Jeffrey Heller

I've been a professional writer of screenplays, short plays, novels and marketing materials since 1977. My first young-adult novel, THE BEEHIVE, focuses on a 16-year-old girl living in 1803 in the territory of Louisiana. She's part-French, part Native American. Both groups enjoyed much more power and influence over their lives than most of us appreciate today. My novels are based on facts about many of the women who helped create this country. These facts are poorly known, so they're often quite startling. Truth to tell, American women from French backgrounds, along with certain Native American women, had far greater support from their cultures and communities than many women in the U.S. have today.