 Welcome to Moments with Melinda. I am your host, Melinda Moulton, and my guest today is Luella Bryant, who is an author, a Vermont author, who has just written a book called Beside the Long River, which we're going to talk about today. And Luella's allows me to use her name, Allie, so I'm going to call you Allie during our interview. How are you? I'm great. Thanks. And you? I'm great. I am so glad that you're taking this time on this beautiful Saturday afternoon to talk with me and my viewers about your work over the years and your accomplished career. And so let's jump right in, because we only have a half an hour. So Allie, talk a little bit about who you are, where you come from, what brought you to Vermont, and maybe a little bit about who inspired you to do the work that you do. Hmm. Well, I grew up about six miles outside Washington, D.C. in Falls Church, Virginia. And it was a wonderful place to grow up, because, you know, the field trips in fifth grade were to the Capitol and the White House and the archives and all that. And I thought everyone had that opportunity. And my father was a poet, and he taught me to love words. So my bedtime reading was Longfellow's song of Hiawatha and, you know, a lot of choleridge and classic poetry. So I grew up with words in my head. And I thought at some point I should write them down. So that's kind of how I got started. And I moved to Vermont in 1975, following, you know, the Trail of Love that many of us did and settled first in North Hero, which is a long way from anything. And then eventually, we found our way to Lincoln, Vermont, where we now live in the woods. And I still feel like a long way from anything. But that's a great place for a writer to write, because it's quiet. And maybe you can hear the snow dripping onto the deck as it melts off the roof. But other than that, there's not much noise. And my husband is a hockey player, and he's playing pond hockey right now. So the house is quiet. So that's how I got to Vermont. And you were a teacher. You're a teacher. I taught high school English at Mount Mansfield High School for 25 years. And then after I had written a couple of books, I was hired to teach at Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky, in their low residency program. So I was able to work from home and then go to Louisville, which is by the way, a wonderful city, twice a year for two weeks, and meet with students and give lectures and lead workshops and that sort of thing. And I did that for 12 years. And now I work as an independent writer or an independent editor in Vermont. And right now I'm working for Black Lawrence Press, which is a press in New York. And I'm doing editing for them for just for the month of February. So I'm still working and enjoying every minute of playing with words. Well, writing is working. Right? You know, it really is hard work. And I keep saying, why do I do it? You know, but interestingly, Cowboy Code, which was published a couple of years ago, took me 20 years to write. And I would write it and then I would change the point of view and change the point of view again. And at that point, I had written four or five books. And I couldn't get Cowboy Code published. And so I pretty much gave up and I found a website that said, if you have a book that you want to get published, put an excerpt of it here and we'll take a look at it. And I forget even what the name of the website was. So about six months went by and the publisher Black Rose Writing contacted me and said, we want to read this whole manuscript. And I sent it to them and they wrote back and said, we want to publish it. And I said, what? Really? Oh, okay. So they now have published three books for me. And all my books are published through traditional publishers. I don't self publish because I taught at the university level and they frown on self publishing. So I feel like I've been really lucky in that regard, except two of my publishers have shut down. So three of the books are out of print. New England Press went down. And then the publisher of my little picture book, Nordic Press, also shut down. And I begged her to keep going. And she said, I'm 83. That's enough. So I couldn't talk her into hanging around a little bit longer. Publishing industry is changing. And it can be really frustrating. And I just feel like I've been really charmed with my career in publishing. Well, Tracks in the Snow, I would love to have a copy of your book and may perhaps maybe you could self publish the books that that now are not being published. So, Ellie, I would love it if you could go through and briefly talk about the books that you've written. I printed them off of your website. And just tell us, you know, about each book and what and what they're about. For my viewers who might want to read more of your work other than your most recent piece beside the Long River. Could you do that for us? Sure, sure. The Black Bondite was actually really a very popular book. And it was a finalist for the Vermont Book Award. And this