Jennifer Bohnhoff
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John Potts Slough: Victor of Glorieta

5/11/2023

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PictureColonel John P. Slough , of the First Colorado Regiment ( From a war - time photograph loaned by Mr. Samuel C. Dorsey , of Denver . )
John Potts Slough came from a prestigious military and political family. His ancestor, Mattias Slough, was the first colonel appointed by General George Washington during the Revolutionary War and was also a member of the Pennsylvania assembly before he left public life to run a tavern in Lancaster County. 

John had big shoes, and expectations, to fill. 

John Potts Slough (whose name rhymes with 'plough') was born on February 1, 1829, in Cincinnati, Ohio. He earned a

degree in law and was elected as a Democrat to the Ohio General Assembly. Things were looking promising for this young man, but all was not perfect. Potts was noted for having a fierce temper and could pepper his tirades with obscenities. He was expelled from the Legislature after engaging in a fist fight with another assemblyman. He then moved to Kansas where he was narrowly defeated in a race for the Governor's seat.

Slough then moved to Denver and became one of its preeminent lawyers. When the Civil War broke out, 
he entered the service as the Captain of the 1st Colorado "Pike's Peakers" Volunteer Regiment, then convinced the territory's  Governor, William Gilpin, to raise his rank to Colonel. Slough used family money to support the troops. He located a vacant building, the Buffalo House Hotel, and got it donated for use as barracks until Camp Weld was built on the south side of Denver. Despite his organizational acumen, Slough was not popular with the troops, who found him cold and imperious.
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In 1862, a Confederate army invaded New Mexico Territory, and Slough marched his regiment to Fort Union. Once there, he took assumed control of the fort, arguing that he outranked Colonel Paul, the regular Army officer who had been in control, by reason of an earlier appointment date. 

Colonel Edward Canby, who commanded the Department of New Mexico, ordered Slough to stay at the fort, but Slough deliberately misinterpreted the orders and marched to Glorieta Pass, where he engaged in a battle that ultimately turned the tide and sent the Confederate Army back to Texas. The victory was not a sweet one for Slough. Worried that he would be drummed out for disobeying orders and convinced that his own men fired on him during the battle, he resigned his commission and left the state.

Slough went to Washington, D.C., where once again things seemed to be going his way. He was appointed Brigadier General of Volunteers and became the military Governor of Alexandria, Virginia. Slough served as pallbearer at Lincoln's funeral and was a member of the court that convicted Henry Wirz, commander of the notorious Andersonville Prisoner of War Camp. In 1866, President Andrew Johnson appointed Slough the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New Mexico. 

PictureSlough is buried in Spring Grove Cemetery, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Once he returned to the territory, Slough again showed concern for his old troops. His efforts to have proper burials for the soldiers killed at Glorieta resulted in the creation of the National Cemetery in Santa Fe in 1867. In 1895, Confederates who died in the battle were interred there as well.
 
But once again, Slough's fiery temper and outspoken tirades got him into trouble. President Andrew Johnson wanted  Slough  to break down the corrupt patronage system that had plagued New Mexico for centuries, and Slough began by attacking peonage, which he compared to slavery. This swiftly earned him enemies in the still divided and notoriously violent territory.  On December 17, 1867, Slough was playing billiards in the La Fonda Hotel when he and another former Union officer and New Mexico legislator, William Logan Ryerson, got in an argument. Two days later, Ryerson, who was also a part of the notoriously corrupt Santa Fe Ring, fatally shot an unarmed Slough in the lobby o
f Santa Fe's Exchange Hotel. Ryerson was tried for murder but the jury acquitted him, saying he had acted in self defense.


