Georgia
Fictional But Faithful: Writing Georgia O’Keeffe as an Amateur Sleuth
The burden, and I should say the responsibility of writing about a real historical figure, is formidable. Do you depict that person warts and all? How indeed do you reveal those warts without violating your character, but rather make the flaws an interesting part of their personality? This is a challenge I had to meet head on when I set out to write my Georgia O’Keeffe mysteries. I knew about her as a painter as the rest of the world does. But what in her character or her work as a painter would even suggest she might make a good amateur sleuth?
Actually, my research began with an art exhibition at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts that focused not on her paintings but her “things”—her clothing mostly. She was an expert seamstress and sewed many of her own clothes. I fell in love with one cream colored dress that had miniscule pleats that made up the bodice. I put that dress in the first book I wrote featuring Georgia, Light On Bone. One thinks of O’Keeffe’s paintings as great swathes of color, broad brush strokes but the stitching on this dress is just the opposite of broad brushstrokes. It is painstakingly delicate. The detailing is exquisite, the stitches almost microscopic. In short, she was alert to the infinitesimal that others might miss. For her, the Sherlock Holmes magnifying glass would be redundant.
In addition to the clothes she made, she had a fairly large collection of Japanese kimonos. These kimonos in a sense spoke largely about her aesthetic which was sleek and simple. But there were also, jeans, sneakers, and a well-worn pair of brown leather lace up boots that she used for tromping around in the desert.
Issey Miyake, the famous Japanese clothing designer, in 1983 declared the painter his muse. “Georgia O’Keeffe. For the first time, I’m designing clothes with one person in mind. And I’m planning to send them to her when they’re ready.”
But perhaps the greatest example of her refined sensibilities is her house in Abiquiu, New Mexico. Her dining table was a plywood plank on sawhorses. On a small table by an easy chair there was a dish of rattles she collected from rattlesnakes she had encountered on her walks out in the desert, and killed if they threatened her. There were also, the bones that she searched for that became a central subject of so many of her paintings. In short, no clutter, no tchotchkes, nothing distracting. She could keep her focus on form, pattern and construction. How things fit together.
As I have said countless times to people, when you come back from seeing the Abiquiu house, you simply want to throw out everything in your own house. But then you realize it wouldn’t work, for it is the New Mexico light that brings it all together. She decorated the house in an active partnership with the desert light.
But these are all the material things that spoke so directly to her aesthetic. What about her thinking? Her beliefs beyond the material? How did she think and handle her complex relationship with her husband Alfred Stieglitz who was serially unfaithful to her? Perhaps the one act she never forgave was when he forced her to have an abortion.
Although I never found anything in her writing that directly mentioned the abortion, I did find this letter to Stieglitz after one of her early trips to the southwest.
There is much life in me — when it was always checked in moving toward you — I realized it would die if it could not move toward something … I chose coming away because here at least I feel good — and it makes me feel I am growing very tall and straight inside — and very still — Maybe you will not love me for it — but for me it seems to be the best thing I can do for you — I hope this letter carries no hurt to you — It is the last thing I want to do in the world.
So, it was by reading her letters to Stieglitz and those she wrote to Anita Pollitzer, another artist and friend, who introduced her to Stieglitz that I discovered her voice, and some of her deepest passions. It is a quiet yet dazzling voice. It is a voice that I felt was the essence of Georgia O’Keeffe.
I have written many novels that feature historical figures. Although these are fictional stories, I always want to stay true to the character of that person. I think of myself as an explorer of feelings, buried emotions and not simply events in their lives, but how these events might impact their lives and how they would think about them. And this is what fed into Georgia’s eccentric skills as an amateur detective. There is an array of feelings and emotions to be explored in the life of O’Keeffe. Perhaps first and foremost those feelings for the desert and her regrets of never having a child. But there are also her political beliefs and the growing threat of the second world war.
