Tag Archives: Woodstock

By the time we got to Woodstock

Posted on by under Culture, e-books, Fiction, history, Music, mystery, Nature, Novel, suspense

Two years after the Summer of Love and life in the rural town of Pennsboro, Pennsylvania is about to explode. A dam that would flood the valley pits family against family. Protesters riot. Buildings burn. Amid the chaos of 1969, two lovers risk everything to fight for their dreams.

That turmoil forms the setting for my first standalone novel, Born Under a Bad Sign, a book that captures the spirit of the era through the eyes of an unlikely couple—a pacifist Quaker and a rebellious rocker, two people who wield their differences like armor and sword.

Elizabeth Reed has three passions: photography, the river the government wants to dam and a musician who can’t settle on any one person or place. Hayden Quinn, the guitarist Rolling Stone calls the next Jimi Hendrix, feeds a single obsession—to play Woodstock, the biggest concert of his life. He presents Elizabeth with a dilemma: does she stay to save her family farm, or relinquish her dreams to follow Quinn into the unknown?

In a time when her generation trusts no one under 30, Elizabeth must face the greatest risk of all—whether to trust herself.

The story of Elizabeth and Quinn is inspired by real events. I grew up in Northeast Pennsylvania, the site of that proposed dam, and watched the conflict tear apart families and entire towns. Our band never would have made it to Woodstock but we opened for national acts and played some of the holes Quinn’s fictional group plays. And like Elizabeth, I wielded a camera for a small newspaper that covered the crises of the region, including the forced eviction of its citizens and the squatters who claimed their land.

Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of Woodstock, the novel is a portrait of love and loss in the one of the most turbulent times in American history.

With an on-sale date of May 1, Born Under a Bad Sign is available for preorder through bookstores and online at Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble and Kobo.

 

Stormy weather

Posted on by under Authors, Books, Creativity, Fiction, Novel, Writers, Writing

Starting a new project is never easy. Working during a storm that threatens your entire state makes it even harder to concentrate.

Now that Hurricane Irma has swept through Florida and spared our home, I’m trying to refocus efforts on a new novel, tentatively titled Born Under a Bad Sign, although The Peaceable Kingdom might provide an ironic description of the theme.

Set in 1969 just before the historic Woodstock Music & Art Fair, the book pits the residents of eastern Pennsylvania against the government in a battle to save or dam the Delaware River. It introduces two young people, a budding photographer named Elizabeth Reed and a prodigal musician called Hayden Quinn, who struggle with their own personal conflicts as they weigh the risks and rewards of love and fame.

For Elizabeth, the peace of the Minisink Valley is a form of paradise. For Quinn, whom Rolling Stone calls the next Jimi Hendrix, Eden lies to the north, at Max Yasgur’s farm. Whether they realize their dreams is an open question.

Unlike its predecessors, the CW McCoy and Brinker novels, this work is more mainstream, an exploration of the baffling mysteries faced by a sixteen-year-old woman on her emotional journey to adulthood.

I started working on paper (hence, the image of the notecards) before graduating to Word, with its document-view feature that uses headers to provide a visual outline of the manuscript. Less onerous than outlining, it’s a system I recommend to fellow writers who want flexibility as well as organization.

 

The rhythm of life at the beach

Posted on by under Creativity, Culture, Music

Every Sunday at dusk, drummers gather on Sarasota’s Siesta Beach to bid farewell to the sun. They put it to bed with a hypnotic rhythm that vibrates through the heads and feet of the hundreds of visitors and residents who rim the sand, who’ve been lucky enough to find a parking spot.

On Halloween they wear masks. Most of the time they wear their dreads and tattoos and thrum their congas and djembe, their snares and bodhrans.

In the circle, a woman balances a sword on her head, her skirts flying through the night air. Children spin in glowing hoops, an elderly man offers free hugs, a man dressed as Santa with a jester’s hat poses for pictures. People talk to each other.

A middle-age couple from Illinois sits with a beer in their hands and their toes in the sand. They’re staying on Siesta Key for a few weeks and this is their first time at the circle. In his short beard he looks woolly. She has blond hair with sculpted curls and perfect legs. The woman takes in the drummers and the jugglers and leans in to whisper, “I suppose anything goes.”

No, I say, not here, and if she’s disappointed, it doesn’t show. She nods and as the sun drops into the Gulf, she gives in to the rhythm, rising in her flowing shift and twirling for her husband, who snaps a picture with his smartphone.

She settles back in the low beach chair and smiles and says to no one, or to everyone, “We’ll send that to the girls.”