On Sunday at Mass, a retired doctor approached me and had finished reading Shanty Gold and wanted to discuss casting the movie. Fun!! Also, in setting up readings around the country, I met by phone a gentleman named John Carswell. I will be reading for his group in September. He and his wife both read […]
Month: July 2015
Shanty Gold, on your Nook or Kindle
By the time you read this, Shanty Gold should be published on every “e” format in the world. The print book will take an extra month. I had no idea how labor intensive this whole publishing business was going to be. After years of writing, editing, querying agents, and rewrites, I figured […]
Shanty Gold is Out!!
Shanty Gold is out! It’s official. I looked on my Nook last night, and there it was… Shanty Gold by Jeanne Charters. I can’t believe it’s really published. Well, of course, I believe it. What else have I been laboring over for the past six years? But it does feel pretty surreal.. […]
Racism: The Irish and the Negroes
In Shanty Gold, Kamua Okafor, the African slave boy who saves Mary Boland’s life on the coffin ship, gets a job sooner than Mary after they arrive in Boston. Frankly, that pisses Mary off a lot. What’s wrong with the Irish, she muses angrily. How did Kamua do it? Well, as a neophyte […]
Galley Labor
I am buried right now in galleys. No, not boats or nautical kitchens. Literary galleys. You see, once you’ve written the book, edited the book, re-edited the book fourteen times, had an agent edit the book, had an editor edit the book, and finally, after a proofreader does a final edit of the book, […]
A Hero Named Okafor
When I was looking for the perfect name for the African slave boy who would become Mary Boland’s soul brother, I found Okafor on an African website. It felt right. And so he was born. Kamua Okafor. I nearly made the greatest mistake in my writing life by allowing him to join the sailors […]
Ahhh, the Irish!
It was raining hard and a big puddle had formed in front of the little Irish pub. An old man stood beside the puddle holding a stick with a string on the end and jiggled it up and down in the water. A curious gentleman asked what he was doing. ‘Fishing’, replied the old man. […]