Perhaps the best part of writing about an historical figure is for me the ‘historical’ part. My book Light on Bone, and the second one, Mortal Radiance, are both set in the 1930s. The build up toward World War 2 is beginning. Therefore, I find myself having to take meticulous care on a range on seemingly obscure questions as I explore that era and put facts in the book. What year were the ice cream treats Eskimo pies invented? Did they have electro cardiograms in the 1930’s? When was penicillin developed? The OSS morphed into the CIA in the 1940s. How did that happen? When and where in our country did the German American Bund emerge. What were the ties between the Duke and the Duchess of Windsor and Nazis?
But perhaps one of the most fascinating things I had to explore was a perceptual phenomenon that Georgia O’Keeffe had known as Synesthesia. Synesthesia is a perceptual experience in which stimulation in one sensory pathway triggers another experience in a second pathway. This is a perfect talent for a visionary detective to possess. And it’s not fiction! Georgia was a great listener to classical music. So, I might think when I see one of her paintings what music might she have been listening to that inspired the painting of The Grey Hills—was it Pablo Casals? Or perhaps something more tumultuous, Mahler Symphony number 9? For me Georgia O’Keeffe is an ultimate and compelling enigma and that was why I chose to write about her. And in doing so I am determined to remain faithful to the fiction of this character—Georgia Totto O’Keeffe.
***
Georgia football landed a pair of commitments Sunday for its 2027 recruiting class.
Wide receiver Taurean Rawlins from Mount Vernon School in Atlanta posted on his X account on May 31 that he’s pledged to the Bulldogs.
Georgia also picked up a commitment from offensive tackle DJ Dotson from Hattiesburg, Miss., he posted on his Instagram account.
Both are rated 3-star prospects.
“I loved the support and love they showed towards me and my family,” Dotson said in a text message to the Athens Banner-Herald.
The 6-foot, 175-pound Rawlins is rated the No. 58 wide receiver in the 2027 class and the No. 478 overall prospect.
Rawlins had 67 catches for 1,395 yards and 17 touchdowns last season, according to MaxPreps.
Rawlins and Dotson give Georgia 10 commitments for this cycle.
Rawlins is the first wide receiver commitment. He also had offers from Ohio State, Florida and Michigan.
Georgia signed four wide receivers in its 2026 class: Craig Dandridge, Ryan Mosley, Dallas Dickerson and late addition Tre Shields.
Rawlins’ coach at Mount Vernon is former Georgia star wide receiver Terrence Edwards.
The 6-foot-7, 330-pound Dotson is rated as the nation’s No. 85 offensive tackle prospect and the No. 851 overall prospect.
He picked Georgia over Ole Miss, LSU and Georgia Tech, according to 247Sports.
Georgia also has offensive line commitments in its 2027 class from Kelsey Adams from Langston Hughes, Abram Eisenhower from Lowndes and Ty Johnson from Mount Pleasant, S.C.
Georgia
A Georgia Wildlife Haven Forged by Fire and Peat Nears UNESCO Recognition – Inside Climate News
FOLKSTON, Ga.—The world’s smallest heron hops from blade to blade in a patch of tall grass, testing its footing above the dark water as it searches for an evening meal.
“This was already worth the trip out today,” Joshua Howard said earlier this month from a gray flat-bottomed tour boat just a few yards away. The tiny creatures, called Least Bitterns, are secretive birds, not easy to spot.
With one quick movement of its neck, which seems to take up most of its body, the tiny heron plunges into the water and comes up with a fish. Howard and his guide continue down the swamp between walls of Spanish moss-adorned cypress trees and alligators, hoping to find more of the birds and wildlife that call the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge home.
By July, the vast swamp Howard has visited since childhood and still tries to reach at least once a week could be internationally recognized as a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site.
The Okefenokee, on the Florida border in southeast Georgia, hosts the largest blackwater swamp in North America, a slow-moving wilderness roughly five times the size of Atlanta. It began forming hundreds of thousands of years ago, as the Atlantic Ocean retreated and left behind Trail Ridge, a long, low fossilized beach dune, and a shallow depression that trapped water between the ridge and higher uplands to the west.
The Okefenokee is a blackwater swamp, meaning its dark waters are stained by tannins released from decaying vegetation and cypress trees. Beneath the dense canopy, the water takes on the color of steeped tea, reflecting cypress trunks and drifting lily pads like dark glass.
