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Author Archives: dispatchesfromtheformernewworld
Ghent – A Harmony of Old and New
One summer afternoon in 2005 my husband and I strolled along the Graslei, the east bank of the river Leie in the historic heart of Ghent. To our right were the old medieval warehouse buildings with their distinctive stepped gables. … Continue reading
Regency Isn’t Just Romance
My latest blog for Montgomery County Public Libraries is about the Regency years in England, a decade that compares to the 1960’s, a time of radical politics, war, social change, and literary experimentation. In other parallels, the 1812 assassination of Prime … Continue reading
A Mansion Fit for a King
There is always something new to discover in places you think you know well. I’ve been traveling to Crisfield in Somerset County on Maryland’s Eastern Shore for decades. My husband’s family were Chesapeake watermen and farmers for generations, going back … Continue reading
Tales of the Asylum
One day in the early 1960’s I came home to find that while I was in school my grandmother had been whisked away in an ambulance and taken to a mental hospital. The news followed several unsettling days, days of … Continue reading
Gardens of Mystery
“Ever since the first serpent slithered into the Garden of Eden writers have imagined the garden as the scene of temptation and evil.” In my latest blog for MCPL I recommend mysteries with a garden setting: Gardens of Mystery Incidentally, … Continue reading
On My Bookshelf – Witchfinders
Witchfinders – no, not characters in our contemporary political drama. But it could be that hearing cries of “Witch Hunt” almost every day for two years was what led me to this particular book on my shelf. Witchfinders by Malcolm … Continue reading
Water Water Everywhere
You could be forgiven for mistaking the network evening news for the Weather Channel these days. Night after night scenes of devastating flooding somewhere and everywhere. Hurricanes, cyclones, torrential rainfall, storm surges, rivers overflowing their banks, whole towns inundated, homes … Continue reading →