Monthly Archives: April 2023

When last we visited Charlotte mystery writer Mark de Castrique, he had just published Secret Lives: An Ethel Fiona Crestwater Mystery.  Poison Pen Press brought out Secret Lives in October 2022, and that same month I devoted a Storied Charlotte blog post to the book’s release.  Much has happened in Mark’s world since then. 

Mark recently learned that Secret Lives is one of five nominees for the Sue Grafton Memorial Award.  This award is presented by the Mystery Writers of America, and it honors “the best novel in a series featuring a female protagonist.”  Mark informed me that the winner will be announced at an awards banquet this Thursday in New York City.  I am keeping my fingers crossed that Secret Lives is declared the winner.  For more information about the Sue Grafton Memorial Award, please click on the following link:  https://edgarawards.com/category-list-sue-grafton-award/

Mark’s other big news is the release of his new mystery novel titled The Secret of FBI File 100-3-116.  This novel is the latest volume in his Sam Blackman Series.  Set in Asheville, this series features Sam Blackman and Nakayla Robertson, two private investigators who have a knack for uncovering secrets from the past.  I contacted Mark and asked him for more information about this new mystery.  Here is what he sent to me:

Writing a series means I’ve spent a lot of time with my characters over the span of years, even decades.  In a way, they’ve become real to me and I wonder what they’re doing even when I’m not writing about them.  At no point was this more evident to me than during the summer of 2020.  COVID-19 was spreading like wildfire.  Racial reckoning and Confederate monuments fueled nationwide protests.  And Asheville, North Carolina, home of my detectives Sam Blackman and Nakayla Robertson, was not immune.  I wondered how Sam and Nakayla were coping with the tumultuous times.

A year or two before, I had come across a declassified FBI file that J. Edgar Hoover had kept on Martin Luther King, Jr.  Part of the file included investigations into threats made against the civil rights leader the two times he had been in the Asheville area – once for a retreat in January 1964 and then for a speech in August 1965.  Those making the threats were never known.  I became interested in how the turbulent 1960s connected to our present day, and I thought it would be interesting to create fictional characters who could have been behind the death threats.  But the story isn’t about the past.  It’s about how hiding and denying the past leads to murders in the present.  And how Nakayla must face a truth that goes beyond one FBI file to a shocking revelation that upends her own history – a history that she and I discovered together.

Readers who want to know more about Mark and his mystery novels, please click on the following link:  http://www.markdecastrique.com/

Although I am a big fan of Mark’s new Ethel Fiona Crestwater Mystery Series, I am pleased that he has provided his readers with a new addition to his popular Sam Blackman Series.  I congratulate Mark on bringing out two mystery novels in the span of a year.  Mark is a prolific and talented mystery writer, and we all fortunate that his home is here in Storied Charlotte.  

Earth Day has been celebrated on the 22^nd day of April since 1970.  National Poetry Month has been celebrated during the month of April since 1996.  I think it is fitting that the timing of these two celebrations coincide, for poetry lends itself to celebrating the wonders of planet Earth.  With this idea in mind, I contacted Martin (Marty) Settle, a Charlotte poet who often writes about the natural world, and I asked him how he addresses environmental themes in his poetry.  Here is what he sent to me:

Recently, I wrote a poem called “When in the Company,” which expressed my feeling of belonging and place in the company of other creatures. When I am city-weary and full of the intentions of humans, I find that visiting our mountains near Charlotte an antidote for my mental stagnation. In the midst of animals going about purposes that are not mine, I find that I am one among others rather than one separate from others. In a rich abundance of a variety of consciousnesses, one becomes connected to the great wave called life. This loss of ego is not a diminishing experience but a transcendent one.

As I see it, when we save the ecology of our planet, we are really saving ourselves. My poetry does not take a political stance when it tries to reveal the wonder in the more-than-human world. Like Carson’s title Silent Spring, I seek by implication for readers to think about the loss of each creature and what it would mean to their lives. I believe that encounters with countless creatures fights off existential crises better than anything I know. That is what my poetry is about.

When in the Company

what is missing

is to be with other

consciousnesses

the intentions

of human beings

are not enough

in the city

out here the osprey

leaves the tree

and dives

she is about purposes

that have nothing

to do with me

turtles float on a log

with meditations

no guru knows

a dragonfly has no “why”

balancing on the line

of my fishing pole

yes, I want to catch

another consciousness

but I have to think trout

to do it –

match the hatch

tie a caddis to tippet

delicately present a lie

like a prayer

to an invisible presence

a water snake

a competitor

passes by my lure

his kind have chased me off

even stolen my catch

I give him space

to avoid confrontation

down the middle

of the stream

a kingfisher clicks her way

flying low to make a catch

I make a song

standing in my waders

to match the creek

and I cast and cast

until I disappear

For anyone who is interested in reading more of Marty’s nature-themed poems, I highly recommend his recently published collection titled The Metaphorest.  More information about this collection is available here:  https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/the-metaphorest-by-martin-settle/

As we celebrate Earth Day here in Storied Charlotte, I think we should all join with Marty in remembering that our wondrous planet is not just our home—it’s a home that we share with all of the other forms of life that make our lives possible.  

