Blog
The Story Behind the Story of "The Shopkeeper of Alsace." Part 1.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how stories come to us. Sometimes, they arrive fully told, from prologue to The End, in one complete waterfall. Sometimes they reach out to us hesitantly, in little pieces…a photograph, a memory, a question…. breadcrumbs put on our path, but it’s up to us to notice them. My forthcoming novel,The Shopkeeper of Alsace, came to me in breadcrumbs. The first dropped before me in the mid-1980s, when I was an exchange student in Strasbourg, France. That’s the capital of Alsace, an eastern province right on the Rhine River and the German border.
Deep Underground: Inside the Infamous Maginot Line
I've long been fascinated by this chain of more than two dozen fortified bunkers built along the border between France and Germany, built to protect France from German invasion after World War I. the Maginot Line was a massive military miscalculation. In the spring of 1940, Germany simply went around it, through Belgium and into Northern France.
Traveling up the Hudson River with the Marquis de Lafayette!
He was a French aristocrat, who from a young age was drawn to the ideals of The Enlightenment: liberty, constitutional government, and the separation of church and state. The American colonies’ fight for independence appealed to him deeply, and he provided ships, men, money, and materiel to the American cause.
A NH writer ahead of her time: Sarah Josepha Hale
Sarah Josepha Hale was an author, poet, magazine editor, and activist, born in 1788. Her work had enormous national impact despite the times, when society strictly limited “acceptable” roles for women.
Meeting America's Favorite Fighting Frenchman: My Encounter with Revolutionary War Hero, the Marquis de Lafayette
Meeting America's Favorite Fighting Frenchman: My Encounter with Revolutionary War Hero, Marquis de Lafayette
7 New Podcast Literary Spotlights: ReadLocalNH is Championing Granite State Creativity with SNHU & NH Writers Project
This winter, my podcast, ReadLocalNH, will help broaden your booklist even more, with seven additional episodes, featuring winners of the 2023 New Hampshire Writers Project Literary Awards. Helped by three wonderful interns at Southern New Hampshire University, I’ll introduce you to novelists, poets, non-fiction writers, children’s authors and more – who work right here in the Granite State.
An Overlooked World War II Memorial Can Be Found In Manchester, New Hampshire
In 1948, French citizens filled forty-nine railroad cars with tens of thousands of gifts, to show their gratitude for American assistance during World War Two, and for the relief aid that came after.
How, why, and when to listen to ReadLocalNH, a Podcast for Readers
My motto for my podcast for readers is "expand your literary horizons by reading from your own backyard."
Holocaust Remembrance Day, April 18th, 2023
On Holocaust Remembrance Day, we must all commit ourselves to this: Never Again.
Shop Local, Eat Local...Read Local.
ReadLocalNH: The threads of an idea for a podcast began weaving themselves together in the spring of 2022.