Category Archives: Pandemic

Resiliency Faces Resistance

Cynthia Kraack Posted on by

During the heart of COVID lock down a new book project forced its way beyond a planned longish short story. With competition in the fiction market so difficult, my 2020 and 2021 work goals did not include a novel length work. But after months of keeping control within a tightly defined setting, one character began disintegrating. Old pain leaked into the new life she was learning and speckled soft-color sunny days with deep splotches of rusty and black stains. A short story about resiliency faced a wall of resistance.

My nice character abused all my plans and won the upper hand as the original plot imploded. Someone had to suffer, maybe even die, to let character, plot, and setting strings roll into a ball worth throwing from one hand to another.  Loss, betrayal, discovery, and forgiveness don’t develop over autumn days differentiated by the nothing more significant that the choice of jam on tomorrow’s sandwich. There must be days when the cupboard is empty, or the bread is moldy, or someone has switched raspberry jam with despised jalapeno jelly that must be eaten. Because this is life.

My tormented character may be demanding to create her fictional life with a streak of realism in this interim pandemic world where historic fires, floods and power players’ disregard for regular people deny the magic of rainbows and predictable endings. Perhaps spending years in the world of 40 Thieves on Saipan, I’m more open to a character who chooses to walk the world carrying pain, fresh socks, blank notebooks, and a sandwich with any jam in a backpack instead of watching the world through others’ windows.

The Next Big Book

Cynthia Kraack Posted on by

(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?

Cynthia Kraack Posted on by

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.

Permanent Marker

Cynthia Kraack Posted on by

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.