The Next Big Thing Blog Hop - Author Interview

I've been invited to participate in The Next Big Thing Blog Hop. 

Thanks, Penny Ehrenkranzhttp://pennylockwoodehrenkranz.blogspot.com/ for letting me hop on. Every day Penny features new posts about writing and writers on her blog, so a visit is well worth your time. 

Thank you, organizers, for the shout out! Today I get to answer some questions about my book and my writing in general. 

Ten Interview Questions for Don’t You Marry the Mormon Boys

What is the working title of your book?

Don’t You Marry the Mormon Boys. The title comes from an old “expandable” folk song (i.e. “Don’t You Marry the California Boys,” “Don’t You Marry the Texas Boys,” etc.) There are links on the upper right hand column of my blog if you want to hear the song and view the video trailer.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

It percolated for a long time. When I realized, long after the fact, that a former high school classmate (an outstanding young man) was the son of a polygamous clan leader, and I read articles about him and his family, some story ideas were planted.

What genre does your book fall under?

Literary fiction

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

I think Louisa looks like Evangeline Lilly, though Louisa hair is more auburn. I’ll have to get back to you on the others.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

One wife would be more than enough for Bachelor Andy McBride . . .

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Don’t You Marry the Mormon Boys was published by Bonneville Books, an imprint of Cedar Fort, Inc. in 2007

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

A couple of years. Other projects (The Book Lover’s Cookbook, Wenger & Jensen, Ballantine, 2003), took over for a while, and then it took a long time to find a publisher for Mormon Boys.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

The Giant Joshua by Maurine Whipple

The Sister Wife by Diane Noble

The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall

The Twenty-Seventh Wife by Irving Wallace

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

           

         1)  Driving through Colorado City, Arizona 

)       2)  Visiting the cemetery at Colorado City, Arizona

  3)  Attending a family reunion (we aren’t directly related to this group) where a whole table of women hailed from Colorado City. Each introduced herself as having “six children and twenty stepchildren,” or something similar. There were no men. The women’s clothing and hairstyles were pioneer-style and they wore no makeup. Obviously, they were polygamous wives and no one in the family had met them or even heard from their side of the family for years; they were warmly welcomed.                                                                                     4)  My own pioneer heritage

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

There’s a dog in the book named Eliza R. Snow, after a famous Utah poet

September 1, 2012: Don’t You Marry the Mormon Boys has just won the gold medal in Cultural Fiction from the Readers Favorite International Book Award Contest.

Other awards (2008): first runner-up, commercial Fiction, The Eric Hoffer Award; Bronze Award in Religious Fiction, ForeWord Magazine; Finalist, Religious Fiction, USA Best Books; Semi-finalist in Religious Fiction, ReaderViews Literary Awards; listed as one of Carolyn Howard Johnson’s Top Ten Reads of 2008 (listed at her site under Insight and Understanding into Utah, Its Religion and Culture and Fiction depicting the Repression of Women).

And - - - - - there’s a spinoff, coming in 2013:

September 19, 2012 press release:

For Immediate Release

Contact: Kirk Cunningham, Head Publicist: (801) 380-4503 | kirk@jollyfishpress.com

Jolly Fish Press Acquires Janet Kay Jensen's Gabriel's Daughters
PROVO, UT—Jolly Fish Press (JFP) has successfully acquired Gabriel's Daughters, a heart-wrenching literary fiction from award-winning author Janet Kay Jensen.

Gabriel's Daughters wrestles with issues of polygamy, homosexuality, and modernity through the lives of the large, loving, and polygamous Martin family. The story is told primarily through the eyes of Zina Martin, a young girl who, upon discovering she is impregnated by her "sterile" teacher—and will soon be married off to a man three times her age—escapes the enclosed polygamous town of Gabriel's Landing, Utah. Zina then embarks on a journey full of self-discovery, yet she can never fully escape the longing she has for her family and even the controversial and outdated lifestyle she once lived. Through both tears and triumph, Gabriel's Daughters reveals a moving story that not only acts as insightful social commentary, but also prompts readers to reevaluate their lives.

