Rachel Starr Thomson

While we have been blogging about Andrew Peterson, Andrew Peterson has been blogging about us.

My favourite thing about CSFF Tours (even ones like this, which I hardly qualify as participating in because I didn’t read the book) is author involvement. Authors used to be sort of mythic. They didn’t live on the same planet as the rest of us — well, except for C.S. Lewis, who they say used to answer letters from readers. All of them. But it’s not like that anymore, because we all live in the Internet Age, and in the Internet Age, marketing is about building relationships with readers.

While I still can’t build relationships with most of my favourite authors (because most of my favourite authors are dead), this change in the business landscape is huge for me. For you, too, if you write. It’s tremendously liberating.  I used to shudder at the thought of marketing. Now I don’t, because  marketing does not equal “self-promotion.” It equals “making friends.” And for those of us who want to serve God with our writing, it means even more opportunity to share Christ, glorify God, and invest in people.

How’s that for a revolutionary thought?

In this great CSFF interview, Chawna Schroeder asked Andrew what he wanted readers to take away from his books. He said, “Most of all I hope they brush up against that holy Other who haunts the world of man and proclaims His truth in stories and art and music. I hope the story pushes them closer to belief.”

I’m with you, Andrew. May our whole lives, marketing and all, push readers close to that belief — or rather, pull them along with us!

I haven’t, as I said yesterday, read North! Or Be Eaten, nor have I read Andrew Peterson’s first book. I’ve now read a bit of his blogging at The Rabbit Room (and intend to keep visiting long after this tour is over). I’m struck by Andrew’s vision of Christian art. In “About the Rabbit Room,” he describes a visit to London:

The tour ended at the Eagle and Child, the pub where the Inklings often met for beer, friendship, and the sharing of their latest writings. I dragged my wife inside and promptly ordered fish and chips at the table where Tolkien, Lewis, his brother Warren, Charles Williams, and others once enjoyed one another’s company . . .  I’m not sure what’s so fascinating to me about these men and their works, their approach to creativity and their understanding of the source of it all. Their brilliance was remarkable; they were Christians, intellectuals, and yet childlike enough to love stories and seek fellowship in their making.

That last comment brought to mind one of the blurbs on North! Or Be Eaten, written by an author whose own series-in-the-making deals much with the power of art, stories, and childlikeness:

“In a genre overrun by the gory and the grim, Peterson’s bite-sized chapters taste more like a stew of Gorey (Edward) and Grimm (the Brothers). North! Or Be Eaten is a welcome feast of levity–and clearly a labor of love. Andrew Peterson has awakened my inner eight-year-old, and that is a very good thing.”
–Jeffrey Overstreet, author of Auralia’s Colors and Cyndere’s Midnight [and Raven's Ladder, due to be released next month. I'm reading it right now and it's fantastic.]

Children see stories in everything. At least, I did. And by seeking out the dynamics of story wherever we go, we’re more likely to catch glimpses of the Author. I’m excited about Christian fantasy literature that awakens inner children and makes us more aware of stories and their power.

Here’s more from Andrew’s essay. Go read it. It’s really good.

London itself was a wellspring of inspiration for me. We strolled through Kensington Gardens where Peter Pan was born, ate still more fish and chips in pubs that had welcomed travelers for four hundred years, I thought about Robin Hood, George MacDonald, Harry Potter, King Arthur, and Shakespeare. And of course, I thought about the gospel. History breathes in London, seeps through the cobbles and like mist it rises from the Thames. It’s easy to see why so many beloved stories have sprung from England’s imagination.

History swept me up when I walked beneath the portcullis of the Tower of London, when I took communion in Westminster Abbey among the tombs of long-dead kings. The blood and body of Christ, shed for you, peasants and kings, pagans and priests. The feast at the table is good and gives life, and is your only hope for meaning and peace and rest from the baying of the hounds at your heels, because Death and Sin and Hatred pursue you and would swallow you up if not for the strong voice of Jesus saying “Peace. Be still.” And at his word the dogs snap back into the darkness with a yelp as if reaching the limit of their chains. History belittles us. Its story is one of conquest and murder and vast darkness, and the noblest of men ends up as dead as the thief. I realized as I walked through the hall of kings in the Abbey that my time here is brief and my earthly crowns are worthless as chaff; the words of my epitaph will ring hollow lest they point to the fullness of Christ.

