http://bit.ly/13Jnb2i

Elan Barnehama is the author of Finding Bluefield. Spanning the years 1960-1983, Finding Bluefield chronicles the lives of two women who, by seeking a child and family, find themselves navigating unknown and dangerous territory during a pivotal time in U.S. history.

Barnehama has taught writing and literature at several colleges, led community based writing workshops, been a high school teacher and varsity baseball coach, a radio news announcer, a speech writer for a university president, and a cook. His commentaries and essays have appeared on public radio, online, and in newspapers.

What was your favorite part of writing Finding Bluefield? The greatest challenge?
I enjoyed dropping my characters into the 1960’s, a loud, idealistic, and divisive period with a lot of good music and free love. Outrageous was the norm for a counter-culture that approached activism as theater and turned personal statements into political manifestos. As the nation shook off the sleepy 50’s, it found JFK in the White House inspiring hope and symbolizing a generational shift in power. But then there were all those assassinations, the Vietnam War, our cities on fire, and a turbulent civil rights movement. It didn’t take long for the U.S. to find itself in one serious identity crisis.

And the having my characters within arm’s length of some of those great moments was also the greatest challenge, since I wanted those events to be a supporting cast and not compete with the main characters. I wanted the novel to be Barbara and Nicky’s personal and not political story.

What inspired you to write this novel?
While working on the first draft of Finding Bluefield, I remembered reading a number of articles citing cases where courts used existing laws to justify removing children from gay and lesbian parents. In some cases in the 1950s and ’60s, courts gave custody of children to fathers in divorces where the mother was “rumored” or confirmed to be a lesbian, in stark contrast to the almost universal approach, at the time, of granting custody to mothers.

What was your process for writing Finding Bluefield? Getting it published?
Writing the novel turned out to be easier than getting it published. First there was the wrong agent who wasted my time. Then there was the well-meaning small press who took the novel but ended up shutting down due to the publisher’s medical issues and the economy. There was a lesbian press that was interested in the novel until they found out I was a straight male.

But then I found a wonderful home for Finding Bluefield with Bold Strokes Books, which “offers a diverse collection of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer fiction.” Their focus is on the story and not the author. They were happy to read the novel and they’ve been wonderful to work with.

Why did you decide to make your main character female? Do you recommend writers try writing the opposite gender?
When I set out to write my novel, Finding Bluefield, I didn’t expect my main character to be a female, much less for her to fall in love with another woman. But there I was, a straight man hooked by these two characters, Nicky and Barbara, and their voices, and their story.

The thing is, most novels have male and female characters, they have characters of various races and nationalities. So we’re always writing about folks who are different than us. So I wouldn’t say that I recommend having one’s main character be the opposite gender, but I certainly wouldn’t recommend against it.

In what ways does article writing help with your fiction? And vice versa?
The thing about writing for other people—whatever the assignment—is that you don’t have the luxury of staring at the blank screen. You just start writing. And that’s a good habit. You also have to grab the reader right away and keep them engaged. These are all things you want to do in fiction too, but you have less time to accomplish this in an essay or article.

For me, fiction is about letting the reader make connections and this has improved my articles in that I have gotten better at presenting ideas and letting readers make their own connections.

Additional advice for fiction writers?
Humans are storytellers by nature and by necessity. As soon as we’re born, we are told stories. As soon as we can speak, we start to tell stories to anyone who will listen. We need to tell stories to place ourselves in the world. We listen to stories to understand how others place themselves in the world. There’s no limit to how we can tell a story. And when we spend time with the written word, we are connected to one another. When we read, we are never alone.

And revise, revise, revise. Get some beta readers. And revise some more.

What do you know now that you wish you knew before you started writing?
Actually, I wish I knew more than I know right now. And I also wish I knew everything I know now, then.

But, I guess I have gotten a lot better at trusting the process, at trusting my characters to find the story. Because, the story I set out to write is not the story I end up writing. And I’ve learned to let the real story happen.

FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013,  ReadingThePast  
Guest post from Elan Barnehama, author of Finding Bluefield: 
With Elan Barnehama's guest post for today, we move much closer to recent times: the colorful and turbulent 1960s, as experienced by a lesbian couple.  If you believe history only encompasses events from the distant and untouchable past, or focuses mainly on well-known names, read this essay and think again.  Many of the sentiments he expresses below resonated with me, and I hope you'll enjoy reading his post also.


