[00:00:00] Jane: Welcome to Historical Happy Hour, the podcast that explores new and exciting historical fiction novels. I’m your host, Jane Healey, and in today’s episode, we welcome bestselling author Greer Macallister to discuss her latest novel, The Thirteenth Husband, inspired by the life of Gilded Age heiress Jane Healy. Amy Crocker, and I love this from the back of your book, quote, her life was stranger than fiction and brighter than the stars, and she whirled through her days as if being chased.
[00:00:29] Jane: I thought that was perfect. Welcome Greer, thank you for being on.
[00:00:33] Greer: Thank you so much. It’s great to be here.
[00:00:35] Jane: So I’m going to do a quick bio on you and then I have a ton of questions. I’m not sure we’ll get to all of them. And then at the 20, 25 minute mark, I will take questions from the audience.
[00:00:43] Jane: Everyone feel free to put them in the Q and a or the chat as usual. So Greer McAllister earned her MFA in creative writing from American university, her historical novels, including the include the magician’s lie. Girl in Disguise, Women 99, and The Arctic [00:01:00] Fury have been named Book of the Month, Indie Next, Library Reads, Target Book Club, Amazon Best Books of the Month picks, and optioned for film and television.
[00:01:09] Jane: As G. R. McAllister, she is the author of the Five Queendom series, a regular contributor to Writer Unboxed and the Chicago Review of Books. She lives with her family in Boston. And you’re a recent Boston transplant, right?
[00:01:23] Greer: Yes, it’s we’re just starting our third year. So a couple of years to get settled and enjoying it so far.
[00:01:29] Jane: Nice. Excellent. And Greer and I are doing an event next Sunday. If you are local at Newtonville Books with Kerry Marr, we’re gonna I’m gonna moderate and ask you guys questions. So I’m really excited about that. Awesome. Yeah. Oh, let me hold it up because the cover is beautiful and you’re wearing pearls too.
[00:01:45] Jane: Tell us how you first learned about the fascinating millionaire heiress, Amy Crocker, and why you decided to write this story.
[00:01:54] Greer: It’s not an uncommon story and I think you may have had this experience too. I’ve talked [00:02:00] with some of our author friends about things like this. But sometimes when you’re doing research for a book, you stumble upon things that lay the groundwork for the next book or the book after or other future books.
[00:02:11] Greer: I was researching real life women of the 1840s and 1850s for the Arctic Fury. Because that was, it’s more of a what if story of what if there had been a group of women who were sent to the Arctic to search for the lost Franklin expedition, but I wanted to draw from the 1840s and 1850s, the real women of that time who were doing amazing things.
[00:02:35] Greer: And so I was digging through looking for names. My husband was digging through the internet looking for names. And he was the one who actually sent me Amy Crocker’s name. first. And so it didn’t make sense for the Arctic Fury. She lived later. She was born in the 1860s, but she didn’t really get started, generating scandals until until later than that.
[00:02:54] Greer: Um, she got tucked to the side, put in the file. And then when I was looking for [00:03:00] another subject for my next book, I thought, Oh she has. Enough to fill an entire book and much more. Yes.
[00:03:08] Jane: Yeah I actually, I, of course, I like nerded out going through some of your research sources.
[00:03:14] Jane: As I was preparing for this interview, talk about your research process, your sources and how you and what you’re how you research. Do you research as you write? Do you research first and then dive into the writing? I love to hear about people’s research process and she was so fascinating that Yeah, you there was so much more you could have included.
[00:03:34] Jane: That was that’s what was amazing
[00:03:36] Greer: Oh my gosh, the even her wikipedia entry is a journey like there is a lot going on In this woman’s life from the time that you know She’s 10 years old and her dad dies and leaves her 10 million dollars in 1880s money, which is like 300 million dollars today.
