 All right, it is now 7.30 and I am delighted to be here with you. My name is Andrea Nicolai and I am the Salon emcee and I'm also director of libraries for the town of Arlington. And I welcome you to our January author salon that the theme tonight is making waves. And we are so fortunate to have with us here tonight, Stephen Lee Bieber, Carol Newman Cronin and Dolores Johnson. The Arlington Salon is a free reading series with a twist. Each author's presentation includes a sensory experience to complement their reading, whether it be music photos tasty treats fabrics even sculpture and smells, although with zoom webinar we we are quite limited in our options. This law normally takes place at the pick the kickstand cafe in Arlington Center quarterly, the first week of January, April, July and October, with some exceptions to circumvent holidays. Our next salon marker calendars will take place April 1. A few notes as you settle in this evening. Some images shown on your screen tonight on the topic of racial discrimination may be disturbing to some and may not be suitable for young audiences. This salon will be recorded and later viewable on Arlington community media TV channel and on demand at ACMI dot TV. The list of attendees. In other words, you all are not is not viewable during the program and won't be viewable in the recording so that your privacy is protected. Each author will have 15 minutes to read and then we will have a combined q amp a at the end of the program. The chat function is disabled as I mentioned earlier but you can answer questions for the authors, anytime during the program through the q amp a function at the bottom of your screen. As host I'm the only one who will see your questions and I will pose them to our authors at the end of the during the q amp a period. I would like to add to our usual host Emily and the staff of the kickstand cafe which, incidentally is still open for take out. And I also want to credit salon co organizers, Angela metter duva, Marjan Kamali, Whitney share and Amy yelling. This program is supported in part by a grant from the Arlington Commission for Arts and Culture, a local agency, which is supported in turn by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency. It usually takes place in the heart of the Arlington cultural district at the kickstand cafe which was in the cultural district was actually designated in 2017 by the Mass Cultural Council. Also want to note that books are for sale courtesy of the book rack book rack owner Mike Booglio has an author salon page on his bookshop.org site, and your books and all of the books from all of these three authors will be featured there. I'll link during the q amp a, and we will and we will also post it on the salon website. So, our first author this evening, I'm delighted to introduce is Stephen Lee Bieber. Stephen Lee Bieber is the author of the he be GBs at CB GBs a secret history of Jewish punk published by Chicago review press. He is also the editor of Awake, a reader for the sleepless, and the associate editor of the literary journal conduit. Stephen's work has appeared in the Paris review harpers and the New York Times and elsewhere. He has an MFA in fiction from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and teaches creative writing and creative nonfiction at Leslie University and Grub street. Please welcome to our virtual stage, Stephen Lee Bieber. I'm really happy to be here thanks to the Arlington author salon and how strange to be here in this strange time where our country still is functioning. And I don't mean to make light of it because it's scary times. One of the things for me that was most unnerving was the fact that I experienced something I think a lot of writers experience, which is that feeling that what I had been writing was suddenly creating reality that it was happening out there. And you're likely what that experience is, you know, you, you write something, and you've tapped into something in the zeitgeist, and you know you're just, you're seeing it happening again. And the reason I say that is the piece I'm going to read is a little bit from the opening of my novel that I just finished called the orphan son, which is set in Atlanta. It was set at the turn of the previous century and like 1915. In its centers, in part around the Leo Frank case an infamous incident in which a Jewish New York transplant to Atlanta factory owner was accused of raping and murdering a 13 year old employee and his pencil factory. And then was, you know, falsely accused at very all that certain he didn't do it. The he was sentenced to death the governor of Georgia, based on the evidence felt he could not, you know, enact that sentence we commuted it, and a mob just like the one we saw yesterday. He was in prison and kidnapped Leo Frank and lynched him the next morning and Marietta, which is just outside of Atlanta site of Newt Gingrich, he's there, and also the big chicken if anybody's ever big to Atlanta very large animatronic Kentucky fried chicken. And Leo Frank was actually lynched in the shadows of the big chunk of anyway, the, you know reason saying all this is like I say it's very pertinent now. We had a news in front of the Capitol. I'm sure you all saw that. See if I can share with you an image of Leo Frank and Mary Fagan the young girl who he was accused of murdering. Let's let's move on to the reading. Let me let me just share with you some words instead since I'm a writer and not a, not, not good at technology. All right, so this is the prologue first from the Arkansas and then I'll read a little bit of the first chapter. Okay. With dawn approaching the men's faces were clear. Lean jaw sharp cheekbones. They didn't want to do this couldn't not in the light of day. In prison it had been the days that were worst gates clanging shut privies overflowing bare walls lined bars. But here with the light through the branches surrounded by trees it was better. Better even than the relative pleasure of the infirmary from which they had abducted him. That pleasure achieved by having had his throat cut today's pleasure to barn of something bad. All of it a bad joke. The rope hung from the branch two men tightening it. It truly bead and here forever. Of course, if not today why not tomorrow back at the jail or the next day or the next. The prisoners were clamoring for justice. Another joke. Jew they've muttered kike, the one who'd slit his throat hissing in his ear Jew kike as if determined to leave nothing out. I blame myself we feel it said we we