Cooking With Author Susan Mathis

Alice: Today I welcome Susan Mathis, who has been a guest here before. So glad to have you back, Susan. I see that you have a new novel out and a recipe for us.

Susan: Want to know where that yummy orange condiment comes from? From the Thousand Islands, between the United States and Canada in the St. Lawrence River, where my novels are set. Here’s an excerpt from Devyn’s Dilemma, my newest novel, that explains:

“What is this sauce, Mother?” Marian smacked her lips as she savored the orange condiment.

“It’s called Thousand Islands Dressing, my dear. Isn’t it yummy?”

Marjorie chimed in. “Isn’t that just the loveliest idea, Mother?”

Howard took a hearty mouthful and nodded. “It’s quite good. Where did it come from?”

Mr. Bourne answered. “It’s a great story, really. Remember George Boldt, who built Boldt Castle on Heart Island near Alexandria Bay?”

Howard nodded. “Of course, Daddy. It nearly rivals The Towers. Nearly.”

The entire group chuckled, and Mr. Bourne continued. “Yes, well, as you know, he used to manage the prestigious Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. His friend and the maitre d’hotel, an Oscar Tschirky, accompanied Mr. Boldt to the castle several times. Once, while on the Boldt’s yacht, Oscar found out the crew had left the salad dressing behind, so he concocted this one. Boldt liked it so well that he named it ‘Thousand Islands Dressing’ and began serving it in all his hotels. Since then, it’s become quite popular.”

Now, whenever you enjoy this dressing, you know—the rest of the story!

Thousand Island Dressing

1 cup mayonnaise
1/8 cup ketchup
1 hard-boiled egg, finely chopped
1 tbs onion, finely chopped
1 tbs green pepper, finely chopped
1 tbs red bell pepper, finely chopped
1 ts. parsley, finely chopped
1 ts. scallions, finely chopped

Mix all ingredients together and chill to blend flavors.


Check out Devyn’s Dilemma, Book 2 of the Thousand Islands Gilded Age series!

Devyn McKenna is forced to work in the Towers on Dark Island, one of the enchanting Thousand Islands. But when Devyn finds herself in service to the wealthy Frederick Bourne family, her life takes an unexpected turn.
Brice McBride is Mr. Bourne’s valet as well as the occasional tour guide and under butler. Brice tries to help the mysterious Devyn find peace and love in her new world, but she can’t seem to stay out of trouble—especially when she’s accused of stealing Bourne’s money for Vanderbilt’s NYC subway expansion.

About Susan:
Susan G Mathis is an award-winning, multi-published author of stories set in the beautiful Thousand Islands, her childhood stomping ground in upstate NY. Her first two books of The Thousand Islands Gilded Age series, Devyn’s Dilemma and Katelyn’s Choice are available now, and she’s working on book three. The Fabric of Hope: An Irish Family Legacy, Christmas Charity, and Sara’s Surprise are also available. Visit her website for more.

Susan is also a published author of two premarital books with her husband, Dale, two children's picture books, stories in a dozen compilations, and hundreds of published articles. Susan makes her home in Colorado Springs, enjoys traveling globally with her wonderful husband, Dale, and relishes each time she gets to see or Skype with her four granddaughters.

Where you can find Susan:
Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas
Amazon
Website
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Pinterest
Goodreads


Alice: Thanks, Susan! It was nice having you as our guest today on Cooking With Authors!

10 Tips for Writing a Memoir that Resonates With Readers: Guest Post

These days, as COVID-19 sweeps the globe, our days seem to be melting into an undifferentiated fog of worry and waiting. Still, this season of fear can be the perfect time to think back on the stories that make us who we are.

It might seem strange, looking to the past to make sense of a disorienting present and an uncertain future. But it can help us remember our resilience and capacity for joy. In the end, it’s our old triumphs (and traumas) that have given us the resources to weather this new terror.

