“America is now wholly given over to a damned mob of scribbling women, and I should have no chance of success while the public is occupied with their trash.”

Sounds like contemporary critics of the romance genre, doesn’t it? This little gem was penned by Nathaniel Hawthorne to his publisher in 1855 because his female contemporaries were reaping critical acclaim and outselling him.

I first heard this quote in a keynote speech this past October given by Maya Rodale. Intrigued, I wondered who was “Mr. Scarlet Letter” complaining about. This 2013 article gave me more than a clue:

https://www.bookslut.com/the_bombshell/2013_06_020173.php

Among this damned scribbling mob was the woman to whom Abraham Lincoln is supposed to have said, “So you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war.”

That’s right: Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Harriet Beecher Stowe? A writer of trash? Hardly.

Stowe had been writing for fifteen years before Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published in 1852. In addition to novels, she wrote non-fiction, poetry and a drama based on Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin has gotten a bad rap through the years, but think about how radical it was for a White woman in the 1850’s to have a Black slave representing Christ at a time when her society was debating whether or not African-Americans were even human. We don’t have to imagine the impact of seeing slaves depicted with dignity, loyalty, and willing to be self-sacrificing had in that era. Even Lincoln recognized the power of her novel. What I never imagined was the backlash it received. Her depiction of African-Americans as human beings was so despised there was a slew of anti-Uncle Tom novels written to offset her novel’s impact. Needless to say, they failed.

As I’ve learned more about Stowe’s religious views and social justice activities, I understand better why her novel hit the nerve it did when it did. She wrote from her heart about a cause she believed in, unlike Mr. worried-about-having-no-chance-of-success Hawthorne. I’m eager to read more of her works and more works about her because I want to be a scribbling woman like her.

Better to Marry Than to Burn

Wife Wanted: Marital relations as necessary. Love not required nor sought…

A bridal lottery seems the height of foolishness to ex-slave Caesar King, but his refusal to participate in the town council’s scheme places him in a bind. He has to get married to avoid paying a high residence fine or leave the Texas territory. After losing his wife in childbirth, Caesar isn’t ready for romance. A woman looking for a fresh start without any emotional strings is what he needs.

Queen Esther Payne, a freeborn black from Philadelphia, has been threatened by her family for her forward-thinking, independent ways. Her family insists she marry. Her escape comes in the form of an ad. If she must marry, it will be on her terms. But her first meeting with the sinfully hot farmer proves an exciting tussle of wills that stirs her physically, intellectually, and emotionally.

In the battle of sexual one-upmanship that ensues, both Caesar and Queen discover surrender can be as fulfilling as triumph.

Excerpt:

WARNING! This is hot!!

With thanks to God, he pushed past her flimsy drawers to the moist welcome of her center. Her vaginal walls gripped his fingers with surprising force. No amount of twisting or turning wrenched them free. God, to have that grip surrounding his shaft.

He pulled back and studied her face. Eyes still closed, a sly smile bowed her perfect lips. She enjoyed this battling as much as he.

“Was I too brutal for your enjoyment, Mrs. King?”

Her eyelids rose with the slow grace of sunrise. A gleam as sly as her smile shone in her gaze. “You call that brutal, Mr. King?”

She unclenched her lower muscles, allowing his fingers momentary retreat. With great care, she grasped his hand then slid his fingers between her folds once more.

“Holy Christ, woman. What—?”

The gentle rubbing robbed him of his ability to think.

“Jesus, have mercy,” he wheezed.

She slid his fingers from her wet sex into his mouth. He moaned, lost in her delectable taste.

Without taking her gaze from his face, she raked her gloved hand down his chest, across his belly, to his groin. Anticipation tensed his muscles in the wake of her touch. He watched mesmerized as, with a practiced ease, she unbuttoned his fly, pushed past the fabric, sought, found and stroked his cock. Her woolen gloves imparted a delicious friction he couldn’t oppose, even if he’d wanted. Delight enlivened every muscle in his body, including his jaded heart.

Jesus. This couldn’t be more than arousal. Could it?

Her fingers squeezed and his body arched upward on the yes swelling his spirit with joy. He threw back his head, mouth open, ready to shout as he neared the point of release.

Then she let him go.

He doubled over, slain by the abandonment. His lungs constricted, bereft of air. Reason deserted him too.

