Six international teens
join the American Revolution.
Coming of age and making history.
They went into 1776 looking for a fight. Little did they know how much it would cost them…
Six rich kids from around the globe join the Bostonian cause, finding love and treachery along the path to liberty.
A new perspective on one of history’s most fascinating moments.
An amply illustrated edition of a young-adult historical fiction novel.
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(Stuff you may or may not already know!)
I write at a painfully slow pace. Stories from what is now the collection “Ulysses S. Grant in China” were written and revised over the course of twenty years. The mission is always to ground the big vision in characters who earn the readers’ loyalty in small ways.
A single word set me on a quest.
I wrote my master’s thesis on Teddy Roosevelt’s biggest mistake: his 1906 dismissal of 167 members of the all-black 25th Infantry Regiment. When I asked Professor John David Smith of the University of North Carolina to explain that series of events, the answer came back in one word: “Empire.”
He was right (!!) Ever since, the processes of empire have become a fascination for me. I designed and taught a course on “Empire and Literature” at Valley Forge and have now posted over fifty features in my online journal, “Empire Studies.”
I once edited my own imprint of children’s books, Calico Books with Contemporary Press of Chicago. The Calico line included works by Scott Gustafson, Winslow Pels, Russ Shorto, and Gary Gianni.
In college, I published three editions of an undergraduate arts journal. References from these self-important features still crop up the in footnotes of certain obscure scholarly works.
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Tom Durwood is
a teacher, writer, and editor with an interest in history. Tom most recently
taught English Composition and Empire and Literature at Valley Forge Military
College, where he won the Teacher of the Year Award five times. Tom has
taught Public Speaking and Basic Communications as a guest lecturer for the Naval
Special Warfare Development Group at the Dam’s Neck Annex of the Naval War
College.
Tom’s ebook Empire and Literature matches global works of film and fiction to specific quadrants of empire, finding surprising parallels. Literature, film, art, and architecture are viewed against the rise and fall of empire. In a foreword to Empire and Literature, postcolonial scholar Dipesh Chakrabarty of the University of Chicago calls it “imaginative and innovative.” Prof. Chakrabarty writes that “Durwood has given us a thought-provoking introduction to the humanities.” His subsequent book “Kid Lit: An Introduction to Literary Criticism” has been well-reviewed. “My favorite nonfiction book of the year” writes The Literary Apothecary (Goodreads).
Early reader response to Tom’s historical fiction adventures have been promising. “A true pleasure … the richness of the layers of Tom’s novel is compelling,” writes Fatima Sharrafedine in her foreword to “The Illustrated Boatman’s Daughter.” The Midwest Book Review calls that same adventure “uniformly gripping and educational … pairing action and adventure with social issues.” Adds Prairie Review, “A deeply intriguing, ambitious historical fiction series.”
Tom briefly ran his own children’s book imprint, Calico Books (Contemporary Books, Chicago). Tom’s newspaper column “Shelter” appeared in the North County Times for seven years. Tom earned a Masters in English Literature in San Diego, where he also served as Executive Director of San Diego Habitat for Humanity.
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