Outcasts of Essex
by Jane Hulse
It’s little wonder that Jane Hulse has a passion for writing about the American Revolution. Growing up in Keene, New Hampshire, she was surrounded by history. Her family’s Colonial-era home was built across the street from the tavern where 29 Minutemen rallied in 1775 before marching off to fight the British at Lexington. Her house, the town’s first post office, featured a fireplace in almost every room, a view of Main Street from almost every window, and the wide, plank floors characteristic of the period.
With her father, Hulse explored caves nearby that served as hiding places for loyalists who had been hounded out of town during the American Revolution. Those excursions triggered her fascination with writing about the often-overlooked colonists who were against the war. Estimates vary, but at least 20 percent of colonists were opposed to the struggle that eventually united them.
Hulse went on to graduate from Syracuse University with a degree in journalism. She worked for small newspapers in Colorado and then for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, one of the city’s two major papers at the time, where she reported on major criminal trials and other breaking news.
She covered the 1981 shooting of President Reagan by John Hinckley Jr., a young man who lived in the Denver area. She also filed hundreds of stories about killers, kidnappers, and others accused in highly publicized crimes.
After moving with her husband to California, she did freelance reporting for the Los Angeles Times, writing about everything from the giraffe with a crooked neck at the Santa Barbara Zoo to the whimsical “tall-small” house, a four-story jewel built on a tiny lot the size of a garage.
She was city editor at the Santa Barbara News-Press when the newspaper underwent a huge upheaval over the editorial practices of the owner. Hulse and seven other editors and a columnist abruptly quit. The nine, along with the entire editorial staff, received the University of Oregon’s Arcil Payne Award for Ethics in Journalism, an annual honor for journalists who “report with integrity despite personal, political, or economic pressure.”
Most recently, she was editor of Central Coast Farm & Ranch, a Southern California agricultural magazine.
Hulse, who has a grown daughter, is married to journalist Steve Chawkins and lives in Ventura, California. She loves running, crossword puzzles, American history, and small white terriers named Sam.
Outcasts of Essex
Loyalties clash at the outset of the American Revolution.
Books by Jane Hulse
Jane Hulse
