Q&A with Samuel Marquis

  

 

 

Samuel Marquis is the author of the new book Empire and Frontier: Colonel Peter Schuyler and the Valiant Iroquois in King William's War: 1689-1701. His other books include Captain Kidd. He lives in Louisville, Colorado. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write Empire and Frontier?

 

A: The foundation for the research in Empire and Frontier came from writing a biography of my ninth-great-grandfather, the legendary New York privateer Captain William Kidd, entitled Captain Kidd: A True Story of Treasure and Betrayal (2025).

 

When I wrote Captain Kidd, I had so much fascinating material about King William’s War, the First French and Indian War fought over control of North America in the 1690s between the English and French, that I had to move north from New York City where Kidd lived and sailed to the Albany Indian frontier.

 

Both Empire and Frontier and Captain Kidd attempt to bring to life colonial New York, King William’s War, and Leisler’s Rebellion from 1689 to 1701, but from far different vantage points.

 

While Empire and Frontier explores the First French and Indian War and the Covenant Chain alliance between the English and the Haudenosaunee (Five Nations of the Iroquois), Captain Kidd recreates Kidd’s life in New York with his wife, Sarah, his privateering voyages fighting the French and hunting down pirates, and his political struggles with the British Crown in London.

 

The two books can, thus, be considered companion volumes since they both feature King William’s War and many of the same historical figures; yet, they have a significantly different narrative emphasis as well as distinctive primary characters as England and France battle for possession of North America during the global conflict.

 

Q: The author Scott Ellsworth said of the book, “Out of this polyglot and often brutal frontier came the beginnings of a new kind of politics, for a brand-new kind of nation.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: First, I want to extend a special thanks to Scott, author of the outstanding Midnight on the Potomac, for taking the time to read and give me an endorsement for Empire and Frontier given how frantically busy historian-authors are these days.

 

With that said, Scott has hit the nail on the head. While King William’s War was a violent time on northeastern Indian frontier, the conflict was an epic, exciting, and paradigm-shifting event in American history.

 

Both my book and the first French and Indian War are reminiscent of James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans in terms of page-turning romance and excitement. But King William’s War was politically important as well.

 

By the early 1700s, New York Province and the Iroquois frontier, or Iroquoia, were no longer defined by Mohawk, Lenape, or Mahican history, Dutch versus English, Calvinist as opposed to Anglican, or wealthy versus poor (Note: “Mahican” not “Mohican” is the correct spelling).

 

While each of these ethnic, religious, and socioeconomic strands remained important, pluralism, trading partnerships, collaboration, and cross-cultural coalitions were the new order of the day and created a brand new kind of nation.

 

By this time, social, political, and economic connections and alliances were forged in New York and the Indian frontier that cut across ethnicity, race, religion, and political affiliation, and in the process, formed a distinctive “American” character.

 

The collision of cultures, religions, and classes did not result in a “melting pot.” Rather, the major characters of my book—Colonel Peter Schuyler, the Indigenous war captain Lawrence the Mohawk, and the Mohawk-Dutch interpreter Hilletie van Olinda—and their contemporaries blazed a new trail.

 

Through their tireless efforts, they served as the building blocks for not merely the New York we know today but a new, wondrous, multiethnic, and democratic United States of America—the first nation in world history founded expressly on the principle of freedom and the first to lead a successful mass rebellion against colonialism.

 

Q: How did you research the book, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?

 

A: In all my American history books, I do a deep dive into the contemporaneous primary sources, which in this case formed the backbone of Empire and Frontier.

 

I always try to be as even-handed, meticulous, and truthful as possible, while writing in a fast-paced narrative but scholarly fashion that appeals to both general readers and academic historians.

 

The most important libraries, archives, and organizations upon which I relied in the acquisition of the extensive primary source materials were the National Archives of the United Kingdom, the New York State archives, the New York Historical Society, the Schenectady County Historical Society, and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.

 

The biggest surprise for me was the huge distances the English, French, and the allied Indigenous tribes traveled on foot, on snowshoes, on horseback, and by canoe to not only fight battles but to hold diplomatic council meetings during King William’s War.