Slough is one of the historical characters in Jennifer Bohnhoff's Civil War novel The Worst Enemy which will be published in August 2023 by Kinkajou Press, a division of Artemesia Publishing. The Worst Enemy is the second in the trilogy Rebels Along the Rio Grande. and is available for preorder. The first book in the series, Where Duty Calls, was published in 2022 and is available here. Both novels are suitable for middle grade readers and above. 
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Miraculous! An Interview with Author Caroline Starr Rose

2/16/2023

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Caroline Starr Rose writes middle grade and picture books that have earned awards through the American Library Association,  the Junior Library Guild, ABA New Voices, and more. They've been on the  Amazon Best Books of the Month for Kids list and have been Bank Street College of Education Best Books selections. 

I recently read Miraculous, the story of thirteen-year-old Jack, who becomes an assistant to  Dr. Kingsbury, a traveling medicine salesman. Dr. Kingsbury claims his elixir can cure everything from pimples to hearing loss to a broken heart. Jack believes the claims after Dr. Kingsbury gives a bottle of his “Miraculous Tonic” to him, and it cures his baby sister. But when the medical wagon makes a stop in the town of Oakdale, events happen that cause Jack's faith to waver. Soon, he and his new friend Cora are racing to discover truths that everyone want hidden.

This novel reminded me of Moon Over Manifest and of Tuck Everlasting, both of which have tonics with magical powers that may or may not be all they claim, and which bring about unexpected consequences. It's fast paced and exciting and will keep readers guessing. 

Once I finished reading Miraculous, I got the opportunity to ask Caroline Starr Rose some questions, which she graciously answered. I'd like to share her responses with you:


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Why did you choose the 1880s for Miraculous? Honestly, I don’t remember specifically why I chose the 1880s, but I knew I wanted to be well into the traveling medicine show era. Having recently written a book set in 1889-1890 (A Race Around the World: The True Story of Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland), I knew what an exciting era that was as far as innovation goes. (Big cities had electric lights, telephones, skyscrapers, steam engines — all things that would have intrigued my character Cora, a small-town girl interested in experiencing more.)
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Why Ohio? I knew I wanted a town where African Americans were part of the fabric of the community. Early on I knew the story would take place in the Mid-West, but it wasn’t until I took my older son on a college trip that I settled on Ohio. On that trip we toured a park where Cincinnati, OH and Covington, KY converged. There were murals showing the history of the area with panels devoted to various industries, moments in history, and individuals. One panel honored an African American man who ran the town sawmill, was a minister, and a city official. I’d found exactly where my character, Mr. Kennedy, belonged (and with him the rest of the town of Oakdale).

Some of your books, like Blue Birds, have female protagonists. Others, like Jasper and the Riddle of Ridley's Mine, have male protagonists. In Miraculous, a number of different characters get to share their voices. Do you find it easier to have a male vs. female protagonist? What differences do you find as you write in different voices? I’m not sure if it’s easier to write one or the other, but I know I sometimes bring biases I’m unaware of to my work. I remember telling my editor early on when we were working on Jasper that I wasn’t sure how to show his emotions since he was a boy (or if he even had a very big range of emotions). She kindly reminded me that, you know, boys are human. They’ve got emotions, too. Of course they do! I felt pretty dumb (and rather disrespectful — sorry, boys!), but it showed me I’d let some unknown assumptions color my writing without even realizing it.
What I try to focus on now (thanks to my editor) is a character’s humanity above all else. How would this particular person feel and react in this particular circumstance? That’s where I start. I let each character lead.
What is the big message you want readers to come away with after reading Miraculous? I’m a bit uncomfortable with the idea of a message. Writing for me is about exploring, a way to make sense of the world. I want readers to come along on the journey and draw their own conclusions. Looking through that lens I’d say I’d love readers to consider the influence and power of persuasive personalities. I’d like them to see that while advertising techniques of the past might seem extreme or less polished than what we see today, there are very many similarities, especially when it comes to playing to our sense of our personal flaws and ways we might “fix” them. I’d like them to consider the power of friendship and forgiveness and second chances, of not being afraid to question and reevaluate.

​For more information on Caroline and her books, visit her website.



