Nissa-Nassu

In my work-in-progress children’s pioneer novel, “The Wormy Bean Winter,” six-year old Emmi tells two-year-old Sunni about Aunt Riika’s famous Nissa-Nassu (Finnish Christmas Piggy Cookies) that they always have at their aunts for Thanksgiving. This results in their saying the name both forward and backwards, "Nassu-Nissa...Nissa-Nassa," as well as much noisy “oinking” and even noisier giggling!

Jana attempted to nurture her Finnish heritage by making Piggy Cookies for Christmas.

In the photo they did look “piggy.” (Messy like pigs anyway!), due to coloring the frosting with some seedy raspberry jelly or something to make them pink!  I’m sure they were delicious. And I admire her spirit in fostering our Finnish traditions.

Happy Holidays!

Lorna Kerin Beall

Note from Jana: Inspired by my mom's story, I decided to try my hand at Finnish Piggy Cookies. Dan combined the Finnish tradition of baking ginger cookies with his own love of local Tohono O'odham heritage ingredients by making yummy mesquite-ginger cookies. Unfortunately, the piggy shape and ginger-mesquite taste was covered by the raspberry frosting. I didn't have a pig cookie cutter so I cut out circles and sculpted piggy ears, snout, legs and tail with my fingers. I made another cookie of a piggy face with a raised snout. They sorta looked like pigs until I put the speckled pink frosting on them. I tried making eyes with little dollops of white icing and a shiny round sprinkle. When I applied black eye lasses on it, Dan's mom exclaimed, "Oh! It's a face!" 

Mining for Authentic Details

Lorna Kerin Beall

In the children’s novel I’m writing, The Wormy Bean Winter, Kata’s Finnish Pappa and her thirteen-year-old brother, Jari, go to work in a Copper Mine in Butte, Montana.

Vanadium, Colorado mine, ca 1900. Western History/Genealogy Dept., Denver Public Library.

I needed to find out if they used Carbide helmet-lamps there in 1919. So I called a librarian in Butte and, surprise of surprises, she’d seen a photograph of a miner wearing one for the very first time in that mine in 1912!  She also explained in detail how the carbide “lumps” worked. I owe her many thanks.

I also needed to know the name and description of the contraption (elevator?) the miners took to enter the mine. My daughter (who had done some research for her own screenplay) hooked me up with Carey Granger, the tour guide and care-taker of the Good Enough Silver Mine in Tombstone, Arizona. Carey told me it was called a cage.

In, The Wormy Bean Winter, Pappa and Jari have to go in the cage for the first time. I likened it to a cage of chickens they’d seen fall off a buckboard and clatter down a cliff.  Carey, thanks for sharing the authentic details that help make my story a little more accurate. I probably still need to double-check some of my mining details... 

HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF A LITERARY CRITIQUE SESSION

by Lorna Kerin Beall

I recently attended a wonderful Children’s Writing Conference in Springfield, Missouri, and had a chapter of my middle-grade novel critiqued by, oh joy, an acclaimed editor!

When I registered, I was handed a one-page critique along with my manuscript pages, but didn’t have time to read it beforehand. What did I do during my precious fifteen minutes with the editor? I blabbed the whole time, hardly giving her a chance to speak. Later a friend and fellow writer confessed that she’d often find herself doing the same thing. How do I prevent this from happening again? And better yet... 

How do you get the most out of a conference critique session?

1) After writing it down, practice what you are going to say. (Jana has told me that she has done this for “screenplay pitch sessions.”)

2) If you haven’t put the genre and targeted audience at the top right hand corner of your first page (or wherever they might request that information), tell the person that information. Also mention the word count/and/or number of chapters.

3) Briefly tell the plot of the story and what is unique about it. Also relate the ending.

4) Write down questions you want to ask, and feel free to take notes. (Some of us have senior memories.)

5) If you’ve had a chance to read the written critique, and you need the person to explain or elaborate, this is the perfect time to ask.

