Category: Uncategorized

Last week, I had the opportunity to speak to the Lucht brothers. Hailing from small-town Wisconsin, the three of them served aboard the USS F.M. Robinson together during the 1950s.

They shared a lot of colorful anecdotes, and Herbert, the middle brother, even saved a man’s life.

Click here to read how these three brothers developed a closer bond than most as they ventured into military life, Cuba and a few scrapes.

The lost art of letter-writing, the Civil War sesquicentennial, and an RSS feed: the messages from James, a Union soldier, to his Dear Molly are being posted on the 150th anniversary of their writing at the Missouri History Museum. If you know me, you know I’m a sucker for that era in history, a good teary-eyed love story, and (you guessed it) the written word.

Spending the past month working with the words of U.S. vets, how they talk about their spouses and families, has given me more insight (though, safe at home, my understanding only scratches the surface) into how difficult war-torn romance must-be, not to mention war-torn family life.

James is a moralist in the cause, as well as a lover of “boquets” of flowers (he mentions them throughout correspondence).

My favorite of the letters I’ve read thus far: March 22nd, 1863. It talks about conscription, Lincoln’s promise to shoot deserters (which Lincoln did not feel easy about making good on), and some sourly-expressed jealousy on the part of Miss Molly’s many beaus.

Yesterday, I got the chance to speak with Ed Fowler, who survived the Dust Bowl, the Great Depression, Normandy, and Nazi work camps as a POW. His wife grew up in a log cabin during the Depression with her mother and six younger siblings. She worked as a Rosie the Riveter, building C-47s during the war, and wrote him letters every night he was missing.

Long live the human spirit.

Read Ed’s full story here: http://www.legion.org/mytimeinuniform?id=863

It’s true. Editors like to harp on the importance of quality editing. And yes, this harping is one form of ensuring job security.

And yet!

David Ebershoff edited both The Orphan Master’s Son, plus Embers of War, both published in the same year, both Pulitzer winners. (Read the Q&A with Publishers Weekly here.) I don’t know his secret, but I’d suspect it has a lot to do with listening, close reading, and candor (and of course, experience, luck, and working as a novelist himself).