WomensHistoryReads interview: Kristin Harmel

What better way to ease into a Monday morning than with a delightful #WomensHistoryReads Q&Q&Q&A? You'll love today's answers (including an adorable childhood photo!) from Kristin Harmel, whose latest novel THE ROOM ON RUE AMELIE will be hitting bookstores tomorrow. Welcome, Kristin!

Kristin Harmel

Greer: What book, movie or TV show would your readers probably be surprised to find out you love?

Kristin: For those of you who don’t know me yet, there’s probably no better (or more embarrassing) introduction to me than hearing me admit my lifelong passion for Superman—the 1978 version with Christopher Reeve, which I was wholly obsessed with as a child. I still watch it with embarrassing frequency. I even wonder, in the back of my mind, whether my decision to become a journalist (and later a novelist) was somehow rooted in a latent desire to actually be Superman—or Lois Lane.

All joking aside, though, I think my obsession with Superman has some common threads with the writer I’ve become. First of all, I do best with stories that are rooted in the issues of family, legacy, and the struggle of good vs. evil, all of which Superman certainly explores. I also like to write strong heroines who are on a journey of discovery, and let me tell you, I think Margot Kidder’s Lois Lane was a pretty amazing heroine, especially considering that she appeared on screen forty years ago. She was a good female role model who had learned to work hard and to not fear asking for what she deserved in life, and I think that’s a journey many of my characters are on too. And now, before I delve too insanely into an essay about why Superman is amazing or how I still swoon over Christopher Reeve’s beautiful blue eyes in that film, please allow me to distract you with a photo of my childhood best friend (Jay Cash) and me, wearing our matching Superman shirts. In case you were wondering, we also owned capes. Naturally.

Greer: An unforgettable introduction! And quite possibly the cutest thing ever. Love it. What’s your next book about and when will we see it?

Kristin: Although it feels as if I’ve been waiting about a thousand years for this book to come out (I suspect every writer feels that way about new releases!), you’ll actually be seeing my next novel tomorrow! (3/27)! I actually can’t believe that the publication day is finally here! It’s called THE ROOM ON RUE AMÉLIE and is the story of an American newlywed, a French Jewish teenager, and a British Royal Air Force pilot whose lives collide in Paris during World War II. It’s based, in part, on some real-life stories of Allied escape lines running through France, including the Comet Line and the Shelburne Line, both of which relied heavily on women.

I had the idea for the book a long time ago, while researching my 2012 novel, THE SWEETNESS OF FORGETTING (which takes place partially in WWII Paris), and I really liked the idea of placing an American woman in Paris at the start of World War II to see how she’d get involved (not least of all because I was an ex-pat in Paris myself during a portion of my twenties). But I was unsure of how realistic it would be to have an American woman living in Paris AND helping out on an Allied escape line without calling attention to herself—until I read about Virginia d’Albert-Lake, an incredibly inspiring woman who was just thirty and living in France in 1940 when the Germans invaded. She helped save the lives of more than sixty American and British airmen before being arrested and sent to a concentration camp. THE ROOM ON RUE AMÉLIE isn’t her story, but she became the jumping off point for Ruby, my plucky American main character, who summoned her courage in the face of danger, just like Virginia did. For both of them, it was about standing up for goodness in the face of evil.

Greer: What do you find most challenging or most exciting about researching historical women?

Kristin: Because Ruby Benoit, the main character of THE ROOM ON RUE AMÉLIE is fictional (and is simply inspired by the real-life Virginia d’Albert-Lake), I think I had a bit of an easier time with researching the character herself. The things she did and said just had to be true to her personality, and historically accurate, rather than having to mirror every single detail of a real woman’s life. But because I’m setting stories in the past, there are so, so many details to juggle to make sure I’m getting things as accurate as possible. For me, the bigger details—movies the main character might have watched, music she might like, a car she might have driven, the operational details of an escape line—are easy. It’s the little details—the color of her lipstick, the way she heats her apartment in the winter, whether she can make phone calls or send mail during wartime, etc.—that are so much harder. I find that as a writer, I have to go through volumes and volumes of information, combing through hundreds of pages of research to find a little detail here or there that can bring a scene alive. And as a former journalist—who was always conscious that fact errors were fireable offenses—I am always incredibly paranoid that I’ve gotten details wrong. I seriously have knots in my stomach even thinking about it now! Writing historical fiction is hard, but I love every second of the journey.

Greer: Agreed, and agreed.

Kristin: Thank you very much for inviting me to answer a few questions today!

Greer: My pleasure!

Kristin: And my question for you: As a writer, do you find it easier to base characters directly on real women from the past? Or do you find it easier to create characters rooted in the past, based loosely on real people?  I’m curious to hear your take on the pros and cons of each approach! 

Greer: Well, I often struggle with coming up with names for my characters, so at least with real-life people we get to skip that step if we want! But I think loose inspiration is easier in most ways. In a way I had the best of both worlds with GIRL IN DISGUISE, given that Kate Warne was a real-life figure from history but there wasn't really that much information on her in the historical record. We know a few cases she worked on, we know she claimed to be a widow, we know she helped save Abraham Lincoln's life, and that's pretty much it. So I still had plenty of freedom to develop character and plot in almost -- ah, that almost -- any direction I wanted.

