Those old paperbacks were of mixed quality, but they offered an opportunity I didn’t appreciate immediately: The chance to travel back in time a bit. Digging into those old books offered a break from the bestseller lists and the constant focus on what was new, to experience examples of writing from other time periods—they were lessons about what life was like decades or even centuries ago. 

The first time I was conscious of learning something about everyday life from an old book involved Dorothy L. Sayers’ classic mystery Whose Body?, featuring her aristocratic detective Lord Peter Wimsey.³ Published in 1923, the story could be updated to the modern day pretty easily, except for one detail: The way everyone treats telephones. Phones weren’t brand-new in 1923, but newspapers were still publishing articles chronicling the astonishing growth of phone networks, and phone calls were expensive and complex, especially long-distance calls. In the novel, not only does Lord Wimsey keep his phone in a special room, but making a long-distance “trunk-call” is a notable activity, and one that involves politely asking someone to make the connection and ring you back when they have your party on the line.⁴ 

This one detail, capturing the way people viewed telephones (as a new and expensive technology), reminded me that the book had been written in a reality that no longer existed, and reflected a set of attitudes and social behaviors that no longer made much sense. And that’s when I realized that if you want to know what life was like at any specific point in the past, one of the most effective (and interesting) ways to research it is to dig into the pop culture of the era.⁵ 

The Other Way to Research 

When we think of research in terms of writing fiction, we usually default to the usual stuff: Hours spent squinting at a computer screen as we pick our way through Google searches or sifting through reference works at the local library,⁶ falling down rabbit holes of information. Some more ambitious folks might arrange to travel places so they can get a firsthand understanding of the geography, topography, and culture of a specific area, or to see locations with historic interest in real life.⁷ 

While that kind of research can give you a strong factual and physical basis for a historical or history-inspired setting, what it can’t give you is the vibe. History has a way of flattening cultural attitudes and lifestyles into simplified versions, leaving the more complex and nuanced understanding to scholars who have the time to dig through original sources. Consider the American Revolution, which is usually presented in hyper-patriotic terms as if every single resident of the original Thirteen Colonies was an ecstatic supporter—when the truth is much, much more complicated.⁸ 

That’s where old novels, plays, movies, and TV shows come in. These are works of fiction, yes, but when fiction is set in the writer’s current moment, they often reflect—very, very accurately—many of the unseen attitudes, traditions, and perspectives that get hidden by the necessary simplification of even high-quality history.⁹ Both well-known classics and lesser-known works can give you a clear sense of what life was really like at the time—how people dressed, spoke, and lived. 

The key here is that most of this stuff wasn’t consciously included by those creators—when you read a book published last year and set in the modern day, you don’t even notice details like what people are wearing, or the apps they use on their phone, because we’re immersed in these details ourselves every day—they’re invisible. But in 200 years, those details will likely leap out at future readers in the same way someone looking up phone numbers in the Whitepages does to us.¹⁰ 

If you want to get a ground-level sense of how people actually lived and thought back in The Day, supplementing your research with some old-timey pop culture is a smart move—those musty old books and movies can offer a wide range of information you won’t find cataloged in more formal sources. Here are a few benefits of digging into our pop culture past. 

Contemporaneous Attitudes 

Times change. Attitudes change, and the Overton window of acceptable behavior constantly shifts.¹¹ History books are usually too high-level to dig into the details of common attitudes that might have been top-of-mind for people living in that moment, and even well-researched historical fiction will commonly overlook problematic behaviors and beliefs if they don’t serve the story’s themes. But pop culture created in that moment—or reasonably close to it—can offer a glimpse of what those attitudes were, because they were common at the time. 

