What happens when a young woman during the Oregon campaign for women’s right to vote encounters a mysterious woman and a special shawl that can transport her to other times?
That’s the premise of Blue Thread, an award-winning historical fiction/fantasy book by Ruth Tenzer Feldman who will speak at 2 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 19, at the Carriage House of the Lincoln County Historical Society. The title of her talk is “Precarious Entanglements: Mixing Story and History.”
“Historical fiction offers readers an entertaining and evocative way into history and culture,” Feldman said. “We humans often learn best when we can put facts into context. What do we gain—and lose—by adding a bit of storytelling?”
Feldman writes books and articles, mainly for children and young adults. She has been an attorney, editor, research analyst, ticket seller, and keypunch operator. Her 10 nonfiction books focus on history and biography, and include The Fall of Constantinople and a biography of Thurgood Marshall. Her articles range in topic from leeches to Einstein’s refrigerator. She lives in Portland with her husband, Michael.
Blue Thread won the 2013 Oregon Book Award and the Leslie Bradshaw Award for Young Adult Literature. The companion book to Blue Thread, The Ninth Day, will be released just before her talk. It also is historical fiction/fantasy and entwines the story of the free speech movement in 1964 Berkeley with LSD and the First Crusade.
Feldman’s book Blue Thread will be available to purchase. The talk is free and open to the public. For more information, call 541-265-7509.
