The Queen of the Swamp, and other plain Americans

A collection of short stories set across Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois that sketches rural Midwestern life in the nineteenth century. The pieces range from domestic vignettes and local-color portraits to modest historical touches, following villagers, itinerant preachers, courting couples, and working families as they negotiate faith, social expectations, and economic pressures. Focused on community rituals, seasonal gatherings, and personal choices, the stories use gentle sentiment and close observation to record manners, vanished customs, and everyday struggles of pioneer and small-town existence.