Meetings and a poll

On April 18, 2015April 18, 2015 By Catherine HausteinIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

I just got back from a scientific meeting. The great thing about being a mature scientist is that your student does the work of presenting. I couldn’t resist taking a photo at the U of Iowa, my alma mater. Also, today Natural Attraction went up for pre-sale for Kindle and Nook.

I've always like my initials, CH as in carbon-hydrogen, although if I was an element, I'd be a gas. — I’ve always like my initials, CH as in carbon-hydrogen, although if I was an element, I’d be a gas.

Writing tips from Rick Bass

On April 15, 2015May 4, 2015 By Catherine HausteinIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Author Rick Bass (The Ninemile Wolves,The Hermit’s Story, and many others) visited my Short Story Writing class today. He read from his work, talked about being a geologist (and the moral choices that scientists face), the importance of nature, and reviewed these tips for good writing, paraphrased by me: 1. Make your first sentence your second strongest and your last sentance the strongest. 2. Use no more than 10% back story. 3. Discipline yourself to write every day. 4. Make your protagonist active. (It’s tempting to make the person a passive observer, but don’t.) 5. Sense details and specificity make the story believable. 6. Create trouble for your protagonist–isolation, uncertainty, etc. 7. Emotion, emotion. Here’s a photo with Rick and three of my students who were brave enough to have a photo snapped.

First Titles

On April 9, 2015April 9, 2015 By Catherine HausteinIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Here are the first two books from Penner Publishing, ready to be shipped as Advance Review Copies. If you are a blogger and want a review copy, contact me or them. I’ve learned a lot about writing and publishing since I got “the call” from Penner last October. This was my first novel but it came after nearly 20 years of free-lance science writing for a company so I was ready to be edited and accustomed to it. I’ve previously published short stories but those have rarely been edited. Only my first published short story, titled East to Ionesco,was ever edited before publication.

I enjoyed watching the editors shape Natural Attraction. If I have any advice about that process it is to leave your own ego out of it. My motivation for writing Natural Attraction was simply to entertain and to record in a fictional (and I hope funny) way, what it’s really like to be a female scientist.Being a female scientist has been very amusing–I highly recommend it. I’ve got a few more novels up my sleeve. Natural Attraction is mostly about biology (with some chemistry tossed in). I’d like to dive into chemistry (the only science where the % of female scientists is increasing) for my next novel and then perhaps, take requests from readers. One thing I enjoyed doing as a science writer was writing about whatever topic the company wanted and conforming to their 40 page book of instructions. Yes, perhaps I’m perverse, but I like to please. Look for another poll in the future.

Older women as characters

On March 21, 2015March 20, 2015 By Catherine HausteinIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

A male friend posted this article on his Facebook page. It concerns aging while female. After reading it, I re-read Natural Attraction, which has strong older female characters, a Granny in particular.

page.http://feministcurrent.com/11036/aging-while-female-is-not-your-worst-nightmare-2/?replytocom=254869#respond

Stories most often concern younger characters because they get into trouble more, and a fiction writer’s mantra is “only trouble is interesting.” However, there’s a place for older women as characters. They could be saving the day!

EReader days

On March 20, 2015 By Catherine HausteinIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Happy solstice! I’m reading Natural Attraction on a mobi file to see how it will look for Kindle users. I find that I’m one of those strange people who likes ereaders (but not before bed). I get into a state of complacency when I read something in a file I’ve typed myself and I don’t see the errors so it’s refreshing to me to read it anew in a format where I’m not familiar with every page. The novel has been through two edits with two different editors. Still, I caught three typos. Next, the print version!

Release Date: May 11 Natural Attraction (Penner Publishing)

On March 13, 2015May 6, 2015 By Catherine HausteinIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

To get ahead, she’ll have to become a man. What happens when a traveling preacher who’s never been kissed inadvertently shares a love potion with a young female scientist who has, with the help of a transforming tonic, taken the guise of a man? This is the premise of Natural Attraction, set in the post Civil War United States. Natural Attraction highlights a woman’s journey to balance identity, ambition, and a rich sexual and personal life when society forbids it. from Penner Publishing.

