Julia Park Tracey
Julia Park Tracey is an award-winning author, journalist, and poet. She has ancestors—or should we say an-sisters? In digging through her family history, she has uncovered a trove of powerful women who break rules and stand tall against whatever dares to oppose them. The Bereaved tells the first such story, of a widow whose children are sent out on the Orphan Train and her Herculean efforts to get them back again. Inspired by a mysterious train receipt in her family’s scrapbook, Julia researched her Orphan Train roots and wrote The Bereaved about her found relatives. Another such heroine is the Puritan woman named Silence Greenleaf; look for Silence from Sibylline Press in Fall 2024.
The Bereaved: Martha, an impoverished widow, must leave her family with a children’s aid society for survival. The children are sent out on the Orphan Train and Martha is forced to extremes to reunite her family from three distant states during the Civil War. The novel is meticulously researched and based on a true story; the baby Homer was my great-great-grandfather.
Silence: A Puritan questioning her faith is punished by the authorities with a year of silence, but is soon called to witness at a witchcraft trial in colonial Massachusetts. Her quandary is in speaking truth to power or being true to herself. The novel is based on my eighth great grandmother, Silence Greenleaf.
6 Comments
Cynthia White
we are looking for an author for one of our presentation evenings here in Colusa – would you be interested? Please respond if so and I can fill in the details. It would be sometime after the first of January in 2025.
Julia 2 Park Tracey
Hello and I apologize for the delay in answering — I was on book tour and am just catching up. I referred this message to my publisher, VIcki DeArmon at Sibylline Press and she will be reaching out to you. Yes, I’d love to! And thank you for asking! — Julia
Janis Herbert
Hello, Julia,
I write from Face in a Book, a bookstore in El Dorado Hills, California. My boss, Tina Ferguson, introduced me to your work – and said that your book Silence is one of her top-favorite books of this year!
We are wondering if it might be possible to host a booksigning for you sometime. We have a lot of historical fiction fans in our book clubs and among our customers and would work hard to bring them to an event for you.
Sincerely,
Janis
Julia 2 Park Tracey
Hello and I apologize for the delay in answering — I was on book tour and am just catching up. I referred this message to my publisher, VIcki DeArmon at Sibylline Press and she will be reaching out to you. Yes, I’d love to! And thank you for asking! — Julia
Jay Hall
Hi Julia – I am one of many who read your yahoo article commenting on the loss of your son. First, let me say I am sorry for his passing and the pain you must be enduring even now. Second, I am not sure if you know about Benjamin Libet but he was a neuroscientist at UCSF who actually discovered that humans have no free will. Most people have never heard of him but he discovered that the mind actually makes a choice about 9 seconds to 550 miliseconds before a person “consciously” chooses to do anything. Even more startling, the mind (as separate from the brain tissue from which it arises) often employs faulty prediction algorithms. In short, people lost to suicide often have anomalous connectomes that make them more susceptible to self injury. (I myself learned about Libet as a doctoral student in electrical engineering when I had to shadow a psychiatrist for three months). Feel free to reach out and will provide you with some other information that may make it easier for you to both understand and come to grips with the loss of your son. Again, I am wishing you the best and hope your heart can remember your son for all that he was, … rather than what he was not. Peace be with you! – Jay
Julia 2 Park Tracey
Thank you, Jay. I appreciate your thoughtful reply. (The comments — ack.)
Warmly,
Julia