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On the evening of April 2, 1968, American living rooms were graced by an unprecedented moment on national television. During an NBC musical special called Petula, British singer Petula Clark and the iconic Harry Belafonte shared a stage, united by song and a brief, gentle touch. That fleeting moment of human connection spiraled into a controversy that reflects the era’s tumultuous racial tensions.

Movies often show up in my fiction. But I picked one to use in a scene in my novel that wouldn't actually have been playing in that time. This triggered a series of considerations about the use of historical facts in fiction. Dozens of authors have bent history in various ways and/or depicted events that never actually occurred in the lives of real people. Where am I willing to draw the line in the name of fiction?

What we read cannot help but influence what we write...not in a copycat way, but as inspiration that sometimes is so subtle we may not even realize it.

Me and Becky quit playing hangman when Al, that crazy boy my cousin Connie has a crush on, stands up in the back of the school bus, pretending to be James Brown. He acts out like that every day, right when we get to that same corner. The other kids have eyes on Al, too. I don’t know why anyone would want so many people watching them, but you can tell he loves it.

Libby had never seen a Negro in the Chamber before. Could this be the man the Chamber Board fussed over accepting? Mama had told Uncle Nelson that many members were fuming, her boss, especially, that a colored man might be allowed to join.

At the end of the day on the bus, Libby quizzes Mama about the Black man she's just seen at the Chamber. But she has to be careful how she asks.