Tada! I’m sending out my new novel Nine in Ten to prospective agents and publishers. Inspired by a bizarre chapter in Toronto’s history, and set in 1976, Nine in Ten asks whether an overbearing father deserves a chance to make amends with his alienated offspring. Widower Emm Benbow, told by his doctor he can no longer live alone, must move in with one of his many children or go to a dreaded old age home. Fifty years earlier, Emm pressured his wife Izora to enter the Toronto Stork Derby, an actual contest which offered a sizable cash award to the woman who had the most babies between 1926 and 1936. They had a large family, but it was hardly the happy one Emm envisioned. Now, living in turn with each of his adult children, Emm discovers that the true value of fatherhood is not measured in big prizes, but in small rewards.
Learn History Through Fiction: Early Penny Arcade Games
Learn history through fiction. A century ago, penny arcades were a popular form of entertainment. Attractions included stereoscopes, tests of strength and lung capacity, perfume sprayers, mechanical fortune tellers, electric shockers (thought to stimulate health), and machines like “Dr. Vibrator,” the title of my latest story. Unlike the sexual association of today’s vibrators, the devices consisted of a rubber hand that users pressed against different parts of their body to “relieve specific ailments” (such as a stiff neck or aching back) and to generally “charge and replenish the body’s vital forces.” The machines were advertised with the slogan “Vibration is life!” To learn more history through fiction, see BEHIND THE STORY.
Learn History Through Fiction: The First Policewoman
Learn history through fiction. “Dr. Vibrator” is the story of Alice Stebbins Wells, the first policewoman in the United States, appointed to the Los Angeles Police Department in 1910. She worked on the “purity squad,” where she was responsible for enforcing laws concerning “dance halls, skating rinks, penny arcades, picture shows, and other places of public recreation.” Although not allowed to carry a gun, she was authorized to make arrests. Standing just five feet tall, Alice was also an ordained minister, social worker, and active member of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. To learn more history through fiction, see BEHIND THE STORY.
