The next book project....Esteban

An author needs to keep moving on to the next project.
     And that next project is a biography with a working title of Esteban: The African Slave Who Explored America. It's about the African, usually misidentified as a Moor for the last century, who traveled across the continent from Florida nearly to the Gulf of California in 1528-1536 and then led the first Spanish expedition into the American Southwest in 1539 — a year before Coronado.
     Unlike my other writings, this will be nonfiction. In a nod to my 10-year academic past, it's loaded with endnotes and illustrations. It will probably take longer to obtain the permissions for the illustrations than it will to write the book.
     I already know I didn't realize how much work it would be to tell the story of a slave whose entire life is recorded by slave-holders and sixteenth-century (and later) racists. The prototype cover is at right but probably will be changed by the eventual publisher.
     But as has been said, if you knew what you were getting into, no one would do anything.
     A year or two from now, I just hope I can find an agent and publisher.