{"id":912,"date":"2012-01-31T22:28:36","date_gmt":"2012-02-01T05:28:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lindacollison.com\/blog\/?p=912"},"modified":"2012-05-18T12:30:37","modified_gmt":"2012-05-18T19:30:37","slug":"barbados-bound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/barbados-bound\/","title":{"rendered":"Barbados Bound!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m so happy to have the chance to revise and republish Star-Crossed<\/em> as Barbados Bound; book one of the Patricia MacPherson Nautical Adventure Series!<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 Last week I received the reversion of rights from Random House, and today I emailed the revised manuscript to Fireship Press.\u00a0 I’m going to include a preface, explaining the title change.\u00a0 Something like this:<\/p>\n

Barbados Bound<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0Author\u2019s preface
\n<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0Barbados Bound<\/em> was first published by Alfred A. Knopf as Star-Crossed.<\/em>\u00a0 I wrote it as adult historical fiction, to explore what it might have been like to have been a young woman down on her luck, aboard an 18th<\/sup> century ship.\u00a0 Not as a passenger — but as part of the crew.<\/p>\n

My curiosity had been piqued after my husband and I spent three weeks as voyage crewmembers aboard HM Bark Endeavour<\/em>, a working replica of Captain Cook\u2019s renowned ship of exploration.\u00a0\u00a0 As crew, we were taught everything we needed to know about sailing the ship by our superior officers.\u00a0 Our duties included standing our rotating, four-hour watches, during which we climbed aloft to make or reduce sail, kept a look-out for other vessels, and took our turns at the helm.\u00a0 When not on watch we were assigned cleaning and maintenance duties, and at night strung our hammocks from the deckhead, just as British seamen did for centuries.\u00a0 Although Endeavour <\/em>was equipped with a few modern conveniences Cook didn\u2019t have, she was a time machine for my imagination.\u00a0\u00a0 While standing watch, or at the helm, I found myself thinking that if I could perform these tasks alongside my mates (perhaps a quarter of whom were women like me) then surely there was truth to the stories about women dressing as men and working aboard ships during the age of sail.<\/p>\n

During the three weeks I was an 18th<\/sup> century sailor, we sailed Endeavour <\/em>across the northern Pacific Ocean, from Vancouver to Hawaii.\u00a0 When I disembarked in Kona, I carried with me the seeds for a story — though there was years of research to be done while writing it.\u00a0 The story I wanted to write was not about the Endeavour <\/em>or Captain Cook, but it would take place on a vessel similar to the Endeavour<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Orion Rising<\/em> was the working title for this story, written from the view point of a young woman who stows herself away in order to get to Barbados.\u00a0 It was published as Star-Crossed<\/em> by Alfred A. Knopf in 2006, and marketed as a young adult novel.\u00a0 Although I didn\u2019t write it for a teenaged market, I was honored when the New York Public Library chose it to be among the Books for the Teen Age \u2013 2007.<\/em><\/p>\n

Star-Crossed <\/em>went out of print in 2011.\u00a0\u00a0 Fireship Press has republished it as adult historical fiction — the first novel in the Patricia MacPherson Nautical Adventure Series.<\/em><\/p>\n

I have taken this opportunity\u00a0 to correct a few minor historical inaccuracies \u2013 and to make a few other revisions, as authors are wont to do.\u00a0 I have also put back in some of the original wording that was changed for a young adult readership.\u00a0 Finally, I have retitled it because I always felt the title Star-Crossed (Knopf\u2019s choice) was more indicative of a romance novel rather than a historical adventure story.\u00a0 Although the working title was Orion rising<\/em>, I feel Barbados Bound<\/em> better reflects the spirit of the story.<\/p>\n

I am very grateful to Tom Grunder, the founder of Fireship Press, who wanted to publish Barbados Bound <\/em>as the first book in a series about a woman who goes to sea in the age of sail, and who published Surgeon\u2019s Mate; book two of the Patricia MacPherson Nautical Adventure Series <\/em>in 2011.\u00a0 Tom didn\u2019t live to see Barbados Bound<\/em>\u00a0 under the Fireship label, but I am greatly indebted to him.\u00a0 I appreciate the support and editorial guidance he gave me while he was alive.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m so happy to have the chance to revise and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[153,33,35],"class_list":["post-912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing-and-publishing","tag-barbados-bound","tag-fireship-press","tag-star-crossed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=912"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1092,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912\/revisions\/1092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}