, recent immigrants to New Jersey from the Dominican Republic.  Flashbacks of his mother’s life under the vicious regime of Rafael Trujillo intersperse the narrative, along with a thread of magical realism that left me awed and delighted. 

Horns by Joe Hill - Joe Hill is like the rock ‘n roll horror Hemingway of our time.  He’s brash, unapologetically masculine, and unafraid to attenuate a screaming note on the electric guitar.  I’ve read three of his novels this year, and Horns was by far the best—carrying off the rare feat of being both parabolic without being preachy, and a thrillingly original supernatural tale.  

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak - Nazi Germany as narrated by Death.  A daring storytelling device that seriously pays off. 

The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski - This is the bleakest book I have ever read.  Period.  I read it all in one sitting because I was afraid if I stopped, I wouldn’t be able to pick it up again.  It tells the story of a Jewish boy hiding out in the Eastern European countryside to evade the Nazis.  Problem is, Eastern European peasants aren't far behind the Nazis in terms of prejudice and cruelty.  I had never heard of this book before, I just happened to stumble across it on some BuzzFeed list.  The book was meant to be published as autobiographical fiction, but apparently, there has been a great deal of controversy surrounding it—Kosinski’s integrity was called into question.  Consequently, it is not one of the well-known Holocaust stories.  There’s no way to know now if the events described in the book are true or not.  Elie Wiesel described it as “one of the best . . . Written with deep sincerity and sensitivity.”  As a novel, it’s brutal, captivating, and absolutely plausible.  If you do happen to read this one, consider yourself warned—it’s not for the faint of heart. 

Primate Behavior by Sarah Lindsay - A cerebral collection of poems about a variety of unlikely subjects: circus performers, Arctic explorers, and Superman.  I have noticed that many readers find Lindsay’s poetry intimidating—too erudite, too intellectual, but I like that she isn’t afraid to tackle obscure subjects that send you scurrying to Wikipedia to find out what the hell she’s on about.  Her work also has a warmth that makes even the most outré topics immediate and accessible.

True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi - I remember picking this book up when I was in middle school, and for some reason, I never got a chance to finish it, though one of the pivotal scenes of the book stuck with me throughout the years—that of 13-year-old Charlotte Doyle, with hands “like bloody cream,” climbing the main mast of a ship to prove to a mutinous crew of hard-bitten sailors that she can be one of them.  Twenty years later, I picked the book up again, and I can’t believe I waited so long.  If you have a daughter, forget soggy Bella Swan.  Introduce her to Charlotte Doyle.  Grrrrrl Power!  


What were YOUR best 2014 reads?  

Look what Santa brought me!

Merry O4S-Mas, everybody!

Short Story: Zombies Anonymous

I'm late posting this week, and I never actually got around to writing the post I meant to write.  I've been crazy-busy, but in a good way-- a way that I hope means I will have big news to share with you soon.  In the meantime, please enjoy this short story, "Zombies Anonymous," which was originally published in D20 Girls Magazine, then in a horror anthology.  I'm posting it here for the first time in its entirety. 

Sort of a gruesome Christmas present, but when I'm able to share my news, it will make sense to you.  Also, there's a reason the song goes, "There'll be scary ghost stories and tales of old glory from Christmases long, long ago . . ."

When I get off work, I stop at the farm before I go home.  The chicken farmer knows me, is expecting me.  He has a beautiful bird set aside, ready to go in a cardboard container.  I pay him, a worn ten dollar bill.  Tell him to keep the change.

The chicken, a red hen, rides in the seat beside me.  The box has ventilation holes in the top, but otherwise, the bird can’t see out, so she is pretty docile for the twenty or so minutes it takes to get her home. 

I take the box out back and leave it on the patio table while I go inside.  I reemerge wearing one of those disposable plastic rain ponchos.  

The box thumps softly as I shift it towards me, open the top flaps.  The bird’s head pops up, gold eyes regarding me beadily.  When I reach in, she squawks and fights.  I hold her carefully, one hand around her neck, the other holding both feet together.  She continues to screech, beating at me with her auburn wings.

It hasn’t been daylight for a half hour yet.  I hold her like that, stretched between my hands for a moment in the watery morning sun.  Then I raise her to my face and bite, tearing into the breast with my blunt canines.  The bird shrieks, her claws digging into my palms.  Feathers fly everywhere.  They cling to my hands, sticky with blood.  In another second, she is still. 

When I’m finished, I hose the blood and feathers off the patio, sluicing them into the grass.  Then I strip off the poncho.  I pack it and the bones into a trash bag and set them out on the curb, next to the recycle bin. 

* * * * *

The meetings are mandatory.  It’s just like from before, with gatherings in church basements and school gyms, a circle of fold-out chairs.  In the back of our meeting area, refreshments are laid out on a pair of folding tables: an assortment of raw meats and a carafe of blood.  Pig’s blood, usually.  I prefer cow. 

We even start with a prayer:

I am grateful that I am here and I am still me. 

I will not let my impulses define me, only my choices.

I ask for strength to weather adversity and change.

May grace and mercy reign over all my interactions

So that I may be an example to others,

Leading to peace and understanding between all mankind.

We all know each other here—most of us went through quarantine together, so there’s no need for anyone to stand up and go, “Hi, I’m Joe, and I’m a cannibal.” 

I look around the circle at the familiar faces, old and young.  There’s Brian and Cara, a young couple who just recently moved in together.  There’s Javier, who speaks in broken English and worked as a grill cook before.  Sweet-faced Marjorie, who takes care of the recovered children, who invariably flock to her like baby ducks.  Jay Doyle, who’d owned a car dealership.  Ira Ramsey, a computer programmer.  Old Barb who talks nonstop about her eight-year-old grandson, who’d been her first kill.   

The meetings I go to are led by a woman named Julie Cavanaugh, who’d been a marriage counselor.  We go around the circle and talk about things.  Acceptance.  Admission of past deeds.  Confronting guilt.  Self-forgiveness.  Working the steps. 

Now we’re trying to focus on our new lives: new friends, new families, our jobs.  We talk especially about all the changes—the changes in our bodies, the changes in the world.  Our new place in society, such as it is. 

And we talk about how hard it is. 

How very hard it all is.

* * * * *

I should go to bed, but I can’t sleep.  Insomnia is common for us.  So I sit in the living room.  No TV or anything—channels are still pretty limited.  But the house is nice.  At least, a part of me still recognizes it’s nice, someplace I would’ve wanted to live before.  Four-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath.  Granite countertops in a kitchen I don’t really use.  Tankless water heater and efficient heating and A/C when I no longer notice temperature.  More space than I could ever hope to inhabit. 

I keep the blinds drawn.  A lot of us have retained a certain affinity for dark places.  Our night vision remains exceptionally good.  But I just like it.  It’s nice to sit by myself.  Nobody watching, no temptations.  Just me.  In my place.  Alone.  After quarantine, we were required to live in communal housing for a while, so solitude feels like an unqualified luxury. 

