Jo March in Little Women has long been an inspiration for my novel’s main character Helen. When considering which books and heroines Helen would have read in the early 1900s, Louisa May Alcott and her story about family or independence, love or career, and domesticity or adventure would have given Helen much to ponder. Other books that guided the development…
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New Women: Jo March and Jane Eyre
Historical Novel Society Conference
Life was pretty fun last week during the Historical Novel Society conference. Hundreds of historical fiction authors came together for three days of inspiration, presentations, and discussions. One of my favorite events was a coffee klatch discussing the New Woman hosted by historical fiction authors Hazel Gaynor and Stephanie Lehmann. “The New Woman,” as the media branded her in the…
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Spanish Flu Deaths Continue to Stun
The Spanish flu death toll is estimated at 50,000,000 people. That number continues to stun me and was one of the reasons I was inspired to write a historical fiction novel about the 1918 influenza pandemic. I think it’s hard for us—in our modern world of vaccines and antivirals and antibiotics—to fathom 50 million deaths from flu or even 50…
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Researching & Writing Historical Fiction
Writing historical fiction about the 1918 flu pandemic, which took place during the last year of world war one, has taken years of research. Since 2010, to be exact. My historical novel required learning about medicine in ww1, war nursing, the history of viruses, as well as all I could discover about the great influenza. In talking with other authors…
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Spanish Flu Spread by Soldiers Training at Camp Funston
Not that anyone called it the Spanish Flu then. When influenza first struck soldiers training for World War 1 —in early March of 1918 at Camp Funston in Kansas—army medical staff didn’t concern themselves. Contagious diseases such as influenza attacked often with so many people crowded in mess halls and barracks. Better to let them share it and get it…
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