Helena Schrader's Historical Fiction

Dr. Helena P. Schrader is the author of 24 historical fiction and non-fiction works and the winner of more than 53 literary accolades. More than 34,000 copies of her books have been sold. For a complete list of her books and awards see: http://helenapschrader.com

For readers tired of clichés and cartoons, award-winning novelist Helena P. Schrader offers nuanced insight into historical events and figures based on sound research and an understanding of human nature. Her complex and engaging characters bring history back to life as a means to better understand ourselves.

Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Why I Write Historical Fiction - A Guest Blogpost by Linda Matchett

 Linda Shenton Matchett writes happily-ever-after historical Christian fiction about second chances and women who overcome life’s challenges to be better versions of themselves. Follow the journeys of relatable characters whose faith is sorely tested, yet in the end, emerge triumphant. Be encouraged in your own faith-walk through stories of history and hope. A native of Baltimore, Maryland, Linda was born a stone’s throw from Fort McHenry (of Star-Spangled Banner fame) and has lived in historical places all her life. She now lives in central New Hampshire where she is a volunteer docent and archivist at the Wright Museum of WWII. 

This opportunity to share about why I write historical fiction has come an interesting time because I recently spent three months with a branding consultant. Her first few questions were about this very topic. Why did I write? Why did I write fiction? And…why did I write historical fiction?

When I was in third grade, my parents gifted me a notebook, and I’ve been scribbling stories ever since. Thanks to my dad’s job, we moved often, mostly to areas steeped in history. Writing was my one constant. However, after entering the workforce, my fiction writing dropped away as I focused on business writing for my job. After moving to New Hampshire, I freelanced for travel and live style magazines, and as much as I enjoyed that, fiction was always my first love.

But what to write about? I started lots of stories, but struggled to finish. All historical, they covered a variety of eras, but none of the plotlines resonated with me.

Then one afternoon at the Wright Museum of WWII changed my life...

The carpet muffled my footsteps as I wandered into the home front gallery during my volunteer docent shift. I sauntered past the dioramas: a five-and-dime, a kitchen, then a living room, chatting with visitors and answering questions. As I approached the exhibit about war correspondents, my eye was drawn to the small photo at the bottom: a woman wearing a combat helmet and a cheeky grin as she cradled her camera, finger poised over the button. Riveted, I stopped.

Who was she, this lone women in a display of men? I scanned the placard: Therésé Bonney, photojournalist. Minimal information so I yanked out my smart phone and keyed in her name. Facts and figures emerged, but one struck me more than the others: Of the more than two thousand accredited war correspondents, only 127 were women, including Ms. Bonney. Intrigued, I continued to dig. My pulse raced as I read.

By all accounts, she and the other female correspondents had it tough, often relegated to fluff pieces and denied access to combat zones. They fought for the right to tell stories…real stories…the same sort of stories the men had access to. By hook and by crook, these stalwart women made their way across Europe and other countries, shining the light on war’s atrocities. 

There had to me more women like them. Women who went outside their comfort zone to do jobs never before held by women in places they’d never dared go: pilots, welders, mechanics, doctors, farmers, truck and ambulance drivers, parachute riggers, radio operators, laboratory technicians, and even spies. Then there were the women who served in every branch of the armed forces. Some of the women remained on the U.S. home front while others crossed the globe to places most people had never heard of.

Inspired by the tenacity and doggedness of these often-overlooked women to follow a story wherever it led, I knew I needed to shine the light on their stories, their lives, and those of other ordinary women who did extraordinary things – things I could never do in my wildest dreams.

Spies & Sweethearts

She wants to do her part. He’s just trying to stay out of the stockade. Will two agents deep behind enemy lines find capture… or love?

1942. Emily Strealer is tired of being told what she can’t do. Wanting to prove herself to her older sisters and do her part for the war effort, the high school French teacher joins the OSS and trains to become a covert operative. After her training, she finds herself parachuting into occupied France with her instructor to send radio signals to the Resistance.

Major Gerard Lucas has always been a rogue. Transferring to the so-called “Office of Dirty Tricks” to escape a court-martial, he poses as a husband to one of his trainees on a dangerous secret mission. But when their cover is blown after only three weeks, he has to flee with the young schoolteacher to avoid Nazi arrest.

