A Modern Day Romeo & Juliet

For the prompt from Poets and Storytellers to find inspiration in this quote from C.S. Lewis, "You are never to old to set another goal or to dream a new dream"  This is nothing but a huge dream come true. 

I just received my review copy for BLACK RIVER. 

It's my last chance to catch any pesky typos. After several editing rounds, reams of paper, and multiple pairs of eyes, you'd think it would be perfect, but if you've ever read a novel where a glaring typo, or misplaced word jarred you out of your fictional world, you know it's hard to be perfect. Even for the Big Five publishers and well known authors, these insidious errors are hard to catch. There's nothing worse for an author than finding a misspelled word after it's too late to correct it.

I just received a wonderful advance review from Maria Ashford at BookShelfie. 

Black River by Yvonne Osborne is a literary rural noir set in the lowlands of Michigan farm country. If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if Where the Crawdads Sing sat down for a drink with a William Faulkner novel and a touch of Romeo and Juliet, this is roughly the result. It’s a book whose influences you can clearly trace, but it never feels derivative. The author pulls them through her own voice, until the result feels distinctly her own.

     more....

She also said it has a touch of Romeo & Juliet. 💕If this sounds like your kind of book, grab a copy here. The release date is July 28th. 

Dream big!

The Story Behind BLACK RIVER

 So, this was me back when I first started writing Black River. 

And here is the story behind the making of the story.

I don't share this lightly because I'm sure my criticism of the military industrial complex will offend some people.

The New Goodreads Rival

Meet Book DNA, formerly Shepherd.com, a new place to share your favorite books, meet other readers and authors, and feature your own if you are an author. Book DNA matches readers with books based on individual tastes. If you are frustrated with Goodreads (I personally abhor the recent increase in popup ads), check out Book DNA.

Right now readers can submit their favorite five of 2025. Here's mine.  My list features the best with rural noir tension and environmental conflict, themes my new novel, Black River, shares.

It's fun to share your favorites and easy to find new ones. All ad free!!

My Character Love Affair

I have an essay in Wild Ink Publishing about putting a character up a tree, falling in love with them, and getting them down.

Check it out! 

And pre-orders for BLACK RIVER open today. My main character isn't literally up a tree, only in hot water.

Or should I say cold?

Published by Unsolicited Press, the gutsy, small indie publisher from Portland, Oregon.  Available now for pre-order from Asterism Books, a boutique distributor with deep indie-bookstore relationships. Thanks for supporting me, Indie publishing, and independent bookstores everywhere!

p.s. Book Friends, I made a playlist!  My first attempt and it was fun matching songs to the mood and progression of of the story.  

COVER REVEAL

This is the cover for my new novel, BLACK RIVER, to be published on July 27th by Unsolicited Press. It's dark, ominous feel is exactly what I was envisioning for this story. 

What do you think??

Next Big Thing

Tricia O'Brien, who blogs at Talespinning has tagged me for the Next Big Thing blog hop. Tricia is currently working on a dark fairy tale, PRINCESS CHARMING: A DIFFERENT KNIGHT’S TALE and shares a snippet of the story in her interview. I was delighted she asked me to share some details of what I’m currently working on, so without further ado,  here are my answers to the Next Big Thing.

What is your working title of your next novel? BLACK RIVER

Where did the idea come from for this novel? I can’t answer that question, because I’m not sure. I was sitting on the couch one night with my laptop and started writing about this guy who sets out across a wintering field to see what the vultures circling overhead are after. And then...things started happening. I think it came to fruition partly because of a secret desire I had to write a loose sequel to my first novel.

What genre does it fall under? I see it as a crossover between literary, commercial and contemporary NA.

Which actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition? I hate to hitch up the horse when I don’t have a cart to sit in, but that said….my female protagonist should be played by a gutsy Girl-With-The-Dragon-Tattoo type, (minus the tattoos and the piercings) and the male protagonist would best be portrayed by Ben Affleck with Argo hair or someone like that guy who led his gang safely back to Coney Island in The Warriors.  

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your novel? The comfortable life of the son of a landed fourth-generation farmer collides with that of the daughter of an itinerant migrant worker with a troubled past.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? I hope to be represented but I have not yet queried. This has actually been a good exercise for me in preparing to do so.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript? The first draft took me five months to write.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? That’s hard since this novel is a crossover. I’ve been told by some that my writing reminds them of Jodi Picoult. Personally (don’t think me pretentious), I see this novel as a blend of Picoult, Scott Spencer, and Andre DuBus with a bit of the grit in All The Pretty Horses, and I hope it appeals to those readers who like those books.