Then there’s a pounding at my door. 

Immediately, I tense up.  I’m not expecting any visitors. 

   

* * * * *

Everybody’s got their share of bad memories.  I bit my neighbor, my wife, my coworker, infected them so they’d be like me.  I ate my mother, my son, my dog.  The illness burned some of the memories out of us, but not all.  We remember the people coming at us with rifles, axes, shovels, baseball bats—whatever lay near to hand.  In some places, there were bombs, tanks, flamethrowers.  We watched our fellow afflicted get bludgeoned, torn apart by bullets and blades, mown down under treads, going up like haystacks.

It happened like in the movies.  Kind of.  Not like the old black-and-whites.  The new ones.  Some of these screenwriters knew what they were talking about: when it hit, it didn’t just happen spontaneously, people leaping out of graves and whatnot.  It wasn’t radiation.  It wasn’t an invasion from another planet. 

It was a virus.  That’s all.  Like the flu.

It wasn’t a yak-fest, I’m pleased to report.  It was a neuro virus.  No one suspected anything at first because it moved so slowly, almost sluggishly, through the system, mutating as it went.  That was one way it differed from the movies—it’s not like somebody coughed on you and boom, you were infected, and then, boom, you were a zombie.  It took anywhere from eight to fifteen days to become symptomatic and another week or so before you turned.

I remember my last day as a regular human.  I’d been to the doctor.  He’d prescribed Motrin, bed rest, fluids.  Dutifully, I’d managed to get myself up and to the kitchen.  Made some dry toast, drank a glass of orange juice.  Then I crawled back into bed.

When I woke up, I wasn’t me anymore.  I’d been replaced by this . . . hunger.  There is simply no other word for it. 

There’s this lady in my ZA group named Nancy.  She’s a real born-again, right-to-life religious freak, even now.  Don’t get me wrong.  I have no beef with the Jesus-and-fetus-lovers.  I love Jesus and fetuses and beef as much as the next guy. 

On rye.

A little cannibal humor there.  Go on and laugh.  You know you want to.

Anyway.  We were talking about it during group one time, the virus.  Nancy said, “I got a headache.  The pain was so bad my husband rushed me to the emergency room.  And all I could think was, ‘This must be what Jacob felt when he wrestled the angel.’”

While I might disagree on some levels, (semantic, spiritual, philosophical), I agree with the sentiment.  Winning or losing doesn’t matter.  Your whole life has just become this pitched battle.  Pain gets you in a headlock and no one can help you.  No one can take the pain for you. 

And then, just when you think it can’t get any worse, you get hungry.  Everything you ever were, anything you ever wanted—it all gets burned away.  Your body just wails for food and more food.  There is no ignoring it.  There is no reasoning with it.  There is no fighting it.  You have no intellect, no personality, no conscience.  You begin to see only what is edible. 

Anything that moves is edible.

I miss toast.

* * * * *

I don’t know how any of us survived those long years, unspeakable years of wandering and feeding, a blur of teeth and working mandibles and blood.  All I know is, I came to in a CDC facility, four years after that glass of OJ.  I had a gunshot wound in my right leg, a mild concussion from where somebody whacked me over the head with something.  I was lucky that’s all I had.  The cure meant we recovered some of our humanity—we could think again.  We could reason again.  We could sleep again, dream again.  We could feel again.  Emotions, I mean.  A lot of us have suffered permanent nerve damage, which is why we don’t feel heat or cold, or physical pain.  

But what they couldn’t cure was the hunger. 

* * * * *

It’s been five years since the virus hit.  There’s a little over a billion people left in the world.  Most died the first year.  The rest died in the ensuing violence: riots, people fighting amongst themselves, fighting against the afflicted.  A lot of people committed suicide. 

Pretty much the only job we’re allowed to have now is clean-up.  We bury bodies, clear debris from roadways, tear down condemned structures.  Doesn’t matter what you did before—doctor, lawyer, butcher, baker, candlestick maker.  You’re road crew now.  Most of us prefer the night shift.

Once we were cured, the new government passed a series of laws.  Recovereds had to be registered.  After quarantine, recovereds had to live in assigned housing.  Recovereds were not allowed to own firearms.  And, of course, acts of cannibalism would not be tolerated.    

We make do with animals.  If any of those PETA people are left, they must really hate us.  After our meetings, sometimes, we stand around the blood cooler and organize hunting parties. 

Right now, we live in the exurbs, in subdivisions surrounded by cement walls topped with razor wire.  The perimeters are patrolled.  Helicopters are a regular sight, gliding by overhead at all hours. 

Working by night, loading up dumpsters and hauling rubble under the moon, I sometimes pause and look around.  I can’t get used to this—any of it.  The roaming searchlights.  The vast areas of uninhabited space.  The ruined buildings, the untraveled highways, the unpaid tolls. 

They call us cannibals, like we’re still the same species.  I’m not sure we are. 

* * * * *

There is one topic of conversation that is never broached in the meetings—never indoors, where we might be overheard.  Only outside, preferably in the fields and wooded areas, as we stalk coyotes and deer.

“The way I see it, we’re the new top of the food chain, right?  So why the fuck we letting them call the shots?”

“Look at us.  Can’t leave the compound unless they give us the okay.  Eating what they say we can eat.  That’s not what we are.”

“There’s more of us than there are of them.”

“We all know what’s going on here.  They rounded us up, trapped us while we were vulnerable.  Now we’re living in ghettos while they decide what to do with us.”

“I’m telling you, it’s just a matter of time before they decide to wipe us out once and for all.  Because they can’t stand it—they can’t stand that we’re better than them now.”

“But we haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Not yet.”

* * * * *

The knocking on my door continues, growing more and more frantic.  I open it to find several of my neighbors.  A lot of them are people from my ZA group.  There’s Ira, there’s Julie.

“Joe,” she says.  “They’re coming.”

In the distance, I hear the helicopters beating the air, the sound of tanks approaching. 

No words pass between us.  Nothing really needs to be said as some of us join hands and walk out to meet them, armed with nothing but our hunger and a serenity prayer.



Enjoy this short story? Please take a moment to let me know in the comments. In the meantime, check out other short stories here.

Because what says 'holidays' like dragons and trolls?

I confess, I am one of those terrible people who doesn't mind when stores start putting out their holiday displays and neighbors start stringing up lights the day after Halloween.  I also like to listen to Christmas carols year-round.  Feel free to throw things.

But this translates to good news for you guys-- I've put my holiday books on sale.

The Ice Dragon and The Winter Prince are now just 99 cents, from now through New Year's Day!  If you love fantasy and fairy tales, you will love these winter stories, and of course, they're great to read to your little ones.

Buy The Ice Dragon: Amazon, Smashwords, or Createspace.  Read an excerpt here.

