Book Review: Ellie’s Pursuit of the Mighty Fitz by Mckenzie Lee Williams and illustrated by Alayna Maria

Posted on December 3, 2025 by youngv2015

Published in hard cover, Williams’s book is durable and easy to wipe clean, making it perfect for young hands.

What is this book about?

It’s the day before spring break at Great Lakes Grade School. All of Ellie’s fifth grade classmates have travel plans. Her best friend, Mike, is going to London with his family to see Big Ben. Ellie worries her friends will return after spring break with wonderful objects and stories for their last fifth-grade show-and-tell, and she will have nothing to share because she isn’t going anywhere. She hopes her father will surprise her with a last-minute trip. But, Ellie’s only surprise is that Grandma Gigi is spending the week because her father has to go on a business trip.

While riding home after school with her father, Ellie hears Gordon Lightfoot’s song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” for the first time. After listening to the song, she has lots of questions about the Fitzgerald. Later she talks to Grandma Gigi about the Fitz and her recently deceased Grandpa Loren, who also sailed the Great Lakes, and even knew some of the sailors from the Fitzgerald. Ellie and her grandma decide to drive from Superior, Wisconsin, to the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum on Whitefish Point in Michigan. They want to see the bronze bell from the Fitzgerald and to learn more about the ship and its sinking. Perhaps Ellie will have something special to share at her last show-and-tell as a fifth grader.

What makes this book special?

Delightfully written by Mckenzie Lee Williams and beautifully illustrated by Alayna Maria, this chapter book will appeal to children ages eight to twelve years old. I really enjoyed this story, and I read it in one evening. Ellie, the main character and narrator, captured my heart. She is enthusiastic, adventurous, curious, and kind. She loves learning and writing in her journal, and if you’re a writer, you’ve got to love a journal-toting character. Told with tenderness and gentle humor, this chapter book explores themes of disappointment, grief, remembrance, and resilience. Young readers will enjoy taking a road trip with Ellie and Grandma Gigi. Along the way they will learn about the Edmund Fitzgerald, the Great Lakes, and the enduring power of love. Now, I want to visit the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum on Whitefish Point.

A special note about the author, Mckenzie Lee Williams . . .

Mckenzie Lee Williams died in a motorcycle accident in June 2024. She was twenty-three years old, a recent college graduate, and a writer. She was inspired to write Ellie’s Pursuit of the Mighty Fitzgerald when she worked at a bookstore. Customers would inquire about books regarding the Fitz for children, but there was little available. So, Williams decided to write a chapter book. After her death, her mother discovered Williams’s draft of Ellie’s Pursuit. With love and dedication, Williams’s family and friends edited and illustrated her manuscript. Like the bronze bell from the Fitzgerald, Williams’s book is a symbol of spirit, dedication, and love.

I never met Williams but she and I both had work published in the 2024 Nemadji Review at the University of Wisconsin-Superior. I was saddened when I heard about her death. Ellie’s Pursuit of the Mighty Fitzgerald is a lasting tribute to Williams and her talents as a writer.

[Ellie’s Pursuit of the Might Fitz, Mckenzie’s Mommy Publishing, October 2025, is available through Amazon and the National Museum of the Great Lakes.]

My Short Story Collection Has a Title: Silent Negotiations

Posted on October 11, 2025 by youngv2015

My story collection has a title! I’ll debut the cover when that is done.

In February 2027, the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point will publish my collection of short stories through Cornerstone Press, their university press. I’m excited, and nervous, and grateful. This is my first book, and like a first-time parent, I’m not sure what to expect, so I gather information. I talk to other writers who have published books. I attend book launches and author talks. I read blogs and articles and attend seminars about how to nurture a book in the world.

When Cornerstone accepted my manuscript, my publication date was more than two years away. But now it’s about fifteen months away, and if there is one thing I know about time — it’s how quickly it flies. I need to promote my book, and for that it needs a title.

