Getting down to the final few corrections. The galleys are at the printer. Here is the front cover.

We were going to do a science fiction cover. We tried a romantic idea, then decided on a feminist cover. Nothing we did seemed right. Science Fiction hadn't been invented in 1900. Nequa takes a feminist position but the reality is that in 1900 suffrage positions were still being staked out. We decided that the hollow earth Utopian  ideas and the chapters on economic evolution would be hard to portray on a cover that needed to attract and sell books. Remember the white papers?  well this is the cover to look for.

Here are the backcover quotes I wrote about. Makes me want to buy the book
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Rediscovered in an Attic in Kansas
Back in Print after 114 Years
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    “Nequa is a surprisingly enjoyable salutary tale.”                        
                                            John Clute. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

"........parallels American history in a broad sense, but a great change
 came during a moral revolution in which selfishness was abandoned."
                                                      Science Fiction: The Early Years
                                                      Everett F. Bleiler and Richard Bleiler

 "Though fairly typical of other terra cava narratives concerned with
 exploration, spiritualism, and utopianism, there are a few unique features,
 not the least of which is a female narrator."                                           
                                     Michelle K. Yost   http://thesymzonian.wordpress.com/

"One of the most elusive American hollow earth books. “                                                                                                                     Lloyd Currey

    “A few of the male writers also questioned their culture's
prevailing gender ideology in the pages of the Utopian Novels.
The most obvious example is Alcanoan O. Grigsby, whose 1900
novel NEQUA, describes a world where both sexes are equal after
women put an end to war and demanded freedom from domin-
ation of man-made laws.”  
                              --From the forward of ”Unveiling a Parallel”  by
                              Carol A. Kolmerten,  Prof. of English at Hood College

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One of the First Feminist Hollow Earth Science Fiction Books
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As I said five very knowledgeable persons have allowed me use their quotes. The quotes are from other published sources. Remember they are commenting on a book which has been speculated about for years, only available as a printed book in a dozen libraries. One of the people I quote said that they had to read NEQUA on microfilm. He said it “was very wearying”. Well I read a lot of  newspapers on microfilm and they just flat put me to sleep. It would be a horrible way to read a book like NEQUA.

    The statements in bold print are quotes from me.

Every book also needs a back cover. The “How to Write, Publish, Market, and Get Rich” books all say that the back cover is the most important.  They are right about one thing I see an interesting book, actually an interesting cover, and I automatically pick up the book take a close look at the cover and automatically  turn the book over. The books whose front cover intrigued me enough that I pick them up in the first place are instantly turned over. It’s like I want to read the ending first.
Probably the book producers have trained me to do that. Subconsciously I know that some intriguing explanations related to the cover, some teasers to heighten my interest  and some brief explanation as to how this packet of writing will provide me with sex, power or money are brazenly splashed across the back cover.
It could be that I want to see if there are any experts that think that the book is worth reading. If there aren’t any experts it doesn’t keep me from buying the book but if their are some experts then I automatically buy the book.
I am also cognisant of having read teasers that pique my interest. Quick short statements that when combined with the front cover and one experts quote , quickly find me with my money in my hand.

So I have spent some time writing phrases and then trying them out on my friends. Actually it just dawned on me that I should have been trying them out on my enemies, they’ll give a better, more exacting critique.  But the nagging thought in the back of my mind is how do I find experts.

Then on last Saturday I had Dim Sum with my wife and one of our best friends, Kathy and a friend of Kathy’s. The friend of Kathy’s  when I asked what she used for recommendations to get the super job she has stated, “I’m from Chicago, So I learned how to just ask, if I want something. Surprisingly it works at least half of the time.”

So on Wednesday I sent emails to five people who have had knowledge of NEQUA for several years. I listed a quote and asked them if they would allow a back cover quote and if the answer was yes what they wanted as an attribution signature. I got five yes answers.  Well I’m from Kansas, and when we ask it works 100% --well at least this time.

In the third edition of NEQUA  I state “I guessed from the sound of the word (Nequa) that it’s origin  was probably to be found in a Central Asia or Native American language. “

Three weeks ago on my way back from the Borg I stopped off at Alma where Grigsby ran a newspaper. I wanted to visit the museum they have there. The person watching the desk listened to my inquiry about wanting a photograph of Grigsby and handed me a book.

A historical book about Alma, Kansas, the town where A.O. ran a newspaper for several years. The book reported on the names of several native Americans. Several persons were listed who were married in Alma. The term -qua was the last syllable of several Native American woman’s names. I asked the person in charge what they knew about the Native Americans that had lived in Alma in the 1800's. There wasn't much information available but it was suggested that I make  inquiries with the Pottawatomie, Kickapoo, Salk and Fox as they had all been in the area of Alma.

Another internet source reported that in Lakota, Nequa meant “Native Son” So what does qua actually mean.

This week on the way back from Mennonite Press in Newton Kansas I was cruising at 80 mph watching the road ahead for potential Police Officers in radar cars, Out of the corner of my eye I saw a sign,  Tequa Creek. I instantly let off of the gas. Decided that I read the sign wrong and then right in front of me is another bridge with another Tequa Creek sign on it.

When I got home I called the museum in Franklin county and asked if they had any information on what the word meant. Surprisingly they said that Franklin County at one time had more different Native American tribal groups represented in the county than any other Kansas County.
Tequa Creek was named after Chief Tuk-quos, a Sauk, also spelled Tuquas. They had no information on what it meant.

