Coming soon, “Anywhere But Schuylkill,” my historical novel about the Pennsylvania coal wars. The blue image in the background is the painting, “The Breaker Boys,” by George Luks (1925). Luks was associated with the “aggressively realistic” Ashcan School of American painting. He was also from Shenandoah, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, where my novel takes place. He […]

When people think of California and natural disasters, they usually think of earthquakes, wildfires and droughts. But the worst natural disaster to hit the west in the last 160 years was the Great Flood of 1862, a series of storms that inundated much of the land, from Oregon to San Diego. The agriculturally rich Central

(Published in Fifth Estate, Spring 2022) In the wake of the punitive No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top legislation of the Bush and Obama years, education reform has turned one hundred and eighty degrees. Today, many schools are implementing much more noncoercive practices, like restorative justice and culturally sensitive teaching, which aim

Today in Labor History March 29, 1852: Ohio prohibited employers from forcing women or children to work more than 10 hours in a day. March 29, 1918: Union buster, Sam Walton, was born in Kingfisher, Oklahoma. Despite his nativist “Buy American” campaign, Walmart is now the single largest importer of foreign goods in the U.S.