Quixotic Queries and Projecting Professionalism

As writers, we spend a great deal of time focusing on things like point of view, plotting, pacing, passive voice and the craft of constructing sentences that convey the right message to the reader.
But we dread writing query letters and synopses, even though they are the very first “impression” an editor has of us [...]

Researching Our Work

I love research, and can lose myself in it. Recently, I’ve been working on the details needed for a fake foretune teller in Victorian England. She reads palms and uses tarot cards in her routine for wealthy English ladies. The first mistake I made was in ordering a lovely set of tarot cards. [...]

The Engagement Ring

Thanks to Dee for this. I know she’s on her way to Atlanta for the RWA National Conference, so I thought I’d post what she’s helped me find on Victorian engagement rings. Her information was also a reminder to increase my Victorian book collection. I’ll shortly be buying Hands and Hearts: History of Courtship in [...]

Bonnets & Hats

Victorian Ladies’ Headwear

The main type of headwear worn by women of the 1860s was the bonnet. Women’s diaries of the period often contained comments about altering or re-trimming a bonnet to update it. During the 1860s bonnet brims grew taller at the top with the sides curving back to form a “spoon” shape. A curtain, [...]

Let’s see the country

Cross-country vacations were ‘invented’ by Samuel Bowles (1826-1878). The Springfield Republican newspaper editor, he traveled across America and wrote about what a wonderful time he was having doing so, Across the Continent (1865) [1]. Apparently, he believed that crossing the continent might help to med the schism caused by the Civil War.
By bringing “harmony the [...]

Nineteenth Century Rail Travel

By Caroline ClemmonsRail travel’s hypnotic rhythm, unique smells, and the sense of adventure stir the imagination, but a few basic facts offer enlightenment to the advent of personal travel by train. The first commercial rail cars were in England in—believe it or not—1630—and were drawn by horses over wooden rails to transport coal. By the [...]

The Cowboy Mystique

Cowboy. Gambler. Gunslinger. Soiled Dove. Law man. Funny how the very names bring to mind a certain image, one largely created by Hollywood and popular fiction, both romantic and otherwise. These are the characters who live in my imagination, and around whom I like to create my stories. [...]

Happy Dominion Day!

Or, as we’d say today, Happy Canada Day!EXTRACT FROMThe Canada Gazette published by Authority,Ottawa, Saturday, June 20, 1868
PROCLAMATION CANADABy His Excellency the Right Honourable Charles Stanley Viscount Monck, Baron Monck of Ballytrammon, in the County of Wexford, in the Peerage of Ireland, and Baron Monck of Ballytrammon, in the County of Wexford, in the Peerage [...]