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Coyote Winds by Helen Sedwick
Posted on: May 18, 2013
There are days when I tire of being a reviewer, but then along comes a book like Coyote Winds by Helen Sedwick that makes me feel excited about my role. Coyote Winds is a bittersweet story, full of sadness and hope. As a historical novel, it’s about Myles and his family who struggle against overwhelming odds to maintain a farm during the depression and the Dust Bowl. As a young adult novel, it’s about thirteen-year-old Andy who lives in our modern times but misses his Grandpa Myles and is determined to keep his grandfather’s memories alive.
It’s been a long time since I have read a book about the love between a boy and a wild animal. Books such as Rascal come to mind. Being about a teenage boy and a coyote he rescues from a dust storm, Coyote Winds is also such a book. Their relationship is not without angst. When Myles brings Ro home, his father warns him that a coyote can’t be trusted. Moreover, their neighbor threatens to kill Ro, because of how certain he is that Ro will destroy livestock. This prediction seems true one day when the family arrives home to find Ro chasing their hog. But then the family realizes Ro is trying to keep Spark Plug from escaping her pen. Over the years, the relationship between Myles and Ro is tested, in ways that will make you mad and happy and sad. Isn’t that how the best relationships are?
A Dust Bowl storm approaches Stratford, Texas in 1935. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
If you look at the back pages of Coyote Winds, under the Suggestions for Further Reading, you’ll find references to books about coyotes and other multiple other topics. You see, Coyote Winds is also about the Dust Bowl, homesteading and life on the American Western Prairie, the Great Depression, and even Volga German settlers. Whew! That’s a mouthful. With all these elements squeezed into a novel of just over two-hundred pages, you might expect Coyote Winds to read like a dry textbook. In contrast, while reading it, I found myself thinking of other novels which cover the same time era such as A Lantern in her Hand by Bess Streeter Aldrich and Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. The first especially carries the same poignancy of a family facing changes and hardship but also in love with the land that they own and are trying to master. Some of the most heartbreaking scenes in Coyote Winds occur when one by one, even the most arrogant families are forced to admit that the land will forever be their master. Not that this means they give up and leave, for some do endure, but these pivotal moments still tore me up.
The last topic I’ll address is how Sedwick makes use of the literary “story within a story” device. Anyone who follows my reviews knows that this isn’t one of my favorite techniques. To be honest, until the second half of the Coyote Winds, I’d intended to fault Sedwick for it. Coyote Winds is inspired by her fond memories of her father. Thus, it probably felt more natural for her to write as a young person looking back than one firmly entrenched in our modern world. For a while then, I wish she had just written about the teen in the past. Especially given that the affection she feels for her father and his memories comes across so strong that Sedwick seems at times to have fallen into the trap of promoting the “good old days”. However, because the story of Myles is so compelling I kept reading and eventually decided that both stories were needed. Only through both stories can we realize how cruel but beautiful nature is. And only through both stories can we understand the message of believing in dreams, no matter what the pain and cost.
When a book can make me feel as many emotions as Coyote Winds, I feel safe in declaring it an excellent read. What a beautiful tribute Sedwick has written for her father and what a wonderful story she has given to the literary world. I hope she has future historical tales to share.
My rating? Bag it: Carry it with you. Make it a top priority to read.
How would you rate this book?
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How Does a Writer Make an Historical Setting Come Alive? Guest Post by Helen Sedwick
Posted on: May 17, 2013
How does a writer make an historical setting come alive? Good question, and one every writer faces no matter where her book is set. The answer is details–telling, precise details. And for many writers the problem isn’t having too few details, it is having too many.
Like most writers of historical fiction, I read a great deal about the time period of my novel. (I list some on my website.) I researched coyotes, rattlesnakes, rifles, prairie dogs, homesteading, the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl and the Volga Germans settlers. I looked at old Vogue and Harpers magazines to see what young women were reading. I listened to vintage radio serials like Little Orphan Annie. I watched videos of swing dancing. I also had my father’s memoir of growing up on the prairie in the 1930s. Whenever my writing got stuck, I researched and came up with new ideas.
Well, after all that research I had too much information. In fact, I risked bogging the novel down if I loaded it with too many. How does a writer decide what details to leave in and which are better left off the page?
An inexact science at best, but here are some tools.
