Tag: My writing

What Did Victorian Men Fear Most? Their Wives

On By ChristineIn Uncategorized3 Comments
Woman, Women, Shopping, Knitting, Sewing, Embroidery
Image Credit: https://pixabay.com/users/fotshot-401149/

I’m sort of obsessed with the Victorian obsession with women poisoning their husbands. (My spouse is a little concerned about how much time I’ve spent writing about it.)

So far, I’ve tracked down 20 high-profile trials in the United States alone between about 1845 and the 1912. Some of these women were probably guilty, but many of these trials are downright farcical.

The poison panic stretched across the globe, though. There are historical cases in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the UK, France, and Germany.

Here’s an article I wrote for History of Yesterday about five women that I think were probably innocent. What do you think?

Article link: https://medium.com/history-of-yesterday/5-victorian-women-who-were-probably-falsely-accused-of-poisoning-their-husbands-89fe1299d1c2.

Is Doing Nothing the Same as Doing Something?

On By ChristineIn My writing, Short Stories12 Comments

landscape photography of snow pathway between trees during winter
Photo by Simon Matzinger on Pexels.com

Sometimes I write short stories. Did I tell you that?

Well, here’s my latest:

A wife in an unhappy marriage gets caught in a freak snowstorm with her husband and sees the opportunity to end her “suffering.”

You can read it at After Dinner Conversations, a great new collection of short fiction and podcast episodes. Each story deals with an ethical or philosophical idea.

My story is about whether or not doing nothing to save someone from calamity is the same as contributing directly to that calamity. Let me know what you think.

Click here to read “Survival Kit.”

Screens in the Bedroom: Good, Bad, Indifferent, or the End of Humanity as We Know It?

On By ChristineIn My writing4 Comments

 

silver macbook on bed
Photo by Andrew Neel on Pexels.com

Let’s talk about your bedroom for a minute. Do you use phones or other screens in yours? If you do, does using technology in your bedroom affect your sleep? Your focus? Do you know for sure?

I have a Kindle, but I leave my phone in another room. I know if I have a screen nearby, and I’m trying to sleep, I’ll end up thinking about work. For me, the mere presence of a screen puts in me in work mode.

Recently, I read some research about what happens when kids/tweens have screens in their rooms. It turns out that using screens in the bedroom is far worse (in terms of cognitive effects) than using screens elsewhere. So I wrote an article about that research for Your Teen Magazine, a leading source of trusted advice for parents raising tweens and teens.

There’s no paywall, and you can read it here if you like.

Let me know what your household practices are for digital devices. In a world of digital distraction, we’re all trying to find ways to balance the addictive pull of technology and the need for silence. What’s your last refuge for silence?

The Minnesota Murderess

On By ChristineIn NonfictionLeave a comment

Minnesota Murderess.png

I’ve been working on an article about an arsenic murder trial in Minnesota in 1859. It’s finally published in The Atavist magazine. You can read it here.

It has everything: Murder, poison, illicit lovers, true crime journalism, misogyny, and Victorian sticks-in-the-mud.

Fun fact: One of the primary sources was a bound trial transcript so old and dirty that it gave me hives on my arm.