My next book was even more loosely inspired by history, in that I used intrepid newspaperwoman Nellie Bly's undercover trip into a notorious mental asylum as a jumping-off point. I felt like I wouldn't bring anything new to the story of a journalist, so instead my main character feigns madness to rescue her sister from the asylum where she's been sent by their parents. That opens a huge number of doors but still grounds my characters in a specific time and place.

Of course the problem with real-life inspiration is that it's so often unbelievable! Apparently it was not that hard to get thrown into a mental asylum in the 1880s, especially if you were poor, or pretending to be. As Nellie put it, "The insane asylum on Blackwell’s Island is a human rat-trap. It is easy to get in, but once there it is impossible to get out.” And that's what my main character Charlotte is up against in Woman Ninety-Nine. She impulsively gets herself committed to the asylum without realizing what she's risking: her future, her sanity and her life.

Read more about Kristin and her books at the links below:

Web: KristinHarmel.com

Facebook: Facebook.com/kristinharmelauthor

Twitter: Twitter.com/kristinharmel

Instagram: Instagram.com/kristinharmel

WomensHistoryReads interview: Jenni L. Walsh

I'm pleased as punch to interview Jenni L. Walsh for today's #WomensHistoryReads Q&Q&Q&A. Jenni's novel BECOMING BONNIE is a fascinating fictional spin on how Bonnie Parker might have gone from churchgoing teen to compromised moll, with her journey to notorious criminal due to be explained in the upcoming sequel, SIDE BY SIDE. And good timing -- the e-book of BECOMING BONNIE is on sale for a limited time for $2.99. So make like Bonnie and snap it up! Read more about Jenni and her inspiration below.

Greer: How would you describe what you write?

Jenni: I'd like to think my books are a mashup of historical fiction and women's fiction.  Women's Historical Fiction, if you will. My novels are set in the 1920s and 1930s (so far!), but more than just the era, I strive to bring my real-life protagonists to life. In Becoming Bonnie and Side by Side, both featuring Bonnie Parker of "Bonnie and Clyde" infamy, the story is very much about Bonnie's personal journey and life experiences.

Greer: What do you find most challenging or most exciting about researching historical women?

Jenni: You know that feature in US Weekly? "STARS--THEY'RE JUST LIKE US!" Well, I often have that thought when I'm researching historical women. Their lives may be very different than my own (i.e. I've never raided a prison like Bonnie Parker), but they still have many of the same emotional and physical struggles we all face. I find that aspect exciting, intriguing, and humanizing. The challenge, I've found, is trying to bring the woman's real voice to life. Sometimes it can take a while for the voice to fully form in my head.

Greer: What book, movie or TV show would your readers probably be surprised to find out you love?

Jenni: Gold Rush! And I'm #TeamParker all the way. If you haven't seen the show, it's set nowadays, but I find the gold rush from the 1800s so interesting. Methinks I'd love to write about it someday! In fact, I see Wikipedia has a page on "Women in the California Gold Rush"!

Jenni: Question for you: How would you describe your next novel's leading lady in three words?

Greer: Great question! If I had four words, I'd say "In over her head," but with three, I'll just give you three adjectives: loving, loyal, and unprepared.

ebsite: www.jennilwalsh.com

Twitter: www.twitter.com/jennilwalsh

Facebook: www.facebook.com/jenni.l.walsh

Instagram: www.instagram.com/jennilwalsh

Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/jennilwalsh

Amazon: www.amazon.com/author/jennilwalsh

WomensHistoryReads interview: Eva Stachniak

So many wonderful #womenshistoryreads authors, so many wonderful #womenshistoryreads books! The series continues today with Eva Stachniak, most recently the author of THE CHOSEN MAIDEN. I could tell you about her amazing inspiration for this book, a forgotten woman whose story needed to be told -- but will let Eva do that directly with her answers below. And I love her term for what she writes: "archival fantasies."

Eva Stachniak

Greer: Tell us about a woman from the past who has inspired your writing.

Eva: I’ve always been drawn to strong women who defined themselves in opposition to the prevailing expectations society had of them. So far my characters have been inspired by an 18th century Greek peasant girl who married into Polish aristocracy, a minor German princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst who became Catherine the Great, and—most recently—extraordinary Bronislava (Bronia) Nijinska, a younger sister of the brilliant 20th century dancer Vaslav Nijinsky.  The Chosen Maiden, my last novel, tells the story of her life and art.

It was Bronia’s indomitable strength that captured my heart. Strength to fight for her own place first in the Imperial Theatres of St. Petersburg and then in the predominantly male focused Ballets Russes. Strength not to give up when she was told she didn’t have the body of a ballerina or that she should interpret her brother’s visions and not bother with her own. Strength to resist the repressive regimes determined to engineer her soul, and, in the end, to pick herself up after each paralyzing loss life dealt her and to keep on fighting. 

Greer: How would you describe what you write?

Eva: I write historical fiction based on research. I like to call my novels archival fantasies, for although I stay true to existing sources, I allow myself my own interpretation. 

