Rebellion 1776 tells the story of Elsbeth Culpepper, a 13-year-old girl working in a Loyalist judge’s house when Patriot cannon fire marks the start of the Siege of Boston. When Elsbeth’s only living relative, her father (her mother and siblings died in an earlier smallpox epidemic), goes missing and the judge is banished from Massachusetts with other Loyalists, Elsbeth has to figure out how to survive on her own. To avoid the orphanage, Elsbeth finds work as a maid for a wealthy family, though things take a turn for the worse when smallpox finds its way into Boston and debate rages about the risks and benefits of inoculation. 

After the conversation with Dlouhy, Anderson spent much of the five intervening years intensely researching the lives of people living in Boston in 1776, a great deal of which made it into the novel. “When I was trying to figure out what furniture would be in the house that’s a central setting in the book, I went to the probates, meaning the inventories made of a dead person’s estate of wealthy Bostonians so that I could see the kind of furniture they [had],” Anderson told WD. “But I was also interested in trying to find out about the lives of ordinary people. I spent months learning about the Almshouse in Boston. How did the town take care of people when the breadwinner of the family was dead or very ill and the children had to be fed? What kind of choices did families have or didn’t have when it came to the care of their kids during this sort of crisis?”  

Anderson doesn’t just write picture books or deeply researched middle-grade historical fiction. She’s well-known for her contemporary YA novels, including National Book Award finalist Speak, ALA Best Book for Young Adults and New York Times bestseller Twisted, and Amazon’s Best Young Adult Book of 2019, the nine-time star-reviewed memoir in verse, Shout. 

Regardless of which sub-genre she’s writing (“I just write what’s consuming me,” Anderson says with a laugh), her stories depict children and teens trying to make the most of their lives often during extraordinary or challenging times. Because living during uncertain times is a recurring theme in her books, we pick up our conversation talking about writing about an epidemic while living during a pandemic. 

You’ve written about an epidemic before (Fever 1793), but in this case, you had, like the rest of us, the unfortunate experience of living through a pandemic. How did that impact your writing compared to writing that earlier book? 

Where I was living at that point, in early 2020, was just on the border of Philadelphia, and we were pretty close to a hospital. I will never lose the memory of the—because it’s a very densely populated area—ambulance sirens that were 24 hours a day. It was just constant. Desperately sick people being taken to the hospital that was very soon overwhelmed. That’s such a strong sense memory in me.  

But also, at the same time, those of us in children’s literature were trying to figure out what role can we play in our community to support American families or families around the world in this hard time? A number of families had reached out to me to tell me that, as a family, they were reading Fever 1793, and I wound up doing a read-aloud for a couple of chapters of the book and putting it somewhere online. I had some emails from parents who really appreciated having a book that, because it’s set in history, it’s touching on the same themes of fears and concerns and this disease coming out of nowhere.  

But my books end in hope, and it gave families a much-needed tool. There’s a bunch of other books I’m sure they were using too, not just mine, but the families were using literature as a way to help their kids process what they were going through, what we were going through as a country at that point. That really stuck with me as I started to narrow my research a little bit with the idea that I’m going to write a middle-grade novel about this and what kind of information is going to be, first of all, fun and interesting for my readers, but also give them a few things that they can take away from the story.  

What kind of research did you do for this book, and generally speaking, where does research fit into your writing process? Is it before you draft or as you hit upon a question? 

No, the research usually takes a couple of years before I even start writing the book, and that’s why people sometimes give me a hard time, because I don’t write books very quickly. But some people don’t take the research thing as seriously as I do. I just feel so strongly, especially when you’re talking about the founding of America, we have seen a lot of information be manipulated. It’s very important for those of us who work with kids to try to find an appropriate, a sensitive way—because we’re talking about children here—but also an accurate depiction of what was going on in those years of the American Revolution. So, for me, research is first and foremost what I have to do. 

My job as a fiction writer is to deeply ground myself in the facts of the situation. Using, for example, government documents from the Boston town meetings. They had to discuss not only the stuff going on with the war, but [also] the smallpox epidemic that raged across America. For all the years of that war, smallpox epidemics were popping up all over the country, which caused real problems for the military as well. So, town records, newspapers, journals, letters, probates. … 

There was just so much. Caitlyn had to push hard to get me to actually turn the book in because I could have worked on it for another 20 years. 

You do quite a bit of research for your contemporary novels too. Does the research or your process differ based on whether you’re writing historical fiction or contemporary fiction? 

So far, it’s been dramatically different, which is why I think I’ve enjoyed going back and forth between the two subgenres, because I get bored kind of easily. When I’m writing for today’s teenagers, I don’t have to worry about the details of the time and place. I can make certain assumptions about what my readers already know about the world, and my readers for my YAs are older too, so that is also different.  

My historical fiction starts in setting, in terms of time period and place, and I have to understand what really happened. Then I have to figure out a plot that will somehow mesh well with that. I begin slowly as I—it feels like if you can imagine a statue rising from the middle of the ocean—as I’m doing this research and trying to hold all these threads in my head about what happened, what I think I want to write about a character begins to emerge. Then I have to figure out the external life of that character in terms of how that person interacts with the plot, as well as all the internal life. What is it about this character that makes them the right person to tell the story about?  

My YA fiction always starts with character. Always starts with character. It starts because there’s something I’ve found in our culture or the world where teenagers are being really disrespected, or something about teen life that is poo-pooed by the adults in the world. That really makes me angry, and I write really well from anger. So, I start thinking about the kind of character that whatever, fill in the blank, for any one of my YAs. Then I have to structure a plot. 

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One of the things I loved about Elsbeth was her inner monologue and reading what she wanted to say compared to what she actually said and how she reigned it in. How did you develop her as a character and her voice? 