Janet Kay Jensen is the co-author of The Book Lover's Cookbook (Ballantine, 2003) and the author of Don't You Marry the Mormon Boys (Bonneville Books, 2007), which recently won a gold medal for Cultural Fiction in the Readers Favorite International Book Awards Contest. A long-time educator, Jensen now lives on Logan, Utah as a full-time writer and literacy tutor.

Gabriel's Daughters, Jensen's first book with JFP, is slated for release Fall 2013.

*p.s. I have a new author page at facebook, and I'd appreciate a "like." Thank you! https://www.facebook.com/JanetKayJensenAuthor?fref=ts

When Grammy J Burned the Socks

When Grammy Burned the Socks

Darling Granddaughter #1 loves to take bubble baths when she visits. On Saturday, she stayed in the tub so long the water got cold and she stepped out, shivering, as I wrapped her in a towel and started to blow her hair dry.

“Here,” I said, “I’ll warm up your clothes before you put them on.” So the Little Mermaid undies got a quick pass from the blow dryer, and then the shirt and then the leggings. Darling Granddaughter #1 giggled at the comforting warmth and the silliness of Grammy J warming her clothes with the blow dryer.

Then Grammy J got carried away and slid a sock over the nozzle of the blow dryer. The effect was most impressive – like a billowing windsock (pun intended) you might see at a small airport, indicating the direction and velocity of the wind. Impressive, that is, until the acrid smell of burning sock filled the bathroom. I quickly took the sock off the blow dryer only to find it riddled with holes.

That, my friends, was the fateful day Grammy J burned the socks (well, just one, but the plural sounds better).

Luckily, they weren’t her favorite socks.

“What’ll I tell my mom?” she asked, perhaps worried about an inventory when her suitcase was unpacked at home.

“Tell her Grammy J bought you about twenty pairs of socks this summer, so she’s not too worried about this one.”

The crime scene is recreated in the photo below. Notice the three holes and the word “happy” on the sole.

Charges are pending. 

It's the Man from S.K.Y.P.E. !

Melinda and The Man from Skype

My husband is a great entertainer of little people. A Pied Piper. When it comes to our Finnish grandchildren, though, most of our encounters happen on Skype. He’s an expert at Pattycake, This Little Piggie and Peek-a-Boo when we Skype. 

Darling Granddaughter #2 is 2 ½ and until last month she had only met her American grandfather once, when she was just over a year old.

Last month we visited them in Polokka Finland. When Grandpa came into the living room, Darling Granddaughter #2 looked up at him with shock and awe. “Could it be . . . . ?” she must have been thinking. 

He sat on the rug beside her, took his foot in her hand and began “This Little Piggy . ..” Her smile lit up the room and she giggled for five minutes. “It’s the funny guy from Skype! He’s real! And he’s here!” flashed over her face as she connected the image from Skype with her grandfather.

Priceless. That moment was worth the whole trip, travel hassles and all. 

The remainder of our visit was filled with This Little Piggy, Pattycake, and Peek-a-Boo. She just couldn’t get enough, and Grandpa was her preferred provider.

Darling Granddaughter #2 is a special child. She is a surviving twin of a premature birth (23 weeks 5 days gestation) and weighed in at 20 ounces at birth. She is a miracle. She faces many physical challenges, so every bit of progress she makes is miraculous in our eyes.

As if her life isn’t challenging enough, she also hears Finnish and English every day, one language from each parent. When she forms those first words we're all anxiously waiting to hear, they’ll probably be in Finnish, her mother’s tongue, and her second language will be English, her father’s native language. In the meantime, therapists are encouraging sign language. Evidently American and Finnish sign language are quite similar, which will be a great mediator.

Little Brother and the Man From Skype

Little Brother was also an active observer and participant. At ten  months, he’s happy, social, charming, and attentive. What a joy it was to be with him.

What my husband doesn’t know is that often when we Skype, he has an audience of Finns who are standing beyond video camera range. They find him highly amusing. So do I. One of the Finnish relatives has proposed a study on family relationships maintained with Skype as a project for her master’s degree. In other words, we’re going to be part of an educational study.

Never underestimate the power of “This Little Piggy.”

But I've never understood why the third little piggy had roast beef. 

