Connie Lacy's Blog, page 6

Time travel and historical fiction in my 7th novel

I’m thrilled to announce publication of my second Time Travel novel, “The Going Back Portal.” This one features a producer for a TV investigative news team who travels back to 1840. There, along the banks of the Broad River in rural Georgia, she interacts with a young Cherokee Indian woman. As usual, there’s a dollop of romance – or two dollops in this case – and some important issues that Kathryn and Forest Water must deal with. There are also some grandmothers who play an important role in...

A brief excerpt from my soon-to-be-published time travel novel

Publication of my seventh novel is just weeks away. It's my second time travel novel. The Going Back Portal is set in present-day Atlanta and Athens, GA, and 1840s northeast Georgia. Here's a very brief excerpt from early in the book to whet your appetite: "A light breeze rustled the leaves above me. Together with the whoosh of the river, it was like phantom voices whispering. Which made the hairs stand up on my arms. No wonder Nana was having delusions. I could almost feel a presence, mysel...

If you think cornbread is a southern invention, think again!

As I head down the homestretch on my latest novel, I’ve been thinking about cornbread. Growing up, I thought cornbread was a southern invention. Silly me. Europeans learned to cook cornbread from American Indians. Including the Cherokee Indians who lived in the southeastern United States for thousands of years.Corn was native to the Americas. It's believed it was developed in Mexico about 7000 years ago from a wild grass.Not only was corn a staple of the Cherokee diet, it was part of their cr...

If you think cornbread is a southern invention, you’re wrong!

As I head down the homestretch on my latest novel, I’ve been thinking about cornbread. Growing up, I thought cornbread was a southern invention. Silly me. Europeans learned to cook cornbread from American Indians. Including the Cherokee Indians who lived in the southeastern United States for thousands of years.Corn was native to the Americas. It's believed it was developed in Mexico about 7000 years ago from a wild grass.Not only was corn a staple of the Cherokee diet, it was part of their cr...

Outhouses and chamber pots

Ah, the good old days. When using the bathroom meant taking a little hike to the outhouse. Or sliding a chamber pot out from under the bed during the night so you could do your business. Ah, the good old days. Har har har!Working on my latest novel, which is set partly in the nineteenth century, the lack of bathrooms has been on my mind. I don’t know about you, but I’m a very twenty-first century kind of person. Gotta have indoor plumbing, hot and cold running water, and heat and air conditio...

Names that mean something

While researching Cherokee Indians for my forthcoming novel, I was struck by how their traditional names always meant something. Their names could also change as they got older. A baby might start life being called Dustu (Spring Frog.) Then during childhood gain a new name based on a gift, physical trait, or maybe an event he or she becomes known for. Think Tsiyu Gansini (Dragging Canoe,) Junaluska (Bushyhead,) Degataga (Standing Firm,) or Nanye-Hi (Wanderer.) We find it charming since the na...

Spitting in a tube

Well, I took the leap this summer, spitting in a tube, sending it off to have my DNA tested. I was really hoping I might have at least a tiny bit of Native American blood in my background. My father used to say he thought he had Cherokee Indian ancestors on his mother’s side, that he might be one thirty-second Native American. And since my next novel includes a Cherokee Indian character and part of the story is set against a backdrop of the Trail of Tears, I decided to put the issue to a test...

Like to sweat? Welcome to the 19th century

It’s August. Hot as blazes here in Atlanta. Boy, howdy, am I thankful for air conditioning! I’m also thankful I don’t have to wear long dresses with bloomers and petticoats underneath, maybe a corset too, and lace-up boots. No wonder women used to faint!Nineteenth century women’s clothing has been on my mind as I write my latest novel, half of which is set in the summer of 1840. Because they certainly didn’t have AC back then. They didn’t even have electricity, so they couldn’t use window fan...

A story about a fig tree

Chapter 1 – More than a hundred years ago, my great-grandparents planted fig trees around their house in rural northeast Georgia. I wish I knew where they got the cuttings. Maybe from her parents’ house or maybe his parents’ house. Several decades later, their son, my grandfather, took cuttings from their trees and planted them beside his house just down the road. Fast forward a few more decades to when my mother and dad took a cutting from my grandfather’s yard and planted it in their back y...

Journalists in my fiction

If you’ve read my books, you may have noticed I include journalists in every one of them. There’s a reason for that. I worked as a radio journalist for a long time. It’s a job I enjoyed (most of the time.) Admittedly, I’ve never been a foreign correspondent or a Washington reporter, but my years carrying a reporter’s notebook and a microphone and a recorder around, then a smartphone with a mic attached, gives me enough insight to make my journalist characters believable. I also experienced wh...