History in Fiction and Non-Fiction with Steve Bellinger, "The Chronocar" and Joe Rulli, "Chicago Socialism"

About Steve Bellinger: Steve was born and raised on the West Side of Chicago by a single mom who worked nights for a printing company. She would bring home books and magazines to encourage him and his siblings to read. This is how he discovered Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke and the other masters of classic science fiction. It didn’t take long for him to get the itch to write. Over the years he's written everything from newspaper articles, comic strips and radio drama to short stories and fan fiction.One of the original Trekkies, he and his wife Donna plan to renew their wedding vows with a full Star Trek-themed ceremony; he'll wear an admiral’s dress uniform, and she will be decked out in a custom-made leather-and-lace Klingon wedding dress. It will be the only time he has ever outranked her.
About The Chronocar: Imagine being born the son of a slave with the mind of a genius. That was Simmie Johnson in the years following the Civil War.After a perilous escape from lynch mobs in Mississippi, he manages to earn a PhD in physics at Tuskegee, and in his research, discovers the secret of time travel. He develops a design for a time machine, called a Chronocar, but the technology required to make it work does not yet exist.Fast forward a hundred and twenty-five years. A young African American Illinois Tech student in Chicago finds Dr. Johnson’s plans and builds a Chronocar. He goes back to the year 1919 to meet the doctor and his beautiful daughter, Ollie, who live in Chicago’s Black Belt, now known as Bronzeville.But, he has chosen an unfortunate time in the past and becomes involved in the bloodiest race riot in Chicago’s history.
About Joe Rulli: Joseph Anthony Rulli is a transplanted Hoosier, living in Chicago since the fall of 2006. A 1987 graduate of the University of Notre Dame and a 1992 graduate of St. Meinrad School of Theology he taught Social Studies, Religion, Philosophy and History at the high school level. He began writing as a career upon his arrival to his second city and has had two short stories published, a stage play performed, an electronic tour book published online and The Chicago Haymarket Affair his first print book, followed by Chicago Socialism: The People’s History.
About Chicago Socialism: In the United States, Chicago provided Socialism with a soapbox for firebrand speechmaking, a home for political exiles and a springboard for activism. When Josephine Conger-Kaneko began printing The Socialist Woman in 1909 and then ran for alderwoman in 1914, she could appeal to an audience and an electorate sympathetic to the Socialist Party in unprecedented numbers.
Because Chicago was also a stronghold of the mercantile and political interests most dramatically opposed to the Socialist Party, the city frequently served as a pressure cooker for the nation's economic and ideological tension. That tension boiled over in incidents like the 1886 Haymarket Riot, the 1894 Pullman Strike and the 1919 Race Riots and continues to dictate the terms of engagement for contemporary protest movements and labor disputes. In this first comprehensive history of Socialism in the Windy City, author Joseph Rulli examines these major events through the largely unchronicled lives of the Chicago citizens who experienced them, from centennial garment workers to millennials with megaphones.