I write about women whose lives have touched me on a personal level, with whom I can identify. My characters—like me—are immigrants who have to redefine themselves in another culture, rebuild their lives from the ground up. 

Greer: What do you find most exciting about researching historical women?

Eva: The realization how much has changed in our understanding of history, how important and fruitful it is to seek the once forgotten or overlooked points of view. I love researching the lives of servants or palace spies, those on the margins of power, whose voices have to be pried from the official accounts. I love examining the circumstances of their lives, seeking what it is that I can learn from them, in spite of all the differences between us.

I believe that we have a lot to learn from this forgotten past… 

Greer: Agreed. Most historical novelists I know are drawn to writing about the past precisely because it can help us gain a better understanding of our present.

Eva: What literary pilgrimages have you gone on or hoping to go on?

Greer: What a great question! I wasn't able to visit the grave of Kate Warne, the real-life inspiration for my novel GIRL IN DISGUISE, before the book came out, so I was thrilled to visit while on book tour promoting the hardcover. She's buried in the Pinkerton family plot in Chicago's Graceland Cemetery. I took Kate some flowers and said thanks. It was a really powerful moment. And her name is spelled Kate Warn on her tombstone, so I took her an E. That was one of my favorite book tour experiences, and I love book tour, so there's a lot of competition.

Official web page  www.evastachniak.com

FB: https://www.facebook.com/EvaStachniak.Author

Twitter:  @EvaStachniak

Instagram: estachniak

WomensHistoryReads interview: Fiona Davis

I'm thrilled to welcome bestselling author Fiona Davis to the blog today for a fun Friday #WomensHistoryReads Q&Q&Q&A! Especially because I'm currently devouring her debut novel THE DOLLHOUSE on audio and I am hooked. She talks about THE DOLLHOUSE below as well as her follow-up, THE ADDRESS, both of which will send you into fits of envy over classic New York City real estate. And I can't wait for her upcoming THE MASTERPIECE, inspired by an art school once hosted within Grand Central Terminal! Don't miss her answers about the iron-clad rules of the Barbizon Hotel For Women (no pants!) and a chance to see Cousin Matthew like you've never seen him before.

Fiona Davis photo credit: Kristen Jensen

Greer: Tell us about a woman (or group of women) from the past who has inspired your writing.

Fiona: I got the idea for my first book, THE DOLLHOUSE, after looking at an apartment for sale in what used to be the Barbizon Hotel for Women and is now a condo, here in New York City. I learned that a group of older women who’d been residents for decades – back when boys weren’t allowed above the public areas and you couldn’t wear pants to cross the lobby – had been grandfathered in to rent-controlled apartments on the 4th floor during the renovation. I was curious about their perspectives, how they’d seen the building and the city change over time. For example, in 1966 you could stay at the Barbizon Hotel for Women for a week for $6.75, while today the penthouse is going for $17 million. I couldn’t shake the idea, and decided I had to write a novel about it. While the characters in the novel are fictional, the ladies of the fourth floor continue to inspire and fascinate me.

Greer: And thank goodness for that. Do you consider yourself a historian?

Fiona: I’m more of a fiction-writing journalist with a love of the past, I’d say. I use my journalism background when I research my novels to uncover historical nuggets that may have been lost to history, and then embed them in the story. For example, for THE DOLLHOUSE, set at the Barbizon Hotel, I tracked down and interviewed women who’d lived there back in the day. Their stories were both hilarious and sometimes shocking. For my second book, THE ADDRESS, which is set in the Dakota, one of NYC’s oldest apartment houses, I was able to get a couple of amazing tours of the building by current residents, from the basement to the top floors where the servants used to live. For my third book, which takes place in Grand Central Terminal and comes out in August, I discovered that an art school existed at the very top of the building’s east wing from the 1920s to the 1940s. During an interview with an architecture historian, I learned of a female artist who made a huge splash during the Jazz Age and then disappeared, and she became the inspiration for one of the protagonists.

Greer: What book, movie or TV show would your readers probably be surprised to find out you love?

Fiona: High Maintenance is a series I adore. It’s about an affable, bicycle-riding pot dealer in Brooklyn. Each episode focuses one or two of his clients, and are narrative gems featuring quirky twists – the perfect embodiment of a visual “short story.” I really enjoy the diverse cast, which includes some of New York’s best actors and actresses. Be sure to check out the early, ten-minute versions that appeared on Vimeo before it got picked up by HBO. For example, there’s one of Downton Abbey’s Dan Stevens as a cross-dressing stay-at-home father. Moving, funny, and smart.

Greer: Okay, definitely intrigued enough to give it a shot!

Fiona: My question for you is: If you were told you could time-travel back to a different time and place for a couple of weeks, where would you go, and in what era?

Greer: So many possibilities! I just finished doing boatloads of research about Northern California, including San Francisco and the Napa Valley, in the 1880s, so the temptation to go there might be too strong to resist. (Especially if I could go now, while I still had time to fact-check my next book before it comes out in 2019! Wouldn't that be a lovely opportunity?) But San Francisco was so interesting then, when they were really coming out of the wild frontier period post-Gold Rush, trying to establish the city as a major capital of culture, society, all the things the East Coast cities had in spades. And most of the architecture from that period was wiped out in the 1906 earthquake, so it's one of the harder places to recreate how it must have looked then, based on how it looks today. You still have the hills and the Bay, those have always been there, but the buildings and people and traffic over that topography, I'd love to see how it all fit together in those years.

