Category: Nonfiction
-
My Writing Life: 12
In My Writing Life: 10 I said that I started a blog in 2014 and promised that I would write about it later. And so here I am, concluding this series on my writing life by talking about my blog, “Much to Write About,” on WordPress. I started this blog because writer-illustrator-designer friend Robin Koontz…
-
My Writing Life: 10
The 2010s were a new and very different time for me as a writer, in three important ways. First, I dipped my toes into the world of self-publishing . . . and then I jumped into the enterprise head-first. Because I’ve blogged about most of my self-published books before, I won’t dwell on them. But…
-
My Writing Life: 8
In my previous blog I mentioned that researching Women at Play was an intense, four-year affair, and that it forever colored my attitude toward writing nonfiction. The nonfiction subjects I chose after Women at Play were individuals: Jack Graney on the one hand, Earl Derr Biggers on the other. Everything about Women at Play was…
-
My Writing Life: 7
When I was a student at Kent State University I carried a double major: English and History. Anybody perusing my life in writing would think that I have employed only my knowledge of English and have disregarded my knowledge of History. But when it came to researching the hidden history of women in baseball and…
-
My Writing Life: 4
Eventually I gave up my day job, knowing it would mean a decline in income, but an increase in opportunity to write and sell what I wrote. During my first three months of self-employment, I had grave concerns about my decision — mainly because I had said yes to a gigantic editing job for a…
-
Long Time Coming: Earl Derr Biggers Book
The things from my life that I turn into books are sometimes predictable, sometimes not. I always wanted to be a baseball player, so it makes sense to me that I turned that desire into a novel, She’s on First. And I worked in the typesetting department of a major newspaper, so it makes sense…
-
Women at Play: A Square Book
My first novel, She’s on First, was a baseball novel, published in 1987. After I spent 1987 promoting She’s on First, I decided I would write a true account of women in baseball. I started researching this subject in January of 1988 and figured I would finish by December. Wrong! It took me four years,…
-
Mountain Passes: Sitgreaves Pass
Sitgreaves Pass was named after Captain Lorenzo Sitgreaves, a member of the Corps of Topographical Engineers of the US Army. Prior to being given the assignment that led him through Sitgreaves Pass, he had worked on a wide variety of civil engineering duties. Among them: constructing roads in Wisconsin; surveying Sault St. Marie; surveying the…