Embracing Change

My debut novel, Finding Bluefield, chronicles the lives of two women who, by seeking love and family, found themselves navigating unknown territory during a time when relationships like theirs were mostly hidden and often dangerous. It is a multi-generational family saga spanning the years 1960-1983 and set against a background of segregation, Martin Luther King’s March on Washington, the JFK election, Woodstock, the South, the Moon Landing, and the Sanctuary Movement. 

The 1960s were loud, idealistic, and divisive with a lot of good music and free love. Outrageous was the norm for a counter-culture that approached activism as theater and turned personal statements into political manifestos. As the nation shook off the sleepy '50s, it found JFK in the White House inspiring hope and symbolizing a generational shift in power. But then there were all those assassinations, the Vietnam War, our cities on fire, and a turbulent civil rights movement. It didn’t take long for the US to find itself in one serious identity crisis. And that was where I wanted my characters to begin. 

I’m interested in what happens below the surface, away from the spotlight, inside the crowds. Great events are as much about the leaders as they are about the participants. Individual stories contribute to the moment and add up to a movement. We all collaborate to create history. It’s a team sport. 

Finding Bluefield is located within arm’s length of some of great moments. As the nation searched to find its footing, Nicky and Barbara were finding theirs. Kennedy’s victory, which included winning Nicky’s home state of Virginia, inspired her to act. She already had courage. The election victory gave her hope. She thought it gave her cover. 

Later, Nicky attended the Martin Luther King March on Washington—where Dr. King shared his dreams with the world—because she wanted to see history. The DC Mall and huge crowd provided a venue and an opportunity for Nicky to anonymously sleep with a man in order to have a child in this pre-sperm donor, pre-in vitro fertilization world. But the scene’s main purpose was to highlight that Nicky’s rights as a lesbian were not on the agenda. The march was not for her. It did not have her back. 

After Paul was born, Nicky and Barbara planned to raise him in the Bluefield home that bore Nicky’s family name for two hundred years. But, once word spread that Nicky was a lesbian, it turned out that two hundred years was not nearly long enough for Nicky to maintain her local status, her insider membership. Sure, change was going to come, but Nicky’s dream for her child turned out to be premature. 

While working on the first draft of Finding Bluefield, I remembered reading a number of articles citing cases where courts used existing laws to justify removing children from gay and lesbian parents. In some cases in the 1950s and '60s, courts gave custody of children to fathers in divorces where the mother was "rumored" or confirmed to be a lesbian, in stark contrast to the almost universal approach, at the time, of granting custody to mothers. 

Change, it turns out, is slow and messy. It often stumbles. And there are always casualties. Sometimes the casualties are caused by friendly fire. Many people grew frustrated with the pace of change in the '60s and became disillusioned. Others simply burnt out. I wanted to create characters that avoided the “loud and proud” megaphone, in-your-face lifestyle that was so much a part of the time but were in it for the long term. 

author Elan BarnehamaNicky and Barbara never apologized for who they were, and they never pretended to be straight. They didn’t go to elaborate lengths to cover up who they were. Their focus was to create a life together and have a family. They kept their lives to themselves and shared it only with the people they cared about. They were trying to get from one moment to the next safely, with grace, integrity, and love. By doing that, they became the role models they lacked. When their lives became other people’s business—like Carol Ann, Nicky’s sister—they were at risk. 

Blending stories into the study and contemplation of the past has the potential to turn history into the active experience that it is. And since fiction must be believable, what the characters did, how they acted, what they thought, the decisions they made, all had to have been possible. The reader has to think it could have happened that way. 

Everyone enters the world in the middle of great events—not all of them good. We can choose to embrace our lives or whine loudly about our circumstances. Or we can muster the courage to imagine a different life, a life that has yet to exist.

HuffPostPolitics
Posted: 04/10/2013 12:11 pm

Given a choice, I always choose funny. As a rule, I prefer to laugh so as not to cry. If funny isn't a choice, I add it. When nothing is sacred, everything becomes sacred. Seeing the funny, that makes my day better. As long as shaming is not the intent, I'm in.

I credit, others blame, Bob Dylan and Tom Paxton and J.D. Salinger and Toni Morrison. And the Smothers Brothers, Scrubs, The West Wing, The Wire, and China Beach. They all have some serious funny. Just the stuff I need to get by.

But lately I've been finding it all less funny. It worries me that I could be running low on irony. That absurdity has become absurdly commonplace. That satire is turning tired and tiresome. It's not their fault. It's ours.