Fiona Davis’s most recent novel is THE ADDRESS (Dutton); her website is fionadavis.net.

WomensHistoryReads interview: Elise Hooper

Another day, another #womenshistoryreads interview! Today I'm talking to Elise Hooper, author of THE OTHER ALCOTT, about historical fiction (of course), revisions that today's history textbooks need, the fascinating Dorothea Lange, and how moviegoers are getting the wrong impression of Jenny Lind.

Elise Hooper

Greer: How would you describe what you write?

Elise: I write historical fiction about women who haven’t received starring roles in traditional retellings of history but tend to be lurking, largely unobserved, in the footnotes and endnotes of non-fiction books. These women have often played an important role in history but tend to be undervalued. In the case of May Alcott, my main character in The Other Alcott, she was a trailblazing painter of the 1870s but people tend to focus their attention on her much more famous older sister, Louisa. When I think about my characters and their stories, I’m particularly interested in exploring how women have navigated the call to produce creative work while balancing their ambitions with love and family.

Greer: What’s the last book that blew you away?

Elise: I couldn’t get enough of Prairie Fires by Caroline Fraser. As a girl, I adored the Little House books and read them over and over, made my dolls calico dresses and bonnets, and threw sheets over chairs to create covered wagons in my family’s living room. In the 1980s, when the Little House television series aired, I fell in love with Melissa Gilbert’s plucky little “Half Pint” and never missed an episode. When my own daughters reached the age to be introduced to the series, I read along with them and discovered a whole new experience. The risks the Ingalls took both fascinated and horrified me. I hadn’t understood the family’s extreme poverty and many run-ins with danger when I read the books as a child, but as an adult, I was astounded. Prairie Fires brought it all to life and Caroline Fraser did an excellent job of framing the Ingalls’s experience with both a wide-sweeping historical lens and psychological analysis of the real people behind the beloved characters. In this excellent non-fiction book, the Ingalls family becomes a fascinating touchstone to learn about a period when our country experienced astounding economic, technological, and social changes.

Greer: If you could pick one woman from history to put in every high school history textbook, who would it be?

Elise: Since I teach high school history and literature, I love this question! I’d focus more on the nineteenth-century’s fights for women’s rights by women abolitionists, suffragists, and labor rights activists. Textbook chapters on World War II also tend to be very male-oriented and focus on the military battles and political leaders, but this was an extraordinary time when women contributed significantly to winning the war through their code breaking work and atomic science research. My students are also always captivated by the civil rights movement of the mid-twentieth century, but I think the mainstream narrative focuses too much on male leadership and must include more women activists, such as Fannie Lou Hamer. (See, I tried to game that question a little bit by proposing some pretty major edits to U.S. History textbooks while providing just one name.)

Greer: What’s your next book about and when will we see it?

Elise: I’m working on revisions for a new novel about Dorothea Lange, the pioneering documentary photographer of the 1930s and ‘40s. While most Americans recognize her work of Dust Bowl migrants, especially her iconic “Migrant Mother” image, few know much about the woman behind the art. Her story is a remarkable one about a woman persevered with her professional ambitions despite many challenges, including a physical disability due to a childhood bout with polio, a troubled marriage, the privations of the Great Depression, and the government’s censorship of her photos. She made many difficult decisions that will fascinate modern readers. This novel will be released in early 2019 by William Morrow.

Greer: That sounds fabulous! Can't wait.

Elise: My question for you: I’m obsessively watching "The Crown" these days and find myself forming a whole new impression of Queen Elizabeth II. Who do you think is another woman whose story has been largely misunderstood and could make for an intriguing television series?

Greer: I'm clearly biased, but I think Kate Warne, the first female detective and the subject of my latest novel GIRL IN DISGUISE, would make a great subject for a TV series. Not so much that her story has been misunderstood, more that it is rarely discussed at all!

But to suggest someone else... I recently read about how opera singer Jenny Lind, also known as the Swedish Nightingale, is used in the movie The Greatest Showman as a kind of villain -- when in real life she was smart, charitable, business-savvy, and a lot of other things the movie didn't show. After reading this article at The Geekiary, I would totally be on board with a Jenny Lind series that sticks closer to the actual truth! (Musical numbers optional, but strongly encouraged.)

For more about Elise and her books:

www.elisehooper.com

Twitter and Insta: @elisehooper

https://www.facebook.com/elisehooperauthor/

WomensHistoryReads interview: Anne Boyd Rioux

I met Anne Boyd Rioux when we did a joint event at Kramerbooks in Washington DC to promote her book about Constance Fenimore Woolson -- a name that should be far better known, and a book I highly recommend to serve that purpose. I'm thrilled to welcome Anne to the blog for a #WomensHistoryReads Q&Q&Q&A to talk about other forgotten women writers whose names we should know, how Woolson's writing stands up to that of her contemporary Henry James, and whether boys should read Little Women. (Plus it turns out I have THOUGHTS on what writers can do to make sure the movement to call attention to the stories of forgotten women isn't just a fad. One of my favorite questions so far in this series.)

