Crystal Wilkinson Named Finalist for 2019 Dos Passos Prize

The University Press of Kentucky is pleased to announce that Crystal Wilkinson, author of the award-winning The Birds of Opulence, has been named a finalist for the 2019 John Dos Passos Prize for Literature, an annual award that recognizes one of America’s most talented but underappreciated writers.

The John Dos Passos Prize for Literature is given annually by Longwood University to an underappreciated writer whose work offers incisive, original commentary on American themes. The winner of the prize receives an honorarium and gives a reading on Longwood’s campus.

Previous winners of the prize have gone on to win the most prestigious international literary awards, including Pulitzer Prizes and National Book Awards. They include Colson Whitehead, Sherman Alexie, Jill McCorkle, Tom Wolfe, and Annie Proulx.

Crystal Wilkinson is the award-winning author of The Birds of Opulence (winner of the 2016 Ernest J. Gaines Prize for Literary Excellence), Water Street and Blackberries, Blackberries. Nominated for both the Orange Prize and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, she has received recognition from The Kentucky Foundation for Women, The Kentucky Arts Council, The Mary Anderson Center for the Arts, The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and is a recipient of the Chaffin Award for Appalachian Literature. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and her short stories, poems and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including most recently in the Oxford American and Southern Cultures.

The six finalists are a diverse group of celebrated authors whose published works traverse genre and defy expectations. Their exceptional works are taught in college classrooms across the country.

“This is such an accomplished, innovative group of authors, and we are thrilled to honor them as finalists for the oldest literary award given by a Virginia college or university,” said Brandon Haffner, assistant professor of English at Longwood. “We have the difficult task of selecting one of them as the Dos Passos Prize recipient this fall, and the winner will join an impressive list of some of America’s most celebrated authors. These finalists represent various styles, subjects, and places, but all six of them explore crucial truths about the American experience.”

The finalists with selected works are:

Rabih Alameddine, The Angel of History; An Unnecessary Woman

Sesshu Foster, World Ball Notebook; Atomik Aztek

Linda Hogan, Mean Spirit; People of the Whale

Victor LaValle, The Changeling; The Ballad of Black Tom

Kelly Link, Get in Trouble; Magic for Beginners

Crystal Wilkinson, The Birds of Opulence; Water Street

The prize winner will be announced in August 2019.

“Why Do I Study the Kentucky Frontier?” by Nancy O’Malley, Author of BOONESBOROUGH UNEARTHED

As a military brat, I spent my childhood moving from place to place. I began my journey in Fort Worth, Texas, where I was born, and later moved to Oklahoma, Alabama, Louisiana, Japan, Texas and back to Alabama, where I then finished high school. I learned two key things during my nomadic childhood: the ability to assimilate into a new culture quickly and the knack of observing while participating. For me, there was always another social frontier to cope with, whether it was a Deep South country school, a foreign culture, a large urban high school or the throes of desegregation. Everywhere I went, I was the stranger, the outsider, until I could find my niche.

A persistent theme in my research is the idea of the frontier as the unfamiliar and uncharted, a concept that I trace directly to my upbringing. For me, a frontier can be a physical place or a social arena, and generally both. Kentucky’s position as one of the earliest areas of western American expansion certainly qualified it as a “frontier” to incoming settlers in the classic Jacksonian sense. My interest in the Kentucky frontier of the late eighteenth century was sparked by a site type called a “station” – a defensible residential site that usually housed more than one family—that was a key element of the early historic settlement of Kentucky during the Revolutionary War. Extensive research on pioneer stations in a twelve-county area in Central Kentucky resulted in my publication “Stockading Up.” I eventually received an invitation to conduct research on Fort Boonesborough, one of a handful of large public forts that were built to provide protection and sanctuary for the hundreds of settlers that flocked to Kentucky during the Revolutionary War.

I was intrigued by their experiences in a land that was similar in many respects—weather, forest composition, physiography—to their homes back east, but still very unfamiliar, lacking the landmarks, both physical and metaphysical, of the “civilized” Euroamerican society in which they had grown up. Moreover, there were Native Americans (Shawnee, Cherokee and other allied tribes) who violently opposed the incursions of commercial hunters and settlers, like Daniel Boone. These hunters killed hundreds of wild game animals, and settlers cut down the forests and claimed land as if the native people who had lived in Kentucky for millennia had no rights. And then there was the war that started just as settlement began in earnest. And not just any war, but a bloody family conflict that was fought to separate the American colonies from their mother country of England.

