A NEW BOOK Laura L. Valenti

Two weeks ago, The Heart of the Spring Everlasting came out in print. This is the fourth in my series of Bennett Spring historical novels and my sixth novel so I find it all pretty exciting. The first of the Bennett Sprint novels is set in 1924, the year Bennett Spring State Park was established. It was also Missouri's first state park so that makes it even more special. That first book entitled, The Heart of the Spring, centered around an 18 year old Bennett Spring resident named Becky Darling and her family. I also share bits and pieces of the park's true history, including real people who were present when the park began. And although we may not know a lot about them, one can still imagine a great deal about an individual simply by knowing the times and their particular situation. For instance, Josephine "Josie" Bennett-Smith was running the Brice Inn, a small hotel located near the site of the present day Bennett Spring Park Store. In my first book, Becky is enjoying her first job, working for Miz Josie. While I didn't know Josie Bennett, history does tell us she was a divorced woman, running a business in a tiny rural community in 1924. That took more than a little grit back then. Add to that the fact that I've met very few hotel folks who weren't real 'people types', the kind of person who really cares about others. Combine those characteristics together and you've got a sassy lady who loves the people in her town and can hold her own in any kind of situation. And that is how you create an engaging, feisty historical character.

The next book in the series, The Heart of the Spring Lives On, picks up the narrative 11 years later, centering on Becky's little brother, Ben. Historically speaking, this book also shares the story of the Civilian Conservation Corps, also known as the CCC, and the years they devoted to building features we still enjoy at Bennett, like the Dining Lodge and the triple-arched bridge. Because I needed to bring a female character into the story while telling of the all-male CCC, I had to get creative but once again, the history was already there. During the Civil War, which took place just 70 years before the CCC, there were 250 documented cases of women who disguised themselves as men and joined their husbands and brothers to fight for both the North and the South. Generally, they were not discovered unless they were wounded and taken to a field hospital. I decided if a young lady had a really good reason to sneak into the CCC, she could arrive at Bennett Spring as part of their CCC unit, masquerading as a man. That is exactly how Jessica comes to the area where she meets different members of the Darling family, including Ben.

The Heart of the Spring Comes Home continues the Bennett Spring story in 1946 just as World War II had ended and follows Esther, Becky and Ben's youngest sister who was born in 1924, the same year the park was founded. This part of the story also highlights the history of the Bennett Spring Church of God, the only building left from the town of Brice, Missouri, which in 1924 occupied the area now known as Bennett Spring State Park. It is also the only church located in the middle of a state park. The church has its own interesting history begun in part by the Bennett family who insisted the church would be able to stay, when they made the contract with the state to sell the land in the first place. Before all is said and done, Esther, a former Navy nurse and her family end up fighting to keep their church from being taken over by the state at the end of the war. At the same time, Esther must find her own path back to life at Bennett after her experiences in a foreign war.

And now, The Heart of the Spring Everlasting continues the saga of the Darling and Shine families. In 1967, Tabby Shine, Becky's youngest daughter, runs away to Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco's famous district of flower children and the Hippie lifestyle and finds it is not all that she expected. She returns home to Bennett Spring, just as her family takes in a Cuban refugee and a childhood family friend returns from Viet Nam in a wheelchair. Tabby quickly finds herself caught up with a new friend in the building of the Catholic Sportsman's Chapel at Bennett Spring as she also struggles to find her very own place in a world that is changing fast. 

After nearly 40 years of living at Bennett Spring, it has been a great joy to share this special place through a series of novels, designed to impart not only the history but also the beauty and charm of such an exquisite picturesque location. If you have never had the pleasure of visiting Bennett Spring yourself, I hope you'll take the time to do so soon. You will not be disappointed.

Blessings,  LV

Laura L. Valenti, author

The Heart of the Spring,

The Heart of the Spring Lives On,

The Heart of the Spring Comes Home, and

The Heart of the Spring Everlasting

Between the Star and the Cross: The Choice and

Between the Star and the Cross: The Election

Ozark Meth: A Journey of Destruction and Deliverance with co-author Dick Dixon

Catching Up On All Those Blessings Laura L. Valenti

First, I begin with an apology for missing the last couple of weeks of blogs. I left for El Salvador on Thursday, March 17 with an electronic tablet, thinking I would email the world from Central America, but sad to say, upon arrival I discovered for some reason, I couldn't get the thing to work. Instead, I texted folks, called a few times and let the email and blogging slide. The blessing, on the other hand, was being back in my beloved second country, one named for God's son, The Savior (El Salvador) and staying with our original Peace Corps family. Elena and Fito are now nearly 90 and 87 years of age, still living in their own home and while his health is starting to fail, we--their daughter, Carmen and I--struggle to keep up with Elena when she takes off walking fast! We went to Catholic Mass on Palm Sunday, shopped 'til we dropped at the local artesian markets (buying cool souvenirs like brightly colored towels, blouses, and painted crosses) spent a day at the beach and ate lots of fish, shrimp, rice, beans and tortillas. For me, that is una vacacion perfecta!

