Never Turn Back takes the reader on a journey into Kenya's past and into the life of one of this century's great adventurers-aviator Beryl Markham. Abandoned by her mother at the age of four, Markham grew up a white child in a land of lions and leopards, Masai and Kipsigis warriors. She learned early from the land and the father she idolized--but could never quite please--that the sentimental and the weak do not survive in Africa.
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I write social histories--stories about ordinary people who find themselves, usually by choice, in extraordinary circumstances. My latest book explores a grim chapter in American history--the Andersonville Civil War Prison Camp. More often, however, I write about women's history through the lens of media and popular culture. When I'm not writing nonfiction books for young adults, I am managing Letters About Literature, a reading and writing promotion program of the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress or watching old movies. I am the principal curriculum writer for The Story of Movies, an educaitonal outreach program of Martin Scorsese's The Film Foundation. I grew up in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, but I have lived along the Gulf Coast of Texas, Chicago, a tiny town in Western Pennsylvania on the edge of Elk Forest, Connecticut . . . well, in short, I move around a lot. Right now home is Woodbridge, Virginia.
