Hello, everyone, and welcome back to then again, the podcast of the Northeast Georgia History Center. I am Marie Bartlett, and I am the director of the Ada Mae Ivester Education center here today I have with me author Jenny Bond to speak about her many books, most of which are set in the historical fiction genre. And we will be speaking about the research that goes into writing a historical fiction book. Thank you so much for being with us today.

Hello. Thank you, Marie.

So you have written many historical fiction novels and series, including the Maggie Almond series, the Dawnland Chronicles, a Day in May, and the Ice balloon, all of which sound amazing. So I would love to know, how did you become a writer? How did you start, start off with this goal of writing these books?

Wow. It was actually, I'm an english teacher. I'm an english high school teacher and a history teacher as well. And that's what I've done since I left, graduated university way back when. And my husband is a journalist, and I've always hassled him about writing, writing a novel. And I said, when? You know, often I would say, when are you going to write your novel? You've got a novel in you. I'm sure of it. Anyway, he turned around to me one day and said, look, why don't you write a novel? So stop nagging me. You write it. So I thought, oh, okay. So I did. And after about a year, my first novel, the Ice Balloon, was the result. And then I just, it was like I'd been stung by something and I was hooked and I couldn't stop writing. And it's now probably my favorite thing in the world to do. And I had no, although I've read a lot of books because I'm an english teacher, I just love reading anyway and analyzed a lot of books. I just writing came quite naturally to me. So while the first novel, the Ice balloon, was a little rough around the edges and did take a lot of editing, when, when a publisher wanted, wanted it, it did take quite a bit of editing. It was still like, there was still nothing. It was still a great story for someone to want it, which was great. And subsequently, each, every time I write something, throughout the editing process, I learn more, and I've just become a stronger writer through that. So I've never really done any formal courses or degrees in writing. It's just something that's come quite naturally to me, especially the way a book is structured. It doesn't have to be chronological. It can go back and forth. And so, yeah, that's how I wrote my first novel. And before that, I hadn't really written anything before. Nothing. Not a poem, not a short story. I haven't even. Hadn't even tried to write a novel. I didn't. I just. It wasn't something that was in my realm of possibility. But, yeah, my husband said those words. I thought, oh, okay, give it a go. Yeah.

Kind of like Margaret Mitchell, who we just talked about is, you know, her husband says.

Exactly. That's right, yeah.

Why don't you write a novel? Like.

Yeah. And I think I just needed someone to think, to believe that I could do it. So. And I thought, oh, yeah, I'll try. And I. Yeah, it was. And that was historical fiction. Just because I think of my interest in history, I love the research process and. Yeah. And that was my, that was my first novel and it's just been. Just been great since then. Yeah.

So you said the ice balloon was your first novel.

Yeah.

Can you tell us a little bit about the history behind it and what inspired you to write it? Right.

Yeah. I read an article in the New Yorker magazine some time ago and it was about a swedish explorer called SS Andre, and he tried to discover, this is the late 18 hundreds. He tried to discover the North Pole in a hot air balloon. So he, him and two other men, two other scientists took off from Sweden and their plan was to then go in the hot air balloon and land at the North Pole. It all went terribly wrong. They ended up dying. And I'm not giving anything away here because in the novel, they die right at the beginning. But then they found one of the explorers, whose name is Neil Strindberg. They actually, when they found the bodies, they found his diaries and a series of letters he'd written to a young woman back in Sweden who was his fiance. And they're now in a museum in Sweden. And I thought, wow, that's pretty cool. That's pretty amazing. To find the diary, find the letters, and it was quite a few years later. So their hot air balloon, they perished in 1896 and the diaries were found in the 1930s so they'd be preserved. They'd been preserved in the ice.

I just thought, wow.

And then I started thinking about the young woman who never received these letters or saw the diary, I thought. So I started thinking about a story about the people that these three explorers left behind and that that was the ice balloon. And I, and I thought that the fact that somebody wanted to discover the North Pole in a hot air balloon and I'd never heard of it, it's quite well known story in Sweden, but I thought, wow, that's just nuts. I really got into that as well. So that's how that novel came about.

Because you think it's a simple idea, like, we'll just fly there. I know, but then you start thinking about the logistics of a hot air balloon and the North Pole.

Exactly.

And somehow I guess they just didn't. That didn't click.

Yeah. And hot air balloons were relatively new at the time. And I was thinking, how did you like this guy? Andre was. He was quite fanatical. And I think from what I. From the research I did, I think by the end, they all knew that they were doomed, but they went along with it anyway because there'd been so much build up, which makes it even more tragic. No, I just. I just thought that's a fantastic story that I had never heard part of history that apart from people living in Sweden, nobody knows about it. I thought, wow, what an incredible tale.