Good morning, world! (OK, fine, technically it’s afternoon. But I have a morning sort of spirit today, so good morning it is!) Today marks the start of the first CSFF Blog Tour I’ve done since Haunt of Jackals, and alas and alack, this tour has gone awry. Our Fearless Leader’s computer crashed after I sent it my request for the book, taking said request down with it, so I never did get a copy of North! Or Be Eaten by Andrew Peterson and so I cannot review it.

But. I can still help with the tour . Here’s the usual Amazon link to the book. And here’s my Amazon affiliate link, if you’d like to click it and give me credit (and even possible slight earnings) for helping you find it: North! Or Be Eaten: Wild escapes. A desperate journey. And the ghastly Fangs of Dang. (The Wingfeather Saga).

North! Or Be Eaten is the sequel to On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, which was toured by the CSFF Blog Tour in March 2008. Here’s a post from Becky Miller that incorporates a review, links, lots of discussion, and some thought-provoking ideas about what makes fiction “Christian.” The books are the first two installments in The Wingfeather Saga. Since I never got a chance to read On the Edge, I’m not TOO distraught over missing North! Or Be Eaten — though both books have garnered such positive attention so far that I fully intend to catch up on the whole series when I get a chance.

In the meantime, Andrew Peterson is an interesting fellow who also writes and records music, blogs and sells stuff at the intriguing Rabbit Room, and has (if the Creaturepedia has anything to say about it) a fertile imagination. Have fun checking out some of these links today, along with the comments of my fellow bloggers (some of whom actually read the book). Tomorrow I plan to come up with something interesting, original, and relevant to say . We’ll see!

The rest of the tour:

Brandon Barr
Justin Boyer
Amy Browning
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Todd Michael Greene
Ryan Heart
Timothy Hicks
Becky Jesse
Cris Jesse
Jason Joyner
Julie
Carol Keen
Krystine Kercher
Dawn King
Rebecca LuElla Miller
New Authors Fellowship
Nissa
Donita K. Paul
Crista Richey
Chawna Schroeder
Andrea Schultz
James Somers
Steve and Andrew
Rachel Starr Thomson
Robert Treskillard
Fred Warren
Jason Waguespac
Phyllis Wheeler
Elizabeth Williams
KM Wilsher

Last week when I blogged on Haunt of Jackals for the CSFF Blog Tour, I was hoping to stir up conversation. Well, thanks to everyone who jumped in with many different viewpoints, conversation has been stirred! In fact, Eric Wilson, the author of Haunt, was gracious enough to offer a response of his own. If you were intrigued by the posts or would like to read a great discussion on God and fiction, I encourage you to read all three days again with the comments.

I was hesitant to do a negative review at all, because as an author I know they can sting. So I’m very glad that others whose response to the book was positive have chimed in on the conversation. Take a look at what they have to say!

Here’s the posts:

Day 1: http://www.rachelstarrthomson.com/2009/10/haunt-of-jackals-csff-blog-tour/

Day 2: http://www.rachelstarrthomson.com/2009/10/a-review-haunt-of-jackals-day-2/

Day 3: http://www.rachelstarrthomson.com/2009/10/god-in-fiction-haunt-of-jackals-day-3/

As my review made clear yesterday, I was bothered by the representation of Christ in Haunt of Jackals. In some ways I found it more pagan than Christian. But that brings me back to a question I’ve asked myself a thousand times since I began writing: how can we faithfully represent God in fiction?

As God is real and alive in the world, and so writing about Him is not like writing about a character who was born entirely of my own imagination — as I am a Christian and responsible to glorify my God and represent Him accurately — as we who write fantasy try to tell the truth about the world even while we explore the possibilities of the imagination — how shall we then write?

I’ve long objected to Christian fiction that gives lip service to God in ways that are trite or shallow — God is a sort of shadowy absence, possibly because we don’t want to cross the line and misrepresent Him. (But then again, depicting God as an absence is certain misrepresentation.) William P. Young’s The Shack was the farthest thing from trite or shallow, yet I don’t feel Christians ought to put words directly into “God’s” mouth as Young did. C.S. Lewis created Aslan, a character allegorical of Christ who was not actually Christ, and this to my mind worked tremendously well. Tolkien created fallible characters who in various ways were types of Christ, much as Moses and Joseph were types of Christ in biblical history. This also works well.

