The following is a guest essay by Rivers Turn Press author, Sean Keefer.
 
This month marks the release by Rivers Turn Press of the third installment in the Noah Parks mystery series. This latest release is entitled The Code.
 
Looking back, it’s a bit surreal that I’ve published one book, much less three (not counting a non-fiction book).
 
The funny thing is, I’ve always considered myself first a musician, a writer of songs. When a blank page presents itself, the story is usually told in three and a half minutes, often no more than 100 words. 
 
The three novels have nearly a quarter of a million words.
 
It was more than fifteen years ago that, on a random day, I decided to write a book. I didn’t know what it was going to be about, the plot, and who the characters were – I had a cursor on a laptop. Looking back, maybe I didn’t decide to write a book this first day. Perhaps the realization that a novel was forming took hold later. Whatever it was, however, whenever the light came on that a book was in the works, something kept me coming back after that first day.
 
Looking back, I’m pretty sure it was simply curiosity. A curiosity to learn just what was happening with the project I found myself orchestrating.
 
Much to my surprise, when my first book, The Trust, was published, people read it. That was motivational. People asked me questions. Those questions challenged me. I began to realize as much as I enjoyed reading (and still do), writing, while an entirely different experience, is a process I find just as enjoyable as reading. When I finish reading a book, I want more. But wanting more to read means waiting, waiting on the author to repeat the process.
 
Those questions asked me made me realize that I had a roadmap of sorts, a roadmap for the characters that had come to life in my writing. What would they do? What would they become? What would they show me?
 
I still had no idea what the answers to the questions were, but I kept paying attention.
 
Then it occurred to me that after reading a book, there would be a waiting period for the author’s next book and that by writing a book, I controlled the process. I could determine when that next book would be available.
 
So I took the questions I was being asked. I studied them. That made me ask more questions. When the time was right, in a manner of speaking, I put those questions to my characters, and their answers became my second book, The Solicitor.
 
With The Solicitor, more questions followed. Those questions were part of the path to The Code.
 
Writing the first book was a challenge, editing was a process I wasn’t prepared for, and the publishing process, well, that, from start to finish, is not the most enjoyable. This time around, Rivers Turn Press made the publishing a pleasant experience, but the writing and editing were just as challenging as before. But as challenging as they were, they were amazingly rewarding, and the curiosity from The Trust was still there. I kept asking questions and coming back to find out just what the characters had to share, to learn their answers, and to see what story they would tell.
 
Their story became The Code.
 
The Code is a different kind of book for me. In The Trust, I started writing and forced my way to a finish. Looking back, I’m somewhat surprised it worked. In The Solicitor, I planned and plotted. When I was considering the next book, two things came to me, the characters in my books had a backstory I wanted to explore. That story would again be a mystery, and I knew I needed a murder or two, or three, or, well, let’s say, murders, but I also needed more to create a book that is the next step following my last. I wanted a book to challenge the reader. A book that would make them ask more questions. A book they would want to talk about. I lived in a city with nearly three centuries of history. Somewhere in that history was a story that I knew would fit the characters in the books. That led to research and raised more questions that the characters had been waiting to answer.
 
The result is a mystery within a mystery, with some history along the way.
 
As I researched The Code, I learned about some people along the way. One is a former governor of South Carolina. He died more than a century before my birth. He lived in a different time, and had a different set of values, and a different approach to life, but during that life, he rose to be the governor of what was at the time one of the largest states in the US. But, despite that, there’s not a great deal known about him. He lived, was involved in the South Carolina government for nearly half of his life, and, during his life, wrote one of the most successful books of his time. Yet, he’s not much more than a footnote in the history of South Carolina. Even where he is buried is a mystery.
 
You may be asking, “So what?”
 
There are a lot of stories out there (and I’m not just talking about those in the books we read.) Some make it into our own histories, some into the stories we tell, some may be of timely import only to fade as time passes, and others may change as they are retold. Some become the reality of our view of the past. However, all we do, all we think, and all we see and say make up the total of the history of our collective reality. Some say that the victors write history, but I believe that regardless of who may write it, history creates who we all are.
 
So, there's a history within every book you see, and every person you meet. It may be fiction, it may be non-fiction, it may be the stranger you pass on the street, but never-the-less, it’s someone’s story. Just like a forgotten governor, there is a world out there waiting to be found. We only have to look for it. And when we find it, make sure we do all we can to tell that story.
 
