A perfect day in the mountains

I love living in Boone, NC

Spending a day downtown is one of my favorite things to do.

Toss in a book festival and boy howdy - what could be better?!

Saturday was the High Country Festival of the Book which you been  seeing me post about here and at Facebook.  Actually, there were some events on Friday, and a dinner on Friday evening, but I was unable to attend those.

And sadly, there were many writers here on Saturday that I didn't get pictures of.  There were wonderful things happening, and because there were so many people I wanted to spend time with, I just didn't get everywhere, but come along and enjoy my day with me - - -

I got into town early, wanting to make sure I missed running into the annual Blood, Sweat & Gears 100 mile bicycle race, which passes directly in front of our road.  I've been caught in it before and will now miss it at all costs.  I admire those bikers, but I do not want to be among them on these curvy mountain roads.

I parked behind the Jones House, which always makes me smile.  It's an important part of the Boone community and I was happy that some of the festival activities would be happening here.

Then walked down King St., admiring the flowers (I love this time of year in the mountains), and enjoying being right where I was.

I am not able to walk by our bronze of Doc Watson without taking a picture.  He was a much loved local figure, and will be missed by many for a long, long time.

And treated myself to breakfast at my favorite Boone restaurant, Melanie's Food Fantasy. 

and got to have a chat with the one and only Melanie.

Melanie rocks.

Then wandered back to The Jones House and Marcia had been busy setting up the book store.  Appalachian State's University Bookstore always does an excellent job of handling the festival book sales.

Our first two speakers of the day were two authors I have long admired.

I was over the moon to find out both of them would be participating in our festival.

Robert Inman

And

Patti Callahan Henry

Just so happens, both have new books out - Yay!!!!

Did I even attempt to resist buying both?

Pfft!

No way!

And both were gracious enough to sign their books and have their picture made with this gal who thinks authors are rock stars.

Then I wandered over to our library where even more festival activities were taking place.

More books, more authors, music on the lawn, food tents, children's activities - all on a perfect mountain day.

Outside - 

And, inside - - 

(here's my friend, Paul Benson - Hi, Paula!)

And, I have to tell you.  I was so happy to see Jane Edwards, one of the authors of Jelly Bean Finds Her Special Place. 

AND, she brought along some of her Jelly Bean toys.  These are the sweetest, the softest, the most lovable little lambs on God's green earth.  I tried just as hard to resist buying one of these as I did buying books - which means, not one whit.

this is the real Jelly Bean.  Do read her story!

Then I wandered back to The Jones House in time to hear Lynn Cullen talk about her new book, Mrs. Poe

I had received an advance copy of Mrs. Poe and loved it.  Now I'm ready to read it again because Lynn's talk was so fascinating.  One thing I'm sad about is that I walked out of the house and forgot to take my copy of Mrs. Poe with me to have signed.  But, maybe, just maybe, I'll cross paths with this lovely woman again on down the road.  

Next up.  The Mystery Panel which I was asked to moderate.  I was tickled pink (and scared to death!).  Panel members included two authors I call friends, who write books I have recommended and given as gifts to many friends and family members over the years.  Vicki Lane and Mike Orenduff, along with Sean Keefer, whose work I now know and won't hesitate in recommending.  Millie West had planned on joining our panel, but things didn't work out.  Millie broke her leg, quite badly.  She was able to participate in the festival, but as a speaker rather than a panelist.  And darned if I didn't miss her talk while I was buying fluffy stuffed Jelly Bean lambs at the library!

Life I said earlier, unfortunately,I missed several of our authors - several of whom I had very much looked forward to meeting.  

Our mystery panel moved out to the front porch (thank you, Suzanne! The best festival chair festival ever), and we had a wonderful time just talking books.  I got over being scared (but not over being a bit nervous, I'm afraid), and a good time was had by all.  

My thanks to the panelists for making it so easy, and my thanks to the readers and writers who joined us.  It was a perfect day.

