This is a short piece this month in honor of Ursula K. Le Guin. In the course of many edits, reading about craft, and working with critique groups, I evolved into writing in deep POV to express the emotions, flavors, and textures of my historical novel directly through the senses of my protagonist. The results […]
Written in 1900, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” was born of the oppression and cruelty of post-Reconstruction Era America. It is a strong, rousing, inspirational song, full of faith and hope. It rings out the resilience and determination of a people striving for acceptance and equality. And, with its final line, “True to Our Native […]
To follow up my post about the Christmas season and the trauma that sometimes accompanied the new year in the slave quarters, I thought I would add a quick note about one January 1 that brought hope. It was January 1, 1863. President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. He had written a version of […]
The Christmas and New Year holidays fell in the time between the end of one farming cycle and the beginning of the next. While much of my commentary below applies to the plantation system in general, I am writing primarily about Virginia. In December, work on plantations there was at the lowest level of the […]
My post from March 23, 2021, looked at Mary Moore Easter’s excellent book of poetry, Free Papers. The poems in it reveal the trials and obstacles of a woman–Eliza Winston–determined to obtain her freedom in a society groomed to deprive her of it. The title refers to the manumission papers that would declare an end […]
On September 23, 2021, I posted a “Tip O’ The Hat!” to my daughter, Heather Murphy Capps, for signing her first publishing deal. Well, now the book is here! Indigo and Ida is a middle grade novel about eighth grader, Indigo, whose encounter with a book by Black journalist and activist, Ida B. Wells, leads […]
To Heather Murphy Capps on her awesome achievement! (Bragging rights: She’s my daughter.) I am so proud of her. This is well deserved. Indigo and Ida will be an outstanding addition to middle grade books that highlight diverse characters and themes about diversity. Kudos to her, to Shannon Hassan at Marsal Lyon Literary Agency, and […]
Saturday was Plantation Day. I visited three of the most famous and best preserved James River plantations–Berkeley, Shirley, and Westover. All three are built in the Georgian style of architecture and took at least five years to complete. The reason for the long completion time was that all the construction materials, except the glass windows […]
I’m spending five days in the Richmond, VA area on a self-designed research and writing retreat. Both my protagonist and the emerging country into which she was conscripted began to shape their destinies here. My novel is historical fiction, and I want to be true to the history that forms the core of the creation. […]
I am stepping away from my usual themes today to honor my husband, whom I recently lost–in flesh, but not in spirit. Willem Zeger Offerman (Will), age 72, passed away from COPD-related pneumonia in Salem, Virginia, on April 29, 2021. “That’s like looking a cow in the rear end!” is what he would probably think […]
The Plot Thickens 