If you want to know how people viewed everyday life in the Middle Ages, The Canterbury Tales is a treasure trove of information about how people viewed a wide range of subjects, from society itself (comically corrupt) to gender roles (surprisingly messy).¹² If you’re looking for an accurate depiction of early 19^th-century attitudes toward sexuality, read The Scarlet Letter, itself based on the sensational murder of Sarah Maria Cornell in 1832, just 18 years before, as well as what may be the first work of what we’d recognize as true crime, Fall River: An Authentic Narrative by Catharine R. Williams, written just a year later and digging into Cornell’s sad story as satisfyingly as any modern podcast. If you wonder how the public broadly viewed life during the Great Depression, the film It Happened One Night is a frothy screwball comedy that offers several insightful glimpses of how people survived one of the worst financial crises of modern times.¹³ 

The Little Details 

History books often give you little information about how people actually behaved—how they spoke informally (as opposed to speeches or interviews) and the little details that occupied their thoughts. But contemporary books and other media can offer a glimpse. 

The Catcher in the Rye is not just a terrific book, it’s also a strikingly accurate time capsule of how teenagers spoke and interacted in early 1950s America. While Holden Caulfield is a singular character with unique privilege, obsessions, and goals, the way he communicates with people throughout the story gives you a sense of what people were talking about and how they talked about it. Do the Right Thing isn’t just a terrific film, it’s also a film that captures a specific moment in American urban life—as well as its speech patterns and dress codes—that would be invaluable for anyone writing a story about that time and place. 

Local Knowledge 

Something else The Catcher in the Rye offers as a research resource is a sense of place. If you pay attention as you read, you get a pretty clear idea of what New York City in the 1950s was like—Holden travels around quite a bit, and you could construct a workable map of the city from the details he drops along the way.¹⁴ As challenging as James Joyce’s Ulysses is to read, it’s also an incredibly accurate rendering of Dublin in the early 20^th century that you could mine for any story set there. 

It’s not just famous old novels that can offer this kind of historical detail. The 1948 film Act of Violence isn’t exactly top of mind for people these days, but it was shot on location in a Los Angeles that literally doesn’t exist anymore, including a terrific chase sequence through the old Bunker Hill neighborhood that was completely redeveloped in the late 1980s. Films and TV shows filmed on location can be goldmines of information about places that simply no longer exist. 

The Invisibles 

Something that pop culture—especially novels—captures that more formal history usually misses are the unspoken, invisible attitudes of people at that time. When I read The Grapes of Wrath or watch the film adaptation, it’s extremely informative about the way people lived and survived during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl era.¹⁵ But when I first read the book, I was struck by the complete lack of self-pity among the characters. There’s anger, exhaustion, and fear, yes, but everyone regards the economic catastrophe that has driven them from their homes in a desperate search for survival as something that’s happening to everyone—the entire country—not as a particular tragedy happening just to them. It’s a subtle thing, but it’s instructive—in large part because the story deals with events that were still happening when it was being written. 

There is one caveat to keep in mind if you use pop culture to better understand a past era: Be cognizant of the limitations of the creators. We all have weak areas, and writers, like everyone else, are a product of their times.¹⁶ A book, film, or other piece of pop culture might be very useful for one aspect of your research (geography, or attitudes toward a new technology) but not useful at all—possibly even deceptive—in other ways. It pays to do a little meta-research into the creators you’re relying on. 

Old-school pop culture is often a snapshot of a past time, filled with real, accurate information that can be difficult to pin down in other ways. If your current work-in-progress requires a little research into the past, set up a movie night, find out what everyone was reading that year, and settle in for some eye-opening entertainment.

The post The Way We Were appeared first on Writer's Digest.

In this interview, Susan discusses how a bucket-list overseas trip with her brother sparked an exploration that led to her new novel, Wayward Girls, her advice for other writers, and more.