Anne Boyd RIoux

Greer: Tell us about a woman (or group of women) from the past who has inspired your writing.

Anne: I have always been fascinated by how and women have been able to pursue their ambitions to be serious writers and artists. It requires a lot of single-minded devotion, while women have historically been told to live for others rather them themselves. My first book was about the first generation of American women writers to view themselves as serious artists, and the books I have written since then have all grown out of that early work I did in graduate school.

One of the writers that I included was Constance Fenimore Woolson (1840-1894), who has always struck me as the most ambitious, dedicated, and accomplished one of the bunch. She was an amazing writer who had been almost completely forgotten. When she was remembered, it was as a close friend of Henry James and not as a famous writer in her own right, which she was. Even most scholars of American literature had never heard of her. It was important to me to share her story with a wider audience, to help her reclaim the critical and popular acclaim that she experienced in her own lifetime.

My book Constance Fenimore Woolson: Portrait of a Lady Novelist was published by Norton in 2016, along with a collection of her stories that I edited, Miss Grief and Other Stories (with a foreword by the novelist Colm Toibin). They were reviewed on the cover of the New York Times Book Review and reviewed widely in newspapers and online. I was thrilled with the positive response to Woolson. Critics thought her writing was just as good as Henry James’s, which is what I’ve been feeling for a long time. The Chicago Tribune named the biography one of the best books in 2016. (Now I’m working on a proposal to get her novels and more of her short stories into print. Stay tuned!)

https://anneboydrioux.com/books/books-constance-fenimore-woolson/

Greer: Which other forgotten women writers do you believe deserve renewed attention?

Anne: There are so many! In fact, we know today that there were more women writing and publishing in the 19th century than there were by the mid-twentieth, but they have been buried in neglect. I often teach little-known women in my courses, and my students are astounded. They are always asking me, Why haven’t we heard of them before? Here are three of my favorites:

Alice Dunbar-Nelson (1875-1935)—She was a Creole who grew up in New Orleans and wrote some fascinating stories set there. Then she went on to become a journalist and civil rights activist. Buried in archives are tons of work that she couldn’t get published in her lifetime because they dealt with the persecution of African Americans or lesbian themes. Today some scholars are working on bringing these works to light for the first time.

Sui Sin Far (1865-1914)—Her real name was Edith Maude Eaton, but she published under a Chinese pseudonym. She and her sister, the daughters of an English father and Chinese mother, are considered the first Asian-American fiction writers in the U.S. She wrote some fascinating stories set in Chinese communities along the West Coast in the first decade of the twentieth century. And she wasn’t shy about exposing the rampant prejudice against the Chinese in those days.

Kay Boyle (1902-1992)—She lived in Europe in the 1920s-50s and was witness to the rise of fascism, WWII, and its aftermath—and she wrote about all of it. Her powerful stories were published in major magazines, and she was correspondent for The New Yorker after the war, covering the Nuremberg Trials.

I’ve written about all three of these women in my newsletter, “The Bluestocking Bulletin.” (http://eepurl.com/dhnSBP), which features a profile of a little-known woman writer every month or so.

Greer: I'm a proud subscriber myself! What’s your next book about and when will we see it?

Anne: My next book I’m calling a “biography” of Little Women. The beloved novel by Louisa May Alcott is turning 150 this year, so my book is a celebration of its legacy but also an examination of what it means to us today. As my own daughter was growing up and figuring out what it meant to be a girl and a woman in our culture, I wondered if Little Women, and its portrait of the rebellious Jo March, would still matter to her in the way it had for earlier generations. (I gave her the middle name Josephine, after all.) So the final chapter looks at what girls are reading and watching today and examines how so many of the most popular heroines today (Hermione, Katniss, Rory Gilmore) are descendants of Jo. Other chapters examine whether boys should read Little Women (spoiler alert: yes!), how the films have captured it over the years, its massive impact on the development of women’s literature, and, of course, how Alcott wrote it in the first place.

Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters is coming out on August 21 from Norton. Even before that, in July, I’ll be talking about it at the Alcott home in Concord, MA, and at Edith Wharton’s estate in Lenox, MA. I will also be at the American Library Association in New Orleans.

https://anneboydrioux.com/little-women/

Anne: My question for you: Reading and writing about forgotten women seems to be a hot thing to do right now. How do those of us who care about shining a light on historical women (almost all of whom have been forgotten) tap into the excitement while making sure that it’s not just a fad? #womenshistoryisheretostay

Greer: First of all, I love your hashtag and plan to start using it all over the place! I love that there does seem to be a movement, particularly in historical fiction, to foreground the stories of real women from history. Even better, whereas a few years ago these books focused on the wives or daughters of famous men, now it's women who were or should have been famous in their own right. And many of us are lifelong history nerds, so not only are we having a wonderful time sharing these names and stories with readers, but we're building and strengthening our shared community by communicating with each other, confiding in each other, about these things we've found. It feels great!

