Part of being a writer is learning to toot your own horn, so here I am tooting my own horn. The 2008 IWL state conference was a blast, my workshop was well attended, and the frosting on the cake is the two awards I won in the writing contests. I placed first in the assigned theme or title for teen fiction contest with my short story, Missing Josh. I also won first honorable mention in the novel contest with my novel, Sarah’s Daughter. Nice way to end September, I would say.
Awards
Lost Near Atlanta
This story won third place Idaho Magazine‘s 2016 writing contest. I spent many summers exploring the old mining town of Atlanta, Idaho. I hope you enjoy this tale.
Lost Near Atlanta
“It’s great here,” Pam said as she stoked the campfire.
Surrounded by the Boise National Forest, we settled in for the night after a productive research day in Boise and Idaho City. As soon as the Old Idaho Penitentiary out on Old Penitentiary Road opened, Pam and I were there ready to take pictures and notes. I was particularly interested in some of the women incarcerated in the women’s prison and Pam, being a criminal reporter at her day job, was more intrigued with the gallows. We could have stayed there all day, imagining the people who walked behind those bars, and talking to the tour guides, but we were on a tight schedule. We had only three days to see the State Pen and the mining ghost towns of Idaho City, Rocky Bar, and Atlanta.
As usual we had underestimated how much time we would need to see everything. Discussing our trip over the phone, it seemed doable. We would meet in Mountain home. Pam knew the manager of AJs Restaurant and Lounge who said I could leave my car in his parking lot. That way we wouldn’t have to take two cars. Better yet, it would be safe there and we wouldn’t have to worry. Now, there we were, at the end of our first day, pitching a tent in the forest, anxious to see Atlanta and Rocky Bar the next day. We had heard the legend of Peg Leg Annie and we were eager to check it out.
Pam and I are writers and we both have a passion for Idaho history, which isn’t surprising given the fact that we met at an Idaho history conference in Boise five years ago. Pam is writing a murder mystery set in Idaho City and I’m working on a novel. We were hoping this trip would give us all the details we needed to finish our projects.
Since neither one of us are mountain women, I borrowed a popup tent from my brother. “It’s easy,” he said as he showed me how to assemble the tent. And it had looked easy enough when we played with the tent in his driveway. But there, in the forest, I had no idea how to put the thing together. “Maybe we should have stayed in that rustic hotel in Idaho City,” I said to Pam. “A shower would be nice.”
“Yeah,” she said. “But that would defeat the purpose. The character in my novel escapes into the forest. I won’t learn about cooking over a campfire sitting on a bed staring at a TV.”
“That’s true,” I said. “And it’s nice here, being outdoors and away from city traffic.” The campground was deserted. Even the camp host had left for the season.
We were nearing the end of a beautiful October day. The sun-warmed forest was fragrant with pine and sage. I inhaled deeply, enjoying the outdoor smells. It took us a while to set up camp, but once we did, we were glad we’d made the effort.
Sitting around the campfire sipping wine, we discussed all we had learned that day. Pam was particularly intrigued with the story about Lyda Southard, Idaho’s notorious female serial killer, also known as Lady Bluebeard.
“Flypaper,” Pam said. “She boiled flypaper to make her poison.”
I nodded and tried to listen. But I was more interested in the story one of the guards told us about Peg Leg Annie. A rumored prostitute who worked in the mining camps, Annie spent her days living in Atlanta and Rocky Bar. One day in May she and her friend Dutch Em tried to walk from Atlanta to Rocky bar. A freak snowstorm cost Em her life and Annie her legs. My brain was spinning with all the stories I could tell. What was it like to be a prostitute in a mining camp? Better yet, what was it like to be a woman in a mining camp? The possibilities were endless.
As the fire crackled we plotted. “What if I have the murderer hide in the basement of that old church in Idaho City?” Pam said.
“What if Annie had a daughter who hated living in the mining camps and all she wanted to do was escape?”
Pam and I watched the fire and talked until our eyes could no longer focus. “Night,” Pam yawned. “I’m going to bed.”
“Be there soon.” I stared into the fire, wanting to sit there all night and dream. But tomorrow was another busy day, so I needed to get some sleep. Afraid the wind would fan the fire during the night, I snuffed it out and crawled into my sleeping bag. When I turned off the flashlight, Pam was already snoring.
I woke to the sound of wind howling through the forest. Good thing I put out that fire, I thought as I snuggled deeper into my sleeping bag. Good thing I have a brother who likes to hunt in subzero temperatures.
