Video trailer for Voices from the Snake River Plain

Check out the trailer for Voices from the Snake River Plain here.

Thank you, Magic Valley

On November 6, Pat, Dixie and I enjoyed reading excerpts from Voices from the Snake River Plain to a standing-room-only crowd in Twin Falls, Idaho. A heartfelt thanks goes out to everyone who helped celebrate the launch of our new book. If you missed the event, copies are still available at the Magic Valley Arts Council, 132 Main Avenue South, Twin Falls, Idaho. They are also available at the Log Cabin Literary Center, 801 S. Capitol Boulevard in Boise, Idaho.

Three writers with stories to tell

Check out this review by Judi Baxter.  Article reprinted courtesy of the Times-News, www.magicvalley.com

BOOKCHAT: Three ‘writers with stories to tell’

It is always thrilling to hold a treasured book in my hands – rediscovering a childhood favorite, inhaling the scent of an old, leather-bound tome, perusing glorious pictures from a beloved illustrator or gently opening a much-anticipated title for the first time.

The thrill was certainly there when I received a copy of “Voices From The Snake River Plain,” the collection of essays, short stories and poetry from three talented local writers, Bonnie Dodge, Dixie Thomas Reale and Patricia Santos Marcantonio.

The lawn mowing, leaf raking and sidewalk sweeping went by the wayside as I sat on my deck and immersed myself in their worlds. I laughed, sighed, held my breath for a few moments and even cried while reading of families and friends, journeys and jealousies.

Marcantonio’s “The Hitch,” an engaging short story about a camping trip gone bad, left me giggling and nodding my head in agreement: Been there, done that! Forget the spectacular Stanley Basin scenery, mountain air and sparkling Salmon River; a lost trailer hitch leads to pointed fingers, heated words and thoughts of divorce. But her wise old character, Earl, quickly snaps everything back into focus: “Earl pulled up his welding mask. ‘You folks should have a good time once this is fixed. You can hike the trails, cook over a campfire, fish a bit. See the stars together. That’s the only way to see the stars, with someone you love so you know you aren’t dreaming.’” Beautiful!

In the chapter “Remembrances,” Reale captured my heart with “Mush.” Anyone who grew up having to eat oatmeal-the-texture-of-wallpaper-paste for breakfast every morning will immediately identify with the feisty, stubborn little girl. Her mother said she would eat it. Period. She was determined not to. Period. It became a royal battle of wills and more than a little ingenuity on young Dixie’s part: feeding it to the dog, tossing it out the window, dribbling large spoonfuls around her bowl. Since she didn’t have to eat the slopped part, that maneuver became her answer:

“I decorated the room. The entire bowl was drizzled and splattered one spoonful at a time across the mahogany tabletop, the wall, the bench and onto the floor. There was so much of it that gray puddles ran into one another making small lakes. Once Mama saw the mess she scraped it back into the dish and slung it in front of me. Now it was cold and slimy, had a faint flavor of English wood oil, and smelled a bit like floor polish. ‘You will eat this,’ she said.”

At this point, I was chuckling, but it was nothing compared with the laugher that erupted when I came to her final solution. What a creative little girl!

After reading Dodge’s “Surviving the Storm,” set a few days after the attack on the World Trade Center, I barely moved for many long minutes, reflecting on her words, recalling the overwhelming feelings of those haunting days as our nation sat in stultified silence and pain.

The women debate their plans to attend a bookfest in Boise and a trip to Idaho City for their annual mini-retreat, struggling with their own fears and doubts about leaving home and families so soon. “It’s what they want,” writes Dodge. “They want to terrorize us into inaction. I think we should go.” And so they do.

They spend hours exploring the former mining town, picking wildflowers, spontaneously attending a Catholic Mass, sharing homemade peach cobbler at Trudy’s Diner.