[00:03:52] Greer: And then she goes on for another like five plus decades and marries men in every [00:04:00] decade. She gets older, but they stay the same age. So fascinating woman. So my research process, my first historical novel took me five years to because I didn’t know what I was doing. And I would be writing and then I would stop writing in order to go find a fact like somebody needed to be wearing a hat.
[00:04:18] Greer: I would stop writing I would go research hats for three hours I would come back I would have the hat, but then I would have lost, not lost I would have spent three hours of my life on hats. But then I would realize later in the process, Oh, I don’t need that scene at all after all. So that time was not well spent and that’s why it took me so long.
[00:04:40] Greer: So I now have a better process. I haven’t learned enough about writing books cause I feel like everyone, I’m still learning every time, but you know how it is. But I had I have established a somewhat better process where I do a huge chunk of research up front. So I might research for three to six months [00:05:00] to get the information that I need to start generating the text.
[00:05:04] Greer: And then I will stop researching while I’m generating that first draft. So I write a very messy first draft based on that research. Then I share the book with beta readers, my agent, my editor. People read it, I get feedback, and then once I know what’s actually staying in the book, then I go back and do another round of research.
[00:05:25] Greer: The kind of stuff that keeps people from sending us emails okay, so that I don’t get a Goodreads review that says, oh the Derringer wasn’t invented until two years later, my favorite example was from Girl in Disguise, which is my book about the first female Pinkerton detective.
[00:05:41] Greer: There’s a chase scene where she’s running through the streets of Chicago. And I waited until the book had gone through these various edit points. And the chase scene stayed in and then I went back and I pulled up an 1856 map of Chicago and I said, okay she’s running six blocks on walker and then she [00:06:00] turns right and that’s union and then She runs another three blocks and she turns left and that’s you know trust street or something.
[00:06:06] Greer: It’s you know, those details which I feel are very important as a historical fiction writer I want the reader to really feel like they’re there in the moment and feel like they can trust me that I’m going to give them information that they wouldn’t otherwise have. But I didn’t do that upfront and I don’t do it in the middle of the process anymore.
[00:06:27] Greer: I go back and fill in the fine detail close through to the end of the process.
[00:06:33] Jane: So interesting. I love to hear process, people’s process with this stuff. And I still unfortunately go down rabbit holes about things like hats and jewelry sometimes that I really don’t need to be doing. But it’s
[00:06:44] Greer: interesting it’s partly, we’ve got to enjoy ourselves along the way too.
[00:06:47] Jane: And it’s easier than writing sometimes. So there’s that. So much
[00:06:51] Greer: easier. So much easier.
[00:06:53] Jane: So you mentioned in your author’s note that Amy had written a memoir called And I’d Do It Again, [00:07:00] which is a great name for a memoir. It’s the
[00:07:02] Greer: best title. It’s the
[00:07:03] Jane: best title. And the book was a bestseller in itself, and but in your note, you said that she was actually in this memoir an unreliable narrator.
[00:07:12] Jane: What do you, can you explain what you mean by that?
[00:07:14] Greer: Yeah, I think it was when I was reading that, ’cause I’d been through a bunch of research about Amy and then I did of course as a dutiful not quite biographer, but a person who was going to write about Amy. I sat down and I read a, I read her memoir and it made me realize more than I ever had before that a memoir is a marketing exercise.
[00:07:31] Greer: It’s a pitch, it’s a it’s a construction of an image. Because Amy doesn’t talk about in her memoir most of the things that I was, that I found fascinating. Her first husband their marriage ended quite badly. And she glosses over it in three lines. She’s I got married, didn’t work out.
[00:07:49] Greer: We tried really hard, but nope. And that is almost literally the it on her first marriage. So she’s telling the stories that she wants to tell. And as you [00:08:00] pointed out with that absolutely fantastic title, And I’d Do It Again. The whole thing is it’s in her best interest to come off as somebody who’s having wild adventures and no regrets.