Buy The Winter Prince: Amazon, Smashwords, or Createspace.  Read an excerpt here. 

Happy Thanksgiving!  Merry Christmas!  Happy Hanukkah!  Happy Kwaanza!  Happy Festivus!  Blessed Winter Solstice!  Happy-any-holiday-that-I-missed!

What Horrifies this Horror Scribe

It’s Halloween season again.  If you’re like me, I hope this means you’re taking this time to indulge in all your favorite horror stories, both on-screen and in print.  I thought I’d share my all-time favorite scary stories.  My criteria?  Not merely whether they kept me up for a night or two.  No, these are the tales that have haunted my dreams ever after, that have irrevocably altered the landscape of my imagination. For me, it's not the usual suspects -- it's not the vampires, werewolves, Frankensteins or zombies -- that do the trick.  From the all-too plausible (post-apocalypse scenarios) to the outre (extradimensional forces battling for the fate of mankind), I'm always fascinated with what new ways authors come up with to terrify and entertain us.   

The Road by Cormac McCarthy - One of my all-time favorite novels, period.  McCarthy is known for being a master stylist, and I found his prose in The Road to be a revelation.  It’s stark and fragmented, which perfectly reflects a stark, fragmented world.  The first time I read this book, I got about 15 pages in and had to set it aside for a day or so because it was so unrelentingly bleak.  A beautiful and devastating work, which also happens to include post-apocalyptic cannibal hordes.  Walking Dead, eat your heart out.  Ah, zombie humor.  That’s good stuff. 

"Feeders and Eaters" by Neil Gaiman - A short story from Gaiman's collection, Fragile Things.  I've long been of the opinion that Gaiman is at his best in the short story medium, and this tale sort of clinches it for me.  F&E is the tale of a man whose little old lady neighbor has a peculiar craving for raw meat.  The ending made me feel physically sick.  That, my friends, is some very effective horror. 

Insomnia by Stephen King - It was a close tie for me between this and It.  Don’t get me wrong, the Turtle and the deadlights really fuck with my head.  But it was Insomnia's little bald doctors with their scalpels and scissors that-- well, gave me insomnia.  Plan to sleep with the lights on with this one.   

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski - Much has been made over this anything-but-quaint and curious volume, and deservedly so.  Is it horror?  A love story?  A scathing send-up of academic writing?  Whatever it is, Danielewski’s minotaur of a tale features some thrillingly original horror imagery.  To this day, I still eye walls and spaces suspiciously, not entirely convinced that the rooms in my home aren’t misbehaving.  

The Entity by Frank De Filetta - I first read this one when I was about 11 years old.  (I know, I know.  Too young.  My mother didn’t censor my reading material at all, which was something of a mixed blessing.)  I remember how disturbed I was by the violence and hopelessness depicted in this book, and the leering “based on a true story” tagline.  I'm not into torture porn, but I found a woman being kept in physical agony by a demon to be viscerally affecting. 

What are your favorite horror reads?  

"Bravo, Blue Monday Poets!"

As some of you may recall, I was the featured poet at the Uptown Art Bar’s Blue Monday earlier this month, which is co-sponsored by the KC Writers Place.  I read a series of new poems—so new, in fact, that I haven’t even posted them anywhere online.  The poems were:

Garbage Pail Kids

Life Support, or Things no one tells you about dealing with a terminally-ill spouse

The Hug Barrier

No, I Don't Have a Foot Fetish

In the audience that evening was Rane Bo Cross, the force behind Paraplui Productions and the Fishnets Experiment.  She did a write-up of the event.  

I think it’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about my work:

“The night really began and ended with the featured poet of the night.  Our shaggy-haired host, Mr. Hughes, takes over the mic to proudly introduce Lauren Scharhag, and purr-growls his promise to us that we won’t be disappointed, then hands the stage off to this unassuming woman who looks so pleasant and gentle.  She briefly introduces herself and informs us of a last minute rearrangement in her poetry playlist, then proceeds to upend her 'Garbage Pail Kids' right onto the invisible table in front of us – lifting the bucket up and away so that we can see the spread up close and personal, can inspect it with our own noses.  She has me pumping my fist in silent cheers one second, then the next she gives me a good, hard elbow in the ribs to remind just how good I really had it as a child.

“After the applause ends, she apologizes and warns us that she is about to take us to the dark side, where it gets deep and heavy, but she promises to reward us with something lighter and happier at the end.  I settle in for a creepy female Poe/slightly crazy Plath something or other, but what she dishes in my lap is a torturous heart squeezing list . . . The List of Things Learned while caring for a spouse-lover-friend-partner who is terminally ill.  Her list stabbed me in my scarred over wounds, dug up and into my worst fears, and let me weep for one minute after another after another in her brutally honest, yet gently forceful way.  I was unable to write more than a two word scrawl for later in my notepad, didn’t care about taking notes.  I was with her all the way down the roller coaster.

“After wringing my tear ducts into silent submission, she makes good on her word and delivers a much needed, albeit 'Awkward Hug' and the laughter bubbling up through her reading of the poem is the real reward at the end.  She truly was more hilarious and entertaining than the handful of comedians I saw doing stand-up at the next event on the same stage once the poetry time was up, and I swear her manner and method and strength of delivery has to have doubled the power of her words.  And I realize that this is exactly why poetry reading nights exist, so the Laurens of the world have a place to make their real art come to life.

“Bravo, Blue Monday Poets, and well done!  Now, if you can just find me a soft cushy chair for my bony butt to sit in, I will be there every month possible.”

I don’t even know what to say, Rane.  Thank you so, so much.  As a fellow artist, I’m sure you understand how important it is to receive this kind of feedback and encouragement.  Anytime I have doubts about what I’m doing, I’ll be able to come back to this and find the motivation to go on. 

To see the rest of the Blue Monday photos and Rane’s commentary, check out her Fishnet Experiments page on Facebook.  

Be sure to come to the next Blue Monday, every second Monday at the Uptown Arts Bar in Kansas City, MO!

This is what 14 years of marriage gets you.

My husband and I celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary this month.  I don't mind telling you we're in a very good place right now.

Recently, we were watching this Louis C.K. stand-up, in which he talks about jerking off to twenty-two-year-olds:




Me: I don't thnk I was jerkoff material, even when I was in my twenties.
Patrick: (without missing a beat-- er, so to speak.)  Yes, you were.
Me:  Really?
Patrick: Still are.
Me: AWWWWW.


Happy 14th, honey.

For everybody else out there-- if you're looking for love right now, I hope you find it.

If you're lucky enough to already be in love, I hope you find your significant other jerkoff-worthy, now and forever.

Come see me at the Uptown!

Hey, folks!  I'm going to be the featured poet at this month's Blue Monday Poetry Night at the Uptown Arts Bar in Kansas City, MO.

That's Monday, Oct. 13.  Poetry starts at 8 p.m.  

