Ponce Chronicles 2021, Part 1

personby Jeffrey A. Carver
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This continues a series I began years ago, long before Treehouse Writers came together, about my family’s trips to work on a house we call Casarboles. Treehouse. It’s in Ponce, Puerto Rico. It will all be explained; just dive in. My entries here lag a bit behind in time, so when I say “today,” understand I mean “very recently.” Here goes…

Today I dropped my daughter Jayce off at the San Juan airport to fly back home to Boston after ten days of sweat and toil in the Puerto Rican sun. Okay, I exaggerate. She wasn’t actually out in the sun most of the time. But she did work hard!

But I’m getting ahead of myself. If you’re new to the Ponce Chronicles, Ponce is the second-largest city in Puerto Rico, where my wife Allysen’s parents built a home back in the 1970s. Sadly, her parents are no longer with us, so the home now belongs to Allysen and her brother. It’s a beautiful place, and popular among weekend vacation renters. It’s also a place that requires constant, intensive upkeep—which we’re not here most of the time to provide. So, usually, once a year, we come down to work on needed repairs. Sometimes much needed repairs, such as after Hurricane Maria and last year’s earthquakes. And this time, the pandemic. Not that Covid attacked the house. But it kept us away for longer than usual, allowing things to slide. (Unfortunately, we have been unable to find a caretaker who can both see to the needs of guests and perform the necessary level of ongoing maintenance. We really need a couple of people. If you know anyone in Ponce…)

Allysen and daughter Jayce came down ten days ago to get started, while I stayed home with the dogs. Earlier this week, I came down to relieve Jayce and—with a few days’ overlap—send her back to take care of the dogs.

So much work needed! My first day I was officially resting in honor of Father’s Day, so all I did was fix the dryer vent and refrigerator freezer-compartment drawers, which someone had removed for God-knows-what reason. After that, I fell apart in the heat and was essentially useless for a day, until I got back into the swing of things and renewed my old friendship with Ponce Home Depot. I shudder to think how much money we pump into the Ponce economy via Home Depot!

I’ll get to the repairs in another installment. Last night we took Jayce out to celebrate her time here, and we drove along the southern coast, ending at a restaurant that had been recommended to us, name of Lordemar, in the town of Patilla. The view was spectacular! We watched the Strawberry Moon/Supermoon rise from the ocean. The restaurant was… interesting. Could have been really charming, if they’d upped the service and ambiance just a little. Menu-wise, they were 86 on my first two choices, so I settled on filet mignon, though I’m not a big steak eater. It was quite tasty! It was served with lovely silver cutlery! Huh. I’m kidding, of course. It was served with really bendy plastic utensils that were nearly incapable of cutting meat. The rest of the meal was sort of like that. The tostones were excellent. The wine was swill. The beer was Medalla, which is basically the local Bud Light.

But the view! The sea and the Strawberry Moon and the pelicans and the little black birds that chased each other territorially across the lawn! Priceless.

Sorry, I guess we didn’t get a picture of the little birds. But you can picture it in your mind’s eye, right?

 

Happy Fourth of July!

personby Jeffrey A. Carver
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Wishing everyone a safe and happy Fourth of July, which in the U.S. is the celebration of the birth of our nation! Let’s celebrate it by keeping our democracy alive and healthy! That’s what I want for America’s birthday! I want truth to prevail. I want all citizens to have an equal right to vote and to obtain justice. I want—well, so many things—but let’s go with this: I want us to work together to fix global climate change, and not keep watching heat waves and wild fires and hurricanes get worse, year after year. Man, if we could just do those things together, it would be a fantastic birthday for America!

Happy Birthday, nation I love!


(We celebrated from down south in Puerto Rico, courtesy of the internet, by watching the Boston Pops live at Tanglewood. Here’s Mavis Staples, photo by Christiana Botic for the Boston Globe.)

Eating and Adulting

personby Nancy Jane Moore
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Someone I follow tweeted that they forgot to eat today. I responded, “You know, I am quite sure that I have never forgotten to eat.”

I have at times skipped a meal because something came up and there wasn’t time to eat, but I guarantee I was cranky about it. I can remember coming home exhausted and falling into bed without dinner.

And of course I have been too sick to eat a few times in my life. It’s a guidepost: if I don’t want to eat, I am really sick.

But I have never forgotten about a meal.

My father used to say I was always hungry. He said the day they brought me home from the hospital, I cried and carried on while he tried desperately to figure out how to get a bottle ready.

