Ask the Author: Steve Procko
Answered Questions (3)
Steve Procko
I am very organized in my approach. I build a full outline on what I am working on and often write the beginning and ending at the same time.
My work is non-fiction and requires a lot of research. It's a scavenger hunt and I love doing the detective-work. Finding the unexpected while researching the facts is great inspiration for me.
My work is non-fiction and requires a lot of research. It's a scavenger hunt and I love doing the detective-work. Finding the unexpected while researching the facts is great inspiration for me.
Steve Procko
My latest book, "Captured Freedom," came from the sharing of the photograph of twelve ragged men taken on 1/2/1865 by one of their descendants. It sent me on a journey that required a lot of detective work. I wanted to know each of their stories.
Though the photograph can be found in many institutions across the United States, including the National Archives and Library of Congress, the story of the men had been lost to history and in some cases mixed up with the history of others.
Now their little-known true story can finally be told.
I got the idea for my first book, "Rebel Correspondent," while researching a Civil War story for a documentary I am working on.
I came across the 120 year old writings of a cavalry private named Arba F. Shaw that was published in his local paper over three years in 55 articles. Then it was all but forgotten.
Twenty years before Shaw wrote his account of life as a cavalry soldier, another soldier, the 1st Tennessee's Infantry Regiment's Samuel Rush Watkins (1839-1901) wrote his account of his experiences in the Civil War. The Columbian Herald newspaper in Columbia, Tennessee, serialized Watkins' writings from 1881 to 1882, then published the account as a critically acclaimed book, Co. Aytch: Maury Grays First Tennessee Regiment or A Side Show of the Big Show, in late 1882. They predominately featured Watkins' eyewitness accounts in Ken Burns PBS documentary on the Civil War.
When I found Shaw's articles, and finding them all required a bit of a scavenger hunt because a few that missing, I knew this was something historically significant.
Though the photograph can be found in many institutions across the United States, including the National Archives and Library of Congress, the story of the men had been lost to history and in some cases mixed up with the history of others.
Now their little-known true story can finally be told.
I got the idea for my first book, "Rebel Correspondent," while researching a Civil War story for a documentary I am working on.
I came across the 120 year old writings of a cavalry private named Arba F. Shaw that was published in his local paper over three years in 55 articles. Then it was all but forgotten.
Twenty years before Shaw wrote his account of life as a cavalry soldier, another soldier, the 1st Tennessee's Infantry Regiment's Samuel Rush Watkins (1839-1901) wrote his account of his experiences in the Civil War. The Columbian Herald newspaper in Columbia, Tennessee, serialized Watkins' writings from 1881 to 1882, then published the account as a critically acclaimed book, Co. Aytch: Maury Grays First Tennessee Regiment or A Side Show of the Big Show, in late 1882. They predominately featured Watkins' eyewitness accounts in Ken Burns PBS documentary on the Civil War.
When I found Shaw's articles, and finding them all required a bit of a scavenger hunt because a few that missing, I knew this was something historically significant.
Steve Procko
My last book “Captured Freedom” released in the fall of 2023 - CapturedFreedom.com
Since then, I have begun writing another fascinating historic non-fiction story that takes place between 1880 through 1920.
"Gilded Breeze" tells the story of the Breese family in New York.
The patriarch, James L. Breese Sr, known to his friends as Jimmie, is a wealthy man of many talents - architect with an engineering degree, amateur photographer in Alfred Stieglitz's circle, early racer of automobiles and the first sports cars, and social climber constantly craving fame. His family dates back to before the Revolutionary War and included many notable members including the Roosevelts and Samuel F. B. Morse, inventor of the telegraph.
His wife Fannie is the daughter of a Civil War General Robert B. Potter and has a family lineage as equally impressive as her husband.
But it was his close friendship with the architect Stanford White, with whom he threw notorious parties at The Carbon Studio, his Sixteenth Street photography studio, for which he became infamous. At the end of the Victorian era, many well-known members of society attended Stanny and Jimmie's soirées, Augustus St. Gaudens, Nikola Tesla, Charles Dana Gibson and Henry W. Poor to name a few. The wild affairs often featured scantly-clad underaged girls. When word got out, scandal followed. It cost Jimmy his reputation. It cost White his life.
The Breese's had four children - three boys, who all become successful engineers, and a daughter who becomes a successful artist and author. They all turned their backs on the social mores of the elite as they became adults.
Then in 1919, Jimmie's son Navy Lt. James L. Breese Jr. is a member of the crew of the NC4, the first plane to successfully accomplish a transatlantic flight].
His progeny's successes eclipse his penchant for fame, leaving his legacy fading in the "Gilded Breeze."
Since then, I have begun writing another fascinating historic non-fiction story that takes place between 1880 through 1920.
"Gilded Breeze" tells the story of the Breese family in New York.
The patriarch, James L. Breese Sr, known to his friends as Jimmie, is a wealthy man of many talents - architect with an engineering degree, amateur photographer in Alfred Stieglitz's circle, early racer of automobiles and the first sports cars, and social climber constantly craving fame. His family dates back to before the Revolutionary War and included many notable members including the Roosevelts and Samuel F. B. Morse, inventor of the telegraph.
His wife Fannie is the daughter of a Civil War General Robert B. Potter and has a family lineage as equally impressive as her husband.
But it was his close friendship with the architect Stanford White, with whom he threw notorious parties at The Carbon Studio, his Sixteenth Street photography studio, for which he became infamous. At the end of the Victorian era, many well-known members of society attended Stanny and Jimmie's soirées, Augustus St. Gaudens, Nikola Tesla, Charles Dana Gibson and Henry W. Poor to name a few. The wild affairs often featured scantly-clad underaged girls. When word got out, scandal followed. It cost Jimmy his reputation. It cost White his life.
The Breese's had four children - three boys, who all become successful engineers, and a daughter who becomes a successful artist and author. They all turned their backs on the social mores of the elite as they became adults.
Then in 1919, Jimmie's son Navy Lt. James L. Breese Jr. is a member of the crew of the NC4, the first plane to successfully accomplish a transatlantic flight].
His progeny's successes eclipse his penchant for fame, leaving his legacy fading in the "Gilded Breeze."
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