I didn’t notice until days later that the editor gave me a wonderful compliment in her written critique. She graciously said my chapter of The Wormy Bean Winter reminded her of some of the best work of O.E. Rölvaag, the acclaimed author of Giants of the Earth, (A novel about homesteading in South Dakota, first published in 1927.) I admit it, I’d never even heard of him. But I immediately looked up information on the Internet, and requested his books from the library. The only one available was Giants of the Earth and I loved it! Because of the time era I expected to be bogged down in lengthy description, but I wasn’t. It has a unique slant, (especially for that time period) bringing out both the Norwegian husbands and wife’s viewpoint about homesteading in the desolate prairie. This is too simplistic- but Per Hansa was exuberant about the whole experience, while his wife, Beret, nearly became suicidal.

After devouring the book, I decided to make up for my neglect in responding to the editor’s gracious comment about my work. Since my book has a Finnish protagonist, I found a thank you card that said thanks in several different languages. Of course, it didn’t have the Finnish word, so I added it at the bottom of the list:“Kiitos!”

6) Lastly, whatever the editor, agent or author says about your work be thankful for their time and effort. And express it. You may disagree and that’s your right, but often when they suggest changes it’s more helpful than accolades. I got both from the editor who critiqued mine. Though I have to admit her compliment was like a sweet taste of molasses. (I started to say honey, but molasses figures largely in my old-timey prairie story.)

Keep writing, going to conferences and having consultations. It’s worth it!

Note: Some guidelines adapted from The Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators' handout, "Manuscript Consultations."  

Servin' up Wormy Beans with Sisu

 by Lorna Kerin Beall

“Ugh,” “Ick,” and “Eww,” Nana's grandchildren responded when she told them how her family survived on wormy beans one hard Minnesota winter when she was a child. Nana smacked her lips, "Yum! Protein!"  I wasn’t so shocked. After all, didn’t they normally eat weird things like pickled pigs feet, and pig brains (that went by the name of headcheese?) I’d even heard that they, as well as my own family, ate rattlesnakes!

Little did I know at the time that wormy beans would play such a big part in the middle-grade novel I would someday write. “The Wormy Bean Winter," is based on real-life events of my Finnish American family. Though, as my husband Richard likes to point out,  it was his side of the family who actually ate the wormy beans!

In a card promoting my manuscript, I included the synopsis, “Kata didn’t realize that something as tiny as a wormy bean could be the difference between disaster and survival. While homesteading on the South Dakota prairie during the harsh winter of 1919, her family was barely surviving on their last bag of beans. When they discovered they were eating beans infested with worms, Pappa went to work in a copper mine leaving 12-year-old Kata in charge of the outdoor chores in the bitter cold. What was worse was that Papa’s confidence in Kate was bean-sized, too. She had to prove her sisu, the Finnish word for guts and determination, while she faced challenges like her baby sister’s ear nearly freezing off, vicious old “Three-Toes” the wolf, and all her sisters’ refusal to eat the wormy beans even if it meant starvation!”

I loved writing the book and coming to know more about my family. And I am so thankful for the humor, sisu and faith that both our families had when they helped settle this wild and wondrous country.  

Inspirational Visit to Laura Ingalls Wilder's Rocky Ridge Farmhouse

Jana Segal

While visiting my mom in Missouri, we took a self-guided tour of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Rocky Ridge Farmhouse in Mansfield where Laura wrote the beloved Little House books. What a lovely day!  The introduction included a charming documentary featuring a recording of the elderly Laura making a speech about how everything that she wrote about really happened to her. 