But what do we do when we’re not working in allegory or in purely other-world fantasy? What do we do when our stories intersect with this world, when the God we’re writing about is the same one we know in reality? How can we write about Him without resorting to shallowness on the one hand or to dangerous misrepresentation on the other?

Two examples come to mind of how this can be done. One is Karen Hancock’s The Enclave, which we toured back in July. (See my posts here, here, and here.) In The Enclave, God more than once spoke directly to characters or led them in supernatural ways — but each time, Karen carefully used the words of scripture itself, and she never tore them out of their context. God comforted Cameron by saying “My strength is made perfect in weakness”; He called Zowan out of darkness through the words of Genesis.

This method of involving God as a character isn’t without its drawbacks — we can take scripture out of context and thus misrepresent it, and the use of only scripture as “God’s dialogue” is limiting. But it does work, and I think it works well.

A second method is to involve God through His impact on people. This doesn’t mean the classic Mandie out of quoting “What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee” every time the heroine gets into trouble and having the words comfort her. I’m thinking in the veins of George MacDonald’s adult novels, like Malcolm, Sir Gibbie, or Heather and Snow. (MacDonald’s books, which are in the public domain and hard to find, are available to read online here.) Charles M. Sheldon’s In His Steps is another example.

In these books, we don’t hear God speaking or see Him walking around on earth, yet He is unquestionably there, active, and life-changing. We see this in the relationships the characters have with Him. MacDonald’s characters do not give lip service to Christ: rather, their devotion to Him is their key motivation. Their struggles, doubts, joys, and triumphs are inextricably wrapped up in their faith. I can easily imagine a Cal Nichols without Christ; I cannot imagine a Malcolm without Him.

In this type of Christian fiction, God has changed the lives of fictional characters just as He’s changed the lives of Christians in the real world, and just as we are called to live out the faith in such a way that others can “read” his work in us, so our characters can live out their faith and make God a real, present, active character in our books.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this issue, so please comment! How do you handle this tension in your own writing? How have you seen it handled? Of my conclusions, where do you agree and disagree? What facets am I missing?

April 2000–Zalmoxis Cave, Romania
She was free, for now. The first step . . .

With dagger in hand, Gina Lazarescu faced the cave opening where the sounds of scuffing feet seemed to mark the presence of another. A Collector? One of Jerusalem’s Undead?

Bleeding, she stood still and waited.

Haunt of Jackals opens where I presume Field of Blood left off: in a cave where Regina Lazarescu (“Queen of the Resurrected”) has slain an ancient vampire and torn herself free from thorny bonds; where she is weak, losing blood, and still hunted; where a fight plays out as it has for thousands of years between Good and Evil, between the Alive and the Undead, between Those Who Hunt and Those Who Resist.

The book’s story unfolds as Gina rejoins Cal Nichols, an immortal who has been walking the earth since he was brought out of the grave at Jesus’ crucifixion (read Matthew 27:52-53 for the account). Cal was once one of the Nistarim, a select group of men and women who carry the world’s burdens on their shoulders. If one of them slips before another can replace him, it will bring about Final Vengeance, the revenge of the evil Collectors, demonic spirits who once rebelled against God. Although Cal’s place among the Nistarim was lost when he fell into sin with the beautiful Nikki Lazarescu, he continues to fight the Collectors by finding and training those who are destined to join the Nistarim eventually — and by thwarting the plans of the Akeldama Cluster, a particularly nasty group of Collectors who are not just demonic, but undead. Raised from their own graves when the blood of Judas Iscariot fell upon them, the Akeldama Collectors are physical, immortal, and relentless in their pursuit of Final Vengeance.

Haunt of Jackals follows Cal and Gina, his unwitting daughter, as they seek to protect a child whose destiny lies with the Nistarim. At the same time, Cal is determined to find and destroy a particularly terrifying vampire, Natira, before he can carry out plans of his own. The book also spends a good amount of time in the heads and plans of the Undead, using the point of view of vampires, werewolves, and various possessed creatures.

