“Escaping Ziegfeld” Evokes 1920s Revue Scene

Guest Post by DM Denton

Read Escaping Ziegfeld by DM Denton and Help Rescue Animals

My beautiful and talented maternal grandmother died long before I was born. She was a classically trained pianist, receiving “her entire musical education” at the Illinois College of Music, which was established in 1900. There, she “made an extensive study of Expression” and was very “clever” as “pianist-reader and monologue entertainer” who “became known throughout the city.” She graduated when she was eighteen but continued at the school as a teacher.

Among the many fascinating stories about her my mother passed down to me – which included her association with the family of Earnest Hemingway, who also lived in an area on the west side of Chicago known as Oak Park – there were two that long begged my creative attention.

In the 1920s my grandmother was approached by the American impressario Florenz Ziegfeld, also a Chicago native, to take part in a European tour with the Ziegfeld Follies. Another possibility also tempted her when mutual friends brought an attractive, cultured, charismatic, bit-of-a-scoundrel Italian fellow to see her perform at the Chicago Civic Opera House.

Escaping Ziegfeld is the result of those two events set free in my imagination and fictionalized.

Deborah Bennison of Bennison Books wrote of Escaping Ziegfeld: “This evocative short story … is an original and highly enjoyable read. It will strike a chord with anyone who has faced life-changing choices and is left wondering about the ‘road not taken’.”

The cover illustration is my own artwork based on a photograph of my grandmother.

Escaping Ziegfeld is only $.99 and available for Kindle devices and the Kindle app:

US: https://amzn.to/2F2Z7zl
UK: https://amzn.to/2JaWhzh

and, also, various other countries

All author profits will be donated to Second Chance Sheltering Network Inc., a wonderful animal rescue organization.

DM (Diane) Denton is an author and an artist who enjoys feeding and complementing her literary muse. She is inspired by music, history, nature, mysticism, and the contradictions of the creative and human spirit. Her educational journey included a semester at Wroxton College in England, and she stayed in the UK for sixteen years. She now lives near Batavia, New York in a cozy log cabin with her eighty-something mother and a multitude of cats. She has published three historical novels with All Things that Matter Press: A House Near Luccoli and its sequel, To A Strange Somewhere Fled, set in 17th century Genoa and England, inspired by the legendary composer Alessandro Stradella. Without the Veil Between, Anne Bronte: A Fine and Subtle Spirit, which she also illustrated, was released in late 2017. Visit her at dmdenton-author-artist.com, bardessdmdenton.wordpress.com and dmdenton.artspan.com