Designing a literary family tree

Okay. So, with artistic/cover/marketing ideas in mind, my publisher, Jolly Fish Press, suggests I come up with a family tree for Gabriel's Daughters, the novel they will publish in Fall 2013. I think - - - wow, what a great idea. How creative! Because Gabriel's Daughters  is about a family. In particular, a large polygamous family. One husband, three wives, and seventeen living children, to be exact. (I should be very grateful they didn't ask for a genetic analysis. Two of the wives are identical twins, so their children are half siblings to each other as well as cousins, and the other wife is a cousin to the identical twin sister wives. It would just boggle the mind.)

Knowing my artistic limits, I turn to Google to find a family tree maker. My mother was a genealogist and she’d be so disappointed. I haven’t done any family research of my own to speak of, and here I am, constructing a family tree, not just for someone else’s family, but an imaginary family. Sorry, Mom . . . however, she always wanted to write a book, so maybe that's a bit of comfort for me. 

Anyway, I start entering information on my hypothetical family into the family tree maker. The first glitch comes when I try to add Wife #2. Am I certain I want to add a second wife, the program asks? Yes, I am. Then I add Wife #3 after answering the same question.

Then I think, Okay, I should name these people. Of course, some are main characters in my book and they already have names: Joshua Martin and his three wives, Rachel, Hannah and Sarah. The book centers on daughters Louisa, Zina, and Amy. We know there are other children, but they’re basically just placeholders (I know Dickens would involve all of them in the story if he'd written it, but he didn't, and I'm not Dickens).  However, to make this family more authentic in my mind at least, I start inventing and naming children and assigning them to the various wives.

Then I think, well, I’ll find pictures for these people. That would look great on this hypothetical family tree I’m constructing. So I start with Joshua in mind, go to Google Images and start hunting for “pictures of mature men.” Oops. While there are definitely some mature men pictured, some are sans clothes. So I refine the terms a bit and finally find someone who looks the way I think Joshua would look. Fully clothed.

For the sons, I locate a few images of clean-cut boys, resisting the urge to include pictures of my own three sons. Nope, not gonna go there. Not that they'll ever see this work of art I'm pasting together. It's just the . . . well, the Principle of the thing (inside joke: polygamists refer to their lifestyle as living the Principle).

Then I search for pictures of girls for the daughters. Whoa again. Mixed among pictures of regular girls are the “girly” pictures you’d see in girly magazines. So I try “modestly dressed girls” and find some pictures I think will work.

Next come the wives. And that’s more challenging, because Joshua and his wives and seventeen children live in a small isolated polygamous community and dress like . . . well, like pioneers. So I Google “polygamous women” and find pictures from the raid on the FLDS cult's YFZ Ranch in Texas. There they are, groups of women, in their long pastel dresses (only two or three styles). Evidently the color indicates family lines. And the hair! Long, up in the back, with a big, high swoop in the front. The higher the swoop, the better, according to what I’ve read. Well, my polygamists aren't FLDS and they don’t quite look like that. However, the women do have long hair, and it’s always worn up, never loose, and they do wear modest, long dresses. I find a few pictures of women that will do, I think.

Then, scanning across the images on the screen, I see one that is vaguely familiar. I stop, back up, and look again. It’s a woman with three dogs. She actually looks quite familiar. In fact, it’s a picture of me, with my three dogs, and it’s popped up under the search term for “polygamous women.” 

Whoa again. I’m not a polygamous woman. Never have been, never will be. My husband says one wife is more than enough. I agree. We've agreed on that for more than forty years. I click on the picture and it leads to this blog and the press release for Gabriel’s Daughters, which is, after all, about polygamy, among other things. OK, that’s all right, I guess, after I get over the shock.

Just be careful when searching for pictures of men, women, boys and girls on the web. You’ll find much more than you bargained for.

And, when it comes to the internet, you never know where you’ll show up. 

With Chevy, Molly and Lita. The picture's a few years old. Molly is now pursuing skunks in heaven
(are there skunks in heaven? I hope not. Sorry, Molly.
My sweet Chevy's probably just snuggling up to some lucky angel.)

Beautiful Finland

Two sunsets seen from our window at the Rantasipi Hotel in Laajavouri, Finland. We never tired of the view of the lakes and forests!