A Picture is Worth ...

by Julie Tollefson

In the past couple of weeks, my day job and my fiction writing worlds have collided in the best possible way. My colleagues and I at the Kansas Geological Survey are revamping our online photo library, and I’ve spent hours sorting through hundreds of photos of Kansas landscapes and other geology-related subjects, some of which date back decades.

It’s a task that dovetails nicely with my fiction writing interests. Kansas, the land and its quirks, figures prominently in nearly every story I write. Yeah, I know that when most people think of Kansas, they imagine fields of wheat and corn as far as the eye can see, flat and monotonous. But we also have plenty of unusual, out-of-the way places that inspire dark thoughts of murder and suspense. Over the decades, Survey photographers have documented many of these places.

Take this abandoned house on the High Plains, constructed in the 19th century from local limestone where wood was scarce. Suitable for dumping a body, no?

Or Waconda Spring. Looks like such a refined place, where ladies in summer dresses sip tea in beautiful gardens. But today? The spring is long gone, submerged under Glen Elder Reservoir. Makes you wonder what ghosts lurk there, eh?

The historical photos in the Survey’s collection are my favorite. The cars! The fashion! These guys in fedoras exiting a Pony Express Station in the mid-1960s—they could be old-timey gangsters.

Some of the images inspire with their ingenuity. Here, someone, um, recycled an old truck to secure the opening to an abandoned lead mine.

We have sinkholes…

…and landslides…

…and the occasional flood.

In short, the Survey’s photo archives are a treasure trove of inspiration, and there’s nothing I enjoy more than drawing on these places close to my heart to craft stories of suspense and mystery.

All photos courtesy of Kansas Geological Survey. To see more, visit our photo archives.

Do you have favorite places in your state that you think deserve wider recognition?

A Place Begging for Trouble

The view east from the geographic center of the
48 contiguous states of the United States.

by Julie Tollefson

A monument at the end of a two-lane blacktop road. A tiny chapel—pulpit and 10 one-person pews—unlocked and unattended. A boarded-up and painted-over abandoned motel.

Sound like a place just begging for trouble?

Yeah, I thought so, too, when I arrived at the geographic center of the United States (minus Alaska and Hawaii), just north of Lebanon, Kansas, population 217*. Lebanon is not close to any of the big highways, and you won't likely find yourself there by accident. As a friend said, the whole place has a Twin Peaks-y vibe.

North of Lebanon and a little bit west, a collection of monuments and a well-maintained picnic area mark the center of the contiguous United States. More intriguing to me, on a small rise overlooking the monument sits the abandoned motel. Every inch, including the boards over the windows, is painted gunmetal gray.

Like every horror-story victim ever written, I followed a little-used path between two evergreens, their branches brushing my shoulders, to get a closer look. What I discovered...well, let's just say that the abandoned motel at the center of the United States will be making an appearance in my fiction. Soon.

In the meantime, here are some photos from the center. If you find yourself in north-central Kansas, be sure to stop and see it for yourself.

*As of 2011, though the little town has seen a steady decline in its population.

This plaque marks the geographic center of the 48 contiguous states of the United States.

The tiny chapel on the park grounds has just enough room inside
for a pulpit and single-person pews on each side of an aisle.

Follow the path to the creepy abandoned motel, if you dare.

A Favorite Book on the Big Screen

Monument Rocks in western Kansas.

By Julie Tollefson

Last weekend, I had the great pleasure of seeing one of my favorite novels, The Scent of Rain and Lightning by Nancy Pickard, come to life on the big screen. The movie—screenplay by Jeff Robison and Casey Twenter, directed by Blake Robbins—played to two sold-out crowds at the Kansas City Film Fest and won the festival's "Best Narrative Feature Film" award.



The film richly portrays the secrets and lies swirling in rural Oklahoma after a convicted murderer’s release from prison causes the daughter of his victims to question whether he actually committed the crime. It’s dusty and full of suspense and captures the cracks radiating through a community when tragedy strikes a close knit and influential family.

Q&A after first screening of the film at the Kansas City 

Film Fest (Nancy Pickard, third from left).

In a Q&A session after the first Kansas City screening, Pickard spoke about her inspirations for the book, including her desire to explore the idea that children of murderers and children of the murdered have much in common. It’s a thought-provoking insight and, in my opinion, it’s the basis of one of the most poignant relationships in the movie, that between Jody Linder (daughter of the murder victims) and Collin Croyle (son of the man convicted of the murder).

The cast is excellent and includes Maika Monroe, Brad Carter, Justin Chatwin, Maggie Grace, Bonnie Bedelia, and Will Patton.

