Elisabeth Grace Foley

Historical Fiction Author

What I’ve Been Up To: January & February

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– writing –

I’ve been working on the first draft of a new novel since the beginning of January. It’s something a bit different than anything I’ve written yet…and I’m pretty excited about it…but I don’t feel ready to talk more about it just yet. I decided I wanted to get to a certain point in the first draft before I shared anything about it or shared any snippets, and I hope to reach that point by next month at least. So, stay tuned…

On an already-published note, I recently released Bridge to Trouble as an ebook at Amazon, Kobo, et al. It came about after Goodreads deleted the book page on the grounds that the title wasn’t available anywhere but for free through my website; and I eventually decided that having it for sale would be a good thing in more than one way, in that it would give readers more of a choice as to how they wanted to get the book. New subscribers to my email list still have an option to download Bridge to Trouble for free, but anyone who wants to read the book yet doesn’t care to subscribe can buy it at their favorite ebook retailer.

– reading –

I’ve been so focused on writing that I actually haven’t read very much this month! That does tend to happen with me: I’ll go through spurts where I’m really involved with a project and don’t read as much, and then read a ton when between projects or in a more relaxed stage of the writing/editing process. I have been re-reading a couple of favorites, though. I’ve been slowly working through Dorothy Sayers’ The Mind of the Maker since before the holidays, and it’s the kind of book with enough depth in it that you take away new thoughts when you revisit it at different points in your life. The chapter “Problem Picture” certainly yielded more now that I’ve read Gaudy Night—which was amazing, by the way, perhaps even more so as a deep and meditative novel than as a mystery. I should mention that that chapter in The Mind of the Maker includes complete plot spoilers for it, which I inadvertently ran smack into on my first reading years ago. I think perhaps since I already knew the basic solution of the mystery when I read Gaudy Night, I was more tuned in to the character development and philosophical themes of the book.

I’m also re-reading Georgette Heyer’s The Unknown Ajax, and oh my, I’m rediscovering why it’s one of my favorites of hers—top three or maybe even top two now. It was one that I liked just moderately when I first read it, but it’s grown on me since, especially this time around. It’s delightful and hilarious and that long climactic scene is just a brilliant piece of writing. In the right hands it would make an awesome movie, by the way.

– listening –

Mainly the playlist for my WIP…which is also a subject for another day. But one of my recent discoveries while listening to classical music radio was a charming waltz by English composer Eric Coates, “Dance of the Orange Blossoms.” I went on YouTube to look it up again afterwards, and of course ended up hopping to another video of a Coates composition and then another, and I think I’m going to enjoy listening to more of his work!

Also, I don’t think I’ve mentioned the Petersens on here before—they’re an amazing family bluegrass band I discovered a little over a year ago, and their music is wonderful. Just about everything on their YouTube channel is worth a listen, but a few of my favorites are “Sweet Beulah Land,” “Landslide,” “Carolina in the Pines,” “You’re Still the One,” “Moments,” and “Amarillo by Morning.” They also have several full live concerts on there which include most of their best songs, including some I just mentioned.

– otherwise –

I finally have a working computer of my own again! I got it for Christmas, actually, but there was a tiny flaw in the screen, so we had to exchange it, and…the second one had an issue with the keyboard, so we had to exchange it again. And then had to spend a couple of weeks after the third one arrived trying to get hold of Microsoft customer service for help with a software issue, and that’s about as easy to do as getting an audience with an emperor. But the kinks are all worked out at last, and I can once more use a word processor and check my email without having to borrow a computer from a long-suffering family member.

I’ve been taking a hiatus from Twitter while working on my new novel, and I think it’s done me good. I haven’t decided exactly what I want to do with my social media moving forward, but even if I don’t leave Twitter I’ll probably spend less time there. In that case I’d like to try and focus more on my newsletter and on this blog (perhaps post a little more regularly, even if not super-often). I’ve also been having fun getting a little more involved with the bookish community on Instagram, so if you’re on there stop by and check out my posts sometime! My username is @elisabethgfoley there, as with most places.

photo credit: me

Top 30 Classical Music Favorites

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Among the many things that I’m happy and thankful to have taken away from my homeschooling years is my love of classical music. Our music appreciation sessions began with “Classical Kids,” a series of whimsical audio dramas about kids encountering various famous composers (anybody else remember Beethoven Lives Upstairs?). Then we moved on to a series of composer biographies on CD—a rich-voiced narrator giving a roughly hour-long overview of the composer’s life with his music playing in the background, plus bonus tracks at the end. (The bonus tracks on the Strauss and Sousa biographies probably saw the most use.) My siblings and I usually sat around on the living-room rug with pencils, crayons, coloring-books and paper, drawing and coloring as we listened—my brother drew a whole series of the composers’ portraits copied from the CD covers. Then we had a couple sets of Time Life’s “100 Masterpieces of Classical Music” compilation CDs—they’re at my elbow as I type this, as a matter of fact—which we played frequently, picked favorite tracks from, hummed and whistled and occasionally danced to.

