Doomed Queens bitter wisdom: Sarah Palin revisited

I don’t know about you, but the latest adventure of Sarah Palin has me shaking my head in bemusement. Even if filtered through the distorted perceptions of jetlag (yup, still have it), her behavior seems erratic at best, self-destructive at worst. If she’s planning for a 2012 campaign, is quitting the best way to do so? Or, is there some bigger scandal about to emerge?

Tom, who has been following her on Twitter, is always sharing her latest Tweet with me. Here’s one recent example:

Critics are spinning, so hang in there as they feed false info on the right decision made as I enter last yr in office to not run again….”

Okaaaay. One wonders whether she’s in search of a bigger realm to rule. Or tired of getting kicked around by pundits. (Shades of “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore.”) Only time will tell.

In any event, it reminded me of a post I’d written way back after Obama won. Seems appropriate to resurrect it in honor of Sarah’s stepping down from her Alaskan throne.

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Here in NYC, we’re basking in the aftermath of an Obama win. No offense to McCain supporters, but the past eight years have proven that the politics of fear and violence only compound global disharmony. McCain’s resounding loss was accompanied by the defeat of Sarah Palin, his running mate. Like her or loathe her, one can’t help but wonder whether Palin is a Doomed Queen.

My answer: Yes, yes, and yes. And I knew Palin was one from the start — though of course, it’s easy to say so in retrospect. Even when Palin’s approval rating was through the roof (ie: pre-Katie Couric interview or Tina Fey’s devastating SNL impersonations), the signs were all there. While women aren’t forced nowadays into dynastic marriages or trapped in the Tower of London as they once were, the cautionary example of the Doomed Queen still lives and thrives, despite Hillary Clinton’s “18 million cracks in the glass ceiling.”

Here are five ways Sarah Palin is a Doomed Queen:

1. Palin is the product of an arranged political marriage; she met only once with John McCain before he popped the question. Many Doomed Queens’ dynastic marriages ended unhappily due to inbreeding, incompatibility, even murder. In the case of Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII’s starter wife, the demise of their union signaled the start of a new religion in England — one way to dump an unwanted alliance.

2. McCain was in love with someone else. It’s rumored that McCain desired Joe Lieberman as his running mate, but was pushed to accept Palin to protect his claim for the “throne.” McCain’s situation reminds me of Regency England’s George IV, who ruled England after his father George III lost the colonies along with his mind. George Junior was pushed to marry Caroline of Brunswick, his eccentric first cousin, though he was in love with another woman. When George met Caroline just before the wedding, he called for a stiff brandy and stumbled through the ceremony falling-down drunk. I don’t know if John McCain drinks, but one can imagine him in a similar choleric snit after learning that Sarah’s daughter Bristol was five months pregnant (though he claims to have been aware of it).

3. That written, McCain initially embraced his running mate despite the scandale. At first, Palin was more popular than him—just as Princess Diana proved to be after her glittery public wedding to Prince Charles. For Charles and Diana, jealousy became a destructive force in their royal alliance. But now that McCain has lost, the gloves have come off and Palin is being used as a scapegoat. As an unnamed source from his campaign leaked to the press that Palin is a whack job and was the one responsible for burning up the credit cards in Neiman Marcus a la Marie Antoinette.

4. It’s an old story. Like other Doomed Queens through history, Palin was used as a chess piece on another’s game board to woo a target demographic. Only this time, the powers-that-be got more than they bargained for. Palin wasn’t fully vetted, allowing for scandals to surface like poisoned fish in a pond. Federal funds for the Bridge to Nowhere were never refunded. Her friends were rewarded with cushy inappropriate appointments while her enemies were stonewalled. Rumors of book banning, anyone?

5. Biology is destiny. For many Doomed Queens, childbirth and infertility led to their loss of the throne. In the case of Palin, she’s used the fertility of herself and unwed pregnant Bristol to present herself as a pro-life candidate, appealing to the religious right. However in doing so, Palin has thrown her teenage daughter to the media wolves to further her political ambitions — not a sympathetic move. After all, even hard-core conservatives like to see mothers nurture their children, instead of hung out to dry in People magazine.

So is Sarah Palin’s story over? We won’t know for some time, but even if she does run in 2012, I’m sure she won’t be marched like other Doomed Queens to the guillotine. After all, the guillotine was last used by the French in 1977.

Instead, Palin might instead want to follow the path of another powerful Alaskan woman, Sinrock Mary, better known as the Reindeer Queen.

