Ben Franklin's World
726 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 1 month ago - ★★★★★ - 988 ratingsThis is a multiple award-winning podcast about early American history. It’s a show for people who love history and who want to know more about the historical people and events that have impacted and shaped our present-day world.
Each episode features conversations with professional historians who help shed light on important people and events in early American history. It is produced by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
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Episodes
386 Sleeping with the Ancestors
June 11, 2024 05:00 - 51 minutes - 47.4 MBIn this special Juneteenth episode, as we honor the emancipation of enslaved African Americans, we delve into the work of those working to preserve slave dwellings across the United States, safeguarding the essential stories these structures embody. In our conversation, Joseph McGill, the Executive Director and Founder of the Slave Dwelling Project, joins us to share why former slave dwellings are vital to our nation's history and what they reveal about the lives of those who once lived in...
385 Did George Washington Have Heirs?
May 28, 2024 05:00 - 1 hour - 59.1 MBThe United States Constitution of 1787 gave many Americans pause about the powers the new federal government could exercise and how the government's leadership would rest with one person, the president. The fact that George Washington would likely serve as the new nation’s first president calmed many Americans’ fears that the new nation was creating an opportunity for a hereditary monarch. Washington had proven his commitment to a democratic form of government when he gave up his army comm...
384 Making Maine: A Journey to Statehood
May 14, 2024 05:00 - 1 hour - 60.3 MBArticle IV, Section 3 of the United States Constitution establishes guidelines by which the United States Congress can admit new states to the American Union. It clearly states that “no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State…without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.” Five states have been formed from pre-existing states: Vermont, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Maine. How did the process of f...
383 Aquatic Culture in Early America
April 30, 2024 05:00 - 56 minutes - 78.3 MBIf you will recall from Episode 331, the Williamsburg Bray School is the oldest existing structure in the United States that we know was used to educate African and African American children. As the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation prepares the Bray School for you to visit and see, we’re having many conversations about the history of the school, its scholars, and early Black American History in general. During one of these conversations, the work of Kevin Dawson came up. Kevin is an Associ...
382 Hessians in the American Revolutionary War
April 16, 2024 05:00 - 54 minutes - 49.8 MBWithin the Declaration of Independence, the founders of the United States present twenty-seven grievances against King George III as they declare their reasons for why the thirteen British North American colonies sought their independence from Great Britain. Their twenty-fifth grievance declares that King George III “is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat [sic] the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun.” What do we know about the “Armi...
381 Texas in the Spanish Empire
April 02, 2024 05:00 - 1 hour - 57.9 MBThe vast and varied landscapes of Texas loom large in our American imaginations. As does Texas culture with its BBQ, cowboys, and larger-than-life personality. But before Texas was a place that embraced ranching, space flight, and country music, Texas was a place with rich and vibrant Indigenous cultures and traditions and with Spanish and Mexican cultures and traditions. Martha Menchaca, a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Texas, Austin, is a scholar of Texas history and Unit...
380 The Tory's Wife
March 19, 2024 05:00 - 1 hour - 59.8 MBThe American Revolution was a movement that divided British Americans. Americans did not universally agree on the Revolution’s ideas about governance and independence. And the movement’s War for Independence was a bloody civil war that not only pitted brother against brother and fathers against sons; it also pitted wives against husbands. Cynthia A. Kierner is a professor of history at George Mason University and the author of the book The Tory’s Wife: A Woman and Her Family in Revolutiona...
379 Women Healers in Early America
March 05, 2024 06:00 - 1 hour - 55.9 MBWomen make up eight out of every ten healthcare workers in the United States. Yet they lag behind men when it comes to working in the roles of medical doctors and surgeons. Why has healthcare become a professional field dominated by women, and yet women represent a minority of physicians and doctors who serve at the top of the healthcare field? Susan H. Brandt, a historian and lecturer at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, seeks to find answers to these questions. In doing so,...
