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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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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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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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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Haskell County, Kansas is a place of plowed up prairie, violent storms, and stunning sunsets. Scientists hypothesize this remote, isolated place is where the 1918 influenza outbreak began. This sparsely populated corner of southwest Kansas experienced a boom in the 1880s. Farmers and ranchers arrived eager to claim the 160 acres promised by the Homestead Act. Settlers raised cattle, hogs,…
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