The refuge was established in 1937 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, following a series of visits from Cornell biologist Francis Harper. Harper had come to admire both the swamp’s landscape and its people, but it was his wife—who had once tutored Roosevelt’s children—who ultimately helped push the president toward protecting the land.
The refuge’s latest conservation effort now depends partly on another layer of federal and international politics. The Okefenokee’s UNESCO nomination comes amid renewed uncertainty over the United States’ relationship with the organization.
Earlier this year, President Donald Trump moved to again withdraw the United States from UNESCO, though the withdrawal would not take effect until December—months after a decision on the Okefenokee nomination is expected. The United States also remains part of the World Heritage Convention, the international agreement governing World Heritage Sites.
In addition, World Heritage designations have continued in the United States during previous periods when the country was formally withdrawn from UNESCO, including under both Trump and President Ronald Reagan. The Okefenokee effort has also received support from prominent Republicans, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, who served as Trump’s agriculture secretary.
Still, regardless of shifting politics around UNESCO, the landscape at the center of the nomination remains largely unchanged.
Today, the Okefenokee stands as a protected wilderness of blackwater channels, peat and dense wetland forests, supporting a rich array of wildlife and plant life.
A great blue heron and a barred owl perch among Spanish moss in the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. Credit: Ryan Krugman/Inside Climate News
As Howard floated through the swamp at the refuge’s eastern entrance for about an hour and a half, he saw nearly 200 alligators, owl fledglings, hawks, herons and more. What he somewhat incredulously called an “above average” number of encounters was partly driven by drought conditions that pushed animals toward remaining water, though abundant wildlife sightings are far from unusual.
Across the swamp, an estimated 15,000 alligators inhabit the blackwater alongside almost 250 bird and 64 reptile species. Black bears and bobcats move through the uplands, and there are rumors of Florida panthers wandering the refuge. It is also a stronghold for endangered species, including red-cockaded woodpeckers, wood storks and eastern indigo snakes.
To fully experience the Okefenokee, visitors often paddle deep into the backcountry by canoe or kayak, traveling through areas inaccessible to motorboats. Along the way, they pass open prairies filled with lilies, wildflowers and carnivorous plants, including the Okefenokee giant pitcher plant, which can grow more than four feet tall and traps insects inside its tubular leaves.
Some visitors spend nights on raised wooden platforms scattered throughout the swamp, with multi-day trips carrying paddlers far into the blackwater wilderness. Yet even with those routes, only about 5 percent of the Okefenokee is currently accessible to humans.
Despite being one of the best-preserved wetlands in North America, and especially on the eastern seaboard, the Okefenokee has repeatedly faced pressure from industry and development. Before it became a wildlife refuge and federally designated wilderness area nearly a century ago, logging companies cut through vast cypress forests, disrupting habitats and the natural systems that shaped the swamp.
Later, the Suwanee Canal Company attempted to drain the Okefenokee to clear the way for development. The company planned to carve a canal through Trail Ridge and connect the swamp to the Suwannee River, but water repeatedly flowed back into the basin. The project ultimately collapsed, driving the company into bankruptcy before the canal could be completed.
More recently, the Okefenokee has faced renewed pressure from a high-profile mining dispute near Trail Ridge and continued development across the Florida border. Yet the swamp’s beauty and biodiversity continue to draw roughly 800,000 visitors each year—and now the attention of UNESCO.
The Okefenokee was first placed on the United States’ tentative UNESCO World Heritage list in 1981, but the nomination stalled for decades. In 2023, the Department of the Interior authorized work on a formal nomination, a push driven in large part by advocates including Kim Bednarek, executive director of Okefenokee Swamp Park.
The nonprofit, which runs tours and educational programs near and in the refuge, helped lead the campaign and raise money for the years-long nomination process. To qualify, researchers and advocates had to demonstrate the swamp’s “outstanding universal value,” the central standard for World Heritage designation.
The nomination was formally submitted in January 2025. Later that year, scientists with the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which advises UNESCO on natural sites, visited the swamp as part of the evaluation process. Advocates are now awaiting a recommendation from the organization ahead of a final decision expected this July at the UNESCO World Heritage Committee meeting in Busan, South Korea.
