I always believed that as an intuitive writer I couldn’t stick to an outline, but I was wrong. The loose structure I came up with when I started writing Ancestor Trouble was my guiding light. If you’re curious, I write a little bit about my book’s structure and table of contents in my latest newsletter.
I’d also like to thank Honorée Fanonne Jeffers. As you may remember, I’m a big fan of her work, so imagine my astonishment and delight when I saw this in The Boston Globe: “[I’m currently reading] Maud Newton’s fantastic memoir, Ancestor Trouble. It’s well researched, well written, and juicy. I love a good juicy historical book.” The admiration is more than mutual—let me recommend her novel, The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, yet again. I read it in galley form, and then I wanted to spend more time with the characters, so I listened to the audiobook.