During the Alaskan Gold Rush, Sinrock Mary was an Eskimo who became the richest person in Alaska by raising reindeer for food and pack animals; Sinrock was an outpost of Nome. Gold miners were dependent on Mary for their very survival — and grew covetous of her power. To undermine her, they tried to seduce her with liquor and promises of marriage. When that didn’t work, they threatened violence. Though Mary could have used them to further expand her empire, she was no Doomed Queen.

To avoid the miners, the Reindeer Queen moved from Nome into the wilds of Alaska. She spent the rest of her life there in royal comfort — though no one knows if she owned a tanning bed, like Wasilla Sarah.

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Publishing Monday: Affirmations for the Everyday Goddess winner! and more

I’m back from Europe, well-rested and full of inspiration! (Well, as well-rested as one can be when traveling with a very energetic four-year-old.) I’ll write more about my trip later this week, and will even inflict some photos on you. (Yes, we took Thea to the Eiffel Tower et al. She loved it!)

As for now, I’m getting back up to speed in the studio after my time away…

First things first: If you’re at all interested in self-publishing and you haven’t read my recent interview with Pamela Wells, you should. She shared some intensely valuable information about her experiences bringing her Affirmations for the Everyday Goddess deck into the world. Best of all, she offered to give away one copy to a lucky commenter. (Thank you, Pamela!)

Without further ado, congratulations to Christina Rodriguez! To claim your prize, please e-mail me your mailing address at kris at kriswaldherr.com. And thanks to all who commented.

Other publishing news:

~ I’ve just received the beta version of The Goddess Tarot app from the developer. It looks beautiful and is almost ready to be released! Once a few minor revisions are taken care of, the app will be sent to Apple for approval. If all goes as planned, the app should be available from the App Store by the end of July. I’m very excited! You can view additional screenshots here.

(Word to the wise: My newsletter subscribers will be offered a limited time steep discount on The Goddess Tarot app.)

~ Foreign rights to DOOMED QUEENS have been sold to a Russian publisher. This is the first time one of my publications will be translated into Russian. It will be interesting to see my words in Cyrillic.

~ Remember all those card proposals I sent out on submission? Well, there’s some publisher interest in them. It’s too soon to spill details, but I’ll post more as things develop. In the meantime, here’s a sneak peek at three of them.

And how was your week?

• Filed under giveaways and raffles, publications, publishing, queens, tarot and oracles | 5 Responses

Pop Tudors guest post up!

Have you been watching this new season of The Tudors? I’ve been! I’ve really been enjoying the over-the-top concoction of fact and fancy that each episode brings. We even have viewing parties at my house, replete with red wine and talking back at the tv.

This season has been especially queen-heavy, starting with Jane Seymour and onto Anne of Cleves, played by a very appealing Joss Stone. (Last season’s Natalie Dormer was superb as Anne Boleyn.) Next week introduces Henry’s midlife crisis queen Catherine Howard, who is being played up by the good folks at Showtime as a Lolita-in-a-corset strumpet. (Alas, I’m sure this will upset Alisa Libby, author of the revisionist The King’s Rose.)

Anyway, Showtime’s Pop Tudors fan site has asked me to do a guest blog about Henry’s doomed queens. After thinking it through, I have one piece of advice for these maritally-challenged women: They should cover their heads!

My advice has nothing to do with showing obsequience to God or King. Rather, it’s based on common sense. If one looks at Henry’s wives throughout seasons of The Tudors past, it’s clear that the more covered up the queen’s head, the less likely she is to bite the dust.

Read the rest of my Pop Tudors post here.

PS: Last chance to win a copy of Sandra Gulland’s MISTRESS OF THE SUN. Enter our giveaway here.

• Filed under be-mused, blogs we read, queens | No Comments

Creativity Friday: King’s Rose giveaway winner—and a tarot reading giveaway

It’s the start of spring break over here—meaning that Thea is out of school, and I’m tying up loose ends on the book proposal before vacation next week. At this stage of the game, I need to get the proposal done and off to my literary agent, for creative as well as practical reasons. So today’s post is going to be a quickie-but-goodie. I can feel the Muses tapping their collective feet in impatience….

A few links and things before I announce the winner of The King’s Rose giveaway—and announce a new giveaway. (Yes, a new giveaway! This one is for a tarot reading with me. Details below.)

* While I’m away, I’ll be keeping to my regular posting schedule. Some old-but-favorite posts have been bankrolled to go live in my absence. I do hope you’ll check in!