Use the filter of the point of view character. What details would the character notice when he walks into a room? The light from the window, the rifle over the fireplace, or the dust bunnies along the floor. How does it physically feel to be that character. Are his feet stuffed into outgrown boots or is he climbing a tree barefoot? Does his home smell of baking bread or horse manure? Is he hungry, cold, dirty? What are his wishes and fears? What is his typical day?
What details would someone else notice about the character? My main character, Myles, tells corny jokes and puns, a detail which reveals how he likes to please others. His neighbor, on the other hand, boasts about killing coyotes and putting their pelts on his fences. Another telling detail.
What details are important to the plot? As Chekhov said, if you introduce a gun in the first act it had better go off by the third. In COYOTE WINDS, a neighbor boy shows Myles how to taunt a rattlesnake into striking until it is too tired to fight. This is important information towards the end of the novel.
Pacing also determines what details to add. In a suspenseful scene, add details to drag out the moment. That is how the mind works. In moments on stress, we often become very aware of our surroundings.
A writer should also slip in details which are just too wonderful to leave out. For instance, I describe a blind man’s bluff game played by the Volga immigrant children, including the German rhyme. I described the frogs which disappeared during the years of drought, only to appear again when the rains returned. When Myles is caught in a tornado, I describe how the suction torn off his shoes. To capture the carnival-like atmosphere before a rabbit drive, I describe how “neighbors chatted with one another, catching up on marriages, babies, and deaths. A man from Burlington offered homemade ale in Mason jars. Boys tossed ax handles in the air like batons.”
Some of the most interesting details came from my father’s memoir. He told how they buried old farm plows and tied the corner of the shack to the plows to keep the shack from blowing away in the prairie wind, how they made ice cream using summer hail, and how in the last minutes before a dust storm hits, the wind dies down. The blowing dust blocks the wind like a sail. I posted my father’s memoir on my blog.
These details are gifts, precious personal gifts, which I pass on to my readers.
CONTACT INFO:
Website: http://www.helensedwick.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/helensedwickauthor
I have posted my father’s memoir on my blog. www.helensedwick.blogspot.com
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Interview with Helen Sedwick
Posted on: May 16, 2013
Helen Sedwick is the author of Coyote Winds, an historical novel about the Dust Bowl. Having been inspired by her father’s stories of growing up during the Dust Bowl, Coyote Winds is a story close to her heart. I appreciate that she took time to answer questions and to write a guest post. Enjoy!
ALLISON: In one interview, you noted that you grew up in a theater family and that a dinnertime sport was to speculate about people’s characters and their story. What is the most outrageous story your family came up with?
HELEN: Oh, I wish I had a better memory. One comes to mind. It seemed outrageous at the time, and later proved to be percipient.
My mother was a woman of elegant reserved. (She played Dr. Sedwick for years on THE GUIDING LIGHT. Yes, they used her real name for the character. Some of your readers may remember her or find her on YouTube.) One time, when Richard Nixon appeared on television, my mother hunched over and launched into a Nixon imitation. The scolding finger, pinched forehead, darting eyes and one-sided scowl. It was hilariously and completely out-of-character for her. She called Nixon a study in paranoia. A few years later, Watergate proved her right.
ALLISON: In the same interview, you indicated that you tried acting but weren’t good at it. Have you tried other theater roles such as screenwriting or directing? What was your worst theater experience?
HELEN: Years ago I wrote a comedic play about dating titled Telling Tales. It ran for a couple of weekends in a small theater in Los Angeles. That was both my best and worst theater experience—getting produced, then closing in a flash.
ALLISON: Since your teens you have written in some form or another. What was your favorite subject in school and why? What was your worst subject in school and why?
HELEN: Interestingly, but it was math. The puzzles and logic of math made sense to me. I didn’t love math, but I did well, and when you are a teenager it’s a relief to do something well. My most painful subject was French. In 10th grade I transferred to a high school where my classmates had been studying French with a real French woman. I had one year of French with a teacher who spoke with a thick Brooklyn accent. I did not have a clue what was going on. I was terrified of getting called on. I remember the teacher gave me what was called a “charity pass.” D.
ALLISON: Have your experiences with advertising or business law helped you as a writer? When did you decide to become a writer?