[00:08:10] Greer: And yes, she had wild adventures, maybe not the adventures that she says she had in that memoir. And I’m sure she must have had wild adventures. Some regrets. Nobody lives a life with no regrets whatsoever. So I wanted to delve, dive a little deeper into the things that she might not have wanted to talk about and certainly to get more into her emotions.
[00:08:31] Greer: Cause it’s a very It’s a very blasé memoir. It’s very, oh yes, and then I did this, and then the bullfighter died, and then, the German prince loved me, but I left him, and then my Chinese gangster boyfriend tried to have me killed, but he killed my maid instead, and so I did this. And really, Amy?
[00:08:47] Greer: Wow that’s a lot. And some of it is not documented in the historical record anywhere else, so I can’t really substantiate it. So some of that stuff I will leave in, and some I will. Leave out and as you [00:09:00] noticed in the author’s note, that is a great place to really nail it down and say, look this is something that’s documented.
[00:09:07] Greer: This is something that’s not documented. This is where I had to change some things around to make a better reading experience for you, the reader. But it’s wonderful that we get that channel to speak directly to readers. And I think it definitely, it is at the end of the book and it definitely belongs at the end of the book so that you don’t have any any spoilers any surprises spoiled by, by that info at the beginning.
[00:09:29] Jane: Totally agree. And I find that readers really appreciate and love love those author’s notes and se finding out what’s real what’s fiction. Yeah. And I find them difficult to write sometimes ’cause I forget what I’ve weaved in. But but yeah, I think readers love them. So in this narrative I found that Amy has a very strong and distinct voice and personality.
[00:09:52] Jane: And how did you capture it? What parts of the research helped? How much of it was just your imagination? Like how’d you [00:10:00] do it?
[00:10:01] Greer: I started with the voice in the memoir because I feel like It’s if there is something from a person, and again, I wrote about this female pancreatic detective in an earlier book, there’s almost nothing in the historical record, I had to do a lot of extrapolation, she didn’t leave any letters, any diaries, any of her words directly, but Amy did, so I felt okay I will start with Her quotes from the newspaper and her memoir, and she wrote a like semi fictional other book called Moon Madness, and so I felt like I had to start from that, but again, because she is, she’s putting on a character in the memoir, and so it’s partly her voice, but it wasn’t the voice that I felt really truly reflected Amy.
[00:10:46] Greer: So I started with that. And then woven where she gets a little deeper or where she gets to do things and it is it’s a moving target while you’re in the process of writing, you might think oh this is the voice and then you might read it and [00:11:00] go back and go oh she wouldn’t.
[00:11:02] Greer: She wouldn’t have said that and which is always an interesting thing with even a real person becomes a fictional character as you’re writing a novel about them. And so I was reading through and saying to myself, Oh, she wouldn’t say that. But it’s my concept of Amy. It’s my Amy that wouldn’t say that.
[00:11:19] Greer: Who knows what the real Amy would have said. She said a lot of things.
[00:11:23] Jane: So one thing I thought that was really interesting is from a young age, she has these visions of a woman in white and she’s very interested in fortune tellers and mystics. But that wasn’t really uncommon in that era.
[00:11:36] Jane: The era of spiritualism. And talk a little bit about that aspect of the story.
[00:11:41] Greer: Yeah, it was very common. There was a huge debugging movement later. Then, 20, 30 years after this, but it was very common in those days for women, especially of a certain class to go and seek help from the beyond.
[00:11:55] Greer: And to people were really experimenting with, Oh, can I reach this [00:12:00] person who has died? Can I make a connection to the other side? And so Amy definitely did that. The real Amy and my fictional Amy. And the real Amy does tell a couple of stories that I incorporated into the book, one of which is that she started seeing visions of a woman when she was very young, a woman who was in her bed in her bedroom who couldn’t possibly have been there but felt extremely real to Amy and so I plucked that from Amy’s Real life account.
[00:12:29] Greer: And then also that she said that she had gone to a fortune teller who had told her she needed to be careful about getting married. And that if she married 13 times, her 13th husband would bury her. And so I was telling my editor of the story early in the process of the book. And I said, Oh, her 13th husband will bury her.
