By Sheila Pursglove
Legal News
Egged on by his then 8-year-old grandson Jack, attorney Paul Dimond turned his hand to writing a children's story that he and Jack could enjoy together.
"He didn't know the critics for the past 45 years said my public policy books, articles, columns and op-eds were mostly fiction - although never boring," says Dimond, who serves of counsel with Miller Canfield in Ann Arbor.
During a long plane trip with Jack to visit family in Montana, Dimond - who enjoyed sharing classics such as the Hardy Boys, the Narnia Chronicles, Mike Lupica's sports books and the Star-Catcher series with his grandson - created a story of the Pippin family, with grandparents Pip and Marmie, and grandchildren, Paul, Jack, Kate and Ali, each with a magic talent. "We placed the family on an isolated, nearly deserted peninsula by a Great Lake freezing over with a new Ice Age resulting from the long-dormant Yellowstone volcano erupting," Dimond says. "We drew a rough totem pole to tell the story of this clan as we added new characters. By the time we landed, I had an outline for what would become 'North Coast Almanac.'"
Over the next few weeks Dimond drafted the first of the book's twelve chapters, one for each month, of his futuristic tale: Polar bears, seeking a home on the edge of ice, water and land, threaten the Pippin ancestral home. Each chapter begins with a full-page illustration of an animal character that plays a key role that month. Dimond also added a back story: 50 years and two generations later, the oldest boy Paul - now a grandfather - reads the tale from his old journal to a granddaughter sent Up North to escape a flu epidemic sweeping the South.
The two stories intertwine, and resonate back and forth across the generations, as grandparents and grandchildren struggle with grief, fear and self-doubt and merge their talents to confront ice, invasion and infection.
"My grandson served as my first sounding board as I read each chapter draft to him," Dimond says. "By the time we finished, Jack graduated from learning to read to reading to learn, and I had a novel for other grandparents to share with their grandchildren."
Dimond - whose love of the Great Lakes stems from many summers spent in Glen Arbor in the heart of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore--found a publisher in Huron River Press in Ann Arbor. Print copies are available from Huronriverpress.com and Amazon.com, and digital downloads are available from Kindle and Nook stores online.
The book was ready for publication two years ago, but the publisher delayed while Dimond worked with two University of Michigan engineering-computer geeks who were developing games for the digital version. While that idea fell through when the duo took jobs at Google and Facebook, Dimond says, "A recent Ph.D. now wants to use the tale to build a new platform for what a truly interactive 'book' can be in the 21st century."
While working on "North Coast Almanac," Dimond read several books about reclusive 19th century poet Emily Dickinson and began to imagine an historical novel about a different reclusive poet, Belle. A native of Glen Arbor with a second home in Ann Arbor, she attends the U-M as an older student and becomes close friends with poets Robert Frost, Ted Roethke and Wystan Auden. "Belle's Seasons, 1913-1953," tells the story of their lifelong friendships, including during her last years when she hosts the three Pulitzer poets at her "Up North Writer's Conference" at her family homestead on Sleeping Bear Bay.
The penultimate draft of this historical novel now completed, Dimond is researching and writing a political intrigue-murder mystery thriller. It begins with an attack on the Democratic nominee for President and sitting Vice President at his Ceremonial Office in the White House complex a week before the November election. The first two suspects, who worked closely for the victim, race to solve whodunit as constitutional crises emerge and the future of the United States as a democratic republic hangs in the balance.
Dimond also plans to revisit an earlier attempt at a novel, "Widower's Song." "Maybe, eight years will offer enough perspective that I can finally write the love story I always dreamed I could when I first decided to try my hand at fiction," he says.
Dimond does not suffer from writer's block.
"I write as if in a mania," he says. "Thankfully, after a day or two, I begin to rewrite, revise, start over, rewrite and revise again. If anything, I might do better slowing down and writing less, but it's my style to get going, but never be afraid to view early stabs as only openings to different paths or dead-ends to be discarded."
Dimond is not new to the field of writing, having researched and written three legal books while a law professor. "Beyond Busing" offered a narrative of major race cases decided by the Supreme Court in the 1970s that Dimond helped try. The book concluded with his call for a different approach, i.e., to empower families to choose the school and education that parents determine is best for their own children.
Dimond has been involved in many community efforts, and appreciates Miller Canfield'ss commitment to making a dofferemce in the community, state, region and nation.
"I'm grateful for the opportunity the firm has given me to serve," he says.
Published: Thu, Oct 11, 2012
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