Reclaiming a Myth: Crafting Historical Fiction with Alysandra Dutton (The Stolen Women)

Join us for a conversation with author and Loft teaching artist Alysandra Dutton as she discusses her upcoming novel, The Stolen Women. In this episode, Alysandra shares insights into her creative writing practice, how to conduct deep research for historical and myth-inspired fiction, and the art of breathing new life into timeless stories.

Plus, we honor the literary legacy of Annie Dillard, highlight a special upcoming Loft opportunity with Valeria Luiselli, and introduce a new monthly "Mission Moment" segment with Loft staff member Zach Goldberg.

Show Notes & Links

VALERIA LUISELLI AT THE LOFT

Forge: a Craft Seminar with Valeria Luiselli (The Art of Listening) (Oct 8): https://loft.org/classes/forge-craft-seminar-valeria-luiselli-art-listening

The Fire is Here: Beginning Middle End with Valeria Luiselli (Oct 8): https://loft.org/events/fire-here-beginning-middle-end-valeria-luiselli

BOOKS TO PICK UP

Pre-Order Alys Dutton's The Stolen Women (Harper Collins): https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-stolen-women-alysandra-dutton?variant=44415047663650

Witness: Poems to Address the Past, Present, and Future of Policing: https://lernerbooks.com/shop/show/26968

I'd Rather Be Destroyed by Zach Goldberg: https://buttonpoetry.com/product/id-rather-be-destroyed/

ALYSANDRA DUTTON CLASSES

Diversifying Writers: Writing & Publishing for Neurodivergent Artists (Oct 8-29): https://loft.org/classes/diversifying-writers-writing-publishing-neurodivergent-artists

Historical Fiction Workshop (Oct 6-Nov 10): https://loft.org/classes/historical-fiction-workshop

The Art of the Outline: Novel Writing Clinic (Oct 6-Nov 10): https://loft.org/classes/art-outline-novel-writing-clinic

LOON WRITERS FESTIVAL

Loon Writers Festival | Detroit Lakes, MN (October 9-11): https://www.loonwriters.com/festival

Support the Loft

Support Our Community: Become a Friend of the Loft: https://loft.org/join-support

Join the Loft's free Digital Community, the Loft Writing Network: https://loft-lit.circle.so/Loft-Writing-Network

Transcript

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Welcome

SPEAKER_03 0:05

Welcome to the Loft Lifted Pod, where words catch fire. I'm Chris Jones, Director of Community Engagement at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. Whether you're a longtime friend or tuning in for the first time, we're glad you're gathering around this fire. The Loft advances the power of writers and readers to craft and share stories, to create and celebrate connections, and to build just life-sustaining communities.

RIP Annie Dillard

SPEAKER_03 0:29

I wanted to kick off our show today acknowledging the loss of a literary giant in the last few weeks, Annie Dillard. She was a cross-genre giant and the kind of writer we need more of these days. The title poem of her found poem collection, Mornings Like This, ends this way. A billion chances, and I am here. And here I lie in the quiet room and read and read and read. So easy, so easy, so easy. Pools in old woods full of leaves. Give me time enough in this place and I will surely make a beautiful thing. Thank you for making so many beautiful things. Rest in peace. Shifting gears, I have two community highlights I wanted to share before we get to our feature interview.