When I submitted my collection in November 2024, it was called Fishing Around in the Dog Days of Summer, after one of the stories in the book. I chose the title for a couple of reasons. First, I really like its eponymous story about two young sisters with a tenuous relationship who go crayfishing on a hot, humid August day. Second, all the characters in my short story collection are fishing around for something they want. They each dip a line in the murky waters of their lives during their own dog days, hoping to catch something they long for.

But as much as I liked my original title, I began to feel it was too long and would be hard for people to remember. And I worried if the cover depicted a fishing scene along with the title, potential readers might think all my stories were about fishing.

I looked at my table of contents and considered other story titles. “Silent Negotiations” jumped out at me. It’s short and easy to remember, and it’s another story I really like. In 2020, it won second place in the Hal Prize Fiction Contest. (So, I feel the title has good mojo.) In the story a couple who have been married over forty years renegotiate the parameters of their marriage during a disagreement. Each spouse speaks their mind, but only to a point. The rest of their negotiations are silent, yet significant. The characters in my other stories are like the old married couple in “Silent Negotiations.” They all want something. They all talk to each other, but they leave things unsaid. And what is left unsaid, changes who they are with one another and themselves.

After I decided to change my title to Silent Negotiations, I asked my writing friends and readers what they thought. They had all read my stories several times, so I knew they would be good judges as to whether or not the new title would be a good fit for the collection. They all loved Silent Negotiations.

Last weekend I attended the Wisconsin Writers Association Conference in Stevens Point. The Cornerstone Press editors were there too. I talked to Dr. Ross Tangedal about using Silent Negotiations as my title. He liked it too, and so did his student editors.

My book has an official title!

Now, I’m excited to see some cover designs. Before I know it, Silent Negotiations will be out in the world.

I’m hoping to use this picture for my author photo. Photo credit: Max Youngquist

Something Published: “A Journey with Monarchs”

Posted on September 4, 2025 by youngv2015

My essay “A Journey with Monarchs” was recently published in Tales of Migration by Duluth Publishing Project. Professor David Beard (University of Minnesota-Duluth) and a group of his students spearheaded this project, from the call for submissions to the finished project. This is the second time I’ve had an essay selected for one of their anthology projects. I appreciate the hard work and dedication of Beard and his students, who all strive to make the experience memorable for their writers. In the spring after the selections are made, they always host a reading, and invite the writers to read their pieces. It’s a wonderful time. I enjoy meeting the other contributing writers, and listening to them read their work.

My essay was inspired by a monarch I saw in Petoskey, Michigan, on a chilly October day. The monarch clutched a pink cosmos flower, and it didn’t move when I approached it. Its behavior so intrigued me that I began to research monarchs and their migration habits. My essay is a creative nonfiction piece of nature writing. For the nonfiction part, I carefully researched all of the information by reading books and online articles from reliable sources. For the creative part, I used some literary devices that I hoped would make the essay enjoyable for people to read while learning about the wondrous migration of monarchs.

[The Tales of Migration anthology is available on Amazon. For more information, click here.]

I’ll never forget the reading for Tales of Migration because I got lost . . .

After this year’s reading, I struck up a conversation with one of the poets whose work appears in Tales of Migration. I had met her the year before when we both read our pieces from Tales of Travel. We left the meeting together and kept visiting. We had parked in different lots, but I kept walking with her because I enjoyed her company and conversation. I figured I would just walk around the outside of the buildings and return to my car. After all, it was a nice sunny evening, the UMD campus wasn’t that big, and I hadn’t gone that far out of my way.

Ha! It didn’t work out as I planned. After I exited the building with the poet, she walked off to her parking lot. I turned the opposite direction and walked off to my car. But I couldn’t find the lot in which I had parked. I walked around buildings. I set the GPS on my phone to walk mode, but it was no help. It was around 7:00 on a weeknight and the campus was devoid of students.

