Christine Bennett

Interview

2011-07-10T11:24:00.000-04:00

Latest Book: Now Available; Summer 2011

Other Books

Sparkling Waters ~ Memories of a Muskoka Childhood (2007)

Enjoy a little girl’s experiences of the people, places, and social fabric of village life in Ontario in the 1940s and early 1950s ~ Steamships and Nostalgia.

Reviewer Angelica Blenich, of The Muskokan Magazine, wrote:

Bennett makes the stories intriguing and interesting. She brings the characters to life – a valuable asset not lost on the reader. As if setting scenes in a colorful novel, Bennett brings you back to the quaint post office in town, or to her small family kitchen where she savored her mother’s ‘real Italian spaghetti.’

Ms. Bennett’s memoir may be read as a companion-piece for James K. Bartleman’s two memoirs of his younger days, Raisin Wine and Out of Muskoka. The two authors are of an age, and grew up in neighboring houses, were playmates, classmates, and sometimes rivals.

Q&A: Memories of a Muskoka Childhood

QUESTION: Your childhood memoir was the first book you brought out, in 2007, but you’ve been writing all your life. How did you finally break into print?

CB: In 2002, when I was living in Athens, Ohio, I joined a writers’ club. Several of the members had jointly self-published a collection of their writing, and the book came out just as I joined the group. I thought: If they can do it, I can do it.

That was the beginning; but what made it all come together into a childhood memoir, was two workshops run by a local poet, Wendy McVicker.

Essentially, my childhood memoir is a ‘how-to’ book. It outlines how to write a childhood memoir, and the writers’ group showed me how to self-publish what I had written. It was a real kick-start for me, and burgeoning computer technology allowed the result to come together into ‘a real book.’ In 2007, I was nudged into self-publishing when favorite author Donald E. Westlake told readers who were writing to him, requesting copies of his books: “Even I can’t get copies of my own books!”

The Flamingo Motel (2008)

Ms. Bennett has described The Flamingo Motel as a subversive fairy tale for grown-ups. The central character, Marjorie, learns to live her life from the perspective of a new set of principles, and she has a good time doing it. Marjorie has been described as a harbinger of the new women of the new millennium.

A reviewer who must remain anonymous (J.C.T., the author of a marriage manual), has written:

The Flamingo Motel is a whole new world. It is heady stuff, heart-felt stuff, and fun; an enjoyable trip in many ways, down many roads, and down a few garden paths. My publisher won’t let me plug a self-published novel (Gee, I wonder why?), but I love this lady’s sass! I couldn’t have done better myself, and when I can’t get copies of my own books, sometimes I wish I had!

Q&A: The Flamingo Motel

QUESTION: In The Flamingo Motel, how much of the primary protagonist, Marjorie, is you?

CB: Not much at all, but Marjorie and I were born in the same decade, and that contributes to a sense of similarity.

QUESTION: Specifically, did any of the incidents in The Flamingo Motel happen to you?

CB: No. I have a very useful imagination.

Nelson County Mystery (2009)

Jake has recently moved from ‘the city’ to ‘the island.’ He wants to fit in, and be one of the regulars at The Hub Restaurant. The local residents are people he would like to have as his friends and neighbors… except that one of them is trying to kill people!

A disappearing cocktail waitress leads Jake into a life of crime. He saves the life of a mysterious red-haired beauty, and a gorgeous Italian hairdresser offers to give him a close shave with her father’s straight razor.

Q&A: Nelson County Mystery

QUESTION: In Nelson County Mystery, how much of the female protagonist, Lois, is you?

CB: Little bits here and there, but most of it is fictitious – I’m not as adventuresome as Lois. Mostly I just write for excitement.

QUESTION: Some people in Wellington think you have put them in Nelson County Mystery without asking their permission.

CB: I have written permission from all of the people who appear in Nelson County Mystery. All of the other characters are purely figments of my imagination. That said, any person can look at almost any character in fiction and find some sort of parallels.

