Under Covers Book Club interpret Divinity of Second Chances in Quilts

This is part two of the Under Covers Book Club Quilts and their interpretation of a novel. This year the Bend book club read the novel by Kaya McLaren, The Divinity of Second Chances. Each year they choose a book with the mission of each member interpreting the book with her quilt in time for the outdoor quilt show in August. I'm showing the quilts in my blog because I find it fascinating how if you give a group of people the same book, each one will come away with a different message or it will affect him or her in a different way. That is what makes the creative process so fascinating to an author.
(Note: I originally used the quilts from the outdoor show and the provances that were pinned to the quilts. On Friday, Sept. 2 the quilts and an updated provenance opened for a month long showing at The Quilt Works, on Greenwood in Bend. I have updated this post with new photos and the updated provenance. The showing will be in the Quiltworks through the month of September.)

Several of the quilters wrote fairly extensive provenance to go along with her quilt. I took close ups of those to run along with the quilt so you can share them.

Jane put mental images of settings into her quilt.

Susan used a quilting technique to represent characters in the book.

Martha's "Second Chance" is in the Sunflower....

Cindy liked a personification of the moon...

Kristin used the first line of the book On the Divinity of Second Chances

Betty focused on an item very important the widow Pearl

Sally used an excerpt from the book and featured the ancient cottonwood in her quilt.

Erin's quilt represents some of the things that stood out for her.

Janelle's quilt is in story quilt form.

Lani's quilt sees the light at the end of the tunnel.

Wanda's quilt represents her personal journey.

Kaya's quilt tells the story in quilt form.

The talented ladies who made the quilts.

If you live in the Bend area or are visiting the area during the month of September, the quilts based on the Kaya McLaren book On the Divinity of Second Chances will be featured up stairs at the Quiltworks Quiltshop-fabric store located on 926 Greenwood in Bend. Find Kaya's book at Barnes and Noble and other local book stores in Bend.

Kenneth Fenter,

proud father of a member of The Under Covers Book Club

Interpreting a book through a quilt. Undercovers Book Club Quilts

(Click On any of these photos click on it and it will go to full screen to read the provenance or study photo detail. Escape will return to normal.)
    
 Last Christmas my daughter presented me with a beautiful quilt that interpreted the cliff dwelling from my novel The Ruin. When I asked the designer to create a cover for the sequel, The Bee Tree she used the image of this quilt. I was delighted with the whole concept, of course.

Not long before the unveiling of the Ruin quilt, I had the very high pleasure of being the guest of her book club, The Under Covers Book Club. It was interesting to see what each person homed in on when they read the book. One of the reasons the book club was formed was a common interest besides reading books. They are quilters. (Thus the clever double meaning name – Under Covers) Each year they choose a book to use as a central theme for a quilt. Each member reads the same book and from the thing they focus on in the book, or the ideas they like in the book, they create a quilt. The first year they did Sy Montgomery's book The Good Pig. It is a fascinating idea. The idea did not originate with this club. There are other book clubs around who have been doing this for some time and their results are really interesting.

Book reviews are always illuminating, and these quilts are a kind of visual book review. I thought I'd share some of them with you. The book the Under Covers Book Club chose this past year was The Divinity of Second Chances by Kaya McLaren. The title in itself is a wonderful theme and is the theme in the two novels that I've written.

There are too many photos and their provenance to present all at once here. I will feature a couple or three at a time.

Kaya McLaren is an elementary teacher Washington, quilter, and gifted writer of Church of the Dog, On The Divinity of Second Chances and is working on her current novel Embers. This is the author Kaya McLaren's own quilt and provenance explaining her thoughts on her quilt.

This was my daughter Janelle's approach to portraying the book as she explains in her provenance. Her original design is 51 x 61.

Wanda, on the other hand, read the book and it sent her on her own personal journey of second chances which she shares in the provenance.

The quilts based on Kaya McLaren's book are on display at Quiltworks at 926 Greenwood, Bend for the entire month of September 2011.

More later. If you are interested in how to set up a quilters/book club, leave a comment and I'll forward it to the Under Covers Book Club. They'll help you get started.

