January 2026. There are many coming-of age novels about young women. Jane Eyre was the first for me, a beloved companion to my own growing-up years. It was not until after I had written Ellie’s Great War that I discovered that my character Eleanor had a fictional sister in Addie Baum, the main character in Anita Diamant’s The Boston Girl, published in 2015 by Scribner.
Addie and Ellie come of age about the same time, during the early years of the Twentieth Century. Both are smart and ambitious, and both resist the traditional limits that their cultures (North Boston’s Jewish community In Addie’s case, and upstate New York’s Protestant one in Ellie’s) place on women’s development. And both win their freedom.
November 2025 is the 107th anniversary of the Armistice that brought World War I to an end. The research and reflection that led me to write Ellie’s Great War have brought me closer to the young soldiers of that period, their families, and their communities – especially to Fred L. Stilson of Cobleskill, New York, an inspiration for one of the main characters in my novel.
September 2025. The San Francisco Bay area had numerous talented women photographers during the early 20th century; among them were Dorothea Lange, Imogen Cunningham — and Anne Brigman, who saw herself as an artist rather than a recorder of reality.
Brigman composed striking images, many of which showed women posing against blasted trees in the Sierra wilderness. To enhance the artistry of her images, she frequently manipulated them in the darkroom, often blending two or more negatives together.
Brigman lived in Oakland. My fictional character Irene Fletcher was inspired by her.
August 2025. During the late 1980s, I frequently traveled to Cobleskill, New York from California to visit my aging parents. I enjoyed listening again to their tales of growing up in the years around World War I. Curious to learn more about my home town during that period, I delved into a collection of old local newspapers in the public library.
To my delight, I discovered that the papers had printed not simply reports about local boys in the military during World War I, but also their own letters home, full of first-hand details and impressions of life during military training, on the front, or at the Army hospital closer to home. Of course, the papers included much detail on local activities and issues as well, enriching my view of life on the home front.
Inspired by all this vintage news, I began writing Ellie’s Great War soon after. The novel has its roots in my home town, but the setting, story and characters are all my own creations.