Here are a few questions we often receive from authors. If you have any other questions, feel free to leave them in the comments section.
What kind of books do we publish? Novels. We publish novels. We’re open to any type of novel in any genre. If we love the novel and we think we can sell it, we’ll consider it.
Do we accept non-St.Louis area authors? Yes, although as of two months ago the answer would have been no. While we still want to be St. Louis-based, and while we will continue to work on behalf of writers and publishing in St. Louis, this year we’re opening our application process to authors everywhere. What we really like about working with regional authors is the chance to meet and work face-to-face. We’ll sacrifice that with a non-local author, but our primary focus is on discovering, nurturing, publishing and promoting new voices who deserve recognition.
Do we accept YA fiction applications? Definitely. In fact, Kristy and I both love to read well-done YA and are eager to publish a YA book. We won’t give it preference over a better novel in a different genre/category, but we’re very open to it.
How does the application process work? It’s pretty simple. Read this, then answer a few questions, and then send us a sample of your novel (whether it’s completed or still in progress–either way as we’re all about the discovery of new talent instead of the requirement that the novel be completed). For the first two years of our existence, we only reviewed applications once a year, but in 2012, we’re going to review applications as we receive them. We feel that’s better for all of you writers out there.
How does the selection process work? Kristy and I read all the samples and pick out the ones that are really well written, tell a good story, and make us want to keep reading. Then we send our favorites out to our editorial board, which is comprised of readers in the St. Louis area. We meet with them, chat about the books, cast our votes, and in the end, based on that feedback, we make our final decision. So there are many checks and balances, and we are acutely aware of what people want to read. That is very, very important to us.
What kinds of connections do we have with bookstores? We’ll be honest–because we’re so small, we don’t have an extensive distribution network. Our books are available through St. Louis-based distributor Unique Books and through Ingram, from which bookstores large and small can order. And our books are in local independent bookstores and a few select independent bookstores around the country. We promote our books at conferences, at events, and through social media. Again, remember our goal is to discover, nurture, publish and promote wonderful new voices and by doing that we hope to not only to grow Blank Slate Press as a business, but, importantly, to get the work of new writers out into the marketplace where others (readers, agents, foreign publishers, larger publishers???) can discover them as well.
What format do we publish in? Paperback and e-books. Our authors’ work is available online at the major retailers and for Kindle, Nook, Kobe, and iPad.
PLEASE VOTE for the one SLANT OF LIGHT cover concept you like best. From the very abstract to the photographic to the historical, we’ve got very different design ideas to consider. Please feel free to share your comments–we’ll take all votes and comments into consideration. And if you vote and leave a comment (tell us in the comments which cover you voted for and why), you’ll be automatically entered to win a copy of the book when it’s released.
First, here’s the summary of the novel:
With the nation moving toward Civil War, James Turner, a charming, impulsive writer and lecturer, Charlotte, his down-to-earth bride, and Henry Cabot, an idealistic Harvard-educated abolitionist are drawn together in a social experiment deep in the Missouri Ozarks.
Inspired by utopian dreams of building a new society, Turner is given a tract of land to found the community of Daybreak. But not everyone involved in the project is a willing partner and being the leader of a farming community out in the middle of nowhere isn’t exactly the life Turner envisioned.
Charlotte, confronted with the hardships of rural life, must mature in a hurry to deal with the challenges of building the community while facing her husband’s betrayals and her growing attraction to Cabot. In turn, Cabot struggles to reconcile his need to leave Daybreak to join the fight against slavery and his desire to stay near the woman he loves.
As the war draws ever closer, the utopians try to remain neutral and friendly to all, but soon find neutrality is not an option. When war finally breaks out, Missouri descends into its uniquely savage brand of conflict in which guerrilla bands terrorize the countryside while Federal troops control the cities, and in which neither side offers or expects quarter. Ultimately, each member of Daybreak must take a stand—both in their political and personal lives.
Remember, these are concepts–not finished covers. Let us know what you like and why, what would make you pick the book up, turn it over and read the back cover or thumb through the pages, and what would make you pass it by.
To see a larger version of the covers, click the cover.
And…now you can pre-order your copy of SLANT OF LIGHT and have it delivered to you as soon as the books are available:
I wrote most of my first novel my senior year of college, way back in the golden days of 2003. As many first novels are, it was semi-autobiographical, and at the time, it was brilliant. An instant bestseller, in my mind.