 

They would travel roundtrip distances of between 200 and 450 miles without using wagons or other horse- or ox-drawn conveyances. In the middle of winter, the English and French and their Indigenous allies didn’t think twice about tromping more than 400 miles on snowshoes through waist-deep snow to fight in blinding blizzards.

 

To say that the Euro-American and Native American men and women of the late-17th-century northeastern frontier were tough is a major understatement.

 

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book?

 

A: I want readers to know that Empire and Frontier is the quintessential American tale of people of different cultural and ethnic backgrounds working together as one—just like WWII that was won by Yankee soldiers from New York, Colorado, California, and Virginia and the Navaho code talkers of the U.S. Marine Corps hailing from Arizona.

 

With King William’s War and the Grand Settlement of 1701, Colonel Peter Schuyler, Lawrence the Mohawk, Hilletie van Olinda, and the other characters of my book truly did bring about a new kind of politics for a brand-new kind of nation. In the process, they forged a distinctive “American” character.

 

We are a nation of multicultural immigrants coming together as one democratic entity, and while Native Americans are our proud “First Nation” Americans, no group’s identity is more important than any another in America and the sum of what we are together is much greater than any individual group.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: My newest book, Franklin’s Sea Warriors: The Founding Father and his Patriot-Pirate Navy That Won the American Revolution, will be published in May 2027.

 

The book is the true story of Benjamin Franklin and his formidable squadron of Continental Navy seamen and American privateers who fought in the European theater of operations attacking British shipping and coastal cities. In the process, they played a decisive but largely unknown role in winning the American Revolution.

 

Our rebellion against Mother England was not merely a colonial uprising, but a global conflagration with many key battles waged in European waters.

 

Through masterful diplomacy and daring exploits, Franklin and his Patriot-Pirate Navy helped ensure that imperial France became an ally, took the fight to the goliath British Empire, turned the British people against their government, and won the epic struggle.

 

In the process, they changed human history for the better by unleashing a new spirit of political freedom, one that led to the French Revolution, abolitionist societies, and widespread slave revolts.

 

Franklin’s Sea Warriors reminds us that the seaboard of Western Europe was a theater of operations during the Revolution that was every bit as critical to ultimate victory as Bunker Hill, Trenton, Saratoga, and Yorktown.

 

This major historical work finally puts these Continental Navy seamen and privateers on equal footing with Washington’s Continental Army and America’s State militias, where they properly belong.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Book readers might be interested to know that in addition to being a direct descendant of the legendary Captain Kidd, I am second cousin of Indian rights activist, historian, and reputable author Dr. Thomas B. Marquis (1869–1935).

 

It is through this family connection that I have been interested in Native American history since I was a young boy playing with toy cowboys and Indians.

 

Dr. Marquis was a physician on the Tongue River-Cheyenne Indian reservation following his military service in WWI and a key chronicler of the Battle of Little Bighorn from the Lakota and Cheyenne point of view.

 

What makes him particularly fascinating is that he was fluent in Indian sign language and conducted the most important interviews with the male and female Cheyenne combatants who took part in the defeat of Custer.

 

Because of my family connection to Thomas B. Marquis and from growing up in Colorado, I have always been interested in Native American history and the Indian Wars and have now written three books built around Native American protagonists (Cheyenne and Iroquois).

 

The Northern Cheyenne loved the Indian rights activist Dr. Marquis like a brother and he loved them back, and the Iroquois had a similar relationship with Colonel Peter Schuyler, who served as both liaison and protector of the Five Nations.

 

Because of his dedicated public service, the Iroquois bestowed upon Schuyler the honorable moniker “Brother Quider,” the council title for the government of Albany based on a Mohawk pronunciation of Schuyler’s given name, “Peter.”

 

Like Thomas B. Marquis and Peter Schuyler, I greatly admire Indigenous peoples, especially the Cheyennes, the finest horse people of the Great Plains along with the Comanche, and the Haudenosaunee, the most militarily powerful and diplomatically successful Native American confederation throughout the 17th and 18th centuries.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Samuel Marquis. 