She stood and smoothed down her skirts with the hand that had massaged his shaft more deftly than he ever had. Reseated, she grabbed the reins and snapped the leather against his horse’s rump.

“Get up there.”

The wagon jostled Caesar from side to side. Still unable to straighten up, he looked into eyes gleaming with triumph. Her lips curved in a regal smirk.

“Was I too brutal for your enjoyment, Mr. King?”

Buy links:
Wild Rose Press – https://www.thewildrosepress.com/books/better-to-marry-than-to-burn
Amazon – https://www.amazon.com/Better-Marry-than-Michal-Scott-ebook/dp/B07BK1JPKX/

I love it when interests come together.

Three of my loves (opera, learning about African-American women, and writing) came together as I wrestled with how to adapt Richard Wagner’s Die Valkyrie, the second opera of his Ring Cycle, to a Reconstruction/Gilded Age New York setting with African-American characters.

In Act III of Wagner’s opera, the Valkyrie are nine sisters who bring dead heroes from the battlefield to defend Valhalla — the hall of the Gods — for Wotan who is their father and the king of the gods. Fixed in my mind were images from productions showing the sisters all the same age. Check out this youtube video of the Royal Danish Opera’s production to see what I mean: https://youtu.be/FPcrqkViZKw. My Valkyrie are not immortals who never aged. Unless I made them nonuplets, I had to figure a way around the birth order problem.

Then it hit me. My Valkyrie didn’t have to be blood-related sisters. They could be sisters of a sorority. Women’s literary societies of the nineteenth century were places where women escaped the limitations placed on them by society. They could exercise their intellect and share their opinions freely without fear of ridicule or contempt. My Valkyries’ common bond wasn’t to be in service to a man’s goals as depicted in Die Valkyrie, but the pursuit of their own self-actualization as warrior women — artistic warrior women. This is where love number two came into play.

In a previous post on this blog, I shared how disappointed I was that in a box of thirty-six famous African Americans, only six were women. With my idea of creating a sorority, I decided I could base my Valkyrie on the women of the Harlem Renaissance.

I knew already of Zora Neale Hurston, Nella Larsen, Jessie Redmon Fauset and Dorothy West. I went in search of five more and came across this fantastic list of twenty-seven fabulous women (of whom I’d only known about thirteen): https://www.thoughtco.com/women-of-the-harlem-renaissance-3529259.

Now before you object, I know that the Harlem Renaissance took place in the 1920s and early 30’s. Originally, I had thought of basing my Valkyrie on African-American women who participated and battled white racism in the suffrage movement in the 1890’s, but once I latched onto the creative energy generated by the Harlem Renaissance women, everything clicked. So much so I’m having a hard time keeping my story to its original time period.

Anyway, this list gave me twenty-seven heroines from which to draw my nine Valkyrie. Should I base Brunhilda, the defiant Valkyrie who dominates Acts II and III of this opera on Zora Neale Hurston or Josephine Baker, both defiant trailblazing rule breakers? I’m leaning toward the remarkable Jessie Redmon Fauset. Langston Hughes called her “the midwife of the Harlem Renaissance” because as literary editor of the NAACP’s The Crisis magazine from 1919 to 1926 she helped birth the writing careers of many writers and poets of the Harlem Renaissance. Which of the remaining women should I use to round out my sisterhood of warrior women? What new women might I find to use instead? As my research continues, the possibilities stretch before me endlessly. I’m having so much fun learning about these women I have to fight to stay out of the research abyss and move into love number three: writing.

The images and herstories of these women continue to fuel my imagination. I’ve already outlined one of their gatherings. They’re enjoying their exploits, sharing how they’re mentoring women as protégés and men to be true allies. I’m looking forward to writing the confrontation between Brunhilde and Wotan. If you’d like a summary of Wagner’s story, check out this link: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Der-Ring-des-Nibelungen/Story-summary-of-Die-Walkure.

My adaptation of Wagner’s Die Valkyrie is a story of women’s empowerment and agency. With the artistic warrior women of the Harlem Renaissance as my guides, I’m hoping my version of the story will be a source of empowerment and agency for all its readers.

