As a writer, whatever I read, whatever I have experienced or am experiencing becomes grist for my story mill. In 2024 I read the book “Lynching in the New South” subtitled “Georgia and Virginia 1880-1930” by W. Fitzhugh Brundage.
I am manic about getting the historical facts right in any of my books. So, it makes sense that when I read a well-researched and footnoted non-fiction work like Mr. Brundage’s, not only do I trust what I am learning as accurate, I find myself wanting to include it in a story.
That happened for me with “Magdala.” I already knew that I wanted to write a backstory to my first novel “Under the Circumstances.” So many readers enjoyed getting to know Cora Butterfield, a character in that book, I decided that the backstory should be about Cora’s mother, Magdala. My readers had already been introduced to another Magdala, Cora’s daughter who had been named for her grandmother.
As the starting place I seem drawn to Kemp, an unincorporated rural community, in Emmanuel County, Georgia which I have renamed “Gaston” in my books. “Under the Circumstances” starts there and so does “Magdala.” As with Millie in “Under the Circumstances,” I did not want Magdala to stay there. I wanted her to be FROM there.
Magdala was an African-American living in Gaston, Georgia in 1893. The only way I knew to make her leave Gaston was to bring some horrendous tragedy to her life, a tragedy that would take her father’s life, the breadwinner of the family, and cause Magdala and what remained of her family to leave Gaston.
So there I was back to Mr. Brundage’s book. My book “Magdala” opens with the lynching of Magdala’s father. It’s a horrible, graphic opening, a scene no one would want to witness or recall. But, using the descriptions from the Brundage book, I placed my story in an historical context.
I hope you will read Magdala’s story of resilience and hope.