never should have come here. No my dear it's the times not the place if I lived in the future perhaps. This is no time to joke Leo, if not now when that she was right. The burning sun, their next raw from it, their blue eyes bright like metal, and the steeples everywhere claiming so many of them one to each corner at the intersections. The overpowering noise of the machines of the pencil factory, the saws cutting drills boring down for the lead. His father in law's idea of a living in New York he could have been an accountant worked in an office, a number was never inflamed by passion driven to madness by prejudice. Please drop me in your town and I'll walk back. I won't tell have a wife, a family to make. You can rape that poor child you're so concerned for the little ones, but I didn't tell you, I tell you I quiet. I was at lunch my know he couldn't say his housekeeper son. That would anger them even more who is he that someone keep this house. Children shouldn't slave like that anyway, you run the place even if you weren't there moving south ruining everything. Then came forward holding a guitar, the crowd hushed, there was strumming nasal words. Frank will be astonished when the angels come to say you killed little Mary Fagan Confederate Memorial Day. Fagan wasn't the Jew and Dickens called that same name just spelled different strange to remember this and not the girl towards whose house he was now turned. But there were so many in the factory too many to place them all a child in a white dress and the picture the lawyer had handed him. He'd studied it as they'd watched and blame for that too. Even with sweet Mary in the grave he longs for her chasteness the pictures snatched back. But they confused confusion with longing, just as they must have been confused to ignore his testimony and instead believe the lies of the Negro and about a crime committed on the day celebrating their slave times. A snort escaped his lips, what else to do today but laugh, all of it absurd, falsely accused truly cursed. Come on, they had him by the arm, each arm we're lifting him trying to scare him. And he was, he was scared. Please stop the rope cut off the word just through burning as it dug in open the slit. No clawing no kicking its feet and hands bound together like a hog in a window. The pigs they ate their piggy faces. The faces were smiling, grincing maybe the sunrise making it hard to see the pressure in his head building like an aneurysm paroxysm all because of semitism. Now he was a poet, but Lucille would never know it too late now everything going white going blank covered by blackness. This is final moment, and the sun now truly up. 1915. The sun was bright even with the shades drawn the windows locked, it's stifling said Rifka, I should open said Sam. He smiled but she merely framed or fanned herself then worried the hem of her dress. And why shouldn't I the clean birds the Eli's even the friars uplift, yet we sit here like stones. I will not run. I crossed the notion only to flee this will pass this place Rifka muttered worse than Russia. Sam picked up his paper and opened it before him. He heard with a grown and folded it back so the headlines faced away from her. Frank lynched Jewish factory owner accused of murdering young employees taken from prison cell by mob and hanged with inside of her home. Governor a commuted sentence to life's citing lack of evidence, proud threatened to desecrate body of Jewish pervert before police intervened. Even the sheriff was involved Sam said they think the mayor as well. I'm not as surprised as you men of prominent should be above such actions. They're crackers all of them. Maybe in Marietta Sam said in Atlanta the editors announced it throughout the trial they protested. And the others call us no better than the Schwartz's we aren't. No, just luckier. I'll tell you what's lucky that we aren't dead ourselves. You think Marietta so far 10 miles. Yes, but and that Frank was their only problem. Jews Jews Jews always the same. Sam snapped his paper enough. I came here with you and I could have stayed in New York. I'd now be at the deli shopping at Macy's. You'd be in the 10 minutes 10 tour room. You'd have risen your cousin. He's done this your friends, Riffa was quiet. Here we have opportunity Sam said we can grow flourish or die at the end of a rope. You exaggerate death is an exaggeration. I'm the chorus but one time we must have faith. I owe it to the community. All I've done for them. Riffa rolled her eyes without you they'd survive. Who will lead then. Why you someone must you always allow bang. It was a rock through the window. Sam rose and went to the door. Someone there. He was mortified to hear his voice crack. It's Marvin Sam smile was exaggerated but not as relief. Visiting you said opening the door. Hardly Marvin sounded out of breath though like all Sam's lawnsmen he lived within three blocks. They say you've called a meeting. Come inside Sam said putting a hand on his friends trembling shoulder. Riffa rose and explosion of breath punctuating or exit. You will be there, but Sam more than just toward the world outside the locked window. There is nothing to fear will craft a response for the press, but isn't more than antagonize. We should have done it before the German Jews are too cautious ashamed is more like it and look where it got them. They smiled roofily and shook their heads. A bad business Martin said, perhaps now the Germans will see we're all Jews. If one of their own Marvin Sam interrupted you are coming tonight. Marvin glance toward the door as if he might flee, then his shoulders sag. If you think that's what's best. I do said Sam this will pass like a sickness. Marvin was silent. After all Sam said, this is America. He handed Marvin to the door shaking his friend's hand firmly to give him strength. You've always been right Marvin said, I'm sure you won't let us down. Riffa re-enter to Sam close the door. Meeting. Yes, tonight. Yes, unbelievable. She stormed off again. Riffa often went anger to fear. She was meeting her at the train station 20 years before her eyes wide as the black faces past and it she read what he'd written since relocating to prepare their move. Atlanta wasn't New York with its neighborhoods of Bulgarians, Germans and Russians surrounding them like in Europe. Just as it wasn't the old country as if the czar couldn't spill enough of their blood. Here all was black and white and away in for a juice such as himself. Yes, it was hot but that spoke to life of the place air thick like a body