Tag Archives: Victoria Woodhull

feminism, History, Madame Presidentess, Victoria C. Woodhull, Virginia Minor, Women's History, Women's Issues

Nominate Virginia Minor and/or Victoria Woodhull to be on a Quarter

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Ever wanted to see a woman on a quarter? Here’s your chance to nominate her!

In January, the Treasury Department signed the Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act of 2020 into law. This law requires the U.S. Mint to issue quarters featuring prominent American women from January 1, 2022 through the end of 2025.

The act allows up to five coin designs per year and will feature women who have made significant contributions to U.S. history across a number of fields and categories, including suffrage.

Recommendations are now being accepted through the National Women’s History Museum in partnership with the U.S. Mint, the Smithsonian Institution American Women’s History Initiative, and the Bipartisan Women’s Caucus as consultants for the Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act of 2020.

Of course, I’m pulling for Virginia Minor and Victoria Woodhull, but you can nominate any woman you want.

Want to help? Copy the following information and fill out this form to nominate Virginia, Victoria or the woman of your choice.

Name: Virginia L. Minor
Year of birth: 1824
Year of death: 1892
Fields: Suffrage, politics

Reason for inclusion: Suffragist, political strategist, and lifelong activist for gender/race race equality, Virginia was the only woman to bring women’s suffrage before the U.S. Supreme Court. She began the world’s first organization dedicated to solely to women’s suffrage two years before Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone created theirs. She also created the New Departure, the official strategy of the National Woman’s Suffrage Association from 1868-1875, which said the 14th  Amendment gave women the right to vote.

Link to supporting material: http://www.virginiaminor.com.

Name: Victoria Woodhull
Year of birth: 1838
Year of death: 1927
Fields: Suffrage, politics

Reason for inclusion: First woman in U.S. history to run for president in 1872. Suffragist, activist and speaker. First woman (along with her sister) to own and run a stock brokerage on Wall Street, first woman to speak before the House Judiciary Committee on behalf of women’s suffrage. Her run, while not successful, opened the door for dozens of women to run for the presidency.
Link to supporting material: http://www.woodhullrising.org.

Thank you to the Alice Paul Institute for making me aware of this initiative. They are, of course, nominating Alice, and I have voted for her as well.
Madame Presidentess, Movies/TV, Women's History Month

Your Vote Can Help Make Madame Presidentess Into a Movie!

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Remember how Madame Presidentess was optioned for TV/film about a year ago? Well, that didn’t work out and I have the rights back again so Taleflick and I are working hard to get more producers interested. And you can help!

Madame Presidentess is part of a special TaleFlick Discovery contest celebrating International Women’s Day. That means it gets an extra chance to be made into a film or TV show. But only if you vote!

 

 

To vote, once you click the button above, find my book and click the Vote button that looks like an up arrow on the right.

Opens: Wed, March 11 at 1 p.m. ET/noon CT/10 a.m. PT

Ends: Fri. March 13 at 7 p.m. ET/6 p.m. CT/4 p.m. PT

Officially, you can only vote once. But you can always try again on a different device…Not that I’m advising you to or anything.

If you get a message that you’ve already voted, it means someone on the same IP address has already voted. This happens in workplaces a lot. You will need to vote from home if that occurs. If you’re still getting that message, please don’t give up! Contact Taleflick support ASAP.

Winning books need thousands of votes, so please share with all your friends. Here are some graphics you can use.

Thank you!

Events, Madame Presidentess, Mistress of Legend, Speeches

Updates: Awards, Sales and 2019 Speaking Events

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One of the ads I will be running December 16-26.

A quick update before we start with a series of blog posts on Christmas traditions tomorrow:

Awards
Mistress of Legend is a semi-finalist in the Chaucer Awards for historical fiction pre-1700. We will find out the final results in April.

There is another award I know about, but can’t announce yet…

Sales
Madame Presidentess got an international BookBub ad for December 21 to celebrate its film option, so it will be on sale all over the world December 17-26 for only $0.99 in ebook. (Don’t forget that it is available in audio and print as well!)

