A Purple Light

Our city glowed purple this past week thanks to a national epilepsy awareness campaign. A long time friend and member of my writing group, was instrumental in bringing an Epilepsy and Neurosurgery Care unit to our city.  Thanks, Pat. With my own family directly affected by epilepsy I’m well aware of the need for epilepsy treatment facilities. 

It was my family connection to epilepsy that prompted my research into the condition and I used what I learned to write Tainted Amber. In that novel I highlighted the Nazi intolerance to epilepsy and their attempts to sterilize or even murder people with the condition.

What is epilepsy? Surging electrical brain activity that leads to seizures or convulsions.  (Think of an electrical thunder storm).  Modern medicine can monitor electrical surges through EEG. Locating the electrical misfirings can lead to proper medication to control these 'storms'.

CC  https://www.flickr.com/photos/tim_uk/8135755109/

How many Canadians are affected by it? About 300,000 (1% of the population) or more than 3 million people worldwide.

Famous people with the condition include: Albert Einstein, Socrates, Charles Dickens and Elton John. 

Thankfully, modern science has found medication that can control unwanted and unexpected seizures. There is no need to sterilize or euthanize people diagnosed with the condition. And with more research, more awareness, more purple light campaigns … we can now support and not stigmatize this seizure disorder. 

Thanks to advocates like my friend, Pat, our city is taking positive steps in that direction. Pat, you look great in purple!

Book Birthday

It’s been a year since I had the thrill of spotting Tainted Amber on some of my favourite bookstore shelves, like McNally Robinson's here in Winnipeg or out in the Interlake where my mom and dad once had a cottage. I feel a special connection to the area, not least of all because the Baltic and Lake Winnipeg share similar winds, waves and shores. I’m grateful for the book's positive reception and to share that Ronsdale Press has now also made it available as an e-book. That makes it a great option for travellers, international readers, or those who've downsized and lack shelves. 

Tergerson's in Gimli, Manitoba

While talking about my books, I’m also excited to share the first review for my upcoming November release of Crow Stone, the follow-up to Tainted Amber. Thank you to Barbara Nickel, author of the heart-wrenching novel inspired by family memories, Dear Peter, Dear Ulla, set in the former city of Danzig at the outbreak of the Second World War. 

Nickel writes,  

“Packed with vivid detail, Crow Stone gives an unflinching view into the horrors and unbearable loss of the Second World War and its aftermath. A story of resilience and survival, told from the unique perspective of Katya who speaks the language of both German victim and Russian oppressor, this little-known piece of history resonates with indelible images.”

November 15, 2022

Making history come alive is such a passion for me and I know many people share this passion.  I’ll soon be able to release details of an upcoming panel discussion where a group of historical fiction authors will share their passion with a lively discussion. Stay tuned.

Can you imagine a world without books? E-books, hardcovers, or even ancient scrolls? Plus, we have so many ways now to access reading material. Online, of course, … but we also have community-minded bookstores, public libraries, quaint second-hand stores and those Little Free Libraries that line many suburban streets like fire hydrants. 

So many books, so many stories, so many lives to explore. Reading is almost like traveling (it’ll never replace the real thing) but without the expense, the line-ups, the politics or the dangers. Reading makes travel more interesting and travel leads to more reading. What a great circle to get caught up in. 

Happy Reading to all! 

The New Arrival

It's here . . . my book, Tainted Amber. I walked into my local bookstore, McNally Robinson, and there it was. Years of research, hours of plotting, of imagining, of writing, of re-writing, of hunting down the right publisher, of being discouraged and then encouraged, of doubting and of believing. It's just a little book. About 250 pages. But only another author can know the backstory . . . the mindset that it takes to hold your book in hand. 

We're a tenacious, curious bunch, us fiction authors. We find power in words . . . mere marks on a page. Lives past, present or future. All from our imagination.  We've got to be crazy. God knows we can't help ourselves. 

We'd have it no other way. Thank you, Ronsdale!

Like Déjà vu?

Like many of my fellow baby-boomers, I traveled through Europe as a youth. What started off as a structured university-work-program, morphed into a year-long adventure—a roller coaster experience filled with extreme highs and lows. (Only the young can have so much drama!) Now, upon reflection, with Tainted Amber soon to be released, I realize my experiences in a small Bavarian town helped me gain insight into what my mom might have experienced when she worked in rural East Prussia as an independent, but naïve, young woman. 

