
Photo courtesy of Melville House
In his new novel “Jamie MacGillivray: The Renegade’s Journey,” Academy Award-nominated screenwriter John Sayles (“Passion Fish,” “Lone Star”) takes fans of historical fiction on a bloody, decade-spanning romantic odyssey from the blockbuster-style Jacobite battle scenes of the Scottish Highlands to the 18th century colonies of The New World. Sayles spoke with me on the phone from California ahead of a talk he’ll give with WAMC’s Joe Donahue at The White Hart Inn in Salisbury, Conn., on Wednesday, March 15.
Alexander Wilburn: As someone who has written across all mediums, books, film, and television, what brings you back to the novel?
John Sayles: You don’t have to raise money to write a book. Certainly, as a filmmaker, I probably have 10 movies I’ve written that I’ve never been able to raise money for. As a matter of fact, “Jamie MacGillivray” started a screenplay over 20 years ago, at the suggestion of Robert Carlyle, a Scottish actor. I just felt like it was such a good story, I took it up and started thinking about it as a novel. Of course, things always grow when you turn something into a novel. Secondary characters get much bigger and you can do deeper research. When you’re writing for a movie you have to be so aware of time — are we 10 minutes or half an hour into the movie? Very few people sit down and read a novel straight through, so it has a very different rhythm.
AW: How much of the scope of the story changed then compared to the original script?
JS: It always began at The Battle of Culloden and ended with The Battle of Quebec, so it was an ambitious feature. But for instance, Jenny was a pretty minor character who showed up a few times in the screenplay, but when I was doing the research for the story as a book I came across ship logs that did take Jacobite prisoners over to various slave jobs. One of the ships that carried women was taken over by a French privateer before it was able to reach Jamaica, so the prisoners were liberated on the island of Martinique. I thought, first of all, that’s a great way to get Jenny overseas and I eventually wanted to get her to Canada. So if she’s on a French island she can hook up with a French officer and he can get transferred to Canada. As it turns out the research helped me make all of those moves. It’s a little bit like a board game.
AW: This novel is an epic, romantic, often violent saga. I’m always really curious about the prep work that goes into crafting a big novel like this. As an American writer what kind of research did you do to write a convincing narrative about characters from the Scottish Highlands?
JS: The good thing is that the time period is not so old that there’s nothing written about it. In fact, in the first part of the novel, some scenes are verbatim. The minutes of the trial of Lord Lovat were published. Everything that the various barristers said in front of the judge is recreated in the novel. There were records kept by the military of who was killed at Culloden and what clans they were from. There are shipping records of the prisoners who were sent to the New World, and those involved in slave trafficking, so you can look up a certain ship and see how long the voyage took, how much cargo was on it, and how much money they made. In the New World, the colonists were keeping documents — they weren’t necessarily living up to the letter when it came to Native tribes, but a lot of that is documented as well. I can read in French so for a lot of the stuff that happens in Martinique I was able to find books written at the time. I also did a certain amount of reading of the novelists of the time, Dickens and Henry Fielding who wrote “Tom Jones,” and artists like Hogarth who did these series like “The Rake's Progress,” which are full of details. My one rule when I’m working on a book is that I can do research for a week, but then I have to sit and write fiction for a week. Because you can get sucked down the rabbit hole.
AW: Is the pressure to be constantly period accurate to the 18th century something you strive for or do you take creative license for the sake of storytelling?
JS: I find I get much better ideas if I follow what actually happened. So I have a calendar of when things happened and I fit my characters into that calendar. I also get ideas from the technical research — what weapons were they using? How did they operate them? What was the penal code at the time? How did law work? There’s a chapter where there’s a guy who’s afraid of heights, and he gets the job of putting two beheaded prisoner’s heads up on the spikes on the gate and they’re going to sit there for years and years and years — somebody had to do that. So that kind of detail from research gives me ideas. It’s great to not have to make up a plot, the history is pretty rich in itself.
AW: I want to circle back to William Hogarth who appears in the novel. He’s one of the great painters who captured the frenzy and life and emotion of the 18th century. Were his works a source of visual inspiration?
