Writing about women
Some women did not like it when I began preparing my speech about Colonial women. They said to me, “What makes you an expert on women?” I was so surprised at their hostility that I didn’t have a ready answer.
Today, three years after that conversation, I’m ready with my presentation on Colonial women, called FRONTIER FEMINISTS. And I would tell my colleagues that I’m certainly no expert on women. I’m just a novelist who wants to write better books; after all, my main character is a woman, and I need to know, from history, what her life in the mid-1700s might have been like.
Were the lives of all Colonial women as circumscribed and restricted as we often think? The answer, I found, is no. Some women attained great influence and control over their lives. You’ll hear about them if you attend one of my presentations this fall. This answer, surprising to me, gave my character a lot of flexibility and room to maneuver. In the story I was creating, she could “get away with” alot.
I feel like I’ve earned the right to speak about Colonial women. Not because I’m an expert on women, but because I have honored my main character and, through my research, the process of writing historical novels.
About The Author
Jeff Heller
I'm a historical novelist who focuses on Colonial America, particularly the French-Canadians who settled North America in the 1600s and 1700s. My first novel, A FALSE DAWN, features Louise, a young wife and mother who must search for her son and her husband when the English invade their home in French-held Montreal and torch the city.