The Real Deal in Historical Fiction

June 7, 2024

Fictionalization: the action of writing about a real event or character, but adding imaginary details and changing some facts. In Dreams of Stone and Glass, I used several different approaches to fictionalize the people on whom my characters were based.

In the novel and in real life, Fred and Alta Smith raised five children on the farm that became the Wisconsin Concrete Park. In imagining Alta’s years with Fred, I remembered the Wisconsin farm women of my childhood. I invented names and personalities for the Smith children and grandchildren and created scenes typical of the twentieth-century American experience. 

After the Kohler Foundation purchased the property from the Smith family, a young artist couple lived and worked as preservationists at the Wisconsin Concrete Park. For the novel I invented names and personalities for these partners and created conflicts that seemed realistic for relationships in the 1970s.

I used real names to pay tribute to those who were among the earliest to recognize the significance of the Wisconsin Concrete Park. Bob Amft, Ruth Kohler, and Jim Zanzi had the foresight to understand Fred Smith’s claim that his work was “a gift for all American people everywhere. They need something like this!”

When the Show Is Over

May 24, 2024

One cherished summer tradition for my children was the Young Actors Shakespeare Workshop at Valparaiso University. The month of July involved hours of running lines, choreography, stage combat, costume fittings, dress rehearsal, and at long last, the actual performance. 

And then the show was over. No more rehearsals. No more costumes and swords. No more time with the friends who get all the inside jokes.

My kids and I called that emotional letdown “post dramatic stress disorder.” I’m experiencing something like that now that I’ve completed a draft of my novel. I don’t get to spend every day with my characters anymore. I need a stage mother to tell me to stop moping and go outside and play.

Sacred Spaces

May 9, 2024

I wrote the final scenes of my novel in an appropriate setting for a story about how certain places work their magic in our lives. On Old Campus at Valparaiso University, I sat within what some college friends call the Druid Circle and what my children know as the Magic Circle. That low brick-and-concrete structure, almost invisible among the trees, has been the site of significant experiences—raucous gatherings, theatrical productions, children’s frolics, secret rites, deep conversation, and solitary reflection. 

Like Ellen in Dreams of Stone and Glass, I crave the assurance that this sacred space will remain the same even when I myself have changed.

Yesterday when I visited Old Campus, I was delighted to see charred logs near the center of the Circle. Apparently, the spring rites of yore have not yet been abandoned.

Doing the Things You Love

April 14, 2024

When I took up guitar again, I hoped to gain enough skill and confidence to sing at open stages as I had done thirty years ago. My lessons are a kind of therapy, as much about the psychology of performance as about vocal and instrumental techniques. 

On open stage nights at Front Porch Music, most of us in the small audience are performers. Some bring friends or family members. I performed at three open stages months apart before I finally invited a few relatives to see me. 

That night, a teenager got onstage and said, “I’m not a singer, but you don’t always have to be good at doing the things you love.” Then she and her guitarist friend sang a heartfelt rendition of a Bob Marley song. 

I don’t remember the name of the song, but the introduction is etched in my memory.

The Door into the Mountain

April 1, 2024

Tolkien fans are familiar with the Doors of Durin, which halted the journey of Frodo and company until they puzzled out how to open the doors into the mountain.

Two years ago, I was stuck outside a metaphorical mountain, having abandoned a draft of my novel and begun again by adding a second narrator. I did some free-writing about her:

“Sarah stood at the kitchen sink staring out at the statues staring back. This is how Fred Smith’s wife must have felt when her whole world–her flower beds, her kitchen garden, her clothesline, her chicken coop–was surrounded by those statues. The animals weren’t so bad, but the concrete humans were dreadful.. . .

Wait, what has happened here?  Suddenly I’m channeling Fred Smith’s wife, whose name I do not even know. Is she the real other narrator of the story?  Or am I just looking for another way to avoid writing by doing more research?”

Unable to resist the temptation to do more research, I learned that Fred Smith’s wife’s name was Alta. Within days, I created a timeline for her life with Fred and their children. I started writing sections from her point of view. Alta May Smith provided the key that opened the door into the mountain and allowed me to mine the riches within.

