What’s in Mrs. Hale’s Receipt for the Million 1857?

2670. Appear in full dress.
2671. Always wear gloves.
2672. Do not wear rings on the outside of your gloves.

Getting Ready for HNS 2017 in Portland

I’m just hours away from getting on a train to Portland for the USA Historical Novel Society Conference in Portland, Oregon. It will be second one I’ve attended in in the states. Last September, I was in Oxford, England for the UK version. This organization has been reviewing supporting historical fiction writers and their work for over 20 years.

Writing historical fiction is something I care about. I believe in doing good research and then write the best story I can about that place and time. I’m more interested in how people coped —like during the German occupation of Norway or being out of luck and money in the Great Depression. I’ve been lucky to be able to interview people who lived in those times, bringing depth and understanding how lives lived back. Mostly of the time, it’s having to rely on books, archives, letters, newspapers, etc.

And I love the community that writes historical fiction. I’ll be meeting up with friends I met three summers ago in Denver at HSN2015 and I’ll be spending time with some of the awesome writers in the Historical Fiction Authors Cooperative I belong to. They are an amazing group of writers writing across all eras and, in my opinion, very knowledgeable historians about the times they write in. Tech savvy too.

 All over the place

 I’ve been on some amazing adventures so far in 2017: The Girlfriend Weekend in Nacogdoches, Texas, a jaunt to Spokane, WA for the Connecting Writers With Hollywood Conference, where I pitched The Jøssing Affair to three different book to film agents and now this. I’m on a panel about NW writers writing about the NW and why the history in my neck of the woods is important and interesting. A highlight for me will be an historic firearms class I’ve signed up for. I hope to learn how to handle a Civil War rifle and pistol and firearms from WW II.

Finally

I’m almost done with my “Pig War” novel, Mist-chi-mus: A Novel of Captivity. Editor notes are in and I have a few tweaks to do in a couple of scenes. Next up, the cover and getting the thing into its template. I have a Sept 30 launch at Village Books.

My other WIP, Thatch’s War is a finalist at the Pacific NW Writers lit contest for historical fiction. I’ll be posting about that and what I learned about min-balls and rifles from that workshop.

What are you up to? Going on any adventures? Write a comment and I’ll put you into the mix to win one of my LeiCrime novellas which have a bit of history in them.

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