Runaway Hearts Read on Radio For The Blind

Greetings Bloggers,

A couple of years ago I found myself writing a history of Dorchester County in verse. Well, I had been compiling pieces of the book, and finally got it together to present it to my publisher as a book called Runaway Hearts. A couple of weeks ago the book was read on Radio For The Blind and I will eventually have a CD I can copy and pass around.

I didn't mean to write a book of poetry. I write novels. Poetry is for love-sick people and it is rarely punctuated. My taste in poetry ran about a hundred years behind the pack. But there it was.

Okay, why Runaway Hearts? Well, like us, each of the characters in the book are running either to - or from something. Notable among the collection is the story of Harriet Tubman, who was born near Cambridge where I live.

Harriet was a slave. She stole a bunch of her peers and walked them up to Canada, eluding slave catchers with the help of sympathizers and Quakers along the way. Harriet was a Union Spy, a battlefield nurse and corresponded with John Brown and Queen Victoria.

The art for this edition came from several bound copies of Peterson's Magazine, a publication something like Woman's Day. The years are 1867, 1874 and 1875. Each issue included recipes, clothing and craft patterns, advice on nursing, a short story and at least one engraving. I scanned the engravings and cropped out pieces that went along with the poetry's theme. (Grandma attended the Spiritualist Church, I guess she knew where I was going before I did.) Even the windmill on the cover is pertinent, because mills like that were common on the peninsula.

Isn't it odd how life hands you stuff and you lug it around for years before it makes sense with your life? I think so.

So. That's my story for today. Enjoy, and keep on the sunny side. Terry

Terry L White -Author of the Chesapeake Heritage Series
"Travel Through Time With Terry"
http://www.terrylwhitesblog.blogspot.com/