(photo by Paula Benson)

And here's a picture of the treasures that came home with me

some very cool swag from my friend, Georgia author, Elaine Drennon Little (whose Book I *did* remember to take, but then forgot to ask her to sign.  aargh).

Thanks, Elaine!!

AND - my very own baby Jelly Bean, along with two books I cannot wait to read!!!!  squeeee!

Note:  Vicki Lane has done a blog about the festival.  Check it out!  http://vickilanemysteries.blogspot.com/2014/06/high-country-festival-of-book.html

Have Pen - Will Travel by Mike Orenduff

Unlike his protagonist, Mike Orenduff acquired his first pueblo pottery legally, buying small pots from the pueblos his family visited and – in one case – acquiring one when his sister traded chocolate chip cookies for it. His love of pottery expanded to a general interest in archaeology which he studied as an undergraduate.

While in graduate school at the University of New Mexico, Mike worked during the summer as a volunteer teacher at one of the nearby pueblos. After receiving his M.A. at New Mexico and his Ph.D. at Tulane, he became a university professor and administrator. He served as president of the University of Maine at Farmington and the American University in Bulgaria. As Chancellor of the University of Maine System, he created the first cyber-university in the Nation. After opposition of the faculty union to electronically-delivered classes led to a vote of no confidence, Newt Gingrich described Orenduff as “a hero to the American taxpayer” in his book, To Renew America.

Mike went on to serve as President of New Mexico State University and as a visiting faculty member at West Point and President of Bermuda College. After retiring from higher education, he rekindled his love of the Southwest by writing his award-winning Pot Thief murder mysteries which combine archaeology and philosophy with humor and mystery. Among his many awards are the “Lefty” national award for best humorous mystery, two “Eppies” for the best eBook mysteries and the New Mexico Book of the Year Award.

His first book, The Pot Thief Who Studied Pythagoras, has a cover blurb by then Governor Bill Richardson, thus balancing the mention by Speaker Gingrich. The Baltimore Sun described it as, “funny at a very high intellectual level and deliciously delightful.” His latest, The Pot Thief Who Studied Escoffier, was called "the perfect fusion of murder, mayhem and margaritas” by The El Paso Times.

Have Pen – Will Travel

Mike Orenduff

I’m often asked why I set my books in New Mexico. From a practical point of view, the answer is that hackneyed phrase, “Write what you know.” But the real reason is it gives me an excuse to visit there when I do signings.

          Of course I’ve done signings in New Mexico’s largest cities – Albuquerque (600,000), Las Cruces (100,000), Santa Fe (70,000), and Roswell (50,000). But I’ve also done signings in places like Cloudcroft (749) and Carrizozo (996). There is no marketing justification for doing signings in towns with fewer than a thousand inhabitants. I go to New Mexico’s villages because they are fun places to visit.

Lai Orenduff on the catwalk near Mogollon

          New Mexico attracts more than its share of people who march to their own drummer or, perhaps more accurately, refuse to march at all. Self-styled artists, homeopathic healers, astrologers, reflexologists, herbalists, poets, and vegans seem drawn to New Mexico’s out of the way places like trout to cold mountain streams. On the road to Mogollon (population 15 – too small for a signing even by my standards), my wife and I saw a fellow walking along the road with a gold-panning vessel tied to his belt. One guy we met kept referring to his mother as Beatrice as if we knew her, and he claimed that she was adopted by Gertrude Stein. He also claimed to be related to Tony Hillerman but said he couldn’t prove it because he had left his mother (single at the time) to make it easier for her to attract a husband. He gave me two poems, one of which, he explained, had remained incomplete for twenty years because he couldn’t find a word that rhymed with meadow. Hmm.

Resumidero

          I was supposed to do a signing at the library in Cuba, New Mexico (population 590) but it was closed when we arrived. I suppose the librarian decide to take the day off. But we met Aggie Villanueva there, and she took us on a picnic to Resumidero. I remembered from my days as a plumber in El Paso that sumidero is the Spanish word for drain. (I was the only native speaker of English among the fifteen employees of United Plumbing, so I quickly added plumbing terms to my Spanish vocabulary.) I don’t know what adding ‘re’ as a prefix does to sumidero, but Aggie says it means sink hole.

