Author: annsepstein@att.net

Ann S. Epstein is an award-winning writer of novels, short stories, memoirs, and essays.

Learn History Through Fiction: Topeka’s Disreputable Smoky Row

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Topeka’s “Smoky Row,” set among the commercial buildings of lower Kansas Avenue, was the site of pool halls, liquor joints, and brothels. This disreputable area was a colorful part of Topeka’s turn-of-the-century prohibition history. Read more Topeka and Kansas history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

Learn History Through Fiction: Upton Sinclair Undercover

Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel The Jungle, detailing the horrors of the Chicago meat-packing industry, was first published in serial form in the socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason. Sinclair spent seven weeks as an undercover worker at a plant to research the story. What he revealed was so repulsive that U.S. meat consumption fell by half. Read more Chicago and labor history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

 

Learn History Through Fiction: Honoring Immigrants on July 4

On July 4th, read these novels to discover what America has historically meant to immigrants. In A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve., Meinhardt Raabe flees Nazi persecution in search of a dignified life https://amzn.to/2LqpAu7. In On the Shore, Shmuel Levinson is willing to fight the Great War for the country that welcomed his family www.vineleavespress.com/on-the-shore-by-ann-s-epstein.html. In Tazia and Gemma, Tazia Gatti seeks a life of greater opportunity for her daughter www.vineleavespress.com/tazia-and-gemma-by-ann-s-epstein.html. Meinhardt’s LIFE, Shmuel’s LIBERTY, and Tazia’s PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. Celebrate their unique lives and our shared ideals. Read more in NOVELS.

Write What You Learn, Not What You Already Know

My counter-argument to “Write what you know” has always been “Get to know what you want to write about.” The inspiration for my fiction often comes from something I learn by chance. Then I research the topic with intention and shape what I’ve learned into a work of fiction, prioritizing the story over the facts. In an e-doc compilation of author’s views on the role of research in writing (Glimmer Train, Close-Up: Research, 2nd edition), I came across the following: “Some people say that you should write what you know, but I am driven to write what I learn” (Abbi Geni, p. 7). Read more comments on this topic by Colum McCann, Duri Justvedt, and Ha Jin in REFLECTIONS.

What I’m Reading: The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer

My Amazon and Goodreads review of The Female Persuasion (Rating 4): Sympathy for Slowy the Turtle – Having come of age in the women’s movement (I entered college the same year Betty Friedman’s The Feminine Mystique was published), I was eager to read Meg Wolitzer’s The Female Persuasion. Alas, my enthusiasm was dampened by the first part of the book. The main character begins as a cipher and never develops. Her progression from a student with an inside voice to a young woman with an outside voice is unconvincing. However, the depth and sensitivity with which Wolitzer portrays the other characters — from the Gloria Steinem stand-in to the less-than-upstanding rich boy supporter of her feminist foundation — makes the book worth reading. Even Slowy the turtle evokes sympathy. Rather than painting a successful big-picture of an evolving social movement, Wolitzer shines in the small enduring portraits of friendship and family.

Learn History Through Fiction: Turn Up The Heat

In the 19th century, inventors mechanized the laundry process with hand-operated washing machines. Most involved turning a handle to move paddles inside a tub that sat on legs with a hand-operated mangle on top. Some used an electrically powered agitator to replace hand rubbing against a washboard. Later, mangles were also electrically powered. Laundry drying, like washing, also became mechanized with spinning perforated tubs that blew heated air rather than water. Read more about toiling in a Chinese laundry 100 years ago in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

Learn History Through Fiction: Las Vegas Doubles

Las Vegas officially became a city in 1905. For a time there were two towns named Las Vegas. The east side (which now includes Main Street and Las Vegas Boulevard) was owned by U.S. Senator Williams Andrew Clark while the west (north of modern day Bonanza Road) was owned by J. T. McWilliams. The city of Las Vegas incorporated in 1911 as a part of Clark County. Read more Las Vegas history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

Learn History Through Fiction: Lysol as Contraception 100 Years Ago

In the early 1900s, the most popular contraceptive douche was Lysol, formulated with cresol, a compound that caused inflammation, burning, even death. It was nevertheless aggressively marketed to women as safe and gentle for maintaining “dainty feminine allure.” By 1911 doctors had recorded 193 Lysol poisonings and five deaths from uterine irrigation. Read more about the hazards of women’s health care 100 years ago in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

Learn History Through Fiction: Spinning Yarn and Spinning A Yarn

“Spinning” is the title of a short story in progress, about Bartlett Yarns, the last commercially operated spinning mule in the United States. Located in Harmony, Maine, the mill was established in 1821, then burned down and was rebuilt in the early 1920s. Today it is committed to sustainable practices, including the use of organic products to wash, card, spin, and skein wool from local farmers. My story, inspired by an article about the company in one of my fiber art magazines, imagines the lives of three young women working at the mill roughly one hundred years apart: 1821, 1920, and present day. Read more about the mill and spinning mule in BEHIND THE STORY and learn about my other tales in SHORT STORIES.