UNESCO’s standard of “outstanding universal value” is reserved for places considered significant not just to one country, but to humanity. Advocates and scientists argue the Okefenokee qualifies because of its biodiversity and the remarkable condition of its peatlands, which have remained largely intact for thousands of years and are a natural carbon sink.
Peatlands form when organic material builds up faster than it decomposes. In the Okefenokee, still blackwater, low oxygen levels and acidic conditions—created largely by tannins from cypress trees—slow decay enough for layers of plant matter to accumulate over thousands of years.
“We do not have a similar peatland in the world in the subtropics,” said Hans Joosten, one of the world’s leading peatland experts. According to Joosten, the swamp’s location—sandwiched between the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic—provides the humidity and rainfall needed to sustain this rare subtropical peatland.
An inch of peat can take more than 50 years to form. In parts of the Okefenokee, those layers reach more than 15 feet deep, storing an estimated 124 million tons of carbon and forming one of North America’s most significant peat systems.
Many of the estimated 15,000 Alligators in the Okefenokee are tagged as part of research initiatives. Credit: Ryan Krugman
The swamp’s Muscogee Creek name, often translated as “land of the trembling earth,” reflects what lies beneath its surface. Deep peat can shift, swell and occasionally rise toward the top, where visitors may see methane bubbles break through the blackwater or floating mats of peat drifting at the surface. Those peat mats can become platforms for new plant growth, reshaping the swamp as they move and settle.
The biodiversity hotspot is supported by another cycle, one much faster than peat formation. The swamp is frequently reshaped and renewed through natural wildfires. The fires clear dense vegetation and invasive species, return nutrients to the soil, and maintain the open conditions needed for fire-dependent ecosystems like the longleaf pine, one of the most endangered forest types in North America.
“To be put on the same list as places like the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone would just be amazing,” Howard said with a Southern drawl as he floated along the remnants of the Suwannee Canal.
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Howard, tall and broad with silvering hair and an easy smile, had arrived at the swamp after a long day working as a school administrator in Charlton County. “You want to know why I think this place deserves to be on that list?” he asked. “Because when I got here this evening, I was stressed and now I am not.”
Howard has been coming to the swamp for almost 50 years and has spent the last seven serving as president of Friends of the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, a nonprofit that helps raise money for its preservation. While the group is not directly involved in the UNESCO bid, Howard said its members strongly support the designation.
If approved in July, the designation would make the Okefenokee Georgia’s first UNESCO World Heritage Site and the first national wildlife refuge in the country to receive the status.
For Bednarek, the recognition would do more than honor the swamp’s ecology. It could fundamentally change how the Okefenokee is seen internationally. National wildlife refuges typically operate with far less tourism, funding and global visibility than national parks.
“They have this iconic brand that refuges don’t,” Bednarek said. UNESCO World Heritage status, she said, functions differently. “It’s a global brand that people travel far and wide to see.”
For now, though, the Okefenokee remains what it has long been: a slow-moving wilderness of blackwater, peat and cypress.
As dusk settled over the swamp, Howard’s guide cut the boat motor and the sounds of insects and distant birds filled the blackwater again. Methane bubbles continued rising quietly to the surface, signs of the trembling earth beneath the water.
In July, delegates in South Korea will decide whether the Okefenokee receives World Heritage status. But the swamp itself will keep moving at its own pace.
About This Story
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Ryan Krugman is a recent graduate of Columbia University’s Climate School focusing on climate change reporting and communications. He also holds a Bachelor’s degree from St. Lawrence University where he studied Environmental Science and Sociology. As a former Inside Climate News fellow, he is now reporting on climate and environmental issues in New England and Georgia.
Live updates from Athens, Georgia as the Bulldogs take on Liberty in game two of the Athens Regional.
The Georgia Bulldogs are back in action this afternoon as they are set to take on the Liberty Flames for game two of the Athens regional. The Dawgs are coming off a dominant victory over Long Island =, in a game that concluded earlier this morning following a rain delay.