My research into the practical survival strategies that the settlers used to weather deadly attacks and raids while still moving toward their goal of permanent settlement focused necessarily on the defensive sites they built—the stations and forts that formed a network of protective places connected by trails and paths. But always present in my mind was what was going through the settlers’ minds as they woke up each day, not knowing what harrowing event might come yet still having to find enough food for themselves and their animals, get along with their neighbors and put up with often squalid living conditions.

Anthropologists are taught that people bring their attitudes, mores, practices and prejudices—their cultural baggage—with them wherever they go. Kentucky settlers were no different. And there were many differences among them—“distinctions and partitions” as Robert Johnson wrote to Governor Patrick Henry in 1786—that belied a monolithic stereotype of a frontier emigrant. People came from every American colony as well as some European countries; most were white but black emigrants, enslaved and free, comprised a significant minority of the growing population. Settlers who spoke English as their first language encountered German and French settlers who spoke accented English as their second language and exhibited unfamiliar ethnic practices. Social class and wealth distinctions were immediately identifiable. ^[1]

 

Kentucky settlers sensibly emigrated in groups composed of friends and family and often settled in the same station until conditions allowed them to settle their own farms. Personal relationships and familiarity and combined resources made shared risks, deprivations and losses easier to bear and increased the chances for survival. An enemy’s bullet knew no distinction of social class or wealth. Your life might be saved or lost but for the intervention of a stranger or a friend. Cultural differences were particularly acute and had to be negotiated in the close spaces of larger, public forts like Fort Boonesborough even while the safety of greater numbers mitigated the dangers of frontier life. Settlers had to keep their hopes trained on a future, better life that lay beyond the immediate uncertainties of life on a wartime frontier. Prosperity was not a given; many failed to attain the land and financial success they sought. [2]

What was remarkable to me was how brief this period of frontier life really was. For the core area of central Kentucky where much of my research has focused, the period of instability and insecurity was, for all practical purposes, over once the Revolutionary War ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1783. Other areas such as northern Kentucky along the Ohio River experienced Native American attacks and raids until the Battle of Fallen Timbers and the Treaty of Greenville in 1794, but that area also did not experience widespread Euroamerican settlement until some years later than the central Kentucky area. For all its brevity, however, the eight years of the war must have seemed endless at times. The experience informed the society that Kentucky eventually became—largely conservative, patriotic, passionately attached to place and somewhat insular. But as Stephen Aron carefully and precisely explains, the development of Kentucky society from a frontier to an ordered society “did not unfold in an orderly parade” and its transformation “featured many casualties.” [3] Like many other aspects of human endeavor, the frontier experience was complicated and complex and cannot be readily reduced to tidy stereotypes.

A frontier as uncharted and unfamiliar is perceived as such only by the newcomer. As a child and young adult, I adapted as I learned more about the places and people I encountered with each move. The unfamiliar became familiar and I usually found a spot where I could fit in. But since I moved often, assimilation became a habit and a survival strategy that never really left me, even though I have now lived in Kentucky for over forty years.

It’s perhaps inevitable that my personal experiences have informed my opinions about the hot topic of immigration these days. Modern immigration discussions are characterized by disturbing polarization of attitudes and opinion, but there is nothing new or unusual about the issues that immigration from without or emigration from within currently raise. We have experienced it all before, numerous times, from the first European arrivals on American shores to the trans-Appalachian movement to the entry of Irish fleeing famine, Germans fleeing oppressive governments, Asians responding to work opportunities, southern blacks moving north to escape the Jim Crow South, Latin immigrants seeking sanctuary and prosperity and so on.

Fundamentally, the forces that drive people to relocate today are no different from those of the past. Sadly, the reactions of those who feel threatened by newcomers are no different either. A look backwards seems to suggest that we keep repeating old patterns over and over again. But I believe that we are at our roots an immigrant nation and that anti-immigrant sentiments have always been limited to a minority whose voices have been temporarily magnified but ultimately, eventually quieted by the embrace of cultural diversity and equality.