And the family made fun of me for years after the vacation when I asked, while we were eating dinner, what we were going to do for breakfast the next day.

It wasn’t that I wasn’t getting enough dinner. I just wanted to make sure there were plans for breakfast the next day. I mean, my mother was in charge and I’d already figured out that she didn’t really care that much about food.

I’ve been teased enough about the importance I place on regular meals to feel a little defensive. But damn it, eating is important.  Continue reading “Eating and Adulting”…

The Joy of Tools

personby Madeleine Robins
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I made tomato pie yesterday–inspired by a post on Facebook’s “Not the NY Times Cooking Community” page. I had never heard of such a thing before, but I not only liked it a lot, but I have ideas on how to improve the recipe, which means that it will happen again. The idea is simple: make a pie shell. Put down a (fairly well-packed) layer of ripe tomatoes, followed by about a layer of caramelized onion, a scattering of crisp bacon bits, a quarter cup of chopped fresh herbs… then do it all over again. Then you top the whole thing with a mixture of shredded cheese, mayonnaise, and pimentos, and bake.

The result is nothing like a pizza, but delicious and fresh tasting. Next time Continue reading “The Joy of Tools”…

A Few Links

personby Nancy Jane Moore
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I’ve done some posts on other blogs about my new novel For the Good of the Realm. Most recently, I did a post on the Milford SF Writers blog — which is the blog for the yearly peer workshop held in the U.K. (currently meeting in Wales) — on the way different writers are using 19th century (and some early 20th century) fiction in their stories.

Earlier I had a piece on John Scalzi’s The Big Idea series and also one on Mary Robinette Kowal’s My Favorite Bit.

All three will give you some good ideas of where my ideas come from.

For the Good of the Realm is available from Aqueduct Press.

For the Good of the Realm author's copies

YA Tackles Teen Mental Illness With Sensitivity and Courage

personby Deborah J. Ross
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How to Become a Planet, by Nicole Melleby (Algonquin Young Readers)

Fourteen year old Pluto is an engaging youngster, as passionate about astronomy as she is puzzled by the changes in her life and herself. Within a short period of time, she’d gone from a happy science geek who hangs out with her best friend on the boardwalk where her divorced mother runs the family pizzeria, to a stranger in her own skin. Sometimes she’s paralyzed with the blues, unable to even get out of bed, and the next she’s caught up in senseless fury. It’s as if the mood swings of normally hormonal adolescence have been amped up to pathological proportions. Even with a supportive mother, a psychiatric diagnosis complete with medications and a recommendation for psychotherapy, and a novel way of using astronomical concepts as metaphors for what she’s going through, Pluto is drowning. Not only is she progressively alienating everyone she cares about, she’s stopped caring. Only when her rich city father ramps up the pressure for her to live with him does she formulate a desperate plan: a list of all the things she must do in order to stay at home.

Take medication.

Visit the planetarium with Mom.

Go to Former Best Friend’s Birthday party… and so on.

The list, Pluto believes, will prove that she can return to her old, “true,” “normal” self. But things don’t go as planned. As Pluto embarks upon her tasks, they become even less within her reach. The summer takes one unexpected turn after another.  The tutor whom Pluto was sure she’d hated turns out to be a sympathetic ally, and a new friend with a checklist of their own has a secret Pluto can sympathize with.

Society tends to “other” people with mental illnesses. Historically, they were seen as possessed by devils or cursed by angry gods, as witches, or as eccentric, lazy, or selfish. Treatments ranged from trephination (drilling holes in the patient’s skull), to exorcism to locking the mentally ill in horrific prison-like asylums. Even today, when effective treatments allow many, even those with serious diagnoses, to lead functional lives, the stigma persists. All too often, the person is seen only as their illness, and their insights and contributions therefore dismissed as invalid. Young people are particularly vulnerable to public shaming. It’s hard enough for even “normal” teens to figure out who they are and what they want in life. How to Become a Planet focuses on Pluto as a sympathetic character, a person who is both resourceful and overwhelmed, insightful and confused by changes in herself. Her use of astronomy metaphors is particularly vivid and powerful. Above all, Pluto is a person whose brain chemistry isn’t working quite right, not a diagnosis, and this excellent novel showcases her journey toward a new balance in her life.

