“If I didn't know the ending of a story, I wouldn't begin. I always write my last lines, my last paragraph first, and then I go back and work towards it. I know where I'm going. I know what my goal is. And how I get there is God's grace.” Katherine Anne Porter, born on this day in 1890

"An intelligent, educated and concerned society keeps itself informed. As to news from Viet Nam, it was all there, long before the Pentagon papers, for those interested in reading it. For those who weren't, it wouldn't have made any difference anyway." Malcolm W. Browne

"I want to bury myself in a den of books. I want to saturate myself with the elements of which they are made and breathe their atmosphere until I am of it." On this day in 1977, the Lew Wallace Study received its designation as a National Historic Landmark rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2020/10/a-pl...

“. . . a wild and comparative Scandinavian tract—20,000 square miles of howling wilderness on the shores of Lake Superior.” John Bartlow Martin’s “Call It North Country,” published by Knopf on this day in 1944 rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2020/05/call...

"I guess I'm not very human. All I really want to do is paint light on the side of a house." Edward Hopper, who died on this day in 1967

"Do the research, tell the story." Laura Hillenbrand, born on this day in 1967

Podcast time! Thanks to Brad Staggs for having me on. youtu.be/pbavHM0X81Y?...

“The idealists and visionaries, foolish enough to throw caution to the winds and express their ardor and faith in some supreme deed, have advanced mankind and have enriched the world." Emma Goldman

Puzzled why nobody has done a movie about the courageous actions of Captain Arthur H. Rostron and the crew of the RMS Carpathia in racing to save the RMS Titanic survivors.

Did you know? Wallace Terry, the subject of my next bio (available Oct. 6) and the author of "Bloods," his oral history of Black veterans of the Vietnam War, sat down for an interview with another oral historian, Studs Terkel, in September 1984. studsterkel.wfmt.com/programs/wal...

"If you want someone's life story and he is reluctant, tell him your own life story; he may find threads in your life that match his own, and soon he is telling his." John Bartlow Martin rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2024/05/john...

"To me Vietnam is like the Civil War; this is part of our culture now, and it's something we're going to go back to and back to and back to. We'll *never* get away from it." Wallace Terry www.unmpress.com/978082637015...

“Dead men had been coming down the mountain all evening, lashed onto the backs of mules." rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2019/07/erni...

“The most violent element in society is ignorance.” Emma Goldman, who died on this day in 1940

“All walking is discovery. On foot we take the time to see things whole.” Hal Borland, born on this day in 1900

"Like thousands of soldiers returning home, I feel displaced. I have left my friends behind and I feel guilty. No one here knows what I've seen, what I have experienced, what I owe those I left behind." Wallace Terry, Vietnam War correspondent www.unmpress.com/978082637015...

"I told them I had come to help people suffering because of the war and that I wished all the soldiers, on all the sides, could go home. Well, the astonishing thing was that they believed me.” rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2025/10/doct...

"I've always been a fact writer and I've always written about people. Those two elements come together better in a biography than in any other form." rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2022/12/the-...

"Above all, read carefully. What may seem amusing may only be flip; arguments should be sound: points made must be meaningful." rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2024/06/will...

"It was pure hell.” rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2025/01/the-...

I'm new here, but I just had to share! My book, The Trinity: John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Civil Rights in African American Memory, is available for pre-order on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Bookshop through @uncpress.bsky.social Follow along on my website: www.sharronconrad.com

“I am basically a serious person. I don’t like to do frivolous stories.” rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-...

"You have to be tough and stick it out, or you wind up being nothing." Joe Louis, born on this day in 1914

“The first great thing is to find yourself and for that you need solitude and contemplation--at least sometimes. I can tell you deliverance will not come from the rushing noisy centers of civilization. It will come from the lonely places.” Fridtjof Nansen

“Have you not succeeded? Continue! Have you succeeded? Continue!” Fridtjof Nansen, who died on this day in 1930

Another great discussion. Glad to see an Indiana writer on the show.

“. . . the relationship between the biographer and his subject is the most intimate one in the world of letters, both affectionate and adversarial, as delicately strung with tensions as a long marriage.” William Zinsser #biography

“Jeffersonville and Indiana—May the rapid progress of this young state, a wonder among wonders, more and more evince the blessings of republican freedom!” Marquis de Lafayette on this day in 1825 rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2020/11/swam...

“Those two years in Vietnam were the most exhilarating and exciting years of my life. I can remember virtually every day because I lived my life with such intensity." Wallace Terry (preorders now available for my Terry biography) www.unmpress.com/978082637015...

“The only way to write something good is to write what you want to write and believe in the validity of its subject and don’t give a damn about anybody else." William Zinsser

While William Zinsser is best known, of course, for his classic "On Writing Well" book, I highly recommend his memoir, "Writing Places: The Life Journey of a Writer and Teacher." If you're a writer, you will want to check it out. S

Always astonished that William Zinsser took only a few months during the summer of 1974 (June to Labor Day) to finish 85 percent of what became a book that has sold more than 1.5 million copies, "On Writing Well." The idea for the book came from his wife Carolyn.

“Without a function, we cease to be. So, I will write till I die." Farley Mowat, born on this day in 1921

"We’re all waiting in the dugout, wishin’ we could pitch How you gonna throw a shutout, if all you do is bitch?" www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihI6...

"You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you are going because you might not get there." Yogi Berra, born on this day in 1925

"One of underestimated tasks in nonfiction writing is to impose narrative shape on an unwieldy mass of material." William Zinsser

“Good biographers, like good reporters, make their own luck.” William Zinsser #biography

"Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this in moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it's because it is hard.” William Zinsser, who died on this day in 2015

I once gave a book to a man in Reno just to watch him read.

“The book which you read from a sense of duty, or because for any reason you must, does not commonly make friends with you.” William Dean Howells

Hoosier Charles Warren Fairbanks, VP during the administration of Theodore Roosevelt, was born OTD in 1852. Fairbanks got in hot water for serving alcohol at a luncheon for President Roosevelt at Fairbanks's palatial Meridian Street home in May 1907. rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-...

OTD in 1943, men from the 7th Infantry Division landed on Attu in the Aleutian Islands to wrest it from control from Japanese forces, who had taken Attu and Kiska as part of the Battle of Midway. Both the Japanese and the elements battered the Americans. rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2021/05/deat...

On this day in 2016 Megan and I attended the Society of Midland Authors annual awards banquet. Met a lot of great writers and was honored to accept the top prize in the Biography/Memoir category for my book about John Bartlow Martin.

"The wars come and go in blood and tears; but whether they are bad wars, or what are comically called good wars, they are of one effect in death and sorrow." William Dean Howells, who died on this day in 1920

Happy Mother's Day to my mom, gone but not forgotten. Her she is at prom with my dad. It was a mixed marriage--he from Mishawaka High School, and she from Riley High School in South Bend.

“. . . the exciting, the creative, the lustily energetic, the freshly amusing, the newly beautiful, the illuminating, the profound.” rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2024/06/the-...

My column “Destination Indiana” returns after a long hiatus in the Spring issue of “Traces” magazine, now being mailed to Indiana Historical Society members. I profile the Holcomb Observatory and Planetarium at Butler University.

"I found that a post-graduate course in a printing office, especially when supplemented by a good free public library, played no small part in widening my mental horizon." George S. Cottman, founder of the "Indiana Magazine of History," born OTD in 1857 rayboomhower.blogspot.com/2020/10/geor...

Still eagerly awaiting a Newton Minow biography!

"Hard writing makes easy reading. . . . Usually I think good writing comes from the sweat of your brow." Richard Tregaskis unmpress.com/books/richar...