Check this New Cheechako Review!

From start to finish, this book was a pleasure to read. Cheechako is fantastic! In the first chapter, I wanted to strangle the bullies that made life miserable for Will. The descriptions of Alaska, especially the harsh realities of a sub-zero blizzard in the wilderness were gripping. Stratman has a gift of writing so naturally that the words just flow from his pen. I hope Jonathan Thomas Stratman writes more and I'm watching for a sequel!  Eric Brewster

Thanks Eric. Great review. 

Advice to writers always starts with "write what you know." 

Of course any of us who have taught writing have had earnest students scratch their heads and say (seriously) "...but I don't know what I know." 

And they're not wrong. But there are different kinds of knowing. Young students often get "knowing" confused with how many facts they can store. 

In writing, this kind of knowing is not so much facts as what you see when you close your eyes. The familiar and unique landscape of your mind and memory. 

After all these years, when I close my eyes, I can still see Nenana, Alaska as it was in my first view as I stepped down from the train, now more than fifty years ago. It has remained vivid through a number of my Cricket Magazine stories and two full novels, with two more on the way. 

So, what remains vivid for you? And what are you waiting for. Write about it. 

Recommending Cheechako

Hi all,

Just a note about my young adult adventure novel … set in interior Alaska … Cheechako.

Even though few on the planet have any idea who I am, the book is selling, in both Kindle format and paperback, available through Amazon but order-able anywhere.

Reading specialists have been particularly kind to Cheechako, recommending the book for their “reluctant” readers and ordering class sets. To any of you who may be reading this, thanks for your support.

If you are a teacher, or know one, approximately grades 4 – 9, please check out/mention Cheechako, available here: 

Amazon Cheechako review

And to all of you who have kindly read, reviewed and recommended, thank you so much for your support.

Best wishes,   Jonathan 

St. Valentine, Original Gangster of Love

I've been thinking a lot about St. Valentine. And only partly because I have an NPR deadline approaching. When I meet people who have read or heard my stuff, it is very common to hear "where do you get your ideas?"

The answer is, one thing leads to another. Sometimes a thing just catches your writer eye and you walk around thinking about it. At least I do.

Valentine was interesting to me for a number of reasons. One of them is that he was an outlaw to the Romans. An insurgent. We hear the term 'insurgent' used a good deal now, but hard to imagine it in the framework of Roman Society and the context of Christianity as "underground."

So my new St. Valentine's Day piece comes from that perspective. Painting this man we now know as a priest and martyr, as a kind of criminal. Hence, the "Gangster of Love."

Hearts and Flowers

The other thing about St. Valentine is that he died very badly, beaten nearly to death and then beheaded. The contrast between his brutal death and the pink hearts for which he has become known is a head-spinner.

Is there humour in that contrast? We'll see. As always, all comments are welcome. Just click on the link below to hear the three-minute St. Valentine broadcast.


http://www.prx.org/pieces/90320-st-valentine-gangster-of-love

"Highly Recommended for Reluctant Readers."

Here's a fresh review that particularly pleases me.

Mary Sepler, M.Ed

Reading Specialist

Grant Street Elementary School

Jonathan Stratman treats us to an action packed adventure! One can easily relate to Will and Blackie and the well-paced movement of the storyline will keep young readers engaged from start to finish. I plan to order a class set.

If you have a reluctant reader at home, of any age, or you're a teacher who likes presenting new and exciting tales to your classroom, check out Cheechako. 

Remember, you can read the entire first chapter at: 

http://www.amazon.com/Cheechako-An-Alaska-Adventure

My Week with Jane Yolen

About twenty years ago, my wife and I had the great good fortune to travel to New England to video-interview Jane Yolen, literary giant. I had met Jane previously at a Western Washington University summer school program that was directly responsible for my first paid, published fiction. So I've always remembered the experience fondly.

I was writing short stories then, in my spare time, while teaching jr. high as a day job. How that worked was a full week of teaching and late night writing sessions on Friday and Saturday nights, after my wife and the kids were asleep. We lived in a series of beach shacks and I remember often working into the early hours, under a single bare light bulb with a twisty switch, which hung from one of those old-time twisted fabric cords. My in-laws had given me some kind of small, portable, blue typewriter that wasn't wonderful but was mine and worked even when the power went out. A good thing at the time along the fringes of outer Puget Sound.

So I had–I think it was–a week with Jane Yolen in an intimate group of maybe twenty. I no longer remember the specifics of what we covered but I remember this: challenging myself to maximize every minute with this women who, even then was both advancing literary giant and industry powerhouse.

