Author Archives: Cynthia Kraack

The Next Big Book

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(Formerly posted as my website home page text)

The Saturday Evening Post recently picked up a pandemic-influenced story I wrote. It is about a chain of events that could happen to anyone, but are different because this is 2020.

Writers are wondering how the pandemic will impact what people want to read. Will novels written in 2018 remain relevant with the social changes experienced this year? As racial, economic, political, and geographical divides widen, can any one person truly write the American story? Can writers still tell the stories they want to tell or do changing cultural norms define what a writer is allowed to write?

This whole chain of questions sent me to Publishers Lunch to see what publishers were buying for their 2021 offerings. As the economy weakens, the first lesson is that publishers are buying fewer titles. The second observation is nonfiction titles are bubbling along at about the same clip. A third observation is the presence international and diversity in fiction and memoir.

Of course more titles will flood the market through indie presses and self-publishing than the traditional route so what 2021 will bring to book consumers is largely unknown. No one can predict whether new books released will match consumers’ pandemic-era interests. You can bring a book to market, but book readers chose what they want to read.

In 2010 Time magazine named Jonathan Franzen the great American novelist. That’s been a title bequeathed to mostly middle-class, middle-age, white men. Depending on your age and reading preferences, it can be difficult to find yourself in their work. As 2020 rolls toward 2021, Franzen’s work reflects an indulgent white upper middle class perspective that always felt odd, but now is purely outdated. Something is surely replacing that tradition. Which brings the original question back into play– how will the pandemic impact what people want to read. What will be relevant?

And how does a writer respond?

What About the Kids?

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In normal years, the nonprofit Twin Cities Theater Camp (TCTC) offers professional quality theater training for seven dozen or more kids. Over five weeks, these six through fourteen-year-olds develop creatively in an environment where it is okay to spontaneously break into song, dramatically slide across the floor, talk endlessly about the energy of being on stage, eat lunch, play outside then go back to work. In five weeks they will evolve from kids at camp into a theater company. Friendships grow strong as they learn acting, singing, dancing skills, and expressing themselves through art.

Ninety kids were registered in less than thirty minutes for TCTC 2020, many returning for their fourth, fifth, sixth year. Then COVID-19 claimed center stage. Like many nonprofit boards, TCTC directors were faced with cancelling summer plans. Fortunately they had a management team of teachers and artists already working virtually with kids, who had ideas for building a different kind of program.

Four hours a day for three weeks, five teachers and 46 kids worked together virtually. Many parents called those hours the best their kids had experienced since March 17.  In fifteen days, an eighty minute video YouTube presentation was written, produced and performed by kids and teachers for viewing by an invitation only audience. Technical wizardry made the show possible.

It’s always entertaining to watch TCTC’s productions. But unlike great finales, what stopped adult audiences this year was listening to nondramatic sections–kids talking about COVID lock down, about things they fear, and things that make them happy.

Their fears ran from scary movies and snakes to becoming sick, to losing others, to developing an illness that can’t be cured. Under their words, there is sadness about the abrupt changes with no known end. Immediate family and friends are what they value. They have sad times, days they aren’t sure they can keep going, they miss the hugs of friends and distant family, and they have sparks of happiness that keep them hopeful. Older kids also worry about societal equality struggles. While still optimistic, reality has diminished that sweet childish belief that destiny is in their hands. Until the future is more clearly understood, they get by with help from friends, parents, family and other adults who care.

A big thanks for all who are caring for kids. Virtual hugs for you.

40 Thieves of Saipan Released

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Releasing a new book is an incredibly thrilling professional achievement in the life of a writer. A combination of personal excitement and contractual obligation lead us to dropping the name of our new book (40 Thieves on Saipan) on social media for months.

40 Thieves on Saipan, the story of an elite WWII Marine Scout-Sniper platoon in one of the Pacific Theater’s bloodiest battles, released June 2. In the midst of a pandemic and deep racial protests, the book launch may be one drop of water in the thousands of gallons going over my home area’s Minnehaha Falls. But that drop is important to co-author Joseph Tachovsky, me and the families and friends of the 40 Thieves platoon.

U.S. citizens within the armed forces sacrifice their lives each year in the name of freedom. In WWII young men were required to serve with limited ability to choose a branch of the services.

Eleanor Roosevelt said “The Marines I have seen around the world have the cleanest bodies, the filthiest minds, the highest morale, and the lowest morals of any group of animals I have ever seen. Thank God for the United States Marine Corps.”