all around humid as if at the grove of a swamp. Strange animals at night with red eyes that glowed tiny unseen ones in the grass like a thousand violins and business just waiting for anyone ready to make it. One needed only to be strong bold. Riffa acted as if she were but inside Sam wondered. Was this why she'd been a unable to bear him a son. Why his daughter behaved as if you were trying to make up for the lack 11 and so well full out now that he told her to return. If she hated her it wasn't safe. Sam refused to show his daughter fear, and she was brave always had been even if perhaps too much. Riffa came back into the room signed Sam stared at her. What, nothing, not her father, his bloodline would die. I must prepare. Go then she waved her hand. She muttered walking into the next room. These are troubled times but what waxes away and just as the heat outside will pass, just as a sickness will if one fights it. We are on the threshold of great things a growing thriving community. Tomorrow will be ours, if only we believe what Riffa called nothing Sam snap. The light went softer in the window of passing cloud making the room go dark. Thank you so much Steven Lee Bieber. Thank you. All right. Our next author tonight is Carol Newman Cronin. Carol is an award winning author editor and Olympian. She has written fiction since childhood and all her stories share three common elements, a coastal setting boats and a happy ending. In 2004, she crowned a lifetime of competitive achievement by winning two races for the USA at the Olympics in Athens, the homework she needed to finish her third novel. Her weekly blog where books meet boats attracts a wide range of readers, and she also writes award winning content for the marine industry. Please welcome Carol Newman Cronin. Thanks all. Thanks Andrea for the wonderful introduction and it's great to be included tonight. I just have to say this is something sort of completely different now that we're going toward. And I like to think that I've been included not just as a literal wave maker but but for making waves in my fiction as well. You might be wondering why even read fiction why read about characters that don't exist. And why read about an island that isn't real. And I just have to say, I believe in fiction. And I believe it's the best way to understand others and I hope that I'll show you that tonight. Tonight we're going to go on a virtual ferry ride out to cooperation island which is by the way, COVID free so it's a great place to hang out right now. I'm going to introduce you to three of my characters from my fourth novel fairy to cooperation island. And I hope that by the end of the evening that maybe my imaginary friends will become your friends as well. So, let's set sale I'm going to share my screen and hope that that works. I want to also take the quick chance to thank my husband Paul for providing the best of the photos that you're going to see tonight. So, here we go let's get started. Fairy to cooperation island came out in June of 2020. And it's about a fairy captain who teams has to team up with a woman who steals his job. The island that it takes place on is actually only exists in my head. And it's four miles off the coast of Newport Rhode Island connected to the mainland only by a fairy. The character who we meet is James who's the fairy captain, who's just been fired when the book opens. And he's convinced that the fairy can't run without him. But when he shows up at the local coffee shop at the beginning of the book is surrounded by people who are whispering things and he can't quite figure out what's going on. And then he hears, Thar she blows from the mayor, and realizes he's seeing his own fairy coming in without him. So that the first reading I'm going to do is the end of chapter one. When James has just spotted the fairy. On the breakwaters jagged top edge to white bumps motored steadily north. Radar dome and life raft canister riding proud on the top of the fairies wheelhouse. They're familiar shapes, and that slate blue superstructure were surprisingly distinct. For Mayor Frank, and everyone else out here except James. This was the view of a normal morning, his fairy steaming proudly home. He watched steaming from the beach. The commuter chatter started up again giddy with relief. First thing tomorrow morning, their fairy would be there to take them ashore, which meant that today they could all enjoy an unexpected day off. I told you it would be here. Mayor Frank said to no one in particular, just like Lloyd promised. Lloyd James's boss ex boss must have dragged some drunk captain off a Newport bar stool last night. But as soon as the White Hall cleared the end of the breakwater, the bow wave diminished drunk or sober that scab of a captain knew enough not to come into a strange harbor above idle. The damn stranger had started those quirky engines, pressed his own thumb and forefinger into the two varnished dents on the wheels King spoke. Soon he would pivot into the dock and smile at his departing passengers, if there even were any on a Wednesday morning in May. From the far end of the big table, harbormaster Mack caught James's eye and shrugged, as if apologizing for what he was about to say. He drained his mug, clunked it down and stood up, waking Chester the dog who'd been asleep under the table. Fairies here, Mack announced in his public servants voice as Chester shook himself to standing. Everything's back to normal now. James is going to have to learn to cooperate. And that's how he make waves makes waves. And yes, this is me at age five already thinking that I should be in charge. The next character we're going to meet is Courtney, and she's the replacement skipper who shows up who's driving the ferry that James sees coming into his harbor. She's never been on the ocean before, but somehow she manages to navigate the, the four miles out to Brenton Island, and docs the ferry. It's a little bit of a calmer day than than this picture here shows. So she docs the ferry it's not pretty but she gets it done and then at the end of chapter two, she has to go up and meet the locals. So I'm going to read you another short section from when she, when that happens. The coffee shop was only 100 yards away, just past where wood planks ended and clamshell parking area began. On the left side she'd have to navigate across that crowded deck, a whole island's worth of eyes tracked her progress, and the crowd felt, felt silent enough to hear the Creek of wooden steps. Welcome to Britain, a white haired man