When I wrote a shorty about Anastasia Romanov in March, I remembered that I’d written one about Anne Boleyn in June, and I wondered if I have a subconscious fascination with famous women who died famous and violent deaths. Of course names of women who fit that bill then came to mind, and ghoulish writer that I am—well, and there’s my need for a new story idea every single day—I tucked the names away. That thought adventure led to the April 12th piece on Mata Hari, and now to one about a very different sort of spy, who, from what I understand, very likely wasn’t a spy at all. (Maybe Mata Hari wasn’t either?)
Working Title: Five
1st Sentence: When she was fourteen Marsha announced that her favorite woman in history was Ethel Rosenberg.
Favorite Sentence: And wonders why, guilty or not guilty, Old Ike and Friends felt the need to fry her, this plain dumpling of a woman who had once dreamed, like most teenage girls, of stardom on the stage, but who organized a union instead.
Word Length: 363
Photo of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg (at the courthouse after having been found guilty by a jury) by Roger Higgins, 1951. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection.
Daily Shorty 