Where did my journey begin? Believe it of not, this is the page of An Easy Standard that inspired me to write my novel, Lessons in Disguise. The reason is found under the census numbers. A line of text reads: "Of these are Slaves" and a number. In 1810 there were over seven million people in the US, and one million of those were slaves. A chill scurried down my spine when I read that. Had a slave owned the ratty old book I was now holding? Who else might have loved or hated this book? How would I ever know if I didn't write a novel about it? And so, my own book journey began.
Worn,
but not forgotten
A book has a story to tell. Someone has owned it, read its pages, and perhaps let it languish on a shelf for decades. In the eyes of a new reader, however, an old book can be reborn and loved again.
As an antique bookseller, my job is to find homes for stray books.
As a writer, my job is to tell the stories that the books would tell--if they could speak.