After she died in 2011 and I gradually went through her belongings, I came across the documents she’d completed to access a German pension. I learned that she’d worked as a maid for three different landowners in rural East Prussia. In Tainted Amber, I’ve melded these into one location. 

I didn’t realize Berchtesgaden’s significance when I chose it out of a list of options at the student employment office at 42 Feuerbach Strasse in Frankfurt an der Main. I remember the office address clearly because I was so afraid of getting lost. I could have picked Stuttgart, Heidelberg or other cities, but Berchtesgaden sounded like ‘garden’ and I’ve always preferred nature and the outdoors over city congestion.

Creative Commons: Colin Smith

Berchtesgaden was the end of the line for the Deutsche Bundesbahn. It was a long train ride deep into the mountains. I concluded that maybe Berchtesgaden would be like Banff. I had no idea I was entering Hitler’s favourite area. The rail station, my introduction to the town and entrance point to my new job, had a big date sprawled into the brick: 1938. Turns out it had been remodelled that year because of the many official Nazi, and international, visitors who would go through its doors. It was then that I had an inkling of the town’s history. It’s been a slow simmer, this fascination with the Second World War, but the ingredients to turn its study into a passion have always been there. Back in the seventies, I was merely a young woman determined to have fun and explore without her parents’ supervision. 

Tainted Amber, set in 1937, is a story about how Nazis impact eighteen-year-old Katya. East Prussia was a place, like the Berchtesgaden area, that the Nazi elite would frequent to enjoy nature and relax. Katya ignores them as best she can. Like me, she’s determined to be independent, and coincidentally, has ambitions to be a writer. 

Kaiser Bun: CC- Kobako

The Pension, (hotel with bed and breakfast) where I worked, was old, nestled along a roaring creek and ancient trees. It wasn’t the most fashionable place in town . . . definitely more rustic than modern and it suited me perfectly. Like Katya, I would have to go down to a dark, dank cellar if I wanted a bath. Limited hot water.  I preferred heading to the local pool and using their showers. Honey for the fresh Kaiser buns that were delivered every morning came from the hotel's garden. I had no idea that forty years later memories of my tiny servant room would become the template for my character’s own room. Even now, I look back at the completed book and I’m surprised at how I incorporated my experiences into Katya’s own. It wasn’t intentional.

Does that happen to other writers? It must.

Trakehner Horses

A little bit about Trakehner horses. The what, where, when and why. 

                                                                           

             Tempelhüter
Alexander Kastler Wikipedia 
                                                                

                           What?

Trakehner horses are a multi-coloured, warmblood breed originating in the former East Prussia. (Warmblood means they have speed and endurance, cavalry material . . . as opposed to a drafthorse which is coldblooded and used for slower, heavier work.) They are identified through branding with the East Prussian moose antler.   

Where?

Joachim Kohler Wikipedia

Trakehner hoses are named after the East Prussian town of Trakehnen. Now part of the Kaliningrad  Oblast, it was renamed Yasnaya Polyana after the war. Located north of the Rominter Forest, in the southeast corner of Kaliningrad Oblast, it’s about 150 kilometers east of Kaliningrad city. While a Russian museum retells the famous past, the town—like most of rural Kaliningrad Oblast— is run-down and neglected. 

Stud House in Trakehnen before the war.
(Public Domain)

When?

The town of Trakehnen was established back in 1731 by the Prussian cavalry. On January 20th, 1945, the state-run stud farm was abandoned as the Soviets approached. Today, while almost completely destroyed at the end of the Second World, the Trakehner has once emerged as a strong horse, admired throughout the world. Now you can ride Trakehner horses even here in Canada. 

Why?

Because as I explored my mom’s ‘quiet’ years, I learned that as a young woman, she worked as a servant girl for East Prussian estate owners.  I soon discovered that East Prussia was well known not only for its idyllic countryside with pastures for grazing horses, but for a specific type of horse. Setting a novel against the background of breeding perfect horses was an opportunity to explore the Nazi obsession with bloodlines and their quest for perfection.