When a Southern Carolina couple puts their 16-year-old daughter up for adoption because she is gay, I'm not laughing. When Michelle Shocked goes on a homophobic rant in the middle of her concert, or when North Dakota gives legal protections to human embryos but not the women whose bodies house them, I can't even muster up a smirk. And when ‪North Carolina declares that it has the right to establish Christianity as the official state religion, or when twenty percent of Republicans claim that President Obama is the anti-Christ, confirming that the U.S. is in the midst of a religious war, I can no longer find a laugh.‬‬‬

These behaviors are the newest normal and they are far too commonplace to keep on being funny. While I am a fan of Jon Stewart and of Steven Colbert and of all their writers, I really wish they had less material to work with. I wish their jobs were a lot harder.

There are many issues facing us globally, nationally, for which there is no wrong or right answer. Instead screaming immoral and slinging insults at those who have a different opinion, why is it not possible to muster even a little cultural respect for those who believe differently then us? If we do not find a way for all sides to recognize that each choice is imperfect and each choice can be difficult then we will not have to worry about vanquishing the enemy without as we, the enemy within are becoming a formidable enemy of everything this nation was founded on.

The Founders understood that they couldn't predict the future. Luckily, they were more than capable of drafting a living document that allowed for a vibrant society in which differing views could and should coexist. They did not expect everyone in the union to be the same, live the same way, or think the same way. But they did expect that each member of these United States be united by the common interest of the nation's well-being. And that interest was best served by freedom of information.

So, my funny wants to know: When did we become afraid of information? When did options become obsolete? When did we abandon the freedom to learn?

My funny may not be your funny, but all us deserve to laugh.

Follow Elan Barnehama on Twitter: www.twitter.com/elanbarnehama

The Writer's Dig  March 5, 2013 | Guest Column Writer's Digest

 I wrote a novel whose two main characters are lesbians.  This confuses some  people because I am not a lesbian.  Because I am also not a woman.  And because  I am not gay.

 When I set out to write my novel, Finding Bluefield, I did not expect my main character to be a woman, much less for that woman to fall in love with another woman. But there I was, a straight man hooked by these two  characters, Nicky and Barbara, and their voices, and the story they wanted me to tell.  As I ventured into unfamiliar-for-me- situations, my characters, Nicky and Barbara, found themselves in 1960’s Virginia navigating unknown territory during a time when relationships like theirs were mostly hidden and often dangerous.

 I couldn’t be more different than Nicky.  Nicky was a seventh generation Virginian whose family had farmed the same land for over 200 years.  For my part, I am a first generation US, born and raised in New York City by parents who spoke with thick accents and gave me a name other kids found impossible to
pronounce.  Add to that a vision condition that alienated others, and I was a poster child for “the outsider”.  But my character Nicky went abruptly from insider to outsider, harshly felt the rejection of her community, the unexpected exclusion from her family, and there we found common ground.  But, while both Nicky and I were angry, a bit surprises, and understandably frightened, she was never ashamed of who she was.  As a child, I was.  But if I had given any weight to specific details of what happened to me as a child I would never have let Nicky have the correct response for her and for the novel.

 I’m not sure who started encouraging writers to “write about what you know”.  At first glance it seems to make sense. Why not write about what I know when I know so much?  When I’ve done so much?  When I’ve seen so much?  But the writing process disproves this theory because the story is always better served by the narrative that could happen, that should happen.

 At the same time, writing about what I don’t know doesn’t mean I can’t use what I know.  I loved watching the first moon landing and there’s a scene in Finding Bluefield where Nicky, Barbara and their son Paul watch the first moon landing with their neighbors.  It took me a couple of passes to forget the
details of my memory and create something new.  Something within the reality of my characters.  Something I didn’t know.

 In Finding Bluefield I wrote about characters who are different from me by gender, race, background, and religion.  There’s that risk of getting everything wrong.  But isn’t that where the fun is?  Making things up?  Finding the truth in the unknown?  It’s not always easy or comfortable, but I’ve learned to trust
my characters and I’ve learned that the story truth is found in writing into the unknown.

 In an early draft of the novel, I wanted Nicky to name her son Leroy, the name of her co-worker who told her about the bus tickets to the March on Washington—which is where she got pregnant.  It seemed like a fitting gesture, a noble tribute.  But it was a really bad idea and Nicky would never have thought it, let alone considered it.  The mere hint that Leroy, a Black man, was in any way connected to her pregnancy in 1963 Virginia would have been had very bad consequences for Leroy and Nicky.  Naming her son Paul after his grandfather was really the only name Nicky would have considered because she wanted her son to be accepted as a member of the community she grew up in.