But, as you so rightly asked, is it a fad? How do we make it not be a fad? How do we get ready to combat the agents or editors who, three years from now, might say, "Oh, aren't there enough books about forgotten women already?" And I think part of the answer has to be that we keep delivering the best possible work to our readers. The seeds of the end of a fad are often sown by a drop-off in quality. If you're writing a story about a forgotten woman just to "ride the trend," it shows. Readers who get their hands on a book like that and are disappointed are less likely to pick up the next one that comes along.

So for the authors whose passion truly drives them in this direction -- and I can't tell you how enthusiastic so many of the authors participating in these #womenshistoryreads interviews have been -- I say, keep writing these stories and push yourself to write them better than you ever thought you could. And to writers who want to lay claim to a forgotten woman's story just because they want in on the trend, I humbly suggest finding a different topic. People like you, Anne, or authors like Erin Blakemore, Karen Abbott, Mary Sharratt, you were surfacing women's stories before it was cool and you'll still be doing it if it becomes a less "hot" thing to do. We've been here, we're here, we'll be here.

Website: http://anneboydrioux.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anneboydriouxauthor/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AnneBoydRioux

Newsletter:  http://eepurl.com/dhnSBP

WomensHistoryReads interview: Kelly O'Connor McNees

Twitter is both a wonderful tool for and a wonderful distraction from writing. Classic blessing/curse situation for writers. But it was on Twitter that I first became aware of Kelly O'Connor McNees and her debut novel THE LOST SUMMER OF LOUISA MAY ALCOTT a few years back. Read below for the gap in the historical record that inspired Kelly to write that novel, as well as her latest historical inspiration and current novel, UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY.

Greer: How would you describe what you write?

Kelly: I find stories in the footnotes of history—things that have been forgotten or never explored, and people (usually women) who played a role and yet never got credit for it. My first book, The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott, grew out of the fact that there are several months missing from LMA's journals in the summer and fall of 1855. In July, she moved to Walpole, NH, with her family and was fairly bogged down with obligations to them, despite her desire to write. By November, she was living on her own in Boston and making a living from her writing. I could find nothing in biographies of her or in her own writing that explained what happened during this period to prompt such a change in course, so it felt like the perfect opportunity to create a story.

In my new novel, Undiscovered Country, I explore the romantic relationship between Eleanor Roosevelt and AP journalist Lorena Hickok. Hick, as she was known, had a huge influence on Eleanor's personal and professional life, and also an influence on New Deal policy. And yet her work is not well known. I wanted to see if I could imagine Hick's voice, and her inner life as she experienced this tumultuous time in her own life and in the life of America. 

Greer: Sounds wonderful. I loved your piece on Hick at The Millions. And I always love to hear what other authors are reading. What’s the last book that blew you away?

Kelly: Lately I have been reading a lot of historical fiction written for a middle grade audience (age 9 to 12) because I think some of these authors are doing really imaginative, exciting things with their work and I want to learn from them. I was blown away by The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley. I cried many times reading this novel, and that is pretty rare for me. There was something about this deeply sympathetic protagonist, Ada, who is sent away from London during World War II. Ada has been abused and is a deeply wounded girl. She does not know how to love or even trust other people. But through her relationship with Susan, the woman who takes in Ada and her brother, Ada slowly begins to heal. I cannot wait to read this book with my daughter when she is old enough. It is truly marvelous. 

Greer: What do you find most challenging or most exciting about researching historical women?

Kelly: Research is all about discovery, and it's also an essential part of my creative process. The details I stumble upon inspire scenes and plot twists that I might never be able to imagine. Truth is stranger and more fascinating than fiction, it turns out--it feels like a treasure hunt. That's what makes it exciting but also challenging, because when do you stop? At what point does research become a way of procrastinating? So I try to walk that line carefully, gathering the raw material I need, but never letting the search for it and the desire for historical authenticity overshadow the work of storytelling. If you aren't telling a good story, no amount of research will save the novel!

Greer: Truth. No one ever said, "I loved reading that novel so much! All the facts were so accurate."

Kelly: Now I want to know the last book that blew you away!

Greer: Gladly! I just finished RED CLOCKS by Leni Zumas. It's beautifully written, with gorgeously unspooling sentences, but it doesn't fall into the trap of some literary fiction, of putting the words ahead of the plot. It combines those beautiful sentences with a powerful, spellbinding urgency. There are four main characters, four perspectives -- The Mender, The Wife, The Daughter and The Biographer -- set in a present-day America where abortion has been outlawed, and the way these four stories intertwine is just so... I have to repeat that same word, powerful. Favorite book of 2018 so far.

Read more at https://www.kellyoconnormcnees.com/ 

(And of course, return here for another #womenshistoryreads Q&Q&Q&A tomorrow!)

WomensHistoryReads interview: Hazel Gaynor

So many reasons to be excited about today's #WomensHistoryReads interview. Not only do we have an in-depth, eloquent Q&Q&Q&A with Hazel Gaynor, but a fabulous first: a cover sneak peek! Hazel has graciously agreed to share with us a preview of the new cover of her next novel, THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER'S DAUGHTER. And it is a beauty.

Read on for Hazel's real-life inspirations, life as a history nerd, and an introduction to the amazing story of Grace Darling.