 
 

 
One of the great joys of reading fiction is the ability to be transported to various worlds, both familiar and exotic. It’s a part of the immersion process of reading: being in the created environment, visualizing the locales, getting a lay of the land, smelling the roses.  

I think of the countless novels and short stories I’ve read over the years that have taken me to all parts of the universe and back. And though I’ve never been, I feel empowered enough through these stories to know what it is like to hike through the jungles of Kipling’s India, travel upriver in Conrad’s Congo, or even climb the crags of Tolkien’s Mount Doom.   

For writers, setting can be an overwhelming part of their world—as important as a main character or crucial plot development. Imagine Mark Twain without his Mississippi River or F. Scott Fitzgerald without his West Egg and one can see how footing for great works starts with the land underneath.

As Rivers Turn Press readies Spearfinger for its release this fall, my thoughts have turned to setting and how deeply locale is rooted in my own stories. Western North Carolina and especially the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Great Smoky Mountain National Park once again serve as the backdrop for this follow-up to The Devil’s Courthouse, my first mystery-thriller. I was very young when I first encountered these beautiful and majestic places, camping and hiking with my family and friends. At the time, I had no idea that they would serve as backdrop for two of my novels, but through my experiences and research I hoped to have catalogued enough material to re-create these settings as a believable and viable world.

The setting for my second novel, Tidal Pools, was an amalgam of different islands and cities along the South Carolina coastline. Because of plot points that I needed to occur within a certain timeframe, real locations were not an option. Carolina Cruel, my third mystery-thriller, also followed this mixed pattern of real and faux settings. But every city, road, mountain, and trail of The Devil’s Courthouse and Spearfinger are real, and I had to adhere to all distance and time parameters in each work. I knew that readers would be sticklers for accuracy, so I had to make sure everything was correct.

One of my favorite places on earth is the Pisgah campground found on the southern end of the Blue Ridge Parkway. My family spent so much time there when I was growing up that we would have a favored camping site picked out before we even arrived. Once the trailer was parked or the tent was pitched, the site became our own little world with rhododendron and laurel bushes, which skirted the perimeter, providing seclusion. A fire roared in the pit no matter the time of year and served as the gathering place for my family all weekend long. There were several exploring trips made around the campsite including journeys to the hidden stream only a short distance away. My imagination often got the best of me as we played in that stream and certainly provided the catalyst for the mystique and danger of the mountains that I tried to convey in the two Smoky Mountain novels.

From Pisgah we often took daytrips to other parts of the Blue Ridge Parkway, traveling through mountain tunnels and watching for rockslides along the road. We visited many of the locations used in The Devil’s Courthouse and Spearfinger including Graveyard Fields, Bearmeat’s Indian Den in Cherokee, Whiteside Mountain (home of the Spearfinger witch) and the Devil’s Courthouse itself. Standing atop the 5,700-foot-tall Devil’s Courthouse, one can see four different states beyond the rolling hills and verdant forests. With its ragged rock face and hidden coverts, the Courthouse is truly an amazing and inspiring place. Whiteside Mountain is equally impressive, with views of what was once all Cherokee lands.

At times, we took side trips from Pisgah to the area known as “the balds,” mountain tops that are mysteriously barren of trees. And as my main characters, Cole and Amanda, do in The Devil’s Courthouse, we would camp there among the stars.  My father, who knew the area like the back of his hand, could always point out bear tracks in the mud, spot furry, little “varmints” in the tall grass, and on clear days would show us Cold Mountain and Mount Mitchell sprouting up on the horizon.   

Many times, we took day trips to the end of the Parkway and visited the Qualla Boundary, the proprietary lands of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation. Coming into Cherokee was like entering a different world. Here we learned much about the Cherokee culture and legends that again play such a large role in both novels but especially my latest. We visited shops, museums, and entertainment ventures that worked their way into much of Spearfinger’s settings and characterizations. With the Boundary’s wonderful citizens playing perhaps the greatest inspiration.     

I often camped inside the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, the campground of Smokemont being a personal favorite. At 800 square miles, the park is one of the greatest biospheres in the world. There are over 17,000 documented species of plants and animals there with a potential 80,000 more yet to be catalogued. With oaks as tall as skyscrapers, meandering rivers, lichen-stained boulders, ancient ferns, drooping hemlocks, shy elk, playful squirrels, and curious bears—it is truly an outdoorsman’s dream.