378 Everyday Black Living in Early America
February 20, 2024 06:30 - 49 minutes - 45.4 MBWhen we study the history of Black Americans, especially in the early American period, we tend to focus on slavery and the slave trades. But focusing solely on slavery can hinder our ability to see that, like all early Americans, Black Americans were multi-dimensional people who led complicated lives and lived a full range of experiences that were worth living and talking about. Tara Bynum, an Assistant Professor of English and African American Studies at the University of Iowa and the aut...
377 Phillis Wheatley & the Playwright
February 06, 2024 06:00 - 45 minutes - 42.2 MB2023 marked the 250th anniversary of the arrival of Phillis Wheatley's published book of poetry in the British American colonies. Phillis Wheatley was an enslaved African woman who, as a teenager, became the first published African author of a book of poetry written in English. Ade Solanke, an award-winning playwright and screenwriter, has written two plays about Phillis Wheatley’s life to commemorate the semiquincentennial of Wheatley’s literary accomplishments. She joins us to not onl...
376 Cotton Mather's Spanish Lessons
January 23, 2024 06:00 - 1 hour - 59.3 MBColonial America was born in a world of religious alliances and rivalries. Missionary efforts in the colonial Americas allow us to see how some of these religious alliances and rivalries played out. Spain, and later France, sent Catholic priests and friars to North and South America, and the Caribbean, purportedly to save the souls of Indigenous Americans by converting them to Catholicism. We also know that Protestants did similar work to help counteract this Catholic work in the Americas. ...
375 Misinformation Nation: Fake News in Early America
January 09, 2024 06:00 - 58 minutes - 53.8 MBOver the past decade, we’ve heard a lot about “fake news” and “misinformation.” And as 2024 is an election year, it’s likely we’re going to hear even more about these terms. So what is the origin of misinformation in the American press? When did Americans decide that they needed to be concerned with figuring out whether the information they heard or read was truthful or fake? Jordan E. Taylor joins us to find answers to these questions. Jordan is a historian who studies the history of me...
374 The American Revolutionary War in the West
December 26, 2023 06:00 - 53 minutes - 49.1 MBThe American Revolution and its War for Independence comprised the United States’ founding movement. The War for Independence also served as the fifth major war for European empire in North America. The fourth war for European empire, the Seven Years’ War, reshaped and redefined Europe’s worldwide colonial landscape in Great Britain’s favor. The American Revolutionary War presented Britain’s European rivals with an opportunity to regain some of the territory they had lost. An opportunity w...
373 The Gaspee Affair, 1772
December 12, 2023 06:30 - 54 minutes - 50.5 MBThe so-called “March to the American Revolution” comprised many more events than just the Stamp Act Riots, the Boston Massacre, and the Tea Crisis. One event we often overlook played an essential and direct role in the events needed to draw the thirteen rebellious British North American colonies into a union of coordinated response. That event was the Gaspee Affair in 1772. Adrian Weimer, a professor of history at Providence College, has been researching the Gaspee Affair and what it can t...
372 A History of the Myaamia
November 28, 2023 06:00 - 1 hour - 63.9 MBEarly America was a diverse place. A significant part of this diversity came from the fact that there were at least 1,000 different Indigenous tribes and nations living in different areas of North America before the Spanish and other European empires arrived on the continent’s shores. Diane Hunter and John Bickers join us to investigate the history and culture of one of these distinct Indigenous tribes: the Myaamia. At the time of this recording, Diane Hunter was the Tribal Historic Prese...
371 An Archive of Indigenous Slavery
November 14, 2023 06:00 - 50 minutes - 46.8 MBLong before European arrival in the Americas, Indigenous people and nations practiced enslavement. Their version of enslavement looked different from the version Christopher Columbus and his fellow Europeans practiced, but Indigenous slavery also shared many similarities with the Euro-American practice of African Chattel Slavery. While there is no way to measure the exact impact of slavery upon the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, we do know the practice involved many millions of Indige...
370 The Ruin of All Witches
October 31, 2023 05:00 - 51 minutes - 47.8 MBHappy Halloween! In honor of the 31st of October and All Hallows Eve, we investigate a historical incident of witches and witchcraft in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1651. Malcolm Gaskill, Emeritus Professor of Early Modern History at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, and one of the leading experts in the history of witchcraft, joins us to discuss details from his new book, The Ruin of All Witches: Life and Death in the New World. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworl...