Q&A with Eileen M. Isola

  

 

 

Eileen M. Isola is the lead editor of the new book Necessary Turbulence: Fifty Years, One Unbreakable Sisterhood Forged in the Crucible of the Air Force Academy. She is a graduate of the Air Force Academy, and is a decorated combat pilot and an international airline pilot.

 

Q: What inspired you to create Necessary Turbulence, and how did you choose the contributors to the book?

 

A: If you’d asked me when we began more than three years ago why we were creating this book, I’d have given you a very different answer than I am giving you today. Back then, it began with the fairly simple thought of, “Hey, 2026 is going to mark 50 years of women at the Air Force Academy. Someone should write a book.”

 

We knew that more than 12,000 women had entered the US Air Force Academy (USAFA) over the previous 50 years, and today more than 8,000 have graduated. I had this deep conviction, this deep sense of knowing, that somewhere within all of those lives was a larger story.

 

But we didn’t know what that story was.

 

So, we put out a call for submissions and invited USAFA women, both grads and non-grads, to tell us about their lives. We weren’t looking only for famous graduates, trailblazers, generals, CEOs, astronauts, or women with extraordinary resumes. We wanted the lived experiences of women across five decades, across generations.

 

More than half a million words came back.

 

We began reading. And we read and read and read.

 

Slowly, something extraordinary happened. Rather than the Writing Team deciding whose stories mattered most, we realized the story wasn’t living inside any one woman’s experience—or even within a select group of women. It was living between them.

 

Individually, every woman could tell us what happened to her. But when we stepped back and looked across 50 years, a remarkable pattern came into focus. We weren’t reading individual stories anymore. We were witnessing one collective heroine’s journey unfolding across the decades, a journey that had never been seen.

 

That changed our understanding of the book entirely.

 

We stopped thinking of ourselves as authors writing a book and began thinking of ourselves as stewards and shepherdesses entrusted with the privilege—and responsibility—of faithfully revealing a story that had always been there but simply couldn’t be seen until enough lives were viewed together.

 

I think of it a little like standing inches from an Impressionist painting. Up close, all you can see are individual marks of color. The painting isn’t created when you step back; it was there all along. But only distance allows you to see it.

 

Time did that for us. Fifty years became the distance that finally allowed the picture—the story—to emerge.

 

Ultimately, 108 women’s voices appear in Necessary Turbulence, brought together by a nine-woman Writing Team, whose Academy experiences span five decades.

 

We didn’t create their collective story. Together, we made it visible.

 

And once we saw it, we couldn’t unsee it.

 

Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: Like many books, this one eventually revealed to us what its title had to be: Necessary Turbulence.

 

Once we saw it, it felt almost inevitable. The phrase captured not only what these women experienced over 50 years, but also what their presence caused—and why that disruption mattered.

 

The title captures the essence of the book in two distinct ways.

 

First, there is the turbulence these women lived through personally: the pressure, resistance, uncertainty, disruption, and constant recalibration required to build lives and careers inside institutions and systems that had not originally been designed with them in mind.

 

Sometimes that turbulence was dramatic and visible. Sometimes it was quieter—the accumulated effect of having to prove yourself again, adapt again, recover again, or find another way forward. It could be uncomfortable, destabilizing, even painful.

 

Across the stories in the book, we repeatedly saw women finding ways not merely to survive that turbulence, but to grow through it, lead within it, and sometimes transform because of it.

 

Then there is the second meaning, which may be even more important.

 

The women themselves created turbulence simply by being there.

 

When the first women entered the Air Force Academy in 1976, their presence disrupted assumptions about who belonged there, who could lead, who could fly, who could command, and what military service could look like.

 

As successive generations moved through the Academy and into the Air Force—and now the Space Force—they continued to expose gaps between inherited assumptions and lived reality. Institutions had to confront policies, traditions, systems, and expectations that no longer fit the people they existed to serve.

 

That turbulence was not incidental to change. It was necessary to it.

 

Without people entering established systems and forcing those systems to encounter something they were not built to accommodate, institutions rarely evolve on their own. The friction reveals what needs to change.

 

And that is where the title moves beyond the military for me.

