Emil Franzi, the voice of Voices of the West, and winner of the Lariat Award (to recognize the individual who has shown exceptional support for WWA and for the literature of the West) at the 2014 Western Writers of America convention in Sacramento, will interview Edward on October 11.  His show airs in Tucson, AZ, and the interview will be via telephone.  A recording of the interview will be posted here on October 12.  Tune in.

The Nexus of History and Fiction

Providence Art Club is said to be the oldest art club in the nation after the Salmagundi Club in New York.  It is a great honor to be asked to discuss the nexus of history and fiction in Every Soul Is Free.  The novel is fiction but it is true in every detail, even when describing events that were created entirely for the purpose of telling a good story.  Providence, R.I., Thursday, October 2, 2014.

My “Posse” — to use the modern hip vernacular — tells me that a blog should be cutting edge and snarky.  Well, this one is simply a warm record of a great evening, at “Read Between the Wines,” a book club, in Stamford, CT.

As I should have expected, the very first question was, “Have you done any book clubs before?”  Isn’t it amazing how an honest answer breeds doubt.  And the honest answer was, “No,” but then a hurried recitation of all the plans and events coming up.  So, there had to be a first and what a wonderful first to face: seven professional women, all accomplished in their own right, and all participating in a book club where the ground rule is one had to read the book as the price of attendance.

I had a planned reading and discussion, along these guidelines:

• Themes
  • Grandparenting
  • Setting the standards and how to teach them
• Tough love: Reading from Chapters 1 and 5
• Setting the standard by living the example: Reading from Chapter 14, “Icy Springs”
• Teach the lessons now: Reading from Chapter 56, “Skates”
• General discussion: How stories inform the standards and values of our lives

We set right into the evening: discussion, questions, and the guidelines became an afterthought, spiced with a little reading here and there.  Of all the questions, the one that was the most interesting to me, and unexpected, was “How did you get the language like that.  Did you have to study it? Did you write the story and then go back and fix the dialogue?”

Two and a half hours later, after dessert, I thanked them all for a wonderful and probing discussion of Every Soul Is Free.  And I thank those wonderful ladies, here.  My “Posse” tells me blogs should have photos.  Next time, I hope I’ll remember to take a shot of the blueberry pie!