369 Livestock and Animal Breeds in Early America
October 24, 2023 05:00 - 52 minutes - 48 MBEstablishing colonies in North America took an astonishing amount of work. Colonists had to clear trees, eventually remove stumps from newly cleared fields, plant crops to eat and sell, weed and tend those crops, and then they had to harvest crops, and get the crops they intended to sell to the nearest market town, and that was just some of the work involved to establish colonial farms. Colonists did not often perform this work on their own. They enlisted the help of children and neighbors...
368 Legacies of the Brafferton Indian School
October 10, 2023 05:00 - 1 hour - 58.5 MBThe Brafferton Indian School has a long and complicated legacy. Chartered with the College of William & Mary in 1693, the Brafferton Indian School’s purpose was to educate young Indigenous boys in the ways of English religion, language, and culture. The Brafferton performed this work for more than 70 years, between the arrival of its first students in 1702 and when the last documented student left the school in 1778. This second episode in our 2-episode series about the Brafferton Indian ...
367 The Brafferton Indian School, Part 1
September 26, 2023 05:00 - 1 hour - 74.5 MBIn 1693, King William III and Queen Mary II of England granted a royal charter for two institutions of higher education in the Colony of Virginia. The first institution was the College of William & Mary. The second institution was the Indian School at William & Mary, known from 1723 to the present as the Brafferton Indian School. The history of the Brafferton Indian School is a story of power, trade, land, and culture. It’s an Indigenous story. It’s also a story of English, later British, ...
366 Michael Taylor, James Wilson & the U.S. Constitution
September 12, 2023 05:00 - 53 minutes - 50.2 MBOn September 17, 1787, the members of the Constitutional Convention concluded their work by signing the final draft of their new proposed government. The document they signed was the United States Constitution, which is why the United States marks Constitution Day each year on September 17. In honor of Constitution Day, we explore the life of a Founder who played a large role in the creation and shaping of the United States Constitution: James Wilson. Michael H. Taylor, Professor of Unit...
366 James Wilson & the U.S. Constitution
September 12, 2023 05:00 - 53 minutes - 50.2 MBOn September 17, 1787, the members of the Constitutional Convention concluded their work by signing the final draft of their new proposed government. The document they signed was the United States Constitution, which is why the United States marks Constitution Day each year on September 17. In honor of Constitution Day, we explore the life of a Founder who played a large role in the creation and shaping of the United States Constitution: James Wilson. Michael H. Taylor, Professor of Unit...
365 Road Trip 2023: Early Settlement at Île Ste. Jean
August 29, 2023 05:00 - 1 hour - 58.7 MB2020 commemorated the 300th anniversary of French presence on Prince Edward Island. Like much of North America, the Canadian Maritime provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island, and Prince Edward Island were highly contested regions. In fact, the way France and Great Britain fought for presence and control of this region places the Canadian Maritimes among the most contested regions in eighteenth-century North America. Anne Marie Lane Jonah, a historian with the Parks C...
364 Road Trip 2023: La Pointe-Krebs House & Museum
August 15, 2023 05:00 - 54 minutes - 50.5 MBThe Mississippi Gulf Coast was the home of many different peoples, cultures, and empires during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. According to some historians, the Gulf Coast region may have been the most diverse region in early North America. Matthew Powell, a historian of slavery and southern history and the Executive Director of the La Pointe-Krebs House & Museum in Pascagoula, Mississippi, joins us to investigate and explore the Mississippi Gulf Coast and a prominent family wh...
363 Road Trip 2023: Ste. Genevieve National Historical Park
August 01, 2023 05:00 - 1 hour - 55.3 MBAbout 620 miles north of New Orleans and 62 miles south of St. Louis, sits the town of Ste. Geneviéve, Missouri. Established in 1750 by the French, Ste. Geneviéve reveals much about what it was like to establish a colony in the heartland of North America and what it was like for colonists to live so far removed from seats of imperial power. Claire Casey, a National Park Service interpretative ranger at the Ste. Geneviéve National Historical Park, joins us to explore the early American hi...
