<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0"><channel><title><![CDATA[KathySherbrook]]></title><description><![CDATA[KathySherbrook]]></description><link>https://www.kasherbrooke.com/blog</link><generator>RSS for Node</generator><lastBuildDate>Wed, 15 Apr 2026 12:15:47 GMT</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://www.kasherbrooke.com/blog-feed.xml" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/><item><title><![CDATA[My Mother’s Last Lesson]]></title><description><![CDATA[(This essay originally appeared in Cognoscenti ) The color of death is blue. That’s what the hospice nurse told us. We had rushed to my mother’s bedside from various parts of the country, shocked to see her so diminished. She had suffered from severe dementia for years, but her spirit had remained strong. She’d communicate her delight upon seeing one of us by popping open her eyes and flashing a mischievous smile, ever ready to be amused, always desirous of play. But this woman who’d once...]]></description><link>https://www.kasherbrooke.com/post/my-mother-s-last-lesson</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69cfdbb85b09ec14f23ab95a</guid><category><![CDATA[Musings]]></category><pubDate>Thu, 18 May 2023 20:55:47 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/f5c767_4e3b75f89fab453da6e333bbe1216a71~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_300,h_215,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Katherine A. Sherbrooke</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Fly Away Home]]></title><description><![CDATA[(This essay originally appeared in Zibby Magazine  entitled "Saying Good-bye to My Free-Spirited Sister”) When I was seven or eight years old, I stumbled upon my parent’s wedding album while playing “office” in an attic storage space. I stopped my pretend filing and phone calls and stared wide-eyed at the flower girl in the photos, maybe four years old, who looked suspiciously like my sister Barbara. “Mom! Is this Barb in your wedding photos?” I yelled while charging down the stairs toward...]]></description><link>https://www.kasherbrooke.com/post/fly-away-home</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69cfdbb5462bc80100bf2b5d</guid><category><![CDATA[Musings]]></category><pubDate>Thu, 18 May 2023 20:45:25 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/f5c767_fb2984bad9224b0aafddfca6afd8cc05~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_300,h_223,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Katherine A. Sherbrooke</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Do Books Even Matter Anymore?]]></title><description><![CDATA[If you are anything like me, anxiety and despair are running on overdrive these days given the state of the world and our country. It's hard not to feel hopeless and helpless. What can we do? What should we do? And does diving into a great book have any value? Spoiler alert: you won't be shocked to hear that my answer is a resounding YES, but allow me to offer some thoughts on the matter... I often say most of what I "know" about the world I learned from novels. I was never much of a history...]]></description><link>https://www.kasherbrooke.com/post/do-books-even-matter-anymore</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69cfdbb6462bc80100bf2b61</guid><category><![CDATA[Musings]]></category><pubDate>Sat, 15 Oct 2022 09:46:01 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/f5c767_46d8432495f44444b93939fa9e85dd94~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_1000,h_320,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Katherine A. Sherbrooke</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Finding the heart of my story within historical details]]></title><description><![CDATA[I love historical fiction for its power to animate the “facts” of history, to infuse dates and names with the emotion behind them. I’m particularly drawn to historical fiction with a real person at its center, the kind of story that lets us explore the heart and mind of someone that had an indelible impact on the world.  My new historical novel,  LEAVING COY’S HILL , is inspired by the life of Lucy Stone, an abolitionist and pioneering women’s rights activist from the 1800s. When I stumbled...]]></description><link>https://www.kasherbrooke.com/post/finding-the-heart-of-my-story-within-historical-details</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69cfdbb6462bc80100bf2b62</guid><category><![CDATA[Musings]]></category><pubDate>Tue, 04 May 2021 15:56:34 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/f5c767_b2b3f1b047ed406986fd66752cabd5fc~mv2.jpeg/v1/fit/w_480,h_640,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Katherine A. Sherbrooke</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Women's History Month: It begins with Lucy Stone]]></title><description><![CDATA[In honor of Women's History Month, I decided to shine a light on 31 Women who, much like Lucy Stone, the protagonist of my second novel, LEAVING COY'S HILL, have been relegated to the shadows of history. Since the beginning of time, women have been on the forefront of every movement, whether artistic, political or social, as renegades, leaders, rule-breakers, daredevils and role models for those who came after. 