I knew very little about the life of Charles Lindbergh and his wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, before “The Aviator’s Wife.” I had, as a child, seen the Spirit of St. Louis at the Smithsonian museum. My father is a pilot and we spent many hours in the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum. I had even …
I talk—a lot. Just ask my husband. He would agree. I talk at work. I talk to my previously mentioned spouse. I talk to my children. I talk to my mother, sister, and father. I talk to my dog, some might say more than is healthy. I even talk to some inanimate objects. I also …
I love history. There are many things about studying history that I love. One thing I love is trying to grasp where humanity as been, understanding the way events and knowledge work together. My love of history has married with my love of creative writing, which is why I tend to write historical fiction. In …
“How do I know what I think until I see what I say?”–E.M. Forster
By Dora Carrington (1893–1932) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
If you’re of a certain age, say about 30 to 35 years-old, there is only one Anne Shirley. She looks a lot like the actress Megan Follows. There were two movies made when I was a young girl: Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea. I was about six or seven when the first …
Ernest Hemingway
“You invent fiction, but what you invent it out of is what counts. True fiction must come from everything you’ve ever known, ever seen, ever felt, ever learned.”–Ernest Hemingway
Exploring the books from my past. I went through this whole phase where I was a total book snob. If the author hadn’t been dead for at least 50 years, I wasn’t going to read it. In the last few years, I have returned to current day writing and I am so glad I did. …
I found this little gem while researching for my novel. It comes from a collection of Caroline Henderson’s writings in a book called Letters from the Dust Bowl. “In reality, education can only be attained by personal effort, and should be for each a continuing process, ending only with life itself, or possibly then just …
Michael Ennis’ The Malice of Fortune had two things going against it when I started reading it. First, it deals with Rodrigo Borgia, also known as Pope Alexander IV, and his family’s reign in Italy. I know very little about this period. I knew this going in and bought it with eyes wide open. However, …
You know you’re a history nerd when…you spend fours hours at the historical society flipping through old newspaper microfiche and it still isn’t long enough.
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