Caroline Starr Rose

award-winning picture book and middle-grade author

Straight from the Source: Vaunda Micheaux Nelson on Writing Historical and Non-Fiction

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Vaunda Micheaux Nelson’s love of history and family is reflected in many of her award-winning books. She received the 2010 Coretta Scott King Author Award for Bad News for Outlaws: The Remarkable Life of Bass Reeves, Deputy U.S. Marshal. No Crystal Stair: A Documentary Novel of the Life and Work of Lewis Michaux, Harlem Bookseller won the 2012 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Fiction and a 2013 Coretta Scott King Author Honor. The Book Itch: Freedom, Truth & Harlem’s Greatest Bookstore won a 2016 Jane Addams Children’s Book Honor and a 2016 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor for R. Gregory Christie’s illustrations. Her latest book, Let ‘Er Buck: George Fletcher, the People’s Champion, is the true story of an African American rodeo legend.

What typically comes first for you: a character? An era? A story idea? How do you proceed from there?

Most of my work is character driven. When I discover someone who has done something so remarkable that I want to know more, I start digging. If my research proves my instincts correct — that this individual’s story is one that everyone should know — I set out to tell it. I tend to gravitate toward unsung achievers, like Deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves, my great uncle, Lewis Michaux, and the subject of my new book, Let ‘Er Buck! George Fletcher, the People’s Champion.

It’s looking at the whole person, or attempting to. The process makes me dig deep and see more. It’s one of the things I admire about Marilyn Nelson’s Carver: A Life in Poems. She not only informs readers about Carver’s brilliance and accomplishments, she leaves us with the essence of the man, the nature of his spirit. That’s what I attempt to do.

How do you conduct your research? Do you have a specific system for collecting data? What kinds of sources do you use? The more specifics here, the better!

I collect as much information as I can through books, articles, census reports, birth and death records, interviews and whatever else I can uncover. I obtain many materials through interlibrary loan, an invaluable library service. I also seek out legitimate internet sources. (Internet articles often contain useful bibliographies that lead me to additional sources.) If possible, I travel to the location of my subject to access archival materials and conduct in-person interviews. For my new book, I went to Pendleton, Oregon, in search of more information about George Fletcher and his compelling performance at the 1911 Pendleton Round-Up. I usually end up with much more information than I will ever need, but it helps to know the backstory to feel confident with what you ultimately share with readers. 

How long do you typically research before beginning to draft?

I try to saturate myself with the material, reading through as much as my brain will hold. Then I start trying to put something on the page. 

Often, at the outset, I’m not sure of the shape a piece will take. I begin with a format that I think might work, but sometimes it changes. My middle-grade novel, Mayfield Crossing, for example, began as a picture book. No Crystal Stair started as straight biography and evolved into a “documentary novel.”   

My first attempts at writing reveal more of what I don’t know. I inevitably uncover new questions, so I put my research hat back on. I alternate between composing and research with the research tapering off as the work progresses. 

What is your favorite thing about research?

This is easy — the discovery —when I stumble on to some exciting bit of information. I write for my readers, of course, but I write for myself first.  My journey through a book is a growth process that can’t be compared to any other experience. It is exciting, awe inspiring, wonderful.

What’s your least favorite thing about research?

It’s beyond frustrating when I have questions I can’t resolve. Either the sources aren’t available, don’t exist, or are so conflicting that it’s difficult to determine what the facts truly are. 

Why is historical fiction important?

There are still so many amazing untold stories from our past. Fiction can offer wonderful ways to take readers there. Also, by placing relatable characters in an historical context, readers can gain an understanding that history is not only about battles, significant dates, and big events. That it doesn’t just involve famous people but is also based in the lives and activities of everyday people — people like them. Readers might perhaps make the connection that they themselves are living through current events that become history.

Straight from the Source: Christopher Healy on Writing Historical Fiction

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Christopher Healy developed a close personal relationship with research during his multi-year run as a magazine fact-checker. He has since moved on to writing his own works—such as the acclaimed Hero’s Guide trilogy and his first work of historical fiction, A Perilous Journey of Danger & Mayhem—but he still sometimes finds himself mentally underlining the checkable facts in the stories he reads.

What typically comes first for you: a character? An era? A story idea? How do you proceed from there?