My husband and I were Peace Corps volunteers  there, 1973-1976 for over three years and I cannot explain the joy of being back there, except to say, it is like 'going home' to where I was raised. And I was in part, in Latin America, specifically traveling with my parents in Mexico many years in February and March in the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s. My father was a natural-born gypsy. Not the Romanian variety with dark curls and a ring in his ear, but a Missouri boy who literally read about Guatemala in the National Geographic in 1957 and said to my mother, 'Let's go!' and we did, year after year. We never made it as far as Guatemala, something about a border war in a place called Chiapas. (And you thought that was a new thing, right?)  Years later, our Peace Corps family was a great deal like an American family who hosts an international student here, but in our case, we all bonded in a way that has now lasted over 40 years. Carmen was 13 years old when we moved in with her family and today she has lived in Lebanon, married to a local gent, Brian McCulloch and raised two kids of her own and even has a young grandson. She and I have now made three trips back together to see her family and other friends over the last few years and before that, I made it back to El Salvador several times on my own.

Then we both came home to welcoming husbands. Both Brian and Warren showed up at the Springfield airport to collect us and seemed pretty happy to have us back. That was a big blessing in and of itself!

And then this week, my sixth novel finally arrived. The Heart of the Spring Everlasting is the fourth in my historical series on Bennett Spring. The first, The Heart of the Spring, is set in 1924 and tells how Bennett Spring State Park, Missouri's first state park, was established. The Heart of the Spring Lives On comes next and takes place in 1935. That was when the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was at Bennett Spring, building the Dining Lodge and the triple-arched bridge, features we still love and enjoy 80 years later.  The Heart of the Spring Comes Home continues the story in 1946 as people come back to Bennett Spring immediately after World War II and fight to save their church. The Bennett Spring Church of God plays a central part in this fictional story that is based on the church's actual history. And now, The Heart of the Spring Everlasting picks up the narrative of the Darling and Shine families in 1967. As our nation struggled at that time with major issues such as a divergent youth population, Viet Nam, and a Cuban refugee crisis, the lives of those even in remote places like Bennett Spring were also touched by such things.

And so while I was off the blogging trail for a couple of weeks, my blessings have continued to multiple, en espanol y ingles, los dos. In my lifetime, I have been blessed to live in two of the most beautiful places in the world, a five mile stretch of pristine beach (fishing village where we worked) in El Salvador and Bennett Spring. It is good to be back at Bennett Spring, my home for nearly 40 years now, but it is also good to go 'home', and see la familia once in a while, too.

BASIC BLESSINGS Laura L. Valenti

I was invited to Lebanon High School this past week for a special showing of  He Named Me Malala, the story behind the Pakistani young woman, now 18, who won the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize. Her father named her after Malalai, a Pashtun heroine of a bygone era. Some have said that Ziauddin Yousafzai, her father and a teacher who is also not afraid to speak up for the truth, pushed Malala into her current position as an activist for girls' education. Malala adamantly refutes this and says all he did was show her where the door was. It was her choice to walk through it.

As I watched the account of this extraordinary young woman, Malala Yousafzai who at age 14 stood up to the Taliban, who run her country by various decrees including the idea that women should not be educated, I was struck by her incredible courage. For speaking out, she was shot in the head, by order of the Taliban and nearly died. She still has some significant loss of nerves to her face,  hearing and other basic functions due to her injuries and yet she soldiers on. She and her family now live in England and do mourn the fact that they are not able to return to their homeland. And it makes me wonder...how many of us could have stood up to those threatening our lives when we were still just teenagers? How many of us could do it now, as full-fledged adults?

Even more basic, as I watched, I thought once again, as I have many times, of how blessed I am simply to have been born when and where I was. In a large portion of the modern world, girls and women are still subjected to incredible prejudice and abuse, simply because of their gender. It is not something we spend a lot of time thinking about. As a matter of fact, if we start fussing about sexual discrimination, it is more likely to have something to do with finances--such as hiring practices, a substandard paycheck or the cost of health care. It is not to say that any of those are unimportant but they have to get in line behind basics like education, the right to choose who you will marry, or not to be traded off for a few goats or these days, flat out sold for cash or drugs directly into the sex trade.  It is not something we think about often and yet, for so many of our sisters around the world, it is a daily reality.

