Tag: Native Americans

The Other 2.4 Books I Read in February 2024

On March 4, 2024, I blogged about three of the 5.4 books I read in February. After writing about #OnThisDay anniversary topics the last two Mondays, today I get to tell you about the other 2.4 books I read last month.

Slave Escapes & the Underground Railroad in North Carolina, by Steve M. Miller & J. Timothy Allen

Slave Escapes & the Underground Railroad in North Carolina, by Steve M. Miller & J. Timothy Allen

Most documented history of the Underground Railroad concentrates on how it operated in the northern states. This is understandable, considering the very secret nature of the operation. As you can tell from the title, this book is almost exclusively about the Underground Railroad in North Carolina.

This was an enlightening book, just as I anticipated. Much of it is about the part Quakers in North Carolina played in the so-called Underground Railroad. I knew that there were many Quaker early settlers in the Guilford County section of North Carolina, but I was surprised to learn that there were many Quaker settlers in the northeastern region of the state.

Another thing I learned from reading the book is that some Quakers owned slaves. The denomination gradually changed its attitude about slavery, which necessitated some creativity in how to deal with the matter. Quakers agreed to manumit their slaves in 1774, but some of their heirs refused to do so.

The book references various colonial and state laws enacted regarding slavery in North Carolina since the late 1600s. One of the laws I had never heard of was the Slave Code Act of 1741 which required local sheriffs who held runaway slaves to give descriptive details of those slaves to churches, and the churches “were then obligated to post them in an ‘open and convenient place’ for two months.” [Thank goodness we have separation of church and state now!]

The book talks about how the Great Dismal Swamp in northeastern North Carolina was a haven for runaway slaves and a hell for some area enslaved individuals. The remoteness and dense vegetation in the swamp provided hiding places for escaped slaves to take refuge; however, slave labor was used – at the cost of many slaves’ lives – to building the Dismal Swamp Canal.

Examples of newspaper notices about runaway slaves are included. Although it is assumed that all runaway slaves headed north, this book explains that some headed east in an effort to get on ships to various destinations, some fled to Tennessee, and others tried to make their way to New Orleans to board ships.

Another thing I learned from the book is that the Underground Railroad was used by white people during the Civil War. Quakers, Union sympathizers, and Confederate deserters were known to have used the system.

Summary of Miriam Margolyes’s This Much Is True

Miriam Margolyes is a British actor with an interesting life’s story. Unable to find her memoir, This Much Is True, at the public library, I settled for reading Summary of Miriam Margolyes’s This Much Is True. It was available from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Library through Hoopla.

I enjoyed the summary and it satisfied my curiosity about Ms. Margolyes’s life. I must admit that I was not that familiar with her until recently watching a “Lost in Scotland” PBS series. I had no idea how many movies and TV shows she had appeared in until I read this book.

Between Earth and Sky, by Amanda Skenandore

Between Earth and Sky, by Amana Skenandore

This was the February book for Rocky River Readers Book Club in Harrisburg, NC. I read the first 40% of it before I found part of the story line to be implausible. Others in the book club loved it. There was a lot of discussion, especially by two of the members who were all fired up about the story.

I was interested in the beginning because it was about the terrible treatment of the Native American children at a school run by white people in 1889. That is a topic we all need to be educated about. Other library books were begging for my time, though, which gave me an excuse not to finish reading the novel.

From the discussion at the book club meeting, the 60% of the novel I did not get to read apparently contained some interesting dilemmas for the main characters. I do  not want to cast aspersions on the book. If you are interested in reading about the way indigenous peoples were treated in the United States in the late 1800s, I recommend this novel.

Since my last blog post

One of my regular blog readers asked me what happened to Clarence Earl Gideon after the Gideon v. Wainwright US Supreme Court ruling I blogged about last week (#OnThisDay: Gideon v. Wainwright). I realized I was remiss in not including that information in that post.

