Finished #reading The Frozen River, #historicalFiction set in Maine and inspired by Martha Ballard journals (1735 – 1812). It is a story of a literate,#feminist midwife with a principled, ethical husband and 1/2 dozen mainly adult children. The interesting cast of characters, the greed and corruption of the #patriarchy, land theft, and plight of #women are the bones of this compelling story. It confirms the old adage that #racism, #sexism and misogyny often come in the same package.
#books

I've been adding to my #TiddlyWiki notes for the big WIP. It's a very tiddly--I mean fiddly process the way I've set it up, with a formal tagging system and scripts to list facts and assertions under their sources and allowing every fact or conclusion to be traced back to a source. The effort is worth it for making everything defensible, transparent, and traceable because I KNOW major points of what I write will be controversial, if only in a manufactured-controversy kind of way, so I'd better have my sources lined up in advance. It's also for the sheer convenience of looking stuff up, tbh. As always the trap with #research is that once I start I never want to stop... #history #HistoricalFiction #LjWrites

What a witching view!

My writing would be different without my garden, the fields behind my house, and the wind on my skin. Some words can only grow in a little bit of nowhereness.

Witches are not real and witchcraft does not work ...

#writing #amwriting #blogging #witch #historicalfiction

https://mistresswitchwrites.com/2020/09/16/the-tragedy-of-witching/

The Crooked Medium's Guide to Murder is getting love for its research and voice.

"With the perfect mix of meticulous research, emotional depth and a rollicking good story besides, Stephen Cox delivers surprises to the very end."

"the voice is wholly Victorian and delightfully understated and wry."

#HistoricalFiction #booksky #Victorian #murder #SFF #History

free eBook if you sub to my newsletter

https://stephencox.co.uk/books/upcoming/

Escape to 19th-century Ireland with The Fitzgeralds of Dublin Series.

Books 1-9 box sets - http://mybook.to/FitzgeraldsBoxSets

#TheFitzgeraldsOfDublinSeries #BooksByLornaPeel #FamilySaga #HistoricalFiction #19thCentury #Ireland #IrishFiction #IrishBooks #KindleUnlimited @bookstodon

It's always nail-biting when you send something new out into the world, especially a 'first'. #Players1715 is my wife Amy's first book for adults & first #historicalfiction. We're incredibly grateful for these encouraging words from early readers.
DRM-free ebooks:
https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/the-players-act-1
https://amzn.eu/d/gFzEGRS

Paperback:
https://amzn.eu/d/8Ftu8Sd

#Shakespeare #BookReview #Bookstodon
Cover: Sarah Christie

It's always nail-biting when you send something new out into the world, especially a 'first'. #Players1715 is my 1st book for adults & 1st #historicalfiction. Grateful for encouraging words from early readers. www.amazon.co.uk/Players-Act-... #Shakespeare #BookReview #BookSky Cover: Sarah Christie

What a witching view!

Taken at a place where witches giggle and demons dance. We all need a place to got, do we not?

#ScribesAndMakers July 29: Why do you like your genre(s)/style(s)?

I started my writing in speculative fiction, specifically fan fiction in speculative fandoms, but I increasingly turned to #historicalFiction as an opportunity to tell untold and under-told stories about groups that get less attention in mainstream history: Women, queer people, working-class people, and disabled people. Disabilities for instance are regularly erased even from the narratives of people you've heard of--did you know Harriet Tubman had seizures and narcolepsy from a head injury, for instance?

My #shortStory A Very Long Malaise, produced into a podcast episode by @heatherrosejones 's wonderful Lesbian Historic Motif project, is a case in point. There are records and allusions to working women in the Korean royal palace falling in love with each other, but none is mentioned by name which was probably best for the safety of these women. My story clothes that premise in the bodies, inner lives, and relationships of hopefully plausible characters for the selected period to tell an untold history. https://lesbianhistoricmotif.podbean.com/e/a-very-long-malaise-by-lj-lee-the-lesbian-historic-motif-podcast-episode-301/ The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast's fiction episodes all do this for sapphic people from a range of eras around the world and are well worth checking out. https://www.alpennia.com/lhmp/essays/lesbian-historic-motif-podcast-index-fiction-episodes

Today in Labor History July 29, 1903: The first delegation from Mother Jones’ March of the Mill Children arrived at Teddy Roosevelt's summer home in Oyster Bay, Long Island. They went there to publicize the harsh conditions of child labor. Roosevelt wouldn’t allow them through the gates. In 1901, the millworkers in Pennsylvania went on strike. Many were young women and girls, demanding to be paid adult wages. At the time, fully one in every six American children was employed, generally at extremely low pay and often under dangerous conditions. Many of the kids had lost fingers or limbs. Mother Jones would go on to cofound the IWW, in 1905.

