As we approached Billie Holiday’s 100th birthday earlier this month (April 7, 1915 in Baltimore, MD), numerous musicians, performers, and jazz experts offered opinions about what makes Lady Day so indelible. Some mentioned her unique voice. Many focused on the emotional weight of her songs, remarking how well she translated her own misery and hardship into bluesy jazz. Others shorthanded it, saying…
Author: Keith Skinner
Keith Skinner writes fiction, memoir, creative nonfiction, and travel stories. He is also a photographer. His story “Inside the Tower” about Robinson Jeffers was a 2014 Travelers’ Tales Grand Prize Bronze Solas Award winner. He published the hyper-local blog Berkeley Afoot and his work has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Berkeleyside, Tales to Go, and Extract(s) Daily Dose of Lit. He is currently at work on a historical novel set in 19th century Mendocino County. He lives in Berkeley, CA.
![Drawing by Frank Blackwell Mayer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](https://www.thewoventalepress.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Traders_cabin_by_Mayer.gif)
Nathaniel Smith: Black Pioneer of the Mendocino Coast
People are often surprised to learn that an African American was one of the first non-indiginious settlers on the Mendocino Coast. While details are often contested, it’s widely agreed that Nathaniel Smith settled on a coastal bluff roughly six miles south of the Navarro River and just north of present day Elk sometime between 1851 and 1854. Other than a…