* Over at Carlyn Beccia’s Raucous Royals blog, she’s posted the next installment of her “The Tudors: Hollywood versus Historical” series. Fun! So far, I’ve only watched the first episode of the new season, but am interested to see how they develop Jane Seymour’s character—especially after all of last season’s Anne Boleyn histrionics. To paraphrase what I wrote in Doomed Queens, Queen Jane does seems a rather bland Mrs. de Winter after Queen Anne’s vibrant-but-dead Rebecca.

* Wonders and Marvels has reposted my “Art of Dying” piece, which will tell you all you ever (or never) wanted to know about beheadings. Many thanks to a neuropsychologist friend, who helped me out with researching it. (She wants to remain unidentified out of shyness.)

* Author Catherine Delors has been posting a lovely series on her blog featuring transcendental art from Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. Perfect for spring!

* If you haven’t checked it out yet, tarot artist Lisa Hunt has been recently posting about the creation of her highly anticipated Fairy Tale Tarot. She’s included photos of her studio and work underway. It’s a great peek inside her creative process, especially for anyone who’s interested in creating a tarot deck of their own.

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And now, for the winner of The King’s Rose, Alisa Libby’s new novel about doomed queen Catherine Howard:

Congratulations to Nicole C.!

Nicole, please e-mail your mailing address to kris [at] kriswaldherr dot com. And again, many thanks to Alisa for this generous giveaway and fabulous interview.

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Now for the new giveaway: Leave a comment below before midnight EST April 22, and you’ll be entered into a raffle to win a one question tarot reading with me via e-mail ($50 value).

Here are the rules: Only one comment per person. Winner will be chosen at random and announced Monday, April 27, on this blog.

And that’s that—for now. In the meantime, I wish you all a wonderful two weeks!

• Filed under be-mused, blogs we read, creativity, giveaways and raffles, new projects, queens, tarot and oracles | 2 Responses

Publishing Monday: Paperback versus hardcover?

There’s an interesting post over on Australian author Justine Larbalestier’s site comparing the benefits of publishing a new book in hardcover versus paperback. (To clarify, this is about trade paperback originals, not reissues of books already published in hardcover and have presumably been reviewed as such.)

… back home in Australia, the vast majority of books are published in paperback. Hardcovers are exceedingly rare. But here in the US of A there’s a huge emphasis on hardcovers.

When I first asked about it, I was told that paperback originals don’t get reviewed. Thus the hardcover is more prestigious because it generates more attention. Many good reviews can lead to awards, and best book of the year listings, and lots of sales. A paperback original goes into the world unheralded and unreviewed and thus disappears into oblivion.”

This is a topical subject for me. Some of you may have noticed that my book Doomed Queens was published as a trade paperback original, rather than hardcover. This format was my choice—I simply felt that the book would work better as a paperback with a lower price point, given the quirky subject matter (and also the state of the U.S. economy). Frankly, I didn’t consider whether the paperback format would work against it when it came to garnering reviews. And, for the most part, I don’t think it has—though I might have reconsidered hardcover had I considered the review angle.

But back to Larbalestier’s post. She continues to make this interesting point:

I’m not convinced this is as true as it once was or that prestige is as important as people think it is. I believe that fewer and fewer buyers of books are paying attention to what old media reviewers say. Partly this is because the book review section has been disappearing from newspapers all over the USA, just as newspapers have been disappearing…. these days it seems that newspaper book review sections are holding less power than they once had when it comes to shaping a book’s fate….Whereas there are blogs, whose reviews I respect and trust….”

Do you think this is true? I know for myself, I still read book review sections and purchase accordingly—but that’s part of my fascination with the business of books. That written, I often buy books based on the recommendations of blogs as well as friends. So I suppose I’m a mixture of both. In either case, I don’t really think, “Oh, this book is being published only in paperback. I wonder if that means the publisher doesn’t have a lot of confidence in how good it is.”

I do have to say though that if I’m uncertain about how much I’ll enjoy a book, I’ll often wait for it to come out in paperback rather than splurge for the hardcover. Also, guilty admission: Superficial as it sounds, if I’m looking for a book to travel with, I prefer a paperback over hardcover. I like to travel light!

You can read the rest of Larbalestier’s post here.

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Reminder: The book giveaway for Alisa Libby’s The King’s Rose continues! You can enter to win an autographed copy of this novel about Catherine Howard by leaving a comment here.

• Filed under publishing, queens | 5 Responses