I walked in circles for almost twenty minutes. If it had been dark, I would have been panicked. But the skies were a bright, beautiful blue and considering what spring can be in Duluth, it was fairly warm. I have such a poor sense of direction to begin with, and faced with a random placement of large buildings connected by a maze of passageways, I began to feel stupid and frustrated. I felt trapped inside a bad episode of The Twilight Zone.

I decided I needed to reenter the doors I had exited from with the poet. I retraced my steps back through the liberal arts building and to the room where I had done my reading. From there I felt I could find the engineering building that I had walked through on my way to the liberal arts building before my reading.

But it wasn’t that easy. I had gotten so turned around and addled that I had a hard time remembering how I had originally come through the buildings, which were connected by long and meandering hallways. And to complicate matters, the floor levels in one building don’t always match up to the floor levels in the next building.

I asked a student if he could give me directions to the engineering building. He shook his head and said, “I don’t know. I’m a liberal arts major.”

“I was a liberal arts major, too,” I said, as if that explained why I was lost. He was not the only person to apologize about not being able to direct me to the engineering building. Perhaps liberal arts majors aren’t hardwired to locate engineering departments. On a large campus, many students may never need to visit certain buildings. I went to a small college, and I had classes in every building on campus.

Finally, someone was able to help me. Once I found my way into the engineering building on the correct level, I recognized where I was and located the right exit. My car was where I had left it. Dusk was descending, and I was relieved. It’s not fun being misplaced.

I had known all along where I was, and yet I had been so lost and turned around at the same time. I thought about the irony. I had just read for Tales of Migration, filled with poems and essays about moving from one place to another, sometimes covering thousands of miles. I thought about migrating people all over the world who would know the names of their new homes, yet still be lost and turned around, arriving in a land they had never been before, whose culture they had never experienced. They would have mazes and passageways to navigate, all of which would play out over years, instead of the thirty minutes in which I had been lost.

Bees, Roses, A Water Fountain, Ice Cream, and Rocks on the Beach

Posted on August 23, 2025 by youngv2015

A happy pollinator on the first flowers we encountered

Two years ago I took my four grandkids to a rose garden. We smelled the roses, walked along Lake Superior, ate ice cream, and tossed rocks in the water. Then we did it again last year. So, of course, we had to do it again this year. It’s a tradition now. When my grandkids are grown up and old, they will say to each other, “Remember when Nana took us to the rose garden every summer, and we’d get ice cream then throw rocks in the lake?” Just like I recall my nana taking us to George Webb, Sherman Park, and Capital Drive, and letting us use her galvanized steel wash tubs as swimming pools on hot days.

Can you find the pollinator in the rose?

We arrived at the rose garden, which also has other flowers. We spotted bees slurping nectar. My oldest grandchild took photos of the bees and roses. I took photos of the bees and roses. My other three grandkids watched the bees and smelled the roses. We all love the flowers and bees. I like to refer to bees as pollinators, like it’s a royal title and the bees belong to a noble class. Watching pollinators feed on flowers gives me hope for the world. If you want to help create hope, plant something pollinators like, and make sure it’s pesticide free.

As we smelled the roses, we took care to look for bees before sniffing. We didn’t want our noses stung, or egads, to inhale a bee. We visited the rose garden a couple of weeks later than we normally do, so we missed the peak bloom. But the roses that had waited for us didn’t disappoint.

My grandkids love the functioning water fountain, a focal point in the garden. I handed out pennies for wishes. They splashed their hands in the water. One of them found a small, round, flat stone painted with the message Make a Wish. I think more than one of them would have liked to climb into the fountain. Kids and water just go together. The summer I was twelve, my siblings and I spent three weeks with our grandma Olive. Every day we begged her to take us to Bluegill Lake so we could swim. The fountain in the rose garden was originally located in a different part of the city, where it supplied fresh water for horses in the days before automobiles. Everything changes.

