Category Archives: #writingcommunity

Interview with Eilene Lyon, Author of a Groundbreaking and Exciting Account of the California Gold Rush

I’ve pursued family history research for probably fifteen years and have been reading Eilene Lyon’s fascinating blog Myricopia about her own research for a long time as well. Therefore, I had an inkling of what her new book was going to be about. But I had no idea how thoroughly researched and well-structured Fortune’s Frenzy would be. Nor did I realize how engaging a story she would create about the California gold rush.

Eilene’s perspective, like mine, is that the history of ordinary Americans is important and fascinating. When she discovered that some of her ancestors had been involved in the gold rush—and that their story was something brand new to our traditional historical vision of that event—it was a fabulous starting point for her project.

PLOT SUMMARY PROVIDED BY EILENE LYON

In this true story, Henry Z. Jenkins and a group of Indiana farmers use shady financing to make their way to California during the gold rush, causing devastating impacts to their families and their futures. Fortune’s Frenzy relates previously untold aspects of the gold rush: how the wealthy took advantage of gold fever by offering usurious loans, and how the cold calculus of transporting people to California became a deadly game for profit.

Eilene Lyon immersed herself in American history from an early age,
when her parents took her to iconic sites such as Williamsburg, Philadelphia,
and Gettysburg. She has been putting history into context through
studying the lives of her ancestors for over twenty years. Her work has
appeared in various history journals and can be found on her blog at
Myricopia.com. She speaks on genealogy and family history writing at
regional and national conferences. Eilene lives in Durango, Colorado,
with her husband and husky-lab Sterling (named for a great-grandfather,
naturally).

INTERVIEW OF EILENE LYON

Eilene has agreed to respond to interview questions about her beautiful book.

  • Your book tells the story of previously unknown ramifications of the gold rush as it affected countless Americans, but your story begins and ends with the story of Henry and Abby Jenkins. How are you related to them? Can you please describe these two characters to give prospective readers an idea of who these people were?

They are my 3rd great-grandparents (maternal). At this time there are no known images of Henry and Abby, so I can’t provide a physical description. Both of them have a family background in the Quaker tradition, having been born and reared in Philadelphia. Henry, though, was never a member of the Society of Friends, but his mother was for most her life. Both were well educated—Abby sometimes stepped up to teach her children and others. Henry and Abby had a strong religious faith, but they spent much of their marriage struggling to make ends meet, which added strain to their marriage. I get a sense they were very loving to each other and to their children.

  • Your book cover provides a startling look at one of the new ways of looking at the gold rush that you provide: a 19th century ship on a choppy sea! All this time I thought that men traveled from the eastern U.S. to California by land—on their horses or with buggies or covered wagons. But your book presents a completely new vision. Can you explain a little about why some people would have traveled on water—and do you have any statistics on how many traveled by water versus overland?

The sea route to California was a principal one from the very beginning, even though it had its own dangers. It actually cost less and involved fewer logistics than overland travel. People living on the east coast rounded up any vessel that would float (and some that didn’t) and went around the horn of South America.

Even in 1849, some went across Mexico from Vera Cruz, or across the isthmus at Panama or Nicaragua. Unfortunately, in the early years of the rush, there were few ships available on the Pacific coast of these countries. The isthmus route became favored by 1851, both going to and coming back from California. If you factor in the people who went there from other countries, the majority of people heading to the gold rush arrived by sea, landing in San Francisco. There aren’t any accurate statistics, though.

A detail about the cover image I’d like to note is the early steamship in the background. This painting was done in 1838, but these old ships were very much still in use during the gold rush years.

  • I was very taken by your writing style. You give beautiful descriptive details of time and place that can only have come from very intensive research. You also tie in what happens in the book with larger financial and political events that really made me feel that I was “there.” What types of sources did you use and how did you find them? And how did you find primary sources, such as letters?

Thank you! I spent eight years researching and writing this book. It began with a collection of Jenkins family letters that I’ve had in transcript form for decades, passed on to me by my grandmother. The problem with letters is that the people writing and reading them know the context, but from a 170-year remove, all of that is missing and has to be reconstructed. I was fortunate that I also found a Liestenfeltz family descendant who had a memoir written by another character in the book, and a Lowry descendant with another letter. I combed archives, partly using ArchiveGrid and the Online Archive of California. Some records I could obtain via email, but much of it was collected by visiting places such as the Huntington Library and Bancroft Library in California. I also visited the places in Indiana and Ohio where my characters lived.

  • There is a character in the book called Allen Makepeace. How would you describe him and how he made a living? Did he perform any vital role in life in those days or was he merely a parasite?