In my previous books, it has been a general story concept that gets me writing. But with Perilous Journey, which is my first foray into historical fiction, it was really the era that came first. I’d decided I wanted to do a “What if Jules Verne wrote middle grade?” concept—a Victorian sci-fi mystery with tween protagonists. But until I started researching the 1880s, I had no idea what that story would be, who the characters would be—nothing. This was an instance in which the research literally inspired the plot.

How do you conduct your research?

I take all sorts of different routes: Googling, reading, visiting museums (and annoying historians at those museums with follow-up email questions). But my favorite is actually photographic research. Once I had the 1880s as my setting, I spent hours poring over photos, advertisements, and artworks from that era. So many times an image would provide the seed for a scene or plot twist. And later on, when deep into the writing process, I’d be describing a location or character’s clothing and my mind would veer back to details I’d seen in some photo or other. It was actually a painting of the Brooklyn Bridge’s opening fireworks celebration that sparked the entire plot for this book. I saw that picture—with huge colorful explosions bursting all around that bridge—and thought to myself how awesome it would be to set a chase scene during that celebratory chaos.

How does your research continue once you begin writing?

I’m a big outliner. I tend to write in layers. The first will have very general, bullet-point basics—just the foundation of the story. Then I’ll rewrite it with more details and connective tissue, then again with even more details, and so on and so on, fleshing out the story more and more each time until I have a full-fledged novel. With historical fiction, I find I do a new wave of research before each new layer. It’s that new round of research that will provide many of the details for the next draft.

What is your favorite thing about research?

It’s such a thrill to happen upon some intriguing historical tidbit that feels “undiscovered”—something that makes you go, “Wow, I don’t think anybody really knows about this. But I can use it!” I had a number of those moments while researching Perilous Journey, but the big one, which became central to the book’s entire plot, was the World’s Fair That Never Was. I already knew I wanted to set my book in 1883 (because I wanted that Brooklyn Bridge celebration in there), so I began looking up other events from that year. That’s when I discovered that there was a World’s Fair that was supposed to be held in New York’s Central Park in 1883—but that, for some reason, it never took place. So I wrote a book about that missing World’s Fair.

What’s your least favorite thing about research?

As exciting as it is to discover some nugget of “forgotten” history for your book, it’s equally frustrating to find a super-cool historical tidbit that you just know would work so awesomely in your book, only to then discover that the timeframe is off. Then you have to stew over whether or not you should mess with the real timeline just to include some fun little story element.

Has your research ever affected the overall thrust of your book? How so?

This goes back to what I was saying about doing a new wave of research between drafts. I already had the main thrust of my story plotted out and was already a couple layers into the writing process when I learned about the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. I couldn’t believe A) That I’d never learned about it before, and B) How relevant it was to the immigration debates of today. I felt at that point that I needed to incorporate the Exclusion Act into my novel—not just because of the echo to modern times, but also because it would have felt disingenuous to the time period to ignore it. That’s how one of the major characters in Perilous Journey became a Chinese immigrant. It was a change that necessitated a lot of other changes throughout—not just in this book, but subsequent volumes of the series as well. But it’s one of those times where the extra work felt totally worth it.

Classroom Connections: In Another Time by Caroline Leech

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age range: 12 and up
genre: historical fiction; World War II
author website

A glowing story of friendship, growth, and a steadfast first love, as teenage Maisie negotiates the forests of the heart and of World War II Scotland with equal determination. An inspiring tribute to thousands of ordinary women who became extraordinary heroes.
– Elizabeth Wein, New York Times bestselling author of Code Name Verity

Caroline Leech brings to vivid life the green Scottish Highlands in this touching wartime historical romance. In Another Time enthralls with strong and compassionate characters. Maisie McCall is the heroine we all need!
– Jessica Brockmole, internationally bestselling author of Letters from Skye

Caroline Leech’s story shines a beautifully written light on the precarious nature of love and war and asks its readers to believe, even when the hero doesn’t, that love can prevail. This is a book that makes you want to curl up with a cuppa and read straight through till the morning.
— Kathi Appelt, National Book Award Finalist and Newbery Honor Winner

Please tell us about your book.

IN ANOTHER TIME is set in Scotland during World War Two, just like my debut novel, WAIT FOR ME. It follows a girl who is breaking away from her family to find her independence and discover her place in a world at war. Maisie McCall is 17 and joins the Women’s Timber Corps. Known as lumberjills, these women took over the demanding work of producing timber from the ancient forests of Scotland after the men were called up to fight. The lumberjills were extraordinarily courageous, many of them coming from city jobs as secretaries and shop girls—or in Maisie’s case, straight from school—to take on heavy physical work in the woods with axes, saws and chains. They worked with carthorses to drag huge tree trunks off the hills, drove logging trucks to nearby rail depots, and “manned” the machinery in the sawmills. They often endured dreadful weather conditions—this was Scotland, after all—and they slept in rudimentary log huts, where in winter they sometimes woke up to find a blanket of ice covering their beds. Even though the work was tough and the conditions hard, however, the lumberjills kept each other going, and their contribution to the war effort should not be underestimated.