One of the challenges of writing a different time period for children of today is language and voice. I try really hard not to put in anachronistic language—language from the wrong time period. Shout out there to the online dictionaries that help me make those choices! But I also have to remember that in some cases, these books are read by 9- and 10-year-olds. I can’t get bogged down in the way we think people might have spoken because of the language we read in letters that were written by one rich person to another rich person. So, I do take some liberties with voice and not necessarily with—I don’t have my teenage character chewing bubble gum and saying words that we use today. 

But she does have a pretty fresh attitude, you know? She’s like every 13-year-old I’ve ever met in my whole life. I don’t think 13-year-olds change that much from century to century. I wanted to get inside of her because I kept thinking, we’ve been through this pandemic, we’ve been through some real political divides, and here I was writing about a character who was living not only during the smallpox epidemic, but also during a time of real political divides trying to figure out, how am I going to eat today? One of the incredible strengths I see in children and teenagers of all generations is that the world is affecting them, but they’re also trying to grow up in this world. So, they still are being fresh and frustrated and sometimes naïvely hopeful.  

How do you know when a story idea has legs, when it’s going to turn into something that you can continue with?  

That’s a great question because, thinking back, I started writing in the early ’90s and it probably took 15 years, almost 20 years maybe, for me to understand that some things are just a good idea, and some things could become a book. There was a time when I was starting a lot of books, and then I just dropped them, because I had that initial flame, but without fuel, it doesn’t go anywhere. And again, everyone’s process is different—but maybe that’s why I think about a book for a long time before I start writing it. When we’re talking about the world of historical fiction, I’m doing a lot of that early research, and I’m thinking particularly about Rebellion 1776, I couldn’t wait to get out of bed in the morning to learn more about this time and place: Boston, ’75 through ’77. I couldn’t wait. I skipped so many lunches because I was so deeply into wanting to learn about this experience.  

Then, when I started writing, I missed a lot of lunches the last five years, because I was just dialed into this character. There’s this intensity of the connection with characters and the story that for me, lets me know this is the book I’m supposed to be working on. If it feels like I’m painting by numbers, then I should probably look for a new project. 

I saw on your website that you have done a lot of school visits. Do you still do them? 

No, mostly because of book banning. 

That was going to be my next question: How have the school visits changed in the face of book bans and censorship? 

What worries me the most is, just before the pandemic hit, in children’s literature, we had finally begun to open the doors to all kinds of stories. We were finally—the people who held power were recognizing that there’s a lot of different stories about and for children, especially in America where we have people coming from so many different backgrounds and different cultures. It’s a ginormous country, so a story for a kid in one part of the country is different for another. Lots of different faiths, lots of different understandings of gender identity and sexuality, and the way families are structured. Kids’ publishing was just beginning to embrace all that with amazing results. Authors like Angie Thomas and Nic Stone and Jason Reynolds, and just incredible, talented people. 

Then we had the one-two punch of lockdown and book banning. What I worry, really deeply worry about, is that the people who are the generation younger than me, a lot of them are these new authors that we’ve recently seen published in children’s publishing, they don’t have the ability to do school visits the way that my generation did. It’s very hard to make a living as an author and in children’s publishing. Anybody who made a living as an author—who didn’t write a fantasy novel and made a fortune—usually a part of their income stream was visiting schools, which is a win-win for everybody. The staff in the building and the students get to listen to an author talk about writing and learn about writing and keep kids really jazzed about books. And it also provided a more or less reliable income for the author. There were years when my kids were young, I could budget the family budget on the school visit income, and then if royalties came in, well that was just bonus.  

So, what happens to our pool of writers and illustrators and children’s literature, if they don’t have that option of school visits supplementing their book income? What happens is they have to go back to their day job,s and that means we’re not going to get the books. Maybe they’ll write a book every five years, every 10 years, but they’re not going to be able to do a book every year or every other year the way they could have if they’d been able to do school visits.  

And then you have the book bans themselves that are removing so many books. I’m just one of thousands of books that have been removed from great swaths of the country. … 

There was a point when I was traveling 150–170 days a year—now that includes travel time to get to back and forth—and last year I had two school visits. 

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When you were doing the school visits, I can only imagine the impact of talking to those young readers, what that did for you as a person, but also for your writing. What was that like? 

I loved doing school visits. I mean, the school visits I would do for—for a long time I was writing picture books too—elementary and middle schools are very different than what I was doing at the high school level. When I would go to a high school, I would always have the administrators sign off on what books I could talk about because those are issues that in some school districts people were not comfortable with. But with the younger kids, middle school and younger, oh my gosh, just that amazing energy and joy and those kids!  

I was there to talk about the writing process obviously, and research. Usually, if I was talking about my historicals, I’d be talking to kids between fourth and eighth grades. And if you think about it, somebody writing historical fiction for kids, basically I get to be a fifth grader every single day. A fifth grader with an assignment: Study this thing and then write about it. And the kind of frustrations that kids have in terms of that sort of assignment from school, it’s exactly what writers deal with. You procrastinate. You don’t want to revise. You just want everybody to tell you it’s awesome. And you still have to do the hard work. Then when you finish it and you wake up the next morning, you have to do it again. I think we have a lot of things in common.  

It was really moving sometimes to hear from my readers of historical fiction, how my books affected them. I had one young girl, I was at a school visit in New Jersey, I think around 2003. She was a sixth grader, and she had read Fever 1793. She told me the reason she liked that book is that the main character goes through really hard things, and she liked the emotions. Her father had been in the Twin Towers on 9/11. Thankfully he survived, but it was a very traumatic experience for their family that was still echoing two years later. She said that was the first character whose inner life was something that that girl identified with because she had also been through hard times.  

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What additional advice do you have for readers of WD? 