          Aggie lives in Regina (pronounced reh-heen-ah in New Mexico, and be sure to roll that first ‘r’), a collection of cabins in the forest above Cuba. She shares her place with three dogs and a mouse that has taken up residency in her pick-up. They all seem quite content. Aggie is an author and artist, attracted to New Mexico like so many others by the dry air, clean-scented forests, and magnificent vistas. You can see her fantastic photography at http://www.aggievillanueva.com.

          Aggie was married at Resumidero. The marriage didn’t last, but her love for the area has endured, and she took us to see waterfalls, rock formations, beaver dams, and high alpine meadows. Our picnic on a Forest Service table was joined by a chipmunk who devoured two big leaves of romaine lettuce and several grapes.  There were also birds, butterflies, and bees. In a break with tradition, there were no ants.

          The next day was a signing at Black Cat Books and Coffee in Truth or Consequences. Afterwards, we drove out to Engle, built in 1879 by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad as a shipping point for cattle and ore. The construction of Elephant Butte Dam (1911-16) swelled the town’s population to 500, but most of those left after the dam was completed. The Engle post office, opened in 1881, was closed in 1955.

On the road to Engle

          Only six people live in Engle today, and only three or four original buildings still stand, including the old schoolhouse where church services continue to be held on the third Sunday of each month. A sign declares “Preaching, Gospel reading, and singing.”

          The next day found us back in Northern New Mexico at Los Alamos, home of the Manhattan Project. Robert Oppenheimer selected the remote mesa top because he had gone to camp there as a boy. The government moved in, took over all the land, moved in the scientists and began building the weapon that would end WWII.

          In the early days, no one could access the town without a security clearance.  Today, the National Labs no longer own everything in town, but security remains an issue even for the civilian portions of the village. Not too long ago, workers were repairing the roof on Otowi Station Bookstore where I did my signing. The workers left their cooler of drinks on the sidewalk next to the ladder they were using. Someone called security about a suspicious package, and within minutes the store and the connecting museum were evacuated and the suspicious package detonated, spraying Mountain Dew everywhere.

          I said earlier there is no marketing justification for signings in small towns. That isn’t entirely true. I sold only one book at my signing in Roswell which has 50,000 people. Author and Roswell resident Alice Duncan bought it. She said no one else there reads.

          But in Questa (population 1700) I sold 17 books. If I could sell books at that same rate (1 for every 100 persons) when I sign in Albuquerque, I’d sell six thousand books in one day. But it still wouldn’t be as much fun as the small town events.

          So if you live in a tiny town that never has book signings, call me.

Pistachio orchard in Tularosa Basin

The Ten Commandments Need to be Updated by J. Michael Orenduff

       On the day Mike Orenduff got his drivers license, his father gave him a 1950 Oldsmobile coupe that stranded him in so many New Mexico towns that he got to know every mechanic south of Truth or Consequences. By the time he entered graduate school at the University of New Mexico, he and his wife Lai were driving a more reliable car - a 1965 Volkswagen Beetle - and they drove the wheels off it exploring the northern half of the state. His love of The Land of Enchantment is evident in his Pot Thief mysteries which have won The New Mexico Book of the Year Award, the national 'Eppie' award for best mystery, The Dark Oak Mystery Award, Fiction Book of the Year from PoliceWriter, and now a spot as a finalist for the prestigious “Lefty” Award.

          Mike and Lai live in Georgia where she is a professor of art history at Valdosta State University. Their son Jay is a dean at Columbia University and their daughter teaches art history at Georgia College.

The Pot Thief Who Studied Einstein has been nominated for the "Lefty".  This prestigious national award will be given to one of the five finalists at the Left Coast Crime Conference in Santa Fe in March.

