Thomas Fox Averill discusses his most recent novel – Found Documents from the Life of Nell Johnson Doerr –told entirely through journals, letters, photos, drawings, notes, and clippings left behind by a fictional Lawrence, Kansas, resident.

Nell Doerr has already given birth to two stillborn babies and lost her husband in Quantrill’s Raid when she stumbles upon the fossils of ancient creatures in the basement of her Lawrence home.

That discovery changes her life and helps our heroine to find herself: a woman unconventional and strong, a mother without children, a wife without a husband, a scientist without educational pedigree; but someone who nurtures her passion for nature and contributes to the scientific knowledge of her time.