Who or what inspired you to write this book? The earth under my feet, the world around me, and the climate change that threatens to overtake us and bury us.

What else about your book might pique the reader's interest? The characters wrestle with some of the most contentious social issues of our day while dealing with a small matter of murder, cover-up, and police malfeasance and then there is the forbidden love that the main character treks through the Canadian woods across thin ice in a warming world to claim.

And since Tricia shared a snippet, here’s one from BLACK RIVER: He’d never been cut with a knife before, and he wondered why his father hadn’t warned him about the aftermath of that, the crushing humiliation of having one’s mortality laid open for all to see.

As per the rules of being tagged, I hereby tag the following authors to share their next big thing.  J.B. Chicoine, Anne Gallagher, Deborah Lawrenson,  Stina Lindenblatt, and Liza Salerno.  Deborah has already done this here  but has agreed to post an update.

I can’t wait to see what these talented writers are currently working on.

The First Time (Friday Flash 55)

She bent over him, and her breath was warm and sweet as summer. He bit down on the back of his hand to stifle a moan.

It was late when he left. The moon had set and the sky pulsed with stars. The Big Dipper lined the edge of the world and the world was still. 

 

This is 55 words for the G-Man's Friday Flash 55.

Keep warm and TGIF!

Opportunities

Ethan Vaughan is open to queries now for his May project. If he picks your manuscript he will give you an indepth reader's report and then do an interview with you on his blog. I can attest to the value of the report. His attention might not jettison you into superstardom, but it will definitely give you a nudge in the right direction.

April was poetry month and that's the only thing that was good about April. (That and eating the first asparagus from my garden.) Goodbye April. But we can and should keep poetry alive year round. Dare to eat a peach!

May is short story month. There are tons of markets out there for short stories, as you will see here. I've had a small measure of luck with placing some as you can see from my sidebar.  May is also planting season so you might see a little less of me. I'll be torn between editing my beloved BLACK RIVER, keeping a journal, planting lettuce, spinach, and French breakfast radishes, and blogging. Something might give unless I give up sleep. I already gave up television, like eons ago. What do you give up to create writing time?

Good luck if you query Ethan. Write a short story for May. See you around!

An Interview!

Ethan Vaughan, editor extraordinaire and agent intern has just posted an interview with me!! Very exciting...a real interview. He asked some pretty tough questions on controversial issues, and I feel like I've really put myself out there, like my skin is getting thinner by the nanosecond when it's supposed to be getting thicker. Please stop over there and say hi. 

After reading my manuscript, Ethan gave me a "reader's report". It was an in-depth review of the entire manuscript, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses with suggestions for turning those into strengths. He uncannily pointed out all the areas that could benefit from reassessment, scenes and elements that I myself wasn't entirely happy with. He obviously read my novel closely and picked up on things that other advance readers had missed. As he pointed out to me, "All manuscripts have to go through editing, usually of a pretty hefty nature, but they emerge better for it and I'm sure yours will too." If you need any editing help, you should consider Ethan Vaughan.

Reader's Reports - An Agent-in-Waiting

I’ve finished my novel BLACK RIVER. It’s complete at 105,000, a word count I’m comfortable with. The genre is mainstream contemporary with cautionary undertones. (I know, I made that category up.) Now comes the spit and shine, and to help me see the gaps and inconsistencies, I’ve sent it over to Ethan Vaughan, an agent-in-waiting who blogs here.

Ethan interned at a literary agency over the summer and aspires to one day be a literary agent. Right now he's a college student who writes readers reports in his spare time, which is pretty cool. He has posted a sample reader's report which will give you a feel for how agents critique unpublished manuscripts.

He’s looking for manuscripts to read and critique on his blog. If you’re ready for a little exposure and an independent critique, you might want to check out his site, Searching For The Story.

What have I learned this time around? I found that I can write a novel under 140,000 words. With this one I have wiggle room. If something needs to be added, there's space. If something needs to be cut, I would still end up with a novel in the 90,000 to 100,000 word count which to me is a good range.