And from there, my mind wandered a bit closer to home, to some I've met along my way as a writer, including a young lady in Bolivar, born with no legs and no hands. She still gets up every day, faces the world with an incredible Christian spirit and has excelled as an artist, a writer having already penned her own autobiography before age 30, a college student and a world traveler. Or the farm wife and mother of four I found most recently just a short way up the interstate highway, who was severely injured when hit head-on by a drunk driver. She left the scene that night with internal injuries, a fractured pelvis and crushed ankles. Today, after multiple operations, she still struggles to keep her balance when she walks with the aid of braces and lace-up boots, yet she is back working as a farm wife, tending to cattle on a daily basis. And like the lady in Bolivar, she does it with a joyful heart and an overwhelming attitude of Christian love and forgiveness.

As one who has a family history of depression and has fought that monster many times over the years, I try to remember these remarkable sisters of mine and many others on days like yesterday when I'd like to just stay at home on a cold, gloomy, rainy day and have my own 'pity party'. No reason for it, mind you, except my own fouled up bio-chemistry, but still if I can remind myself to read my Bible and remember ladies like Malala and many others, I have a better day. Yesterday, I spent the day at home, reading and writing, curled up warm by the fire. I didn't go out but it was still a good day, a day of remembering blessings of all kinds, especially the basics. I'm so glad I accepted the invitation to go see a movie earlier this week. God bless the many Malalas in our world!

WHAT YEAR IS YOUR VEHICLE? Laura L. Valenti

Recently at a Weight Watchers' meeting, we were discussing overall health as well as weight loss, such as the benefits of exercise and drinking more water. I shared a view I've long held about the vehicle each of us is issued at birth and it struck a cord with several of the ladies.

Think about the year you were born.  You were issued a vehicle at that time and today that is the one you are still driving. We all know it takes more maintenance to keep a 1951 model on the road than say a 1976 model and if you want to keep going, you have to do that maintenance! Many times, we tell ourselves, we don't have the time to exercise or to eat right. I can tell you it is a little more expensive many times to eat right or it takes more time to fix a salad rather than to pop pizza rolls or a hot pocket into the oven or microwave, but the benefits do outweigh the disadvantages, if we will just make the effort! We know that water is better for us than soda, especially for organs like kidneys and bladder, but so often we think of it as more comforting to reach for that extra blast of caffeine. And don't even talk to me about energy drinks!

We all know what happens to the vehicles that are not properly maintained. You see them broken down on the side of the highway, sometimes with the highway patrol's little orange sticker on them, showing they've been there for a day or two. And after that, they land in the salvage yard, many times never to leave there again. For us, that is called the nursing home or the funeral home, for that is where our personal vehicle lands if we do not take proper care of it.

In this world, we are issued only one vehicle. We can do the maintenance and there are certainly cosmetic procedures available (aka a new paint job) and some repair parts, new knees and replacement hip joints, but there are no trade-ins. This is the ONLY vehicle you get so you better take care of it....or else!

When I get tired of exercising, walking in the cold or the heat here in Missouri, trying to convince myself I don't have time to go to the YMCA and swim my laps, I remember my old neighbor, Jack. Jack was a great guy (a good Democrat) and we had many a lively conversation. Jack liked to smoke, he enjoyed his liquor and his idea of exercise was walking the 150 feet from his mobile home to the highway convenience store he ran with his wife, Barb. One winter evening, Jack slipped on the ice on his front porch and broke his ankle. (They were having a big family spaghetti dinner and Jack had run back over to the store to get a couple bottles of wine. My understanding is when he fell, he was trying to save the wine!) Within weeks, the doctors had to amputate Jack's foot because his circulation was too poor to keep blood flowing to his foot. Jack was not yet 70 years old and today, his widow lives near his grandchildren, where she has had the opportunity to watch them grow up. So, on days when I get the 'lazies' and think 'enough!', I don't want to do this anymore, I think of Jack and remember I don't want to start losing parts off my vehicle before it is time to report to the salvage yard that one final time.

So what year vehicle are you driving? And what kind of maintenance are you doing on it? Remember....no trade-ins!

READING THE GOOD BOOK THROUGH by Laura L. Valenti

The lyrics of one of Tim McGraw's songs speaks of a man who gets the chance to "live like you were dying". He relates how in the next several months he tried sky diving, mountain climbing, went a few seconds on a rodeo bull and read the Good Book. Well, I chose to skip the first three but I have enjoyed the adventure of reading the Good Book and just finished it again this week.

