As I head down the homestretch on my latest novel, I’ve been thinking about cornbread. Growing up, I thought cornbread was a southern invention. Silly me. Europeans learned to cook cornbread from American Indians. Including the Cherokee Indians who lived in the southeastern United States for thousands of years. Corn was native to the Americas. It's believed it was developed in Mexico about 7000 years ago from a wild grass. Not only was corn a staple of the Cherokee diet, it w

There is a long and tragic history involving subjugation of peoples and cultures around the world. One of the most heartbreaking examples was perpetrated against the Cherokee Nation - and all the other Native Americans - by white settlers and the US government. While many of the campaigns against North America’s first inhabitants were executed bit by bit, The Trail of Tears stands out for its inhumanity. As I write my next novel, due out late this year, I’ve been researching