Professor,
Communication, Arts, and the Humanities
The University of Maryland Global Campus
It was chilly that June afternoon in the Library of Congress as I waited in line to speak to an archivist, and tried to surreptitiously unpeel the t-shirt off my clammy back. (One of the beauties of living in the D.C. metro area is having world-class research libraries literally a […]
For 17 years, my husband and I owned and lived in a 98-year old row house in Washington, D.C. about 10 blocks from the U.S. Capitol. We loved our neighborhood — the Victorian (and older) row houses had history and character despite the fact the neighborhood was sketchy, the front […]
Sometimes I catch myself wondering what the hell I’ve been doing with Emmett, who has taken over my research life for the past six years. I did not go looking for Emmett; rather, years ago before Emmett, I’d started out writing about someone else, Rosa LeBarte Countryman, my great-grandmother. When […]
I have a fool-proof information gathering strategy that has been tremendously successful in every single research project: Isolate the topic Search all easily/readily available information via basic search engines Read everything (this can take weeks) Journal during the search/reading time Reflect on the information Organize the information Consult with a […]
Before I contacted the Pensacola Historical Society to find out more about Emmett Wilson, I made copious pots of coffee and immediately dissected the three articles sent to me from Peg Vignolo of the West Florida Genealogical Society. Newspaper articles are rich with information — it’s not only the details IN […]
On April 27, 2013, I called the West Florida Genealogical Society in Pensacola, and spoke with researcher Peg Vignolo. I introduced myself, and explained what I was looking for. “Nope,” she told me after checking several resources. “We don’t have anything on Emmett Wilson other than what I’d already found […]
I couldn’t get this handsome man’s face out of my head. It was strange. It was almost like I had embraced a whole new ‘-ism’, this time, Emmettism. Something new to replace the mania for alcohol, a feeling that comes and goes even with a few years of continuous sobriety. My […]
When I first started gathering research on Emmett, I remember thinking: I wanted to get as much information as I could get my hands on, as quickly as possible, so that I could jump right in and write this complex man’s comprehensive story…. And looking back in my research journals, […]
This is a passage from the Big Book that makes me think about what it was that fueled Emmett’s alcoholism (italics mine): “I looked around me at people who seemed happy and tried to analyze their happiness and it seemed to me that without exception these people had something or […]
…but someone did. Interesting.
Tell my story. 