Hazel Gaynor

Greer: Tell us about a woman (or group of women) from the past who has inspired your writing. 

Hazel: My second novel, A MEMORY OF VIOLETS, was inspired by an incredible group of young girls and women who were taken from a life of poverty among London's flower markets and placed in charitable homes at The Watercress and Flower Girls Mission under the supervision of Victorian philanthropist, John Groom. Many of the girls were orphaned, blind or physically disabled in some way, which made life on the streets almost impossible, and incredibly dangerous. With patience and care they were taught to make artificial paper and silk flowers, working in a little factory established in a local chapel. With John Groom’s guidance, and the help of the women who acted as mothers to the girls in the homes, the flower girls were able to lead a dignified, safe and relatively independent life.

I first read about Groom’s Flower Girls after starting to research the lives of Victorian flower sellers, my interest in these women having come from Eliza Doolittle, George Bernard Shaw’s fictional flower seller in Pygmalion. The trail of breadcrumbs led me to a fascinating history of the girls’ work and lives, held in the London Metropolitan Archives in the City of London. Discovering this forgotten piece of London's history formed the basis for my story of Florrie and Rosie -- orphaned sisters who become separated on London's unforgiving streets -- and the young woman who works in Groom's flower homes and sets out to discover what became of them.

The artificial flowers produced by the Flower Girls were mostly sold to the wealthy to decorate their homes, but their work was noticed by the Dowager Queen, Alexandra of Denmark (widow of King Edward VII). In 1912, Queen Alexandra commissioned the Flower Girls to make thousands of pink paper roses to be sold to the public as a fundraiser for London’s hospitals. This was the first occasion of an annual charitable fund raiser in London which became known as Alexandra Rose Day and is still recognised today. I feel very privileged to have told the flower girls’ remarkable story.

Greer: Do you consider yourself a historian?

Hazel: Great question! I think of myself more as a historical dramatist than a historian in the academic sense of the word. I’ve always been fascinated by history and studied British and European history to A’Level before heading off to study Business at University (my thinking being that a very practical degree would lead to me getting an actual job at the end of it)! As a historical novelist I truly believe it is my passion for the past that drives me to research and write my stories. The history nerd within is never happier than when I’m immersed in odd little research books or rummaging through a dusty old archive box in a quiet library reading room, discovering letters and personal effects that have been hidden away for over a century. It is this archaeology of very personal and social histories, and the thrill of bringing these forgotten voices roaring back to life, that gets me to my writing desk every day, even on the really tough days!

As anyone who writes historical fiction will know, we often get asked about the balance of fact versus fiction and are kept awake at night by nagging doubts about historical accuracy. Most historical novelists I know are not historians, but we approach our subject matter very seriously and with absolute historical rigour. Our research is painstaking, obsessing over the smallest little details because authenticity is so important to us. Plus, we love discovering those little gems of historical delight that add colour to our stories.

I personally love reading author’s notes to understand which parts of the story were fact and which came from their imagination. I love discovering a true story, a person from history I wasn’t aware of, or a real event I didn’t know anything about. This is a wonderful time to be writing about the past, especially about women from the past, and historical novels are really having a moment. Here’s to the historical novelists digging around in archive boxes and exploring interesting footnotes of historical texts so they can share all these fabulous stories. More! More!

Greer: Hear hear! What’s your next book about and when will we see it? 

Hazel: My forthcoming novel THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER'S DAUGHTER was inspired by the remarkable history of female lighthouse keepers and the true story of Grace Darling, an incredible young woman who became a reluctant heroine when she and her father rescued survivors of a shipwreck off the Farne Islands in 1838. The novel spans 100 years, moving between Grace's story at Longstone Lighthouse in England, to that of a troubled young Irish woman and the light keeper she goes to live with in Newport, Rhode Island in 1938, the year of the great hurricane.

I’ve been fascinated by Grace Darling’s story since learning about her at school but like so many women from history, she has fallen out of favour and out of the school text books which is such a shame as she really deserves to be talked about. I was especially intrigued by Grace’s transition from a very private young woman living a simple existence on a remote island lighthouse, to a very public figure, famed for her daring rescue and admired across the country, including by the young Queen Victoria. It was a transition she struggled with, and one that had a dramatic impact on her life.

I have family who live in Northumberland so it was amazing to make a trip out to Grace’s lighthouse home and a wonderful museum dedicated to her life as part of my research. I was also very excited to visit Newport, Rhode Island to research the part of the novel set there. My inspiration for this part of the narrative, again, came from an incredible woman, Ida Lewis, light keeper at Lime Rock light and who was known as America’s Grace Darling.

The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter is a novel about strong women, courage and the unique bonds of female relationships. I'm so excited to share this story with readers when the book is published in the USA/Canada on October 9th. You can read more about it and pre-order (in all formats) at this link.

Greer: And I'm so excited to get a peek at the cover! Thank you for sharing it with us! Readers, feast your eyes:

Hazel: You’ve written such fascinating historical novels with strong female protagonists, one a female illusionist and one a female private detective. What is the premise for your next novel, Greer? We need to know!

