Dahlia DeWinters - Author

Quirky Heroines, Happy Endings

Blogtoberfest – My Bloody Vampire Sangria

Hello again!  So glad to see y’all along with me for the ride Halloween blogging, or, as I call it……BLOGTOBERFEST……..

Today’s recipe is not a mocktail, but a straight up liquor fest.  It was a choice between this and chocolate martinis.  I chose this because it looks like fruit punch.  (What, me drinking?  Nah, this is fruit punch.)  And I love sangria.

You can find the basic recipe here, but I added my own twist.

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Total Time: 5 minutes

Ingredients:

  • 1 (750 ml bottle of red wine (Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Rioja reds, Zinfandel, Shiraz)
  • 1 Lemon cut into wedges
  • 1 Orange cut into wedges
  • Strawberry or Kiwi slices
  • 3 Tbsp sugar
  • 2 shots brandy
  • 1 shot gin
  • 2 cups ginger ale or club soda

Preparation:

Pour wine in the pitcher and squeeze the juice wedges from the lemon and orange into the wine. Toss in the fruit wedges (leaving out seeds if possible) and add sugar and brandy. Chill overnight. Add ginger ale or club soda just before serving.

If you’d like to serve right away, use chilled red wine and serve over lots of ice.

 

Blogtoberfest – Vampire’s Kiss Cocktail

For our third day of #blogtoberfest (click to check out the other posts, both new and old) let’s take a look at our adult beverages. Today’s recipe is for a cocktail, lovingly named Vampire’s Kiss.  Quick to mix up, nice to look at, and tasty to boot!

All you need are:

  • 2 ounces raspberry vodka
  • 2 ounces  black raspberry liqueur
  • 3 ounces  cranberry juice 
  • chilled glassAdd all ingredients to shaker with ice, shake it up, and serve!Enjoy!

recipe courtesy of https://www.geniuskitchen.com/recipe/vampires-kiss-347701

 

Tip Tuesday: Be Yourself

Hey there! Glad you could join me again on the blog.  You know how much I love my song titles, and Be Yourself by Patti really embodies what I’m feeling right now.

Writing is a solitary experience, for the most part, which is why many of us turn to Facebook and other social media outlets to give us a little pick-me-up between the stretches of hard work we are putting in on our writing.

And don’t be fooled by our whiny complaints and over-indulgence in coffee, wine, and journals. We love what we do, or else we wouldn’t do it.

But, as with any industry, there are those who treat it simply as a business and not as personal expression.  These are the authors who use ghostwriters and manage to churn out a new release every other week (or so it seems!). Meanwhile, I’m sitting here tip tapping away on a story that will probably take me more than a month to finish.

I could look upon these authors with jealousy, disparage their methods, and make fun of their stories. I could be envious of the thousands of dollars they pull down every month and salivate at the screenshots of their earnings. It would be so easy for me to do.

But I won’t.

Patti’s song says “everybody’s got a heart that knows the truth“.  No matter what you do, you’ve got to know your heart.  Now….I’m not going to lie and act like I don’t want that payout…who couldn’t use a little extra scratch? However, what would be the point? Why do I need to imbue myself with poisonous, negative thoughts, good for nothing more than souring my heart, raining on my parade and harshing my mellow?

No and nope. I’ve got a heart that knows the truth, and the truth is, I love what I do and how I do it.  I wouldn’t change a thing. I’m running my own race and working my own plan. And having a lot of fun doing so.

Could I be running my author life more like a business?  Sure!  Could I write more “to market” stories that readers will snatch off virtual shelves? Of course! But…to do so would turn me away from my vision of writing story for my soft black girls, my geeky gals and my quirky heroines.  And that’s the reason why I got into writing: to write the stories I wanted to read.

Be yourself, like Patti says, you can’t be no one else.

Til next time!

Women’s History Month: A Black Feminist Threat

Ida B. Wells-Barnett totally bit a train conductor and then turned around and sued the railroad.

This month marks the marked the 105th anniversary of the March, 1913 suffrage parade in Washington staged to coincide with Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration. To mark the 100th occasion of this occurrence, many woman’s groups gathered in Washington (in 2013) to recreate this parade and celebrate how far women have come since the original march. Nice, right? Did you know the original organizers of the march wanted the Black women to march in the back?

