About us
People who enjoy history but especially enjoy it told as fiction in order that they gain human perspective. Summed up best by this quote: “History tells us what people do; historical fiction helps us imagine how they felt.” Guy Vanderhaeghe
Meetings will be held virtually on the 2nd Monday from 7:00pm-8:00pm (eastern time zone) on Zoom. The schedule and supporting materials will be on the website (along with the zoom link once you RSVP).
Deborah Mayer, Lori Vinesett, and Christy McKay, Co-Coordinators
When you join, we ask that you include a photo of yourself so that it will be easier for everyone to find/recognize one another at meetups.
Please be sure you sign up to our events before showing up!
Non-Networking Policy: We are a friendship-based group. We do not allow networking of any type (e.g., passing around business cards, advertising, solicitation, gathering email address/sending emails for the purpose of sales/promotion/recruitment, posting ads for your own group/to create sales for any product you sell). If you do try any of the above it will be cause for immediate removal from the group. Our members do not wish to be used in this way so please do not join us if this is your idea of friendship. There are plenty of other great meetup groups set up specifically for this purpose, please join them instead.
Disclaimer: By signing up to attend these events, you agree and confirm to discharge the organizer, co-organizer, and any event host from any personal injury or any legal dispute. We are friends and take NO responsibility for you in any way, shape, or form! You are responsible for yourself.
Thank you for understanding!
Upcoming events
4
Ida in Love and in Trouble (2024) by Veronica Chambers
·OnlineOnlineSynopsis: Before she became a warrior, Ida B. Wells was an incomparable flirt with a quick wit and a dream of becoming a renowned writer. The first child of newly freed parents who thrived in a community that pulsated with hope and possibility after the Civil War, Ida had a big heart, big ambitions, and even bigger How to be a good big sister when her beloved parents perish in a yellow fever epidemic? How to launch her career as a teacher? How to make and keep friends in a society that seems to have no place for a woman who speaks her own mind? And – always top of mind for Ida – how to find a love that will let her be the woman she dreams of becoming? Ahead of her time by decades, Ida B. Wells pioneered the field of investigative journalism with her powerful reporting on violence against African Americans. Her name became synonymous with courage and an unflinching demand for racial and gender equality. But there were so many facets to Ida Bell and critically acclaimed writer Veronica Chambers unspools her full and colorful life as Ida comes of age in the rapidly changing South, filled with lavish society dances and parties, swoon-worthy gentleman callers, and a world ripe for the taking.
Review: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/veronica-chambers/ida-in-love-and-in-trouble/
Extra feature: Interview with author
https://youtu.be/53SLYVZrH68?si=9h8oowCdgRjs3eFoAmerican Experience: Ida B. Wells (59 minutes)
https://www.pbs.org/video/ida-b-wells-a-chicago-stories-special-hsbazb/7 attendees
When Light Breaks Though (2024) by Brenda Murphy
·OnlineOnlineSynopsis: This is the story of Ann Putnam, of the group of girls who claimed to be bewitched in or around Salem, MA in 1692. A childish prank turns into real adult legal proceedings with very serious consequences. It walks the reader through the events and the aftermath, and many years of healing required to get past it. The compelling narrative takes us from the girlhood friendship of Ann and Abigail Williams, the other ringleader in the witch trials, to the intense, often shocking drama of the trials themselves, and to the small farming village on the edge of the frontier in 17th-century Massachusetts where Joseph Green pursues his quest to unite a bitterly divided people. When Light Breaks Through is fact-based historical fiction. Its characters are based on real people. Its account of the witch trials and the public events surrounding them is grounded in public documents and historical research.
Review: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/brenda-murphy/when-light-breaks-through/
Extra feature: Interview not found.6 attendees
People of the Book (2008) by Geraldine Brooks
·OnlineOnlineSynopsis: Follows a rare manuscript through centuries of exile and war, inspired by a true story. When it falls to Australian rare book expert Hanna Heath to conserve this priceless work, the tiny artifacts she discovers in its ancient binding—a butterfly wing fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, a white hair—only begin to unlock the book’s deep mysteries and unexpectedly plunges Hanna into the intrigues of fine art forgers and ultra-nationalist fanatics.
Review: https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/books/review/Fugard-t.html
Extra feature: Author interview https://youtu.be/416MGrLk48M?si=GQZsZvGjEXk-1k8u7 attendees
We Do Not Part (2025) by Han Kang
·OnlineOnlineSynopsis: The story of a friendship between two women while powerfully reckoning with a hidden chapter in Korean history. One winter morning, Kyungha receives an urgent message from her friend Inseon to visit her at a hospital in Seoul. Inseon has injured herself in an accident, and she begs Kyungha to return to Jeju Island, where she lives, to save her beloved pet—a white bird called Ama. A snowstorm hits the island when Kyungha arrives. She must reach Inseon’s house at all costs, but the icy wind and squalls slow her down as night begins to fall. She wonders if she will arrive in time to save the animal—or even survive the terrible cold that envelops her with every step. Lost in a world of snow, she doesn’t yet suspect the vertiginous plunge into the darkness that awaits her at her friend’s house.Blurring the boundaries between dream and reality, We Do Not Part powerfully illuminates a forgotten chapter in Korean history, buried for decades—bringing to light the lost voices of the past to save them from oblivion. Both a hymn to an enduring friendship and an argument for remembering, it is the story of profound love in the face of unspeakable violence—and a celebration of life, however fragile it might be.
Review: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/17/books/review/han-kang-we-do-not-part.html
**Extra feature:**Author interviewhttps://www.npr.org/2025/01/18/nx-s1-5260782/han-kangs-latest-novel-we-do-not-part-unfolds-somewhere-between-dreams-and-reality6 attendees
Past events
67
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