Letting Go

December 17, 2025December 17, 2025 / vpchandler / 1 Comment

by V.P. Chandler

I recently read The Poisonwood Bible for the second time. It’s interesting how it’s a different experience after I’ve become a mother and after I’ve have had more life experiences. What stuck with me this time wasn’t the politics, religion, or the history as much as a mother’s fear of living in a place that doesn’t feel safe.

Years ago, we lived on a ranch where there were a lot of rattlesnakes. (I know, you’ve heard me talk about this before.) We had hundreds in the vicinity. For the first year we were there, I worried almost every single day that my small child would get bitten. And possibly die since we were far from any hospital or antivenom. I didn’t talk about it much, but it was always there in my head. Every walk outside, every noise in the grass, every moment my child was out of my sight. I truly believed that any day could be the day something terrible would happen.

After about a year, something shifted. I still knew the danger was there, but I wasn’t consumed by it anymore. I had learned where the snakes were likely to be, when to be extra careful, and when I could relax a little. The fear didn’t disappear; it just stopped running my life.

One day I told my husband how I wasn’t worrying as much. He was stunned, and frankly, kind of appalled. He couldn’t believe I had lived with that level of anxiety every day. He had no idea. We were in the same place, raising the same child, but our inner experiences were completely different.

I thought about this when reading The Poisonwood Bible. A mother, Orleanna, did the best that she could, given her circumstances, to prepare for their new life. Like bringing cake mixes for her daughter’s birthdays, only to have the mixes turn to rock in the humidity. Such a symbol of motherhood/parenthood. We do the best we can. The trials that we may face are not the ones we expected. And Nathan, so sure he was right, so focused on his mission and his authority, his divine calling, that he didn’t notice what was happening to the people around him. (Not that my husband was a tyrant or a fanatic!)

The book also made me think about living and trying to parent in an oppressive patriarchal society. A general observation, while male egos and cultures clash, it’s the citizens who pay the price. Nathan’s rigid religious authority collided with local power structures and culture. While he was so wrapped up in his zeal to save souls, trying to live by the laws in The Bible, that he missed the message of The Gospel. And he was so bent on changing the local “heathen” customs, without really looking at or connecting to the people, he was doomed to fail. No one wins when the people in power are fighting to maintain power instead of helping society. When patriarchies rule, all citizens end up paying the price. Even those in charge seem trapped by the need to dominate rather than care.

I guess I’m feeling this more than ever before. It’s what’s happening in the world. For me, The Poisonwood Bible landed as a reminder that paying attention matters and caring about people matters. And the people who notice danger, who quietly adapt, who carry the worry, so others don’t have to, are often invisible. But they’re doing the work that keeps everyone alive.

I think about that first year with the rattlesnakes sometimes. I think about how long I carried that fear alone. And reading this book helped me see that experience more clearly—not as weakness, but as awareness.

And now here is a picture of a Christmas kitten so you won’t be so bummed out.

Pixabay url

V.P Chandler writes westerns and crime fiction. Her most recent publication is found in The Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2025.

This post was originally posted on Substack. You can follow V.P. Chandler there.

Merging Family History With Fiction

February 20, 2025February 20, 2025 / vpchandler / Leave a comment

by V.P. Chandler

Previously posted on vpchandler.com

My most recent blog post announced the publication of my short story, “Under The Blackjack Tree” in Killer Nashville magazine and now I’m now doubly thrilled to announce that the short story was also chosen by Otto Penzler and John Grisham to appear in the 2025 edition of Best Mystery Stories of the Year! (Mysterious Press)This is a huge honor. Honestly, at first I didn’t think it was true. I read the email about three times and did some online research before I believed it!

Picture of the jail that I took several years ago.

But another reason why this is so special to me is because my story is steeped with bits of my family’s history.

It began when my mother told me several years ago that one of her most cherished memories was when she got to help her grandfather feed the inmates at the Huntsville jail when she was about four. (Wait, what?) That’s when I learned that my great grandfather had been sheriff of Walker County. I later learned that it was common practice for the sheriff and his family to live on the first floor of the jailhouse while the inmates would be on the second floor.

The image of an innocent girl closely interacting with a potentially dangerous person was so intriguing to me, I was compelled to put it in a story. (I played with the timeline and instead of my mother being the little girl, I made it my grandmother. It simplified the story.) I had no idea where the story was going to go, but I knew that I needed that opening scene. It took me places that I didn’t expect!

Some of the things that were true are-

My great grandfather was sheriff at the time of Bonnie and Clyde. I thought that would make an interesting backdrop. A lot of tension in Texas at that time.
My grandmother’s first mother did die in childbirth and her loving stepmother was called “Cullie”.
There really was a bank robbery in Conroe at that time. (I don’t think it was ever solved.)
Trusted inmates often cooked the meals for the other inmates and sometimes for the family.
It was my mother that fell into the yard with the hunting dogs and was almost mauled.
My grandmother was shot in the face with a shotgun, by accident. It was a miracle that her eyes were spared, and she had not one single scar. That is such an amazing part of our family history that I had to include it.

And two things that I didn’t know until after I wrote the story.

My grandmother was sometimes called “Mary V” at school because there was another Mary in her class.
When she attended Sam Houston to get her teaching certificate, she would often cut across the cemetery when her classmates wouldn’t. She was never a squeamish person.

Although the Mary V in the story is pure fiction, I hope that my grandmother would be proud the story and that some of our family history is saved and shared with others.

‘Shrooms: A Story in 100 Words

November 25, 2016 / Austin Mystery Writers / 6 Comments

Posted by Kathy Waller

I did it again: prepared my piece for November 21 well in advance, set it aside for later revision, forgot to post it.

As we in the writing trade say, AARGH.

As my fourth-grade teacher said, Better late than never, but better never late.

As I say, take what my fourth-grade teacher said, chop off the clause starting with but and read on.

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Because I recently attended Writer Unboxed’s UnConference in Salem, Massachusetts, I planned to write about it this week.

UnCon comprised five full days of sessions heavy with both information and inspiration: not so much how to write, but how to dig deeper, make richer, write better.

The week was intense. I’m going to have to think about it for a while before I can write about it.

So this week, following V. P. Chandler’s lead, I’m sharing a story I wrote for Friday Fictioneers. It’s not crime fiction–or maybe it is. I’ll have to think about that, too.

Friday Fictioneers Prompt. Copyright Erin Leary.

‘Shrooms

John ambled into the kitchen. “What’s cooking?”

“Mushroom gravy.” Mary stirred.

John frowned. “Toadstools. Fungi. Dorothy Sayers killed someone with Amanita.”

“These are morels.” She added salt. “Everybody eats mushrooms.”

“I don’t.”

“Suit yourself.”

He sat down. “Where’d you buy them?”

“I picked them.”

“You?”

“Aunt Helen helped. She knows ‘shrooms.” Mary held out a spoonful. “Taste.”

“Well . . . ” John tasted. “Mmmm. Seconds?”

“Yoo-hoo.” Aunt Helen bustled in. “Like my new glasses? Those old ones–yesterday I couldn’t see doodly squat.”

Mary looked at the gravy, then at John. “Maybe you should spit that out,” she said.

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“‘Shrooms” first appeared on Telling the Truth, Mainly. A few words about how I came to write this story appeared April 12, 2015 on Austin Mystery Writers

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Click the link for Friday Fictioneer instructions. Visit Rochelle Wisoff-Field–Addicted to Purple for this week’s photo prompt. A new prompt is posted there every Wednesday.

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