Now that things have settled just a bit, I find myself musing on the fact that our media has done a good job of giving us facts and figures, but nowhere do I find columns and writeups and broadcasts that give us the “soul” of the Haitian people.  Ah yes, we have idiots like Pat Robertson, who calls  himself a man of God, who ascribes the devastation as God’s punishment of the Haitian people for their massacre of the French long ago.  Of course he says nothing about the horror that Black Haitians lived through under the French enslavement, thought to be one of the most inhuman known.

Yes, so much of the Haitian population is uneducated and poorer than in most other places.  But it is a well known fact that our country in the past has not always given a fair shake to Haiti and neither have other countries helped.  Voudou is mostly their religions.  Known as voodoo here, it is often spoken of as a clownish religion, of no significance, but that is far from true.  I think Voudo is a brilliant blend of African paganism — forbidden slaves by their French masters — and Catholicism.

The Haitian slaves adroitly gave their pagan African gods the names of Catholic saints and proceeded to worship.  And in this worship, the drums of Africa reigned supreme.  Those drums are credited by many writers as being a unifying force that led Haitian generals like Christophe, Dessalines and Petion to overcome the French and free themselves.

Go to your library and read a book or two about Haiti, google the country and its people and talk with Haitians if you can.  What you find will be a far cry from that our media sees fit to write about.

[To the reader who wrote asking how to join Facebook.  Please excuse my delay.  I couldn' t figure out how to reach you.  You just put Facebook.com in your browser address line and it brings up a screen for Facebook.  Look it over carefully and you'll see "Join."  Click and follow their instructions.  Hope this helps.  If it doesn't, please contact me at MySpace.com/francinecraft.  ]

Things You May Not Know About Haiti originally appeared on Francine Craft on February 1, 2010.

Beautiful Nature

Sooner or later you’re going to ask me how much longer I’ll be testing.  You’ll be glad you waited when I begin to tell you things you always wanted to know about self-publishing.  It’s such a fascinating thing to do.

Creative control is the name of the game.  If you get a good company, they strive to satisfy you as to what you want your book to be, within reason.  And getting the cover together just thrilled me.  It’s a romantic voodoo mystery and so I wanted a gun.  No gun meeting my specifications could be found.  Okay, bullet holes.  The artist came up with the messiest bullet holes you could imagine.  I said no.  Too thuggish.  Gross.  So they redid and now you get the idea of romance, voodoo, mystery.

I wrote the back cover material which was duly checked.  The company I chose – Wheatmark – has excellent editors.  My copy made the grade.  And oh, the thrill of having my own Library of Congress Card Number.  They do turn down books.  ISBN, listing with RR Bowker, all kinds of things you can also do for yourself.

There are so many companies to help you self-publish.  You’ve got to check it out.  I mulled it over for nearly thirty years while I sold to established publishers.   This is for me.  Try it.  You just might like it.

Always And Forever Testing originally appeared on Francine Craft on November 6, 2009.