Dear Friends, When I was growing up, books about the American Revolution were mostly like this: I am sorry if this one was your favorite! Apart from the occasional (and excellent) My Brother Sam is Dead, I didn’t read many books where I saw myself as a person affected, disaffected, participating, or even by-standing duringContinue reading “A Revolution for the Rest of Us: 15 Books about the American Revolution with a Quaker, Black, LGBTQIA+ or Kid-focus you may not have read (but I’ve read them for you!)”
Tag Archives: historical fiction
Off to Historical Novel Society North America with a sample book cover!
Dear Friends, I’m excited to be planning my trip to Historical Novel Society North America’s (HNSNA) 2023 Conference in San Antonio next month! I’m planning to pitch my finished novel to a couple of smaller publishers while I’m at the conference and learned I need something called a “pitch sheet.” This sheet will have aContinue reading “Off to Historical Novel Society North America with a sample book cover!”
My goyishe potato pancakes: A Jewish-Christian/Quaker Tale
Dear Friends, Happy holidays! At our last Book Club of the year, I was chatting with one of my friends. She was talking about the Italian Christmas she grew up with. Christmas Eve for her was a bigger holiday than Christmas itself, with numerous relatives, and the Feast of the Seven Fishes, a multi-course mealContinue reading “My goyishe potato pancakes: A Jewish-Christian/Quaker Tale”
Deconstructing the Bonnet
It’s the end of September and I’m back at my desk reading and writing about all sorts of things. Reader, I am no longer in the habit of reading literary essays. It has been years! But I stumbled upon this book on Twitter and just knew I had to read it… First, can we talkContinue reading “Deconstructing the Bonnet”
Anthony Benezet’s Revolutionary Academy for Children
Dear Friends, Happy August! Are you already thinking about back-to-school? I am––when I walk through a pile of dried brown leaves, and their smell brings me back to college orientation (when it was still summer, the leaves just beginning to fall). Or it feels like I’m walking home from second grade, or my kids’ “CurriculumContinue reading “Anthony Benezet’s Revolutionary Academy for Children”
10 Ways I Consumed Books in 2021
Dear Friends, It’s July! Do you have time off? Are you going to the beach? Are you reading more? I have been thinking more about my reading habits––there are always so many books I want to read. 2021 was a big reading year for me; I read a total of 40 books, including some ofContinue reading “10 Ways I Consumed Books in 2021”
Sex and the City: Philadelphia 1777
A confluence of events: the reboot of Sex and the City (SATC) i.e. And Just Like That (AJLT) and a family emergency led me to watch both the reboot and the original SATC this past month. With the attention span of a flea the past few weeks, I dipped into Miranda, Carrie, Samantha, and Charlotte’sContinue reading “Sex and the City: Philadelphia 1777”
10 popular novels that taught me how to write about Quakers
Hi all and Happy November! When I started writing my first Quaker novel three years ago, I decided to take a look at other fiction featuring Friends. I didn’t want to look at the classics (nope, Moby Dick, don’t think I can write that!), but at popular books. I started by working through the “FictionContinue reading “10 popular novels that taught me how to write about Quakers”