QUESTION: Specifically, did any of the incidents in Nelson County Mystery happen to you?

CB: Not really. Some of the elements of the crimes are things I have read about, in newspapers, but mostly it’s a product of my imagination.

Un-Oaked Chardonnay (2010)

Lois Bramley rushes in where angels fear to tread, and not always for the best reasons; just ask her friend, Jake Maywood. Not too long ago, she got him to drive the getaway truck when she committed a crime (in Nelson County Mystery, the first book in the Nelson County Wine and Mystery series), and now Lois may lead other friends down even slipperier slopes when she gets tangled up with a winery-based money-laundering scheme.

Wine-making competition is heating up, and when the body of a rival vigneron is discovered in an unusual place, Lois may have a hard time staying out of trouble, or even out of danger. Not all of the people she is meeting as she embarks on her new career as a winemaker are what she thinks they are, and one of them may be a killer.

Newcomers to the village of Wellesley include a runaway bride, an artfully unshaven winemaker, a mysterious vigneron, five strangely reticent vineyard workers, a sinister man in a large black SUV, and a mischievous furry fellow. Lois and Jake, along with Harold and the band chief, as well as the regulars at The Hub Restaurant, find that things are changing in Nelson County.

Q&A: Un-Oaked Chardonnay

QUESTION: In Un-Oaked Chardonnay, have you based the fictitious wineries on any local wineries in particular?

CB: Not really, although I was first introduced to a fabulous unoaked Chardonnay wine by Nicole and the two Pauls at Casa Dea Estates Winery, and my reaction was, like Lois’s, a lot like love at first sip.

QUESTION: That more or less takes care of the good winery, now, give us some juicy gossip: On which winery did you base the bad winery in your book?

CB: Sorry to disappoint you, but I based the bad winery on information garnered from newspaper articles. Let’s just say that the newspaper articles were about wineries in another country, and leave it at that.

QUESTION: Is there a local basis for the character of Delfie Brandt, the chief of the local Nelson County First Nation’s band?

CB: Delfie is entirely fictitious, with one caveat: She has become such a strong mental image for me, that when I find myself in need of advice, I try to look at the world through her eyes.

QUESTION: Delfie is a First Nations’ woman. By what right do you, a woman of apparently Anglo-Saxon background, put yourself into her mind?

CB: Anglo-Saxon-Celt. I think being part Celt helps me get into other mind-sets; but more that that, one of my personal role models, from my childhood, is Mrs. Maureen Bartleman. She is the mother of my playmates, Janet and Jimmy Bartleman, and she and her husband, Percy, introduced me to First Nations’ perspectives.

Strange Fruit (Summer 2011)

Another departure from the Nelson County Wine and Mystery series, Strange Fruit is a collection of short stories about women and men and social transition.

The title is a take-off from that song, Strange Fruit (most significantly recorded by Billie Holliday), which itself came from a poem by Abel Meeropol (first published in The New Masses, in 1936). The reader can, at this writing, find the text and information through Wikipedia; and through You Tube, can hear and watch Miss Holliday’s rendition.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs

There’s also that particular use of the word ‘fruit,’ or sometimes ‘fruititive activities’ or, more commonly, karma, as in Hindu philosophy, and described as “varied creation by the force of material consciousness.*” In other words, the sure knowledge that effects to our soul, and to possible future incarnations, of our actions in this life, trail after us like a miasmic cloud.

Ms. Bennett is quoted:

When I come right down to it, I believe that I write subversive fairy tales for modern revolutionaries; and I like that film, Still Crazy (1998, Columbia Pictures). It reassures me that it is possible to be cool, and to begin all over again after middle age, as a “Strange Fruit.

This is a collection of short stories about, in Ms. Bennett’s phraseology: “post-patriarchal society.”

She states:

Forget post-industrial society; it didn’t turn out all that well anyway. Here, in twenty stories of diverse types and lengths, is the inside track on the dawning of post-patriarchal society, with some of its possibilities for personal evolution and social revolution.