Name: Susan Wiggs
Literary agent: Meg Ruley, Jane Rotrosen Agency
Book title: Wayward Girls
Publisher: HarperCollins/William Morrow Books
Release date: July 15, 2025
Genre/category: Fiction
Previous titles:The Oysterville Sewing Circle, Welcome to Beach Town, The Lost and Found Bookshop, Family Tree, Map of the Heart, Between You & Me, Sugar and Salt
Elevator pitch: A wrenching but life-affirming novel based on a true story of survival, friendship, and redemption when six girls come together in a Catholic reform school in 1960s Buffalo, ultimately finding justice and triumph in today’s world.

Bookshop | Amazon
[WD uses affiliate links.]

What prompted you to write this book?

I grew up in a small town in western New York, not far from Buffalo, but we moved overseas when I was a child. I never went back until 2021, when my big brother and I embarked on a journey to revisit our childhood haunts. Jon was facing a terminal diagnosis, and this nostalgic trip was an item on his bucket list.

When we visited the church of our youth, vivid memories of Jon as an altar boy flooded back—especially the time his sleeve caught fire from the incense thurible. This moment sparked a deeper exploration into the impact of the Catholic Church in the 1960s and 70s. My research led me to 485 Best Street in Buffalo, where I discovered a Magdalene Laundry called “The Good Shepherd”—a place where “wayward girls” were sent to be “reformed” by strict nuns. Though vaguely aware of the laundries in Ireland, I was shocked to learn they existed throughout the U.S. as well.

As a child, I remember more than one babysitter who “went away,” a euphemism for girls sent away when they became pregnant. The more I learned, the more deeply I felt the helpless pain and rage of these young women. Their stories ignited my imagination, and Wayward Girls became one of my most personal and involving novels to date.

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

Even though I wrote the story in a white heat of passion, the whole process—from idea to printed page—took about three years. This is because I spent a good deal of time on research, because I wanted to do honor to the real-life survivors of the Good Shepherd and similar institutions. And the idea definitely changed in the process! My initial effort was to tell two parallel stories—one in present day, one in 1968—showing the parallels between the two and knitting the storylines together with women in as assisted living home.

The more I researched and got to know the real story, the more drawn I was to the journeys of the women who survived. It was a discussion with my literary agent, Meg Ruley, that led me to focus the story entirely on my cast of “wayward girls” from working class Buffalo, and their dramatic ordeal.

That was a big change for me creatively, and I loved it. I loved the time period, the music, the culture and nostalgia, and I loved being able to tell a story that spans decades, so we get to experience the drama of a whole life, with all the ups and downs and richness of a life fully lived.

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

Wayward Girls is my 50-somethingth book. My first novel was published in 1987, and I’ve been at it ever since. So, you’d think there would be no further surprises for me in the world of commercial publishing.

But—spoiler alert—the surprise was that the author’s role in the process has expanded in ways that are both exciting and challenging. Marketing and audience engagement used to be the purview of the publisher. Now the author has a chance to do more than write the book. She gets to engage with readers.

Since readers (including librarians and booksellers) have kept my career alive for 37 years, I love being able to interact with them. Social media, online book communities, and direct author-reader relationships have fundamentally changed how books are marketed. In 1987, publishers relied heavily on traditional media, bookstore placement, and print reviews. Today, authors are expected to build personal platforms, engage directly with readers online, and participate actively in marketing their work through various digital channels.

The surprise with Wayward Girls is the incredible early feedback there has been on this particular book. It seems to resonate with them in ways I hadn’t expected. The novel hasn’t been published yet, but early readers (fellow authors, buyers, people who have won the ARC in a drawing) seem eager not just to share their opinions of the book, but also their personal experiences (or those of their mothers) with institutions like the Good Shepherd. Even my copy editor on the book had a personal note to me after she finished with the manuscript. I wasn’t expecting that. It’s really cool. I hope I did it justice.

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

Always. Writing is like playing the cello (which I have also done) or playing golf. You can never get perfect at it. There is always room to grow and learn.