Years ago, I went to a church that offered the opportunity during the first week of January to "make this the year you read the whole Bible." They encouraged their members to do so by passing out monthly reminder papers that showed exactly which and how many chapters to read each day to accomplish this feat. Like many others, I eagerly took one of the papers at the beginning of the year but with four kids at home, by the end of January or the beginning of February, when the next paper was handed out, I was so hopelessly behind I could never catch up.  After 'failing' at this endeavor a couple of years in a row, I figured out, getting the whole Bible read in a year's time, was not the important part. The real accomplishment was reading it through, no matter how long it took. So about the third or fourth year, the church offered this challenge, I took my papers but didn't worry when I couldn't finish within the prescribed time limit. I just kept reading, little by little and finished the Bible for the first time, within about two years instead of one.

In doing so, I read chapters I never knew existed and discovered many more I'd heard quoted often but never really understood their context, exactly where they came from or what they were all about. I found quotes I never realized were Biblical, things I'd heard my late mother say many times over the years, and realized once again, how much better read and educated she was than I had ever known during her lifetime.

I learned about the 'writing on the wall' as written about in the book of Daniel and that while the Scriptures did instruct women to 'submit to their husbands', the very next verses cautioned the husbands to 'revere their wives' and lay down their lives for them as Christ did for his church. I learned once again that what Jesus asked most of all was that we love God and love one another and that if we did that, everything else would fall into place. 

Since then I've heard of another way to 'read the Bible through' and I've followed and enjoyed it, completing another complete reading three or four times through. Using three book marks, place one at the beginning of Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament, one at the beginning of the Book of Job and one at the first chapter of Matthew, the first book of the New Testament. Then, on the first day, read the first chapter of each of those books and continue to read three chapters daily, from these three very different portions of the Bible and the lives and history of the Jews, from which all of Christianity comes. In doing it this way, when you find yourself reading a part of the Bible that tends to make your eyes cross--like parts of Leviticus or Chronicles--you know the next chapter in another book, will be much more interesting or at least, understandable! In doing so, I've read the Bible several more times and look forward to doing it again.

The Bible is an amazing compilation of history, rules to live by and perhaps, most significant of all, the stories of other people's lives and how their experiences can impact the lives of others, even thousands of years later. I once heard it said, if you know someone whose Bible is falling apart, like as not, their life is not. I like that. I think it's time to look for three brand new book marks and start reading again.   

Defining Myself by Laura L. Valenti

A friend I hadn't seen in a couple of years mentioned as we were catching up that she wished someone she loved didn't work such long hours. I told her that several years ago, I had to re-define myself because like so many working in law enforcement (and various other careers) I had come to feel the long hours, stress and hard work had taken over my life. It struck me that one day I would no longer be a jail administrator and then what? A great many of us face this realization, sooner or later. And for many, the picture is not pretty, with results ranging from depression to alcohol abuse to loss of long-term relationships. I decided I needed a definition of who I am that is permanent, that won't change because of a job or because it is dependent on someone else, like a spouse or a child. It is not that those designations are not important but I didn't feel like they should be the primary description of who I am.

After a bit of thought, I realized that first and foremost, I am a child of God. No matter what happens tomorrow, that will not change, and that prayer and Bible study will sustain me throughout anything that does. (And as my mother used to say, the only constant in this life IS change.) Secondly, I am a child of the three cultures in which I was raised. Most folks are raised in one or maybe two cultures but when I really think about it, my childhood included three different ones. My parents raised my sisters in St. Louis, an American Midwestern city and yet, we spent a great deal of time on my grandparents' farm in southeast Missouri, which was much further away than the 120 miles of highway that separated the two geographically in the 1950s and 60s. They were truly two different worlds. I remember my father having water put into my grandparents' farmhouse as a gift when I was 11 or 12 years old.  I also recall the installation of their first telephone, their particular signal being two long rings, differentiating them from the many neighbors up and down the eight party line. One room school houses were still in operation throughout their county while a decade later, I was graduating in the city from one of the largest high schools in the state, with a senior class of just under 1000 others. Two very different cultures. And then there was the whole Latin culture as we often traveled as a family in Mexico, adventures I relished, which along with later years in El Salvador, have had a dynamic impact on all the rest of my life.

After that, I define myself as a wife, mother and grandmother and finally, as whatever my job of the moment might be. That has included a lifeguard, a position that leaves life long results including training in first aid, CPR, crisis management and the ever present 'don't run' at ANY pool; a Peace Corps volunteer and school teacher; an Ozark trail ride guide, and as I tell folks, I'm still better at saddling a horse than I am at wrangling a computer; a bi-lingual secretary and office manager as well as a jail administrator and most recently, a freelance writer and novelist.