Few women authors write war battle books. Before I became a novelist, I was a journalist. From reading transcripts of the surviving Thieves platoon. to digging into Marine leaders’ diaries. to researching battle details, this book was a deep lesson in war and its most disposable asset, those who wear uniforms. In its stark truth, 40 Thieves on Saipan becomes an anti-war message. For any prospective military recruit, their parent, sweetheart or spouse, child, or friend, this book cuts through the advertising to the reality of carrying a weapon in war and adjusting to life back in the states later.

I’ll head back to other blog topics in the near future, but now my pride in 40 Thieves on Saipan is like any new parent. The book is available through Amazon, B&N online, BAM, and in bookstores. Joseph and I will be contributing part of our net royalties to specific nonprofit groups serving US vets.

 

 

Permanent Marker

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This was the summer we were going to explore the Brabant Walloon Province of Belgium where the majority of my ancestors once lived. Our son and daughter-in-law proposed the trip and a second planning meeting was about to be held when COVID-19 erupted outside China.

As plans fell apart in February for a special Easter vacation with my husband’s family and I cancelled a flight to Wisconsin a few weeks later, we wondered how summer travel might be impacted. Italy’s struggle with the immensity of COVID-19 gave the Western world a dose of reality.

We are fortunate to have a second home close to the Wisconsin Belgian community where both my maternal and paternal ancestors settled. Spring through fall planning for visits of family, friends, and fellow writers is usually complete by now. Changes happen, but certain events are written in permanent marker on our calendars before Easter. Until this year. A rough schedule is on my desk with April and May crossed off. The calendar remains blank.

May and June would already be different because the release of 40 Thieves on Saipan owns that time. The regular events to launch a book won’t happen in a shelter in place nation. No launch parties. No bookstore signings. Joseph Tachovsky, my co-author, and I are offering signed bookplates to those who are interested and pre-order the book. We’ll be virtual guests at book club meetings if invited. We’ll be visible on social media and he will be interviewed remotely on radio and television stations. Our publisher is confident and so are we.

Kids and young people are missing irreplaceable milestones like graduations, proms, new jobs, gathering for weddings. The dates circled with permanent marker during normal times. We mourn our lost isolated in quiet homes or viewing small screens. We celebrate births with no idea of when we’ll hold the newborn or hug the parents. We cannot fly to be with those needing physical care. It is what we do so that more of us will be here when this fight is over.

Stay strong. Stay safe. Stay in touch.

After the Battle

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Surviving war does not equate to a free ticket home.

COVID-19 is like a world war with every country fighting unique battles to beat a largely invisible enemy. When a vaccine is ready, how will wearied populations move forward? How will first responders and all on the front lines find their equilibrium? Where will we mourn our dead?

A good number of the 40 Thieves on Saipan WWII platoon survivors re-enlisted for the Korean conflict. They had seen too much, experienced too much, to return to the family dinner table. For the rest of their lives, many fought the bloody Pacific Theater battles of their youth. Between 1.4 and 1.5 million World War II vets fought in Korea. My father was one of those.

Some WWI and WWII vets disappeared after finding home side re-integration in the United States too difficult. My father-in-law was one of those. Without credit cards and mobile phones, pulling up roots in the 1950s was far easier. The  women they left behind were granted the dignity of being known ‘war widows’ even if somewhere their legal spouse was alive.

Mental health issues have dogged veterans as long as men have waged war. Some WWII and Vietnam vets who had suffered as prisoners of war returned home able to rehabilitate. Others did the best they could. I worked with a well-functioning man who chose to remove his shoes and eat his lunch under his desk. He had spent months in a Russian prisoner camp and carried this vulnerability to the work world.

Hit with the double whammy of COVID-19 and economic tsunami, not all of us will have the tenacity to start over. Suicide rates in the United States have risen dramatically since the start of the millennium, particularly among white middle age men. Vietnam and Afghanistan vets are dying at their own hand daily.

The world will not be a friendlier place in 2021, so where will we find ourselves? In a New York Times op ed David Brooks writes about the US tide of “safetyism” that buffers children and young people from disappointment, from accidents of any size, from developing tenacity. He says that tenacity is not a feature of good character, but what people are trained to do. One of our first challenges will be to find tenacious leaders in families, communities, schools, corporations and government and ask them to help everyone to build the skill set. And to build supports for those who are struck with hesitancy or fear on the journey to our new world.

