Friday, February 02, 2007

2/2/07- New And Improved



Hello, everyone. I would like to welcome everyone to the new and improved "Chester and Grace" blog site. I apologize for the fact that it took me so long to get everything ready, but there was a reason for that and I would now like to share that with you.

During my down time, I was finally able to teach myself a new trick: How to set up links. As you can see on the link bar on the right side of the blog, I have added a whole bunch of links that relate to both the Gillette case and me in general. I am sure that you will like them.

The first link I added are all the blogs I have posted on my primary blog site, "Ultimate Blackcatloner," on Yahoo 360 that is exclusively devoted to Chester and Grace. The second link is a link to my entire blog site, the above-mentioned "Ultimate Blackcatloner" on Yahoo. I put that link there so that way, viewers of this site can see my other written work on other subjects that relate more to me. Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of the day that I officially opened that site and became an Internet blogger.

Another link I have set up is a link to my Chester and Grace photo page on Yahoo Photos. Most of those photos are photos that I took while others are either submitted by various sources or uploaded off the Internet. That is followed by my blog, "A Valentine to Grace," my "ghost-written response" to her love letters that I wrote last year on the Yahoo site about a month after I received a copy of the final letter.

I also have a link to a transcription of Grace's diary that was provided by her grand-nephew Robert Williams, who has been of significant help to me while I am writing my book on the case as well as a link to the other official site devoted to the Gillette case: Craig Brandon's "Murder in the Adirondacks" site and the Utica Observer-Dispatch Gillette feature site entitled "The Murder That Will Never Die: An American tragedy." That site contains some written articles about the case, as well as a slideshow containing photos of the case and an audio reading of Grace's final letter.

And while I am on the topic of my book on Grace, I just want to say that things are going pretty well. I am writing the book at the Herkimer County Historical Society on a non-Internet connected computer. I am usually there about four days a week at an average of four hours a day. I have received a couple of recommendations as to where I can get the book published, but I am going to wait until I have a full manuscript before I submit it. I am keeping my fingers crossed in high hopes that I will make my target date of 2008 for when I get the book published.

And as far as this site goes, I am planning to keep it open at least until I get the book published. I may not be on here as much being that the Gillette Centennial year is over with, but that doesn't mean that I don't have anything else on tap for this site. I still have to tell the aftermath story and how the case became Theodore Dreiser's novel, "An American Tragedy." I may also provide updates from time to time on any new developments in both the case and on my upcoming book.