That’s an interesting characterization for Makepeace—parasite! He got into the merchandise business as a teen, bringing wagon-loads of goods from Ohio to Native Americans and early settlers in the undeveloped areas of eastern Indiana. He and his extended family were responsible for creating the town of Chesterfield and developing the Madison County seat of Anderson. Once he became wealthy, he served as community banker, because there were no banks at the time. He was not a benevolent lender, though.

  • I don’t think this is really a question, but I must comment that Fortune’s Frenzy made me imagine that the United States of this time period was really the beginning of the way things are run today by financial movers and shakers and by the legal system. People certainly seemed to take advantage of litigation. If you would like to comment on that, it would be wonderful, but not necessary.

It’s actually fair to say that the gold rush helped usher in modern financial practices. Companies like Adams Express and Wells Fargo got their start there and the need to be able to send money to families in eastern states drove the development of money transfer certificates and such. I actually find all the financial aspects of this story quite fascinating. It may seem tedious to others. For a time there were fears that all this gold coming from California would disrupt global finances and markets, causing runaway inflation. Those fears generally weren’t realized.  

  • Eilene, nothing about your book was tedious! What motivated Indiana farmers to leave home and go to California? I imagine the draw of becoming rich overnight was huge, but why leave where they were?

You know the acronym FOMO (fear of missing out). Very real back then, too! Indiana in the mid-19th century was nothing like it is today. It was covered in dense, swampy forests. Clearing and draining it to create farms was incredibly difficult, back-breaking work. The pioneer farmers were actually better equipped physically to endure the rigors of mining than the doctors, lawyers, and shopkeepers—once they figured out what to look for and how to extract the gold.

  • What is the most important idea(s) or feeling(s) you would like your readers to come away with after finishing Fortune’s Frenzy?

In one sense, I wanted this work to stand as a valuable piece of historical research. But I did not want it to read like an academic book. I wanted to create a story that anyone could enjoy reading. Hopefully I have managed to meet both of those goals.

I’ve read a lot of gold rush literature—fiction and nonfiction—in the course of researching the book. I think it’s fair to say that even scholars of the era will find new information that will be surprising.

It isn’t important that this is a story about my ancestors and their network, per se. I hope everyone will get a sense that their family history is important. Their ancestors lived through historic events and even created them. History is not just about famous people, politicians, wars, etc. I think the everyday life events in Indiana, as depicted in this book, are fascinating, too.

WHERE TO GET A COPY OF EILENE’S NEW BOOK

39 Comments

Filed under #writingcommunity, Book Review, Family history, History, Interview, Writing

Microfiction Published by Bright Flash Literary Review

Today, I have a new microfiction up at Bright Flash Literary Review. This 150-word story is called “Detective Work” and features an evidence board.

Here is the link: https://brightflash1000.com/2023/09/07/detective-work/

close up shot of a person pointing at evidence board
Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com

27 Comments

Filed under #amwriting, #writingcommunity, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Literary Journals, Publishing, Writing

Micro Story Published by Paragraph Planet

Today (August 31, UK time) I have a new microfiction up at Paragraph Planet. The daily stories are 75 words each–and that includes the title.

This story is about the creative spirit that only can die out with the person.

Caregiver, carer hand holding elder hand woman in hospice care. Philanthropy kindness to disabled concept.Public Service Recognition Week

33 Comments

Filed under #amwriting, #writingcommunity, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Literary Journals, Publishing, Writing

Remedios Varo Micro Stories Published by The Ekphrastic Review

I am very excited to see five of my Remedios Varo inspired micro stories published at The Ekphrastic Review! A huge thank you to EIC Lorette C. Luzajic for this and more. Each tiny story is accompanied by the art that inspired it. Some of these, like the one last week in Bending Genres, are about poets. I am pretty proud of all my Varo stories and think they are some of my best work. Whether or not they are to your taste is another matter. They tend toward the sarcastic. I hope you do like them, though!

https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-review/five-microfiction-after-remedios-varo-by-luanne-castle

28 Comments

Filed under #amwriting, #writingcommunity, Art and Music, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Literary Journals, Poetry, Publishing, Writing

Micro Story Published by Bending Genres

As I have been pursuing my new passion of microfiction, I have also been having fun with ekphrastic writing, and my favorite artist to work with is the surrealist Remedios Varo. The amazing journal Bending Genres has published a story I wrote based on a Varo painting; it concerns the idea of writing or art muses that are not complacent “nice” creatures. This story also happens to be completely indebted to Sylvia Plath and her poem, “The Disquieting Muses.” My story is called “Disquieting Muses with Pets and Fruit: A Still Life.”

