The Joy in History for Writers

by multi-published, award-winning author Ruth Logan Herne

This is not your typical boring "here's why I love history" blogs.

If it is, I apologize, that wasn't the goal, #EPICFAIL.

But it's not, I can tell already, because if you don't have the proper love and respect and kind of AWE of what people did to claim half-a-continent as their own (by some good and some heinous means) then dudes... y'all are readin' the wrong books.

Or you slept through history class.

Or you're young enough and have been taught either:

1. Very little history
2. Shaded history
3. Alternative Fact History

But in spite of that, you're here, and while I love the image of guys who wrestled cows and rode horses and built cabins and barns and plowed land behind a stubborn as heck mule.... or two...

It's the women that made history come alive, that made things work, that became the jelly between the two slices of fresh-grained bread.

And I hope that's what I bring across in my new anthology and the  Prairie Brides novels that follow it.

(Come on, you knew I must have some experience with historicals or I wouldn't be writin' this, correct???)

I've written eight "prairie" novellas, and I love them. I look back at these times when women were fighting for the right to vote...

OH MY STARS.... we had to fight for the right to vote, are you kidding me? (This galls me, the fact that women had to fight for rights... but yay! We did it! Yay us!!!)

In some states we couldn't own property. And if we did and had the audacity to get married, we had to cede it over to our husbands.

(Give me a minute, I'm processing this.... And breathing....)

Okay, I can breathe again. Barely.

I love stories that champion women. I love empowering women to be all that they can be, and that could be the Yankee in me or the snark...

Either way, it works because the good Lord made us strong in the image of his sweet Mama who followed him to the cross so how can we be weak?

We can't.

So in this small western town, we have a delightful middle-aged somewhat bossy seamstress who isn't afraid to use her clout and her instincts to make things better and when she starts bringing single women west, the men of Second Chance won't know what hit them... and that's just the way it should be! :)

Three brides.... who lead us into the stories of three sisters, working a triple claim on the prairie, self-taught women who deserve stories of their own. So coming next month:

Sober businessman Seb Ward may have come from a wealthy lumber-baron family in Minnesota, but he knows that appearances can be deceiving, and that his illustrious family is pretty dysfunctional. Being in another state has provided the buffer he sought from his father’s misdeeds, but when a little boy shows up on a train… a little boy who looks enough like Seb to be his own child… Seb’s faced with a dilemma. Raise the boy as his own, or let his mother suffer the embarrassment of “a brother by another mother.” And when the boy takes a shine to the Rachel Eichas, the newly contracted school teacher, Seb can’t help but do the same.  But Rachel was raised by an unloving, business-first father and there’s no way she’s looking for those same qualities in a husband. Can she see through Seb’s focus and drive to find the loving man within?



Rachel's is the first in the "Prairie Brides" books, to join my growing list of independently offered stories... and aren't we blessed to live in a time when authors can work hand-in-hand with publishers of all kinds to get their books into the hands of an avidly reading public? We are truly our very own "small business" owner!

I'm giving away an e-copy or a print copy of  "The Sewing Sisters' Society" today, but you have to play along... who is your favorite historical character and why?

Mine is Ben Franklin. I use so many of his nuggets of wisdom and I love that he was always inventing things. He was so stinkin' smart!

I'm sure he had his faults, but gosh... I would love to just sit and have a conversation with that man sometime.

Extremely cool person.

Okay, coffee's on, you know what to do and I can't wait to talk historicals with youse!!!! Because I love 'em so much!

Multi-published, award-winning author Ruth Logan Herne likes to make things up. She does it a lot. And now they pay her for it, so she's pretty sure she's the luckiest woman on earth. Find her on Twitter, friend her on Facebook or email her at loganherne@gmail.com or spin by her website ruthloganherne.com She loves to hear from readers and writers!