Window to a World

March 24, 2024

One of the delights of writing historical fiction is finding windows into the past. Two summers ago, my husband Mark and I drove to Phillips, Wisconsin, and stayed upstairs in the Rock Garden Tavern, just as my character Ellen had done in 1977. Each morning I sat at Ellen’s window and looked out onto her world. Each day I wandered among the figures in the Wisconsin Concrete Park and saw what she and the other characters had seen.

Last summer, I returned to the Rock Garden Tavern. I sat at Ellen’s window and wrote while my friend Margaret painted or knit or read. My research included enacting incidents from the novel, such as a new moon ritual and a solstice walk during which Margaret and I watched the glow of the setting sun through the glass in the Park.

This summer, when I finish my revision of Dreams of Stone and Glass, I hope to make a celebratory visit to Phillips and raise a glass at Ellen’s window.

The Ten-Minute Trick

March 19, 2024

You can do anything for ten minutes. That’s what I told myself and my children for years. My kids remember those “ten-minute tidies.” Everybody assigned to clean a different room, the oven timer set, and Mom yelling “Go!” It was supposed to be fun.

In May 1998, I committed to writing ten minutes a day. After school I parked on a lawn chair with a notebook. The nine-year-old roller-bladed up and down the driveway, the five-year-old rode a trike in circles, and the two-year-old played with sidewalk chalk. I scribbled for ten minutes. Then another ten.

These days I don’t have kids to supervise, but when I sit down at my desk to write a scene, I often set a timer just to get myself started. “Go!” After all, it’s supposed to be fun.

Back Home Again in Indiana

March 11, 2024

One of the delights of coming home to the farm was meeting the new lambs. Five babies were born during the absence of the assistant sheep-keeper. 

Our flock of ewes includes a dark Cotswold, a dark Lincoln, a white Cotswold, a Cotswold/Teeswater, and a Cotswold cross descended from the Hampshires at Bo-Mar Farm in Wisconsin.

The chosen theme for 2024 Hil-Mar Farm names was “herbs and spices.” We have three sets of twins—Clove and Coriander, Sage and Saffron, Rosemary and Rue—and a singleton named Mint. 

From my desk in the study I can see the pasture. When all those lambs come out to play, I may have a hard time focusing on my page.

Reflections on My Residency

March 6, 2024

Solitude and freedom from outside responsibilities are two privileges of an artist residency. Just as essential are connections with other people engaged in creative pursuits.

My fellow residents, Colorado botanical artist Janet Vetter and New York playwright Nina Kissinger, taught me about their respective crafts and provided affirmation, warmth, and humor in our daily encounters in the Coach House.

Mineral Point artist Christie McNab and her colleagues showed me their works in progress and shared their views of art and artists.

Writers Steve Fox and Taylor Kirby, whose readings I attended, helped me appreciate the importance of appealing to listeners as well as readers. 

Shake Rag staff members respected my privacy but also let me know about opportunities for enrichment.

While my rustic studio did resemble a cabin in which a writer might spend weeks alone, I’m glad I experienced the joys of living in community at Shake Rag Alley.

“Farewell, Shake Rag Alley!”

March 2, 2024

As I begin the final day of my two-week residency, I intend to write long and hard. During my last hours here, I also want to savor the beauty and comfort of this magical place.

I’ve slept well in Room Two of the Coach House with its hand-stitched quilt and framed works by Shake Rag artists.

I’ve had stimulating conversations around the hearth in the Commons Rooms with fellow Scherbarth residents Janet Vetter and Nina Kissinger.

I’ve loved watching the light play over the long table in the Art Cafe, where we residents ate some meals alone and some in the company of others, including Shake Rag staff and board members.

I’ve enjoyed the view from the porch of my studio in the Cabinet Shop, especially the sight of that red fox trotting past one afternoon.

Tomorrow morning I will bid farewell to Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts with a grateful heart.

I look forward to returning someday.