2019 Events
2019 is shaping up to be a busy year. Here is my schedule so far:

Book Signing with Missouri Romance Writers of America
February 9, 7 p.m.
The Novel Neighbor
7905 Big Bend Blvd. 
Webster Groves, MO 63119

Presentation: Victoria Woodhull: Forgotten by History
Monday, March 4, 7 p.m.
Eureka Hills Branch Library
156 Eureka Towne Ctr
Eureka, MO 63025

IBPA Publishing University
April 4-6
Chicago, Illinois

Historical Novel Society Conference
June 20-22
National Harbor, Maryland
Nicole will be presenting three times during the Reader’s Festival on June 22:

  1. 1:15-2:15 p.m. – Dynamic Duos: Husbands and Wives Who Worked Together During the Women’s Suffrage Movement (presenting with Hope Tarr)
  2. Time TBA – THE TIMES THEY ARE A CHANGIN’: Historical Fiction Joins the Protest March (pannel with Glen Craney, Diane McPhail, and Charles Degelman)
  3. Time TBA – GASLAMPS, GHOSTS, AND TROPES: Writing the Neo-Gothic Novel (panel with Kris Waldherr, Leanna Renee Hieber and Hester Fox)

Novelists Inc. Conference
September 25-29
Tradewinds Resort
St. Petersburg, FL

Madame Presidentess, Movies/TV, Publishing journey

Victoria Woodhull Goes to Hollywood, or Madame Presidentess Optioned for TV/Movies

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Me signing the contract!

These are words I never thought I would be typing, especially before being traditionally published, but… I SOLD THE OPTION TO THE TV/MOVIE RIGHTS OF MADAME PRESIDENTESS!

Yes, you read that right! With the help of TaleFlick, I sold the option to Fortitude International, a major LA-based foreign sales, finance and production company who has worked with many A-list celebrities. Here’s the official press release.

What this means is they now have the right to shop it around Hollywood or anywhere else they may have connections. There is no deal for a movie/TV show yet. But they will try their hardest to make one happen. So cross your fingers, eyes and toes, light some candles or say some prayers…whatever works for you…and wish us all well. Given that Victoria’s story is so relevant right now, I have no doubt that they will make magic happen!

PS – If you are an author and are interested in TaleFlick, use this link and it will count as a referral from me: http://taleflick.refr.cc/nicolee. You’ll get $8 off your first submission.

19th Century America, Anthologies, Madame Presidentess, Victoria C. Woodhull

Publication Day! A Vanderbilt Christmas: a Short Story Starring Victoria Woodhull

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It’s publication day!

So by now you likely know that I’m part of a Christmas anthology called Tangled Lights and Silent Nights. I’m really excited because I’ve wanted to be part of an anthology since I was a teenager and read Return to Avalon, an Arthurian anthology. It always felt like it would be such an honor to be asked to write alongside others in your field, and it is! I don’t normally write short, but I challenged myself and managed it – hopefully well. You can be the judge.

There are several cool aspects to this anthology:

  1. All of the stories tie into previously published books by the authors. So, for example, mine is about Victoria Woodhull and crew, who are featured inMadame Presidentess.
  2. It is multi-genre, so there should be something in there for everyone. We have women’s fiction, crime thriller, fantasy (epic, urban and contemporary), historical, romance (contemporary and dark), mystery (cozy and general), humor and LGBT stories.
  3. All proceeds benefit Life After, a charity dedicated to educating about and helping those who suffer from suicide, substance abuse, and domestic violence.

My Story: A Vanderbilt Christmas
Victoria Woodhull may seem like an odd choice for a Christmas story, and I agree. Actually, she wasn’t my first choice. I had two drafts of stories involving Guinevere from my Guinevere’s Tale Trilogy Arthurian legend novels. But given our strict word limit, I was having problems explaining the Celtic winter solstice rituals and telling my story in the allotted space. Anything winter solstice or even early Christian Christmas is so different from what we know today that I didn’t want to risk not doing the stories justice. (For example, in fifth century Christianity, there was no Advent season yet and the Christmas celebration actually included three different Masses, each with their own symbolism and meaning.)

