The Appeal of the "Underdog"

Costa Rica's National Soccer Team

It's so exciting to be in Costa Rica this summer, with the national soccer team carving out its little piece of history in the World Cup.

A couple weeks ago, even Costa Ricans were doubtful that their team would make it past the first round. Group D, which included Uruguay, Italy, and England, was popularly referred to as El Grupo de la Muerte, or "The Group of Death".

Then on June 14th, Costa Rica defeated Uruguay with a stunning 3-1 win. Since then, the entire country has watched each game with bated breath, and celebrated each victory with increasing confidence and enthusiasm.

I watched yesterday's game against Greece on a small, old-style television set here in Las Cruces. We were a modest group, but we packed the room that was available to us. Many NAPIRE students and mentors opted to travel to nearby San Vito to see the event in restaurants and bars. It was a long and difficult game; toward the end our collective experience degenerated into a series of groans and cheers. We were all sweating so much our little room began to smell like a futbol locker.

Keylor Navas and Michael Umaña moments after making
history.

When Keylor Navas deflected Greece's fourth shot, everyone in the room fell silent. Those seconds while Michael Umaña stepped forward, set down the ball, and prepared for his kick were probably the longest I've ever experienced during a soccer game.

Then in split second, it was over. The ball shot past Karnezis, and Costa Rica had won.

Costa Rica had WON!!

Shouts, dancing, and hugs exploded not only in our little TV room in Las Cruces, but across the nation.  For hours after the game, one could watch televised reports of the riot of celebration that took hold of Costa Ricans everywhere.

I've sung the praises of Costa Rica many times and for many reasons. Once again I'm impressed by how this little country holds in own in the big leagues, in politics, conservation, and now in sports. Not without effort, and certainly not without cost. But always with a sense of joyful determination, a passion for the game that often pays off.

Costa Ricans celebrate the win against Greece in one
of the major intersections of San Jose.

As a Gringa, I sometimes think my own country has lost something along the way when I witness events like these. We no longer seem to have national projects, not even in sports, that pull us together as a nation, and the fill us with shared joy when an extraordinary goal is reached.  The Olympics used to fill that hole, but those games don't seem to resonate among Americans like they used to when I was a little girl. The Space Program was another effort that brought the nation together decades ago, but that too has fallen out of fashion with the current generation.

Tomorrow, the U.S. team will play Belgium in the World Cup, hoping for its own spot in the Round of Eight. I'll be watching that game with baited breath, too. I hope we win, but even if we do, I know the party back home won't be nearly as good as yesterday's party in Costa Rica.


...Let me just close by saying that I simply must use the name Keylor in one of my future fantasy novels.

Pura Vida.
Felicidades, Costa Rica!

Savegre Lodge and Ballena Marine National Park

The resplendent quetzal, king of the highland forests
of Talamanca, is set to make a cameo appearance in
Eolyn's third companion novel, Daughter of Aithne.

This week Avila University professor Amy Milakovic and I did a scouting trip for a new course we plan to offer next spring, entitled Ecology through the Writer’s Lens.  The course was inspired during my residency for the Long Term Ecological Reflections (LTER) program at Andrews Experimental Forest in the mountains of Oregon (see my May 2011 posts). 

Like the LTER project, our goal is to integrate scientific and literary approaches to understanding the forest. Of course, we will be working on a much shorter time scale than LTER.  The program at Andrews Experimental Forest is set to run about 300 years; our course will run about 10 days.  Still, it’s going to be a fun and memorable experience for us as professors and for all our students.

On the scouting trip, we visited Savegre Lodge, nestled in the oak forests of the Talamanca Mountains, at about 2300m elevation.  Fans and followers of Eolyn know by now that these are the magnificent forests that inspired Eolyn’s childhood home in the South Woods.