I have new work to share, so come have a drink and a listen!  Also, I'll have copies of my poetry book, West Side Girl & Other Poems.  

Blue Mondays are emceed by KC poets David Arnold Hughes and Sharon Eiker.  There's no cover.

The Uptown is at 3611 Broadway, KCMO 64111.

Hope to see you there!

The stuff I do in the name of fiction.

So I asked my friend, Autumn, last week if she wanted to come help me find a place to hide a body.

I mean, who could turn down an invitation like that?  But Autumn being Autumn, was all, “OF COURSE I’M IN.”  Also, she made it clear that she was going to enjoy telling her boss why she wanted Friday off. 

In some author interview or other I gave some time ago (wow, how’s that for vague?), I was asked what my favorite and least favorite aspects of writing were.  I answered, “Nothing.  I don’t have a favorite or least favorite part because I love the whole process.”  And if I didn’t say that at the time, it’s the answer I would give now.  But research is especially awesome—especially when it involves road trips. 

So Autumn, Patrick and I piled in the car bright and early Friday morning ("bright and early" in Lauren-parlance meaning anything before the noon hour), and hit a bunch of small towns in northwest Missouri.

Black Antler Farm, one of my current works-in-progress, is going to be set in a fictional town in Daviess County, MO, so we made sure to hit the county seat of Gallatin, as well as Smithville, Trimble and Maryville.  I was completely serious about wanting to find a plausible place to hide a body.  I mean, sure, there’s plenty of fields and forests in that area, but I thought it would be lame if I said a body was dumped, say, near the University of Maryville campus and have it turn out that that's not plausible at all.  Also, I wanted to get a feel for those towns we drove through, and stopped and took pictures in.  They ranged in population from 200 to 1,700.  I’ve spent quite a bit of time in similar-sized towns in Kansas, where my husband grew up, but small towns in northwest MO do have distinct differences.  It's amazing what a difference a hundred miles or so makes. 

Here are some of my favorite pics from the excursion:

A neat building on the square in Gallatin, MO.  There was actually a lot of impressive architecture in these small towns-- not just business and civic buildings either, but in stately old Victorian homes and farmhouses.  Less impressive?  Getting caught behind a combine on a two-lane highway.

 See what I mean about cool houses?

It really says "Shave & Haircut."  ("Two bits" sadly omitted.)  I didn't get a good shot of it, but a hand-drawn sign in the window said, "Hours: When I get here."

A cat lady with her herd o' felines.  I would've like a better shot, but I don't think she appreciated my snapping photos of her. 

 Like so many rural areas, the town is impoverished, with lots of abandoned, moldering properties.  I thought this porch swing and the moss-covered step was picturesque.

 Another beautiful building-- upon closer inspection, we found that it was actually an historic jail.  It was closed, with no visiting hours posted.

This not-at-all creepy figure in the jail window.  Don't get too close; it might eat your soul.

 I can't remember when the last time was I saw a payphone.  It works too-- a sign on the side said, "Local calls free."

For me, it was a very productive outing.  As I mentioned, I am more familiar with small KS towns, and there were definitely similarities: Casey's gas stations, trailer parks, struggling farms and businesses, and an abundance of churches.  But there was a great deal of dignity and beauty, as well.  Almost everyone who passed us waved hello, and we were delighted to discover that the Casey's where we made a pit stop had moonshine on their shelves.  We bought a jug and drank a toast to the day when we got home to KC.  

If you want to see more of the pics from the outing, check out my photostream on Flickr.  

In the meantime, I'm working hard to get the book finished.  I hope to have a complete draft in early 2015.  

  

"A brilliant and captivating piece of work."

A Drunken Druid's View has reviewed Under Julia, calling it "a hard hitting novel of truth, redemption and discovery," as well as "a brilliant and captivating piece of work."

See the whole review here.

Read an excerpt of the novel here.

Much thanks to the Drunken Druid team for reading and reviewing my work!

“Why do you wear that stupid hat?” and other questions for a transplant patient

This summer, my husband and I celebrated his second kidney day.  He received his kidney transplant in June 2012.  It’s definitely something worth celebrating-- two years of health and an exponentially improved quality of life.  We owe this to a good family who was able to think of others in their time of grief.

In that time, we have discovered that most people seem to think getting an organ transplant means the end of all medical-related woes—they seem surprised that Patrick even has to take medication.  People that didn’t know him before he got his transplant are shocked to hear that anything was ever wrong with him. 

A few weeks ago, at Patrick’s job, this conversation happened:

Coworker 1: Hey, Patrick, why do you wear that stupid hat?

Coworker 2: Oh, dude.  Don’t ask him that.  The answer’s going to make you feel like a fucking asshole.

Coworker 1: No, seriously, bro.  What’s with the hat?

Coworker 2:  Fine.  You’re a fucking asshole.

The reason for the stupid hat is that transplant patients are at risk for skin cancer due to immunosuppressant drugs.  Depending on the type of cancer, transplant patients have up to a 100-fold higher risk for developing skin cancer compared to the general population.  Patrick has been encouraged to see a dermatologist at least once a year.  When he goes out, he has also been advised to wear sunscreen. 

Mostly, Patrick just tries to stay out of the sun altogether, which is tough for him.  He’s always been a sun-worshipper.  He loves swimming and hiking and all that outdoor shit.  Me, I’ve always been white—I don’t quite combust when light touches me.  I’m more like a deep-sea creature.  If you try to get me in the sun, I’ll probably just squirt ink at you and retreat to my shadowy depths.  That’s a writer joke.  Geddit?

I squirt my ink all over you.

So I can’t really appreciate what he’s going through.  When we know catching some rays is unavoidable, we make sure he puts on sunblock.  But any sunscreen that’s worth a damn is just unpleasant.  It’s greasy, it gets in your eyes, it gets in your beard, (Patrick’s beard, that is.  Not mine.  I don’t have a beard), and it stains the hell out of men’s undershirts. 

The rest of the time, he keeps himself covered-- jeans, long-sleeve shirts and a hat.  We considered a classy parasol, but we felt that that would necessitate an extensive wardrobe overhaul and that just ain’t in our budget.  I mean, otherwise, c’mon.  It’s a fucking parasol. 

Manly as fuck.

So we opted for a hat.  This is the Midwest.  Wearing a broad-brimmed hat is so normal here, that if people see you wearing one, they just assume you’re going to go back to your pickup truck and drive somewhere to have rugged sexytimes with Jake Gyllenhaal or whatever it is cowboys do. 

So all this has inspired me to compile a short(ish) list of some basic things people don’t seem to know about kidney transplants.  (Bearing in mind, of course, that I am not a doctor.  This is entirely based on our experience.) 

1. Kidneys: limit one per customer.

People ask us all the time if Patrick got two transplanted kidneys.  No.  You get one.  Uno.  Un.  Eins.  That way, another patient suffering on dialysis can get a transplant, too.  Spread the wealth, y’know?