Running for their lives, Emily clings to her mentor’s military experience during the harrowing three-hundred-mile trek to neutral Switzerland. And while Gerard can’t bear the thought of his partner falling into German hands, their forged papers might not be enough to get them over the border.

Website/Blog: http://www.LindaShentonMatchett.com

Blog Host Helena P. Schrader is the author of 25 historical fiction and non-fiction books, eleven of which have one one or more awards. You can find out more about her, her books and her awards at: https://helenapschrader.com 

Her most recent release, Cold Peace, was runner-up for the Historical Fiction Company BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023 Award, as well as winning awards from Maincrest Media and Readers' Favorites. Find out more at: https://www.helenapschrader.com/cold-peace.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Why I Write Historical Fiction - Guest Blogpost from John Orton

 John Orton took up writing following his retirement and found a niche for himself in writing  about his home-town of South Shields. His Tales of Old South Shields tell the unofficial history of the town and its characters. The first three, set in the early decades of the 20th Century, are based on the memoirs of Sergeant Thomas “Jock” Gordon, of the Shields Police. In his latest book, He Wears a Blue Bonnet, John went back in time to the 17th century with a ripping yarn set in the salt pans of Auld Sheels.

Young Johnlad used to listen entranced as his Nan, Gertie, sitting in her usual chair in the kitchen, a cup of tea at hand, told stories of her time as a girl in Sheels in the early 1900s: about her Da’, a sailor, John Blot, so called because he could soak it up, who went on to become a North Sea Pilot; about the monkey who jumped on her head from a sailors’ lodging house when she was taking her Da’s dinner to him in a pudding basin when he was in dock; about wrecks on the Black Middens and the dangers of crossing the bar; about the time they burned Kruger in the streets of Shields when Mafeking was relieved; of Dick Burke, the bookie, who would escape the polis by going up the backstairs of a house, (you’d hear him coming as his wooden leg knocked on the steps), through the kitchen, ‘G’d afternoon’..’ G’d afternoon Dick’, down the front stairs and away; of the Lambton Worm, with its ‘Geet big teeth, geet big mooth and geet big goggly eyes.’ The wireless would go on at six o’clock sharp for the latest horse racing results, and Johnlad could remember when she won £13 12s 8d on a thre’penny accumulator. He and his brothers got new shoes.

Johnlad never forgot her stories. He loved comics like the Hotspur, and read books all the time. Against expectations he turned out clever, went to Oxford and became a lawyer, reaching the top of his chosen field in local government as a County Solicitor. But he had not only taken a love of stories from his Nan, who had neurasthenia as a young woman and always suffered with her nerves. Johnlad inherited the gene, had a serious nervous breakdown in his mid-forties and retired from work permanently. He suffered many years with depression trying to find something worthwhile that would give him enjoyment and fill his days.

More than forty years after hearing his Nan’s stories of Old Shields he discovered the memoirs of Station Sergeant Tom ‘Jock’ Gordon who’d joined the Shields Police from Scotland at the end of the First World War. The manuscript, hand written, dog eared and whisky stained, brought vividly to life the characters, good and bad, of a busy coal mining, ship building, industrial port in the 1920s and 1930s where folk took the rough with the smooth and got on with it. 

Jock had more tales than Jonlad’s Nan: of one-legged Hughie Ross who’d knocked off an Inspector’s helmet with his crutch; of the publicans who left a small pot of whisky tied to the back gate of their pub for the Bobby on night shift; of the mounted officer whose horse would stop at every pub on the regular route back to the nick, much to the frustration of new riders; of the true story behind the 1926 race-riots when the Yemeni seamen fought with British sailors for the few jobs that were going on the ships; of the day the polis raided the pitch and toss gambling dens on Trow rocks. Johnlad also rediscovered Dick Burke, one of many street bookies - Jock Gordon had been in on the raid on Dick’s house when the Polis confiscated over £800 placed in bets on St Leger Day.

Johlad thought that others should know about the old days and decided to write up Jock’s memoirs, together with his own Nan’s stories. But the tales were short so Johnlad filled in the gaps, and had to learn for himself how life was lived in those days. So, as well as writing the stories down, Johnlad spent as much time in historical research, to make sure he got things right.