About the stories:

How can a man meet the girl of his dreams?

Should a woman answer a “Companion Wanted” ad?

How do you cope with losing your love?

What if you meet that someone special… 25 years too late?

How do you deal with slick sales-talk?

Like Miss Marian, some of us learn from our fathers.

Some of us, like Martha, are plump and patient.

Like Emmaline, many of us bloom late in life.

Even if we think we’re worn out, our old skills are useful.

There’s always a chance we could meet a guru.

Vampires have their own way of coping with changing times.

Have you loved an old white mare? Or maybe a dog or two?

Have you heard the jingle of horse-harness on a frosty night?

There’s a story about an unusual call to 911, and another about a night out with the girls that takes an unexpected turn.

In one of the stories, a hunter learns about the other side of the equation, and in another a mother loses her soldier-son.

Join two mountain-climbers ~ in the middle of the city ~ and finally, live out someone’s dream of freedom.

Q&A: Strange Fruit

QUESTION: Most of the stories in Strange Fruit are obviously about a change in social consciousness, and may even be called ‘feminist,’ but how do you justify the inclusion of the story titled “The Snow Queen’s Ride”?

CB: “The Snow Queen’s Ride” is an example of patriarchy at its very best. Angus is the quintessential benevolent patriarch – honorable, and responsible. Millie, his wife, and Beatrice, his sister, are respected and honored as persons of value.

QUESTION: How would you describe the other stories in the ‘Strange Fruit’ collection?

CB: The three longer stories in the collection, Entranced, Companion Wanted, and The Assault on Mount Lonely, should provide almost every reader with a few hours of pleasant reading, although if you are looking for what I consider to be the theme of the collection, a certain world view, an awareness of the division between women’s world view and men’s world view, or perhaps an explication or juxtaposition of two mutually incompatible world views, which I’ll call ‘systemic irony’, you can find it there, in those three stories, and perhaps even more so in Martha, Jewels, Poison Ivy, and Dinner with the Girls.

Midsummer Moon, Gun Season, Heroes, and Take-Leave feature four women who take things into their own hands, undertake actions based on the difference between women’s and men’s world views, and make fairly strong statements about the changing balance in relationships between women and men.

On the other hand, The Reviewers, Spares and Misses, and Over the River show what can happen when men lose the women who are important to them.

The story, Casino, makes a social comment about the loss of that world which is portrayed in The Snow Queen’s Ride, and Standard Shift is another comment on changes and changing times. Interlude was written for pure fun, and Unicorn Summer, like The Snow Queen’s Ride, is nostalgia for what was good about the pastoral patriarchy of the 1950s, the late 1940s, and possibly as far back as our rural ancestry goes.

Future Books

QUESTION: What have you got in the works?

Blueberry Wine

CB: For the autumn of 2011, I have the third book in the Nelson County Wine & Mystery series: Blueberry Wine. In Blueberry Wine, it looks like Lois is being seduced into a commune that grows illegal crops. Harold and Jake have reason worry about her safety when two of the women members are murdered.

Stella

CB: Stella is a novel about village life in Ontario in the 1950s. It takes place in one year in the life of a young woman in Pine Narrows, a mythical village in the mythical county of Mustawassan.

On writing, and in general

QUESTION: Where do you get your ideas?

CB: Sometimes ideas just pop into my head, and sometimes the characters themselves take over, and make conversation with each other.

Question: How do you write?

CB: I sit down and write, the way I walk or breathe, or do anything else that is necessary. It's what I do. If I don't write, I get unhappy; I start to suffocate and atrophy. I suppose I might even just lie down and die if I couldn’t write. I would rather write than go to a party. I would rather write than go shopping. I would rather write to do housework. But sometimes I need to do housework or go shopping, and sometimes I need a break from writing. There was one thing I enjoyed almost as much as writing, and that was teaching.

QUESTION: Is writing like teaching?

CB: I don't know. Do you learn things when you read my books?

QUESTION: Did you teach writing?

