Quoth Og Mandino

"You will become great."

My Authorial Debut

The Thrilling Sequel

Shine and Sham: America’s Gilded Age

“Asymmetry is the dominant characteristic of 1870s cover design. Countering the previous two decades’ heavy reliance upon a symmetrical style, designers began to work in a freer way and to use the diagonal as an axis. Shiny black ink was frequently employed, both supported and set off by stampings in gold.”

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The Centennial Exposition of 1876

“No account … however close, however graphic, can give a just conception of the variety and interest of the things to be seen.”

—William Dean Howells, “A Sennight of the Centennial,” Atlantic Monthly

May 10, 1876 dawned bright and clear after a night of rain. A crowd of 10,000 assembled on the [...]

Introduction: Welcome to 1876

Writing historical fiction can be a bit of a challenge, especially when one is writing about a period as strange and wild as 19th century America. It was a monstrous time of social and racial oppression, outrageous financial shenanigans, environmental catastrophies, grinding poverty and the lack of any kind of meaningful social safety net—not [...]