Then I remembered that one of the scenes I deleted from Madame Presidentess took place at Christmas. (It involved Cornelius Vanderbilt asking Victoria’s sister, Tennie, to marry him, which really did happen. She had to say no because she was already married to a gambler who abandoned her. Seriously, history is stranger than fiction.) This was a much better choice because the Victorian period is when some of our most beloved Christmas traditions became popular: Queen Victoria made Christmas trees a widespread thing, Christmas cards began being sent in the mail, and Charles Dickens published A Christmas Carol.

As it turned out, the story I submitted was totally different from the scene I started with, but it got me on the right track. And I had a lot of fun researching what was served at Victorian Christmas dinners, what people wore and what the decor would have looked like. If you want a sneak peek into my brain, check out my Pinterest board on the story. (That hideous plaid dress is what Victoria’s mom wore to the party.)

I ended up placing the story right when Victoria and Tennie were starting to become comfortable in their life working with Cornelius Vanderbilt. Victoria is ambitious as always and she sees her coveted invitation to Christmas Eve dinner at Mr. Vanderbilt’s mansion as a way for her to get a foot in the door with the New York elite, whom she longs to be a part of. But as happened so many times during her life, Victoria’s low-class family comes along and nearly ruins it by inviting themselves to the dinner. You’ll have to read the story to find out how, but it involves a brawl, a fire and some stolen Christmas gifts… (Thank you to Pat Wahler for some of those ideas.)

As usual, when Victoria’s family is around, trouble is sure to follow.

Pick up your copy of Tangled Lights and Silent Nights today! And please, leave a review when you’re done!

amazon-logo-icon (ebook)  amazon-logo-icon (paperback) nook-icon-150x150 KoboIconWeb ibooks_icon

https://books2read.com/TangledLights  (includes international links)

19th Century America, Anthologies, Books, Madame Presidentess, Tangled Lights and Silent Nights

Get More Victoria Woodhull in The Tangled Lights and Silent Nights Holiday Anthology

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Surprise! I’ve got a short story (the first one I’ve ever successfully completed) in an anthology, which is a dream come true for this writer.

Here’s all the official info:

Tangled Lights and Silent Nights: A Holiday Anthology

Publication Date: November 4

Wonder
This holiday season, twenty talented, award-winning, and bestselling authors have crafted never before released Yuletide-themed tales about their most beloved characters.

Magic
From murder to magic, love to loss, the past and the future, this multi-genre collection of poems and stories has something for everyone.

Charity
In the spirit of giving, the authors have generously opted to donate all profits to The LifeAfter—Visions of Hope Project, whose passion is to shatter the stigma and spread awareness to three taboo topics that underscore society today: Suicide, Substance Abuse, and Domestic Violence.

Nicole Evelina’s story:

A Vanderbilt Christmas 
A companion story to the award-winning novel Madame Presidentess.

In 1872, Victoria Woodhull made history by becoming the first woman to run for president of the United States. But four years earlier she was still struggling to overcome her shameful past and establish herself in New York’s high society. She has finally secured an entre into that glittering world by way of an invitation to Christmas Eve dinner at the home of railroad and shipping magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt. But when her uncouth family crashes the party and threatens to send her social status spiraling, it will take a Christmas miracle to recover her reputation and keep her dreams on track.

Pre-order now
Some pre-order links are still going live, and paperback is yet to come, but you can pre-order the ebook here: https://www.books2read.com/tangledlights/.

Don’t forget – All proceeds go to charity!

Want a sneak peak? Since the story is so short, all I can give you is the first few paragraphs…

December 1868

If anyone had told me a year ago that I would be spending Christmas Eve at the home of Cornelius Vanderbilt, one of the richest men in the country, I would have booked them a room at Blackwell’s Island with the other lunatics. Me? The guttersnipe daughter of a confidence man and a religious zealot whose favorite hobby was blackmailing people? Even with my gift of clairvoyance, it would have been too much to believe.

But then again, much had changed over the last year. When my sister Tennie and I moved to New York at the direction of my spirit guide, Demosthenes, we had no idea the good fortune that awaited us. Our Pa, no doubt sensing a way to make a quick buck, had arranged an introduction to Commodore Vanderbilt in the hopes he would employ us as mediums and magnetic healers. But the tycoon did him one better. After I successfully channeled the spirit of his long-dead mother and gave an accurate prediction of the stock market, he took us in as his assistants. Although, this may have had more to do with my sister’s beauty than our skill.