Community: Loon Writers and Valeria Luiselli

SPEAKER_03 1:24

First, I want to mention that support for the show is brought to you by the Loon Writers Festival. Head to beautiful Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, October 9th through 11th for the Loon Writers Festival, an in-person gathering of author readings, workshops, and community. All writers of all genres are welcome. Find the schedule, guest, authors, and tickets at loonwriters.com. That's loonwriters.com. And the second piece I wanted to highlight is the upcoming visit of Valeria Lucelli to the Loft on October 8th. We're really excited to welcome Valeria back to town for a full day, celebrating her new book, Beginning, Middle, End. In the morning, she will teach a forged craft seminar around listening, and that evening she will join the loft for a reading and conversation from her new book. If you don't know her work, I encourage you to join us. And if you do know her work, I encourage you to join us. She is one of the most decorated working writers uh working right now. And here is a short passage from her book, Tell Me How It Ends, An Essay in Forty Questions, uh a really powerful uh piece, or a really powerful book. But there's a passage in this book, which I'll get to in a second, where she's stopped by the police uh when visiting Arizona uh for for a book project, and she's asked why they're there and why they're there near the border. Uh she says something sort of simple and sort of waving her hands about wanting to write being a writer, wanting to write a western and seeking the open skies in silence. But it isn't fully true. And then this is where she this is what she writes in her book. Handing back our passports, one official says sardonically, So you come all the way down here for the inspiration. We know better than to contradict anyone who carries a badge and a gun, so we just say, Yes, sir. Because how do you explain that it is never inspiration that drives you to tell a story? But rather a combination of anger and clarity. How do you say, No, we do not find inspiration here? But we find a country that is as beautiful as it is broken, and we are somehow now part of it. So we are also broken with it, and feel ashamed, confused, and sometimes hopeless, and we are trying to figure out how to do something about all that. We roll the windows up and keep driving.

Mission Moment (Zach Goldberg)

SPEAKER_03 4:00

And lastly, before we get to our feature interview, I'm introducing a monthly segment for this podcast today. Once a month in staff in LOF staff meetings, one of our staff members is called upon to bring about uh to the group what we call a mission moment. It kicks off our staff meeting uh every month. And the purpose is to tie our work back to um back to our our mission and back to why we do the work that we do. We figured it would be fun to share these moments with our audience. So here is Loft staff member Zach Goldberg with his mission mission moment for September. All right. Uh I am joined by Loft staff member Zach Goldberg. Zach, uh, welcome. Thanks. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Uh well, tell us a little bit about your role at the Loft. I always like to start this off by by giving people a sense of who we all are.

SPEAKER_02 4:51

Yeah, I am the Salesforce and Technology Administrator at the Loft. So I manage a lot of our sort of back-end database systems. I don't I don't do a lot of really communicating with teaching artists and students and stuff, but I see all of that happening behind the scenes. So that's that's kind of my my thing.

SPEAKER_03 5:08

Cool. Uh before we get into your mission moment, you're also a uh working artist yourself.

SPEAKER_02 5:15

I am. I'm a poet. I'm a writer. So uh yeah, I've been working in the community for a while. I run a poetry slam called BuckSlam. So shout out Buck Slam, uh second Wednesday of every month at Indeed Brewing. I hope I'm allowed to make plugs. Absolutely. Plug away. What's your book called? My book is called I'd Rather Be Destroyed. Uh, it's a collection of poetry that was released in 2024 from Button Poetry.

SPEAKER_03 5:39

Awesome. Awesome. Well, uh, we're kicking this off every uh month. We ask a staff member to come to our staff meeting with uh what we call a mission moment, which is just really a moment for us to all really connect back to the work that we do and why we do it, uh and why, you know, why are uh why we think the loft is uh you know exists in the first place. So Zach, uh tell us about your mission moment for September.

SPEAKER_02 6:07

Yeah, um I, you know, I think we try to bring these back to the organizational values of the loft. And so for this mission moment, I was focusing on the value of justice. So just to read that value that's on our website, uh, we recognize that oppression, colonization, and extractive economies threaten life in our communities and on our planet. We are committed to anti-racist, equitable, and life-sustaining practices in our literary offerings and our approach to work. So this is sort of the value that I was thinking about a lot when I went to um uh a reading for the release of this poetry anthology called Witness. Uh, and this was not, to be clear, it was not a loft official event, but there was just so many different intersections with folks who are involved in the loft that it just felt very much like a loft community event. So this is an anthology that was put together by Ty Chapman and Ari Tyson. And Ty is a former board member. I think you actually had him read a poem on a on a recent episode of the podcast. So, and that poem is from this collection, actually. Uh, and then Ari is also a has been a teaching artist with the Loft in the past. So it just felt like a very much like they're putting this together. It's an anthology that's about the past, present, and future of Pleasan. Um, and there's just so many different Minneapolis and Minnesota and St. Paul, okay, twin cities. I'll say twin cities, poets that are involved in the collection. Um, so you know, at the reading, there was like Sun Young-shen and Carolyn Holbrook and Kyle Trian Myrie and Dinez Smith and Haley Kirkwood. And I'm like putting out all these names that are like all of these people I feel like are deeply ingrained in the loft's work in one way or another. So, like board members or former board members, or like mentor teachers, or teaching artists, like all of these different ways that folks have been intersecting with our work. And then to see them all come together in this moment and talk about, you know, this issue that I feel like has especially been very pre you know, prevalent and important in Minnesota. Um, that was both sort of like a minute. So the reading felt like a moment of both collective rage and also a little bit of like coming together as a community, which is, I think, something that's been happening um for the past several years. You know, like Minnesota has been the epicenter of some of these questions around policing in America um for what feels like a minute now. Um, and you know, we all really felt that. So again, yeah, it was not an official loft event, but very felt very in line with our values. And I I think something that Ty mentioned is that the anthology itself like really did come together at the loft, like in our physical space, because they would be working in our classrooms and like putting together the manuscript and figuring out the order and all that sort of stuff in our space. So I do think that that speaks to the ways that we are contributing to this work.