[00:12:48] Greer: And she said, that’s the title, the 13th husband. So good. And it’s the only one of my titles, it is the title of mine that has changed the fewest times. I said, before that it was, Amy [00:13:00] Crocker book that kind of thing. But once she said, Oh yeah, 13, 000 is a good title. I’m like, okay, that’s it.
[00:13:05] Greer: And it did not change. Nobody questioned it for the rest of the process, which is very unusual, especially for me. But I think in the broader world of fiction as well. Okay.
[00:13:14] Jane: Oh, totally agree. I’ve never all the titles I’ve suggested have been, thrown out by the sales and marketing team at some point.
[00:13:20] Jane: Yeah. Yeah. So the narrative is written as Amy, as if Amy is telling someone a story, the story of her life, and I’m not going to give away spoilers, but you find out at the end who she’s talking to. And it was such an interesting twist and added another layer to the story. And and I loved it.
[00:13:39] Jane: Why did you decide to tell it in this way, in that kind of narrative form?
[00:13:44] Greer: So that popped up about halfway through my writing and I was so glad that it did. And it was directly inspired by another person’s book. So Rebecca Mackay has a fantastic book. fabulous sort of thriller, true crime fiction indictment yet [00:14:00] participating in the phenomenon called I Have Some Questions For You.
[00:14:03] Greer: And it’s narrated in this voice. That says you but you don’t realize that there is a you that she is talking to that this character is talking to until I forget how far in it is a third in or a halfway in oh, okay, so you’re telling a story to someone. Who is that someone and how do you feel about that someone and what is the.
[00:14:28] Greer: Yeah, no spoilers. What is the eventual resolution between. the narrator and the someone. And so as soon as I read that and was in the process of writing the book, I said to myself, Oh, okay. I know who the someone is that she’s talking to. And that really helped. Me shape the rest of the book and really helped that helped with the voice.
[00:14:52] Greer: Also, you had asked about voice and I feel like the She’s talking differently because she’s talking to someone [00:15:00] And giving them specific information and callbacks and she’s reminiscing and talking to herself as well But she’s also got some points to make along the way with That person.
[00:15:13] Jane: I love that Rebecca Rebecca Mackay book. I listened to it on audio.
[00:15:17] Greer: So good.
[00:15:17] Jane: Yes. Julia Whelan. Amazing. Oh, Julia Whelan. I could, any, anything narrated by Julia Whelan is like the best. So good. In your author’s notes, Again, everyone has to read it. You mentioned the stories about Amy’s life that you left out, including, here’s two of them I’m going to mention, which I’m like, what?
[00:15:34] Jane: Living in a Maharaja’s harem in India, and she says, following in with a Chinese gangster who tries to have her killed. She says, just an unbelievable amount of raw material here. And how did you decide what to incorporate into the novel and what to leave out? It must’ve been really difficult sometimes.
[00:15:53] Greer: It was difficult sometimes and some things went in and out and then there were some things that I think I mentioned in the author’s note that [00:16:00] she talks about that I couldn’t substantiate that I ended up just moving location. I’m like, oh, this is really wild and interesting, but I’m not going to talk about when she’s in this.
[00:16:09] Greer: Area, why don’t I relocate it to, to this area since it’s probably fiction anyway I figured I might as well fictionalize some of it in different in different locations. But yeah, there, there are so many stories in, and I do it again, that are just not substantiated anywhere else. So I, I had a bias against including things that couldn’t be substantiated, but then there’s all this stuff with the, the chaperone when she’s at finishing school in Germany and the chaperone runs away with their money.
[00:16:41] Greer: That’s not substantiated, but that’s a really cool story. That sort of fits with her overall, you know, Essence. I did try to pull in things that were consistent with the character that I was developing and consistent with the character arc that I was developing. But this book could have been, this book could have been twice as long.