The march started in Philadelphia, on July 7. During the march, Mother Jones gave her famous “Wail of the Children” speech, which included the following lines:

“After a long and weary march… we are on our way to see President Roosevelt at Oyster Bay. We will ask him to recommend the passage of a bill by congress to protect children against the greed of the manufacturer. We want him to hear the wail of the children, who never have a chance to go to school, but work from ten to eleven hours a day in the textile mills of Philadelphia, weaving the carpets that he and you walk on, and the curtains and clothes of the people. In Georgia where children work day and night in the cotton mills, they have just passed a bill to protect song birds. What about the little children from whom all song is gone? The trouble is that the fellers in Washington don’t care. I saw them last winter pass three railroad bills in one hour, but when labor cries for aid for the little ones they turn their backs and will not listen to her. I asked a man in prison once how he happened to get there. He had stolen a pair of shoes. I told him that if he had stolen a railroad, he could be a United States Senator.”

In her autobiography, Mother Jones wrote the following about the march: “Every day little children came into Union Headquarters, some with their hands off, some with the thumb missing, some with their fingers off at the knuckle. They were stooped things, round shouldered and skinny. Many of them were not over ten years of age, the state law prohibited their working before they were twelve years of age.

It wasn’t just in mills, either. Children worked on farms, in factories, as servants in rich people’s homes, pretty much anywhere where they could do the work. They were often chosen over adults because they could be paid much less, and were less likely to demand rights, or to organize a strike. They could also do things with their small hands that adults were often less able to do well, particularly dangerous things, like unclogging gears and conveyor belts. I portray this in my novel, ANYWHERE BUT SCHUYLKILL. My protagonist, Mike Doyle, starts work in the coal breaker at age 12. However, many boys worked in breakers as young as 6. And many of them were missing fingers or hands. Many died young, too, from accidents.

You can get a copy from these indie retailers:
https://www.keplers.com/
https://www.greenapplebooks.com/

Or send me $25 via Venmo (@Michael-Dunn-565) and your mailing address, and I will send you a signed copy!

#workingclass #LaborHistory #childlabor #exploitation #children #motherjones #march #protest #pennsylvania #IWW #strike #union #mikedoyle #anywherebutschuylkill #books #fiction #historicalfiction #author #writer #novel @bookstadon

Today in Labor History July 29, 1848: The police put down the Tipperary Revolt against British rule. The Young Ireland movement led this nationalist rebellion, which was part of a wave of European revolutions that occurred that year. Because the revolt occurred in the wake of the Great Famine, and the Irish were still suffering from hunger and poverty, it is also sometimes called the Famine Rebellion. During the revolt, the rebels chased an Irish Constabulary into the Widow McCormack’s house in Ballingarry, South Tipperary, where they took her children hostage. She demanded to be let in, but the cops refused. Rebel leaders tried negotiating with the cops, so that no one would get hurt. “We’re all Irishmen,” they said. “Put down your guns and you’re free to go.” However, the cops began firing and a gunfight ensued, lasting hours, until a large group of police reinforcements chased the rebels off. The authorities later arrested many of the leaders and sent them to the penal colony in Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania).

In my first novel, “Anywhere But Schuylkill,” my main character’s mother is brought to America in 1848 by her family, who were fleeing deportation to Van Diemen’s Land for their role in the uprising.

You can get a copy from these indie retailers:
https://www.keplers.com/
https://www.greenapplebooks.com/

Or send me $25 via Venmo (@Michael-Dunn-565) and your mailing address, and I will send you a signed copy!

#workingclass #LaborHistory #ireland #revolt #rebellion #uprising #tipperary #independence #republican #police #policebrutality #Revolution #mikedoyle #anywherebutschuylkill #books #fiction #historicalfiction #author #writer #novel @bookstadon

Today in Labor History July 28, 1932: General Douglas MacArthur, Major Dwight D. Eisenhower and their troops, on orders by President Herbert Hoover, burned down a shantytown by unemployed veterans near the U.S. Capitol. They also shot and killed two veterans. 20,000 ex-servicemen had been camped out in the capital demanding a veterans’ bonus the government had promised but never given. Consequently, they called themselves the Bonus Army. Cavalry troops and tanks fired tear gas at veterans and their families and then set the buildings on fire. MacArthur and President Herbert Hoover declared that they had saved the nation from revolution. The shootings are depicted in Barbara Kingsolver's novel “The Lacuna.”