“Wake up.” Pam was shaking me. It was still early, barely morning. “You’re not going to believe this.”
I poked my head outside the tent. “Whoa. What happened?”
We were smack in the middle of a snowdrift. The howling wind I heard during the night had filled our campsite with at least ten inches of snow.
“Holy cow,” Pam said. “We’re snowed in.”
Shivering, I pulled on my jeans and sweater and went outside to start a fire. Like that was going to happen. All the wood was covered with snow and what wasn’t buried in a snow bank was too wet to burn. No fire for coffee, no fire to warm our bodies. To make matters worse, everything looked flat like a white sheet. We couldn’t see the road.
“Guess that takes care of Atlanta and Rocky Bar,” Pam said.
“Guess that takes care of a lot of things,” I said. “I think we have bigger problems than research in old mining camps. Her beige Honda was good on roads, but now it was buried in snow. Gloveless, we didn’t have a shovel so we had to use our hands to move the snow away from the car. It was pointless. The more we shoveled, the more snow fell from the cottony sky.
“I’ll call for help.” Pam tired her cell. “No service,” she said looking at the snow still falling.
Exhausted, we stood beside the car in our wet clothes. “What are we going to do?”
“Well,” I said. “It would be stupid to try and walk out.”
“We can’t stay here.”
We broke into a nervous laugh. We’d been looking for an adventure. We sure got one.
“Maybe it’ll stop soon.” My teeth chattered.
“I’m going to sit in the car and run the heater until I get warm,” Pam said. Lucky for us we’d filled the car with gas in Idaho City. Just to be safe. Who knew where the nearest gas station was. I’d heard there wasn’t one in Atlanta. But that didn’t seem to matter now. We’d be lucky to get back to Idaho City, let alone Atlanta. Our research trip had morphed into a trip of survival.
We sat in the car until we could feel our fingers and toes again. By then the snow had stopped, and it was almost noon.
“I think we should walk out,” Pam said.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Do you want to end up like Peg Leg Annie?”
“No.” Pam stared out into the forest. “But I don’t want to die here either.”
We weren’t dressed for winter weather. We had no heavy coats, no snowshoes, no boots or gloves. What we had was a sense of panic as we started out, hoping we were walking in the right direction.
“I can’t even see the road,” I mumbled as I plowed through the snow, breaking a trail. Keen on adventure, I’d gotten myself into some pretty fine pickles, but this was the worst. I looked up at the sky afraid it would snow again. How did this happen? Beam me up Scotty and get me out of here.
We walked for an hour or more. “Look,” Pam said. “Here’s the road that goes back to Idaho City. If we follow it someone will find us.”
What little food we brought was all but gone. We had to keep going. We trudged through the snow until Pam slid off the road and tumbled down the embankment toward the river. “Help,” she cried.
I rushed forward and planted my feet the best I could on the slippery ground. “Give me your hand. I’ll pull you out.”
I yanked and almost fell in myself, but I didn’t let go. When she was safe, we sat on the side of the road our sides heaving. “I think I hurt my leg,” Pam said. “That was fun.”
“Barrels,” I said. “Now what do we do?” The sun was setting. We were wet. It wouldn’t be long before our clothes froze to our bodies.
“We need to keep moving,” I said, afraid if we stopped we’d never move again.
Pam winced. “I don’t think I can walk that far. Our only chance is if you go for help. I can wait here.”
“No you can’t.” I yanked on her arm until she was standing. “We’re in this disaster together.”
We both smelled it before we heard it. “Oh, no,” Pam said. “Is that a bear?”
“They don’t have bears out here, and even if they did, bears hibernate in winter.”
“Well,” Pam said. “It isn’t winter yet. He probably was surprised by the storm just like we were.”
“Run,” I said. “Here he comes!”
We turned to flee but running in the fluffy snow proved impossible. And Pam could only hobble on her bum leg.
“Roll up in a ball and play dead,” Pam instructed.
We both hit the ground and grabbed our knees tight.
Yelp. Yelp. Yelp.
I turned my head to peek. Hallelujah. It wasn’t a bear but a scraggly dog the size of a pony, barking and running toward us.
“Holy cow,” Pam said. “Never saw a dog that big.”
The dog ran to our side, pushing us with his nose. We had no other choice but to follow. “Maybe he lives around here,” Pam said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe somewhere warm.”
He led us to a small mound, a shelter covered with snow. He wouldn’t leave us alone until he had nudged us inside. Once we were settled, he lay down and went to sleep.