No matter. We were here now. An invitation to Christmas Eve dinner was a rare honor, one much coveted by New York society. Ma and Pa would be fit-to-be-tied when they found out we were invited but they were not; but I thanked God their troublesome selves were back in the slums of Five Points where they belonged.

No matter. We were here now. An invitation to Christmas Eve dinner was a rare honor, one much coveted by New York society. Ma and Pa would be fit-to-be-tied when they found out we were invited but they were not; but I thanked God their troublesome selves were back in the slums of Five Points where they belonged.

My husband, James, Tennie, and I, on the other hand, were seated along one side of a massive dining table that could easily seat twenty and was laden with china, crystal, and silver. The other chairs were occupied by a handful of the Commodore’s close friends and business associates – including his rival Mr. Fisk – plus several generations of his family. Around us, wreaths of evergreen and holly decorated the damask covered walls and pine boughs dripped from an elegant gold chandelier, while wreaths of orange, bay, and cinnamon perfumed the air.

Across the table, the eldest Vanderbilt son, William, shot daggers at me and Tennie. Clearly his disposition toward us hadn’t warmed any with time, nor had he grown in trust of us.

“Tell me, what will be your parlor trick tonight?” He picked at one of the starched white lace napkins. “Will you channel the angel who announced Christ’s birth to the shepherds, or perhaps even the baby Jesus himself?”

“If you are so certain you know, perhaps you should place a bet on it,” I shot back, referencing William’s secret vice of gambling.

—–

You can also check out the Pinterest board I created while writing it.

19th Century America, feminism, Madame Presidentess, Women's History Month, Women's Issues

Celebrate Women’s Equality Day with These Interesting Projects in Women’s History

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As August 2020 and the centennial of women’s right vote in the United States grows closer, we’re starting to see some really creative projects highlighting the brave, groundbreaking women of American history. Unfortunately, none of them include Victoria Woodhull yet (trust me, I’m contacting each one as I learn of them), but they do include many of her contemporaries. Here are three projects I’m keeping an eye on:

Rebel Women – A project to get more statues of amazing women of American history built in New York City and throughout the country. The author of the article I linked to is asking for nominations for women from your home town. I’ve already nominated Victoria for New York City and Virginia Minor for St. Louis. Please, feel free to nominate your own or second one of mine by emailing dearmaya@nytimes.com.

Embrazen Wines – This is by far the most clever of the three projects. A winemaker has created three special vintages with labels that highlight the accomplishments of three women in American history: Josephine Baker, Nellie Bly and Celia Cruz. A special app called Living Wine Labels allows you to scan the bottle and hear Beginning August 26 (National Women’s Equality Day, which many groups are lobbying to make a Federal holiday), you can nominate women of history or today to be added to the next group of wines. If you nominate a contemporary woman, she could win a $25,000 grant. You bet I will be making them aware of Victoria when the Trailblazer campaign opens on August 26.

Where Are the Women? – This Kickstarter campaign aims to create sculptures of 20 notable women of U.S. history. Even though Victoria is not among them, her friends Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott and Lucy Stone are. I have backed it and I have also recommended Victoria to them. Please help them reach their goal. It’s so important that we spread the word about women’s history and all those whose accomplishments have not received the attention they deserve.

Why am I telling you about these? Well, besides oversight of not including Victoria, I’m still working on a proposal for a book on the history of feminism in the U.S., which I’d love to have published near the centennial. Cross your fingers!

Other Voices, Victoria C. Woodhull

Neal Katz – Victoria Woodhull and #MeToo

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Neal Katz

Two years ago when I was in Chicago for BEA and the Next Generation Indie Book Awards, I met Neal Katz, a fellow author who is also telling Victoria Woodhull’s story. I knew about him (or rather his name) because I had researched others who have or are writing about her. But I had no idea he’d be so charming and gracious. He’s truly a wonderful man.

Neal is approaching Victoria’s story as a trilogy, so he’s able to go much more in-depth into Victoria and Tennie’s lives than Madame Presidentess does. The first book in the series, Outrageous, won 10 awards. Now he’s now preparing to publish part 2: Scandalous. So if you’re hankering for more on Victoria, go buy his books!