After Johnlad’s books were published he’d hear from Shields folk who’d loved the stories and whose own families had similar tales. A woman of Yemeni descent contacted John to tell him that she had wiped away tears after reading the story of Geordie Hussain in Johnlad’s book, A Chill Wind off the Tyne. The same things that happened to him in the 1920s were happening again to people now, she said.  Geordie was a foundling, and had been ‘adopted’ by an Arab lodging house keeper. He had been caught up in the 1926 race riots and was under threat of deportation to the Yemen if convicted. He was married to a Shields lass, had three children, and had never been to the Yemen in his life –but he had no papers to prove he was born in Shields. (No spoiler as to how it ends.)

Well, Johnlad thought to himself, ‘If my stories of the past can move someone to tears, then that is why I write historical fiction’.

A Chill Wind off the Tyne, by John Orton, UK Book Publishing; illustrated edition (9 Aug. 2018) is available on Amazon (paperback and Kindle).

Blog Host Helena P. Schrader is the author of 25 historical fiction and non-fiction books, eleven of which have one one or more awards. You can find out more about her, her books and her awards at: https://helenapschrader.com 

Her most recent release, Cold Peace, was runner-up for the Historical Fiction Company BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023 Award, as well as winning awards from Maincrest Media and Readers' Favorites. Find out more at: https://www.helenapschrader.com/cold-peace.html

 

 

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Why I Write Historical Fiction - A Guest Blogpost from Tessa Floreano

 Tessa Floreano is an author and community historian who lives near Seattle, but considers Vancouver and Venice her second homes. She writes historical tales about Italians, with a gallon of mystery and a pint of romance thrown in for good measure. Her stories are set mainly in the Pacific Northwest and Europe, though a few are in New York City and San Francisco, just because she has a strong pull to the Italians in both those cities, too. Coming Winter 2024 is a romantic mystery set in 1899 in Italy at Christmas involving murder, matrimony, and mayhem, oh my!

In palmistry, a square atop Jupiter's mount signifies a teacher's box. Unlike my husband, no such pronounced formation exists on my palm. If it did, I imagine it might provide the impetus to teach historical fiction—a genre to which I am intensely and increasingly drawn. Rather than a classroom as my teaching box, I use the power of the pen to scribe stories, both real and imagined. Some kind readers have even insisted that I am teaching, though perhaps in a less structured way. Hopefully, more entertaining, too. And why do I prefer to write words about history rather than speak them? Read on, fair reader.

 

As an impressionable youngster, I devoured historical fiction. Betwixt the pages of fairy tales and fantastic yarns of yore, my imagination soared unobstructed. I had never visited a Saxon fortress, worn a Roman toga, or witnessed a Saharan sandstorm, reading about medieval knights, ancient senators, or whirling dervishes in faraway places allowed me to dream and put myself in someone else's shoes; or rather, smack in the middle of their adventures and misadventures.

 

Growing up, I did not come across stories about girls like me whose parents were immigrants, spoke with a funny accent, and whose customs and traditions did not fit the mainstream. Thus, I escaped into what was available, like The Borrowers, Anne of Green Gables, Little House on the Prairie, and Nancy Drew. Eventually, these near-contemporary stories fell short. To ease the ache for something more enticing, I glommed onto the classics set in foreign lands, like The Count of Monte Cristo, Anna Karenina, and The Hound of the Baskervilles. 

As I got older, and soon after my father died, I delved headlong into our family's past. There were many questions I did not get to ask my father, so I dug into our family tree and that is when the stories started to pop. Though my genealogy is incomplete, I turned to stories about other Italians. Some reflected my own northern Italian heritage that surrounded me in my Canadian hometown of Vancouver. Some were based on southern Italian ancestry, by far the largest group I encountered when I emigrated to the Seattle area.

Fast forward to today where I write through a lens colored by a variety of Italian history, herstory, and heritage—some fictionalized, some not. Through these tales, I share what I know, love, and am curious about. Always, they include an imaginative reconstruction of historical events and Italian personages that I find fascinating and yearn to learn more about. My curiosity drives my research and storytelling. Both mundane and obscure items can start me off. I satiate my curiosity when I fall deeper down the rabbit hole after finding a gem or two that I know I can develop further.

