The Fly on the Wall, by Elaine Gannon

 I'm lucky enough to have Elaine Gannon, author of Terps, here today. Her book is about an interpreter of sign language (shortened to "terp" - hence the title.) Elaine herself is a "Terp," and she has written  this essay about what it is like.

“How did you get into sign language?”

People ask me this all the time. Hearing people who know nothing about it. Deaf people who know plenty and who are curious about where their interpreters are coming from. They want to know if their interpreters are codas (children of Deaf adults) or if they picked the language up as adults. While I admit to not being a coda, I am always quick to add that my husband is Deaf. I don’t know what this makes me, but it does buy me a bit of credibility when I first meet a Deaf consumer.

It’s a weird career, being the ears and voice of other people. When I’m interpreting, I’m not there. Hearing people try to start up side conversations with me, but I just sign whatever they’re saying to the Deaf person and refrain from being the one to respond. It’s not my conversation. Sometimes I interpret interesting chatter and long to be a participant instead of a conduit of communication, but I can’t. I’m a tool being used by the Deaf person at that moment. Sometimes I know more about a subject than the person who is speaking, but I can’t interject a quick statement of my own to make everyone else’s conversation clearer. I’m not there.

Most people have no idea of how to use me. I’m often asked to relay messages when I’m only supposed to interpret a person’s exact words as they’re being spoken. Hearing clients speak of Deaf participants in the third person while watching me instead of watching the person with whom they are actually speaking. “Tell her…Could you ask her...? Does she know if…?” Even then, it’s not my job to say, “Tell her yourself. I’ll interpret.” It’s tempting, but that’s up to the Deaf consumer to handle.

One of the most interesting things about being absorbed into the culture that exists where hearing and Deaf overlap is just how normal it is to be Deaf and to be among the Deaf. It’s just another language—and a beautiful one. Whenever I include a hearing non-signer in a Deaf event, it’s the hearing person who has the disability in that instance. Deaf people have a rich culture and a fascinating history in this country and it continues to grow more complicated as more people attempt to “fix” them with technology. It’s been that way since Alexander Graham Bell tried to do away with Sign Language and that’s not likely to change any time soon.

It’s an honor to be a fly on the wall in so many people’s lives.

(If you are interested in reading Terps, you can find it here.)

Anna MacLean: Louisa and the Missing Heiress

NOTE: One randomly drawn commenter will win a Victorian tea cup and saucer. You can follow Anna's blog tour and continue to leave comments - dates are at the bottom of the post.

For all you mystery lovers who enjoy a good, cozy read, Anna Maclean has written a fantastic novel about a new sleuth, who you will all recognize: Louisa May Alcott. I got to peek at her book, Louisa and the Missing Heiress. It is wonderfully written and a great book for the summer.

I was also lucky enough to be able to interview Ms MacLean:

I love the idea of having Louisa May Alcott act as a detective and solve mysteries. Can you tell us how you developed Miss Alcott as a character for your series?

Thanks! I loved working with Louisa.  To develop her I first chose the age I wanted her to be, and decided to begin well before she was successful and famous so that I could show her progress as a writer.  I also wanted her to be somewhat independent and moving about on her own, so she couldn’t be too young.  After her age and development stage as a writer I was most concerned with her family relationships, and their importance on her development. I think it is absolutely true that Louisa would not have become Louisa without that particular mother and father.

Louisa and the Missing Heiress is a cozy mystery. Is this your favorite genre, and why?

I love cozies.  Absolutely love them. I find them to be kind of soothing in the way that Mozart is soothing. The music (and the stories) have depth and emotion and great narrative, yet they don’t go anywhere too dark.  I have enough of my own moments of darkness. When I read for pleasure I like the work to stay closer to the light and even have moments of humor.

You have a very nice review from John Pratt, Louisa’s great-great-nephew! How did you get in touch with the descendant of the author of Little Women?

My agent also represents the Louisa May Alcott estate and we connected through him.

What is your favorite part of being a writer and of the writing process?

You know, there are those moments of writing when something appears on the page that you didn’t see coming, didn’t plan it, work for it, yet there it is, a moment of grace and surprise that just makes the whole day worthwhile.  I love stories, love telling them, love seeing what happens when they start showing up on the page.