Mid- to late-1970s teenaged me (left) with my parents at Monument Rocks.

The movie is terrific, though it strays from Pickard's original story in one very important (to me) aspect. The film may be set in Oklahoma, but Pickard’s novel takes place in a fictionalized version of my beloved western Kansas, specifically at Monument Rocks (called Testament Rocks in the book). Monument Rocks, if you’re not familiar, are unusual buttes that rise above the Kansas prairie. They’re the eroded remnants of chalk formed in a massive inland sea millions of years ago, and they’re full of fossilized marine creatures. I have many fond memories of long summer afternoons scrambling over the chalk monoliths with my cousins.

Pickard’s novel portrays that little-traveled part of the state with a deep affection for its people and their way of life. Her story embodies two of the recurring themes that crop up in my own fiction and in my posts for Writers Who Kill: small towns and Kansas landscapes.

“The Scent of Rain and Lightning” is playing the film festival circuit now. Keep an eye out for it!

Scent of Rain and Lightning on Facebook

Nancy Pickard’s website, with complete film festival screening information

What are your favorite movies based on books?

Sunflower Season in the Sunflower State

Cultivated beauties. Photo by Burt Morey. Used with permission.

 by Julie Tollefson

It’s sunflower season in Kansas, the Sunflower State, and oh my do those yellow flowers make people happy.

Last weekend, a sunflower field a couple miles from my house drew such a massive crowd that law enforcement officials advised the owners to shut it down at midday. (Don’t ask me how one shuts down a field on a public road—that’s a mystery.) At one point, traffic heading to the field was reportedly backed up more than five miles—hundreds of cars, maybe? I actually tried to calculate something approaching an answer. To start, I imagined everyone drove a large-ish car at 16.5 feet long and allowed a generous 10 feet between them (26.5 feet total). Divide 26,400 feet (5,280 feet per mile times 5 miles) by 26.5.  Answer? A thousand cars sat on that highway, occupants eager to get a selfie in the sunflower field. Whew! That’s a lot of math for a writer.

My husband and I stayed out of the way—way out of the way. Instead, we spent the day exploring the backroads of another county seventy-five miles to the west, where we had the highways and the prairie and the state flower—the wild native Helianthus—all to ourselves.

Wild sunflower at sunrise, western Kansas.

I’m not immune to the beauty of the cultivated sunflowers, but my heart lies with the tough little flowers that doggedly take root in the ditches and field edges and stream banks across the state.  The state flower, once considered a noxious weed, thrives wherever it finds a bit of soil. It reaches for the sun and dances in the legendary Kansas wind. No cultivation, no coddling necessary.

I’m sure there’s a lesson in the tale of two sunflowers.

The cultivated sunflower has an easy life, a gorgeous home among its brethren with all the fertilizer and water it could want. It’s the society matron, straight-backed and proper. It’s the son who follows his grandfather, father, and brothers into the family investment business. It’s beautiful and privileged and wants for nothing. 

Except. 

Except the society matron hides a dark secret, her perfect hair and makeup nothing more than a mask for her insecurities. The son yearns to ditch the family business and study art history.

The wild ones.

Then there’s the wild side, scraping for purchase in a harsh land. The PI who operates at the edge of the law. The homesteaders who, heeding Horace Greeley’s advice to “Go west, young man,” leave the comforts of New York to eke out an existence on 160 treeless acres of the High Plains. To them, life within the confines of the field looks easy, stress-free, but would they sacrifice freedom for security?

The best stories have room for both. Indeed, these tensions—between the face our character shows the world and the one she sees in the mirror, between the desire to break away from the strictures of community or to break in to the life of luxury—are the foundation of the best best stories.

But enough of lessons from the secret lives of sunflowers. This week, I just want to enjoy the beauty of late summer and the yellow flowers of all shapes and sizes that inspire people to get outside, experience fresh air and sunshine, and feel joy in nature.

A couple of publication notes:

• I imagine all states have resources to help residents and visitors enjoy the roads less traveled. Here, we have the Byways of Kansas guide. A new version came out this summer, and I had the pleasure of writing about two of our byways: The Western Vistas Historic Byway that cuts through the High Plains of western Kansas (near and dear to my heart) and the newly designated Land and Sky Scenic Byway in far northwest Kansas, which travels through the truly stunning Arikaree Breaks.
• My newest piece for Lawrence Magazine takes a look at the cool story of how a local high school student’s turn with a metal detector led to the first physical evidence of what is likely the second largest ancient city in the United States.