Haunt’s plot is complex, taking us across the world from Romania to Oregon to the wasteland of Kerioth in Israel. It delves into the past, present, and future of Gina Lazarescu, exploring her heart as she attempts to overcome an abusive childhood and reconnect with her father, identify her own role in the fight against the Undead, heal the wounds of losing a child to death and a husband to divorce, and figure out whether or not she’s willing to put her faith in “the Nazarene” — Jesus, whose blood she wears in her jewelry as protection against the Akeldama Cluster and as the door to salvation if she ever decides to drink it. It delves into Cal’s life and past as well, with plenty of action scenes and drama. It takes us into the homes and hearts of the Undead and shows us horrifying things (some of them graphic and stomach-turning).

In all of this, “the Nazarene” is often mentioned, yet I found him strangely absent. And here is ultimately why I disliked Haunt of Jackals. In monster lore, superstition dictates that power lies in artifacts, and Wilson hasn’t particularly changed that. Gina kills an ancient vampire by using the knife that Peter wielded in Gethsemane. The Collectors can be dispatched by a metal tent peg driven through the temples of their host body.  To banish a Collector to the abyss, a drop of Christ’s blood will suffice — and all Gina needs to do to be saved is literally drink the same blood.

If Haunt of Jackals was an allegory, I could see value in all of this — but it’s not. It’s an adventure set in the real world, albeit with lots of speculative dimensions, and in this adventure, all you really need to defeat evil is the right artifacts, self-discipline, and good combat training. Cal declares at one point that “We battle not against flesh and blood,” yet his methods of battling are decidedly physical. Vampires are killed with blades, blood, and tent pegs, but never once is a demon vanquished by the power of Jesus’ name or by the power of faith in His blood.

It is here, not in the violence, sexual innuendo, and anti-established-church attitudes, that I felt Haunt of Jackals failed as a distinctively Christian voice in a subgenre saturated by occult ideas and superstitions.  The book upholds Christian morality and lauds the Nazarene as the Savior and head of Those Who Resist, yet the power and presence of Christ as the Bible reveals them to us seem replaced by the power and presence of Christ as the source of ritual, artifact, and victory in combat.

Kudos to Eric Wilson: he is a brave man.

Since I put Worlds Unseen into the world, I’ve learned that reviews are a mixed bag. You’ll get good ones. You’ll get bad ones. Often you’ll get mixed reviews, because very few people will share the exact vision you had for your story or will feel that you should have written the message you did. And my book isn’t really controversial!

Haunt of Jackals, on the other hand, is.

The second book in the Jerusalem’s Undead Trilogy, Haunt of Jackals is a Christian vampire novel. Enter controversy! It’s violent, it’s gory, it’s definitely not rated PG, and it brings all kinds of speculative supernatural elements to bear on the real world. (Read “Fantasy in the Real World” for how I felt about this when Tom Pawlik did it in Vanish.)

May I be frank? I didn’t like Haunt. The premise didn’t work for me, nor did I like the characters or even the writing much, and so this month’s review (for the first time) is going to be almost purely negative.

But that’s exactly why I say kudos to Eric Wilson. It takes courage to write a book. It takes more courage to publish it, to let other people see it. To write a story that you know will spark controversy and negative reactions takes a huge amount of chutzpah and willingness to let your ideas take on lives of their own and stir up discussion, conviction, and reexamination.

Despite the fact that Haunt of Jackals was not my cup of tea, I am really looking forward to this month’s tour. I think Eric Wilson has given us a lot to discuss, and since I’m sure we won’t all agree, it should be a fantastic ride. I’ll post a review tomorrow and an essay on portraying God in fiction on Wednesday. In the meantime, check out the other bloggers and see what they have to say. You might also visit Eric’s jerusalemsundead.com, where you can see a better-than-average trailer for Field of Blood, the first book in the trilogy.

