Unknown to Dawn, her grandfather has shot an old swan out of mercy. In their coastal Alaskan town, her father buys the swan pelt, preventing her Uncle Alex, a fur trader, from selling it for export. Dawn’s father surprises her part-Aleut mother with a hat she helped to make and also with an idea to catch poachers. Shooting swans has become illegal but Alaska is a territory and Prohibition occupies the Sheriff. Dawn and her mother become involved with suspicious responses to the swan bonnet besides its haunting effect. Because Dawn’s grandparents see the swans first, Dawn agrees to secretly watch the migration with the Deputy Sheriff’s son. But after she and her mother encounter women from a ship and find out about a hunting party, they ride to the inlet. There are also townspeople roving the shore but who is the vigilante and who is the poacher?
Targeted Age Group:
YA and Adult
More research is needed for historical fiction, and I think it is detail of the past that becomes the underpinning to the imagination. Fictionalizing has to be more controlled because of this and because of the differences in past and present dialogue.
What Advice Would You Give Aspiring Writers?
Allow yourself to write your story and in your way. Later on, you’ll want to be hard on yourself, to hold the story away from you, so that you can edit it for submission.
Author Bio:
Katherine L. Holmes lives in Duluth, Minnesota, where she does much of her writing in the winter. She also works with used books. Her first published book, The House in Windward Leaves, became a Finalist in the 2013 Next Generation Indie Book Awards and in the NIEA awards. She’s had three other books published. Those and more about her can be found at her website: https://sites.google.com/site/katherinelholmesauthorprofile/
Reading about Alaska’s history, I came across the catastrophe of swans nearly become extinct in North America, and how Alaska figured in being a main region for their nesting. This was a successful protection of a species, and inspired me to imagine the historical period.
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Social Media:
https://www.facebook.com/katherine.l.holmes