My best wishes,

Kenneth Fenter

Third book in Kenneth Fenter's "Ruin", "Bee Tree" series in re-write stage

I have begun the second phase in the process of writing the third novel in the series that began with The Ruin: A boy's quest to rebuild his self-worth by seeking refuge in the wilderness.

A story of any kind goes through many steps. First comes the idea. Then writing the idea down. Forming it into the story. In the beginning it might be a short story. In the case of The ruin it began with a short story about a boy being chased down the road one night by his brother and a neighbor. That led to a short story about a fight at the grade school. In the beginning these were autobiographical and were used as samples to get a writing group started. Over a period of time the number of these short stories grew, still autobiographical.

At some point the kernel of an idea began forming of a novel. Many of the short stories became the basis of ideas in the novel, but could not be used in the novel. Those short stories, however were used in association with other short stories written by my siblings and formed a body of work which we published about my families history over the 17 year period we owned a farm on Summit Ridge Colorado. Which incidentally became the setting for the novels that I did end up writing.

The process.

Once the story or idea is on paper then the decision has to be made. It is going to remain a short story, turned into a poem, fleshed out into a full novel with sub-plots, full cast of characters, message, scope, etc.

The next step is the first full draft. This may be written in parts and assembled in various orders until it fits, or it may be written from start to finish with tweaking after it is done.

And then the hard part. Re-writing. How many re-writes depends on many factors. In the bee tree it took many. The first draft was a short story with only the main conflict. Then a re-write with the bee-tree and swarm capture, and third major re-write the quinceañera ceremony.

Finally comes fleshing out and proofing ad nauseam.

So now I have the first rough draft of the manuscript done and on the first re-write. Some chapters may disappear. Some new chapters may be written. Some characters may be created, names change, situations change, plots twist differently. It is now time to ask myself "what were you thinking two months ago when you wrote this?" check facts again, again, and again.

coffee break is over....

best wishes,
Kenneth Fenter

Get The Ruin and The Bee Tree at The Lane County Fair

Meet me at the Lane County Fair Author's Table August, 17, 18, and 19. I will be there for the 11:00 to 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. shifts each day. The author's tables will be located indoors at the southern end of the air-conditioned main exhibit hall.

There will be 37 Oregon authors in attendance this year so I'll be in great company this year. It will be the first time I will attend since 1986. I'm looking forward to it.

If you are in the Eugene area I'd enjoy visiting with you. I'll have special pricing for the Fair.

Kenneth Fenter

Know Local Authors Deschutes Public Library Sat and Sun Aug 12 & 13

Meet me at the Know Your Local Authors at the Deschutes Public Library Saturday and Sunday August 12th and 13th.

On Saturday, August 13, 2011, participants will share and sell their work from 12:00 pm 4:00 at the East Bend Public Lirary.

On Sunday, August 14, 2011, participants will share and sell their works from 12:30-4:00 at the downtown Public Library.

I will be reading from both The Ruin and The Bee Tree from 2:45 to 3:00 at the Downtown Public Library on Sunday, August 14, 2011.

I will be at both locations on both days with both books.

Hope to meet you there.
Kenneth Fenter

Bee Tree receives 4 star review on Live to Read blog

     The Bee Tree received  a 4 star review from Krystal on the Live to Read blog this week to follow up on her review of The Ruin. The link to the review is: Live to Read . I've nearly given up on the newspapers as a place to let readers know about the books. Even in my own community of Bend Oregon, the only books that attract attention of the page editors are reviews from mainstream publishers with million dollar advertising campaigns and books already on the NY times best seller lists. But the people who spread the word about the vital world of new ideas and books that are being written by the next generation of authors are the book bloggers.
     Several hundred avid readers, collectors, lifelong students of literature, homebound reviewers, you name it, spend their spare time, blogging books. Some have a genre they pursue. Some range far afield. Some manage huge data bases of reviews, reading lists, etc. such as Goodreads.
     I invite you to click on the Live to Read blog and check out Krystal's review of The Bee Tree and The Ruin and then go ahead and see what she has to say about the many other books she has reviewed. She indicates she has read several thousand in her short life span.

   My best wishes,
   Kenneth Fenter