Pardon me if I brag a bit

 

Owen Wister Award for Lifetime Achievement
Western Writers of America

I’ll just put this right out there: there is now a Wikipedia page about me and my career as a writer. Makes me feel like one of the grown-ups!

I’ve used Wikipedia a lot, never scorned it was much as some academics do, recognized it for what it is: a good way to begin research on a project and get an overview. What it is not is a reliable source to quote in a scholarly paper or book. But then again, it’s a great marketing tool.

For years I wondered how you got to the point that Wikipedia decided you deserve a page. Along the way I discovered that’s not how it works. Someone submits a page for you, following Wikipedia’s guidelines. They frown on a subject submitting a page or editing their own page. So here’s what happened.

Facebook from time-to-time posts memories from several years ago—if you follow, FB you know this. Recently they posted a memory about a 2016 trip to Lubbock where I was inducted into the Western Writers of America Hall of Fame. I’m not very good at blowing my own horn—in fact, I’m shy about it—but I decided to share this memory. It’s been a while since I’ve been really active in the western writing community, so a whole new crop of writers has come along to whom I’m unknown, even though I am publishing new books and older titles are being reprinted.. And then there’s the mystery community, where I am definitely on one of the lower rungs of success. It would be nice to let them know of the credibility I have in the western writing world. My motives weren’t exactly pure, but I shared it.

A friend I haven’t seen in thirty years or more contacted me. Suzi Swaim babysat my children when she was in high school, so it was a shock to have her tell me she’s nearing retirement age. No!  She’s still in high school, even though she has a grown son. We have stayed in contact through Facebook, and Suzi said she thought I should have a Wikipedia page and she would do it for me. I was delighted and grateful to say the least and got to work gathering information for her, using friends’ pages as models. And before I knew it, the page was up. Son-in-law Brandon, a software engineer, did some final tweaking like adding dates and the picture he took.

So far, I’ve gotten a good reaction, and I admit it is satisfying to see what I’ve done all these years collected in one place. I’ve never been a good record keeper, so this forced me to organize.

What’s my favorite of my books? Probably the one that diverges from my usual areas—The Gilded Cage, set in Chicago in the latter half of the nineteenth century. And the accomplishment I’m most proud of? Probably the Owen Wister Lifetime Achievement Award from Western Writers of America. It came with a marvelous statue of a buffalo.

It’s been a great ride, and it’s not over yet. I’ve got irons in the fire, ideas in my mind. Meanwhile, here’s a link to the page: Judy Alter - Wikipedia

My good news

Sunday night seems a good time to share good news. This past week I signed contracts with Globe Pequot Publishers for a new book—and five reprints. The new book is a study of one mega-ranching family in North Texas and Fort Worth, with a feminist approach to the subject, looking at the role of the women in the family. It’s interesting stuff, and I’ve been working on it for some time. Slow going but satisfying.

In addition, Globe Pequot will reprint five of my historical novels in 2021 and 2022. I had known for a couple of weeks that they would do four—Jessie, Libbie, Cherokee Rose, and Sundance, Butch and Me. But the surprise was the addition of Mattie to the list. Mattie was my first adult novel—I had written three novels which were marketed to young-adult readers, though I did not sit down and consciously think that I was writing a young-adult story.

With Mattie, I told the story from the viewpoint of an elderly woman looking back on her life. It’s a trope I’ve since used in novels and short stories, a way of telling someone’s story that makes me comfortable. I settle into the character and live her life with her. Mattie is based on the life of Dr. Georgia Arbuckle Fix who was a pioneer physician on the empty plains of western Nebraska in the late nineteenth century. This novel won a Spur Award as the Best Western Novel in 1988 from Western Writers of America.

That Mattie won the award in 1988 shows you that I’ve been writing a long time. But now, with these new contracts, I feel that my career is taking off—at the age of eighty. Certain bit of irony there. I can’t really complain about my career. I’ve written a lot of books and gotten some nice awards for some of them. It’s just that it’s all been sort of hardscrabble, and now, to have all this happen at once, is a bit overwhelming. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the late Debra Winegarten, who asked me to finish her Alamo book when she became ill. That work introduced me to Globe Pequot. I said something to a fellow author about feeling uncomfortable about riding on Debra’s coattails, but she put it nicely: Debra cracked the door for me, but I opened it when I turned in a strong Alamo manuscript. I hope Deb is smiling down at me. She was always one to boost other writers.