The Ten Commandments need to be updated

by Mike Orenduff

              

                I don’t intend irreverence.  I’m not proposing that we change what God has wrought; that’s not even possible.  What needs changing is the wording.  Writers don’t like to hear this, especially one who created the universe, but we all need editing help from time to time.

                The original phrasings were no doubt appropriate for nomads roaming the desert three thousand years ago, but they are hopelessly out of date for today’s world.  After all, coveting our neighbor’s ass is no longer a major moral issue.  Assuming we mean his donkey.  Coveting his actual derrière could be an issue. 

 

                Few of us these days covet our neighbor’s manservant either, and even if your neighbor can afford domestic employees, you shouldn’t call them servants.

                My interest in this topic began in 2001 when I read about a former kick-boxer who commissioned a sculptor named R.C. Hahnemann to construct a monument to the Commandments.  The kick-boxer, whose colorful background included working as a cowboy on a ranch in the Australian outback, evidently did the design work himself.

 

                Weighing in at over five thousand pounds, the blocky structure has all the grace of a concrete bunker.  It looks like a headstone for a hippo.  It’s not only an offense against good taste, it violates at least two of the very commandments it seeks to honor! 

 

                First, it is arguably a graven image.  Why would you need two-and-a-half tons of granite when God put the originals on two carryout sized tablets that Moses could take down the mountain with him?

 

                In addition to breaking the second commandment (Thou shalt not make for thyself an idol), the monument also violates number eight (Thou shalt not steal) because the kick-boxer turned designer actually tried to copyright the Word of God!  I guess if you’re going to plagiarize, God is right up there with Shakespeare as a good source.

                I would have written this story off as just one more example of people’s penchant for wacky behavior except for the fact that the kick-boxer/cowboy was Roy Moore, the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.  This did not do much for Alabama’s already dodgy reputation.

                The Judge of the State Supreme Court commissioned this monolith without the knowledge of the other eight Associate Justices and then snuck it into the Supreme Court in the middle of the night when the building was closed.  I am not making this up.  On the night of July 31, 2001, the Judge and some helpers transported the colossal cenotaph under cover of darkness and installed it in the Rotunda.  But only after overcoming “some initial installation difficulties and concerns regarding structural support for the monument's weight.” One can only imagine.

                Moore had the installation filmed, and videotapes of the event were sold by Coral Ridge Ministries, which used the revenue to pay Moore's legal expenses after he was booted from the bench. 

                When I first heard about Judge Moore’s monument, I put it down as just another example of an overzealous fundamentalist going off his medications.  But shortly thereafter, yard-signs of the Ten Commandments started popping up in my neighborhood like toadstools after a rainy night in Georgia.  I teach in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Valdosta State University.  Georgia may not be the buckle on the Bible belt, but it’s at least one of the loops, so I was not surprised that Roy Moore ascended to the status of folk-hero for the religious right.  After all, Tim Golden, my local state legislator, introduced a bill that would allow bible study to be part of the public school curriculum in Georgia.  Like many simple-minded folk with simple-minded ideas, it evidently never occurred to Golden to ask which Bible the students would read.  Most people know there is a King James Version and a Revised Standard Version and a few others, but there are actually over 700 other versions, from the Vulgate, commissioned in 382, to the Good News Bible, published in 1976.  And the listings of the Ten Commandments are not the same in all those versions. 

                An even stickier issue than which Christian Bible to read is what to do about all the other holy books.  In contemporary diverse America, we have communities where the majority of schoolchildren are Moslem.  Should those schools be reading the Koran in class?  And what do you imagine the Georgia Legislature would say when they found out that little Baptists and Presbyterians were reading the Koran in school?

 

                The Roy Moore story made me wonder why having the Ten Commandments in a courtroom was so important that it would drive a Chief Justice to disbarment and spur others staunchly to defend the Judge’s behavior in defying the law of the land that he had sworn to uphold.  After all, no one was being denied the right to study and follow the Ten Commandments.  There are, by actual count, 530 churches in Montgomery, Alabama, site of the Alabama Supreme Court.  Presumable, they all have Bibles and study the Ten Commandments.  It’s difficult to believe that having the Ten Commandments chiseled in granite is more important than having them present in that less weighty substance known as the human conscience.  So I decided to ask my students, a cross section of the young people of South Georgia, what they knew about the Ten Commandments.