 

Any time people enter spaces from which they were historically excluded—or step beyond roles that others had assumed they were not suited to occupy—there is likely to be turbulence. Old expectations collide with new realities. Individuals have to adapt—and institutions do, too.

 

So Necessary Turbulence ultimately became much more than a description of what these women endured. It became a way of understanding what they did.

 

They unsettled things that needed unsettling. They changed assumptions simply by living lives that those assumptions had failed to imagine. And the turbulence they created helped make possible a different reality for the women who came after them.

 

That is why the word necessary matters every bit as much as the word turbulence.

 

Q: The author Ryan Leigh Dostie said of the book, “Burns with visceral, teeth-clenching accounts and restores to the historical record the women whose service has been repeatedly footnoted, minimized, or erased.” What do you think of that assessment?

 

A: I think Ryan Leigh Dostie understood exactly what we hoped this book would do.

 

Her words moved me when I first read them because she captured both sides of Necessary Turbulence: the intensely universal human experience inside these pages and the larger historical significance of putting those experiences together in one place.

 

The stories can absolutely be visceral. There are moments in this book that are difficult to read because they were difficult to live. Women describe harassment, assault, discrimination, isolation, war, loss, death, injury, failure, betrayal, and the enormous pressure of having to prove that they belonged.

 

But the book is not a catalogue of what was done to women. That would profoundly diminish these lives. The book does not reduce them to victims; their words are testimony.

 

These women also flew aircraft, commanded units, served in war and crisis, built organizations, led people, raised families, trained generations who followed them, broke barriers, challenged assumptions, rebuilt after devastating losses, and changed the institutions they entered. They were not simply enduring history. They were making it.

 

That is why Ryan’s word “restores” matters so much to me.

 

For a very long time, much of the story of women in the military has existed in fragments—an individual first here, a famous general there, an astronaut, a combat pilot, a headline when a barrier fell. Those achievements matter enormously.

 

But when history is told primarily through exceptional individuals and milestones, something essential disappears: the thousands of lives between those milestones that actually made institutional change possible.

 

That is the historical record Necessary Turbulence restores.

 

I think that matters particularly now because we are again hearing questions about women’s service and belonging in the military framed as though those questions remain unresolved.

 

They are not.

 

We are no longer standing at the starting line in 1976 asking whether women might be able to succeed at the Air Force Academy or serve effectively in the military. We are standing on 50 years of evidence.

 

Women have served in war and peace. They have flown aircraft, commanded units and organizations, met demanding standards, trained others, led in crisis, and strengthened the force.

 

So when someone asks whether women really belong or whether their presence inherently undermines military effectiveness, my response is that reality has already answered the question.

 

The burden is no longer on women to continually prove that they belong.

 

The burden is on anyone attempting to dismiss, minimize, or erase the evidence of what they have already done.

 

And that is where I feel a particular responsibility as one of the stewards of this book. We did not gather these women’s stories simply so that we could look backward and admire what they endured. Historical memory creates an obligation. Once the record exists, we cannot pretend not to know what it shows.

 

One lesson that emerges powerfully across these 50 years is that endurance should never be confused with institutional health. The fact that women succeeded inside systems that sometimes failed to protect, understand, or fully value them does not mean those failures were necessary or should be preserved for the next generation.

 

Dignity, trust, accountability, standards, and leadership are not distractions from military readiness. They are part of readiness.

 

So when Ryan says the book “restores to the historical record” women who have been footnoted, minimized, or erased, I hear something larger than praise for the book. I hear the reason the record matters.

 

Once these lives are visible together, it becomes much harder to reduce 50 years of women’s service to an abstraction, to manufactured nostalgia, or to a political talking point.

 

The evidence has names now. It has voices.

 

And it has 108 women telling us what actually happened.

 

Q: How do you think the Air Force Academy has changed for women over the past half-century, and what do you see looking ahead?

 

A: This may be the hardest question people ask me about the book because the truthful answer is complicated.

 

The Air Force Academy has changed enormously for women over 50 years. And it has not changed nearly enough.

 

The measurable progress is undeniable. Women arrived in 1976 at an institution that had been built entirely for men and in which many people openly believed women did not belong.

