My Grandmother Was an Elf!

Have you ever wanted to know an elf? I’ve known them, all my life. I hail from an Irish family, which is why the gift of gab comes so easily, and why I’ve always been enchanted by elves.  Maybe that’s why we named our production company Elfenworks. Hello! You don’t know me, because my work also involves being an “elf” behind the scenes, just like my grandmother Mavis.

Mavis McIntosh was a literary agent. She wasn’t just any agent. Along with Elizabeth Otis, she co-founded the first literary agency run by women, McIntosh & Otis, in New York City, after she moved to New York from Madison, Wisconsin where she’d attended the University of Wisconsin. It’s still going strong, and is once again run by a woman, today.   

I say that Mavis was an elf, because I see elves as those who are behind the scenes, making the magic happen for others.  Mavis was one of those. She was forever reading novels, looking for that great new hit. One career she fostered was that of the great John Steinbeck.

John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. (1902 – 1968) was a literary legend and the author of works including Cannery Row, East of Eden, Of Mice and Men, and The Grapes of Wrath.  He was a syndicated war correspondent during World War II, and went on to win a Pulitzer Prize in 1940, the U.S. Medal of Freedom in 1964, and The Nobel Prize for literature in 1962 “for his realistic and imaginative writings” which were noted as combining sympathetic humor and keen social perception.  The Steinbeck Institute – online at steinbeckinstitute.org – calls John Steinbeck the “conscience of America,” so it was really moving to me to read his letters to my grandmother, in the book Steinbeck: A Life in Letters.

Besides Steinbeck, Mrs. Riordan represented such authors as Hiram Hayden, John Irving, Edna O’Brien, John Gardner and Robert Coover.  She died 22 years ago at 83, but I like to think that, if she were still alive, she’d represent her granddaughter, just because I’m family… and an elf, too. I’ve written several books that delve into “social conscience” matters, but only recently, with Thread for Pearls, A Story of Resilient Hope, have I tried to address such issues in a novel. I tackle some of them only lightly and briefly, and others I delve into in more depth. The novel is set between 1962 and 1982, and one of the main through-lines is the societal divisions that surrounded the Vietnam war, which was conducted from 1955 to 1975.  Other concerns tackled in the book include the space race, the Cold War, youth culture, broken families, violence, hunger, depression, and addiction. My idea was to somehow bring the times to life through the eyes of a child. If my grandmother were alive today, I am entirely certain that she’d be writing me letters of encouragement to keep on writing. That’s just the sort of person she was.  She was an encourager, which is something I try to be to the people around me, as well. If you’re an encourager too, maybe you have some elf in your DNA.

Back to Steinbeck.  Mavis and Elizabeth got John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath published, and then worked with Annie Laurie Williams, one of the most influential film agents of her time, who sold the film rights to it.  I like thinking about how Mavis was influential in the story of how that film made it onto the silver screen. I think that literary agents like her can take a little of the credit for the wave of sympathy that they generate for the plight of the poor, with the novels they bring into the public eye.

We all make ripples, and there’s just no telling how much of a ripple Grapes of Wrath really had.  It’s a nice thought, really, because no matter what we’re doing, we could be making important ripples that will be appreciated many decades later, by our grandchildren or even people we’ll never meet.  We’re all elves that way. Hooray for all of us!

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Lauren Speeth has shared her stories in film and print over the years with audiences around the world, to critical acclaim. Her diverse storytelling interests cover many mediums: from books about the American experience to 3-D films about Irish spirituality, to music about love and life. In this, her first novel, she shares what she has come to understand as the fundamental human experience of resiliency and hope. When not dreaming up stories, Speeth leads Elfenworks Productions, LLC, a pro-social business with internationally acclaimed media content, and The Elfenworks Foundation, where she has assembled a team of social entrepreneurs who work together daily on projects that foster the greater good.

 

About THREAD FOR PEARLS

A near-death experience in a car with her Mother; running from tear gas at a Vietnam War rally hand-in-hand with her Pop; a year in India learning side-by-side the country’s ‘untouchables;’ the highs and lows of living on a rural Pennsylvania commune…and all before Fiona Sprechelbach’s thirteenth birthday.

Set during one of the most politically divisive eras in American history, Thread for Pearls is a coming of age tale that takes us on a young heroine’s journey to faith and freedom amidst a turbulent family dynamic. It’s a story of resilient hope that questions whether it’s the events of our lives that define us, or the thread on which we choose to string them. Thread for Pearls is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.

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Category: Contemporary Women Writers, On Writing