Free Gift from Thomas-Jacob Publishing

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books

The anthology Things We Write was released today by Thomas-Jacob Publishing.

Seven Thomas-Jacob Publishing, LLC authors bring you 15 of their short stories, excerpts, and poems. Sometimes offbeat, always captivating, the selections include historical fiction, magical realism, crime, psychological suspense, literary fiction, coming of age, and poetry for both children and adults. The works are grouped by author name, not genre, ensuring a surprise each time you turn the page.

You can download your free copy as a PDF, MOBI (Kindle), or EPUB (other e-readers) file from my publisher’s website catalog here.

My contributions are a new short story “The Smokey Hollow Blues” and an excerpted short story, “Haints in the Woods” from a previous Thomas-Jacob collection. Both stories feature characters many of you have read about in my Florida Folk Magic Series, Eulalie (the conjure woman) Willie (Eulalie’s husband), Lena (the magical cat), and Pollyanna (a sneaky helper who kicks butt and takes names).

I hope you enjoy the collection.

Malcolm

Sunday’s trail mix

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Potpourri
  • Where’s the header picture? I removed it because this blog posts to my author’s page on Facebook and the software that made that happen kept selecting the header picture to display with the post rather than the picture I had inserted into the post. That ended up looking like nonsense. Sometimes I could fix it, and sometimes not, but the hassle was getting to be just too much.
  • Figuring Out Readership in Advance. I can’t do it. My post about the latest Florida tollway boondoggle is getting more attention than posts about Run, Rose, Run (Patterson and Parton) and the real librarian of Auschwitz. I would have bet money that the tollway post wouldn’t attract much attention when up against bestselling books. Hey, it’s okay with me. I’m happy to see a bunch of readers every week.
  • Darn it, Husqvarna. Thanks (sarcasm) for mounting the sparkplug in such a way that I have to add a socket to my socket and ratchet set just to change the sparkplug. I have accumulated several of these sets and, while each of them is capable of disarming a submarine’s torpedo (after it’s fired), none of them has a sparkplug socket–which costs about the same as the new sparkplug.
  • Selling a chapbook for a good cause? If so, why make it hard to buy? First, there’s no apparent website displaying the chapbook. Second, you have to send an e-mail to the professor in charge of the project to find out the cost and how to order it. And then, you have to use a Paypal competitor (that’s owned by PayPal) to make your purchase. Maybe you love Venmo. It seems to be intended for those with mobile devices. Whether or not I can install it on my desktop PC is described in convoluted instructions around the web. The thing is, I don’t need it or want it. So, finally, after a lot of back and forth, I got the chapbook people to accept a check sent via snail mail. Making the chapbook hard to buy won’t help the cause. I hope the publisher didn’t mandate that poems to the chapbook had to be submitted in a WordStar file or rolled up inside a sparkplug socket.
  • Thanks for the Janis Joplin pix. I don’t know who’s doing it or why, but Facebook has been displaying archival Janis pictures. She was a favorite of mine gone too darned soon. I hope some of the smiles on her face in these photographs came from joy rather than too much Southern Comfort. I still have her vinyl records but due to bad karma, I’m too hard of hearing to listen to them. I liked the way she thought: “Life is too damn short and [screwed] up to go through it silently loving someone and never telling them how you feel. [Screw] the consequences, [screw] the implications of the actions, to hell with it all… whatever happens as a result is better than the nothingness that is inevitable with silence.”

—Malcolm

Briefly noted: ‘A Delayed Life: The true story of the Librarian of Auschwitz’ by Dita Kraus

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books

After reading Antonio Iturbe’s The Librarian of Auschwitz, the well-researched and agonizing novel based on the true story of Dita Kraus, I was happy to discover that Dita Kraus is still with us, apparently as sharp and feisty as ever at 92.

She has her own website here where she sells her delicate paintings of flowers, a few of the books mentioned in Iturbe’s novel, and provides a link to her own memoir A Delayed Life: The true story of the Librarian of Auschwitz which was published in 2020.