It stalled out, and a year later, I went back and read over it. It was the most self-centered thing I’ve ever written or read. To me it was still fascinating, like reading a journal entry from your middle school years, but no one else (except maybe family and close friends, another reason why you’re not going to get real feedback from family and close friends) would ever want to read it.
As for Kristy’s first novel, written in 1990, it wasn’t autobiographical (per se) but was, instead, a (pre) Dan Brown-type thriller complete with nefarious Vatican operatives trying to steal the rumored Quelle Codex from the grandchildren of the unsuspecting Palestinian farmer and his Jewish wife who found the document of Jesus’s sayings that formed the foundation of the Gospel of Thomas in a dry well on their property before the outbreak of World War I. While she believed the general concept was a good one, she actually thought, once she read it over years later, that the plot was far too ridiculous for anyone to want to read such a thing, and, worse yet, that she had so obviously infused the whole thing with her personal religious/ political point of view as to be one long harangue. Today, she is thankful that the one printed copy was lost in a move and the electronic copy was lost in a hard drive crash so that she would never have to embarrass herself again by reading even the first chapter.
As for me, I started a new novel, this one a historical thriller based on some little-known facts about Frank Lloyd Wright. It was fascinating, another instant bestseller…in my mind. Kristy, too, started another novel. Hers was a poignant retelling of her great aunt’s life as a sort of rustic poet in the early 1900s. Fascinating stuff, right?
My second novel stalled out just as my first one did and a year later, I went back and read over it. It was the most self-centered thing I’ve ever written or read. (Are you seeing the pattern?) Again it was fascinating to ME, because I was the one to discover these little-known facts and because they were TRUE, but it was still so self-centered. It’s amazing that little known facts about a famous architect had so much to do with ME.
As for Kristy’s novel, she realized, before she was finished, that the whole thing was trite beyond belief and that she needed to stop and reevaluate her writing goals. So, she started her third novel (still in progress) and found along the way that the more she kept her own personality out of the story, the more true and lifelike her characters became. And then, she began her fourth novel–The Oracles of Delphi–in which she truly allowed her characters to come to life on their own and to determine their own fates. Of course, this required discipline and at one point, when she had finished her gazillionth draft she went back in and cut 20,000 words (taking it from 114,000 to 92,000 words) to ensure that her own pontificating didn’t slow down the narrative of the murder mystery or again get in the way of the story.
Our personal experiences highlight a couple of lessons all new writers need to take to heart. One is that personal experience does not necessarily a fascinating tale make. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t write about things that interest you or infuse yourself into the story. By all means, write what you’re excited about, and put your knowledge, hopes, and fears into your characters. Just keep in mind that the motivation is that when you write what you know, the point is that you can write about that topic well, not that people are going to inherently find it interesting.
For example, I know a lot about studying abroad in Japan because I did it three times. So if I wanted to include an ancillary character in a novel who was studying abroad in Japan, I could write quite accurately about that experience. However, I’d have to constantly remind myself that just because I know about studying abroad in Japan–this niche piece of knowledge I have–does not mean that people will inherently find it interesting. It will only be interesting to readers if I’m telling a good story. My eclectic knowledge is the tiniest supporting player when it comes to building a great story.
So your first few novels are, most likely, going to be way too self-centered–about you or about things YOU find fascinating–for anyone else to care about. Every sentence will be poetry, every chapter the best chapter ever written…because it’s about you! Or it’s about something you discovered. And the thing is, that’s okay. Get it out of your system.
Another lesson is that just because something is true doesn’t mean it is interesting. That little nugget you found in a tattered newspaper from 1892 may be something interesting to share at your next dinner party, but it is only useful in a novel if you have a great story to tell and if you let your characters tell it. And what about the fact that you were raised by wolves as a child? Sure, it’s true, and your dentist probably finds the story behind pronounced canine teeth fascinating, but unless you can weave a great story, don’t write a novel about it.
The point is that telling a great story is your number one objective when you put pen to paper/fingers to keyboard. If your focus is sharing the truth with the world or pontificating on your beliefs, write a blog.
If you want to be a novelist, go ahead and write those first few novels so you can stop thinking about your life and your research as the most fascinating topics on the planet–and then move on to the good stuff.
Now, if you just finished your first or second novel, you might think that you’re the exception to these rules. That’s okay. There’s nothing stopping you from trying to sell those novels. After all, writing a novel is a lot of work, and you don’t want it to just sit there in your desk gathering dust.
