ManyPennyPress.com

Welcome! As a writer with a passion for sharing the past, I hope to inspire others through historical fiction.

Writer, features writer, artist, photographer

Dawn Marie O'Hara, Newman-Aerts

Dawn Marie O'Hara, Newman-Aerts has written for numerous newspapers in the Midwest and across the country. Her popular first-person column, “Keeping Up,” evolved into a 40-year career at local and regional publications. Her forthcoming novel, Songs of the Red Dawn, was inspired by life in Indian Country, her girlhood roots in Minnetonka, Minnesota and in the north west region of Wisconsin where she lives in Bayfield on the shores of Lake Superior, the sacred land, Madeline Island. Dawn pursued studies in law and communications at the University of Minnesota and is a lifelong supporter of various arts organizations and writer collectives. With a background in print media, arts, photography and illustrative work, Dawn blends her expertise in media, with a passion for local history and narratives in writing. In 2023, she turned her imprint as an author into the release of a whimsical children’s book, with original illustrations, Space Cat in Paris, widely available on Amazon, IngramSpark, and Barnes and Noble online catalogue.

EXPLORING MADELINE ISLAND AND LAKE SUPERIOR COUNTRY

Songs of the Red Dawn

Coming Soon

I hope to bring powerful, history-based stories to readers about 18th and 19th century exploration and settlement through a soon to be published novel, “Songs of the Red Dawn"

Setting

Summer, 1855, Lake Superior Country, Madeline Island, where trade posts lay among the Ojibwe people of the Folle Avoine, Fond du lac, Grand Portage, La Pointe, Lac du Flambeau, Lac Courte Oreille, Sault Ste Marie and L ‘Ance.

A travel writer comes to reside among the Ojibwe where tribes gather for the annuity payments of ceded land by government treaty. The former trade post on the western shores brings hundreds to gather at La Pointe.

Synopsis

Kohl encounters the elder woman of the Crane Clan, Aurora, who tells him of the past, her people, through voices long forgotten. Her words convey the tumultuous and poignant story of a people, with accounts of descendants; the north west trade men, missionaries and government officials who stood as witness to upheaval and change.

Against the backdrop of expeditions and government treaties, early settlement and Ojibwa life, readers come to know the history of ‘La Pointe,’ through the words of Father Baraga, the North West men, Cadotte and Corbin, the Indian Agent, Henry Schoolcraft, and the Michigan minerologist, Douglass Houghton.

Summary

In lands once controlled by the British, ‘Indian Affairs’ was born with boundaries and treaty rights, as a “land reserved for the Indians.” In the years to follow the American Revolution, a series of treaties governed the colonies, with limits on land and settlement, leading to conflict and division among tribes. The ‘family quarrels’ between America and England brought tribes to choose sides between empires—some, allied with French Canadians, the British, or Americans, where by fate… choosing the losing side, meant turmoil and uncertainty. In the wake of government treaties, little was written or preserved of Indian Country, but by stories told and retold through generations.

“My Grandson, you have often asked me what I know of former times, but I did not open my heart to you for you were then a child. You are now a man, you know how to write like the whites, you understand what we tell you. Your ears are open to our words, and we will tell you what we know of former times. You shall write it on paper that our words may last forever.”

Chief Buffalo, Madeline Island, La Pointe, 1847

From The Archives

Journalism, history, and stories shaped by place.

This collection brings together newspaper features, cultural reporting, historical material, and personal stories. The mix of clippings and images creates an editorial record shaped by curiosity, place, and a close attention to people, events, and local memory.