C L Nehmer

The Alchemy of Planes C L Nehmer

The legend of an American icon gets real in a riveting collection of poems that peels back the layers of the Amelia Earhart mystique. You may know the ending, but the moments in Alchemy are not revealed through the lens of disappearance; each event is examined for its own value in this biography unlike any other.

Born into a man's world, Amelia bucks the role set before her and all American women in the early 1900s. Instantly surrounded by the competing philosophies of her parents and grandparents, she works hard and plays hard, never shying away from a task or adventure deemed "too masculine." In a time when girls are expected to wear dresses and play tea party, Amelia learns to shoot guns and play football.

As a young woman in 1918, she becomes part of the war effort, moving to Canada to work in a military hospital where she is infected by the flu pandemic. During a period of financial and personal uncertainty, she falls in love with the burgeoning field of flight, and never looks back. With grit and gumption she turns her dreams into an extraordinary career and lifestyle, proving that there is no ordinary. Amelia doggedly pursues the many firsts set before that original generation of pilots, breaking one aviation record after another, until her luck runs out.

Told in a combination of free verse and form poetry, Alchemy is a true story of female empowerment, ambition, and loss. Both bold and haunting, it reveals the essential Earhart, a woman driven by detriments and dreams.

Alchemy features a detailed preface that sets the historical context and provides little known facts about Earhart's life. Thoroughly researched and historically accurate - it's poetic storytelling at its best.