Look at the book with Amazon’s look inside feature, and you’ll find some amazing writing, pragmatic, incisive, and bluntly honest, as this excerpt shows:

From the Publisher

The powerful, heart-breaking memoir of Dita Kraus, THE LIBRARIAN OF AUSCHWITZ

Dita Kraus was born in Prague in 1929 – in her powerful new memoir she writes about her childhood before the war and then during the Nazi-occupation that saw her and her family sent to the Jewish ghetto at Terezín and from there to Auschwitz and then Bergen-Belsen.

Dita writes powerfully and unflinchingly about the harsh conditions of the camps and her role as librarian of the precious books the prisoners had managed to smuggle past the guards. She also writes about the liberation of the camps and her chance meeting with fellow survivor Otto B Kraus after the war.

Part of Dita’s story was told in fictional form in the Sunday Times bestseller THE LIBRARIAN OF AUSCHWITZ by Antonio Iturbe.

I am so impressed with this fine lady, that I ordered the book immediately. Perhaps it will fill in some of the gaps in my knowledge about her. If I had her persistence and bravery and dedication, I could move mountains–that’s pretty much what she did in the family unit school at Auschwitz-Birkenau when she was fourteen years old in this unholy place:

—Malcolm

So, how’s ‘Run, Rose, Run’ by Patterson and Parton doing?

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books

When the novel was released on March 7, it began its life at number one on the New York Times bestseller list. It’s currently at number five on Amazon with 11,207 ratings with a 4.5 average. The companion album by the same name, Parton’s forty-eighth solo studio album, a mix of bluegrass and country, is described as high energy with a lot to like. Meanwhile, “Variety ” reports that a movie deal is already in the works with Reese Witherspoon’s company. The whole project appears to be doing well.

Amazon Description:

From America’s most beloved superstar and its greatest storyteller—a thriller about a young singer-songwriter on the rise and on the run, and determined to do whatever it takes to survive.
Every song tells a story. 
She’s a star on the rise, singing about the hard life behind her. 
She’s also on the run. Find a future, lose a past. 
Nashville is where she’s come to claim her destiny.  It’s also where the darkness she’s fled might find her.  And destroy her. 
Run, Rose, Run is a novel glittering with danger and desire—a story that only America’s #1 beloved entertainer and its #1 bestselling author could have created.

–

Not a lot of detail there, but then I guess when you have Patterson and Parton working together, you really don’t need a lot of detail. Just mention the surprising co-authorship of the book, and sales will follow.

The last line of the book’s Kirkus review is an apt summary of what’s going on here: “The fairy-tale characters and details of the country-music scene are so much fun you won’t mind the silly plot.”

The Publishers Weekly review ends about the same way, “Never mind that the mystery element runs a distant second to the story of AnnieLee making good in Nashville. Parton fans will relish this timeless fairy tale, which displays the singer’s lively way with words and draws liberally from her experience in the music business.”

All About Romance begins its review this way: “Run, Rose, Run is just as charming as everything else connected to musician/actress/philanthropist Dolly Parton. Though it’s mostly a character study about three different personalities making their way through the Nashville scene than a thriller, the suspense element adds a nice bit of variety to the proceedings. It’s a fun, quick read in spite of its length – a page-turner with brief chapters.”

According to Book Marks, “Parton’s co-authorship of Run, Rose, Run may not suggest literary finesse, but she is able to supply an authenticity in the details of the American music business to match (in her own way) the political insights previously provided by Clinton.” (Bill Clinton and Patterson, another unlikely combination of authors, previously teamed up on The President is Missing and The President’s Daughter.)

I have not read Run, Rose, Run because I’m waiting for the price to come down, but I have read The President is Missing and can see the synchronicity of the thriller details from Patterson and the Presidential details from Clinton. I expected the same combination of skills/backgrounds in the Parton and Patterson collaboration.

I think the book will be easy on the eyes and a run-read if you like country music. That’s my guess because we all love Dolly.

—Malcolm

P. S. I sent Jim an idea about a guy with a paper route who’s being targeted by mob enforcers from a competing newspaper but haven’t heard back yet.

Malcolm’s Books: A Getting Started Guide

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn satire

In general, reading my books is a matter of seeing one word after another.