JS: One of the things that he does in his series like “The Rake’s Progress” or “The Harlot’s Progress,” they’re like stories. Every detail, every background person — even if you look at the paintings on the wall they’re commenting on what’s going on. So they’re really rich and novel-like just looking at his pictures. Then there’s the fact that he met Lord Lovat, who had just been captured, to be tried. Eventually Lord Lovat was the last lord ever beheaded by the British, and Hogarth did this beautiful picture of him — he’s as wide as he is tall, and his head looks like a wicked Jack-o'-lantern. He was a notorious character in his day. That was important for my research, knowing there was satiric humor at the time.
AW: You’ll be having a live stream conversation with “Outlander” author Diana Gabaldon, who has become the modern archetypal author of Scottish fiction. This is sort of a “Tale of Jamie's.”
JS: It will be very interesting because I assume we’ve held a lot of the same research in our hands. She started as a researcher before becoming a novelist, so she’s very deft at that. I’m always interested when you start with the same core material what sends you off in these little directions, what strikes you. Years ago I adapted the first novel of “The Clan of The Cave Bear” by Jean M. Auel and I know a little about the research that she did. This was before people knew the Neanderthals and the Cro-Magnons had interbred. She was right about five or six things that hadn’t been proven yet. She said things came to her in a dream. That’s another way of getting your material.
Photo courtesy of Melville House
Detail of Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat by William Hogarth, 1746 Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Sarah Lazarus, 1891
LAKEVILLE — ARADEV LLC, the developer behind the proposed redesign of Wake Robin Inn, returned before Salisbury’s Planning and Zoning Commission at its May 5 regular meeting with a 644-page plan that it says scales back the project.
ARADEV withdrew its previous application last December after a six-round public hearing in which neighbors along Wells Hill Road and Sharon Road rallied against the proposal as detrimental to the neighborhood.
Landscape Architect Mark Arigoni, representing the applicants, said the new proposal’s page count is due to it being “very comprehensive and complete,” built in response to feedback from P&Z at a January pre-application meeting.
Much of P&Z’s criticism of the initial proposal revolved around its size and intensity, which commissioners said was incongruent with the neighborhood.
Arigoni briefly summarized the major changes of the new application, saying the number of cottages had been decreased from 12 to four, though each will now span about 2,000-square-feet as opposed to the maximum of 1,100 square feet of the earlier proposed array.
An “event barn,” which was one of the more contentious aspects of the initial application, has been relocated to be a part of the expanded main inn building, as opposed to its previous position as a detached structure.
Arigoni highlighted that a noise study — the lack of which was one of P&Z major criticisms of the first proposal — had been conducted in February and March, analyzing the levels of slamming car doors, traffic, waste collection vehicles and other ambient noise components of an active hotel site. He also explained that a new architectural firm had been contracted: “I think you will all see the changes to the plan, in terms of context and character.”
P&Z Chair Michael Klemens stressed that no action would be taken at the May 5 meeting. ARADEV will appear before the Commission again at its May 19 meeting, where P&Z will discuss the application’s completeness and potentially schedule a public hearing, which “will come a lot later,” Klemens said.
The application comes in the midst of ongoing litigation against the Commission relating to ARADEV’s first application. Angela and William Cruger, Wells Hill Road neighbors of the Inn who formally intervened in the 2024 hearing, filed a restraining order against the Commission in February alleging that it engaged in unlawful “spot zoning” that favored the Wake Robin expansion when it altered a regulation in May 2024 to allow for hotels via special permit in the Rural-Residential 1 zone.
Klemens announced that P&Z is opposing the restraining order. If it is approved by the judge, though, the May 2024 regulations would be declared invalid and the Commission would not be able to review applications pertaining to them, which includes ARADEV’s proposal.
FALLS VILLAGE — Housatonic Valley Regional High School girls lacrosse kept rolling Tuesday, May 6, with a decisive 18-6 win over Lakeview High School.
Eight different players scored for Housatonic in the Northwest Corner rivalry matchup. Sophomore Georgie Clayton led the team with five goals.
The Mountaineers' record advanced to 5-1 with a cumulative 41-point goal differential halfway through the season. The lone loss came at Watertown High School on April 10.
Georgie Clayton draws four Lakeview defenders. She scored five goals in the game May 6.Photo by Riley Klein
"We will be playing [Watertown] in the championship on the 28th of May," declared Coach Laura Bushey at the midway point of the 2025 season. Last year, HVRHS lost to St. Paul Catholic High School by one point in the Western Connecticut Lacrosse Conference championship.
