Author Spotlight - Kathleen Toomey Jabs

Does that name sound familiar? It should. A couple weeks ago I finished a book written by this wonderful woman and was completely taken away on Navy wings. By all means read all about it here. In the mean time I'd like you to meet Kathleen.

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I was a reader before I was a writer. I was lucky enough to have parents who were both readers and our house was filled with books. Now that I have my own house, it is still filled with books!

I left for the United States Naval Academy in July 1984 with the intention of becoming an oceanographer or majoring in some type of math/science studies. Once there, I fell in love with my English classes and became an English major. My adviser, Professor Molly Tinsley, encouraged me to sign up for Creative Writing and I enrolled in her class. I loved every exercise, each writing prompt and all the outside reading. I finished three short stories during my time under her tutelage then graduated and headed out to perform my Naval service. I kept my writing dreams alive although I didn’t have much time to write.

In 1995, I left the Navy and enrolled in the University of Hawaii program for creative writing. I had no idea what I was getting into! My thesis was a novel, which I should probably burn. The main character never came alive for me. I was busy with a new baby, my husband was up for military orders, and then I was pregnant again. My main character spent a lot of time walking and trying to uncover her past.

When my children were pre-school age I again enrolled in a university writing program. My professor there challenged me to write about the military or to use the military as a setting. It sounds crazy, but it hadn’t occurred to me to “write what you know,” at least in the military sense. I wasn’t sure how to approach the military language, culture, acronyms or even how to people the stories. However, once I started, I really wanted to explore the military world. I knew it and I had characters who came alive.

One day I was walking across campus when the sentence, “Audrey Richards wanted to fly” flashed through my brain. That was the beginning of Black Wings for me. I had to find out who was Audrey and why/how she had died. Soon I was listening to conversations between Audrey and Bridget (the two main characters) in my head.

Black Wings took ten years from start to finish. I worked on it every spare moment I had. I revised it. I restructured it. I told the story chronologically then broke it up. Finally, I sent it off to agents. A few were intrigued. One loved it, sent it around, then fell out of love with it. My heart was broken. I tried to revise again and although I kept sending it out, I was losing faith. I relegated Black Wings to a drawer, but like my first novel I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away.

I suffered mostly in silence. I hadn’t told many people I’d been working on a novel. Inside of me lurked a failed dream. Like Poe’s character in “Telltale Heart,” I had something hidden. In my case, it was a “novel-in-the-drawer.” Sometimes, it felt like a heart in my bedroom, pulsing out the words: failed dream, novel-in-a-drawer. I went back to work full time, consoling myself that the public relations work I did fulfilled my writing dreams. Of course, I was rationalizing.

About four years ago, I reconnected with Molly Tinsley, my USNA adviser, via Facebook. We talked about writing and she mentioned that she and her friend had written a book and opened a publishing company called Fuze (http://fuzepublishing.com) dedicated to getting books out into the world which mainstream presses were ignoring. She offered to read Black Wings.

“I have some good news and some bad news,” she told me. The good news was that Fuze would publish Black Wings. The bad news was that before they would I needed to revise Black Wings, break up the flashbacks and speed things up. All I heard was publication. I signed up. Over the course of two years (I was working so I only had weekends) I took Black Wings apart, restructured it, and filled in gaps. All the time and effort was worth it. Working with Molly again was incredible.

Black Wings was published in December 2011.

Over the past year, I’ve been busy trying to market it. I’ll be heading to the Virginia Festival of the Book in a few weeks to be part of a Crime/Thriller panel. After that, I’ve told myself I need to start writing again. Get back on a regimented schedule and detail Bridget’s next adventure. I’ve been taking notes and I have a pretty good idea of the setting and conflict. Now, I need to just write.

Thank you for the opportunity to tell my story!

Stop by her fan page and say hi from me

http://www.facebook.com/KathleenToomeyJabs

Check out this book trailer too. You don't really see to many of these, but this one is pretty enticing. Too bad they don't show book commercials on TV. Now wouldn't that boost sales.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gGfIU4RPYg

I hope you enjoyed your visit with Kathleen; I know I did. She says she's getting brave and trying to work something with that other book in her drawer. I think, after reading this book, we should really give her some encouragement. What do you think?

You can do this too, Kathleen. I know you can.

Black Wings by Kathleen Toomey Jabs

The best advice I've heard is to write what you know. Kathleen Jabs has done just that. Black Wings is set in a world she knows well. If someone were to ask me if this story is truth or fiction, without doing any research on the matter, I'd have to say I honestly couldn't tell. I am not personally familiar with the area, but it certainly feels like I'm right there sitting in the car with Bridget when she's driving, or walking across the yard on some clue hunt, or even climbing through dusty air tunnels headed to places no one ever goes.

Military training can put you in close proximity with someone, and it's entirely possible to develop lasting bonds. I'm sure there's even a term for it. Bonding under stress, or shared burden, whatever the reason I know it's possible, and being room mates of only two to four people over a span of years of tough training turns you into family somewhere under the skin. And as with family, no matter the estrangement, you tend to keep track of them.

When news that her room mate, Audrey, dies in a plane crash off a carrier, Bridget was devastated. Their last words had been harsh and feelings were bruised, then they both got busy and time passed. Now Audry was dead. That by itself was bad enough, but there were all the rumors floating around about female aviators and how they shouldn't be allowed to fly, and some of those rumors were specific to Audrey, and Bridget knew they weren't true. Her orders were to squash the rumors, and in the mean time she had to find some way to handle the death itself. She wanted to write the obituary. She wanted to meet with Audrey's mother. As if all that wasn't bad enough, reports came across her desk and they were way later than they should have been. Now she was suspicious. Was it an accident? What REALLY happened? What was NOT in all those reports and rumors?

picture this painted black

Throughout the book, Bridget searches for answers. Answers that will allow her to lay Audrey to rest with the honors she deserves, WITHOUT any doubt. Bridget also searches back through her memories of when it all began - clear back at the beginning, when Audrey stepped on that first set of Navy Pilot's Wings in their room at the academy early one morning and saw that they were painted black. Then they started showing up all the time, in hidden places no one could drop one by accident, and certainly not over and over again.

In order to understand the why, she must find the who. Who hated Audrey so much? Oh there were many who fit that description, but then Audrey may have been partially at fault there. She wanted to fly, and no one was going to tell her she couldn't. There wasn't a single qualification they required of her, she didn't pass and surpass. She had to. If she wanted to succeed in her dream to fly, she had to be better than the best. She was female, and EVERYTHING was stacked against her.

So - Who hated Audrey? Who had opportunity? Who always seemed to be in the right place at the right time? And WHO wanted it all covered up? Bridget finds the answers, but you'll have to read the book yourself if you want answers too. They will make you scream and claw at the pages with frustration and fury, and wrench your heart out with sadness and even a little shame. Have a read; you won't regret it.

The Gift of El Tio - A Book Review

The Gift of El Tio 

 by 

Larry Buchanan and Karen Gans 

Until I cracked this book, I looked upon any memoir with a good deal of trepidation. Like a history text book, those memoirs I've read were always a rather dry recitation of facts and dates. As you might guess, I haven't read many memoirs. Now we come to this book. The Gift of El Tio isn't quite a memoir and yet it is, after a fashion. This book chronicles the change the people of a tiny remote village of San Cristobal, Bolivia went through when an enormous silver deposit was discovered beneath their little village. But that's not the only changes chronicled in this book.

In order for the silver to be mined, the backwards villagers of San Cristobal had to be moved. Their entire village had to be moved - something they were thrilled to do. You see, El Tio promised them a gift, a gift of wealth and a new life. All because the silver discovered by Larry had remained hidden despite all other ventures to find it. The time was right for it's discovery. It was time for the prophecy to come true. El Tio and the silver had waited for hundreds of years for Larry to make his discovery.

Can you imagine, a prophecy, a real prophecy? Really! But like in all things, even prophecies have a flip side of the coin. What is it? Just like Larry had to wait 10 years to find out, and just like I had to wait until the end of the book to find out. You too simply have to read this book to find out. Now that I've tweaked your curiosity. Fuze Publishing is the place to go. The Gift of El Tio is listed under non-fiction and well worth your money. 

As most of you know, my reviews find their way to a writerly subject eventually. We all strive to write in a character arc when we craft our stories. In this book, you will find so many arcs. There's nothing like real life for seeing such a thing. In this book, the villagers of San Cristobal are not the only people to change. They went from a simple people worshiping many minor gods as well as the Catholic God brought to them by the Spaniards. They also saw demons in every dark crevasse and cave along their mountainous roads and trails. Rituals and sacrifices saw them safely through their life. They became very different by the end of the book. Modern, working hard, even harried - too busy to honor the gods.

But they weren't the only people to change. Follow Larry and his wife Karen as they too change. Larry, the stark realist discovers religion, after a fashion, and Karen, who saw the world through rose colored glasses, learned to take the glasses off once in a while.

So, if you want a lesson in character arc, or if you just want a really good read, buy this book. You will laugh out loud and you will cry; I did both, and that too is something every writer strives to accomplish.