Would you like a signed copy of Miraculous? Leave a comment below expressing your interest. I'll choose one lucky person and announce their name in my email on Thursday, February 23rd. 

Jennifer Bohnhoff writes fiction for middle grade through adult readers. Her next book, Summer of the Bombers, will be available in April 2023. You can read more about her and her books at her website.
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Civil War Mules in Fact, Fiction, and Poetry

7/27/2022

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Mules were the backbone of both Confederate and Union Armies during the American Civil War. According to a page on the Stones River Battlefield site, about three million horses and mules served in the war. They pulled the supply wagons, pulled the limbers and caissons for cannons, and moved the ambulances. 

Although mules died in battle, just like the soldiers they supported, a greater percentage died of overwork, disease, or starvation. Rarely was the daily feed ration for Union cavalry horses, ten pounds of hay and fourteen pounds of grain, available during the long campaigns. 

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Jemmy Martin, one of the lead characters in Where Duty Calls, my middle grade novel about the Civil War in New Mexico, loves the two mules who work on his family's farm. When his brother sells them to the Confederate Army, Jemmy decides to travel with them to protect them. He tries hard to find good forage for his mules after Major General Henry H. Sibley's army crosses into barren New Mexico territory on its way to capture the gold fields of Colorado. 

But Jemmy couldn't protect his mules from Union trickery. The night before the battle of Valverde, a Union spy named Paddy Graydon concocted a plan for killing the Confederate hoofstock using a couple of run-down mules as weapons. While his plan didn't work, he managed to spook the Confederate's pack mules. The animals, who'd been denied access to water for several days,  stampeded down to the Rio Grande, where Union soldiers rounded them up. Jemmy finds himself continuing to follow the army even though his reason for being with them is gone.

While Jemmy and his mules are fictional characters that I created for my novel, the story of Paddy Graydon is true. Graydon really did spook the Confederacy's pack mules, and the Union Army did really collect
over 100 of the beasts when they broke to gain access to water. They lost over 100 animals and had to reconfigure their supply train. Before they left camp, the Confederates burned what they could no longer carry.  
In Hardtack and Coffee: The Unwritten Story of Army Life, Civil War veteran John D. Billings shares the story of another mule stampede. During the night of Oct. 28, 1863, Union General John White Geary and Confederate General James Longstreet were fighting at Wauhatchie, Tennessee. The din or battle unnerved about two hundred mules, who stampeded into a body of Rebels commanded by Wade Hampton. The rebels thought they were being attacked by cavalry and fell back.

To commemorate this incident, one Union soldier penned a poem based on Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade.​
Charge of the mule brigade

Half a mile, half a mile,
Half a mile onward,
Right through the Georgia troops
Broke the two hundred.
“Forward the Mule Brigade!”
“Charge for the Rebs!” they neighed.
Straight for the Georgia troops
Broke the two hundred.

“Forward the Mule Brigade!”
Was there a mule dismayed?
Not when the long ears felt
All their ropes sundered.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to make Rebs fly.
On! to the Georgia troops
Broke the two hundred.

Mules to the right of them,
Mules to the left of them,
Mules behind them
Pawed, neighed, and thundered.
Breaking their own confines,
Breaking through Longstreet's lines
Into the Georgia troops,
Stormed the two hundred.

Wild all their eyes did glare,
Whisked all their tails in air
Scattering the chivalry there,
While all the world wondered.
Not a mule back bestraddled,
Yet how they all skedaddled--
Fled every Georgian,
Unsabred, unsaddled,
Scattered and sundered!
How they were routed there
By the two hundred!

Mules to the right of them,
Mules to the left of them,
Mules behind them
Pawed, neighed, and thundered;
Followed by hoof and head
Full many a hero fled,
Fain in the last ditch dead,
Back from an ass's jaw
All that was left of them,--
Left by the two hundred.