Mr. Gideon appeared in court in Florida for a retrial in August 1963. That time, he had legal counsel and was acquitted by the jury. He was never in trouble with the law again, as far as I could learn. He died of cancer in 1972 at the age of 61.

Thank you, FictionFan, for asking the follow-up question. By the way, if you enjoy reading thoughtful and honest book reviews of a wide range of genres, I recommend you visit https://fictionfanblog.wordpress.com/ to see what she is reading.

Until my next blog post

I hope you are reading a good book.

Remember the people of Ukraine and all the places in the world where innocent people are suffering.

Janet

#Idiom: Barking up the wrong tree

It’s been a while since I blogged about an idiom. For a bit of variety, I decided to blog about one today. “Barking up the wrong tree” is an idiom I’ve heard all my life. For my blog readers in other countries, please tell me if there is a comparable saying in your language or country.

This idiom is known to date back at least to the early 1800s in the United States. It can be found in at least five written sources from the 1830s. “Barking up the wrong tree” is used to describe a wrong assumption.

Photo of a hunting dog
Photo by Ivett Szabo on Unsplash

Raccoon hunters trained their hunting dogs to chase a raccoon. The raccoon would climb a tree to get away from the dogs, but in the dark a raccoon can trick a dog into thinking it has gone up one tree when it has climbed a different tree. The hunting dog is trained to stand at the base of the tree and bark until its owner catches up. It is then that the hunter discovers that the dog is “barking up the wrong tree.”

Less colorful synonyms for the idiom

I found the following list of synonyms for “barking up the wrong tree, but as a fiction writer I much prefer the idiom:

Miscalculate

Misjudge

Misconstrue

Misunderstand

Overestimate

Overrate

Underestimate

Confound

Each of those is a perfectly good word and should be used in serious nonfiction writing, but don’t be surprised if you find “barking up the wrong tree” in one of my historical short stories or novels.

Since my last blog post

I created an online JanetMorrisonBooks.com merchandise store on Bonfire.com! I have set prices as low as possible because I see this as a way to help get the word out about my website. It’s not a money-maker for me. If you need a tee shirt, sweatshirt, or a sweatshirt with a hoodie and don’t mind having an open book and “JanetMorrisonBooks.com – Southern Historical Fiction and Local History” tastefully written across the chest, please visit my new shop at https://www.bonfire.com/store/janet-morrison-books/.

Marie and I delivered several copies of The Aunts in the Kitchen: Southern Family Recipes to Main Street Books in Davidson, NC last week. If you’re in the Lake Norman area north of Charlotte, please support this independent bookstore or order our cookbook directly from the shop by visiting https://www.mainstreetbooksdavidson.com/item/-aQgEatI944P43K8gZe2ow. Of course, the cookbook is also available at Second Look Books in Harrisburg and on Amazon.

Some thoughts about Thanksgiving Day

In the United States, we celebrated Thanksgiving Day last Thursday. It is a day set aside for us to reflect on our many blessings and give thanks for them. It is also a day to eat too much turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, giblet gravy, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, bread, and pumpkin pie. It is also a day to watch Christmas parades on television in the morning and a variety of football games in the afternoon and evening as we try to stay awake after enjoying too much.

It turns out that the holiday is based on a myth we were taught in elementary school. The story has always been that the Pilgrims and the indigenous people of Massachusetts sat down together to celebrate the fall harvest in 1621.

Apparently, a more accurate story is that the Pilgrims were celebrating the harvest by shooting off their muskets. The nearby Native American Wampanoag people heard the commotion and went to investigate. They all ended up sharing some food, but it is not as the story was passed down by white Americans for 402 years. The Pilgrims did not invite the Wampanoag people to come for a big mutual celebration.

In fact, the day is marked by indigenous Americans as a National Day of Mourning. We all know that since the first European settlers arrived in what is now the United States, the settlers disregarded the indigenous people and the government only served to legalize the mistreatment and removal of those people who had lived here for tens of thousands of years.