For information on where to purchase click here. Hard copies available from the Central College bookstore soon!

Is romance the invisible genre?

On February 23, 2015 By Catherine HausteinIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Is romance the invisible genre?.

Is romance the invisible genre?

On February 23, 2015February 23, 2015 By Catherine HausteinIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

When I meet old friends they ask, “What are you writing”? “A novel.” I say. “What’s it about?” “A romance.” Their eyes narrow. You can see what they’re thinking That is not literature. But ah, of course it is.

The modern romance features a woman complete in her own skin, but open to love. In the words of Amy at The Geek Girl Project “Changes in the conventions of the romance genre have turned the typical romance novel into an extremely empowering story combined with the happily ever after ending.” Romance is the best selling genre and according to Romance Writers of America accounts for over a billion dollars of sales annually, 39% of E-books and 32% of mass-market paper backs. But, the disrespect starts with the trade paperbacks (bookstore books)—here romance captured just 18% of the market in 2013 and as for hardback books—9%. Audiobooks are even slower to catch the trend-1%, as if a romance is an unspoken secret. (RWA)

I’m not sure where this prejudice against romance comes from. I haven’t encountered it in my MFA studies so it’s not an academic prejudice. It must be something cultural. Romance is to literature what quilting is to art. It’s beautiful, but because women do it, it doesn’t command public respect. Tamara Lush has the right perspective on this, romance writing is a feminist act. (In fact, a study at Rutgers University found that feminists make good partners for romance.)

The art world has come to accept handcrafted items as art, thanks in part to Miriam Schapiro, who worked to get quilts and handcrafted items–the “invisible women’s work of civilization” recognized as legitimate art. Why not the same for romance writing?

Creating Natural Attraction

On February 15, 2015September 20, 2015 By Catherine HausteinIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

used in writing Natural Attraction.

Disclaimer: Natural Attraction is fiction and not an historical document. However, I used numerous sources in its creation.

Books used to establish an historical framework for the story.

Pierce, Bessie Louise, A History of Chicago 1848-1871, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1940

A well-written history with focus on the everyday lives of citizens, this was an important resource for details of Chicago in 1871 including fashion, commerce, public transportation, reversing the Chicago river, and prevailing attitudes.

Swieringa, Robert P., Dutch Chicago A History of Hollanders in the Windy City, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, grand Rapids Michigan 2002

I used this for details of a church experience, Dutch names, and information on the lumber industry and pine boards.

Wade, Louise Carroll, Chicago’s Pride The Stockyards, Packingtown and Environs in the Nineteenth Century, University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago, 1987

Provided details of unsavory smells and the growth of the packinghouses

Elderidge, Niles, Darwin Discovering the Tree of Life, W.W. Norton and Company, New York, 2005

I used this to establish some of Darwin’s basic ideas as well as ideas of reproduction and the distinction between soma and germ line cells. Also included in this book were details of his family life.

Desmond, Adrian and Moore, James, Darwin’s Sacred Cause, Houghton Mifflin Harcort, Boston New York, 2009

I used Darwins’ ideas on beauty and sex, his ideas about the intermingling of races, along with his family’s anti-slavery views. I used pages 139-146 and classification and racism in 19^th century society.

Amy Kaplan and Donald E Pease, Cultures of United States Imperialism, Duke University Press, Durham and London, 1993

From this book I used the chapter “Terms of Assimilation” by Priscilla Wald. In this chapter, efforts to assimilate Cherokee into the US were discussed along with the frontier mentality.

Lewis, Robert M., From Traveling Show to Vaudeville Theatrical Spectacle in America 1830-1910, Johns Hopkins Press, 2003.

The chapter on Melodrama (pp 155-236) was used extensively when writing the play “Clementine and the Creature” that was a part of the Prospectors’ show. I also used the chapter on The Wild West Show, mainly for the ideas that Buffalo Bill was “an undisciplined drunkard” who stole the idea of a wild west show and that his depictions of Native Americans were stereotypically false. Also used to establish that the trend following melodrama was vaudeville/burlesque and to find names and name suggestions for forms of entertainment in Post Civil War US.

