PHOTO: Sebastian Dureaux-Russell, award-winning author and photographer, captures the daring spirit of history through words and images.
Historical Fiction Meets Daring Imagination
Sebastian Dureaux-Russell shares the inspirations, research, and artistry behind Burning with a Blue Flame, an award-winning historical novel blending aviation, racing, and love in the daring 1920s.
Sebastian Dureaux-Russell’s creative journey has been one shaped by image, imagination, and history. Trained in both theatre and photography, his artistry has always been guided by a search for truth beneath surface appearances. From capturing the raw immediacy of life through the lens to weaving narrative worlds upon the page, his work is suffused with drama, rhythm, and an acute awareness of the fragile beauty of human experience.
His debut novel, Burning with a Blue Flame, brings this sensibility to vivid life. Set in the 1920s—a decade of daring, dissonance, and reinvention—it marries painstaking historical research with a bold, lyrical storytelling style. At its heart lies an unlikely love story between two restless souls, their passions set against the exhilarating backdrop of early aviation, racing, and the fevered energy of a world teetering between tradition and modernity.
Winner of eleven literary awards across multiple categories, Burning with a Blue Flame testifies to the breadth of Dureaux-Russell’s vision: part historical fiction, part literary exploration, and wholly charged with the urgency of human longing. It is a work that asks not merely to be read, but to be experienced—an invitation to risk, to remember, and above all, to feel.
Through both his words and images, Sebastian Dureaux-Russell reminds us that art, in all its forms, is a dare. His novel extends that challenge to every reader: Do you want to go for a ride—or a R-I-D-E?
What first drew you to the 1920s as a setting for your novel?
The day I ditched class in the library at Duke Ellington School of the Arts to discover a Time-Life book, his Fabulous Century 1920-1930.One image stuck with me, “Flaming Youths on Long Island brazenly puff on cigarettes, ”which I later saluted as my author photograph.
How did your experience at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts influence your storytelling?
It offered me a chance to escape suburban Virginia and study theatre at the ‘fame school’ in Washington D.C. Studying all the aspects of acting, and later, photography at ICP, served me well as a writer. It gave me imagination, a sense of drama and an artist’s eye.
Can you share how your initial concept for Burning with a Blue Flame evolved over time?
At its heart, Blue Flame is a pagan love song that ignited from a fated ménages à troisin the androgynous 1980’s. From that liaison I wrote two gothic poems which cast us as Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft and Byron. When I moved to NYC in 1991, I composed ashortstory, “A Dream of Innocence” which set the three on Long Island in 1925.Those were the seeds for a novel, which took root but wouldn’t grow until I became more grounded.30 years later, after I moved to Daytona Beach and met my soulmate, it resurfaced. For him I wrote a new, underlining the unlikely love between two daredevils from different sides of the same coin. I began the journey in 2019 which spanned four years, four complete re-writes, and two editors.
What kind of research did you undertake to accurately portray the era’s aviation and racing scenes?
What started as a simple concept, one man is a pilot and one a racecar driver, immediately presented a challenge. I had no pre-knowledge of either. I wasn’t aware Daytona bore the title, Most Famous Beachor Ormond Beach, The Birthplace of Speed. So, I walked the original Daytona Beach and Road Course with planes flying overhead. I read an entire bookshelf of period material. I watched silent films about racing and aviation until my head raced. And before I attempted one sentence on either, I had to understand how those machines worked. Every idea asked the question, How did that work in 1925? Two weeks of research equaled two typed sentences. By draft #2, I had created three glossaries: Early Aviation, 20’s Slang, and WW1 Terminology. I felt like a walking encyclopedia.
Elmer “Elm” Darrell is such a vivid character—how much of him reflects your own personality or experiences?
Elmer started out a Nick Carraway type. My brother Lawrence (an ex-Marine) read the first draft and said, “I don’t buy your lead. I don’t get military from him at all.” So, I completely rewrote the character. Elm was an Ace in the Great War; what if he has a bit of shellshock? What if he has a temper? Yes, and he growls, and is swaggering and boastful. He punches holes in walls but defends the rights of the disenfranchised. Add a dash of swashbuckler. Boom! A character was born who was flawed and human, an anti-hero. Part me, part my brother, part Douglas Fairbanks Jr. And later I won two book awards in military categories.
What challenges did you face in balancing historical detail with narrative momentum?
Luckily for me, the 1920’s were all about speed and my characters were racy. I propelled it forward by giving the plot action, drama and a subplot that supplied underlying tension. The city itself became a character because there is nothing more mysterious than a city founded on illegal activity. My female daredevils Zella and Roni perform daring feats where they might fall off a plane or crash and burn at any second—that’s exhilarating. I made the novels’ catchphrase an in-your-face challenge to the reader, “Do you wanna go for a ride or a R-I-D-E?!”And if all else fails, give ‘em a plot twist.
Are there any authors or books that inspired your writing style or approach to this novel?
The Great Gatsby, Save Me the Waltz, The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms. I reviewed one for editing, one for a woman’s perspective, one for a never-ending party and one for sexual relations during WW1.All were inspirational to the creation of my novel and its four primary characters: Elm Darrell, Barn storming pilot haunted by the war, Bolt Bratka, Valentino-like racecar driving boozehound, Zella Bixby, delicate wing-walking flapper in search of fame, and Lady Veronica Van De Vord, araven-haired racer who’s a helluva dame.
Where would you like to see “Burning with a Flame” in the course of history?
I would love to see this multi award-winning novel make the big screen. I enjoyed working inside the parameters of historical fiction and sharing a genre with so many other great writers. I found comfort dwelling within a decade that presented certain new freedoms. To a degree you can re-write history and give voices to those that were silenced or just never told. On the statement of history repeating itself, my research uncovered historic recurrence frequently from 100 years ago: flu epidemic, race issues, sexual orientation and big pharma. I tried to make social commentary through my characters in the hope that altering history would change the NOW.