362: David W. Penney, Treaties Between the United States & American Indian Nations
July 18, 2023 05:00 - 1 hour - 57 MBThe Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian has an exhibit called Nation to Nation: Treaties Between the United States & American Indian Nations. This exhibit allows you to see treaties the United States has made with American Indian nations and learn more about those treaties and their outcomes. David W. Penney is the Associate Director of Museum Scholarship, Exhibitions, and Public Engagement at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. He’s also an internati...
362 Treaties Between the United States & American Indian Nations
July 18, 2023 05:00 - 1 hour - 57 MBThe Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian has an exhibit called Nation to Nation: Treaties Between the United States & American Indian Nations. This exhibit allows you to see treaties the United States has made with American Indian nations and learn more about those treaties and their outcomes. David W. Penney is the Associate Director of Museum Scholarship, Exhibitions, and Public Engagement at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. He’s also an internati...
361 The Fourth of July in 2026
July 04, 2023 05:00 - 1 hour - 73.2 MBJuly 4, 2023 marks the 247th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the birth of the United States. In three short years, we will be marking the 250th anniversary of these events. How are historians thinking about the American Revolution for 2026? What are they discussing when it comes to the 250th anniversary of the United States’ founding? Lindsay M. Chervinsky, Ronald Angelo Johnson, and Kariann Akemi Yokota join us to answer these questions. All three guests are historia...
360 Slavery and Freedom in Massachusetts
June 20, 2023 05:00 - 1 hour - 61.9 MBJuneteenth is a holiday that celebrates and commemorates the end of slavery in the United States. We choose to reflect on the end of slavery in the United States on June 19, because, on June 19, 1865, United States General Gordon Granger issued his General Order No. 3 in Galveston, Texas, informing Texans that all slaves are free. Juneteenth may feel like it is a mid-19th-century moment, but the end of slavery didn’t just occur on one day or at one time. And it didn’t just occur in the mid...
360 Kyera Singleton, Slavery and Freedom in Massachusetts
June 20, 2023 05:00 - 1 hour - 61.9 MBJuneteenth is a holiday that celebrates and commemorates the end of slavery in the United States. We choose to reflect on the end of slavery in the United States on June 19, because, on June 19, 1865, United States General Gordon Granger issued his General Order No. 3 in Galveston, Texas, informing Texans that all slaves are free. Juneteenth may feel like it is a mid-19th-century moment, but the end of slavery didn’t just occur on one day or at one time. And it didn’t just occur in the mid...
359 Trans-ing Gender in Early America
June 06, 2023 05:00 - 53 minutes - 49.4 MB“People are complicated” is a truism that holds in the past and the present. Seldom do we find a person where all of their actions and thoughts are black and white. What we see instead is that people are colorful because they aren’t just one thing and they don’t think and act in one way. Human identities are one area where we find a lot of colorfulness and complexity. Most humans have multiple Identities based in geography, nationality, religious affiliation, race and ethnicity, and also g...
359 Jen Manion, Trans-ing Gender in Early America
June 06, 2023 05:00 - 53 minutes - 49.4 MB“People are complicated” is a truism that holds in the past and the present. Seldom do we find a person where all of their actions and thoughts are black and white. What we see instead is that people are colorful because they aren’t just one thing and they don’t think and act in one way. Human identities are one area where we find a lot of colorfulness and complexity. Most humans have multiple Identities based in geography, nationality, religious affiliation, race and ethnicity, and also g...
358 St. Augustine & Early Florida
May 23, 2023 05:00 - 1 hour - 59.1 MBFor much of the colonial period, Spain claimed almost all of North America as Spanish territory. It displayed this claim on maps and in the administrative units it created to govern this vast territory: New Spain and La Florida. Charles Tingley is a Senior Research Librarian at the St. Augustine Historical Society in St. Augustine, Florida, and an expert in the history of St. Augustine. He joins us to explore the early American history of La Florida through the lens of one of its capitals:...