[00:16:58] Greer: This could have been a series [00:17:00] of Amy does crazy stuff. But I also wanted it to fit in with her development over the course of the book, because it covers a lot of ground as it is, it’s most of her life, not her entire life, but most of it, which is different for me. I don’t usually write about long periods of time.
[00:17:17] Greer: I usually focus things in on a shorter period. But for her, it felt like the right choice. So it does become a fictional memoir. Excuse me. that covers more ground than her real memoir did.
[00:17:30] Jane: Yeah, you definitely cover a lot of ground and this is a follow on question I, my last novel, Good Night from Paris, was about Drew Layton Tartier, a real person in history.
[00:17:40] Jane: It was the first time I’d written biographical fiction, meaning the main character was a real person, and this is the second time. You mentioned Guerrilla in Disguise was about Kate Warner, or Kate Warren? Warren, yep. She was the female detective during the Civil War. So you’ve done this before and what, I found it super [00:18:00] challenging to write from a main character who is an actual person in history and you’ve written both, you’ve been written both, you’ve written some that are, fictional protagonists and you’ve written biographical fiction before.
[00:18:11] Jane: Do you have a preference? What do you find are the unique challenges of this? a biographical fiction like this? I
[00:18:18] Greer: think it’s been different. It was really different between the two biographical novels because as I mentioned, like Kate Warren left nothing, left very little behind. We had her the stories that Alan Pinkerton tells about her.
[00:18:31] Greer: I did I tried to just, do my research and dive in and do, um, as much research as possible on Kate. And it happened that I lived in Washington, D. C. at the time, and the Library of Congress has the Pinkerton Agency archives. So I got my Library of Congress library card with my face on it and I thought I was going to be going back there every day over and over to, to learn about Kate, and I read everything that they had about Kate in about three hours, because there just wasn’t that much, [00:19:00] partly because the Pinkerton Agency was based in Chicago, and their records burned up in the Great Chicago Fire, so anything pre 1871 was very spotty and that was her entire career with them was was during that period.
[00:19:14] Greer: So with Kate, it was, I think, a lot more like writing a completely fictional protagonist. With Amy, it wasn’t. With Amy, because of the things she left behind, she was so widely quoted in newspapers at the time. We had all the births and deaths and marriages and divorces and custody cases and all sorts of things.
[00:19:36] Greer: So with her, the challenge was the real challenge was what do you put in and what do you take out? Because You don’t want it to just be a listing of all the husbands and, she did this and then she did that and then she did this and then she did that. I wanted to fit it in and into the character arc and the plot that would make it most interesting for the reader without it being a complete just [00:20:00] accounting.
[00:20:00] Greer: And with the, what if stories, I find the best thing about it is that you get to make it up. And then the hardest thing about it is that you. have to make it up. And so with Magician’s Life, for example, I knew the beginning and I knew the end, but the middle changed so many times because she wove through a different set of events and then talking to beta readers and my agents, my agent made me cut a character and I’m like, no, Lulu, the trapeze artist needs to stay.
[00:20:29] Greer: But then it turned out Lulu, the trapeze artist did not need to stay. And I obviously Ten years later, still carry a torch for Lulu the trapeze artist. So she may have to show up in, in another book. But she is nowhere to be found in The Magician’s Lie. So that’s with the more fictional stories.
[00:20:46] Greer: I am not, you might be, I am not a an. outline and stick to the outline person. I try to be. I write an outline for all my books, but then I wander off at some point midway through the process. And I write sloppy [00:21:00] and I rewrite a ton. I really find the book in the drafting and rewriting process, as opposed to other friends of mine who, will write a 50 page outline.
[00:21:09] Greer: And then all they have to do is, fill in from there and bless them. That is wonderful that it works for them.
[00:21:15] Jane: I just answered one of my, one of the questions I always ask. I actually have a bunch of writing questions, not a bunch, but about a half dozen writing questions that I ask everyone.
