Elaine Marie Cooper Author

Historical Fiction That Grabs Your Heart and Feeds Your Soul

Colonial America

Congratulations! It’s a — Book Cover!

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It’s something every author anticipates with both excitement and dread—that instant when he or she sees their book cover for the first time.

After months (or years) of crafting and drafting the words that become woven into their book, every author hopes that their cover will not just draw readers’ eyes, but perhaps be the best possible design to illustrate the inner contents.

No one wants that moment of presenting their book cover to be met with the same facial expression one might save for a parent revealing their newborn with misshapen head and bruising from a difficult birth: “Oh yes, Mrs. Cooper, your baby is—ummm—beautiful.”

New parents and authors are tender souls whose feelings should be spared. But while newborns with the imprint of a stressful delivery will recover into beautiful children, a book cover is what it is. If it’s unattractive from the start, it is forever so.

I was delighted when our marketing person at Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas said that the design team would like input from their authors for the book cover. Wow! I had a say in the matter! Ever since I had received my contract under the Christmas tree last December—well, via e-mail, actually—I’d wondered what working with this new publisher would be like.  I was heartened that they wanted to know my thoughts.

The Deer Run Saga
The Deer Run Saga

In the past I’d had complete control over my book covers for the Deer Run Saga, hiring a local artist to design the images. What started out as paintings, morphed with the magic of technology into the illustrations for my series.

Now I was with a new publisher, and I had to go with their flow. Being allowed to voice an opinion was a relief, although I knew they still had final say.

While pondering their suggestion for input, my imagination began to work overtime. What did I envision for the cover for my historical fiction set in Massachusetts? Having grown up in that state, I knew the look I wanted. I envisioned the young heroine looking alert yet lovely. It “looked” great in my mind—but how did I transfer those creative musings into an image? I needed a photo!

Right—like I was going to travel from the Midwest back to New England just for a photo shoot! It would hardly fit in with my budget or my schedule. But here is where events started to occur that helped me see that I must be receiving help from on High. Everything seemed to come together almost magically.

First of all I hoped that I could arrange for a photo shoot at the actual setting for my story. That fell through. As did another idea. Frustrated, I shared my thoughts with my husband one evening.

“I know the perfect spot,” he said. He knew an editor that had done a photo shoot at a location not too far away. It was an authentic Colonial house—built in New England in 1755—that had been moved, piece-by-piece, to the Midwest in the 1970’s.

Are you kidding me?? What were the chances?

I tracked down the location and the owner and bravely requested to use their house for a photo shoot. The gracious homeowners were more than accommodating.

Next, I needed a photographer. My husband once again came through as he told me about a professional freelance photographer that goes to our church—and often sat right behind us! I had no idea Heather was a photographer.

All that was left was to find the right model. But how do you find someone with waist-length hair who has the right look about her? I did not want a modern-looking young lady. She needed to have that aura of a Colonial American young lady—simple yet lovely.

Well, I was having trouble here—so I prayed about it. God answered my prayer as  my friend, Katie, posted a birthday photo of her granddaughter on facebook. There was the model I was looking for, her image right on my laptop.

As if God was not working overtime to help me as it was, He threw in one more gift: The same friend was a seamstress who knew how to sew period clothing. Katie and I went shopping and I purchased the material. Her creative hands sewed the Colonial American costume that her granddaughter would wear.

I was dumbfounded by these “chance” blessings. And grateful.

April was approaching and I wanted to get the photo done at the same time of year as the events in my book. The photographer and I had already made a visit to the Colonial house to plan where the shots would be photographed. As it turned out, Heather the photographer was also from the East and loved Colonial American homes. J

Soon we had a date that we could all meet at the house location.  I prayed that everything would go well. But I could never have anticipated just how much God would continue to help us bring this project together.

