Join Historical Fiction author, Dr. Horace Alexander and Novelist, Lynda Edwards as they discuss the characters in their novels, and the role of sugarcane and the rum boom of the

1500s. They will pull back the curtain and give us an insight into the stories they write and the characters that emerged. In Moon Over Port Royal, Dr. Alexander portrays “the illustrious people of the pirate capital, the Maroon freedom fighters of the hills, and the massive 1692 earthquake that buried ‘the wickedest city on earth’ below the Caribbean Sea,” while Lynda’s Friendship Estate “transcends history’s oppressive grasp and conjures up a romantic age where anything is possible. We emerge from her dream world with renewed faith in the possibilities that lie ahead. Friendship Estate shows us what might have been, as Lynda points the way to what yet might be.”

While these authors take two different approaches, they have two things in common, Rum and debauchery that forms the basis for piracy and slavery in the 1500s. This panel will give a voice to the men and women who paved the way for a better life, from apprenticeship to emancipation as we contemplate “Rum Stories: Ancestral Voices from the Cane Fields.”