Yeah, I never heard about it. And with some of those doomed expeditions, a lot of times we don't hear about them unless they're local or have a larger part of a story.

Yeah, exactly.

That's right.

Exactly. That's right.

That's incredibly interesting.

Yeah.

What makes you drawn to write historical fiction in particular?

Gee, I don't. I guess it's my, just my interest in history anyway. And I do. I do like, my favorite genre to read is historical fiction. And it always, it always has been since I was a little girl, even watching tv or movies, if it's historical fiction, you know, I don't care what it is, I'm going to watch it. And I also like the research process. I just. I just really enjoy, I really enjoy discovering about people in different times and, and there, if there were time machines available, I would be in one, in a second. I would, you know, I would much rather live in the past than in the present. My husband always makes fun of me because I don't watch any news. I never watch any news. I'm just not really interested in it or I'm doing something else. And I just. I don't know what's going on in the world or what's going on in Australia and. But I know everything about, you know, or what was happening in Sweden in the late 18 hundreds. So, you know, it's just. It's just what interests me how other people lived back then, because there's so.

Many similarities to our lives. The. The loves, the losses, just the human condition. But the settings, even though it's our same world, still feels so different.

Oh, absolutely. I totally agree. And it's just you. It's any story you're just placing in a different time. And then what I love doing is researching that, not only that time, but, you know, the technology they would have used, the transport, the fashions, just the etiquette, everything that comes with that time to make the story as authentic as possible.

Yes. Because I have definitely read some historical fiction, and as a historian, I'm just like, oh, they didn't do their research. Yeah, someone cut some corners here.

Yeah, I know. And it's really, like. It's really important. And I'm sure a lot of people, a lot of writers don't do that much research. And then other writers. There's an australian author called Karen Brooks, who I love. She writes historical fiction all set in sort of 14 hundreds, 13 hundreds. 14 hundreds. And her books are fantastic. And what I love about them is that they're so well researched, from the language for how they spoke in those days to what they were wearing, what they were eating. It is so meticulous. I think it does make the novel much more gripping to really feel that you're in that time with the characters. Yes.

Because when I read a historical fiction novel, I want to be transported. I want that novel to be my time machine.

Exactly. That's right. That's a really great way to put it. And the only way I think an author can do that is to do the research.

So can you take us through. We talked about your research and what inspired you for the ice balloon, but maybe for one of your series, could you take us through? What was the research process like for you?

Okay, so we'll take the Dawnland Chronicle series. It's. I probably research like. So the first book in that is the Hummingbird and the Sea, and I. That came out of an idea I was actually in. I was actually in the States, and I went. My son at the time was quite young. He was about ten, and he wanted to go, oh, there's a pirate. That's right. There was a pirate exhibition at the National Geographic Museum in Washington, DC, and it was all about pirate, a real life pirate called Captain Sam Bellamy. And they had just. An expedition had just discovered his pirate ship off Cape Cod. Like, it had sunk there in the 17 hundreds. They had discovered it and got all this gold and guns from the wreckage, and that was what was on display. I thought, wow, this is a pretty. This guy, this pirate was really successful, but I'd never heard of him. So we went through the. Went through the exhibition and I thought it was really, really interesting. And so, so I started researching him and I thought maybe I could write a book about this Sam Bellamy. And then that just kind of mushroomed and then it got into more pirates. And then I discovered, and I didn't know this, that pirates were actually. So he was from England, but they did, because they were sailing in the Caribbean, they would often, you know, connect to bases in mainland USA. I thought, wow. And this, this particular pirate had, had a, had a girlfriend in Massachusetts. And I thought, wow, this is, you know, the pure. And these were Puritans. So Puritans and pirates coming together. And I thought, what a great, what a great story. So that's when I started to really research. So on one side of it, I was researching pirates, the other side I was researching puritan, puritan life and in the Massachusetts Bay Colony at that time. And that the research for that first book probably took just the research before I'd even started writing. Probably took twelve months. And that was just reading, reading, reading, reading, reading, reading and highlighting things in books and writing things down. And then after twelve months of research, that's when I started writing. But then as you write, the research doesn't stop. You're still. I'm still thinking, ah, okay. I didn't know that. How can I? And then I'd have to do a bit more research. But I love, a lot of people don't like it. And they say to me, how can you just read all those books and do so much research? And I said, well, it's just interesting. It's just really, really interesting. And I'm always learning things. I don't know. And that's, I think that's, I think that's really good. And then, so that was for the first book, and then the research became less for subsequent books because I'd done so much at the beginning. But there is still, there is still some research that that happens, but not as much as that first book.