Those job titles are fun, fascinating but ever-changing, more so than any other definition and well they should be. These days, it's all about the writing, another different sort of life, I find myself thinking about in  a most serious way, with the upcoming debut of my sixth novel.

The Heart of the Spring Everlasting, the fourth volume in my Bennett Spring historical series should be available in just another couple of weeks. (Yes, I've become impatient waiting for it, too!) Set in 1967, the latest member of the Darling family, Tabby Shine ran away from home as a teen to the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco but quickly found out that California dreamin' is not what she thought it would be. She, too, finds she has to re-think who she really is.

What would you say if you were asked to define yourself? Write and tell me your answer. I can't wait to hear it!


 Laura L. Valenti, author

The Heart of the Spring,

The Heart of the Spring Lives On,

The Heart of the Spring Comes Home,

The Heart of the Spring Everlasting (March 2016),

Between the Star and the Cross: The Choice and

Between the Star and the Cross: The Election

Ozark Meth: A Journey of Destruction and Deliverance with co-author Dick Dixon

www.BetweentheStarandtheCross.com

A Valentine's Day Love Story        by Laura L. Valenti    

In our household, we refer to February 14 as VALENTI ne's Day since not many families can claim their own world wide holiday.  As such, I thought about a couple of the great love stories, I've been blessed to find along life's way so I thought I would share one here.

My father was number five in a line of six kids and he and all of his older siblings were married multiple times as none of them seemed to be able to stay with their original spouse. One aunt was actually married eight times to seven different husbands; she married one of them twice. The youngest, however, my Uncle Ronnie was married to my Aunt Clara. They were known throughout the family as the ne'er-do-wells, moving due to mounting debts, chasing three boys the whole time, as Ronnie tried his hand at various jobs and trades. Clara finally took a job about the time the boys were grown, as a dispatcher at a local sheriff's department. She seemed settled there, doing well for a year or two, until the day she came home and told my uncle that she had fallen in love with a deputy, a man younger than her. She told her husband of over 20 years that she was leaving him and moving in with her new love, who had custody of his three younger children.

My uncle contemplated his wife for several moments before responding. When he finally spoke, it was in measured quiet tones. "Clara, more than anything in the world, I want you to be happy but I just can't see how moving in with this man is going to do that. We raised three boys together who are now more grown than not. This man claims to love you but he is also desperate for someone to take care of his young ones. I will not discuss divorce or even legal separation at this point. What I will say, is pack a suitcase and go. Anytime in the next six months, if you want to come home, just do so. We can talk about it or not, your choice. At the end of that six months, we can talk about what comes next but I won't discuss any great changes before that."

Clara angrily packed a bag and left and Ronnie along with his two older teen-aged sons came to visit me the next weekend and told me what was going on. I told him how sorry I was that she was following our family line and that I hoped she would change her mind. I received a phone call about three weeks later from my Aunt Clara. She was almost giddy with excitement as she told me she was home with Ronnie and her boys. "You know," she said. "He did just what he said. I told him I really didn't think I wanted to talk about it and he said that was fine."

I saw Uncle Ronnie and Aunt Clara about once a year or every other year after that, when my father, Ronnie's brother, would come to visit from California or when I would stop by their home in Thayer, near West Plains when I was down that way. They were the only ones of my father's siblings who celebrated a 50th anniversary, a few years before Clara died last year.

Jesus talked about love and forgiveness, for our enemies and for our brothers and sisters. Without a doubt, my uncle's patience, forgiveness and plain old-fashioned forever love, preserved his marriage and his family for another 30 years after that incident. Happy VALENTI ne's Day to you and yours!

 Laura L. Valenti, author

The Heart of the Spring,

The Heart of the Spring Lives On,

The Heart of the Spring Comes Home,

The Heart of the Spring Everlasting (March 2016)

Between the Star and the Cross: The Choice and

Between the Star and the Cross: The Election

Ozark Meth: A Journey of Destruction and Deliverance with co-author Dick Dixon

www.BetweentheStarandtheCross.com

 

Political Seasons, Past and Current

 

I remember the presidential election of 1972. I was in a political science class at the University of Missouri-Columbia as an 'old' freshman, just beginning my college career. It was a lecture class in a large auditorium of over 700 students that could have been painfully boring but instead, it was anything but. The young professor who presided over all of us three mornings a week was incredibly energetic and gifted at illiciting political statements from his students, generally, by poking a microphone under their nose. I'm sorry to say I can no longer recall his name but I will always remember him bounding out from behind the podium and off of the stage, microphone in hand, to charge down the center aisle while posing the latest question from the campaigns to some unsuspecting and often unprepared student. It definitely got our attention and had us thinking more seriously about the issues than a great many of our contemporaries. And for those of us who were seated in the first dozen rows, it literally had us on our toes at all times! I learned, amongst other things, that there was no better time to take a poli sci class than during an election year!

