Ruth Tenzer Feldman's Blog, page 14

Don’t Tell Ruth!

She hasn’t said a word to you, has she? I mean about being away for a few weeks and pretending to blog just as if she were at home. Well, if Ruth Tenzer Feldman thinks she can get away with that, she has another think coming!

And think she will, when I take over this blog later on this summer, as soon as I figure out how. My parents will be livid, but what else is new? If I had done everything they wanted, I never would have started a new life on the edge of San Francisco Bay. I never would ha...

Catch My Drift

Earth's major tectonic plates

Alfred Wegener liked to puzzle out problems, and one of them was how the world’s continents came to be. South America and Africa looked like two puzzle pieces that should have fit together once. Back in 1912, while our fictional Miriam Josefsohn was campaigning for woman suffrage, Wegener proposed the theory of continental drift. A hundred years later, most of us see the sense in his explanations. But when Wegener first spoke about his hypothesis, few geologists t...

Charlie Chaplin, “Militant Suffragette”

The actor we know as Charlie Chaplin (Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin) is probably most famous for his image of a man with a small mustache and a derby hat. That was not the Chaplin who appeared in “A Busy Day,” the silent film that Keystone Studios released on May 7, 1914. Growing up impoverished in Britain, Chaplin was just starting his career as an actor in the United States. “A Busy Day” is one of his lesser known films, and with good reason!

The opening scene in the movie notes that Chaplin p...

Miriam, Maypoles, and May Day

I don’t think that there’s a definitive answer about the origins of the maypole, although the tradition of dancing around a maypole seems to have been with us since forever. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Miriam Josefsohn and her friends danced around a maypole in 1912, although the earliest photograph I’ve seen from Portland comes from a few years later. It shows children dancing around a maypole in front of the Kennedy School in 1916.

The celebration continues, thanks to the Maypole D...

Hauptmann, Atlantis, and Titanic

In Blue Thread, which takes place in late 1912, Miriam’s mother says: “The Titanic was such a shock. I can’t imagine how the Steinbachers have the courage to make the crossing next spring.”

Here it is, spring 2013, a hundred years after the Steinbachers’ ocean crossing, and I’ve discovered a coincidence that might have shocked writer Gerhart Hauptmann. Here’s the story.

By 1912, German-Polish author Gerhart Hauptmann had written several excellent plays and novels. His latest work that year, Atl...

Miriam’s Willamette River: Filthy!

Earth Day wasn’t celebrated back in the time of Blue Thread, when the Willamette River sorely needed attention. The first Earth Day took place on April 22, 1970. According to Earth Day Network: “The idea came to Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson, then a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, after witnessing the ravages of the 1969 massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California. Inspired by the student anti-war movement, he realized that if he could infuse that energy with an emerging public consciousne...

Centennial of Income Taxes

The question is: “Did Julius Josefsohn of Blue Thread fame pay income tax a hundred years ago in 1913?” There are two answers. The first is: “Who cares? He’s an imaginary character, the father of an imaginary girl.” Well, yes, that’s true, but some authors live with their characters a while. I am one of those authors. The second answer is “maybe.” Here’s the long version of that answer.

In 1909, Congress passed the proposed 16th Amendment to the Constitution. The amendment reads:

The Congress s...

Back to Work on the New Book

To tell the truth, the Blue Thread characters are still all aglow and a bit full of themselves after receiving the Leslie Bradshaw Award for Young Adult Literature at the Oregon Book Awards ceremony this week. I certainly am not about to dampen their enthusiasm, since at least two of them are working hard with me on the next book, The Ninth Day. Lots to do before Ooligan Press releases them to the world this fall. No wonder this is such a short post!

Blue Thread Wins!

I am honored to announce that Blue Thread has received the Leslie Bradshaw Award for Young Adult Literature, a category of the Oregon Book Awards. The announcement came last night during ceremonies at the Gerding Theatre, and this morning my local (and favorite) florist delivered this flower arrangement from my current project managers at Ooligan Press. Thank you, McKenzie! Thank you, Kelsey! Thank you Ooligan! A small press with a big heart. I’m so glad to be working with Ooligan again on a...

Blue Thread at Literary Arts… Tonight!

Seven writers whose books are finalists for the 2013 Oregon Book Awards will be reading tonight at Literary Arts. I’ll be there with Blue Thread, along with authors Kerry Cohen (Dirty Little Secrets: Breaking the Silence on Teenage Girls and Promiscuity andSeeing Ezra), Carter Sickels (The Evening Hour), Aria Minu-Sephr (We Heard the Heavens Then), Alexis Smith (Glaciers), Tony Hanner (Gertrude: Poems and Other Objects), and Ismet Prcic (Shards). The event begins at 7pm and takes place at:

Lit...