Arlene Spencer has researched and written historical non-fiction since 2010, researching the lives of Richard Cornish, Catherine Northrup, and James Dillman; to inform her forthcoming historical non-fiction biographical books about each of them.
No books have been written about any of her subjects.
Arlene has been invited to publish historical articles by two different history publications, Global Maritime History and Them Dam Writers.
Based on the piece she wrote about seventeenth century British trader and merchant, Thomas Weston, in 2018, she was invited to be a Staff Writer for Global Maritime History.
Arlene retains the rights to all of her work.
Two of her three books are fully researched and she has nearly completed research on the third.
Her three works in progress, three books in pre-proposal, share the lives of:
Richard Williams alias Cornish, Master of a merchant ship, beloved by the London maritime community, was hanged in Jamestown for the then crime of sodomy. In the years following his death, against colonial law, at great risk to themselves, independently, individual sailors shared their outrage over his execution. It is believed that his was the first execution for the crime of sodomy on the North American continent.
Blacksmith, trapper, and sheep-raiser, James Dillman, fought to keep his family intact during vigilant and brutal Range Wars; but though they survived, violence settled in one of them.
Catherine Northrup, lived through the Civil War then, after moving to the West, had to survive the Nez Perce Wars. She was among very few who did. Years, later, after finally making a new life, homesteading with her new husband, she was horrifically murdered.