Read the Story:
https://www.madisondailyleader.com/news/local/article_e17329d0-5413-4d10-ba7c-0a5e200017fb.html
Madison Readers Fair excerpt from Madison Daily Leader:
“I love talking to people who love to read,” Van Dam said before stopping to sign an autograph.
Van Dam was displaying her three books from her award-winning series “On the Dakota Frontier,” which uses historical fiction to highlight the true stories of women staking claims in Dakota Territory through the Homestead Act of 1862. The first book in the series, “Proving Her Claim,” earned two Spur Awards from Western Writers of America.
As a former journalism and history major, Van Dam said she was inspired to write the story by a single statistic.
“12% of homesteaders were women. 42% of women homesteaders proved their claims and had to be single, divorced or widowed in order to stake a claim,” she explained. “37% of men proved their claims, and I thought, ‘there’s a story there.'”