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.
Is the Truth Still Up for Grabs?
Newspapers, from the staid “gray lady” New York Times to the garbage-can-liner tabloid National Enquirer, all claim—rightfully—that “news” is their main purpose. But they exist on their ability to sell things through advertising. Of course, they have withering competition for the advertising dollar from radio, television and social media. As a result, they are losing editorial and news power as they struggle to survive. But in 1925, when the powerful Rhinelander family sued Alice Jones for fraud, hoping to annul her marriage to one of their own, newspapers were the supreme method of spreading the news—and advertising. Imagine a world where TV and social media didn’t exist, and radio airwaves and frequencies were unorganized and often cancelled each other out through signal overlap. How delightful! The New York Times by that time had become the “newspaper of record,” gaining that title by publishing an annual comprehensive subject index. It published
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’
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
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.