Dig deeply enough, and you might find yourself excavating a powerful story from the material in your memory, a narrative even you couldn’t discern before. Why not fashion that story into a memoir and share it with the world? Here are ten tips for writing a memoir that resonates with readers — because we could all use a nourishing dose of inspiration right now.
1. Start in the middle
A memoir isn’t an autobiography. You’re not beholden to the tyranny of chronology, so you shouldn’t feel obligated to start at the very beginning. The occasional memoir might open with an exhaustive account of the author’s birth. But most of our origin stories aren’t very gripping.

Feel free to skip ahead to the interesting parts, lest you lose your readers as they yawn their way through your earliest hours. Instead, start in the middle with a vivid scene that promises to stick in their memory. Speaking of which….
2. Write in scenes
You might be writing nonfiction, but the fruit of your labors will bear a striking resemblance to a novel. It may sound strange, but a strong memoir has more in common, stylistically and structurally, with an epic fantasy than with a history textbook.

Memoirs, like novels, are written in scenes — not inert streams of fact, but vivid set-pieces animated by concrete details and immediate action. Instead of telling your readers about what you experienced, show them your most powerful experiences in real time. Set the scene with description and bring the people involved on-stage as characters, with gestures to make and lines to speak.

3. Treat the people in your memoir as autonomous characters
Fiction writers invest a lot into making sure their heroes and villains read like real people, but memoirists aren’t exempt from the work of character development. Because the people populating your memoir have real-life analogues, you don’t have to craft their characterization out of whole cloth — you can rely on memory, observation, and even interviews to refine their physical descriptions and tease out their motives.

The key is to make sure the “characters” in your memoir are as finely drawn as any literary characters — that they behave like people instead of plot devices in your story. The reader should be able to imagine them living their lives off the page, not winking out of existence the second they leave your side.
4. Show emotional growth
Of course the most important character you’ll be developing is the protagonist — you. Most readers want their protagonists to emerge from the other side of the narrative somehow changed by their experiences. Whether they’re more confident and independent or more selfless and serene, that sense of evolution makes the reading experience feel worthwhile.

As you write your memoir, make sure you’ve sketched out an arc for your growth as a character. Can you pinpoint how you’ve changed — and link that transformation to the experiences you write about?
5. Show off your imperfections
Turning yourself into a compelling protagonist is an act of radical vulnerability. You’re allowing readers an unflinching glimpse into your character — warts and all.

Even the most self-aware memoirist can find themselves lapsing into PR mode, quietly shaping their account of events to justify a mistake or airbrush a character flaw. Watch out for those self-aggrandizing tendencies as you write, and remember: memoir readers don’t want to read about saints. Your imperfections will make them root for you all the more.
6. Arrange events according to a clear narrative arc
Shaping your characterization around an arc of emotional growth will give your memoir a crucial sense of dynamism. By the same token, the individual scenes you write should build on each other in a way that suggests the story you’re telling is going somewhere.

To put it differently, your memoir should have a plot. That means the scenes you write can’t just shine individually — they have to make sense together, bound by a clear causal logic and a sense of change over time.
7. Don’t let your message overshadow your story
As your memoir comes together, you’ll continue to grapple with what inspired you to tell your story in the first place. Your motivations might evolve over the writing process, as long-buried memories emerge, and once-insignificant pieces of your past take on a breathtaking new clarity. But maybe there’s an impetus you’ll carry with you from the beginning: a message you need to get across.

Let that message seep into your writing. But don’t allow it overtake the story you’re telling, replacing evocative detail with sloganeering. Say you want to demonstrate, for instance, that grief can’t be rushed. You don’t want to fill each chapter with too many point-blank statements to that effect. Instead, craft scenes that show what happened when you tried to “progress” through your grief according to a normative timeline rather than listening to your own needs.
8. Tell all the truth but tell it slant
You might remember James Frey, whose Oprah-touted memoir turned out to be, upon extensive fact-checking, a novel. The revelation that he fabricated his haunting account of addiction ignited a media firestorm. Memoirists have presumably been on their best behavior ever since.

