I recently came across an enlightening article by Heather Murphy Capps, my favorite author of middle grade fiction. In it, she describes why she used magical realism to navigate the difficult issues of social justice, inherited trauma, and bullying in her recently published novel, “The Rule of Three.” In her introduction, she clarifies a common […]
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 […]
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 […]
The winding road of my journey to conceive, research, and write my novel, Destiny Reclaimed, led me to the wondrous Kingdom of Dahomey in West Africa. The Fon people, who inhabited the kingdom, had a rich culture. Their history, customs, beliefs, and characters present a garden of outrageous blossoms to seed a writer’s imagination. One […]
The Plot Thickens 