called trying to swivel around enough to smile right at her. Courtney smiled back vaguely at that table of six, until she noticed the wild hair and ragged sweatshirt just to the left of the doorway. Out of uniform, face hidden behind a newspaper, the only guy sitting solo had to be Captain James Malloy. Make friends with the old captain, her dad had said, and your life will be much, much easier. Four steps across the deck. Courtney ready to smile for when he dropped the paper. He had ordered to set the heavy mail crate down on his round table, so she shifted it on to her left hip and slid her right hand out of its jacket sleeve. Captain Malloy, she said, reaching around the paper. Courtney Ferris. Captain Courtney Ferris, she remembered too late. Her heart was pounding. James kept all 10 fingers and both eyeballs locked on the news. All around her, she could feel the eyes on them. Everyone waiting for him to respond. Love to pick your brain, Courtney blundered on, bringing the mail crate back in front of her like a forward guard. That none of Bird Island was a bitch to find. And they make the rocks kind of hard up this way. She got out of the other seat. Got room. I'll grab a couple. Be right out. She waited. He snapped the newspaper even higher. Say hello at least James, someone called from the big table. When one of her passengers held open the door for her. Courtney gave up and carried the mail inside. What an ass. Her new boss was right. She driven her ride right into enemy territory. Courtney makes waves just by showing up. And it's a great example of how an outsider dropped into a small community can really shake things up. So the third character I'm going to introduce you to there's actually four other point of view characters, but I'm going to, I'm going to tell you a little bit about Mavis who's my, my third favorite for sure. She's a Narragansett Indian, and she's one of three left on the island. The other two are her mother and her oldest brother, Joe, who is dying of cancer. And when I first started writing this book, I didn't know anything about the Narragansett Indians and I, I still know only a very little bit, but somehow Mavis was the easiest for me to write. And I don't think it's coincidence and the writers out there will understand this that that many have made what I came to learn were Mavis metaphors made it from all the way from the first draft all the way to the final version of the book. And I'm going to share one very quick one with you. When we first meet Mavis, she's, she's rock hopping, which is something she did with her brother growing up, and it involves climbing a steep cliff out of their village up to the monument on the island, and not missing a step. And this metaphor stuck, as I said, came, was written as part of the first draft, and is still in the final book today and I think I think you'll understand why it's very, very short. A fragile edge of rock broke off under her right foot. For a moment, Mavis thought she'd fall straight down onto another sharp piece of ledge 10 feet below. Instead, without thinking, she righted herself and kept climbing. And it's a great example of how Mavis really showed me who she was and what and what she, what she needed, and Mavis makes ways by learning independence, and that's just was a great way to get to meet her. She's a great example of how fiction helps us understand others. But we've come to the end of our ferry ride. So please watch your step when getting a shore. Okay, here I am back again. I hope I've tempted you to read Fairy to Cooperation Island, or at least to consider fiction as a path to understanding others. And thanks again to everybody this has been a great, a great thing to be part of and here's to making waves. Thank you so much Carol that was, it was wonderful I think I got some some sea spray during that reading. Give me everyone. Our next and final author of this evening salon is Dolores Johnson. Dolores Johnson is the author of the award winning, say I'm dead, a family memoir of race secrets and love and essays on mixed race racism and identity, and she has consulted on diversity with colleges corporations and nonprofits. At Harvard Howard University and Harvard Business School, Johnson is a former executive who directed the digitization of JFK papers at his presidential library. Please welcome to our virtual stage. Dolores Johnson. Hello everyone, thank you so much. And thank you to the Arlington authors salon for having me and for all of you who joined us tonight. It's just in June of 2020. And it's the true account of my family who for generations endured fear secrets and separation under the forbidding race mixing laws and norms of America, because we are a mixed race family. Tonight I'm going to read a section. It tells how my black father and white mother did the unthinkable in Indiana in 1942. And in this telling, it's the first time my brothers and I, who are in our 30s have heard the story. In downtown and recently divorced. Charles headed out to Madame CJ Walker's ballroom in 1942 the place in Indianapolis for Negroes to mingle on a mission to find a nice color girl to start over with to marry. He adjusted his tie before following the music upstairs. There he found a tuxedo band perched on a roulette wheel bandstand shimmying out the fox trot that couples dance to. He took in the scene from the bar, his eyes flitting from one attractive girl in a fancy dress to another. As he sipped a too expensive shot bourbon. Another fellow eyed his broad shoulders and shined but worn shoes before coming over. See something you like. Yeah, plenty Charles said. Here Jack, the man said, we need a girl at Walker's depends on how much you got in your pocket and who your daddy is see that she don't like either of those answers. All you're going to get is one dance. If you're lucky. Charles watch smooth talking men and stylish suits lead those women on to the dance floor realizing he couldn't make any time there. When the law against watching the will to do spectacle. He stayed for a while for the jazz, before taking a lonely stroll back to his boarding house. Where else was there for a colored man to find a suitable Negro girl, one who was nothing like the wife down in Georgia he had to marry at 17, when she said the baby was his, and later that it wasn't. He wasn't in the churches he tried, just old ladies, married women and not so pretty singles, and the mother of the one he had approached it snatched her away because he was divorced. The girl he was looking for wasn't out