When I got my own portable CD player (and in later years an mp3 player), I kept the radio band set to our local all-classical station and listened to it frequently. Though I go through spurts of listening to different types of music, I always come back to classical on a regular basis. I may not be an expert or a connoisseur—my favorites are often randomly chosen, though there are certain styles and composers I tend to like best—but I know what I like and I enjoy it. There is something about a really beautiful piece of symphonic classical music that simply makes me happy.

It occurred to me at some point in recent months to try and list my all-time favorite compositions (you know me and making lists). I couldn’t find fifty that fit the criteria of all-time favorites, and twenty-five wasn’t enough, so I ended up with thirty. Here they are roughly in order, though of course that can fluctuate depending on what I’m listening to or what mood I happen to be in at the time:

• “The Promise of Living” from The Tender Land – Copland
• “Capriccio Italien” – Tchaikovsky
• “Sunset” from Grand Canyon Suite – Grofé
• Largo from Symphony No. 9 “From the New World” – Dvorak
• “Roses from the South” – Strauss Jr.
• “Finlandia” – Sibelius
• “Jupiter” from The Planets – Holst
• “Morning” from Peer Gynt – Grieg
• Andantino from Concerto for Flute and Harp – Mozart
• “Street in a Frontier Town” from Billy the Kid – Copland
• “The Moldau” – Smetana
• Finale from Symphony No. 2 – Sibelius
• “On the Beautiful Blue Danube” – Strauss Jr.
• Variations on a Theme by Paganini, 18th variation – Rachmaninoff
• Light Cavalry overture – Suppé
• Radetzky-March – Strauss Sr.
• “1812” overture – Tchaikovsky
• “Barcarolle” (instrumental) – Offenbach
• “Clair de Lune” (orchestral arrangement) – Debussy
• “Swedish Rhapsody” – Alfvén
• Adagio from Spartacus – Khachaturian
• Allegro con brio and allegro risoluto, Sinfonietta – Moeran
• Appalachian Spring – Copland
• Pas de deux from The Nutcracker – Tchaikovsky
• “Corral Nocturne” from Rodeo – Copland
• Piano Concerto No. 1 – Tchaikovsky
• An American in Paris – Gershwin
• Adagietto from Symphony No. 5 – Mahler
• Warsaw Concerto – Addinsell
• “Waltz of the Flowers” from The Nutcracker – Tchaikovsky

(Of course including two movements of the Moeran “Sinfonietta” may be cheating a bit, but both movements do feature the same theme and I can’t decide which one I like best.)

What are your classical music favorites?

“Silver On His Spurs and In His Voice”: A Centennial Tribute to Lloyd Perryman

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If you asked me to name my favorite male vocalist, my answer wouldn’t be Sinatra or Crosby or Dean Martin—it’d be Lloyd Perryman, who was born on this date in 1917. Thing is, unless you happen to be a Sons of the Pioneers fan too, you’ve probably never heard of him.

I’ve always thought the Sons of the Pioneers’ story is a fascinating bit of history just waiting to be properly told—a literal rags-to-riches tale of the Great Depression in which the original members went from picking cotton and washing dishes to performing at a packed Madison Square Garden in just over a decade. Lloyd Perryman’s journey is no less intriguing than the others’. Born the youngest of nine in an Arkansas farm family who moved to California in the late 1920s, he struck out on his own in his mid-teens, hitchhiking to Los Angeles to find work as a musician. He joined the already up-and-coming Sons of the Pioneers in 1936 at the age of nineteen, and ended up staying with the group for the rest of his life, excepting a few years in the service during WWII; eventually becoming the group’s leader and the longest-tenured of the original seven members. From the time he joined the group, both his beautiful tenor voice and his gift for harmony and arranging had a tremendous effect on the Pioneers’ sound, which reached what many fans (including myself) call its peak in the early 1940s.

At the time I really began to love the Pioneers’ music, I was taking voice lessons and singing with a choir myself—listening to their songs in the car on the way to and from rehearsals, I’d marvel at the seemingly effortless way they nailed everything our conductor was attempting to drum into us: the perfectly-in-time enunciation, the breath control, the crescendos and decrescendos (see “Blue Prairie”) and the blending of voices. And I especially loved Perryman’s vocal solos. He had such a smooth, incredibly expressive voice, with just a touch of a soft Southern accent. Simply put, I don’t think I’ve ever heard another singer I like listening to so well.

So, in honor of the 100th anniversary of his birth, here’s just a few of my favorite Sons of the Pioneers numbers featuring Lloyd Perryman singing solo. I never do justice when trying to describe good music, so just take my word for it. Listen and enjoy: