“Wednesday Writer” – Christy Leskovar

Posted on April 25, 2024 by Tanya

Christy Leskovar had a solid career in mechanical engineering when she happened upon some family history that was too intriguing to ignore. As she delved into the truths behind the tale, she knew this was a story waiting to be written and, setting aside her career, she set off to do just that. What resulted was her first published work–ONE NIGHT IN A BAD INN–a true story of “scandal, war, murder, and mayhem.”

ME: You were born in Butte, Montana but grew up in Kennewick, Washington. Do you have any childhood memories of Butte, and, if so, which ones stand out the most? Also, how does the Kennewick of your childhood differ from what it is today? (I’d love to post pictures of you as a child in Montana and in Kennewick.)

CHRISTY: Memories of childhood in Butte – playing piano by ear at Grandma T’s while she and Mom visited in the front room; the house shaking at 4 pm when they blasted in the mine; Dad pulling my brother and me on the sled when we went out to the forest to chop down a tree for Christmas; getting a ride home from school in the cab of the next door neighbor’s cement truck; the nuns’ formidable long black habits at St. Ann’s (I’ll bet you have some good nun stories…:D); playing kick the can in the alley; the 9 pm curfew siren; snow so high we could barely see the mailbox.

(Christy gets a writing desk for Christmas in Butte…signs of things to come)

As for the Kennewick of my childhood differing from today, the Tri-Cities have grown so much since we moved there at the end of 1968. That’s the biggest difference. There are many more wineries too. (Amen!)

ME: Before you discovered the long-hidden truth about your great-grandmother that led to your writing ONE NIGHT IN A BAD INN, what were some of the most interesting things you had heard about her? (And is there a picture of her with your great-grandfather that you can share?)

CHRISTY: Before hearing that she was arrested for murdering her husband, the most startling thing I had heard about her was that she tried to force her daughter (my grandmother) into prostitution. Grandma T told me that.

(Wow! That was some kind of mother.)

(Sarah with Arthur Hughes before she allegedly killed him…see those cold, hard eyes?)

ME: Okay, I can kind of tell from your college degrees in both Mechanical Engineering and French that you were somewhat undecided between the Humanities and Math and Sciences. So I wasn’t completely surprised that, after a solid career as an engineer, you decided to put it aside and try your hand at writing. Still, to do something like that, you must have had some early success with the written word. When and how did you know you had it in you to write a book?

CHRISTY: I didn’t think about it in those terms. I just did it.

(That has to be a record on my blog for the shortest answer to the longest question ever!)

ME: Some writers seem to have it in them from an early age and stories tumble out of them. Others come to it later in life, particularly when one story, in particular, captures their imagination. Tell us how ONE NIGHT IN A BAD INN came to you and why you were so sure you had to tell this story.

CHRISTY: I had gone to Butte for a family funeral. While visiting Aunt Aila, she pulled out a box and from it some papers which she passed to us. They were rap sheets from the prison – for my great-uncles Bill and Archie, Grandma T’s brothers. I barely knew she had brothers (no surprise after seeing the rap sheets). Then Auntie Mary told us about the fire on the ranch, and finding the body, and that Great-grandma Sarah was arrested for murdering Arthur. I went home, went back to work at Bechtel, and then one afternoon the idea just popped in my head: I was going to go find out what happened and write a book about it.

ME: Doing the research for this particular family saga required a lot of travel. Please describe some of the surprising places and events you found you had to investigate to do this story justice. (And I’d love a picture or two from your travels.)

CHRISTY: It was an unforgettable adventure, chronicled in my second book, FINDING THE BAD INN. One of the biggest surprises was finding out that one of the prisoners escaped. What an escapade that turned out to be.

As for my travels, I went everywhere anything significant happened, which included Montana, New York, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Wales, Northern Ireland, France, and Belgium. I was attacked by a dog on a Welsh farm, had a policeman train his automatic weapon on me in Belfast, and was hospitalized in Belgium. (Can you tell how dedicated she was to uncovering the whole saga?)

Along the way I gathered amazing story after amazing story. One of the most exciting physical finds was discovering the old stone house where Sarah lived in Wales.

(Sarah’s old stone house in Wales)

(And here’s her book trailer for her second book)

ME: What or who helped you decide to create a second book out of what was essentially your journey of research for the first?

CHRISTY: After my trip to Wales, Ireland, France, and Belgium, I felt like I was living in a novel. Finding the story became as interesting as the story I was finding. I decided to write down what happened–my search for the story–just to preserve it for myself. Then I realized, there’s a book here.

In light of what has come out about several memoirs, I’m glad I did it, though ONE NIGHT IN A BAD INN isn’t a traditional memoir in that it was assiduously researched.

ME: Do you have more stories in the pot stemming from your own family history and, if so, what may we expect to see next from you? I know, for example, that after the murder of her father, your grandmother was sent off to an orphanage. Did you cover her story enough in your first book or can you see possibly devoting a third book to your grandmother’s life story? (And I’d love to post a picture of you with your grandmother.)

CHRISTY: The story of Sarah’s being arrested for killing her husband is just Part One of ONE NIGHT IN A BAD INN, which has six parts. After the mystery of the fire on the ranch is solved, at least in part, the story continues with my grandmother getting out of the orphanage, moving to the raucous mining town of Butte, Montana, (this was in 1915), meeting her handsome, footloose future husband who goes off to the First World War. It’s quite a story. (It certainly sounds like it!)

(Christy with her grandmother in front of the old orphanage)

(Christy in a World War I trench during research)

Originally, I planned to write a book about all four grandparents, but as I got into the research, the story grew by leaps and bounds. There was more than enough story about my maternal grandparents for one book. My paternal grandparents are the protagonists of my next book, which I’m researching now. As with ONE NIGHT IN A BAD INN, it will be nonfiction, researched, and put in historical context.

(We’ll have to keep an eye out for it.)

ME: What are some of the most important things to remember when writing memoir, or true crime, or family history?

CHRISTY: Get the facts, and the memories, in context. Corroborate everything you can. You find more story that way, and you get closer to the truth. Even things you read in well-regarded “history books,” if something doesn’t sound right, research it.

ME: How did you personally keep all of your research materials organized so you could quickly find and refer to them as you were writing?

CHRISTY: I kept notes in notebooks and transcribed them onto the computer. I kept a timeline and notes by subject. I reviewed them many, many times. I wrote from memory, then went back to my notes and timeline to fact check myself.

(As you can tell, writing history accurately requires a great deal of patience and persistence.)

ME: Finally, could you describe your personal writing space in the voice of your great-grandmother. (And I’d love to post a picture of your office or writing area.)

CHRISTY: In the voice of my great-grandmother, my goodness! She was a cross between Auntie Mame and Fagin (What a combination!), so I’ll leave that up to the imagination of the reader. As for my writing space, I have a desk with a bookcase and file drawers in front of window with a lovely view, palm trees in the distance.

(Hmmm…now how would Auntie Mame and Fagin describe this?)

Seriously, readers, if you want to give it a try, please post your best efforts in the Comments section. :D I’ll let Christy be the judge as to who captures her villainous, adventurous great-grandmother the best.

In the meantime, you can learn more about Christy and her writing on her website. And you can buy her book on Amazon.

Note: I apologize for not posting my promised interview with Karen Spears Zacharias last week, but a family situation came up that I had to attend to. I’ll try and catch her again in a couple of months.

Meanwhile, check back here next Wednesday for my interview with the popular and entertaining poet Jordan Chaney.

Originally posted 2013-09-25 06:00:58.

“Wednesday Writer” – Pauline Hansen

Posted on August 30, 2023 by Tanya

If you were happily married but gradually your family became hostage to the growing paranoid schizophrenia of your husband, would you stay married? And would you write about it?

Pauline Hansen chose to do both, telling her story in her memoir, A PATCHWORK REALITY: HAPPILY MARRIED TO A SCHIZOPHRENIC.

ME: You say you grew up in a small town, one to which you’ve now returned, but exactly how tiny is it? Please give us a clear picture of what your childhood and youth was like there (plus a picture or two of you growing up). And is it any different for your own kids, or are they all grown up?

