Ruth Anne Latta

 SO BAD IT WAS GOOD! Researching for an historical novel can be frustrating. People edit their diaries. Historians and biographers settle on an approach and omit other interesting areas of their subject’s life.  They are also territorial, unwilling to share their insights and impressions with a mere novelist.  After all, novelists apply their imaginations to what they are writing, while historians and biographers are like the detective Joe Friday in Dragnet;  “They just want the facts, Ma’am.” Not long ago I got hold of a transcribed interview from some fifty years ago that was unhelpful and disappointing in some ways, but informative and hilarious in others.  A researcher was interviewing a married couple who were part of a progressive, political, arty circle in the 1930s and ‘40s.  The researcher was particularly interested in the wife’s career, but the husband joined in halfway through, because he’d been part of the same scene as she had. She was in her ...

 A couple of years ago, a neighbour introduces us to Valerie and Peter Limmer, who are missionaries in Japan with MissionGo Canada, and send out a bi-monthly newsletter, “Land of the Risen Son.”  In Issue 92, June 2025, Valerie wrote an article, “Fun Times in English Class” which I like very much. She has given me permission to publish an excerpt from it: We’ve been having some exciting conversations in English class! It all started last month when one of our older students, a grandmother whom I’ll call ‘Zephyr,’came up to me. “Is Trump a Christian?” She peered into my face anxiously. Hmm. It might be best to give her more information and let her draw her own conclusions “Christians are people who love and follow Jesus.  In time, we naturally become more like him. Jesus is someone who is loving.  During His time on earth, HE stood up for the helpless and oppressed. He got angry at people who took advantage of foreigners; He pointed to a poor widow as having more gene...

   Here is my review of Vulture Capitalism:  https:// compulsivereader.com/2025/08/ 08/a-review-of-review-of- vulture-capitalism-by-grace- blakeley/

 I wrote this story for a flash fiction magazine awhile back, but it wasn't chosen.  Since it's short, why not publish it here?                                    Nana,  Itchy, and the Chalice © Ruth Latta, 2024      Nancy Jo, known in her family as “Nana,” walks downtown for the mail. In the post office lobby, she unlocks her mail box and takes out her bills, and occasionally an actual letter from someone in her extended family. Whether it’s Summer’s graduation in St. John’s, or Tristan’s potty learning in Vancouver, she loves to hear about it. Getting the mail is a social event in Hope Falls, and a half hour passes before Nana gets away from the post office. Neighbours want to share their news and hear hers. The socializing spills onto the sidewalk, too. A deacon wants to discuss the church roof.  The women’s group president wants her to bake f...

 At https://awriterofhistory.com I read an informative article (2024/02/29) called "Historical fiction featuring real people - a debate." A while ago an Ottawa writers' organization had an interview on Zoom with Kingston author Helen Humphreys, about her new novel centering on Henry David Thoreau. I tuned in and found her tips fascinating.  I write historical fiction in which real people appear as minor characters, and my novels, "Grace and the Secret Vault," and "Grace in Love," centre on the late Grace Woodsworth MacInnis,  an NDP Member of Parliament in the 1960s and '70s who championed the poor and women, two categories that often overlap.  In those novels, I called Grace by her real name. In my novel, "A Striking Woman," the main character is so very loosely based on the late Madeleine Parent that I gave her character a new name, "Jacqueline Laflamme." Ms. Humphreys was great but one of the writers' organization members...

 In connection with my work-in-progress, I am reading the 19973 autobiography of Florence Bayard Rhein Bird, better known as Anne Frances, the name she used in her broadcasting and writing career.   Florence Bird headed the Canadian Royal Commission on the Status of Women, created in 1967, when I was just a mere girl, and given the mandate to inquire into and report on the status of women in Canada and to  recommend what steps might be taken by the federal government to ensure equal opportunities for women in all aspects of Canadian Society. Researching for my 2023 novel, A Striking Woman,   I found that when the commission reported,  one of its recommendations was that an advisory council to the federal government be established.  My central character says in that novel, "What we need is  not a council responsible to the federal government, but a federal government responsible to Canadian women,"  and as a result of the more radical women wh...