Indiana Avenue at the sunset terrace either for the brown sugar went to dance. They were good looking all right sporting outfits that clung to their charms with jaunty hats tipped over done up here. The ones he talked to sure enough look like sure, but their salty invitations tasted too much like his past. On his walk back home, that lady like girl in the mail room at work ran through his mind. Like always, the white girl with guts enough to talk to him like a straight up man. The one who soft skin he imagined touching, even though the clan would string up his damn full self for looking at her. But damn if she wasn't the sweetest woman he'd ever met. The day came when Charles snuck down to the mail room and whispered what he'd been practicing in his mirror. I hope I'm not out of line he said, but I want you to know. I like you very much. She stared at him. Wade his words intently. I've thought of you to she said the Negro cabbie asked a look twice if she was sure of the address, if she wanted the colored side of town. She assured him she did. And when the cab pulled up at his place Charles was waiting on the sidewalk. As he helped her out. The cabbie turned all the way around to glare at Charles. You want to mix me up in something like this he said. Just take the dollar Charles said, you haven't seen a thing understand. She went into his room at the boarding house and sat in the nicked easy chair as Charles fixed the coke that she asked for adding a splash of whiskey before pouring a straight one for himself. She raised her glass and made the toast the boys at her acting group taught her. She said cheers to it and to it again. If you don't do it when you get to it, you'll never get to it to do it again. He liked the life in her eyes, the spirit in her soul. Without it he realized she would have never come over to see him. Charles turned on the radio to a moody blues tune, then a colored announcer came on. And while you cats out there. It's Saturday night. Get your best girl and cut a rug with us for the party keeps it going all night long. He pulled her up to dance though she protested that she wasn't much good. Ella Fitzgerald was on a tisket a task it. And while they tried neither could follow what the other was doing. She knew the foxtrot with its set patterns, and he knew the country new. Through false turns and stepping on each other's toes but when a slow tune came on, they did better. Charles folded her into his chest, and she followed his simple steps. In no time they were cooking dinner together at his place a couple of nights a week. But as they grew into love. Charles began to worry. He didn't think she understood the trouble she could get in for being with him. Did this white girl even know she could be attacked in the street for it. Did she have any idea of what she could face for breaking the unwritten Jim Crow code. Some of the Indianapolis and Marion County elected officials were open members of the clan. They posed as the good guys doing community service like giving away wheelchairs and food to whites only. They didn't understand that the Grand Wizard, a man named Stevenson used to run the nationwide Ku Klux from Indiana, that they hated Negro so much that they terrorized and killed them. She didn't to Negro men got lynched in Marion, Indiana, a few years before he and Ella took up after a robbery and murder of white woman claimed rape. They were locked up briefly until a white mob broke into the jail with sledgehammers and strung them up. Charles saw a picture postcard of the lynching taped up next to the price list at the Black Barber Shop. On it, a big crowd of men and women milled around the brown bodies hanging from trees. Their white faces satisfied. The victim's heads bent over their nooses for their necks had broken, their limp legs dangling free. Their bodies were left on display as whites congratulated themselves on delivering vigilante justice. That was the proof the man in the next Barbers chair told Charles of how the clan was the law in Indianapolis. Don't take no chances in these parts, he said. Nobody has been called to account. As happened at many lynchings, studio photographer shot a ghastly picture, then sold thousands of copies like circus souvenirs to white people who wanted to keep sake. Charles had Ella down to explain how it was. Somebody could get the law on him because of their relationship. Trump up the charges, throwing in jail, beating him half to death, or lynching him for touching a white woman. And nobody would do a thing about it. He was getting pretty scared, and she should too. Ella had to understand that for her part, the place where they both worked would fire her if they found out. It would be a scandal and all white people would turn their backs on her. My brother David, who was listening with me to this story, wiped his brow with the handkerchief he always carried and asked incredulously. You mean this was the first you heard of any of this mama. How could you not know. While I had only been in the white community up to then mom said, I was completely sheltered from that kind of thing. Negro business wasn't my business or anyone said I knew. My family didn't follow politics or race and even if they had a lynching wasn't anything to talk to a young lady about. Until your father explained that to me. I had only the faintest idea. Charles wanted El to think these are risks through before they saw each other again. She had to decide if the risks were worth it. Could she live with her family never knowing about them to staying alert all the time so they never made that one mistake that would ruin their lives. He took it all by the shoulders and finally said he loved her loved her so much he was willing to face those dangers. Charles is forehead sweat and his voice drop deep with desperation when he said he had to be sure she loved him the same way. He pulled her close. Take some time and think hard about what I'm telling you before you answer me. I mean it he said, and if you don't come back. I'll understand. She did come back. And here's the Jackson family wave this is my family my dad my mother and my grandmother on the left, my father's mother, and myself and my three brothers who were born to my parents. In fact, they not only made a wave, but they had many waves that followed them. That followed my parents, according to the Gallup Institute show that US attitudes on race mixing have basically flip flopped. They got married in 1943 15 years later when I was 10 years old. In 1958, only 4% of Americans accepted