What's your perception?

By Lonnie Cruse

Most of us have learned to trust our senses, sight, hearing, smell, etc. Trust what we sense going on around us. Things like that. But now and then our senses or perceptions can be fooled. Take what happened to me recently.

We had friends visiting right before Christmas. While we were showing them the fantastic murals painted on the flood wall in downtown Paducah, Kentucky, we happened to stop near the River Heritage Museum. The museum, located right behind the flood wall on the Ohio River, had closed for the day, so we continued admiring the flood wall murals, promising to visit the museum the next morning, before our friends headed out of town.

I'd not been to the museum before, but my hubby had taken our grandsons there one afternoon when he was babysitting alone because I had to be elsewhere. Entering the museum, we were greeted by a friendly lady at the desk. She gave us tips on what to look for and we started the tour. The first area visitors pass through contains fantastic models of many paddle wheel boats that no longer exist but were a major source of travel a hundred years ago. Personally, I love the old paddle wheel boats, particularly the still-going-strong Delta Queen, complete with calliope which can be heard for miles when she rolls into Paducah to dock from time to time.

We saw an antique diver's outfit, complete with lead shoes to hold the wearer down on the bottom of the river. Scary looking, must have been even scarier to wear.

The next area contained pictures of various former river captains who commanded various tow boats as they maneuvered up and down the Ohio River. Included was a picture of the first female river captain and her life story. As someone who's always wanted to see the river from a tow boat, that really captured my imagination.

Next we stepped into a different room where the lights dimmed, thunder rolled and "rain" began to pour out of the ceiling-painted like sky-onto a model of the Ohio River as it passes between Western Kentucky and Southern Illinois. The water imitated how the river and land handle heavy rain storms and run-off while a narrator explained.

Beyond that room we saw other water-driven exhibits and exhibits about the various fish and other inhabitants of the river. And there is a lovely movie theater area with a film about travel on the river, how important it was to trade in the past and how important it still is. River barges can still move far more tonage than trains or trucks, and do it much cheaper.

This museum is located in the oldest building in Paducah. Upstairs is an area with antique furniture, set aside for meetings and/or special occasions. I was immediately drawn to the windows which are above the flood wall, thus affording a wonderful view of the river and river traffic. It once served as a hotel. Imagine staying there!

We finally circled around to the simulation room and here enters my perception problem. In the simulation room, there are four large, long "windows" in front of which sits the same kind of equipment that one would use to operate a tow boat, a coast guard cutter, and/or a speed boat. Unfortunately for the two men in our party, the speed boat wasn't operating. They tackled the cutter and had it dashing up and down the river in quick time.

To get us started the museum receptionist/guide demonstrated how to operate the tow boat on the simulator. As soon as she got the tow boat moving I found myself swaying to and fro (port to starboard for you other boat lovers) in order to keep my balance because the room was swaying with the current. Or was it? I asked. She assured me it wasn't. I didn't believe her, so I moved to the wall and leaned against it, planting my feet firmly, so I could prove it was swaying. It wasn't.

She explained that the movement of the simulated boat in the simulated water tricked visitors' brains into thinking the room was swaying when it wasn't. I'da bet the farm the room moved. I'da lost. Which got me thinking. Thinking about simulators, IMAXs, Knottsberry Farm and other such foolers of our senses.

I've already told you what the simulator did to me, making me look like an idiot in front of our friends, swaying back and forth to keep my balance when the room wasn't actually moving (and no, I didn't ask if they felt it, I was too busy acting like I hadn't really done that.) And then there are the IMAX theaters where you feel like you are really flying the plane down into the Grand Canyon, so you grip the chair arms and try not to be air sick. And best of all there is that little bitty house inside Knottsberry Farm (California) where water actually runs uphill and people stand sideways on walls, stuff like that. Or do they? Sigh.




Oh, and before I forget, if you ever have a chance to pilot a tow boat either simulated or for real, be advised that response time is very slow. So, you turn the wheel, the boat continues straight, nothing happens, you turn more, still nothing happens, you turn again, and suddenly the boat begins to REALLY turn. In a circle. Not good on a busy river with a tow boat pushing anywhere from three to nine fully loaded barges, and there's that pesky couple of bridges with traffic on them, right smack in your way. So you quickly spin the wheel back, but how far do you turn it back before you realize you've over-corrected. So you over-correct again . . . and . . . sigh.

How are your perceptions in cases like this? Think they can't be fooled? Even when you know something in front of you isn't real? How about meeting me at the River Heritage Museum in Paducah, Kentucky? I'll make sure you get some quality time in the simulator. Better bring some camping gear. If you love the river like I do, you won't want to leave.

Interview with Carolyn Wall

Interviewed by Sandra Parshall

Carolyn Wall was happily anticipating publication of her first novel, Sweeping Up Glass, by Poisoned Pen Press when she received astonishing news: Bantam/Random House had bought the rights from PPP. The book has since been sold in a number of foreign countries for publication next year. Under the agreement, PPP retains the right to publish a 1,000-copy special edition next month.

