The Art Life
// SKETCHES OF LOCAL ARTISTS
Family’s saga became historical fiction ... and a writer was born By Susan Lagsdin
Jane Nagler of East
Wenatchee is still a little dazzled by the fact that she is a published novelist. Her books tell stories that she’s harvested over the years from her pioneer ancestors, and the more she learns about her extended family, the more stories there are to tell. Growing up an only child on the Meador family ranch in the John Day River valley in Oregon, Jane was always aware of her history. Her many relatives (sprung from a few families with 10-plus children) provided her with stories of her great-grandparents’ westward travel and settling, plus a concoction of well-polished truths and timehoned suppositions. Prairie City, population 800 when Jane lived there, in the shadow of the Blue Mountains, was a perfect setting for a little girl to dream Western stories. As soon as she could read, Jane recalls, “I was always the kid who picked a new book with the picture of a covered wagon on the cover.” Now at 81 she’s the author of four linked novels under her pen name, Jae Carvel: By the River, Letters from the Little Red Box, Eddie: The Escape, and The Annie Martin Stories. The first was published in 2015, the latest this spring. The family saga became historical fiction, close enough to home to make name changes necessary, imaginative enough
that Jane could create new scenarios and bring in new characters. Growing up in rural Oregon in the 1950s wasn’t a catalyst for outof-the-box thinking. Expectations for girls, Jane said, were pretty much “get married and have children.” In her case, the more- A burst of resolve and creativity yielded (relatively new) writer Jane Nagler four books based on incidents and related artifacts from her own family’s westward-movement saga. evolved family ethic was “go to college, Jane finally published By she had plenty to say. Tentaget married and have children.” the River with Booktrope in tively at first, she published a She did both, achieving her March 2015, and the next three poem in golf magazine, wrote a teaching degree at the Unititles tumbled out more easfamily cookbook, then a (paid) versity of Oregon. She said, “I article in the Spokesman Review. ily. She does readings and sells don’t remember that I was ever her books locally, occasionally She wrote every assignment she prohibited from doing anything traveling back to her childhood gave her junior high English else; but being a doctor, for inhome in Oregon to deliver hard students. stance, would have been… more copies to stores and museums. About 10 years ago, Jane difficult.” A latecomer to internet marstarted to research her own She worked at teaching and keting, she’s also learned about family’s lively history. Her short raising four children throughpiece submitted to the first 2008 proofreading, editing and out her long and continuing Write On The River competition choosing cover illustrations as marriage to husband Skip, with well as Facebook promotion and homes first in Spokane and then started with the required three blogging. words, “On the river…” and she by 1989 in Wenatchee. She now sells her books on was off and running. Jane took her turn at a few art Amazon singly and as a boxed She entered NANOWRIMO forms. She had piano lessons (National Novel Writing Month), set: The Strawberry Mountain from age five until, as she said, a forced march of 50,000 words. Series: 1840-1942. “I realized I would never be a Buoyed by reader interest and Reading Nancy Turner’s These performer.” eager to learn more about her is my Words, the Diary of Sarah In a college art class, she Agnes Prine inspired her to keep family, Jane has already started learned the basics, but beto draft The Fighter. What relaon writing. moaned, “My paintings never tive in what scrape or entangleShe’s a continuing learner of looked like I wanted them to — ment in what Western scenario her craft and has participated the paint was in charge, and I will she fictionalize for our readfor years in a monthly writing wanted to be in control.” ing pleasure? group, which she said is, “One Then, a revelation: words. Wait for it. She’s spinning the of the most helpful things I have That was her art. story right now. ever experienced.” She could control words, and July 2018 | The Good Life
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