                The results were surprising.  At the beginning of class one day, I asked the students to take out a clean sheet of paper and write down the Ten Commandments.  I explained that I wanted them to try as hard as they could to remember all ten, and I gave them as much time as they needed.  That night I tallied the results.

                Before you read any further, I urge you to do what my students did.  See if you can write down all Ten Commandments.  Then compare your results with those of my students.

                Of my thirty-one students, only two remembered all ten of the commandments.  Two!  That’s less than ten percent.  Two students could list only four.  The average was 6.3.  The only commandment that everyone remembered was “Thou shalt not kill.”

 

                Here are the commandments in order of the frequency with which the students remembered them:

Thou shalt not kill. (31)

Thou shalt not steal. (28)
Thou shalt not commit adultery. (25)

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. (22)

Honour thy father and thy mother. (21)

Thou shalt not covet. (20)

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. (15)

Thou shalt have no other gods before me. (14)

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. (14)

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. (11)

                It seems honoring the Sabbath has pretty much gone the way of the horse and buggy.

                In addition to errors of omission, my students also made errors of commission – they listed things that are not among the Ten Commandments.  The most frequent one was “Love they neighbor as thyself,” which six students added to the Decalogue.  Other mistaken additions ran from the ever-popular “Judge not” to “Avoid gluttony.” One student added, “Do not cut people off in traffic,” but I chalked that up to the fact that he was a sophomore and belonged to a fraternity.

                Roy Moore would probably think my students’ imperfect knowledge of the Ten Commandments demonstrates the need for his monument.  I have a different view.

                I love today’s young people; they are honest, open, and possess a strong sense of fairness and compassion.  What they lack is enthusiasm for anything that seems old and out of date.  Growing up in today’s world, young people have a deep and abiding commitment to contemporary notions such as the right to privacy and protecting the environment, two things that don’t even rate a mention in the Ten Commandments.  On the other hand, the idea of a graven image never enters their consciousness. 

 

                I can just imagine the bible thumpers and snake handlers proclaiming that if it was good enough for Moses and his people, it should be good enough for us.  But the people who might say this don’t talk or dress like the ancient Israelites.  They don’t sacrifice animals, anoint each other with myrrh, or smote their enemies.  Or is that “smite” their enemies? I’m not sure how to conjugate that verb.

                Yes, right and wrong have not changed.  But our understanding of what is right and wrong has been shaped by forces that Moses and his people could not even have imagined - Greek civilization, the Roman Empire, The voyages of Columbus and Magellan, colonialism, the rise of empirical science, the industrial revolution, splitting the atom, putting a man on the moon, the computer, decoding the human genome. Must right and wrong be forever clothed in the words and customs of the distant past?

Writing Contests are Wonderful except for the Judges by J. Michael Orenduff

Mike Orenduff grew up in El Paso, Texas and received his B.A. from the University of Texas.  He received his M.A. from the University of New Mexico and his Ph.D. from Tulane.  He was a university professor and administrator in seven states and three countries before taking early retirement (or, as his friends describe it, a midlife crisis) to begin a writing career. His “Pot Thief” murder mysteries feature Hubie Schuze, a mild-mannered but politically incorrect treasure hunter who digs up and sells ancient Southwestern pottery.  He was doing it before Congress redefined treasure hunting as theft, and as Hubie likes to say, “Who knows more about thievery than Congress?” Mike currently lives in Valdosta, Georgia where his wife, the noted art historian Dr. Lai Orenduff, is a faculty member at Valdosta State University. 