I spent a great deal of time at the Oconaluftee Ranger Station, watching and learning from the always courteous rangers. They taught me much about their day-to day routines. I would ask them about handling dangerous creatures such as bears, wolves, and snakes. They would laugh and point out that by far the most dangerous animal in the park was man himself. I envied their choice of work as I got older, and I hope that if they do read the novels, they will see a little of themselves in the main characters of Park Ranger Cole Whitman and Lieutenant Johnny Whitetree of the Tribal Police.

The park provides some of the most fantastic views: Clingman’s Dome, Chimney Tops and New Found Gap are but just a few. One of my favorite destinations in the park is the climb to Mt. Le Cont along the Alum Cave Trail. The five-mile climb is filled with views of the expansive landscape of the park as well as quirky trail markers such as Arch Rock and Inspiration Point. Almost Le Cont’s entire trail makes it into The Devil’s Courthouse in some way, shape or form.

As Spearfinger is much more Cherokee-centric, the new novel is concentrated in the Boundary and surrounding areas. It was fun researching new settings for the novel as the story takes the protagonists to river-hidden Bird Falls, the tracks of the smoky Mountain railroad along the banks of Lake Fontana, the twisty turns of the Dragon’s Tail near Deal Gap, the aforementioned Whiteside Mountain and more.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the towns and cities of Western North Carolina that also are important to both novels. Asheville, Bryson City, Maggie Valley, and Sylva to name a few are true mountain municipalities that have the Smokies as part of their DNA. Bakersville and Spruce Pine of Roan Mountain also play a vital role in both stories, and I try to do all these areas justice in their description and personality.

There is a sense of freedom found in the peoples that populate these areas that cannot be found elsewhere. Like the mountains themselves, the mountain folk can be at times as reserved as the most placid of waters and at other times as vibrant as a hot pink rhododendron flower in June. They love their dogs, craft beer, music, art, and laid-back lifestyle. If not for mitigating circumstances, I would have joined them long ago.

As I’ve always said, Southern writers know that certain stories can only happen here. There is an aura, a sense of mystery about us geographically that lends to great storytelling. It’s in the land.

Listen closely to the Smoky Mountains and you’ll hear them calling, always telling us their stories, forever enriching our lives.

The Devil’s Courthouse is available now on Amazon and at riversturnpress.com. Spearfinger will have its official release on Saturday, October 29, 2022, at Bearmeat’s Indian Den in Cherokee, NC. It will be available everywhere soon after.
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Thanks everyone for your continued support!
 
LT
 
                        
 
 
 
           
 

Several months ago, we were invited to submit our company's first novel,  Carolina Cruel, to a well-known review website for their "Books to Read This Summer" article. We were encouraged by the invitation as the publicity from such a review would have been an enormous boost for the novel and our independent press. Unfortunately, we found out that the individual review for Carolina Cruel was not included in the final article. That certainly hurt, but really, why belabor such a point? Thousands of books are passed over for such articles all the time. But to read the final article, one thing became perfectly clear: independent presses, like Rivers Turn Press, are rarely represented when it comes to Hollywood considerations, media spotlights, literary contests and the those types of articles. All of the books reviewed in the summer books' article came from one of the five big publishing houses: Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House, Simon and Schuster or one of their imprints.

​Much of the lack of attention for independent titles has to do with the number of books out there. With the recent creation of the various self-publishing and hybrid publishing outfits, it has never been easier for would-be writers to get their works in print (and/or in e-formats too). And this is not a bad thing, as some great works have come out of these types of publishers. The problem is that it has led to a flood of books on the market and there is not enough spotlight to go around. Therefore, media has had to find a way to limit their coverage and the self-publishers, hybrids and the independent presses usually get the short end of the stick. This is not an uncommon problem as many of you can probably relate. It is akin to the likes of the Mom and Pop store on the hometown main street competing with the Walmart's and Amazon's of the world. It happens. It's business.

​But this lack of a level playing field has caused much consternation for small presses: How can we get this fantastic book of ours out to the masses if the media constantly ignores us?  How do we get it on the shelves of the bookstores? How do we get it in the public consciousness? These are the questions many of us as independent publishers ask and ones that have led to our parent organization, the Independent Book Publishers Association, to take up the fight. In recent months, the IBPA has come up with publishing standards that, if followed, would help to put the independent press on par with the big boys. It would mean that the media would weigh potential works not on the regular business model (highlighting only the big publishers) but on the content of the work itself.  It's certainly no guarantee, but it is a well-conceived idea whose time has come.