After spending time with the roses, we headed down the Lakewalk, and enjoyed the views of Lake Superior. Later, on our way back, my youngest grandchild stopped at several of the park benches and assessed the views, commenting on each one. Perhaps, he is a budding travel writer.

On our walk from the gardens to the ice cream shop, we always stop at a large stone stage. Flanked with two stout turrets, it has a castle vibe. My grandkids ran across the stage and through the hidden passageways behind it, then suddenly appeared once again. Their laughter and excited shouts to one another rang through the air. I thought about Shakespeare’s famous line, “All the world’s a stage,” followed by his musings about the “seven ages” of life from infancy to old age. I stood on the stage with my grandkids, yet apart from them, separated by several “ages” of life.

The cooing sounds of pigeons who nest in the nooks of a stone wall along the railroad tracks captured the attention of my grandkids. One grandchild was impressed by the range of their colors and the variety of their markings. And the other three started a cooing conversation with the pigeons. I have to say, the cooing sounds my grandkids made were impressive, but finally I said, “What if the pigeons hear your coos as a battle cry and attack?” Yes, you got it, I was thinking about Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. I saw the movie once, years ago, and I’m still miffed Hitchcock killed off Suzanne Pleshette’s character in the movie! She was one of my favorite actors.

If you asked my grandkids what they liked best about our adventure, they would probably say the ice cream. It’s what I would have said when I was their age. The picnic tables at the ice cream shop were new and so was the chocolate mint ice cream used to make my malt. For thirty years I’ve been ordering chocolate mint malts, made with the same minty ice cream filled with thin, flat pieces of dark chocolate. This year the ice cream was a little too minty and the thin, flat pieces of chocolate were replaced by mini chocolate chips. It was good, but not as good as it used to be. Next year I’m going to order a different flavored malt. Maybe I will find a new favorite. The clerk at the shop said they could no longer get the same kind of chocolate mint ice cream. All things change. But don’t ask me to say change is good when it comes to my ice cream. Some wasps hung out with us while we ate our treats. None of us panicked, but neither did we share our ice cream with them.

Our next stop was the lakeshore filled with rocks waiting for my grandkids to toss them back into the water. Now that they are older, they try to skip the rocks across the water instead of just throwing them. I planned to let them stay ten minutes, maybe fifteen, but they were having so much fun with each other. I watched them toss rocks, look for agates and beach glass, and play with driftwood, and suddenly I could see my siblings and myself on the sandy shores of Bluegill Lake seining for minnows, building sand castles, and floating on inner tubes in the water. I marveled at how long ago that was and yet how quickly the years had passed — in the snap of a finger. We stayed for more than a half hour. This was the best part of my day. Because while my grandkids on the beach had no idea how quickly time would slip by, I did.

Something Published: “Backyard Camping ‘Trips'”

Posted on August 22, 2025 by youngv2015

My sisters and I — three backyard campers all grown up. I wish I had a picture of the three of us camping in the backyard. But we didn’t do anything picture-worthy — like catch a fish. (This photo was taken in October 2015 at a farmers market in Harbor Springs, Michigan. And yes, the white stuff is snow!)

I write for Northern Wilds, a local magazine based in Grand Marais, Minnesota. A couple of months ago, the editor put out a call for the magazine’s contributing writers to submit mini essays about camping traditions. I wrote one about my backyard camping trips, the only kind I ever took as a kid.

My essay was published in the August issue of Northern Wilds. To read my essay in the web format, click here and scroll down. To read it in the magazine format, click here, and click to pages 20-21.

And whichever way you choose to read it, I hope you enjoy the camping essays written by my fellow writers.

Hanging with the Grandkids, Slurping Fizzy Sodas, and Saving a Balloon

Posted on June 29, 2025 by youngv2015

On the first day of my grandkids’ summer break, I took them to a local coffee shop. I ordered them fancy fizzy soda concoctions and let them each pick out a piece of bakery. I ordered myself a small latte and no bakery. The time with my grandkids — priceless. The cost of the trip to the coffeehouse — more than five happy meals at McDonald’s. I had sticker shock when the clerk gave me the total, but I acted like I spent that much in coffee shops all the time.