Very early on, I can remember—and this has all changed so much, so it’ll sound like I’m talking about a different planet—but back then you would send, for children’s literature, you would either send the entire picture book manuscript or opening chapters in a novel through the mail because we didn’t have email yet. Usually, they would come flying back with a standard rejection letter. But every once in a while, I would get a personalized rejection letter—got those for several books—and I felt like somebody had turned up with a cheerleading squad to cheer me on. Even though it was a rejection, it was a quality rejection. I kept them taped on my wall. One of the hardest lessons that took me a long time to learn was to not take those kinds of rejections personally, and to recognize that sometimes it was that I had sent the wrong story to the wrong editor. Because you have to learn about the business as well as learning about the craft. But also learning that because somebody rejected my work, sometimes it meant that it really sucked. Sometimes it meant that it wasn’t ready.  

The most important lesson of all was, I had no control over if my work got accepted. I had complete control over the quality of work that I sent in. It’s sometimes very tempting to spend all your time studying the editors or worrying about your platform or those sort of things—it’s a game I think we play with ourselves as authors when writing feels hard.  

Here’s what I want all writers to do: I want all writers to find a photograph of themselves when they were 4 or 5 years old, and I want them to put that photograph close to where they write, either a physical space or a space on their desktop. Every time they start to hear the negative self-talk in their head, I suck, I’m wasting my time, all those terrible things we tell ourselves when we get down, I want you to look at that little kid. Would you say those words to a child that age? No. No human with a heart would say that.  

To be your best writer self means being gentle with yourself sometimes, especially when you’re creating something. Creation is best done with an open heart and a gentle spirit. Sometimes you’re going to write crap, but that’s OK because then you can fix it and make it better. That’s what you would tell a 5-year-old: “I’m so proud of you for finishing that draft. That was a really hard thing. Have a cookie and then tomorrow we can start revising it and make it better.” 

I started to talk about people who spend a lot of time on their platforms. I think that kind of work, for many, is a sign that there’s something they’re not feeling cool about in their manuscript. You should want to be with your manuscript all the time. That’s where your energy needs to be, is the quality of your work. Be gentle with yourself.

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In this interview, Nell discusses the pendulum of mystery in her new novel, The Original, her hope for readers, and more.

Name: Nell Stevens
Literary agent (if one): Emma Parry at Janklow & Nesbit U.S., Rebecca Carter at Rebecca Carter Literary U.K.
Book title: The Original
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Release date: July 1, 2025
Genre/category: Historical fiction
Previous titles: Briefly; A Delicious Life; The Victorian and the Romantic; Bleaker House
Elevator pitch: Grace has lived a life shaped by secrecy ever since she was sent to her uncle’s house as a child. But when a man arrives claiming to be her long-lost cousin Charles, her search for the truth threatens to expose the secrets she’s spent her life trying to keep hidden.

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What prompted you to write this book?

For a long time I’ve been fascinated by fake art—and particularly by the experiences of people who’ve been duped by it. At the same time, I was carrying around an idea for a story about someone confronted by a man claiming to be a long-lost relative and having to decipher the truth. It was only when I realized these two ideas belonged in the same book that I came to write The Original.

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

I first began thinking about this story 12 years ago, and in fact wrote a different (unpublished!) novel trying to get my head around it. So, in that sense, this book has been a very long time in the making. But the bulk of the novel in its present form was written in the autumn of 2023, which doesn’t feel long ago at all. It was a very intense writing process; my youngest child was a baby, and I wrote in the early mornings in the dark house before she woke up. It made the whole process—the writing, but also the story itself—feel dreamlike, and I think gave the story space to announce itself to me, rather than the other way around, me telling the story what I wanted it to be.

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

Working with editors on this story was invaluable because it is at heart a mystery—is cousin Charles really who he says he is?—and I needed someone else to highlight those moments where it becomes too obvious what the answer is. My editor and I used the metaphor of a pendulum when we were working on the book; the pendulum swings between “yes” and “no” but it can’t rest on one side or the other, it has to immediately swing back again to keep the reader guessing. It was fascinating and quite humbling to see moments in my writing that my editors thought showed my hand.

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

Perhaps because of the way I wrote it, in those dark early hours of the morning when my family was still asleep and it almost felt like I was too, everything about this book has felt surprising. It was more proactively plotted than anything I’ve written before because it’s quite a complex, delicate story, but even so, I never knew what was going to happen on the page.

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

I hope this book is an immersive read that takes its readers to a different place entirely, where they might confront some parts of the world we live in now. I’d like to play a part in helping someone think through their own feelings the questions the book asks—about money, about authenticity, about making art and feeling strange.

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

I’m borrowing this from my very dear mentor and writing teacher Leslie Epstein, who recently died: The only thing that really interests us about other people is what they say and what they do. When I feel a story slipping away from me, I return to the reassuringly concrete—what my characters say, what my characters do—and all the rest, the emotional and thematic and abstract stuff that swirls around the action, tends to fall into place.

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(The Balancing Act of Fart Jokes and Difficult Topics.)

It’s also very personal with much of my real life and relationships poured into it—including my childhood lakeside campground, shared grief between my dad and myself, my love for loons and raptors, bird conservation, and the Appalachian Trail.

In the 1970s after my parents and I moved back to the United States from England, my dad’s dream was to own and operate a campground—and so we did. We bought Bethel Woods Campground in Holderness, New Hampshire, by Squam Lake (where they filmed the movie On Golden Pond). As an only-child, it was a magical place to live where I always had other kids to play with. Loon Cove Summer is a love letter to my childhood there.

