Kim Batchelor

Writer of magical realism and other imaginative fiction

The Texas Hill Country: Where Stories and Cactus Bloom

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The Texas Hill Country is a special, almost mystical, place. Cactus paddles dot the landscape and green hills covered with trees—called cedar but more likely juniper—roll along its horizons under ample blue skies.

The area, located southwest of Austin and northwest of San Antonio, is made up of several small towns—Kerrville, Ingram, Boerne, Stonewall, and Luckenbach (which inspired a song by Willie Nelson), to name just a few. Lyndon Baines and Lady Bird Johnson made their home on a ranch just outside Johnson City. Each town has its own distinct history and story.

Castroville is the destination of Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd and the young German girl Johanna raised by the Kiowa in Paulette Jiles’ excellent novel, News of the World. Castroville was founded and populated by immigrants from the Alsace region in France.

The influence of the Germans who settled in Fredericksburg is still apparent in the Sunday houses that line its main street. They are called that because families left the farm to stay in them in order to be in town for church on Sundays. Those Sunday houses are now occupied by shops selling everything from clothing to cookware to boutique dog items. A neighbor in Austin once told me about growing up near Fredericksburg speaking German and learning English as a second language.

Reading News of the World reminded me of how recently (only 150 or so years ago) that Comanche and Kiowa still found themselves embroiled in a constant conflict with Texas settlers. Camp Verde—near the town of Center Point—was the site of a failed experiment in the use of camels to fight them, the brain child of Secretary of War and later President of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis.  Further west near Bandera, the Comanche, which had successful held and even expanded their territory against the Spanish, experienced their first defeat in the Battle of Bandera pass.

In one of my ‘bottom drawer’ novels*—Guadalupe of the Angels—I set many scenes in the hill country and felt the narrative of that book bubble up from that landscape every time I journeyed through it. Stories seem to embed themselves in the scenery there and it’s easy to let them settle into the brain for inspiration.

The best way to experience them is to find yourself at dusk on a front porch in the countryside, watching deer run across the landscape, hearing the low drones of insects in the evening and solitude. In the state of Texas, there are few better places to be, especially to stoke the mind to go off into peaceful journeys of creativity.

* Any finished novel which may or may not see the light of day–if it’s in the process of being revised or on its way to the recycling bin.

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Space

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My memories of childhood and my father are most vivid around his love of the space program. Even though he worked nights, he often got up very early to watch the latest launch, sometimes with my younger brother beside him. Once I decided, for some reason, that I would stay up all night. At 5 am, before I finally went to sleep, I woke my father in time for him to see a space craft rocket into space.

Space. Aside from two astronomy courses in college, I never really gave it much thought. I’ve written before about how much the sky and stars and moon have inspired my life and my writing. But I’ve never been good at identifying constellations or ever wanted to own a telescope. And until my astronomy class, I never knew that the moon maintains an irregular orbit around the Earth.

Something changed all that. The Cosmos series and Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Recalling those awe-inspiring trips to the Fort Worth planetarium when I was younger. Seeing recent vivid images of the universe produced by NASA.

In previous posts, I have written of my fascination with the moon, stars, and skies. Only in the last few years have I thought much about the science of the universe. I just finished writing and revising a novel of a girl named Gwen introduced to astronomy by a great teacher. Gwen uses that interest to create comic books and finds herself, at times, traveling to faraway place in the universe. For two years, I’ve journeyed with her and I will miss her when I move on to world of my next novel.

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The Magic of a Circus of Dreams

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In our times, the circus is transforming. A famous circus closes its doors forever while Cirque de Soleil continues in all its many forms. Small circuses bring novelty and entertainment to small communities even as their reliance on animal acts—especially when those animals are abused—sparks outrage.

I have two memories of circuses growing up. The first is of a terrifying moment when a gorilla escaped and climbed into the stands where I sat with my family. In my panic, I tried to scale a poor woman sitting in the row in front of me, trying to make my getaway. My mother pulled me back into my seat and assured me that the gorilla was a man dressed in a gorilla suit.

More pleasant is the second memory of something that took place later that night. The evening approached midnight. All the acts but one had finished. I looked up at the ceiling, at what seemed to be the highest point in the tent. Through the darkness, a spotlight illuminated a woman dressed in gold grasped a gold swing, surrounded by a dangling gold moon and dangling gold stars.

The woman seemed so far away, so high above me. Without a doubt, it was the most enchanted moment in my life as a child. I sometimes remember it as a woman dangling from moon and stars, swinging and performing feats in the night sky itself.

One novel that helped me connect back to that moment was Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus. I loved the story of two dueling magicians, one female and one male, both wards of men caught in a perpetual and deadly rivalry. But what I loved most about the book was the circus itself.

All over the tents, small lights begin to flicker, as though the entirety of the circus is covered in particularly bright fireflies. The waiting crowd quiets as it watches this display of illumination. Someone near you gasps. A small child claps his hands with glee at the sight…Rather than a single tent with rings enclosed within, this circus contains clusters of tents like pyramids, some large and others quite small. They are set within circular paths, contained within a circular fence. Looping and continuous.