The rest of the tour:

Brandon Barr
Wayne Thomas Batson
Jennifer Bogart
Justin Boyer
Keanan Brand
Amy Browning
Karri Compton
Amy Cruson
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Karina Fabian
Beth Goddard
Todd Michael Greene
Timothy Hicks
Becky Jesse
Cris Jesse
Jason Joyner
Julie
Carol Keen
Dawn King
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Mirtika
Nissa
John W. Otte
James Somers
Speculative Faith
Rachel Starr Thomson
Robert Treskillard
Steve Trower
Fred Warren
Phyllis Wheeler
Jill Williamson
KM Wilsher

For this month’s CSFF Blog Tour, Donita K. Paul was kind enough to grant me an interview. Although e-mail and spam filters tried hard to sabotage our conversation, we finally connected. I think it was a conversation worth having. I hope you’ll agree!

Rachel: The Vanishing Sculptor was the first of your works I’ve read, and I admit to being a bit surprised at the centrality of humour. Christian fantasy is rare enough; funny Christian fantasy is even rarer. Is humour always a major element in your work? Is this just your natural voice, or do you have a purpose in using it?

Donita: That is my natural voice, but I also play it up because entertainment is a device for reaching people. Laughter is a very important tool. As my cognitive learning specialist friend often says, “A happy brain is a learning brain.”

Rachel: Upon hearing your name, most readers familiar with your work will probably think “Dragons.” Many years ago in Western literature, dragons were typically evil figures. In Scripture, Satan is depicted as a serpent and a dragon. Yet you’re using them as good creatures; using them, in fact, to share the gospel. Do you find there’s a tension between these two depictions of dragons when you write? Do you run into people who object to your use of dragons as symbols of good?

Donita: The dragon in the Bible is a symbol. And symbols are not carved in stone. Symbols are not universal. Symbols can change within context of something new. The red letter A was a symbol for adultery in The Scarlet Letter, but it would be odd, indeed, if every red letter we saw would bring up the connotation of adultery.

In my books, I used the minor dragons to symbolize talents and abilities that God has bestowed upon his children. The major dragons are just characters to interact with the other characters and provide all sorts of fun elements.
I ignore the traditional aspects of dragons in literature, and go for my own rendition.

Yes, I call it wizard backlash when a Christian (who usually has not read anything I’ve written) harangues me over the evil of dragons, wizards, and magic. I used to get upset about it, but don’t take it personally anymore. If they exhibit a teachable spirit, we’ll talk. If they are perfectly happy in their mindset and not willing to engage in a two-way conversation, I leave it to Someone more qualified than myself to deal with their beliefs.

Rachel: The minor dragons were some of the story’s most vivid characters, and I confess they brought back memories of Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonsong Trilogy for young adults. Dragons in popular fantasy have been taking on several common characteristics, including coming in different sizes, teaming up with special people (Eragon), and communicating via telepathy. Your dragons do all these things. I’m curious as to what unique aspects you’re building into your dragons–how you’re trying to contribute to this modern mythology, so to speak. What perception of dragons might readers take away from your books that they wouldn’t get anywhere else?

Donita: Well, I mentioned the minor dragons depict talents. My dragons are additional characters. I hope the way I depict relationships and the elements of friendship between any of the characters will cause readers to take care of their own relationships, nurturing them with honesty, loyalty, and self-sacrifice.

Rachel: Why “tumanhofers”? Why not just “dwarves”?

Donita: LOL! Because fairies, dwarves, elves, trolls, ogres, and such come with a lot of baggage. There are centuries of established traditions surrounding the typical fey folk. I knew I was dragging dragons out of this standard folklore and I didn’t think I could get away with dragging all of them away from conventional perceptions. Besides, it is more fun to make up your own.

Rachel: One of my favourite aspects of The Vanishing Sculptor is the obvious fun you have with language — whether it’s in names like “Bealomondore” and “Beccaroon” or the roving, hilarious conversations of characters like Fenworth and Lady Peg. Would you say you enjoy writing more for the sake of the story or for the sake of the language itself? Or is that a nonsense question?

Donita: Story is paramount. I believe literary fiction delves heavily into just how great your sentences roll off the page and into the reader’s mind. To me, literary works point to the author instead of to the reader. A good story resonates with “everyman.” My purpose is to present characters and plot that engage a reader enough to forget me. I want them to identify with the characters as they mature. I want them to struggle with the plot’s twists and turns. In the end, I want the reader to walk away from the experience as I do, with a new understanding of mankind, perhaps a resolution to be better in some area of his or her life, and with renewed hope.

Rachel: Do you have any words of encouragement or advice for aspiring writers, especially those who are at the agent- and publication-seeking stage?

