In Honor of Black History Month

I wrote my novel MRS. LIEUTENANT — which was a 2008 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award semifinalist — to preserve a very specific slice of women’s social history in 1970.

And part of that social history concerns the African-American experience in the U.S. because MRS. LIEUTENANT takes place six years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act.

MRS. LIEUTENANT is inspired by my own experiences as a new Mrs. Lieutenant at Ft. Knox, Kentucky, in the spring of 1970. The main African-American character in MRS. LIEUTENANT is a composite of people and researched information. (In fact, I wrote one part of the novel to answer a question in real life that was never answered.)

While equal rights may seem the norm today, in 1970 when my husband and I drove south from Chicago to Ft. Knox, we were concerned that we were driving into the South. In Louisville, for example, we half expected to see blacks (the correct term then) seated in the back of the bus.

Perhaps most interesting at that time (as the novel portrays) is that the U.S. Army, which had only been integrated since the Korean War, was more integrated than other places in the U.S.

In honor of Black History Month, check out MRS. LIEUTENANT on Kindle at http://amzn.to/TKTk4B

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Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of the 2008 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award semifinalist MRS. LIEUTENANT and the co-author of the Navy thriller LT. COMMANDER MOLLIE SANDERS. Phyllis is the co-founder of the marketing consulting company Miller Mosaic LLC, which works with clients to attract more business. Read her book-related posts at www.PhyllisZimblerMiller.com