While this one is out with a couple of readers, I will compose my query letter, hopefully with help from Mindy McGinnis at Writer Writer Pants on Fire, one of my favorite people from Agent Query, the top spot for query assistance, and anyone else I can impose upon. Then I have a couple of short stories with a deadline fast approaching and then.....I concentrate on Will. Oh, I love the dark and desperate, the hurt and conflicted, those characters who love and lust and make mistakes.

One Lonely Sparrow

The sky darkened to the south across Mill Creek and the mucklands and the wind stirred the treetops with the change in the weather. Lightning forked across the sky from Lake Huron to Van Dyke. The cattle huddled under a tree for shelter. What do they know? One lonely sparrow fought the updraft above the creek and twirled across the sky, tossed and turned like a runaway kite. The rains came, gentle gentle, in contradiction to the raging heavens. This is my world. This is Boyd's world (Black River, novel in progress).

It has remained "in progress" for the summer as I am pulled into the garden: weeding, planting, and transplanting, trucking fresh produce to market, canning and harvesting and caring for the elders, and the day job hangs around my neck like an anvil. It's enough to make one wish for winter. I wish for winter and long nights at the keyboard, honing a story, nailing a query, finding an agent to be my friend, taking the anvil off from around my neck.

But then there's the pond...

Secluded and deep and, yes, full of bass and catfish and blue gill for the lone family angler. After a hot day in the garden, I like to go back and strip on the beach and jump in. There's a raft floating in the middle, the perfect spot to stop and catch your breath. I climb the ladder and stretch out on the weathered planks to admire the cloud formations. Hawks float overhead and then a vulture dares to circle to see if I'm dead.

I'm not, so beat it.

Back in the water, something nibbles my side, and I scream like the little girl the pond brings out in me. I have a definite hickey in the middle of my ribs. I was probably kissed by a blue gill. There are worse things in life.

Of Food And The Human Spirit

Eavesdropping in the grocery store, like any good, self-respecting writer, I overheard these conversations in the checkout line....

"My mommy and daddy got married."
They did?"
"Yup. On Wednesday."

"I can buy some food now and know it won't get eat."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, I was buying all the food and those people were eating it all. Now they're gone, so I'll have some food."
"Oh."

"The milk makes my hand cold. I had to set it down."
"Good. You don't want warm milk."

I was kinda glad to escape that store, but I still see that little girl with her proud proclamation, and the man with the groceries he was finally going to get to eat, and the old woman with the half gallon of milk and knarled hands.

Then I caught a report on the radio about planting potatoes in Peru. Because of the warming trend over the last twenty years, farmers have had to move their potatoes up the mountain to plant at higher and higher elevations for the cooler temperature. But the mountain only goes so high. In some areas, they are already planting on top of the mountain.

I've been meaning to share this story, so now I will. There was an old man who walked his dog along the road every day. Morning, afternoon, evening, regardless of the weather, he was out there. My sister and I always passed him when we drove to work at different times, and he always threw up an arm, like he knew you. He waved at everyone. Then one day he wasn't there. Several days passed, and no one saw him. My sister worried about him. She thought his family put him in a home. I said nonsense. She worried about the dog. I thought he might come back, but he never did. Every time I drive that stretch of road I think about him.

And further back inside my brain: When someone uses a cane or a walker, you can hear them coming. Thump. Thump. There’s an undertone of foreboding in that noise. You want it to stop. You want it to continue. You wonder when it will all come crashing down around you. One thing that has recently become clear to me is how much easier it is to give assistance than to receive it.

That's it. My blog has been quiet but I've been busy getting the garden in (everything is late) and editing Black River, my new novel. I have all these thoughts racing around in my head and no time to delve into them. If I go much further back in my brain I might discover something really scary.

Black River

The rain falls and water creeps up the back of the farm. A field of rolling green spelt has turned into a lake. It changes the view at the horizon. It shouldn't be there.

Water was rushing over the road when we returned from our farmer's market yesterday. We barreled through with the farm truck and water splashed over the side mirrors. I wouldn't have risked it in a car. Mill Creek has left it's banks. It spreads and spreads trying to find the path of least resistance.

This all makes me think of my novel, Black River. I've finished it and now I have to begin the irksome task of composing the query, a writer's least favorite thing to do. It's a tidy manuscript at 105,000 words. Short for me.

We have problems but I'm glad I don't have to deal with the ones my protagonist farm boy has to confront.

The rains fall as the ice caps melt.