Who knows, you might be the exception to the general rule and be the one who writes a brilliant first novel that is bought up in a flash and hailed as a literary or market phenomenon. But, if not, and if your masterpiece still hasn’t sold in a year, go back and read it again. Chuckle at how self-centered you were in the past, how oddly fascinated you were with yourself, your oh-so-uniquely interesting family, your fascinating historical discovery, or your incisive political knowledge. Then put your ego aside and simply tell a great story. In the end, you’ll be thankful no one ever read those self-serving ego trips masquerading (in your own mind) as Pulitzer-worthy fiction, and so will the readers of your new book–your first real novel.
–Jamey
We’ve been following the rapidly-changing publishing landscape and, of course, that includes the entertaining ongoing dialogue between two well known self-published authors and advocates, JA Konrath and Barry Eisler (the guy who famously turned down a $500,000 advance to self publish instead). Their latest discussion centered on Hachette’s internal memo about the value publishers offer authors.
There was one section in the dialogue that summarizes what Konrath and Eisler wish big publishers did better. We couldn’t help but pat ourselves on the back when we read this. Here are the 6 things (in bold) that they mentioned, followed by self-congratulatory remarks.
- Offer much better royalties to authors. Konrath and Eisler make a big deal about authors earning only 17.5% royalties on digital copies, while the publishers get 52.5% (in that example, Amazon gets the other 30%). BSP splits the ebook revenue 50/50 with the author, so they get 35% royalties. That’s double what most publishers give.
- Release titles faster. It can take 18 months after a book is turned in to be published. I can do it myself in a week. I would guess that a week is a bit of an exaggeration. If Konrath turns in a completed manuscript to a publisher, it still needs to be copyedited, content edited, typeset, proofread, formatted for digital, process for ISBN and other registrations, and have the cover designed. All of that takes a while. But it doesn’t take 18 months. In BSP’s first year, we had two novels, and each one took about 4 months to be completely and professionally published after we received the completed manuscript. Creating a quality product takes time, but not 18 months.
- Use up-to-date accounting methods that are trackable by the author, and pay royalties monthly. This is an area where we can improve. Although we have complete financial transparency with our authors, it’s not trackable online, and we pay royalties twice a year. We do, however, pay authors quarterly stipends throughout their contract with BSP regardless of sales as long as they are working on their next BSP project.
- Lower ebook prices. The idea is that you increase the size of your audience by making books more price-accessible, if not even impulse buys. And the key is to be nimble–you have to go through a lot of bureaucracy to get change the price of your book with a big publisher. Not at BSP. The Samaritan currently has a Kindle price of $3.82, and Dancing with Gravity is $4.99.
- Stop futilely fighting piracy. Hint: all such fighting is futile. Piracy can only be made redundant with cost and convenience. We worked hard to create our books, and our authors spent an incredible amount of time writing and revising. We will only stay in business if people buy our books. But we don’t want someone standing guard over our bookshelves to prevent us from sharing a much-loved book with a friend, and we don’t want to do that to our reader’s ebooks. So we don’t use DRM controls to limit readers from sharing our author’s work. Besides, as Konrath and Eisler point out, it doesn’t work.
- Start marketing effectively. Ads and catalogue copy aren’t enough. Neither is your imprint’s Twitter feed. Especially if your author has more Twitter followers than you do. Big publishers certainly have an advantage here. With their deep pockets, they can buy a full-page spread in the Times, they can get you on The Daily Show, and they afford huge banner ads on the most visited websites. But you have to do more than throw money at marketing if you’re going to find loyal readers. For them you have to foster engagement and connection. And yes, a lot of that comes from the author him/herself, but publishers can do many things to facilitate that connection. BSP has tried a number of different marketing ideas since its inception–some that worked, some that didn’t–but we’ll keep trying.
And here’s a couple of other points:
1) Publishers should work more cooperatively with authors on titles and cover design. We’ve all seen horribly bad covers and confusingly weird titles that simply don’t make sense or don’t have anything to do with the book. One of the advantages small presses offer–and Blank Slate Press believes fervently in–is that a bureaucratic marketing department doesn’t dictate titles and design down from on high. Our process for selecting titles and designing covers is completely collaborative. Of course, someone has to have a final say, but nothing is dictated by anyone to anyone. That’s just not the way we work.
2) Both Konrath and Eisler have had good things to say about some of the experiences they’ve had with editors–and they both agree that books need editors. Even experienced authors need extra sets of eyes on the work as well as a proofreader to review the final copy. From what we’ve learned from many authors, however, is that no matter how hard the editor him/herself is working to make the manuscript the best it can be, those ever-present bureaucratic marketing realities can filter into the editing process.
