Dolen Perkins-Valdez was reading a biography of W.E.B. DuBois when she came across the small aside. It was piece of history she hadn’t known and couldn’t stop thinking about. The land for Ohio’s ...

Two new historical novels set in mid-19th century America focus on seldom-told stories of women’s involvement in an era that profoundly redefined this nation. Each book is steeped in research, and ...

In her debut novel, “Wench,” author Dolen Perkins-Valdez explores a subject that is rarely spoke of: the life of a privileged slave of the pre-Civil War era, particularly the women who became the ...

Readers entranced by Kathryn Stockett's The Help, the moving novel about African-American housemaids in 1960s Mississippi, will be equally riveted by Dolen Perkins-Valdez's Wench, a brutally told ...