September Blog Tour

Well – here it is September and less than 1 week until The Wisdom of the Flock goes on tour (September 6th through 17th) with the Coffee Pot Book Club. There will be 1-2 stops blog stops per day and the tour will include some brand new content – including guest blog posts, author interviews,…

The honors keep rolling in!

The Colorado Independent Publishers Association recently honored The Wisdom of the Flock: Franklin and Mesmer in Paris with their prestigious EVVY award for 2021. TWOTF was voted the #1 book in the Historical Fiction category at this year’s EVVY’s. My sincere thanks to CIPA for this honor. And a big shout out to Kirsten Jensen…

Mesmer and Mesmerism

Mesmer and Mesmerism Franz Anton Mesmer (May 23, 1734 – March 5, 1815) trained as a physician in Vienna. He was strongly influenced by the experiments of Maximillian Hell (the astronomer and Jesuit priest) on the effects of magnets on the human body.  Mesmer theorized that there exists a force (or fluid – as it…

Hôtel de Valentinois

Ben’s home for almost the entire time that he was in France was the home of Jacques and Marie-Thérèse Leray in Passy.  He was an aristocrat and prominent businessman with connections to the Court of King Louis XVI. She was from a noble background, mother of their five children, and homemaker at the estate.  They…

Franklin’s glass armonica and other inventions

Ben Franklin’s Inventions and Inventiveness Other than as a Founding Father of America, Benjamin Franklin is probably best known for his experiments with electricity. No, he didn’t invent electricity. He did find ways to characterize and tame it. He invented the lightning rod so that buildings and ships would be better protected from damage. But did…