Better To Marry Than To Burn

Freed Man seeking woman to partner in marriage for at least two years in the black township of Douglass, Texas. Must be willing and able to help establish a legacy. Marital relations as necessary. Love neither required nor sought.

Caesar King’s ad for a mail-order bride is an answer to Queen Esther Payne’s prayer. Her family expects her to adhere to society’s traditional conventions of submissive wife and mother, but Queen refuses. She is not the weaker sex and will not allow herself to be used, abused or turned into a baby-making machine under the sanctity of matrimony. Grateful that love is neither required nor sought, she accepts the ex-slave’s offer and heads West for marriage on her terms. Her education and breeding will see to that. However, once she meets Caesar, his unexpected allure and intriguing wit makes it hard to keep love at bay. How can she hope to remain her own woman when victory may be synonymous with surrender?

Excerpt:

She pulled the wagon to a stop. “Care to take over?”

She held the reins before him. He nodded. She handed over the reins, crossed her arms and stared at him. “Tell me more about Emma.”

He shrugged. That kind of detail hadn’t been part of the bargain, but…

“Not much to tell. She used to teach us slaves in secret, then openly when Union forces secured our town. I was her star pupil. We married and came West for a fresh start. She died giving birth to twin boys soon after we arrived. They followed her within a few hours.”

A soft light shone at him from her eyes. “Sorry for your loss.”

“None needed. Good comes from bad. Death, not slavery, took my boys from me. They never had to live as someone’s property.” He sat a little straighter. “Our children will never have to worry about that.”

“Our children?” She swiveled in her seat. “You made no mention of wanting children, just marital relations as necessary. I understood that to mean intercourse.”

“I wrote I wanted to leave a legacy.”

“A legacy. Not a dynasty.”

“Legacy. Dynasty. Is there really so sharp a distinction?”

“To my mind there is. I understood you meant to affect future generations—endow schools, found churches, create civic associations. I didn’t realize that meant children. I agreed to having sex, not having children.”

“Of course I want children.” His brows grew heavy as he frowned. “Doesn’t having sex lead to having children?”

“Not with the right precautions.”

His frown deepened. “Precautions?”

“There are many ways to prevent your seed from taking root, Mr. King.”

“I want children, Mrs. King.”

Her lips twisted and her brow furrowed, but she kept her silence.

“All right,” she said. “You can have children with any woman you like. I won’t stop you. I free you from any claim to fidelity.”

“Legacy—or dynasty if you will—means legitimacy. No bastard will carry my name, not when I have a wife to bear me children.”

“I see.”

Her tone signaled she didn’t.

Buylinks:
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2KTaGPH
Wild Rose Press: https://www.thewildrosepress.com/books/better-to-marry-than-to-burn

Find out more about Michal here:
Website: https://michalscott.webs.com/
Twitter: @mscottauthor1

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Are there really? From the expression of Edwin Booth on this 1866 playbill from the New York Public Library’s digital collection, he looks like he’s thinking that might not be such a good thing. I first encountered Hamlet’s sentiment in an eighth grade English class. I always thought it strange that he would feel the need to say it when both he and Horatio have just seen and heard the ghost of Hamlet’s dead father. It is a line that has stayed with me fifty years later as I have pondered just what those “things” might be. Those things we can only detect through a mind open to the possibility of the sixth sense or extrasensory perception (ESP).

There are nine types of ESP that, when explained, show how being attuned to the feelings and/or our surroundings, ESP feels quite logical and for a writer pretty darned cool elements to incorporate into a story.

Precognition – The ability to see into the future.
Retrocognition – The ability to see into the distant past.
Clairvoyance – The ability to see events without being physically present.
Mediumship – The ability to communicate with spiritual world and talk to the deceased.
Clairsentience – The ability to feel the emotions of others.
Clairaudience – The ability to receive messages and information through “psychic hearing”.
Telepathy – The ability to read the minds of others and know what they’re thinking.
Clairalience – The ability to get psychic impressions from the sense of smell.
Clairgustance – The paranormal ability to taste a substance without putting it in mouth.

Check out this link if you’d like more detail on them: https://www.psychics4today.com/types-extrasensory-perception/

Hamlet and Horatio experienced mediumship. I wonder if during the African-American walking tour I did last Fall I didn’t experience it as well. Was it only my vivid imagination that allowed me to feel, see and hear the spirits of those Africans and African Americans striving for freedom, for a better life?