HELEN: I always wanted to be a writer. But I saw how my parents, both artistic types, were taken advantage of because they did not understand business or money. After college, I realized I too had no idea about business or money, and I did not want to be taken advantage of like my parents. I went to law school with the plan that I would practice law long enough to learn what I needed to know, then quit and start writing again. Unfortunately, life, children, mortgages and school tuitions have a way of keeping us working instead of pursuing our dreams. Most of those obligations are behind me now. I am able to work part-time now and write more.
ALLISON: I loved your description in your guest post about “Why I Write for Teens” about yourself as a teen. Exactly how I felt at thirteen! How do you recapture those feelings and update them for today’s teenagers?
HELEN: I viscerally remember the painful awkwardness of those early teen years. Don’t you? And when you see your own children go through it, it all comes back to you. You want to help them, but there is only so much you can do.
ALLISON: Your father’s stories of growing up during the Dust Bowl inspired you to write Coyote Winds. If you could travel to back in time, what time period would you pick?
HELEN: The 1920s. Women had just won the right to vote. They were shedding their corsets, cutting their hair, and spreading their wings. It was a time of optimism and promise.
ALLISON: In your bio, you write that you grew up in the wilds of New York City before there were coyotes in Central Park. How close have you gotten to a coyote? Or any other wild animal?
HELEN: Now I live in a rural area of Sonoma County, so I see a lot of wild life. Foxes, deer, hawks, wild turkeys and coyotes. We also backpack in Sierras. On one backpack trip, a coyote followed alongside us for quite a while. She was not more than fifteen feet away. I suspect she had some pups nearby. And once a small black bear charged into camp while we were having breakfast and took off with a bag of food. We almost chased him until we realized there was probably a mother bear close by.
ALLISON: You have lived in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. Which is your favorite place and why? If you had to pick somewhere else to live, where would that be?
HELEN: I love the San Francisco area. The area is sophisticated and educated. If you are into art, music, food, wine, writing, it’s all here. But so are stunning natural surroundings. Whether you enjoy oceans, rivers, mountains or rolling hills, they are all close by. And California is the home of transplants. Almost everyone came here in pursuit of a dream. I love that. I am staying put.
ALLISON: The weirdest experience for you was having twins. What’s your most memorable experience?
HELEN: That is a hard one because I have so many. Hiking to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, camping overnight, and hiking out again all by myself is certainly one of them. The canyon is a timeless, mystical place. Silence and solitude were my companions. I recommend it for everyone’s bucket list.
ALLISON: How has being a published novelist changed you?
HELEN: I feel more centered. I have accomplished something I have always wanted to do, and I know that I can do it again. It requires hard work, and I will certainly have moments of doubt when I want to delete every word, but I know that I can retreat to this private, writing place and create a gift to give others.
ALLISON: How does your dad feel about Coyote Winds?
HELEN: Sadly, my father passed away in 2008. I had heard his stories about the Dust Bowl, and he left a wonderful memoir about those times. After he died, I was not ready to say good bye. I looked at his memoirs and found a way to bring them to life in COYOTE WINDS. He would have loved COYOTE WINDS. In fact, I am sure we would have written it together.
ALLISON: What’s next?
HELEN: Although I have several fiction projects at various stages. I am currently working on a non-fiction book tentatively title “Keeping It Legal, A Step-By-Step Guide to the Legal Issues of Self-Publishing, Blogging and Marketing Your Book.” Surprisingly, there isn’t a book that covers both the mundane and the intellectual legal issues. And I am asked legal questions all the time by my writer friends. I just started a blog and will use it to develop and test material for the book: Keeping It Legal.
CONTACT INFO:
Website: http://www.helensedwick.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/helensedwickauthor
I have posted my father’s memoir on my blog. www.helensedwick.blogspot.com
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Story Inspired by the Dust Bowl
Posted on: May 15, 2013
At 13 years old, I was too nerdy to be a tomboy and too tomboyish to be a nerd.
As a middle child, I was too young to be a big girl and too old to be a baby.
In school, I did well enough to be called smart, but was too boisterous to be considered good.
I hated it—not knowing who I was and where I fit in. I was stuck in the in-between, and it felt awkward, frustrating, and terribly lonely.
I write for adolescents in the hope that I can help at least one young reader feel less lonely.
Helen Sedwick, taken from an interview at Sheila Deeth’s blog
Helen Sedwick is the author of Coyote Winds, an historical novel about the Dust Bowl. Check back the next two days when I’ll share an interview with and a guest post from Sedwick. As traditional, on Saturday, I’ll post my review. Save the dates: May 16-18!
