hOhio native writes her debut novel

hOhio native writes her debut novel

Ohio native Tiffany McDaniel has been inspired by the rolling hills and buckeye woods of the land she knows. She is also a poet, playwright, screenwriter and artist. “The Summer That Melted Everything” is her debut novel.

Fielding Bliss, son of a local prosecutor, has never forgotten the summer of 1984, the year a heat wave scorched Ohio, and the year he became friends with the devil. Sal seems to appear out of nowhere, a bruised and tattered 13-year-old boy claiming to be the devil. Fielding takes Sal home where he’s welcomed into the Bliss family, assuming he’s a runaway from a nearby farm town. While the Bliss family wrestles with their own personal demons, a fanatic drives the town to the brink of a catastrophe that will change this sleepy Ohio backwater forever.

For information, contact McDaniel at www.tiffanymcdaniel.com.

Author will discuss underground railroad

NEW CASTLE, pa.

Susan Urbanek Linville, author of “In Hot Pursuit: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad in Lawrence County, Pa.,” will give a presentation about the Underground Railroad at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the Greer-Clavelli Mansion of the Lawrence County Historical Society, 408 N. Jefferson St.

Linville’s talk will include an overview of the black community in Lawrence County before the Civil War. It will follow with the rise of abolitionist preachers and the development of the Free Presbyterian Church. It also will highlight abolitionists and conductors throughout the county.