W. Keith Brenton

The first book in my novel Cycle is, of course, dedicated to my late wife, Peggie Angela (Laird) Brenton. Gone now these eight-and-a-half years, she still inspires me with her noble and generous character, her great intelligence and passion for learning and her love for everyone, whether she had met them yet or not. So, The Water Cure, themed about the extension of life by many years, begins …

In memory of my beloved Angi,
with whom I look forward to being reunited,
no matter how many years or decades it takes.

The Crystalline Clarity, my second book in the series, is about a young person trying to find himself after losing not just one but both parents. Both of my amazing kids had to rebuild their lives after the loss of their mom, in their own time and in their own ways, and I am so very proud of them. Plus my grandson is his own four-year-old fountain of joy and blessing to me. So the sequel begins ….

For my kids, Matt and Laura; and my grandson, Kayson.

Rounding out the trilogy — at least for now! — is The Aqueous Solution, and it begins with a book report for a class in school written by one of my characters in his youth. I read voraciously in my youth, and yearned to write, and eventually did. At first, short stories in longhand; then as I taught myself to type on my mom’s ancient Underwood, much longer pieces. I even foisted a novella-length typewritten manuscript on one of my junior high teachers who dutifully read it and nodded, “It’s all right.” From her, that was high praise. But at every step — no matter how awful my efforts were in retrospect — there were teachers, instructors, professors and dear friends who encouraged me to keep at it and keep getting better. I hope I did. Book 3 begins ….

For all the teachers, instructors and professors
who encouraged me to write and keep writing, including:
Don Jones, Dawn Wade, Betty Ulrey, Neil Cope.

For all the friends who believed I could,
far too numerous to name.

Railway Winery produces and offers this wispily mysterious white wine named for the “Ghost Train” story that is integral to the plot of the first novel in my series, The Water Cure.

I quote the article from Railroad Magazine verbatim in my book. I used to enjoy reading it to my passengers on the Eureka Springs & North Arkansas Railway while I served as conductor there.

You can also read it in James A. Fair’s The North Arkansas Line and Clifton E. Hull’s Shortline Railroads of Arkansas. (Okay, mine is cheaper.)

A short version of the story is printed on the label of the bottle. It reads:

“In 1911, the crew of a train approaching Gaskins’ Switch to take on water sighted a train ahead on the same track, stopped with signal lights burning. They were preparing to jump when it disappeared and could not be convinced to continue on their route until the morning brought assurances the tracks were clear. Thus, the legend of the Ghost train was born. If this wine feels the chill of the ghost, a phantom shall arise to haunt you. Beware of the cold touch of the Ghost Train.”

The wine is bottled, of course, in blue. Because if you see a tree decorated with cobalt blue bottles, they’re there to repel the “haints” (ghosts)!

The battery-powered conductor’s lantern becomes a symbol of paradox in all three novels of The “People of the Water” Cycle. In most cases, the paradox involves an effect that has no cause, due to the vicissitudes of time travel.

This sweet old hu item is metal-stamped under the glass chimney “EMBURY MFG. CO. WARSAW, N.Y. USA.” Atop the chimney, the metal cap is stamped “PAT. SUPREME JAN 9, 1924.” It would have required three D-size cells.

You meet this item about halfway through the second book in the Cycle, The Crystalline Clarity. One character calls it the “Hillbilly Spaceship.”

If you’ve already read The Water Cure, you already know … as well as how she acquired it, its significance to her, and perhaps why she continues to use this late-1880s hand-crocheted purse with the satin liner decades later.

The wife of a friend of mine — I’ve never met her — has read all three of The “People of the Water” Cycle novels and has written the first review of the series on its Amazon page. And it’s favorable! She gives it a five-out-of-five.

Read her review on the paperback series page:

The “People of the Water” Cycle Page

The characters in my novel series encounter a world where many, many people seem to be healed by the spring waters of Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Doctors of the time certified the claims; they were spoken of in newspaper accounts and books of the time.

Healing waters were a trend in the United States and Europe at a time when modern medicine through the scientific method was just finding its legs.

People seeking relief who abandoned the pollution and pour sanitation of cities and traveled to burgeoning “healing spring” towns undoubtedly benefited from fresh air and water and sunshine — and exercise, getting from one spring to another.

And there is some thought that belief in the waters — the placebo effect — may have had a positive influence as well.

On the other hand, if those waters had a healing “virtue,” variously ascribed to electricity and radioactivity and other factors, it may have been erased over time as people moved into those areas and established water and sewer systems, contaminating the water tables.

Whether actual healing took place is anyone’s guess these days. But the testimonials of the time will genuinely make you wonder!

Here’s an article about the healing springs communities in the Ozarks of Northwest Arkansas.

https://shilohmuseum.org/project/healing-waters/

I messaged my friends at Mud Street Cafe and Mud Street Annex to let them know how much I appreciate their hospitality while I was clicking away on the Kensington keyboard of my little old iPad Mini 2, writing drafts of the three People of the Water novels there. I hope I didn’t forget anyone who was there during my writing blizzard 2018-2020, but I listed all I could remember on the Acknowledgments pages. This one is from the Kindle edition of “The Water Cure.”

We also have/have had a wonderful community of history-minded curators, authors and storytellers who keep Eureka Springs’ past alive, and as many of them that I could recall are named too.

I was struggling with the cover photos for all three books. I’d taken some lovely photos of blue, red and white wine bottles with the backdrop of the Crescent Hotel at sunset, but they just weren’t communicating the story.

I asked for suggestions among my Facebook friends, and Ashley Peake Wellman came through with “medicine bottles.” Of course!

Ashley is the author of a couple of fine children’s books and co-author a young readers book called Ghosts of the Abbey (Amazon) that I haven’t had a chance to start because I’m still enjoying neighbor Zeek Taylor’s autobiographical Out of the Delta.

AMUSEd Fine Art & Extraordinary Books in Eureka Springs is Ashley’s brainchild as well, showcasing her books and the art of her co-author Patrick Kinkade and illustrator Zac Kinkade (yes, brother and nephew to Thomas Kinkade).

Finally … I cannot say enough complimentary things about Roxanne Beck. I’m pretty sure my works are not her favorite niche of writing, but she braved the hard science in the science fiction, and meticulously copyread all three book manuscripts. At my request, she also acted as book editor, offering wise and salient suggestions, asking relevant questions about audience and market, and in one case calling into question the entire ending of the series as I had written it. She was right, and I rewrote it!

Roxanne, in addition to being an enormously talented vocalist, screen voice talent, songwriter and performing artist, is the author of the lovely Caterpillarland children’s book. (I love that it has a strong female hero who rescues others even when she herself is lost.)

She is also the screenwriter of the short, “Miss Famous,” which became a segment of the anthology motion picture The Heydey of the Insensitive Bastards. Not to drop names or anything, but it stars Kristen Wiig and features Jimmy Kimmel.

The screen grab below is from the Acknowledgments page of the Kindle edition of any of the three books, and of course also appears in all three paperbacks.

Around the time I was writing the introductory chapter to The Water Cure — about an astronaut using a sextant to get the spacecraft’s position in orbit — there were astronauts trying it again in the International Space Station. It had been done on Gemini and Apollo flights, but the Apollo sextant was built-in.

I wanted to put my astronaut’s sextant on the cover of all three books in the series (so far), and if FedEx had not lost the one I ordered from India in their freight facility in Memphis, I’d have been able to take the photos I wanted and publish the books far in advance of the Christmas holiday!

See this short promotional video about the ISS sextant experiment.

https://archive.org/details/jsc2018m000418_Navigating_Space_by_the_Stars