Needless to say, pulling a Frey is a non-starter. But that doesn’t mean you need to sacrifice the emotional truth of your story on the altar of newsprint facticity. Take inspiration from the ever-wise Emily Dickinson, who spoke of telling the truth at a slant.

In practical terms, that means you can reconstruct dialogue you can’t remember word-for-word, and cut out details that bog down your narrative. Just don’t make up events with the freewheeling panache of a fantasist.
9. Fact-check yourself
This tip might sound like it contradicts the last point, but it’s crucial to ensuring that minor memory lapses don’t jolt your readers out of your story. Say you write about singing along to Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful” on your iPod as you make nachos, your cat winding furry figure-eights around your feet and your TV humming in the background. You look up to check if your oven is preheated, but the TV screen catches your eye: you see smoke billowing off the Twin Towers as the news breaks on 9-11.

This could be a striking scene — ordinary domestic joys pierced by national tragedy. But some of your readers may remember that “Beautiful” came out a year after 9-11. Suddenly they’re closing your book to confirm their suspicions on Wikipedia.

To make sure you don’t lose your readers at a pivotal point, verify any of the details that can be verified. Memory plays tricks on us all, but you can outsmart it with some careful research.
10. Don’t try to sound like anyone else
We all know most celebrity memoirs are ghostwritten. But their outsourced tell-alls only work because the hired pens involved manage to capture this politician’s folksy charisma or that actress’s wry charm.

If you don’t opt for the red carpet route and instead write your own memoir, it’s important to hang onto your greatest asset: your inimitable literary voice. If you blindfold your best friend and read your memoir aloud through a voice changer, they should still recognize you.

Allow room for the expressions that naturally flavor your speech, and above all, don’t try to sound like someone you’re not. If you find yourself reaching for haute-literary language that feels unnatural, or dumbing down your prose to sound more accessible, give yourself permission to stop. No one else, after all, can tell your story. And it should sound like it’s coming from you.

~*~*~*~*

Lucia is a writer with Reedsy, a marketplace that connects self-publishing authors with the book world’s best editors, illustrators, and book marketers. In Lucia’s spare time, she enjoys drinking iced coffee and reading comedienne memoirs.

Advice from a long-lost journal

There it was, a journal from years back when I had discovered the power of writing through turmoil. My son had died and I had bottled-up emotions, wild thoughts, and just enough anger to propel me into the pages of a notebook with flowers on the cover.

Later I shared the impact writing had on me for clarity and calm when I taught writing workshops:

“Just write. Just find a word and let it be the one to write about. Or find two and string them together.” That was what I told my classes, my students. “A word might come to you in a song or conversation. Take its hand and start. No one has to see what you write in your notebook. You don’t have to read your work. You don’t have to share it with anyone. It is not like the only cookie or the last cookie in the jar and you have to let those around the table have a nibble. This is your work. This belongs to you alone.

“It is your lifeline, your therapy. And it is cheap. It will comfort you, your own words will heal you. Just keep writing and don’t let go. Write until your hand cramps and if you haven’t finished getting it all out there, write with that cramp. Keep unloading, the paper can handle it. Your heart has been carrying the heavy ache for so long, share it with the pages. Nothing is too hard or heavy for a piece of paper to absorb.”

In this season of COVID-19 when your emotions might be flying around the rooms of your house as you practice social distancing and stay at home procedures, make friends with a journal and a pen. Just start with a word and keep going. As they say at Outback Steakhouse---No rules, just right!


What does journaling do for you?

*Gives you a safe place to write your thoughts
*Allows you to unleash your hurts, worries, and fears
*Teaches you about yourself
*Shows you how you handle your joys and woes
*Helps you solve many of your problems


For more inspiration, check out this writing video created for me. Turn up your speakers; this video is made to inspire.

In the Time of Coronavirus - A Time to Soul Search

Panic. Fear. Uncertainty. Disbelief. Sorrow. Control-less.

In this historical era of COVID-19, how are you affected? As you listen to the news reports that change every hour, what have you become?