At a small press like ours, the relationship between the author and the editor is so open that the chance of editorial being adversly affected by marketing is effectively nil. After all, the editorial, design, marketing team is all made up by the same people with the same goals.
If this sounds appealing to you, we’d love to hear from you. Apply as an author at Blank Slate Press today.
–Jamey
(Updated 12.5.2011 – More proof everyone needs a proofreader. Thanks to Elena Makansi for pointing out my misplaced apostrophe.)
Blank Slate Press was founded in 2010. With the help of our Editorial Board, we selected our first two authors–who, incidentally, had NOT finished their books–and guided them through the publication process with both books coming out in early 2011. While it was a learning experience for all of us, we successfully launched two debut novelists to rave reviews. THE SAMARITAN by Fred Venturini, our first book out the door, has received more accolades than we can keep track of and our second book, DANCING WITH GRAVITY by Anene Tressler, continues to receive glowing praise for the beautiful writing, the unique protagonist, and the startlingly revealing journey through one man’s crisis of character and journey of faith.
Besides kudos for the writing, both books have won awards (DANCING WITH GRAVITY won the 2011 Literary Fiction category from International Book Awards and THE SAMARITAN won the Cross-Genre category from USA Book Awards) and now both have been included on notable end-of-year “Best of…” reading lists. Shelf Unbound magazine named THE SAMARITAN as one of its top 10 Small Press books of 2011 (a list which was picked up by USA Today) and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has included DANCING WITH GRAVITY on its round up of favorite books of 2011.
For those of you keeping count, that’s an amazing 2 for 2. Not bad for a debut publishing house. Not bad at all.
But that’s only the beginning!
We’ve got more great books on the horizon plus we’re launching a sister imprint — tentatively titled Treehouse Publishing — to offer curated, collaborative publishing to authors interested in forging a middle path between working with a traditional publishing team and the new financial opportunities afforded by going it alone through self-publishing.
Our next Blank Slate Press book, DAYBREAK by Steve Wiegenstein, is in production now and will be launched in the spring of 2012. DAYBREAK, set on the cusp of the Civil War, follows the story of charismatic author and speaker James Turner, his pragmatic wife Charlotte, and the idealistic abolitionist Adam Cabot as they work to build a Utopian society in the bottom lands of the Missouri Ozarks. While Steve does a fantastic job transporting the reader back in time and capturing the turmoil of the period, the thing that absolutely captivates me about this book is the amazing characters that populate it. Not only are Turner, Charlotte and Adam wonderfully drawn, but the secondary characters are so colorful and compelling that, even when they’re absolutely dangerous, good-for-nothing low-lifes and outlaws, you can’t help but love them. I can’t wait to introduce the world to Sam Hildebrand (a real-life Ozark outlaw), Harp Webb, Lysander Smith, and the men and women of the Daybreak community.
In short, DAYBREAK is fantastic.
And I can’t wait to tell you more about our first Treehouse title. I’ll be getting the revised manuscript mid-December and will write more about it then. For now, I can tell you now that it’s a fictional chronicle of one man’s experience in the Vietnam War. Torn between being a conscientious objector and doing his duty to serve his country, the main character ends up trained for the infantry but, at the last moment, he is pulled from his trip to the front lines and stuck in an office simply because he can type. It’s a look at running a war’s back office and is a bit like Catch 22 meets M*A*S*H meets The Office. If you’re interested in the philosophical pretzels we can twist ourselves into when it comes to war, this book is for you.
Stay tuned for more on this one!
The idea of developing a cooperative relationship among a group of writers and artists/designers and then publishing the group’s work (ala Hogarth Press) has intrigued me for a long time. (See earlier posts or check out our musings on the TWC page.) As the ebook phenomenon continues to develop and more publishers, agents, and editors jump into the self-publishing fray to try to get a piece of the self-publishing dollars, my thinking on the cooperative idea has continued to evolve. What we’re focused on now is the idea of an imprint that forges a middle road between traditional and self-publishing. In other words, an imprint that would publish authors who, like traditionally-published authors understand the importance of professional editors, designers, and marketers working as a team on their behalf, but who also want the advantages of self-publishing by having a yes/no say in the title and cover design, by getting a larger piece of the revenue pie, and by getting their book to market faster.
The Treehouse model, so named because a treehouse is emblematic as a refuge for the imagination, is, as I envision it, a middle way that will make sense to a lot of authors. (At least, it makes sense to me.) First, let’s consider the advantages for an author:
- A professional editor will work with you to make sure your book is as good as it can be while at the same time giving you final say over editorial decisions.
