Font ResizeGUILFORD -- Michael Tougias, author and lecturer, will be coming to Guilford on Oct. 21 to discuss the Indian Wars of New England, and talk about his "Until I Have No Country," a novel of King Philip's War that relates to the presentation.
"Truth is stranger than fiction," Tougias said of why he writes and lectures about history. "It's absolutely fascinating."
The event is sponsored by the Vermont Humanities Council. Tougias will be taking the audience through slides of maps, battle sites, roadside history and drawings from that period. The presentation will be on a time when the colonists and Native Americans fought for control of New England. Women's role in this historical event will be addressed,
Tougias has been busy lately with his lectures, which take him all over America, but he has recently completed another book "A Storm Too Soon," which is a true story of a storm that happened off the Carolinas in the Gulf Stream.
"I saw a video taken by the coast guards that blew me away," Tougias said about the event that inspired the book. "You see a life raft in a 80-foot wave. The life raft looks like a dime in the middle. I realized what the rescue swimmer went through to save this swimmer. He almost lost his life, which is rare for the Coast Guard."
A 45-foot sailboat was in immediate danger and involved a Coast Guard rescue, where eight people survived and unfortunately, four died. There is a YouTube video of
Tougias has been writing for 25 years. When he was 22, he moved to Vermont and tried to live "like a mountain man," said Tougias, who now lives in Plymouth, Mass. Although he said he didn't succeed at that, a humorous book he wrote of the experiences, "There's A Porcupine In My Outhouse," which mentions several different areas of Vermont, won the Best Nature Book the Year award from the Independent Publishers Association.
In his freetime, Tougias likes to travel to Vermont, go trout fishing, and kayak in the White River.
The new book, "A Storm Too Soon," which will be available to purchase on Jan. 15, 2013, is published by Scribner. Tougias' book "Finest Hour" is being turned into a film by Disney.
Chris Mays can be reached at 802-254-2311, ext. 273, or cmays@reformer.com.