When can their glory fade?
Oh, the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made!
Honor the Mule Brigade,
Long-eared two hundred!
The Stones River Battlefield Website stated that roughly half the horses and mules employed during the Civil War didn't survive. Jemmy Martin loses his to Paddy Graydon's plan. He spends the next two books in the Rebels Along the Rio Grande series trying to find them and return them to his home near San Antonio, Texas. 

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Jennifer Bohnhoff is a retired middle school English and History teacher. She has written several novels, most of which are historical fiction for middle grade readers. Where Duty Calls is the first book in Rebels Along the Rio Grande, a trilogy set in New Mexico during the Civil War. 

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Us vs. Them

1/5/2022

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A few years back, I was standing behind a table stacked with my books at an arts and crafts festival when something magical happened. A woman who was walking by stopped, put her finger on one of my books, and said that she wished she could meet the author. When I told her that was me, she came around the table, hugged me, and declared that my book was the best one she'd ever read. She told me that if everyone in the world read my book, there would be no more war. The book she was referring to was Swan Song, which has since been revised and reissued with a new cover and the new title of The Last Song of the Swan.

Let me tell you right now that this kind of thing doesn't happen very often to me. For everyone who likes one of my books, there's someone else who hated it. This particular title is the one that really polarizes people.

The big idea in The Last Song of the Swan is how we determine who is "US" and how we exclude those who aren't. The story is a dual narrative. One thread takes place in Albuquerque a decade ago. The other thread takes place in what is now Denmark during the last Ice Age. Despite the differences in place and time, the question of who belongs and who doesn't remains the same. 

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Us vs. Them is an old problem. We determine who is us and who is them in a number of ways, religion, language, color of skin or hair or eye, nationality, regionality, sex: they all can serve to separate or unite us as we choose. Lately, at least in America, the biggest lines have been drawn between people of color and between political parties. It's gotten ugly.

But this ugliness is not new. I was teaching English as a Second Language back in 2011 when Osama bin Laden was killed. and the wave of patriotism that swept the nation also swept my school. Some of that wave was lovely. Other aspects were not. Some of my students received nasty anonymous notes in their lockers, telling them to go home. Some got spat on in the halls. The crazy thing is, not all of these students were even Arabic or Muslim. They just looked different, foreign and were therefore part of them and not included in us. 

Picturehttps://www.focusonthefamily.com/pro-life/teaching-your-kids-about-racial-harmony/
In the January 9, 2016 edition of The Wall Street Journal,  columnist Robert M. Sapolsky reported on the results of a neuroimaging study of responses in our brains to faces of different races. The study, by Eva Telzer of the University of Illinois and written in the Journal of Neuroscience in 2013, uncovered a result they called "other-race effect, or ORE. When we see faces different than our own, within a tenth of a second our brain activates the amygdala, a brain region that produces fear and anxiety. When this happens there is less activation of the fusiform, a part of the brain that helps us recognize individuals, read their expressions, and make inferences about their internal state. Our brains are wired to see them as a group and us as individuals.

The good news in this study was that children who saw lots of different faces very early in life did not have as big an ORE response. But by early, the study meant really early. If we want children to not grow up with racist tendencies, we must lay the building blocks long before they learn about King's I Have a Dream speech in kindergarten or even learn the word equality.


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Jennifer Bohnhoff is a writer and retired teacher who lives in the mountains of central New Mexico. She has written a number of books, most of which are suitable for readers from the middle grades on up. She recommends The Last Song of the Swan to an older audience of 16 and up. 

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Throwing out the Baby with the Potato  Water

1/23/2020

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My critique partners can attest that sometimes I don't remember my own books.  They've been through so many revisions that I can't remember what's in them and what's been expunged.
I forget sub-plots.  I can't remember characters' names.  Often I've forgotten whole scenes.