I handed the clerk my credit card and refused to think about the cost. Afterall, the soda concoctions were works of performance art served in 16-ounce glasses, mixed with fun flavors like watermelon, pineapple, cherry, coconut, and strawberry and topped with whipped foam. I almost wished I had ordered a fancy fizzy soda. As the clerk handed the first soda to one of my grandkids, she said, “Stir the soda very gently with the straw a few times. If you stir it too fast, it will overflow the glass. Then drink a little bit of the soda, and mix it some more.”

We were five minutes into sipping, noshing, and gabbing when out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a slightly built, older man walk into the shop. Dressed from head to toe in dark colors, he carried a small black grip, which he placed on a chair. He picked up a large dinner-plate-sized planter filled with succulents and moved it to a table where a younger man sat eating a bowl of food. This didn’t bother the younger man, who wore headphones and watched his computer screen.

The older man removed his black jacket and slipped on a whitecoat, the type doctors wear. I stopped paying attention to him because the grandkids and I were tasting each other’s sodas. Thankfully, they didn’t ask to try my latte; although, I would have been a good sport about it.

A short while later, the man in the white coat appeared at our table. The name Dr. Twist was stitched above his left pocket. In his hand he held a purple dog made of balloons. He gave the balloon dog to my six-year-old grandson. He twisted up more balloons, making a green crown with an alien’s face, a yellow crown with a funny face, and a brown monkey, which he gave to my other three grandkids. He made a balloon flower for me, which I took home and put in a crystal vase. Besides being good with balloons, Dr. Twist had a great table-side manner, cracking deadpan jokes and making us laugh.

I don’t think Dr. Twist was a planned event at the coffee shop. I got the impression the balloon doctor was a free spirit, showing up on a whim, twisting up fun, then leaving smiles and laughter in his wake.

After we finished our treats, we bussed our table, and balloons in hand, we thanked Dr. Twist again.

It was a windy, blustery Winnie-the-Pooh day, so as we left the coffee shop, I warned the grandkids, “Hang on tight to your balloons or the wind will take them.” We’d made it to the van and were almost inside — when a sudden gust of wind snatched the yellow crown balloon with the funny face from my eight-year-old grandson’s hand.

As one, and without a spoken plan, we secured the rest of the balloons in the van and gave chase. The untethered balloon swirled up and down alongside the building in the wind. A couple of times we came close to catching it, but at the last second, the wind, in a game of keep away, would lift it high into the air. Finally, the wind carried it into the busy street.

Released from the updrafts surrounding the building, the balloon dropped to the pavement. We watched as a semi-truck approached, sure the balloon would burst beneath its large tires. Miraculously, the yellow crown with the funny face survived. The wind gently ushered it onto a quiet side street, where it came to rest against a curb.

When the balloon stopped moving, I ran across the busy street, hoping to grab it. Don’t worry, I exercised plenty of caution. I understood it would not be a good look to be hit by a vehicle while rescuing a balloon. I thought about the online news articles reporting on a dim-witted nana who was run over by a car while trying to catch her grandson’s balloon. I imagined being trolled by online commentators, who would all come to the same consensus: “Yeah, that lady was stupid” and “Darwin’s theory in action.”

So, I waited for traffic to clear, then I ran across the street. In that moment I suffered a pang of vanity, and I wondered just how strange I looked while dashing madly through the crosswalk. But I assured myself that anyone who may have taken notice of me had surely seen stranger things than someone’s nana chasing a balloon. Then, I wondered if anyone was taking a video of me to post on TikTok, perhaps titling it “How Not to Cross the Street.”

The balloon had waited for me on the side street, and as I reached for it, I hoped the wind wouldn’t snatch it away again. But the wind had finished messing with me. I grabbed the yellow crown, and when it was safe, I strode back across the street, all while singing in my head, My superpower is chasing balloons.