Dodge writes: “Heading for the car, we stop when we see an area of the cemetery marked with weathered boards, each etched with only one word: Unknown. Like rubber bands, we’re snapped back into reality as we think of the many new graves in New York City, some of which will soon be marked: Unknown. We exchange glances and, unembarrassed by our tears, embrace, holding onto each other longer than usual.

“We pass tissues like candy. Our hearts hurt. We have no words, no stories to define our nation’s massive devastation. As we travel the road that will take us back to our families, smiles chase away sadness and the desperate need to be home … Even in this troubled time, when our nation is stunned and nothing much is moving, we are. Because we’re still writers with stories to tell.”

And our lives are richer because these three writers have gathered and shared those stories with us.

Judi Baxter owned and operated Judi’s Bookstore in downtown Twin Falls from 1978 to 1992. From 2000 to 2004 she wrote a twice-weekly column for Publisher’s Weekly’s online edition called “Reviews in the News.”

Posted in Books-and-literature, Entertainment on Friday, October 23, 2009 1:00 am Updated: 6:30 pm.

Voices from the Snake River Plain is here!

Voices from the Snake River Plain is a collection of short stories, essays, and poems written by Bonnie Dodge, Dixie Thomas Reale, and Patricia Santos Marcantonio. Edited by Jennifer Sandmann, the anthology includes tales that range from humorous to haunting, poignant to tragic. Sometimes the stories rise out of the landscape and from dreams. Sometimes they reach into the past, or into the future, but mostly, the stories echo the human heart. Many of the selections have been printed in other publications or have won writing awards. With a foreword by Diane Josephy Peavey, author of Bitterbrush Country: Living on the Edge of the Land, this is a book you will want to add to your collection.

Voices from the Snake River Plain was made possible in part by the Embodiment Grant of Boise.

ISBN 978-0-9627690-1-6

$15 plus tax, shipping & handling

To order contact Bonnie.

Bonnie Dodge wins writing award at IWL State Conference

Bonnie Dodge placed third in the 2009 writing assigned teen fiction contest with her short story, The Pleasure of his Company.

IWL State Conference

Lance Thompson, Patricia Santos Marcantonio, and Angela Abderhalden discuss the current state of publishing.

Question of the month: What is creative nonfiction?

Perhaps the best way to define creative nonfiction is to first define nonfiction. Generally, nonfiction is anything that isn’t fiction, or made up. In other words, nonfiction writing is the truth as reported by a reporter or a journalist.

Creative nonfiction goes one step further. Based in fact, rather than a story being told in the journalistic manner of who, why, when, what, where, the “reporter” or narrator of the story shapes the facts to read like fiction. In addition to “only the facts, Ma’am,” a reader will encounter the elements of fiction–plot, setting, character, conflict, symbols, and point of view. In creative nonfiction, the facts come alive, and a reader will encounter the narrator’s voice and style as themes of the story are shown rather than told. At its heart, creative nonfiction has an interest in universal human values, not just facts.

Personal essays, memoir, food writing, biography, literary journalism, autobiographies, travel writing, history, cultural studies, nature writing–all fit under the broad heading of creative nonfiction.

Authors noted for creative nonfiction include Gay Talese, Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion, Norman Mailer, Maya Angelou, Russell Baker, Wendell Berry, Truman Capote, Rachel Carson, Pat Conroy, Annie Dillard, Gretel Ehrlich, Maxine Hong Kingston, N. Scott Momaday, David Sedaris, Alice Walker, David Foster Wallace, and Virginia Woolf, to name only a few.

If you’ve never read creative nonfiction, give it a try. It’s an entertaining way to learn something new.

-Bonnie Dodge

Question of the Month

I have a recurring nightmare. In this dream I am all dressed up in my Sunday best and am in the barnyard. There are no people around, only farm animals and me. I am slopping the hogs and scattering grain to the chickens while spouting my beautiful words. I am ridiculous in the dream and always wake feeling useless, unappreciated and depressed. It is a horrible feeling.