Overlooking Squam Lake, Holderness, NH

Writing this story prompted me to go back in time to this campground in 2015 for a book research trip. When I drove up, I was zapped back to the 1970s. Suddenly, I was nine years old again. I swam in the pool, fished with my dad, romped through the woods, collected dead butterflies and shotgun shells, whizzed about on strap-on roller skates, played pinball machines, and spun 45 records on the jukebox. The only items remaining are those old 45s packed up in a tub. This flood of memories prompted me to journal about them before they faded.

It’s also where I had many firsts. My first dog. My first time snowmobiling. My first time fishing. My dad also got me a tackle box and took me out on the lake where he nearly rammed his Boston Whaler into a rock just so I could reel in that first fish.

With my first fish, Squam Lake, Holderness, NH, 1977

This visit 37 years later filled me with a jumble of emotions all tied up with a childhood bow. I mourned my innocent youth and my mother, who had since passed away—and relived the grief over her passing. It’s bittersweet that I can’t share this book with my dad as he passed in 2023, but I smile knowing he would have enjoyed reading it and revisiting our campground in his mind. I wish he were still here to share more stories about our time there. What a gift this would be.

Squam Lake, Holderness, NH, 2015

What did this trip back in time deliver for me as a storyteller?

• The vivid feelings of childhood—good and bad—to enrich my writing.
• A chance to revisit my creative foundations where I wrote my first stories.
• The inspiration of a majestic setting to fill my soul.
• The connection from childhood to adulthood, and how the paths we travel drive who we become.
• As a parent now, an appreciation for my own parents and their challenges of running a business and raising a child.
• That I write to understand and feel so not alone.
• Through writing I can find meaning in my past and face the future with fortitude—and peace.
• Remembered what I am in my heart: a storyteller.

Have you ever journeyed to your past to relive a time in your youth? How did it affect you? What did you take away from it?

Check out Donna Galanti’s Loon Cove Summer here:

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Kelli is passionate about stories that show how history is still relevant to our lives today. Her lifelong love of Scotland has her learning the Scottish Gaelic language and the Scottish fiddle (both badly, but she’s working on it). She has walked three of Scotland’s long-distance trails (so far) and is currently planning the next. Kelli lives in Washington State with her husband and two sons. 

In this interview, Kelli shares the “what if” question that launched her novel while hiking through Scotland, the thing she wished she’d known since writing her first novel, and more. 

Name: Kelli Estes 
Literary agent: Beth Miller, Writers House 
Book title: Smoke on the Wind 
Publisher: Lake Union 
Release date: June 24, 2025 
Genre/category: Historical Fiction, Dual Timeline 
Previous titles: The Girl Who Wrote in Silk, Today We Go Home 
Elevator pitch for the book: In the Scottish Highlands, two women walk the same path in separate times, each with her son, each carrying the extra weight of past trauma and fear of her future. One is running from a murder accusation; one is running from secrets. Neither expects to find they are connected in a way that defies logic but makes all the difference.  

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What prompted you to write this book? 

My life-long love of Scotland spurred me to dive into learning more about the country’s history and culture and to visit as often as possible. On one of those visits, I walked the 96-mile West Highland Way trail with my son. I arrived armed with knowledge of some of the history that had occurred in the areas through which the trail passes, and I felt like I was walking with the outlaw Rob Roy MacGregor, Queen Victoria, and poets William and Dorothy Wordsworth, to name a few.  

This led to the “what if” question that launched this book: What might happen if two people, separated by time but connected in emotions, occupy the same space? This grew into two mothers, both agonizing over her future and that of her only child, walking the same path, one in 1801 after being brutally evicted from her home in one of the Highland Clearances and accused of murder, and the other in present-day with secrets and afraid of her lonely future.  

I wanted to explore themes of motherhood, finding oneself in mid-life, the impacts of history on our present, and the possibility that time is not as linear as we tend to believe. 

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process? 

Stories tend to come to me slowly, plus I allow myself lots of time to fully research the time period and historical details of the events I’m writing about. After months of research, plus that hike in Scotland, I wrote a detailed outline of my story. From there, the writing went pretty quickly. I find a book really comes to life, though, in the revision stage which took another couple of years, and then finding a publisher and going through that process added on even more time.  

In total, Smoke on the Wind took about six years from initial idea to publication. I know that number would alarm many writers but, for me, allowing a story to take the amount of time it needs helps me to create a book with deeper nuances and themes. 

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?  

This is my third published novel and I think I’ve finally learned something I wish I’d known from the beginning—that the author is the expert of her story and, as that author, it can only benefit the book if I ask for what I want (such as including a map and glossary in the book, or hiring a native Gaelic speaker to write a poem for the story that I intertwine into the narrative).  

I’ve also learned what I need to do to help a book launch into the world. This book is with a different publisher than my first two books and seeing how publishing houses operate differently has empowered me to take more ownership of the marketing process. I’ve hired a publicist this time around, completely revamped my website, and I am reaching out to affiliate groups and readers more than I ever have in the past to get the word out. 

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book? 

What surprised me the most—that I tend to be surprised by with every book—is how the characters become so real to me, and I have to trust that they’ll tell me their story in a way that others will want to read.  

For most of the time when I was writing this book, I could not find the words to describe what it was about to my friends, and I’d get funny looks from them when I tried. But, I stuck with it and I trusted the process and now those same people, who have since read the book, understand and love it.  

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?  

More than anything, I hope readers come to understand some of the horrors that drive people from their beloved homelands and force them to immigrate to another country. I hope readers see themselves in a character. I hope they fall in love with my characters as much as I have, and I really hope readers fall in love with Scotland and choose to visit this country that holds my heart.  

Who knows, maybe my book will even inspire someone to learn the Scottish Gaelic language or hike the West Highland Way. 

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be? 

Trust your own process. You may not write as fast as other writers say you should write. You may not write the same kind of plots that others tell you are selling. You may not get anyone to understand the vision you have for your story until it’s completed.  

