Daily Archives: March 11, 2024

My psychedelic bell bottoms and Audrey Hepburn shoes: How I turned my 1960s ‘stuff’ into a ‘happening’ at UC Irvine by Jina Bacarr

I write novels about Paris WW2, the US home front during WW2, the TITANIC, the Civil War.

I live and breathe history.

So it’s no surprise I collect ‘stuff’ from history. Vintage clothes, chinaware. Jewelry.

And my own history, too. Childhood, teen years… and university life.

When I had the opportunity to help plan the Golden Anteater Society Event at the University of Caliornia Irvine (alumni who graduated from the mid-sixties to 1974), I mentioned I had cool stuff from the 1960s and voilà! My collection became part of the ‘memorabilia room’ at the University Club on campus. I was so excited to see alumni checking out record albums, university newspapers, Beatles magazines, Buffalo Springfield poster, mini-dresses, those psychedekic bell bottoms, and my hippie fringe purse.

The event was sold out!

I was also excited to display my latest Boldwood Books historical novel, Sisters At War (mentioned in my Letter to the Editor in The New York Times–you’ll see what I mean in the video along with the UCI event). I’ve come a long way since I was a student at UCI writing stories and dreaming of faraway places.

So many adventures since then… I drew upon the most difficult for inspiration to write Sisters At War about sexual assault against women. I never felt more vulnerble in my life as when I was writing Sisters At War and now the sequel Sisters of the Resistance.

A road that led me around the world and back home to the university when I clicked my heels three times.

Wearing my Audrey Hepburn silver slippers.

Jina