The game against Lakeview May 7 went on despite ominous cloud cover at starting time. Rain earlier in the day made for a wet field, but the clouds parted by the second quarter for a sunny afternoon of lacrosse.
HVRHS wasted no time setting the tone. Georgie Clayton repeatedly sliced and diced her way through midfield to create offensive opportunities for the Mountaineers, who took a 7-1 lead in the first quarter.
Tessa Dekker elevates for one of her three goals against Lakeview May 6.Photo by Riley Klein
The lead grew to 11-3 by halftime. Seniors Lola Clayton and Tessa Dekker created a one-two punch on attack with Dekker setting up plays from behind the net as Clayton cut to the crease. The pair combined for five goals in the game.
Once the lead extended to double digits in the second half, the clock ran continuously. Lakeview found scoring chances but HVRHS sophomore goalie Sophia DeDominicis-Fitzpatrck saved more shots (7) than she let by.
The game ended 18-6 in favor of HVRHS.
Lola Clayton bounces a shot past the Lakeview defense.Photo by Riley Klein
The following players scored for the Mountaineers: Georgie Clayton (5), Tessa Dekker (3), Lola Clayton (2), Islay Sheil (2), Katie Crane (2), Annabelle Carden (2), Mollie Ford (1) and Chloe Hill (1).
Lakeview's goals were scored by Layla Jones (2), Isabelle Deforge (2), Juliana Bailey (1) and Caroline Donnelly (1).Goalie Sophia DeDominicis-Fitzpatrick secures the ball.Photo by Riley Klein
Participating students and teachers gathered for the traditional photo at the 2025 Troutbeck Symposium on Thursday, May 1.
Students and educators from throughout the region converged at Troutbeck in Amenia for a three-day conference to present historical research projects undertaken collaboratively by students with a common focus on original research into their chosen topics. Area independent schools and public schools participated in the conference that extended from Wednesday, April 30 to Friday, May 2.
The symposium continues the Troutbeck legacy as a decades-old gathering place for pioneers in social justice and reform. Today it is a destination luxury country inn, but Troutbeck remains conscious of its significant place in history.
A showing of student artworks within the theme of linking the past with the present opened the symposium on Wednesday evening. Each work of art had to draw on historical research to foster an informed dialogue between the artist and the contemporary audience.
The second day was devoted to student research presentations, showcasing teams from the region’s leading public and private schools with strong programs aimed at cultivating engaged young historians. Primary source materials and live interviews with descendants were included in the process.
Topics were divided into blocks with guest commentators providing reactive response as each block of student presentations concluded. Serving as commentators were Dr. Hasan Kwame Jeffries, Ohio State University, and Dr. Christine Proenza-Coles, University of Virginia.
Resistance in the face of oppression and stories of resilience that spanned generations formed an important theme as students presented the stories of area settlers and residents who suffered but endured.
As a sampling, The Taconic School teamed up with The Salisbury School to unearth untold stories of Boston Corners. The Hotchkiss School looked into the activities of the Ku Klux Klan in Connecticut. The Cornwall Consolidated School students stepped up with their untold stories of early Cornwall women.
Other presentations explored criminal justice — witchcraft trials — dealing with society’s “undesirable” elements, individuals in history who took action, people and movements that formed resistance, and various forms of discrimination.
Praising the work of the students, Dr. Jeffries identified a theme of resistance and survival.
“The war ended but the resistance did not,” Jeffries said. “We don’t take indigenous people seriously,” he added. “White supremacy happened in our own back yards.”
“We saw the evolution of research,” said a Cornwall Consolidated School representative. That project moved into civic engagement by the students that moved beyond the classroom.
“This is not the past; this is part of the present,” said Dr. Proenza-Coles.
A panel discussion among educators whose students had participated in the 2025 Troutbeck Symposium was held on Friday, May 2, to offer reflections on the symposium, its value and future development. Panelists from left to right were Jessica Jenkins, Litchfield Historical Society;Wunneanatsu Lamb-Cason, Brown University; Morgan Bengal, Old New-Gate Prison; Frank Mitchell, Connecticut Humanities; and student representatives Dominik Valcin of Salisbury School, and Shanaya Duprey of Housatonic Valley Regional High School. Leila Hawken
The third day invited area history educators to assemble and share ideas for redesigning elements of history education, a day of reflection.