This became a bit of a problem for me this past week.  I'd had the honor of being asked to guest-write a post on Project Mayhem, a fabulous blog on writing hosted by a wonderful group of Middle Grade authors.  I decided to address how little historical details can help readers grasp what a period of time was like, and how even the littlest of details could lead to some big questions.  As an example, I decided to use a quirky little historical detail from my Civil War novel, The Bent Reed, which will be published in both paperback and ebook in September.

The quirky little historical detail in question is from a laundry scene; After washing Pa and Lijah's shirts, Ma dips them into a vat that contains the water left over from boiling potatoes.  Why would she do this, you ask?  Because the left-over potato water would have had starch suspended in it, and the starch would have made ironing the shirts easier, and the ironed shirts more crisp.  

I remember learning this little historical detail in a Civil War era book of hints for housewives and being fascinated.  I delight in little bits of trivia like this.  I thought that it could lead to many interesting discussions about resource use and thriftiness.  

As I wrote my post last week, I decided that this detail was a perfect example of how little bits of trivial information about everyday life in an historical period could not only bring that period to life for readers, but help readers ask big questions about how history informs the present day. And so I pulled out my manuscript and began searching for the scene.

And this is where I ran into a problem, because the scene wasn't there.  I searched using potato and starch and laundry as key words.  I found several scenes with laundry, but none involved a vat of potato water or even an iron.
Apparently, at some point in my rewriting and revision process I had cut this beloved little bit of trivia from my story and then forgotten about doing so.

Thinking about it now, I'm not surprised that I'd thrown out the vat of potato water.  Even the most interesting bits of historical trivia have to either move the plot along or illuminate the characters.  Although I cannot remember thinking so, I must have decided at some point that the potato water did neither.

Now that I think of it, I'm convinced that using the water left over from boiling potatoes show just how frugal Ma was.  Like most women in her era, she used a good deal of her own elbow grease and determination to make sure to turn everything to good account.

Maybe I threw out the baby with the potato water.



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Jennifer Bohnhoff is an educator and writer who lives in New Mexico. She has written two novels set in the Civil War: The Bent Reed, which takes place at Gettysburg, and Valverde, set in New Mexico. The sequel to Valverde, Glorieta, will be published this spring. This post was originally published July 14, 2014.

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A Walk Through History

3/25/2019

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PictureAll pictures (with the exception of the live crinoid) by Heather Patrick.
Last week I got a chance to hike with my sister Heather in the Sacramento Mountains, east of Alamogordo, New Mexico. Alamogordo is 200 miles south of my home, and its season is weeks ahead; while it is still cold and snowy in my Sandias, the Sacramentos were balmy. The sky was blue, the birds sang, the sweeping vistas spectacular, but what really made the hike memorable is that it was a walk through time that stretched way, way back.

It's hard to envision now, but this arid land was once very different. Between  358 and 323 million years ago, it was part of a vast ocean. Much of the 

limestone in the Sacramentos is studded with fossils that prove that the area was underwater. I saw lots of shells and shell imprints, but especially prevalent were the fossilized stems of crinoids, which look like stacked rock coins. Although they look like little palm trees, crinoids are animals, not plants. They are still alive today, but they are hard to see since they live at great depths.  ​
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Looking west, we could see straight across the Tularosa Basin to the San Andreas mountains, about 60 miles away. Once, these two mountain ranges were contiguous. The land in between has dropped.

Can you see the white line that seems to extend from the bill of my cap? That's the gypsum sands at White Sands National Monument.​


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Moving up the trail brought us forward in time. While walking along an arroyo, we saw these pock marked rocks. Although these were the only ones I saw on the hike, my sister tells me there are many of these in the area, and they are not naturally formed. Because water tends to collect in them, these depressions are called Indian wells. (The parking lot at the trail head is at the end of Indian Wells Road.)

A sign at Oliver Lee State Park, which is not far south of this trail, explains that these depressions weren't originally used for collecting water. Instead, they mark places where Indians ground up nuts and grains ground up. They are more like mortars than wells. 

