Joan Spencer Slaughter publishes novel more than 25 years in the making

Joan Spencer Slaughter expresses herself best on paper. She's kept diaries and travel journals for as long as she can remember. In school, she prayed for essay questions on exams because she knew she'd ace any test that involved writing. As an adult, she wrote freelance nonfiction pieces for newspapers and magazines.

But writing has also served as an outlet for her emotions during tragedy.

In 1988, Joan's husband died and her youngest child went away to college. It was a difficult time for her, and her writing became more personal -- therapeutic, even.

"I've never been one to confide in others. Growing up in my family we didn't share how we felt; we didn't express our thoughts," she says.

So she dumped her emotions on paper and kept at it for two years. The result was her first novel, "Four Covers." She spent a year trying to find an agent to help publish her book, but having no luck, she set the book aside.

"I put it down because I had sent it to 86 agents and I couldn't find an agent," she says. "By this time I had been a widow for four years and was out of my mourning and grieving period."

Joan began traveling the world and spending time with her young grandchildren; she even started dating again.

"I had no reason to put my emotions anywhere, so I set it aside," she says now of her novel.

Joan married her current husband, Dr. Rudie Slaughter, 17 years ago. He was a native of Dunklin County, and together they moved to Cape Girardeau. They now live at the Chateau Girardeau.

But tragedy struck again when Joan's son took his own life six years ago. It was devastating to her, she says, and she battled depression for years afterward.

When her other son, Lucas McWilliams, suggested she pick up "Four Covers" again, and have it published, she wasn't thrilled with the idea. She was in her late 70s by this time and thought it was a little "ridiculous" to revive a novel she'd written more than 20 years ago. But she allowed Lucas to transfer the decades-old text from her antiquated floppy disks and email it back to her. She even let Rudie read her novel for the first time.

"He read it and loved it. He was charmed by it. He said the dialogue was out of the ballpark," she says.

Joan revised her novel, and overcame her depression in the process. Her son took care of all the publication details, and it became available on Amazon.com on Jan. 20 -- Joan's 80th birthday. It is also available at Hastings in Cape Girardeau.

LAURA SIMON ~ lsimon@semissourian.com

"Four Covers" was very much inspired by Joan's own life. It tells the story of Karen Albright, an attorney and the daughter of a U.S. senator, as she navigates her three marriages and encounters moral and ethical dilemmas, love and lust, trauma and joy.

Most of the novel takes place in Kansas City, where Joan lived and worked for many years. In fact, while writing the novel, she drove all over Kansas City with notebooks and graph paper in hand so she could map out the restaurants, businesses and homes her characters frequent. She also used notebooks to keep track of her characters' personalities, backgrounds and appearances so they would remain true throughout the novel.

Similar to the character Karen Albright, Joan's father was an attorney and her parents were politically involved in her home state of Nebraska, which while she was young had fewer than 1 million residents.

"Everyone who was successful and prominent knew everyone else who was successful and prominent," says Joan. As an adult, she has worked political jobs at local, state and federal levels, providing further knowledge and personal insight for her novel.

Joan has enjoyed the writing process so much -- especially the research -- that she's almost completed her second book, a sequel to "Four Covers," titled "Beware the Healer." She hopes to have the book finished and published by late summer.

And while her writing started out during dark times of her life, she now writes for the enjoyment of it. She says writing is her bliss, and it's added exuberance and enthusiasm to her life. Having a circle of church friends and Rudie as a husband has helped, too, she says.

"I have a husband who, besides being fantastic and wonderful and smart, is very supportive," she says.

In addition to writing, Joan is on the board of trustees for the Cape Girardeau Public Library and loves to read. She started a book club at Chateau Girardeau nearly 13 years ago and still volunteers as its facilitator.

"The thing about book clubs is that you can all read the same book and it's like you've read 15 different books, because everyone is different," she says. "Books are the only thing I've been interested in my whole life -- the only thing I wanted as a gift or wanted to spend money on."