In honor of Black History Month, I’d like to share with you a heroine who history often overlooks: Anna Murray-Douglass. You will recognize her as the wife of the great abolitionist writer and social reformer, Frederick Douglass, but Anna made her own contributions to the abolitionist movement. As a principal member of the Underground Railroad, […]
Author Archives: Sharon Virts
The Woman in the Window Book Review
For this month’s book club, I selected The Woman in the Window by A. J. Finn, a pseudonym for Daniel Mallory, a debut novelist and editor at Marrow Publishing. Although it is a 2018 release, I wanted to share it with you before the movie release later this year. Why I chose this book? The […]
Rack ’em up! – The History of Billiards
“The winter solstice was the shortest day of the year, but already it felt like the longest. Armistead sent the cue ball flying, breaking the neatly racked balls across the green felt of the table. He had hoped that billiards would distract him. He was wrong.” –Masque of Honor Fast Eddie Felson (who had the […]
Breathe In, Breathe Out: The Invention of the Stethoscope
In the 19th century malaria was extremely common in the UnitedStates; at its height, more than one million cases were reported, this isprobably a conservative number since not everyone had access to a medicaltreatment. In Masque of Honor,Armistead Mason bemoans the almost “ordinariness” of suffering from malariawhile in battle. A lot of the research Idid while writing […]
The Timelessness of Little Women
Little Women is back on the big screen! One hundred and fifty years ago, Louisa May Alcott wrote the story based on her early life with her mother and sisters. Interestingly, Louisa May Alcott was anything but what she depicts in the story; she was a radical, an abolitionist and a feminist committed to never […]
Book Review: The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
For my book club, I will be choosing current titles (2019 and 2020 as released) to read, review and recommend. Initially I had picked The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates to launch my book club, but after reading it, I was largely unimpressed. So, I scoured the reviews and selected The Dutch House, by Ann […]
2019 Year in Review
Looking back on 2019 From ringing in the year with a completed first draft of my manuscript to ending the year with the final manuscript at the publishers, 2019 has been a terrific year to launch to my writing career. I’ve managed to land an agent, an editor, production/publishing company and a publicist. I’ve worked […]
19th Century Toys Under the Christmas Tree
What kinds of toys were under your tree Christmas morning? Did you spend hours dreaming about that perfect pair of roller skates or a Barbie Dreamhouse? All of the research I’ve done for Masque of Honor has fueled literally a thousand questions and curiosities about then vs. now. And regardless of when you were born, […]
EVERY HOUSE TELLS A STORY
Selma was my inspiration for writing Masque of Honor. When we undertook the restoration of Selma, stories began to unfold and ideas filled my mind and heart. Every house is comprised of the stories of its past and current inhabitants. Selma has a complicated and periodically documented past; it has been so much fun unraveling […]
Christmas in the Early 19th Century
As I wrote Masque of Honor, I wanted to include a scene to recreate Christmas in the early in 19th century. Christmas as we know it today dates to the later half of the 19th century. But how did Virginians celebrate Christmas in 1817? To figure that out, I had to do more than a […]