CB: Yes. In elementary school, and secondary school, in college, and in graduate school. It wasn't always called "writing;" sometimes it was called "English," or "producing a paper" - something like that.

QUESTION: Do you have any advice for other writers?

CB: Yes, writing is like a muscle, you have to use it every day.

QUESTION: What made you first think of taking up writing?

CB: I was a solitary, quiet child. For a while, my parents were almost constantly on the move. I guess writing was a substitute for siblings and friends. I have written stories and poems since I was eight or nine.

QUESTION: How may books have you written?

CB: As of July 1st, 2011, I have five books in print, one that's almost ready to be printed, two that need more work, enough short stories to make one or two volumes, and enough poems to make one or two volumes. So, let's see; more than ten books, not all of which are finished, by any means!

QUESTION: How much money do you make?

CB: As of 2011, I will be almost covering my printing costs. I'm hoping to make more money when my husband and I establish a web presence, and start promoting my books.

QUESTION: Which of your books do you like best?

CB: They are all different. I like the childhood memoir as a memoir; it’s a girl’s-eye view of an era that usually comes down to us through men’s eyes. Each one of the mysteries is slightly different, so each one is a favorite of its kind. I like the novel as a novel. It got for me my very best review: “I loved it even more the second time I read it!” To be told that your book is worth re-reading is the best compliment any writer can receive. The book of short stories is provocative. I’ve been told by my ‘test readers’ that the stories made them laugh, cry, and feel good. And each one of my books has received the praise of “I stayed up all night to finish it!” from at least one reader.

Question: Will your other books feature any of our local residents?

CB: I’m thinking of running a lottery. People who would like to appear in future books could submit their names. I could interview the winners, and write them into the plot.

* Page143, His Divine Grace, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1972), Bhagavad-Gita As It Is Abridged Edition. Los Angeles: The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust

Un-Oaked Chardonnay

2010-12-10T14:26:00.002-05:00

Welcome to Nelson County

All of us here in the county hope you enjoy your visit,

and we invite you to try our very own

Un-Oaked Chardonnay

a nice little local wine… with body.

Lois Bramley will admit unabashedly to being a flawed human being. She rushes in where angels fear to tread, and not always for the best reasons; just ask her friend, Jake Maywood. Not too long ago, she got him to drive the getaway truck when she committed a crime (in Nelson County Mystery, the first book in the Nelson County series), and now Lois may lead other friends down even slipperier slopes when she gets tangled up with a winery-based money-laundering scheme.

Lois wants to be a winemaker, and she will have to learn patience, among other things. She has a chance of succeeding with her winery because the wines of Nelson County have been ‘discovered’ by wine lovers. Wine-making competition is heating up, and when the body of a rival vigneron is discovered in an unusual place, Lois may be in for the biggest lesson of her life. She may have a hard time staying out of trouble, or even out of danger. Not all of the people she is meeting as she embarks on her new career as a winemaker are what she thinks they are, and one of them may be a killer.

The Hub Restaurant serves up good food, and better gossip. The policeman is a resident of the local Indian Reservation. Newcomers to the village of Wellesley include a runaway bride, an artfully unshaven winemaker, a mysterious vigneron, five strangely reticent vineyard workers, a sinister man in a large black SUV, and a mischievous furry fellow. Lois and Jake, along with Harold and the band chief, as well as the regulars at The Hub Restaurant, find that things are changing in Nelson County.

Nelson County Mystery

2009-11-28T10:55:00.000-05:00

Nelson County Mystery
Jake Maywood had reason to fear he was about to be fired, but when his friend was fired instead, Jake took a hard look at his life.
He decided to try starting over.

Welcome to Nelson County

The Hub Restaurant serves up good food, and better gossip. The policeman is a resident of the Indian Reservation. A disappearing cocktail waitress leads Jake into a life of crime, he saves the life of a mysterious red-haired beauty, and a gorgeous hairdresser offers to give him a close shave with her father's straight razor. Jake want to fit in, and be one of the regulars at The Hub Restaurant. The local residents are people he would like to have as his friends and neighbours... Except that one of them is trying to kill people!

