Fiction, memoir, travel & essays
![Drawing of the New York Knickerbockers baseball team during a practice session by Homer Davenport [Public domain]](https://i0.wp.com/keith-skinner.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Knickerbocker_practice.jpg?resize=465%2C400&ssl=1)
An author asks himself, “What if a transplanted Easterner taught loggers in 1850s California how to play baseball? Would that be an anachronism?” As it turns out, no. Thanks to Alexander Cartwright, the game of base-ball, a refined form of the older game town ball, spread across the American prairie to California and beyond during the great California Gold Rush. Continue Reading →
The idea for a historical novel set in 19th century Mendocino County first came to me in the small town of Albion, California. I was spending a weekend in an old converted water tower and reading about William Richardson’s first lumber mill in Albion. Three years later, after extensive research that has led me as far afield as Saint Louis, Nicaragua, Baltimore, New Orleans, and Hong Kong, I am halfway through the second draft of the story. In that time, my eyes have been opened repeatedly to the breadth of the saga I’m attempting to write. Continue Reading →
![Richard Henry Dana, 1842 [Public domain]](https://i0.wp.com/keith-skinner.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/571px-Richard_H_Dana_Jr_1842.jpg?resize=571%2C400&ssl=1)
August 1 is a banner day for great American sea novels as we celebrate the birthdays of Richard Henry Dana, Jr. and Herman Melville. Both men provided important source information for the nautical aspects of The Relentless Harvest. Melville for his bold American, turn-of-the-century voice and Dana for his remarkable day-to-day accounts of a sailor’s life aboard ship. Both men also raised important questions about the powerless and disenfranchised are echoed in The Relentless Harvest. Continue Reading →
![Sharps Rifle Photo: Thuringius (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](https://i0.wp.com/keith-skinner.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/640px-Sharps_falling_block_action.jpg?resize=640%2C400&ssl=1)
Why would loggers carry guns? They worked in small crews alone in the forested mountains of Mendocino County. At the time, the area was crawling with black bear, grizzly bear, wolves, and mountain lions, not to mention bands of indigenous Pomos who, even by the early 1850s, still scuffled from time to time with settlers intruding on their territory. So what firearm were they likely to keep handy? Continue Reading →
![Whitman in 1875 by Thomas Dewing [Public domain]](https://i0.wp.com/keith-skinner.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/459px-Thomas_Wilmer_Dewing_-_Walt_Whitman_-_1875-e1429045016370.jpg?resize=307%2C400&ssl=1)
Though Whitman may never have “[Faced] west, from California’s shores,” as he trumpeted in one California poem, his opening stanzas resounded with authenticity. I expected the rest of the poem to be a testament to the grace and beauty of the redwood-covered hills and a condemnation of the jack-screw men intent on plundering ancient natural resources. Then I reached the line which read, “not of the past only, but of the future.” Uh-oh. Continue Reading →
![Billie Holiday in Downbeat Magazine, Feb. 1947 [Public Domain]](https://i0.wp.com/keith-skinner.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/372px-Billie_Holiday_0001_original.jpg?resize=372%2C400&ssl=1)
After listening carefully to her recordings over many years, I’ve come to appreciate the amount of effort Billie Holiday invested in each song and what a skillfully crafted stylist she was. Billie Holiday was no accident of nature. She was a skillful storyteller and has many lessons to offer. Continue Reading →
Perhaps Cuba’s most memorable patriot and National Hero, José Martí was born in Havana in 1853 and spent twenty-four years in exile. The José Martí Memorial that dominates Plaza de la Revolución in Havana’s Vedado district, aside from being the tallest structure in Havana, has a story as long and complicated as Cuba itself. Continue Reading →
![Mathew Brady [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](https://i0.wp.com/keith-skinner.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/720px-William_Walker_by_Brady-e1419103664330.jpg?resize=400%2C400&ssl=1)
The person that would emerge as one of the era’s most ambitious filibusters was a young man from Nashville, Tennessee by the name of William Walker. Early in life, Walker demonstrated remarkable ambition and brilliance, earning degrees in both law and medicine by the time he was 25. A diminutive 5’2″ in stature, he relied on a robust charisma and commanding presence to develop his following and accomplish his goals. Continue Reading →
![Crossing the Bar of the Harbour of San Juan del Norte by George Chambers [Public Domain]](https://i0.wp.com/keith-skinner.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Nicaragua_Harbour_of_San_Juan_del_Norte_crossing_the_Bar_1864.jpg?resize=754%2C400&ssl=1)
During the California gold rush in the mid-1800s, Nicaragua provided a reliable shortcut across Central America, but there were a few troubling challenges. Continue Reading →
It’s a typical weekday morning and at 5:30, the clock radio kicks in. Disoriented, foggy with sleep, I have yet to realize what I’m hearing. Will I be tazed by a screeching Sun Ra freestyle romp that will jangle me out of bed? Repeatedly nudged by Native American chants that go on just a little too long? Irritated and then charmed by a beatified bebop bongo ballad? Continue Reading →