Tag Archives: research
More 19th Century Medicine
Patricia Grady Cox August 10, 2016 I can’t seem to stop reading this book! “The National Farmer’s and Housekeeper’s Cyclopaedia” contains too much useful information, especially if one is writing a novel set in this time period. This 1888 portal into the past offers not only the “science” but also the culture and attitudes of […]
ARE YOU SICK? HERE’S WHY!
Patricia Grady Cox August 3, 2016 I haven’t posted in a while due to a couple of relatively minor and totally fixable (now fixed) medical issues that kept me from typing. Instead, I worked on research for my current novel-in-progress and discovered I have a book entitled “The National Farmer’s and Housekeeper’s Cyclopaedia.” This book […]
What Inspires You?
Patricia Grady Cox January 6, 2015 One of the most common questions asked of authors is, “Where did you get your inspiration?” For me, reading about the history of the southwest, particularly Arizona, inspires me. The scenery of the southwest, the Sonoran desert, inspires me. Visiting places that remain untouched by time inspires me. […]
When the Past Seeps into the Present . . .
Those of you who frequent Facebook know about Throw Back Thursday, when people post photographs from their pasts. I like to torture my son by posting pictures of him when he was a baby. But recently I had reason to contemplate my own childhood, when Julia Robb, an author and a friend of mine, read […]
I HAD IT ALL WRONG!
Sheer cliffs. Indians lined up at the ridgeline. Horses kicking up dust as they switchbacked down the steep sandstone slope. It was all wrong. I’m working on a new novel. I had written a scene that takes place in the winter of 1879 at the real-life site of the Ashurst family cabin. The Ashursts, an […]
A TIME MACHINE
Many of the reenactors I’ve talked to credit the 1950s and 60s television shows and movies with igniting their passion for the Old West and its characters. In the case of El Paso native Jerry Eastman, he had the added incentive of family lore which claimed they were related to Bat Masterson (William Bartholomew (Barclay) […]
The British are Coming!
This month I’m celebrating the 4th of July by introducing you to an Old West reenactment group located in England. That’s right! While 238 years ago, the colonies and the British Empire went at it with muzzle-loaded muskets and flintlock pistols and quite a bit of animosity, nowadays the historical American West is popular in […]
Making Research Fun
I strive to make my settings real, to pull a reader into a time long gone. Research is necessary to achieve historical authenticity, but that doesn’t have to mean hours in a dusty reference room, digging white-gloved hands into accession folders. Research can be fun! Yes, I did my time in libraries and university collections, […]
Patricia Grady Cox 