Craft a story that YOU love, let it take the amount of time it needs to take, and trust that it will find the readers looking for that kind of story. Oh, and don’t underestimate the amount of time revisions will take. Revisions are where the magic happens! 

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In this interview, Jeffrey discusses completing what he considers his life’s work in his new historical crime novel, The Circus of Satan, his advice for writers, and more.

Name: Jeffrey Konvitz
Book title: The Circus of Satan
Publisher: 89^Th Stret Press
Release date: June 17, 2025
Genre/category: Crime/Historical Fiction
Previous titles: The Sentinel; The Guardian; Monster: A Tale Of Loch Ness
Elevator pitch: The Circus of Satan is the story of the Irish Mob (1900-1913), which controlled all politics and crime in our major cities, and then with its destruction, because of the actions of one man, led to the rise of Italian and Jewish organized crime throughout the nation.

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What prompted you to write this book?

I had already written a monster bestseller in The Sentinel (1975) and had closed a deal for the sequel, The Guardian. While I was outlining The Guardian, I read a nonfiction book called Against the Evidence about a notorious murder and criminal trial in 1912, whose results led to the collapse of Irish political control of police departments, principally in New York, but nationwide, too, and it was through corrupt police that all crime, gambling and drug distribution were affected.

I was fascinated. The issue was whether an Irish senior cop, Lt. Charles Becker, was set up to take the fall for groups of notorious Jewish gamblers and criminals, or did Becker actually order the hit on a rogue Jewish gambler named, Herman Rosenthal, who was breaking the rules of the System and had started to squeal to the press. While writing The Guardian, I also started to write a fictional version of the Becker/Rosenthal murder case and murder trial, but when I was done, it didn’t work, and I put 250 pages in my closet, where it sat for 16 years.

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

Circus has taken 49 years since I started, but 30 years since I began to work on Circus again after a 16-year hiatus.

And, yes, my ideas completely changed when my wife, Jill, found the draft book in 1996 in our closet, read it, and noted that she thought the underlying story was terrific. So, I read the novel again and still felt it didn’t work—and then I had an epiphany. I realized that the only way to make the novel work was to incorporate real prominent characters from the period and real events and run my fictional plot through them and the events, including the actual the Becker/ Rosenthal trial and beyond (i.e. historical fiction, something I had never attempted before). And that started my research, wherein I read over 100 nonfiction books about the period and biographies of all the nonfictional characters with whole new plotting created around real events. The Circus of Satan is now 531 pages of history and fiction and, strangely, I found that it covers the period which started with the movie, Gangs of New York (mid-1850’s) and the beginning of the mini-series Boardwalk Empire (1920). Circus is the story of the middle period, the guts and connective tissue between the two, though, when I was writing the first several drafts of the novel, neither Gangs (2002) nor Boardwalk (2010) existed. In fact, I did not recognize the significant connection until the near-final draft of the historical novel in 2024.

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

Certainly. My first three books were published by the big boys, Simon and Schuster, Bantam and Ballantine, the mass-market arm of Random House, and these publishers did all the work. Unhappy with my lack of control over the latter two novels, I decided to self-publish Circus, which I consider my life’s work.

Along with a generous partner, Avram Freedberg, we started our own publishing company, and we developed the novel’s well-edited, final version and the hardcover/trade paper art through Gatekeeper Press, whose work has been exemplary, Gatekeeper will also be the distributor with Ingram Spark producing the print-on-demand hardcover and trade paper versions. Simply, apart from writing and attending to my law practice, I had to learn a new business with all of its intricacies, including online publishing, discount rates between POD and a brick-and-mortar presence, and I’ve so much fun doing it. Frankly, it’s been a blast, and I’ve been lucky to have received some knockout reviews.

We are starting on June 17, 2025, with the hardcover and e-book, available on POD order from Amazon and Barnes and Noble and all other online booksellers, and we will slot in the trade paper and audio versions later.

As an aside, The Sentinel and The Guardian are horror novels about Satan, and though there is a Satanic element in Circus, the novel’s title refers to the section of West Side New York which the protestant clergy referred to as “Satan’s Circus” due to the depravity, immorality, and crime that clogged its streets.

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

Yes. I was surprised how difficult it was to weave a fictional plot through 10 years of real history and make sure the book remained filled with surprise twists, turns, and deceit. In fact, as the plot evolved, I had to go back to the beginning many times to place clues into the narrative that would permit the twists and turns to be affected later.

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

First, the knowledge about a period in our history that has been long forgotten, including the early years of many real characters, who impacted our nation for good or bad, like Harry Truman who worked for the gangster king in Kansas City, and Max and Moses Annenberg, mayhem and criminal enterprise gurus. Second, how incredibly violent the streets were at that time. Third, how many of the Jewish gangsters were the children of rabbis and cantors, while Irish politicians at Tammany Hall pulled the strings. And, finally, how political dynamics then, mirror political dynamics now.

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

If you believe in your work, do not let go even if it takes you almost a full lifetime to see the seeds therefrom grow and bloom. Believe in yourself. Believe in your creativity. Believe in your purpose. And never give up. Yes, I had a giant bestseller right off the bat, but The Circus of Satan has had a life of its own, and the historical novel owes little to any success I might have had in the past.

Finally, if you do the best you can do, be proud of your work no matter the result.

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(On History, Historical Fiction, and Historical Fantasy.)

It’s human nature, I think, to find a moment or a person in history and latch onto them. We are inspired by their bravery or awed by their struggles. After all, history is our story, so how could we not empathize? Still, it’s a valid question when we discuss how historians actually go about researching and presenting their findings to the public. We can certainly sympathize with historical figures, but can we really empathize, or is our reality so markedly different from theirs as to make them almost alien to us? Are there times of such profound change in the world order that those who come after cannot look back and truly understand those who came before? Should historians even try, when it undoubtedly introduces a greater degree of bias to their work?

