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I stand in praise of copy editors
One of History Press’ copy editors reviewed this manuscript and pronounced it fit. Well, mostly fit. The book is “very well written,” he said, but it contains errors of “grammar, style, spelling and consistency.” He made about 40 blue-type changes in the document. Most were violations of the publisher’s house style. That means, in my…
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Inserting more of me in this book
One of the first things that Dr. Wayland Marks asked when we met for coffee was, “So, what do you think? Do you think he was lynched?” I have known Marks, a Fredericksburg, Va., physician, for many years. He was among a group of 15 people who volunteered to read an early version of this…
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A fortuitous phone call
One of my goals for this book was to figure out exactly what happened to Shedrick Thompson. If I have succeeded in doing that, it’s in large part because of Tom Davenport. I was still working at the newspaper when Tom called and introduced himself as a Fauquier County, Va., filmmaker. He said he was…
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A new title, or learning to play well with the other children
Before History Press agreed to publish this story, they asked me to complete an 8-page application. One of the questions they asked was: are you capable of working with other people on a long-term project that requires a “high level of co-ordination.” In other words, do I play well with the other children? I answered…
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What am I going to do with the rest of my life?
It’s done. It’s gone. I sent my manuscript to the History Press on Friday. With that delivery, I met the second of two February deadlines. The first was for the photographs. This one was for the book itself. Actually the book is still just an email attachment, a Word document of 51 pages, 32,000 words,…
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We will begin with a few words by Claudine Ferrell
I am grateful to Claudine Ferrell for writing the introduction for this book. Claudine is a professor of history at the University of Mary Washington, where she has taught for more than 30 years. Her doctoral work at Rice University focused on lynching in the South. One of the librarians at Mary Washington told me about…
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What color would you like, sir?
The questions that my editor asked reminded me of the goofy things that Gilda Radner would say as Baba Wawa on Saturday Night Live. But I understood why he wanted to know, and I enjoyed answering him. Again, he was thinking about the cover for this book, and he wanted to know two things: What…
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Thinking about a cover
My editor has been thinking about the cover for this book, and last week he asked me to list the photos that I thought would work best. I told him that when I think about Shedrick Thompson’s hanging, I am reminded of the famous picture of the lynching of Leo Frank. Frank was lynched in…
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My book in 125 words or less
The latest assignment from my editor is to write a paragraph for the back cover. He said to highlight the key places, people and events in the book, and convey the chronological and geographic scope. And please do all that in 125 words or less. The assignment reminded me of an exercise I used when…
Author & Lecturer
Jim Hall 