Perhaps a more fitting way for us to mark Thanksgiving Day is to acknowledge the wrongs of our European ancestors as we count our blessings. We cannot undo history, but we owe it to future generations to record it and pass it on as accurately as possible. When we know better, we should do better.

I’m glad we have a day as a nation when we are supposed to stop and be thankful for all we have. Corporate America tries to trick us into thinking Thanksgiving is only about the start of the Christmas gift-buying season, but they are barking up the wrong tree.

Until my next blog post

I hope you have a good book to read. I have several that are all due today at the public library.

Make a point to study reliable accounts of history, if for no other reason than to avoid repeating it.

Don’t forget to visit my new merch store: https://www.bonfire.com/store/janet-morrison-books/. 

With all the emphasis on Israel and Gaza now, don’t forget the people of Ukraine.

Janet

#OnThisDay: Chief Joseph’s Death, 1904

When I was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, I thought anything that happened in the 1800s was ancient history. It’s amazing how age has a way of putting things in perspective. As I was reading about Chief Joseph in preparation for writing today’s blog post, I was struck by the fact that the conflicts between the United States government and the Nez Perce Native Americans took place a mere 68-76 years before my birth.

Since I’m 67 years old, the number of years weren’t lost on me. It was only 49 years before my birth that Chief Joseph died on September 21, 1904. As I read various sources about Chief Joseph while researching today’s blog topic, in addition to putting the time frame in perspective, I was struck all over again with the fact that the United States government has always treated Native Americans horribly. Period.

Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt was popularly known as Chief Joseph. His tribal name translates into “Thunder Rolling in the Mountain” in English. He succeeded his father as a leader of the Wal-lam-wat-kain band of Nez Perce Native Americans. The Wal-lam-wat-kain lived in the Wallowa Valley in present-day Oregon.

Chief Joseph sought peace and wanted all people to live in harmony. The United States government didn’t share his philosophy of life. He tried repeatedly to come to a peace agreement with the federal government.

Background history – Chief Joseph’s Father

White settlers began settling in the Wallowa Valley around 1850. Chief Joseph’s father was the tribal chief at the time. He was welcoming to the intruders at first, but as their numbers grew they encroached onto more and more of the valley. When Chief Joseph (the elder) told the settlers they could take no land, the settlers took it by force.

As tensions grew, Governor Isaac Stevens of the Washington Territory created a council to try to establish peace. Through that council, the Treaty of Walla Walla was signed in 1855 by Chief Joseph (the elder) and the chiefs of nearby tribes. The treaty created a 7-million acre reservation that included the Wallowa Valley.

The treaty worked fairly well until a gold rush drew more settlers into the reservation land in 1863. A second treaty was signed, but it heavily favored the white settlers. The original 7-million acre reservation was whittled down to only 700,000 acres. The icing on the cake was the removal of the Wallowa Valley from the new reservation boundaries and all the affected tribes were forced to move to Idaho.

Some of the Nez Perce tribes accepted the terms and moved; however, Chief Joseph (the elder) and some others refused to go. The second treaty was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Chief Joseph (the elder) denounced the United States, even throwing away his Bible and burning the American flag. (He had adopted the Christian faith after visits by missionaries and was baptized and given the Christian name “Joseph” in 1838.)

What the US government never understood was the value the Native Americans put on the graves of their ancestors.

“Inside this boundary, all our people were born. It circles the graves of our fathers, and we will never give up these graves to any man.” ~ Chief Joseph (the elder)

Before Chief Joseph (the elder) died in 1871, he said the following words to his son in preparation for his succeeding him as tribal chief: “Never sell the bones of your father and your mother.”

The younger Joseph becomes Chief

More settlers arrived and tensions grew. Chief Joseph (the younger) was threatened with physical violence, but he always responded verbally. He held onto the hope that his people could stand their ground and outlast the white settlers. He knew if he retaliated with violence, the US government would wipe out his people. He couldn’t risk getting violent.

