Author
In Lightning on the Levee, Molly B O’Connor comes to our current time from 1908. When she arrives, she’s dressed in the clothing she had been wearing on the spring afternoon that she was abducted by aliens. I’ve shown you a photo HERE of the dress that Molly B was wearing. But what other clothing choices were important to her, and to her friends, at the time?
Fashions in American society in 1908 were heavily influenced by both the Edwardian Period of England, and by La Belle Epoque of France.
A native of the Deep South, Flint Arrington grew up in a small city in Mississippi, the youngest of three children. His architect dad always placed a great emphasis on the children’s education and their future careers, encouraging all three to make a decision early about what career path they would take for their lives. He would sometimes be cold toward his children when they didn’t live up to his expectations.
Flint’s mother, a second grade school teacher, worked to enrich her children’s lives by making sure they were exposed to many and varied educational experiences.
Lightning on the Levee began with a dream, a literal dream, where the dreamer awakes from sleep with a vision and a memory of scenes and events.
I wrote down the dream, as I frequently do. Instantly, I knew that this one had to become a book, rather than to lie forgotten in a growing stack of filled-up yellow pads. And so it became the opening scene for Lightning on the Levee.
It took a while to decide where I wanted the story to go, but eventually I had an outline for the book, and by then, I knew my characters. Knew, not in the form of charts and notes, but as friends, people whose lives and whose backstories I knew intimately. My characters, with their complexities and idiosyncrasies, are the easiest part of writing for me.