The panel included Jessica Jenkins, Litchfield Historical Society; Wunneanatsu Lamb-Cason, Brown University; Morgan Bengal, Old New-Gate Prison; Frank Mitchell, Connecticut Humanities; and student representatives Dominik Valcin of Salisbury School, and Shanaya Duprey of Housatonic Valley Regional High School.
Valcin reflected on his work as a shared project within The Salisbury School, one where the inquiry would seek to find “the deeper story behind a base story.”
Duprey also spoke of process and the educational value of engaging with historical inquiry.
Each representing a profession that brings them into contact with historical inquiry, the panelists recounted tedious history classes of past decades. Jenkins described her own career as “public history.”Lamb-Canon’s experience began with choosing history electives in college. Bengal spoke of community engagement and the power of involvement with history.
“History is not the opposite of scientific inquiry,” said Bengal.
Significant discussion centered on the possibility of offering the Troutbeck Symposium model to a wider audience of school systems throughout the U.S.
“A community approach to education,” was a characterization offered by Troutbeck owner Charlie Champalimaud, commenting during a brief interview at the end of the symposium on Friday, May 2. She encouraged a push toward increasing even more the number of participating schools, their educational communities and symposium sponsors.
Terence S. Miller, owner of Roaring Oaks Florist in the new self-serve area of the shop.
Just in time for Mother’s Day, Roaring Oaks Florist in Lakeville has launched a new self-serve flower station next to its Main Street shop, offering high-quality, grab-and-go bouquets from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., seven days a week — including Sundays when the main store is closed.
Owner Terence S. Miller, who bought the shop 24 years ago at just 20 years old, calls the new feature “a modern twist on an old-school honor system,” with some high-tech updates.
“We’re still using our same high-end flowers, just with less markup and no labor,” said Miller. “That way people can access our quality anytime, even if we’re closed.”
Tucked beside the shop’s main entrance at 349A Main Street next to The Boathouse, the self-serve area is partitioned and monitored by security cameras. A simple touchscreen checkout system lets customers pay with a credit card — no cash accepted — and includes photo prompts to make selection easy. Vases, ribbons, flower food, and care instructions are all stocked and labeled.
“We’ve tried to think of everything people might need,” said Miller. “It’s all about making great flowers more accessible without losing what makes Roaring Oaks special.”
Miller said the idea came from years of watching customers try to squeeze in a visit before or after hours. “We’re open 8 hours a day, but we’re here for almost 10, and it still isn’t enough. People are always showing up after we close,” he said. “This way we can be ‘open’ more hours without adding staff.”
Though he considered making the space available 24/7, Miller ultimately decided against it. “We didn’t want to encourage late-night tampering,” he said, noting the shop’s proximity to local bars and restaurants.
Miller’s journey into flowers was unexpected. As soon as he could get his farming papers at 12 years old, he started working at Silamar Farm in Millerton. Alongside its produce, Silamar’s was one of the first farm stands in the area to sell fresh cut flowers.Miller began growing and bundling cut flowers for city-bound customers. “By 16 I needed a year-round job, so I applied to every florist around. I just had a knack for it,” he said. After a stint in Rhinebeck, he returned and bought Roaring Oaks from its previous owner.
In the decades since, he’s built a reputation for quality and creativity. The shop’s flowers are sourced from around the world, particularly Canada and South America, though Miller is committed to supporting local growers wherever possible, especially for summer offerings and weddings.
“We’re hoping to feature some smaller farms in the self-serve section this summer,” said Miller. “DIY weddings have taken off, and people don’t always realize the benefits of buying local. Cold chain is everything. The flowers we source come straight from the airport to the wholesaler and right up here. That’s how we keep them fresh.”
Roaring Oaks also offers consultations and bulk flower discounts for events and weddings, a service Miller hopes more customers will discover through the new self-serve setup.
After 50 years in business, and nearly a decade at its current Lakeville location, Roaring Oaks continues to evolve. “This September marks my 25th year,” said Miller. “I’m always looking for ways to make people happy. Flowers should be simple, joyful, and accessible. That’s what this is all about.”
For more information or to plan your Mother’s Day bouquet, visit Roaring Oaks Florist at 349A Main Street, Lakeville.