 

(Come back for Part 2 this Sunday, September 22, as I write about the actual photo shoot)

Featured image courtesy of Thomas Deitner

 

 

 

The Legacy of Family

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It was a simple excerpt from my family’s genealogy book that grabbed my attention: “Mr. Prince at fifteen years of age entered the Armory at Springfield, Mass., as an apprentice, and worked his way up to the position of inspector.”

The Armory at Springfield? What is that?

Thus began my journey to uncover part of my family’s history that eventually unfolded to become my novel, The Legacy of Deer Run. [Read more…] about The Legacy of Family

Ye Olde School Days

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As the bell rings yet again for another school year, ‘tis time to consider the beginnings of education in America. These roots run deeply into the very foundations of the settling of this country, for the tradition of going to school began twenty-seven years after the Mayflower arrived with the Pilgrims.

It was 1647 when the colony of Massachusetts passed the Old Deluder Satan Act, requiring any town with 50 or more households to hire a teacher for reading and writing. If there were 100 households, that upped the requirement to operating a grammar school for older students. This law was passed because parents became lax in teaching the basics of reading and writing, and the concern was that the colonists be able to read their Bibles. Hence the name of the law, so “that old deluder, Satan,” could not “keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures.”

While schools today fight to keep Christianity out of the curriculum, the education of young colonials was filled with prayers and the Bible. The usual tablet for teaching was called a hornbook, a wooden paddle with a parchment inscribed with upper and lower case letters as well as the Lord’s Prayer. The written document was affixed to the wood with a thin layer of processed cow’s horn—the colonial version of lamination.

Pots to hold ink for penmanship
Pots to hold ink for penmanship

Some youngsters began their schooling in a “Dame School” which was held in someone’s home where the children learned the basics of reading by the woman of the household. These dame schools were often the sole education for young girls.

If there was a schoolhouse in the community, it was one room and the schoolmaster that was hired was usually a young, unmarried man, who took the job before settling on a trade. Boys went to school in the winter for several weeks when there were no crops to tend. Girls (if they were lucky) went to school in the summer.

New England schools were numerous and paid for by local taxes. Farther west and south, these one-room places of learning became more scarce. The two colonies with the greatest numbers of formal schools were Virginia and Massachusetts—the first two colonies founded on American soil.

One of the more famous schoolmasters in colonial Connecticut started out teaching in the small community of East Haddam in the winter of 1773-74. The eighteen-year-old Yale grad was described as handsome, athletic and kind. Author Eric Sloan wrote that this teacher was so well liked that his students gave him a send-off party when he took a position in the larger town of New London.

“I’ll miss you,” the departing teacher said. “And I wish that part of me could stay back in East Haddam with you. I do regret there is only one of me.”

As this schoolmaster headed for his new teaching position, the rumbles of the Revolution were being felt. He joined the Continental Army while still a teacher in New London. But his other profession was as an American spy. When the British discovered secret military plans written in Latin and Greek and hidden in his shoe, Nathan Hale was arrested and then hung.

His famous last words embodied the spirit of the Patriot cause: “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.” Nathan Hale, beloved schoolmaster, was hung on September 22, 1776.

His schoolhouse in East Haddam is now a museum overlooking the Connecticut River.

 

(Photos from Storrowton Village Museum, West Springfield, MA)

 

 

 

Geeky Fan of Nathaniel Philbrick

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I admit it—I’m a complete history geek.

And few things excite me more than the arrival in my mailbox, just a day apart, of not one but TWO new releases in the non-fiction category: Bunker Hill by Nathaniel Philbrick and Revolutionary Summer by Joseph J. Ellis.

Thanks to my husband, I’ve become a fan of Book TV. Steve is like Sherlock Holmes when it comes to ferreting out authors of the American Revolution era who speak on that program in front of audiences of history addicts like myself. My husband knows I will leave everything else aside to watch such an interview. This, to me, is great “Reality TV!”

When Joseph Ellis was the guest author on Book TV, I loved watching him speak with his self-amused laugh and interesting banter about the summer of 1776 that he calls, “the crescendo moment in American History.”

