ABERCROMBIE TRAIL by Candace Simar is now available at Rainy Day Book Store in Nisswa, Sister Wolf Books in Dorset, and Book World in Baxter as well as other regional stores. It is also available online at North Star Press, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble. Several area book clubs have chosen ABERCROMBIE TRAIL for their summer read. Please consider ABERCROMBIE TRAIL for your book club-I'd welcome a chance to attend your group, meet your members and do a personal signing. Contact me at simar@tds.net for more information. On June 19th I attended my first book event at Sister Wolf Books at Dorset. Thank you to all of you who stopped to chat. I've just started lining up summer book signings and would greatly appreciate suggestions for additional appearances. Please check back for updates.
Lake Country Faces Article
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Article by Sr. Perspective
Central Minnesota Women Book Review
Book Review: Abercrombie Trail
Interview in Her Voice Magazine go to HerVoice.com
Interview on MinnPost.com website
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE ACTUAL MAP OF THE AMBERCROMBIE TRAIL
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Schedule of Events, Book Signings and Radio Interviews:
Mar, 07 2010 Book Club Blast the Loft Literary Center Minneapolis
Mar, 31 2010 St. Francis Book Club, Brainerd
Mar, 18 2010 Cass Lake Library 4pm
Mar, 26 2010 Longville Library 2pm
Apr, 08 2010 Central Lakes College Writing Conference (open to public and free admission) Break Out sessions 2:30; Keynote address at 4pm by Candace Simar
Apr, 10 2010 Graceville Library 1:30
Apr, 10 2010 E Squared Cafe Brainerd 8pm poetry reading by Heartland Poets and music by Murzik
Apr, 14 2010 Clearwater Library 6:30 pm
Apr, 17 2010 Evansville Book Club 10am
Apr, 17 2010 Alexandria Library 2pm
Apr, 20 2010 Baxter Book Club-Courtney Niefert contact person
Apr, 23-24 2010 Grand Rapids, MN Spotlight on Books
Apr, 26 2010 Creative Writing Group St. Cloud State University 6pm
May, 06 2010 Moorhead Library 6pm
May, 07 2010 Hjemmkomst Center Moorhead, MN, 3pm
May, 08 2010 Art Sage, Edgewood Vista, Fargo 1:30 to 4pm
May, 11 2010 Pequot Lakes book club LuAnn Rice contact person
May, 15 2010 Glenwood Library 10am
Jun, 05 2010 Consarn it Convention Bandanna Square ST. Paul 9:30 am
Jun, 09 2010 Granite City Book Club 6:30pm St. Cloud
Jun, 18 2010 Wadena Art Festival 1-5
Jun, 20 2010 Bowman North Dakota library more info to follow
Jul, 04 2010 Book Signing Pequot Lakes Jackpine Center
Aug, 06 2010 Elbow Lake Historical Society Flikkested Celebration
Sep, 10 2010 Chokio Book Club 6pm Our Saviors Lutheran
Photo taken by Joey Halvorson
Late 2009 Candace Simar with fans.
Dalton Threshing Bee 2009 with Barb Turner (on left) and (on right) 'ABERCROMBIE TRAIL' by Bev Abear
Chokecherry Days 2009 in Pequot Lakes (on right with Craig Nagel and Nancy Albertson)
Hackensack Art Festival and Book Fair 2009
(Top three photos credited to Melody Evans)
(Photo on left: Candence with Arnie Lillo and John Koblas.
Photo on right: Candace standing with Tanya Arends.
Both photos taken at the Jesse James Theme Park in Good Thunder by Paul Nelson.)
AGING BEAUTIES BOOK ASSOCIATION 7/30/09
Review by Nancy Leasman
leatherwood@wisper-wireless.com
Available at at www.northstarpress.com , www.amazon.com, and in Barnes & Noble in St. Cloud and www.barnes&noble.com., at independent book stores and in some libraries.
Candace Simar's book, Abercrombie Trail, a fictionalized account of the Sioux Uprising of 1862, is inhabited by the 19th century settlers of west central Minnesota. It centers on the life of her fictional character Evan Jacobson, an immigrant Norwegian stage coach driver. The stops along Jacobson's stage line reveal the families who live along the trail between Fort Snelling and Fort Abercrombie (just south of Fargo) and their ultimate fate in the, until now, untold story of the northern fringe of the 1862 Sioux (Dakota) Uprising and the siege of Fort Abercrombie. Jacobson struggles with learning English, falling in love and fulfilling his dreams while living with events of the war in the South and the one threatening on the next horizon.
Simar, a prolific writer of articles, poems and inspirational bits, followed her passion for history and began a literary project in 2001 that culminated in the release of her first novel in May of 2009. "History has been my life-long passion and frequently family vacation destinations have been linked to museums and historical spots. I've visited multiple Minnesota museums and spent countless hours at the Family History Museum in St. Paul, reading old letters, newspapers and books." She also drew on her own Scandinavian family history to flesh out her characters.