Why can’t a person be so sensitive to another person’s body language that they can feel what someone is feeling? Couldn’t you be so knowledgeable about a place, an era and particular events that when you’re in that place you can connect to the energy still inhabiting that place and see what took place there as if you had actually been present?

A smell, a sound, a taste can thrust us back to a moment and cause us to from the past only be stored in memory?

What if we intentionally trained ourselves to use our five sense to their fullest capacity? It’s a myth we only use 10% of our brains, but I’m willing to bet we’re only fully focused and intentional is using our brains 10% of the time. What if we could harness our ability to see, hear, taste, smell and touch to the point where we transcended time and space?

Being in the moment doesn’t only have to mean we’re only aware of what’s here and now. William Faulkner wrote “The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past.” Being in the moment also means being aware of what came before and by extension what might be to come. I like to think so. How about you?

Better To Marry Than To Burn

Freed Man seeking woman to partner in marriage for at least two years in the black township of Douglass, Texas. Must be willing and able to help establish a legacy. Marital relations as necessary. Love neither required nor sought.

Caesar King’s ad for a mail-order bride is an answer to Queen Esther Payne’s prayer. Her family expects her to adhere to society’s traditional conventions of submissive wife and mother, but Queen refuses. She is not the weaker sex and will not allow herself to be used, abused or turned into a baby-making machine under the sanctity of matrimony. Grateful that love is neither required nor sought, she accepts the ex-slave’s offer and heads West for marriage on her terms.

Her education and breeding will see to that. However, once she meets Caesar, his unexpected allure and intriguing wit makes it hard to keep love at bay. How can she hope to remain her own woman when victory may be synonymous with surrender?

Excerpt

With thanks to God, he pushed past her flimsy drawers to the moist welcome of her center. Her vaginal walls gripped his fingers with surprising force. No amount of twisting or turning wrenched them free. God, to have that grip surrounding his shaft.

He pulled back and studied her face. Eyes still closed, a sly smile bowed her perfect lips. She enjoyed this battling as much as he.

“Was I too brutal for your enjoyment, Mrs. King?”

Her eyelids rose with the slow grace of sunrise. A gleam as sly as her smile shone in her gaze. “You call that brutal, Mr. King?”

She unclenched her lower muscles, allowing his fingers momentary retreat. With great care, she grasped his hand then slid his fingers between her folds once more.

“Holy Christ, woman. What—?”

The gentle rubbing robbed him of his ability to think.

“Jesus, have mercy,” he wheezed.

She slid his fingers from her wet sex into his mouth. He moaned, lost in her delectable taste.

Without taking her gaze from his face, she raked her gloved hand down his chest, across his belly, to his groin. Anticipation tensed his muscles in the wake of her touch. He watched mesmerized as, with a practiced ease, she unbuttoned his fly, pushed past the fabric, sought, found and stroked his cock. Her woolen gloves imparted a delicious friction he couldn’t oppose, even if he’d wanted. Delight enlivened every muscle in his body, including his jaded heart.

Jesus. This couldn’t be more than arousal. Could it?

Her fingers squeezed and his body arched upward on the yes swelling his spirit with joy. He threw back his head, mouth open, ready to shout as he neared the point of release.

Then she let him go.

He doubled over, slain by the abandonment. His lungs constricted, bereft of air. Reason deserted him too.

She stood and smoothed down her skirts with the hand that had massaged his shaft more deftly than he ever had. Reseated, she grabbed the reins and snapped the leather against his horse’s rump.

“Get up there.”

The wagon jostled Caesar from side to side. Still unable to straighten up, he looked into eyes gleaming with triumph. Her lips curved in a regal smirk.

“Was I too brutal for your enjoyment, Mr. King?”

Buylinks:
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2KTaGPH
Wild Rose Press: https://www.thewildrosepress.com/books/better-to-marry-than-to-burn

When you reflect on freedom, what comes to your mind? What helps you keep your vision alive?

During a heated exchange in Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, Lena Younger says to her son Walter Lee, “Once upon a time freedom used to be life—now it’s money.” He responds, “It was always money. We just didn’t know it.”

