SteveSheinkin

My newest book is about a little-known historical event, one that seems too weird to be true - but it's true, alright. In 1876 a gang of counterfeiters came up with a plan to steal Abraham Lincoln's body (he'd been dead over ten years). The plan was to break into Lincoln's tomb, steal his remains, and hold the body hostage, demanding in exchange for the corpse the release from prison of one of their gang members, plus $200,000 in cash! It's a wild true-crime thriller, and what's really crazy is just how close the plan came to working.

And after this...? I'm finishing up one book right now, and starting on a new one. I'll report back. The great thing about this job is that I'm always stumbling onto stories I'd never heard, people I knew nothing about. So I'm constantly filling notebooks with bits and pieces of what I hope will be book projects.

Want to share a story idea, or just talk history? Write to me here.

Meanwhile, it's always nice to work on projects that don't take a year and a half to finish. With that in mind, I do the occasional blog entry and online comic. Here are links to some recent stuff:

An entry about why I love writing history books, on the great blog Interesting Nonfiction for Kids

A two-page comic in Moment Magazine, all about a book that changed my life

An entry on the MacKids blog, about Benedict Arnold, naturally

And a MacKids entry on the dangers of school visits

Another one on Interesting Nonfiction for Kids

An online Rabbi Harvey comic in which Harvey chats with the great novelist Gary Shteyngart

Another Harvey comic. Here he travels to Mexico City to chat with the fascinating Ilan Stavans.