Tim Wendel's Blog

A week after accepting the W.Y. Boyd for historical fiction, I drove to Ottawa to visit the Canadian Museum of History.

There I spoke with curators Lauren McCoy and Tim Foran about the assassination of D'Arcy McGee. (Thanks to both of them for their time.)

Who was D'Arcy McGee? Today he's remembered as the prophet of confederation in Canada. He was a politician and poet, and he helped bring the nation together in mid-1860s. Without him, Canada, at least as we know it, probably wouldn't exist. He's become a major character in the novel I'm currently finishing, which is tentatively entitled A POET'S WAR.

McGee was born in Ireland. In fact, he was a member of early independent groups there before moving to Canada. But when he arrived in Montreal in 1857, he fell in love with his new home and the possibilities there.

The Irish fought on both sides during the Civil War. They demontrated courage at Antietam and Gettysburg. When the war ended, many turned their attention to the dire situation in their homeland. A group called the Fenian Brotherhood formed, which eventually invaded British Canada. Its goal was to seize land there and exchange it for free tracts back in Ireland. I know it sounds far-fetched, but it's true.

McGee, who had won a seat in Parliament in Ottawa, was critical of such efforts. For that he was assassinated by a Fenian conspiracy shortly after he gave a memorable speech on the House floor, which solidified Canadian unity. 

That's the backdrop for the new novel, which is slated to be released in Fall 2026 by Three Hills/Cornell Press. And that's what led me to Ottawa and the insights I found there.

A year ago, I saw a listing for the W.Y. Boyd Award in Poets & Writers magazine. I don't apply for many awards. It seems like such a roll of the dice to me. But the Boyd tracked well for the new novel I had coming out, REBEL FALLS.

Only novels set during 'a period when the U.S. was a war' are eligible and my book fit that criteria. But then I looked at the list of past winners, which included Ralph Peters, P.T. Deutermann, and Jeff Shaara, and I almost turned the page. Still, I contacted the marketing people at Cornell University Press, my publisher, and to their credit we decided to go for it.

Flash forward to last weekend at the American Library Association annual conference, where several thousands were in attendance at the main ballroom. That's where REBEL FALLS was named the Boyd Award winner for 2025. I walked across the largest stage I've ever been on to accept the Boyd, and the ceremony preceded keynote speaker Brene Brown. Yep, somebody pinch me. I'm dreaming.

Special thanks to Beth McGuire, who chaired the jury for the Boyd. So good to meet her and other hard-working librarians. These good folks are on the front lines in our tumultuous age.  

We had just moved to Charlottesville from northern Virginia when I began writing my novel Rebel Falls. Soon after we arrived the Unite the Right rally occurred. In many ways the town was still reeling months later when the General Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson statues were taken down. Such incidents became touchstones in the raging argument about our nation's past and part of recent political campaigns.

John Yates and Beall and Bennet Burley are the main adversaries in my novel. That they came within a whisker of changing the course of the Civil War in late 1864 still boggles my mind. So much so that in early drafts it was easy to become infatuated with their schemes. For a time, I regarded them as the times' Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Seemingly destined for a real star turn, only to fade into obscurity. I went as far as to research Burley's backstory at the British Library in London.

At one point, Beall and Burley were the most memorable characters in Rebel Falls. And I like to think they remain vivid personalities, working with real energy. But after what we've lived through here in Charlottesville, how evil can step out of the shadows at any time, I realized others needed to be the true heroes of my novel.

The major protagonist, Rory Chase, had to be as resourceful and as cunning as Beall and Burley, if the North was going to carry the day. And to do so, she needed help from unexpected sources, such as the African-American wait staff at the Cataract House hotel in Niagara Falls and her childhood friend, Fanny Seward.

In November, I spoke on a panel at the Miami Book Fair with David Walker, the co-author of the graphic novel Big Jim and White Boy. Thanks to audience's marvelous questions and comments, we fell into a free-wheeling conversation about the importance of history. How a nation's narrative isn't something to placed high on a shelf to gather dust. No, history is constantly evolving and what we chose to remember, honor and even treasure determines what kind of country we will be. What values we'll hold dear for next generations.

Going to miss Rickey Henderson. Here's the backstory about how I wrote about him for the first cover story of USA Today Baseball Weekly.

Rickey was the first professional athlete I encountered who spoke about himself in the third person. As in, "Rickey slides head first because it closer to the ground. That way Rickey doesn't get hurt."

