Dave Tamanini

In 2012, I had time to live my dream of writing my first novel.

It took a while to get there. I'm a product of great people from the northeastern coal region of Pennsylvania. And I lived in lots of places while growing up in a U.S. Army family.  I come from mostly blue-collar people and am proud of it. But after community college, and the University of Maryland, I landed a job as a civil rights investigator of race and gender discrimination. That work in the legal field led me to the University of Detroit Law School and then private law practice for thirty years. During my work as a lawyer, I got to help clients from all walks of life and I learned a lot about human strength, frailty… and hypocrisy.

Broad social issues and our individual experiences in dealing with them have always fascinated me. Not the least of which are issues of race relations and religion. Now, while writing fiction, I've drawn on my life experiences to shape a historical novel about certain people during the Salem witch hunt era of 1692. The nearly forgotten story of the tragic enslaved African woman Tituba, herself accused of witchcraft, and her Puritan owner Rev. Samuel Parris, gave me the opportunity to explore the motivations of many people sucked into the witch hunt craziness back then. With the device of magical powers, I have reshaped the well-known story in a new and provocative way.

I hope you agree.