That makes sense because when you have a series, obviously they're all set within the same general time period.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, absolutely. And then, but I feel it's really important. Like, I have to know that world so well, and that can only come through research and reading and watching documentaries. And we went, I went, I did a research trip to Salem, Massachusetts, in that area. So it's just, it's just basically immersing myself in that world so then I can recreate it for the reader.

Absolutely. That's so cool. And it's to go and to visit the sites specifically, I think has such power.

Oh, yes. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I remember when I was, I was researching, when I was researching my second novel, Adaine May, that's all about FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt. And when I was researched, like, I was, I'd written it. I'd actually written it. And then I was going on a, I was going on the research trip and then I fell pregnant and I couldn't go on the research trip anymore. So I thought, okay, I'll just write the book, and then after the baby's born, then we'll do the research. Go on the research trip. And there were, when we, when I'd went to Campebello island, which was where FDR and Eleanor had their kind of summer house, it was just so different to what I had imagined or what I had seen in images. And there was so much I got from that. Just being there, I thought, oh, God. Yeah, I get it now. I get that this is where he went swimming. And, you know, I just. It. And the book became better because of that. And I can't even, you know, I can't even imagine not visiting a place before. Right before writing about it.

Otherwise you have, like, this, you know, you read books, you look at the photos, you do all the research, and you could come up with, like, this whole idea. And then you go there and you're like, oh, wait, this room is connected to this room. I didn't know that, like.

Yeah, that's right. Exactly. And there was this, this, there was this seed in the book where, like, everything I'd read, they talked about the beach, the beach on camp of island. I thought, oh, it'd just be like, you know, in my mind, I thought it'd be like an australian beach. You know, there'd be a lot of sand and then water. But it wasn't like that at all. It was grass leading out to a jetty. And they call that the beach, but it wasn't a beach as I know it. Yeah.

Like things where you're like, oh, well, of course. But also. No, that's right.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, no, I think to visit a place and also if you. The worst thing in the world would be for someone to read it from that place and say, this isn't what.

This isn't how that works. No, there was someone. Oh, I was reading a book and it was set in the city of Savannah, which is in Georgia, where I'm from. And I visited Savannah several times. And I was reading the book and I was like, did this person ever go to Savannah, or did they just read about Savannah? Yeah, because it felt like they had just read about Savannah and had never actually been there. I can tell that from reading the book and also having been to Savannah.

Yeah. And looked things up. I remember reading a book that was. It was a crime novel, and it was a. I think it was a scandinavian crime author, but part of the book was set in Australia and in Sydney, and I was thinking that was just like. And then they got on the number 59 bus to wherever, and I thought, there's no number 59 bus. What are you talking about?

Just like, that doesn't exist.

I know they're dumb details, but from someone from Sydney, you think, yeah.

Like, you could have just looked up what our bus system looks like. Right.

Exactly. That's right. Exactly. They were thinking Australia. No one knows about Australia.

They probably. They might not have done a site visit.

Exactly. I don't think they did.

So what do you think we can learn from the past by reading historical fiction?

What I like, what I think is that it's kind of like, for me, reading historical fiction and writing historical fiction is kind of like an anthropological study. I like learning about people and their beliefs and how that. How those beliefs drive certain behaviors and actions. And I think. I think people are basically. Throughout the years, people are basically the same, but what influences them? Like, the outside forces are really interesting and what sort of impact that has on their decision making. And I. And I. I know a lot of people say, oh, we have to learn from. We have to go back to history to, you know, improve the present and the future. But that's not really. I don't think that's really happening. I think there's still wars. There's still conflict. Women are still. There's still gender inequality and all that. I think. I think the world hasn't really improved that much, but what has. What I like is that it. And this is what I tell my students, as well. The more we read about people and different eras, the more empathy we have for different people in different situations. And I think that's really good. I think what the world needs is empathy. I think we need to be feeling for each other. And I think that is the one great positive of reading historical fiction. We're really getting into the minds of people, how they're acting, why they're acting in that way. And I think that's so important to have that sort of empathy, because historical.

Fiction brings history to life in a way that is immersive for the reader. And at our museum, we do living history interpretation, which means, like, today, our homeschool students got to meet Susan B. Anthony, and it's a historical interpreter, of course, an actress, you know, wearing a historical outfit, talking as if she's Susan B. Anthony with the kids and presenting about her life. But I think to have an actor, to have a person be like, and I am Susan be. Anthony, and I'm going to tell you about myself as part of history instead of just, like, reading a textbook about, you know, and this is when she was born, and then this is what she did. And then this is what she did. It brings a human face and life to it, to where we can try to empathize with historical people and understand that they were just people.