There’s a world of truth and hurt expressed in what each says to the other. I must admit there are times when I lose my way and side with Walter’s cynicism. I make myself find things to think on that are “true and honest and just and lovely and of good report and virtuous and praiseworthy” (Philippians 4:8) so I can stand shoulder to shoulder with Lena’s idealism. One of the things I think on is FDR’s “Four Freedoms” and Norman Rockwell’s depiction of them. (https://rockwellfourfreedoms.org/).

In a 1941 speech Roosevelt gave to Congress as part of the rationale for taking on the fascism then engulfing the world, he urged his listeners to help secure a world founded on four essential human freedoms: Freedom from Want, Freedom from Fear, Freedom of Worship and Freedom of Speech. In 1942, Norman Rockwell was inspired to paint them. In 1943 they were shared in the Saturday Evening Post. The paintings then went on a sixteen-city tour. I get teary as I study Rockwell’s portraits of people with their heads reverently bowed in Freedom of Worship and of the young man standing to speak his mind in Freedom of Speech. My heart yearns for a world where everyone is able to tuck their children into bed or partake of a Thanksgiving meal in safety like those painted in Freedom from Fear and Freedom from Want. I hope I share my longing for and my beliefs in the four freedoms through my art as Rockwell did.

While I lived in NYC, whenever I was tempted to let Walter Lee win, I could go to Four Freedoms Park on Roosevelt Island (https://www.fdrfourfreedomspark.org/#). There on the tip of the island I sat with the United Nations in view on the Manhattan side of the river, gazed out onto the water and reflected on FDR’s words until I could say “Amen” to the truth in Lena Younger’s declaration, the truth that freedom is life. On your next trip to NYC, take the subway or the Roosevelt Tram to Roosevelt Island and experience Four Freedoms Park yourself.

Eleanor Roosevelt referenced the four freedoms as she helped craft the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I’m in the process of writing a set of romance novellas using each of the four freedoms as a theme. For me, justice tempered by love is the driving force in creating a world founded on the four freedoms. I, like FDR, believe that having a world based on them “…is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation.”

I hope the romances I write will inspire readers to believe so too.

One Breath Away

Sentenced to hang for a crime she didn’t commit, former slave Mary Hamilton was exonerated at literally the last gasp. She returns to Safe Haven, broken and resigned to live alone. She’s never been courted, cuddled or spooned, and now no man could want her, not when sexual satisfaction comes only with the thought of asphyxiation. But then the handsome stranger who saved her shows up, stealing her breath from across the room and promising so much more.

Wealthy, freeborn-Black, Eban Thurman followed Mary to Safe Haven, believing the mysteriously exotic woman is his mate foretold by the stars. He must marry her to reclaim his family farm. But first he must help her heal, and to do that means revealing his own predilection for edgier sex.

Hope ignites along with lust until the past threatens to keep them one breath away from love…

Excerpt

Sheriff Ambrose and his posse arrived in a thunder of hooves. Although he assured Mary he and his men were there to insure justice be done, she still worried.

Twilight filtered through the windows as she sat at her kitchen table, wringing her hands. Only the fact that she had saved Eban’s life brought her peace. He sat beside her. His warm, comforting hands clasped hers. Her lips wobbled in an attempt to smile.

“You don’t have to pretend with me.” He patted her hands. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“What if Denton dies?”

“There’ll be a new face in hell for breakfast.”

She inhaled deeply to keep the tears back. “No Black who kills a White will be allowed to live. When they hang me this time, they’ll make sure I’m dead.”

Eban took her by the chin, made her face him. “You and I will head for the safety of the border and ports beyond before that happens.”

She closed her eyes. “I don’t want to make you a fugitive because of what I’ve done.”

“If I had killed him, wouldn’t you flee with me?” He pulled her into his arms. “The real shame is this oppressive society makes us fugitives for defending ourselves.”

Mary burrowed against his shoulder. “Will we ever be free?”

Buy links:
Wild Rose Press – https://bitly./2HOu3qc
Amazon – https://amzn.to/2VT5u0F

Earlier this week I saw a fantastic photograph documenting that West Point’s class of 2019 graduated 34 African-American women, a record number in the academy’s 217 year-old history. Here it is published by Time magazine: https://time.com/5594906/west-point-graduates-black-female-cadets/. The pride on those young women’s faces put me in mind of Black women who served in the military when black people were considered property. So, on the weekend we officially remember and honor the service of those who “gave the last full measure of devotion,” I thought I’d reflect on African-American women and the military.