https://bendinggenres.com/disquieting-muses-with-pets-and-fruit-a-still-life/?fbclid=IwAR2MK7lOqXuXP9O4SEuYeTZ9MyJ8mzRxAMc5jv2p5zsYe_8nrm9xxrCOpAs

The Varo painting is called “Vegetarian Vampires.” Here is the Plath poem:

The Disquieting Muses

Mother, mother, what illbred aunt
Or what disfigured and unsightly
Cousin did you so unwisely keep
Unasked to my christening, that she
Sent these ladies in her stead
With heads like darning-eggs to nod
And nod and nod at foot and head
And at the left side of my crib?

Mother, who made to order stories
Of Mixie Blackshort the heroic bear,
Mother, whose witches always, always,
Got baked into gingerbread, I wonder
Whether you saw them, whether you said
Words to rid me of those three ladies
Nodding by night around my bed,
Mouthless, eyeless, with stitched bald head.

In the hurricane, when father’s twelve
Study windows bellied in
Like bubbles about to break, you fed
My brother and me cookies and Ovaltine
And helped the two of us to choir:
“Thor is angry: boom boom boom!
Thor is angry: we don’t care!”
But those ladies broke the panes.

When on tiptoe the schoolgirls danced,
Blinking flashlights like fireflies
And singing the glowworm song, I could
Not lift a foot in the twinkle-dress
But, heavy-footed, stood aside
In the shadow cast by my dismal-headed
Godmothers, and you cried and cried:
And the shadow stretched, the lights went out.

Mother, you sent me to piano lessons
And praised my arabesques and trills
Although each teacher found my touch
Oddly wooden in spite of scales
And the hours of practicing, my ear
Tone-deaf and yes, unteachable.
I learned, I learned, I learned elsewhere,
From muses unhired by you, dear mother,

I woke one day to see you, mother,
Floating above me in bluest air
On a green balloon bright with a million
Flowers and bluebirds that never were
Never, never, found anywhere.
But the little planet bobbed away
Like a soap-bubble as you called: Come here!
And I faced my traveling companions.

Day now, night now, at head, side, feet,
They stand their vigil in gowns of stone,
Faces blank as the day I was born,
Their shadows long in the setting sun
That never brightens or goes down.
And this is the kingdom you bore me to,
Mother, mother. But no frown of mine
Will betray the company I keep.

This Plath poem is also an ekphrastic poem, inspired by the Giorgio de Chirico painting, also called “The Disquieting Muses.”

How is that for a chain of art inspiration?

12 Comments

Filed under #amwriting, #writingcommunity, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Literary Journals, Poetry, Publishing, Writing

This Week’s #TankaTuesday

While reading poetry books is the heart of The Sealey Challenge, I do like to write reviews when I can.

Here is my review of Christine Butterworth McDermott’s new poetry collection that Harbor Review published. https://www.harbor-review.com/the-spellbook-of-fruit-and-flowers

Here are some reviews of poetry books I recently posted on Goodreads:

Margaret Duda’s I Come From Immigrants (note: book is similar in content to Elizabeth Gauffreau’s Grief Songs, since it is memoir-ish poetry paired with personal photographs)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/180625112-i-come-from-immigrants

Laurie Kuntz has two recent books out, and both of them are wonderfully personal about her relationships with husband and adult son.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59748231-the-moon-over-my-mother-s-house

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/80351487-talking-me-off-the-roof

#TANKATUESDAY

Colleen Chesebro’s #TankaTuesday poetry prompt for this week is to write a syllabic poem using collective animal nouns.

Topic: Collective animal nouns

A murder of crows

brings me stones and an earring

for feeding their young.

My dearest clowder of cats

whines all day long for their food.

**

I had to look up whether to use singular or plural for the verbs. It was hard for me to determine the correct usage, but it seems that this tanka called for a singular verb.

Cute kitties below are my daughter’s kittens, but this photo is already months old! They are playing Mouse for Cats on my iPad.

REVIEW OF ROOTED AND WINGED

Richard Allen Taylor published a review of my collection Rooted and Winged in the new issue of Main Street Rag. I think it’s a pretty funny review. Posting images of the journal pages.

29 Comments

Filed under #amwriting, #poetrycommunity, #TankaTuesday, #writingcommunity, Book Review, Poetry, Writing, Writing prompt

Follow Me: #TankaTuesday

August is the month of The Sealey Challenge. Started by poet Nicole Sealey in 2017, the challenge is to read a book of poetry every day for the month of August. In the past, I have used this time to read poetry books that were sitting unread on my bookshelf. While I know I can’t read a book a day as I have other things going on, I am still going to try to read more than usual this month. Want to join me?

