I subscribe to Word.A.Day for a daily dose of a new, maybe useful word. Today the feature was the book Never Again, about a gambler who yearns to correct the mistakes of his past by not doing (or saying) anything…
Blog Archives
Irma’s big city
My protagonist Irma speaks of Pescasseroli, the biggest city she knows, just visible from her own village. Her mother has never been to its far edge. Pescasseroli is bigger now than it was in the 1880s, still small, but you’ll…
We are immigrants
Today, Martin Luther King Day, I am reminded yet again of how uneasily our blended nation holds its diversity. Shortly after the time frame of my novel (1880s), researchers were hired to create tests “scientifically proving” that 80% of immigrants…
Visiting Opi
Here is one of the finer streets of Opi in Abruzzo, where my protagonist Irma found safety and yet the ultimately strangling circumstances that forced her to leave seems to be named for a pagan goddess of abundance. There is…
My books arrive!
This morning, UPS showed my box of author books loaded on a truck in Knoxville at 5:00 a.m. Twelve hours later they arrive in the midst of a sudden sleet shower. Beautifully packed, altogether beautiful, the fruit of a long…
Caught in Junkaroo
This New Years we were in Nassau in The Bahamas where the Junkaroo street parade begins on New Years Day about 2 a.m. and beats on until noon. Wafted with weed and eating conch fritters, Maurizio and I watched huge…
Opi in the snow
With snow covering Europe and much of the Northeast this Christmas, I imagine Irma in her small stone house in the flickering light and the endless cold but still in this serene beauty.
Bustle busting
Not all Victorians were bustle boosters. This cartoon is from Punch (1870). Bustles were hot, uncomfortable and cumbersome and an impediment to every useful activity except perhaps tatting. [image in public domain]
Bequia and dry leaves
We just got back from a week sailing by Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, including the island of Bequia, with two main streets — Front Street and Back Street. A quiet, slow and lush island with elaborate, even stately bureaucracy…
Irma’s ship, the S/S Servia
In When We Were Strangers, Irma crosses the Atlantic on the Servia. This was a real ship that received heavy use in transporting emigrants. I liked the name, but took the liberty of having the ship leave out of Naples…
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