Meacham blogs at literary site; shares fascinating story of Peshtigo Fire novel

Nice honor for Rebecca Meacham, UW-Green Bay professor of Humanistic Studies and creative writing. She is one of about 20 authors nationwide who have been selected to share 2013 blogging duties for the Ploughshares literary journal. Her first post went live mid-day Wednesday. Titled “My Ideal Bookshelf* (*For Today),”  it opens with a reference to some of the interesting and seemingly offbeat volumes in her personal library. Two examples are The Wisconsin Logging Book 1839-1939 and a book on Victorian post-mortem photography. Those recent additions make sense once you learn she’s working on a historical novel dealing with the great Peshtigo Fire of 1871, which killed at least 1,200 people. Meacham opens a fascinating window into the process of researching and writing the new book, and describes some of what she has discovered, in the post at http://blog.pshares.org.