Nelson County Mystery...

Business in the county is booming, literally. Businesses are being blown up. Several people have disappeared. Is murder being covered up?

The Flamingo Motel

2009-11-05T09:45:00.005-05:00

The Flamingo Motel

When "and they lived happily ever after" falls apart, what's a gal going to do?

Marjorie is in her forties when her husband leaves her and sets up housekeeping with his secretary. Marjorie is overweight, broke, and a slave to her children. When she inherits a motel in California, she sheds her old self as she and her sixteen-year-old daughter drive across the country to a new life.

The Flamingo Motel is a subversive fairy tale for grown-up women. Marjorie blossoms into a woman who is a person in her own right, and is no longer defined by her relationship to a man. She discovers that the word 'duty' takes on a new meaning as she learns to live her life from the perspective of a new set of principles, and she has a good time doing it.

The Great Fairy God-Mother has provided a cradle-gift for a middle-aged woman's rebirthing ~ and perhaps for the advent of a new world. Marjorie is a harbinger of the new women of the new millennium.

J.C.T. (Author of a marriage manual) praises The Flamingo Motel:

"The Flamingo Motel is a whole new world. It is heady stuff, heart-felt stuff, and fun; an enjoyable trip in many ways, down many roads, and down a few garden paths. My publisher won't let me plug a self-published novel (Gee, I wonder why) but I love this lady's sass! I couldn't have done better myself, and when even I can't get copies of my own books, sometimes I wish I had [self-published]."

Memories of a Muskoka Childhood

2009-05-13T10:00:00.004-04:00

Muskoka Memories

Welcome to the Muskoka of our dreams, and the magical childhood we all remember when we’re feeling mellow. The music of piano and violin drift across the water from the fantail of The Sagamo, steaming sturdily past the distant mouth of the bay. Wavelets chuckle through the crib-work of the dock. The family launch heaves gently at her moorings in the dim, green light of the boathouse. The wind sighs through the pines and sings in the trailing branches of the big elm-trees. The striped canvas hammock sways gently to and fro. The sparkling waters dazzle your vision, and your eyes slowly close. An illustrated copy of Anne of Green Gables, or a Hardy Boys adventure, or a Nancy Drew mystery, or perhaps a novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs or Zane Grey, falls to your chest, and you snooze away the golden afternoon.

Miss Bennett tells it like it was – if you were fortunate enough to be a child in Muskoka in the days when the passenger ships steamed the lakes, mothers wore stockings and cooked meals from scratch, and fathers played baseball on Sunday afternoons.

“Childhood days in Muskoka … The 1940s and 1950s are gone, but, like the slap of Harper Lee’s screen door in To Kill a Mockingbird, Miss Bennett’s photos and memories of Muskoka and its sparkling waters evoke a time remembered.”
James Louis Heap, Author, Everybody’s Canada

“A wonderful lyrical addition to the history of a Muskoka that no longer exists”
James Bartleman, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario
Author, Out of Muskoka and Raisin Wine

“A thoroughly engaging autobiography of an observant and reflective little girl”
Jamie Griggs Tevis, Author, My Life with the Hustler
Co-author, Pickin’ Fleas

“The best d----d book about childhood in Muskoka that I ever read.”
Robert W. Bennett, Author, An Extraordinary Life,
Bindle Stiff: Autobiography of a Super Hobo

"Through storytelling, folklore and anecdotes Christine Bennett paints the portrait of a luminous Muskoka, and of sparkling waters traveled by disappearing propeller boats. Rising out of the mist on the lakes is a vision of Muskoka’s humble roots and brilliant natural beauty that takes us beyond the current glitz and glamour."
Jennifer Cobb, Author, Cumulative Worth, Contributor, Three Ring Circus, and Far From Home

“The texture of a Muskoka childhood”
“An era in Muskoka’s history”