- A professional designer will work with you to create a cover that is both arresting and true to your vision and over which you have final yes/no control.
- Your book is “curated,” that is it is vetted and ushered through the publication process by professionals. Not all books are ready for prime time and the Treehouse crew will make sure each Treehouse author’s work is at its best before it goes “to print.”
- Your work will be published under an independent imprint.
- You have the Treehouse team on your side when it comes to advocating for and promoting your book.
- You do not have to wait a year to 18 months for your book to be published.
- You split the revenue 50-50 from each book sold–from the first book sold.
Now, let’s look at the disadvantages:
- You do not get an advance.
- But the truth is advances, even at the big houses, are getting smaller and many small publishers are paying very small advances, if any, on the front end while not raising royalty rates on the back end.
- Not only do you not get an advance, but you have to pay to invest in the upfront time/costs of editorial review, layout, design and e-book conversion.
- But the bottom line is that you pay either way.
- If you pay an editor to get your manuscript in shape so you can attract an agent, he or she will then shop it to an editor at a publishing house which then takes the cost of their own editorial/design/marketing, etc. out of the post-publication revenue stream. So in that case, you’ve paid twice. Remember, publishers are not in the business to publish your book for free–we have to make money (ideally) or at least cover our costs.
- Or, if you are doing self-publishing right, you will hire a professional editor and designer anyway, and you will have to spend the time converting your book or pay someone else to do it for you. Why not have a team work with you through the whole path-to-publication process and then keep that team engaged as your partners on your promotional/marketing efforts as well?
Treehouse Publishing, as I see it, gives authors the best of both worlds. How do you see it? What are the advantages and disadvantages of our proposed Treehouse curated publishing model? If you’re an author querying your manuscript now or considering self-publishing, I’d especially like to know what you think. Climb up into the Treehouse with us and let us know what you see for the future of publishing.
We’re getting tantalizingly close to having ARCs ready for review. Set on the cusp of the Civil War, DAYBREAK is the story of James Turner, his wife Charlotte, Adam Cabot, and the founding of a Utopian community in the Ozarks of Missouri. It is a story of ambition and conceit, love and betrayal, loss and hardship and, above all, idealism and survival. DAYBREAK unfolds against the backdrop of Civil War agitation, abolitionism, and the hardscrabble life on the edge of the frontier. If you would like to read or review an electronic ARC, please send me a note at kbmakansi @ blankslatepress.com. Scroll down for a preview of chapter 1 ….
Chapter One
August 1857
The keelboat moved so slowly against the current that Turner sometimes wondered if they were moving at all. Keeping a steady rhythm, Pettibone and his son worked the poles on the quarter-sized boat they had built to ply the smaller rivers that fed the Mississippi. Whenever the current picked up a little, Turner took the spare pole and tried to help, but although he was tall and muscular, with a wide body that didn’t narrow from shoulders to hips, poling a boat wasn’t as simple as it looked. He pushed too soon, too late, missed the bottom, stuck the pole in the mud, all to the amusement of Pettibone’s son, Charley.
“Limb,” Pettibone called. They all ducked.
Turner had unloaded his cargo at a steamboat landing in Arkansas and come the rest of the way on the keelboat, winding through the tangle of bayous where the rivers met, the countryside flat and swampy, the loops of the river indistinguishable. Pettibone claimed he knew the channel of the St. Francis, so there was nothing to do but trust him.
Turner wondered now about the steamboat captain’s advice to take a boat up the St. Francis instead of continuing to Cape Girardeau and traveling overland in whatever wagons he could rent or buy. Mosquitoes woke them before dawn and troubled them until the sun’s heat drove them to the shade, then troubled them again as soon as the sun declined. To give more purchase to their poles, they hugged the bank, but that meant fighting through overhanging brush all day. In the center of the boat was a stumpy mast, a four-inch pole draped with a canvas sail, fixed with a series of shaky-looking braces. Pettibone was constantly adjusting it, but most of the time it just hung slack in the hot, wet air. At night they tied up on the few solid-looking humps of land and slept on the boat for fear of snakes, netting draped over their bodies to slow down the mosquitoes. Even then Turner could not sleep well, dreaming of fat water moccasins slithering onto the deck.
On the eighth day a long low rise appeared before them. “That there’s Crowley’s Ridge,” said Pettibone. “Last piece of Arkansas you’ll see.”
“Thank God Almighty for that,” Turner replied.
