The Lybarger letters

WANTED—CORRESPONDENCE Women's Letters to a Union Soldier Edited by Nancy L. Rhoades and Lucy E. Bailey To be published summer 2009 by Swallow Press at Ohio University Press.

These are the letters, the people, and the hometown in Ohio that inspire THE ARITHMETIC, Jennifer Wilke's novel in progress.

This non-fiction publication, from Swallow Press/Ohio University Press in 2009, contains more than 150 letters my great-grandfather Edwin Lybarger received while serving in the 43rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Company K, from 1862-65. Nancy L. Rhoades, Edwin's granddaughter, discovered them in her attic in the 1990s, carefully preserved in his wooden officer's dispatch box in the bottom of an old trunk. She painstakingly catalogued and transcribed them all. On her 90th birthday, she received the letter from Ohio University Press director David Sanders, accepting the letters for publication, with historical commentary to be written by Lucy E. Bailey. Nancy had the great satisfaction, before her death in April 2007, of knowing her dearest family legacy was in good hands and on its way to publication.

In 2006, Edwin's great-granddaughter Jennifer Wilke discovered the four pocket diaries Edwin kept from 1862 to war's end—treasures the family thought long-lost. These provided information about Edwin's itinerary throughout the war, and with Spartan eloquence, occasionally reveal his emotions about the entire enterprise.

For more information, visit: jenniferwilke.wordpress.com

Jennifer blogs about writing historical fiction, listening to her characters, re-writing, reading better writers, working with editors, and preparing to meet the published world with her debut novel.