This looks like a fantastic book for summer reading on the beach. Could you describe the other books you have published?

Before the Louisa mysteries I mostly wrote historical fiction.  My first novel, The Frenchwomen, is set during the French Revolution and quite a bit of it takes part in Pennsylvania, where there was once a very mysterious colony of French émigrés.  French Azilum, the colony, at one point had the largest log cabin ever built in this country, and Marie Antoinette was supposed to live there.  But of course, her rescue didn’t work. I was completely taken, though, with that true story about French émigrés dancing minuets in a Pennsylvania meadow, and built a novel around it.  My second novel, The Queen’s War, is about Eleanor of Aquitaine, and the year she declared war on her own husband, Henry.  I really like strong woman!  My third historical novel, Dreams of Empire, is set in Egypt, when Napoleon was there, trying to conquer his way across the east, to India.  His plans fell far short, but the story of his expedition of scientists and artists made a great setting to work with.  My fourth historical, The Sweet By and By, tells the story of Maggie Fox, a strange farm girl who began American spiritualism, that whole ‘knock-knock, spirits are there’ thing.  She was truly fascinating, and her setting, mid-nineteenth century America was rich with contradiction and eccentricity. What more could a novelist ask for? 

What is your work in progress?

Ah.  I’m a little superstitious about talking about unfinished work.  I’ll just say it is historical and an era I’ve never before visited – Elizabethan England.

Thanks so much for appearing on Fresh Pot of Tea!

Thank you!  By the way, I also edited an anthology, The Book of Love, published by W.W. Norton, and in my introduction I quote a bit from Kakuzo’s The Book of Tea: “The afternoon glow is brightening the bamboos, the fountains are bubbling with delight, the soughing of the pines is heard in our kettle.  Let us dream of evanescence, and linger in the beautiful foolishness of things.”  Happy tea time!

Here is an excerpt from the novel:

From Louisa and The Missing Heiress by Anna Maclean

The clock chimed four-thirty. I sighed and stirred, tapping my foot more quickly under the concealing hem of my brown linsey-woolsey skirts. Where was our hostess? Surely she could have tried on every hat in Boston by now.  Had she forgotten? Dot had never been the quickest mind – she had wept over fractions and torn her hair over South American rivers – but to completely forget her own welcome-home tea party!

            I looked outside the room into the hall.  The huge, ornate coat tree was close enough to the parlor that every time I looked in that direction and saw Mr. Wortham’s velvet coat hanging there on its hook, I had the eerie sense that someone else was standing there, watching.  Something strange, hostile, dangerous, floated through that house where newlyweds should have been so happy.

The Blog  Tour:

6/13/2011 Fresh Pot of Tea
6/14/2011 Dasef's Book Central
6/15/2011 Ryshia Kennie's - Once Upon A Time...
6/16/2011 A Novel Source
6/17/2011 Me, My Muse and I
6/20/2011 Theresa Stillwagon
6/21/2011 Nancy's Notes from Florida
6/22/2011 Grace Elliot- gripping historical romance

Dear Hart

I'm nothing if not a bit slow on the uptake. I noticed lately that I have more readers than usual (and thanks so much if you are new to the blog.) When I checked the stats, because I'm a complete stats geek, I found that quite a few readers were coming from Hart Johnson's gorgeous, fun, chatty blog, Confessions of a Watery Tart.


When I first created Fresh Pot of Tea, a few months ago, I got a lot of great blogging advice from Hart. She was generous and supportive from the start, in the manner of a cool new girlfriend who helps you with shopping (and we all know I need a lot of help with that.)


And now I see that she has added Fresh Pot of Tea to her blog list on Watery Tart. I've been buried under print editions and editing my sequel and editing other writers' books, so it wasn't until yesterday that I saw my little teapot on Hart's list.


For a blogger, making that list is like getting a star on Hollywood Boulevard. I'm thrilled! I'm excited! I'm using too many exclamation points again!!!!!


Do go and stop by Hart's blog. You'll find out why she calls herself a watery tart in the first place, and who HWMNBMOTI is. Plus, every Thursday is Naked Thursday there. What's not to like?