“It is a strange history. Its truth is stranger than fiction.” Frederick Douglass, 1853
“She used to dream of flying over fields and towns and rivers and mountains, looking down upon them ‘like a bird’”. Harriet Tubman, Franklin Sanborn interview, 1863
ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND (SynergEbooks 2010) tells the improbable story of history’s first successful attempt to fly. According to Josiah Brantley, born a slave in Virginia, it wasn’t the Wright Brothers who did it.
In this fictional first person slave narrative, Josiah tells the story of Mose, an elderly slave and plantation mechanic who worked for twelve years in secret, deep in the woods under the cover of night, to build his crude ingenious flying machine.
I began writing ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND in 1994. The idea for the novel came as I was driving my friend and teaching colleague to her home in Brooklyn. She asked me what I was writing about—and the whole story came unspooled. She listened patiently as I blathered on and told me what a great idea it was.
Then came the hard part. I had to actually write it. But before I could put a single word on paper I had to do the research—space travel and black history.
Tons of reading and research—writing, drafting, crafting, rewriting, revising, deleting, discarding, starting over, re-reading word by word—and finally it was ready for the world to read.
I will be sharing as much of the novel as I can with you all here at BIA and Black History.com because the main theme is the great dignity, strength and resilience of the men and women whose stories make up black history.
As a writer, I would love the whole world to read my book. So I do hope you enjoy reading these blogs. One by one you will meet the characters, get to know them and ride along with them as they go on an adventure of a lifetime.
If you want to purchase the book, it is available from the publisher:
www.synergebooks.com and on my website:
www.wingsfirstflight.com I have about a dozen copies of the book to give away free of charge. If you are seriously interested in reading ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND, it will be my pleasure to see that it gets into your hands.
I hope you enjoy it.
PEACE AND BLESSINGS,
Rich
Posted By: Richard Kigel
Sunday, May 16th 2010 at 8:55PM
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