The Jason Russell House
The Jason Russell House

But it was Nathaniel Philbrick that I was most excited to hear. I felt a connection of sorts with the “other Author” (Philbrick) who toured the Jason Russell House in Arlington, Massachusetts just a few weeks before I did in July of 2012.

“Nathaniel Philbrick!” My jaw opened wide in teen-like adulation when the historian at the Russell House told me this must be author month: Philbrick was going to visit there to do research for “Bunker Hill.”

Many folks may not even be familiar with Philbrick’s work but he has penned Mayflower, Sea of Glory, and In the Heart of the Sea, among other historical non-fiction accounts. I have not scanned more than Mayflower and, while at times it read like a textbook, his research was impeccable. He was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for that book. And I am his geeky fan. 🙂

So, touring the creaky floorboards of the 1700’s home and its owners who I write about in Fields of the Fatherless, I felt a special kinship with both the historical figures that lived there as well as the historian.

Philbrick’s book is non-fiction; mine is fiction based on actual events. In my genre, I attempt to bring to life through words the people who lived the terrifying tale that helped win American Independence. Both genres have their place on the book self. Both serve to educate and help us remember that we owe a debt of gratitude to those who came before us and sacrificed so much.

Nathaniel Philbrick may never read Fields of the Fatherless. But I will certainly peruse the pages of his well-researched book about Dr. Joseph Warren and the battle of Bunker Hill. After all, I walked every step to the top of the Bunker Hill monument as a child. History courses through my blood.

Book TV, anyone?

Book Review: Burning Sky, Lori Benton

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Burning Sky by Lori Benton is one of those riveting novels that make you regret the need for sleep. Each chapter begged me to proceed to the next and, when the final page was viewed, I reluctantly closed the book, wishing the story would continue on.

This is the tale of Willa Obenchain. After twelve years of captivity with the Mohawk tribe, the grieving young woman can barely say her own name. Her ability to speak her native English is as much a struggle as sorting through her sense of who she is. Is she still the white frontier-settler Willa or has she transformed into the woman dubbed Burning Sky by her Indian captors?

Her self-identity is further complicated by three men: a neighbor from her distant past, the Indian warrior from her adopted clan, and the stranger whose faith appears far stronger than his ability to survive the wilderness.

Burning Sky

Willa is also faced with returning to an empty cabin that was once her home, now destined for auction because her parents were dubbed loyal to the British cause in the recently won American Revolution. How can she defend their honor when she doesn’t know where their loyalties truly were, or even worse, where her parents are?

Although these challenges threaten her sense of peace and trust in the God Who spared her life, the greatest battle for the stalwart Willa is recovering from a deeply, painful loss. Her seemingly-solid faith is in danger of succumbing to despair.

It is not surprising that author Benton is an artist, as her palette of words paints vivid descriptions of the frontier wilderness with both its beauty and harshness. But it’s the characters who are the true masterpieces. They are skillfully wrought through rich dialogue that is both credible and compelling. Benton has a depth of understanding about human nature that brings her cast of characters to an outstanding level of believability.

The history of America after the Revolution comes alive in these pages in a way that no textbook could ever teach. It is a tender yet realistic story that captures your heart and begs for a sequel.

I give Burning Sky  5 out of 5 Stars

 

Author Bio

Lori Benton was born and raised east of the Appalachian Mountains, surrounded by early American and family history going back to the 1600s. Her novels transport readers to the 18th century, where she brings to life the Colonial and early Federal periods of American history, creating a melting pot of characters drawn from both sides of a turbulent and shifting frontier, brought together in the bonds of God’s transforming grace.

When she isn’t writing, reading, or researching 18th century history, Lori enjoys exploring the mountains with her husband – often scouring the brush for huckleberries, which overflow the freezer and find their way into her signature huckleberry lemon pound cake.
Visit her website here
Purchase at Amazon here