A Conversation with Katie Bowler Young, Author of Enrique Alférez, Sculptor
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Katie Bowler Young talks about the provocative subject of her 2020 biography and how she came to write about him.
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A Conversation with Ted Pulliam, Author of True Tales of Old Alexandria
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Ted Pulliam explained to me how previous research did double-duty in a new book, True Tales of Old Alexandria.
Read MoreA Conversation with Samira Meghdessian, Translator of Remembering Ramallah
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Samira Meghdessian talks about the joys and challenges of translating her uncle’s 60-year-old book from Arabic into English.
Read MoreA Conversation with Eileen Bjorkman, Author of Fly Girls Revolt
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A great conversation with my writing colleague—author and pilot Eileen Bjorkman!
Read MoreInterviewing Lynne Olson at the Gaithersburg Book Festival
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A great conversation with Lynne Olson, author of a biography of French archaeologist Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt.
Read MoreA Conversation with Brenda Mitchell-Powell, Author of Public in Name Only: The 1939 Alexandria Library Sit-In Demonstration
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Brenda Mitchell-Powell sheds light on an early civil rights sit-in—for equal access to the public library in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1939.
Read MoreA Conversation with Diana Parsell, Author of Eliza Scidmore: The Trailblazing Journalist Behind Washington’s Cherry Trees
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A conversation with Diana Parsell about the subject of her new biography and about the ups and downs of bringing the book to life.
Read MoreNotes from BIO Craft Lab
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Tips from accomplished biographers about how they create what they create.
Read More"For mercy’s sake, don’t let anybody see this letter": Sarah J.C. Whittlesey
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The letters of an Alexandria woman’s letters reveal her interior life.
Read MoreA Conversation with Meg Groeling, Author of First Fallen: The Life of Colonel Elmer Ellsworth, the North’s First Civil War Hero
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Read about Col. Elmer Ellsworth’s short but eventful life, which ended in a heroic death in Alexandria.
Read MoreBehind the Written Word: Q and A with Katy O’Grady
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Looking at scripts used by Japanese and Chinese women centuries ago, Katy O’Grady wondered how our brains can look at little shapes and instantly transform them into concepts.
Read MoreReturn to NARA I
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Surrounded by thousands of pages of original letters, telegrams, and reports. Heaven.
Read MoreStorytelling: An Interview with Jessica Piscitelli Robinson
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Learn about the process of storytelling from an expert.
Read More"They Called Us Girls": A Conversation with Author Kathleen Stone
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In which Kathleen Stone, author of the forthcoming They Called Us Girls, talks about how she came to the idea for her group biography and how she carried it off.
Read MoreWriting a Book Review of The Last King of America
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With apologies to those who never write in books, how and why I reviewed The Last King in America for Washington Independent Review of Books.
Read MoreMore on Contrabands and Freedmen Cemetery Memorial
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A bit more background about a recent article I published on a civil rights action—in 1864 Alexandria, Virginia.
Read MoreFrom the Archive: My Own!
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For someone who loves reading old letters in archives, getting back letters that I wrote from 1974 to 1996 was….weird.
Read MoreWomen in the Civil War: Two Books and a Zoom Talk
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When I moderated a History Author talk on Zoom, I spoke with two authors with very different ways to approach the topic of women in the Civil War.
Read MoreThe Power of Diaries: Interview with Jane Perry, Author of White Snake Diary
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Author (and diary-keeper) Jane Perry shares views on diaries: from “ internal wrestling, or attempting to figure out something, to connecting with people.”
Read MoreTalking about Writing with Pamela Toler, Author of Women Warriors
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Pamela Toler, author of Women Warriors, explains how she organized research that spanned epochs, continents, and personalities.
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