If you join the challenge and need an idea, I would love it if you wanted to add one of my books to your list. Here is a link to all four books. https://www.luannecastle.com/bookstore/ Additionally, if you are interested in a copy of my first collection Doll God, for this month I am offering you a copy for $5 that includes shipping if you have it delivered in the United States. If you are not in the U.S. contact me and let’s see if we can figure it out. Think of it in honor of the Barbie movie. Email me at luanne.castle which is at gmail.com.

Two of my Doll God poems have been republished this month in Verse-Virtual. You can find them here: https://www.verse-virtual.org/2023/August/castle-luanne-2023-august.html

Colleen Chesebro’s #TankaTuesday poetry prompt for this week is to use synonyms for the words flow and wave. I used runs and beckons and wrote an American cinquain.

Follow Me

The doe

in the pasture

sees me and runs away,

slips between trees, white tail, a sail,

beckons.

The turn is found in line five because while the deer runs from me, it seems as though she also beckons me to follow her with her communicative tail.

Not sure if this is a male that shed its antlers or a female

58 Comments

Filed under #amwriting, #poetrycommunity, #TankaTuesday, #thesealeychallenge, #writingcommunity, Poetry, Poetry book, Poetry Collection, Writing, Writing prompt

My New Passion: Microfiction

I’ve been writing a lot of microfiction lately. Some stories are 50 word, some 100, some 200-300 or so. And then I’ve also been writing flash, around 400-500 words. Here is one that was just published by Friday Flash Fiction. It is called “Bed of Roses” and is 100 words, which is essentially a short paragraph. In case you’ve never heard this, a 100 word story is called a drabble. Hope you enjoy this drabble.

https://www.fridayflashfiction.com/100-word-stories/bed-of-roses-by-luanne-castle

photo of rose flowers
Photo by Irina Iriser on Pexels.com

41 Comments

Filed under #amwriting, #writingcommunity, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Writing

Ekphrastic Tanka and Ekphrastic Microfiction:#TankaTuesday

We’re here at #TankaTuesday again! Colleen Chesebro’s prompt this week is to write an ekphrastic poem about this painting.

I am rushed for time, so I wrote a tanka since I feel familiar with the form.

This summer Sunday

lie upon the riverbank

and observe movements

of waterfowl and fishers,

neighbor’s herd and young lovers.  

I have a creepy ekphrastic timed (one hour max) microfiction piece up at Visual Verse. If you like creepy in small doses, here is the link and the image that inspired the story:

39 Comments

Filed under #amwriting, #poetrycommunity, #TankaTuesday, #writingcommunity, Poetry, Writing, Writing prompt

Bird in Imayo: #TankaTuesday

Since Colleen Chesebro’s weekly #TankaTuesday poetry prompts are so inspiring to me, I bought her book that describes the various types of syllabic poetry so that I could use that as a guide instead of the wonderful links she has on the Wordcraft website. This way, the book is right at my side when I need it.

Ironically, this week’s #TankaTuesday is to write in a form not in the book. We are to write a poem about a bird in the Japanese form Imayo.

The imayo is comprised of four 12-syllable lines. Each line is divided into a 7-syllable and a 5-syllable section, with a hard pause (or caesura) in between. The pause will generally be represented by a comma, semi-colon, or similar punctuation.

  • 4 lines (8 lines permissible)
  • 12 syllables per line divided as 7-5
  • make a pause space between the 7 and 5 syllables
  • use comma, caesura or kireji (cutting word) as the pause
  • no rhymes
  • no meter
  • no end of line pauses – the whole should flow together as though one long sentence
  • The Imayo is a literal poem so do not use symbolism, allegory etc.

I decided to write about the Great Blue Heron that showed up in my yard last year. In the photo, the coyote behind the heron is an inanimate metal coyote!

I glanced out the front window — the Great Blue Heron

stood motionless by the pool — it stared straight ahead

perhaps lost in the desert — perhaps it mistook

pool for a swamp or wetland — beauty or sadness?

###

Hmm not my favorite form. When the description mentions “literal,” it means the form is not to employ figurative imagery. In general, in English language poetry, literal poems tend to be for children whereas figurative poems (using metaphor, simile, etc ) are for adults. In a literal poem the focus is on a plain description or a simple point or philosophy.

70 Comments

Filed under #amwriting, #poetrycommunity, #TankaTuesday, #writingcommunity, Arizona, Cats and Other Animals, Poetry, Writing, Writing prompt