[00:21:23] Jane: And then I will take questions from the chat and the Q and A. So please put your questions in there. Chris Mott, who’s always on, she’s best, says, I love your necklace, Greer. I have to, I do too. It’s so cute. So that you answer my question. Are you a plotter in a pant? Or a pantser. So you are a planter, would you say?
[00:21:39] Jane: Yes, I attempt to
[00:21:41] Greer: plot, but I end up pantsing. Got it. For sure.
[00:21:44] Jane: And I, and we covered this too, like how you balance fact versus fiction in the, in your storytelling, but are there any strict rules that you in, that you keep in the top of your mind when you’re writing, like in terms of fact versus fiction, or the things that you won’t.[00:22:00]
[00:22:00] Greer: Very few. Birth and death, usually I will stick with. But for me, it’s mostly about what I’ll change something if I have to, in order to make the reader’s reading experience better. So if it doesn’t have to change, I won’t change it just yet. But if I need something, if I need something to be available that wasn’t available I figure if I put it in the author’s note, it’s probably okay.
[00:22:22] Greer: And I don’t know. generally try to not write negatively about historical figures unless there is evidence that they behaved in the ways that I’m accusing them of behaving. Certainly Amy did a lot of the things that I say Amy does. Her first husband as portrayed in the book is not very nice and I can point to places in the historical record where he did the things that he is accused of doing.
[00:22:48] Greer: I didn’t feel too bad about that. But again, in an earlier book Abraham Lincoln is in there. And I’m like, I’m not gonna make Abraham Lincoln a big jerk unless I have reason to. And I did not have reason to. I try to be more [00:23:00] careful around really well known historical figures.
[00:23:03] Jane: Yeah, that makes total sense. I know we have aspiring authors in the audience and you have been at this for a while now you published a number of books in different genres too, which is super impressive. What is the best advice you can give them about writing and getting published, which are very different things, but
[00:23:21] Greer: Yes absolutely.
[00:23:23] Greer: Yes, I feel like don’t give up. That’s the persistence. I feel like persistence is in some ways even more important than talent in writing and publishing especially in the publishing part of it because it’s just, it’s hard and it’s easier to say no than yes. So any agent, any editor is going to say no and even readers, like it all goes down to the chain.
[00:23:48] Greer: Readers don’t necessarily have a reason to pick up your book unless you give them one which is hard. Definitely don’t be discouraged. If you want the dream to happen, it can happen. It just may not happen in the form that you initially set out [00:24:00] to, to make it happen. And the other thing is my, one of the best things about Being a writer and a published author is the other writers and published authors that I get to hang out with and spend time with and nobody else understands as much as somebody else who has been doing the same thing for years and years.
[00:24:18] Greer: So your family and friends will definitely try. And they’ll tell you your writing is fantastic and probably your writing is fantastic, but you also need people from the writing side of things to to be there for you and to help you with your craft and the business.
[00:24:33] Jane: I completely agree.
[00:24:34] Jane: And I have to give a shout out to you and Kerry. You and Kerry have created this like bowl, done some bowling events with local writers that I finally made it to one. And I need to get out there more and connect with local writers because I don’t do that enough. I stay in my like little writing hole and never come out.
[00:24:49] Jane: And it was so great. It was so great that night. There was like a half dozen of us. And you’re right. Nobody understands What this whole crazy publishing world life is like and it was so [00:25:00] nice to talk to other people, other writers about it. So that was awesome. So thank you for doing that. That was so yeah,
[00:25:05] Greer: it’s wonderful.
[00:25:05] Greer: We really have enjoyed it. And it is, writing is can be very solitary like you don’t one of the great thing about it. Great things about it is you don’t need anybody else in order to put stuff on the page and even to self publish if you want to. But just better and easier with other people.
[00:25:24] Greer: And again, yeah, for somebody to say, Oh Oh, my editor, I had this book and then my editor left. And then somebody else says, Oh, my editor just left. This is what I did. It’s partly advice and partly just commiseration. They’re like, Oh man, that was terrible. And that.
