research

Yesterday, I had a pretty rattling exchange on Facebook. (I know — a bad back-and-forth on Facebook?! Inconceivable!) The headline reading “Hollywood Film Depicts Trump Supporters Being Hunted for Sport by Liberals” appeared in my feed, and immediately my “Peter Tingle” kicked into overdrive. I went to Google and looked up “The Hunt, 2019 film” as that was what this news article (not flagged by Facebook, mind you) was pertaining to. The official plot of The Hunt is as follows:

Twelve strangers wake up in a clearing. They don’t know where they are, or how they got there. They don’t know they’ve been chosen… for a very specific purpose … The Hunt. In the shadow of a dark internet conspiracy theory, a group of globalist elites gathers for the very first time at a remote Manor House to hunt humans for sport. But the elites’ master plan is about to be derailed because one of the hunted, Crystal (Betty Gilpin, GLOW), knows The Hunters’ game better than they do. She turns the tables on the killers, picking them off, one by one, as she makes her way toward the mysterious woman (two-time Oscar® winner Hilary Swank) at the center of it all.

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I have been somewhat delinquent in my duties on this blog tour. I went dark during a writers’ retreat (more on that coming on The Shared Desk, so watch your feed. I am probably going to extend my own blogposts another week, just to make sure everyone gets proper coverage, maybe even double-up on guests.

Hey, I got plenty of room here. My guests will just argue on who gets the bed and who gets the pull-out bed from the couch.

My first guest is Linda Johnston, a writer, artist, and naturalist. In her writing, she brings together history, art, and nature, creating one voice, one passion for everyone to enjoy. Last August, Linda published Hope Amid Hardship: Pioneer Voices from Kansas Territory, a narrated, illustrated collection of diaries and letters by settlers who wrote about the joyful side of life in their adopted communities during the years 1855 to 1861. Hope Amid Hardship is her first book.

Linda, the blog is yours…

I am addicted to historical research. During the last year or so of work on the book, my husband would occasionally ask, “Isn’t the research phase about over?” Even though my book was published in August, I continue to find little gems that I can use for book talks. I can’t help myself.

Research for my book began in 1986, although I didn’t know I was working toward a book then. I just started reading pioneer diaries and letters and have never stopped.

The first diaries I read were on microfilm or occasionally, an original found in a local historical society, library, or the most incredible library, the Library of Congress. Available resources depended on where job transfers took my family and me.