Goodreads asked Sydney Avey:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Sydney Avey The Trials of Nellie Belle is based on the life of my great grandmother, who I knew only by reputation. She was a bit of a black sheep, so I put her on a literary stage and asked her to explain herself. She did so, brilliantly.

I inherited her short stories that featured independent-minded lawmen, enterprising women, hard working immigrants, a senator, a number of cads, and a cross-dresser--people I imagine she encountered in her days as the first female court reporter to travel the legal circuit in the Pacific Northwest. Some of the stories are cautionary, some are hilarious, all needed telling in the context of the life of a progressive woman, gainfully employed in respectable work, able to travel through life on her own.

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