 When I trust my characters to decide what must happen, I give myself opportunities to stumble onto the unexpected truth, the accidental truth, the story truth, which is so much more interesting than my memory truth.  It doesn’t always go as planned.  At one point, I wanted Nicky to ask her friend Andy to marry her and raise Paul with her in order to allow her stay in Bluefield.  Andy would have done it if I insisted.  Clearly, this would have been a betrayal of Barbara and of Andy of Paul, and most of all, of Nicky.  The novel would have been a different and it may have worked but it would not have been Nicky’s story.  Instead, in that scene with Andy, Nicky portrays her panic, her naiveté, and her unconditional love for Andy.

 Maybe the real distinction, and I imagine this is true for many fiction writers, is that all my writing is autobiographical—in that it comes from me—but it’s not biographical, because it’not about me. 

In the end, if readers are able to connect with Finding Bluefield, it’s going to be through the essence of my characters’ humanity and the truth behind who they are and where they are going.
 
The obvious question is how do I know what I don’t know?  The answer is that I don’t.  I just write into unfamiliar territory and see what happens because I know that’s where the answers lie.  Sometimes I get lost.  Sometimes I get sidetracked.  If I’m lucky I find my way.  But the journey, yes the journey, is
always worth it.

From Huffington Post Febrrary 5, 2013  http://huff.to/12uLG5j

It's only been days since President Obama uttered that single never before used in any presidential inaugural address syllable "gay." Whether it was bold or long overdue is not important. And if the president's phrase, "through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall" did not match the oratory skill of Lincoln's second inaugural, or have the motivational impact of JFK's "ask not," it elevated the struggle for gay rights in the U.S. and that's not nothing. This gesture of inclusion called for brief celebration. We cheer. We pause to look back on those that have come before. And then we ask, "What's next?"

Back in the early 1960's when the civil rights movement inspired by the likes of Pauli Murray and Rosa Parks was gaining momentum, little if any support could be found for gay rights. While the Freedom Riders risked everything, President Kennedy asked Martin Luther King to slow down. This was a period during which Bob Dylan plugging in his guitar was seen as a big deal by progressive musicians. A time when Bayard Rustin, an openly gay organizer of the 1963 MLK March on Washington had his legacy within the civil rights movement take a back seat in history. Still, the counter-culture of the sixties challenged the status quo and helped push the country into an identity crisis of enormous magnitude.

And it was during this period that I set my recent novel Finding Bluefield. The narrative chronicles the lives of two women who sought love and family during a time when relationships like theirs were mostly hidden and often dangerous. It's a story about being different. And while I don't believe one must experience feeling different in order to have empathy or understand others who have been made to feel different, I sort of do believe that it helps.

The decade that began with the promise of a JFK presidency ended with the moon landing, Woodstock, and the Stonewall riot. The police raid on that gay bar that evening was a common occurrence. It was the response that followed on that June evening that was out of the ordinary. The night's violence, set off, by most accounts, when a lesbian resisted arrest. The result of many years of pent-up frustration sparked a new movement that agitated rather than asked for its rights. The result may be seen in this week's Sports Illustrated magazine which features a picture of two men in a San Francisco gay sports bar kissing to celebrate their 49ers clinching a spot in the Super Bowl. Gay equity has taken center stage during Super Bowl media days with 49ers cornerback Chris Culliver made it clear he would not welcome a gay teammate and Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo has spent part of his Super Bowl week promoting gay rights and equality.

After Stonewall, and Betty Friedan calling lesbians the "Lavender Menace," the 1970s exploded into a frenzy of drugs and sex and the mobilization of under-represented groups. The disenfranchised began to advocate for their specific rights. Frustration was turned into action. The identity crisis of the sixties seemed to resolve itself into identity pride.

Out of all this emerged Harvey Milk, the first openly gay officer elected to the San Francisco City Board of Supervisors, in 1977. With Tammy Baldwin, and Kyrsten Sinema, and the hundreds of openly gay, lesbian and bisexual officials elected to the local, state, and national office, it's easy to forget that Harvey Milk's election was a big deal. And it was much more than a symbolic victory. Milk understood that equality was only achieved when everyone had it. He worked for childcare, affordable housing, multilingual voting ballots, and gay rights. Harvey Milk understood that identity politics had its limits. It could not attain equality for all. A year later, Milk's murder, along with San Francisco Mayor George Moscone, reminded us of the danger of being out.