Souder, William , Under a Wild Sky, North Point Press, 2004

This book gave me details of Audubon’s life, including his preservation and mounting of specimens and his relationship with his wife Lucy. It also discussed his career successes (he did not meet with success until age 54) and his falsehoods about vultures and rattlesnakes.

Smith Duane A., Mining America: The Industry and the Environment, 1800-1980, University Press of Colorado, 1993.

I used Chapter One Booming, Digging, and Dumping.

Whitaker Jr., John O., National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mammals, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1996.

Used for descriptions of mammals along with the on-line Animal Diversity Web. At times I encountered changes in Genus species designations and when this happened I selected the older reference. An exception to this was Bison bison which changed before 1871.

Clark ,Thomas Curtis and others, The American Railway Bramhall House, New York, 1972

Used to establish train lines and places trains went and the types of train cars.

Crawford, Anthony, The Butterfly Hunter The Life History of Henry Walter Bates University of Buckingham Press, Buckingham, UK, 2009

Used for basic information about the man who first described biological mimicry.

LIFE-HISTORY STUDIES OF THE WYOMING GROUND SQUIRREL

[Citellus elegans elegans] IN COLORADO An e-book with details about Genus Spermophlius which includes an account of keeping one for a pet.

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:0svSVnij4icJ:digitool.library.colostate.edu/webclient/DeliveryManager%3Fpid%3D18362+wyoming+ground+squirrel+fighting&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESi_tQGN6OfgyH-6uW41O2XlP8L1XG9d54IYU6mB3XnxcVSlSXixsOku1H8QcDfNWRQQJSGtyDKHif7GJCvjx-fKv8FJkikfnKDlLQoXGR7D9vOdGTwwXVfzXmzrIpTquyfch7cA&sig=AHIEtbTa8zcWTnbBCP8LfdxbgzjRnD0LvA

Family History: Henry and Grace Boersma Family Historical Items complied August 2009.

Articles referenced to add details.

Christopher Halin, “Forensic cultures in historical perspective: Technologies of witness, testimony, judgment (and justice?)” Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 44(2013)4-15.

This article was most helpful in setting the tone of the trial scene and the use of expert witnesses and the use of forensic science. It outlined the role that perception of moral character played in judgment. I was shocked to read that the first forensic medical text, the 1788 Elements of Medical Jurisprudence, by Samuel Farr contained the entrenched idea that a woman could not get pregnant from a rape because “lust and pleasure were required for conception.” It was noted that this idea prevailed even into the 20^th Century.

H.W.Rhodehamel and E.H. Stuart “Atropine sulfate from Dataura Stamonium” The Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Vol 13, No 3, 1921 218-220.

This publication established the connection between atropine and jimson weed. It underwent some “time travel” back to 1871 but since distillation and extraction were done by the alchemists I took the liberty. The research was first presented at an American Chemical Society meeting in Chicago in Sept. 6-10, 1920.

Conway Zirkle,”Animals Impregnated by the Wind,” Isis, Vol.25, No.1 (May, 1936) pp.95-130.

An historical look at the notion of wind related pregnancy.

Buffalo Bill Cody “When Buffaloes Roamed in Herds”, originally published in 1898 and reprinted in The Saturday Evening Post, Vol 248(5 pp 89 1976.

After killing off most of the buffalo, Bill Cody gets nostalgic about all of his bloodshed, including the time he stampeded a herd of buffalo into a wagon train.

Nancy M. Peterson, “Monsters of the Plains” Wild West Feb, 2009, Vol 21 (5) p36-42.

Discusses the killing of the buffalo, for sport, for food, and to teach the Native Americans who was boss.

Symposia

Symposium A of the 125th Proceedings of the Iowa Academy of Science (April 19, 2013) was titled Overlapping Magisteria. I am thankful to the participants Loyal Rue and Jerry Soneson for the enlightening discussion on magisteria.