As for my personal reaction, I must confess that, although I am an older adult, I gobbled up this book. Pluto’s voice was so compelling, and her struggles so resonant, that the story connected with me on a deep level. Although I did not suffer depression as a teen, I struggled with PTSD as an adult. The times Pluto absolutely cannot motivate herself to engage with her day were chillingly familiar. And, just as Pluto took small steps toward understanding her “new normal,” that’s how it went with me. Besides skillful therapy and appropriate psychiatric medicines, unexpected acts of kindness and new friendships as well as old carried me through the dark times. Pluto comes to accept that she is now and will forever be different from who she was before. I can never go back to the person I was before my own trauma. But I can heal and grow and live a fulfilling life. I wish the same for Pluto. She’s made an excellent start.

Clarion West Write-a-thon and Some Thoughts on Why I Like SF/F

personby Nancy Jane Moore
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Clarion West Write-a-thon

I just signed up to participate in this year’s Clarion West Write-a-thon. Since this works as a fundraiser for Clarion West, you can sponsor me in my writing endeavors. Of course, this is also a tool for making myself write.

I’m planning to work on a sequel to For the Good of the Realm, which just came out from Aqueduct Press. I plan to do a little work on it each day. I notice in looking at the pages for this year’s Write-a-thon that there are many other things I may be doing, but that’s the starting point.

Signing up for this got me to thinking about Clarion West, past Write-a-thons, and the whole science fiction and fantasy world.

Going to Clarion West was one of the pivotal experiences in my life. The intensity of the process was crucial for me. It not only made me write, but it made me believe in my writing. But I think the key part was being a writer in community, doing the same kind of work along with others who shared my interests and desires.

I bonded with the people in my class. Twenty-four years later, I remain close friends with several of those people and can usually pick right up where we left off with most of them.

The Write-a-thon doesn’t bring that back, but it does make me remember Vonda N. McIntyre, who always participated and always sponsored other writers who were participating. Of course, Vonda was well-known for her generosity to other writers, so this was no surprise.

Signing up for the Write-a-thon reminds me of how much I miss her. Continue reading “Clarion West Write-a-thon and Some Thoughts on Why I Like SF/F”…

Decorating with Books

personby Madeleine Robins
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via Random Acts of Reading

I grew up in a bookish household. There was a huge bookshelf and cabinet built in to the wall of my parents’ house in New York City, filled to the ceiling with all kinds of books. My father, a designer, had briefly subscribed to the Heritage Press limited editions, classic works with specially created artwork and typography. They look rather quaint now (and no one knew anything about acid free paper in those far-off days) but I had the run of those books, as well as anything else on the shelves (this led, several years later, to my 9th grade teacher responding to my book report on Candide with an A and the comment “do your parents know you’re reading this?”). Those books–and many others–filledd the house. When we moved to Massachusetts I not only had a set of bookshelves that framed my window, but when I decided I didn’t like where the door in my room was located and put in a new door, we made my former door’s space into bookshelves.

I suspect my story, outside of the particulars, is not unusual. Continue reading “Decorating with Books”…

Author’s Copies!

personby Nancy Jane Moore
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For the Good of the Realm author's copies

I finally got my author’s copies of For the Good of the Realm. (The post office seems to be particularly slow in sending books these days.)

So wonderful to finally hold the print version in my hands. I’ve had the ebook versions since right before it came out, but while they’re great for reading, you can’t hold them.

If you want one of your own, you can get one directly from Aqueduct Press, from Bookshop, or from the usual places.

What I Write and Why I Write It

personby Nancy Jane Moore
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When Deborah J. Ross interviewed me for her blog, one of her questions made me reflect on myself as a writer. She asked, “[H]ow does your work differ from others in your genre?”

I reflected a bit, and came to this realization: “My stories sound like my stories, regardless of what subset of the genre they fit in.”For the Good of the Realm

Then this week, I shared a couple of poems I wrote with my sister, Katrinka Moore, who is a poet. (I don’t consider myself a poet; I’ve just been playing around with poetry to learn new ways of looking at language and shake up my creativity.)

She made this observation: “Your poems are very you – as you speaking – and yet very much poems.”

I think a similar observation could be applied to my essays, maybe even my book reviews. What I write sounds like something I would write or say. The only significant writing I’ve done that doesn’t sound like me on some core level is probably straightforward journalism. That might also explain why journalism never satisfied my writing urge, even though I found the work interesting and rewarding: It didn’t have anything to do with me.

My stories, my essays, my poems, all of them have everything to do with me. I don’t mean they’re autobiographical; except for a few pieces I call “flash memoir,” most of them aren’t. But there’s something at the core that comes from me and the way I think and look at the world.

The more I think about this, the more I think this explains why I write and why writing the things I do is very important to me. Continue reading “What I Write and Why I Write It”…