The ridge sat to their left like a humped cloud bank on the horizon, but the countryside didn’t change. Arkansas on the left, Missouri on the right, it was all the same. Charley, a boy of thirteen, entertained himself by commenting aimlessly on everything he saw—turtles, herons, the stream of his pee into the river—until his father growled for silence.
The current strengthened as they rounded the ridge, and Turner had to wade ashore with a rope. At first he pulled directly on the boat, but Pettibone showed him how to snub the rope around a tree and keep it tight.
“Just take up the slack,” he said. “You don’t need to haul us upriver yourself.”
Turner filed away this information, as he planned to file away every piece of knowledge he gained for the next few years. He had to; this new chapter of his life depended on it. He was no farmer and had thirty years’ worth of experience to catch up on. But surely a man could pick up the tricks with attentiveness and study.
What in all creation am I doing here? he asked himself with every stroke of the pole. He didn’t know what he had been born to become, but by God it was not a farmer. He’d seen them every day back in Illinois, clumping into the newspaper office on their trips into town to hear the gossip, to sit around the desk and spit, leaving the editor’s boy—him—to clean up their misses. When he was small, he had disliked these men—their earthy smell, their beards, their ragged clothes. As he grew older, he saw that they were not dirty and ragged by choice, but by necessity, their lives swallowed up by their forty acres of ground, their debts, the prices handed to them by the local merchants and the railroad men. Of course they were ignorant of the larger world. Their world was no bigger than a quarter mile square, and that if they were lucky.
Even then, Turner knew he was not going to be a village editor like his father, listening with forced politeness to any son-of-a-bitch with a nickel, bowing to the county judges for the privilege of printing their legal notices. And now, if his father were alive, how he would laugh to see him on a keelboat, hauling a pile of tools and seeds into Missouri.
“Okay, jump on,” Pettibone said. “We’re crossing over.”
Ahead, the ridge finally came down to meet the river, ending in some low chalk bluffs. A ferryboat was tethered on the Missouri side where a wagon track ended in a ramp of packed dirt.
The ferryman, thin and toothless, walked out of his shed as they poled by. He was shirtless but wore a battered hat. “Well, Pettibone,” he called. “Come in and set. I got whiskey.”
Pettibone cast a sideways glance but did not stop poling. “My customer here is in a hurry. I’ll get you on the way back down.”
The ferryman touched the brim of his hat to Turner. “You’re welcome inside too, mister.”
“No thanks. Not even noon yet.”
“Where you headed?”
Pettibone interrupted. “Greenville, up by Greenville.” They were almost out of talking range. “Save me some of that old tanglefoot for when I come back.”
“I will, I will,” the ferryman called out, and turned back to his cabin.
They poled in silence until they rounded the next bend.
“I tell you what,” Pettibone said in a low voice. “That old bastard won’t cut your throat for your goods, but he knows people who will.”
By nightfall they had reached higher ground, and Pettibone’s mood improved. Ahead of them Turner could see the Ozarks rising up in the distant dusk, so low and hazy that they seemed like an illusion, no mountains, hardly even hills from this distance, but surely more than he had grown up with on the Illinois prairie. As they poled toward an angle of bank to tie up for the night, Pettibone, in the bow, suddenly dropped to the deck and motioned for Turner and the boy to be quiet. The boat drifted on, and as they floated to the bank, a deer came into view about fifty yards ahead, drinking.
Crouched behind the pile of supplies, Pettibone quietly removed a rifle from a box beside him. He tamped the powder and ball, wadded the barrel, and rested it across some sacks of flour. As soon as the deer raised its head, he fired. The gun made a deafening roar and sent a cloud of smoke across the boat, but when it cleared they could see the deer, dead, half in the river and half on the bank. It was a small doe, about eighty pounds.
Within half an hour they had the deer dressed and hanging from a tree limb. Pettibone set to butchering while Turner and the boy gathered firewood. Soon they had a foreleg over the fire.
“We’ll cook the rest tomorrow morning and take it with us,” the boatman said. “Get to Greenville, I’ll trade half of it for something. Full bellies tonight, boys.”
They were waiting for the venison to cook, Pettibone and Charley resting against a log and Turner sitting on an upturned nail keg, when a man on horseback appeared out of the darkness on the other side of the fire. He had arrived so quietly that he seemed to materialize out of the air. None of the three even had time to be surprised.
“I heard a shot,” said the man.
Pettibone and his son sat stiffly against the log. There was an awkward pause. So Turner jumped to his feet. A quick mind and a firm handshake had gotten him this far.
“Yes, indeed,” he said. “My friend here had some fine luck. Won’t you join us? We have plenty.”