 

Today, women graduate from the Academy into every career field available to their male classmates. They fly combat aircraft. They command. They lead operational organizations. They become astronauts, generals, engineers, physicians, scientists, and senior national-security leaders. Things that were once considered extraordinary have become wonderfully ordinary.

 

That is real progress, and Necessary Turbulence documents how much women themselves helped create it.

 

But one of the most sobering discoveries in reading 50 years of women's stories was how much more slowly culture changes than policy does. Rules can change on a particular date. A law can be signed. A career field can open. A restriction can disappear from a regulation.

 

Culture doesn't work that way.

 

Across five decades, we found barriers changing form rather than simply disappearing. Women in later generations had opportunities earlier women could scarcely have imagined, yet we continued to hear echoes of the same underlying experiences: being regarded as an exception, being judged differently, confronting sexism, questioning whether they belonged, and sometimes having to expend energy proving themselves in ways their male peers did not.

 

Our youngest contributor makes that impossible to dismiss as ancient history.

 

Kamryn Markwei is a member of the Class of 2026. She writes movingly about wanting to change the Academy from within, about confronting bias, supporting other women, and wanting to leave the institution better than she found it.

 

Yet she also writes that the Academy was still not, in her experience, the kind of place she was certain she would want her own daughter to attend, because she would not want her daughter to endure what women around her had endured.

 

When you can place the experiences of a woman from 1976 beside those of a woman graduating in 2026 and still recognize some of the same cultural patterns, I don't think we should congratulate ourselves too quickly.

 

That doesn't mean nothing changed. It means access changed faster than culture did.

 

And looking ahead, I think that distinction matters enormously. The next 50 years will not be spent asking whether women belong at the Air Force Academy. Fifty years of evidence have answered that question.

 

The challenge now is whether the institution can finally build a culture worthy of the people it asks to serve there.

 

That means more than allowing women through the gates or giving them access to the same career fields. Belonging is not simply admission. It means being able to stand fully inside an institution without your sex, race, religion, sexuality, or some other part of who you are being treated as evidence that you are somehow less legitimate.

 

It means holding people accountable when they demean, harass, assault, or marginalize others. It means leaders refusing to dismiss destructive behavior as tradition, toughness, humor, or simply the way military culture works.

 

And it means understanding that dignity and accountability do not weaken a military institution. They strengthen trust, cohesion, leadership, and ultimately the mission.

 

One of the lessons of Necessary Turbulence is that women became extraordinarily successful even when the culture around them was not always healthy. But their endurance should never be used as evidence that the culture was acceptable.

 

The fact that earlier generations survived things younger generations should never have to endure is not an argument for preserving those conditions. It creates an obligation to change them.

 

So when I look toward the next 50 years, my hope is actually quite simple. I want a young woman entering the Air Force Academy today to inherit the opportunities these 50 years of women fought to create without also inheriting the fight over whether she belongs there.

 

That would be progress worthy of celebrating.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m working on my own memoir.

 

For more than three years, Necessary Turbulence required me to think almost entirely in the collective—to listen for the larger story living across other women’s lives and to write in the voice of “we.”

 

The memoir asks something very different of me. Now I have to turn inward and tell one life honestly.

 

It is a story about what happens when a life repeatedly changes course in ways you could never have planned: becoming a member of one of the early classes of women at the Air Force Academy, flying and commanding in the military, working inside the White House across the period before and after Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was enacted while simultaneously being investigated because I was gay, confronting cancer and physical disability, experiencing profound personal loss, and rebuilding a life more than once.

 

But I don’t think of it primarily as a military memoir, a cancer memoir, or even a story about overcoming adversity.

 

At its center, it is about identity: what happens when the structures, roles, relationships, and assumptions that once told you who you were begin falling away—and what it takes to remain whole enough to decide who you will become next.

 

Writing Necessary Turbulence taught me something important about storytelling: sometimes you cannot understand the meaning of an experience while you are standing inside it. You need distance before the pattern becomes visible.

 

I think I finally have enough distance from my own life to see the pattern.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: There is one thing I hope people understand about Necessary Turbulence: this is not a book only for people interested in the military, and it is not a book only for women.

