A blog for fiction readers, writers, and history lovers
The question comes up at every reading and book club: how and where did you research? And the answer is a historical fiction echo of Johnny Cash: I’ve been everywhere, man. My research for The River by Starlight and its based-on-real-life protagonists Annie and Adam Fielding sent me across eleven states and four provinces, through the doors of seventeen libraries [...]
How much research is enough? Writers of historical fiction know the dilemma well. We fall in love with our characters and want to know them as intimately as we can. What did their environment look like, smell like, feel like? What did they eat, wear, have in their homes? What were the tools of their trade, how did they conduct [...]
“Reading and writing about history and the human condition is both a wonder and a warning.” Researching The River by Starlight revealed a portrait of century-ago life that disturbed, surprised, and inspired me. From my interview with Deborah Kalb: Q: Did you need to do much research to write the novel, and what did you learn that especially surprised you? [...]
It was an odd stocking stuffer—a five-inch Wonder Woman, with Gumby-esque limbs malleable enough to achieve super-human, joint-defying positions. I tossed my husband a baffled look. No fan of the superhero, superpower stuff, I’ve always found my power in the ordinary, the everyday, the quiet people and deeds. “But you have been a Wonder Woman,” he said, referring to my [...]
Putting pencil to paper brings out the emotional authenticity of a historical novel. When Annie Rushton came into my life, I already knew how to be a writer. As a book author and magazine columnist, I’d written about autism, baseball, history, and politics. I even wrote about writing. I knew how to be a writer! I sat at my desk [...]
Of all the heartless things Annie’s mother has done in twenty-six years, this might be the corker. She did it in a manner most unusual for her, did it without raising her chapped hand or equally chapped voice. Did it with silent duplicity undiscovered until this morning by her youngest child, who should know better than to allow it to [...]
Adam Fielding lived his coming-of-age years in Traill County, North Dakota near the turn of the 20th century. It’s easy to imagine the role Island Park in Mayville might have played in his life. My first look at Island Park was this postcard, gentlemen in their Sunday best rowing their parasol-shaded ladies around the lagoon. The park reverberated year round [...]
Rod Stewart got it right. Some guys—and gals—have all the luck. Some guys and gals have ancestors who left them treasure troves of photographs, letters, books, diaries, heirloom possessions. They can look into the eyes of their own history, turn the same pages their ancestors turned, hold in their hands the same beloved objects. Then there are the elusive forebears [...]