Author Description

The second issue of Alternating Current's annual literary publication contains 43 works of poetry, maps, photographs, fiction, essays, articles, and nonfiction by 30 authors about various historical topics. Within these pages, you will find contemporary outlooks on history right alongside little-known public domain works that feel as fresh and as vibrant (and as scary) as if they were written today. Here, the old meets the new, and you'll discover fascinating history from a personal, non-scholarly literary approach.In this issue, you'll meet Jack the Ripper, Fanny Hooe, Jesse James, Geronimo, Lewis & Clark, Nikolai Vavilov, and the crew of the Edmund Fitzgerald. You'll learn of the catastrophic Hartley Colliery mining disaster, the woman who went over Niagara Falls in a barrel, the lost language of the Clatsop, harvesting sugar beets during World War II, how Commonwealth Indians were treated during World War I, and the costs of artistic patronage. You'll discover what Dorothy was like during the Great Depression and how Lucile Fitch gave birth to an atomic bomb. Writers speak about deafness, queerness, and birth control in the face of Margaret Sanger's and Alexander Graham Bell's abhorrent eugenics rants, alongside the effects of the Oklahoma City bombing, erasure poems of Jules Verne, and the sacrifices of historical witchcraft.The Featured Writer, Holly M. Wendt, mines 18th-century New England newspapers for responses to clippings about lost items, weeks at sea, feminism, and transporting lions. Her work is showcased next to the winners and finalists for the 2016 Charter Oak Award for Best Historical.