book wrote itself. And I don't say that lightly. But my son was in eighth grade at Edmunds Middle School. And he had to write a paper. And he chose to do it on the Underground Railroad. So I went with him on a field trip to the Converse home in Burlington. And we went down to the basement where supposedly fugitive slaves were hidden. And something happened to me in that basement. And I heard this voice. I just got this cold chill that you do when there's a ghost in the room. And this voice said, write my story. And I said, I'm a teacher. I don't have time to write. And I just kept hearing this voice. And it wouldn't leave me alone until I sat down in this book, poured out of me. So I swear I didn't write it, even though my name is on it. And it was the bestseller for New England Press for several years. It's now out of print. But I'm in the process of adapting it because it came out in 1996. I'm adapting it as an ebook. And then I may go to iUniverse or one of those self publishers. Generally, if a book has been traditionally published, you can self publish it under another name with the with a note inside that said where it was originally published. And that book was this is about, it's kind of the story of me, because I grew up in Northern Virginia and moved to Vermont. And it's the story of a multiracial girl mixed race, who leaves a Virginia plantation and comes to Vermont on her way to Canada on the Underground Railroad. So it's kind of relevant is how relevant is that story today? Well, that story caused a lot of controversy among people who didn't believe the Underground Railroad really existed. And there was a book called Fugitive Slaves published by John Hope Franklin, who argued with me I met him, we had breakfast together. And he said, white people didn't help black people escape slavery. Black people helped themselves. And there's a lot of truth in that. And I think there's, you know, there was a give and take. I think both those ideas are true. The blacks did help themselves. And whites, white people also help them as well. Conductors on the Underground Railroad. And there was a new TV series that just came out called the Underground Railroad as well. I think that story right now is about is an important story. So how about a few of your the other books you've written? Well, I also published through New England Press father by blood, which is the story of John Brown, and his raid on the Harpers Ferry armory. And the reason I was interested in this book was because we used to when I was a child, we used to take Sunday drives to Harpers Ferry from Northern Virginia, and have picnics there. So I don't know how I feel about John Brown having been over there and visited his homestead. He he's still kind of a mythical mystical character. And some people think he was nuts. And some people think he was a savior. So my idea is to just tell these stories and find out what, you know, who who was helping in the cause of abolition, and who was standing in the way. So those two books were set, both of them were set in the pre Civil War era. And I'm very interested in that era because my great, great, great grandfather fought in the Civil War, and he fought for the South ironically. And that's documented in this memoir called Hot Springs in Moonshine Liquor, which was published by Black Rose Writing. Supposedly it's a fun read. Everyone says it's about making moonshine and my trying to make moonshine and my drinking moonshine and my ancestors making moonshine. And the picture on the front is Willie Carter Sharp, who is the most notorious moonshine driver, like driver in the history of prohibition. And she finally was arrested. And I'm going to tell her story too before I'm done because it's an interesting one. And then I did write a not another nonfiction book called While in Darkness, There is Light. And this one is about Howard Dean's brother, Charlie Dean, who was killed by the Patat Lau in 1974 in Laos. And he, Charlie was really good friends with my husband. So it's about Charlie's story and these wealthy young men who became expatriates during the Vietnam War and their pictures of them inside. And I think this is probably my favorite book, my best book. I mean, here they were, they were all prep school boys until they ended up in Australia. And then they became sort of hippies. There's, I think there's a picture of them in here with long hair and bandanas wrapped around their heads. And, well, Linda, you probably remember that period, right? I lived it. Yes. You lived it. Yes. Well, they lived it in Australia. And unfortunately, it has a really tragic ending. Charlie was executed by the Patat Lau in 1974 after he was held in a rainforest prison camp for three months. And Howard went over there several times to try to find Charlie's remains and finally did find them while he was running for president in 2003. And he wrote the forward to the book. So it's crazy and tragic. And there's adventure and a lot of sadness. So during that time, you would find you might find