Many of the friendships which developed between lumberjills lasted for the rest of their lives, and I could easily have written a whole book just about the them. But since I write love stories, my story tingles really began when my research turned up that the many of the lumberjills in the Scottish Highlands worked alongside lumberjacks from Newfoundland and that many marriages resulted. That was when my characters started to talk to me. John Lindsay is the lumberjack Maisie gets to know best, but no matter how close she gets to him, she’s sure that there’s even more that he’s hiding from her. While Maisie tries to find out more about John, she discovers more about herself than she could ever have imagined.

What inspired you to write this story?

I’d had no idea that the lumberjills of Women’s Timber Corps existed until I was looking for ideas for my second book and an author friend sent me a link to a newspaper article about them. It was as if she had handed me my second heroine on a plate, because once I googled ‘WW2 lumberjills’, Maisie almost jumped out of my screen fully-formed, in her heavy leather boots and carrying her 6lb axe on her shoulder.

I also knew that I wanted to write something quite different from my debut novel, WAIT FOR ME, though still setting it in the same country and time period. That book was about a teenage girl, waiting safely at home for her brothers to come back from war, when a German prisoner arrives at her farm to work. Suddenly, her comfortable life feels suffocating, and she has to fight against the judgment of the neighborhood to make it feel like home again. IN ANOTHER TIME, however, is very different. This one is about a girl who knows her happiness depends on her getting out into the world, away from her family, to show herself that she is capable of so much more than they think she is. She must push to the extremes of her courage and resilience by taking on every challenge which comes her way, fueled by her determination to prove herself in the face of the doubts of other people.

Could you share with readers how you conducted your research or share a few interesting tidbits you learned while researching?

I was very lucky with my research on several counts. Firstly, a childhood friend of mine has been a forester in the Scottish mountains for a long time, so I knew that I had a reliable source of sensible answers to stupid questions.

Secondly, I found two books which chronicled the lumberjills’ experiences. One was Timber!, an anthology of memories collected from dozens of Scottish lumberjills by the late Affleck Gray, who had been in charge of the Women’s Timber Corps’ work in the Speyside area of the Highlands. Their stories were full of the most delightful tidbits of the lumberjills’ daily life, from the lack of toilets, the lack of heating, the lack of entertainment and well, the lack of everything, except for a seemingly endless supply of cups of strong tea. The other book I studied was Voices of the Forests, a newly-published history of forestry in Scotland by an academic, Mairi Stewart, which not only included great information about both the Women’s Timber Corps and the Newfoundland Overseas Forestry Unit, but set it within the wider context of timber production and the wider countryside industries in the 20th century.

Finally, I was so honored to meet a real-life lumberjill. Christina Edgar joined the WTC in 1942, just like Maisie, leaving her comfortable home and her work as an office clerk in Glasgow. Christina is now 95, but still full of memories of her life as a lumberjill. She and I spent a long time chatting over the obligatory cup of tea, and we even sat together at the feet of the Women’s Timber Corps memorial statue which overlooks the forested hillsides near Aberfoyle. The lumberjill memorial was finally erected in 2007, following a long campaign to honor the contribution to the Allied war effort made by these courageous and hard-working women. I’ll admit, being able to sit at the bronze lumberjill’s feet with Christina brought me to tears. Within only a few years, we will lose our chance to talk to, and learn from, those to fought and served in World War Two, and so I hope IN ANOTHER TIME will serve to let the living lumberjills like Christina know that their amazing contribution has not been forgotten.

What are some special challenges associated with fictionalizing a true story

I was lucky to be able to access so many detailed WTC memories because they had already been collected and published. But sometimes it felt that I almost had too much. Early on I decided that I would try to pull all the most interesting bits from lots of girls, rather than follow the story of one of them. But bringing all those stories together to become part of a fictional character’s life does have its challenges, not least because I had to make sure that whatever she did, and whatever emotional reaction she had, felt real to Maisie. Maisie was braver and hardier than some of the real lumberjills I read about, but she was also less foolhardy and reckless than others, and I think that perhaps in the first draft, Maisie was in maelstrom of emotions for most of the book. But by the time I was on my fourth round of revisions, I had really got to know her much better—and John Lindsay too—and I felt sure that I knew the paths they each chose to take were truthful to the people they were, rather than being a jumble of stories borrowed from real life memoirs.

