Yeah, yeah, I live to write, I write to live. So: there's a lot of stuff. Please enjoy.
William Kinsolving
Novelist • Playwright • Screenwriter
Bringing Forgotten American History to Life
A secret marriage. A national scandal. One forgotten trial that still speaks to America today. Based on the infamous 1925 Rhinelander Trial, Black and White and Read All Over uncovers the extraordinary true story behind one of America’s most sensational courtroom dramas—a story whose questions of race, class, identity, and media remain strikingly relevant today.
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Acclaimed Historical Fiction
"The book uses fiction to fill the gaps that court records and New York Times articles do not cover, and in doing so breathes new life into this slice of history. The result is a compelling love story between two people brought together by chance and torn apart by forces of race, class and power beyond their control." The Latest From
Discover the hidden stories of America's past—and the novels they inspired.
Who Decided What Race You Were?
Writing historical fiction is maddening because you can’t include everything you learn! You use what you need for your story, but have to let so much get away. For instance, the Census Bureau has codified race legally since the Constitution created it. It’s always struggled to do so, and no wonder – working first in a slave nation, then one that continued with tortured fractional definitions. In 1890, for instance, part of a Bureau’s enumerators’ mind-boggling job was to decide whether a Black person was completely Black, or it not, was a mulatto – ½ black, a quadroon – ¼ black, or an octoroon – 1/8 black. But the Bureau didn’t trust the subject to tell the truth, or even to know. That judgment was left to what the enumerator saw, with no questions asked of the individual. The brutal and infamous examination of Alice Jones Rhinelander’s racial identity in
Who Gets to Judge? The Forgotten History of Women and Juries
Females were not even mentioned in our founding Constitution. Males dominated its creation, influenced by Mr. Jefferson’s “… all men are created equal” – (except of course Black men who ended up Constitutionally defined as 3/5ths of a human). Until August of 1920, when the 19th Amendment was finally ratified, all women had been created invisible. And that Amendment gave them only a single right: to vote. All other rights came slowly. For instance, the
Why Did Leonard Rhinelander Turn Against the Woman He Loved?
If Leonard Rhinelander and Alice Jones had such a wonderful romance of total devotion to each other, why did Leonard sue her for fraud for pretending to be white – which he and she both knew she had never done – in order to obtain an annulment of their marriage? Well, it’s complicated, and if I explained everything, I’d have to warn you with a HUGE spoiler-alert and give away more than any author would
A Book Isn’t Finished Until It’s Read
I’ve always thought that an artistic creation of any kind was not complete until that critical moment of sharing it with the observer. Yes, sure, a great painter can create a masterpiece and keep it under canvas in his studio and never show it to anyone. A composer can come up with the most sublime concerto ever conceived and share it only so far as writing it down. But I say: Until the painting is
After Stanford, Kinsolving went to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival to play Richard II. He then attended The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Returning to New York, he appeared as an actor under-, off- and on Broadway. During these years, he acted and/or directed at the Stratford (CT) Shakespeare Theater, Harvard, Dartmouth, Café La Mama, then won the Best Actor of the Year award from the San Francisco Chronicle for his performance at the Berkeley Rep.
Kinsolving wrote his first play backstage. It was awarded a Ford Foundation Playwriting Grant. The play was produced by the Stratford Ontario Shakespeare Festival. This led to his writing and/or doctoring screenplays for every major studio in Los Angeles, London, and Rome, approximately 54 films in toto. He then wrote and published five novels, one a NYTimes bestseller, a couple being chosen as Literary Guild Main Selections.
When the publishing world began to implode, he happily returned to playwriting, with presentations of his new work taking place in multiple venues, and new productions being considered. His musical, THAT WEEK WITH THE BACHS, was presented last year (2023) in San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral.
He now returns to fiction with his novel Black and White and Read All Over, based on the infamous Rhinelander trial of the 1920s, soon to be published in May 2026.
