local AUTHORS

By Amy Peterson

They walk past you at the grocery store, pull up next to you at stoplights or sit beside you at sporting events. Yet you would most likely never know that behind their kind smiles are minds wired for telling stories. These local authors are making a name for themselves doing the very thing they were meant to do: bring characters and situations to life on paper. Get to know two such local authors in this new series focusing on the writers in our midst.

Merry Helm never considered herself a writer, at least not in the beginning. Majoring in art and music in college, she hoped to write movie soundtracks, but it was difficult to break into that career from North Dakota.

“I naively reasoned,” said Helm, “that if I just wrote my own movie, I would then get to write the music for it when it got produced.”

Two years later, her first screenplay was aired on NBC. “Nobody was more surprised than I to learn I had a knack for story telling,” said Helm. While she still hasn’t written a soundtrack, she has continued working in the movie business ever since.

Helm has also worked for Prairie Public Radio as the original writer of their daily historybased program, Dakota Datebook. After writing about a thousand radio scripts, she had developed a new interest: military history. This came about when she investigated the case of a missing Medal of Honor for Woodrow Wilson Keeble, a Wahpeton combat veteran of WWII and Korea. In 2008, the Nation’s highest military decoration was posthumously awarded to Keeble, and Helm then embarked on a journey to tell the stories of other soldiers who served during the Korean War.

“I just published Volume I of "Prairie Boys at

War," which describes the opening months of the war as experienced by highly decorated men from the six upper central states. Few people realize how brutal the Korean War was,” she went on to say. “While some call it the forgotten war, I call it the ignored war.”

As a writer, Helm finds herself drawn to threedimensional characters – people with flaws, quirks, and a unique story to tell. Bringing to life the stories of the depression-era boys who were deployed to Korea is a natural outflow of her passion for good characters.

“I'm interested in ordinary men thrust into extraordinary circumstances as opposed to commanders or battle tactics,” said Helm. “One reviewer said I focus 'on the beating hearts beneath the helmets.' I'd say that's pretty accurate.”

Helm will follow her newest release with several more volumes that will continue the history of the Korean War through its conclusion in 1953.

You can get a signed copy of Helm’s "Prairie Boys at War," by contacting her directly at mhelm@cableone.net. Copies are also available at Zandbroz Variety or can be ordered online at www.prairieboybooks.com. [AWM] contact us at areawomanmagazine.com

Like many writers, Heather A. Slomski spent much of her childhood within the pages of great books. Authors such as C.S. Lewis intrigued her with his mix of fantasy and reality. "This blend of fantasy and reality is something that I now sometimes incorporate into my own work." As a fiction writer, Slomski feels that "a touch of magic can make character emotions more real and complex."

For Slomski, the desire to write has been present since grade school. Later, she earned a B.A. in English with an emphasis in creative writing and an M.F.A in Fiction and set a goal to publish a book. In addition to having stories published in a number of journals, Slomski achieved her goal when she was awarded the 2014 Iowa Short Fiction Award and her collection of 15 short stories was published by the University of Iowa Press. Her book, "The Lovers Set Down Their Spoons," contains "stories that range in length from the 'short-short' story to the near-novella and in style from the realistic to the surreal to the fairytale-esque."

The success of her first published work has spurred her on to write a second book. "Right now I am working on a novel loosely based on my paternal grandparents' forty-year marriage," said Slomski. Set in contemporary Krakow, the novel "is a blend of family history and imagination." Before beginning this most recent endeavor, she was fortunate to receive two grants—a Minnesota State Artist Initiative Grant and a Minnesota Emerging Writers' Grant—which enabled her to spend six weeks researching in Krakow and also allowed her compensated time to begin writing.

Her writing journey has led her to this nugget, "I would advise writers to write in order to please themselves, not to please others. If you write good work that interests you, chances are that it will in turn interest other people." Slomski has been true to her word, and readers have responded with interested approval. [AWM]

by Amy Peterson

photography by Kris and Anneke Kandel

The Beginning

When Kandel and her husband Hans' children began their formal education, she served as teacher to two boys and two girls. Their second son had a difficult time reading. When it became clear he needed extra reading materials, she decided she would write some books specifically for him. Knowing the digraphs and sounds he was comfortable with, she created stories that allowed him to feel successful as a fledgling reader. Her need to write was born of her son's need to read.