Ballena Marine National Park, Costa Rica

After a night in Talamanca, we visited La Cusinga Lodge in the Pacific lowlands, surrounded by tropical rainforest and overlooking the stunning Ballena Marine National Park.  Along the way, we saw quetzals, monkeys, whales, and all kinds of other wildlife.   We travelled with long-time friend and colleague, Jose Rogelio Vargas, owner of Ruta Verde Tours.

While I was off the grid, Mark Nelson wrote a wonderful reflection for Heroines of Fantasy, marking our 100^th post for the blog.  Mark contemplates the same question we will be asking in our upcoming course:  How do the landscapes we encounter inspire the stories we write? Please stop by to read Mark’s post and share your thoughts on this topic.



A howler monkey in the lowland rain forest

Next week, I’ll be starting a blog tour with Orangeberry Book Tours.  The tour will last through September, including guest posts, interviews, reviews, giveaways, Twitter views and Twitter blasts.  Eolyn will also be one of the featured titles for the Orangeberry Book Expo, which runs through the end of August. For the full schedule, visit my author page at OrangeberryBook Tours. I will, of course, post events as they occur here, as well as on my Facebook page and Twitter account for Eolyn.

That’s the news for now.  Enjoy the sunny weeks to come. Autumn is on its way.

Members of this week's tropical expedition (from left to right):
Dr. Amy Milakovic, Rafael Aguilar, me, Jose Rogelio Vargas

San Pablo de Heredia



Iglesia Vieja de San Pablo de Heredia

I’m checking in from my husband’s home town in Costa Rica this week. 

The urban experience of Costa Rica runs polar opposite to the forest experience (which I documented in detail during the summers of 2010 and 2012).  Costa Rican cities are noise and chaos, a constant roar of cars and buzz of human activities.  Streets are friendly (if somewhat dangerous), the people conversational and fun. 

I wish I could say endless good things about it, but the truth is cities are not my favorite place to be, and this is no exception. 

Still, Costa Rica, with all its faces, is a place after my own heart (quite literally).  I’m very much enjoying our stay with my husband’s family.  It’s been a great opportunity to reconnect with old friends and new dreams.

While enjoying life in the tropics, I’ve been taking advantage of my summer break to get things in order for High Maga. We put the manuscript through a first round a copy edits.  It will likely go through a second round in the not-so-distant future, thanks to some additional changes I made. 

I have to admit, I very much like having a generous lead time between now and when the novel hits the market next spring.  I like being able to mull over things, to revisit the manuscript after having been away from it for a while, and to have a chance to find fixes for that handful of sticky paragraphs that still nag at me. 

My most exciting email this week came from Thomas Vandenberg, who has finished the backdrop for the cover art for High Maga.  It is, in a word, stunning.  I have seen Tom’s work and I know he is a great artist, but I never imagined he would capture the look and feel of the South Woods so completely.  I cannot wait to share it with all of you, though I will wait, since the cover art is still a work in progress.

The noise and activity of Heredia is not particularly conducive to writing, so I’ve focused mostly on finishing copy edits and attending to other tasks that don’t require large blocks of quiet time.  Even so, I’ve made some progress on Daughter of Aithne.  The manuscript topped 40K last week. I’m in the middle of crafting the novel’s first climactic event, a sequence of horror and tragedy for almost everyone involved.

That's all the news for now. On Saturday, we will break free of the city and head for the beach. With any luck, I will have spotted some dolphins -- or at the very least, a few monkeys -- next time I check in.

Hope you all are having a good summer!

Back to the South Woods

Me in Las Cruces, a few years back.
Some things never change, and my love
for those trees is one of them.

The days are going by fast in this short respite between when spring semester ends and my field season in Costa Rica begins.  This summer I will be participating once again in the Native American and Pacific Islander Research Experience (NAPIRE) Program.  As a research mentor, I'll be supervising the work of three students at Las Cruces Biological Station, a small piece of paradise located in southern Costa Rica, near the border with Panama.