“Thanks, buddy.” I snuggled beside him. He was so warm, so comfortable, even if he smelled like a wet dog. Exhausted and spent, we fell asleep next to the giant dog. When we woke it was morning and the dog was gone. The sun was shining. The snow was starting to melt. Looked like our luck was changing.
“What now?” Pam said.
“I guess we keep walking. How’s the leg?”
“Not bad. I think I can make it.” Pam limped.
“Good because I’m not leaving you behind.”
It helped to walk, each step warming our muscles. “Listen,” Pam said. “I hear something.”
“Doesn’t sound like a snowmobile,” I said, which had been my secret hope. That someone eager for winter would break out their sled to play in the snow. This was better. A snowplow clearing the road.
“Hey, you!” We jumped up and down calling, “Here! Here!”
“Wow,” the driver of the yellow machine said. “Where’d you come from?”
We pointed behind us. “We were camped back there when the storm hit. My car is buried in snow,” Pam said.
“Hop in,” he said. “Let’s see if we can get you out.”
“Thanks.” We scrambled into the cab of the plow, glad to be out of the cold.
Back at camp, the driver used a rope to pull Pam’s car out of the drift. When he was finished, we quickly packed up the tent and our chairs, and loaded the car. He waited to make sure we could get out.
“Thanks so much for your help,” I said. “I don’t think we could have stood another night in this weather.”
“Consider yourself lucky,” he said. “I don’t know how you survived this one.”
“There was a big dog,” Pam said. “A Newfoundland, I think. He kept us warm. When we woke, he was gone.” She looked into the forest. “You didn’t see him did you?”
The driver chuckled. “Oh, yeah, I’ve seen him around once or twice.”
“Does he live nearby?” I asked.
“No. He roams the forest between here and Rocky Bar. That’s Annie Morrow’s dog.”
I looked at Pam. Was he kidding? If Peg Leg Annie had a dog, he’d be long gone, just like her.
“Seriously,” I said. “Where did he go? We tried to find him, but he didn’t leave any tracks.”
“Seriously,” he smiled. “That’s the dog Annie and Dutch Em had with them when they tried to walk from Atlanta to Rocky Bar that wicked day in May.”
“In that freak snowstorm,” I said.
“Right,” he said. “That dog stayed with Annie and kept her warm.”
“No way,” Pam said.
“That was over a hundred years ago,” I said. “That dog would be dead now.”
The man winked at me. “He may be a ghost, but I’m not going to tell him. Not with the job I have. He’s saved my butt a time or two.” He hopped into his snowplow, waved, and drove off toward Atlanta.
We didn’t go into Atlanta that day, or Rocky Bar either, but we did return home with some great stories to tell. And a promise that we’d make the trip again sometime. But never in October and never in May.
Two Idaho Author Awards
My book Waiting, a novel about three generations of Idaho women, was named one of the 2014 Top Ten Fiction books the Idaho Book Extravaganza last week in Boise, Idaho.
Also, Billie Neville Takes a Leap, a book about a girl who dreams of being a daredevil amidst the excitement of Evel Knievel’s jump over the Snake River, that I co-wrote with Patricia Santos Marcantonio published by River St. Press, won second place in the young adult category.
Thank you Idaho Book Extravaganza!
Bones of Pele wins 3rd place in annual Kay Snow Writing Contest
Check it out! My novel The Bones of Pele placed 3rd in the Kay Snow Writing Contest at this year’s Willamette Writers Conference.
The winners of the 2013 Kay Snow Writing Contest are:
Fiction
1st place – “God is Pleased to Hear the Children Pray” by Ruby Murray
2nd place – “Coyote Calls Down the Gods” by Bruce Campbell
3rd Place – “The Bones of Pele” by Bonnie Dodge
2010 Idaho Writer’s League Writer of the Year Award
Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne’er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.
–Emily Dickinson
Talk to any writer and they will tell you that their writing efforts often go unnoticed. For every book/article that is sold, there are a dozen more waiting to be discovered. Writers understand this. They know the road to publication, recognition, and fame is long and painful. That’s why you’ll often hear writers joke about sticking their head in an oven or opening a vein.
I read somewhere that a writer must write over a million words before they have mastered the craft well enough to be considered a serious writer. Contrary to what some believe, writers don’t just sit down at a keyboard and the words pour out in logical sentences. A writer-friend’s impatient husband often asks her when she is in her office hunched over her keyboard pondering just the right word, “What are you doing in there?”
Most of the time what “we are doing in there” is trying to make sense of the words, voices, and stories that pop randomly into our head. I once labored thirty-six hours over a scene, only to delete it with one keystroke the next week. Because, when it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, and no amount of superfluous words will make it better.