Her family of six was living in Red Lake Falls, MN at this time. Even in this town of about 1,000 people there were other writers who were working on their craft. Kandel joined a writing club that consisted of a poet, a writer of devotional materials, a fiction writer and a horror writer. She talked to the group about the time, early in her marriage, that she lived in Africa. Upon the urging of one writer in the group, Kandel began to let the memories of that time well up and pour out on paper. Memories that for so long had haunted her sleep and lurked in corners while she was awake.

As she wrote, her focus turned from children's literature to essay and creative non-fiction. “Writing for me,” Kandel said, “is a way of thinking and understanding.” She began attending conferences and writing workshops to learn how to improve her writing. Stephen King once said, “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us get up and go to work.” Spending time with other writers, soaking up the wisdom of those who had spent more time honing their craft, Kandel was inspired to find her voice and simply write. While some writers pursue a master of fine arts degree in writing, Kandel chose to seek out conferences and workshops that would meet her specific needs. The knowledge and skills she gained at a conference would be the fuel that kept her going for the next year.

“Writing is never done. You wake up each morning and there is a piece of white paper in front of you,” Kandel said. “Writing is not about thinking something up; it's about getting something down. Sit down and write.” During this time she met another writer online and the two became critique partners―an invaluable relationship for a writer. To allow someone else to read what you have toiled over, and then ask them to be honest in their feedback leaves a writer vulnerable. It is a humbling and strengthening place to be.

For four to five years, Kandel just wrote. Essays became her preferred medium. “To essay means to journey or explore.” When she starts writing, she doesn't know exactly where the story will end. “I needed to understand Africa and writing opened the door.”

It was at one particular conference, the Northwoods Writers Conference in Bemidji, MN, that she was challenged by Robin Hemley of the Iowa Writing Workshop to write a short piece for the literary journal Brevity. So she did. And her piece was rejected. Later, a second submission was met with an acceptance, and her hopes of publication became a reality. “You have to be persistent and have tough skin,” Kandel said, "On average I get ten to twenty rejection letters for every acceptance letter."

The Essays

According to Kandel, an essay follows a particular path on its way to publication. A writer submits an essay to a literary journal. If accepted it is published; if rejected, the writer submits it to another journal. Considering the volume of submissions each literary journal receives, having a piece published is certainly no small feat. Over the years, Kandel has seen her essays published in The Missouri Review, Gettysburg Review, River Teeth, Pinch, Image, and Brevity.

Next, a variety of anthology editors, each working to compile a collection of essays that focus on a certain theme or style, read through literary journals to select the pieces they feel represent the best writing for their particular anthology's theme. Kandel's writing has been included in two anthologies: “Best Spiritual Writing 2012” (Penguin Books) and “Becoming: What Makes a Woman” (University of Nebraska, 2012).

In addition to publication, Kandel was invited to read one of her essays at the AWP Seattle conference last year. AWP is the largest writing convention in the world with over 12,000 people in attendance.

The Journey

For Kandel, the writing journey began as a tangible way to help her son learn to read. As she explored what it meant to write essay and creative non-fiction, she had to figure out how to fit her writing into a life that included roles as wife, mother and teacher. This meant waking at 5 a.m. to spend four hours writing before emerging to fill her other roles. It was clear to Kandel that if she wanted to be a writer, she had to actually do the work. “A lot of people say they want to write, say they will write, say they are thinking about writing. Writers write. It's as simple and as hard as that.”

Writing was her time. She joked that while writing, she would often be so focused on her own thoughts that she was oblivious to the world around her. Her children learned to capitalize on her intense focus and ask for things―cookies for breakfast, watching a particular TV show―they knew may otherwise receive a “no” answer. Her ability to focus and do the hard work of writing paid off as many of her published works went to press while she was in the thick of parenting and homeschooling.

In 2007, Kandel's husband Hans accepted a job at NDSU and the family moved from Red Lake Falls to Fargo. The move provided two unique opportunities for her to use her gift of writing to impact others. Taking her own advice that writers have to write, she “picked up an Area Woman magazine at the grocery store and sent a letter asking if they needed another writer.” They did. One of her assignments was a story that required her to interview a woman who had been in jail. Kandel went to the jail, met the jail chaplain, and before long she began teaching journal writing to female inmates. Simultaneously, she began teaching creative writing to homeschool highschool students.

Writing through the stories brought me back to God in a deeper way.

