Research can turn up fascinating stories that aren’t directly related to the topic being investigated. Last October, I shared the story of Lady Agnes Frankland, the poor girl from Marblehead, Massachusetts who married an English Aristocrat. Last week while transcribing research notes I gathered at the Phillips Library, I met
Hawai`i Public School students and teachers went back to their classrooms last Monday, August 1st. I probably will never get used to the present calendar for the school year. I recognize it, without entirely buying into the new system. When I attended school, we started about the third week in
The definitions are clear, the phrase Hair On Fire refers to a situation in which someone is impassioned, wild, crazy, filled with rage, frantic, and/or overwhelmed — but not necessarily out of control. You can probably remember one more realities in your life when you felt like your hair was
Have you ever taken a rapid, probably shallow breath, and said, “I feel like my hair is on fire.”? It isn’t, of course. It’s the same hair you’ve always had. It still sits on your head, and the flames that seem real to you are entirely invisible. You might be
Long ago, before public health measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19 sent workers home, about 50 per cent of Americans in the work force spent their days in an office, either in cramped open spaces or small cubicles spread out across a large room. During my early employment history,
The picture on the left looks back to shore from a mid-point on Derby Wharf. On the left side with a cupola, you can just see the red brick Customs House. Next to it, on the right, is Hawke’s House and the next house is Derby House, also built of
Site visits are an important part of my writing research, because being where my characters’ experiences occurred gives me a greater sense of closeness to their lives. My most recent book, Saxon Heroines, took me back to Whitby Abbey where I videoed waves pounding on the headland. When writing Rama’s
When I was young, I enjoyed visiting “historic” houses. At that time, I equated “historic” with an 18th or 19th century house. A house that was simply “old” didn’t impress me much, because a house from 1930 didn’t strike me as being all that different from a house of 1960.
The thing about research trips, or any sort of travel, is that you never know what you will discover. Case in point: Rowley, Massachusetts, a small town, population 6,161, on the Massachusetts North Shore. Prior to my visit to the Phillips Library, now located in Rowley, I knew nothing about
I’m developing a novel based on the Crowninshield Family, seafarers and merchants based in Salem, Massachusetts during the late 18th century. The family was large and fractious, and the extent of their business dealings stretched from Europe to India to the Cape of Good Hope and numerous trading stops in-between.
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