I handed the balloon back to my grandson. I thought he’d smile or tell me I was amazing. But he just looked at me — like he was trying to figure something out. I didn’t ask him what he was thinking. But I was thinking.

We all got back into the van.

“Hey,” I asked my grandkids, “Nana didn’t look funny running across the street after a balloon, did she?”

From the third-row seat came the voice of clarity. It was my oldest grandkid who reassured me, “Actually, Nana, you looked really funny.”

We all laughed.

I was glad I hadn’t let the cost of the sodas, and latte, and baked goods upset me. Because in the end, the amount of money I spent on the one-time visit to the coffeehouse wasn’t going to impact my financial security. There are plenty of disasters in life that could possibly do that, and I try not to dwell on those either.

Instead we have a happy memory, which will remain long after the air seeps out of the balloons.

Something Published: Duluth Monarch Buddies: Helping Monarchs One Waystation at a Time

Posted on June 5, 2025 by youngv2015

My article “Duluth Monarch Buddies: Helping Monarchs One Waystation at a Time” appears in the June issue of Northern Wilds. To read my article, click here, and turn to page 22.

I’m particularly proud of this article because it focuses on pollinators, such as monarchs and bees. With the current threat to our national forests and programs designed to protect our environment, there are ways we as individuals can help make Earth a better place. Plant a pollinator garden, ditch the use of pesticides, plant a tree, learn about the natural world around you, and connect with organizations like Duluth Monarch Buddies to learn how you can be a power of one in the protection of our planet.

Northern Wilds also published my short article “Capt’n J’s Mini Golf: A Treasure Chest of Fun on Barker’s Island.” To read my article, click here, and turn to page 7.

Just for Something Different — Cranberry Pistachio Shortbread Cookies

Posted on April 29, 2025 by youngv2015

Yesterday I made cranberry pistachio shortbread cookies. The kind of cookies my grandma Olive would’ve made to serve at a ladies’ luncheon. (Although, her cookies would’ve have contained dates because dried cranberries weren’t available until the 1980s.) Her luncheon would’ve been written up on the society page of the local paper. The kind of write-up they don’t do anymore, unless it’s about someone famous. It would’ve sounded something like this:

On Wednesday, May 6, Mrs. George Youngquist entertained the Presbyterian Women at a luncheon in her home. [Back in the day, a married woman’s first name was rarely mentioned in an article.] She served a variety of finger sandwiches, potato salad, and coleslaw, along with fruit punch. For dessert she served a variety of cookies, including her well-loved date-pistachio shortbread cookies, accompanied by coffee. In attendance were the group’s president, Mrs. Frank Smith; the secretary, Mrs. Grover Bost; and the treasurer, Mrs. Elmer Connors, along with nine other members. No church business was conducted. Mrs. Youngquist said, “The gathering was held to celebrate spring and to give the ladies a chance to visit with one another.“

As a child and for most of my adult life, had I been at that luncheon, I would’ve passed on the date cookies, no matter how well loved they were. I would’ve looked for a chocolate chip, peanut butter, or sugar cookie. But I’m of a certain age now, and I like to try new things, occasionally. (But in a crazy paradox, I’m not big on change.) So, a couple of months ago when I saw this recipe, along with a picture of the cranberry pistachio shortbread cookies, I decided I needed to bake them. After all, I do like cranberries and pistachios and shortbread.

I bought the dried cranberries and the shelled pistachios shortly after I came across the recipe, which was a couple of months ago. Yesterday I decided I needed to stop procrastinating and bake the cookies. It was a perfect day for baking. I spent most of the day writing, so baking cookies would get me off my backside. And it rained and stormed most of the day, ideal baking weather.

Why did it take me a couple of months to try the recipe? Fear of messing it up — because I’d never made this kind of cookie before. But once I started mixing, chilling, then later baking, I discovered this simple recipe produces scrumptious cookies that look sophisticated, like the kind served at a luncheon or with high tea.