I don’t know what the dream means. Maybe I am afraid that I am out of touch with or a misfit in my surroundings. Maybe I feel out of touch with my readers. Maybe I am afraid that if I do not get my words into the hands of a reading public that I will never have an audience. I do not know but I do not want the dream to come true.

So I have vowed to do something every day related to writing or marketing my words. Some days I might only mail a letter or post card, other days I sit at the computer and pound the keys all day long. Or I might pick through words and delete or replace more than I started with. But I do try to do something everyday related to writing or marketing my stories. And I am determined to get my words to a reading human audience.

We, The Other Bunch, are in the middle of preparing a collection of stories, poems and essays for publication. The collection is called Voices From The Snake River Plain. Watch for it this fall, it is almost ready to go to the printer.

Dixie Thomas Reale

When life gets in the way

I admit it freely. I’m really late with this month’s column. Life got in the way.

A vacation and wedding got in the way, and preparing for vacation and a wedding. Excuses, you say. Justification, you think.

You’re absolutely right, it is in an excuse. It is also a reality for every one of us writers who have a day job, who have life outside the computer and beyond the pad and pen. I’m talking to those with children to raise and parents to watch over. It is a time to take care of the business of living, of loving, of being a part of this sometimes crazy, often wonderful world.

That is not to say I totally cut myself off from writing during my vacation. I took one of my manuscripts to edit, which I did at the airport or when my mom retired for the night. During my trip, my writer’s brain often kicked in, that is the observer in me who steps outside my life and takes mental notes of the way people dress, talk or behave. I think, “Boy that would make a good character in a story.”

Life away from the computer also is a time to reflect about life. Why I am here. Why people act the way they do. Which way will the world spin. There are times when I can’t write because I’m too tired or too busy because of life that got in the way. I become frustrated because without my writing life, I’m not whole, just as I would be incomplete without my life away from words and sentences.

So the conclusion of all this is — letting life get in the way is an absolute necessity. Unless we let life get in the way, what do we have to write about?

PATRICIA SANTOS MARCANTONIO

June’s Question of the Month: Are you your own best editor?

I learned early in my years of reporting not to rely on an editor. Many times editors save us from an embarrassing error, and that means they are doing their jobs well. But there are also editors adept at making shredded beef out of copy and then blaming the writer for being “unclear” when the hatchet job results in an error. Same goes for headline writers.

Being your own best editor means answering the questions you know the editor will ask before you turn in your work. Don’t just hope the editor won’t ask. You know the editor will ask. And if the editor can’t reach you on deadline, then you know the worst-case scenario: The editor will be forced to work around you, and that can be a very bad thing.

Imagine picking up your article, or perhaps column or short story, once it’s in print and choking on your scrambled eggs when you read it. It happened enough times to me early in my reporting years, although I was probably just having toast.

One of my worst experiences occurred when I had written about a tiny town’s post office that was about to be closed. The post office was one of just a couple meeting spots in town—a place where people connected.

I had just returned from a relaxing vacation and picked up the newspaper. The story’s headline dubbed the small post office a “Gossip Stop.” Perhaps had I been more direct that yes, there indeed probably was gossip shared there, the town may have been spared the headline. But there is gossip shared at every diner, watercooler, and barber shop in America, so it goes without saying. There certainly were lots of arguments supporting closing the post office in the name of efficiency, but this was an “end of an era” kind of story. Perhaps if I had just spelled that out more clearly in the article, the headline would have been more kind. Maybe nothing I could have done would have prevented that unfortunate headline.

I left my editor a strongly worded voicemail. I don’t remember who wrote the headline or why. The point I’m trying to make is that it’s best to headlong address the questions the editor will raise, so that the editor will feel confident rather than cranky about your work.

And if you take time to read and re-read and re-read your pieces before submitting them, it will make an editor’s job that much easier. An editor will appreciate you for it, and you will be more likely to enjoy your breakfast.

-Jennifer Sandmann