Sweeping Up Glass isn’t crime fiction in any conventional sense, although crimes occur in the story, and Bantam will publish it as literary fiction. It’s told in the striking voice of Olivia Harker Cross, who struggles to keep a small grocery store going in rural Kentucky during the Depression, while she raises her grandson, looks after her mentally ill mother, and tries to protect the silver-faced wolves that are being killed by hunters on her land. Olivia’s poor, segregated community hides devastating secrets, and when the silence is broken the truth threatens to destroy Olivia unless she finds the strength to fight for herself and for the very people who have betrayed her.

Carolyn is a freelance writer and lives in Oklahoma. I recently talked with her about the unexpected turn in her career and how it has affected her life.


What an exciting time this must be for you! How did you find out about Bantam’s offer? What was your first reaction? How have your family and friends reacted?

I didn’t know anything about all this until the deals were well underway, some of them completed -- and thank goodness! Robert [Rosenwald, publisher of Poisoned Pen Press] called me and asked if I was sitting down. So I sat. In the days following that phone call, my feelings were divided into three categories: Well, sure (I’d put in my three million words and always believed I’d write a bestseller), Still grinding away (scrambling for freelance work, putting together writing classes, couldn’t stop struggling uphill) and What’s my name? (often accompanied by What town is this?)

My family and friends have cheered and cried and thrown parties and dinners and celebrated. My family has smiled so much, I suspect their faces hurt.

When do you expect the Bantam edition to be published? Will it be hardcover or paperback?

Bantam’s edition will first be hardcover and then paperback. I don’t know for sure, but I’d look for Glass in hardcover early next summer. The deal also involves a second novel, hardcover and then paperback.

You’ve already been through the editing process with PPP. Is the book being re-edited at Bantam? Since you submitted the book to PPP, a mystery publisher, I assume you think of it as a mystery, but Bantam will publish it as literary fiction. Will the two versions be substantially different?

Bantam will look to see if they want revisions. My editor, Kate Miciak, told one of the overseas publishers that she’d “read it with her heart, now she would read it with her head.” Truly, I don’t expect much in the way of change, but you never know, and I’m willing to try things. I’m not surprised that the book will be considered literary fiction. I’ve always thought of it as “suspense,” murder included.

What was the inspiration for the story? Were you already familiar with the setting and the time period, or did you have to do quite a bit of research?

In the book, Olivia’s life is much like mine was, at least until she is nine or ten – although at that time I hadn’t been born yet, and I’m not from Kentucky. But those and a few other fictionalizations gave me a cushion for a very painful story. From then on, we pick up more fiction, lots of symbolism. And yes, I researched the time period and the place.

Where does the title come from?

The title is the story’s theme: You think all the bad things have happened, and you’ve swept up the glass. But the hard stuff keeps coming – what do you want to do? Keep on sweeping, or take a stand?

Was this the first novel you’d written? If not, would you tell us about your previous efforts to break into print?

While this is my first novel to be sold, I wrote three “learning books”. It takes a while to figure it out. Meanwhile, I sold hundreds of articles and short stories. But when I sat down to write my first scene from Glass, I knew it was gold. I just knew.

What is your day job?

I've been a freelance writer for a long time. For fourteen years I was senior staff writer for the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum -- I still write for them -- and fiction editor for Byline magazine for writers. I teach writing to kids and adults, run a prison-writer mentoring service and an editorial service. So I write or edit or teach most of every day. When I've had enough, however, I pack lunch in my purse and go to the movies.

What do you believe are your greatest strengths as a writer? What aspects of craft are you still trying to master?

I guess my strengths lie in "falling into" my characters. I'm working on the pacing and insertion of clues -- how many revelations, when and where.

What writers have inspired you and taught you by example? Whose books do you rush to read as soon as they’re published?

I read everything by James Lee Burke, most of Dean Coontz, all of Diane Mott Davidson. I always loved Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, but my favorite is Lalita Tademy's Cane River.

What’s next for you? Are you working on a new book now? Can you give us a hint of what it’s about?

I'm currently finishing The Coffin Maker, the second book that was part of this "sold package". It's about a woman who builds coffins in her barn in south Texas. The fancy, inlaid, hammered ones are sold across the south as armoires, bridal chests, gun cabinets, coffee tables. But the plain jane models have another purpose. This story is about wrongs that were -- and still are -- perpetrated in Mexico, and how, sometimes, things have to be made right.

Will you be doing any signings and conferences where readers can meet you after the Poisoned Pen Press edition of Sweeping Up Glass comes out?

I'm signing books at The Poisoned Pen [bookstore, in Scottsdale, AZ] the third weekend in August -- check their website --and here in Oklahoma City at Full Circle Bookstore, 50 Penn Place, on Saturday, August 9 at 3 p.m.

In parting, do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

Oh boy, that's winding me up and turning me on! Well -- write. Write about yourself, your family, your boss, your local supermarket opening. A new ad for your toothpaste tube. Develop an awareness of your presence in every single moment, and your own opinion. And read. Listen to every teacher within reach -- you can sort it all out later and decide what's right for you. Don't ever let anyone tell you you can't. Pretend you're Alice, and go bravely down the rabbit hole.