Much has happened between Stonewall and President Obama's second inaugural. The tragedy of AIDS propelled activism to a life and death crisis. Allies formed, creating a blueprint for many groups to organize. Social media, the cause of too much cyber bullying, has also connected the most remote, vulnerable, and isolated individuals, and exposed hatred and rallied support for individuals and causes. By any measure there have been tremendous gains in acceptance. But still, the list containing Mollie Olgin and Kristene Chapa, Jadin Bell, Tyler Clementi, Matthew Shepard, and countless others is not shrinking.

So what is next? Issues that we face in the coming decades must be faced together. Can we move beyond identity politics?

Because, in the end, we are all just people.

Follow Elan Barnehama on Twitter: www.twitter.com/elanbarnehama

In Praise of Readers
Published November 13, 2012
Elan Barnehama

Since you visit these blog pages, I’d be willing to bet the house that you consciously and purposefully devote some of your time and energy and imagination and focus to reading books.  I’ll double down and venture that many of those books are fiction.  As a reader myself, I applaud your passion for the make believe.  As a novelist, I thank you for being a reader.  It’s a cool cool thing you do.  And, should I be fortunate to have you as a reader of my novel Finding Bluefield , well then, cooler still.  And humbly appreciated.

The average stay on a web page is about a minute; most stays are far shorter.  So, if you’re still reading this, it means you are above average.  But I already knew that about you.  Because you read fiction.  That makes you an expert at sustaining attention and thought for long periods of time.  In case you think I’m about to mock the web and our distracted wired life, I’m not.  I’m a fan of the web, even if it’s a tad needy.  It’s good for books and good for readers of books.  It brought us together; why would I berate it.

Recently, researchers using fMRI’s  (functional magnetic resonance imaging), scanned the brains while their subjects read fiction.  Their data suggests that close reading of literature requires and improves the function of a complex and coordinated set of brain activities. Doesn’t this data support what we already knew?  What seemed obvious?  Reading literature is good for the brain.  Scientists create meaning from data.  Readers of fiction do that as well.

Humans are story-tellers by nature and by necessity. As soon as we’re born we are told stories and as soon as we can speak we start to tell stories to anyone who will listen.  In those early years, just about every story is a fiction.  We need to tell stories to place ourselves in the world.  We listen to stories to understand how others place themselves in the world.  We just plain and simple like stories.  They’re fun and they make us feel stuff.  All kinds of stuff.

There’s no limit to how we can tell a story.  And we tell them through song, film, fashion, painting, sculpture, weaving, architecture, cooking, and of especially writing. I’m biased, but I think that when we read a book, when we spend time with the written word, we are connected to one another.  When we read, we are never alone.

So, dear reader, I thank you for that connection and wish you many happy readings.
http://bit.ly/TCL1Fl

Front and center: Making the work of service men and women more visible
By ELAN BARNEHAMAFriday, November 9, 2012

At 10 a.m. today , malls and retail stores across the United States will open their doors to eager shoppers seeking Veterans Day discounts offered to honor those who have served in our nation’s military branches.

On the same morning, at precisely 11 a.m., in a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, a wreath will be placed on the Tomb of the Unknowns to honor those same veterans.

Originally observed to commemorate the end of World War I and the signing of the Armistice on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, Veterans Day evolved to honor all our military veterans. The expansion of the holiday was made necessary because World War I, the-war-to-end-all-wars, wasn’t. Given the technological advances of modern weapons, it is almost certain that the next war-to-end-all-wars, will most likely end everything else, too.

So, until we either end wars, or wars end us, the U.S. will continue to have a large and powerful military. Yet, for all its size and power and cost, it has become far too isolated from most communities. Our wars have become invisible, fought by a tiny percentage of our population, who come from a shrinking demographic, and who are stationed at fewer bases in fewer areas of our nation. We are not safer, nor are our elected leaders less likely to send our military into wars of choice, just because we don’t see them.

What happens to the men and women in uniform is all of our responsibility. They go where they are asked (told really), sent by leaders we elect and funded by dollars we contribute. If we are wary of their missions, if we oppose their drain on our budget, then we must not avoid them.

We should have bases everywhere, see soldiers regularly, interact with military families daily. High school students and their families should not have the option to opt out of receiving mail from our nation’s military branches. It’s simply too easy for too many of us to ignore the reality of our military.