As part of Neal’s pre-publication publicity (say that five times fast), he wrote a great article on how Victoria used her newspaper, Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly to launch the #MeToo of her time: http://thevictoriawoodhullsaga.com/rise-up/. Go, read, now!

(I also took up the subject of Victoria and #MeToo, but from a different angle.)

Some people might question why I would promote Neal’s books since they are direct competition with mine. My answer is that we aren’t really competitors; we are allies.  As much as I want book sales, that’s not really what this is about. It’s about getting Victoria back into the historical record where she belongs. And the more voices we have out there promoting her, the better. No two writers approach a subject the same way, so even if you’ve read mine, you’re likely to learn something new from his, and vice versa. Plus, the more indie authors (and all authors, for that matter) work together, the better off we all are.

characters, Madame Presidentess, Women's Issues

On Likeable and Unlikeable Female Characters

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Victoria Woodhull drawn as Mrs. Satan in Harper’s Weekly. Thomas Nast, 1872 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Occasionally I come across a review of Madame Presidentess that characterizes Victoria Woodhull as an “unlikeable” character. Usually, I shrug and think “whatever,” because you certainly can’t please everyone, and I know, even if the reader didn’t get it, that Victoria is the way she is because the historical woman was that way. I can’t change her without failing in my duty as a biographical historical fiction writer.

However, as I was listening to Roxane Gay’s Bad Feminist on audio, one of her points made me stop and think a bit harder. She mentioned, that due to some inexplicable literary construct, our characters can’t be human or they risk being termed “unlikable,” especially if they are female. She also points out that unlikeable male characters are called “anti-heroes,” while unlikable female characters are, well, just unlikable. (There are some female anti-heroes, like Miriam Black in Chuck Wendig’s series of the same name. But on the whole, her point stands.)

As Roxane puts it, these unlikable women “are merely expressing a wider cultural malaise with all thing unpleasant, all things that dare to breach the norm of social respectability.” This is certainly true of Victoria, who is at turns brash, self-centered, self-serving, outspoken and sometimes mean. Or in other words, she was human, and dared to not follow the social construct of what it means to be a “good” or “proper” woman.

At some point, we’ve all been fed a line that characters need to be perfect or at least, what I call “stage perfect,” that Truman-show-esque scrubbed clean near-perfection that we’ve come to associate with the heroes of stage, film and fiction. You know, the typical “good” character. I get that many are idealized versions of ourselves, but when you write biographical historical fiction like I do, you are dealing with real people who make mistakes and do things that are sometimes hard to understand. People just like me and you. So just as you both like and hate your friends and relatives, you are going to like and hate them, too.

One great point Roxane makes is that we use the term “likability” as though we read books to make friends with the characters. Which, you know, when you think about it, really is beyond the bounds of what characters are supposed to do. If the story is well-written, they “should serve a greater purpose in the narrative” than that, which is sometimes why the characters we love to hate are so great. Personally, as I writer, I find the characters with more flaws are more fun to write, i.e Mia in Been Searching for You, and Morgan in my Guinevere series. Granted, you could call both of them the antagonists of their respective books, but they are also the heroines of their own stories, which is perhaps why I want to give them their own books. They deserve the chance to tell why they are the way they are and show who they are in all their unlikeability, unfiltered through the gaze of Annabeth and Guinevere, the POV characters of those other books.

But I don’t think unlikeability is such a bad thing. It’s totally different from a character being poorly developed or drawn. A well-developed unlikable character makes you feel, pisses you off, makes you frustrated, etc. And if done well, she still keeps you reading, even if just to find out what that crazy woman will do next or why she just did what she did.

Victoria may be my first “unlikable” character, but she certainly won’t be my last. I refuse to cover up the flaws and foibles of my historical characters to make some readers happy. To do so would be disrespectful to the memories of the actual women, and disingenuous to all women. After all, if all we see in literature is “likable” women, how will we ever begin to accept our flawed selves, much less accept one another? And how boring would those stories be? I say bring on the unlikable characters – let them challenge us, our views of femininity and of what is socially acceptable. It’s the only way we will ever change.

Who are some of your favorite “unlikable” characters in fiction?