As for the juxtaposition of these two groups, Kandel remarked, “Writing transcends the place and circumstances, and is a tool that allows people to think, consider and understand their own lives. We all carry stories that are difficult to talk about. Women who have lost children, have relatives incarcerated … You can stuff your story till you explode like a volcano. I get that. Writing is a release valve on the volcano. It takes things out of your head. Literally, out. You write it out.”

The Book

It is the hope of many writers that a time will come when holding a book with their own name on the cover will become a reality. For Kandel, that time is now. “So Many Africas: Six Years in a Zambian Village” now sits on nightstands and coffee tables, the words on the pages speaking of a time that was impossible to forget. "We lived for six years in Africa," Kandel said. "Our first two children were born in a village that was a ten hour canoe trip from the nearest neighbors. We lived twenty miles away from Angola, saw civil war, disease and starvation. There were few telephones. No Internet. What do you do with memories swirling in your head? This book is as much about Africa as it is about learning how to deal with difficult memories.” Writer Erika Harris said, “I write to mend those places that got snagged, ripped or frayed while being human, with other humans.” Kandel left Africa feeling snagged, ripped and frayed.

“Ralph Waldo Emerson said, 'All writing comes by the grace of God.' This is true in my life,” Kandel said. “I feel a definite calling to write. I grew up believing, but also thought that if I loved God, then my life would be happy. Africa confronted my beliefs. Could God still be good when life was so hard? Where was He? Writing through the stories brought me back to God in a deeper way. I don't have all the answers anymore. But I believe that God does.”

Kandel's book includes eight essays that had been previously published in journals. After doing the work of weaving these stand-alone essays into a cohesive story, the hard work of submitting the book began. There are two basic ways to pursue publication. Writers can hire agents who make contact with big publishing houses, such as Penguin. Or writers can pursue publication directly from small independent or university presses.

Autumn House Press is one such small independent press located in Pittsburgh. Once a year they hold a contest in three different categories: creative non-fiction, fiction and poetry. The winner in each category is awarded publication. Having submitted her book to other publishing houses and contests before, Kandel decided that this year she would enter the Autumn House Press Contest. So she sent off her manuscript. And then she, along with 3,000 other writers from around the country, just waited.

Life in the Kandel house went on as normal. Gardens were planted and tended. Ballet recitals were attended. Weddings were photographed. Kandel and her husband received a call from their oldest son Joren announcing the highly anticipated birth of their first grandson. Upon returning home at midnight from their first visit to hold their grandbaby, Kandel checked her email. Her inbox held an email from Autumn House Press―she was to call them. But, it was midnight. The call would have to wait. The next morning she spoke to Michael Simms, founder and editor-in-chief at Autumn House Press. Her book had won first place and been awarded the Autumn House 2014 Creative Nonfiction Prize. She became a grandma and got word that her book was selected for an award and publication within 24 hours. It was a good day.

From that moment until now, things have been in fast-forward. “Having your book published is like getting a new job that you haven't been trained for." For Kandel, it meant there was cover art to consider, and people to find to write blurbs for the cover of the book. There were fonts and photos to pick, and a synopsis to write. And then there was the editing. So much editing. She made a website and wrote a script for a book trailer that her son, Joren, created from old documents and 8 mm film. Her daughters, Kris and Anni, did a photo shoot, helped design bookmarks and business card. There are book signings to arrange and a book launch party to plan. And in the midst of it all, she's working on another book, continuing to teach classes, and preparing to speak at the next Creative Nonfiction Conference.

"One of my favorite quotes is from U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins, 'A sentence starts out like a lone traveler heading into a blizzard at midnight, tilting into the wind, one arm shielding his face, the tails of his thick coat flapping behind him.' Writing is like that. It's an act of faith. You never know how things are going to turn out. It's true, even in life. My son, Ben, who started me on this writing journey, is a wood craftsman now. He sells at Unglued and works for a cabinetry shop. And those difficult years in Africa produced a book. It's kind of amazing and wonderful. Writing is a gift God gave me and a calling. It's a solitary and disciplined profession. I put in the work and the hours. I try to be faithful. The rest is up to Him.” [AWM]

SCome and celebrate

with Kandel at her book launch party, February 27, 6:30 p.m. Enjoy some African coffee, a Q&A, and a photo booth at the River City Church space, 323 Main Avenue, Fargo.

Visit www.jillkandel.com to purchase a copy of "So Many Africas: Six Years in a Zambian Village," find additional information about local book signings, or view a two-minute book trailer.