The two sticks of butter used in the recipe make the cookies melt in my mouth, releasing bursts of cranberry and orange, making my mouth tingle. They pair well with coffee. However, I will have to find someone to share them with because my husband doesn’t like cranberries. He did try one, but he didn’t like it. I just couldn’t possibly eat all these cookies by myself.

What did I like about this recipe? It was easy! The cookies turned out so well that I fancied myself as a TV chef. The dough is rolled into a log before chilling, which makes it easy to slice the cookies for baking. Other recipes, like this one, call for the dough to be chilled in a ball then rolled out on a flat surface before using a round cookie cutter. But the log method is easier and less messy. Also, the log method keeps the baker from overhandling the dough. Best of all, I felt like I was in the kitchen baking with my grandma Olive.

What would I change? I’d use chopped walnuts or pecans instead of pistachios, which are harder than pecans and walnuts. Because when I had to slice the cookie dough, the chopped pistachios were difficult to cut through. I could use dried cherries because my husband likes those, but he doesn’t like walnuts or pecans. I could eliminate the nuts, but they add a savory taste.

My one goof? I only had a small orange. Having never zested an orange before, I had no idea how many it would take to make a tablespoon of zest. I ended up with 1/2 tablespoon, and while I can still taste the orange, I can’t help but wonder what the cookies would taste like if I’d used a whole tablespoon.

Here’s the recipe I used. Happy baking!

An Afternoon at the Opera with Puccini’s La Bohème

Posted on March 30, 2025 by youngv2015

I went to see a live opera because it was on my list of things to do. (In case you’re wondering, I signed up for Medicare a few months before going to my first opera.) I had such a good time that I want to share some thoughts about my experience, but first I should point out my shortcomings as an opera critic.

I have no training in opera.

I don’t understand opera’s conventions. (Other than there is a lot of singing, which crescendos into an epic climax of either joyful or tragic proportions at the end of the opera.)

The Jenny Lind biography I read as a fourth or fifth grader.

My exposure to opera as a child consisted of two events. One, in fourth grade I read a biography about Jenny Lind, an opera singer known as the Swedish Nightingale. This didn’t encourage me to learn more about opera. Instead, I just fancied myself to be the next Jenny Lind. I would sit by my second-story bedroom window and sing out into the neighborhood (with what I considered to be a lovely operatic voice) because that is what Lind did as a child. People passing by Lind’s window listened to her beautiful singing, and one passerby discovered her talent and helped her down the path to stardom. Only Mr. Geise’s cows across the road heard me sing, and none of them mooed about my talent.

Two, when I was about twelve, I saw Beverly Sills, a talented soprano, perform on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show. I loved her voice and her flowing red hair. When Carson interviewed her, I fell for her wit and laughter. Over a handful of years, I saw Sills make appearances on various talk shows during the 1970s, but I never saw her in an opera. She was a gifted and well-respected opera singer, but it was the talk-show circuit that made her a household name and gave her celebrity status. Even people who knew nothing about opera, like me, usually knew who Sills was.

So, anything I say about my La Bohème experience isn’t intended to resemble a critique or a review. Also, I truly loved my debut at the opera, so my comments come from a place of affection, even if they sound cheeky.

I chose La Bohème to be my first opera because that’s what the Lyric Opera of the North performed this year. It’s a famous opera, so I’d heard of it. It’s the opera that Ronnie Cammareri (Nicholas Cage) takes Loretta Castorini (Cher) to see in Moonstruck. Ronnie knew what he was doing — Loretta loved the opera. And, this is where Loretta falls in love with Ronnie.