A few years after my son died (those of you who know me, know that Daniel's death will always be my Ground Zero), I wrote a poem about becoming. I was not who I used to be when he was by my side laughing with me and eating a bowl of Cocoa Puffs. In bereavement, I was morphing into something new---like that caterpillar when he turns into a butterfly. It didn't feel pretty. There were days of loneliness, wondering who my friends were, how I would make it to the next day. One foot in front of the other was a major task. I cried so much that my eyes stayed puffy and red. I wanted to fist-punch those who said trite things. I hated who I was.

What are you doing during this fearful season of your life?

Some people are hoarding toilet paper. We laugh, but as I stared at the empty shelves where toilet paper has always been at my local Harris-Teeter, I didn't feel like laughing. When the disgust left me, the deeper feeling was a sadness toward humanity. Because to me hoarding toilet paper (of all things!) shows me that people are not only fearful, but trying. They are trying to gain some control of a control-less situation. We are told to stay home, wash our hands, keep away from crowds, and yet, all of that sounds too simple and easy. Can't we do more? We're smart, certainly there's more we can do to make this virus go away or to try to preserve some feeling of security. "I can't hug anyone, I can't go on vacation, I can't go to work (or I've lost my job), but, hey, I can have enough toilet paper. So take that, you nasty Coronavirus."

When Daniel died, I wanted to figure out why. Why had he died? Why hadn't he been miraculously saved? Why him? He had cancer, but other children with neuroblastoma lived. Then we learned from the autopsy that he was cancer-free. It was the first we had heard that news. He'd been through eight months of treatments and we'd never heard cancer-free until the autopsy report. I feared I had missed a cue. He was supposed to have lived and I messed up.

Admitting that I had no control was a long process. When we think that we have boundless control of our lives and those around us, we are living a myth.

Hoarding toilet paper, hand sanitizer and antibacterial wipes is a way of trying to gain control in a chaotic era.

So what to do you want to become? How do you want to get out of your cocoon and emerge into a free-floating butterfly?

Bereavement opened the door for me to explore things I had never done much of before. In the midst of pain and suffering, I discovered that I was becoming a woman who shed spiritual platitudes ("God won't give you more than you can handle", etc.) and also someone who dispelled the myth that life is all under my control.

What can you do during this time of uncertainty?

* Write -- a poem, that short story that's been playing around in your mind, that song, that letter to a friend
* Read --- Dust off that copy of To Kill A Mockingbird or A Tale of Two Cities
* Pray --- Ask God to show you how you can love others around you and how you can surrender your life to him (good luck with that one, it is a daily task)
* Nurture friendships --- but be sure to stand at least six-feet apart
* Create --- a garden, a new board game, a speech, a blog post, a recipe
* Donate ---- food or money to a charity

Let this be the season to contribute something YOU into the world besides anxiety and fear.

The virus has affected the globe. It's a vicious thing.

When we get beyond the virus, however long that will take, and are able to resume our more normal lives, what will we have become?

Will you be wiser? More compassionate? Less selfish? Will you be someone who lives out gratitude?

Will you be the person you want to be?

Start now.

Cooking With Author Norma Gail

I welcome author Norma Gail today on my Cooking with Authors portion of my blog. Norma has a recipe for us and a new book coming out. Read on to learn more!


New Mexican Green Chili Stew

4 lbs. of lean beef stew meat, diced (may use pork)
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 large onion, medium chopped
1-2 lbs. of potatoes, chopped
1 lb. of carrots, sliced
2 16 oz. cans of diced tomatoes with liquid
2 16 oz. cans of pinto beans with liquid
24 oz. of roasted green chili, diced – either canned or frozen (as mild or hot as you like)
Water to cover

Coat meat with flour and brown with garlic and onion. Mix all ingredients together in a large crockpot or stew pot on stove. Add water to the preferred consistency. Add salt and pepper to taste. Cook all day until meat, potatoes, and carrots are tender.

Serve with warm flour tortillas with butter and honey, bread, or sopapillas. Enjoy!

Thanks for that recipe, Norma. Sounds like something I will have to try. Next tell us about your upcoming novel.