​The good news for us is that the books of Rivers Turn Press, my three novels and Katie Sullivan Masalin's novel, all tick the publishing standards boxes. We enjoyed professional attention with our last publisher and have carried that professionalism over to Rivers Turn Press. We aim to maintain those standards with any and all future published works. The bad news: Is it enough? Will the media truly take independent works into consideration? I guess we will have to wait and see.

​In the meantime, we need to continue promoting our works the best way we know how. Both Katie and I are blessed to have numerous family and friends that have served as our chorus for our novels, and we certainly need that to continue. Not only do we need our books purchased, we need them talked about on social media and beyond. We need more reviews (hopefully positive) on Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes & Noble, etc. We need to continue to hear from book clubs and other social organizations. We need independent bookstores and big bookstore chains to continue to schedule us for signings. We need to further connect with local media and make contact with national media. In short, we need those who are willing to champion our works to do so.

Despite the lack of a level playing field, I can safely say that the first year of Rivers Turn Press has been a success. Katie and I have just completed our 2017 book tour, thanks to those aforementioned bookstores, festivals, book clubs and special events. We have met with very enthusiastic readers and continue to be encouraged by the reception to our works. Carolina Cruel is now available in various e-reader formats and Katie is hard at work on Honeysuckle Secrets, a follow-up to her acclaimed novel, Rocks, Paper, Flowers. The promise of a great 2018 is in the air.

So as we head into the new year, we ask for your continued support. For we truly believe that no matter the size, if the field is level, anyone can run with giants.


LT

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Interesting how things happen. When my publisher, Holladay House, closed its doors last spring, I had just completed my latest draft of my third novel, Carolina Cruel. At the time, we were happy with its progress. We were talking final edits, covers, blurbs, and we were planning a fall release. Holladay House's sudden change in direction sent me scrambling to find a new company to house Carolina Cruel and my future writings.

And so with great resolve and more than just a little trepidation, I went back to query letters and agents and slow follow-ups and rejections and headaches and late nights and upset stomachs. It's a process that most writers know all too well.
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For over six months I labored under the false assumption that because I had been published before, a new publisher/agent/book deal was just around the corner. However, the rejection letters kept coming: looks great but it just isn't for us​, or the ever-maddening: not for us, but I'm sure you'll find a publisher soon.

​All this to say it's a tough business and there are certainly no guarantees. And ultimately I'm ecstatic that most of these publishers even considered my work in the first place. However, the problem remained. I knew I had a winner in Carolina Cruel​, but what to do with it?

​With age comes a measure of wisdom, but age also carries with it a small dose of desperation. After months of trying to secure a home for my work, a voice from within began to whisper to me: just do it yourself. ​And while it is true that writers for small publishers must do the majority of leg-work in the promotional stage, there were other aspects of the business that seemed overwhelming. ​Fortunately, I learned much from my former publishers of what to do and what not to do. Like anything, experience is the best teacher.​I knew that I didn't want to go to a vanity publisher or any hybrid variation. So, with a deeply held breath, I took the plunge and created Rivers Turn Press, a traditional publishing house.

​Beyond the licensing fees, set-up costs, contracts and other fine-print headaches, things began to mesh very well. As I post this today, we are a fully operational publishing business with our first release (Carolina Cruel) due out within the next two weeks. It's exciting and we have eyes on the works of other authors we hope to announce in the not so distant future. And that's the beauty of Rivers Turn Press: I intend it as a voice for the creative yet frustrated writers who are most certainly out there. I've met them, talked with them, even taught a few along the way. I want Rivers Turn Press to be the home for their stories and ideas - a place where the Southern voice in a variety of genres can be heard.
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I would be remiss if I didn't mention the copious amount of help I received in getting this venture started. My family and friends have been with me since the beginning and their help and insight is immeasurable in my eyes. As a writer, I've met many in the book business, sellers and artisans alike whom I now call friends and colleagues. And, of course, the readers out there. This business would not exist without their continuing support, and for that, I am forever grateful.

​On June 16, Carolina Cruel will be released nation wide and the book promotional tour will begin the very next day. I look forward to all that awaits. Thanks again, everyone. Stay tuned for more from Rivers Turn Press.

​And here we go......

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