While touring the museum, I was struck by the similarities between the mother-daughter relationship of Rose Wilder and Laura Ingalls Wilder and my own relationship with my mother. The first thing I noticed was that mother and daughter were both writers - just as we are. Laura's daughter Rose was a successful writer and editor for the San Francisco Bulletin when she encouraged her mother to jot down her stories. Rose used that expertise to give her mom feedback on her work - just as I gave mom feedback on her children's manuscript. It was encouraging to read that Laura's first book, "Little House in the Big Woods" wasn't published until she was a senior citizen in 1932.  (See, mom, there's hope for you yet!) Inspired by her mom's stories, Rose went on to write, "The Young Pioneers." Likewise,  I was inspired to adapt my mom's family story, "Model T Biscuits" for the big screen. 

my 1880s writing desk

As Mom and I toured the farmhouse, I felt a kinship with Laura and her daughter Rose. Noticing all the pioneer mementos, I sensed that we shared a common nostalgia for South Dakota homesteading heritage. (Mom writes about her own family's South Dakota homesteading adventures in her book, "Wormy Bean Winter.") We spoke to one volunteer who used to be a teacher. She recalled how Laura liked to come to her classroom and read her books. My mom also loved to read her books in me and my siblings' childhood classrooms. 

I looked around and saw that we weren't the only ones who felt a special bond with Laura and Rose Wilder. There were people from all over the country (and other countries too) and even a Mennonite family who related to those cherished Little House books.

Laura Ingalls Wilder's Rocky Ridge Farmhouse museum site:

http://www.lauraingallswilderhome.com

Video of the Rocky Ridge Farmhouse property

PATCHWORK WRITING

by Lorna Kerin Beall

After Jana did the screenplay adaptation of Model T Biscuits she had several of her filmmaker friends critique it before sending it out to a contest. Some had the feeling that our protagonist, 8-year-old Lorna, was a little too whiny and needy and therefore not completely likable. A few of my writer friends had the same opinion. (While others loved her just as she was.) My opinion, Little Lorna was me! Now what was not likable about perfect little fictional me? Ha! Obviously I was too close to the situation to see clearly. Perhaps some of you may be able to relate to this problem when basing fiction on your own lives.

In Model T Biscuits,  little Lorna was overjoyed to be reunited with her Mama after being raised by her Finnish Mumu. She was also anxious that Mama might not stick around. So what was the problem? Lorna didn’t really want Mama and Step-Daddy (who were newlyweds) to hold hands, smooch or have privacy at bedtime. After getting her friends’ feedback, Jana suggested that I have the parents hang a sheet in the corner of the migrant apple-picking shack, and have Lorna come to accept it. This enabled me to have Step-Daddy duck under the sheet and to give Lorna her rag doll in order to show his love and tenderness early on. So honoring their feedback by patching up that issue inspired more creative ideas!

Besides working on the screenplay, I continued to tweak my children’s novel, Model T Biscuits, which the screenplay was based on. Advice from our writer friends was extremely helpful. We weighed each suggestion carefully, though we might not always take it. Later I joined a local critique group, which is invaluable, and have been privileged to work with my SCBWI mentor, Leslie Wyatt on my children’s novel, Wormy Bean Winter.

Patchwork quilts are sometimes stitched by a group of caring hands. I am grateful for the writers who have helped us stitch (or take out stitches) in our writing endeavors.

Piecing Patchwork Memories for Wormy Bean Winter

 by Lorna Kerin Beall

    When Jana and I accepted our screenplay award for Model T Biscuits at Santa Clarita, and she’d given her articulate acceptance speech, I stammered a few nervous sentences. I managed to end by saying that it was my Finnish mom and her sisu, (the Finnish word for guts and determination) that inspired me to write Model T.
   
    Later, as I pondered my mother’s courage, I began to remember what I heard about her childhood as her family homesteaded on the South Dakota prairie. I didn’t have much to go on at first. I recalled that she’d told me that her younger sisters, Irene and Leona had slept in the same bed with her which kept them warmer in the bitter winter weather and caused them to roast like sticky marshmallows in the summer. We had a black and white snapshot of Mom, her brother Gus, and Irene and Leona playing with bits of broken crockery using snake holes in the side of a Butte for a cupboard! (Scary.)
                                                                                                                              
      Mom, Dad and I had a small farm in Prosser, Washington. Mom loved to work outside with cows, calves chicken and such. All of our cows and calves had names. I had a steer named Cocoa that I rode all over the farm. I only fell off one time, when he jumped over a little ditch.