Fifty percent kidney functionality is all one needs to lead a mostly normal, healthy life.  This is why live kidney donors are able to go through with it—they still get to keep one of theirs. 

Also, people ask us what happened to Patrick’s dead kidneys.  (We like to think of them as “zombie kidneys.”)  They’re still in Patrick’s body.  They do not get removed.  We’ve had people who seemed almost disappointed to learn this, that we don’t get to keep them in a jar as some kind of gruesome conversation piece.  (Though, to be fair, if they did take them out, we would keep them.  In a jar.  Either on the coffee table or on a bookshelf.  So they would be a gruesome conversation piece. . . Our friends know us really well.)  The kidneys, even zombie kidneys, are attached to a freakin’ lot of blood vessels.  It’s an unnecessary risk to remove them.  The new kidney is placed in the front of the body, near the appendix.  So, right now, Patrick actually has three kidneys in his body. 

2. Getting an organ donation frequently means that somebody died.

This is a tough fact to face.  Sometimes, people are fortunate enough to get a live donor.  Kidney donation matches are largely determined by blood type, which means that sometimes, kidney patients can find a donor in his/her family.  A lucky few get an organ donation from a total stranger—just somebody who felt like banking that much good karma, I guess. 

But generally speaking, you probably got your organ from a dead donor.  You are alive today because someone died.  There are few truths as stark as that one.

Due to medical privacy laws, not everyone gets to find out who their donor was.  We were fortunate to receive a letter from our donor’s family.  I blogged about it here. 

While we were awaiting a transplant, we found that medical professionals can get pretty ghoulish about the donation process.  We were on the waiting list for almost three years.  Every time winter weather came around, invariably, at least one nurse would holler, “IT’S CAR ACCIDENT SEASON!”  Like, it’s black ice time, WOO!  All we have to do is kick back and wait for all those plump, juicy, non-pulverized organs to just roll in!  New Year’s is a peak time, as is prom season and graduation.  Anytime there are a lot of drunk drivers on the road, the death rates go up.  And when death rates go up, it means that people are about to get those desperately-needed hearts, livers, lungs, kidneys, eyeballs.  You  name it. 

The math is pretty simple.  Every day, 18 people die waiting for an organ donation.  The average organ donor can help as many as 50. 

If you don’t have organ donor checked on your driver’s license, do it now.

3.  It’s a treatment.  Not a cure.

To be clear: receiving a kidney transplant is not a cure.  It’s considered an on-going treatment.  Patrick has an auto-immune disorder that caused his kidneys to fail.  The immunosuppressant drugs he takes should stop his rabid immune system from attacking the new kidney. 

But no matter what medications he takes, a donated kidney has a finite lifespan.  It could last for as long as twenty years, or as little as seven.  There’s no way to know. 

4.  Drugs. 

I mentioned that people seem surprised that Patrick even needs to take drugs?  Well, he does.  Like, a boatload-- antirejection drugs, mostly, which he will have to take for as long as the kidney holds out, which means that he still carries around one of these bad boys:

In case you couldn’t tell by that parasol remark, we’re all about the accessories.

The medication has to be taken regularly.  The antirejection medication has to be taken twice a day at a very precise time.  If it is not taken on time, his body may begin the process of rejecting his transplanted kidney.  If he is even 15 minutes late taking his medication, the body can begin the rejection process.

Also, a lot of the drugs he takes are hard on his one functioning kidney.  So that 7-20 year life expectancy for the donated kidney I mentioned?  Might be cut short because it requires so many strong drugs to keep his body functioning in the first place. 

So . . . you know when you watch zombie movies, and the survivors all scramble around, trying to stockpile water and weapons and stuff, and you wonder what you would grab first?  I already know the answer to that question.  In case of a zombie apocalypse, I’d be raiding every drugstore I could find for every single capsule of immunosuppressants.  Without them, we’d be going the way of the walking dead sooner than we’d like.

5. Doctor, Doctor, Mister M.D. 

For the first year after Patrick got his transplant, it was doctors, doctors, all the time.  The nephrologist, the kidney transplant team, the dermatologist.  Now, he still has to see them all at least once a year, and get monthly blood tests to make sure all of his levels are all right—creatinine, cholesterol, red blood cells, all sorts of things that give the doctors a picture of his kidney health,  as well as his overall health.

6. Forget about life insurance.

Expensive, completely indispensable-to-survival drugs?  Check.  Routine medical tests and doctor visits, including specialists?  Check.  Shortened lifespan?  Check.  We’re an insurance company’s worst nightmare.

Oh, what’s that?  Does Patrick have a life insurance plan?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!  Ha. 

No. 

I don’t want to make this political or anything, but . . .

7. Take that steak well-done.

In a cowtown like KC, requesting your steak a well-done is like sacrilege.  Why would you cook all the delicious flavor out? 

Because transplant patients can’t have foods that may contain bacteria.  That rules out a lot of yummy but undercooked/uncooked things, like sushi, or vegetables that can harbor bacteria, such as bean sprouts.  It also means no organ meats.  (Patrick was a fan of menudo before.)  Bacterial infections could wreck that kidney we had to wait three years for.  Starfruit and grapefruit are also off the menu, as they can be fatal to kidney patients.  That's right, I said fatal.  

No one wants 'citrus' listed as their cause of death. No one.

But giving up these food items is a small price to pay when you consider that during his dialysis years he never had any appetite at all.  His weight used to hover around 125 or so.  Now he’s able to enjoy eating again and back to a healthy weight.

Also, kidney patients, like pregnant women, are advised to stay away from litter boxes, which carry the risk of toxoplasmosis.  In other words, he has a lifetime exemption from cleaning the litter box.  So there’s that.

And now, your requisite adorable kitty photo.

Thanks for reading, and, as always, please feel free to leave any questions or comments below!  

Like this article?  Read more about Patrick's and my journey through kidney disease: Hanging Blood, Go Ask Alice, The Heavy Wait, They All Said Life's a Bowl of Cherries But, Hack and Slash, Lessons on Being a Caregiver, or pretty much any blog post labeled "Health."

O4S Trivia: Book III

Confession time: Book III is totally our favorite book of the series.  Maybe it’s just because it’s only been a year since we finished it and the afterglow hasn’t worn off yet.  Or, more likely, it’s because Coyote and I are big fairy tale geeks, and Book III has all the elements—magic, royalty, fantastic beasts, romance.  If I never write another thing, I’ll always be proud to have co-authored Where Flap the Tatters of the King. 

So because of how I feel about this book, this post is a little longer than the previous two.  Also because Book III is freakin’ long (over 330,000 words).  It was a labor of love.  

So it seems only fair to make this little behind-the-scene commensurate, yes?

As always, SPOILERS AHEAD.

1. Christophe

In many ways, this book began with Christophe.  Going into it, we knew a few things: that the setting would be a world of geomancers, under occupation by Starry Wisdom; that the world would have some sort of resistance movement underway; and that someone involved in the resistance would have to help transport Clayton and Alyssa from the Order’s HQ into the Book III world. 