this book interesting. Well, or even now, is it still in print? Is that is it still? Oh, good. This is published by Black Lawrence Press in New York. And, and this book is still in print. And it's you can get it on Amazon or Barnes and Noble or any indie bookseller. And I really highly recommend this book. It's cautionary. The boys where Charlie was 24 and the Australian boy who was killed with him had just turned 21. So we've all been there. And we know that we make some tragic mistakes. And Charlie made a very tragic mistake. So that's an encabelle code which I've talked about a little bit. And that leads us to Beside the Long River. Now, before you move into that, Ellie, smart viewers, I'm talking to Luella Bryant, who's a Vermont author and writer who has written quite a few fabulous books, which we're reviewing here. I also want to talk a little bit, Ellie, very quickly about the awards that you've received. You received the 2002 Vermont NEA Human and Civil Rights Award, the Lynn Stenger Kingdom Award in short fiction, the Ralph Nading Hill Award for short story relating to Vermont, the Southwest Writers Award for nonfiction, the Premier Award for fiction, and the Silver Bay Children's Literature Award. And you were finalist for Vermont Book Award, Dana Ward, Ray Carver Award, the Ruth Hinman Foundation Award, a board short story. Go on, the Exeter Award. So you are an award winning author. And now you're going to share with us a little bit about your new book Beside the Long River. Take it away. It seems like most of my books relate to people who are compromised in some ways, people who are oppressed in many ways, people who have been victims of prejudice. And my father-in-law, my husband's stepfather, started writing a book about his ancestors. And he asked me to help him write it. And so I wrote the first chapter, which was about his, the Lyman family coming to the New World in 1632. And he didn't like my writing. And so he fired me and found somebody else to write his book. And he ended up writing the book and publishing it. And I said, I like this story, the Lymans were a family who came from England and they had five children. And I fell in love with the daughter, Sarah, who was a teenager. And I asked Steve if I could, if I could have that story and write it. And he gave me permission. And, and as I got into the story about Sarah, and from what I read about her, she was, she was feisty and, and very independent. She was a Puritan, but she wasn't sure what this whole state of grace was about that you were supposed to achieve. So I thought the idea of the book would be Sarah's attempt to find grace. And what I discovered is that the Lyman family went with Thomas Hooker in 1636 to Saddle Hartford, Connecticut. And in that year, the Pequot Indians were infringing on the Europeans property. And they had to be extinguished because they were a threat. And I realized that her older brother Richard was the age probably to go into the infantry. He was 18 or 19 at that point. And so I sent, I dressed Sarah up as a boy and sent her with her brother to this battlefield. And her idea was to stop the execution of the Pequot nation of Indians. And the end of the, the upshot is in the Pequot war, if you know anything about that, which happened in Mystic, Connecticut. 600 Indians were killed, mostly women and children and elderly. The others were taken captive and given to the Narragansets and the Algonquins as slaves. And the entire Pequot nation was wiped out. And so what I realized was that Sarah had to be involved in this somehow. And the whole idea was of course, manifest destiny. The English were on a mission from God to settle the entire continent. And if Indians got in the way, they had to be killed. And we know about, you know, the Battle of the Little Big Horn and, and all of these battles that were just horrific. And we know what's happened to the natives today. So there is the idea of it's, it's time to tell the truth about American history. And this is an ugly truth, but it's a truth that really needs, in my opinion, to be told. And I've tried to tell it in a way that is somewhat uplifting, because Sarah, at the end, does find a state of grace. And she rescues this one Pequot brave. And they go off together with her younger brother, John, at the end of the story. And I don't know, maybe there'll be a sequel to it. But Well, that was, that was a question that I had here. So I wanted to ask you, did you have any familiarity with the 1400 English author, Jeffrey Chaucer, in his book, Canterbury Tales, perhaps you can describe how his work is used in this book, Beside the Long River? Well, my, I went to George Washington University and my major was, was English literature. And of course, I fell in love with Chaucer. And as I was writing Beside the Long River, a friend gave me a copy of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, which I hadn't read since, since college. And I thought, well, what if Sarah had a copy of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales? And