#workingclass #LaborHistory #bonusarmy #verterans #wwi #washington #military #Revolution #writer #author #books #fiction #novel #historicalfiction @bookstadon

'An excellent book depicting village life and morals in the Ireland of 1835.' Discovering Diamonds

Amazon - http://mybook.to/brotherly-love
Other Retailers - https://books2read.com/BrotherlyLove

#BrotherlyLoveByLornaPeel #BooksByLornaPeel #KindleUnlimited #HistoricalFiction #IrishHistoricalFiction #HistoricalRomance #IrishHistoricalRomance #19thCentury #Ireland #IrishFiction #IrishBooks #BooksSetInIreland @bookstodon

Today in Labor History July 26, 1937: Photojournalist and antifascist Gerda Taro was killed while covering the Spanish Civil War. She was 26. Thousands attended her funeral. Tara was a German Jew, who had to flee Germany after being imprisoned for her anti-Nazi activism. While living in exile, in France, she met another Jewish exile and photojournalist, Endre Ernő Friedmann. Together they published their work under the pseudonym Robert Capa. Scholar Hanno Hardt described their work as such: "Taro and Capa helped invent the genre of modern war photography while fueling the vicarious experience of the spectator by offering an approximation of life in the conflict zone."[

After Taro’s death, Friedmann would retain the name Robert Capa and go on to become recognized as one of the greatest photojournalists ever. In 1947, he cofounded the great Magnum photojournalism cooperative, which included other great photographers, like Maria Eisner, Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger, and William and Rita Vandivert.

Madrid and Paris both named streets for Taro, Calle Gerda Taro and Rue Gerda Taro, respectively.
Helena Janeczek portrayed Taro in her historical novel, The Girl With the Leica (1917).

#workingclass #LaborHistory #fascism #nazis #antifascism #jewish #antisemitism #hitler #franco #gerdataro #robertcapa #journalism #photography #photojournalism #spain #civilwar #fiction #historicalfiction #novel #books #author #writer @bookstadon

Today in Labor History July 26, 1944: The Red Army liberated Lviv, Ukraine, from the Nazis. Only 300 Jews survived the Nazi occupation out of 160,000 who were living there before the Nazi invasion. The occupation is depicted in several books, including Robert Marshall’s “The Sewers of Lvov” (1991) and Krsytyna Chiger’s memoir “The Girl in the Green Sweater” (2007). Polish director Agnieszka Holland’s film “In Darkness,” which was nominated for an Oscar, is based on these two books.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #nazis #fascism #holocaust #redarmy #russia #soviet #ussr #ukraine #books #fiction #historicalfiction #author #writer #film @bookstadon

Today in Labor History July 26, 1877: Federal troops killed up to 30 workers at the "Battle of the Viaduct," Chicago, during the Great Upheaval (AKA Great Train Strike). This came after the Workingmen’s Party (affiliated with the First International), organized a rally of six thousand people. At this gathering, a former Confederate Army Officer from Waco, Texas, named Albert Parsons, gave a fiery speech. The events of the Great Upheaval radicalized Parsons and his wife Lucy. In the years following it, they became some of the nation’s leading anarchist organizers. The state executed him in 1887 as one of the Haymarket Martyrs who had been fighting for the eight-hour workday. His widow, Lucy, an African American woman, went on to cofound the radical Industrial Workers of the World, in 1905, along with Mother Jones, Eugene Debs, Big Bill Haywood, and others.

The day after Parsons’ speech, protests erupted. Police fired into the crowd, killing three men. The next day, an armed demonstration of 5,000 workers fought the police and soldiers in the Battle of the Viaduct, when they killed as many as 30 more workers and injured over one hundred. One journalist wrote, “The sound of clubs falling on skulls was sickening for the first minute, until one grew accustomed to it. A rioter dropped at every whack, it seemed, for the ground was covered with them.” A judge later found the police guilty of preventing the workers from exercising their right to freedom of speech and assembly

The Great Upheaval was a national strike wave involving major uprisings in Martinsburg, WV, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Saint Louis, San Francisco, Boston, Reading, PA, New York and many other cities. I write about it in my historical “Great Upheaval Trilogy.” My first book, “Anywhere But Schuylkill,” takes place in the years immediately preceding the Great Upheaval. Book II, “Red Hot Summer in the Smoky City,” my current WIP, takes place in Pittsburgh, at the height of the Great Upheaval.

You can read my complete article about the Great Upheaval here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/03/31/the-great-upheaval/

You can read my biography of Lucy Parsons here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/03/24/lucy-parsons/

And you can get my book ANYWHERE BUT SCHUYLKILL from these indie book sellers:
https://www.keplers.com/
https://www.greenapplebooks.com/

Or send me $25 via Venmo (@Michael-Dunn-565) and your mailing address, and I will send you a signed copy!

#workingclass #LaborHistory #chicago #massacre #railroad #GeneralStrike #wildcat #strikewave #IWW #socialism #haymarket #anarchism #lucyparsons #policebrutality #policemurder #fiction #novel #historicalfiction #writer #author #books @bookstadon

'Should come with an addiction warning!'

Escape to 19th-century Ireland with The Fitzgeralds of Dublin Series.

Amazon - http://mybook.to/FitzgeraldsSeries
Other Retailers - https://books2read.com/LornaPeel

#TheFitzgeraldsOfDublinSeries #BooksByLornaPeel #FamilySaga #HistoricalFiction #19thCentury #Dublin #Ireland #IrishBooks #IrishFiction #IrishHistoricalFiction #BookSeries #BooksSetInIreland #KindleUnlimited @bookstodon