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| ISBN: 0-8027-6304-9 | ISBN:
0-9615263-0-0 |
ISBN: 3-8000-2197-8 |
THE YOUNG BOYS GONE is a Civil War novel published by Walker and Co., N. Y., then by Fitzhenry & Whiteside, Ltd. in Canada, then by Carl Ueberreuter, in Germany and titled FEUER HINTER DEN HÜGELN, then published in softback by Ames Publishing and retitled IN THE WILDERNESS. It is a rousing, symbolic Civil War novel for young adults and adults alike. Set in faction-torn Missouri, Fort Sumter is just months past and bloodshed and impressment into the war are rampant. Thad Woodruff's father and brother are killed and the turmoil of war forces Thad to consider an array of problems always pertinent. What to do if one disagrees with the majority around one? How does one become one's own person and achieve personal freedom? Bushwhackers burn Thad's home, near a battlefield, and with bushwhackers after him, he, four sisters and his pregnant mother struggle to a remote, uninhabited region of the Ozarks, where they learn to live as if they were pioneers. He and the Woodruff females, able and strong individuals, learn to survive in a harsh, relentless wilderness. But there is no escaping the moral issues of The War and life itself; they eventually confront him there.
Some reviews of THE YOUNG BOYS GONE: The story...grips the adult as well as the young reader from the first sentence until the final one... fast paced...celebrates the grandeur of life; a grandeur that gleams with a special lustre. Shyrle Hacker, Pen Woman Magazine. Survival story skillfully told...The themes, survival and moral values, are inventively advanced by good characterization, intriguing settings and a background of Civil War History. Boston Sunday Globe. ...an amazing tale of survival and a tribute to the human spirit. Omaha Public School. The direct and indirect effects of war are made graphically clear. Fellowship of Reconciliation. A very good story, well written, of the tragedies of war and of a boy's determination not to fight in the Civil War...A very touching story that many adults can relate to. State Library for Review. ...high adventure told with humor and compassion. This World, San Francisco Chronicle. An adventureous story that places you right in the middle of life, struggle and survival. Baltimore Archdiocese. Engrossing anti-war story of a Southern family's courageous struggle for survival in the Ozarks during the Civil War. Young Adult Reviewers So. ...stirringly told..a Civil War tale that differs sharply from most... Multi-Media Notes. A dramatic harsh story, depicting the suffering of the innocent, it is also filled with the warmth of a family's love for each other. Janette Gentry, The Jackson Sun. The first place.. received (in published juvenile literature)... from the League of American Pen Women is well deserved. J. H. Evans, Mendocino Beacon
Purchasing
Books:
IN
THE WILDERNESS can be purchased directly from the author; by e-mail to
hsconsultant@comcast.net,
by phone (510) 537 3250, or snail mail to 21172 Aspen
Ave., Castro Valley, CA 94546, at a
prepaid cost of $6.00, shipping included.
THE YOUNG BOYS GONE, now out of print, often can be purchased, used, from Amazon, EBay's Half-com and probably from other used book webs and book stores. Used copies of FEUER HINTER DEN HÜGELN also can be purchased at such sites.
The
Author:
In
the East Bay Region near San Francisco, Myrtle Archer lectures on
"Creative Writing for Publication", or on a writing topic of the
group's choosing, for a minimum of $75.00 a lecture.
She also does consulting on manuscripts for publication.
She is a member of the professional society; The National League of American Pen Women.
Her fiction is published internationally and her articles, fiction, nonfiction and poetry have been published in numerous magazines and anthologies. A very few are: Fine Arts Discovery Mag., Eureka Literary Magazine, Roswell Literary Review, Writer's Digest, Spectacle, Wild West, weber studies, Conquest, True West, Progress, Children's Friend, Pen, Family Digest, Ranch Romances, Our Sunday Visitor, Journeys, New Frontiers, Mature Years, insight and outlook, Westways, Courant, The Link, Honolulu, Grit, The Christian, Ski Mag., Marriage, Messenger, Hers (England), Relic, Contempora, Brightside, Fiction (Boston), Open Road, Lloyd's Listening Post, New Directions for Women, Spectrum, Talisman, Black Powder Times, Secrets, California Highway Patrolman, Writer's Lifeline (Canada), The Good Deeder, Woodmen of the World, Catholic Digest, The Horror Show, The Weekender, Heartland Journal, Muse, NW, Trucker's Digest, After Hours, Capper's, Small Farmer's Journal, Senior Spectrum, Pinehurst Journal, Infinity Limited, Purpose, Calliope, Mediphors, Aim, Canadian Writer's Journal, Woman's Day, Lutheran Journal, Dream Intern. Quarterly, San Diego Family, CrazyQuilt, Plus, Mobius, Art Times, Army, Navy, Air Force Times, The Northern Reader, Children's Writer, Pangolin Papers, The Goblin Reader, Verses, The State Street Review.
In a few Anthologies: "I Am Talking About Revolution" Gallery Series Harper Square Press, "Outstanding Contemporary Poetry Anthology", Pied-Piper Press, "Silver Eden", "Perspectives", Writers West of Alameda, "Meeting Challenges", "Pegasus Anthology" (school textbook) Kendall/Hunt Pub. Co., "Short Story International", "Guideposts Best-Loved Stories 1997", "Children's Writer Guide to 2001".
In youth, in a wilderness in the Rockies of northern Idaho, her family and she lived in a log house, as if all were pioneers. They subsisted almost totally off the land, eating deer, grouse, bear and the abundant rainbow trout. The family's nearest neighbor was a trapper who could neither read nor write. She learned to read by looking over a brother's shoulder as he read aloud. Myrtle attended an excellent one room school till the family left Idaho for California when she was 10. In California, she lived in the San Francisco Bay area and moved to nearby Castro Valley when she married. She had written from before she went to school and 60 years later a magazine published a poem which, preschool, she'd written about the Nez Percé Indians. They camped yearly near her family's ranch, in what probably was a hunting migration. She takes a large part in the literary community of the S. F. Bay Area and taught "Writing for Publication". Her husband was a professional engineer in electronics and she has a son. Several of her ancestors fought in the Civil War.
Advice to beginning writers: "Read, read, read, write, write, write, never give up!"
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