Mairin O’Hara, the main character of Wayward Girls, was a complete surprise in that she took on a life of her own as I wrote her story, and she drove the narratives in directions I never anticipated—from Buffalo’s vintage “Fruit Belt” neighborhood to the dreaded Good Shepherd, through the decades. Is it possible for the author to learn life lessons from a fictional character? I think it is. Either that, or I’m losing my mind.

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

I hope my passion for this topic touches readers’ hearts and inspires important conversations about our past treatment of young women, and–as Jodi Picoult points out–is a cautionary tale for today.

Because, sadly, we have found ourselves in a new era of toxic patriarchy, with women’s rights being taken away by an authoritarian regime that justifies its actions by citing Christian rhetoric. Acclaimed author Jodi Picoult, who read an early copy of the book, said, “I was reminded that it hasn’t been all that long since women had no rights to contraception, sex education, or reproductive rights … and how we seem to be reverting back to a world like that.  This isn’t just a meticulously researched moment in time — it’s a cautionary tale.”

That said, Wayward Girls is at its heart a Susan Wiggs book, the kind that keeps the reader entertained and makes its way to an ending that is filled with hope. Along with the anger and frustration, you’ll find laughter and tears, and ultimately, the deep satisfaction of reading about a life well lived.

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

The act of writing is also the act of facing your fear. Don’t be afraid to let your natural voice come through, and put your heart on paper.

One of the key lessons I always keep in mind is a quote from Janet Burroway’s classic Writing Fiction: “You suffer before writing, unwilling to begin in case you spoil it. The idea seems so luminous, whole, and fragile, that to begin to write about that idea is to commit it to rubble. Knowing in advance that words will never exactly capture what we mean or intend, we must gingerly and gradually work ourselves into a state of accepting what words can do instead. No matter how many times we find out that what words can do is quite all right, we shy again from the next beginning. Against this wasteful impulse I have a motto: ‘Don’t Dread—Do.’”

The post Susan Wiggs: On Learning Life Lessons From Fictional Characters appeared first on Writer's Digest.

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.

Bookshop | Amazon
[WD uses affiliate links.]

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.

The post Nell Stevens: Everything About This Book Has Felt Surprising appeared first on Writer's Digest.

Enough ink has been spilled explaining why the British Empire was an oppressive, tyrannical regime that I will not repeat all the evidence here. Though history is vast, complex, and sprawling, in this case it can be boiled down to a fairly simple representative statistic: that when the British arrived in 1600s, India produced over 20% of the world’s economic output; by the time the British departed India in 1947, it had dropped to 3%.[4] The UK experienced a nearly exact opposite trajectory in growth. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to determine what happened, and yet British academics and politicians appear to disagree:

• Andrew Roberts, Professor at King’s College London, 2021: “I don’t agree with the automatic assumption that the British Empire was evil. . . . In fact, I think it was very helpful for the development of the native peoples of the Empire.”
• Michael Gove, soon to be UK Education Secretary, 2009: “There is no better way of building a modern, inclusive, patriotism than by teaching all British citizens to take pride in this country’s historic achievements. Which is why the next Conservative Government will ensure the curriculum teaches the proper narrative of British History – so that every Briton can take pride in this nation.”
• Niall Ferguson, Senior Fellow at Harvard University, 2004: “Without the British empire, there would be no Calcutta, no Bombay, no Madras. Indians may rename them as many times as they like, but they remain cities founded and built by the British.”
• UK Foreign Minister Mark Fields on the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, 2019: “I feel a little reluctant to make apologies for things that have happened in the past. There are also concerns that any government department has to make about any apology, given that there may well be financial implications to making an apology. I feel we debase the currency of apologies if we are seen to make them for many, many events.”

It doesn’t matter how much one rebuts every detail: India had strong industrial sectors before the British arrival,[5] India had its own education system before “Western” education,[6] Indian taxpayers funded the railroads while British shareholders received guaranteed dividends covering any investment and a hefty bonus.[7] Nearly a third of the British populace still thinks the empire was a good thing to be proud of, while half thinks it did no harm to colonized countries,[8] and many Americans think the worst of British colonialism was taxation of the thirteen colonies. Historical revisionism presents an easy, engaging narrative: Britain saved India, Britain deserves its bounty, Britain has no reason to make amends. The problem is not the facts. It is the story. And stories are best fought by stories.