Farther up the trail, in a narrow side canyon, we came upon something that I've never seen in a mountainous desert setting before: cattails. The cattails were in front of a cave that my sister tells me is a spring visited by Indians since time immemorial. There was about a foot of standing water in the cave, which seemed to stretch far into the mountain. This water source, so valuable in the arid southwest, has obviously been used by more modern man; on our way down the canyon we saw several lengths of rusted pipe and the derelict remains of an old water tower.
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It was a lovely hike on a lovely day, and it was a reminder that there is interesting things to looks at wherever you go. History and geology, archaeology and botany are right under your feet, and beneath them, if you use your imagination, are story prompts enough to last a long, long while.

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Jennifer Bohnhoff is a writer and hiker who lives in central New Mexico.

Click here if you want to learn more about the geology of the Sacramento Mountains. 

​Click here if you want to learn more about Jennifer and her books.


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An Interview With The Author

3/13/2018

3 Comments

 
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Recently a high school student sent me an email requesting an interview. She needed to talk with someone who worked in a field in which she was interested. Here are her questions, and my answers. Let me know if you think I didn't explain the writer's life well enough. I'd love to learn how your answers would vary.

1. What made you decide to become a writer?
I don't think anyone decides to become a writer. Writers are compelled - driven by the stories that keep playing in their heads. They can't help themselves, and if they deny their writing it drives them crazy.
 
I started writing really young, like middle school, but I didn't start taking it seriously until I was a stay at home mom. Writing enabled me to go far, far away without having to hire a sitter.
 
2. I know becoming an author is a tricky job financially when you just get out of school because of getting your name out. Do you think newly graduated writers should work part time as a writer or submerge them self in their work?

 
I don't know anyone who was able to just submerge him or herself in writing. You either have to keep a day job, or find someone who will support you, or perhaps win the lottery. The exceptions to this are people who go into commercial writing, like copy editing, advertising, or journalism.
 
You mentioned an interest in editing, and that's a great way to break into the field, especially if you're willing to move to New York City. These days editors get paid a piddly salary to start out, but they make a lot of contacts and they're close to the big movers and shakers. Many editors write books to fill the "gaps" in their house's line, so they are both editors and writers.
 
3. What kind of experience did you have, or recommend, before going to college?
 
Live fully, travel widely, love deeply. And take lots of pictures to help jolt your memory later. I regret I did little of any of this before going to college.

4. How do you get out of creative blocks?

 
I've never had one. I've always had way more I wanted to write than time to write it in.
 
5. How do you pull yourself out of procrastination?

 
I usually don't. There's usually a reason why I'm not writing, and I respect that and do other things until I'm ready again. The story will start to beat on the inside of my head if I ignore it awhile, and usually when I procrastinate what I'm really doing is other stuff I need to get done (like laundry and weeding) while working out kinks in the plot twists.
 
6. What is your favorite genre to write in and why?

 
I love historical fiction, because I love researching the period and learning what was going on, how people lived, how they thought, and what they wanted. Some human feelings are universal. Others are not. That's always a surprise when I read primary sources.
 
7. Do you think living in New Mexico impacts your writing?

 
New Mexico is a cultural backwater in some respects, but the internet has opened the world up so much that it doesn't matter as much as it used to. And there's so much beauty here and so many untold stories. I think just looking out the window is inspiring.
 
8. Do you expand your creativity from just story book?
 
I'm not sure what you're asking here. Do I do other creative things besides writing? I'm a pretty fair cook, and I sing in the church choir but am not a fine enough talent in either to make a go of it professionally.

9. Are you self employed or do you work under a company?
 
Most writers don't work for companies. They are freelance, and when they've completed a novel (or other kind of book, fiction or nonfiction) they send it to editors of publishing houses and agents. Or, they self publish, which is what I do, because I gathered over 1,000 rejects and finally decided I didn't want to wait anymore and play the game. Getting published is hard. For every 10,000 manuscripts a publishing house gets, they're going to make an offer on one or two.
 