Lately I’ve been inspired to create my own story of a mystical circus—The Carnival of Moon and Stars is its working title. Unlike, The Night Circus, there are no magicians caught in a rivalry that they can’t control. Instead, a simple canvas tent hides a mystical world that is refuge for a girl named Angelique, a girl with a secret . A teenaged boy named Ash, a boy who spent his life on a farm just outside a small town, sees the tent in the distance from his bedroom window. He is drawn to it, hoping to discover something outside of his small world.

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Paris Me Parle

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It may be almost cliché to speak of Paris and how it draws expatriate writers (James Baldwin, Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, to name a few). No doubt a trip to Paris inspires the muse of most of us who regularly put pen to paper. (Or mouse to screen, if you insist.) The lure of the city for writers has never waned. As evidence, last month sci-fi writer Susan Kaye Quinn traveled to Paris. There, she met local writers and signed copies of her work at a bookstore.

I have had the good fortune to visit the city four times. Recent, sometimes tragic, events have taken me back to my last visit once again—in my memory. Those memories are all pleasant ones.

Spending more time than I ever have at the Louvre. Exploring artifacts from ancient Egypt and beautiful pieces from their Islamic collection. Being introduced to the mystical work of Gustav Doré at the Musee D’Orsay, my favorite place to spend time.

Wandering the streets near our apartment located between the Belleville and Republique metro lines. Pretending I actually live in Paris by enjoying eclairs from a neighborhood bakery and cheese from a local cheese shop. Meeting with a French tutor in a café near the Bastille.

Finally making the trek to Monet’s home and gardens in Giverny. On each trip, we never miss a few hours in the Luxembourg Gardens. From a park bench we spend at least one afternoon watching people walk by.

 

Fitting in

I recently saw someone post on Facebook a common belief about the city—Parisians don’t like people from the United States. I have found the opposite to be true, with one observation. I’m not the only person who will say that the reception will be much friendlier if a visitor knows a little French.

The best phrase I use if I get into any difficulty is: “Excusez-moi, je ne parle pas très bien français.” “Excuse me, but I don’t speak French very well.” I have never had a problem after that as whoever I’m speaking to graciously helps me. It is also important to say, “Bonjour” during the day and “Bonsoir” in the evening when first approaching someone.

Once in a bakery, I politely asked the man behind the counter about the éclairs we had not yet received with our tea. He threw his head back and cried out, “What a catastrophe!” in a way that made me laugh . After I took the plate of two eclairs, someone walked up to the counter and immediately said, “I’d like…” and started his order. The demeanor of the man behind the counter shifted from playful to deadly serious.

I suspect that customer came away with the belief that Parisians are all rude based on that one experience.

Pay Attention to It All

All the expected sites—the Eiffel Tower lit up at night, the boats on the Seine, the Notre Dame Cathedral—speak the loudest. On the other hand, I very much value the quieter voices of the city. The murals, the small tasks of daily life, and the lovely hair of three French schoolgirls on a boat floating down one of the city’s canals.

Residents of Paris may tire of the constant bustle of a big city and look forward to fleeing for quieter locations. I will always be one of the many outsiders—many of us writers—drawn to that city and continually find inspiration there.

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A World Outside my Paris Door

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Two years ago, I sampled life as a resident of Paris. For ten days, my spouse and I spent time in a quirky and comfortable apartment on the Rue du Faubourg du Temple. From there we set out to do what most tourists do: visit the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay, climb to the top of Montmartre, and walking the banks of the Seine.

Sampling Parisian Life

Having our own apartment helped us to learn more about the neighborhood where we’d taken up residence. We walked to the cheese store for the best brie I’d ever tasted. We visited the weekend market in the rain, a walk of only a few blocks. (Tip: Don’t pick up a handful of salad greens; wait for the purveyor of the produce.) And a short walk also brought us to the boulangerie/patisserie (bakery) where we found delicious eclairs and baguettes. The perfect existence as I had imagined it to be.

A Diverse Neighborhood

I found more than I expected in that neighborhood between the Republique and Belleville metro stops.

On the street, I passed my temporary neighbors, many of whom were immigrants or the children of immigrants. North Africans, and more recently, sub-Saharan Africans have replaced the Armenians, Greeks, and Ashkenazi Jews which were once the predominant ethnic groups. A nearby window displayed clothing of those communities, clothing I might not expect to see on the Paris runways.

Tragedies Nearby

The Bataclan, the site of the attack that took 130 lives, sits only a few blocks from where we stayed, and the Jewish store that experienced the killing of four hostages on the same day as the Charlie Hebdo massacre, is just over 4 kilometers away. Despite these tragedies, I wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to return there.

As an outsider, especially one who ‘lived’ there for such a short time, I could not gauge whatever tensions there might have been. But for ten days—a brief moment in time—I did feel the richness of a culturally diverse neighborhood right outside my door.

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Welcome.

I write for children. I write for adults. I write fiction short and long, real and fantastical, foreign and domestic.

Here you'll find my stories and links to my novels.

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Copyright Kim Batchelor