Another thing I learned growing up was to adopt a “glass half full” attitude even when conditions around me, whether they be personal challenges or national sentiments, seemed particularly divided and polarized. Amid the rancorous political debates, the demonizing of opposition regardless of which side of the debate you are on and the partisanship that divides, optimism often is a challenge to maintain and the complexity of the issue makes resolution of our differences hard to attain. I recall the pioneers that looked forward to a better day and relief from their temporary privations and take a lesson from their hopefulness. Will partisan politics and “partitions and distinctions” continue to rise to the top in the future? Undoubtedly. Are we as a nation up to the challenge of fighting against the inequities they inspire? Absolutely.

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^[1] Elizabeth Perkins, Border Life: Experience and Memory in the Revolutionary Ohio Valley, Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1998. p. 85.

[2] Aron, Stephen, How the West Was Lost: The Transformation of Kentucky from Daniel Boone to Henry Clay, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.

[3] Aron, p. 2

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Order BOONESBOROUGH UNEARTHED at http://bit.ly/2YjUWsz

An Excerpt from the Preface of BOONESBOROUGH UNEARTHED by Nancy O’Malley

Boonesborough was founded by Richard Henderson and his Transylvania Company partners in 1775 as the envisioned capital of a new colony more than two hundred miles west of the nearest settlements. The company’s venture was an audacious attempt to create a colony governed under a proprietary model that circumvented a royal proclamation prohibiting settlement beyond the Appalachians. In claiming land obtained by an illegal purchase from the Cherokees, the company violated the terms of the Virginia charter. Moreover, the timing of the enterprise coincided with the American colonies’ War of Independence (1775-1783). The convergence of the Transylvania Company’s ambitions and the inception of a revolution created a unique situation that demanded a creative response. Out of that need, Fort Boonesborough was born. Wartime hostilities necessitated the construction of a defensible fort composed of log cabins and stockade cobbled together to house and protect settlers from attack. From this humble origin, Fort Boonesborough became an important site in the intertwined stories of American beginnings: westward expansion and the War for Independence.[i] 

Despite the fort’s early importance in the unification of the American colonies into one independent country, it was abandoned after the end of the Revolutionary War and the town planned at the site did not flourish. The town lots were eventually bought up by a handful of landowners who converted them to large farms. A small resort retained the name as an attraction for guests who came to fish, swim and be entertained.

Yet the memory of the fort and its significance in the history of Kentucky and the nation did not entirely fade.  Since its establishment in the 1960s, Fort Boonesborough State Park has memorialized the site as one of the most important early settlement sites in Kentucky and a key point of defense on the western front during the American colonies’ fight for independence from England. Park visitors can tour a replica of the fort to learn about the people who lived there and even visit the site of the fort itself, marked by a monument and a memorial wall erected by the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). But by the mid-twentieth century a persistent belief spread among many local residents that the monument marked the wrong site. Which story was true?

In 1987 I was asked to find the answer. The quest for the truth led me on a  journey that extended over thirty years of archival and archaeological research. I began with the original question of the site’s actual location and expanded to explore more questions about the site itself: How much of it was preserved, what archaeological evidence did it contain, and what could that archaeology tell  us? When I began the Fort Boonesborough project, I already had researched the defensible residential “stations” established in Kentucky by late eighteenth-century Euro-American settlers and their slaves on land claimed under Virginia law. The large public fort at Boonesborough, another part of the early settlement story, had never been examined from an archaeological perspective. Archaeology offers a unique means to assess the cultural past, and historical archaeology focuses its attention on physical evidence such as artifacts and cultural features (e.g., structural foundations, storage pits, and other physical evidence in the ground) coupled with archival sources to reconstruct what a site looked like, who lived there, and how they lived. This book brings together all the archaeological data that have been gathered about the site of Fort Boonesborough, one of only a handful of large forts that were constructed in Kentucky during the Revolutionary War. The site is the only major colonial fort in Kentucky that still exists as an archaeological site.