My friend and colleague Dr. Janaka Bowman Lewis is the author of Light and Legacies:  Stories of Black Girlhood and Liberation, which the University of South Carolina Press just released as part of its Cultures of Resistance Series.  Light and Legacies is grounded in Janaka’s deep knowledge of literary texts by Black women writers, but this book does not have the feel of a dry, academic treatise.   Janaka combines her critical analyses of texts with her personal reflections about growing up Black in the American South and about being a parent of two Black children.  For example, when discussing a novel that she initially read as a teenager, she often comments on how she responded to this novel when she first encountered it.  The result is a highly readable and thought-provoking examination of stories about Black girlhood.  For more information about this book, please click on the following link:  https://uscpress.com/Light-and-Legacies

Janaka and I share an interest in how children often incorporate narrative elements in their play.  Several years ago, we had a long conversation about the depiction of children’s play in Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave.  Since that conversation, Janaka has developed an overarching approach to analyzing the significance of play in narratives about Black childhood.  She writes, “Narratives of the culture of play extend from the earliest known African American narratives through civil rights-era narratives and into the modern period. … Play serves as confirmation, modeling, and, eventually, transition into a world in which the narrator has the ability to comprehend and, ultimately, escape the ways in which he or she is objectified.”

In Light and Legacies, Janaka examines the play of Black girls as depicted in such texts as Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Assata Shakur’s Assata: An Autobiography, and Alice Childress’s Rainbow Jordan. Janaka’s discussion of these texts is detailed and nuanced.  She avoids overgeneralizing, but she points out important patterns in how children’s play figures in these narratives. 

Janaka titles her epilogue “Reading Play as Resistance,” and this title nicely encapsulates the core argument that runs throughout Light and Legacies.  In her analysis of the various stories of Black girlhood that she covers in her book, Janaka shows play can function as a form of resistance and can provide Black girls with visions of “different ways of being.” Janaka’s book is all about the transformative power of play.

I congratulate Janaka on the publication of Light and Legacies:  Stories of Black Girlhood and Liberation.  I enjoyed reading it, and I think it would appeal to anyone in Storied Charlotte who is interested in Black women writers, play studies, and Black girlhood.

I recently received an email from the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Foundation informing me that Library Giving Day is Tuesday, April 4, 2023.  I’m a big supporter of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, so I decided to find out more about Library Giving Day.  After a few email exchanges with various people associated with our public library, I ended up getting in touch with Jenni Gaisbauer, the Executive Director of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Foundation.  She provided me the following statement about Library Giving Day:

Next Tuesday, April 4, is National Library Giving Day, a day where library advocates join together to raise crucial funds that add more to the story. More programs, more access, more story times, more tutoring sessions, more digital literacy, and of course, more books. I hope you will join us in celebrating our Library by making a gift of any level. Let’s continue the legacy of free access to information and learning opportunities for everyone in Mecklenburg County and beyond.

For more information about Library Giving Day, please click on the following link:  https://foundation.cmlibrary.org/library-giving-day/

One of the reasons why I am supporting Library Giving Day is because our public library system provides the children in our community with memorable and meaningful experiences.  When children visit their local library, they do more than check out books or participate in various programs.  They also gain a sense of agency.  They can select what books they want to take home. They have opportunities to ask questions, make requests, and express opinions.  They might just be eight years old, but the librarian treats them as a unique patron, not just another kid in a large class.  They also gain a sense of belonging to a community.  They interact with other children in a safe space where everyone is welcome.  Such experiences help make a trip to the library a special event for many children. 

As an English professor with an expertise in children’s literature, I am aware that special library experiences figure prominently in the pages of some wonderful children’s books. 

In Roald Dahl’s Matilda, Matilda is a frequent visitor to her local library where she regularly interacts with Mrs. Phelps, the librarian in charge of the place.  Mrs. Phelps not only helps Matilda find the books that appeal to Matilda, but she fosters Matilda’s sense of self-worth by respecting Matilda’s intelligence and reading tastes.  Matilda’s positive experiences at the library help her cope with the negative environment that she experiences at home.

In Christopher Paul Curtis’s Bud, Not Buddy, Bud also sees his local library as a special place.  As he says, “The air in the library isn’t like the air anywhere else.”  When Bud visits the library in the beginning of the book, the librarian takes him seriously and provides him with clear answers to his questions.   She explains to Bud what an atlas is and helps him figure out how long it would take for him to walk from Flint, Michigan, to Chicago.  By answering his questions, the librarian helps Bud feel valued.  He doesn’t like the news that he learns at the library, but he doesn’t feel dismissed or ignored simply because he is a young African American boy.

In Sydney Taylor’s All-of-a-Kind Family, the five Jewish immigrant sisters who are featured in this novel all visit their local library in the beginning of the story.  These girls live in a Jewish neighborhood on the Lower East Side of New York City during the early years of the 20^th century, but when they go to the library they interact with people from other ethnic and religious backgrounds, including the librarian. The sisters’ positive experiences at the library help them feel connected to people outside of their immediate neighborhood.

In Pat Mora’s Tomás and the Library Lady, Tomás, the son migrant farm workers from Texas, spends his summer in a small Iowa town where he often visits the local library.  When he first enters the library, the library lady welcomes him and invites to sit at his own table.  She then asks him what he would like to read about.  He says that he is interested in “tigers” and “dinosaurs.” She brings him a pile of books about tigers and dinosaurs, and this starts their summer-long relationship.  She introduces him to many books, which he often reads aloud to her. At the end of the summer, Tomás returns to Texas, but he continues to feel a sense of connection with the library lady with whom he shared so many stories during his summer in Iowa.

All of the children in the aforementioned novels look forward to their visits to their local libraries just as so many children in our community look forward to their visits to the local branches of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library.  By supporting Library Giving Day, we can help provide the children in Storied Charlotte with the sort of affirming and community-building experiences that often happen when children go to the library where the air isn’t like “anywhere else.”