Overview:

The Cold War preserved a late 19^th century way of peasant life from the modernization that happened elsewhere in Europe. In the remote valleys of Maramureş, soils were too poor, terrain too difficult and the people so few that farming collectivization did not succeed. Families remained on their ancestral land and a forty-year period of mutual non-interference left life largely unaffected by the rise of technology and urbanizing influences. 

The peasants of this book still use horse drawn carts and waterwheels. They clean their clothes in the river, lift their hats to strangers and teach their daughters to weave tapestries for wedding dowries. They hold festivals to honor the first man to plow in Spring, and pilgrimages for their virgins to ask Mother Mary’s blessings. On Easter day, they switch from greeting one another with the formal, village-specific, salutations to the universal holiday greeting: “Christ has risen,” and the necessary response: “Truly He has risen!”

Our photographs cover the range of life in Maramureş. We lived for four seasons in a small village. We entered their lives and obtained intimate portraits of private rituals and quiet moments. Readers will see images that will soon disappear. The young are leaving the villages for opportunities in the cities and the West, while at the same time, Romania’s entry into the European Union will require them to outlaw many of their traditional farming practices, such as back yard pig slaughter. 

The pages of this book will give the last peasants of Europe a place to look out at us with faces that seem capable at the same instant of laughter and tears. They gaze at us across a wide gulf from the slow and solemn pace of their culture to the approaching storm of our western ways. 

Competitive/Complementary Books:  

A Touch of Divinity by Jan van IJken, published 2001 by Valkhof Pers of Nijmegen in the Netherlands and distributed outside the Netherlands by Idea Books of Amsterdam. This book presents 55 pictures which focus on the religious experience of all of Eastern Europe. It differs from our proposal in that it is more specific in its subject matter, and more general in its geographic coverage.

Wooden Churches of the Carpathians: A Comparative Study by Joby Patterson, published 1999 by Eastern European Monographs. This book takes a scholarly approach to the architecture of Maramureş as art history. In contrast, the images in our book will concentrate on people, and the text will be written in a poetic style meant to evoke appreciation for the culture of the area. 

Maramureş by Miya Kosei, published 2000 by Humanitas in Bucharest. Whereas Kosei’s color images illustrate peasant life, he fails to include any text, location or date of photographs to provide a context for understanding his images.

Promotion:

In order to ensure the success of this book in a competitive market, we are committed to making significant efforts toward its promotion. Our program will involve both traditional methods of publicity as well as reaching out to specific markets for which this book will have special appeal. 

Coordinated Publicity Tour:

We have produced a one-hour PowerPoint color slide show covering the cycle of four seasons in Maramureş. We currently give this slide show to civic and professional organizations as well as public libraries. Once we have a book to sell, we will tour 7 major markets to present this slide show: Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Baltimore, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Chicago.  

Before each city tour, we will send a press kit including the following to local radio, TV and newspapers:

°         A pitch letter

°         “The Story Behind the Book,” a short history of our journey in a VW camper van to Maramureş and how we managed to produce these photographs. 

°         Sample photos from the book.

°         Photographs of the authors.

°         Our website address www.leafpile.com  

°         List of galleries that have exhibited the photographs.

°         Any reviews and articles on the book once received. 

We will appear wherever possible on local radio and speak with local reporters to tell stories from our time abroad. 

Libraries:

Few books have ever been printed showing pictures of European peasants. In order to promote this book, we will send a copy with a personalized cover letter & promotional material to three organizations: the American Library Association (www.ala.org, publishers of Booklist), Cahners (www.cahners.com and www.libraryjournal.com, publishers of The Library Journal) and Choice Magazine. These are the nationwide publications from which university, secondary school and public libraries make purchasing decisions. We will follow up with these publishers by phone and letter seeking to appear on their lists.

Museums:

We will send copies of this book to several museums with cover letters and follow-up calls to encourage them to stock this book in their gift shops. We will send this book to the Romanian Peasant Museum in Bucharest, Romania, a major destination for western tourists visiting Romania. This museum was named European Museum of the Year for 1996. We will send packages to the Smithsonian Folk Life Museum in Washington DC, and folk life museums on the east coast of America.

Radio:

We will produce four one-minute recordings telling stories from our village for radio networks such as National Public Radio. We will send these spots first to the national network offices, then to affiliate stations. We will offer them as advertising material in conjunction with our tour interviews. 

Web Site:

Our already established web site www.leafpile.com receives over 10,000 hits a month due to word of mouth, without any advertising. Once we have a book to sell, we will incorporate links to Amazon.com  from our site and will begin seeking additional means to advertise our website. We have maintained a list of fans who have contacted us either directly via e-mail or by leaving their comments on our guest book. We will contact these people with the link to purchase this book. 

Special Interest Marketing:

There are several special interest groups we will target with our marketing efforts:

Romanian Expatriates:

In most major cities of the United States there are sizable communities of Romanians, estimated at approximately 300,000. Maramureş is to Romanians as the Aran Islands are to the Irish: an icon of pure Romanian culture which exerts a strong pull on the hearts and minds of Romanians. Through our contacts with Friends of Romania, and through the Romanian Cultural Center in New York, and through Geta Verdeanu, the Cultural Attaché of the Romanian Embassy in Washington DC, we will contact the Romanian community in every city to which we travel to advertise our slide presentations and put mention of our book into their local newspapers. 

Families of Adopted Romanian Children:

Since the early 1990s there have been over 10,000 Romanian orphans adopted by families in America. We know from numerous e-mails and personal contacts that these parents are hungry for material on Romanian culture. We will send press releases to adoption support groups around the country to make parents aware of this book.

Folk Dance Community:

The publisher of the Folk Dance Phone Book & Group Directory estimates over 10,000 folk dancers in America. They are avid performers of Balkan dances, and many hundreds travel from North America every summer to Romania to study dance. We will use the directory and numerous websites and newsletters which have expressed excitement over our project to publish this book.

American Expatriates:

Through our travels, we’ve come to realize there are approximately 1,000 Americans living overseas in the diplomatic corps, the Peace Corps, and through grant programs such as Fulbright. They have few English books related to their surroundings available to them. We will contact the newsletters for the Peace Corps and Embassies in Romania, Bulgaria, Moldavia and the Ukraine to promote this book. They will be able to purchase it through Amazon.co.uk. 

About the Authors:

Kathleen Laraia McLaughlin is a Fulbright Senior Scholar and holds a Masters of Fine Arts in Photography from Virginia Commonwealth University. Her Romanian peasant photographs are exhibited internationally and continue to win awards.

CV for KATHLEEN LARAIA MCLAUGHLIN

H. Woods McLaughlin has his MFA Screenwriting at the University of Southern California and is a graduate of Swarthmore College. He has pursued many occupations in his life, namely computer maestro, Alaskan fisherman, and organic farmer. He is now creating screenplays and non-fiction.

List of Sections:

Acknowledgements

Introduction

 THE FOUR CORNERS OF LIFE

 THE TRAPPINGS OF LIFE

 THE CEREMONIES OF LIFE

 THE MEANING OF LIFE