Two things from this week:

1. In revisionland, it was another week of digging into primary sources. This time I was examining a pair of letters that Alexander Woollcott sent to Jane Grant while he was in France during World War I. They were colleagues at the New York Times where he worked as a drama critic before he enlisted, and they exchanged gossip about co-workers and other people they knew in New York.

I fell down a bit of a research rabbit hole trying to fill in the details about one of the subjects of their gossip whose important position with the newspaper was tied directly to the war. And I kept coming up with almost nothing. I searched through the Times as well as the Newspapers.com database, both of which returned scant information. Ancestry returned to many hits that sorting through them would have taken much more time than I wanted to devote to a short scene. But I had to know something more about this person.

Turns out I had been misspelling the name. It all came down to the placement of one “e,” which actually belonged someplace else. That threw everything off in the searches. Once I corrected that I found what I needed, finished writing the section, and moved on.

2. I’ve been thinking a lot about Jennifer Szalai’s review of Julia Cooke’s Starry and Restless: Three Women Who Changed Work, Writing, and the World in the March 15 issue of the New York Times Book Review. It is a positive review. Szalai pronounces the book “a vibrant triple biography” of the writers Rebecca West, Martha Gellhorn, and Emily Hahn, appreciating how Cooke writes with “verve and expansiveness.” Although I haven’t finished reading Starry and Restless yet, I agree. Cooke is a wonderful writer, and I get totally immersed in these women’s lives whenever I sit down with the book.

Then there is Szalai’s final paragraph:

“Apparently the cultural imperative to wrest salutary lessons, even from the most audacious and defiant women is strong: ‘Maybe they offer a new compass by which a person may orient herself within her own choices.’ Maybe. Or maybe the idiosyncratic lives of these peregrinating writers invite a simpler, but no less significant, proposal: Read this book and be enthralled.”

That’s the part that has stuck with me all week as I think about the subject of my book and the very different worlds of writing (i.e. Toni Morrison’s advice: “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”) and publishing (i.e. who is going to read and buy this book?)

And how many times do you think I checked the spelling of Szalai’s name?

Women’s History Month

Final reminder that I will appear live on John Heckman’s YouTube channel on March 24 at 2:00 p.m. Central to talk about Dr. Mary Walker. The installment bears the bold title, “She Defied Them All.” You can find The Tattooed Historian’s page on Facebook, follow him on Instagram, listen to his podcast, read him on Substack, and/or watch his YouTube channel.

Pamela Toler’s annual WHM blog series on History in the Margins is still posting new Q&As. Be sure to take a look.

What I’m Reading

As mentioned above, I’m still reading Starry and Restless: Three Women Who Changed Work, Writing, and the World by Julia Cooke. I’ve found Emily Hahn’s life particularly fascinating, plus it’s been interesting to see Alexander Woollcott make an appearance. He was one of Jane Grant’s first friends when she joined the New York Times.

Finished Dinner at the Night Library, a novel by Hika Harada, translated by Philip Gabriel, which was lovely.

Kind of hurriedly finished Mike Pitts’s Island at the Edge of the World: The Forgotten History of Easter Island because it was due back at the library and was non-renewable.

What I’m Watching

Finished How to Get to Heaven from Belfast (Netflix) and liked it. Not sure what will come next.

Sticking with Mudtown (BritBox), a crime series set in Wales, featuring a female magistrate, with episodes that drop once a week. That’s okay. We’ve never done binge-watching.

Also continuing Young Sherlock (Prime) but haven’t been back to Hope Street (BritBox) yet because of its unevenness and soapiness. And haven’t felt at all compelled to return to Scarpetta (Prime) after that first episode.

What Else I’ve Been Doing

This was the first time in over three weeks that bowling went very well, this despite a bigger crowd because of spring break, one lane that stopped properly resetting the pins, and another lane that only periodically returned the balls. Yet one of us had their highest lifetime score and the other one had no trouble breaking 100 in each game. Then we went for ice cream.

I finally hemmed a pair of black jeans, just in time to get a few more wears out of them before I do my seasonal closet changeover.

We got through an actual blizzard. More than 20 inches fell here at Southfork over last weekend. But thanks to prompt and excellent snow removal (especially by the foreman) plus moderate to mild temperatures, right now it looks like only an average amount of snow on the ground for early spring.

So, happy spring and thanks for reading. See you next week.