Authorpreneur Dashboard – Danuta Pfeiffer
Libertas
Literature & Fiction
A love story rising from the despair of slavery. Fredericka is the daughter of a White plantation owner and his Black house slave. Horace is a literate slave-companion to the son of a New York hotel baron. This first book in the Pocket Full of Seeds Trilogy follows their flight for freedom through nineteenth-century America. It was a time when runaway slaves were hunted, steamships sailed around the Horn to San Francisco, horse-tugged boats navigated the Erie Canal, a midnight tsunami struck Buffalo, Mormons sought a new Zion, and wagon trains lumbered across a continent littered with unmarked graves. Most of all, this is a story driven by an unquenchable thirst for libertas.
Book Bubbles from Libertas
The Donner Party
The tragic Donner Party embarked on their westward journey the same year as Horace and Fredericka--1846--but, they left late. They thought they had a shortcut. They thought wrong. This is one of the subplots in the Pocket Full of Seeds Trilogy. It is an amazing tale of endurance. This is the beginning of the tale.
The tsunami on Lake Erie
Few people know that there are inland lake tsnunamis, known as seiches. There are so many interesting finds in doing research for an historical work of fiction. In this excerpt from Libertas, set in 19th century America, I describe a little-known fact about the seiche that hit Buffalo, New York. Enjoy!
Henrietta
This is one of my favorite side characters, Henrietta, who is a shallow, hypocritical, crass creature who has the depth of an earthworm and loses at every chance for a personal epiphany.
The Wager
A short excerpt on the wager that changed the course of life for Horace.
Horace
The description of Horace before he meets Fredericka.
Fredericka
This is the description of the slave girl, Fredericka, and the first page of Libertas.
Chiseled: A Memoir of Identity, Duplicity, and Divine Wine
Biographies & Memoirs
Through betrayals and loss and her search for redemption an idealistic journalist becomes the unlikely co-host to a television evangelist bent on becoming the president of the United States. When her past catches up to her, she is caught in the cross hairs of politics and religion.
Book Bubbles from Chiseled: A Memoir of Identity, Duplicity, and Divine Wine
The Love Story
How do you fall in love in a day and make it last a lifetime? Here is part of the story. . .
Wolves and Warriors
On a 2,200 mile bicycle ride I learned a new mythology.
The Great Dismal Swamp
The snakes and the swamp didn't help lift my spirits as a TV evangelist in Virginia Beach.
Who are you, really?
My father was a son-of-a-bitch, except when he wasn't. People loved him, including my mother, whether he deserved it or not. We made many excuses for his behavior--his experiences in the war, his talent, his creativity, his charm. And he got away with it all. . .
Bonking
Bonking means I was close to collapsing. I rode 2,200 miles on a bicycle-- part of my recovery from fundamentalism. It not only knocked the stuffing out of me, but it restored me, heart and soul. This did not come without a massive effort, and learning just how critical food was to legs and lungs.
The TV Healers
I didn't expect to heal anyone. For Pentecostals it is called having a Word of Knowledge--an impression or a sign or a message from the Lord to impart to believers. In this excerpt from the book, I explain how it happened to me and to someone who "claimed" it.
Lost in Alaska
Dangerously close to dying if we made a mistake. In this excerpt, we take the wrong road in the snow. Rather than heading south to Anchorage, we speed towards Fairbanks and close in on the Arctic Circle....brrrrrrrr!
How I Moved a Hurricane
If we were able to save ourselves through prayer, were we liable for the lives it took?
Buckle Up!
We are escaping to Alaska. My mother and I are driving a borrowed car with no snow tires, and a faulty heater in the depths of the worst winter of the decade across four thousand miles of Arctic tundra.To complicate matters, we had a 4 month old baby and a 4 year old in the backseat. The Alaska Canada Highway, the infamous ALCAN, built during World War II to protect the United States from a possible Japanese invasion, was only 24 years old. There were no guard rails, no signs, few gas stations and terrible, rickety timber bridges over gaping chasms of boulders and icy ravines. This scene from the chapter entitled, Bridges, depicts our challenges at one of these crossings. Buckle up!
The Black, The Blonde and The Baptist
I was the co-host on The 700 Club with Pat Robertson for five years during the time Pat had decided to run for president of the United States. It was a heady time for TV evangelists, and The 700 Club was the top of the heap in money and prestige. I was new to this game of evangelism, having tripped into my position unwittingly, and I had a lot to learn.
