Are you Inked up? asks Vicki Stiefel

HALLIE EPHRON: I confess, it's taken me awhile to become comfortable with Millenials' romance with tattoos. I want to ask, "Don't you know your skin will sag when you get older?" "Do you really want that on you when you interview for a job?" "What's going to happen when you get tired of it? ... I want to ask, but don't.

My dear friend and author Vicki Stiefel (Chest of Stone) is far ahead of the curve on this. She's got them. And she's not a millennial. 

So here's a page from Vicki Stiefel... how tattoos twine through her real life and her fiction.

VICKI STIEFEL: I take the receipt from the clerk.

“Is it real?” He points to the tattoo on my finger, the one with all the flowery vines.

“Yes, it is.”

“Really?” His tone bubbles with skepticism.

The urge to reply with snark is strong, but all I say is, “Really.”

I assume his disbelief is because I'm not a Twentysomething or a Goth or a biker, either, although I do still possess a bit of the hippie I once was. 

But, hello? Tattoos have gone mainstream.

What is it about these permanent inkings—living symbols etched into our flesh—that make them so compelling?

I blame my tat addiction, er, acquisition on my late crime-writer husband, Bill Tapply, who sported a mayfly tattoo to honor his fly-fishing passion. When he chose to get another tat, I joined in. He got Kokopelli. Mine? A Celtic spiral tattooed on my wrist, which was the inspiration for Clea’s tat in my novel, Chest of Bone. Hers is magical. Mine? I'll never tell.

Clea’s tattoo is “applied” by her dying mentor, the act of which comes with lots of blood and pain and launches my story. But I’m not the first author to pen tats into a tale. 

Novels use tattoos as symbols, plot threads, and more. Good guys, bad guys, and even corpses are fleshed out with ink in their skin. Can you imagine Moby Dick’s Queequeg without his tats? Or Lisbeth Salander’s Girl with the Dragon Tattoo minus that dragon on her back? 

Speaking of dragons, the serial killer in The Red Dragon wears a William Blake design, which he believes is a spirit he calls "the Dragon.” Tattoos play a huge role in Elizabeth Hunter’s masterful Irin Chronicles’ The Scribe, where they heighten the wearer’s magic powers. Magic of the evil kind illuminates Mr. Dark’s “human” tats in Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes. From the Man Booker finalist’s The Electric Michelangelo to the evil preacher’s tats in Night of the Hunter, a character’s tattoos can add layers of meaning to a character and a novel, which is part of why I love them.

My Wyvern wrapped around a Key symbolizes two of my series’ characters from The Afterworld Chronicles. 

I’m not alone in sporting a tat from my books. To quote the marvelous Rob Hart, “Books and tattoos have a lot in common. Both are intimate — and sometimes painful — acts. They’re addictive, in that you finish one and immediately ache for the head rush of another.” Rob’s got his New Yorked inked on his skin. Elizabeth Hand, Kevin Wilson, Steph Post, and many other writers wear ink based on their books. Other tattooed authors range from Dorothy Parker to Julie Hennrikus to China Mieville. As ink-decorated John Irving told The New York Times, “Tattoos are souvenirs. They’re road maps of where your body’s been.”

Legions of readers, those wonderful folks who devour our work, ink themselves as a permanent badge of their love for authors and reading. They sport tattoos from Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter novels to those of Jane Austen and Sherrilyn Kenyon. They wear open books with “I’ve lived a thousand lives” or “Books are proof humans can do magic” or “Wanderer,” which is etched into my forearm beneath an open book.

 

I am that wanderer of ideas and of books. And, yeah, I want to get another tattoo.

Oh, BTW — if you plan to get a tattoo, do it right. Go to a reputable tattooist whose style you admire. Be sure you’re passionate about the tat, since without costly laser removal, it’s forever. Finally, copyedit your design. Seriously. Or this might be the result.

Do you have tattoos? Care to show and tell?

HALLIE: I think all our readers know that I do not. Or if I did, it would be my secret.

Vicki Stiefel''s fantasy suspense series, The Afterworld Chronicles, launched with Chest of Bone, the tale of a Mage, a Monster, and a Mission. Her mystery/thrillers include Body Parts, The Dead Stone, The Bone Man, and The Grief Shop, a Daphne du Maurier prize winner. All feature homicide counselor Tally Whyte. Her writing and photography have also appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Worcester Magazine, Wild Fibers, Dive Training, and other national publications. She co-wrote (with Lisa Souza) and photographed the non-fiction 10 Secrets of the LaidBack Knitters, and recently published Chest of Bone, The Knit Collection.

With her late husband, William G. Tapply, she ran The Writers Studio workshops in creative fiction. For six years, Vicki taught fiction writing and modern media writing at Clark University. She mentors writers and students and critiques writing in a variety of genres, from partial to completed manuscripts.

The Afterworld Chronicles' second novel, Chest of Stone, will hit shelves Nov. 2017, and she’s pounding the keys on the series' third novel, Chest of Air. In the works, her next mystery series will feature a tattooist.

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Vicki Stiefel

Why I Know I’m a Writer

by Vicki Stiefel

By 2007, I’d published dozens of articles, hundreds of film reviews, several short stories and four mystery/thrillers. For the previous four years, I’d focused almost entirely on my fiction. I loved writing about murder and mayhem and my homicide counselor sleuth.