But sometimes it does work. And when it does, it makes up for all those long, lonely, and frustrating hours at the keyboard.
That’s why, when I received the 2010 Writer of the Year award from the Idaho Writer’s League, I felt a tinge of satisfaction. Of all the Idaho Writer’s League members in Idaho, my work stood out.
I may not be a best-selling author like John Grisham or Nora Roberts. But I am a writer. And now I have an award to hang on my wall to prove it.
Three writers with stories to tell
Judi Baxter, who owned and operated Judi’s Bookstore in Twin Falls from 1978 to 1992 wrote this review for BookChat. Check it out. Thanks, Judi, for the positive review. Thanks also to the Times-News for letting us reprint the article here.
Three ‘writers with stories to tell’
It is always thrilling to hold a treasured book in my hands – rediscovering a childhood favorite, inhaling the scent of an old, leather-bound tome, perusing glorious pictures from a beloved illustrator or gently opening a much-anticipated title for the first time.
The thrill was certainly there when I received a copy of “Voices From The Snake River Plain,” the collection of essays, short stories and poetry from three talented local writers, Bonnie Dodge, Dixie Thomas Reale and Patricia Santos Marcantonio.
The lawn mowing, leaf raking and sidewalk sweeping went by the wayside as I sat on my deck and immersed myself in their worlds. I laughed, sighed, held my breath for a few moments and even cried while reading of families and friends, journeys and jealousies.
Marcantonio’s “The Hitch,” an engaging short story about a camping trip gone bad, left me giggling and nodding my head in agreement: Been there, done that! Forget the spectacular Stanley Basin scenery, mountain air and sparkling Salmon River; a lost trailer hitch leads to pointed fingers, heated words and thoughts of divorce. But her wise old character, Earl, quickly snaps everything back into focus: “Earl pulled up his welding mask. ‘You folks should have a good time once this is fixed. You can hike the trails, cook over a campfire, fish a bit. See the stars together. That’s the only way to see the stars, with someone you love so you know you aren’t dreaming.'” Beautiful!
In the chapter “Remembrances,” Reale captured my heart with “Mush.” Anyone who grew up having to eat oatmeal-the-texture-of-wallpaper-paste for breakfast every morning will immediately identify with the feisty, stubborn little girl. Her mother said she would eat it. Period. She was determined not to. Period. It became a royal battle of wills and more than a little ingenuity on young Dixie’s part: feeding it to the dog, tossing it out the window, dribbling large spoonfuls around her bowl. Since she didn’t have to eat the slopped part, that maneuver became her answer:
“I decorated the room. The entire bowl was drizzled and splattered one spoonful at a time across the mahogany tabletop, the wall, the bench and onto the floor. There was so much of it that gray puddles ran into one another making small lakes. Once Mama saw the mess she scraped it back into the dish and slung it in front of me. Now it was cold and slimy, had a faint flavor of English wood oil, and smelled a bit like floor polish. ‘You will eat this,’ she said.”
At this point, I was chuckling, but it was nothing compared with the laugher that erupted when I came to her final solution. What a creative little girl!
After reading Dodge’s “Surviving the Storm,” set a few days after the attack on the World Trade Center, I barely moved for many long minutes, reflecting on her words, recalling the overwhelming feelings of those haunting days as our nation sat in stultified silence and pain.
The women debate their plans to attend a bookfest in Boise and a trip to Idaho City for their annual mini-retreat, struggling with their own fears and doubts about leaving home and families so soon. “It’s what they want,” writes Dodge. “They want to terrorize us into inaction. I think we should go.” And so they do.
They spend hours exploring the former mining town, picking wildflowers, spontaneously attending a Catholic Mass, sharing homemade peach cobbler at Trudy’s Diner.
Dodge writes: “Heading for the car, we stop when we see an area of the cemetery marked with weathered boards, each etched with only one word: Unknown. Like rubber bands, we’re snapped back into reality as we think of the many new graves in New York City, some of which will soon be marked: Unknown. We exchange glances and, unembarrassed by our tears, embrace, holding onto each other longer than usual.
“We pass tissues like candy. Our hearts hurt. We have no words, no stories to define our nation’s massive devastation. As we travel the road that will take us back to our families, smiles chase away sadness and the desperate need to be home … Even in this troubled time, when our nation is stunned and nothing much is moving, we are. Because we’re still writers with stories to tell.”
And our lives are richer because these three writers have gathered and shared those stories with us.
Bonnie Dodge 