Hey! Here’s my first ever attempt at animation. Just press the arrow to continue….

Yep, you read that right. Jolabokaflod PDX, the annual Holiday Book Fair celebrated in Iceland, Portland (OR), and beyond, is just around the corner.

And I’ll be there (kinda, sorta, be there in Portland), weaving a tale about moonlight, magnolias, and how to make a long-ago historical setting come and stay alive.

Join Paper Lantern Writers Edie Cay, C. V. Lee, and me for Charm City: Historical Settings that Transport the Reader! on Sunday December 20th @ 3:30 pm PST.

And don’t miss Paper Lantern Writers Linda Ulleseit & Kathryn Pritchett at their Finding Women’s Voices panel.

See you there!

I hope you saw Friday’s PLW post where I shared historic holiday menus and recipes.

Not for the first time, I researched and wrote more content than I could include in that post. But in the spirit of holiday giving, today I’m sharing what I couldn’t include. Here goes…

Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management (1861)

Although author Isabella Beeton was decidedly British and did not celebrate Thanksgiving (which became an official American holiday in 1863), she and other Brits (like Dickens’s fictious Scrooge) certainly celebrated Christmas with gusto.

“In December, the principal household duty lies in preparing for the creature comforts of those near and dear to us, so as to meet old Christmas with a happy face, a contented mind, and a full larder; and in stoning the plums, washing the currants, cutting the citron, beating the eggs, and MIXING THE PUDDING, a housewife is not unworthily greeting the genial season of all good things.”

Mrs. Beeton also recommends (at paragraph 1005) turkey for Christmas dinner: “A noble dish is a turkey, roast or boiled. A Christmas dinner, with the middle classes of this empire, would scarcely be a Christmas dinner without its turkey; and we can hardly imagine an object of greater envy than is presented by a respected portly pater-familias carving, at the season devoted to good cheer and genial charity, his own fat turkey, and carving it well.“

Perhaps the best part of Mrs. Beeton’s book were her glorious illustrations of 19th century dining, which I couldn’t resist sharing here.

*Hopefully, you know by now that lagniappe is New Orleans-speak for “a little something extra”.

Still looking for the perfect recipe for your Thanksgiving feast?

Today on Paper Lantern Writers, I offer some online recipes and menus of the 19th and early 20th centuries that could give your Holiday Season a little more vintage flair.

Happy October, the month of ghosties and ghoulies, long-leggetie beasties, And things that go bump in the night.

You know, Monster Month!

Today at Paper Lantern Writers I’m sharing lively links about some of the 19th century’s scariest monsters. And the woman and men who wrote their stories.

Join us!

As you might know, I’m a big fan of postcards. The older the better!

Since I can’t go on my much-wished-for-first-vacation-to-Copenhagen this year, I took a short, refreshing visual side-trip by browsing through my Danish grandmother’s collection of postcards.

Dating from the early 1900’s, these postcards feature beautiful photographs of Copenhagen (København) and other locales around the world. I love these postcards for the images, but also because they show that Grandmother Anna had many, many friends, which suggests to me that she had a lovely life.

I also love this collection because now I know exactly where my grandmother lived in Copenhagen before she immigrated to Canada. So when I finally get to Denmark, I can visit the building. Score! 

Today on Paper Lantern Writers I’m sharing some of Grandmother Anna’s Copenhagen postcards. And today on this blog I’m sharing some of her beyond-Copenhagen postcards. I hope that you enjoy them as much as I do.

We’ll start our trip by train, leaving from the Danish town of Roskilde. This postcard is dated June 21 1908.

Our First Stop is Skodsborg. This postcard date unreadable.

Second Stop is Bornholm. This postcard is dated December 7, 1902.

Third Stop is Korsor. This postcard is dated February 12, 1912.

Our Last Stop in Denmark is Egeskov Castle. This postcard date is October 23, 1906.

Fifth Stop is a forest somewhere in Germany. I just love this fence! This postcard date is September 19, 1909.

Sixth Stop is the Elisseeff Emporium in St. Petersbourg, Russia. This postcard date might be October 29, 1907.

Seventh Stop is way across the Atlantic–The State Fair Grounds in Minneapolis, Minnesota, a town & state that attracted a lot of Danish emigrants. This postcard date is April 27, 1916.

Our Final Stop is the City by the Bay–my own San Francisco, California! This postcard date is May 24, 1910, just four years after the big earthquake.

These are just some of the hundreds of postcards sent to my grandmother. She treasured these postcards her entire life, bringing them across the Atlantic when she immigrated to North America, and I treasure them now.

Although we can text to each other in seconds, sending a friend a meaningful image of our travels might keep us connected even longer. Postcards, anyone?

About Ana:

Ana Brazil has a master’s degree in American History and writes historical crime fiction celebrating bodacious American heroines. She is a founding member of the Paper Lantern Writers Collective of historical fiction writers, winner of the IBPA 2018 GOLD for Historical Fiction, and hangs her hat at www.anabrazil.com.

It’s a BOOK CLUB!

Virtual, of course!

My girls, the Paper Lantern Writers, have started PAPER LANTERN WRITERS READ! where we’ll share…the books we are reading and want to read.

Join us!

Would you take up boxing to research your Regency Historical? Paper Lantern Writer Katie Stein (aka Edie Cay) did!

Find out more in this YouTube interview.

A LADY’S REVENGE

The Paper Lantern Writers are a collective of Historical Fiction Writers, both published and unpublished.

Our goal is to tell a cracking good story, using the context of history.

Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel!

Ever wonder how American women got the right to vote? Check out my Links Essay  on PaperLanternWriters.com!

I’m sharing links to women’s suffrage archives, exhibits celebrating the 19th Amendment, women’s suffrage artifacts, and LOTS MORE!

Now on PaperLanternWriters, it’s Friday Wordsmith: Regency Romance Spymaster, Author Elizabeth Cole.

As Katie Stine (aka Regency Romance author Edie Cay) shares…

“In our first Friday interview for our new Friday Wordsmith series, we’ve thrown some questions at historical romance author Elizabeth Cole. Ms. Cole is the author of the Regency spy series Secrets of the Zodiac, the medieval romance series The Swordcross Knights, and the paranormal romance series The Brothers Salem. Her latest book, Breathless in the Dark was published earlier this year.”