For a short time, we just had this nameless freedom fighter person.  Coyote and I kept making “Viva la resistance!” jokes from the South Park movie.  That led to us referring to the freedom fighter as “The Mole.”  

Then we were like, “Hey, why don’t we just call him Christophe?” 

We imagined what that character would look like and be like all grown up—small, dark, intense, irreverent.  Which . . . later on, we realized was pretty much Robert Downey, Jr.  (Hey, Robert, if you’re reading this, we’d love for you to play Christophe in a screen adaptation.  Just sayin’.  And if you do, will you wear the Tony Stark beard, pretty please?)    

Having this French character actually made sense.  It was a world under occupation, after all, like Nazi-occupied France.  So then we thought, what if the world’s culture was French? 

As for Christophe’s personality, he started out more like the South Park character—bitter, sarcastic, angry at God.  In his case, it wasn’t because his mother tried to abort him, but because, with all the bi and gay guys in Corbenic, he had to fall for the lone straight one.   

Incidentally, Christophe’s last name, Ecarteur, is the French term for bull dodger, or bull leaper. 

Because Christophe does love him some bull.  By which I mean, he's a bullshitter, as well as a lover of bull men.  Also, he’s a bit of an artful dodger type.

It wasn’t until later, when we introduced Madeline as a character, that we toned him down because we thought—really, how bitter can you be when you have a Madeline in your life and in your bed? 

Now Christophe is our favorite character in the whole series and we can no longer imagine life without him.  Nor do we want to. 

2. It’s All Greek to Me

Another thing we had a vague notion about going into Book III—we wanted to draw upon ancient Greek culture for the society.  I know that sounds odd, what with the French and the Resistance, but bear with me: we knew the setting would be approximately equivalent to Paris or London, circa 1900, the fin de siècle/Edwardian period.  Which meant the society would be incredibly uptight where women are concerned.  Yet, the suffrage movement was alive and well in that time period in England and the US.  We wanted to reflect all these things in the book.

Well, the ancient Greeks had a ruthless patriarchy in which women were viewed as property.  The Greeks took it so far, they believed that the truest, purest love could only exist between men, because only men could be equal.  We also thought of the ancient Greek tradition of man/boy love, and the homosexual relationships encouraged among the soldiery in Thebes and Sparta.  The man/boy tradition had the erastes, the “lover,” and the eromenos, the “inspirer,” respectively.  In Corbenic, since relationships are encouraged between boys of the same age, we decided to call them inspirers.  It’s encouraged in Corbenic for a variety of reasons—social, political, but also because Corbenic is a society steeped in magical tradition.  Mage men who are so attuned to each other, mentally, physically and spiritually, can only wield more powerful magic.

The Corbenese king’s honorific is “Your Wisdom.”  Corbenic values knowledge above all things.  We thought a Platonic philosopher-king was appropriate.  Throughout the series, we refer to our magic-users as mages, from magi, meaning “wise.” 

The Corbenese origin story, the Tale of the Four Mothers, refers to three brothers, Minos, Rhadamanthys, and Sarpedon, who all fall in love with the same boy.  This is an actual Greek legend, and Minos did, in fact, exile his brother. 

We also wove in a lot of Greek mythological beasties: the minotaur, the phoenix, the chimera and Scylla. 

"Goat.  Lion.  Snake.  Smushed."

The herm that the team encounters along the road to the capital?  Those originated in Ancient Greece—they symbolized various deities, and were posted at crossroads and as boundary markers.  They were always associated with Hermes, the god of roads and luck.  The phallus, apparently, was sacred to Hermes.

Very sacred.

The number four was also sacred to Hermes, so they were four-sided.  

Jack the Ripper’s alias in this book is Lord Hercule Haides, both first and last names references to Greek mythological figures. 

The Omphalos, the magic well, the heart of Corbenic, is also from Greek mythology.  As mentioned in a previous post, it means, “navel.”  It is the source of Corbenese power.  In mythology, the omphalos were stones marking the center of the world, located at Delphi.  The Pythia, or Oracle, inhaled vapors from them to make her predictions.  So, naturally, Alyssa can’t go near the one in Corbenic, as it stands at the center of an enormous ley line/dimensional convergence, which just fucks her shit up.  The omphalos is also associated with wombs and feminine imagery, hence it echoes the stone grotto where Kate had her vision in Book II.  It also parallels the Blue Room, the round ritual chamber beneath the Great Lodge of Corbenic.  Finally, the omphalos is associated with the Holy Grail and Arthurian legends.  More on that in a bit.

Back to the Greeks—we used a lot of Greek surnames for the noble and royal houses of Corbenic—Sarpedonne (from Sarpedon), Bassarides, Hephaestion, Argyros, Nereus, Asklepios.  Our thinking was, a Greek surname indicates the more ancient families of Corbenic.  French names are more recent.   

But just for the record, the name Janus is Roman—so named for the two-faced god of doorways.  

Because, what else would you name that two-faced bastard?

A lot of other Greek ideals/values are incorporated into Corbenese society as well, such as the emphasis on hospitality and being a good guest, the honor culture, and the taboo against kinslaying.  

3. The Fisher King Legend

In Arthurian legends, the Fisher King is a custodian of the Holy Grail.  He is connected to his land, so when he is wounded, the land around the castle suffers.  In the stories, he is always wounded in the leg or the groin.  King Henri Sarpedonne is wounded in the thigh.  All the kings of Corbenic are bonded to the land—as he is wounded and imprisoned, the land suffers under a terrible winter.  The wound in the groin area also indicates impotence, and Henri is very concerned about his lack of grandsons to carry on the family line.   

Sometimes, the old King is called the Wounded King, and his son is the Fisher King.  We give a nod to that by frequently having Prince Leopold dine on humble meals of fish and doing everything he can to keep his people from starving.  Leo is also an expert sailor and fisherman.  While not technically impotent, Leo was symbolically neutered by the Grand Master, since the Grand Master inflicted intense sexual trauma on him as a boy.  Also, Leo is regarded (erroneously) as a “bull man” in Corbenic—a man who is not sexually attracted to women at all. 

The name Corbenic comes from Castle Corbenic, the name of the Fisher King’s keep, which housed the Holy Grail.  Frequently, the Holy Grail is described as being carved from emerald.  Emerald is one of the big symbols of the Corbenese Empire.  As alchemists, they subscribe to the principles handed down from the Emerald Tablets of Thoth, or Hermes Trismegistus.  Leo mentions that the chimera at Four Mothers guards “the emerald chalice, one of the great treasures of my ancestors.”   

The Maiden of Corbenic with the Holy Grail

The characters Geoff and Chretien are named for Geoffrey of Monmouth and Chretien de Troyes, both major contributors to the King Arthur legend. 