If your local bricks and mortar bookstore doesn’t have a copy of the book you’re looking for, you can: (a) ask why the hell not, (b) show the clerk or manager the listing for the book on one of the many online booksellers where it can be found and order it while s/he gasps in horror, or (c) tell them they can order the book from their Ingram catalog in the same manner that got all the other books into the building (unless they rely on elves).

If you don’t know the names of any of my books don’t admit it to any other writers since some of those writers might have “mob enforcers” who will teach you a lesson.

If you’re in a literature class taking a test, you’ll probably see questions like this: Which of the following books was written by Malcolm?

  1. The Great Gatsby
  2. A Visit from the Goon Squad
  3. Still Life With Woodpecker
  4. Fate’s Arrows
  5. All of the above
  6. None of the above
  7. One, two, and three above

If the book cover shown here appears on the test, you’ve “accidentally” gotten the professor’s grading copy; your next step depends on (a) whether or not the professor or a grad student monitor is sitting at the front of the room staring at you, (b) the number of security cams in the room, (c) the size of the mob enforcers patrolling the aisles, or (d) dumb luck.

Once you have a hardcover, paperback, or Kindle/Nook copy of my book in front of you, it’s best to start reading from the beginning unless you’re one of those creeps who goes to the back of the book first to see if anything bad or scary happened.

Before you start reading, hire a mob enforcer to keep anyone from messing with you (or else).

Feel free to drink while reading the book. I suggest Scotch or red wine. Getting drunk will probably cause you to say I wrote The Great Gatsby on the next pop quiz. (If the book in front of you ends with the line “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past,” you are reading The Great Gatsby and that means the book store or the mob enforcer is messing with you.)

While this getting started guide was prepared at great expense, it’s free for you, “gentle reader.”

Malcolm or Bennie Salazar or Gulietta

Floridians: Stop the Northern Turnpike Extension

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn conservation, Florida, writing2 Comments

I grew up in Florida, so I can say this. Florida is famous (infamous) for its toll road boondoggles. If you live in Citrus, Levy, Marion, or Sumter countries, you’re at ground zero for a proposed turnpike extension that’s bad for you, the land, the panthers, and your pocketbook.

There’s been a continuing disconnect between what the people in your part of the state say you don’t want and what the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) seems bound and determined to shove down your throats.

As the No Roads to Ruin coalition says, “FDOT’s current approach to SB 100 completely ignores (1) the overwhelming public opposition, (2) the M-CORES Northern Turnpike Corridor Task Force’s failure to find any need for a northern extension of the turnpike, (3) the M-CORES Northern Turnpike Corridor Task Force’s findings on the fragility of the region’s environmental and agricultural resources, and (4) the reality that this folly is wasting, once again, precious Florida taxpayer dollars.”

This graphic from the coalition’s website sums up the situation nicely:

The evidence shows that the FDOT proposal is bad for water, wildlife, health, taxpayers, agriculture, rural communities, and the climate. It’s not just the roads themselves, it’s the sprawl and pollution that follow.

There’s also a disconnect between FDOT and the damage it does. My primary concern is the endangered Florida Panther. Estimates vary, but there are less than 200 left.

Wildlife ecologist Randy Kautz, writing at the request of the Nature Conservancy, said, “The construction of a new toll road expressway from Central into Southwest Florida is likely to have two primary effects on Florida panthers. First, there will be a direct loss of panther habitat within the footprint of the new road. Second, the toll road will accelerate the predicted loss of panther habitats, increase roadkill mortality, result in increasing fragmentation of remaining panther habitats, and likely jeopardize panther population survival by facilitating the movement of new residents and developments into regions of Southwest Florida that are now rural.”

FDOT doesn’t care about the panther or the water or the agriculture, much less the quality of life. Its job is to bring money into the state with toll roads and the tax money generated by sprawl. Your protests will never change FDOT’s thinking. The only thing to do is lean on the public, the legislature, the governor–and if need be–the courts to stop its absurd fixation on paving over the state.

—Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell’s novels are set in the Florida Panhandle where FDOT devastation isn’t as extreme as it is in the peninsular part of the state.

