Now We're There: mapping time through fictional realities

The recent trend of sharing then-and-now photos has me thinking of the years spent between major accomplishments, and how we document our lives. I mark my timeline by novels, and where they took place has been aided by old analog maps, memories and photos, from slides to prints and now online searches.

I remember a lot, which is good, because a few pivotal moments' memories never got mapped or on film.

Now I'm Here... now I'm there, too

The years that my novel Now I'm Here took place, 1970 and 1980s, are countered by my many return visits home, where the story seemed to be accumulating like slow ivy. The two main characters are Joshua, a piano prodigy, and David a pumpkin farmer.

For piano provenance, proving the years of my musicianship existed, I offer a newly found (see PINS photo/map search above). The piano itself and its location in our home is the dining room. I'd play for hours, but also at the local (then) Ashland College studios, choosing from Yamahas and Steinways.

For farm boy authenticity, sadly I never documented my pumpkin farm experience in any 1981 photos. It was often beautiful amid the labors of hauling truckfull after truckfull for months, but not a camera-ready environment back then. I never even remembered to drive by years later and get an image of the farm house and barn. Now it's all floral greenhouses, as I included in the story.

All I have left are the Red Wing boots I bought for the job, which lasted 40 years. But they're in the basement and you don't need a photo of a pair of boots. You'll have to settle for the 1998 image above.

What I Didn't Write: Terrible Tragedies, Tempests & Teabaggers

Penn campus Ben Franklin statue

In setting a pair of novels from 1979 to 1983, I had the fortune of discovering historical events that matched the stories I wrote. But omitting several other events, while big on a local scale, weren't relevant to the stories. And recent odd controversies, gave me a bit of anachronistic relief for not including them.

Pennsylvania played a strong part in establishing the setting of Every Time I Think of You, my fourth novel. The energy crisis and the nuclear plant accident at Three Mile Island in Harrisburg are given a mention. But narrator Reid is distracted by his boyfriend Everett's situation. His mother even shows surprise at nature-loving Reid's disinterest in the environmental hazard. 

Lammies, Brooklyn and Broadway

My trip to New York City last week included surprising pastoral and cultural parts of Brooklyn, a fun bar hop, a brilliant Broadway show, a Philadelphia group reading, and culminated in the 27th annual Lambda Literary Awards.

My first day proved surprisingly botanical with a long stroll through scenic Prospect Park. I enjoyed Frederick Law Olmsted's other masterpiece, Central Park, on my last NYC visit in 2012.

Prospect Park is of course much smaller, but retains that balance of natural and tarted up landscaping. Open fields echoed with the joyful screeches of packs of school children at recess, and a lone reader under a huge elm (or oak?) proved the tranquility of the park.

Prospect Park serenity

I couldn't help but think about my fictional character Reid Conniff, who spends a good deal of Every Time I Think of You and its sequel Message of Love working in parks or studying plants. Thus the two book covers that sort of resemble field guides to plants.

Of course, my own modern curiosity about plants and trees could have been solved with a few apps, including Leaf Snap and Plant Net. The phone apps let you take a photo of a plant or tree leaf and it identifies the species.

Plants of all types were identified by small nameplates throughout the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, which are adjacent to the western edge of Prospect Park. This highly manicured park includes a rose garden, Japanese mini-lake and landscaping that's beautiful.

Message of Love: On the Road

Some upcoming events will be a lot of fun. I'll be doing a radio interview with Out in the Bay's Eric Jansen, a group reading in Philadelphia May 31, and I'll be attending the annual Lambda Literary Awards in New York City!

Out in the Bay recently celebrated its tenth anniversary at Oasis nightclub in San Francisco. The San Francisco Chronicle covered the event, and writer Tony Bravo quoted me about the show's longevity. Photographer Carlos Avila Gonzalez even got a shot of me, cohost Marilyn Pittman, and fellow author Mark Abramson sharing a group selfie.

Message of Love: Bibliography

Since I've got a few great group readings with other authors coming up, the next one being in a library, I thought I'd share a list of the nonfiction books that were basically my homework while writing Message of Love, the sequel to Every Time I Think of You.

In the interest of variety, I'll link as many books as I can to Alibris, which features all my books, and is a nice alternative to Amazon.com. Just don't buy the overpriced listed editions. I got most of these books used online, and had fun finding them.


Out & About
For scenery and setting, I enjoyed perusing several travel and nature books.

The Peterson Field Guides for Wildflowers (Roger Tory Peterson, Margaret McKenny, editors) and Eastern Trees (George A. Petrides, Janet Wehr, editors) gave me accurate information about the flora of the area. Living in California makes for a little distance from knowing which kinds of trees and plants Reid would work with in his classes, his job, and elsewhere. They're also the sort of books Reid would use a lot.

Philadelphia Phreedoms

Setting my novel Message of Love primarily in Philadelphia in the early 1980s became a complex decision. Such a city almost becomes a character in itself; outwardly friendly, yet complicated and a little dangerous.

Philadelphia City Hall

Of course, no city is perfect. They all have their unpleasant sides, and Philly has quite a few. My research about the era proved true. I wonder if I may have 'gone soft' by depicting historically accurate aspects of crime and anti-gay violence as being nearby, for the most part. How it effects the lives of Reid and Everett, the main characters, develops gradually, not with the violent impact of reality.

For example, last week a swastika was painted on the windows of a kosher shop in northeast Philly. In a similar hate crime, a synagogue endured the same cowardly graffiti hatred.

And on September 11, of all dates, a gay couple was assaulted and beaten by a gang of up to fifteen "clean-cut" white men and women in Center City.

Pennsylvania Pride

As LGBT Pride events fill our national (and international) calendars, I want to focus on Pennsylvania, and the setting of my two most recent novels, where it seems the fictional dreams of my protagonists have come true.

Some background about the two novels Every Time I Think of You and Message of Love (with some minor spoilers).

Dancing in the streets of Pittsburgh

In 1979, Everett Forrester's sister and father live in Pittsburgh, and in the first novel, the two young men's first awkward romantic night is spent in Squirrel Hill, a scenic neighborhood similar to Shadyside.
 
This May, people were dancing in the streets in the neighborhood of Shadyside after Pennsylvania's same-sex marriage ban was declared unconstitutional. (Photo by Michael Henninger/Post-Gazette)