Black women served as nurses, laundresses, cooks and spies, the most famous of whom was probably Harriet Tubman. One woman, Cathay Williams, enlisted as a man named William Cathey in 1866 and served for three years with the 38th US Infantry. You can read more about the military service of black women in all US wars here: https://www.womensmemorial.org/history-of-black-women. As I write historicals set during Reconstruction, I thought it appropriate to share a bit about Susie Baker King Taylor, the first African-American army nurse.

Born into slavery in 1848, Susie served as a nurse during the Civil War in the same regiment as her first husband, Edward King. Because she could read and write, she taught blacks and former slaves in addition to her nursing duties. She was never paid for her work. She published a memoir of her experiences, Reminiscences of My Life in Camp in 1902. You can learn more about Susie’s contributions and those of African-Americans in Civil War medicine here: https://www.nlm.nih.gov/bindingwounds.

As an ex-slave and a military veteran, I like to think Susie King Taylor is smiling down from heaven on those 34 African-American female West Point cadets for whom her service paved the way and for whom we will be giving thanks for their service.

One Breath Away

Sentenced to hang for a crime she didn’t commit, former slave Mary Hamilton was exonerated at literally the last gasp. She returns to Safe Haven, broken and resigned to live alone. She’s never been courted, cuddled or spooned, and now no man could want her, not when sexual satisfaction comes only with the thought of asphyxiation. But then the handsome stranger who saved her shows up, stealing her breath from across the room and promising so much more.

Wealthy, freeborn-Black, Eban Thurman followed Mary to Safe Haven, believing the mysteriously exotic woman is his mate foretold by the stars. He must marry her to reclaim his family farm. But first he must help her heal, and to do that means revealing his own predilection for edgier sex.

Hope ignites along with lust until the past threatens to keep them one breath away from love…

Excerpt:

Arousal—fondly remembered and sorely missed—sizzled between Mary Hamilton’s well- rounded thighs. Moisture coated her nether lips and threatened to stoke the sizzle into a blaze. The sensation surprised her, as did the owner of the gaze that lit the flame.

Eban Thurman stood against an opposite wall of the town’s community hall. Although the room was wide as two barns and filled with revelers, neither the distance nor the presence of the crowd lessened the power of his gaze. He studied her with a curiosity that didn’t grope with disdain, but caressed with approval.

With respect.

This kind of appreciation was never given to women as dark and as large as she. Gratitude heated her face.

Gratitude and embarrassment. Her lavender toilet water couldn’t hide the fragrance of arousal. She shuddered with shame then glanced around. Had anyone else detected the odor? All the merrymakers seemed too caught up in the rhythmic fast fiddling and foot-stomping of Safe Haven’s seventh annual Juneteenth Revel to notice her discomfort.

In 1872 Texas, who took note of a black woman who ain’t been asked to wed? Yet Eban’s perusal said not only did he take note, but he liked what he saw.

Buy links:
Wild Rose Press – https://bit.ly/2HOu3qc
Amazon – https://amzn.to/2VT5u0F

School Days, school days
Dear old Golden Rule days

How many of us can fill in the three ‘R’s that make up the next line?

I’ll bet many, if not all of us can. Those three ‘R’s explain why, in this country, education prizes what’s right-brain over left-brain, what’s in the head over the heart or the spirit. But it’s what’s in our hearts and our spirits that enables us to thrive. It’s in our hearts and our spirits that the fourth ‘R’ lies, and this ‘R’ to my mind is so much more needed if I am ever to make use of the other three.

It’s this fourth ‘R’ that pulsed through Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive and Helen Reddy’s I Am Woman. It’s this fourth ‘R’ that showed up big time as thousands of women marched in January 2017 in Washington D.C. and all over the world. It’s this fourth ‘R’ that rings loudly and proudly in Maya Angelou’s poem “Still I Rise”. It’s this fourth ‘R’ that I found (and continue to find) over and over again as I research African-American women for my historical romances. I found inspiration for my latest heroine in one of those women, Frances E.W. Harper.