Seems like too much praise? Then you haven't read her.

Toward the end of the week, reading student manuscripts aloud and critiquing in class, Yolen would defer to me. I would evaluate and comment and she would finish out or expand with additional comments. It was during that time I first saw Cricket Magazine, recognizing in an instant the publishing pinnacle of that genre, even then. It looked wonderful. Real art and real artists. And I came to find out, in the days of magazines that paid pennies or maybe a nickel a word, Cricket paid a quarter!

I remember thinking ... if I could only publish in Cricket ...

Flashing forward to the interview ... and this is actually what I started out to tell you ... Yolen confided that she beats writer's block by always having several manuscripts in progress. If she gets stuck on one she simply moves to another and never loses the writing momentum.

What she may have been saying, for this is how it's come to work for me, is that I always have several works in progress. For example, I'm now at work on sequels to my two published novels, Cheechako and Indecent Exposure, while also pushing forward nicely in a 'mysterious island' kind of youth novel, plus another older youth fantasy project ... and of course my on-going series for NPR called "Who Died Today."

And how this works is, I walk every day and my mind settles on sections on one or another of the various possibilities, and I will often work on the one I've discovered myself thinking about. The one with a fresh scene imagined or fresh insight. And yes, after all these years, I still don't feel quite comfortable if I haven't written something everyday. Like I sometimes still feel about running.

At the end of my week with Jane Yolen, I went home and wrote a story called "The Day of the Golden Eagle," and submitted it to Cricket. It sold almost immediately. It was the first of a number of my stories they bought and paid me nicely for. And a number of those stories became Cheechako chapters later. 

Midwest Book Review – Cheechako!

Cheechako
Jonathan Thomas Stratman
CreateSpace/Amazon Digital Services, Kindle edition
9781470185909 $5.99 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006R2NJ12

Cheechako is a young adult novel that opens with a bang: "Will nearly made it to safety before they spotted him. "Get him!" someone shouted."

With such a vivid opening a young adult reader can't help but continue to absorb the story of greenhorn Will Rollins (cheechako, in Native language), who has a hard time fitting in to his new Alaskan home. His rescue of a stranded dog earns him a sled dog and a new friendship, and Elias teaches him about outdoors survival in Alaska.

Chapters weave an inviting portrait of not just a growing friendship between two very different boys, but a series of lessons in outdoors survival that come in unexpectedly handy when disaster strikes.

There are many other outdoors adventures for young adults on the market, but CHEECHAKO holds more specific survivalist detail than most, backed by strong protagonists and dialogue.

From a wolf's threat and a near-death encounter with snow and cold to a storm that strands Will's family and leaves him their only hope for survival, this pairs vivid and fast-paced adventure with a strong story line that will keep young adults interested in the ultimate outcome.

Cheechako holds many insights and not a few twists and turns, and shows how a loner ultimately makes a name for himself in a challenging social and wilderness environment.

It's a saga young adults - particularly those who like wilderness survival stories - will relish.

"I was...held hostage to the very last page."

Here's a fresh review of Indecent Exposure from Melanie, a reader in Eastern Washington. Thanks Melanie!

"From the first paragraph, I was totally captivated by this book and held hostage to the very last page.

We find widower Father Hardy, an Episcopal Priest, living and doing God's work with the Athabascan people in the small town of Chandelar, Alaska.  This fast-paced novel opens with Father Hardy being taken into the freezing wilderness by two men from town to collect the frozen body of dead man Frankie Slick, a small time hoodlum from Chandelar.  As Father Hardy tries to figure out who killed Frankie Slick, he finds plenty of evidence that connects Frankie and his shady business dealings with many of the people in town as well as other more ominous characters all of whom have a reason to kill Frankie.  And, to my surprise, Father Hardy is not only a priest, ministering to the townspeople, but also a well-rounded man who can handle himself in a fist fight and knows how to shoot a gun.

Mr. Stratman has written a story that has mystery and international intrigue with characters who are not really what they seem to be.

With descriptive phrasing such as ..."the insides of door hinges white with frost", and..."a million facets of icy diamonds set into the surface of the drifted snow", this reader was not only drawn into the icy cold of the Alaskan winter, but grateful not to be there.

The surprise ending will leave you with the feeling that everything really is as it should be.

This is a “must read” for those who enjoy adventure, intrigue, and mystery."

Check this link to sample nearly four chapters of Indecent Exposure: 

http://www.amazon.com/Indecent-Exposure-ebook/dp/B007D199YC/ref=pd_rhf_dp_p_t_1