Words from Margaret Fieland

I wrote Margaret Fieland for information I could use about her today as my VBT - Writers on the Move Guest. Peggy did more than give me "some" information; she gave me exactly what I could post. Thank you, Peggy, for sharing.

Words from Margaret Fieland

I started writing poetry to express teenage angst, and continued for much the same reason. Then I started writing more because it turned my partner on. Then I started writing yet more because it was something special to do for holidays and family birthdays. Then I submitted a poem of mine to a poetry contest on a whim, -- it was over Christmas holidays and all the kids were out, giving me free access to the computer {grin} -- and it was one of four finalist.

So then I felt encouraged and started working on my poetry and submitting it for publication. I joined online groups, got books on writing poetry and worked through them, started reading more poetry, etc. It snowballed. Writing poetry is tons of fun.

I just plain enjoy writing poetry. Occasionally I am touched by the muse. Then, too, it's a nice, portable occupation, and it's nothing like my day job (computer software engineer), so it's a welcome relief to struggle with a poem or a story instead of why a particular section of code is or isn't working.

I also write to get stuff out of my head, where it would otherwise be stuck.

I started writing stories after the first Muse On Writing conference, where I hooked up with Linda Barnett Johnson. Before that, I would have sworn that I would never, ever, write fiction. I only started because in order to join Linda's poetry forum, you had to join the fiction forum, too. I started out writing children's stories because they seemed less intimidating -- plus I've always loved kids books and read tons of them as a kid as well as an adult. I always read lots of books to my kids -- I love to read, really enjoy reading aloud.

My all-time favorite books are Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass." I used to reread them every exam time in college, as I would forgo trips to the library in order to spend more time studying. Then I'd suffer from major book deprivation and re-read "Alice." I also taught myself to wiggle my ears. I eventually taught my middle son when he was ten or so, and he demonstrated it at school. His teachers were less than thrilled {grin}.

Oh, yes, and I can also mirror-write, something else I taught myself during college exam studying. It used to impress the kids when we were waiting to be seated in restaurants when they were little.

I write both rhymed poetry and free verse. I'm 63, and my day job is a computer software engineer. The company I work for was bought by IBM a couple of months ago. I have three sons. The youngest graduated collegelast May, the next one is in the army (Lieutenant), and the oldest is computer software engineer, married and living with his wife in Bratislava. He works for IBM, the Lotus notes group (based in the states, in Cambridge), remotely. He did live over here (near me) until his wife's mother got sick and they moved back there. He works remotely -- modern technology is wonderful -- plus he's been answering a good many of my IBM questions (like "What are the holidays for Massachusetts?" and "How do I get Lotus Notes to send my email out right away?"

The middle one is the only one who has any writing talent or musical ability. I live with my partner, who has a son (in college, living at home ATM) and a daughter. We have lots of dogs. Seriously, like seven, plus the three puppies belonging to one of them (but two are sold ), so if the third puppy is show quality, we'll soon have eight dogs.

Yikes!

I have a collection of poems about mathematics that I'm trying to get published (haven't submitted it to 4rv). They're targeted to ages 12 and up, pretty much. Some of them have been published -- not too many -- I haven't wanted to submit them, but a couple of places were too good a fit to pass up. I started writing them after I wrote 'Round' and Barbara Ehrentreu read it and managed to convince me it was a math poem -- and here I thought it was just something funny about Santa and sphere -- She encouraged me to write more math poems, an idea I initially resisted, but after a while really got into.

A group of us -- we met at the muse conference (year before last) and started "meeting" online to chat , exchange poems, etc -- are putting together a collection of our work. We're in the final stages of organizing the poems.

I play the flute and the piccolo. I belonged to a band up until about a year or so ago, when the evening rehearsals got to be a bit too much for me.

I'm a native New Yorker, born and raised in Manhattan. My sister still lives there. I've been living in the Boston area since just after the blizzard of 1978. I speak fluent French -- can read it fine also, but am rather diffident about writing it, as I hate making grammatical errors .. when I do write it, it's comparatively slowly. Both my parents spoke French -- to each other, when they wanted to say something they didn't want my sister and me to understand. Then my father went and insisted I take French in school (I started in 7th grade, continued all through college..) -- I had been planning to study Spanish. Dad spoke French well, Mom not so much. Dad was also a real grammar queen -- he got absolutely apoplectic about pronoun agreement. Whenever we'd make any kind of grammatical error, he'd repeat the rule and correct us. {shakes head}. At the time I thought it was extremely tedious. Now I'm really, really grateful. I can still repeat the whole pronoun thing in both English and French. I learned and remember English grammar because Dad pounded it into my head. We did study grammar in school (not like now, where I'm convinced it isn't taught ..) but that's not where I remember it from.

My father was an attorney and my mother an artist -- portraits -- never showed much, gave most of her stuff away, was a SAH mom. My father was in sole practice for many years. He appeared twice before the supreme court. He knew Abe Fortas from law school and introduced me to him when I was in my teens, I think.

I like to ski, but haven't been this year yet, partly because I broke my wrist just before Thanksgiving, and partly, well, for no particularly good reason.

I'm working on another book, this one written in the first person about a girl who wants to go to music camp and whose parents are getting a divorce. It's going to be a MG -- the main character is 12, in 7th grade. A friend of mine who is a middle school music director has given me lots of good info around this, plus she's generously offered to read the MS when I get done with the current draft.

I'm toying with the idea of writing a non-fiction book on the history of mathematics for children. Well, actually, I'm trying to slap the idea down whenever it nags me, as it would involve a fair amount of research, but it refuses to go away. I have a BA with a major in mathematics and a MS in computer science, so I do actually have the background to write this. It started to nag me when I was writing the math poems series -- looked for books like it .. found one picture book on the story of counting.

Many years ago now, friends (daughter of my ex-husband's mother's best friend and next door neighbor) died in a tragic fire that also took the lives of all four of her children. Only her husband survived. In my story The Angry Littte Boy, (to be published by 4RV Publishing) there's only one child, and only the mother dies. There's also a dog in the book, belongs to the main character. The dog is named after a friend who died suddenly eight or so years back.


http://www.margaretfieland.com/

website and blog ..

blog specific
http://www.margaretfieland.com/blog1/

Thank you, Peggy. I'm always glad to know more about people, and especially 4RV authors.



Tomorrow, Nancy Famolari is hosting Heidi Thomas.

Books, Authors and Info! Join us for our March Tour:
http://tinyurl.com/ykjvonn


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Interview with Rosemary Chaulk

Rosemary Chaulk, the author of Nissitissit Witch, is visiting with us today. Welcome, Rose. I hope you don't mind some of the nosy questions.


VZ: How did/does your history and home background affect your writing?

Rose: My history directly affects my writing. My childhood was a constant struggle, my biological father died before my mother knew she was pregnant. Poor prenatal care and having a grief stricken mother led to several birth defects. My mother remarried and she and my stepfather began developing and abusive relationship. My mother then divorced and fell into manic depressant alcoholism. I held the family together at a young age and grew up fast.

When my parents would fight I would run off and escape to the woods, finding solace with nature. This has lasted all my life with the woods being my escape, I naturally fell into land surveying where I could spend all of my working hours in the woods, away from the road, away from people, never having to deal with office politics.

Ten years ago I finally dealt with the last major issue in my life that still lingered from my birth defects. Finally by making my life complete I was able to open my heart to the world and write.

VZ: Tell us something about your educational background that has made you a better, or more caring, writer.

Rose: I was educated as a civil engineer that has served me well in many ways. When you look and see the bridge I see the foundation. I have learned that what you don’t see is more important that what you see. The finest bridge will not last if the foundations are poor. This also translates well into life in dealing with people. What you see in the presentation of someone is not as important as the things you don’t see.

VZ: Please fill us in on your hobbies, interests, or activities you participate in during your leisure time. *laugh* If you have any.

Rose: I don’t have much leisure time. I would say that my leisure time is my writing time. I work nine months a year in New England doing land survey and working as many hours as I can so that I can go to Florida for three months and write. I can only write when I am rested and relaxed.
I do still like to walk in the woods, and also I love playing in Texas Hold'em tournaments. The drama of cards can be quite exciting. I limit myself to very low buy in games and also play in a free league for points only.

VZ: Authors are often asked when they started writing or what triggered their interest in writing. I like to know that, also, but I would especially like to know what keeps you writing.

Rose: What triggered my writing was totally self-oriented. I found that by writing I could release some of the stored emotions I had and in a way deal with life to become a better person. I initially write a story for me and then reluctantly share it with the world. What keeps me writing is my desire to keep becoming a better person. Only when you know your own heart can you start to touch others.

VZ: Tell us a little about Nissitissit Witch. Where did you find the inspiration for this story?

Rose: I was born under the sign of the bull, forever connected to the earth. I have spent my entire life working outside year round doing land survey. I have a deep respect and love for the land and at times in my career I was sickened and even despondent about the massive pollution that I saw. In the early seventies I worked in a survey crew doing topographic surveys along the banks of the Merrimack River in Lowell, Mass. The branches of the trees, which hung in the river, were covered with toilet papers and condoms; tampons swam by like perverted sperm on their way to the ocean to infect the source of life. I have carried these images my whole life.

In the town I live was a village, North Village, and people to this day believe the village was cursed by a witch and died. A cursed piece of land right in the town I live in. But then I thought, “Can land be cursed or is it just the tortured souls who roam it who are cursed?”

In this book I found a way to express my love for the land and make people aware of just how much we polluted North America once we took it from the Indians

When the settlers took the valley from the Indians, they killed a tribe that had lived there for six thousand years. The settlers’ lust for the land was strong; it proved to be ironic that their lack of respect for this land was the very thing which killed them


VZ: Tell us about your main characters.

Rose: I based my fictional characters on actual newspaper articles. In doing the research I noticed that there were many mentions of people dying in an unusual way. Reading some of the research I found North Village to have a cobbler who made his own felt, in researching felt I found it to be made using mercuric oxide. The cobbler traveled the farms in the area selling his boots. There was also a velvet shop and in researching velvet I found that it has to be steamed and not ironed. Further research showed that all of the royal colors back then contained poisons and sometimes heavy metals, even the wallpaper back then was toxic and many infants died in their cribs. It is even rumored that Napolian’s insanity was caused by his love of green wallpaper, which was the most toxic. When I researched heavy metal poisoning, research showed that people died as raving lunatics, certainly an unusual way.

VZ: Thank you for joining us, Rose. I'm sure readers will find you and your information as interesting as I have. The book and more information on the book is available at Rosemary Chaulk’s website.

Rosemary Chaulk


Margaret Fieland hosts me this week.


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