mixed race and 96% black white and all other disapproved of race mixing and it was illegal in most American states. In 1967 Supreme Court held a loving decision and overturned the remaining 16 states that had anti miscegenation laws at that time 73% of Americans disapproved of race mixing. In the 80s, the disapproval rating declined to 50% and in the 2000s to 17%. And according to pure research in 2015 one in 10 marriages in America are mixed race, and that includes all races, marrying all races. And as this comes out for 2020, we're going to see an even bigger number than the one in 10 marriages, according to census projections. And significantly the last census showed that the growth rate for mixed race babies outstrip the growth rate for single race babies by three to one. And that reduction is for an accelerating trend so the waves that followed my parents are taking us to the Browning of America. Thank you. Thank you Dolores. Thank you so much for that reading. And at this point, I'm going to bring all three of our authors back to the virtual stage, and we will have our Q&A session. So we're going to keep all three of our authors unmuted as well. And it's a small group. And so thank you. First of all, I just want to give all three of you a round of applause on behalf of our 50 odd audience members. So, thank you so much for for these readings this evening as part of the Arlington author salon. We do have a number of questions so I'm going to get right to them. Dolores just finished her reading I will direct this first question her way. Dolores the fear and secrets your parents lived with must have affected so much of your growing up. How was writing this memoir healing and do you feel that writing it has helped you understand your mother's family better. That's a lot. When we were children. My parents never told us their story. And the decades that they spent hiding the fact that they had run away from Indianapolis. We just thought everything was normal and fine. But as a mixed race family we did experience tremendous prejudice. First as black people. And then as mixed race people because as you saw in those statistics. America was against us. Most everybody. And so, we were shunned and abused and rebuked and all of that on many, many, many fronts. However, what was not revealed in the reading is that I decide in the in my 30s that I must be there must be some branches on my mother's family tree but we've never heard of them or met them. And so I cause quite a lot of waves with my nuclear family when I ask where and who are white people. Eventually, I was able to go and find them in Indiana against my mother's wishes and my black militant brothers, warning that they were going to shut the door in my face because they didn't want to find a nigger relative on the porch. But the story has a happy ending which I won't go into. There were a lot of emotions in writing this book a lot of crying over the keyboard because once you start to really dig in and channel people's feelings and the events that happened. You feel the full weight of discrimination and the sacrifice that people made in order to cross the racial divide in America. I think that we're still struggling with in this country. There are many themes in this book that were echoed on the capital grounds yesterday where racism was very apparent there was a lynching news as Steve mentioned. There were all kinds of people out there that signified hate. And I think that I have understood and lived with during my life. Thank you so much for for that response. We're going to, we're going to pivot to Steven. This questioner says what a rich and provocative topic for a novel. How did you first decide to write about Leo Frank, and can you tell us a little bit about your research process, even in this short reading it seems so well researched and richly detailed. Sure, you know it's funny the book started as something quite different set in childhood of that character that you see in the first chapter Sam is a leader of the Eastern European Jewish community that's rising in Atlanta and sort of beginning to outnumber the Germans who were there for decades and assimilated embarrassed by their Eastern European cousins so they saw as you know superstitious and religious and to Jewish and the Leo Frank case was around that time and help to kind of show that this strain of anti-Semitism affected all of them, right and many people left. In any case, the novel then I decided to reset it later in the character's life, Sam's life, and since he was a leader of his community of the Eastern European Jews. And one of his missions as he saw it was to take his community forward since that time to recover from that trauma and to become true Americans you know he loved America and he wanted to, you know, assimilate and I won't go into the whole story in line of the novel besides but Leo Frank is really kind of in the background as the sort of the the every Jew away for that group who are who were seen as not quite white, you know they weren't considered fully white they were somewhere on the continuum on this spectrum. And in my research, I came across lots of disturbing articles from the period and, you know, anti-Semitic papers that were calling for his blood at the time. And it was a mixture of anti-industrialism you know with the, he was a northerner who had come south to open a factory, you know industrialism coming to the south and changing the agrarian ways of the good old, you know, noble south when it's anti-bellum ways and you know everybody loves those cotton fields right it was so good so good back then and ruined it with technology anyway so that the, you know, Leo Frank was always kind of there in the background so they're in the background when always growing up in Atlanta. And just, I think it really was a trauma for that community many people left in 1915 when he was lynched large segments of the community fled. Thank you so much. I have a question for Carol. Carol, this, this questioner really enjoyed your accompanying visual images. And this person has a friend who recently sold her house and moved full time onto her sailboat. So she wants to know, she or he wants to know, have you ever lived on your boat and do you think it would be easy or challenging to write while living on a boat. I love that I love that question and I'm totally jealous because wouldn't it be a great winter to be spending on a boat in the Caribbean rather than locked in our houses worrying about whether our friends have been with others or