Changes Ahead

Summer is over, autumn is arriving. The leaves on the birch--the one that stands proudly between the house and the Lake Superior shore--is turning yellow, branch by branch. 

I'm proud, in the most un-Scandinavian way, that my next book is finally coming into print! We test-drove a few titles and finally landed on START WITH A SHOVEL: POETRY, PROSE, AND PLAYS.

It's about 200 pages of my work (poetry, prose, and plays, as you might have guessed from the title), written mostly in the past 25 years (but a couple of pieces with beginnings pre-2000).

I hope it finds readers (you?) and that they (you?) enjoy it.

Other changes are in the offing, as well. It's time to simplify some elements of our lives. My wife (and publisher) says that the Shuniah House Books website will be undergoing a few changes--she hopes they're not too jarring to visitors.

Also, I won't be writing here. As many of you know already, I was diagnosed with dementia a few years ago, mostly affecting my short-term memory. I still play with words in various ways, but I likely won't write much for public consumption. (Never say never, my wife says.) 

This site will remain up, and she'll update it with news about my books and relevant links to the new website, when it appears. So if you come here looking for a link to (for instance) reader questions for any of my books, you'll find it. (Not yet, my wife says.)

I understand that dementia can be a frightening diagnosis, and some days I feel discouraged and frustrated. But what is, is.

Moreover, "when I consider how my life is spent" (Sonnet 19, Milton), I'm amazed at the life my parents made possible. Both of them--so intelligent, in different ways--chose to come to North America, to a life in which their intelligence would be underestimated again and again because of their accents. They persevered, and through their examples, I learned about hard work, community, and keeping my word. 

Today, I can't count the ways in which my life has been wonderful. The leaves on the birch--the one that stands proudly between the house and the Lake Superior shore--is turning yellow, branch by branch. Summer is over, autumn is arriving. 

Discussion Questions and What's Next

THE DEVIL'S VIOLIN: MYLLYSILTA'S HISTORY has been out for a little over six months now. 

August was a big month, with reviews in the Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal and the local arts magazine, The Walleye. 

It made the top ten bestseller list for the local bookstore, Entershine Bookshop. 

And the website for my publisher, Shuniah House Books, was recently updated. It now includes discussion questions--should you want to talk about Antti Myllysilta with a group of your reader friends. Look for the guide here. 

Snow on the porch on the "land side" of the house.

For the past several months, my wife (mostly) and I (on occasion) have been compiling a selection of my poetry, my ten-minute plays, and my short fiction and nonfiction. This project, still in search of its final title, will make an appearance this spring. 

We recently read through the full manuscript, trying to find those annoying errors BEFORE it goes into production and fixing things becomes more difficult. 

Reading through it was... illuminating? Humbling, for sure (but not for long). 

Some of the themes that have appeared in my novels began as ideas that I worked through in fiction and creative nonfiction. Also, I think a lot about poets and poetry, music and science--and the afterlife.

Stay tuned for more about this collection. I hope readers enjoy it.  

Why Write SILENCES--and Why Write About Silences?

At the launch for SILENCES: A NOVEL OF THE 1918 FINNISH CIVIL WAR, I mentioned my father and my mother. Here's part of the story I told then, which also explains, in part, why I wrote the novel.

One day--probably on a Sunday afternoon in the summer, in what could have been 1955 but may have been a couple of years before that--my father and I were sitting on the front steps of the house. I had been playing war with my friends. Some of their fathers had served in World War II, and I wondered if my father had, too.

So I asked: "Were you ever in a war?"

To understand the significance of the question, you have to know that my parents never lied to me. To them, if a child asked a question, the parent must give a truthful answer. No lies, no dissembling, no "ask me later."

My father hesitated, then he said, "Yes, but it was not the Second World War. It was another war." He seemed tense.

I tried again. "What war was it?"

He said, "It was in Finland. The same time as World War I, but it was not that war."

"You were a soldier?"

"I was in the artillery."

"Who were you fighting?"

"The Russians."

"Did you kill anyone?"

"I don't know."

"Why?"

"We didn't see where the shells landed."

This is where my recollection of the incident ends. I know that at some point I was back in our house, and my mother was telling me that I shouldn't ask my father about the war because it upset him.

My father would have been 18 when the Finnish Civil War began. He likely fought in it on the White side. His younger brother, Elmer, would have been about 15. I have a picture of Elmer in a military uniform, wearing a white armband. He might have been in the war as well--or maybe not. I may have been told by my mother that Elmer had to be cared for by his mother because after the war "his mind was not right."

When I began looking into the Finnish Civil War, I discovered that an artillery school had been organized in Jacobstad early in the war, just a few kilometres from my father's home. Pictures of the school are available online, with men milling about, in the snow. Whenever I look at it, I try to see if one of them looks like my father. But I can't see him.

And, of course, my father is no longer around to ask.

I wrote this book, in part, because of that conversation with my father. Because he didn't want to talk about the war--understandably. But it was part of his experience, and it was important in his life, and that made it important to me.