Work in Progress (September 2026)

A marina packed with watercraft of all sizes and types marks the end of the summer for me.

Work in Progress

As a writer, I spend a lot of time alone: drafting at my computer; poring over research materials; taking notes and playing with ideas; reading and rereading and revising until I have no idea if what I'm working on is better or worse than earlier versions. At that point I really need another writer to look at my project and tell me where I've gone astray--and also which parts are good.

It's even better when I can have several writers read my work and give me comments on it. So I've been fortunate to be part of many writing critique groups over the years.

Some have only lasted for the duration of a particular class. Others have grown from a class and continued for months or years. Some formed when I met a few brave strangers at a conference or one-day workshop who proved willing to share our words. All of them have helped me become a better writer, and have taught me what to look for in a good story.

They have also resulted in some wonderful friendships.

Still, I've always wondered if I would feel jealous or maybe even discouraged when another member of one of my critique groups beat me over the finish line to publish their book. The first to put that question to the test is my friend and fellow writer Hendrik Taatgen, a member of a critique group that grew out of a mystery writing class. His first novel, In the Hands of the Other, is being published on October 6, 2026.

And I am DELIGHTED with Hendrik's achievement. I can't wait to attend his book launch party, reunite with the other members of our writing group, and hold Hendrik's printed book in my hands!

On a similar note, my friend and mentor Margaret Mizushima just released Fighting Edge, the eleventh book in her K-9 police procedural series. My pre-ordered copies arrived last Wednesday, taking me back to fictional Timber Creek, Colorado, where I'm hanging out with Deputy Mattie Walker and her K-9 Robo. I have been trying to read the story slowly, just a little each day, to make the experience last, but I'm turning pages faster and faster as the suspense grows.

What I'm Consuming

Reading

In the Hands of the Other by Hendrik Taatgen
Fighting Edge by Margaret Mizushima
Mickey7 by Edward Ashton
Please Unsubscribe, Thanks by Julio Vincent Gambuto
The Loch Ness Papers by Paige Shelton
Artifact by Gigi Pandian
Cold to the Touch by Kerri Hakoda
The Harvey Girl by Dana Stabenow

Viewing

Castle
Magnum (Season Five of the 2018 reboot)
Cagney and Lacey (the original!)
Frasier

Why You Should Read In the Hands of the Other by Hendrik Taatgen

Some of the greatest gifts we receive from reading fiction are getting insight into and gaining empathy for the lives of people very different from us. My friend Hendrik Taatgen’s novel delivers those gifts in abundance.

When news broke of the attack on the Nova music festival on 7 October 2023, starting the Israel-Hamas War (also called the Gaza Conflict), one of my first thoughts was, I wish everyone in the world could read Hendrik’s novel!

Not because it provides a solution to the seemingly eternal conflict in Gaza, but because it takes the reader deep into what it was like to live there, under Israeli occupation, in the early 2000s. The story, a work of “autofiction”—a novel based on and extrapolated from true events in the author’s life—shows the roots of the emotions that drive desperate and seemingly senseless acts of violence.

In the Hands of the Other opens with the terrifying kidnapping of the main character, Henry. The author then leaves the reader wondering how this fraught event will play out as the story goes back to how Henry and his wife Martha left a comfortable but boring life in the US to work in Gaza at an American International School. As the story unfolds, we get to know Henry, Martha, and the kidnapper through their alternating viewpoints.

Through the three characters, we are immersed in the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of Gaza: Henry and Martha drive pot-holed streets past the rubble of demolished houses, to attend a dinner party in a walled garden full of priceless Roman antiquities that the homeowner wishes to turn over to trustworthy government authorities—if only he could find some. When they view the remains of an abandoned Jewish settlement, it’s impossible to know who demolished the buildings: the Israeli army? The settlers being forced out of their homes and businesses? Or frustrated Palestinians vandalizing what’s been left behind?