Born in 1825, Frances and her family were free blacks living in the then slave state of Maryland. She started publishing poetry in 1845 and wrote regularly for anti-slavery newspapers. She left Maryland in 1850 and taught at Union Seminary in Ohio. She began lecturing in 1854 and from 1856 to 1860 spoke for the Anti-Slavery Society in Maine. Imagine if you will the harassment a woman of color must have encountered during the pre-civil war era, yet she persisted. That takes heart. That takes spirit. In short, that’s resilience. During reconstruction she persisted in her activism, and in 1896 she helped found the National Association of Colored Women. By the time of her death in 1911, she had at least six collections of poems and several novels.

I’m grateful for women like Frances E.W. Harper and hope I do justice to the resilience in lives like hers by the resilient heroines I create for my stories.

From STRANDED, Put It In A Book
by Michal Scott

The daughter of ex-slaves, Aziza Williams uses her freedom to teach slaves to read, a law-breaking activity that forces her to flee the United States for the Free and Independent Republic of Liberia where her independent and injustice-confronting ways garner the unwanted sexual attention of a dibia, Dulee Morlu. In a cruel twist of fate, Morlu uses Aziza’s love for education against her and imprisons her in a book. He declares she will remain there until she submits to him. After a month of imprisonment, Aziza despairs that Morlu is right: no one will ever read her book. Fear that she may surrender to him begins to overwhelm her. Then one day, hope flutters through her spirit as she senses the unfamiliar touch of Sekou Caine, an audacious and inquisitive thief, leafing through her pages.

Excerpt:

A multiple volume encyclopedia stood on shelves at chest level in a far corner. Morlu would want his wealth within easy reach. Sekou pulled down the first volume and riffled through the pages. Paper currency of all types fluttered to his feet like leaves whirling from the branches of bombax trees in winter.

Clever, Dibia. But not clever enough.

Sekou chuckled and rifled through volume after volume. By the time he reached Z a pile of money lay on the floor. He scooped the cash into his swag sack, laughing quietly at his haul.

He thrust the last volume back into place, knocking a slender manuscript off the shelf.

The Story of Aziza.

He recognized the title of the book with which Morlu had taunted him. He picked it up, fanned the pages with his thumb. A sigh drifted past him. Startled, he crouched and looked left then right. Only the night breeze disturbed the silence. He fanned through the pages again. This time a scent – light like rain, sweet like honey – graced the air.

He stared at the face of a withered old hag on the book’s cover. The image had repulsed and fascinated him. The gaze in her eyes shone with intelligence and defiance, so unlike the villagers lionizing the dibia at this moment.

Sekou opened to the flyleaf. There the image of a black beauty stared back at him. Her skin was as smooth as the hag’s was wrinkled, but the same intelligent defiance shone in her eyes. He traced the outline of her chin jutting forth with pride.

“So, ladies…” He feathered his fingers along her full lips then examined the woman on the cover again. “To which one of you does this story belong?”

Aziza’s chest heaved. Warmth from the intruder’s fingers suffused the book’s cover, intoxicating her mind and her spirit with hope. The rapid flutter of her prison’s pages kindled arousal along her labia. She shivered as delight saturated her deadened limbs.

Once again, the rapid riffling of the pages sent tremors of pleasure through her. She knew not whose hand cradled her prison, but the respectful caress told her this couldn’t be her captor. Dared she hope this might be a person she could trust to set her free?

Pre-order link: https://amzn.to/2JyIK4V

About the Author

Michal Scott is the penname of Rev. Anna Taylor Sweringen, a retired United Church of Christ and Presbyterian Church USA minister. A native New Yorker, Anna is a recent transplant to the Southwest and is enjoying the great weather along with her husband of twenty-nine years and their two cats. Her loves of history and romance came together in her first novella with Wild Rose Press, One Breath Away.

Anna has been a member of Romance Writers of America since 2003 and holds membership in six of their chapters. She also writes inspirational romance as Anna Taylor and gothic romance as Anna M. Taylor. You can connect with Michal on Twitter @mscottauthor1 and learn more about her writing at www.michalscott.webs.com.

