7 Fires Publishing

09/19/2025

Keep going!

09/19/2025

We have been here before. It will take unity and activism to restore the light.

Read or watch "V For Vendetta" before it is banned as it is in China.

09/19/2025

Read more, travel more. Make it a high priority.

09/19/2025

First, they take away the comedians, then they come for the writers and authors. The book burners, censors, and oppressors move among us.

09/19/2025

At just 12 years old, Mary Anning discovered a 'sea monster' near her home in Lyme Regis, England, in 1811, but it was the men of science who often took the credit.

Born in 1799 into a poor family that dissented from the Church of England, Mary was not a typical scientific figure of her time. She had little formal education.

Yet, her talent for finding fossils was unmatched. She and her brother Joseph uncovered the world's first complete ichthyosaur skeleton when she was only a girl.

Later, she would discover the first complete plesiosaur and foundational pterosaur fossils, finds that helped reshape our understanding of the ancient world. 🦴

She supported herself by running a small fossil shop, selling her incredible discoveries to wealthy collectors and male geologists.

Sadly, these men would then publish scientific papers based on her finds, often without mentioning her name or giving her any credit for the discovery.

Despite the lack of recognition in her lifetime, Mary was a true pioneer. She was a self-taught expert in anatomy and geology who corresponded with the top scientists of her day. 🤔

Her work provided key evidence for extinction, a controversial idea at the time, and laid the groundwork for the field we now call paleontology. She passed away in 1847, but her legacy was eventually recognized by institutions like London's Natural History Museum.

Sources: Natural History Museum, London; Geological Society archives.

09/19/2025

We can’t forget people experiencing incarceration in our fight for readers’ rights. Here's how to fight prison censorship. (link below)

06/05/2025

Have a book filled day!

7 Fires Publishing

06/05/2025

Jane Austen (1775–1817) is one of literature’s most beloved novelists, yet during her lifetime, her identity as the author of Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Emma was not publicly known. All of her novels were published anonymously. Sense and Sensibility (1811) was credited to "By a Lady," Pride and Prejudice (1813) to "The Author of Sense and Sensibility," and Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1815) followed the same pattern. Even after her death, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion (1818) were initially released under "By the Author of Pride and Prejudice," before her brother Henry Austen revealed her name in a biographical note.

Austen remained anonymous primarily due to the gender norms of her time, as writing was not considered a respectable profession for women of her social standing. She also valued privacy and avoided public recognition, though her family and close friends knew about her work. Unlike later female writers who used male pen names, Austen never created a false persona—she simply omitted her name. There is no evidence of a deeper "secret identity" or hidden life; her anonymity was a practical choice rather than a dramatic secret.

Her authorship became widely known after her death when Henry Austen publicly identified her in 1818. By the mid-19th century, her name was firmly attached to her novels. Jane Austen’s anonymity was not a mystery or scandal but a reflection of the societal expectations for women in her era. She wrote brilliantly while maintaining the decorum expected of an unmarried gentlewoman, leaving the world to fully recognize her genius only after she was gone.

05/07/2025

America is worth protecting. Stand up. Speak out.
Do not allow anyone to tell you that America does not have a moral obligation to support freedom, liberty, and democracy around the world.
We do.
We took on that leadership mantle after WWII and have carried it proudly ever since. Just because a handful of wannabe dictators and oligarchs want to enrich themselves and escape taxes, does not mean we forfeit our role and neglect our duties.

Lawyer In The Sky

05/07/2025

Join me in the library, where we can go anywhere in the world or take a trip to the past or future.

04/22/2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/194WE8mNQu/

In 1700s Europe, doctors and social critics warned of a dangerous new epidemic: "reading rage." Young people, especially women, were diagnosed with this "fever" for consuming too many novels. Medical experts claimed this "addiction" led to moral decay, isolation, and the destruction of social values.

Critics labeled novel readers as "voracious," comparing them to gluttons who consumed books without self-control. Women were considered particularly vulnerable, with physicians warning that excessive reading would lead them to neglect domestic duties and fall into vice.

The panic spread across Europe as novels gained popularity. Cultural leaders called it a "large evil" that needed to be stopped. Yet unlike modern moral panics, this one gradually faded as novels became mainstream and literacy rates improved.

This "reading rage" epidemic marked one of history's earliest documented moral panics about media consumption - a precursor to later fears about comic books, television, and video games.

Sources: History Today, Duke University Press, Hrčak Journal

04/22/2025

One of the world's most outstanding leaders has passed away. Pope Francis will be challenging to replace, and we all mourn his passing.