 

The United States Air Force Academy is where this particular story unfolds, and these 108 women are the people who lived it.

 

But beneath the uniforms, ranks, airplanes, wars, and military careers are questions almost everyone eventually confronts: Who am I when other people have already decided who I am supposed to be? What do I do when I enter a place that wasn't built with me in mind? How much of myself do I change in order to belong? What happens when ambition collides with loss, when certainty disappears, when a life I carefully constructed suddenly changes? And how do I make something meaningful from what happened to me?

 

Those are not military questions. They are human ones.

 

And perhaps the thing that affected me most deeply during the more than three years we worked on this book was discovering how many women did not believe their experiences were important enough to become part of history.

 

Again and again, women essentially told us some version of, “I don't really have a story.” And then they began telling us one.

 

That hit me deeply, and it hit all of us on the Writing Team.

 

We tend to think history belongs to the people whose names appear in headlines—the firsts, the generals, the astronauts, the people who receive medals or achieve something publicly extraordinary. Those people absolutely matter. Their accomplishments belong in the record.

 

But history is also made by the woman whose name you have never heard.

The woman who stayed.

The woman who left.

The woman who failed at something and began again.

The woman who quietly challenged a rule.

The woman who protected someone beside her.

The woman who endured something she never told anyone about.

The woman who became the first without ever becoming famous for it.

The woman who made a path slightly wider so the person coming behind her would not have to squeeze through quite the same opening.

The woman who opened a door without even knowing there was one there.

 

When you gather enough of those seemingly ordinary lives together, you discover that they were never ordinary at all. They were the mechanism of change.

 

I think that may be one of the most important things Necessary Turbulence taught me.

 

History is not only what happens at the top of institutions. It accumulates through individual human lives, often quietly and almost invisibly, until enough time passes for us to recognize what all those lives created together.

 

For 50 years, thousands of women at the Air Force Academy were living that history. Many never thought their experiences counted as a story—because no one had ever asked.

 

We asked.

 

And 108 women answered.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with Mark Booth

  

 

 

Mark Booth is the author of the new book The Secret History of the Universe: How Ancient Wisdom Made the Modern World. His other books include The Secret History of the World. He lives in London. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write The Secret History of the Universe?

 

A: A few years previously I’d written a book called The Secret History of the World. The idea was to look at mystical traditions about history, see what they had in common, then tell it as a straightforward narrative.

 

I didn’t try to prove any of it, just to show that there is a coherent, cogent worldview to set against the materialistic one we’ve been educated to believe in.

 

I invited readers to see if it resonated with their experience of the world. And it seemed to. As a result, many people from different walks of life got in touch, including writers, artists, rock stars, comedians, spies – they love a bit of secrecy – and, most surprisingly, scientists.

 

They told me about their mystical beliefs and explained how these beliefs helped them to formulate their theories. I discovered that this was true of many of the great physicists of modern times, and that theirs was a remarkable story which has never been told.

 

Q: What do you see as the relationship between this book and The Secret History of the World?

 

A: The Secret History of the World reveals the esoteric or occult meanings of many myths, religious texts, great art and literature. The Secret History of the Universe does the same for science. I’m saying you can’t really understand what, for instance, Einstein or Bohr meant unless you understand the mystical philosophies and experiences that drove them.

 

Q: How did you research the book, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?  

 

A: I was useless at physics at school. I found it boring. But the scientists who came to see me patiently explained the new science, very different to the science I was taught at school, and it’s fascinating! Something that helped me is that I’m very familiar with the esoteric ideas that inform the new science.

 

I think what’s most surprising is that the new science says that the universe has three dimensions, and time moving steadily forward is an illusion. We believe it because it’s useful, not because it’s true. What we perceive as solid objects are not solid at all. So as a vision of reality, it’s very close to the ancient, religious one.

 

There are lots of books written about e.g. “quantum spirituality” or “quantum healing” which are very wishy-washy. Wishful thinking. I was determined that my book would quote the scientists directly from sources listed in the notes. These are not my ideas about science. They’re the ideas of Nobel laureates and professors at top universities. 

 

Q: What do you ultimately hope readers take away from the book?

