The 15th Star (A Lisa Grace History - Mystery) (31 page)

BOOK: The 15th Star (A Lisa Grace History - Mystery)

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http://www.saratogaflag.com/starspangledbanner.html

I wrote the first 50,000 words of my first draft during National Novel Writing Month which has fun filled competitions for those interested in writing a novel. See:
http://nanowrimo.org

Acknowledgments

I also want to thank The Writers in Paradise Conference at Eckerd College, St. Petersburg, Florida. Master authors Sterling Watson and Dennis Lehane co-direct and bring together a powerful team of the best authors working today to mentor and teach students like me. I work-shopped part of
The 15
th
Star
during the 2010 conference under the guidance of Laura Lippman who has won every major mystery writing award including the Edgar, the Christy, etc…

Besides being taught by Laura, Sterling, and Dennis, I learned the craft of writing from Anita Shreve, Ann Hood, Stewart O
’Nan, Tom Franklin, Michael Kortya, Sherri Reynolds, Beth Ann Fennelly, and Denise Duhamel. Also a special thank you to Christine Caya who is a great writer and helps to run the whole show. I have to mention Stephen King’s
On Writing,
and
Ann Hood’s
Creating Character Emotion
.

Other authors I consider my mentors are Debby Mayne and Lena Nelson Dooley along with the American Christian Fiction Writers group. I recommend anyone who is serious about writing to attend both of the above conferences.

Lastly, thank you dear reader for reading my book. I am honored that you spent your precious time to come with me to a different time and place. I hope you cried when you read the last letter from Grace to Keiko as I cried when I wrote it and cried again when I read it out loud to my soul mate, my husband, Todd.

Thank you to
Knoxville Magazine, the July 2009 issue,
for
their article mentioning the history of the Star Spangled Banner. The article sparked my interest and put me on my fictional quest for the star.

Thank you to my mom and dad, Ray and Marge Nelson, who cheer me on and read everything I write, and my precious daughter Cammy for helping me understand the birthing process first hand. (She reads everything I write too!)

Background

The
15
th
Star
is a work of fiction. The War of 1812 is one of the least understood in American history. President James Madison presented the reasons why we should go to war to Congress on August 1, 1812, and by August 18, 1812, the three-year War of 1812 had begun. The war was in great part in protest of the nine hundred American merchant ships the British had seized since 1807, as being in violation of the trade embargo that they had imposed against France. American sailors and ships were being conscripted, against their will, to fight for The Royal Navy against France. Those who could afford it could pay a fine and regain their freedom.

As a new country, a short thirty-six years after gaining our independence, it was our time to re-assert our right to national sovereignty.

While most of the historical characters did exist, I have taken the liberty to imagine events that have occurred only within the confines of this story. Please feel free to research the facts at various state, government, and museum websites and archives. Again, this is a work of fiction based on historical events and people. One fact remains, the 15
th
Star
is
missing to this day, and I am sure the Smithsonian would be grateful for its return.

The story in this book is a complete fabrication of my imagination of what occurred to these real-life people. I wrote this story to make history come alive. The characters of Mr. Rivers and Mr. Copper are made up. I did not want to saddle any of the fine people who made our country, bear the weight of such evil behavior, although men like that certainly existed and had an impact on our country
’s history.

Sources

Cover photo credit:

http://www.saratogaflag.com/starspangledbanner.html

I used the following books and web sites as a reading list to get a feel of the time period surrounding the War of 1812.

Founding Myth’s - Stories That Hide Our Patriotic Past by Ray Raphael, ©2004, The New Press, ISBN # 1-56584-921-3,
www.thenewpress.com

Breaking The Chains - African American Slave Resistance, by William Loren Katz, published by Atheneum Macmillan Publishing Company,
©1990 by Ethrac Publications, ISBN # 0-689-31493-0

What Hath God Wrought - The Transformation Of America, 1815 - 1848, by Daniel Walker Howe, Oxford University Press,
©2007, #ISBN 978-019-507894-7,
www.oup.com

Smithsonian national Museum of American History -
http://www2.prnewswire.com/mnr/americanhistory/35485/docs/35485-History_of_the_SSB_Fact_Sheet.doc
©2008

http://www.usmm.org/warof1812.html

http://www.ordersofbattle.darkseapc.net/site/history

The Naval War of 1812 by Theodore Roosevelt 1883

http://www.history.navy.mil/librarymanuscript/king_george.html

http://www.flaghouse.org

http://www.mdoe.org/pickersgill.html

http://www.warof1812.ca/1812events.html

http://www.wehali.com/tsalgi/index.cfm?event=showSyllabary

http://www.ourwhitehouse.org/warof1812.html

http://www.ourwhitehouse.org/primarydolleyletter.html

http://maryland1812.wordpress.com/2011/04/14/lt-colonel-george-armistead-1780-1818-commander-fort-mchenry/