358 Charles Tingley, St. Augustine & Early Florida
May 23, 2023 05:00 - 1 hour - 59.1 MBFor much of the colonial period, Spain claimed almost all of North America as Spanish territory. It displayed this claim on maps and in the administrative units it created to govern this vast territory: New Spain and La Florida. Charles Tingley is a Senior Research Librarian at the St. Augustine Historical Society in St. Augustine, Florida, and an expert in the history of St. Augustine. He joins us to explore the early American history of La Florida through the lens of one of its capitals:...
357 Eric Jay Dolin, Privateering in the American Revolution
May 09, 2023 05:00 - 58 minutes - 53.9 MBHow did the Continental Congress approach creating military forces that could go toe-to-toe with the British military during the American War for Independence? Eric Jay Dolin joins us to answer part of that question by looking at the creation of the United States’ privateer fleet. Dolin is the author of fifteen books about the maritime history of early America, including Rebels at Sea: Privateering in the American Revolution. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/357 Join Ben F...
357, Privateering in the American Revolution
May 09, 2023 05:00 - 58 minutes - 53.9 MBHow did the Continental Congress approach creating military forces that could go toe-to-toe with the British military during the American War for Independence? Eric Jay Dolin joins us to answer part of that question by looking at the creation of the United States’ privateer fleet. Dolin is the author of fifteen books about the maritime history of early America, including Rebels at Sea: Privateering in the American Revolution. Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/357 Join Ben F...
356 Paul Peucker, The Moravian Church in North America
April 25, 2023 05:00 - 54 minutes - 50.4 MBIn 1682, the first Assembly of Pennsylvania and the Delaware counties met in Chester, Pennsylvania, and adopted “the Great Law,” a humanitarian code that guaranteed the people of Pennsylvania liberty of conscience. “The Great Law” created an environment that not only welcomed William Penn’s fellow Quakers to Pennsylvania but also created space for the migration of other unestablished religions, such as the Lutherans, Schwenkfelders, and Moravians. Paul Peucker, an archivist and the Direc...
356 The Moravian Church in North America
April 25, 2023 05:00 - 54 minutes - 50.4 MBIn 1682, the first Assembly of Pennsylvania and the Delaware counties met in Chester, Pennsylvania, and adopted “the Great Law,” a humanitarian code that guaranteed the people of Pennsylvania liberty of conscience. “The Great Law” created an environment that not only welcomed William Penn’s fellow Quakers to Pennsylvania but also created space for the migration of other unestablished religions, such as the Lutherans, Schwenkfelders, and Moravians. Paul Peucker, an archivist and the Direc...
355 Misha Ewen, The Virginia Venture
April 11, 2023 05:00 - 54 minutes - 52.3 MBOn April 10th, 1606, King James I granted the Virginia Company of London a charter. Just over a year later, on May 14, 1607, this privately-funded, joint-stock company established the first, permanent English colony in North America at Jamestown, in the colony of Virginia. What work did the Virginia Company have to do to establish this colony? How much money did it have to raise, and from whom did it raise this money, to support its colonial venture? Misha Ewen, a Lecturer in early mode...
355 The Virginia Venture
April 11, 2023 05:00 - 54 minutes - 52.3 MBOn April 10th, 1606, King James I granted the Virginia Company of London a charter. Just over a year later, on May 14, 1607, this privately-funded, joint-stock company established the first, permanent English colony in North America at Jamestown, in the colony of Virginia. What work did the Virginia Company have to do to establish this colony? How much money did it have to raise, and from whom did it raise this money, to support its colonial venture? Misha Ewen, a Lecturer in early mode...
354 John Wood Sweet, The Sewing Girl's Tale
March 28, 2023 05:00 - 1 hour - 62 MBHistory tells us who we are and how we came to be who we are. It also allows us to look back and see how far we’ve come as people and societies. Of course, history also has the power to show us how little has changed over time. John Wood Sweet, a professor of history at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and author of the book, The Sewing Girl’s Tale: A Story of Crime and Consequences in Revolutionary America, winner of the 2023 Bancroft Prize in American History, joins us to i...