4. The French Connection

If we borrowed a lot from the Greeks, we also borrowed a lot from French history.  As mentioned, the setting was meant to suggest Nazi-occupied France and the Resistance forces.  Another notable grab from history was the Order of the Garter, which was started by King Edward III.  While dancing at a court ball, a lady’s garter slipped down her leg.  Edward retrieved it, and when the people freaked out about it, he calmly responded with the now-famous phrase, Honi soit qui mal y pense.  (“Shame on him who thinks evil of it.”)  When Alyssa loses her garter at the ball, Leopold gives the shocked courtiers a very similar response.  And, of course, garters are very important to this storyline.

France, being a Catholic country, also figured heavily into the world of Corbenic.  The Prince is “Keeper of the Sacred Heart.”  The Great Lodge and the Grand Master are very Catholic in style.  

A lot of the phrases we have the Corbenese use are actual French phrases, e.g., calling the teacher’s pet a “blue-eyed boy.”  We also injected the lower classes and peasantry a great deal of Creole and New Orleans culture and we tried to reflect that in their language as well, e.g., repeated use of the phrase, "you bet." 

There is a lot of French influence on Kansas/Missouri history.  Coyote and I being from KS and MO, we thought it fitting to include in our books.  Remember, in Book I, Rene Whitefeather had French as well as Indian blood. 

5. The Women’s Movement

Coyote and I are feminists.  If you’ve ever read this blog before, you already knew that about me.  We are deeply committed to gender equality.  It’s a sad comment on modern society that, as we were writing this book, we would occasionally wonder, Are we going over the top with the misogyny?  Should we tone it down a little?  Then we’d turn on the news to hear the latest debates about abortion and contraception, or horrible rape cases and human trafficking, and we would feel vindicated—if anything, we figure we didn’t go far enough. 

I’ve already mentioned the women’s suffrage movement was going strong in 1900.  The women of Corbenic are fighting for the rights to an education—it is believed that an educated woman might go mad.  I heard somewhere once that educating girls was like pouring water into a pair of shoes—it wastes the water and ruins the shoes.  Nice, eh?  That’s very much the Corbenese attitude.  When you consider that magic is part of the general curriculum in Corbenic, no wonder the man got to keep a sister down.  The women are also fighting for the right to own property, for financial independence, and the right to testify.  In Corbenic, rape is not even considered a crime.  Even Elizabeth Bathory and Katarina, usually so brutally self-sufficient, find trouble in this world of men. 

Education, Property, Testify.  Geddit?

Lady Susan Lamprise, the character who leads the Red Garters, the woman’s movement in Corbenic, was so named because of lazy Susans.  Supposedly, in centuries past, orphanages had a lazy Susan type device where mothers could drop off unwanted children anonymously.  Our Lady Susan, of course, wanted her child desperately, despite the fact that she was raped.  Because of her status as a “fallen woman,” she became what is known in Corbenic as a “copper bride.”  As in pennies on the dollar. 

Alyssa being knighted is one of the big moves forward in the Corbenese women's movement.  We had been struggling with an appropriate way for the Prince to honor her for saving his life, when Coyote introduced me to the manga, Hellsing.  When I saw Sir Integra, I knew immediately that nothing less than a knighthood would do.  

I’m sure you’ve seen that picture floating around the Interwebz-- "Harry Potter fans want to go to Hogwarts.  LoTR fans want to go to Middle-Earth.  Game of Thrones fans—er . . . no, thanks.  Nobody wants to go to Westeros."

I’m in no big hurry to go to Corbenic.   

6. Geomancy

Geomancy, in many ways, is at the heart of the O4S series.  The word geomancy is from the Greek, “foresight by earth.”  In Arabic, it’s il-al raml, “the science of sand.”  The Greeks borrowed the term and turned it into “Rhamplion,” which, incidentally, is the name of a province in Corbenic. 

In the O4S-verse, geomancy assumes that all planets (and, indeed, dimensions), have a life force which manifests in ley lines—the mystical veins of a world.  If you can tap into that power, you can do all kinds of cool stuff, like open transdimensional gates, or travel instantaneously from one point to another within the same world.  As far as anybody knows, the Corbenese geomancers are the best damn geomancers anywhere.  Period.  They’re so good, their royal family is jacked right in to the planet’s ley lines and life force. 

We called the resistance movement in Corbenic the Sablists, from the French word for sand.  We figured a world of geomancers would call themselves “sand men.”

The Shield Chart that gets referenced repeatedly in the book, most notably, the little group of witches that the team encounters on the way to the capital, and in the skylight in the throne room at Four Mothers, looks like this:

It was used in divination techniques.  Spread out a copy of the Shield Chart, cast sand or stones over it, and decipher the patterns.  Obviously, the Corbenese have taken it to the next level.

The figures on the Shield Chart are called Mothers, Daughters, and Nieces.

The four figures in the top right-hand side are called—you guessed it.  The Four Mothers.  Hence, the name of the royal palace in Corbenic.  Don’t you love that a patriarchal world’s source of power comes from feminine symbols?

7. No Dragons

Way, way back, when Coyote and I first started writing together, we had a good-natured argument.  He is a traditional scifi geek—comic books, Star Wars, Star Trek, RPGs, cons, all of it.  Ipso facto, he loves dragons.  He has giant dragon tattoos on each forearm (which are, admittedly, pretty fucking cool).  But I think that dragons, like many other fictional beasties, are way, way, WAY overused. 

So the argument basically went like this:

C: Dragons?

L: No dragons.

C: Just a few dragons?

L:  No!  No dragons!

C:  How ‘bout just a dragon?

L:  NO!  DRAGONS!  EVER!

It’s become a standing joke between us.  Because of it, I wrote The Ice Dragon for him and his family as a Christmas gift one year.  In Book III—the Starry Wisdom patrols ride snowmobiles.  Brand name?  Ice Dragons.

Also, that’s how we got this exchange between Leo and Alyssa:

“Please don’t go into that room.”

She turned her head sleepily.  “Why not?”

“Because there is a chimera inside.”

She shot straight up out of the covers, wide awake now.  “A chimera?”

“Well, technically, the chimera.”

Her eyes widened.  “You have a chimera here?”

He sighed.  “Oh, dear.”

“That is so cool.  You guys have everything—fairies, mermaids, a chimera . . . Dragons?”

“What?”

“Dragons,” she said eagerly.  “Do you have dragons here?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.  Dragons are mythological.”

So, no dragons in Corbenic.  Sorry. 

But you do get mermaids, fairies, and ehlems.  (Ehlems are an alchemically mutated strain of fairy, which we totally made up.  The name ehlem came from a Simpsons episode where Mr. Burns called Lisa a “liberal midget.”  We started referring to those little beasties as “liberal midgets,” which we abbreviated to LM’s, el-em.  Ehlems.)  

You also get Garthim, which we cribbed from Dark Crystal. 

