Frederick & Nelson Talk at McClure School 7:00pm 1/27/10 for the Queen Anne Historical Society

Tonight I’ll be joining the members of the Queen Anne Historical Society for an evening of tea, cookies, and reminiscences on Frederick & Nelson. I’ll have a table of memorabilia (including my great silver teapot find!), will read excerpts from my book, and will invite the audience to share their memories. Books (and merchandise – you know you need a bumper sticker) will be on sale before and after the presentation. Please come join us!

McClure Middle School
Library (main floor, North entrance)
1915 1 AV W Seattle, WA 98119
7:00pm

 

Private Clubs Taste on a Nouveau Poor Budget

My dear friend and past editor Julie Pheasant-Albright and her lovely co-author Celeste Smith are having a book signing tonight for Images of America: Private Clubs of Seattle at the Swedish Cultural Center. As the Swedish Club states in their newsletter, “At what other bookstore can you get a drink?” And I would add, a good strong drink at a very reasonable price at that! And then there’s the view! Best in the city bar none. And of course the opportunity to mingle not only with the hoi polloi but those select few actually pictured in the book not to mention the charming authors themselves.

I have yet to buy my copy and am eager to get my hands on one. As mentioned previously in this blog, the Woman’s Century Club (and one of its prominent members, Mayor Bertha Landes) is playing a major role in the graphic novel that my husband Tony Hicks and I are currently working on (albeit a Steampunk tinged version of said.) Source material – yea!!

7:00pm tonight at 1920 Dexter Ave N – see you there!

 

Electromagnetic Frequencies of Seattle Women Authors

On Friday May 15^th at 12:00 noon I’ll be at the Woman’s Century Club for their event Seattle Women Authors Book Event. The Club is presenting a High Tea and hosting four Seattle women whose writing deals with historical topics. I’m joining Julie Pheasant-Albright, author of Historic Ballard and Private Clubs of Seattle, Celeste Smith, co-author of Private Clubs of Seattle, and Helene Gabel Ryan, author of Hakujin. 

We’ll be in the Deluxe Building…home now of the Museum of the Mysteries and famously haunted. I wonder if we’ll be given Electromagnetic Frequency Detectors such as the ones used on the ghost tours or if I’ll have to bring my husband’s Chamber of Spectral Concentration or the Prism of the Veil. He and I are working on a illustrated novel about a Neo-Victorian Muldar and Scully set in a Steampunk tinged 1880s Seattle. The female character is a Spiritualist and I’m having fun researching the practitioners of the time.

Friday May 15th, 2009 at 12:00 noon

Woman’s Century Club-Harvard Exit Theatre

807 E. Roy

Seattle, WA

www.womanscenturyclub.org

 

RSVP 206.322.9565

president@womanscenturyclub.org

 

Frederick & Nelson Tearoom Rises Again…in Lynnwood

The look and feel of the iconic Frederick & Nelson Tearoom will be recreated at 2pm Wednesday, May 6th at Chateau Pacific in Lynnwood.  Special guests will include local author Ann Wendell who will read selections from her new book Images of America: Frederick & Nelson.  Accompanying Ann will be Lamont McDonald, longtime F&N employee and inventor of the Frango Mint machine.  Lamont, Ann, Chateau residents and members of the public who previously reserved a space for the event will have an opportunity to share their own memories of Frederick & Nelson and the Tearoom while they enjoy Walt’s Chicken Salad sandwiches, Frango mint desserts and Tearoom coconut cake.  Chateau Pacific residents will model or display vintage fashions, many of which were purchased at the legendary department store from the 1930s to the 1970s.  An extensive collection of historic F&N memorabilia, ranging from a doorman’s hat to a 1916 catalogue will be in display.     

This event sold out in record time with 80 people attending the Tea and another 70 on a waiting list. But don’t fret! Due to the popularity of these events I’ll will be joining the Chateau community again in June (date TBA) for a Frederick & Nelson Tea to celebrate the opening of their new facility Chateau St. Laurent in Bothell. This event will be open to the public and will feature a fashion show from a Bothell boutique. Stay tuned!

 

See You at the Fair! (The Olympia Book and Author Fair Of Course!)

This evening and tomorrow I am venturing down to the fair city of Olympia to participate in the Olympia Book and Author Fair . It’s one of those events that came a bit out of left field seeing as, on the whole, I have the Seattleite’s obliviousness about the “South Sound.” However, at last year’s InfoCamp I met a lovely librarian (are there any other kind?), Kelsey Smith of the Olympia Timberland Library and she graciously invited me to participate.

I’ve even got a mention in the article in The Olympian

 

Memories are Tricky Things…Especially When You’re Writing About Someone Else’s

Having recently published my second local history book I’ve been bracing myself for the emails, phone calls, and stage-whispered asides at book signings where someone announces that you’ve gotten it wrong…wrong…WRONG. Sometimes it’s a heartbreaker as in my first book when I didn’t make clear the contributions of a mother, recently passed away, to a family business. Sometimes it’s an honest mistake…that was a picture of Uncle John and *not* Aunt Alice?? Often it’s a piece of seeming trivia that appears to only be remembered (in excruciating detail) by that person who passed through town for 15 min in 1942. But let me tell you it matters…it matters to each and every person for whom what you’re writing about was a part of their personal experience. And so it darn well better matter to you.