It's been only two years since I participated in NAPIRE, yet it seems like so much longer.  The last time I went to Las Cruces, I had just begun this blog, and signed my first contract with Hadley Rille Books.  Since then, Eolyn has been published, and that one seemingly small event has changed so much in my life, internally and externally, in the way I organize my time and my priorities, in what I want for the future, and how I see myself.  I don't know if any of this will impact my experience at Las Cruces, but it's certainly a moment that has allowed me to see my life is still changing, and I along with it.

I'm invariably inspired to write fun stuff whenever I'm in the woods, so please return to this blog in the coming weeks, so I can share my adventure in the tropics with you.  

In other news, this Saturday I will be at the 6th Annual Author Extravaganza in Emporia, KS.  This event is hosted by the Town Crier Bookstore, and is a celebration of Kansas authors of all genres, and from all walks of life.  If you are in the area, please stop by to visit and meet the authors.  Books will be available for purchase and signing.

This week, I joined the Magic Appreciation Tour and Book Sale.  This is an on-line event, so you can enjoy it wherever you are.  Stop by to meet authors of magical fantasy and find some great summer reading to boot.  The Tour and Book Sale will last until June 30.

I'm getting very excited about WorldCon in Chicago at the end of August.  A couple days ago, I received the list of panels, and they all look great.  I've thrown my hat in the ring to participate in more than a few; as soon as my panels and schedule are confirmed, I'll be sure to post it on this site.

Terri-Lynne DeFino is up this week over at Heroines of Fantasy, and she wants to know what you are doing for yourself.  Stop by to tell her about your plans.  (And if you don't have any plans for yourself, then now is the time to make them!)

I've put together a fun post for next week on Heroines of Fantasy, about some of the non-fantasy books that have most inspired my work, and especially my work with Eolyn.  That post will go live on Monday, June 18.  I hope you will take a moment to visit me there and tell me a little about the books that have most inspired you.

I thought this was going to be a short post, but I guess I did have a lot to talk about!  Next time you see me here, I'll be writing from Costa Rica.  Pura Vida!

EOLYN Abroad

Technically, I'm on vacation right now, so this will be a short post.  But I wanted to mention EOLYN has made her first official foray into Latin America.  Fans of EOLYN living in Costa Rica may now check out the novel at the Biblioteca Mark Twain, the largest collection of English language books in the country.  The library is located at the Centro Cultural Norteamericano Costarricenses.  I've donated many books to this library over the years, but this is the first time I've donated a novel of my own making.  That was a lot of fun.  I hope it finds many happy readers here.

I also brought down several copies, hardcover and paperback, that had been requested by friends and family, plus a few extras just in case -- which have come in handy after all.  Though the story is set firmly in a temperate environment, many of the scenes in the early chapters were inspired by the forests of Costa Rica, most especially the highlands of Talamanca, which in this part of the tropics support forests dominated by oak.  Costa Rica is one of the top sources of visits to this blog, running neck-and-neck for third place with Canada (behind the United States and the United Kingdom).  So I think EOLYN will find a good home here, and with any luck will be picked up by some of the local bookstores that cater to English language speakers and expats. 

Of course, someday I hope EOLYN will also be translated to Spanish.  There's been talk about that in the virtual halls of Hadley Rille Books, so it's not outside of the realm of possibilities.

In other news, I'll be at the Campbell Conference this weekend, hosted by the University of Kansas in Lawrence.  I've heard a lot of wonderful things about this conference, dedicated to science fiction but welcoming of the genres of fantasy and horror.  Many well-known authors will be there, and I am very much looking forward to having the opportunity to interact with them.  If you are in the area, there will be a group booksigning event at the Jayhawk Ink Bookstore in the Kansas Union, on Saturday from 12:45pm to 1:45pm.  The event is free and open to the public.

Okay.  Back to vacationing.  I'll check in early next week with news about the Campbell Conference and more on upcoming events.  Until then, Pura Vida!