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Dagmar Hollmann, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons I keep a dream journal. The superimposition of the strange on the familiar or the familiar on the strange is intriguing. Parts of our subconscious bubble to the surface like random puzzle pieces or bits of mysterious code. Things look the same, but different. New, but familiar. And if we look carefully, isn't that what every day looks like? Same world, different weather. Same friend, new characteristics. Same you and me

I grew up hearing the Mayberry-whistled tunes and tales of our family lore. We youngsters could recite them like catechism around holiday dinner tables. But there was one tendril of ancestry that remained shadowed in silence, save for the odd quip or eyebrow twitch among a few adults—when we asked about those, the subject was quickly changed. My detective work took me to Wheeling throughout the 19th century with its industrialization, the split from Virginia, the war. Faces b

Everyone and his brother seemed to be named Mary in Wheeling in nineteenth century, a bustling city perched on the Ohio River. And in a family like mine, intent on populating the earth, you could find Marys with the same last name—sisters-in-law, aunties, cousins—living next door to one another or dotting their way down the same street. Mary Ann, Mary Louise, Mary Jane, Mary Catherine. If there had been postal delivery to each house (which did not begin until the 1890s) the m

My heart cracked open again and again as I wrote Birdie. She was inspired by two young women from news articles of the day and stories of others from the Underground Railroad Museum in Flushing, Ohio. Having grown up as a "possession," she had to develop the skills of subtle reconnaissance and avoidance of abuse, learning the art of survival from her mother and surrogate grandmother. But those tactics could not protect her indefinitely. Without giving away too much, I can say

While it was not unusual for a Victorian family of any social stratum to lose a child to now-preventable illnesses, Molly's family was hit again and again — siblings picked off like mechanical ducks in a pitiless shooting gallery. Molly (pictured here) grew up as the third youngest of ten stair-step children. In that busy, bustling household, the siblings closest to her in age were her constant companions. Her brother Hugh was ten months older; her younger sisters were her ta

As told by Peregreen Steifel in 1910 The river giveth and the river taketh away, my father always used to say. But it also divideth one bank from the other. You got to be able to cross and double cross a river. It’s the way of commerce and prosperity. Now, there’s many ways to cross a river: you got your ferry, your skiff, your steamboat. From the days of the Indians when they crossed in hollowed log canoes to the day that clever Lydia Shepherd wore a low-cut dress and drank

Before government regulations, any fool could concoct a tonic or serum and tout it as a miracle solution for tuberculosis, cancer, colic, weak blood, thin hair, "lady troubles," or nervous conditions. And so they did. Quackery was rampant in 19th-century medicine. Elixirs, tonics, and nostrums such as "Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup" contained anything from alcohol to opiates to cocaine to arsenic, and were claimed as remedies for teething babies as well as weary or pain-wrack

How AI imagined Magic as a child. Magic (Mary Jane) is inspired by my great-great-grandmother. She started out as a secondary character in the narrative but soon put the kibosh on that. Elbowing her way front and center, she was hell-bent on redemption from a rumor-laden past. She also revealed a sense of humor, which can be redemptive in itself. I would dare readers to guess which of her exploits are based on real-life events and which I invented out of whole cloth. Sometim

I grew up hearing the Mayberry-whistled tunes and tales of our family lore. We youngsters could recite them like catechism around holiday dinner tables. But there was one tendril of ancestry that remained shadowed in silence, save for the occasional quip or eyebrow twitch among a few adults—but when we asked about those, the subject was quickly changed. Digging into the Treasure Chests Several years ago, I began some detective work. The mysterious forebears turned out to be W

The character Ketta is inspired by sweet Molly, a real human who survived numerous traumas, beginning with the deaths of the siblings closest to her in childhood from now-preventable or curable illnesses. Death records were handwritten lamentations cloaked in cold medical terminology. While it was not unusual for a Victorian family of any social stratum to lose a child to disease, the pain of a family being decimated again and again was less common. Grief was complicated by