Surviving this virus war will be a different kind of battle. Stay home. Stay safe.

 

Door County Late Winter

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Plowed snow covers a neighbor’s stonewall. Deer follow each other’s tracks leaving pathways through the woods. Ermine patrol exterior of houses in search of mice. Squirrels catapult between bare tree branches.

Three days of bright sun makes a friend’s installation of solar panels look like a good investment. Melting ice sparkles down the rain chain. The back porch is clear of Friday’s slippery melt and freeze mess. XC skies, snowshoes and sleds drip dry in the garage. Snow polished dangerously on roadways two nights ago has been forgotten.

Weekend visitors have drifted through stores with clearance sales, cruised snow mobile trails closed much of an unpredictable winter, brought a much needed dinner crowd to restaurants and bars. Better to have people late in the season when businesses have been down too long.

Maybe there’s a tease of spring in the breeze. Maybe that’s a foolish dream with more windy days and possible snow predicted midweek. Still time to buy winter gear priced at fifty percent to wear during the duration. The biggest storms often come after chili dinners with friends followed by board games are not quite as fun, jigsaw puzzles fill too many evenings, and the good fireplace wood pile is low. It would be better if football hadn’t finished so early in the season. Catchers and batters camp feels disconnected from this reality. But everyone daydreams about t-shirts and sandals.

County baseball league guys hold their initial season meetings in bars as the high school kids earn their way to winter sports state competitions and those fortunate to have plans pack suitcases for a few weeks in places where palm trees offer shade at the side of a pool. With Easter early this year the little girls could be wearing winter jackets over pretty dresses and searching for eggs will definitely happen inside the house.

There’s still corn in the fields as seed catalogues fill mailboxes. It’s hard to leave the house without slipping feet into boots, jamming gloves in pockets of a warm coat and pulling on a hat. Survival habits for at least another month. The snow that is still to come will clog the driveway for a shorter misery factor. But winter has a way of staying relevant as long as it wants. Put on another pot of chili.

Words from War

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The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) meets in London this week. Members haven’t been in agreement on a number of important topics for many years. The discomfort of disagreement is elevated in the current world leaders gathering.

Most of my adult life the U.S. has been at war. Men and women in camel fatigues drive next to us on the way to work. They shop at Target, pick up lunch at fast food places. Their kids play in our neighborhood. Their parents look for support from those who understand because the U.S. doesn’t feel like a country fighting a real war. Most of us don’t worry about our kids because they are wearing the U.S. uniform in a foreign land, or fighting the daily battles of post-traumatic stress or physical pain when they are among us.

For two years I have been working with another writer on a book project about an amazing Marine platoon that came into existence in the Pacific Theater in 1944. 40 Thieves on Saipan rose from the letters, photos, papers and hours of interviews with survivors of that platoon. My father was on a Navy ship involved in the clean up of the battle of Saipan. Thirty-five to forty thousand men, women and children lost their lives during roughly three weeks of fighting.

How do you tell a mother that her son was decapitated in front of you asks one nineteen year old Marine in 40 Thieves? Who pulls the trigger to end a buddy’s agony as the enemy torments his bullet-ridden body with a machine gun? How can the smell of a battlefield be described?

Watching documentaries and reading military history stripped away some of my naivete. Forcing myself to stay with a ninety-minute documentary when the images were terrible provided a thin thread of war’s reality. The dairy of an Army private gathering the bodies of his dead buddies on a battlefield in Europe read very real.

I have learned just enough:

  •  to pray frequently that those I love not experience life in a war zone,
  •  to wonder what short of something awful like genocide or terrible actions against humanity permit war as an intervention,
  •  to disdain the men of power who order soldiers into violent action for anything less,
  •  to wish governments could recoup the billions spent on weapons to invest in global climate responses and safer lives for their citizens,
  • to understand that I will never understand how mass killing of our human family makes sense,
  • and to hope the NATO meetings help leaders find common ground in our commitment  to peace.

 

 

The Gardens Change

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Queen Anne’s Lace plants too late to blossom wave dried pods in meadows and along roads. More Goldenrod become dull amid remaining greenery. Creeping vine leaves are tinged with brown, exposing dead their host trees and stubs to the elements. An occasional Monarch butterfly flutters where hundreds gathered. Picked of most of its fruit, the last viable tree in the orchard offers rotting pears to squirrels and deer. Birds form back into flocks after months of carefree exploration

In a week the garden changed from generous colorful blossoms to petals dotted with brown specks, stalks of poppies, empty rose stems, leaves without flowers. Too tall decorative grasses or plants tower over shriveled annuals in pots around the porch. Acorns drop with abrupt, gently violent, sounds. Mushrooms claim their day of show.