there are all sorts of stories, they're on this, you know, pilgrimage. And the limans actually take a pilgrimage from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, where they began to Hartford Connecticut. And so I sent her on a pilgrimage. And so the book is, is peppered with quotations from the Canterbury Tales. And a lot of the night's tale is about, is about war and fighting. So I found a lot of similarities and places where I can plug in those those quotations. And I tried to use Chaucer's English. And then as E.B. White does in Charlotte's web, we sort of have her interpret what that old English actually means. So I hope that's effective. It's beautifully done. I think it gives a little depth. So beautifully done. So Ellie, you paint this era of the 1600s so realistically, can you explain how you were able to do that? Well, because I majored in Elizabethan literature. And earlier than that, you know, I could scan a Petrarchan sonnet for you right now. Or in fact, two of my two of my I don't think I told you was two of my English two of my Elizabethan sonnets were actually chosen to be included in an anthology published by a bookstore in Connecticut. So I write sonnets and I love sonnets. And and I just feel like part of me actually is is has lived through that era because I was so immersed in it when I was in college. So it's really eager to do the story, which gave me a chance to talk about the the clothing and especially about some of the early American ways of life, you know, how they survived and what they had to deal with like the wolves taking their chickens at night and and how they dealt with the Native Americans who sometimes the Native Americans were really helpful to them. And sometimes they felt some people felt threatened by them. So that of course was not part of my Elizabethan studies. But to think of the the English putting themselves in this foreign territory. It was like a Virginia girl moving to Vermont, the mountains of Vermont. You know, how do I, I never know, I'm a city girl. And here I am living in the woods. And, you know, there are bears and coyotes out there. And it's pretty scary. So I could identify in many ways with what Sarah was feeling. So Ellie, would you like to read read something for us from your book? Yeah, I'll read a little bit. How much how much time? Oh, we've got another five minutes. I just read a couple of pages from when they first get to Connecticut. And Sarah, she had come from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. So this was a new idea. And this gives you an indication of where I came up with the title of the book. It's called the Connecticut Valley. Because of the wide river that flowed from the far north to the ocean on the southern coast, Reverend Hooker had given our new territory, the name Connecticut, after the Algonquin word, Quinnitucket, meaning beside the Long River, our new town he named Hartford, the place where hearts or deer boarded the river. Over the coming weeks, I would come to know the river. Boston's Massachusetts Bay was saltwater. But here, the river carried fresh water, excellent for irrigating farmlands. Deep and wide, the river offered a sturgeon and freshwater mussels, which if we competed with otters for them, had not the sweet taste of the mussels we dug from the mud banks in Boston, but filled us nonetheless, falcons and white faced eagles built nests along the shore. And if I hadn't had fieldwork, I could have spent an afternoon watching them dive for fish. Years before we arrived, Dutch traders built roads and a fort to protect against Indian attacks, Reverend Hooker told our group. He said to beware of the peep quad, a warring tribe that claimed much of the territory we aim to settle. Papa said we were on a divine mission, and the Lord would protect us. He had better be right. We said to work clearing and spent the summer planting and building houses to make a village. I thought Connecticut would give me respite from hard work. But what did I have to show other than strong arms and calloused hands? Although money was not worth much in our new settlement, Papa purchased two cows and a bull from another colonist. If the cows had calves, we would have milk and butter and could start to build a herd. In the meantime, we each depended on others to lend muscles. Richard and John learned building skills and neighbors grateful for help with their own houses, paid them in eggs and cheese. Our house occupied the south side of Buckingham Street, the fifth parcel of land from Main Street through two glass windows dawn blazed out of the east in the early mornings. The glass was full of ripples and bubbles. And in the evenings, I tilted my head and watched the moon change shape as if it were alive. The slightest breeze made the trees wiggle. The meadows and woods surrounding Hartford were as untouched as they must have been when Adam and Eve were cast from the garden of Eden. Ellie, that's so beautiful. Now I have a couple more questions. Thank you for