On process and reticence
In her December 2024 Footsteps column, Dr. Ethelene Whitmire ruminates on 20th-century writer Nella Larsen, her semi-autobiographical character Helga Crane from the 1928 novel Quicksand, and time spent navigating Copenhagen. The New York Times’ Footsteps series traces landscapes that shaped major authors, and Whitmire had long imagined contributing to it after encountering Ellery Washington’s 2014 …