History, Real Life, and Faith
Texas brides and romance? You bet! Nine of Barbour’s favorite historical fiction novella writers have collaborated on a romance collection with an emphasis on Texas. As the descendent of Texas pioneers, I’ve written a story to include one of my ancestors. The Hanks family of Texas My great-great-great-grandfather, Reverend Thomas Hanks lived in Tennessee in the early part of the…
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Thomas Jefferson was the president of the United States and Dolley Madison was the queen of Federal City society when my great-great-grandfather was born. I can never quite wrap my brain around how young the United States is when I think about that fact. My children knew their great-grandfather–he was 90 years old when my oldest son was born and…
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I read Helen Keller’s biography, The Story of My Life, as a child and was inspired by her persistence in overcoming her profound handicaps. Helen was blind and deaf. Many people have enjoyed the stage play and the movie, The Miracle Worker, about Helen Keller’s meeting with Teacher Annie Sullivan and Sullivan’s determination to turn Helen from an animal into a child with dignity. Helen was…
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How do you react to a do-gooder? I spent many hours during the end of the last century, hunched in the dark before an antiquated machine with a big hand crank. An eye-glaring microfilm machine light shone through plastic strips with faded squibbles, throwing down shadows before me to make out. After reading microfilm for hours my eyes often hurt, but…
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Let’s put a story to a face. Take a look at the woman to the left. What color is her hair? What type of woman do you think she is? Tall? Agile? Efficient? Industrious? Is she wearing glasses? Is she, perhaps, some sort of ancient librarian? When you write historical fiction, you often choose your characters based on photos–or in…
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What to do with Grief?