While cleaning up my writing room this week, I found a slip of paper in a box of old research for Where the Light Falls. It noted that a painting of Les Halles by Jean Béraud was shown at the 1879 Salon (at which Jeanette exhibits) and was now at the Haggin Read More
Picturing a World
Paris street light
December 8, 2017
The absence of the Luxor obelisk, which was erected at the Place de la Concorde and opened to the public in 1836, and the long coats and top hats of the men suggest that Vauzelle painted this picture, when? ca. 1830? Anyway, what really interests me is that lantern strung over the road, presumably an oil Read More
Marie-François Firmin-Girard
July 5, 2017
Blog post alert:> Thanks to a post at Line and Colors for introducing me to Marie-François Firmin-Girard. I love finding pictures that I might have used for Where the Light Falls had I come upon them in time. Read More
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Children in the Luxembourg Garden
July 30, 2016
A post on Children in the Summer Park at the blog, It’s About Time, alerted me to a painting I’ve been searching for without being able to remember the artist’s name—Albert Edelfelt. Itwas this painting that first gave me the idea Read More
Female gaze
May 30, 2016
Blog tip: Sunday post at the always interesting Lines and Colors, sent me to Spanish painter Ramon Casas, who studied with
Carolus-Duran at about the Read More
Carolus-Duran at about the Read More
Paris panoroama
January 18, 2016
Website tip: Wheeeee! For a 360° panorama of Paris in high resolution, click here.
Paris in Mourning
November 16, 2015
As we all try to absorb the implications of last Friday’s terrorist attacks in Paris, it seems fair for each of us to dwell with love on the aspects of the city and the people that mean the most to us. Paris has had a bloody, violent history yet who can deny its Read More
Banlieues
September 29, 2014
By the time her train reaches Paris, Jeanette is feeling scared, and this moody photograph helped me think about what was outside the window as the day darkened. Baron Haussmann’s remaking of Paris not only changed the physical look of the city, but also distorted Read More
Learning by blogging
August 21, 2014
To complement Bellows’ Steaming Trains, I was looking for one of Hassam’s American urban landscapes when I came across this image of Paris. Aha! One of the Wallace water fountains I didn’t know about until this summer. Well, well.
My experience is that you don't leave a fictional world behind even after you finish a story. Things keep reminding you of it and adding to your understanding of characters, setting, and motives. And there’s nothing like blogging to make you bring together bits of this and that! Read More
My experience is that you don't leave a fictional world behind even after you finish a story. Things keep reminding you of it and adding to your understanding of characters, setting, and motives. And there’s nothing like blogging to make you bring together bits of this and that! Read More
Wallace water fountains
July 10, 2014
Writers of historical fiction are susceptible to what someone called “research rapture,” elation over trivia. It may be just as well that I did not know about Wallace water fountains when I wrote Where the Light Falls or I might have gleefully included one whether it was needed or not.
A recent BBC piece on impoverished Britons in France alerted me to the existence of these public drinking fountains. Read More
A recent BBC piece on impoverished Britons in France alerted me to the existence of these public drinking fountains. Read More