The reprints will get new covers (which they need) and will, I think, be hardback. And there’s more: in 1986, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram commissioned me to write a novel about Texas to be serialized in the newspaper in recognition of the Texas Sesquicentennial (Texans will remember how hard it was to learn to pronounce that!). I wrote a novel titled So Far from Paradise, loosely based on the founding of one ranch. Much of my current research retraces material I explored back then. The newspaper has given me permission to reprint the novel in ebook form. It is with an editor now, and an artist is working on a cover. It will come out sometime this fall—wonderful thing about being your own publisher is that the only deadlines are those you set yourself.

Of course, I’ll shout it from the rooftops when So Far from Paradise is available, as well as the other books, but I’m delighted to share my good news with you now. Not sure my feet have touched the ground in several days.

The stay-at-home writer, sort of

Thankful today for a bright blue sky, plenty of sunshine, and almost balmy temperatures. I have a good friend who refers to the details of daily life as brush fires, and in his terms, I spent the morning putting out brush fires. I was reminded of an editor I used to have at TCU Press who once said she knew the advice—pick up one piece of paper at a time and don’t put it down until you’ve finished dealing with it—but she had a hard time putting it into practice.

This morning I faced recipes I wanted to put in my ongoing cookbook—some I fixed this weekend, some from earlier days—along with some tax matters to solve (who gets away with sending a W2 in March, when I sent all my information to the accountant weeks ago?), yet another revision of Murder at the Bus Depot. This time I had to unpublish it and will have to wait a couple days and then re-publish. This has been an enormously difficult book to get online, and I think it’s “them” and not me. Out of four phone calls to take care of business, I was asked to leave four messages and have only had a return call from one. Grateful it was the accountant. The other calls had to do with a pirated copy of my chili book, an appointment to check my hearing aids, and I can’t even remember the last one—what will I do if they never call back and I never remember?

A morning like this makes me so grateful for a career that I can continue as long as my brain and my fingers on the keyboard hold out, one where I can work at home in my pajamas with my dog sleeping peacefully nearby, and one where I can work at my own pace, set my own deadlines. I’m quite sure having that desk-oriented career keeps me young—well okay, not in years but you know what I mean—maybe active and alert are better words. Friends who are more mobile than I do a lot of volunteer work that keeps them on the go, and I regret that lack of mobility won’t let me join them. But sometimes I see their volunteerism lock them into schedules that are almost like working again, and then I appreciate my life all the more.

I do admit to spending too much time following current events these days—who can resist? I won’t burden you with opinions tonight, but I will quote Dorothy Parker: “Should they whisper false of you/Never trouble to deny/Should the words they say be true/Weep and storm and swear they lie.” You know without my telling you who needs to heed that advice. He must be an awful poker player.

My stay-at-home career wouldn’t be quite so happy and fulfilling if I didn’t have family and friends who come to visit, who take me out for lunch or dinner, who give me the taste of the world that I miss in my solitary work.

Tonight I had a wonderful taste of that larger world beyond my cottage. Jordan and I went to a reception following Mary Volcansek’s Final Lecture at TCU. Mary is a dear friend—she calls me her big sister—and a client of Jordan’s. It was a lovely affair and a great tribute to Mary’s long academic career. For me, it was a bonus—a chance to greet colleagues I haven’t seen in a while and visit at length with one pair of old friends. Granted, I had a hard time hearing, but it was still a heady experience and made me feel part of the mainstream again. Wine was good too.

Going to bed happy tonight.

Reflections on a birthday

Me and all the young girls

They look bright, but I'm ready to fade

I am seventy-nine years old today, or, as my father would have said, in my eightieth year. A childhood friend with whom I’ve been in close touch all these years regularly writes on my birthday to twit me about being much older—from July 22 until her September 15 birthday, I am a year older. But this year, she added, “Can you believe we’re looking at eighty?” No, the truth is that I can’t. I won’t repeat the mistake I made twenty years ago or so when I told Jamie that I didn’t feel any older than the coeds on the TCU campus. He went into hysterics. But the truth today is that I do feel older—and wiser.