31 is a tiny number, but that is where I began. Rather than try to tell you...]]></description><link>https://www.kasherbrooke.com/post/women-s-history-month-it-begins-with-lucy-stone</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69cfdbb5462bc80100bf2b5c</guid><category><![CDATA[Musings]]></category><pubDate>Wed, 31 Mar 2021 12:11:12 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/f5c767_208ba07640de4c989ccd44ab995149e1~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_210,h_300,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Katherine A. Sherbrooke</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[31 Amazing Women (26-30)]]></title><description><![CDATA[From L-R: Mamie Smith, Judith Hueman, Justice Motley, Christine Quintasket, Manal al-Sharif CHIEN-SHIUNG WU A nuclear physicist, and the only Chinese-American believed to have worked on the Manhattan Project, Wu made many critical contributions to atomic science, none considered more important than the “Wu experiment,” designed to test a theory of parity held by fellow physicists Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yang. While the experiment was named for her, the 1957 Nobel Prize was awarded to her...]]></description><link>https://www.kasherbrooke.com/post/31-amazing-women-26-30</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69cfdbb6462bc80100bf2b63</guid><category><![CDATA[Musings]]></category><pubDate>Fri, 26 Mar 2021 06:00:00 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/f5c767_819162c9ef284677920046d042dec7c3~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_826,h_169,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Katherine A. Sherbrooke</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[31 Amazing Women (21-25)]]></title><description><![CDATA[TRACY EDWARDS After being one of only 4 female crew (out of 230) in the 1985/’86 Whitbread Round the World Race, Tracy Edwards became the first female Skipper in the nine-month, 33,000 mile competition when she put together an all-female crew for the 1989/’90 Race. Overcoming a persistent struggle to find any sponsors willing to support them, her boat Maidenshocked the world by finishing in second place, the best result by any British boat since 1977. Edwards is a straight shooter who doesn’t...]]></description><link>https://www.kasherbrooke.com/post/31-amazing-women-21-25</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69cfdbb5462bc80100bf2b5f</guid><category><![CDATA[Musings]]></category><pubDate>Mon, 22 Mar 2021 09:52:00 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/f5c767_cb5100f091654b11aeab9ced2bc4ce38~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_826,h_216,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Katherine A. Sherbrooke</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[31 Amazing Women of History (16-20)]]></title><description><![CDATA[From L-R: Mamie Smith, Judith Hueman, Justice Motley, Christine Quintasket, Manal al-Sharif  MAMIE SMITH A vaudeville entertainer from the age of 10, Mamie Smith made history by recording “Crazy Blues” in 1920, widely considered the first recorded Blues track, and the first recording by an African American artist. Not only did the record open a floodgate of interest in the Blues, its wild success surprised recording executives who had no idea there was such a huge market for Black Women...]]></description><link>https://www.kasherbrooke.com/post/31-amazing-women-of-history-16-20</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69cfdbb5462bc80100bf2b5b</guid><category><![CDATA[Musings]]></category><pubDate>Tue, 16 Mar 2021 13:22:15 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/f5c767_e327b80f33d74d8898c49630f413e5db~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_784,h_163,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Katherine A. Sherbrooke</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[31 Amazing Women (11-15)]]></title><description><![CDATA[NELLA LARSEN Nella Larsen, a critically acclaimed author of the Harlem Renaissance, was born in 1891 to a West Indian father and Danish mother. Shunned her entire life by her white relatives, she struggled to fit in anywhere, and explored both sexual identity and the concept of passing in her novels “Quicksand” and “Passing.” In 1930 she became the first Black woman to be awarded a Guggenheim fellowship. She said, “It’s funny about ‘passing.’ We disapprove of it and at the same time condone...]]