Above all, I wanted to tell an exciting and romantic story, and to pay tribute to the lumberjills of the Women’s Timber Corps, and also to the men of the Newfoundland Overseas Forestry Unit. I hope I have managed to do that in IN ANOTHER TIME.

What topics does your book touch upon that would make it a perfect fit for the classroom?

In my view, one of the most important things which historical fiction can do is tell the stories behind the history text books—the dry names and dates force-fed to students by the curriculum planners—particularly since novels are very often the only places you can find the story of the women. So much of the formal history of our world focuses on wars and governments, a history that is almost exclusively about the men. Frustratingly, telling the stories of the contributions made by women is often left to fiction writers like me. Even though my book doesn’t tell the ‘true story’ of a real lumberjill, it is still true. All the places in my book were part of the real lumberjills’ history, all my dates are accurate (I hope!), and I distilled all my real-life research into this story which celebrates the power and courage of women, of their independence and of their contribution to the war effort. Those are the historical stories that can stay with you for years, when you’ve long forgotten the names and dates which vanished from your mind as soon as the pop quiz was over.

Straight from the Source: Tamara Bundy on Writing Historical Fiction

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Tamara Bundy is a former columnist for Hilliard, This Week and the Cincinnati Post (her regular column on being a mom also appeared on EWTN global Catholic radio). She taught high school English for 17 years and currently teaches English at Miami University. Tamara is the author or co-author of seven non-fiction books. Her middle grade novel, Walking with Miss Millie debuted last summer from Nancy Paulsen Books, a division of Penguin. Her second middle grade novel will also be published by Nancy Paulsen in 2019.

Before the interview begins, I have to say I adore this cover! It makes me think of Ginger Pye.

At what point do you feel comfortable beginning to draft? How does your research continue once you begin writing?

That changes from novel to novel. Sometimes I must get a plot point written down since it is in my head –and I will then write it first and try to find the research I need after. Admittedly, it is easier to find the research first and then write it, but my muse appears when she feels like it.

What is your favorite thing about research?

First, it would be just being submerged in another time –completely soaking in it. Sometimes I get so lost, I forget everything else. But my next favorite thing about research would be those perfect discoveries, finding that one fact that will not only fit into my narrative –but will also frame it and direct it.

What’s your least favorite thing about research?

I am a very optimistic person, but some research can be so heartbreaking. When I was researching Walking with Miss Millie and looking up pre-civil rights facts, it broke my heart. But it also made me more determined to write the novel to show goodness in the face of evil.

What’s your favorite thing about writing historical fiction?

I love nostalgia—basking in the feel of a time long ago. When I write in an earlier time period, I sometimes get so lost in the time that when my cell phone goes off, it can be jarring.

What are some obstacles writing historical fiction brings?

I think the details become harder. For instance, in my next historical fiction, due out Summer 2019, I needed to know how many people had indoor plumbing in the 1940’s. Were there one-room school houses or were those dying out by then? It’s easy to get the large historical data that you need for a time-period, but for the details that make your story seem real, I prefer first-hand experience.

What’s one of the most interesting things you’ve learned while researching?

My mom and dad grew up on a farm in the 40’s. This is the setting of my latest novel, so I interviewed them. I had known various things about their upbringings all my life, but researching the time with them gave me new insight and appreciation into them. My dad passed away two months ago. That time I spent talking to him about his childhood is more than precious to me now.

Why is historical fiction important?

I was not into history in school. I thought it was all about boring data that I struggled to remember. It wasn’t until I had the “ah-ha” moment of realizing that history is the STORY of what happened before. That seems so simple, but it was a really big shift for me. Suddenly I looked at it as learning people’s stories and I couldn’t get enough of history. I love to think that just maybe, one of my novels might give that “ah-ha” moment to another reluctant learner.

Parting thoughts?

One piece of advice I give to all students on my school visits, is to interview their grandparents, or great-grandparents and ask them questions about what life was like for them growing up –where they went to school, played, or even what they ate. Our elderly generations are precious walking history lessons, and we are in danger of losing these lessons before we get a chance to write them down. In the very least, they will make a memory that both will cherish.