Ten Incarnations of Rebellion flips this script, using alternate history to showcase the horrors of colonialism in a world parallel to ours. If history has been bogged down by a mainstream whitewashing of colonialism, alternate history cuts through those narratives by tweaking key details, showing the moral rot at the empire’s core. The story was inspired by a simple what-if. After their failures on the Indian subcontinent, the British Empire innovated new methods of oppression. They used these “improved” tactics to fight anti-colonial movements in their other colonies around the globe, from cutting off entire cities to imposing long-term curfews to placing dissenters in punitive prison camps. So, what if the British had used those tactics to prevent Indian independence?

Check out Vaishnavi Patel’s Ten Incarnations of Rebellion here:

Bookshop | Amazon

(WD uses affiliate links)

The book’s timeline branches from real history in the 1910s, with increased violent crackdowns on political parties, freedom of speech, and protest movements. By the 1930s in this world, the major figureheads of independence and their followers have been killed. Over the coming decades, this alternate history India is subjected to militarized rule, constant surveillance, language erasure, and cultural suppression. The main events of the novel take place in a fundamentally altered version of the 1960s, in a city robbed of its young men, where a group of young women take up the torch of rebellion. This is not alternate history done in the apologist way—that is, without tether to reality. While the events of the book are fictional, inventing subjugation does a disservice to the billions who have suffered under colonialism. In Ten Incarnations of Rebellion, every act of brutality, every tactic of oppression, every traitor and martyr, is inspired by real-life events that took place either in India or elsewhere.

The same is true not just of the sins of Empire, but of the struggle for freedom. India’s freedom movement is credited with being a nonviolent, inclusive movement. But there were also many freedom fighters who undertook violent operations, and their successes in terrorizing the British helped pave the way for the nonviolent movement’s victories. And while Indians of all creeds took part in the struggle, there were great rifts and injustices within the movement, on religious, caste, and geographic lines. In the West, where this history is often sanitized to the point that one must struggle just to show that colonialism is bad at all, it is nearly impossible to examine these nuances. How can you discuss fair criticisms of freedom fighters when the need for the fight itself is being attacked? By moving into an alternate history space, the protagonists of this story can face the same questions as their real-life predecessors—How do they reconcile the caste and religious divides within their people? Can they work with the British to improve their condition? When is violence justified?—without delegitimizing the struggle for freedom.

From India to Ireland and everywhere in between, the British left a trail of genocide, famine, engineered sectarian violence, cultural repression, and theft. And through programs like Operation Legacy, they have put records of their crimes into literal bonfires, hiding the truth from the light of day. It is this erasure that allowed them to build a new narrative for themselves. But this erasure also provides an opportunity: rewriting history to highlight and honor freedom movements. The fights of freedom movements and the legacies of colonialism are not confined to history. Even today, millions live under physical and economic colonialism—as but one example, the United States has “territories” that pay taxes but are unable to meaningfully participate in the election of the government taxing them. And billions continue to be affected by the laws and actions of their former colonial masters, suffering from centuries of deindustrialization, looting, divide-and-rule, and more.

There is no easy answer to healing the ills of colonialism. But until those of us living in the west can grapple with the true cost of our wealth and status, we will be the ones living in an alternate history.

Click to continue.

[1] Tombs, Robert. “In Defense of the British Empire,” The Spectator, May 8, 2020. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/In-defence-of-the-British-Empire/

[2] Jordanna Bailkin. “The Boot and the Spleen: When Was Murder Possible in British India?” Comparative Studies in Society and History 48.2 (2006): 463-494.

[3] Elkins, Caroline. Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya. New York: Henry Holt, 2005: 39, 359.

