Historical Fiction Author Interview: Peggy Wirgau
BY AVELLINA BALESTRI Tell us a little bit about yourself and your background. I’m from Michigan and worked as a Registered Nurse for several years while we raised our children. We were Florida snowbirds for a while, then moved to Colorado in 2023 to be near our daughter and her family. When I’m not writing, …...
Toast to the Immortal Memory of Robert Burns
BY PETE WEBSTER Ladies and gentlemen, let us raise our glasses to the immortal memory of Robert Burns. Though centuries have passed since his pen first touched paper, his words continue to inspire and unite us with their wit, warmth and humanity. Burns, the ploughman poet, gave voice to the hopes and dreams of ordinary …...
Alexander the Coppersmith
BY LAWRENCE HALL 2 Timothy 4:14 We don’t know much about the coppersmith (Indeed, we don’t know much about each other) The works of an artist’s hands may serve the Lord Or else they serve Ephesian vanities If a man is going to mold metals into idols Diana of Ephesus might be pleasing aesthetically But …...
Blood on the Snow
BY LYNNE BASHAM TAGAWA Boston. December 1770. A clod of manure flew through the air and impacted the red brick of the courthouse. Abigail Adams stopped in her tracks. Too close. Behind her, John’s white wig shone in the morning sunlight, his black robe still folded under his arm. Her sister’s husband, Richard, turned and …...
Doctor Choi
BY TERRY TROWBRIDGE Inspired by the characters of Chicago Med. All his strengths are his weaknesses; does everything correctly, always, a dreamboat heartthrob for a hospital allergic to liability, what administrator wouldn’t fall in love? When he is wrong, he is wrong the right way. White knight, the arch Sir Galahad who loses jousts...
A Gift Worth Repeating
BY LEAH FISHER Monday, 7 Tevet, 5694 Maximus Rieger arrived in Inglegrad to spend his winter holiday at the parsonage of Palmiere Memorial Chapel, where he opened the door of the second-floor flat to discover his hosts in the midst of a heated argument. To the untrained eye, it would have appeared to be the …...
The Joy of the Lion is My Strength: A Christmas Story from the World of The Silver Chair
BY HANNAH SKIPPER It was the kind of Christmas morning that could make a proper Marshwiggle sit up a little straighter, with grim self-satisfaction in their dour personality, as a brisk northeasterly wind swept off the ocean and across the moors, leaving a dusting of sleet across the hilly lichen covered ground where the Narnian …...
Christmas and New Year in Eighteenth Century Virginia
BY GEORGE A. BRAY III The above good wishes for a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, published in the Virginia Almanack, elicit very good thoughts and feelings for the holiday season even today. However, Christmas and New Year celebrations then differed greatly from...