I’ve heard it said that for every individual there is an age at which you permanently place yourself. Mine has always been in my early thirties, when my babies were young and I was, so I thought, happily married. I wouldn’t go back that far any more. In fact, I’m perfectly content with the age I am now, though of course I want to live, in good physical and emotional health, at least well into my nineties. I have to take advantage of the accumulated wisdom of the years, what I’ve learned from heartbreak and, more importantly, what I’ve learned from joy, happiness, and love. I’ve thought a lot about it today and concluded I don’t quite know how to put what I mean in words—a writer at a loss for words. But I think, hope I am a better person—less quick to judge and demand, more compassionate, more understanding.

After all these years, I don’t regret my single state either. Marriage was good—it gave me four terrific children and a taste for kosher food—but it left a sour taste in my mouth. I find myself these days dreaming about a couple of past loves—I wish I could reach out and tell them that I have learned a lot, that I would have reacted differently to our relationships, that I miss them still and they are in corners of my heart. But that isn’t possible, and it’s a slight regret to live with.

I wish I could bring my parents back, for I would be a far better daughter, far more understanding as they aged. And oh! I so wish they could see my wonderful grandchildren. I keep their memory alive with stories and reminiscences…and my mom’s memory lives on in my cooking.

I am a happy, mostly content woman—loved by my family and more friends than I ever deserved, happy with my career choices, which were mostly happenstance but enable me to look back on a professional life well lived and continuing to this day. Lord deliver me from being smug but thank you for blessing me with the riches I have, tangible and intangible.

Tonight, Jordan and Christian welcomed a small crowd to their house—a few neighbors I’m fond of and lots of their friends, who are always glad to see me. That’s another blessing—Jordan has always included me in her circle of friends, and the girls are like daughters to me, the husbands good friends.

Susan and I blow out our candles.

For several years I have shared a birthday with neighbor Susan, who is twenty years and 3 days younger. Tonight, Susan was there to share the fun…and cake.

That's it, folks. The birthday is over. Finis.

What is the core of your life?

I read somewhere recently that we make a mistake by letting our job be the core of who we really are—I think it was by food critic/food writer Ruth Reichel whose works I devour. She discovered, after the abrupt dissolution of Gourmet Magazine, which she edited, that for a time she didn’t know who she was. Without her job, what was she to do?

I didn’t retire until well into my seventies for much the same reason. I worried about waking up and thinking, in a panic, “What will I do today?” Unpleasant circumstances—okay, call a spade a spade—personality conflicts drove me from a job that I loved, made it so unbearable that I was having anxiety attacks daily.

My brother once said that I continually reinvented myself—through divorce, the empty nest, all those major life marks—and that’s what I did with retirement. I made myself into a prolific mystery writer, kept myself busy 24/7—well not quite. I do enjoy a good night’s sleep. But I was for a brief few years producing three books a year.

I have mixed feelings about this. I think my continuing involvement in the writing and specifically mystery worlds has kept my mind active and young (right now my body doesn’t seem to be cooperating but I hope that will get better). It would be disaster for me to spend das watching TV: reading would be better but much as I love to read, I couldn’t do it all day every day. No, writing has given me a reason to get up and move on with the day.

On the other hand, I don’t think writing is the core of who I am. I think at heart I’m a mom and grandmom. I used to always say I wanted my obituary to read, in this order, that I was a mom, a writer, and a publisher. I’ve always known how important my family is to me, but in recent months, when some health problems reared their heads, I’ve realized even more how important that is to me. My children’s care, support, and love has kept me optimistic, involved in improving my health. Writing can’t do that.

So, yes, I wake up every morning, anxious to get to my computer…and sometimes I wonder if my unwillingness to do household chores, etc., is simply an unfortunate computer addiction. But it keeps me in touch with the world. So I think I’ve figured out it’s not the core of who I really am, but it’s an important part.

Being a mother, a family member, is the core. And, hurray! My oldest daughter just told me tonight they’ll be here Friday for supper and to spend the night. The change in me? I’m not rushing to plan a meal—we’ll go out or bring something in. You know what? I’m happy with who I am, don’t mind I’m not a New York Times best-selling author. I had dinner plans Friday night, but I willingly cancelled them to be with family. That’s what matters.