A third treaty was drawn up in 1873. It gave the Wallowa Valley back to Chief Joseph’s people. The treaty was broken four years later and US Army General Oliver Otis Howard set out to forcibly remove the Nez Perce from their lands. Chief Joseph (the younger) offered Gen. Howard a compromise. The Nez Perce would give up part of their land and some of them would leave.

When the two men were unable to come to an agreement, Howard gave the Nez Perce thirty days to vacate their lands. To not comply would be considered an act of war against the United States.

The Nez Perce War

Chief Joseph quietly moved his followers across nearly 1,200 miles, while other Nez Perce tribes chose to stay behind and fight. Chief Joseph’s people were able to avoid armed conflict with the US Army for the most part, but violence ran against the chief’s core values to the point that he couldn’t bear to see his people suffer any more. Even though Chief Joseph tried to avoid fighting the army, the conflict became known as the Nez Perce War because other tribes within the Nez Perce chose to fight.

On October 5, 1877, Chief Joseph surrendered to Gen. Howard. The speech Chief Joseph made that day is remembered to this day and often quoted:

          “I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. Looking Glass is dead. Toohoolhoolzote is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say, “Yes” or “No.” He who led the young men [Olikut] is dead. It is cold, and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are — perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.” ~ Chief Joseph, October 5, 1877

The rest of the story

Chief Joseph and his followers were put on rail cars and taken to Oklahoma. Many died there from exposure to the elements and diseases they’d never been exposed to before. Getting nowhere talking to army generals, Chief Joseph went to Washington, DC and met with President Rutherford B. Hayes.

He pleaded his people’s case with the president, but there was not immediate resolution of the conflict. It was six years later that Chief Joseph and his followers were split up. Some were sent to a reservation near Kooskia, Idaho. Some were sent to northern Washington Territory. But Idaho and the reservation in northern Washington weren’t their homeland. Their homeland was the Wallowa Valley in northeastern Oregon.

In 1897, Chief Joseph returned to Washington, DC to try again to get permission for his people to move to the Wallowa Valley. He never quit trying peacefully to get permission for his people to return to their homeland.

Chief Joseph died 116 years ago today on September 21, 1904. His physician said Chief Joseph died of a broken heart.

No one can argue with that.

If the United States government authorities had just adopted Chief Joseph’s philosophy of life, our country’s history would be quite different. A lot of conflict, bloodshed, and misunderstandings could have been avoided.

Since my last blog post

I was saddened by the death on Friday by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She will go down in history as one of the most-gifted legal minds to ever sit on the U.S. Supreme Court.

I’m formatting for self-publishing the 174 local history columns I wrote from 2006 through 2012 for Harrisburg Horizons newspaper. I hope to get the book published this year in electronic form and paperback.

Until my next blog post

Thank you for reading my blog. Everyone is busy, so I appreciate the time you took to read my post today.

I hope you have a good book to read. I’m reading The Book of Lost Names, by Kristin Harmel.

If you’re a writer or other artist, I hope you have satisfying creative time this week.

As the Covid-19 pandemic continues, please wear a mask to protect the people around you. Even if you’re not displaying any symptoms of the virus, you could be carrying it and infecting others.

Janet

Three Other Books I Read in March 2019

I had so much I wanted to say about the books I read last month, I had to divide my thoughts between two blog posts. Last Monday I wrote about three of the books I read in March [https://janetswritingblog.com/2019/04/01/this-is-not-an-april-fools-day-joke/], so today I write about the other three books.

Jacksonland:  President Andrew Jackson, Cherokee Chief John Ross, and A Great American Land Grab, by Steve Inskeep

Jacksonland, by Steve Inskeep

I can’t remember how I became aware of this book, and I don’t remember what I expected it to be. What it turned out to be was a real eye opener! I consider myself a bit of a student of history, but I had never read the details of how Andrew Jackson speculated on land and grabbed it up by the tens of thousands of acres as a result of the inside track he enjoyed.