 

A: We have been educated to believe that science is a barrier to religious belief. I hope readers will see that that is not the case!

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m busy engaging with readers’ questions and comments, both online and on the air. It’s exhilarating. I think we’re thinking a lot of thoughts no one has thought before. This is especially true in the area of AI.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I’m on Substack, where my feed is available for free: https://thesecrethistoryof.substack.com/ 

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Aug. 28

 

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Aug. 28, 1913: Robertson Davies born.

Q&A with Kat Mackenzie

  

 

 

Kat Mackenzie is the author of the new novel Experiments in Offline Dating. She also has written the novel Work in Progress. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write Experiments in Offline Dating, and how did you create your character Maya?

 

A: Ireland has an annual Matchmaking Festival that has been going on for generations, and I thought it was just too good an opportunity for a romcom writer to ignore.

 

Maya came to me with time. I knew I wanted an FMC who had a strong sense of self, was independent, and confident. Because she has a dating podcast where she goes on loads of terrible dates, I wanted that to be a source of joy, experimentation, and comedy for her, rather than make her feel hopeless, unlovable, or self-conscious.

 

Q: In the book’s acknowledgments, you note that the character of Jackie was inspired by a real matchmaker--can you say more about that?

 

A: Absolutely! Ireland’s most famous matchmaker is named Willie Daly and matchmaking has been in his family for generations. I did my research, read some articles about him, and sent him an email.

 

We met up multiple times when I was traveling Ireland for research, and he is every bit the character you might imagine - a man full of stories and mischief. He’s an utter delight.

 

He has a book of his own called The Last Matchmaker, which are tales about his life. The book is lyrical, nostalgic, and a work of beauty. Everyone should read it!

 

Q: How would you describe the relationship between Maya and Tadhg?

 

A: I designed them to be characters who didn’t need to change that much. I liked the idea of reading a romance about two people who are complete, happy, successful adults, that are satisfied in their lives and completely fine with being single.

 

The challenge for them is in recognizing that they are, in fact, falling in love, and making room in their lives for one another.

 

Q: What was your favorite part of the research for this novel?

 

A: I’m a travel fiend, and I research every location I write about in person! If I name a restaurant, a pub, a shop, or a historical site in my book, it’s a real place that you can look up online and go to yourself. I love to be able to eat an incredible meal at a tiny local restaurant in Ireland and tell the world about it!

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m dabbling a little bit. I’ve written a very comedy-forward, witchy, cozy romantasy that I’m super excited about! My agent is currently on sub with it. There may also be another travel romcom after my trip to Italy this September. I will be eating all of the food and drinking all of the wine, just in case!

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I did not, despite my best efforts, find an Irish husband. Yet. 

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Kat Mackenzie. 

Q&A with Ana Punset

  

 

Ana Punset is the author of the new children's chapter book Unicornia: Camping in the Clouds, the latest in her Unicornia series. She lives in Barcelona, Spain. 

 

Q: How did you initially create the world of Unicornia, and how did you come up with your cast of characters?

 

A: To create the world of Unicornia, I imagined what a place that sheltered the world's most magical animal—the unicorn—would be like. And so, I began to give shape to all those elements I would love to see become real, even though they are somewhat impossible in our own world.

 

When creating the characters, I always ensure they have distinct personalities so that they complement one another. Claudia is the protagonist, since she is the one telling the stories. But her friends play a fundamental role in every adventure, just as their unicorns do. They are also essential to Claudia’s personal growth, which is why each one brings a different perspective to any challenge.

 

Q: What inspired the latest in the series, Camping in the Clouds?

 

A: The central theme of Camping in the Clouds is the fear of the dark. This is something very familiar to me as a mother. My son has never liked the nighttime, and this is something many young children experience.

 

With this story, I sought to craft a fun, magical yet everyday adventure to address a delicate subject that children could relate to and enjoy at the same time. My aim was to show that the dark, for all the unknowns it might seem to hold, also has a positive and necessary side.

 

Q: Do you usually know how your books will end, or do you make many changes along the way?

 

A: Before I start writing any story, I work out a very clear structure for how it will unfold so that I know where I want to end up. I prepare a preliminary outline of each chapter, which allows me to see, at a high level, whether the plot works.