This post doesn’t have much to do with the publishing of NEQUA except in some peripheral ways. The book shown here was written by a friend of mine it gives some brief explanation of how to compete with the BIG MONEY BOYS in a political arena. I am referred to as Mork in the book and I must say that the time I spent messing up the plans of the arrogant self elected spenders of public wealth , was some of the most fun and hardest work I ever committed to.

    We actually did stand toe to toe with guys who contributed $3,000,000.00 and spent it all buying T.V. time and newspaper ads. We beat them with $30,000, which is peanuts in today's political arena.
    I especially like to say that the “people who count” those who “Think Big”  the “movers and shakers” all of the cliches used to describe the wealthy, the powerful, the gnomes behind the curtain really take a loss hard. I would always laugh and say “Oh come on it’s only money!!” Of course we rarely ever spent any. One of the best retorts was when we beat a $35,000,000.00 bond issue. The press asked us how much we spent and our answer which was duly noted in the records of our political action committee was $36.82 and thirty dollars was for the party to celebrate.
    Anyhow if you think that you might enjoy rubbing wealth noses in the cat box buy this book and look over the place you live. Democracy and Liberty live on the efforts of the little people.

The big wars and big time lobbyists, are making money for the corporations.

Remember
         (1) the “Bubbas” and “Obamas” are the grease and oil that rise to the top  of clean water. You always get dirty  when dealing with those guys and you always get the bill for everything they do.   
        (2) there is always a curtain and there is always somebody behind the curtain. 
        (3) Always elect someone dumber than yourself .
       
NEQUA contains the same message except they were lucky that the evolution of their thought, removed the oily grease and tore down the curtain early in their history.  We are still suffering the same plight as our forefathers who tried to  change the way things were accomplished.   


You can order the book from www.biblio.com

Several months ago I decided that the location of the office of “Equity” and the publishing headquarters for NEQUA should be closely looked at. My intuition paid off as I found that the demographics of the office location held some very interesting information. I drove to Topeka and easily found 115 east 5th Street, it was a big vacant lot. An example of the advantages of American Urban Renewal.  There isn’t any renewal only an unusable vacant lot.
A call to the Shawnee Public Library had gotten me connected with a man who knew all about buildings in Topeka and also about removed buildings. He said that he was sure that a photograph of the building existed because he remembered that the 115 location was the home of Langston Hughes when he was seven years old. The story was that Langston’s father had gone to Mexico and Langston and his mother were in Topeka where she worked for a Lawyer.  Incidentally Langston was his mothers surname and Hughes was his fathers surname.
When I expressed amazement  at the idea of Langston Hughes living in a commercial building, the gentleman supplying this information said it wasn’t unusual as the area for several blocks was a commercial district that was racially integrated.  By living one block off the main drag of Topeka, Langston’s mother had only a block to walk to work. 
I got a copy of the photograph and it was a concrete and brick two store building with rooms upstairs and a couple of commercial spaces downstairs. This  was “mixed-use”, an existent idea one hundred years ago, before the Urban Developers reinvented the idea in 1960. It allowed for Doctors and Dentists and lawyers to have “offices” in their living quarters.
Well I proceeded to check on the property owner and recheck the construction method, which was concrete with brick facing, meaning that it could have still been in use today if some bureaucrat somewhere had decided that Urban Renewal might include a minor makeover, instead of a scorched earth conclusion.
I went back to the census pages to look at who might inhabit the same building. In addition to Mary Lowe’s family, there was a Dr. Sunday, a black physician, an attorney and two “chinamen.” Obviously a highly integrated area one hundred and fourteen years ago in the middle of Kansas.

Finally got a break through on  Matilda C. Gillmore.  I had looked for her since finding out that she was a co-editor with Mary P. Lowe of  The New Woman Newspaper. I found a woman named Mathilda, born in Chamois Missouri, listed as a Mulatto, but Gillmore was her maiden name and later a Matilda showed up in the Topeka city directories listed as a journalist with a son whose name was Jesse Gillmore, so it meant that for her to be the right Gillmore she had to have kept her maiden name.  Nothing I did expanded the research on Matilda. I spent some time with Sherrita Camp, an African-American genealogist in Topeka who tried to help me.  We couldn’t find where Matilda came from or where, after six years she disappeared to. I finally decided to look at every notation in Ancestry.com that had a Matilda or an M. C. Gillmore or Gilmore, looking for a son named Jesse or Jessie. There were only 8050 notation to look at .  Maybe I would find a marriage, or death date. I went through 980 notations and quit for the day.

A week later I went to the Federal Archives in Kansas City and asked one of the volunteers, a woman named Evelyn Brissette who has spent 25 years doing geneology research to help me get back to the internet location that listed the 8050 Gillmores. She said “let me try one other thing, first.” She typed in Matilda’s son’s name in this manner,  Jess* the asterisk, a “wild card” and Kansas as a location where he lived. The third notation listed Jessie and his mother Matilda living in Lawrence, Kansas .  Matilda was listed as born in Sweden.  Her mother was Jennie Catherine Anderson also born in Sweden. Jennie and her husband ran a boarding house on Vermont Street.
Matilda was a journalist and  a printer.  I still haven’t found any marriage record  for Matilda C. Gillmore.  The Kansas Matlida moved with her mother and her son to Florida in 1900.  Her son grew up to own a printing shop in Virginia Beach, Virginia.She died in 1936 and is buried in Virginia Beach.

So that removed Matilda C. Gillmore from Missouri.  Strange the way my mind works, now I wonder what happened to the first Matilda C.  It is almost as if I knew her.