The impetus for an archaeological project to confirm the exact location of Fort Boonesborough had unusual origins. In 1985, Jim Kurz, who worked in the economic development and regional planning field, was competing in the Bluegrass Triathlon. As Jim put it in an unpublished account, “The past is important to me. Sometimes when I least expect it, something from the past reaches out to me, captures my attention, and my mind turns back to days gone by.” In the midst of completing the swimming portion of a triathlon, part of his mind was occupied by thoughts of Daniel Boone and his fellow settlers and the stories of their establishment of Fort Boonesborough. A graduate in American history at Eastern Kentucky University, Jim knew of the DAR monument that marked the traditional site of the fort at the state park in Madison County. He was also aware of the local belief that the actual site was somewhere else. He felt sure that an archaeological search for the fort site would be a worthwhile endeavor. But where to begin?[ii]

Want to know more? Order BOONESBOROUGH UNEARTHED today at http://bit.ly/2YjUWsz

[i]Only the British crown could create and sanction a new colony. A proprietary model gave full governing rights to an individual or group of people, such as was done for Pennsylvania.

[ii]Jim Kurz, Looking for Daniel Boone’s Fort (Lexington, KY: unpublished manuscript, 1990), 1.

 

The Parallel Timelines of Joseph Holt and Sandy in Leonard’s SLAVES, SLAVEHOLDERS, AND A KENTUCKY COMMUNITY’S STRUGGLE TOWARD FREEDOM

In her book, Dr. Elizabeth D. Leonard documents the lives and community of Joseph and Sandy Holt, particularly their time during the Civil War and its surrounding context. The interwoven stories of these two provide very different perspectives on the Civil War. Joseph was a slaveholder turned abolitionist who had family ties to confederates and held high level offices. Sandy was a former slave of the Holt family, purchased by Joseph himself, who managed to survive the awful system of slavery, marry, and escape to serve the Union in the Civil War during his middle-age. By placing the timelines of the stories of these men next to each other, we can see the contrasts and the intersections in these two extremely different lives.

Joseph Holt Timeline

Sandy Timeline

1807: Joseph Holt was born in Breckenridge County, Kentucky Mid-1820’s: Holt attended Centre College where he encountered criticisms of slavery. He also gave at least one speech that was critical of slavery 1845: Holt wrote a letter to his maternal uncle, Robert Stephens, saying that slavery was a “social political or moral evil”, but that there was not a safe way to abolish it 1856: Holt gave a speech defending the rights of states to manage themselves when speaking on behalf of Democrat James Buchanan’s presidential candidacy. His speech also spoke on the necessity of preserving the Union 1857: Holt and his wife, Margaret, left Kentucky for Washington D.C. after he was appointed commissioner of patents. Before leaving, he transferred ownership of all but a few slaves to his younger brother Thomas 1860: Margaret, Holt’s wife, died October 1860: Holt emancipated his wife’s slave, Jane, who remained in his employ Fall of 1860: Holt remained critical of abolitionists in his speeches and letters, as he was still primarily concerned with preserving the Union Winter of 1860: Holt’s brother Robert declared that the time for Kentucky’s secession was soon Early 1861: Holt was declared Secretary of War by Buchanan February 11th, 1861: Holt received a letter from his brother Robert that may have been what caused him to abandon his last defenses of slavery March 4th, 1861: Lincoln became president March 6th 1861: Holt stepped down from the position of Secretary of War to focus on efforts to persuade Kentucky to remain in the Union April 15th 1861: Lincoln issued a call for a militia to put down the rebellion Late May 1861: Holt wrote a letter to Joshua F. Speed arguing against Kentucky’s claim of neutrality and blamed Southern nationalist slaveholders for the conflict. He also traveled to Kentucky to give speeches against Kentucky’s neutrality and the possibility of secession October 1861: The Liberator said that Holt could not be expected to overcome the prejudices that came from the way he was raised Fall of 1861: Holt’s former father-in-law, Charles A. Wickliffe, as well as other Unionists remained very supportive of slavery April 16th 1862: Lincoln signed the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act May 21st 1862: Congress declared that laws and ordinances applied to black Washingtonians in the same way they applied to white Washingtonians May 24th 1862: Holt freed his only remaining slave, Alfred, who also remained in his employ and eventually married Jane September 3rd 1862: Lincoln appointed Holt the Judge Advocate General of the Army under the War Department September 30th 1862: Holt petitioned the District of Columbia to free his brother and sister-in-law’s slave Caroline Robinson due to their part-time residence there September 22nd 1862: Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation October 13th 1862: Holt also petitioned the District of Columbia on the behalf of Ellen Cox, another of his brother and sister-in-law’s slaves, for her freedom December 1862:  The Liberator called Holt an abolitionist January 1st 1863: Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation March 13st 1863: Holt recommended either a court-martial or dismissal for a union solider who was criticizing the Emancipation Proclamation May 1st 1863: The Confederate Congress passed the Retaliatory Act Summer of 1863: Holt’s employee, Alfred,  possibly enlisted Summer of 1863: Holt spoke to Lincoln for the protection and freedom of black soldiers, especially in the light of things like the Retaliatory Act July 1863: Lincoln issued his response to the Retaliatory Act where he promised that if a black union soldier was enslaved or executed in violation of the laws of war the same or a similar punishment would be enacted on captured confederate soldiers July 13th 1863: Holt talked to Lincoln on behalf of a black soldier, Sergeant Robert Sutton, who was being court-martialed January 1st 1864: Holt urged Lincoln to overturn the court ruling in the case of a white man who tortured and murdered a fugitive slave woman in order to sentence him to a harsher punishment July 1864: Holt was sent to Kentucky by the Secretary of War to meet with civil and military leaders to discuss the military situation. He did not visit his home county due to fears for his safety Fall 1864: Holt returned to the war department. He issued a report on his home state that condemned the justification for white oppression of black people and reported positively on the recruitment of black men for the war in Kentucky Final Months of the War: Holt served as judge advocate general and head of the War Department’s Bureau of Military Justice and continued to advocate for the rights of black soldiers and civilians