PAULINE: The town I grew up in and have now returned to is indeed tiny. It has remained, throughout the years, at about 150 people. We like to joke that there are probably more dogs than people : )

Life growing up in my hometown was typical of country life. We weren’t farmers or ranchers, so we didn’t have cattle or fields of hay, but other than that, we did many of the other things well known to country life: in the warm months, we grew a massive garden, played in the ditch as children, ran everywhere barefoot, climbed the surrounding rocks and mountains, went on picnics and went camping, then in the winter, we’d build snowmen, go sledding and snowmobiling, and hunt for a fresh Christmas tree every year.

(Pauline at 10)

My own children, two of which were still school-aged when we moved here, do some of the same things – mostly the climbing and hiking and such, but they were 13 and 15 years old, so they didn’t have near the country life experience that I did while growing up.

(Pauline as a senior)

ME: How old were you when you first dreamed to one day become an author, and which book exactly prompted that dream?

PAULINE: I remember when I’d read as a youth, sometimes a book a day, I would be in awe of anyone that could actually write a book. It was something of a miracle to me back then. I remember wishing that maybe someday, I could write a book, but that’s all it was – a fanciful wish.

(So, it sounds as if it was no particular book, just books in general.)

ME: What kind of book did you imagine yourself writing when you grew up and how did that differ from what you ended up producing?

PAULINE: As a youth, when I dreamed of writing a book someday, I always wanted to write a romance, and I planned to include every spine-tingling, heart-racing, breath-taking romantic thing I could think of. I have, in fact, written a romance, but as it stands, it needs a lot of work, so when the thought occurred to me that I should write my memoir and publish it, I figured that was the best idea to go with first. I’m still revising the romance, though!

(Great! Then we know what to expect next.)

ME: Since your book, PATCHWORK REALITY: HAPPILY MARRIED TO A SCHIZOPHRENIC, details your husband’s descent into paranoid schizophrenia in his mid-thirties and its effect on you and the children, please tell us how you met and what your relationship with him was like before those nine years of extreme psychological stress. (I’d love to post a picture of you and the family from those earlier years.)

PAULINE: Curtis and I met at a dance at Dixie College. My roommate was the girlfriend of Curtis’s best friend, so that helped to bring us together, but once we did meet, there was no turning back. Although I had had numerous boyfriends in the past, I knew my relationship with Curtis was special and lasting, almost from the start. It didn’t take us long to want to date exclusively, then we were engaged after only 4 months, and married 3 months after that.

The book describes what the first fourteen years of our marriage were like, and in a nutshell, we had it all–laughter, babies, vacations, and ball games. Life was good, with your typical ups and downs, arguments over disciplining the kids and the finances, lots of expenses that come with raising five children, and lots of love and good times.

(Pauline, Curtis, and the kids in the good times)

ME: How did you come to the decision to write your story?

PAULINE: One day in February of 2012, I felt the greatest urge to write something. It was a desire I couldn’t shake, but everything I attempted to write just didn’t feel quite right. Then one morning as I lay in bed contemplating, it occurred to me that I had a story to tell, one that would be different than anything anyone had ever read. And maybe, just maybe, someone would gain some insight when they read it, or realize there’s hope amidst difficult trials, or as my husband so eloquently put it, realize that marriage is worth fighting for.

ME: How did your husband and children feel about the book?

PAULINE: I admit at first I worried that my husband wouldn’t want me to write our story, since it would be so personal and put him in an awkward light. But all he kept repeating whenever I would ask him if he was SURE he was okay with me writing it was, “Of course I’m sure. After what I put you through, I have to let you do what you feel you need to.”

He must have known it would be rather therapeutic for me to write, plus I think he feels, too, that shedding some light on such a mysterious illness would be a good thing in the long run.

As far as the children go, they’ve been immensely supportive throughout the process of having me write and publish our experience. They knew very little of what went on, and yet even when they read the nitty gritty parts, not one of them has judged me or their dad for it.

ME: What prompted your move back to your tiny hometown, and did it have anything to do with your husband’s condition?

PAULINE: My husband’s condition had everything to do with moving back to my tiny hometown. He was jobless and did not play to look for a job anytime soon, which was very rare for him. He had always been a very hard worker and very dedicated to his job. We were at our rope’s end and needed a place to go, so we moved in with my parents temporarily until we could decide what our next move was.