reading that for my viewers and for me. So we're Sarah and Iax, I think it's pronounced Iax. Is that correct? I think so, yeah. Were they an actual couple recorded in the Lyman genealogy? No, they weren't. He was, he was actually a fiction of my imagination. I don't know. I have a picture of what I think he looked like and he was pretty, pretty good looking. But I thought since Sarah, Sarah's friend that she left in in England was of marrying age and in the Elizabethan times, girls married as young as 14. And by the time you were 18, you were considered, you know, an old maid. And at the end of the book, she's 16. And I think she might be looking for love. And I don't know, at some point, I think in actuality, she didn't marry until she was in her early 20s. So she was determined that she was going to do things her way. And I think making her love interest a Native American suggests that she was willing to go against the Puritan traditions of, you know, not marrying for love, but marrying for convenience or money or whatever. Sarah would would want to fall in love. And I think I X was probably the guy. So my last question, then they did not or they did not actually end up together. Well, my last question is if you were going to follow up and continue this story of Sarah and I X moving back to Boston, how would that story unfold and what and would that society have accepted them? Or do you think that they might have gone back to the frontier to find their place? You know, that that's a really excellent question and one that keeps me awake at night. I can't imagine that I X would have been accepted into Massachusetts Bay Colony. I think maybe I know that Sarah settled around the Boston area, maybe a little north of Boston. And perhaps they could have found or established a homestead somewhere away from the colony itself. But I have a feeling there would be a tragic end to I X. I can't see any other way of making that ending happy. It just was not it was not going to work. If I were going to be true to what really happened to Sarah. I can't imagine that they were just been they were departed friends. I can't imagine that he would have been accepted. The Algonquins would have taken him prisoner. They're there. You know, and so many of my stories are dark. I really want to write a comedy. My next book. Well, that's how that Well, that's my next question as we come to the end of our of our interview here. Ellie is what is your next project? What is what? What are you going to start working on now? Well, beside the Long River, you know, I kill 600 people in my next book, which I've just finished, and I'm looking for a publisher for it now. I kill 1500 people. Well, you know, I guess we do, but they're already dead. That's what I tell my husband. His great grandparents were on the Titanic in first class. And the story goes that she got into a lifeboat. And it was women and children only. And her husband, his great great grandfather, his great grandfather, stayed on the ship. And he went down with the ship. And while she's in the lifeboat, she sees her steward swimming toward her. And she pulls him into the lifeboat and saves his life. And they became lifelong friends. And what I discovered from researching this book is that their ancestry dates back to the early 1300s in Scotland. He was a Cunningham, and they were Cummings. And their clans were allies against Robert the Bruce. And so there is sort of a mystical connection that happens in this book. And this has been 10 years in the writing. It's not, I don't think it's meant to be a young adult book. But what is the title? Do you have a title yet? I'm calling it Sheltering Angel, because there's an old Scottish proverb about a sheltering angel guiding you and protecting you. And Andrew, the steward feels the sheltering angel as he's swimming in the water toward this lifeboat in 28 degree water. And then he becomes his Florence's sheltering angel as well. Wow, that's that's the working title of it. That's beautiful. Well, Ellie, you know, we've come to the end of the show. And to my viewers, I want to send you to Ellie's website. It's Luella Bryant.com Luella Bryant.com. And you can learn more about Ellie and her work and her life. It's a beautiful website. Your books are fabulous. It's a page turner. I couldn't put it down. It's been such a delight to get to meet you and to know you. And after you finish your next book, I hope you'll come back to my show onto my show. Oh, thank you, Melinda. I would love to. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. I'm gonna I'm gonna say goodbye to my viewers and I'm gonna end and I'm gonna end the recording, but I'm gonna ask you to hang on with me and stay with me, Ellie, because I want to I want to wish you well to all my viewers. What a beautiful sunny Saturday. It is on this February, I believe 26th. And you all go out and have a beautiful day in the snow that we just received here in Vermont. It was a real blessing. Take care to my viewers and I'll see you shortly. Bye bye.