Recently I went to a DAR meeting (Yes, that is Daughters of the American Revolution, and I, with my distinctly un-blue blood, am a member). The wonderful speaker was from the Summit County Historical Society, and her presentation was on the Victorian Woman. She brought all kinds of artifacts from the Victorian era in the U.S., Read More
Writing History Blog
Technology in the Victorian Era
So a couple of months ago I sat in on my son’s 5th grade Science class. They were watching a documentary on the Apollo space program, called In the Shadow of the Moon. It occurred to me as I watched that I was the only one in the room who was alive during the first Read More
End of Year Reflections
“Aside from velcro, time is the most mysterious substance in the universe. You can’t see it or touch it, yet a plumber can charge you upwards of seventy-five dollars per hour for it, without necessarily fixing anything.” ― Dave Barry So it’s that time of year again. I don’t particularly like resolutions, since I usually Read More
In which I reveal my previously unknown tendency toward obsessive behavior
So yesterday they announced the winners of the Lone Star contest at the annual Lone Star conference. Sadly I was unable to attend, Houston being rather a long way from Cleveland for a day trip, so I have been obsessively checking my email since 1 PM yesterday even though I knew they wouldn’t notify the Read More
Sweeping Away the Cobwebs
Everyone who has either lived or worked with me knows that I am a slob. I would love to say that my house is an excellent example of organized chaos, but that would be a lie–it is simply chaos. The dishes are clean, the floor is generally swept, and although I am not a candidate Read More
Writing History: Trains
A week or two ago, I spent the better part of an afternoon attempting to find out what time a particular train left King’s Cross in 1866, and how much it cost to ride said train to Durham. I did find out–sort of–and added two sentences to my novel. So in honor of this tremendous Read More
Contest News!
Awhile back I gave you my musings on contests. I still agree with everything I said in that post, but now my perspective is slightly different. I mentioned that I entered three contests this past spring. In the first, which was NEORWA’s Cleveland Rocks Romance contest, I didn’t come close to being a finalist. However, Read More
Reality in Historical Romance
One of the blogs I follow is Hearts Through History, which features some marvelous posts on history in general, as well as historical romance in particular. A recent post by Merry Farmer caught my eye, about historical body image. The concept of skinny, as she notes, is purely a 20th century notion, but most heroines Read More
Inspiration, Italian Style
So I spent the last two weeks in Italy. It was one of those trip-of-a-lifetime sorts of vacations, where we packed in just about every major tourist site, and quite a few minor ones. My husband is a classicist, so there was a heavy emphasis on Roman ruins–Colosseum, Forum, Villa Adriana, Pompeii, Herculaneum, etc.–but we Read More
Germinating the idea seed
When I first started writing one of the many things that made me nervous was that I would run out of things to write about. The fear that I had only one story in me made me hang on for far too long to a manuscript that should have been stuffed under the bed. Read More