A paper route + a bike = you know everyone in the neighborhood

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn newspapers

My two brothers and I had contiguous paper routes in Tallahassee, Florida, while we were in junior high and high school that we ran on our bikes every morning for years. We knew everyone in most of the houses from the high school to the north edge of town in the neighborhood where we lived.

I believe I got my paper route first followed by my brothers getting paper routes. When one of us was sick, Mother ran all three routes in the car while one of us handled all three routes. We delivered The Florida Times-Union, from Jacksonville, in the mornings. That meant we were up early because we had to get all the papers out before we went to school.

Sometimes I even substituted for the carrier delivering the local paper when he was sick. His route covered the same territory as mine, the difference being that he delivered papers to almost every house. That made it easy for me since I seldom had to worry if a home got a pape or not. Most did.

Most of the people on our routes paid us monthly for the paper. That meant going from house to house down our customer lists collecting for the paper. None of the dogs liked us. One bit me. Most of the people paid, though some bounced checks or the person with the money wasn’t home. I could have written a book about the trials and tribulations of a newspaper carrier, listing (among other things) the excuses for not being able to pay to the eccentric places in their yards where they wanted the paper to be tossed.

A surprising number of people knew our parents through PTA, the university, Scouting, and various civic clubs. Even though Tallahassee had less than 40,000 people then, within our paper route neighborhoods, the atmosphere was very much that of a smaller town. And, since I walked or rode my bike to school–through our paper route area–everyone knew who I was, where I was, and whether I was doing anything wrong (in their parental opinions).

I liked having a paper route because it was an easy way to earn money. I didn’t like the fact that I couldn’t walk or ride anywhere without somebody seeing me and remarking to my parents that they saw me walking down Spruce Street later than expected, to which my parents replied “he has band practice after school.” While that response kept the spies from thinking I was up to something, I didn’t really like them knowing everything about my schedule.

Of course, if anyone told my parents they thought I threw a rock at their yapping doggie, I could always tell my parents they bounced two checks and still owed me for two months’ worth of papers.

There are days when it seemed like a war zone out there and days when I knew that knowing everyone (and their foibles) in every house gave me more power than a teenager ought to have. Tattle on me, suckers, and your paper’s going in the flower bed with the snakes.

Malcolm

I didn’t want to get sued, so I never wrote that “What the Newspaper Boy Knows” novel

Cut the crap, Mother Nature, we need to cut the grass

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Life in general2 Comments

The Problem

Look, we have several acres of grass that are getting so high we can’t see Robbie lurking in it when he runs outside. The cattle on the other side of the fence are looking like they want to bust into our yard and chow down. (It’s happened before.) And finally, we have one of our riding mowers up and running.

But we’re waiting for you, Mother Nature, to get this problem squared away. Maybe tomorrow morning’s projected frost will dry out the wet grass. Yeah, right. On the map, we’re in the upper northwest part of the state (GA) that, at present is GREEN (like our uncut grass).

Our property is really too large and bumpy for these riding mowers. We had an old Ford tractor but sold it off when we discovered the bush hog was shot. Otherwise, it might have helped us keep up with the non-yard part of our property–and saved a lot of wear and tear on these mowers which are held together with baling wire.

Getting back to the weather, the local conjure women know how to clean this mess up, but they won’t help me because they claim I gave away too many of their secrets in Conjure Woman’s Cat. Heck, maybe they’re right even though I fudged the hexes so people couldn’t use the novel as a recipe book. On top of that, Mother Nature’s blocked me on her Facebook page.

So there it is.

—Malcolm

P.S. I’ve added a news page to my website. Click on my name to take a look.

