Langley Hyde's Blog, page 4

Mary Pickford at a writing desk. Library of Congress 2008678779.

I’m a beginner and I’m a young writer. I make no pretensions about my skill or where my career is at. I’m still learning. But I’ve heard a good share of the advice, including but certainly not limited to: “Write what you know.”

Like “show, don’t tell,” “write what you know” is not terrible advice, but it has been misused in critique groups probably since about five seconds after someone coined that little axiom. If I wrote only...

Although I do not know the specific ingredients of this, typical infant cordials had a great deal of opium. As opium sank to the bottom, a dose at the end of the bottle would prove to be much stronger than doses given from the top of the bottle. Due to this, caregivers could unintentionally and suddenly overdose an infant. Image credit: Library of Congress 91720054.

1. Mercury. Used to alleviate acne, blackheads, and freckles, “weak solution of bichloride of mercury—as in the form commonly kn...

Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones might be my favorite book of all time—fantasy border-lining on steampunk, it’s a children’s book with a touch of romance that deals with the exceeding complexity of growing up.

Deceptively simple, Howl’s Moving Castle tackles such hard topics as defying self and societal expectations, coming into your own and discovering what you want to do with your life, learning how to accept and work with your strengths, and what it means to fall in love. The cha...

Today, I thought I’d honor Martin Luther King Day by taking a look at—and learning about—three extraordinary men of color from the nineteenth century. Great inventors all, these men fought for the rights of their countrymen, delivered lectures, revolutionized many technologies, and wrote poetry.

An excellent resource about nineteenth-century inventors who were people of color comes in the form of Henry Baker’s The Colored Inventor: A Record of Fifty Years, but I drew my research from addition...

Very little has changed. The failed baking attempts of children remain adorable. DPLA: http://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ar....

Lately, I’ve been watching the Great British Bake Off, and let me tell you, if there’s anything I love more than the cakes, it’s the contestants. I’m sweet on about half of them. Mm. Maybe it’s because I associate them with delicious sugary confections, though. It’s hard to tell. ;p

But all this talk of traditional British baking has got me to thinkin...

These ladies can’t decide what they’re having. Coffee, or tea? Why not take a page out of my friend Ginn Hale’s book and have coffee-tea! Library of Congress: http://www.loc.gov/item/92520117/

Whether it’s raining or sunny, or raining and sunny, probably the most quintessentially British acts is to offer the incoming guest a cup of tea. Whether it’s a crying friend, a landlord popping by to pick up the rent, or a plumber, to maintain good manners, the offer must be made: “I’ve just put the ke...

Library of Congress: http://www.loc.gov/item/2014650122/#a...

Before I launch into several informational essays about which nonfiction books I’ve found useful and why (or, as the case may be, which nonfiction books I’ve found to be utterly useless), I thought I’d talk a little bit about what writerly research means to me.

As someone who is married to an academic and (in one of my day jobs) regularly interviews academics, I’ve come to understand that how I read for writerly research...

From the Library of Congress: http://www.loc.gov/item/2003677747/#a....

While “How did the Victorians celebrate New Year’s?” may seem like a straightforward question, the answer is surprisingly complex.

First of all, it turns out that New Year’s traditions changed significantly over the course of the 19th century. A quick Google brought up this BBC article, indicating that New Year’s may have been the primary gift-giving holiday in the winter season—not Christmas.

This book, Manner...

Hello everyone, and happy holidays!

Before the holiday coda featuring Neil and Leofa from Highfell Grimoires, a short update:

In January, I’ll be completing the last of the revisions of the novel acquired by Blind Eye Books this past summer. Finally, I can tell you a little bit about it. First of all, I am unbelievably excited about this book. It was a joy to write, and I think it’ll be a sweet, fun read.

Scratcher’s Gold, set in the same thrilling world as Highfell Grimoires, takes readers...

It’s been an insane November for me. Between my two jobs, my revisions, a short story, the holidays, visiting relatives, and a thousand little tasks that only I can do, I’ve hardly had time to take a breath.

At my full-time day job, as a secretary, a crisis at work prompted the telephone to ring off the hook for a week and only now am I beginning to catch up on all the various little tasks that I had to put aside to field those calls. As we head into the holiday season, the events that I have...