Lucia St. Clair Robson

Lucia St. Clair Robson is an American historical novelist.

Contents

Literary biography

Lucia St. Clair Robson was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and grew up in West Palm Beach, Florida. She has been a Peace Corps Volunteer in Venezuela, a teacher in New York City, and a librarian in Annapolis, Maryland. She has also lived in Japan, South Carolina, and Arizona. She now resides near Annapolis, Maryland.

In explaining how she came to write her first historical novel, Lucia said, "Along with my library degree I learned one of life's great truths: you don't have to know all the answers, you just have to know where to find them. As a public librarian in Maryland I gave book-related programs in the local schools. While gathering material for the talks, I ran across the story of Cynthia Ann Parker's life with the Comanches. I told the kids that this was a more fascinating story than anyone could make up.
Shortly after that I went to a science fiction convention and met Brian Daley, author of the Han Solo books. I mentioned Cynthia Ann's story to Brian and his editor who referred me to Pamela Strickler of Ballantine Books. She advised me to, "Write the best story you can, from the heart, to please yourself."

In 1982, Ballantine published Ride the Wind, which made the New York Times best sellers list. It also won the Western Writers of America's Golden Spur Award for Best Historical Novel of the year. Now in its 26th printing, WIND was included in the top 100 westerns of the 20th century, and has garnered more than 120 5-star reader reviews on Amazon.

I've written eight other novels that feature people and times seldom mentioned in history texts. …A historical novelist must do more than list which generals fought where and when. She tries to re-create the society in which people lived, and she has to make it so vivid that readers can feel as though they're living there too. I no longer collect a paycheck as a librarian, but my library training helps me find out what people wore, what jokes they told, how they insulted each other, what they ate, how they amused themselves, what diseases laid them low and how they tried to cure them.
As a writer of historical fiction, it's my job to create a plausible reality in a time long gone. A descendant of one of my characters once asked me where I got the stories I told in my book about her family. I told her I had either read them or made them up. She said I couldn't have because those were stories only the family knew. I blamed it on coincidence, but sometimes I do believe that novelists can "predict" the past."

Lucia was partners with the late science fiction writer Brian Daley for fourteen years. To find out more about her and her work visit www.luciastclairrobson.com

Works

  1. Last Train from Cuernavaca - inspired by two very different women, one Zapotec and one English, who participated in the Mexican Revolution.
  2. Shadow Patriots - The story of a group that spied for George Washington, including a woman known only as "355"
  3. Ghost Warrior - The story of the Apaches and Lozen, revered warrior and shaman.
  4. Ride the Wind - Cynthia Ann Parker's life with the Comanches.
  5. The Tokaido Road - A chase up the fabled Tokaido Road, set against the backdrop of feudal Japan's most famous event, the revenge of the forty-seven ronin.
  6. Mary's Land - A novel of the rowdy Maryland frontier of 1638.
  7. Fearless, A Novel of Sarah Bowman - Six-foot-tall laundress, Sarah Bowman, makes a name for herself in the Mexican War.
  8. Walk in My Soul - A fictional account of young Sam Houston's life with the Cherokee Indians and with their Beloved Woman, Tiana Rogers.
  9. Light a Distant Fire - Osceola and his beleagured people fight the U.S. Army to a standstill in the swamps of Florida in 1840.
  10. "A Chance of a Ghost" short story in Twilight Zone: 19 Original Stories on the 50th Anniversary

Awards

True West Magazine named Lucia as Best Living Western Historical Novelist in 2003. In 2011 True West voted her "Best Living Fiction Writer," and wrote, "Lucia St. Clair Robson once again proves a master in prose, description, character development and authenticity via her diligent research."

In 1982, the Western Writers of America gave Ride the Wind their Spur award for Best Historical Western. In 2002, Ghost Warrior was a Spur finalist, and in 2011 her novel about the Mexican Revolution, Last Train from Cuernavaca also won a Spur.

External links

Articles and interviews

The works of Lucia St. Clair Robson