The man glanced around the camp. He was tall and thin, with a narrow face and a long, bony nose. “Just you three?”
“Just us three.” Turner took a step toward him. He was a young man in his twenties, with black hair and an attempt at a beard. From his saddle horn hung a rifle in a homemade canvas scabbard. A rope trailed from his saddle, and in the darkness behind him, Turner could hear the snuffles and snorts of hogs.
“Don’t mind if I do,” said the man. He dismounted and Turner saw the glint of firelight on the barrel of a revolver stuck in his belt. He guessed by their frozen expressions that Pettibone and Charley had seen it too.
“James Turner,” he said, extending his hand.
The man shook it solemnly. “Sam Hildebrand.” He glanced behind himself. “I am taking some hogs to my cousin in Bloomfield. Hope you don’t mind a hog.”
“You are welcome,” Turner said. “Hog too.”
They settled by the fire and carved off pieces of venison with a long knife Hildebrand produced from a saddlebag. Turner introduced him to Pettibone and the boy; Pettibone muttered a greeting and shook his hand, while the boy stood mute.
“You’re a fine shot,” said Hildebrand, eyeing the carcass of the deer.
“I had a rest,” said Pettibone.
“You men afoot? I didn’t see no horse pickets.”
“We’re aboat,” Turner said. “Heading upriver.”
“The piggies will go after those guts over there, if you don’t mind,” Hildebrand said.
Sure enough, in a moment three big sows followed by a cascade of piglets came into the clearing and took to the heap of entrails, shoving and squealing over the choicest parts. The sows were tied together with intricate loops of rope that wound around their necks, behind their forelegs, over their backs, and then to the next hog.
“That’s quite an arrangement,” Turner said.
“Ain’t that so,” said Hildebrand. “A hog don’t like to be interfered with. That biggest one damn near cost me a finger, but I’ll get her back come winter. Fortunately, a hog cannot go backward with any strength, so even a small man can hold them with a rope. If they ever figure out this stratagem and start coming at us, we humans are in trouble.” His voice was soft, with an odd lilt, almost singing his wordsThe sows had finished off the deer guts and settled on the ground to rest, the little ones tugging at their teats. The smallest of the three got up occasionally and snuffed among the leaves for a missed tidbit.
“Enough of hogs,” Hildebrand said. He rubbed his hands on the grass to clean off the venison juices. “My curiosity is aroused. What brings you gents out here in the middle of creation on a boat?”
“I’m starting a settlement,” Turner said. “I’ve been granted some land upriver, in Madison County.”
“Granted? By the state?”
“No, a gentleman named George Webb.”
Hildebrand lowered his head and spat thoughtfully between his legs. The meal was finished, and he plunged his knife into the dirt to clean it. Pettibone and his son had inched their way to the end of the log, their eyes on Hildebrand’s revolver.
“I know who George Webb is. Good man. Never figured him for a town founder.”
“It’s not so much a town as a social experiment. I lecture on social reform, and Mr. Webb follows my ideas. All who come to join the community will own it together. All of our earnings will go to a common treasury, and we will decide democratically how to spend them.”
Another long pause. “Free country, I guess,” Hildebrand finally said. “Well, I better mount up. I can make another six, eight miles before bedding down.” Then he spoke more softly to Turner. “A word with you, sir.”
They walked to the riverbank, out of earshot. “You can read and write, then,” Hildebrand said.
“Yes.”
“Could I trouble you to write a letter for me?”
“Of course.” They stepped onto the boat, where Turner fetched a pencil and his notebook from his bag. He saw Hildebrand cast an appraising glance over the mountain of goods. Turner sat on a stack of flour sacks and turned his notebook toward the firelight. “Go ahead.”
Hildebrand paced back and forth in front of him, his voice low. “The address is Mrs. Rebecca Hildebrand, Desloge, Missouri.” He cleared his throat. “Dear Mother, I hope you are well. I will reach cousin’s by morning. The gentleman who is writing this for me will post it in Greenville.” He paused. “You can, can’t you?”
“My pleasure,” said Turner.
Hildebrand nodded. “My travels have proceeded successfully and with no incident, although I am developing a dislike for hogs, or I should say one hog in particular. I believe my business may take me into Arkansas, Greene County or perhaps even farther. It may be more than a month before I return. Please give my fondest greeting to Father and brothers and keep a spot warm on the hearth for me. Your loving son, Samuel.”
He stopped pacing and watched Turner finish the letter. “The art of the pen is something I never acquired,” he said. “I do regret that at times.”