The empathy question is one that I thought of almost constantly throughout the process of writing my debut novel Crueler Mercies. Though it’s a second-world fantasy, my book nonetheless borrows substantially from the lives of my favorite historical figures. I approached my initial idea from a particular angle, in which I asked myself: If I can’t relate to people of the past, could I use the medium of fiction to try putting myself into a similar headspace? Could I gain a better appreciation for their struggles by forcing my character into analogous situations and having to write my way out?

There are two figures in particular who formed the basis of my main character Vita’s childhood, which gave me the insight into who I wanted her to be.

The first is Elizabeth Tudor, who was eventually crowned Elizabeth I. We talk a lot about her years as England’s Gloriana, what with the Spanish Armada, Shakespeare, and the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, but her childhood was just as interesting. Elizabeth was only a toddler when her mother—the infamous Anne Boleyn—fell from her father Henry VIII’s favor and was subsequently executed. I was fascinated by the impact this would have on a child. Elizabeth was very young, but she was nonetheless incredibly intelligent and certainly noticed when she stopped being princess and started being Lady Elizabeth. The stain of her mother’s supposed crimes and the question of legitimacy followed Elizabeth throughout her adolescence and into early adulthood. When she became queen, she showed fierce loyalty toward those who had remained devoted to her and her Boleyn side during those tumultuous years.

Click to continue.

The second figure of importance in shaping my character’s origins is Tsar Ivan VI, who was only a few months old when his great aunt, the Empress Anna of Russia, named him as her heir. This was an entirely political move, done because Anna wanted her lover to become regent after her death (which, notably, did not work for longer than a few weeks before the lover was sent off to Siberia). Ivan himself lasted only a year in “power” before being overthrown by the daughter of Peter the Great. Baby Ivan was then locked away and grew up in an isolated prison. He saw no one except his guards and was barely taught to read. This, unsurprisingly, had a tremendous impact on his cognitive development.

There was an understanding between the new empress and the guards that, should anyone ever try to free Ivan, he was to be killed immediately. Even years later, when Catherine the Great became empress, this order was maintained. She knew that anyone seeking power could use Ivan to stage an uprising against her. When Ivan was 23 years old, someone did try to break him out: an opportunist named Vasily Mirovich, who wanted to reinstate the former tsar as a pawn for his own ends. Ivan was completely unaware of these ambitions and had no contact with the outside world, but it didn’t matter. The empress’s orders were followed, and Ivan was killed.

The lives of these two young people—who met remarkably different fates in the end—have fascinated me for a long time. The question of my ability to empathize with them is still up in the air, but it became an almost-obsession to explore facets of their realities using the conduit of a fictional character. Could I understand Elizabeth’s complicated family dynamic in which her father executed her mother? Could I reconcile with the immense trauma that Ivan suffered in being locked away for so much of his childhood?

Vita is not a direct one-for-one representation of either of these historical figures, but her experiences emulate both. I dove into her headspace and wrote what I believed to be the most authentic representation of those traumas as possible.

My last major source of inspiration for Vita’s character came partly from a historical figure and partly from a Biblical one. In the 1600s, an artist named Artemisia Gentileschi rose to prominence for her stunning Baroque paintings. While still a young woman training under her father, she was raped by another artist and eventually brought him to trial. Though she won her case, Gentileschi first had to suffer through the use of thumbscrews during her testimony to prove she wasn’t lying. Themes of violence against women (and also women committing violence) became central to her artistic practice, which led to the painting of what I consider to be her masterpiece: Judith Slaying Holofernes. This aptly-named painting depicts the story in which Judith beheads the enemy Assyrian general Holofernes with the help of her maidservant.

Gentileschi’s choice to paint this scene has often been seen by audiences and many academics as a response to her own trauma. Can I empathize with Gentileschi? Or even the quasi-historical Judith? It became another challenge to me. What did I need to put my character through to get her to a similar point in her own story? What horrors would she have to experience, and moreover, what strength of will must she gain, for her to take such drastic actions? For such an act to be a true scene of liberation rather than blind carnage?

So much of the fantasy that we read and write is derived from history. Can we ever truly empathize with those figures who inspire us? In the end, I still don’t know the answer to that original question. What I do know, though, is that trying to understand the horrors and triumphs and small, quiet moments experienced by the people who came before can help writers create characters worthy of a reader’s empathy.

Check out Maren Chase’s Crueler Mercies here:

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In this interview, Alison discusses discovering the real man behind her new novel of historical fiction, The Cardinal, her hope for readers, and more.

Name: Alison Weir
Literary agent: The Soho Agency, London
Book title: The Cardinal: A Novel of Love and Power
Publisher: Ballantine
Release date: May 27, 2025
Genre/category: Historical fiction
Previous titles: All listed at the author’s website
Elevator pitch: An extraordinary rise to power. A tragic fall from grace. It begins with young Tom Wolsey, the bright and brilliant son of a Suffolk tradesman, sent to study at Oxford at just 11 years old. It ends with a disgraced cardinal, cast from the King’s side and estranged from the woman he loves.

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What prompted you to write this book?

The historian Sarah Gristwood suggested it during a launch party dinner, and I saw my agent’s face light up. The subject appealed to me because in historical fiction, the focus is usually on women, and indeed I have spent my career pursuing my interest in retrieving women’s histories. But I felt that Wolsey had had a pretty bad press, so I wanted to find out what he was really like as a man; and I also wanted to discover more about the kind of private life he had as a cardinal.