The all-time base stealer was a major character in my book DOWN TO THE LAST PITCH.

Here a few highlights:

"People who played against me called me cocky," Rickey said, "but my teammates didn't."

Billy Beane, former Oakland GM: "He's the greatest leadoff hitter of all time, and I'm not sure there's a close second."

 Henderson about his teammate Jose Canseco and the rise/use of steroids in the A's clubhouse: "They kept that [stuff] a secret from me," Henderson told the New Yorker in 2005. "I wish they had told me. My God, could you imagine Rickey on 'roids? Oh, baby, look out!"

My heart goes out the A's fans. First, their ballclub leaves town and now the death of one of their all-time greats.

Rev. Billy Kyles was the last person I interviewed for 'Summer of '68.' Staring that book deadline in the face, almost out of advance money, I flew to Memphis and we spoke at Kyles' office in the Monumental Baptist Church. We talked for two hours about another tumultuous time in American history -- when Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated.
I needed to know how the civil rights group led by King, which included Rev. Kyles, was able to hang together despite such shock and sadness.
"As you can imagine, it was a very, very difficult evening," Kyles told me. "I have never felt so sad, so angry, so lonely in all my life. But we found a way to carry on. We knew it was important to carry on Dr. King's message to the world. We decided that night that you can kill the dreamer, but you cannot kill the dream."

As you may know, Memphis was one of the few cities that didn't erupt into riots and destruction that evening. Another was Indianapolis, where presidential candidate Robert Kennedy spoke to a large crowd, urging them to be calm, keep the faith and find a way to move ahead with the good work that always needs to be done.

For its stellar website, the Shepherd Group asks authors for insights about their recent books. For my historical thriller, REBEL FALLS, I came up with a list of works that go beyond generals and battles when it comes to the Civil War. Several of these titles -- THE NORTH STAR, A WORLD ON FIRE, and THE WAR BEFORE THE WAR -- helped me with researching my latest. Here's the complete list of great books that go above and beyond when it comes to understanding that epic conflict.

For the past month, I've been living that old Johnny Cash song. I've been to Buffalo, Medina, Leroy, Auburn, Petoskey, Traverse City, and many bookstores in between, promoting REBEL FALLS.

Thanks to everyone who turned out. It was grand to see so many familiar faces and friends, and make new acquaintances along the way.

The road is always full of surprises. For example, so many folks turned up at Author's Note in Medina, N.Y., that we did back-to-back, hour-long sessions due to fire-code regulations. We had a SRO crowd at the prestigious Politics & Prose in D.C. And we had such a great response in northern Michigan that the novel went to No. 1 last week in sales at Brilliant Books, the great indie bookstore in Traverse City, topping such luminaries as Jacqueline Winspear and Stephen King.

Good fun. So much so, plans are afoot to hit the road again in the near future. 

Few things more gratifying or humbling for a writer than to appear at Politics & Prose, the prestigious independent bookstore in Washington, D.C. Thanks to everyone who attended (a SRO crowd) and special thanks to my friend E. Ethelbert Miller for being in conversation with me last Sunday afternoon.

It's 1864, and amid the ongoing U.S. Civil War, an impassioned Rebecca "Rory" Chase has just buried her last remaining family member. Spurred to action, she disguises herself as a man to enlist in a New York State Union regiment, but she is quickly found out.

Downcast and frustrated, Rory returns home to Auburn, where she is approached by her childhood friend Fanny Seward, daughter of Secretary of State William Seward. It turns out that Rory can defend her beloved Union. Two Confederate rebels suspected of planning a coup have been sighted along the Canada border.

She signs on as a courier, or spy, and is sent to Niagara Falls to uncover what she can of the rebels' complex plot. As Rory works to befriend the Confederate targets, she reconnects with people from her mother's past.

When the rebels' plans intensify, Rory finds herself in a race against time and significant odds. Based on actual yet long-obscured events, Wendel's absorbing novel is rich in dramatic history, while his depiction of Rory's internal conflicts brings depth to her high-stakes mission.

— Leah Strauss, Booklist

Cover blurbs for REBEL FALLS have arrived from Ken Burns, SiriusXM's Larry Kirwan and more. I'll roll more of those in the weeks ahead.

But recently I've been focusing on appearances in support of my new historical novel.

Going on tour always has its ups and down, shocks and surprises, so I detailed several in my latest Substack column,  https://timwendel.substack.com/p/book...

See why I'm not the biggest Harry Potter fan.