unknown 8:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:53

Yeah. I mean, I love I love this idea of, you know, when I talk about the loft, I talk about this idea of an ecosystem. And sometimes it's hard to measure or fully explain the impact of our work. But this work actually, to me, feels like one of those where you really can point to it. Like you have people who have emerged through some of our programming and some of our fellowships who have now gone on to write, you know, multiple books, and now they're editing this one together. And that book also collects from the community at large, but many people have sort of loft ties and and values and connect with each other that way, and maybe even met each other in some loft offerings and programming and fellowships and things like that. So it's really cool to see all those things come together and then to see a work that is this powerful, um, sort of out in the out in the wild now, um, for all of us to to really admire and enjoy and um and really ponder this big issue that I think is really important, as you mentioned, is sort of very acute in this community. And I think it's it's a it's it's a welcome uh welcome collection. You can find it, uh a link to it in the show notes below if you want to get your own copy. Um, but anything else to add, Zach?

SPEAKER_02 10:14

No, I mean I I think this is something that they mentioned at the reading that's just like they did not set out to make a Minnesota-specific collection around policing, but of course, part of it is that you know, the editors live here, so they know a lot of Minnesota poets, but part of it is again that so much has been happening in Minnesota over the past several years, and it just like happened. But there are like, you know, Amanda Gorman is in the book. Like there's there's like big names in the book that are not from Minnesota as well. So it's just like it happens that so many spectacular writers are here, and also this issue is especially relevant to our community.

SPEAKER_03 10:49

Yeah, yeah. Well said, well said. Well, thanks, uh, thanks, Zach, for contributing that and thanks for all you do at the Loft. Also, thanks so much. The Loft is so lucky to have Zach as part of our team. I've put a link in the show notes pointing to the witness book edited by Ty Chapman and Ari Tyson. Now, on to our main conversation. Today we're joined by author and

Alysandra Dutton (The Stolen Women)

SPEAKER_03 11:09

loft teaching artist Alessandra Dutton. Her new book, The Stolen Women, comes out next month, and she has three classes that start next week at The Loft. Links in the show notes. In this conversation, we talk about her writing practice, how to get go best about doing research for a novel like this one, the art of telling fresh versions of old stories, and her upcoming loft classes. Let's dive into that conversation now. Well, welcome everyone. Uh, I am joined uh by Alessandra Dutton today. Alessandra is a writer and amateur historian based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, although not always, as we'll find out. Uh, she researched her new historical novel, The Stolen Women, as a 2022 Sturgis Fellow in residence at the British School at Rome, where she visited ruins, museums, archives, and olive groves all over Italy. Uh, welcome, Alessandra.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

Hi, thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_03 12:03

Yeah, I really appreciate you taking the time. So uh, as I mentioned, you're based in Minneapolis, but you're calling from uh elsewhere. So where are you calling in from?

SPEAKER_00 12:12

I happen to be back at the British School at Rome. It's the evening. Um, I'm back here for the first time in four years since I did my fellow. And it happens to also be the night that um all of the awards cohort is coming. They all arrived today, and that we all just finished a fancy dinner of like chatting with each other and and asking what's your project. And I've already run into a couple of people who I I crossed paths with in 2022. And um, and it's it's I'm I'm sort of agog at how nice my life is right in this exact moment.

SPEAKER_03 12:47

Wow, wow. I'm sorry to interrupt that. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us. Wow, it sounds like a very exciting, uh exciting stretch of time. Um, you have uh uh based on the the work that you did there, you have a new novel that is coming out called The Stolen Women. Um and I'm really excited to talk about it. I think I've got a lot of uh questions about uh your approach. But uh for those for those who maybe don't know you, don't know your work, or don't know the novel, um tell us about it. Tell tell me like how how you'd summarize it to somebody who you're explaining it to for the first time.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

Yeah, well, the first question I ask is do you know the story of the Sabine women? Um, which uh uh depending on where I am, they say yes, of course. Um and then um more often I get blank stares. Um but you run across a Sabine woman, even if you don't think you have, because they're in almost every art museum um in the Western world. Um so this is the story of the founding of Rome. Um, Romulus, you know, raised by wolves, kills his brother, establishes a settlement, and then has this problem of not having any women. Um, and so rather infamously he organizes a party and he invites um women that he finds to be of like preferable bloodlines, in particular the Sabine. Um, and uh and then at the signal, all of his men make off with a bride. And these are the first mothers of Rome. Um, and uh, and if you can believe it, I think the only really culturally significant retelling that currently exists of the Sabine women um is the very frothy romantic comedy musical, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Um uh where, you know, and and and Roman historians will tell you this as well, that all of the women ended up very happily married to their Roman husbands and very excited about all of that. Um, and I always found something really like dissonant in like the renderings of these, especially these pieces painted in the Renaissance or sculpted in the Renaissance era when this story was very popular. Um, like the fear depicted, the panic depicted, um, and then the sort of reception of the story as like a fun comedy of the start of Rome. Um and uh and I just uh I needed to change it. So the um the last component um uh of the of writing this book, of how this book came to be, is that during the pandemic, I um I got very into reading um noir and detective literature. Um and uh and that was like the sort of last piece when I started to think like how would I attach the kind of noir convention, the investigation, the missing persons, you know, um, to this historical event. That's when it all kind of came together in book form.

SPEAKER_03 15:36

I love that. Yeah, you know, so this the the as you mentioned, the the myth of the Sabine women or the abduction of the Sabine women is really often framed uh or has been historically framed as sort of this moment of imperial celebratory victory, as well as this sort of like romanticized compromise that where everyone did ended up happy. Uh and it was you know, that's I think I think I'm reflecting what the sort of like the the narrative is around that, right? Yeah, pretty pretty well. Um, so I want to kind of combine this with a question which I heard. I I was re reviewing one of your uh other interviews that I saw online, uh, where you describe the genesis of this novel by viewing a painting in Chicago. And so I'm I'm curious about the moment where you're sort of re-kind of like seeing that painting and thinking about this narrative and and sort of like what how that led to you thinking I need to write this story and tell it in a different way.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

Yeah. Um, I uh I think I was 18 when I first saw that painting. It's by Luca Giordano, um, and it's in the Chicago Art Institute. Um, and um and that I I I felt very affected by it. I was on a date with a terrible, terrible person who was very, who was a violent person, you know. Um, and uh, and so I was like experiencing this emotional reaction to this painting. Um, but in particular, what really made it kind of lodge in my heart in a way that like followed me all through, you know, discovering that I wanted to be a writer and pursuing that career in the MFA, um, is the painting historically has been called the Rape of the Sabine Women. Um and uh and the Chicago Art Institute is is uh one of many museums that has either just flat renamed the piece The Abduction of the Sabine Women, um, or has added a little context, you know, like a little placard that says, Oh, don't worry, we don't mean rape like that. You know, um, lots of people will tell you that it's a mistranslation because um it's actually translating from the word, I think the Latin word is raptio, and and that is a word that means to seize. So, you know, very literal sense, abductionism, maybe a more correct translation. Um, but when you dig into that word in Latin, um and the the historical context of that word is that it often, maybe even almost always, means seize in a sexual sense, like a kidnapping for sexual purposes, which of course is what the abduction of the Sabine women was. Um, I mean, they were expressly seized in order to birth a generation of Romans. And so there's no misunderstanding that. And yet, and this way that like I think curators um will flinch at this story when dealing with um, I I mean, there's there's quite a lot of rape in Renaissance era paintings because it was a way of having men and women in the same scene and a lot of action, you know, and a little titillating, you know, um, and uh and you have curators who who don't quite know what to do with that or know what to say about it, who want to sort of flinch and move off. And then of course, when I was researching um and reading um accounts from Roman historians like Livy, like Dionysus of Halakinassus, like Plutarch, you have a lot of them um really wanting to skate past the violence of it. Or, or at least that was my, you know, as a modern woman reading their accounts of it. That was what I noticed the most, is we didn't talk about the violence, you know. Um, yeah, so that was what really it's it's those little placards, those museum placards. I've seen them in in more places than just the Chicago Art Institute. I think right now, if you go to the Chicago Art Institute, the last time I saw that painting, I think was in 2024. Um, it'll tell you very briefly what the painting is about, and then it'll give you a paragraph about Luca Giordano's painting styles. So it'll just move on.

SPEAKER_03 19:57

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just kind of glaze kind of glazing over it, right? Glancing over it. Um really uh I think it's you know, as I I think about a lot of the books that have come out in recent years, um we're in this really rich era, I think, of kind of feminist retellings of works. We've had we've seen Madeline Miller's Cersei, uh Natalie Haynes, A Thousand Ships, Diana Gray's I Medusa, uh, all of which are like just just rich, fantastic, deep reads. Um and these historical retellings often kind of hold up a mirror to contemporary ideas of power and who gets to tell their own stories. Um, so I'm curious about, you know, as you think about your novel coming out in the world, um, where do you think it fits into that context? And what do you hope a reader gains out of that um that new lens it provides?

SPEAKER_00 20:59

Yeah, I I think this is a really interesting question because it's something I had to think about a lot when we were on submission. Um, the first couple responses that we got from editors was sort of along the lines of like, it's very difficult to make a retelling stand out right now because they're because it became such a popular genre, and now there are so many people, you know, seizing on sort of any any any figure, particularly women, you know, to retell their stories. Um and so I I was thinking a lot about like how to defend, you know, what sets my novel apart and also what allows my novel to participate, you know, in the tradition of those really, really wonderful ones, like the ones you named. Um and uh and yeah, and I think that I think that that process happened here at the British School. Um when I was, I worked on on one terrible draft that will never, you know, that we barely speak of, um, back in Archives. Arkansas in my in my final year of my MFA program as I was gearing up to come to the British school. And um, and that draft was a lot more um focused individually, like the character's sort of relationship to violence and and navigating through this violence with her family and her sisters was the main point and thrust of the book. Um, and that's still there, and I think that's it is it still feels very important to me that my book is received in a way that's like we're we're giving voice to women who have been violated by history. Um but when I was at the British school, I got this sort of crash course in what they don't tell you in like, you know, seventh grade social studies about ancient Rome, which is that like propaganda is enormous and and problematic to the study of Roman history and especially archaeology. Um Mussolini is a great example of like, you know, someone who wanted to tie himself rhetorically to the image of the Roman Empire, but without um without doing conservation work, without doing documentation work. I mean, there are excavations all over Italy that are like really characterized by looting and poor documentation because their only purpose was to like look impressive and to like tie the fascist era of Italy into this empire. Um, and then um as soon as I started looking at empire, you know, I'm finding like emperors that Mussolini idolized, who were themselves claiming that they had Sabine ancestors and who were commissioning, you know, works of literature about the Sabine and who were particularly focused on Sabine heritage as a kind of the same way we understand certain like Aryan language as dog whistles for nationalism. Um and so when I hit upon that and started to like think about my narrative in this like big, large context historically, that is when my book felt both like it was becoming the best version of itself and also like it was becoming something different, like I could offer something more than simply the psychological profile of a woman. And I say simply, and I like a book like Cersei by Madeline Miller is just I adore it and I don't think it's simple at all, you know. But um, but yeah, looking facing outward, I think, is what my book is doing that is slightly both different and part of the tradition.

SPEAKER_03 24:35

Really uh interesting and exciting. My hair kind of rose on my arms when you were talking about the the context about Mussolini and and that historical context because it feels you know adjacent and familiar to some of the things that we're living through. So it's it's that's uh boy. I'm I'm even more excited to read this um when I can get my hands on it. Um I want to turn to the to the British School of Rome, the idea of research. Um you know, I I think a lot of people who come to the loft are often looking for help with uh the ideas of historical fiction. I know you've done you've done a ton of research for this book, but the way I want to ask this is you are trying to write a story that is based on a version of history that you're trying to retell and sometimes subvert. And so how do you approach any notion of historical accuracy with the creative freedom needed to fill in sort of these missing unrecorded voices of history?

SPEAKER_00 25:49

I I will say this on on the record for the first time that they offered me the opportunity to get um a fact checker, and I said no. Yeah. Um, I said a fact checker is gonna find all sorts of details that I'm positive are wrong. You know, I mean I I can speak to a couple details that I chose to be wrong because I simply was like, I can't, I can't bother changing, altering what's happening in the story right now. The story has to be more important. Um uh yeah, but uh, but I'm sure people will read my book and find some inaccuracies. You know, I think the job of a historical fiction writer is to make that fade into the background. You know, I think I like I hope that a reader comes to historical fiction like the way that I come to theater, where you have to you accept that you're going to suspend your disbelief just a little bit, you know, like that that in some ways there are going to be things rendered on stage that are symbolic of what they might have actually been, you know, like um I think historical fiction, um, it's easy. I talk a lot about this to my students, and I'm just about to like open my historical fiction class again at the loft this uh in a couple of weeks. Um, and uh I think it's really easy to get bogged down in this, like, it if there's an academic boogeyman under the bed, you know, like it's gonna get me if I don't like do everything absolutely accurately. Um, and so I think the way to combat that as a historical fiction writer is to like have a strong enough sense of context that like that moment where you're talking about the hair raising off the back of your arms, you know, like that's what you're there to create for your readers. Um, you know, and and whether and whether grain storage happens in in a room with a door or in a cistern buried in the ground, you know, like it is not really that impactful to the story you're trying to tell. And there, and I'll tell you, there were so many like research rabbit holes that I went down that ended up cut out of the book because they weren't necessary, they weren't useful to the story. I think if you can hang on to what am I trying to say to this world now about what's happening in the past, then I think the rest bleeds through, you know, like and and the reader forgives what doesn't quite, you know.

SPEAKER_03 28:16

That's right. That it I love that because it's it just you're you're you're in service to the story first, right? That the historical context matters, but it it's the story that sort of matters more. Um that I mean that makes a lot of sense to me. And it really simplifies the idea of then how you approach uh a story like this where where all the all the myth and the the the stories around it are different than the one you're trying to tell. And so that you can still sort of use that as context, but be able to still tell that story. So it makes it makes a lot of sense to me. Yeah, absolutely. Um let's talk about the loft classes that you mentioned. Um you have a couple coming up, including uh the Art of the Outline, a novel writing clinic, and a historical fiction uh workshop. Um what can what can students expect to gain in taking one of the classes you've got coming up with the loft?

SPEAKER_00 29:13

Um, I love teaching historical fiction. Um I developed that class for the loft when I moved to Minneapolis right after doing this fellowship in 2022. Um and uh and I'm always excited when I get to teach it again. Um and I and I think that it's never quite what people really expect it to be for the same reason that like I I am not a historian myself. You know, I mean I think I think that sometimes that that stops people a minute in the first session of the class. They have to adjust to the idea that I'm not myself an academic historian, but I think that's what makes me the right person to teach this kind of class, is that I had to learn very like on the fly how to do this, like, I tell my students like shallow and broad for their research. Um, you know, because as a historical fiction writer, you're supposed to, you're expected to have an opinion and and a working knowledge of of like every sphere of life for a character. You know, you're expected to know what's in their kitchen and you're also expected to know what's in their newspaper. Um, and uh and yeah, so I I've I've really had fun developing um exercises to sort of strengthen that research impulse to to like learn how to how to listen to your instincts, insofar as like you get what you need to out of an academic text and you don't get too bogged down in the academic text, you know. Um, so I think that uh that my students in that class uh are going to um be prepared to feel excitingly challenged um by the pace of the research. It's nice doing these classes in like these two-hour blocks too, because um it puts this limit on the exercise itself. I mean, I'm not assigning homework in those classes, the homework is just a work on the project. So we do like it, it's really funny to watch students get frustrated sometimes initially when you're like, ah, like you're you're doing this research exercise, and I only have 15 minutes to look at this article, and I need so much more time with it. And um, but it really strengthens that muscle of um of learning how to like grab and go.

SPEAKER_03 31:27

Like um, yeah, that I mean, I think one of the things that I have heard from students often is this idea that uh, and it might not just be about research, but the the the sidetracks and the research can really bog down people and maybe even kind of paralyze the fact that they they don't get the project done because they find themselves diving down so many rabbit holes. I assume that is a particularly challenging aspect of historical fiction.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

Uh in the loft, it typically I have like the basic profile of my loft student in that historical fiction class is someone who is like, yeah, I've been working on this area of research for like six years now. You know, I'm like, I keep trying to start. I don't quite, you know. Um, yeah, and that is uh that's a student that I know what to do with.

SPEAKER_03 32:19

I love that because I think there's a lot of people out there who who are would define themselves that way, right? I think that they get they get bogged down on these sidetricks, and they're the people who finish uh the video game by doing all the side quests first, you know, like yes, yes, and I am that person too.

SPEAKER_00 32:37

So so I've I like I think I've learned the techniques I've learned by taming my own brain first. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:46

Great. Um, you know, another question I have for uh for you is around the publishing process. Um, you know, I think a lot of people are always interested to hear about the publishing path and publishing journey of a book like this. Um can you walk me through sort of like how this book came to be once once you're in the process of writing it, but like now let's talk about the actual like agenting and working with a publisher and editor and how did that whole process go for you?

SPEAKER_00 33:14

Yeah, it was um it's kind of funny. I know a couple of people who I would say had similar experiences in the sense that like there were parts of this publishing process where I was like feeling like I was living a Cinderella story. And then there were parts of the publishing process that felt like they had to be even harder because I had gotten lucky, you know. Um, and uh like I I I've joked with a friend before that if you have like 10 agent offers, then it means you're you'll have a miserable submission process, you know, or vice versa. Like if it if it's an amazing struggle to find an agent, then you're definitely going to a seven-way auction, you know. Um but for me, the Cinderella moment happened when I got agented. Um, so I um the the sort of quick and dirty version is that I um I was at the end of my MFA and I was sort of sending out soft queries um with my short fiction collection that was my thesis. And I was just kind of seeing the the idea was that someone would like it, but not enough to sign me. And then a year later I could come back and say, and here's my novel. Um but uh but while I was sending those queries, my agent Lucy Carson um uh read a short story that I published in The Sun magazine um and just sent one of those magical, I'm an agent at XYZ and what are you working on now? And I got to say, well, that's a little spooky because yesterday I was sending queries. Um and uh and I knew immediately, like as soon as I was familiarizing myself with Lucy's work, that I needed her to be my agent. I think she had something in her bio at the time that was like high concept um feminist story. I was like, that's me, that's me. I want that. Um yeah, but um, but what ended up happening is I mean, she was much more interested in the short story or in the in the novel, and I only had 50 pages, um, and that terrible draft that we don't speak of. Um, and uh and so we worked for like three years revising. I wrote three big drafts in those three years for Lucy. Um, and it was a really interesting process. It taught me a lot about myself as a writer. Um, Lucy's amazing because she's she's very good at like asking you like, are you ready to hear from an agent? Um, but I also had to learn what that meant, you know, because I thought that I was ready to hear. I was so excited to hear from an agent. But um, but then as soon as I had her in my email inbox, I it's like I outsourced my thinking to her because there was a draft of the book that it went wrong. Um, because I I just it was sort of the revision process of that draft. I just went down the list of just everything she mentioned. I changed it in exactly the way she suggested. I took my brain out of it entirely. I just was like, well, she knows best. But of course, you know, she's looking for authors that can think for themselves. Um and um, and yeah, and I gave her that draft of the book, and she was like, Well, this is not any closer to what we need it to be. And um, and I had to really like come back and do this like soul searching, like, okay, this time, like I have to look at this book and and keep her problems with the manuscript in my mind, but then also keep my solutions at the forefront. I ended up covering up all of her comments, like so that I could see where she made comments, but not see what she thought about them because I knew it would make me think too hard about yeah. Um, and uh, and that was the book that um that we sold. Like that was the draft as soon as I was remembering to think for myself. Yeah, because she's brilliant and she knows exactly where something isn't working. Um, but she's an agent, so she's gonna throw out, you know, four different ideas to fix it. And and and some of those ideas are the right ones, but you know, like if I just go based on what she would say. Yeah, so that was that's me falling down the rabbit hole of the biggest thing I learned while agenting.

SPEAKER_03 37:20

But oh, that's so fascinating because I think I think that uh there's so much to learn in this, in that I think people as writers often want feedback, but the thing that most writers aren't early on in their lives or their writing lives or their writing careers aren't prepared for is how do I process and deal with feedback and how do I approach it rather than just doing what you like? It's not you don't just go through the track changes and accept them all. It's like you have to like you have to like have a filter process where you're like wrestling with what they're saying, but building it into what you're working on.

SPEAKER_00 37:57

And I think absolutely, and it it was truly it was one of those moments where I was like, it took me a year and a half to even understand what Lucy was saying when she said, Are you ready to hear? You know, are you ready to have an agent's voice? Um, she was doing the right work, and I I was just sort of like, Yes, please validate me, you know, like instead of yes, please collaborate with me. Right, right.

SPEAKER_03 38:23

Yeah, and that's the other thing that I hear that I think people are often surprised with, but like the best publishing relationships are these sort of collaborative ones, right? That that where it's like you're building it block by block and bit by bit. And I assume that that comes into the role with with your ultimate, your editor, once you so sell it too, they also become a voice in that process, too. Um, but having that more collaborative process rather than sort of, you know, the any other kind of that's the best, that's when publishing works its best, I think, is when you have relationships.

SPEAKER_00 38:55

I think so. I agree. And now I'm really looking forward to whatever I, you know, whatever I end up sending Lucy next because now I know how to do it.

SPEAKER_03 39:03

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I mean you can't you can't know that until you know it, right? And you can't build that until you build it out. So uh well, okay. So uh Alessandra, I know we're kind of running up on time here. Um, when when can we all get our hands on the stolen woman?

SPEAKER_00 39:18

It is coming out in one month.

SPEAKER_03 39:20

Um month, all right. And we can pre-order now, right?

SPEAKER_00 39:26

October 27th.

SPEAKER_03 39:27

October 27th.

SPEAKER_00 39:28

You can pre-order now, you can add it to your Goodreads, want to read, you can request it at your live library, yeah. Twin Cities. Um, it will be my launch event will be at Majors and Quinn on Monday the 26th. And uh, and it will be in conversation with one of my favorite, favorite, favorite writers, who is also Minnesota local Gwen Kirby, who teaches at Carleton and wrote the book Shit Cassandra Saw. Um, my favorite of retelling.

SPEAKER_03 40:00

I love it. I love it. Well, uh, we'll look forward to that. Look forward to um those offerings. I put in the show notes a link to pre-order the book as well as links to Alessandra's classes coming up at the loft, which I encourage you to take. Because uh if there's anybody who knows how to write a historical novel, I mean we've just heard about the whole process. So uh I really appreciate you joining us. Uh, really appreciate your time and best of luck with the book as it comes out.

SPEAKER_00 40:27

Thank you so much. It was such a pleasure to be here, and I love the loft.

SPEAKER_03 40:32

Thanks. A big thank you to Alice for joining us. Be sure to check the show notes to sign up for one of her upcoming classes or to pre-order your copy of The Stolen Women. This podcast and all of its programming are made possible by Friends of the Loft. If you'd like to support our mission, visit us at loft.org slash join. That's loft.org slash join. And that wraps up today's episode. If you enjoyed the show, please, please, please leave us a review and subscribe so you never miss an update. Until next time, thanks for gathering around the fire.