Old Maid’s Conventions were all the rage in America during the early 20th century. These events, usually held as charity fundraisers, invited the public to watch as young women paraded about in spinster attire while a narrator described their marital ineligibility: this one loved picture shows more than men; that one couldn’t cook; another […]

Everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car. –EB White   I’ll never forget earning my license at 17, driving my parents’ boxy blue Granada alone for the first time. Though I was heading to a friend’s house a mile away, that sense of limitless freedom, the thrill of being […]

My protagonist, Leola, is in love with Joe Belfigli, a gifted horticulturist five years her senior. Besides being handsome as the day is long, with his sparkling black eyes and sun-burnished skin, Joe is different from Leola’s usual bland choice of suitors, can speak three languages, cook up a storm, and admires Leola for her […]

While researching the setting of my novel, I encountered many photos of young Black WWI veterans being threatened by white people—often police officers—for wearing their uniforms in public.  But the one featured here struck an especially deep chord, the valiant young Black man at its center becoming the model for my character, George Gumbs, a […]