Friday, September 28, 2023: Newsletter Recommendations
Daily Diary, Day 1124: Brief Check-in: Had a very bad bout of insomnia last night, only 4 hours of sleep. Haven’t had this in a long time. Combination of my husband having bad night (allergies), my usual aches, a TV show we watched leaving a bad mental image I couldn’t get rid of, and then eventually, I got hungry! I have every faith I will have a better night tonight, but taking it very, very slowly today. Meanwhile, here are my recommendations for newsletters and posts for you all.
This week I am going to mention a number of newsletters that focus on historical events.
The first is a newsletter called Looking Through the Past. George Dillard, who writes this newsletter, says in his About Page that: “This newsletter is a series of investigations into historical topics, with the hope that I can illuminate some forgotten corners of history for you. I’m especially interested in looking at things — works of art, artifacts, and the like — to see what they can tell us about the past (and maybe what the past can tell us about ourselves).”
I found this August post particularly interesting because it addressed 19th century child labor, which was a sub-theme in my latest mystery novel, Entangled Threads. The post also addresses the conditions of children that sold newspapers in urban areas, which I looked at in some detail in the novella Dandy Delivers. Because Dillard is looking at how photography influenced the attempt to end child labor, the post has fantastic pictures. I really recommend this post, as well as the newsletter as a whole.
In another newsletter, Okay History, the author says in his About Page that “Okay History is a passion project born to provide an educational insight into various historical subjects in a somewhat entertaining manner. I am a self-described Historical Humorist, and I’m pretty sure I made this term up.”
To give you a taste of this newsletter, I went back and got an old post about Halloween for you to sample.
Finally, you don’t always find historical content in straight-forward newsletters about history, as I saw this week when read a post in a newsletter I subscribe to called Pieces of String. I follow this newsletter because I like the writer’s general take on the world. Her description of her purpose in her About Page is: “Here I hope to shape some meaning and sense out of what are the often nonsensical, random, funny, painful, maddening, and head-tilting (there’s a little hound dog in all of us) events in life. I come here from 40+ years in animal behavior, as a trained professional chef, as a singer and songwriter, a single mother, the caretaker of an old-as-fuck father I’m lucky to still have.”
This week, however, she wrote a humorous post that included a little history of the discovery of how cholera was transmitted, with a link to a video on the subject. I would definitely check out the video!
In case you aren’t sure how you got here, I’m Mary Louisa Locke, the author of the USA Today best-selling Victorian San Francisco Mystery series and the Caelestis Science Fiction series. This is my newsletter reflecting on my life as an indie author trying to age gracefully. If you aren’t already subscribed but are interested in doing so, you can subscribe for free by clicking the little button below. If you enjoyed this post, please do click on the little heart and/or share with your friends, and I always welcome comments!