Are you sensing the pop cultural influence on our work?  Because, yeah.  We like our movies and cartoons. 

8. Kansas City Shout-Outs (Yes, there’s a few)

Corbenic is all about the bulls and minotaurs.  In addition to all the statues around the capital, most of the noble houses and the provinces, when not given a Greek name, frequently have names from a breed of cow, or something related to bovines—Auroch, Parthenais, Tarentaise, etc.  Ecarteur is a bull-leaper, as I mentioned.  The royal family’s symbol is a bull.  As mentioned in the past two O4S posts, KC is a cowtown.  And a barbecue town.  Which—Alyssa mentions seeing a barbecue joint in the capital called Arzelia’s.  This is a reference to Arzelia Gates, one of the founders of Gate’s BBQ in Kansas City. 

Nellie Belle's - Alyssa tells the General that Carcosa has a place that makes hamburgers and "the best sand puppy pie you ever tasted."  Nellie Belle's is a diner in Claycomo (a suburb of KC) that services the Ford plant.  It operates out of a pink trailer.  They serve my favorite burgers in town. 

Corbenic has lots of fountains.  KC has more fountains than any other city in the world except Rome.

KC is known as the “Paris of the Plains.”  That French connection again.

The capital is like the emerald city—white stone, green glasses, and even green lanterns.  I’m not from Kansas, and I get very irritated when people assume I am.  But Coyote is from Kansas.  So I feel totally justified in making Wizard of Oz references. 

The Red Garters sing a song about the Lady of Marais des Cygnes—this is a reference to a river in Kansas near where my husband grew up. 

Master Healer Carondelet - named for Carondelet Medical Center, a Catholic hospital here in KC.

Lady Tuileries - named for a strip mall up the street from an apartment I used to live in.

The obligatory Jesse James references - Alyssa sings "The Ballad of Jesse James" at the Bassarides estate. 

9. Parallel Characters

In all of our books, characters tend to mirror each other.  In Book III, two such characters are Christophe and Jack.  They’re both small, unimposing, but handsome men.  They’re both well-dressed.  They both hide in plain sight.  And they both have very special relationships with working girls.

Clayton and King Henri have a lot in common—they’re both leaders.  They’re both single fathers to an only child, to whom they are very close.  An argument could also be made for Clayton and Leo—again, both leaders, both very politically savvy.  They’re both verbose.  They even look alike—tall, thin, clean-shaven, dark-haired.  (Well, Clayton was dark-haired before he went gray.)  No wonder Alyssa digs Leo.  

Alyssa and Madeline were another pair where we saw distinct parallels, as well as Alyssa and Leto.  All three women had horrific childhoods.  Madeline and Leto were used physically, while Alyssa was used mentally.  All three were given up by their parents.  All three have had, for various reasons, a lot of sexual partners.  

10. Stephen King Shout-Out 
We always manage to work in at least one.  When Alyssa is telling Michael what worlds she's traveled to, she mentions Eluria-- from the Stephen King short story, "The Little Sisters of Eluria," part of the Dark Tower opus.  

Bonus: If you can stand just one more inside joke . . .

My husband always gets to read the first draft of our work.  As he was reading Book III and he came to the part with the Bassarides, he said, “The Bassarides are liberal bankers who champion literacy?  So they’re like the Jews of Corbenic?” 

Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

Motifs & Symbolism

The Cover – Violet for royalty, with smoky swirls to suggest air.  Corbenic is “a kingdom of air.  Men and swords.”  Air is the element associated with words and intellect.  In the Tarot, it is associated with swords and conflict.  The silver bull seal is for the royal house. 

Bunnies – the book opens with a rabbit hopping out of the way as Clayton, Alyssa and Christophe arrive from St. Matthew’s Field. 

Water – Corbenic is a world with lots and lots of water—oceans, rivers, canals, snow, rain, ice, and a magic well.  The Corbenese love their baths, the noble houses have the most luxurious lavatories imaginable.  We wanted Corbenic to stand in sharp contrast to Carcosa.  Corbenic is hyper-civilized and fertile where Carcosa is savage and barren.  Corbenic is full of magic while Carcosa is just doing what it can to hold itself together. 

Sri Yantra – appears in both the floors of the main entry hall of the palace as well as the ball room. 

Phoenix – incorporated into the Tale of the Four Mothers, the Corbenese origin story.  It is the symbol of Atymnius, the first Sarpedonne’s inspirer. 

Minotaur – bull men everywhere in this story—the sentinel standing on the bluffs overlooking the city, the giant statues guarding the throne room, and then Leo himself, the bull man. 

Pomegranates – Jack’s persona as Lord Haides required a heraldic symbol.  So of course he would chose a pomegranate, associated with Akhenaton, Isfet, chaos and madness.  He reverts to his old tricks by luring streetwalkers with an offering of fruit.  Akhenaton himself, as usual, shows up and has himself a glass of pomegranate juice.  A pomegranate also shows up—it’s the first thing Alyssa really accepts from Leo.  Those two have a very Hades/Persephone thing going.  Not because she’s some little ingénue, but because there’s always this slightly dangerous edge to their relationship, almost dom/sub.  

Once she’s accepted his hospitality, she cannot leave his kingdom.    

Colors – this is a violet and emerald world, for the most part, but silver and gold have significant symbolism in Corbenic as well.  The Corbenese consider silver the active, masculine metal, and gold the passive, feminine metal.  The various Corbenese lords have colors that match them—the Bassarides are scarlet, black and silver, of course, for the foxes that they are.  Christophe and Lord Haides both are partial to wine and gold colors.  Janus almost always wears something yellow—beware (false) Kings in Yellow. 

Names - Alyssa – Greek, for the alyssum plant; a- “not,” lyssum, “insane.”  The one lucid Oracle.  Related to the name for Alice, and we tip our hats to Lewis Carroll whenever we can.  (Did you catch the hookah-smoking caterpillar in the bazaar?)  Also related to the name Elissa, Arabic for “wanderer,” which our girl certainly is.  Calderon is a Spanish surname, from the Latin, “cauldron.”  We had assigned her the element of fire, since she has a fiery temperament.  It’s also perfect for an alchemist’s love interest, Atymnius to Leo’s Sarpedon.

Clayton – in this book, he is known to the people of Corbenic as Lord Hornbeam, a literal translation of his surname, due to the very precise translator devices the Corbenese have.  

We used several occupational surnames.  The Grand Master is Perseus Vitrier-- Vitrier meaning "glazier," which implies that the Grand Master rose from humble beginnings.  This is why there are blown glass pieces in his office, and the reason for the nickname, "gaffer."  Chretien, a musician, has the last name Trouvere, which means "trobador."  Which is what Chretien de Troyes was.  

This, of course, is just a taste of what went in to the making of Book III.  This will be the final trivia post for a while—at least until Book IV is finished, which is at least a year away.  

As always, feel free to comment or leave questions below.