Writing Contests are Wonderful except for the Judges

by J. Michael Orenduff

            The best thing about writing contests is someone wins, which cannot be said of the three other things you can do with your stories (two if you reject the burning them alternative).  You can send them to a publisher, but most publishers won’t accept your stories except through an agent.  You can send them to an agent, but most agents will throw them in the recycle bin without even opening the envelop. They want a query first.  If art galleries worked this way, they’d ask to see your brushes and paints before consenting to look at your canvasses.  If a hundred writers send a query to the same agent, it’s likely none will be invited to submit actual work.  But if a hundred writers submit work to a contest, at least there will be a winner.  Contests provide a ray of hope in an otherwise dismal business.

            The worst thing about contests are the judges.  This is not sour grapes  on my part.  My first mystery, The Pot Thief Who Studied Pythagoras, won the Dark Oak Mystery Contest and the Kindle version won the “Eppie” for eBook Mystery of the Year.  My second book, The Pot Thief Who Studied Pythagoras, was selected as the Best Fiction Book of the Year last month by the Public Safety Writers Association.  My play, The Christmas Visitor, has won four awards, including first place in the Jewel Box Playwriting Contests, and the top list in the annual contest sponsored by Writers Digest.  Even that had a depressing side. The letter informing me of my success also informed me they received over 31,000 entries!  The two primary requirements to be a writer are irrational optimism and either a large bank account or the franking privileges of a Congressman.  

            After reading scores of judging sheets (I’ve entered more contests than the ones I was successful in), I’ve finally figured out what’s wrong with judges.  They don’t read real books.  They are too busy reading books about how to write books and attending seminars about how to write books.  And some of them, one assumes, are also busy writing their own books using the techniques they have learned in those books and seminars dealing with books. 

            The evidence for this conclusion are the notes judges scribble on the manuscript, things like “We don’t know who Jane is” after an opening sentence of chapter three that says something like, “Jane threw two fresh ice cubes into the tumbler of Old Stumpblower,” or “This musing breaks the rhythm of the story” in the margin next so a sentence in which the protagonist says something like, “The mangled corpse brought back images from Viet Nam that I had worked for years to suppress,” or “No conflict” penned under an innocent paragraph where the protagonist and her brother are remembering the day they were chased by a dog.  From which it must be concluded that three rules of writing are 1) always explain who a character is before you let her do or say anything, 2) excise all sentences that do not advance the action, and 3) do not allow any narrative or dialog not essential to the story.

            W. Somerset Maugham said, “There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”  I find it telling that judges who like my work, in addition to displaying impeccable literary taste, seldom fall back on generalized do’s and don’ts, offering instead comments directed to the specific work.  Thus, “We don’t know who Jane is” is replaced by “The hardworking, hard-drinking Jane was well-drawn, and I found myself caring about what would happen to her.”  Even their negative comments are specific and therefore useful – “I found Jane to be just another hackneyed stereotype of the alcoholic reporter.”

            There is good writing and bad writing and I’ve demonstrated the ability to do both.  The trick is to increase the preponderance of the former.  Rules are not very helpful.  Lawrence Sanders’ Archie McNally series of murder mysteries is so light it’s been described as “frothy,” and fully half of each book is given over to musings, observations, and asides that do not advance the plot, do not contain conflict, and do not keep the action moving.  In a word, they are unnecessary.  However, the books sold so well that what was necessary was to continue them even after Sanders’ death.  The publisher hired Vince Lardo to continue, although Sanders’ name remains displayed more prominently on the covers.  There are no doubt other Lawrence Sanders out there, but they can’t get published because they don’t follow the rules.  Indeed, I suspect there are thousands of aspiring writers people would enjoy reading.  The fact that these writers are unpublished explains why used bookstores are so popular.  The agents and big publishing houses have choked off the supply of real books and turned instead to celebrity books, mindless drivel by celebrity politicians like Bill Clinton and Sarah Palin.

            For any rule a contest judge can cite, I can show you a fiction best-seller that breaks it.  The best way to become a good contest judge is also the best way to become a good writer.  Read enough real books that you develop an ear for what works.