By Nancy Rubin Stuart | Who can predict the afterlife of a book? Marketing committees, like the one at Beacon Press, try to assess that before deciding to buy a manuscript. In contrast, authors often write books because we are excited about our subjects and want to share them with others. Naturally, we want to attract a wide readership, but given the large number of books published each year, we rarely expect our books to remain popular beyond the first few years of publication. Read more →

All right. 2022 has been cute—in a We-Lumbered-Through-Yet-Another-Plague-Year kind of way—but now it’s giving shabby and dogged. That’s right. Time to sashay away and to do so with some grace and dignity. But before then, we need to give it up for our authors and staff who blessed Beacon Broadside with their words and insight. Read more →

Remember those minutes-long social media videos of folks quarantine clapping for frontline workers? And for the medical staff and carers looking after droves upon droves of COVID patients? Do you also remember that most of the ones getting the applause were women? If our global health crisis has made one thing clear, it’s how much we depend on—and take for granted—the recognized and unrecognized work women of all cultures do to keep societies going. Read more →

By Nancy Rubin Stuart | Everyone knows Benjamin Franklin was a scientist, an inventor, and a diplomat, but did you know he also had the makings of a great romance advice columnist? The founding father was well suited to that job because of his wide experience with women. That may explain why he penned a letter in 1745 to a single man about the best way to sate his sexual impulses outside marriage. Ben’s advice? Sleep with an older woman instead of a young one. Read more →

Nancy Rubin Stuart, author of 'Defiant Brides,' examines the nature of heroes and traitors, asking, "Isn’t it time we take a lesson from...our past to improve the lives of all Americans today?" Read more →

The story of two Revolutionary-era teenagers who defy their Loyalist families to marry radical patriots, Henry Knox and Benedict Arnold. Read more →

In anticipation of Independence Day, read a patriotic excerpt from Nancy Rubin Stuart's book The Muse of the Revolution. Read more →

In anticipation of Independence Day, read a patriotic excerpt from Nancy Rubin Stuart's book The Muse of the Revolution. Read more →

Nancy Rubin Stuart takes aim at a bumper sticker and the "rear guard of popular thought." Read more →

We celebrate Independence Day this weekend, and Nancy Rubin Stuart, author of The Muse of the Revolution: The Secret Pen of Mercy Otis Warren and the Founding of a Nation, honors the often overlooked women of the American Revolution. Read more →

Should we think that our current problems as a nation—the falling value of the dollar, a perilous dependence upon overseas products, an administration that favors the wealthy over the ordinary man, and an edgy attitude towards women in politics—are unique to 2008, they also worried a nearly forgotten Founding Mother over two hundred and twenty years ago. Read more →