I can think of no better way to end the year than to do an interview with my fellow writer, David Blixt, about his latest novel and whatever subjects that come up in the course of our conversation; with David, you never know. David: Thanks for inviting me. David: I know.
That letter was too explosive for them to publish, but they hired her as a reporter for her unique perspective. David: That women who work were not evil or fallen or unwholesome. David: Not at all. She interviewed women who worked in barbwire factories, steel mills, shoe factories, cigar rolling plants, hinge manufacturing. She did so well in humanizing them that management started complaining to the newspaper, and she was sent to report on flower shows instead.
David: It was. She rebelled by insisting the paper pay her way to Mexico to be their foreign correspondent there. After five months she was chased out for exposing corruption in the Mexican government.
But reporting was a little different at the time. She related a lot of events as scenes, not a single narrative. The whole last third of the novel is the full story of the asylum and the grand jury investigation her story provoked. David: There were two. The other was during her stay in the madhouse, her very worst night there, where they tried to dose her with chloral.
That was rough, involving a lot of things about her that have only been hinted at to that point. I was reading about female action stars in the silent film era, and I noted how at least half of the characters they played were based on Nellie Bly. She was even the basis for Lois Lane in Superman comics. Do you have a writing Kryptonite?