You’d think with those stats, I’d feel like a writer. I didn’t. Not really. I “sort of” felt like a writer, “sort of” being two of my least favorite words. A part of me knew that one day I’d wake up and the Great Beyond would shout: Just kidding! You’re not a writer at all! Ha!

That same year, 2007, my husband took ill. Now Bill, he was a real writer. William G. Tapply had published thousands of articles and more than three dozen non-fiction books and mystery novels. Words flowed from the tips of his fingers in beautiful ways. He also was my mentor, my partner, my hero.

So although I was in the midst of writing the fifth novel in my Tally Whyte series, my focus turned to him. As time passed and his illness worsened, I could no longer go to that fictional world. The real one gripped me far too powerfully to have any time or energy left for Dreamstime.

Damned if I can remember what I did during the day while trying to write. All I know is, I spent an inordinate amount of time at my desk, not writing. And a crevasse of negative space grew as I tinkered, copy edited, and critiqued Bill’s writing, while mine atrophied.

He never said anything, but I knew my dearth of fiction prose made him sad.

Bill was a champion, a soldier, but at night he’d tire, and so would I, and so we’d watch the tube—sitcoms, procedurals, movies—and I’d knit. Knitting felt profoundly satisfying. I could click two sticks together and produce hats and scarves and mitts and shawls.

There they were, these beautiful, luxurious objects that I could create and control. Knitting filled a small portion of that expanding emptiness of unwritten words.

For some reason, on a day when I was helping a friend with her knitting, I whispered, I’ll write a knitting book!

You’re thinking I’d turned delusional. You’d be correct! What the hell did I know about writing a knitting book? And why would I imagine I could do that?

Buying into the madness, Bill thought a knitting book was a splendid idea.

And so that acorn of an idea fell from a rather out-of-sorts tree and burrowed deep into the soil of my imagination.

I grew determined. I didn’t care what it took, I would do it. With the aid of a great agent and Bill’s support, I wrote a proposal and sold the book.

Bill was thrilled. And that thrilled me like crazy.

Odd, but I sensed I could accomplish a non-fiction book, whereas my fiction brain was straightjacketed by Bill’s decline.

And so I wrote through the remainder of Bill’s illness and his subsequent death and the aftermath that was an inconceivable loss.

I pounded the words, I brought aboard a knitterly co-writer, I gathered designers, and I titled the book, 10 Secrets of the LaidBack Knitters. I wrote and I wrote and I wrote, about colors and fiber, festivals and yarn stores, critters—sheep, alpaca, vicuña, yak!—and community.

Words flooded onto my computer screen. The release was near orgasmic.

Midway through the three-years-long project, while Bill still batted the keys with his typical lightning speed, I walked into his office.

“Something just occurred to me,” I said.

His fingers’ stilled and he raised his bushy brows.

“I’m a writer,” I said.

His soft chuckle warmed me. “Of course you’re a writer. I’ve been telling you that for years. “

“I know, but…”

“Writers can’t let that void exist, babe. Makes them unhappy.” He smiled. “See what you did? You filled it with words.”

The 10 Secrets of the LaidBack Knitters appeared on shelves this past May. The book has gotten lots of lovely reviews and some nice sales. It’s in its second printing. It’s a book of the heart.

* * *

JAN BROGAN: Where did you get the idea for the book’s laidbackness?

VICKI STEIFEL: I was knitting with my friend, Kim. Well, I was knitting. Kim was giving birth. Pain, pain, pain. Knitting for me was a wonderful, warm cave. I wanted it to be that way for her, for everyone. Knitting should inspire joy.

JAN: What’s with that subheading, A Guide to Holistic Knitting, Yarn, and Life?

VICKI: Lisa (Souza, my co-author) is not just about the object or the fiber or the people. Knitting is all encompassing. That’s what makes it so cool. And don’t doubt it for a second—knitting is cool. So is crochet.

JAN: You’ve got 21 designers in the book. Was that challenging?

VICKI: I’d have liked even more. It was so hard to choose. Our designers range from unpublished to luminaries in the knitting world. From Rebecca Danger to Sivia Harding to Romi Hill to Norah Gaughan and onward. We have designs for everyone, from beginner to advanced:

JAN: What was the most fun in doing this book.

VICKI: Um, the writing…the photography, which I did…and the collaboration with so many amazing women. That rocked.* * *

I’ve begun work on my fiction again. But I had to do one more special project, this one for Bill. He published Sportsman’s Legacy in 1993, a memoir of growing up with his remarkable dad and famed outdoor writer and editor, H.G. “Tap” Tapply.

Far more than a book about sport, it’s a tale of fathers and sons, family and friendships, and critters, both wild and domestic.

In conjunction with White River Press, I expanded the book with additional writings by Bill, added a Q & A by Bill and mystery writer Philip R. Craig, and included more than sixty photographs. It came out this month, and I’m enormously pleased.

Oh, and about that mystery novel I’m writing? Well, the first draft is half in the can, and I’m once again immersed in that magical place I call Dreamstime. I suspect Bill is smiling and thinking, At last!

www.vickistiefel.com

laidbackknitters.com

sportsmanslegacy.com

JAN BROGAN - Vicki shared a powerful story here, but how about you? When did you know you were a writer? Are you still waiting? Or are you really glad you aren't one of the writing nuts around here?