Back at the fire, Hildebrand shook their hands again. “Best of luck to you on this venture,” he said to Turner, and to Pettibone, “Thanks for the meat.” He twitched the rope on his saddle to get the hogs to their feet.
“I bet you stole them hogs,” Charley blurted out.
Hildebrand did not appear to move quickly; his motion seemed to Turner casual and deliberate. But it must have been quick, for in one moment he was twitching the rope and in the next moment he had his pistol out of his belt, leveled at Charley’s chest, the hammer back. Turner stood in the sudden silence, his heart thumping.
Hildebrand held the pistol still. “You are a boy,” he said after a long time, all the lilt gone from his voice. “A boy is likely to forget his manners. And this gentleman has done me a favor, so I will indulge your lack of manners this once.”
Then as quietly as he had arrived, Hildebrand disappeared into the darkness. Turner, Pettibone, and the boy watched the spot where he had gone.
“I didn’t—” Charley started to say.
Pettibone slapped his son across the cheek, hard. The sound echoed across the river. “Load up this meat,” he said. “We are sleeping upstream and across. That fella may decide to come back, and I do not want to be here if he does.” He kicked the chunks into the fire and walked to the boat without saying another word.
“Yessir,” said Charley, rubbing his cheek.
They poled across the river by lantern light, feeling their way upstream in the darkness, until Pettibone found a campsite on a sandbar. “No fire tonight,” Pettibone said. “Sorry you can’t write your letter to your wife.”
Turner squinted at the moon rising through the trees. “There may be enough light.”
“Suit yourself,” Pettibone said. “We’ll hail Greenville by noon tomorrow and reach your place the next day.”
Turner braced himself against his rolled-up blanket and angled his body so the moonlight fell on the notebook page. He’d made a practice of writing Charlotte every night since his departure and wasn’t about to stop now.
My dear Charlotte—
But what to say? We were very nearly robbed and murdered today, and left on a riverbank for the crows? I have no idea what I am doing? Hardly. There was no purpose served by adding to her fears, and besides, his principle had always been that the idea preceded the action. If he pretended to know what he was doing, and pretended to be unafraid, then soon enough he would figure out what to do, and the fear would go away. He must act as if he had a clear purpose, and soon enough the purpose would emerge.
We had a most interesting encounter with one of the native folk today, a real woods ruffian, although his manner was gentlemanly. We are out of the swamps and into the hill country, and I believe I can detect a change in the air already—
He laid the notebook aside. He couldn’t bring himself to write what was in his heart. I am afraid. I feel a fool. I never meant for people to take my ideas so seriously. I wish I was with you, back in Kansas.
He would have to finish the letter in the morning. As he rolled out his blanket on the rocky riverbank, Turner thought of the words his father-in-law had spoken to him before he left, trying to talk him out of this scheme: Man is a wolf to man.
Blank Slate Press was pleased to join Fred Venturini last week as he spoke to a packed room at Kaskaskia College in Southern Illinois. Invited by Josh Woods, a writer himself, Fred was introduced by Dr. Labyak, the Vice President of the College. After reading a passage from THE SAMARITAN, Fred took questions from the students for about an hour and then signed books and chatted one on one with many of the attendees. Here’s some of the photos.
We had two events this past week that featured our wonderful writers and that gave us a chance to give readers a peek at our upcoming release, DAYBREAK by Steve Wiegenstein. First, on Wednesday night, Anene Tressler read from her debut novel Dancing with Gravity at the Kirkwood Public Library. It was a well attended event and we even had a chance to sell some books thanks to Main Street Books in St. Charles.
Then on Saturday and Sunday, we enjoyed the beautiful weather at our first-ever booth in the Historic Shaw Art Fair. Thank you to the Art Fair organizers for letting Blank Slate Press participate and thank you to everyone who stopped by our booth to buy a book and meet our authors! Fred Venturini, author of The Samaritan, was on hand to sign books on Saturday (and sign 100 books those who participated in our Klout promotion!), and Anene was in the booth visiting with readers and signing books on Sunday. It was a wonderful opportunity to connect with old friends and make new friends among neighbors, art lovers, readers and writers from across the country. The weather was perfect, the conversation was animated, and besides some tired feet and aching backs, we had a fantastic time!
I added our presenter’s notes to the slideshow Jason Makansi used at the recent St. Louis Publishers’ Association meeting. The meeting’s focus was public speaking and how authors can use events to promote their work. Let us know if you have comments/ideas/suggestions on the presentation or gives us your ideas for ways authors can use events to engage their readers.