 

However, as I write, new elements emerge that I hadn't anticipated, and I often find myself compelled to make necessary changes. There have been times when I’ve practically rewritten an entire book after thinking it was finished, simply because I realized something was still not quite right.

 

Even so, I believe that all the preparatory work, weighing up different choices and discarding some, makes it easier for me to reach the final result.

 

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the story?

 

A: I simply hope my stories allow readers to enjoy the experience, to see them as a window into an incredible world they won't want to leave.

 

I also like the idea that, once the book is finished, beneath all the adventure, it leaves a lasting impression on the reader, a mark that prompts them to reflect and learn a value or grasp a concept they might not have previously considered or understood.

 

Q: What are you working on now? What’s next in the series?

 

A: In Spain, the 18th Unicornia book centers on Christmas. It will go on sale this coming November. However, I am already writing the 19th book, due out in March and themed around Easter eggs. The 17th book features a rather unique rock concert and will be in Spanish bookstores this September.

 

As you can see, the lead times are long because, after I finish my part, a great many people are involved in making sure these books look as spectacular as they do when they reach readers' hands.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: I simply want to express my gratitude for the extraordinary reception Unicornia is having with English-speaking readers around the world, and to all the families who have chosen to be part of this magical universe.

 

I am incredibly lucky to work with a publisher like Walker Books and Candlewick, which puts as much care into producing the books as I do into creating the stories. None of this would be possible without the incredible work Penguin Random House does from Spain to ensure my books cross borders. I feel truly fortunate. Thanks a million!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with Sandra Mercer

  

 

 

Sandra Mercer is the author of the new children's picture book The Jewelry Tree. She lives in North Carolina.

 

Q: What inspired you to write The Jewelry Tree?

 

A: The Jewelry Tree was inspired by a tender family memory. My older, and very imaginative brother created this backyard experience when I was about 10 years old that involved displaying our mother's costume jewelry from one of our backyard trees.

 

He hung Mom's necklaces, bracelets, clip-on earrings and brooches from its branches and told his younger siblings that we had a tree that was actually "growing" jewelry. Eventually most of our neighborhood friends heard of this and our yard became quite the playground!

 

Q: What do you think Gustavo Berado’s illustrations add to the story?

 

A: Gustavo's illustrations captured the vision in my mind, but I would not have been able to create these images on my own. I loved his sketches from the beginning, and he was incredibly patient with my suggestions, especially when it came time to add color.

 

I wanted to be sure that his images of 13 Madison Road, the street that I grew up on, was as close as possible to the way I remembered it from so many years ago.

 

My favorite illustration is the two-page spread of me and my family. That is most endearing. I love how he captured my dad in the vintage lawn chair reading a newspaper wearing those very retro eyeglasses and Mom holding my youngest sister.

 

Q: The story is set in 1968--how would you contrast childhood in that era to childhood today?

 

A: Most of my childhood was spent outdoors, even when the weather was unfavorable. Watching TV after school was rare and as I wrote in the book, there was always someone to play with. I recall being outside until the streetlights came on. I'd return home for supper, do my dinner chores, then head back outside to play again even on school nights.

 

Technology has its merits. My grandkids both have an iPad & Nintendo, but they are no substitute for real playmates and outdoor exploration!

 

In The Jewelry Tree, I wanted to celebrate that connection with nature and imagination that was so much a part of my childhood. Those are the moments we remember, not how many faux prizes we may have won in a video game.

 

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book?

 

A:I hope when adults read The Jewelry Tree, they are reminded of a simpler time and embrace its nostalgia. I'd love to imagine that the story sparks conversations around backyard creativity, family life, and the importance of community.

 

If children ask if they can "grow" their own jewelry tree after hearing the story, I hope there is an adult or older sibling that can make that happen for them!

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: My brother, Bobby, the inspiration behind The Jewelry Tree, also planted an idea in my head years ago, so I'm playing around with a holiday story called The Misfit Evergreens, another memoir!

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Nostalgia is a reminder you've lived a life worth cherishing. What a privilege to yearn for your own memories.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb