Historical Research Discussion

This was a pure delight, to talk about research stories, methods, organization, and more, with three wonderful historical novelists. Joining me are Jacqueline Sheehan, Linda Cardillo, and Michelle Cameron, who talk about libraries, museums, and travel—among other things!

The timeline software I mentioned is Aeon Timeline (it syncs with Scrivener, if you use that program).

Transcript

Susanne 0:27

hello everyone. This is my absolute first group podcast, where I have more than one authors with me on zoom, where we're recording. And we're going to discuss a topic which is research, anything and everything to do with that. And we are all historical novelists or have written historical novels. And with me is Linda Cardillo, who is the author of. love that moves the sun, a novel of Michelangelo and Victoria Kelowna. and she is also the publisher. A Bella Storia press. And then I have Jacquelyn Sheehan, a New York times bestselling author. And I'm not sure which of her books to actually mention so she can talk about them as well. That she's okay. A wonderful author and very glad to have her on and last but not least. I have Michelle Cameron whose novel, beyond the ghetto Gates was recently published and she is a marvelous author and she tends to concentrate on Jewish history. And so she has a whole different level of type of research that she does for that. I think. So anyway, let's start with Michelle then what are some of your, the difficulties you have with research

Michelle 1:52

difficulties? I think getting my arms around as much as I need and not more than that, because it can be selling incredibly overwhelming. and certainly beyond the ghetto Gates was based on Napoleon's campaign through Italy and you can just get absolutely lost in the research and never come back out. And because I love it so much, it's even more of a danger. So I think, the biggest difficulty may very well be knowing when to

Susanne 2:25

stop. Yeah, it has any, either of the other two of you had that experience with research Linda,

Linda 2:33

I would agree. And particularly because I was also, I love that moves. The sun took place in Renaissance, Italy, and there was just such an extraordinary amount of information that when really can go down the rabbit

Jacqueline 2:47

hole

Linda 2:47

and. It's hard to come back though.

Susanne 2:51

And Jacqueline you're working in the 20th century where there's there's almost information overload for you. Do you, are you finding that difficult or

Jacqueline 2:59

I think this less difficult than I found writing about Sojourner

Linda 3:06

truth,

Jacqueline 3:07

because, who was an enslaved black woman in the 18 hundreds in upstate New York. And. were sections of her life that I found fascinating, after she was no longer enslaved and moved to New York city on her own a few years after that, she became a member of a cult,

Susanne 3:28

which is something that

Jacqueline 3:29

no one writes about. And I was just totally. Fascinated by it, but that had to, I had to do take those 80 pages out of the book, but I'll have to say I'm very glad I did the research about it.

Susanne 3:44

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And it's not just getting lost in research. I think it's also knowing it's also disciplining yourself to look for the things you actually really need. The stuff that really applies to the story you're telling, which is different from applying to the general topic. and Linda, that must've been hard for you too. Can you talk a bit about Victoria Columbia? Yeah,

Linda 4:10

one, one, one section that I actually did have to, Take out as Jacquelyn did was, both her father and her husband and her son were, what conduct Yeti. They were warriors and Italy and in the 16th century was constantly at war with either France or Spain or the Pope. And, up there, I found these ones. Wonderful. I'm I witnessed. Reports of battles. And there was one significant battle that her husband is fighting for the first time. And it was, I was so enthralled by this sort of minute by minute description of what was happening in the battle and the conflict between the leaders, because they were, the Spanish and the Italians. Fighting the Pope and the French. And there was all kinds of intrigue going on in the tents the night before and who wanted to, send the cavalry first and who wanted to bombard them first.

Susanne 5:05

And I had all of that DTL

Linda 5:06

and I wrote this

Susanne 5:07

40 page chapter

Jacqueline 5:09

that my

Linda 5:10

editor finally said,

Jacqueline 5:13

Out.

Linda 5:13

and, I had to work really hard to distill what was important about that chapter, which was, it was fed onto his first battle. It was his best basically baptism into war. And I needed to capture that without describing the minute by minute lead up to and. description of the battle, which I still found. just really fascinating to get inside the Renaissance mind and the observations from this battle.

Susanne 5:45

Yeah. it is frustrating when you. You stumble on something and your research that is just so interesting. And you really just, it's outside of what you're trying to say. And so you really have to put it aside and I always think, Oh, maybe I'll go back to that and write something around that.

Michelle 6:04

Yeah. I just want to agree with that. there was a portion in the, on the Gator game. Where I was describing how the French revolution had created this entire new calendar

Susanne 6:20

week,

Michelle 6:20

day system, where everything was based on 10. And, and for me it was absolutely fascinating. I think one of the dangers

Susanne 6:30

is you fall in love with the research.

Michelle 6:32

I think Linda you've had that experience. You

Susanne 6:35

fall in love with the research

Michelle 6:37

and you think everybody's gonna love it. But you're right. if it doesn't fit in the story, you have to be ruthless about what you include.

Susanne 6:48

Yeah, absolutely. I'd love to have you guys talk about a little bit is what. What's a surprising thing. What's the most surprising thing you discovered? I know you said that already Jacqueline with Sojourner truth, but what are the, what is the specific thing that you discovered have discovered in research for whatever books that, that really startled you and how did you come upon it? That's the other thing, because I don't know about you, but my research researching tends to be a process of serendipity. I start looking for one thing and then I. Kind of bumped into something else. I didn't know. I actually needed, but, so yeah, Jacquelyn, maybe you want to enlarge on, Oh, so I guess I will

Jacqueline 7:34

talk about the 1938, time period, which had probably like all of us doing research. So I really didn't know anything about that particular time period. And now I am. I totally lost in it in a good way, because it is such an exciting time period in American history. But, but there is sort

Linda 7:57

of a

Jacqueline 7:58

grandiosity about America's goodness that I had to strip away in order to be very honest and authentic and bring that honest and authentic sense of history forward. For example, The way that Jewish people, people of color immigrants, are isolation nature at that particular time, that there was a kind of brutality at that time that, I think we would like to forget, that'd be, would like to forget that we were ever that way.

Susanne 8:34

Yeah, it's all the greatest generation and everything. And, wouldn't it be nice to go back to that time? As some people have said, which would be really going backwards in a lot of ways, before women could have their own credit cards and things like that, but, yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. is there a specific example? I

Jacqueline 8:54

want to say one more thing about something that I find difficult with that time period, is that with my characters, as Michelle is saying, we are telling a story that is set in history. We're not a history book. We're telling a story that has all the characteristics of story and plot and character. and I have to be very careful not to give my characters

Linda 9:19

knowledge of the

Jacqueline 9:20

future. For example, in 1938, we did not know the mega storm that was coming out of Germany. We knew things were very, yeah. That we did not have any idea. Of the Holocaust calming. So I can't, I cannot give my characters that knowledge. It's almost like you want to like them a note or something, tell them what's coming, but you can't,

Susanne 9:48

unless you have, unless you're doing a time travel thing where there's a character from the future, her comes back to the past. There are people who do that. I've never been tempted personally, but yeah, no, that's such a good point. and when we're doing. Historical fiction and researching and everything. How, for instance, let me articulate this better. In what ways does the research you do give you more than just the historical facts now tells you something about how people thought or what was important to them and how do you tease that out of your research? Linda do

Linda 10:31

so I think for me, certainly the fact that I was writing about a poet, so I had her words, and that was extremely helpful. And in addition, I have Michelangelo's words in his poetry, which I think for me, that was one of the revelations is I really didn't know. How substantive his poetry was, I really, I think of him as a painter and as a sculptor, but I hadn't really thought of him as a poet. And so there is a great deal of sort of revelation, in both of their writings and the fact that they were writing for one another. in many cases was very helpful to me in understanding. How they thought and. But I had one of the things I had to be very careful about was not input. And this is similar. I think, juggling to what you were saying was I couldn't impose a sort of 21st century perception on an interpretation on their poetry that I had to really. Understand the context in which they were writing and, and in person with a spiritual context, because a great deal of what my book is about is their spiritual relationship. And so under, I really needed to educate myself about what was happening. With the rise of the Protestant reformation and how that was influencing Italy and how that was influencing their thinking, and how dangerous it was. And so that, but it's, it was also dangerous for me to really want to impose upon what I was reading. As I said, this sort of 21st. Century interpretation and I couldn't, I had to be very careful not to do that.

Susanne 12:23

Yeah. Michelle, do you have anything to add to that?

Michelle 12:28

yeah. I think that is, the 21st century perception are definitely an issue. It's one that I frankly struggled with in creating the heroine of my novel. because, a lot of my beta readers were like, she lived joining like the late 1700 where a woman would be very passive. And I had to give her a lot more agency than maybe she really normally would, but I also want to add Suzanne in terms of surprises in the research. If I can go back to that for just a quick moment. I'm researching the sequel

Susanne 13:08

right now

Michelle 13:09

to be on the veto Gates.

Susanne 13:11

And I,

Michelle 13:13

am continuing the story. Most of my heroin, who lives in Ancona Italy, as well as, this Jewish soldier who goes off with Napoleon to Egypt and what shocked me, trap me. Was the surprise where I found, I figured and Connor would have been very quiet and peaceful at this time. And then all the action was going to happen.

Susanne 13:39

Okay. In Egypt

Michelle 13:41

and Israel. And in fact, it turned out that encounter was under scene, the Turks of Russians at this period. So I'm like, wow, that's a whole new dimension that I'm going to have to. Uncover more about and write about, and that was a huge revelation

Susanne 13:59

to me. I know my mind is going a mile a minute and I'm thinking of questions and then they're disappearing,

Jacqueline 14:08

can I add in

Linda 14:09

something?

Jacqueline 14:10

I just want to say one of the reasons that I really love historical fiction and I don't write historical fiction all the time, but, is that I, when I was a kid in school, I was such a horrible history student. I was terrible because it seemed like history was taught of. List the Wars and the presidents and memorize those. There was no context. There was no social, cultural, anything that went along with it. But when I discovered in high school, also, when I discovered historical fiction that like blew up everything. And I thought, Oh my gosh, this is the doorway into history for me. Anyhow, it was, after reading about Napoleon and Josephine, if, if I wanted to find out more than I would follow up in history, or if I read niche something by Michener, which was very revealing, then I could follow up on that. So I just think it's such a fantastic doorway into. History that incorporates a lot more than the dates of generals and presidents and so forth.

Susanne 15:25

Yeah, absolutely. And it's one of the reasons I, that attracted me to it because all of those history books we had in school, to quote Jane Austin were written by men. And so there are a lot of gaps in what they focused on. And, and I know there's a lot of. A lot of historical novelists now are really foregrounding women's stories, but that creates the issue that Michelle mentioned. And that's what I was going to say is okay. At the same time as honoring the tone, I don't have the time and not making them sound like 21st century people and have those attitudes, especially when it comes to female characters, modern readers. Don't, we have to adjust them for the taste of modern readers in terms of making them a little bit more active than they might've been having more decided opinions about things. and I'm fascinating. I'd love to know, Linda from you, especially with Vittoria Colonna, how did you accommodate that? Because I felt when I read your book, that it was very true to the period. She was very much of her time and yet. You made her, you gave her a certain amount of agency.

Linda 16:44

And I think that came from her class, that women on her class, often were expected to have agency simply because the conditions of, In Italy at the time where their husbands were often away for months, if not years, maybe coming back, periodically for a short visit, but they were running, States. They were, they were managing property, and they had to be making decisions because. Communication, was, they could call their husbands up on his cell phone and say, can I do this right? I think that if you totally Colona, in some ways, was different. I'm from L a, perhaps a lot of women of her generation, simply because of the family that she came from and the family and the woman who also raised her and mentored her. Her grandmother was considered one of the learned women of the 15th century. and so there was this enormous respect for education in her family that was passed on to her mother and then to her Vitoria. and then when she was fostered, by back by customs and dollars, Costanza herself came out of a Spanish tradition. That was very similar. So she had, there was this, a thread that ran through several generations that distinguished with Aria. That may have made her somewhat different from some of the other women, in her Amelia, but generally, yeah, I mean of her class were highly educated and competent and, and the higher, the higher they will, or in class, the more agency they did have.

Susanne 18:27

That whole class thing is really important. And we can't, shouldn't forget it when we're looking back in history and it can also make it frustrating because if you want to focus on someone who isn't of that class often, they were illiterate. Probably very little information is out there. So suppose you're writing and you're finding a blank. You really want it's for a real character, not a fictional character. Cause you can just make that stuff up, which I do all the time. But, If you find a blank, how do you approach filling in that it's blank? When you need to give that character a story, a backstory, as it were.

Linda 19:06

I

Jacqueline 19:06

can

Linda 19:06

tell you what I

Jacqueline 19:07

did when I was researching Sojourner truth, because she was illiterate. but because she became such a public speaker, later in life, after she was about 50, there were many newspaper accounts of her.

Susanne 19:23

So I,

Jacqueline 19:24

I own, and she didn't narrate a book, but there was still, that was her narrating going through a white woman and the white woman writing it. So it's constantly reading between the lines. It's white male journalist reporting on this six foot tall black woman talking about, women's rights and so forth.

Linda 19:48

so it's.

Jacqueline 19:50

I think you still have to

Linda 19:52

use your

Jacqueline 19:53

imagination. as I said to read between the lines,

Linda 19:57

women of a certain

Michelle 19:58

time. Yeah. when I wrote

Susanne 20:00

my previous

Michelle 20:01

district, the shoot of her hands, I was writing about my rabbi ancestor, mayor of Luxembourg. But the interesting thing is that there were no records whatsoever. About his wife and yet his wife was my main character, which gave me a certain amount of freedom, Frank. it's Suzanne, you say, if it's a sectional character, you can make it up. But so much of what Jacqueline just said about reading behind the lines. One primary source that I had was the collection of office letter. Which spoke about, he was responding to questions about Jewish servant, which came to him from all over Europe, by medieval Jews. And, there was a lot in there then I disagreed. So I let his wife be the voice of my disagreeing with which was only for fun.

Susanne 21:04

I love it. Yeah. yeah. Also the tools that you have available, you really vary depending on the period you're working in, obviously, for my 13th century, Southern France trilogy, there's only a certain number of resources available and scholarly works and things like that. which is why I didn't even bother to try to make historical figures except as peripherally as peripheral actors. But, You go through periods. I don't know about you, but when I'm working in the French revolution era, there is so much stuff. There is no way you can ever get your arms around the whole thing. And, so in the face of that kind of information, how, what's your approach to narrowing it aside from just thinking, what does my character need to know? Because context is really important too. you have to lay the scene as it were, Lin Manuel Miranda.

Michelle 22:06

once spoke about this, when he said he went to Sondheim, Stephen Sondheim, and he asked him, there's so much information about Hamilton, how do I get my arms around it? And sometimes answer was just use what makes the music. I've always remembered that. So it's, I just use what makes the novel,

Susanne 22:32

this is,

Michelle 22:33

I think, and you're right. There is so much out there, that you could drown

Susanne 22:39

there. You

Michelle 22:39

could literally drown, but I think it's, you've got to somebody use the word discipline. I think you have to use the discipline. In order to be able to say, I need this.

Susanne 22:52

I don't need that. Okay. Yeah. This is also fascinating and valuable. Now my next question shifts a little bit to, what's your approach? How do you, how much research do you do before you start writing? What do you have to have under your belt? And then we'll move into how do you organize it and keep it all straight. Linda do you want to

Linda 23:18

start? So I think I spent three years just doing research before I put a single, I can't say no. I had a sort of opening paragraph in my head. but I really didn't start writing until, I had devoured three years worth. Of information. And most of that, was done, at, in libraries. I didn't start to do research on site until I'd already actually written a lot of the book and then needed to fill things in. And that's when I went to Italy. But, the. The original research was, and I am one of the things that I did depend on was the research librarians. in my local library who were thrilled to be helping me and, who could get me, really obscure scholarly articles from, resources that I would not have been able to afford, but, And they would just print things out for me. And, I'd arrive on a Saturday morning and hand them the list and, they were really extraordinarily helpful too. and I just, yeah. and as, I think you mentioned earlier, Suzanne sort of one thing would lead to another like that. I wouldn't have expected to explore by saying, Oh, this sounds, maybe I should look into this and gets, I would get another book or another article that led me down another path too. So it wasn't very linear. My research was spreading out and lots of things.

Susanne 24:52

So how did you corral it once you had it? What did you do?

Linda 24:55

Very simply I had lots of middle of folders and I had, and I would just start a stick, sticking things in and, each character had a folder and each location out a folder, but, there was a folder for food and there was a folder for dress and there was a folder for transportation and. I found this wonderful site that Stanford university

Jacqueline 25:15

has

Linda 25:15

where you can put in two different points and the time period, and they can tell you how long it takes to get there by boat, by walking by horse by cart. and so I would have little bits and pieces of information like that. I had a folder on the Pope's because I think they were six posts during this time period that I was writing about. And so I just, literally, it was just, it was paper. that I used, yeah. That

Susanne 25:43

man is drinking

Linda 25:45

dining room table, and I was going to write a particular chapter and I says, Oh yes, there's a meal in this chapter. Let me pull out the folder on food. yeah.

Susanne 25:55

Okay. Oh gosh. I, you have much more patience for that. I just, I don't do well with paper. A person. Try not to use it whenever I can. But how about you Jacqueline?

Jacqueline 26:07

I'm in the paper camp. Also. I do a very similar process

Linda 26:12

and I,

Jacqueline 26:13

I can keep track of things that way. I mean, I know that there are lots of formats out there, to do it on the computer, but I like to be able to reach over and get the folder that like, 1938, 1938.

Michelle 26:29

but the other

Jacqueline 26:29

thing that happened. For me. Yes. That

Michelle 26:33

looks like,

Jacqueline 26:33

zone in on a particular time period. It feels to me like every article, every issue of the New York times, every place I look, Oh, there is something about 1930, eight that's related

Michelle 26:47

to

Jacqueline 26:48

1938. I kind of love that. I really loved that. It's like sifting information just from the universe and it's all related. 1938.

Susanne 27:00

Yeah. And then what's lovely. When another serendipity thing is you're looking for something and, or with me, because I do things a little differently, I research and then I write and then I researched some more and then I write and then I don't do all my research to begin with. And what usually happens is I write something and I think I better see whether that's possible and not times out of 10, I find some research to support it. Which is really bizarre, but there you go. and Michelle, are you in the paper camp as well?

Michelle 27:32

I named them the paper camp, but I also, I wish I had three years to research the buts. I usually stop. I usually call it my intensive research period for three months. Three months is enough time for me usually to get my arms around, at least what's going on, hopefully to find the story, but then I'm researching every single

Susanne 27:58

day, because there are

Michelle 28:00

always those gaps and you have to go find that information. I, I don't have folders. I have a big binder and I divide it into. Similar categories is Linda. but, I really feel if I didn't stop just researching after three months on back down that rabbit hole. that's the way I approach

Susanne 28:22

it.

Linda 28:23

Yeah. I think one thing about my three years as I was writing other books at the time, so I was, this was going to be my big book. That was very different from the contemporary books that I was writing. so I wasn't researching every day, but yeah,

Michelle 28:42

yeah. I know you're going to ask about organization. One thing that I found. With my last book. And with this one coming up that I have to do is, you can get blank calendars of years. And I put down, I literally put down what happened on all of the important date and for me, because I write Jewish is thoughtful fiction. This is actually real important because they can't be doing certain things.

Susanne 29:15

Yeah. So

Michelle 29:16

I need to use that. as one of the ways of organizing,

Susanne 29:22

I'm going to make a stab at justifying the non paper version because I don't have folders and I don't have, I do keep pieces of paper every once in a while, but I will, if I can possibly do it. I will save things, but the way I, because I use Scrivener, there's a whole research tab on there and you can import webpages and just an images and all this kind of stuff that you can go back to and you can search for it. but the other thing related to your calendar is have you ever used Ian timeline? No. It's a really fabulous program. And it syncs with Scrivener, which is really amazing if you have to put it in the right metadata. But, it's just a really flexible timeline program. And I haven't used it for my most recent book, but when I was doing something in the 20th century where there were several different layers of people who are doing stuff, it was a, there was one, it was a, Took place in bra on Broadway. And so there were the dates when the shows happened, the dates, when things happened to the people's lives and then, and you can color code them and sync them. And they so that you can see what's happening in the different levels. At the same time, you just get a view of the whole thing, which, which was very useful for some kind of some kinds of books, Oh, I'm definitely

Michelle 30:47

going to check that one out. I will also tell you, I have a number of students who swear by Scrivener. Absolutely adore it. I just, it's been so many years that I've been, squirreling away my stuff that it's hard and making this way.

Susanne 31:03

if it works for you. There's no reason to change it, unless you suddenly get overwhelmed. Like I have to do something about all this paper, but, for me it's mainly because I don't have a good place to spread out in my house. So I can't really, I can't occupy great surfaces with swabs of paper, but, but yeah, so I'm any of you have a research topic that you're wanting to explore or introduce while we're here together?

Michelle 31:33

Hi, I'm fascinated by those of you who have had the opportunity to travel. I only been able to do that really one, one and a half times, because a lot of my travel happened before I was writing the book. So I'm calling on memory, but, Linda, you said that you got to go and. Be in the place and

Linda 31:57

that's a good, it was, that was really simple. for me, to actually, as I call it walk and be Tony's footsteps, she grew up on the Island of Ischia in a castle that still exists. And, I had met a woman a few years before, One of my book events who, I knew arranged travel to Italy for families and had a lot of contacts. And so I, I had an unexpected opportunity, to be in Europe. I was going to be in Germany for my mother-in-law's birthday. And I thought, Oh, it really wouldn't be so difficult to fly from Munich if I could get there for a couple of days. So I called this woman and I said, can you arrange. A guide for me who speaks English as well as the Italian. And she was able to do that sort of on, 48 hours notice. And, and so I had, an entire day with this woman and for Ischia Vittoria, Colonna is like, she is, she's the patron Saint of these girls. they just adore her. And so there's a great deal of information. That was in this woman's head as well as being able to walk. in the capitalist on this little small Island, that's connected by a Causeway to the main Island. And, even just to take the boat, even though it was a hydrofoil, but, it took me 30 minutes to do a trip that would have taken all day for you, Tanya, just, but do you pass that, to see what she saw and to be on the water and then to walk and climb up to the Citadel and to feel. Just an experience physically, because it was very different. Yeah. you walk through a tunnel through the mountain before, this volcanic mountain before you get out into the sunlight. So though that experience was really for me. I, and I recognize I had certainly done some research before just on the inner, you can go to YouTube and you can do these sort of virtual. Virtual tours, which at least give you a sense of the, the, the geography and the light, et cetera. But to actually physically be there is something that I found a real privilege that I, that I was able to do. And then, a second trip I did to Rome and the car, a lot of family still lives in the colonial palace. And you can. You can go to the corner palace one day a week, one morning, a week. And I timed my visit so I could get the tour. but, the, I think for me, the VA, particularly because a lot of my books, not only this one are set in Italy and a reflection of my Italian heritage. That the, I also look back to other trips that I took much earlier in my life. my first trip to Italy was when I was a college student and I was able to visit my grandmother's village and be welcomed back as a, a, a daughter from America. that those memories I think, are equally important. As a, as you say, Michelle, that, even before I knew I was going to write those books to have, really, Held onto those experiences because they were so meaningful to me because they were my heritage. Yeah.

Susanne 35:18

Here's something interesting though. I just did that whole idea of traveling and being there and doing it with intention and going back to your own memories of places, I have traveled, for sure Vienna and Paris and places like that. And I have yet to write a book that is based in London, but I lived there for 10 years, but, What was really interesting to me or would be really interesting. I'd love to go back and see how much my memory were affected by what I, by the stories I was telling, as opposed to really being so accurate to what it was like there. And it was certainly having the opportunity to go to school of Western France and to, go climb up to all the cath, our castles and that sort of thing. Totally made a difference to how. How I was able to situate my characters in a landscape, as it is a really distinct and yeah, and I don't know what the word is, atmospheric landscape there. but I have not been to those places for a long time. And so I am operating, even though I went there. I'm definitely operating on memory. Most of the time. And Jacquelyn. did you do any traveling for Sojourner truth?

Michelle 36:33

Well,

Jacqueline 36:34

research travel to New York state and into New York city, but the book. so I did write a time travel book. We're 21st century woman and her rascal of a nephew are magically taken back in time to 1840 for Ireland. So it is the

Susanne 36:54

work.

Jacqueline 36:54

So worst of that potato famine that they don't know is coming, but and the book is the woman. When they're both taken back in time, they're taken to a different location. So she spends the book trying to find her nephew

Linda 37:13

in,

Jacqueline 37:14

in that time period. So after I wrote the majority, you have the book I, My sister and I traveled to Ireland and I made a map of where my characters had gone because they travel along the Southern coast of Ireland along, kin, sail the bear peninsula. Over as far as Waterford and I did a little bit of what lens I did it. I simply walked the same steps that the characters walk and I'm so glad that I did because they were just a place that even though I'd been to Ireland other times that I would not, I just would have missed so much.

Linda 37:58

That

Jacqueline 37:59

particular part of Ireland, some of which is, very raw and, in some ways, and for example, that

Linda 38:08

the village of

Jacqueline 38:09

Kinsale, very beautiful village, but I had no idea that it was so steep, vertical and which would have been a terrible thing

Linda 38:22

to miss.

Jacqueline 38:24

in the telling of this particular story.

Susanne 38:29

Yeah. has traveling to places or even in your memory sometimes changed your vision of your characters or just reinforced it? I don't know. That

Jacqueline 38:43

has changed.

Susanne 38:45

The

Jacqueline 38:46

vision of my characters. it helps me see through their eyes.

Susanne 38:52

Yeah. that is the magic, isn't it? The, what you do in any writing of course, is put yourself into a character and see what they see. And that's whether you're writing first person or third person. I think it just, you still have to be in, you still have to be, believably in their heads. for sure. Yeah. anything else? I, I feel like this is a huge topic and we probably just scratch the surface, but what's your favorite, if you found a source or resource that you've used, that you go back to time and again, do you have a favorite place to look.

Jacqueline 39:31

One librarians magic and they're so helpful. And they opened doors that I,

Linda 39:42

I won't

Susanne 39:43

think of.

Linda 39:44

and,

Jacqueline 39:45

Historical centers, for example, a historic little tiny historical centers and little towns, sometimes just have jams of information

Michelle 39:57

and

Jacqueline 39:57

it won't be too we'll have you talked to, and so would you like to come and meet this

Michelle 40:01

gruesome?

Linda 40:05

Yeah, I agree. Jacqueline. I, I have a series of books that are said, on Chappaquiddick Island and the first book is in the late thirties, early forties. And, the Martha's vineyard historical system. He is just, little building and I had written ahead and made an appointment. And the librarian there had. Boxes of photographs ready for me from that time period and bound copies of the newspapers. And, I needed, just, I was towards the end. I just needed little details. Like I, I like, I want it to be authentic about, the names of the shops in the town in Edgartown. So that, was this there in 1941. And, there's a scene where there's a sort of bar brawl and. Yeah. And I said it in Edgartown and I was asking this like very, and it was, is there a bar that was in existence at that time. And he said, there were no bars in Edgartown. It was true.

Michelle 41:02

You can't set,

Jacqueline 41:03

you can set the bar brawl in Eckerd,

Linda 41:07

which would have been, somebody would have caught that and. but what he did was he said, you know what? He said, we have, a series of oral histories. We recorded old timers talking about places. And he said, I know that there's something in there. There's a bar. There was a bar that one of these old timers, and he went into his records and he found this oral history and he named the bar for me. and so in the town where it was. And so I was able to very safely. Move the Barbara Barbra from Edgartown to Oakleigh, but that kind of it is serendipity. And, but that assistance that these historical societies and librarians provide for us is really priceless.

Susanne 41:53

for me it's museums.

Michelle 41:55

yeah,

Susanne 41:56

yeah. Yeah. especially. Just looking at the art can tell you so much just how they place people in portraits. what their priorities are. You see what they're wearing. especially with portraiture, it was very, it was designed to reveal the class, the station, the priorities of the people whose portraits they were. And especially when they're, when you can't. See photographs when it's before photographs, it's just a great way to do it. And then of course the museums, like the rooms at the metropolitan museum, the 18th century rooms, that really tells you that tells you more than, Oh, and in Paris have the kind of all a museum is. If you were, writing anything that took place in Paris in the past, you'd have to go to the carnival a because it has just has stuff you wouldn't believe. so I absolutely librarians and I've been very fortunate cause, when I was doing the research for my dissertation, I had access to. The state libraries and to academic libraries and things, and, I've handled, I've handled, handled manuscripts, things like that, which I know that a lot of people can't do. but so yeah, libraries are awesome. I have a library

Michelle 43:16

story and fusing stories.

Susanne 43:19

Sorry.

Michelle 43:20

I took it from you. That's fine. But my favorite library story was back when I was, researching the book that turned into my verse novel. in the shadow of the glow, and this was all about Shakespeare and I was working at Radcliffe college at the time before it became right Institute. So I had access to Weidener library, Harvard library, and I told the, The librarian, really, what I want is to be able to access Phillip Henslow's diary, which they have. And so she took me downstairs. I'm just the pavement. because that's, it was like were absolutely under the pillow. I find this tiny little dark corner. Where it was located. I just, that was amazing. So yeah, definitely libraries. in terms of museums, even museums where you don't think you're going to find things, I've found Napoleonic exhibits in Toronto and in everywhere. and I've also found in, this is something I talk about all the time. Part of my, part of beyond the gate of Gates is based on the fact that it was the world center of Jewish marriage certificate, make it fit you well. And there's a very distinctive shape to them. And so I would go into this museums and I'd see the Judaica that they thought there. And then I'd say, Oh, that kitchen, that one came from an

Susanne 44:58

and I was

Michelle 44:58

always right. simply because of the shape of it. yeah, museums for me are huge. Just being able to see, even the guns and the story and the ammunition and absolutely the portraits and all of that is fabulous.

Linda 45:21

I also have a museum story. the a few years ago, the met. Did, Amica launch lo a huge exhibition for Michelangelo, including recreating the cysts, the ceiling of the Sistine chapel in flat screen TV screens on the ceiling. That was marvelous when you walk in, but I turned a corner and there was a Vittoria Colonna room as part of this exhibition, which I was not. Anticipating and the spotlight, the highlight of this room was the book of poetry that she had prepared for him. And I had never seen even an image of it. I just knew that it had existed and in my mind it was, like the size of a mold, those little mole, skin notebooks. That's what I thought when I was envisioning it. And the, to see the actual book behind, of course this was inside this glass box. and, but it was huge. And, they had, you could read it, they had it open and you can see that the calligraphy, and for me, that moment was. Just, it was such an enlightening and extraordinary moment to actually see this book that you know, which only museums can do that, provide that kind of company.

Susanne 46:47

Okay. Last question I have to ask, do you ever have anxiety that you have researched something and somehow it's going to be wrong or someone's going to come upon it and have you had those experiences and. What do you do about it?

Jacqueline 47:04

I think it's a worry I have all the time when I'm doing research from a different time,

Michelle 47:12

but it's a funny

Jacqueline 47:14

align. It's a funny thing to dance with because it's fiction or writing fiction. So partly we're making things up and we're making things up around true historical. Yeah. So you know that

Susanne 47:31

there's,

Jacqueline 47:32

there are times when those

Linda 47:33

two things

Jacqueline 47:34

there. and I think people who are historians when they read historical fiction, they're very quick to point out. I don't believe it happened on that day. I think it happened they later, because that's just how they think, they're thinking.

Michelle 47:52

Yeah. One of my frustrations is when the different sources have the same thing happening on different days or there's something like that. but yeah, I am

Susanne 48:01

still waiting. I talk about

Michelle 48:03

this all the time. I know there was a Napoleonic, enthusiastic out there. Who's going to tell me I got the battles all wrong. I'm sure it's going to happen.

Linda 48:15

Yeah. Yeah. I have the same that the same anxiety. And I also, I often, I don't know if you are, get this women doing what, back in the day, when I could do a light book reading, I would always get the, how much of what's true. And what's not true. What, what, and what, the way I answer it now is, I have internalized the research so much and blended it. With the fiction that I don't know that I could tease apart anymore, just specifically what is factual and what I made up based on what I learned from the research. And that's how I, fudge my answer.

Susanne 48:56

Yeah. and then I think that the distinction too is, the difference between truth and fact. as long as you're, you've found a truth that you're true to the period that you're true to the characters. you have to move the facts around. Sometimes you have to change them. And that's what an author's note is for you to say, all right, I know this didn't happen done, but it didn't work for my story. So I S I fudged it a little bit. But yeah, we've, I've kept you all long enough. This has been. I've really enjoyed this. And, I just, I want to thank you all for coming and talking to me on what are here is a dismal afternoon, but, yeah. I will make sure that I have links to it, all of your various, websites and books and whatnot in the show notes for this. And yeah. So thank you. And I hope we can have another discussion sometime as well. Thank you,

Jacqueline 49:54

Susan.

Michelle 49:54

Thank you.

Linda 49:56

Yeah, this is a lot of fun.

Susanne 49:58

Great. Thanks.