Kimberly Burns writes historical novels based on the true lives of women of the Old West. Her debut novel The Mrs. Tabor won numerous awards. The Redemption of Mattie Silks is her latest book.
Any book that pleases and engages a single reader is a good book. Any genre that encourages a young person to pick another book has value. But, I love historical fiction.
A historical novel has the ability to put a reader in anyone’s shoes. When I open a historical novel I might find myself on the dust-choked streets of the Old West in a waist-pinching corset and calf-skin boots. Or I can prowl dimly lit corridors of a Scottish castle in dainty velvet slippers. Perhaps, I am shod in sturdy leather shoes with shiny brass buckles as I debate freedom and revolution with patriots in 1776 Philadelphia. I can be any place and at any time.
Historical fiction makes the events of long ago more relatable. Memorizing a list of dates and places for a history class provides little understanding of the impact of events. Joseph Stalin is believed to have said, “If only one man dies, that is a tragedy. If millions die, that is only statistics.” A novel can help us wrap our minds around sweeping epic events. The immersion into the human life and its daily activities, seeing the smaller picture that lays within the bigger picture, creates empathy. This improved perceptive can also help us better navigate current problems and situations.
The blending of facts with imagination forms a more compelling read than just a textbook. Historical fiction entertains while it educates. Storytelling has always been a part of the human experience; it is in our DNA. It’s how we have always shared our past, explained our culture, and taught the next generation.
I grew up in the high mountains of central Colorado hearing stories of the colorful characters that first inhabited the region. When I moved to the East Coast, I discovered that people didn’t know much about the pioneers and their adventurous lives. The white settlers who explored and made homes in the area were bold trailblazers, not just in the sense that they turned their backs on all they knew and trekked into the wilderness. The utter lack of infrastructure and civilization allowed—nay, required—that strict confining social dictates be thrown by the wayside. The old ways of thinking were smashed like a useless china tea set falling from the back of a Westward wagon and new more pragmatic norms were accepted.
Women in particular benefited from this societal blank slate. The need for labor gave Western women opportunities to create careers that their sisters in the East did not have. Females in the wilderness territories blazed trails in business, were pioneers of medicine, and ground-breakers in politics. Females in the new states of Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado were voting before the turn of the twentieth century, decades before the 19th Amendment was ratified. These gals were audaciously creating history but in small ways that was rarely reported to the outside civilization.
So many fascinating stories, never well recorded, are being lost, fading from our collective memory. I want to share these tales of personal courage and societal innovation that would otherwise become a forgotten footnote. We can learn from these tenacious, fearless role models. But only if we know of them.
I want to read and write about common people caught in challenging situations and how they rose to meet them. The books that line my shelves educate me, entertain me, and help me to develop a sense of empathy that will serve me in the modern world. These novels inspire me. This is why I write historical fiction.
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