When they are awakened by the sound of rapid gunfire in the night, they never know if it’s a gunfight, or a wedding celebration. Preparing the seniors for graduation, Martha has to grapple with the idea that after these young people leave for college in Canada or the US or England or Australia, they might not be allowed to return to Gaza, even to visit their families.

These and many other poignant scenes, heart-rending contradictions, and sanity-defying paradoxes from everyday life in Gaza in 2005 are woven skillfully together. The stakes get higher and the tension ratchets upwards as the characters face the perils of armed soldiers and rebels, have a terrifying encounter with young Jihadis, hide from an armed and angry mob, and are forced to live in conditions of near-captivity for their own safety.

Alongside the Palestinians they come to befriend, Henry and Martha endure heart-attack-causing sonic booms, and border closures that disrupt food supplies and cause medication shortages at hospitals—collective punishment tactics in the very uneven war between Israel and the Palestinian militants living in Gaza.

The suspense of Henry’s kidnapping, the kidnapper’s attempt to enlist Henry in his cause, and the effects the subsequent lies and deception have on Henry and Martha’s marriage make the book a page-turner. The story’s ending was surprising, and very fitting.

Although I will probably never be able to wrap my head around the politics of the Middle East, this book really humanized the situation for me and made me look at the conflict differently.

In the Hands of the Other will be published on October 6, 2026. You can pre-order it from the retailers listed at hendriktaatgen.com. If you're a member of Goodreads, you can enter a giveaway for a print copy at www.goodreads.com/book/show/254552466-in-the-hands-of-the-other

If you know someone who might like Hendrik's book, please forward this newsletter to them so they can read this review! I think it would be a wonderful novel for a book group to discuss.

Where I've Been

The end of summer is a little less mournful in my neck of the woods because of a delightful annual bash called The Wooden Boat Festival.

Boats and everything associated with them is celebrated at the Wooden Boat Festival.

Sailors, craftspeople, musicians, artists, authors, documentarians, photographers, and curious people of all sorts have been flocking to Port Townsend on the weekend after Labor Day for 49 years now.

Ferry meets schooner, modern meets old, and practicality meets romance at the WBF.

It's a wonderful celebration of beautiful boats--big and small, wooden and not, old and new--and the community of creative people who care about them.

Boats of all types are on display in a celebration of nautical know-how, history, and futurism.

My Furry Muses

Mia's confidence has grown so much in the eighteen months that she has lived with us, she is no longer my 24x7 shadow. Several times a week I find myself looking around, saying, "Where is my dog?!" I might find her snoozing on the bed with the kittens, or curled up in the living room where my husband Morgan is reading.

After more than a year of her being my "velcro dog", sometimes Mia naps in another room.

When she first came to us, Mia insisted that I stand nearby while she was eating. If I tried to leave, to run to the bathroom or do a quick chore, she would abandon her meal to follow me, and wouldn't finish until I went back to her feeding station with her. These days, if she hears Morgan working in the kitchen close to dinner time while we're in my office, she bolts up the stairs without a backwards look, and comes back licking her lips in satisfaction.

Mia acts much bolder in Nose Work class, no longer fearing putting her nose in a box. She's even willing to climb onto a chair to sniff out a target midway up the wall!

We started Mia in a Nose Work class a little over a year ago, and she didn't even want to go into the training facility. She was so timid she would not take a piece of hot dog from the trainer, much less stick her head into a box to find a treat. After lots of practice, she now wags her tail and whines with excitement when we turn down the driveway to our teacher's place, and she happily greets everyone she meets there, and even takes treats from total strangers.

Speaking of boxes, Butch and Sundance have been having a great time lately turning empty cardboard boxes into what Morgan calls their "forts."

Sunny likes to hide under this overturned box and make it move around!

Butch likes to sit in various empty boxes and contemplate his plans for world domination.

That's it for this month. Thanks for being a reader – Jenna