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.
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. 
Natural Attraction begins in the Dutch American town of Spookstad, Michigan. The Granny in the story wears a dress very much like that worn by Pella, Iowa’s Tulip Court this year. Here’s a look at the costume from Groningen.
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.
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.
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!
Catherine Haustein 