Nearly a dozen presidential campaigns have come and gone since then. I've participated in some and simply observed in a few others, like 1976, when I was living overseas, and the two candidates were both gents I'd never heard of when I left the country in 1973, i.e., Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. I've written politically, from time to time, over the years but I gave it up, partly because my family, from my husband at his job to my grade school children, would end up taking flak for what I wrote. If you have a problem with anything I write, that's fine, but take it up with me, not my loved ones. And in short order, I lost my freelance writing job because my politics didn't jive with the latest newspaper editor. (I did manage to last through five different editors in my time there, however, approximately one a year.)

Sad to say, the timbre of the races has not improved over the decades. And this year is worse than so many others, marked by accusations, recriminations, and hysterical and deliberate falsehoods.

One would think with the rapid availability of information and a video camera on every corner (let alone in everyone's pocket, aka a cell phone), candidates would think twice before spinning tales that can be easily debunked but there seems to be no end to the chutzpa of some.

Still, I find myself wondering...how is it that we have finally realized that bullying and bullies are a serious enough threat that we are establishing anti-bullying programs in most of our schools, and yet, several of  those leading the race for nation's top office meet the definition criteria of a school yard bully?  If we don't want our kids 'beat up' physically, emotionally or even electronically by bullies anymore, why would we want to elect one as President of the United States of America?  

New York Agents 'Lost' in the Ozarks

New York Agents ‘Lost’ in the Ozarks  by Laura L. Valenti

            Last year while attending a writers’ conference with friends, I went along as they ‘pitched’ to a pair of New York agents who were there to hear from Ozark area authors. I decided to talk to them about my Infinity-published Christian novel, Between the Star and the Cross: The Choice. (This novel had been sought out by, accepted and put under a year’s contract with a newly organized Christian publisher with editors who had originally worked for Zondervan and Tyndale House Publishing. They had actually referred to it as “innovative Christian fiction” so I felt like it had some serious potential. Unfortunately, after two years, I had received nothing more from them except a now expired contract and a handful of vague emails. While they may have been fine editors, they did not seem to be able to get their business act together. After publishing a regionally-based historical novel with Infinity, I recalled my first novel and published it the same way.)

            The first New York agent immediately threw her hands up in the air, when she saw a cross on the cover and heard the word Christian. I bit my tongue and smiled sweetly as she referred me to her colleague, who “would occasionally consider Christian fiction”, she told me. The second agent gave me a cold fish eye stare as she listened to my description of a novel about a small town county sheriff in the Ozarks and the Salvadoran woman who comes to his town to run the Christian mission there. I added that I had worked 10 years for a local sheriff’s department, including running the county jail for over three years, and “you just have to have somewhere to go with all those sheriff’s stories!” She continued to glare at the cover of the book, unsmiling and then finally said, “I don’t understand why you would do this…publish it yourself.”

            I thought for a moment before trying to answer her in a way that she might understand. I  briefly considered telling her of my father and my father-in-law, both in their early 80s, who had died within six weeks of each other, the year before, just weeks before my first novel was published. They were both so supportive and the unfortunate timing of their passing only added to my heartbreak at losing them. Thinking about publishing on my own I also considered the first sheriff I worked for and how he and his wife had helped me with the original manuscript. I also remembered that now he was past 70 and I wasn’t willing for any more time to pass before I saw this book in print.

            “Years ago, while working in adoption,” I told her, “I worked with a 38 year old single woman who was adopting a baby boy from El Salvador. While translating her paperwork from English to Spanish, my husband asked me in all candor, why would a single woman do this? Adopt a baby when she has no husband?  I looked at him, like he’d suddenly grown two heads and answered, are you kidding? If I were in her shoes, I’d be doing exactly the same thing…except I’d never have waited until I was 38, more like about 32!

            “The same applies to publishing a book that is close to your heart,” I explained. “Sometimes you just can’t wait any longer.” I left her that day, wondering if I should have also pointed out to both ladies that they really weren’t in New York anymore and that when you travel west of the Mississippi, you best remember, they don’t call this part of the country, the Bible Belt for nothing! I decided, however, that there were some things you simply could not explain, without living them. 

            In two years, I’ve sold nearly 2000 copies of my four novels, including Between the Star and the Cross: The Choice and its sequel and my latest, Between the Star and the Cross: The Election. I may never be a big name in New York, but I am a well-respected writer and novelist in my part of the world, the Ozarks, and that works just fine for me, thanks in great part to Infinity Publishing. I’m currently writing my fifth novel which I’ll be sending to them soon.