Farmers markets offer piles of kale, squash, boxes of potatoes, onions and carrots. Remaining tomatoes have fewer days to be used atop store bought lettuce or spinach. Apples replace cherries, blueberries, raspberries. Pumpkins appear piled on wagons.

Summer left the land dragging with it a sense of promise and surplus. Fall took over acting all pragmatic, a combination of awesome color-splotched trees and clearing the earth of produce that can be preserved for the months when nothing will grow. When icy tree branches and drifted snow will be called nature’s beauty.

I am not ready.

This is Our War

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Forty thousand people die from guns every year in the United States. Hundreds of thousands are injured. Sit back and consider those numbers then multiply each by ten to acknowledge family and friends traumatized by the violence.  Forty thousand domestic casualties in twelve months is more than all the Armed Forces casualties since President George Bush’s Desert Storm operation. While the loss of any US service person is tragic,  people back home don’t expect to make the ultimate sacrifice when shopping for their kids’ back to school supplies or worshiping on a Sunday morning or hiking in a national forest.

If the increasing numbers of mass shootings, domestic killings, urban murders, accidental tragedies, or individuals using a gun to end their lives were happening elsewhere, we might suggest these were signs of war. There might a call to send troops and support civilians dying in the cross fire.

Instead we work and raise our children and care for those more vulnerable in communities we can only hope are safe that day. Our elected leaders accept money from the ever powerful lobbyists of the gun world. Because too many politicians like the money and power, there is denial that a domestic war exists.

You and I can never raise the money these politicians–both men and women–require to change their minds or rhetoric about assault rifles. My brother and uncles never needed military grade firearms to hunt grouse or deer. There are an estimated fifteen million military-style rifles in civilian hands. Mass shootings are difficult to accept as part of the price of protecting some individuals’ personal freedom to own what they want.

There is another statistic that is difficult to accept–about sixty percent of gun-related deaths are suicides. Stop and consider the heaviness of that fact. Significant experts tie the flood of illegal drugs including opioids with the astounding number of guns in our country to violence and rising suicide numbers.

Some say it is too late to work our way out of this gun tsunami. Giving up on a safer future for our children and grandchildren because of facing difficult decisions and an angry minority today doesn’t feel American. It feels reasonable if a person wants a traditional rifle or handgun and can prove they have received valid training in safe handling of that weapon. That was how the US once lived. A country where people can own multiple weapons capable of mass shootings and stockpiled ammunition sounds like a nation where the body count will continue to rise. A country engaged in a passive aggressive sort of domestic war.

The Thousand Dollar Physical

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For the past five years I relied on individual health insurance plans with high deductibles. A minor, in-office surgical procedure cost about $2,300 including lab work. I paid all the cost out of my pocket. The annual physical was covered as preventative care except I asked a couple of questions and those were coded as diagnostic and resulted in billings that I paid. In 2017 it appeared that each question was worth about $130.

This year I am in a more generous healthcare insurance setting and was cautious about asking questions at the annual physical. The explanation of benefits arrived this afternoon with a cool $1,042 charge. Holy cow! I’m not responsible for paying that amount, but am blown away that just the physician component could be so costly. Lab fees haven’t been posted yet. We’re talking five minutes of rooming by a CNA and about twenty minutes of physician time in a regular clinic setting. No technology or specialty care.

When your doctor tells you what immunizations need updating and suggests you go to the drugstore or a drop in clinic because they charge about half of what the medical practice will bill, that’s uncomfortable.

For all who are self-employed, under-employed, or employed in a small company with no insurance, these stories can be game changers. Unfortunately this isn’t a new story unless you are one of the thousands who have decided to start your own business. About 30% of the U.S. workforce are self-employed or work for someone who is according to the Pew Institute.

Have leaders in the healthcare world lost connection to reality? What percent of annual after tax income should an individual, or family, be expected to commit to basic healthcare?

The integrated healthcare delivery systems that grew out of giant mergers and acquisitions of physician groups were supposed to provide improved quality with greater efficiency. I worked in that sector during the first decade of consolidation. The thousand dollar physical suggests the experiment didn’t work.