Local Author’s NewBook Highlights CentralNew York History
“I love Central New York,” Marilyn Higgins announced during our interview at her charming Canastota Village home a couple of weeks ago. Marilyn had always wanted to write a novel, and when she finished Dreams of Freedom: An Irish Woman’s Story of Love, Justice, and a Young Nation Coming Apart, one of the things she was most excited about was how well it featured towns and villages in CNY and their historical significance.
“The Erie Canal” made New York State one of the most important economic engines in American history. The canal
encouraged commerce and innovation across industries,” Marilyn said. Dreams of Freedom is the story of Aileen O’Malley, a fictional Irish woman who leaves her home to find her much younger siblings who had been sold into slavery by the family of a spurned would-be lover. Aileen searches all over New York, traveling by ship and then canal boat. Making stops in Canastota, Peterboro, Chittenango Falls and many more places in CNY that hold special histories from the 1830s to the 1850s, the time period of the novel.
The Hi Neighbor will publish a review of the book in a forthcoming issue. We focused in this interview on how Ms. Higgins was able to publish her 300-page novel with no previous experience as a fiction writer. “I retired from Syracuse University [as Vice President of Economic Development], and then moved for 18 months to Minnesota, where I ran the University’s Urban Research Center and took writing courses at The Loft Literary Center. I really loved them.”
When the pandemic hit and Marilyn returned to New York, she continued taking fiction courses online, recommended by a friend who serves on the Board of The View Arts Center in Old Forge.
The instructor, David Hazard, became her writing coach. He encouraged Higgins to write the book that at the time was just the spark of an idea. Combining her interest in CNY history with her own Irish roots, Higgins has written a gripping tale that takes readers to the very heart of 19th-Century life in the center of our state.
But one doesn’t just pop out a book. It took three and a half years of painstaking research, writing, revising, editing, and publishing in order for Higgins to produce the book that she held in her hands as we spoke. Planning to Write a Novel At first, Marilyn sought an agent for her writing whom she hoped would secure her a publication deal. After many attempts, she decided that she would self-publish the book instead, which is a choice more and more authors are making as publishing houses shrink and are less willing to risk their efforts on new authors. Also 2025 is the 200th anniversary of the Erie Canal which presents many marketing opportunities.
As was clear from her descriptions of the many efforts of so many people who helped her, Higgins now has a much greater appreciation of what it actually takes to publish a book.
“Before I even started a draft, my coach suggested I work out a timeline. I bought a large sketchbook and taped pages all over the wall. I added a timeline from the early 1830s to the 1850s, including all the major historical events that occurred in the United States. Then I added a second line that included the events in Central New York that were important historically.”
Some of those events were: the development of the Mormon religion and others that gave CNY the moniker “The Burnt-Over District;” the creation of the Oneida Utopian Community; the digging of the Erie Canal; the founding of the New York State Anti-Slavery Society; the First Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls; interactions with the Oneida Nation; and even the local effects of the lead-up to the Civil War.
Following that, Higgins added a fictional timeline of the life of Aileen O’Malley and her unlucky younger siblings, her father who was determined to find them, her deranged would-be suitor, her Grandmother in Ireland, and the many real historical figures she would meet, such as Gerritt Smith, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frederick Douglass, and many others.
Once Marilyn had the timeline, events, and characters mapped out on her walls, she started writing the scenes in her book that wove a fictional story based in real history. The result is a fascinating and worthy read. Once Marilyn finished her first draft of a manuscript, she asked about 6 people whose opinions she respected to read it. She calls them her “Beta readers,” meaning they read the manuscript before anyone else, and then Marilyn revised it to include their suggestions. Where readers might not have understood sections, Marilyn added details.
Where the manuscript dragged, she made cuts. In fact, Marilyn said she “basically started it over again. It was so hard, after I had already written an entire draft. I thought I was finished, but I wasn’t!”
After finishing the revised draft, Marilyn gave it to a friend whom she respects greatly. As a result, she rewrote the entire manuscript to add more dialog and action. The book shows this improvement, as it’s now an enjoyable read and the chapters are perfect in length to read for a few minutes at a time or over a course of cozy hours on a chilly day sipping cups of tea, or your drink of choice.
Challenges of Self-Publishing
Self-publishing brought new challenges, as Ms. Higgins had to submit a perfectly formatted document so that the pages could be designed with codes to be sure paragraphs broke correctly, typefaces matched, images fit on the page properly, and the page numbers appeared in the right places. She called for extra help with this process, which requires excellent computer skills, and Cathi Williams in the Canastota Village Office answered Marilyn’s call.
“It took me three versions of the final manuscript before I finally had one that they call ‘book ready,’ which means it can be printed on demand into a perfectly-formed book.” All of these efforts cost time and money. Writing like this is truly a labor of love.
Marilyn also included historical images in the book, which required legal permissions. And, she commissioned an artist to create a historical map of Central New York. Her coach David Local Author’s Book on CNY History
Hazard helped design the cover of the book. “I was so excited about the cover when I first held the finished book,” said Higgins. The photos on the cover include one of her own real-life great grandfather. The portrait of Aileen O’Malley is from the collection of a cousin in New Mexico. The woman in the photo is unknown; however, she perfectly matches Higgins’s description as “Black Irish,” meaning she has dark hair and blue or dark eyes and may be descended from Spanish heritage. “As soon as I saw the photo my cousin had, I just knew I had my Aileen,” Marilyn said.
Perhaps the most important aspect of Dreams of Freedom is how well it puts Central New York’s significant history on display. “CNY doesn’t often get represented on the creative stage,” Marilyn said, “and that’s not right. Central New York was hugely important in the 19th and early 20th Centuries. It’s unfortunate now that it’s more often thought of as one of a handful of ‘rustbelt’ cities along the NYS Thruway. It’s so much more than that.”
Higgins Exemplifies CNY Pride Marilyn Higgins’s pride in CNY history doesn’t stop with her novel. She has also worked with the National Hall of Fame and Museum to start an annual event called the “Abolition Walk,” during which people retrace some of the steps of the abolitionists in 1835, when they were chased by a mob from Utica and Vernon and made their way to Peterboro to found the NYS Anti-Slavery Society in the hometown of Gerrit Smith. The third and most-recent Abolition Walk took place this past October and close to 100 people made the joyous trek from Canastota to Clockville.
Dreams of Freedom is a wonderfully-affirming and entertaining read. Some of the history is brutal, and there is no shortage of human suffering depicted. At the same time, however, Central New York’s people are highlighted as the heroes many of them were. The book would make an excellent Christmas gift for anyone who appreciates CNY, especially those who grew up here and moved away.
Check out local bookstores as well to keep the profit from the book flowing into the CNY economy!