Courting the Media

COURTING THE MEDIA                                                                      by Laura L. Valenti

            In the last few weeks, I’ve been most fortunate in that media contacts, I’ve been working on, in some cases, for a full year, have finally come to fruition.  In June 2010, my first novel, The Heart of the Spring, was published and I began the media chase to get the needed publicity to sell books. For those who have yet to reach this point, let me be clear: Publication is just the first BIG step in getting your book out there. Unless your name is Stephen King or John Grisham, once your book is published, your next BIG step is marketing and that takes as  much, if not more time, sweat and energy than writing the book in the first place. (Once upon a time publishers did a great deal of this for you but not anymore.)

The Heart of the Spring is a historical novel set in 1924 and tells the story of the beginning of Bennett Spring State Park on the Laclede-Dallas County line, 12 miles west of Lebanon. I’ve been blessed to be a Bennett Spring resident for over 30 years and I’ve written several historical articles on the park for various publications. With that foundation, I was able to place a fictional family in the midst of the 1924 Ozarks and voíla, a novel was born. I’ve also been greatly blessed in that this book has been well received by reviewers and readers alike and has sold more than 700 copies in just over a year. The Bennett Spring Park Store concessionaires, Jim and Carmen Rogers have been kind enough to sell it in their store as have the two local Lebanon book stores and three other area stores. It is available on my website as well as my publishers’ website and of course, the ever present Amazon.com.  This last month, the sequel, was also released. The Heart of the Spring Lives On, a new novel, picks up the story and same characters, 11 years later in 1935, when the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was in the park (and many other parks across the state and around the nation), building the many features we know and love today as Bennett Spring State Park. It, too, is doing well and I’m pleased to say, many who have bought and read it are already asking, when will the third one be available? (The answer:  The Heart of the Spring Forevermore is set at the end of World War II and will be available next summer.)

            Even so, to get the word out, one must continue to court the media and recently, it occurred to me that this is the very same struggle we face with publishers and agents. Once again, we, the writers, must present our work in an abbreviated form as we try to convince the local newspaper editor, the news commentator, or local radio talk show host that our book is important, something of interest to the general public and worth a few column inches or a bit of air time on their news program. And once again, we run into the same obstacles. What if the media person we are writing to, emailing, calling or otherwise attempting to contact (dare I say FACEBOOKing or Tweeting?) knows nothing about our subject matter. In my case, if the editor hates history, I’m sunk. Years ago, my first book by a traditional publisher was about adoption, but when I was interviewed by a single man in a TV interview, it was rather disastrous. And then there are editors and news folks who are too busy, overwhelmed, ‘scared’ of independently published authors (And understandably so. There are those who have slapped a lot of words and pages between a front and back cover and called it a book and that’s about all that can be said for their endeavor. There are others, however, who have produced exquisite stories who see little distribution because the author will not or simply cannot bring themselves to do the required publicity.)  And so, again I’ve been fortunate in that an article I’d been working on for nearly a year came out in the Springfield newspaper the night before a book signing in Buffalo where their weekly had also run an article. The result was 26 books sold at Aimee’s Books, a very small book store on Labor Day weekend. (Many book signings only result in a handful of books sold, unlike what one sees on TV or in the movies.) And in early October, Tom Trtan of Springfield’s TV Channel 27 interviewed me on his local TV show. And he told me beforehand, he loves history and historical novels!

            Just like when writing the book in the first place, a writer cannot allow herself to become overly discouraged. When the media seems to ignore your efforts—learn to bide your time, try a different reporter or a different approach, just like you would with a publisher, an agent, or an editor. Make certain you have an excellent product to market by conferring with other professionals in the writing game (previous English teachers, fellow writers, former editors) and when they have helped to make certain that is the case, don’t give up! Keep your professional ‘cool’, keep working, keep praying! and you will prevail.

The Curiosity of a Child

Thursday, June 16, 2011 

                On a recent weekend, we went to visit our son, daughter-in-law and 10 year old grandson, Dante in Texarkana. On occasion, we stay in a local motel there so that we can use their pool and Dante can go swimming. Dante came and spent a night with us and once again, he made me smile so many times as I listened to his inquisitive chatter. “Can we go see the top floor of this motel? I want to know what’s up there! Did you see that big fish in that photograph on the wall? Can I stay up late tonight and watch TV in our room? The Mexican restaurant here is really good!” 

                His endless prattle aggravates his parents (lovely adults in their mid-30s) and reminded me of myself at the same age and how I irritated the fire out of my father constantly with the same sort of thing. I find his curiosity and enthusiasm amusing but also very refreshing, and of course, Dante and I went to the top floor of the motel. We ate at the Mexican restaurant (where he ordered a toasted cheese sandwich!) and I was thrilled to point out to him that the man in the photo holding onto that big fish was also a writer named Ernest Hemingway. 