The main things I knew about Andrew Jackson were:

  • He was born near the North Carolina – South Carolina border, so both states claim him as theirs;
  • His father died just days before he was born;
  • He was delivered by his Aunt Sarah Hutchinson Lessley, who just happened to be my 5th-great-grandmother;
  • He became famous for his service in the Battle of New Orleans;
  • He was the 7th President of the United States of America;
  • His image appears on the United States $20 bill; and
  • He is blamed for the Cherokee “Trail of Tears” as he forced them off their ancestral lands in western North Carolina and northern Georgia and into a grim and often fatal march to the Oklahoma Territory.

The more I learn about Andrew Jackson, the more I wonder why North and South Carolina fight over him. Let’s just let Tennessee have him, since that’s where he chose to build his estate called The Hermitage. The more I learn about him, the more I wish my ggggg-grandmother had delivered a president of better character. I don’t blame her, though. Her sister, Jean Jackson was in need of a midwife.

What I learned by reading Jacksonland:  President Andrew Jackson, Cherokee Chief John Ross, and A Great American Land Grab, by Steve Inskeep was that President Jackson not only forced the Native Americans off their lands throughout the Southeast, but afterwards he personally gained financially from purchasing thousands of acres of those lands. So did his friends and his wife’s nephew. That’s just the half of it.

Ignorance is bliss. I almost wish I hadn’t read the book.

No, I’m glad I did. I wish I’d known about all this thievery and fraud earlier. It’s amazing the details that are not included or are just mentioned in passing in history textbooks!

The Island of Sea Women, by Lisa See

The Island of Sea Women, by Lisa See

I listened to this historical novel on CD. It is based on the women who live(d) on the island of Jeju off the coast of Korea. The book covers nearly 100 years of life and changes on the island, from the 1930s, through Japanese colonialism, through World War II and the Korean War, to the 21st century.

On Jeju, women learn from a young age how to dive deep into the ocean to harvest certain fish and other sea life. They can hold their breath longer than any other people in the world. They are known as haenyeo. The women do this dangerous work, and their husbands raise their children.

This is a story of friendship and betrayal against a back drop of war and military occupation. I was mesmerized by The Island of Sea Women, by Lisa See.

Due to spending so much time deep in the water, the haenyeo have hearing loss. For this reason, the older women speak loudly. It took me a while to get accustomed to the varying volume of this book on CD, as the narrator went above and beyond the call of duty in demonstrating how much louder the women spoke compared to the other characters. For that reason, it’s not the best choice if you like to listen to a book at bedtime or with ear buds. You, too, could suffer hearing loss!

Jackie Tales:  The Magic of Creating Stories and the Art of Telling Them, by Jackie Torrence

Jackie Tales, by Jackie Torrence

You might recall that I referenced this book in my March 12, 2019 blog post, “Two For Tuesday:  Two Books Written by Women of Color” (https://janetswritingblog.com/2019/03/12/twofortuesday-two-books-written-by-women-of-color/.)

I also referenced The Importance of Pot Liquor, by Jackie Torrence in my blog post on February 19, 2019: “ Two for Tuesday:  Two Books that Remind Me of Someone.” Here’s the link to that post: https://janetswritingblog.com/2019/02/19/two-for-tuesday-two-books-that-remind-me-of-someone/ .

Jackie Torrence was a master storyteller and a reference librarian in High Point, North Carolina. This book includes 16 folk tales along with Ms. Torrence’s stage directions and sidebar comments for each story. I’d never in my life considered being a storyteller until I read this book. I don’t know that this is something I’ll pursue, but the book is so inspiring that it made me entertain the idea!