Straight from the Source: Tracy Holczer on Writing Historical Fiction

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Tracy Holczer spent her first twelve years in San Jose, California with her boisterous Italian family. Everything Else in the Universe is a love letter to that family, the pink kitchen where she discovered her nonni’s secret ability to infuse food with love, and the San Francisco Bay Area in all its foggy glory. Her critically acclaimed first novel, The Secret Hum of a Daisy, made several state lists and garnered starred reviews. A full time writer, Tracy lives in Los Angeles with her family, one fluffy dog and three cats.

What typically comes first for you: a character? An era? A story idea? How do you proceed from there?

A character and her circumstances always come first. There is always some type of brokenness that she’s learning to overcome. Because Lucia had a disabled father, I wanted to do something that involved the effects of war and PTSD as that closely aligns with personal experience, although not exactly. The era worked for many reasons in support of this story. For one, we are living through politics and war scenarios that are similar to today, so I thought it a good way to showcase those circumstances through the lens of history. I also thought it was important to show the sacrifices children make when their parents go to war. Often we see Vietnam era stories for middle grade readers that involve brothers, but rarely a parental figure.

What kinds of sources do you use? 

I felt it was important to go to everyday things to get a feel for the era, so I ordered the Farmer’s Almanac and the Sears and Roebuck catalog to get a sense of the weather, fashion and home decor. Even though I grew up in the 70’s, I wanted to be as authentic as I could. I went to the San Jose Library and read every day of the San Jose Mercury news in microfiche for the summer of 1971. I read Life, and Boy’s Life Magazines for the same time period. I was fortunate enough to have a friend getting rid of a 1970’s set of World Book Encyclopedias and used them often. I interviewed Vietnam veterans and a heart surgeon. I called and talked to people in the national headquarters of the VFW and American Legion (which was where I found out their organizations turned away many Vietnam vets early on). I went into veteran chat rooms and read many first person accounts of the war. I also read Letters from Vietnam, a book of letters from veterans who lived and died. All of this gave me a sense of the time and place and got me inside the heads of the people of the time, both military and civilian.

How long do you typically research before beginning to draft?

I draft and research simultaneously. When I reach places in the story that will need verification of facts, and it’s not something easily accessible, I’ll flag it for future study.

What is your favorite thing about research?

I love digging into the details and getting things exactly right. It’s one area where my perfectionism doesn’t hold me back.

What’s your least favorite thing about research?

Knowing I’ll still make mistakes. Like this one. Among the many researched subjects were dragonflies. I decided the main dragonfly of the story needed to be red for its spiritual significance and visual impact and came up with the Flame Skimmer. It worked for where the character had been living with his family, and the cover design team latched on to it as a strong element for the cover. So I sent images of the real dragonfly and they did a beautiful rendition. But somewhere along the way, I changed the location of where the family had lived and built more story around that, forgetting all about my very regional Flame Skimmer. By now the cover is done with a dragonfly that doesn’t live anywhere near my character!

I was lucky enough to find a similar red dragonfly from the right region. But dragonfly aficionados are going to know the difference.

What are some obstacles writing historical fiction brings?

The obstacles definitely come with researching the details. For another example, it took me hours to find out where fireworks shot from in Chicago on July 4th of 1970. There were conflicting reports and finally, I ended up with a research librarian in Chicago who found a newspaper for July 5, 1970 with the headline FIREWORKS AT SOLDIER FIELD! We both cheered when he found it.

What’s one of the most interesting things you’ve learned while researching?

The most interesting thing I found was that during World War II, the military was all set to invade Japan, and so they had thousands of Purple Hearts made in anticipation of the casualties. But then they dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki instead, which ended what was left of the war. So they had a surplus. More were ordered in 1976, but then they found a stockpile that had fallen off the records. They are still handing out purple hearts meant for the grandfathers and great-grandfathers of the people who receive them today.

This is a great article: https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/1801

Has your research ever affected the overall trust of your book? How so?

For sure. As hard as I researched, the copyeditor still found many errors. So if she is human, too, (although I wonder sometimes about copyeditors!) there are still probably errors in the story. But, at least, I didn’t knowingly leave anything I knew wasn’t accurate to fit the storyline – although it was tempting! (see the Flame Skimmer above)

Other stops on the blog tour

Smack Dab in the Middle
Mr. Schu Reads 
Kidlit Frenzy 
Teach Mentor Texts 

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