354 The Sewing Girl's Tale
March 28, 2023 05:00 - 1 hour - 62 MBHistory tells us who we are and how we came to be who we are. It also allows us to look back and see how far we’ve come as people and societies. Of course, history also has the power to show us how little has changed over time. John Wood Sweet, a professor of history at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and author of the book, The Sewing Girl’s Tale: A Story of Crime and Consequences in Revolutionary America, winner of the 2023 Bancroft Prize in American History, joins us to i...
353 Women and the Making of Catawba Identity
March 14, 2023 05:00 - 55 minutes - 51.4 MBHow did Indigenous people adapt to and survive the onslaught of Indigenous warfare, European diseases, and population loss between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries? How did past generations of Indigenous women ensure their culture would live on from one generation to the next so their people would endure? Brooke Bauer, an assistant professor of history at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and author of the book Becoming Catawba: Catawba Women and Nation Building, 1540-1840, joi...
353 Brooke Bauer, Women and the Making of Catawba Identity
March 14, 2023 05:00 - 55 minutes - 51.4 MBHow did Indigenous people adapt to and survive the onslaught of Indigenous warfare, European diseases, and population loss between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries? How did past generations of Indigenous women ensure their culture would live on from one generation to the next so their people would endure? Brooke Bauer, an assistant professor of history at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and author of the book Becoming Catawba: Catawba Women and Nation Building, 1540-1840, joi...
352 James Forten and the Making of the United States
February 28, 2023 06:00 - 47 minutes - 44 MBPeople of African descent have made great contributions to the United States and its history. Think about all of the food, music, dance, medicine, farming and religious practices that people of African descent have contributed to American culture. Think about the sacrifices they’ve made to create and protect the United States as an independent nation. Matthew Skic, a Curator of Exhibitions at the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia, joins us to investigate the life and deeds ...
352 Matthew Skic, James Forten and the Making of the United States
February 28, 2023 06:00 - 47 minutes - 44 MBPeople of African descent have made great contributions to the United States and its history. Think about all of the food, music, dance, medicine, farming and religious practices that people of African descent have contributed to American culture. Think about the sacrifices they’ve made to create and protect the United States as an independent nation. Matthew Skic, a Curator of Exhibitions at the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia, joins us to investigate the life and deeds ...
351 Nicole Maskiell, Wealth and Slavery in New Netherland
February 14, 2023 06:00 - 51 minutes - 47.1 MBAfrican chattel slavery, the predominant type of slavery practiced in colonial North America and the early United States, did not represent one monolithic practice of slavery. Practices of slavery varied by region, labor systems, legal codes, and empire. Slavery also wasn’t just about enslavers enslaving people for their labor. Enslavers used enslaved people to make statements about their social status, as areas of economic investment that built generational wealth, and as a form of curren...
351 Wealth and Slavery in New Netherland
February 14, 2023 06:00 - 51 minutes - 47.1 MBAfrican chattel slavery, the predominant type of slavery practiced in colonial North America and the early United States, did not represent one monolithic practice of slavery. Practices of slavery varied by region, labor systems, legal codes, and empire. Slavery also wasn’t just about enslavers enslaving people for their labor. Enslavers used enslaved people to make statements about their social status, as areas of economic investment that built generational wealth, and as a form of curren...
350 Stacy Schiff, The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams
January 31, 2023 06:00 - 1 hour - 58.2 MBBefore the American Revolution became a war and a fight for independence, the Revolution was a movement and protest for more local control of government. So how did the American Revolution get started? Who worked to transform a series of protests into a revolution? This is a BIG question with no one answer. But one American who worked to transform protests into a coordinated revolutionary movement was a Boston politician named Samuel Adams. Stacy Schiff, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, ...
350 The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams
January 31, 2023 06:00 - 1 hour - 58.2 MBBefore the American Revolution became a war and a fight for independence, the Revolution was a movement and protest for more local control of government. So how did the American Revolution get started? Who worked to transform a series of protests into a revolution? This is a BIG question with no one answer. But one American who worked to transform protests into a coordinated revolutionary movement was a Boston politician named Samuel Adams. Stacy Schiff, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, ...