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

Two years. I had to write a pitch for the publishers and did not start work for seven months due to other commitments and, tragically, my husband’s death. It took me seven months to write the book, and it was very therapeutic. Then, of course, the production schedule is a long one.  

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

Just that it seems to get longer and longer! After writing 37 books, I usually know what to expect!

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

Not really. People have asked me if it was a challenge to write from a man’s point of view, when my usual subjects are women, but I’d written about Henry VIII—a huge challenge—the year before, so I was fairly relaxed about it. The key is to do so much research that you get to know your hero.

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

I hope they will get a better understanding of Wolsey. The focus has all been on Cromwell, the new broom, who is see as a “sexy” subject, while Wolsey, who represents the old order that Cromwell helped to overthrow, lacks that charisma. But I think there is much to like about him, a dynamism to respect, and much to make us feel for him, especially in regard to two great tragedies that overwhelmed him.

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

Never give up!

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(5 Tips for Writing a Historical Romance.)

History and fiction are distinct enterprises, and humanity needs them both. Historians document the past using the available evidence which is often inconclusive and incomplete. We expect them to organize facts and evaluate them. They’re not supposed to make stuff up.

Historical novelists tell stories, with all the pacing, clarity, tension, and characterization that implies. Our method is to imagine, speculate, and dramatize. Job one is to entertain.

As a writer of historical fiction, I believe strongly in artistic license. Novelists should feel free to fill in the blanks, connect the dots, augment the facts, and weave disjointed events into a compelling narrative. And yet as a reader, I’ve ditched novels where the “history” seemed far-fetched or distorted. Stretch the facts too far, and you’ll lose me.

So where’s the line?

No one I know of has proposed any rules on how far novelists can veer from the historical record. Authors should decide that for themselves. For me, the better question is what operating principles can help us avoid alienating readers. We want people who pick up our books to focus on our content and themes, not to ask why we couldn’t be bothered to do our homework.  

Here are some thoughts based on my own experience:

1. Respect your audience. Historical novels attract readers who love history and are frequently deeply knowledgeable. If you’re writing about Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, Tudor England, World War I, World War II, or other popular periods, chances are you’ll have readers who have completed dozens of books on your era. Many enjoy both fiction and nonfiction, and they tend to be a book-buying group. But they expect some level of authenticity. Don’t delude yourself that the history doesn’t matter.
2. Avoid whoppers—fundamental mistakes about people, places, and time. No one knows whether Shakespeare slipped up when he set The Winter’s Tale on the coast of Bohemia (which is landlocked), or whether he did it deliberately to heighten the enchanted feel of the play. But most of us can’t expect the latitude given to the immortal bard. Big goofs could generate bad press among the very readers who might otherwise adore your book. Unless you’re writing an alternative history or a historical fantasy, avoid placing famous figures where they couldn’t possibly have been. Don’t re-order or re-locate major events. Be careful about making your characters behave in ways that are ludicrously modern or otherwise implausible. Stay tethered to the historical record.
3. Think twice about maligning real people. Yes, Will got away with making Richard III into a monster—and what a malicious, delicious monster he is! But caricatures of once-living human beings are a major complaint among historical fiction devotees. Most plots need a villain or two, but ask yourself whether you should besmirch the reputation of someone no longer alive to defend themselves. Maybe you could add nuance to your portrayal. Maybe it would be better to invent your unrepentant evildoer.
4. Put your emphasis on your characters’ thoughts. History documents what prominent people did, but it rarely explains what was on their minds. Even when they’ve left diaries, letters, testimony, public declarations, or statements from the scaffold, these may only hint at their interior world. As a novelist, you can add this magic. Invest in thinking through your characters’ motivations, assumptions, fears, and dreams. Convey these to your readers. Conjure up conversations and interior monologues. Fans of historical novels often say this is the precise reason they choose fiction. Textbook names become complex, rounded individuals.
5. Adopt new points of view. Recorded history stresses the words and actions of decision-makers. That leaves you free to imagine the hearts and minds of the less powerful—people who weren’t at the center of the action. In my own novel, Cardinal Wolsey is a secondary character, but his downfall is a pivotal incident. History documents his long, drawn-out loss of royal favor, but I depicted his ruin from the perspective of those serving in his household. It must have seemed both sudden and incomprehensible to them. Shifting the perspective gave me leeway.
6. Consult historians. Some historical novelists dig into original documents and become authorities themselves. But many of us rely on the accomplished historians who have devoted their careers to our chosen era. Their work is our starting point. Much to my surprise and delight, one notable expert was willing to read my novel before it went to print—extremely helpful. Of course, you are asking a busy person to do you a favor, so this should be a humble, late stage ask. Do your own thorough factcheck beforehand. 
7. Write an “Author’s Note.” History buffs occasionally tell me they read the “Author’s Note” before they read the book. I find these “afterwords” fascinating myself. Typically, they summarize the novel’s major departures from the historical record and differentiate between real and invented characters. Some authors list nonfiction sources for readers who want to learn more about the history. Carefully preparing your author’s note is a simple act of transparency.

We live in an era where spin often outshines reality, and facts can have trouble breaking through. I love fiction. I’m convinced it enhances our compassion by letting us inhabit worlds and situations we’ve never experienced ourselves. But novelists also have a responsibility. We may write fiction, but that doesn’t mean the truth is irrelevant. We have a duty to respect and honor it.

Check out Martha Jean Johnson’s The Queen’s Musician here:

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In this interview, Martha discusses how a reading recommendation planted the creative seed for her new book of historical fiction, The Martha’s Vineyard Beach and Book Club, her experience with writer’s block for the first time in her career, and more.

