YA Novels
As easily distracted as I am by ceiling fans and shiny objects, I’ve stopped working on the jester story and have started working on my YA novel about a girl from Nebraska in the 1920s who becomes an air mail pilot, and these videos about the first air mail flight have been amazing.
Have I mentioned how fun research has been for this project?
I heart the Internet. So, so much.
Mother’s Tree – This one goes all the way back to 1783.
I never got to meet my maternal grandmother. She had an awesome name – Cora Leona – but all I really know about her is that she was a pretty, round-faced woman with dark eyes (like most of my family has – we get them from her side of the family). She played the piano for her church, and she died when my mother was four. My mother was then raised mostly by her grandmother, Jennie Louisa.
We have a set of very cool old photographs with four generations in each. The boys have my mom’s older brother (my Uncle Merle) as a baby, then the three generations of men. The women have my mom’s older sister Dorothy as a baby, and then the mothers. I never knew any of these women–even Aunt Dorothy died before I was born. From what I can tell from that picture, Great-Grandma Jennie looked like a stern, no-nonsense, tall, very sturdy sort of woman. My mother has stories of how much she loved to stay with her, and how Great-Grandma taught her to crochet on tiny little needles and make lace.
So that was all I ever really knew of her. However, my sister has recently started getting into genealogy–she’s especially interested in the women because she saw a “Mother’s Tree” done in cross-stitch. (My sisters and mom are very into cross-stitch. Picture my obsession with knitting. That’s them with cross-stitch.) She decided it looked very cool and thought her daughter might like to have one.
Only nobody knows about the women.
The winners, the paparazzi, the glitz, the glamour…
It was everything an awards ceremony should be. Stars dressed up, film-goers milling about on the sidewalk and in the intersection of 26th and Clinton, paparazzi (mostly people with their camera phones), a red carpet (well, a red rug), and popcorn (natch). Willamette Writers and Ampersand Productions were there to represent and celebrate Alis Volat Propriis‘ win as Best Comedic Short. Producers Ruth Wittereid, Bill Johnson, Brynne Baron, and Stefan Feuerherdt (Stefan brought his mom – awesome!) arrived looking fabulous, as did director Christopher Alley, assistant director Anthony Forsyth, editor Eric Macey, production designer Emily Wahl, and actors Katie Michels and Randall Jahnson. And, of course, writer Haley Isleib!
Director Christopher Alley accepting the Award for Alis Volat Propriis
The Press Club was the site for our pre-party celebration (and for our own after-party as well). Yummy drinks, sandwiches, a little music, and outside seating. We even had people at the bar buzzing about the film.
Perhaps they’ll want to submit their own script for next year’s FiLMLaB competition?
As one winner said, it was a little like a David Lynch-inspired awards ceremony, and it kind of was. Red curtained backdrop, host wearing a trench coat, spotlight on him so all that could be seen from the stage was inky blackness…
All we needed were some antlers.