Within Golden Bands – A Home for My Heart Book 2 is the sequel to my 2014 release, Land of My Dreams – A Home for My Heart. The first book is the story of Bonny Bryant, an American college professor, who accepts a job at a small Christian college in Scotland to escape heartbreak and loss. Love is the last thing on her mind when she meets fellow professor and sheep farmer, Kieran MacDonell. Together, they discover that the greatest blessings come when you leave the familiar behind and take a step of faith.

In Within Golden Bands, newly married Bonny MacDonell finds the transition from American college professor to Scottish sheep farmer’s wife more difficult than she expected. Though her husband says he has accepted her infertility, she fears his reaction when her miracle pregnancy ends in a devastating miscarriage. However, Kieran never shows up at the hospital. When found, he is beaten and unconscious. The only memory of his attacker is the words, “Get off my land.” As a result, his parents reveal a family secret involving an altered deed and missing aunt. Reeling from the threat to her husband and the loss of her child, Bonny struggles with depression.

As Kieran's elusive attacker stalks the family, threatening their safety, the couple is forced to hire bodyguards. Bonny still longs to be a mother but Kieran fears his deep-seated opposition to adoption will drive them apart. Are faith and love strong enough to keep their fledgling marriage on solid ground? Will they choose to trust God when his ways are impossible to fathom?


Thanks for joining me at my blog, Norma.


~*~*~*~
Norma Gail writes Fiction to Refresh Your Spirit. Her contemporary novels, Land of My Dreams, which won the 2016 Bookvana Religious Fiction Award, and Within Golden Bands (releasing May 19, 2020), explore the theme of women whose faith triumphs over trials. A women’s Bible study leader for over 21 years, her devotionals and poetry have appeared at ChristianDevotions.us, the Stitches Thru Time blog, Inspire a Fire, and in “The Secret Place.” She is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers, Romance Writers of America, Historical Writers of America, and the Women’s Fiction Writers Association. Norma is a former RN who lives in the mountains of New Mexico with her husband of 44 years. They have two adult children.

Ways to connect with Norma --- follow her blog, or join her on Facebook, Twitter, or Amazon. She is also on Pinterest, Instagram and Goodreads.

Morphing with Memories

When Daniel died, he left behind toy trucks, plastic dinosaurs, a joke book, and lots of clothes. In a bereavement magazine I saw an ad from a woman who made memorial quilts. I called her and after learning more about her quilts and the cost, I commissioned her to make a twin-sized quilt from Daniel’s pants and shirts. Cotton shirts are the best, she told me. In his room, which had been taken over by his baby sister, I sorted through his clothes. Some were in his laundry basket that had sat untouched in his closet since his death. This will be the last time I’ll get to do Daniel’s laundry, I thought. Downstairs I placed his clothes in the washing machine and watched the water, detergent, and fabric blend together.

Once the clothes were dry, I boxed the shirts and pants and sent them to the Quilt Lady in Nebraska. About a month later, I received a box from her. I had seen photos of memorial quilts before. But I was not ready for the emotions that came when I saw one that held squares of clothes that had belonged to my child. At first I couldn’t look at the swatches of the clothes he’d worn. The Barney dinosaur in the middle of the quilt brought back memories that made me cry. Daniel had that shirt on when he was diagnosed with cancer. He’d been three.

But as the years progressed, I was able to drape the quilt over the sofa or over an arm chair in the family room and run a finger over the blocks of cotton and embrace the memories. Barney and the other shirts held stories that were precious. One of my favorite memories came to me when I saw a blue and green squiggly swatch. That had come from a shirt with a label that read Wild Boy. Daniel had been energetic--knocking over houseplants before he could stand, jumping into puddles, and peeling off his messy diaper after a night of sleep. We called him Wild Boy. He laughed at the name. I think he was proud to be wild.