1824: Sandy was born to unknown parents in Virginia 1837-1840: Sandy was bought and brought from Mississippi, where he was taken due to a previous sale, to Holt’s Bottom in Kentucky by Joseph Holt for his brother’s wife 1842-1843: Sandy and other family slaves were periodically sent to Louisville to perform domestic chores and to look after the land and garden of the house of Joseph Holt and his first wife Mary 1846: Sandy’s name appears for the first time in historical record 1853: Sandy married Matilda, an important member of the local slave community 1853: Joseph Holt took out an insurance policy on Sandy, which he had never done before, to cover his unaccompanied steamer journey to Louisville from Holt’s Bottom in case of his death, injury, or escape 1857: Sandy’s ownership, along with many others, is transferred from Joseph Holt to Thomas Holt 1863: Sandy’s wife Matilda dies Summer of 1864: Sandy, now forty years old, ran away to Owensborough to join the 118th United States Colored Infantry Regiment. By law he was required to register under the name of his owner, Holt. June 1864: Adjunct General Lorenzo Thomas recommended that recruiters enlist even fugitive slaves who could only do the minimum of work due to physical disability, since they had no other place to go but their masters, who would punish them severely July 1864: A surgeon was appointed for the 118th, which was important due to the prevalence of disease in the military September 1864: Marion Lucas describes the mistreatment of black soldiers by their white peers in a letter October 5th 1864: Sandy and his company were with Union forces that found the body of eighteen-year-old Robert Eaves, a recruit, who was lynched by local guerilla confederates October 1864: Recruiters gathered enlistees from the Owensborough area and the 118th reached the minimum operational strength and began the journey of roughly seven-hundred miles from Owensborough to Baltimore, Maryland October 8th 1864: The 118th is ordered to proceed to City Point, Virginia via Baltimore October 24th-25th 1864: The 118th received their equipment and uniforms in Baltimore, and they were formally assigned to the XVIII Corps Third Division October 1864: The 118th performed guard and fatigue duty, which was difficult but essential maintenance work November 1864: The 118th were reassigned to the First Brigade and told to retire to the line to be trained due to concern over the condition of the regiment November 3rd 1864: The 118th’s Lieutenant Colonel, Moon, was recommended by fifteen of the regiment’s white commissioned officers for promotion to Colonel because of his bravery and success with recruitment November 1864: Moon was appointed Colonel of the 118th November 1864: Unfavorable weather obstructed opportunities for federal forces to advance November 1864: Sandy was hospitalized for parotitis December 1864: Sandy was hospitalized for diarrhea December 3rd 1864: The X and XVIII Corps were reorganized along racial lines. The white men were put in the XXIV Corp and the black men, including the 118th, were put in XXV where General Godfry Weitzel assumed command Late 1864-1865: Sandy and his company performed labor for General Butler’s Dutch Gap Canal Project. There, Sandy was assigned to throwing up breastworks to help protect the others workers. He permanently injured his left wrist in the process of doing this January 1st 1865: The ends of the Dutch Gap Canal were blown up with 12,000 Ibs of gunpowder. It was ultimately deemed a failure as the earth simply settled back to where it was before the explosions January 7th 1865: Lincoln replaced Butler with Major General E. O. C. Ord, which upset many black soldiers January 23rd-25th 1865: Sandy and the 118th were peripherally involved in the Fort Brady battle