[4] See Tharoor, Shashi. Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India. London: Hurst, 2017; Broadberry, Stephen, Johann Custodis, and Bishnupriya Gupta, “India and the great divergence: An Anglo-Indian comparison of GDP per capita, 1600–1871,” Explorations in Economic History 55 (2015): 58-75.

[5] Clingingsmith, David, and Jeffrey G. Williamson, “Deindustrialization in 18th and 19th century India: Mughal decline, climate shocks and British industrial ascent,” Explorations in Economic History 45, no. 3(2008): 209-234.

[6] Dharampal (2000). “Introduction,” The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century. Goa, India: Other India Press. The availability of such pre-colonial education was extremely divided along lines of caste and class, but the British were not particularly active in fixing these—or indeed, any—forms of discrimination.

[7] Bogart, Dan, and Latika Chaudhary.  “Regulation, Ownership, and Costs: A Historical Perspective from Indian Railways,” American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 4, no. 1 (2012): 28–57.

[8] Matthew Smith, “British Attitudes to the British Empire,” YouGov Jan. 29, 2025. https://yougov.co.uk/society/articles/51483-british-attitudes-to-the-british-empire.

The post Reclaiming Alternate History: How Speculative Fiction Can Resist Toxic Historical Revisionism appeared first on Writer's Digest.

(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:

Bookshop | Amazon

(WD uses affiliate links)

The post Going Back in Time to Write a Middle-Grade Novel appeared first on Writer's Digest.

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.  

Bookshop | Amazon
[WD uses affiliate links.]

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! 

The post Kelli Estes: On Motherhood and the Concept of Time appeared first on Writer's Digest.

But when you get it right? It’s such a good ride! 

Focus on Obsession, Not Accuracy 

I never like to start with what’s popular, but rather what haunts me. When I’m doing my research, I find a woman that sticks out to me for a reason. When I found Alice Diamond, I couldn’t shake the image of a 19-year-old leading a gang of women thieves in 1920s London. I had to know how. With Virginia Hill, it was the mystery of her death, was it a suicide or a mob hit? That question pulled me in, and once I dove deeper, I knew their stories were waiting for a voice. 

Bookshop | Amazon
[WD uses affiliate links.]

Research Like a Scavenger 

Don’t be a historian, be a scavenger! Primary sources are gold: letters, trial transcripts, police reports, newspaper clippings. You want to look for the contradictions, or gaps, because that’s where your fiction breathes. For Mob Queen, I researched Virginia, but also every man she was involved with. I even found an old menu from the restaurant where she worked so I’d know exactly what she was serving. And when you hit a wall, start inventing! Historical fiction is about truth, not facts. The reader doesn’t need to know the exact designer shoes she wore, but they do want to know how they clicked against the marble floor. 

Build Characters That Feel Real 

Don’t fall into the trap of over-victimizing, build characters who feel human. Let them make mistakes. Let them be brutal, relentless, even unlikeable at times. They’re shaped by the world they live in and the choices they’re forced to make. I always want the reader to cringe, then pause and think, “Well… I see where she’s coming from.” 

Let the Crime Be a Mirror 

Historical crime fiction isn’t about the crime, but rather, what the crime reveals. The corruption, the desperation, the system that failed. It gives you a chance to ask: What’s changed? What hasn’t? I always aim to draw parallels. You might not see yourself in the main character’s shoes, but you’ll understand what led her to make the choices she did. 

Respect the Dead, Write for the Living 

I want to make sure that while I’m respecting the dead, I’m writing for the living. This means I don’t want to sugarcoat the past or turn real pain into aesthetic. I want to honor the truth of what happened, especially to those who were silenced or erased, but I also shape the story in a way that speaks to the people reading them now. The past already happened, but if I’ve done my job right, it should be loud enough to shake the present. 