With a win, the Bulldogs will advance to face the winner of a matchup between Liberty and the victor of Boston College and Long Island. First pitch for that game is scheduled to take place this Sunday at 5 p.m. As action continues in Athens, stay tuned with Bulldogs on SI for more updates from today’s game.
Georgia Bulldogs vs Liberty Flames Live Updates:
Editor’s Note**: This article will be updated periodically as action continues throughout today’s game
Top of the First (UGA at Bat)
- Tre Phelps singles to left center field for his first hit of the afternoon.
- Daniel Jackson homers to right center field. Georgia leads 2-0.
- Rylan Lujo flies out to right field.
- Brennan Hudson is walked on a 3-1 count.
- Kenny Ishikawa flies out to right field.
- Ryan Wynn grounds out to second base to retire the side. Georgia leads 2-0.
Bottom of the First (Liberty at Bat)
- Tanner Marsh singles to the pitcher.
- Riley DeCandido strikes out swinging.
- Tanner Marsh steals second to put a runner in scoring position.
- Jordan Jaffe singles to right center field. Tanner Marsh scores. Georgia leads 2-1.
- Jaxon Sorenson is walked on a full count. Jaffe advances to second.
- Nick Barone reaches first on a fielder’s choice. Sorenson is tagged out at second. Jaffe advances to third and scores on a throwing error. Game is tied 2-2.
- Nick Barone is tagged out trying to steal second to retire the side. Game is tied 2-2.
Top of the Second (UGA at Bat)
- Jack Arcamone flies out to right field.
- Kolby Branch is walked on a full count.
- Ryan Black fouled out to the catcher.
- Tre Phelps is walked on a full count. Branch advances to second.
- Daniel Jackson is walked. Tre Phelps advances to second. Kolby Branch advances.
- Rylan Lujo grounds out to third to retire the side. Game is tied 2-2.
Bottom of the Second (Liberty at Bat)
- Easton Swofford grounds out to shortstop.
- Landon Scilley is walked on a 3-1 count.
- Kyle Hvidsten is walked on a 3-0 count. Scilley advances to second.
- Josh Campos lines out to right field.
- Tanner Marsh strikes out swinging to retire the side. Game is tied 2-2.
Top of the Third (UGA at Bat)
- Brennan Hudson flies out to right field.
- Kenny Ishikawa homers to right field. Georgia leads 3-2.
- Ryan Wynn homers to center field. Georgia leads 4-2.
- Nick Arcamone singles to right field.
- Kolby Branch pops up to shortstop.
- Ryan Black flies out to right field.
Bottom of the Third (Liberty at Bat)
- Riley DeCandido flies out to left field
- Jordan Jaffe grounds out to the pitcher.
- Jaxon Sorenson flies out to center field to retire the side. Georgia leads 4-2.
Top of the Fourth (UGA at Bat)
- Tre Phelps grounds out to shortstop.
- Daniel Jackson strikes out swinging on a full count.
- Rylan Lujo singles to left field.
- Brennan Hudson singles through the right side. Lujo advances to second.
- Kenny Ishikawa is walked on a full count. Hudson advances to second, Lujo advances to third.
- Ryan Wynn reaches first on a fielder’s choice. Ishikawa is tagged out at second to retire the side. Georgia leads 4-2.
Bottom of the Fourth (Liberty at Bat)
- Nick Barone grounds out to shortstop.
- Easton Swofford strikes out swinging.
- Landon Scilley grounds out to shortstop to retire the side. Georgia leads 4-2.
Top of the Fifth (UGA at Bat)
- Nick Arcamone strikes out swinging.
- Kolby Branch strikes out looking on a 1-2 count.
- Ryan Black singles to first base.
- Tre Phelps grounds out to third base to retire the side. Georgia leads 4-2.
Bottom of the Fifth (Liberty at Bat)
Top of the Sixth (UGA at Bat)
Bottom of the Sixth (Liberty at Bat)
Top of the Seventh (UGA at Bat)
Bottom of the Seventh (Liberty at Bat)
Top of the Eighth (UGA at Bat)
Bottom of the Eighth (Liberty at Bat)
Top of the Ninth (UGA at Bat)
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