Thankgiving news

Hello, friends!

As usual, I enter the holiday season exhausted. Usually that is because of work (even some retired people have to work), but this year it’s a combination of my latest hobby, some very exciting travel and, yes, work.

But, first …

Before I get into all of that, I’m happy to reveal I’ve finally published my third historical novel, this one a time-slip novel with one period set in the sixth century (my obsession) and one set in contemporary academia.  Here’s the back-cover synopsis of Once Upon a Marriage:

Based on the true story of the love that changed Spanish history

Stuck in the wrong history department in a small Minnesota college, Nicole’s focus on medieval feminism and marriage is disparaged by her war-obsessed colleagues and her fiancé. During a research trip to Paris, she dons a sixth-century dress and is transported back in time as the guardian and traveling companion for Ingund, a Frankish princess on her way to an arranged marriage with a Visigothic prince. Immersed in political and religious conflicts of the sixth century, Nicole witnesses first-hand how Ingund, a privileged women of the time, steps up to life-threatening and spiritual crises, and discovers the truth about the final chapter of Ingund’s life, up to then unknown to historians. Surprised to watch love blossom for Ingund, Nicole begins to reevaluate her own betrothal back in the twenty-first century. Weaving together historical research, feminist critique, and magical realism, ONCE UPON A MARRIAGE honors a forgotten woman of history and embraces female agency in both love and career. Based on the true story of Ingund and Hermenegild and brimming in wit and quotidian detail, Nicole’s journey brings the Middle Ages to life for those of us stuck in the present.

I think it’s a bit like a novel inside a novel, with the “real” world depicted through a close, third-person point of view and the sixth-century story written in first person. In writing a time-slip novel, I had to keep in mind that the stories of the two time periods must be equally compelling. Luckily for the novelist in me (and not for today’s academicians), there are plenty of present-day academic traumas to keep my protagonist challenged.

Like The Rebel Nun, the story trace a phase in the evolution of religious tradition without being about religious dogma itself. The sixth-century protagonist, Ingund, is a religious woman, as all royal women were in that time. And her fate is determined by her conviction as she induces the conversion of medieval Iberia to Catholicism. While in the past, some book clubs and associations have refused to consider featuring my books because they are “about religion,” I hope some of them come to realize there was no separating religion from early medieval life. Religious institutions were the government of the time.

The paperback and the ebook will be available on November 27^th, a Thanksgiving offering to my loyal readers, on Amazon and Ingram. You can also ask your favorite bookstore to order it for you. I assure you that none of the writing nor the cover design was aided by AI.

My New Hobby

I have always wanted to learn to speak another language fluently, but over the years, my efforts have been sporadic and not very successful. I took three years of French in college, hoping to become a foreign correspondent, but life took me in other directions, and I lost all the bon mots I ever learned.

For years, I have traveled to South America for work, for adventure and for a global non-profit organization, learning a little Spanish here and there, and then forgetting most of it before starting all over again. Recently, Ben and I visited Spain with a University of Wisconsin alumni group, and I rediscovered the thrill of understanding some Spanish and speaking a bit of it. On our return, I signed up for two consecutive courses in Spanish and a course in "French for Reading and Translation," recalling recalled a pledge I once made to myself: to learn Spanish, French, Portuguese and Italian before I died.

As my deadline fast approaches (although not too fast, I hope), I finished the Spanish classes through the online UW Continuing Education program this summer, and the twenty weeks of Spanish 3 and 4 paid off when a non-Spanish-speaking friend and I traveled to Mendoza, Argentina, in mid-November. We toured wineries and an olive oil farm and sampled the country’s famous parrilla and flan with locals who don't go out for dinner until 10 at night. We shopped for soccer jerseys for the men in our lives and walked for miles along the beautiful tree-lined streets of Argentina’s third-largest city. We climbed (by car) to 12,000 feet above sea level, getting within 10,000 feet of the top of Aconcagua, the highest peak in both the Western and Southern Hemispheres.

The weather (it was late spring there) was perfect. There's an Argentinian law that requires food establishments to offer gluten-free options, which made eating there much easier for me than eating at most U.S. restaurants. We made a quick stop in colorful Buenos Aires in the middle of the long 40-hour trip home. All the while, my intermediate Spanish served us well, and I returned with the resolution to continue studying until I’ve gained fluency in at least one of the Latin languages I’ve pledged to learn.

Then, There’s Work

I’ve been happy to take on a bit more publishing work over the past few months to augment my meager Social Security checks. I have produced a memoir for a long-time friend in Palm Springs, and

a historical novel, The Woman She Left Behind, for a man I met at the Historical Novel Society convention in Las Vegas in June.  I am currently working to publish a murder mystery written by three women in California, and I have signed a contract to produce a science-fiction novel for a Michigan man who was referred to me by a former client. 

On the pro-bono side of this business, I am committed to producing an anthology for a writing group I belong to as part of the American Association of University Women chapter in Colorado Springs.

I will be able to take on more clients beginning in March. If you are considering self-publishing a book, but you don’t want to learn design, formatting and meta-data, let me know. Perhaps I can help.

That’s all for now. Happy Thanksgiving and the rest of the year to all!

Marj