Eastern European Research Trip

When I was in sixth grade, our teacher Mrs. Hannah Graham decided that each member of our class of 40+ students should write a term paper. She taught us how to use note cards and how to write a bibliography and footnotes. The assignment, which at the time seemed overwhelming, included a forty-four-mile round trip excursion to the closest library to do research.

The minute we walked into that library (Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, Bayliss Public Library), I felt quietude descend like reverence. I sat at an old scarred table with my tidy pile of lined note cards and my stack of books, and, as I filled those cards with my  looping, sloppy handwriting, I was hooked. Could there possibly be — somewhere out there in that huge, wide world — some way that I could make a living doing research?

(These are a few of the books and articles that I’ve used as research sources for my current novel-in-progress, BONE FIRE. Photo taken in my office. Now I have pick up all the books…)

The answer to that question, happily, was yes, and now as a writer of novels set in prehistoric times, I still adore doing research, both through reading and through hands-on learning. So last year, when my editor at Open Road Integrated Media, Maggie Crawford, expressed interest in a novel set in Neolithic Europe that I started years ago, I began to dream about taking a research trip along the lower Danube River. That dream came true for me this year, April 9 through 20, 2015. And my husband, Neil, good sport that he is, dreamed right along with me!

Now my dream is to share that trip with all of you.

I hope you’ll join me tomorrow as we fly out from our local Chippewa International Airport and into the wild (we hope not) blue (we hope so) yonder!

Happy Traveling!

Sue