10. Do you see writing more as a serious or a fun job?

I have yet to have a serious job in my life. I won't do it if I can't find the fun in it. That being said, writing is rarely fun. It's hard work. Editing and rewriting is even harder. And getting rejected hurts. Deeply. But if you're meant to be a writer you do it anyway. And while not always fun, it can be thrilling and deeply satisfying.

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Paddy Graydon's Scheme to Stop the confederacy

3/9/2017

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PictureThe Library of Congress calls this "a jurilla." Paddy and the members of his spy company probably didn't look much better.
While enormous Union and Confederate Armies battled each other in the east, a relatively small Confederate Army was attempting to conquer the American Southwest. Their ultimate aim was the rich gold fields of Colorado and the deep harbors of California. Luckily for the Union, the American's had Paddy Graydon to destroy the Confederate's plans.

Paddy Graydon was a rough, hard drinking, disagreeable man who was quick with his fists and short on temper, but his recklessness has earned him a place in the Civil War lore of New Mexico.

 Paddy, whose Christian name was James, came to the United States from Ireland in order to escape the Potato Famine. It was 1853, and he was just 21 years old. Like many indigent immigrants, he joined the Army. Paddy became a dragoon, or light mounted infantry. He was posted to the southwest, where he learned to speak Spanish and Apache. Graydon's deprived childhood prepared, the blue eyed, 5' 7" man for the hardships of life in the saddle fighting Indians, bandits, renegades, and claim jumpers in an area that stretched from Santa Fe to the Mexican border. He stayed in the service for five years, until 1858.


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Graydon opened a saloon near Sonoita, Arizona when he was discharged from the Army, His patrons were well-known for their rough and violent ways, but even such a tough clientele didn't provide Graydon with the excitement he was used to. The tough Irishman continued to track horse thieves, rescue captives from the Indians, and guide army patrols in his spare time.

When Confederate General Henry H. Sibley threatened to invade New Mexico in 1861, Graydon offered his services to Colonel Edward Canby, the highest ranking Union officer in the state. He formed an independent company of spies, most of them recruited from his former saloon patrons. Graydon's spies were known for being undisciplined and dangerous. They refused to wear uniforms or participate in drills and parades. But they were very good at collecting information. Graydon and his men excelled at wandering into Confederate camps and gathering information while posing as rebel soldiers. 


Graydon's most famous escapade happened on a bitterly cold night in February, 1862, on the night before the Battle of Valverde. Under cover of darkness, Graydon and several volunteers crossed the icy Rio Grande and snuck up on the Confederate encampment. When they neared the corral that held Sibley's pack train, Graydon lit the fuses on boxes of explosives mounted on two old mules, then shooed them towards the Confederate lines. Unfortunately for Graydon, the mules turned back. Graydon and his men ran for their lives, and the mules blew up too far away to cause the carnage he had planned. However, the explosion caused Confederate pack mules to stampede down to the Rio Grande, where Union troops rounded them up.

Because of Graydon's scheme, the Confederate Army lost over 100 animals. Without their mules, they had to abandon many of the supplies that they desperately needed if they were going to conquer New Mexico and the rich gold fields of Colorado and California that Jefferson Davis had hoped to use to finance his fledgling country.

Jennifer Bohnhoff taught New Mexico History to 7th grade students in Albuquerque and Edgewood. Paddy Graydon and his escapade with the mules shows up in Where Duty Calls, the first book in a trilogy of middle grade historical novels about the Civil War in New Mexico.
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Quirky Ideas from the WWI History Museum

7/6/2015

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PictureThe reflecting pool at the museum's entrance.
When I went to the National World War I Museum in Kansas City last May, I was delighted by quirky artifacts that really got me thinking.  I wouldn't be surprised if some of them make it into a future novel, because they would add great depth and detail to a narrative.  