 

To educate myself and ensure I am getting as accurate a picture as I can of people, places, events, and the vernacular of the time, I draw on primary and secondary sources to give depth and nuance. Primary sources include documents and artifacts—personal letters, oral interviews, diaries, carte de visites, calling cards, photographs, newspapers, advertisements, maps, and government documents. Secondary sources include scholarly articles, illuminated manuscripts, black and white movies, and old books with wonderful and strange bon mots in the margins. I seek out that which supports my story, though occasionally the words and objects I find completely change the trajectory I had planned, be it for the plot, characters, or theme.

 

Throughout my story, I weave one or more themes—love, hate, betrayal, loyalty, bravery, cowardice, survival, power, secrets—making sure my protagonists and antagonists drive the problems and solutions. My characters are not automatons, and they experience things in different ways and filter them through their own ideas, prejudices, understandings, and misunderstandings, specific to their time. When I begin to tell my tale, I make a choice about what historical words to use, what to emphasize, what to leave out, and so on. I might imagine a situation where one of my newly arrived Italian immigrants witnesses a brawl. An English-speaking American who understands what everyone is saying—from the victim to the first responders to the perpetrator—might offer a vastly different view than a foreigner who does not understand the language or the law. Therefore, I have to factor that in to how the scene unfolds and the characters behave, and that is where the opportunities and challenges lie.

 

I enjoy juxtaposing political, social, cultural, and religious views and biases of yesterday without imposing those of today onto my characters. If I do my job well, I can use my stories to not only show readers what happened in the past, but how it has shaped the present. And I have to do it intentionally. For example, I have a great idea for a dual timeline story. You can bet that my characters will—at some point—say that they must not change the annals when jumping chronology, regardless of how tempting, especially if there's danger afoot. I have to respect that because historical fiction has some rules, most of which I adhere to (wink wink).

 

I am careful when I bring in historical events and how I manage them. Here is an example: Let's say that in my interwar series, Roosevelt announces the New Deal with great fanfare. Rather than having a character read about it in a newspaper, I can use a conversation between characters to help my readers understand the implications for Italians of the programs and public works projects that took place in that era. I could show how the first Italian Republican congresswoman in her state, who did not want the New Deal, reacts to it. Conversely, I might show how a Dust Bowl farmer benefited eventually from the President’s reforms and the life changes he and his Italian family experience because of the impact on their finances.

 

Actually, I would not be able to use the first example because the first Italian American woman to serve in Congress did not happen until 1970, many decades after the Depression, which is the time period of my series. You might have thought I digressed there for a moment, but double-checking my facts is a big part of why I love writing about history.

 

Sometimes, a fact just will not work within the timeline I chose, and I either have to leave it out, or include a mention of my fabricated use of it in my Author's Note, and why it is plausible. Critics, ahem, sticklers for one hundred percent factual historical detail, will bemoan that I use the Author's Note as a crutch. They will argue that it is how I justify why I wrote certain events out of context or included details about real personages that were not real. They might even write off my story because of it.

 

I do not argue with people who feel that way, however, I reserve the right to use such a device to inform, and yes, even teach my readers. It is a space I hold sacrosanct. It is where I exhale and reveal my raw side, including my sources, inspiration, methods, and hope for the book's place in the world. I use the Author's Note like an informal letter to my readers—to give deeper meaning to my story, some accountability, and a more objective understanding of the history. If I change facts to suit the story's timeline, I owe it to my readers to be transparent about why, and I believe they will respect me for it.

 

Most readers love that intimate connection that my Author's Note provides because they know I spent the time speaking directly to them. Usually, I include extra information that adds a new dimension to the story they just read and I am tickled when they embrace it. Some readers have shared that it leads them down their own rabbit holes of history, and that makes the effort of writing about what I am learning all the more satisfying.

 

To write is to learn, and this is true for me, especially as it relates to historical fiction. It has staying power in my writing (and teaching) life, even if I am short of one geometric square imprinted on my skin.

 

Find out more about Tessa’s books on her website https://tessafloreano.com and by signing up for her newsletter
 

 

Blog Host Helena P. Schrader is the author of 25 historical fiction and non-fiction books, eleven of which have one one or more awards. You can find out more about her, her books and her awards at: https://helenapschrader.com 

Her most recent release, Cold Peace, was runner-up for the Historical Fiction Company BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023 Award, as well as winning awards from Maincrest Media and Readers' Favorites. Find out more at: https://www.helenapschrader.com/cold-peace.html