not. I have done some writing on boats there's some logistical challenges. A couple, one that's obvious where you have much less space than you have in a house and so you can't. I tend to I write best in the quiet and it's hard to wall yourself off, but there's also a lot of visual simulation stimulation and it's hard to shut that down completely because the water's always moving and there are always noises that the water's always moving. But I'd really like to try out writing, writing a book on about one of these days. I'm not quite there yet, but we'll see. Okay. We look forward to the result. Either way. This is a question for all three of you. What are you working on now and we will start with Dolores. I started a new project which is going to be historical fiction, which has to do with the slave trade in New England. Okay, I think it's a story that America doesn't know. When we think about slavery we think about the south. In fact, more than 40% of the slaves brought here were on ships that left from Newport in Boston. Stephen. I'm working on a novel called minutes, and it is about it's told in the form of minutes from a resident resident Affairs Committee at a retirement community you know assisted living facility. And you have to kind of read between the lines to sort of start to understand the story behind the person keeping the minutes the secretary who keeps the minutes and the minutes of life going by it's, you know, it's supposed to be. A lot of people keep disappearing from the novel as it goes. Unfortunately, a lot of turnover on that committee. Yeah, that's what I'm working on. I'm not a library board is it. No, it's not at home. Carol, what are you working on now. Yeah, I'm, I'm working on a sequel which I've just the working title is another island meaning it's the same island but another cast of characters and some of the old ones show up again and the main character is a very feisty female who's keeps bringing me on the page so I'm really enjoying the process and yet would love to be done with it at the same time, kind of a mix, a mixed struggle, you know, it's, we're always so happy when when the books are done and we forget about all the, all the early part when you don't really know where they're going yet. So it's, it's been great but I did have a great fall course through grub street with it called advanced novel planning with Henriette Lasaritas who may or may not be on the call tonight. But that was really actually really helpful. I'm a, I'm a pancer. I just write and see where it goes and I'm trying to really discipline myself a little bit better with this project and hope that it maybe takes me a little bit less than five or six years which is what the last book took took from start to finish so that's that's my hope. Okay, good luck. This question is for Steven. Amazing piece of writing, though also hard to listen to in some ways, especially today. How did working on this particular project affect the way you viewed what happened at the capital yesterday and vice versa. Yeah, I mean what happened at the capital is both shocking and completely expected. You know, I mean, there's a strain in this country that is just deplorable. I'll use that term I don't care, you know that it's never gone away. I mean, the Civil War is still being fought. And, you know, just looking back at what was going on at the, you know, 1915 in Atlanta. And many of the issues are the same refugees were refugees coming in they were resented. The industrialists were, you know, blamed for like globalization is the same idea right that there was they were all there was a plot against the working man. And there were at the same time people being taken advantage of right I mean, there's a character in my novel who is a Jewish communist and is working to change things to change the system. So, it's complicated. Now it's complicated them. And, but it's, it's, it's, it's disturbing how much the story is the same. You think, I mean, I think things are better. I try to be an optimist, you know, but when something like this happens. I mean, you try to think of it as just as a bunch of nut jobs who are fringe, like half the country voted for the orange man so I don't know what to say I hope I'm not offending anyone in our audience. I don't assume I am but if I am I don't know I don't know that I, you know, I'm not a fan, not a fan of Mr Trump. Yeah, I just same as it ever was, you know, meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Now you sound more like the author of the TV. I'm flipping back in a TV TV right there. I'm hearing available and my and my office here for if you'd like it. Must be a lot of good punk rock happening now. This next question is for Dolores. What was the hardest part of writing your memoir and what one or two pieces of advice would you give to a struggling memoirist. The hardest part of writing that story was my mom's best friend in the book her name is Angela, which is a disguised name for the family's request. She lived a double life. My mom ran away from her family, and they thought she was dead for 36 years. She did that to protect my dad who thought that the clan or the law was going to come and send them to prison or lynching. Her friend was a white woman married to a black jazz musician who told her ran away from her family in Ohio, in order to marry this trumpeter, and told them that she had a big shot job and she was so busy she couldn't come home but once in a while, and never told them that she'd married this guy and had three children who were very black. And I was, I grew up with these people they were like our family. We had a little cocoon of mixed race families because everybody was so busy hating us you know we collected ourselves and the children were cousins. I thought that my cousin was going to be very upset with me telling the story of what her mother had done, especially the fact that she. When she was very sick and dying she called her three black children to her bedside and said to them, I want to be buried at home with my white family under my maiden name, and I don't want you to show up at my funeral and blow my cover. So after talking to the cousins and tears over the kitchen table and so forth. They took a vote to for putting the story in one. No, but when the book came out I was so relieved not to lose that relationship, because they said they thought the book was great. One of the hardest things about writing memoir that what you think happened on fourth of July at that party and what I think was happening