Donita: Go to conferences. Join professional organizations like ACFW. (American Christian Fiction Writers) Network online with people who have the same vision of fiction that you do and some who write in the same genre. Keep growing.

Tipper’s heart skipped a beat . . . “I have a feeling,” she said, “that we are going to have a glorious quest. This day is the beginning of a great adventure.”

So declares Tipper Schope, who gladly gives up the responsibility of caring for her family’s estate when her disappearing father reappears after fifteen years — well, mostly. He keeps flickering in and out, and his crotchety foreign companions declare a quest necessary: a search for three missing statues, sold off by Tipper to provide money for essentials, that must be joined to each other before Tipper’s father can stop coming apart and reassembling on a floorboard. Despite the heavy stakes — not only the life of Tipper’s father, but possibly the fate of the world, rests on the quest’s success — the journey begins with optimism, and it largely continues that way.

In The Vanishing Sculptor, billed as “a fantastic journey of discovery for all ages,” Donita K. Paul has created a lighthearted story in which not even tragedies can be too tragic. The world in which Tipper lives is simplistic (the villains look like villains; beautiful people always turn out to be good, even if they’re annoying at first), but imaginative and joyously visual. Paul’s dragons are delightful, her “grand birds” are endearingly grand, and the ramblings of confused or otherwise disconnected characters like Lady Peg and Wizard Fenworth are a constant source of locutionary entertainment. Thrown into it all is a missionary story, as Tipper’s father tries to share his newfound faith in Wulder with his skeptical daughter and their closest friend, the grand parrot Sir Beccaroon.

In short, The Vanishing Sculptor is a good tonic for stressful days and heavy hearts. It reminded me of some of Lloyd Alexander’s more upbeat adventures (think Vesper Holly, not Taran the Pigkeeper), with warm family ties and friendships, fights that aren’t too frightening, and lessons that go down easily. Though at times I found the prose choppy, it was a thoroughly enjoyable read from start to finish. In a genre which often relies on heavy themes and gathering darkness, that can’t be said about every book. It’s entirely true of this one.

* * *

NOTE: I’d intended to post an interview with Mrs. Paul today, but it’s not in yet (she’s been rather busy, attending the ACFW Conference and winning an award for Mentor of the Year among other things), so I hope to post it tomorrow. If not, you can expect more ramblings from me of the usual kind on some theme connected to the book .

This month’s featured CSFF book is The Vanishing Sculptor by Donita K. Paul, the Dragon Lady of Christian fiction. Mrs. Paul’s books have made a definite splash, and I’ve been hearing their ripples for years, but this is the first I’ve actually read. It is fun, more than usually so, even for a children’s book . . .

. . . or is it YA? Adult fiction? The heroine is 22, and the cover declares the book a “fantastic journey of discovery for all ages” — yet to me it felt like a children’s book in all the best ways, from the humour to the outright themes of trusting in God. I would love to hear from other bloggers and readers on this. How would you classify this book? How much do age classifications matter, actually?

Enough about that for now. (Except that I hope it’s not enough about that, because I want to read your comments.) Tomorrow I hope to post an interview with Mrs. Paul, addressing important questions like “What’s it like to write about dragons as a Christian?” and “Why ‘tumanhofers’? Why not ‘dwarfs’?” On Wednesday, look for my official review.

In the meantime, check out Donita K. Paul’s Web site, read some of her Dragon Bloggin’, or check out the book on Amazon. And if you’re looking for more, read the posts of these fine CSFF Tour Bloggers:

Brandon Barr
Jim Black
Justin Boyer
Rachel Briard
Karri Compton
Amy Cruson
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Karina Fabian
Linda Gilmore
Todd Michael Greene
Katie Hart
Ryan Heart
Becky Jesse
Cris Jesse
Jason Joyner
Julie
Carol Keen
Krystine Kercher
Dawn King
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Mirtika
Eve Nielsen (posting later in the week)
Nissa
John W. Otte
Lyn Perry
Crista Richey
Cheryl Russell
Chawna Schroeder
James Somers
Speculative Faith
Robert Treskillard
Steve Trower
Fred Warren
Dona Watson
Phyllis Wheeler
Elizabeth Williams
KM Wilsher