Let’s take a closer look, without the rose-colored glasses. Woman’s suffrage was not for all women. The National American Woman’s Suffrage Association, in order to play nice with southern women, requested the black women march in the back of the parade rather than with their state delegations. Remember now, the very point of the march was to promote EQUALITY. Hmmmm. Anyone else see a problem here?
Mary Church Terrell, another leader of the Black woman’s suffrage movement, agreed to “make nice”. She was willing to sacrifice the mission of the Black women fighting the battle on two fronts: sexism, and racism in order to pacify the “big names” in the woman’s movement. Certainly her reasoning was sound in some ways. I’m sure she thought if the feminist battle was won, then the white women would fight against racism. However, given that the very feminists she wanted to fight for black women later, refused to fight for them now makes me think her reasoning was a little off.

There was another woman who disagreed with Mary Church Terrell’s stance: Ida B. Wells-Barnett. She once bit a train conductor who tried to forcibly remove her from a train car after she refused to leave the ladies’ car for a smoker car. This was a woman who had written several pamphlets condemning the practice of lynching and lived with death threats from whites. Of all women, she was not going to pander to the wishes of a racist South.

Refusing to conform to the designated black ranks, she “hid out” until her delegation had passed, then surged into the group of white women — some hostile, some not — and took her rightful place in the Illinois group. According to the timeline on the site http://idabwells.org, her actions began the integration of the movement. She also had to be protected from the other women in the delegation who were, ah, slightly peeved that an (uppity) Negro woman dared march among their ranks, after she had been explicitly told not to.

Now that’s bravery.

It is unfortunate that Mrs. Wells-Barnett isn’t a more prominent figure in history, especially in the context of women’s suffrage and the civil rights movement. Mind you, many of the websites that give biographies of Mrs. Wells-Barnett either gloss over the march, or don’t mention it at all. However, a bit of research can reveal how forward thinking and courageous this woman really was, to take on men (black and white) AND white women.

Check out the little story I wrote about the suffrage parade here.

Further Reading:
Ida B. Wells: Civil Rights Activist
When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America
Ida B. Wells: Crusade for Justice
Ida B. Wells Memorial Foundation

Ida B. Wells – A Dangerous Woman

Before you read this blog post, know that I used to be a teacher. Well, I suppose I still am, given that I have children, I guess I’d better be a teacher. Now that the warning is out of the way, let me let you in on another secret: I don’t believe in history months. History is the past from which we all have emerged, and it is of dire importance all history is taught in its appropriate context. Teaching science? Don’t forget the contributions of all scientists, not just the “popular ones”. Dig deeper and learn something new.

2013  marked the 100th anniversary of the March, 1913 suffrage parade in Washington  staged to coincide with Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration. To To mark the occasion, many woman’s groups gathered in Washington to recreate this parade and celebrate how far women have come since the original march. Nice, right? Did you know the original organizers of the march wanted the black women to march in the back?

Let’s take a closer look, without the rose colored glasses. Woman’s suffrage was not for all women. The National American Woman’s Suffrage Association, in order to play nice with the southern women, requested that the black women march in the back of the parade rather than with their state delegations.

Mary Church Terrell, another leader of the black woman’s suffrage movement, agreed to “make nice”.  Ida B. Wells-Barnett, who once bit a train conductor who tried to forcibly remove her from a train car after she refused to leave the ladies’ car for a smoker car, refused. This was a woman who had written several pamphlets condemning the practice of lynching and lived with  death threats. She was not going to pander to the wishes of a few white southern women.

Refusing to conform, she “hid out” until her delegation had passed, then surged into the group of white women – some hostile, some not – and took her rightful place in the Illinois group. According to the timeline on the site http://idabwells.org, her actions began the integration of the movement. She also had to be protected from the other women in the delegation who were, ah, slightly peeved that a Negro woman dared march among their ranks, after she had been explicitly told not to.

Now that’s bravery.

It is unfortunate that Mrs. Wells-Barnett isn’t a more prominent figure in history, especially in the context of women’s suffrage and the civil rights movement. Mind you, many of the websites that give biographies of Mrs. Wells-Barnett either gloss over the march, or don’t mention it at all. However, a bit of research can reveal how forward thinking and courageous this woman really was, to take on men (black and white) AND white women.

Check out the little story I wrote about the suffrage parade:  http://dahliadewinters.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Sister-Suffragettes-2016.pdf

 

 

Further Reading:
Ida B. Wells: Civil Rights Activist
When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America
Ida B. Wells: Crusade for Justice
Ida B. Wells Memorial Foundation