there could be two different things. And when you put it down on paper, they're going to be people who see themselves, we're going to get very upset. And so that is my, my first bit of advice is to consider talking to the people who are going to be in the book and making clear what is going to happen, and really evaluating whether or not possible damaged relationships are worth what you want to put in the book, because everything doesn't have to go in the book. That's the second point that you need to sort out all your tangents and take them out, because your book has to have a point. It's not this happened this happened this happened this happened, but it has to all tie together from the beginning of the book situation a to the last page situation B has occurred and how your grandmother baked the best pound cake has nothing to do take it out. Thank you, Karen. I mean, sorry, I'm sorry Dolores. Thank you so much. This next question is for Carol. Carol, when you write dialogue, do you assign accents to them as you did in your reading tonight. And how does that help you learn about and or find out who your characters are. That's a, that's a great question. And it's interesting because I, I don't really consciously assign accents to my characters. It wasn't until I recorded the audio book of fairy that I really consciously had just to decide, well this guy's got a wrote out an accent, and yet it was so obvious as soon as I, as soon as I started thinking about it, how they talked in my head. And what what they should sound like and I hope I've captured that in the audio book it was hard, especially the, the one I struggled the most with was Courtney actually because she has a Maryland accent. And I actually had a she she comes from the Chesapeake from Oxford Maryland she grew up her father was the captain of the Oxford fairy. And I actually went down there on a research trip, which was a great excuse to, to go and spend some time in Oxford Maryland and I found myself getting off the ferry and hearing these two, two crabbers talking and really wanting to stop and just listen to them. I couldn't, I didn't have an excuse so I had to keep walking and walk away from these two guys who are just exactly what I wanted to hear but I knew as soon as I stopped they would stop, stop talking as, as locals and as friends and start wondering what this crazy woman was doing. So it's one of the fun, but also the challenges of being a writer is, is listening in and you know obviously coffee shops are great for that. The accents were really fun part of, of, and probably the most creative and challenging part of doing the audio book was trying to get those right with the limitations that I have as a speaker as well. Okay. Thank you and this last question. We really just have time for one more. For all three of you. Was there a particular idea, image or moment that first got you thinking about your book. And we'll start with Dolores. Actually, I decided to do my father's family genealogy. And after visiting Alabama and Georgia find all of the old relatives I'd ever heard of but never met. Looking at all those sepia tone pictures and finally laying out generations of people. I saw that thing, that chart. And I saw my mother out of about 60 or 70 people. She was the only white person there. And the bell went off in my head. This is not right. She can't be my white family all by herself. Where are the rest of them. And that's when I started digging in to my history. Thank you Dolores. Stephen, can you, can you tell us was there a particular idea, image or moment. Yeah, you know it's funny they talk about kill your barlings, you know, the blessing, the parts of your writing that are beautiful but don't fit the the final result of what you're trying to do. And then the book, some of the, some of the stuff on the cutting room floor was all in Sam's childhood and the book opened originally just I had this image of a cart in the old country, going towards a schedule with a doctor in it, but the kids seeing the cart coming slowly around like a weaving road in the distance and his mother is dying and the doctors coming to see her. And all that ended up being in the background of Sam's character, but multiple chapters in that version that I love. You know, maybe it'll be a prequel one day or directors cut, you know extras for that. And the shame novels don't have that don't have like the equivalent the DVD set up where you know you can see deleted scenes but anyway that that's where it started originally, if I remember correctly. Okay, thank you. And, and Carol. How about you was there a particular idea image or moment that first got you thinking about the book. And actually, there are actually three things. The first was cooperation I wanted to write about a place where people were rewarded for cooperating with each other and not battling is so many of us do and so much of what you see on the TV and in real life and everything and the second was I'm surrounded by this just beautiful rocky coastline. And so I wanted to try to share that as well and I ended up creating creating a new island, because it worked well with. I didn't have to. I wanted to be a local on the island. And so that worked well. But the big thing was I had a fairy captain talking in my head. And so this, the book started really as a way to get to know James and to figure out who he was and why he was, why he was so quiet and why, why he was so unwilling to cooperate and he always wanted to do his own thing and that's that's what started the book. Okay. Again, I want to thank all three of our authors I also want to remind the audience that the link to the bookshop.org book sales site is right in the in the chat so and in the Q&A so you can find that link there. You can check out all three of these author's works. And I want to say thank you again to Stephen Lee Bieber, Carol Newman Cronin and Dolores Johnson. Our next author salon will be April 1. Easy to remember. And I also encourage you to sign up you attendees sign up to our mailing list, either through the Arlington author salon website or through the library website. In our newsletter, we always put this one in our newsletter as well. So thank you all so much for being with us this evening. I'm just delighted to be able to host this salon. And even though we're on zoom it. I do have a very warm feeling about these authors here tonight and it does feel like a community, despite our 2D cells. So, with that said, thank you again, and I wish you all a wonderful evening. Thank you.