My Preservationist Pen Pal

February 27, 2024

One of the delights of my stay in Mineral Point has been the opportunity to meet my pen pal Lisa Stone. Back in January 2023, I emailed Lisa requesting information about the restoration of the Wisconsin Concrete Park. Lisa and her husband Don Howlett have spent several decades as preservationists of art environments.

Over the past year Lisa and I have exchanged scores of emails on a wide range of topics. This weekend in Mineral Point, Lisa visited her longtime friend and colleague Jim Zanzi. The two of them taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and collaborated on several books, including The Art of Fred Smith, which was essential reading for me.

On Sunday Lisa and Jim attended my reading at the Republic of Letters bookstore, and yesterday the three of us visited Nick Engelbert’s Grandview, a nearby art environment. Afterward, we had dinner at Jim’s house, a veritable treasure trove of books and artifacts. I snapped a photo of the friends with Fred Smith’s “Tree of Life” from the Rock Garden Tavern.

History Repeats Itself

February 23, 2024

My book research has come full circle. As I work on my latest novel at Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts in Mineral Point, Wisconsin, my lodging is the Coach House, an 1840s inn. Plank Road Summer and Plank Road Winter, the first books that my sister Emily Demuth Ishida and I wrote together, feature an 1840s inn in Yorkville, Wisconsin. 

Because Yorkville had been a Cornish settlement, Emily and I visited Mineral Point during a Summer 2000 research trip funded by my Lilly Teacher Creativity Fellowship. We traveled to Wisconsin historic sites with an entourage that included my three children, Emily’s husband and three children, our mother, and our college student sister. 

After touring the stone cottages at Pendarvis, our group of eleven descended on a nearby cafe with outdoor seating. Twenty-four years later, that space is part of Shake Rag Alley, and I have access to the commercial kitchen in the Art Cafe. So far, the extent of my cooking is to microwave a Cornish pasty. 

A Clean, Well-Lighted Place

February 20, 2024

During yesterday’s drive from Valparaiso, Indiana, to Mineral Point, Wisconsin, I had plenty of time to mull over upcoming scenes in my novel Dreams of Stone and Glass. One scene takes place inside an old barn in a studio with a big work table built by one of the characters.

When I arrived at Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts, I was shown my room in the Coach House and then taken to the Cabinet Shop, which will serve as a private studio during my two weeks of residence.

And there in the Cabinet Shop stood the very work table I’d seen in my head. Several versions of that table, in fact. This is going to be a wonderful place to write.

“Rusty wire and broken glass — Bring the kids!”

February 15, 2024

The spark of my current novel, Dreams of Stone and Glass, was kindled twenty years ago during a memorable family vacation in the north woods.

My parents invited us six adult children and our spouses and the sixteen grandchildren to spend a week at a camp resort near Phillips, Wisconsin. At Comfort Cove the thirty of us celebrated several birthdays and our parents’ 45th wedding anniversary. We enjoyed canoeing, swimming, hiking, miniature golf, and a visit to the Wisconsin Concrete Park.

This unique county park features over two hundred concrete sculptures created by retired lumberjack and farmer Fred Smith. Smith covered many of the surfaces with shards of glass from beer bottles and other materials readily available to him.

My brother-in-law Chuck, wrangling four children aged four to eleven, was not impressed. “Rusty wire and broken glass—bring the kids?” Ten years later when I began drafting a new novel, I set the story in the problematic wonderland of the Wisconsin Concrete Park.

Photo credit: Margaret L. Willis

“Shake Rag Alley, here I come!”

February 7, 2024

I’m already daydreaming about my upcoming Scherbarth residency at Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts in Mineral Point, Wisconsin. During my two-week stay I’ll devote long stretches of uninterrupted time to my work in progress, a novel titled Dreams of Stone and Glass. I also look forward to savoring the beauty of the historic setting and reveling in the delights of a vibrant creative community.

The Scherbarth Residency Program honors the artistic legacy of Jim Scherbarth (1948-2021), award-winning visual artist and workshop instructor at Shake Rag Alley.