Exactly. Just people like we are. And it's, you know, they weren't that. They weren't that different. It's just everything around them was different. Yeah.

They wore different clothes. They had different ways of maybe cooking their food and. Exactly. But at the end of the day, we all wore clothes and ate food.

That's right. That's right. Yeah, exactly. So it's, um. And I think people I see so much, like, not necessarily cruelty, but I just think there's so many things that could be improved in the world if we were all just a bit more empathetic. And as I'm saying that less and less people are reading, and I just think, no, I know. You've got to keep reading. Yes.

Literacy readings are a little scary sometimes when you look at some of the stuff.

Yeah. So, so scary. And trying to get, as I said, I'm a high school teacher. I teach boys. I'm at a boys school and the year seven, which are like 1213 year olds, they just don't read. And trying to get them to read is impossible. And I noticed that's becoming, that's becoming more prevalent each year, I think, oh, my goodness. It's, where are, why aren't you reading? You know, it's so much more interesting. You get so much out of a book, and they don't want and so hard as a teacher to try to get them to read, unless I read to them, then they like the story.

Interesting. Yes. We all like hearing a good story.

That's right. That's right. It's nice being read, too, I have to admit.

Maybe we should look at stats for audiobooks. Maybe people are doing that.

Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, we'll see.

So you also offer a book consultation service. So what would you say to someone who is aspiring to be a writer.

Especially of historical fiction, I would say, number one, research. Research the incident. So I think that all historical fiction has to start from a little seed, whatever that is. It could be like when I've just read the article about the hot air balloon going to the North Pole, has to start with little seed, start researching that seed and see if it has legs, if there's anywhere to take the story. I'd also say that just to write, like, do your research and then just write, don't worry how. Don't worry so much about how it's structured or where. How good it is. And don't go back and self edit. Just get it all down on the page, because I think that stops a lot of people. They write a little bit and they think, oh, this isn't making sense. But once the entire story is written, then you can see, then you can make the edits and make the alterations. But so many people stop so early and, no, just keep going. Just push through. No matter how terrible you think the story is, just, just push through. Because first drafts are always terrible. Always, always terrible. And, yeah, I think that's. I think that's really important. And, and then once the, once it is written, have the staying power to go through the editing process, which I think a lot of people will write a first draft and they think, well, that's it. I'm done with this. But it could be 11, 12, 13 drafts before it's good enough to send it to a publisher or to publish it yourself. It has to be. And people, people just either, if they write it, they'll stop. And I don't want to see this again. It's taking the year of my life. I don't want to look at this book again. But through the editing process, I love the editing process because it's so. I learned so much. I love to see the book improve, and I will work on a book myself. I'll probably do five or six edits, then I work with an editor, and then she reads it, and she'll come back with changes and suggestions by the end of the process, when the book is ready to be published. It's not a different book, but it's a much better book. You know, it's really tight. It's really good. And I go back and look at the first draft, and I think, wow, that, you know, it took a long time, but we got there, and that's, that's. I think every, that's every writer, I think. And people just. I think a lot of people starting out aspiring to be a writer don't realize it's especially historical fiction. It's a, it might be six months to a year of research, then it might be six months to a year of writing and then six months to a year of editing. It's, you know, it's a process. It's so I think, and I, although a lot of people say to me, oh, I think, I think I've got a novel in me, I think, I'm sure you have. But do you have the staying power? You know? Do you? It's a marathon. You know? It is a marathon. And you really have to love what I think. You have to love the characters and you have to love the story. And that's what is great about writing a series is I can stay with those characters who I love so much for a longer time.

That's wonderful. And we will be sure to put the link in the description box to your website where people can go and find all of your books and then also find your book consultation service. So if you're interested in any of the books that we discussed today, if you're listening here, and, you know, I know I am really interested in, well, all of these, but I really did like the COVID a lot of a day in May. I was like, ooh, the White House. How interesting. The White House.

Yeah. That's a good story. I like a political drama. Romance. Yeah.

And like, FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt are always such an interesting couple.

Oh, that was so interesting. Yeah, very. And very unconventional, too.

Yes. So. So I'm very intrigued by that one.

So that one might have to take.

Its way to my bookshelf. But thank you so much for being with us today and for sharing some of your tips and tricks and inspiration. It was so delightful to get to that.

Oh, thank you. It's been an absolute, absolute pleasure. Have a lovely day.

Then again, is a production of the Northeast Georgia History center in Gainesville, Georgia. Our podcast is edited by Andrews Gilles. Our digital and on site programs are made possible by the Ada Mae Ioster Education center. Please join us next week for another episode of then again.