So while it’s not always easy, and it takes a lot of digging, once you’ve got the bones to resurrect a story, there’s no going back. I’ll spend months trying to write something else, but somehow, I always get pulled back into these women. They’re all yelling at me from the grave, demanding to be finished. May they haunt me forever, so I can write their stories and haunt my readers, too. 

The post Digging Up the Dead: 5 Steps to Writing Historical Crime Fiction appeared first on Writer's Digest.

In this interview, Serena discusses how a familial photo helped inspire her new work of historical fiction, A Promise to Arlette, her hope for readers, and more.

Name: Serena Burdick
Literary agent: Stephanie Delman/Trellis Literary Management
Book title: A Promise to Arlette
Publisher: Atria Books
Release date: June 17, 2025
Genre/category: Historical Fiction
Previous titles: Girl in the Afternoon; The Girls with No Names; Find Me in Havana; The Stolen Book of Evelyn Aubrey
Elevator pitch: A historical fiction saga that takes you from the seemingly idyllic life of Ida and Sydney in 1950s American suburbia, to Ida’s glistening past in Paris, to the devastation of WWII. It’s a story about love and friendship, trust and betrayal, and how promises made, broken, and ultimately renewed, can determine our fate.

Bookshop | Amazon
[WD uses affiliate links.]

What prompted you to write this book?

I was inspired by a photograph taken by the surrealist artist Man Ray of my grandmother and the artist’s wife, Juliet. I know very little about the story behind the photograph, other than that my grandmother was a model for Man Ray. Looking at these two women, nude and masked and clasped in an embrace, sparked my imagination and I began to spin a fictional story around them.

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

It’s been over five years since I started this book. So much has happened! I had to set it aside to rework an older novel that was going to publication. My agent had a baby and took time off. When she came back, we decided to pitch it to a new publisher. During this process, I was constantly reworking the plot. Originally, I didn’t plan to write about WWII, but as the novel took shape, I realized that to tell Ida and Sydney’s story in the 1950s, I had to build their past up to the present. It was then I plunged into the art world of 1930s Paris, which naturally led to the war, where I suddenly found myself thoroughly researching this heavily written about time period … all the while thinking, Am I really doing this?

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

This is my fifth book and my third publishing house, so I’ve had a lot of different experiences. With Atria, it has surprised me how much respect I’ve been shown from my team, which is more a reflection of my self-doubt than anything. Each book has built on itself, some have been more successful than others, but I still find myself thinking, Did I do this? Am I, like, an established author? I guess the learning moment is owning this, to feel confident enough to tell myself, yes. Yes, you are.

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

I am always surprised at what unfolds while I’m writing. I think I have the story plotted and things inevitably take a turn. In this book there’s a major reveal toward the end I obviously can’t give away, but let’s just say when I started out, I had no idea I’d take the plot in the direction it goes toward the end.  

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

My hope with every book is to take my readers on an emotional journey while thoroughly entertaining them. No matter when, or where, a story takes place, I like to think the universal emotions we have around family, as mothers and fathers and children and lovers, is something we all relate to. My ultimate desire for A Promise to Arlette is that my readers walk away with the sense that we all have the power to change our lives. If my protagonist, Ida, shows us anything, it’s that we’re never stuck.

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

To be flexible with your work and not hold onto anything too tightly. Recently, I spent six months writing 200 pages of material, only to have my editor tell me she wanted me to pivot, which meant tossing all of it and starting over. My advice would be to do this willingly and unflinchingly, to take critique and know that in the end, tossing something only means there’s potential for the next thing to be that much better. 

The post Serena Burdick: Be Flexible With Your Work appeared first on Writer's Digest.

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.

Bookshop | Amazon
[WD uses affiliate links.]

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.

The post Jeffrey Konvitz: Believe in Your Creativity appeared first on Writer's Digest.

(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:

Bookshop | Amazon

(WD uses affiliate links)

The post Can We Empathize With People From the Past? appeared first on Writer's Digest.