Many of us have stories about how we landed in Washington DC and surrounds. Betty Fuqua’s is one of the more unusual. The answer lies in the title of an early chapter, How My Birth Mother’s Bad Choice in Maids Changed My Life, in Fuqua’s new memoir. The short version is that the maid got pregnant, and Betty’s father fessed up. As you might expect in rural Missouri in the 1930s, a scandal ensued. The family broke up. The offended wife Gladys, Betty's non-resident birth mother,

In 2012 and again in 2023, poet Kate Lassman traveled to the canyon lands of southern Utah and Colorado, her park ranger husband at her side. Landscapes on which they trod included Rocky Mountain and Canyonlands National Parks, Colorado National Monument, Bryce Canyon, Zion, and Arches National Parks, Natural Bridges National Monument, and Kodachrome Basin State Park. Both journeys took place around annular eclipses of the sun, in which the sun mostly disappears, its edge

What is Carol McCabe Booker working on now? That is the question we've fielded more than once recently about the author of two successful true crime books, The Waterman's Widow and The Farmer's Wife, both dug from deep in southern Maryland history. Booker also wrote Cove Point on the Chesapeake: The Beacon, the Bay and the Dream, published, like her two crime books, by New Bay Books. Her book credits also include Shocking the Conscience: A Reporter's Account of the Civil Ri

(Note: This week marks the beginning of a series on what New Bay Books authors are up to this summer. We can report that George Miller has been, as they say, getting it done.) The word basilica derives from ancient Roman architecture describing a church or large building. It is an apt title for the breadth of verse in Basilica, a newly published graphic anthology of poetry by southern Maryland writer George Miller. The 66-page book, 8.5x11 and suitable for the coffee table, i

Wilbert Bryant, a man of achievement himself, recalled his first meeting with former president George W. Bush. Bush was Texas governor then, traveling north with a notable entourage as he pondered a presidential run. “I saw this guy and all these guys surrounding him with ten-gallon hats. They were Texas Rangers,” Bryant told his standing-room-only audience at Captain Avery Museum. “I said, so you’re Gov. Bush. He said ‘Yes, I’m George Bush.' I said, I’m Wil Bryant, Virg

Photo by Martin Kuz ( Editor's note: Martin Kuz, a freelance journalist with whom I worked at Hearst Newspapers, returned recently from his latest reporting trip to Ukraine. Among the pieces he filed for his Substack readers was the tragic story of journalist Victoriia Roshchyna). by Martin Kuz A wreath of wheat hangs over the grave of Viktoriia Roshchyna in a cemetery in the heart of Kyiv. The golden ring hovers like the sun above a framed portrait of the murdered journalist

Shira Perlmutter . Library of Congress photo. It’s easy to miss big stuff amid the chaos in Washington. Dig a little into what’s...

Once a month, a joyful energy of combining words buzzes about the great room of The Captain Avery Museum, then escapes up and down the...

At what was to be her last party, in a grove along the Patuxent River, Elisavietta Ritchie read poetry to friends and family who had come to say goodbye. The date was July 30, 2022, but it was not the last. Friends gathered again in 2023 and 2034 for the ailing Ritchie, an acclaimed poet and prominent woman of the world. Elsavietta died on January 13, 2025, in Solomons, at 92. The 2025 gathering, on June 28, the eve on her 93rd birthday, at her riverside getaway at Jac

Carol McCabe Booker further solidifies her reputation as a first-rate author with publication of another Chesapeake Country true-crime...

You're a paper boy on your bike and a car full of unshaven, heavily armed fellows rolls up on the morning route. Robbers? Kidnappers?...

On a commuter train into DC for 30 years, economist George Miller heard stories, told stories and made some up. In a rail car Sunday in...

Sandra Olivetti Martin had nary a clue beyond the whispered words of an elderly cousin, Cora Smith: The river took my brother. Decades...

Victims of war's 'cruel absurdity' Editor's note: Martin Kuz, a former colleague at Hearst Newspapers, has been traveling in Ukraine...

The graves of fallen Ukrainian soldiers in Lychakiv cemetery in Lviv, Ukraine, Martin Kuz. Editor's Note: I met war correspondent Martin...

North Beach, Maryland is fond of calling itself "Jewel of the Chesapeake," and a newly published book offers a trove of photographs past...

What do you do if a massive tree lands in your yard in a storm? If you're a scientist with the gene for adventure, somebody who has...

In the 1930s, Virginia Kirkus, a teacher, author and children's books specialist in New York, devised a systematic means to help...

LEONARDTOWN, MD—Three authors, who on this day also were judges, presided over a stunning conclusion to the 44th U.S. National Oyster...

We along the Mid-Atlantic were denied witness to the first full moon of September. But on that cloudy Friday evening, those who ventured...