                My husband, Warren once made fun of the fact that I have had two long term jobs that I’ve really enjoyed, one working over 10 years for the local sheriff’s department and one as a freelance writer and author. I’ve often been known to stick my nose in here or there, asking questions about something I see along the highway or overhear in conversation. “In both cases,” he laughs, “you go in and start asking questions and if anyone asks why, you simply smile and say, it’s my job!”

And it is. Part of our trade as writers is to always remain curious, to look for that something special, different, the essence of a good story. I’ve interviewed folks who upon first glance would seem to be the least among us, as far as an interesting narrative. And yet, as a result, I’ve met and done stories with:  a chatty gentleman in overalls at Bennett Spring who repairs and collects sewing machines, many of which he then donates to local schools and even to disadvantaged people in other countries where a sewing machine is the doorway to a new profession; a vivacious grandfather of a barber in Bolivar who runs a nonprofit organization that ships food, clothing, wheelchairs, walkers, shoes and other vital necessities all over Central America; an animal trainer who raises and trains Dromedary camels in the Ozarks; a postal clerk who trained and rode multiple times in the RAGBRAI, The Des Moines Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa, an annual seven-day bicycle ride across the state, and many other unforgettable characters.

Jesus told his disciples that only those who become like a little child will be able to enter the kingdom of heaven. In a similar vein, I’d say all of us as writers must remind ourselves regularly in the world we live in full of cynics and critics and so many others willing to squelch our curiosity and steal our joy, that childlike curiosity is an essential element of being a good writer. We must promote it, encourage it, and nourish our sense of wonder and joy of life.  Warren shakes his head every now and then and says I still have the curiosity of a junior higher and you know what? I like that!

Laura L. Valenti is a freelance writer for “Ozarks Farm & Neighbor”, a southwest Missouri farming newspaper and is the author of two novels, “The Heart of the Spring”, a historical novel about the founding of Bennett Spring State Park near Lebanon and “Between the Star and the Cross: The Choice”. Her newest novel, “The Heart of the Spring Lives On”, the sequel to her first novel, will be released in later in summer 2011.

Computers vs. The Genuinely Irate

My grandmother used to say, "Isn't it a good thing we aren't all made the same?" when one of us was complaining about another family member, a boss, a teacher or someone else. When it comes to computers, websites and the like, I have to admit she was so right.

My daughter, Lisa set up my website, found so many of the pictures, and now has re-configured the Blog so I can actually use it. I'm a writer, period, the end. Not an artist, not a photographer (a fact my poor editors are painfully reminded of from time to time; my photos for them tend to be pass or fail. On occasion, they make the front cover of Ozarks Farm & Neighbor; other days, I get a call, do you have more photos? Can you re-shoot these?) and certainly, not computer savvy!

I wrote my first book, 25 years ago, with a pencil on white typing paper (that's what we called it, not computer paper or copy paper. It was typing paper because back then that's what we still did - TYPE!) I stilll love the challenge of a blank sheet of paper and freshly sharpened pencils or smooth writing pens. Then I typed  the manuscript of over two hundred pages on a manual typewriter which was accepted by a traditional publisher. For the current generation, that would be just a step or two beyond chiseling it onto stone tablets.

I have no patience when it comes to computers and their ilk. When it doesn't work the way it is supposed to, I quickly lose my patience and sometimes, even my religion when I just rail at the beast. For more than 10 years, I worked for the Laclede County Sheriff's Department, where I often was confronted with people from all walks of life, with a variety of problems or challenges that brought them through our doors. I used to say, sooner or later, people from every socio-economic group, come through the door of the sheriff's department. Some do so because they run afoul of the law; others because they are the victims of that first group; still others, are relatives of that same group and others come because they need permits or other specifics from the chief law enforcement officer of the county. I found I had a lot of patience, even with the most difficult ones, as long as I was dealing with a living breathing person. A recording on the other end of the phone line, not so much.

Today, it is the young and computer savvy who easily wend their way through the electronic mazes devised by the psychologically sadistic (otherwises known as computer programmers, gurus, and hackers) that hold many in modern society, hostage to one extent or another. As Grandma would put it, "I am thankful that we don't all think alike" and I am particularly grateful to my own computer wizards, like my daughters and husband, who get me out of the computer pits, I manage to dig myself into quite often. And to all the rest, next time you need an inmate talked out of or into a cell, an irate homeowner calmed down or a bureaucratic official convinced to do things my way, give me a call!