Briefly noted: ‘The Civilian Conservation Corps in Glacier National Park, Montana’ by David R. Butler

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Glacier National Park

“Another major experiment which affected Glacier was also to affect many other national parks. The program was part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and was called the Civilian Conservation Corps. In 1933, almost immediately after this program’s enactment, young men from all over the United States were organized into work crews in camps in national parks and forests. Responding to the Depression economy and vast unemployment, Roosevelt intended this labor to enhance the conservation of natural resources while providing a livelihood for indigent young men. Nationwide, over a thousand camps organized by the Army employed some three hundred thousand young men, and in Glacier, some sixteen hundred enrollees arrived and eight camps were established in 1933.” – C. W. Buchholtz in Man in Glacier, 1976, Glacier Natural History Association

Those of us who became addicted to Glacier National Park over half a century ago, learned more about the park by reading books and monographs published by the former Glacier Natural History Association, for which I was a volunteer, that drew on the expertise of those whom I consider the first generation of modern-day park historians including Jack Holterman, Clyde Lockwood, Curt Buchholtz,  Michael J. Ober, and others. For today’s generation, I should add David R. Butler (Fire Lookouts of Glacier National Park) to that evolving list for providing another readable chapter to the park’s knowledge with the current volume released by Arcadia Publishing in February.

From the Publisher

“The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), one of the most successful of all New Deal programs, was heavily involved in creating and improving the infrastructure of Glacier National Park. Between 1933 and 1942, a total of thirteen CCC camps were located on both sides of the Continental Divide that bisects the park roughly from north to south. CCC-I.D. (Indian Division) camps also existed along the eastern edge of the park on the Blackfeet Reservation. CCC “boys” were employed in fighting forest fires and clearing areas of burned trees, clearing brush and debris, sawing logs, creating trails, building fire lookout towers, constructing Park Service buildings, assisting with bridge construction, and building phone lines to connect east and west sides of the park. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt visited in August 1934 and gave one of his famous radio “fireside chats” from the park, in which he praised the efforts of the CCC in helping improve the country’s national parks. Chapters examine CCC camp life, the nature of the work carried out by the CCC boys, structures built in the park by the CCC, and FDR’s visit.”

In his April 6 review for the Hungry Horse News, Chris Peterson wrote, “You can’t drive into the west entrance of Glacier National Park without seeing the work of the Civilian Conservation Corps. They not only replanted the entire surrounding forest, they built the entrance station itself.”

And yet, most of today’s visitors come and go without knowing of the tremendous influence of the CCC on all aspects of the park, second only to the work done by the Great Northern Railway’s hotel company. I’m very pleased to see this new book by Butler (who’s been in the park almost as long as I have) who sees it with a professional vision and love of history.

The book will have an impact on you because the more you know about Glacier National Park, the more you love it and understand the constant hard work it has taken–and will continue to take–to preserve it.

—Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell writes fiction set in the park. Unfortunately, his only nonfiction contribution is out of print.

NPCA: 102 years old and still delivering much-needed support for the National Parks

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn National Parks, writing

The National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) is the only independent, nonpartisan membership organization devoted exclusively to advocacy on behalf of the National Parks System. Its mission is “to protect and enhance America’s National Park System for present and future generations.” Founded in 1919 as the National Parks Association, the organization was designed to be a citizen’s watchdog for the National Park Service (NPS) created in 1916. Among the founders of NPA was Stephen Mather, the first director of the National Park Service — Wikipedia

I renewed my membership today as I have for more years than I can remember. No doubt there are a few gaps in my membership due to lean years, but I support the parks and the support groups that speak on the parks’ behalf. The parks are simultaneously underfunded and loved to death by massive numbers of visitors that are unsustainable.

I often wonder why more people aren’t members of NPCA. Glacier Park alone has more visitors every year and I think that if even half of those joined the NPCA, we might solve more of the problems facing the national park system.

The NPCA’s mission, as stated on its website, is “We’re protecting and enhancing America’s National Park System for present and future generations.” Since I’ve been following the problems of the parks since the 1960s, I’m rather cynical about park visitors, many of whom could probably care less about future generations as long as they got their visit checked off the bucket list before the system fell apart.

The organization has a lot on its plate. Here are the issues it tracks:

Air
Climate Change
Energy
History and Culture
Landscapes
Park Funding
Visitor Experience
Water
Wildlife

My feeling is that all of these are at risk and have been for years, long before climate change was included in NPCA’s concerns. On the NPCA’s advocacy page, there’s a simple message: “Learn about the challenges and opportunities facing national parks, then use your voice to advocate on their behalf.”

For the most part, we’re missing those voices.

—Malcolm

“The Sun Singer” and “Sarabande” are set in Glacier National Park.