We loved it here so much we decided to stay, and it’s a good thing, because the lower stress, slower pace of life, no traffic, and very few people have been a huge factor in my husband’s recovery.

(An aerial view of their isolated town in Utah)

ME: Tell us about the writing process you followed in creating this book, including beta readers and/or critique groups. And did you seek out any experts in schizophrenia?

PAULINE: I had already been attending writer’s conferences before I even knew of my husband’s condition (and decided to write about it), and once I knew I wanted to write our story, I went to even more conferences with the intention of finding other authors that I could connect with and ask advice of. I only used one beta reader, and her advice was invaluable. (That’s a big YES for beta readers!)

I joined ANWA, American Night Writers Association, where I could post any question I had about the writing or publishing process on their Yahoo group sites. They’ve been a huge help and I’ve made some wonderful friends! (That’s a big YES for ANWA too!)

As far as seeking experts on schizophrenia, my intention was never to write a book as a resource for those seeking help about mental illness. The Internet is a wealth of knowledge for that, and I would just muddy the waters if I attempted to give any advice.

ME: What are you working on now, or what do you plan to write next, and why?

PAULINE: I am once again attempting to work on the first novel I wrote, a romance based in my own little hometown. We’ll see if it ends up publish-worthy. :D I also have a rough outline and quite a few pages of ideas for a dramatic romance I would love to write some time, plus I have a children’s book series in mind that begs to be written, but that concept is definitely in its infancy.

I don’t always feel an extreme urge to write, but when that urge hits, I obey. I love to read, and I love the written word, and the stories in my head will, at the right time, break free and land on the page.

ME: Finally, please describe your writing space—the room or place you used most in writing PATCHWORK REALITY—and tell us what makes it your own. (And I must have a picture.)

PAULINE: Our home is small, but still, I claim a lot of our overcrowded space as my own when I’m in the middle of a project. When I wrote PATCHWORK REALITY, we only had one computer that the whole family shared, but if I needed it everyone else knew they had to let me use it. It is centrally located, in the living room, so although I was often engrossed in my work, I was still out amongst the family if they needed me.

At the time, my husband rarely got on the computer. He was just learning how to use one back then. Now, though, he’s on the family computer a lot more, so it was a huge blessing when my children gave me a laptop for Christmas last year.

(Pauline’s work space)

(And here’s Pauline, Curtis, and their kids today)

Pauline’s memoir is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and at Books & Things. If you want to learn more about the author and her work, check out her website.

On tap for next Wednesday is Rebecca Talley, a former president of LDStorymakers and author of two LDS novels and a children’s picture book.

Originally posted 2014-03-12 06:00:46.

"My best read of the year goes to Tanya Parker Mills and A NIGHT ON MOON HILL. A tender, unsettling, stirring page-turner. You'll want to read this one." (Laurie L.C. Lewis, Author of the "Free Men & Dreamers" series)

"This was easily the best book I read all year. It is beautifully written and tells a moving story...It is heartbreaking, powerful, beautiful--extraordinary. I am moved and almost overwhelmed by it. Wow! Bravo...In addition to the characterizations being spot on, the prose is beautiful. This is a very powerful book by an extremely talented writer. I highly recommend it!" (Braden Bell, Author of "The Road Show" and "The Kindling")

"This story is so well written, and with characters that bring you into the story so deeply, you will have this novel read in no time. What will you find in this novel? A great combination of suspense, angst, romance and relationships that will truly make you think. You will also look at life and people a little differently. I love the respect and care that Tanya has given to the tender subjects found within the pages of this novel. For all of this, I’m giving this book 5 stars!" (Sheila Windley Staley, LDS Women's Book Review)

"A NIGHT ON MOON HILL is a carefully crafted and beautifully-written story that follows Daphne’s journey as she discovers that the routine of her life is made much better when she shares it with someone." (Heather B. Moore, Award-Winning Author and reviewer for LDS Readers)

"As you will find when you read A Night on Moon Hill, Tanya Parker Mills is also a poet. Don’t let that scare you away, though. There’s a great story line with a little romance, a bit of a mystery, and some marvelously interesting characters. It’s a book that will stay with you long after you’ve turned the last page. I highly recommend it." (Liz Adair, Award-Winning Author and President of LDStorymakers)