Born in 1956, I’m a product of the “Say it loud I’m Black and I’m Proud” sixties and have always loved learning of the achievements of African-Americans. Many years ago I was pleasantly surprised to come across a box of flash cards of thirty-six famous African Americans. Martin Luther King Jr was prominently displayed on the cover, but I recognized miniatures of Marian Anderson and Mary McLeod Bethune. I bought it at once and hurried home with my prize. Imagine my surprise when I opened the box and discovered only six of the thirty-six were women! I was expecting half the cards to be dedicated to women. After all we are the other half the human race, right? I might have grudgingly settled for twelve, but six? I appreciated the six represented different firsts like Shirley Chisholm and Marian Anderson, historical champions like Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman, and two well-known in the Black community if not as well known in the larger society like Mary McLeod Bethune and Phillis Wheatley. But this collection was sending an unfortunate subliminal message, i.e. women don’t contribute equally to “the Race.” That disappointment sent me on a crusade.

I began collecting images of Black women whenever I came across them. Postcards, books, magazines, you name it. If it had an African-American woman on or in it, I bought it. I framed the images in dollar store box frames and put them on the walls of my apartment. My collection grew to over three hundred images, multiples of those who are household names like Billie Holiday, but the majority who were famous in their time like Ada Overton Walker. Born in 1880, she and her husband George Walker became well-known for their interpretation of the cakewalk.

Soon, I just started collecting images of any black woman or girl I found and framed those too. Even though nameless, they deserve to be noticed, too. So in honor of all the African-American women you’ve encountered over the years, please share their names so I can find their images and add them to my collection.

One Breath Away

Sentenced to hang for a crime she didn’t commit, former slave Mary Hamilton was exonerated at literally the last gasp. She returns to Safe Haven, broken and resigned to live alone. She’s never been courted, cuddled or spooned, and now no man could want her, not when sexual satisfaction comes only with the thought of asphyxiation. But then the handsome stranger who saved her shows up, stealing her breath from across the room and promising so much more.

Wealthy, freeborn-Black, Eban Thurman followed Mary to Safe Haven, believing the mysteriously exotic woman is his mate foretold by the stars. He must marry her to reclaim his family farm. But first he must help her heal, and to do that means revealing his own predilection for edgier sex.

Hope ignites along with lust until the past threatens to keep them one breath away from love…

Excerpt:

“Will you let me help you?” He extended his hand, waited for permission.

She took his hand as he had taken hers and pressed his fingers to her wounded flesh. Pain, quick and sharp, flashed through her mind. She gasped and tugged his hand away, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Don’t fight it.” He stayed close, stroked his thumb soothingly where the scar stretched beneath her ear. “Your fear gives it strength.”

The rhythm of his strokes calmed her fears, relaxed her body. She had no energy, no desire to resist. Her hands slipped from his wrist. Her arms hung limp at her sides. She closed her eyes.

“I—I’ve got to sit down or I’ll fall down.”

“Then fall.” His gaze held the assurance she needed. “I’ve caught you before. I’ll catch you again.”

On cue her knees buckled and she collapsed. He swept her into his arms with the ease of pushing a swinging door. She buried her face in his chest, wheezed, shuddered, wheezed again.

“Relax,” he cooed. “Relax. It’s your fear. Nothing more.”

She blinked, fought for breath through gritted teeth. “Bu—but my response is not nothing. It’s real fear.”

“Yes, it’s real, but not permanent. Your fear can be controlled and finally conquered.”

“Controlled?” She panted. Disbelief huffed out on each breath. “How?”

“With time…if you’re willing.” His mouth hovered a hair above hers. The warmth of his words whispered between her parted lips. “Are you willing?”

“I—I’m not sure.”

“Let me convince you.” He closed the gap between their mouths.

A hint of peppermint tooth powder boosted rather than masked the natural earthy taste of tooth and saliva. Each swipe of his tongue strengthened her spirit. God, she had heaven in her mouth.

She drowned in the moans vibrating from her throat. In her mind she surfaced for air, for relief, but the need for more pulled her back under. She wrapped her arms around his neck, invited him to plunge deeper, take her deeper. Desire warred with fear. In her heart she prayed.

God, please let desire win this time.

Book links:
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2QfEOZd
Wild Rose Press: https://bit.ly/2Bim5o7

Social media links:
@mscottauthor1
Website: https://www.michalscott.webs.com

Backlist links:
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2QfEOZd
Wild Rose Press: https://bit.ly/2As0Dui