Greer: Thank you, and I'm delighted to share! My next novel, WOMAN NINETY-NINE, is about a young woman from a wealthy family who risks everything to rescue her troubled sister from a women's asylum... by following her inside. It takes place in Northern California in 1888, and it's partly inspired by one of reporter Nellie Bly's most famous stories, her 10 days undercover in a notorious insane asylum. Bly was quoted as saying, "The insane asylum on Blackwell’s Island is a human rat-trap. It is easy to get in, but once there it is impossible to get out." So when my narrator Charlotte mimics Bly's techniques, you know she finds more than she bargained for. She discovers that many of her fellow inmates were put away for reasons other than insanity -- and her quest for the truth unearths secrets that those in power would do anything to keep.

Hazel Gaynor is a New York Times bestselling, award-winning historical novelist, who lives in County Kildare, Ireland with her husband and two children. Her 2014 debut historical novel The Girl Who Came Home—A Novel of the Titanic hit the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists, and went on to win the 2015 Historical Novel of the Year award from the Romantic Novelists’ Association in London. Her second novel A Memory of Violets, was also a New York Times bestseller, and her third, The Girl from The Savoy was an Irish Times and Globe & Mail bestseller, and finalist for the 2016 Irish Book Awards. Her releases in 2017 – The Cottingley Secret  and Last Christmas in Paris (co-written with Heather Webb) both hit the Canadian Globe & Mail bestseller list. In autumn 2018, Hazel will release The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter, a novel inspired by the true events surrounding the life of Victorian lighthouse keeper, Grace Darling. All Hazel’s novels have been received to critical acclaim and have been translated into several foreign languages. She is represented by Michelle Brower at Aevitas Creative, New York.

Contact info:

Web: https://www.hazelgaynor.com/

Twitter: @HazelGaynor

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hazelgaynorbooks

Instagram: @HazelGaynor

Newsletter sign-up: https://www.hazelgaynor.com/newsletter/

my interview with Alma Katsu of THE HUNGER

A brief break from one kind of interview for another... Alma Katsu's THE HUNGER, historical fiction inspired by the Donner Party with a supernatural twist, is making a big splash. When Stephen King calls your book "Deeply, deeply disturbing... not recommended reading after dark," that's kind of a big deal. (I joked on Twitter it's like Picasso saying "Great cubism.")

I recently interviewed Alma for the Chicago Review of Books, covering everything from reviews (the book's getting great ones) to research (she did a lot) to the role gender played both in her version of the story and the Donner Party's real fate. Click and devour here.

WomensHistoryReads interview: Meghan Masterson

The #WomensHistoryReads interview project continues! And today's guest is THE WARDROBE MISTRESS author Meghan Masterson, who interviewed me for her blog earlier this month. Now it's her turn to be interviewed with a guest spot here today.

Meghan Masterson

Greer:   Tell us about a woman from the past who has inspired your writing.

Meghan: Marie Antoinette inspired me to write THE WARDROBE MISTRESS. There’s something alluring about the contrast of her luxurious life, and the doomed tragedy of her death, but as I got deeper into my research, I saw that she was probably reviled more than she deserved. Most of the social and economic problems leading up to the French Revolution had been building for years, long before her time on the throne, and Marie Antoinette, as a foreign queen (she was born in Austria, and came to France when she married the dauphin) made a convenient scapegoat. She’s blamed for things like naively remarking ‘let them eat cake’ in response to the shortage of bread (she never said this), when she regularly donated to the poor and took measures like downgrading the palace grain ration so there would be more for the rest of the people. 

I knew I wanted to write about her, and my protagonist became one of Marie Antoinette’s wardrobe women, poised to see the truth about the queen, but also the struggle going on in Paris. Having her work in the wardrobe also let me explore the surprisingly intricate world of French Revolutionary fashion, too. 

Greer: What’s the last book that blew you away? 

Meghan: THE NIGHT SISTER by Jennifer McMahon. I loved the blend of suspense, supernatural, and shifting timelines in the multiple points of view. I immediately added the rest of her books to my reading list and have been happily working my way through.  

Greer: Play matchmaker: what unsung woman from history would you most like to read a book about, and who should write it? 

Meghan: Ooh, this is a fun one. I would love to read a book about Wang Zhenyi, a woman scientist and astronomer from 18th Century China. Not only did she research and write about scientific topics like the eclipses and equinoxes, she also wrote poetry – and of course challenged the limitations of women’s roles at the times. Since Weina Dai Randel so wonderfully portrayed Empress Wu as a strong, nuanced, and sympathetic character, I’d choose her to write this story.

Greer: Great match! (And fans of Weina: stay tuned for her interview later in the month.)

Meghan: Have you hidden any secrets or clues in your books that only a few people will find? 

Greer: Not exactly, but I do like to include things only a few people will get the meaning of. A lot of the towns and cities that Arden's magic show visits in THE MAGICIAN'S LIE are named because I know someone who lives there or I have some other connection to the city. And in my upcoming third book, WOMAN NINETY-NINE, several of the characters' names are taken from an Elvis Costello song that was part of my inspiration for writing a novel in that particular setting. They're definitely not clues to the mystery, but fun little Easter eggs, in a way.

Read more by and about Meghan at her website.