Name: Martha Hall Kelly
Literary agent: Alexandra Machinist CAA
Book title: The Martha’s Vineyard Beach and Book Club
Publisher: Ballantine Books/Random House
Release date: May 27, 2025
Genre/category: Historical fiction
Previous titles: Lilac Girls, Lost Roses, Sunflower Sisters, The Golden Doves
Elevator pitch: After her mother dies, under the guise of taking a painting class, Mari Starwood comes to Martha’s Vineyard from California after finding a famous painter’s name and address written in her mother’s notebook. The woman brings her to her lovely waterfront farm and tells the story of Mari’s mother’s connection to the Smith sisters who once lived there and reveals the long-lost connection Mari has to them.

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What prompted you to write this book?

My mother’s family settled on Martha’s Vineyard in 1891 and I was inspired by her stories of growing up there during WWII. She used to tell us about Nazi U-boats cruising the surrounding waters, rumors of German spies that came ashore, and how she and her friends dealt with the stress of wartime through reading. One day during a conversation about what I should write next, my son-in-law Chase and my daughter Mary suggested I write a WWII Martha’s Vineyard Book and that planted the seed.

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

The process took about four years. Once I dug into the history of it, I found there was a lot of incredible hidden history I could work with, and I pitched it to my editor at Ballantine as a book about Martha’s Vineyard during WWII and she loved the idea. The book changed significantly during the process since it started as a story about a fictitious family and I ended up writing about my own family, the Smiths.

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

Originally, I had pitched my next book to be a contemporary mystery set in my Connecticut hometown and signed a contract to write it but then once I wrote The Girl on Windy Hill, I felt like career-wise it was best to stick with historical fiction. So, I pitched my editor on the Martha’s Vineyard book, and they were excited for me to stay with my longtime genre. I’m lucky that Ballantine is so accepting of what I feel is best to write.I absolutely loved The Girl on Windy Hill, and it was so much fun writing it, so I may revisit that book someday. It taught me that I should stick to my genre for now at least.

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

There was a major surprise in the writing process for this book—mid-book, I got stalled for the first time in my writing life with terrible writer’s block. It was horrible and none of my usual tricks—a change of writing space, deleting chapters I wasn’t excited about, taking time off from writing—got me out of it. Until my daughter Mary suggested I change the fictitious Look family in the book to my own family, the Smiths. Once I did that the heavens opened, I fell in love with the manuscript again, and I finished the book quickly. It’s funny how a small-ish shift can make all the difference in the writing process.

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

Writing this book, my first WWII novel that takes place in the U.S., was a lovely hiatus from the political divide of today. After Pearl Harbor most people in this country were united by a common purpose, which created a lovely national bond, and I basked in that fictive dream during the process. I hope readers enjoy that simpler time in American history on an island that was on the front lines in so many ways. Life was difficult for Vineyarders but the stresses and deprivations of war on their doorstep made them appreciate their lives and forged deeply meaningful relationships.

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

To make sure that the idea at the heart of your story is killer—fresh and unique—and that you are genuinely obsessed with it, since anything else will feel like a torturous slog while trying to complete the manuscript. And if you’re taken with the idea then chances are infinitely better that an agent and editor will be, too.

The post Martha Hall Kelly: On Personal History Inspiring Historical Fiction appeared first on Writer's Digest.

(5 Ways to Make Your Historical Fiction Ring True.)

Rules for Ruin is my 21st published book. During the course of my writing career, I’ve received a lot of praise for the authentic feel of my Victorian novels. Here are my top five tips for imbuing historical authenticity into your own writing!

Lay the Groundwork

The best historical novels begin with diligent historical research. Get your basic sources in order ahead of time. Read your biographies, autobiographies, period magazines, newspaper accounts, and well-sourced nonfiction. Make sure you have a firm grasp on what the world of your characters is going to look like.

You need to know why you’re setting a story in Victorian London or Regency Bath or World War II France. Think of this as your preliminary stage. It all takes place before you even open your document to write.

Less Is More

Once you start writing, you may be tempted to use everything you’ve found. History is fascinating, I agree, and there are so many tempting tidbits that you’ll want to share with your readers. Don’t do it. The narrative of your story can easily get bogged down by recitations of historical facts and overly long descriptions.

What you want—what you’re aiming for—is for the history to sit lightly on the page. A lot can be conveyed with a simple word choice or a single well-written sentence. Focus on these little details rather than overwhelming your reader with every single fact you’ve found.

Beware of Rabbit Holes

Research is one of the best parts of writing historical novels. It can also be incredibly disruptive when you’re just starting out and the history is still somewhat new to you. You might find yourself stopping mid-scene to research the fabric of a particular dress or the type of wood used to craft a chest of drawers and…next thing you know…hours have gone by. Maybe even days.

Don’t fall down these research rabbit holes. If you get to something like this in your manuscript, rather than stepping away to research, just type XX (or some other easily searchable shorthand) and keep moving. This way, you can come back to the research later, and it won’t disrupt your writing flow.

Watch Out of Anachronisms

No matter how authentically you’ve crafted your historical novel, a single anachronistic word can pull a reader straight out of the story. Beware of modern phrases or modern technologies sneaking in. The former is especially insidious. You may not even realize that an idiom or a phrase you’re using is modern. The best way to catch these is to revise and revise again. Beta and critique readers can also help in this regard, as can your editor, and the team of copyeditors and proofreaders at your publisher.

Respect Your Voice

As much as we try to imbue historical authenticity into our stories, the fact remains that we’re not time travelers. We’re twenty-first century authors writing for twenty-first century readers. That’s just how it is. Try as I might, my voice is always going to be more modern than that of Jane Austen or Charlotte Brontë. And that’s okay. You don’t have to make yourself sound like Charles Dickens or Thomas Hardy in order to succeed in writing historical novels. Respect the era and strive for accuracy, but write in your own voice. It’s what makes you you.

Check out Mimi Matthews’ Rules for Ruin here:

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