Simar who lives at Pequot Lakes would be happy to travel to meet with book clubs in the area that are interested in discussing Abercrombie Trail. She can be contacted through her website www.candacesimar.com
Acknowledgements:
ABERCROMBIE TRAIL has been a labor of love for the past eight years and I owe much to other writers who cheered me along the way. Special thanks to Brainerd Writer's Alliance, Bards of a Feather, and Heartland Poets for much needed encouragement. Also thanks to the following workshop leaders who helped me meander through the maze of novel writing: Diana Ossana, Sands Hall, Brett Anthony Johnston, and Josh Kendall at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival; Lisa Tucker at the Taos Writer's Conference; Laurraine Snelling at Drayton North Dakota Ox Cart Days; Robert Olen Butler at the Duluth Writer's Conference; Sheila O'Connor at the Split Rock Arts Conference, and Mary Sharratt at the Loft Literary Center. Thanks to Brenda Seaman for giving me the idea of writing a trilogy and to North Star Press for taking a chance with an unknown writer. Special thanks go out to Charmaine Donovan and Angela Foster who offered valuable critique and editing assistance over countless revisions. I am the grateful recipient of several Five Wings Art Grants and for research assistance from The Minnesota Family History Museum in St. Paul, The Otter Tail County Historical Museum, The Grant County Historical Museum, Fort Abercrombie Historic Site and Museum, and the Fort Snelling Historic Site. And most of all, thanks to my husband who endured countless trips to museums, historical sites, and writing conferences to let me follow my dream. Keith, I couldn't have done it without you.
Sources:
Over the Earth I Come: The Great Sioux Uprising of 1862, Duane Schultz, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1992
The Sioux Uprising of 1862, Kenneth Carley, Minnesota Historical Society Press, St. Paul, Minnesota, 1976
Dakota War Whoop: Indian Massacres and War in Minnesota, Harriet E Bishop, Edited by Dale L. Morgan, McConkey 1965.
The Great Sioux Uprising, C.M.Oehler, De Capo Press, New York, 1997
Through Dakota Eyes, Edited by Gary Clayton Anderson and Alan R. Woolworth, Minnesota Historical Press, St. Paul, 1988
Fort Abercrombie 1862, Supplement of Richland County Farmer-Globe, Wahpeton, No.Dak. 1936
Minnesota Days, Our Heritage in Stories, Art and Photos, Edited by Michael Dregni, Voyageur Press, Stillwater, Minnesota, 1999
Ever the Land, A Homestead Chronicle, Ruben L. Parson, Adventure Publishing, Staples, Minnesota 1978
Minnesota history is one of my favorite things. All my life I've daydreamed how it really was to live through the earliest days of Minnesota, wondered how historical events impacted ordinary people's lives, and imagined characters and stories. It has been my life-long study.
One sultry Fourth of July, I was shocked to learn how little our adult children knew about the 1862 Minnesota Sioux Uprising. Our children, all born and educated in Minnesota schools, thought it was a minor skirmish in New Ulm; not realizing how it affected the young state for years afterwards. "You ought to write a book," my son said.
As a result, I started researching primary and secondary sources for 1862 Minnesota. I didn't have to go far. My great-grandfather drove the stagecoach from St. Cloud to Fort Abercrombie in the years directly after the Sioux Uprising. I became entranced with the idea of what he might have experienced had he arrived in Minnesota one year sooner. Abercrombie Trail is the story of Evan Jacobson--the story that might have been my great-grandfather's.
Shortly after the reports came out of people falsely trying to collect reparations after the World Trade Center bombings of 2001, I discovered an article in an old newspaper that reported Minnesota farmers collecting reparation payments for crops that were not really lost to the Sioux during the uprising. This little tidbit spurred the research for my second book, POMME DE TERRE, the story of Gust Gustafson who falsely claims his daughter killed by the Indians in order to get enough money to start over on a farm near Fort Pomme de Terre in what is now Grant County. A few minor characters from ABERCROMBIE TRAIL show up in POMME DE TERRE. This book explores life in Minnesota in the year following the Sioux Uprising. Though the government declared it was over with the Mankato hangings, raids continued in the western part of the state.
After writing the first two books, a nagging question lingered--what happened to these characters who I had grown to love, the ones who still lived in my mind? BIRDIE is the third and final book in the trilogy, telling the story of Evan Jacobson ten years after the uprising when grasshoppers drive him from his homestead to Otter Tail County. It is also the story of Ragna Larson who was stolen by the Sioux during the uprising along with her sister, Birdie. Ragna was returned at Camp Release while her sister is never heard from again. This book describes the lasting effect of the Sioux Uprising on Minnesota culture and its psyche.