Even if you just want to be able to read stories to your children or grandchildren with more enthusiasm, facial expression, and use of your hands in a demonstrable way, you can benefit from this book. An alternative title for the book could have been, “The Many Faces of Jackie Torrence” because there are numerous up-close photographs of her extraordinarily expressive face as she told the stories.

In Jackie Tales:  The Magic of Creating Stories and the Art of Telling Them, Ms. Torrence explains what makes a good Jack Tale and what makes a good story. She writes about adjusting stories depending upon the age of her audience and how to (and how not to) hold children’s attention.

If you have an appreciation for the art of storytelling, you will enjoy this book. Look for a copy in used bookstore and online at used bookstores or consortiums such as Advanced Book Exchange.

I read one story each night before going to bed, and I hated to see the book end. It’s one I’ll definitely reread and enjoy just as much the second and third times.

Since my last blog post

I had the pleasure of attending Anna Jean Mayhew’s reading and book signing at Park Road Books in Charlotte on Thursday night. What an enjoyable evening it was as she read from and talked about her latest historical novel, Tomorrow’s Bread. More on that in my blog post on Monday, April 15.

I’ve had a net gain of 8,325 words to my The Doubloon manuscript, bringing my current word count to 30,325. I get to start on Chapter 8 today. I can’t wait!

Until my next blog post

I hope you have a good book to read. I started reading The Irishman’s Daughter, by V.S. Alexander yesterday afternoon. After reading Mr. Alexander’s earlier novels, The Magdalen Girls in 2017 and The Taster last year, I was eager to read his recently-released novel, The Irishman’s Daughter. He writes extraordinary historical fiction.

If you’re a writer, I hope you have quality writing time and your projects are moving right along.

Look for my #TwoForTuesday blog post tomorrow: ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­“Two Books with Flowery Language.”  Thank you for providing the writing prompt, Rae, in “Rae’s Reads and Reviews” blog. Here’s a link to her April 1, 2019 blog post in which she listed all the #TwoForTuesday prompts for the month of April: https://educatednegra.blog/2019/04/01/april-two-for-tuesday-prompts/.

Thank you for reading my blog. You could have spent the last few minutes doing something else, but you chose to read my blog.

Let’s continue the conversation

Have you read any of the three books I talked about today? If so, please share your thoughts with me. Have I piqued your interest in reading any of these books?

What are you reading, and would you recommend it?

Janet

Cultural Appropriation in Writing

Cultural Appropriation was a term I first encountered one day last week while participating in a writers’ group page on Facebook. Although I was not familiar with the term, I’ve had first-hand experience in wrestling with it in my own writing.

aaron-burden-123584
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

A definition

The Cambridge Dictionary defines cultural appropriation as

“the act of taking or using things from a culture that is not your own, especially without showing that you understand or respect this culture.”

A raft of articles and video clips

As I started looking for a definition of cultural appropriation, I found a wealth of online references, which proves that I just haven’t been paying attention.

What I discovered is that non-Hispanic individuals were criticized for operating a burrito food cart in Portland, Stella McCartney was criticized for including Ankara prints in her spring fashion collection, a white man was criticized by Koreans for making a Kimchi-making tutorial, in March of this year Bruno Mars was accused of cultural appropriation in his music, and just last week Jamie Oliver was accused of cultural appropriation for calling a dish “punchy jerk rice.”

Author Morgan Jones’ opinion

Author and administrator of the “Writers on the Path to a Page-Turner” Facebook group, Barbara Kyle, started a conversation about cultural appropriation on Facebook on August 20. She shared a link to an October 1, 2016 article in The Guardian ( https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/01/novelists-cultural-appropriation-literature-lionel-shriver ) and in a follow-up comment she quoted author Morgan Jones. Here’s Ms. Kyle’s comment:

“The move to self-censorship for fear of ‘cultural appropriation’ is a sad state of affairs. Author Morgan Jones eloquently champions the opposite position:  ‘Fiction remains the best means we have of finding connection where there seems to be none; and the novel, of all forms, encourages a search that’s deep and sustained. By reading (or writing) one, you’ve travelled somewhere else. You’ve moved, it only slightly, towards others. In a world that finds and increasingly exploits division and difference, this is an invaluable, precious exercise.”