We should be having an open and ongoing debate about the role of our military and not the drone of sound-bites we were subjected to during the election season — a drone expected to continue as Congress debates (ignores) the fiscal cliff.

The very troubling number of suicides among those who have served, the loss of family members, the shameful statistic of homeless veterans, the ongoing medical challenges, the toll that deployment takes on military families — we all share the responsibility to address these issues. Parades for Veterans Day and Memorial Day, sales at the mall, and anti-war protests should not be the only times we think about our military.

Accepting the fact that we have a military is not an endorsement of war, it is an endorsement of reality. And it’s also the only way to avoid the reckless use of our military. And isn’t that the best way to honor the men and women who serve?

Elan Barnehama is a writer who lives in Leeds.
Source URL: http://www.gazettenet.com/home/2714501-95/military-veterans-war-wars

Trusting Nothing
by Elan Barnehama

I like the revision process.  It gives me a chance to see what I was thinking when I wrote that very lousy uneven not so good rough draft.  Re-vising, re-seeing, re-thinking, re-visioning allows me to make some sense of what my characters have done and then I get a do-over.  I can change dialogue, add layers, and discard scenes and cut characters that have wandered into the wrong story.  Some days I come home and wish I could rewind the clock and revise things that I’ve said earlier.

When I revise, I try to see before I think.  I read what I’ve written and look at the facts, look at what happened, at what I’ve written, before I start jumping or drawing or otherwise tumbling toward conclusions.  Gradually I see the connections, some intentional, some accidental (my favorite), and I try to build on them, add to them.   This process is not editing.  Feedback is good, but for me, it’s important to keep the editors—internal and external—at bay for a while longer.  When I’m revising, I need to keep the process messy.  I need to keep the let the irrational, the foolishness, the madness do their thing.

I get a lot of material for revising when I’m out running.  I don’t listen to music when I run and I don’t often run with others.  I enjoy the lack of focus.  I enjoy letting my mind rest as my body carries me along.  Sometimes when I’m running and I get a rush of ideas I wish I had a chip in my brain that could record my thoughts and play them back later.  But I’ve resisted carrying a tape recorder because I like being unplugged.  A tape recorder would change everything.  It would give me a purpose and having no purpose is the purpose.  But that doesn’t mean I don’t grab pen and paper as soon I enter the house and furiously write down as much as I can remember.  And on good days, I can even read what I’ve scribbled.

I’m a fan of being bored.  I’m a believer in doing nothing. Being bored gets a bad name.  Being bored is not the same as finding something boring.  Certainly not the same as being boring.  Or affecting a snobbish boorish bored demeanor.  Think magically bored, wonderfully bored.  For me, it’s letting my mind be at rest.  It doesn’t have to be while running.  The same state can occur while walking down a crowded Manhattan sidewalk, or along a deserted country road, or through a noisy museum, or while sitting in a café, or leaning against a lamppost.  As long as you allow your mind to wander without purpose and let your thoughts explode.


Published October 18, 2012 by Women and Words

When I began writing FINDING BLUEFLIELD I started with Nicky.  For me, fiction begins with characters so when I write I have to start with a character.  And since I don’t use outlines because I don’t want to get in the way of the story, I rely on my characters to help lead the plot forward.

Next, Barbara showed up and I wanted to know how she and Nicky would make their way through the turbulent 1960’s.  I wanted to chronicle the lives of these two women who, by seeking love and family, found themselves navigating unknown territory during a time when relationships like theirs were mostly hidden and often dangerous.

Nicky and Barbara’s multi-generational tale crossed paths with political and social events of their day, such as JFK’s election, Woodstock, the MLK March on Washington, the moon landing, voter registration, the Sanctuary movement, and others.  But, as their lives unfolded against this backdrop, I wanted to avoid writing a message novel, the kind where the writer relentlessly hits the reader over the head with their message and renders life as simplistic, and situations as black or white. The thing is, very little of life is black or white.  It’s mostly grey. If we’re lucky, some other colors too.

Instead, as I imagined Barbara and Nicky’s journey, I knew I wanted to tell a tale that was at its core personal, not political.  That was about characters, not causes.  That told a story, not sent a message.

FINDING BLUEFLIELDis foremost the story of Nicky and Barbara creating a life for themselves and Paul.  It is the story of their need to be able to imagine a life that they did not know existed, to imagine a life that they could not see, and for which they had no model.  Because if we can not imagine, then we can not change.

Published September 25, 2012 boldstrokesbooksauthors.wordpress