 Here are a few of my favorites:

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This projectile from a from a French 58 mm trench mortar was nicknamed the "Flying Pig" because of what it looked like in the air.

The Flying Pig was used by French, Belgian, and U.S. troops and had a range of 490 yards.

The video below isn't of a Flying Pig, but of an Australian trench mortar.  

If I ever write a novel set in the trenches of World War I, I have GOT to have a Flying Pig in it!

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This Austrian helmet was sent home as a souvenir by an American.  Back then, I guess the postal service had less restrictions than now, because no box or packaging was required to get this helmet from Europe to the U.S.  The soldier (I'm assuming it was a soldier.  It could have been a sailor or a relief worker for all I know.)  Simply attached a tag with his mother's (girlfriend's? sisters?) Kansas City address and stuck stamps directly to the helmet.  I hope I find a character with enough spunk and creativity to think about sending home souvenirs like this! 

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This is an Imperial German Border sign.  Made of painted cast iron, a series of these marked the border between Germany and France.


In  August of 1914, an elite French strike force penetrated the border on the southern flank of the engagement, capturing many of these border signs. 


Can you imagine a young Frenchman bringing this home to his maman?

Am I planning to write a book set in World War I?  Not at present.  Right now, I'm finishing a final edit on a young adult novel that has two concurrent settings: Swan Song switches back and forth between a modern high school girl and a girl living in Europe during the Ice Age.  I'm also researching a book which will be set in New Mexico during the Civil War.  But I'm always musing what comes next, especially when I see something quirky that brings the period to life!
9 Comments

Judging a Book by its cover: Part Two

11/20/2014

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L.M. Elliott's Under a War-Torn Sky is one of my favorite novels.  It is a fast-paced read that really excites middle school boys who are otherwise reluctant readers.  I used it several times when I was a reading intervention teacher, both as a class read and as an individual recommendation, and I've never had a boy not enjoy it.
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The story is about Henry Forester, a young man flying a B-24 in World War II. When his plane is shot down and he is trapped behind enemy lines, kind French citizens, some who are members of the Resistance and some who are just sympathetic to a frightened young man, help him to escape and return home via Switzerland and a treacherous route over the Pyrennes.


As one might expect, there are several plot elements in common between Under a War-Torn Sky and Code: Elephants on the Moon.  My French girl, Eponine, has a very different life from the French girl who helps Elliott's Henry, but the both share some of the same opinions about the callow young aviators they help rescue.   

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Some of the questions I was asked when it came time for me to commision the cover for Code: Elephants on the Moon was if there were any other books whose subject or theme were like mine. Could I suggest any covers that looked like what I wanted my own cover to look like?

I immediately thought of Under a War-Torn Sky.  I googled it to find cover images and was surprised to find not just the one I was familiar with, but three covers. 

I

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I sent all three of these images to the artist who created my cover.  As you can tell, mine came out very different than any of these.  This isn't surprising,  since the focus of the two books is different.  My aviator plays just a small part in my plot, while he is the main character in Elliott's.

I'm curious: which of these covers attracts your attention?  Based on the very sketchy synopsis I've given you, which one best expresses the story?  Would you buy any of these three books?



Knowing how you think might influence me when it's time to commission my next cover!

    Tell me what you think about these covers

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    ABout Jennifer Bohnhoff

    I am a former middle school teacher who loves travel and history, so it should come as no surprise that many of my books are middle grade historical novels set in beautiful or interesting places.  But not all of them.  I hope there's one title here that will speak to you personally and deeply.

    What I love most: that "ah hah" moment when a reader suddenly understands the connections between himself, the past, and the world around him.  Those moments are rarified, mountain-top experiences.



    Can't get enough of Jennifer Bohnhoff's blogs?  She's also on Mad About MG History.  

    ​
    Looking for more books for middle grade readers? Greg Pattridge hosts MMGM, where you can find loads of recommendations.

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