    Mom told me several times that when she was a child she’d been stuck in their homestead shack doing inside chores while her sister, Irene, who would’ve loved changing places with her, got to work outside. There was enough outdoor work to go around since they had to haul water from way out by the barn, carry wood in and ashes out, and chop out a multitude of wounding cacti.  I know they all had to pitch hay from dawn to dusk at haying time.

Fred Hultstrand History in Pictures Collection, NDIRS-NDSU, Fargo 

My grandmother ( Finnish Mumu) also inspired me. My Omaha cousin had written several inspirational articles about our mumu’s sisu. If I remember correctly these were published in some senior citizen magazines. As a child our mumu was once surrounded by a wolf pack and survived. And as an adult she’d encountered a different type of predator - the two legged kind - whom she met head-on with a pitchfork.  
                                                                                                                           
Hearing about these incidents and talking to my cousin, inspired me to begin writing a middle-grade, multi-cultural novel, Wormy Bean Winter. It would be loosely based on our family’s homesteading adventures on the prairie. Since it was to be a children’s novel, I made my mom the 12-years-old protagonist, always keeping in mind that all of her family members had a lot of faith and sisu.

  But where to start? I formulated a long list of questions, ranging from “How far did the family have to carry water?” to “Did you have a Christmas tree?” I even asked, “Were you hugged and kissed a lot by your parents?” I sent my questions to my cousin, Willo Boe, who lovingly and eagerly began to help and contacted other family members. In fact, she was inspired to write three wonderful non-fiction books of her own with amazing photos about our family. (These have been invaluable help in my writing.) In the first, she wrote in the acknowledgments, “Without my cousin, Lorna Beall’s curiosity regarding our grandparents’ lives, none of us would have considered the project.”

Our family heritage is a beautiful patchwork quilt pieced with both soft and more durable rag pieces.

Family and Family Heritage Inspire Writing

by Lorna Kerin Beall

Who would think that a little girl raised in a tiny farm house with only two books to her name, (“Heidi” and “Cherry Ames, Student Nurse”) would develop a life long love of reading and writing. I have been writing for over 50 years, publishing articles and short story manuscripts in magazines such as Guideposts. One was reprinted in a Hallmark book. These minor early successes encouraged me to persevere and develop my distinctive voice. During this time I was also progressing to children’s picture book manuscripts. Having raised six children and taught Sunday school for disabled children, I saw a need for more books that dealt with children's issues. So I wrote books that centered both on light-hearted issues, such as discovering the simple treasures in life, and more serious issues such as child abuse. Wanting to communicate to children, I volunteered to read my picture books in my own children’s classrooms. It meant so much when I saw the flicker in the kids’ eyes.

About 20 years ago, I attended my first SCBWI conference. Seeing all those people writing children's books opened up a whole new world to me. Since then I’ve completed quite a body of work, writing both picture books and children’s novel manuscripts. My middle-grade novel, “Model T Biscuits” is very dear to my heart because it is inspired by my experience of being reunited with my mother in 1948 after being raised for my first six years by my Finnish Mumu (Grandmother) in Buffalo, South Dakota. This became a family project when my oldest daughter, Jana Segal, worked with me on the screenplay adaptation further carrying on our family heritage. Our script won first place in the Santa Clarita International Family Film Festival as well as the Moondance International Film Festival short screenplay contests. At Santa Clarita, we had the pleasure of seeing our script read by actors from the Dee Wallace acting studio.

Some years back, I attended a family reunion in South Dakota and heard stories of how my Finnish grandparents survived the harsh prairie winters in their homestead shack. They really had what we Finns call sisu or guts and determination. These family stories inspired my historical fiction, middle-grade novel, “Wormy Bean Winter.” This past year, I was honored with a Missouri SCBWI mentorship to work on “Wormy Bean Winter” with children’s author, Leslie J. Wyatt. That experience was incredibly rewarding, and I know that my manuscript is much stronger thanks to Leslie.

I am grateful for my small town upbringing in Buffalo, South Dakota and Prosser, Washington that taught me the value of family and heritage that influences my writing today.