Because La Bohème is written in Italian, I read a synopsis of the libretto before attending the opera. While reading about La Bohème, I came across some unflattering critiques of Puccini’s opera — calling his musical composition simplistic, lacking in complexity, yada, yada, yada. For a moment, I wondered if I should wait to see a different opera. Then I remembered all the beautiful singing and music in Moonstruck’s La Bohème scene. I also learned that La Bohème has been performed over 1,000 times at the Met. So, not the first time critics have panned something that people love anyway. Besides, what would I know about the musical composition of an opera.

So, here’s what I loved about my first opera:

I loved that the set design evoked a shabby-chic slice of Paris with a romanticized version of poverty, you know, without the half-starved rats, the rubbish in the streets, and the ever-present layer of grime. The rich jewel-toned costumes complimented the pastel-colored sets, like a well-chosen pair of earrings and necklace elevates an evening gown. After all, gritty reality is overrated. When we know that in the end a lovely young woman will die a tragic death while in the arms of her lover, we want some beauty along the way.
I loved that on a long, narrow screen above the stage, an English translation of the Italian libretto scrolled by as the singers trilled, vibratoed, bel cantoed, and otherwise sang their way through scenes of comedy, anger, and tragedy. The subtitles provided a line-by-line translation. Without it, I would’ve missed out on so much of the story. I thought this was unique to the venue I attended, but a friend of mine said when she saw an opera in Michigan there were subtitles.
I loved that the melodramatic, over-the-top, corny libretto sounded brilliant when sung in Italian. More than once, as I read the English translation, I thought, “As a writer, I could never get away with such sappy, syrupy, trite dialogue.” (Perhaps my characters should speak Italian.)
I loved that although the pageantry on the stage was gorgeous, it was upstaged by operatic voices so strong, crisp, and clear, producing sounds so bewitching that I couldn’t believe they flowed from human voice boxes.
I loved the magnificent, glorious, wrenching tragedy of it all. How can anyone hear Mimi ask, “Will my hands never be warm again?” and not shed a tear? (Charles Dickens would’ve loved to have written that line.)
I loved that at the end of the opera, as Mimi reclines upon her couch in her freezing apartment, dying of tuberculosis, she sings her heart out with Rodolfo, the love of her life, reminiscing about their time together. Having read a book about dreaded plagues, which included a chapter about tuberculosis, the incongruity of performing an operatic finale when one would be coughing up blood and gasping for air, stuck me as darkly humorous. But I kicked the cold, hard reality from my mind, and I let Mimi and Rodolfo’s final moment together carry me away.

After the performers took their final bows, I left the theater knowing I would definitely see another opera. A few months later, I went to see La Serva Padrona, a light-hearted intermezzo by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, which was translated into a modern English version by Steve Solkela. I loved everything about it.

In the movie Pretty Woman, Edward Lewis (Richard Gere) takes Vivian Ward (Julia Roberts) to see her first opera, La traviata by Giuseppe Verdi. Before the performance begins, it’s apparent that Edward hopes Vivian will love opera as much as he does. As the final song ends and Violetta dies in the arms of her lover (of course), Edward looks at Vivian and sees her eyes have pooled with tears and her face is filled with rapture. At this moment, Edward realizes Vivan has a depth beyond his stereotype of hookers. He has fallen in love with Vivan, he just doesn’t know it yet.

When another woman asks Vivan if she enjoyed the opera, Vivian answers, “Oh, it was so good I almost peed my pants.” Vivan, like me, doesn’t know how to talk about the conventions of opera, but she knows what she likes.

Something Published: “Christmas Break Snowstorms Were the Best

Posted on February 28, 2025 by youngv2015

My short essay “Christmas Break Snowstorms Were the Best” appears in the March issue of Northern Wilds, where I’m a contributing writer. I love writing for the magazine and reading it.

You can view it in blog form here: https://northernwilds.com/snow-day-memories-part-two/ You will need to scroll down. My essay is the second one,

Or you can view it in the magazine format here: https://northernwilds.com/current-issue/ There is an option to view it in full screen. My essay appears on page 18.

Writing Near the Lake

Tag Archives: Small Adventures