UPDATE: The winner is…Jennifer Beyer!
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Hannah Bond is believed to have been born in the 1830s in Bertie County, North Carolina. She was owned by a number of families before finally being purchased by John Hill Wheeler of Murfreesboro. Wheeler was a congressman and a writer. Scholars used primary sources like oral histories, public records, diaries and even an almanac to prove Hannah Bond/Crafts’ identity as a slave in Wheeler’s household. Another source of proof used is the fact that Hannah’s novel quotes from books by Charles Dickens, Charlotte Bronte, and Walter Scott found in Wheeler’s library. An excellent article detailing the extensive work done to substantiate the events of Hannah’s life can be found here: https://www.publicradioeast.org/pre-news/2023-12-06/a-quest-to-find-the-nations-first-black-female-novelist.

She escaped from slavery disguised as a white boy in 1857, using men’s clothing given to her by Wheeler’s nephew. She first arrived North and stayed on a farm in upstate New York. Eventually, Hannah moved to New Jersey where she became a schoolteacher. She was found listed in the 1870 and 1880 census married to Thomas Vincent, a minister.

Hannah took the penname Hannah Crafts under which she wrote The Bondwoman’s Narrative, Fugitive Slave from North Carolina. Her novel tells the story of a mixed-race enslaved woman who escapes to the North and gains freedom. While the novel includes many factual events, some autobiographical, unlike Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Hannah’s story is a work of fiction.

The manuscript is believed to have been written between 1855 and 1869. In 2001, it was purchased at a Black memorabilia auction by historian and Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. for $8500. Gates shared in a CSPAN interview his was the only bid on the unpublished, handwritten manuscript. He explained that obtaining a manuscript from that era is rare even for published works because usually once finished with an author’s manuscript printers threw the originals away. You can view the interview here: Washington Journal interview with Henry Louis Gates on The Bondswoman’s Narrative, April 18, 2002, C-SPAN.

Professor Gregg Hecimovich of Furman University was one of the scholars who worked on confirming the events of Hannah’s life. His biography, The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts, was chosen by the Washington Post as one of the best ten books of 2023. This year it won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography.

Today, many authors grumble about how long it takes a book to be traditionally published. Their complaints have nothing on the 150-year journey it took to bring Hannah Bond writing as Hannah Craft’s novel to print. I never ceased to be amazed by the resilience of African American women in the 19^th century determined not only to survive but thrive against a society equally determined to oppress them.

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“Her Heavenly Phantom” by Michal Scott

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Forced into a marriage of convenience neither wants, a mild-mannered banker with an intriguing secret discovers his reluctant bride has a secret, too.

An excerpt from “Her Heavenly Phantom”

Harold scanned his dressing room table. “Speaking of missing.”

“You won’t find a letter tonight,” Michael said.

A pang throbbed in Harold’s chest. Where was the air in this damned room? “What do you mean?”

“Your lady of the balcony only just arrived at intermission. Maybe she’ll leave you one when you return.” Michael closed the calendar and stood. “I wonder why she lurks behind that Mardi Gras mask of hers.”

“The manager of The Phantom doesn’t understand that his client isn’t the only one who needs to hide his identity from the outside world?”

Harold leapt at the knock on the door. His spirit danced as the boy put the familiar notepaper in his hand. He shoved a coin in the boy’s palm then shooed him and Michael away.

Joy! Rapture! Her latest words would keep this Good Friday wedding night from being cold and lifeless as the tomb in which Jesus had been laid.

He held the paper to his nostrils, inhaled the sweet lilac aroma of her perfume, imagined the fingers penning her latest words in that beautiful Spencerian script. He wouldn’t open it now. No. Gratification delayed would be gratification enhanced. He’d wait until the darkness of his bedroom enveloped him, until the warmth of his hand stroked his cock to hardness, until the seduction of her words made him come and come and come.