As we enter onto the journey of parental bereavement, our whole world changes. In a matter of seconds, we morph into different creatures. These new creatures have different eyes and hearts, causing us to see and feel things we did not know were valuable. To the rest of the world we look like we used to. But we know we will never be just like we used to be. Now we cry when see a toy, a picture, or when we hear a certain song on the radio. We even cry when we experience a new quilt.

Life has turned upside down. From the simple tasks like the way we drive a car to how we celebrate Christmas are under scrutiny. Even our faith and religious beliefs are questioned. Spiritual platitudes that perhaps we used to quote get shot down by our new world-view. We replace them. We toss out the illusions about life we once had. Perhaps we used to believe that wearing a seat belt offered all the protection needed, until someone we love died even though they had their seat belt fastened. Eating vegetables and fruit, exercising, and being positive don’t guarantee a long life. The control we thought we had was a myth. We have selected new thoughts and methods, dug deeper into our faith to see what is real and differentiate between that which is scriptural and those false securities that were never promised to us. We have fashioned our quilts out of what is honest and true. We have not hidden from reality because we can no longer do that. We are weathered and real and growing each day into new creations.

When I teach grief-writing workshops I ask participants: What squares of truth have you incorporated into your grief pattern? How have your thoughts changed since the death of your child? What swatches of fabric are you carrying with you on your journey? And perhaps the most important question to grapple with: How can you rid your life of things that stifle you from becoming that precious being you want to be?

I think that the key is to focus on a memory that makes you smile. Recycle that moment over and over and refuse to let the negative ones or the ones that make you feel guilty live in your heart. Always choose life-giving memories. Let them bring the sunlight you need. The wise gurus say we can't change the past, so there's no point in going over it and disciplining ourselves as we think of all we should have or could have done.

When I look at the memorial quilt, I see the energetic and fun boy Daniel was. The quilt makes me smile.

Carrying happy memories into each new day opens me up to grow into that bold, loving, and fun being I want to be.

Our Memories Fill the Stars

When a loved one dies, all we have left are memories. While the memories are sweet, they are never enough. We wish for more.

When my son Daniel died, I felt cheated that I had only four years of life with him. But after the horrific pain subsided, slowly, I was able to think of the happy memories I could hold onto and carry with me.

I'm no artist, but I did go to Michael's many times to find items I could paint or decorate that connected me to my son. On one trip to the arts and craft store, I got a plain basket and some paint. I also picked up wooden objects from various bins. These were already cut and painted, which was great since I don't think I could draw a boy in a blue-striped shirt to save my life. Daniel had blond hair and a blue-striped shirt, so that made me pick that wooden piece up and put it in my shopping cart. I got a boot because he had cowboy boots and a pig because he once fell on a prized pig at a petting zoo and the pig bit him. (Security contacted the owner of the pig, but he never showed up.) I also picked out a watermelon slice because there are many stories about Daniel revolved around that juicy red and green delight.

I painted the box with gold, red, and blue. I managed to paint a few yellow stars, too. I wrote on the lid: Our Memories Fill the Stars. The quote is one I came up when I stood under a velvet sky and watched the distant stars. I cushioned the inside of the memory basket with a red bandana that Daniel was given at a Make a Wish event the last autumn of his life.

Each wooden object holds a precious memory. My memory basket gives me a way to take out the pieces, touch them, smile, and remember.

At first when Daniel died, I thought he wouldn't be remembered by many. His friends were only four and five years old. Perhaps adults would keep his memory alive, but I couldn't be sure. At his grave, I promised that I'd tell Daniel stories. Over the years (there have been 23) I've discovered that no one can steal the memories. They are life-giving and connect me to the Daniel I love and miss every day. While I have had to struggle (immensely) with the events that surrounded his demise and death, I don't cultivate those memories. I've learned not to dwell on the treatments for cancer he went through and the shock of his passing.

Those of us who have lost a loved one discover how to recycle the memories that bring sunlight. We tell the stories again and again, and each time, we feel the boldness that lets us know it's not only okay, but acceptable, to talk about our beloved child. No one should try to shut us up. Our child died, but he also lived!

May the memories we choose bring joy today and always.