Today an article about me and my Frederick & Nelson book was published in a local newspaper, the North Seattle Herald Outlook. I had met with the editor, Vera Chan-Pool, last week and had a great time talking with her. Definitely one of the most fun interviews I’d ever done. And I’m thrilled with the article; well researched, thoughtful, and far ranging in scope. But there are a couple moments…as with all publicity…where I said to myself OMG did I say that??? (And there were many more moments when I said to myself OMG did my Close Personal Friend and Former Editor Julie Pheasant-Albright really say that? and that???) Is Nordstrom going to blackball my Nordy’s card because I implied they owe an unacknowledged debt to F&N? (I guess I’m just lucky that what I had to say about trying to get Macy’s to call me back couldn’t be printed in a family newspaper.) But the line that I don’t actually remember saying but that definitely strikes a cord was, “It’s a big responsibility to be the guardian of Frederick & Nelson memories.” And no…I don’t think I’m the only one…the Anointed One…who has the Only True Memories. Far from it…what I loved most about doing the book was hearing and reading so many other people’s memories. And I’m trying to continue to be the conduit of those memories by posting them here in my blog. A friend recently directed me to a group discussion on LinkedIn Seattle entitled “In Fond Memory of Frederick & Nelson: What do you remember about this Pacific Northwest retailer?” There’s been 22 comments in the last couple of days and this is so not the first place I think people would think of to talk about F&N. But now we can’t be stopped. By Christmas Eve we’ll all be downtown staging a takeover of Nordstrom, performing random acts of exemplary customer service and scattering Frangos in our wake. Are you in?

 

Christmas isn’t Christmas Without a Book about Frederick & Nelson

My book, Images of America: Frederick & Nelson has been out now for about a week and a half and so far…so great! There are a few things that aren’t just the way I want them…such as you can’t walk into a Barnes & Noble and actually buy one…and Oprah hasn’t called yet but hey…I’m working on it. I’ve sold almost 1,000 copies which ain’t bad for a week…especially as I’m doing almost all my own marketing and sales prospecting. This was the deal I agreed to with the devil…oh oops I mean my publisher when they decided there was no need to publish the book in time for Christmas. I guess when you’re in North Carolina you just don’t get that “Christmas isn’t Christmas without a day at Frederick & Nelson.” I had to write a defense letter detailing why anyone cared about a store that went out of business in 1992 and why Pacific Northwesterners associate Christmas with F&N. They finally said oh OK…but we’re not sending a salesperson to Seattle…we can do it all from here. Uh huh.

The Book Launch Party last Friday night was tons of fun and a big success…once I arrived, 20 min late to my own party, having gotten caught in the Traffic Jam of the Weather Paranoid while fetching two large coconut cakes emblasioned with the store’s signature in F&N green. My fans were just lighting the torches and parading around the village when we skidded up to the table and staved off disaster with Walt’s Chicken Salad (made by Julie Pheasant-Albright) and a trio of Frango mint desserts provided by Kim Carsberg. They fell on these treats like ravening hoards…you would have thought there was nothing else to eat at the Swedish Club but lutefisk. A good time was had by all and I gathered a number of great F&N memories in my guest book which shall be highlighted here in the weeks to come.

Saturday was the Holiday Tea at the Museum of History and Industry and the event was pretty fabulous. My sister, Robin Glover, had made lovely white and green corsages for the 24 people in my entourage and I made place cards from my vintage F&N gift cards. Robin had made extra corsages/boutonnières and we were able to give them out to former F&N employees at both events. The vintage fashion show contained a number of F&N outfits and your truly fit right in with my 1940s polka dot dress and cream silk hat with a pleated flower. The tea sandwiches and scones were yummy but didn’t hold a candle to the treats we had the night before.

 

World History – Don’t Let Your Teacher Catch You with It on your Phone

Earlier today I received a follow notice on Twitter from @worldhistory and had to check it out. It’s a new web application currently in private beta (but you can sign up to take part at World History.) It got a good write up on Tech Crunch and they link to the demo videos. Basically you can use their interactive map to find locations you’d like to learn about and access all types of historical information on the events and people associated with a particular time and place…anywhere in the world. There are plans to be able to add your own ancestors and genealogical information to the site.

The company is also developing an iPhone application so that you can access historical information near where you live or are visiting. It’ll be like having your own miniture tour guide in your pocket.

The product is a spin off from FamilyLink, those good people of Utah who seem to have a monopoly on accessing geneological history. I can’t wait to see what it’s like when people start uploading their own information. I’d certainly love to have my books in the Images of America Series – Seattle’s Ravenna Neighborhood and Frederick & Nelson – included. I know there are people out there that think the rest of the world wants to read a 400 page book on their Uncle Leo’s bottle cap collection when in fact most people would gnaw off their arm to avoid it…and yeah even a history geek like me has her limits but…what I loved most about researching and writing my books was discovering the every day personal stories…the same for when I travel. Sure I want to know the big stuff…but what makes it real to me is the context and personal connection that an individual’s story can bring.