 

Giveaway Spotlight – DECISION IN THE ATLANTIC

We’re giving a book away this week! One lucky reader will win a book of their choice, choosing from seven of our newest titles. From now until Sunday, July 21, we will spotlight one of the books up for grabs on our blog. Answer our questions on social media, and you’ll be entered into the drawing! For more details on the giveaway, CLICK HERE. 

Today’s feature title is Decision in the Atlantic: The Allies and the Longest Campaign of the Second World War. The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest campaign of the Second World War. This volume highlights the scale and complexity of this bitterly contested campaign that encompassed far more than just attacks by German U-boats on Allied shipping. The team of leading scholars assembled in this study situates the German assault on seaborne trade within the wider Allied war effort and provides a new understanding of its place within the Second World War.

When we have to choose which essay collections to read, we usually skim the introduction. So we cut the first few pages out and stuck them on our blog for your perusal. Enjoy!

Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for your chance to win Decision in the Atlantic: The Allies and the Longest Campaign of the Second World War or one of our other six books up for grabs this week. Click here for full giveaway details.

Giveaway Spotlight – BIPLANES AT WAR

We’re giving a book away this week! One lucky reader will win a book of their choice, choosing from seven of our newest titles. From now until Sunday, July 21, we will spotlight one of the books up for grabs on our blog. Answer our questions in the comments or on social media, and you’ll be entered into the drawing! For more details on the giveaway, CLICK HERE. 

Today’s feature title is Biplanes at War: US Marine Corps Aviation in the Small Wars Era, 1915-1934. Unlike the relative uniformity of conventional warfare, small wars prevent a clear definition of rules and roles for military forces to follow. During the small wars era, the US military had only recently begun battling in the skies but recognized the unique value and flexibility of aviation. This book provides a riveting history of the Marines’ use of biplanes between the world wars in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, China, and Nicaragua and chronicles how the Marines used aircraft to provide supporting fire to ground troops, to evacuate the wounded, to transport cargo, and even to support democratic elections. Biplanes at War sheds light on how the Marines pioneered roles that have become commonplace for air forces today, an accomplishment that has largely gone unrecognized in mainstream histories of aviation.

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Apart from their military and transportation usefulness, airplanes are also pretty cool to look at. We hope you enjoy this slideshow of early biplanes featured in the book!

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If you had to hop in one of these planes right now and fly across the Atlantic, would you trust them? Which of the planes above would you trust the most? Let us know in the comments and you’ll be entered to win Biplanes at War: US Marine Corps Aviation in the Small Wars Era, 1915-1934 or another book of your choice from seven of our newest titles.

CLICK HERE for giveaway details

CLICK HERE to learn more or to order Biplanes at War: US Marine Corps Aviation in the Small Wars Era, 1915-1934

Giveaway Spotlight – OLIVIDA DE HAVILLAND

We’re giving a book away this week! One lucky reader will win a book of their choice, choosing from seven of our newest titles. From now until Sunday, July 21, we will spotlight one of the books up for grabs on our blog. Answer our questions in the comments or on social media, and you’ll be entered into the drawing! For more details on the giveaway, CLICK HERE. 

Today’s feature title is Olivia de Havilland: Lady Triumphant. Legendary actress and two-time Academy Award winner Olivia de Havilland, best known for her role as Melanie Wilkes in Gone with the Wind (1939), portrayed elegant and refined characters. At the same time, de Havilland herself was a survivor with a fierce desire to direct her own destiny on and off the screen. She fought and won a lawsuit against Warner Bros. over a contract dispute that changed the studio contract system forever. From her iconic romance with James Stewart to her unending feud with Joan Fontaine, this work offers unprecedented access to the world behind the Hollywood screen and is a tribute to  one of Hollywood’s greatest legends.

Author Victoria Amador corresponded with de Havilland for forty years! They even met multiple times in the actress’s Paris home. We hope you’ll enjoy the story of how these two met, shared by the author below from the book’s introduction.