></description><link>https://www.kasherbrooke.com/post/31-amazing-women-numbers-11-15</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69cfdbb5462bc80100bf2b5e</guid><category><![CDATA[Musings]]></category><pubDate>Thu, 11 Mar 2021 15:13:01 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/f5c767_dd2e63485c3d437695dc201eb860819c~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_827,h_226,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Katherine A. Sherbrooke</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mavens of March (6-10)]]></title><description><![CDATA[From L-R: Gerda Tarro, Jacki Mitchell, Delores Huerta, Qui Jin, and Emily Warren Roebling  6 GERDA TARO Born in Germany in 1910, Gerda Taro became the first female photojournalist to cover war from the front lines, documenting the toll of the Spanish Civil War. Her journalism highlighted on the impact of war on ordinary citizens, often women and children. Sadly, Taro also became the first female war correspondent to die on the front lines at the age of 26. Read more bout Gerda and see some of...]]></description><link>https://www.kasherbrooke.com/post/mavens-of-march-6-10</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69cfdbb6462bc80100bf2b60</guid><category><![CDATA[Musings]]></category><pubDate>Sat, 06 Mar 2021 08:42:00 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/f5c767_7173b82d2a634e8c8237960afa4cf3b5~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_814,h_181,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Katherine A. Sherbrooke</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[31 Women of March: The First Five]]></title><description><![CDATA[JEANETTE RANKIN Given the historic election of our first female VP in the US, I thought it fitting to start with the first woman ever elected to US Congress. She was elected in 1916, and is still the only women to ever be elected from Montana! This article in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle  offers interesting insight into her life including how she got elected, and pushed out for a time, and her pacifism as a feminist act. MARY ANN SHADD CARY Born in 1823 to free Black parents, Shadd Cary was a...]]></description><link>https://www.kasherbrooke.com/post/31-women-of-march-the-first-five</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69cfdbae70c127bc4edf0fa3</guid><category><![CDATA[Musings]]></category><pubDate>Mon, 01 Mar 2021 06:24:00 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/f5c767_e82110f3ae2c4f1692fec581292a335b~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_825,h_168,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Katherine A. Sherbrooke</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Finding the Story: Historical Fiction]]></title><description><![CDATA[When I think about the process of writing a novel, I’m reminded of Michael Angelo’s famous description of sculpting—that the figure resides within the stone, and his job is to free it. Each novel (for me) starts with an unwieldy boulder of an idea: some kind of premise, theme, character, time or place, and before I can turn it into a viable book, I must discover the story. To do this, I work to answer three key questions: what is the main conflict, who are the key characters critical to the...]]></description><link>https://www.kasherbrooke.com/post/finding-the-story-historical-fiction</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69cfdbae70c127bc4edf0fa2</guid><category><![CDATA[Musings]]></category><pubDate>Wed, 23 Dec 2020 19:54:17 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/f5c767_f22e0f37e9454379b757ca98742b9842~mv2.jpeg/v1/fit/w_480,h_640,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Katherine A. Sherbrooke</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Soul Retrieval: How a shaman inspired me to write]]></title><description><![CDATA[Only three days into my time in Otavalo, I began to understand that traditional Ecuadorians revere one thing above all else: Pachamama, or Mother Earth.  They believe she holds all answers within the branches of her hands, her mountainous breasts, and her river veins. They touch her skin by walking with bare feet on her rounded back, and they show their gratitude to her constantly—tipping a water bottle toward the soil, mid-hike, mid-conversation, to offer her a sip of water before taking a...]]></description><link>https://www.kasherbrooke.com/post/soul-retrieval-how-a-shaman-inspired-me-to-write</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69cfdbae70c127bc4edf0fa1</guid><category><![CDATA[Musings]]></category><pubDate>Tue, 29 Nov 2016 14:44:14 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/f5c767_bd5b48a706cd4d27a35d5802905d7b89~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_300,h_200,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Katherine A. Sherbrooke</dc:creator></item></channel></rss>