Reading Local

I'm celebrating Canada this year with a monthly review of a Canadian book. It's part of Canadian Bookworm's 13th Annual Book Challenge. 

June, 2019 was the perfect time to read Harriet Zaidman’s new middle grade novel set here in Winnipeg. City on Strike takes place in May and June of 1919. Of course, it’s always a good time to read historical fiction . . . my favourite type of fiction.

What I most appreciated about this particular book was the setting and I know I’ll never walk some of Winnipeg’s downtown streets without being haunted by the characters of Zaidman’s novel. While many of the buildings might be gone, the street names remain. Main, Higgins, Andrews, Flora in the North End . . . and even the still elegant and ritzy Wellington Crescent belonging to the South End. This is Winnipeg, divided by railyards. 

I think Zaidman does a decent job of re-imagining the lives of 13-year-old Jack and his sister, 11-year-old Nellie. At times, I got frustrated with the history lesson that kept getting in the way of the characters, but there’s a lot of history to be learned and I came away with a deeper appreciation of this important time of labour unrest in our city. 

I love having history told in story form like this and I’m sure this book will appeal to educators and anyone interested in Canadian social and cultural studies. It’s sad to think that these very issues continue to haunt our capitalistic society. This novel can be used as a catalyst to important conversations about 2019 values and I can see it becoming a prairie classic.

Summer is here!

There's nothing like a few days at the lake to really know that it's summer here on the prairies. Too early for the swarms of fish flies, but not for the invasive zebra mussels. The west shore of Lake Winnipeg in the Gimli area is littered with them.

I spent some glorious time watching clouds above the water. Who needs mountains when you have this ever-changing cloudscape?

And then there's the ice cream. I can't do summer without this guilty pleasure. BYOB? Bananas don't travel well . . . so much for that deal!

Poppies for Father's Day

My dad painted this still life of poppies back in 1954, the year after arriving in Canada . . . the year I was born. I’m hoping to someday recreate this painting with a real-life photograph. I’ve got a couple of poppy plants growing in the garden . . . but haven’t been graced with seven beautiful blossoms—not yet. 

Every six years I get to share my birthday with Father’s Day and it’s a great way to remember my dad. He’d turn 101 this year if he was still around, but he died twenty-six years ago. I can easily remember how long he’s been gone, because my youngest was still a babe in arms. He was a great grandpa . . . but for too short a time. 

Instead, Dad was many other things. Short, humble, funny, tough. He could fix anything. Being my dad was only one of his many roles. Now as I get older I’m beginning to appreciate the complexities of the man I called Papi. 

He was eighteen when he joined the Luftwaffe. Twenty when he married his first wife. Two children soon followed, but neither the marriage or the two boys survived the war.  

There was a plane crash. There were five years in a Soviet prisoner of war camp outside of Moscow. There was the home-coming to a home that no longer existed.  There was the divorce. 

Then there was my mom . . . a new wife. Soon after that, a ship to a new country. New children. New job. He was a busy man. And yet . . . he had time to paint poppies, to read fat books (which I’m trying to read). He had time to grow tomatoes, to go fishing and boating. He had time to not just buy a cottage, but to build a cottage, and even, to decorate the mocha tortes he was famous for.  

This was my father. Happy Father’s Day. For you, I grow the poppies. 

Catching up to Spring

I’ve spent the last six weeks focused on edits for my upcoming new release, Finding Amber. There weren’t a lot of edits, but you know about the butterfly effect? Let me quote Wikipedia:  “. . . in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state.” So I needed to be sure that a slight character adjustment stayed consistent with everything else in the novel. It was a deep dive back into Katya’s 1937 world. 

And now I’m back here, in June, 2019, and the hostas have leafed out, the forget-me-nots blaze with dainty profusion, the peony’s actually got buds (first year!) and the lilacs are magnificient. It’s great to have a perennial garden that insists on emerging, whether I’m paying attention or not. Then there’s my collection of stones and driftwood pieces, that don’t need any of my attention at all. I love it. 

Now I’m ready to dig in the garden, to weed, to bike, hike and to otherwise indulge in this amazing weather . . . until I reach the next step in this publishing journey. But first, I need to get out my box of summer clothes . . . it’s time to put away the mitts and the togues. Seriously, that’s how far behind I am. 

April 30th, 1945. It still matters..

Seventy-four years ago, today, Hitler killed himself in a Berlin bunker. And while he took the easy way out, for others, there was a huge mess to clean up. A bunch of crazy German men destroyed countless lives. 

What a sad, difficult time my family had. And it affects people to this very day. It affects me. After all, why am I going to Europe this summer if not because of Hitler? That’s where my parents spent the first thirty-five years of their lives . . . where they met and married. . . where they grieved and dreamed. That’s where my two half-brothers lived and died. 

 

So, while it happened long ago and far away, for me, when I look at the photo of my dad and his brothers—he’s eighteen and in his Luftwaffe uniform—I know that Hitler still affects my life. When I look at the photo of his young son’s grave in some conquered Polish city, I know that little Winnfried’s 1942 death impacted my life growing up here in the middle of Canada. Maybe Dad spoiled me . . . just a bit. . . because of Winnfried? 

We’re still cleaning up Hitler’s mess. I guess that’s why I still write about the old days. . . still trying to figure it all out. How did a whole nation get swallowed up by Hitler and his perverted ideas? What evil do we have to keep watching out for, today in 2019? 

Signed!

Contract signed! My book, Finding Amber, (tentative title) will be published by Ronsdale Press from Vancouver, BC.  I'm feeling honoured and excited!

The story's set during the late thirties in the former East Prussia. I'm doing things backwards with the travel happening after I've written the story. But I'm so thrilled with how things have worked out.

I promised them I'd be more active on social media...so I'm trying!

Thomas Mann and Nida

On my Baltic biking itinerary is an overnight stay in Nida, Lithuania—a small beach town on the Lithuanian half of the Curonian Spit. The Germans called it Nidden, and it was the summer retreat of Thomas Mann. His books were later banned by the Third Reich—in spite of being a recipient of the 1929 Nobel Award for Literature—and he left by 1933. Supposedly the Nazi government mailed him a charred copy of his novel, Buddenbrooks, and he quickly got the message. 

Wojsyl, 2005

In 1939, Herman Göring confiscated the house as a holiday place for injured Luftwaffe personnel. Nowadays, his restored cottage holds the Thomas Mann Cultural Centre and the community hosts an active writing colony. His grandson, Frido Mann, released My Nidden: On the Curonian Spit in 2012. Another book to read to help me appreciate the tortured history of this beautiful area. 

JonasS at Lithuanian Wikipedia

I studied Thomas Mann years ago when I majored in 20^thcentury German Literature. It’s crazy how all these years later, I’m still reading his work. Thomas Mann loved the landscape on this Amber Coast…the sand dunes, the salty wind, the Baltic. 

In my WIP, my character—Katya—loves it, too. And I’m on pins and needles with anticipation to experience what I have until now only imagined.