After you’ve finished reading my blog post today, I invite you to read The Guardian article referenced above. That article includes the following novelists’ views on cultural appropriation: Hari Kunzru, Kamila Shamsie, Aminatta Forna, Chris Cleave, AL Kennedy, Stella Duffy, Linda Grant, Naomi Alderman, Philip Hensher, Maggie Gee, and Nikesh Shukla. These are writers of various ethnic backgrounds, which makes their comments especially poignant.

The article’s introduction reads as follows:

“Jonathan Franzen claimed he won’t write about race because of limited ‘firsthand experience’, while Lionel Shriver hopes objection to ‘cultural appropriation is a passing fad’. So should there be boundaries on what a novelist can write about?”

Another writer in the Facebook group

Another person in the writers’ group on Facebook shared that he had given up on publishing his historical novel based on the life of Etienne Annaotaha, a Canadian First Nations hero after seeing how much flack Joseph Boyden caught for his writing, even though Mr. Boyden is 26% Native American. Imagine how a 100% European ancestry writer would be treated for writing about Native Americans if someone like Mr. Boyden is not accepted?

A quote from Walter Mosley

The following quote from Walter Mosley appeared in an email I received from Writer’s Digest last week:

“Write without restraint. It’s important to not censor yourself. People will censor the sh*t out of you… and there’s more truth in fiction than there is in nonfiction. You have to be committed to that truth.” – Walter Mosley

My challenge

In the historical novel I’m writing, set in the Carolinas in the 1760s, I’m attempting to write from several points-of-view, including that of a male slave and that of a free woman of color. My challenge is to be true to history while writing about fictional characters. I might not get it right.

I found a truck-load of encouragement from the Morgan Jones quote highlighted above! I have typed it and taped it to the bottom of my computer screen so I can read it every time I sit down to work on my novel.

So should there be boundaries on what a novelist can write about?

I say, “No, as long as the writer does her best research and uses her best writing skills to convey a story in a work of fiction.”

Cultural appropriation smacks of censorship, and I’m not for censorship in fiction. I don’t want someone else deciding what I should or should not read. Likewise, I don’t want someone else deciding what I should or should not write.

As a Southerner, I have not appreciated the disingenuous portrayal of Southerners in movies and television programs all my life; however, I uphold the creators’ right to produce that work under the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. Censorship is a slippery slope I don’t want to see us go down.

All that said, I will be mindful of my use of dialect in my novel. There are better ways to get across time, place, and social standing than hitting the reader over the head with dialect.

Since my last blog post

I’ve taken some courage from researching cultural appropriation. Although I was ignorant of the term itself, I’ve given a lot of thought to the subject for the years I’ve been working on my own novel.

I was also inspired by a dream I had last Monday night. As far as I can remember, it was the first time I dreamed that I was writing. I was writing my novel, and the words were flowing faster than I could write them down. The odd part was that I was writing in cursive, although in real life I do all my writing on the computer.

Until my next blog post

I hope you have a good book to read. I’m trying to finish reading A Gentleman in Moscow and I’ve started reading The President is Missing, by Bill Clinton and James Patterson.

If you’re a writer, I hope you have quality writing time. I plan to get back to work on my historical novel (working title, The Spanish Coin) with a renewed since of dedication since recharging my batteries in the Blue Ridge Mountains a couple of weeks ago and since reading about cultural appropriation last week.

Thank you for reading my blog. You could have spent the last few minutes doing something else, but you chose to read my blog. I appreciate it! I welcome your comments

I invite your comments below. What are your feelings about cultural appropriation? Have you read any good books lately? What have you been up to? What’s on your mind?

Let’s continue the conversation.

Janet