EARLY LIFE
Meet an author whose background is in theater! Helen Sedwick’s parents were theater people. Her father was a director. Her mother was an actress. For many summers, their family operated a summer stock theater. Sedwick and her siblings would build the sets, scrounge for props, and man the box office. Then night after night, Sedwick would watch the audience reactions. She grew up seeing the power of even a simple story to touch an audience and to connect a roomful of people to a common experience.
Sedwick’s parents believed that everyone had a story. At Three Guys One Book, Sedwick shared how a dinnertime sport was to speculate about people’s characters and their story: “What was hidden? What was percolating to the surface? How were their struggles revealed in a hesitation, a hand gesture, a choice of words? What villain hid behind a well-crafted façade?”
Because theater was a family affair, Sedwick tried acting but every role she ever got involved crying on stage and she found playing the role of an injured innocent to be dull. Well, Sedwick also apparently wasn’t any good. She told Three Guys One Book: ”I am analytical and distant, traits which are more useful to a writer than an actor. My on-stage tears were pathetically unbelievable. As bad as I was, I could still look out into the audience and see the power of the story.”
Cover of Snow Treasure
WRITING LIFE
However, from those theater years and from reading countless books, Sedwick fell in love with the power of the story. She also traces her decision to become an author to reading Snow Treasure by Marie McSwigan in second grade. Based on a true story, Snow Treasure tells of Norwegian children transporting nine million dollars of gold bullion past the noses of Nazi soldiers by hiding the gold on the sleds. At BookSnatch,she recalls sitting on the floor in her families’ apartment in New York and deciding that if she couldn’t live stories like Snow Treasure, then she wanted to make them up.
Sedwick majored in English at Cornell University and spent several years as an advertising copywriter. Then she attended University of Chicago Law School and moved to San Francisco where she practiced business law for almost thirty years, but she never forgot her dream to write. Over the years, Sedwick has also taken writing classes and participated in workshops. Her first major writing project was a play titled Telling Tales.
Described at Three Guys One Book as a light comedy about dating, Telling Tales explored the tension between trying to find one’s soul mate while still acting cool and disengaged. The play apparently enjoyed a short run in Los Angeles. Because Sedwick enjoyed seeing her worlds brought to life, she wrote another screenplay. It made the rounds in Hollywood but was never picked up. However, her short stories have won prizes in various contests and appeared in magazines and anthologies.
BOOK INFORMATION
A few years ago, Sedwick took a step back from her writing to see if her work contained any recurring themes. To Sheila Deeth, Sedwick reports: “Characters were almost always in the process of figuring who they were and what role they played, or were expected to play, within a family. Would they live their lives hidden behind the masks they created or which were handed to them? Or would they find a sense of self other than that mask?” Having made this realization, Sedwick decided to write for the young adult audience.
Helen Sedwick told Maga Manic Cafe that she was inspired to write Coyote Winds by her father’s stories of growing up during the Dust Bowl. While there was plenty of blowing dust in his stories, he also talked about freedom and adventure. He hunted rattlesnakes and rabbits, collected arrowheads and grasshopper, and camped out on the prairie grass where he counted a thousand shooting stars. Sedwick wanted to contrast her father’s “unfenced boyhood with the over-supervised life of a modern, suburban boy who couldn’t ride a bike without a helmet, play soccer without pads, or ride in a car with a driver under thirty.”
English: A farmer’s son in Cimarron County, Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl era. Category:Farm Security Administration images (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
As she researched the Dust Bowl, Sedwick also discovered that it is “a classic story about American optimism”. This positive attitude is what drew families to the prairie with dreams of owning their own land. They plowed up millions of acres of native grassland. Then the prairie winds blew, so constant that for time her father and others stopped noticing its presence. Unfortunately, what followed was one of the worst man-made environmental disasters in history: the Dust Bowl. The howling wind is what Sedwick considered the “soundtrack” to her novel, which she describes as “good families doing what they believed to be the right thing, only to have the results turn out so terribly wrong.”
How is Coyote Winds for young adults? By the end of the novel, the two main characters of Myles and Andy come to question their parents’ choices and start to make their own. As such, they are moving past the in-between phase of adolescence.
What I appreciated most about Ryan though is that he had moments of being nice and of being scared. In other words, he managed to at times rise above being a stereotypical jerk. 
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