History, Real Life and Faith
This year’s Caldecott award went to a picture book that tells the true story behind a novel: Finding Winnie. A charming story about the author’s great-grandfather. Finding Winnie describes how he adopted a bear while traveling by troop train from Winnepeg, Canada, to a port from which they sailed to England in the early days of World War I. The novel?…
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I was a year or so into writing a detailed genealogy when one of my distant cousins challenged my research discipline. “You’re a fine writer, and you concoct very interesting ideas, but it means nothing if you don’t cite the references.” As a past president of the Sons of the American Revolution, Glenn had spent years researching his family history….
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Do you like to read love letters? Well, certainly if they’re addressed to you. But what if, as an historian, you’re reading someone else’s love letters, say a husband to his wife during a war? I’ve written about this issue before and, frankly, it feels intrusive. The question still remains in my mind: “Is it research or voyeurism?” Look at the…
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If you’ve read as many WWI books and war-based fiction as I have, you may be wondering “what IS bandage rolling?” Why were women always rolling bandages and what did it have to do with war? As a child in 20th century America, the only bandages I was familiar with were bandaids. How do your roll those? When we got…
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Do novelists have an easier time with prayer requests than “normal” people? In the sense that they can imagine God doing great and wonderful things even in the grimmest circumstances? Do you know people like that? Or if not a novelist like me, do you perhaps know imaginative people who often speak with confidence about what God could do? My husband…
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I’m in the midst of writing mania these days. It’s glorious. It’s exhausting. It’s numbing. It’s an adrenaline high and I’ll be happy when it’s done. What is writing mania? Let me describe Saturday to you. I’ve been trapped in a wild writing cycle all week long–waking early, writing for several hours, then living a “normal” day, which included writing…
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