[00:25:37] Jane: Yeah, it’s so good.
[00:25:38] Jane: It’s so helpful. And yeah, cathartic. It’s great. I wanted to ask, actually, this is a question I jumped over by accident. So has there this is a two part question. Has there been any movie interest in The 13th Husband? And who do you picture playing Amy Crocker? I realize she ages over time. But I don’t have you thought about it?
[00:25:58] Greer: I haven’t thought about this. This is [00:26:00] so funny, because usually I have an answer to this, like some of my earlier books, like I actually had. Pictures of actors printed out so that when I was describing people feel like, Oh, yes, she looks like this. But I haven’t with Amy. And that’s so interesting.
[00:26:15] Greer: I hadn’t even thought about it. But yeah, she does age over time. So that makes it a little bit more complicated, but it’s amazing what they can do with. Yeah, I
[00:26:28] Jane: was trying to think of one too, and I can’t, yeah, I feel like I don’t know enough young actresses I think it’s really starts at age 23.
[00:26:35] Jane: So it’s who do I know? Julia Garner, I love her. I don’t know if she can do it. She’s one of my favorites. Mine are always
[00:26:44] Greer: like this person from It was the young, like the young John Cusack, the young I think of in my head I always feel like Brie Larson can do anything. Oh gosh.
[00:26:54] Greer: Yeah. So she could totally pull it off. She could do it. You could totally pull it off and age
[00:26:58] Jane: well. [00:27:00] Yes.
[00:27:00] Jane: Are you ready to share what you’re working on next?
[00:27:04] Greer: I have a few things in the hopper that some of which I can and can’t talk about. I can say what book of mine is coming out next because in addition to the historical novels as Greer McAllister, I write epic fantasy. Oh, I love Carey Mulligan.
[00:27:18] Greer: Sorry. I know. I was just looking at that too. People are making good suggestions. I love Carey Mulligan so much. Good suggestions. Very good. I’m sorry, I don’t. Oh, yes. So in addition to historical fiction, I write. a fantasy series as G. R. McAllister. And that’s the Five Queendoms series. So that’s a matriarchal epic fantasy world.
[00:27:39] Greer: It’s like Game of Thrones, but all queens, no kings. And this, the first two books in that series are out and the third one is coming out next August. So I have just a little, another round. We’re going into copy edits. On that, so I have a little bit more work to do on that book. Which is very different from the historical fiction for obvious reasons.
[00:27:58] Greer: I get to make stuff up. [00:28:00] Nobody can tell me I did it wrong. Except it just has to be consistent. Like I said, there were six kinds of magic. If I say later, there are five kinds of magic. Somebody’s going to let me know. But it is. It’s been a really fun and interesting thing to alternate with the historical novels.
[00:28:16] Greer: It was very freeing when I took it on initially, and then when I turned my attention back to historical fiction and wrote The Thirteenth Husband, I’m like, ah, it’s such a relief to have the real world behind me. And to, be, to have somebody’s memoir and all that other material we talked about to to inspire me.
[00:28:34] Jane: Yeah, that’s base source material. That’s why it’s so impressive that you switch between genres like that. Very cool. And okay, let’s see. Before I have, there’s a few questions I’ve seen in the chat and in the Q& A before I ask those, what’s the best way to for readers to stay in touch with you.
[00:28:50] Jane: You can
[00:28:50] Greer: definitely get in touch with me through my website, GreerMcAllister. com. And then on social media, I don’t use Greer McAllister because I don’t want people to have to spell [00:29:00] McAllister. So on Instagram and on threads my handle is TheLadyGreer. But I am Guru McAllister on Facebook as well.
[00:29:07] Greer: Social media those are the ways to find me. I do try to keep my website updated as much as I can. I have a blog that runs on the website where I’ll put up reviews writings that I do, interviews, events that sort of thing. So that’s gurumcallister. com.
[00:29:23] Jane: And I know I, I think before we met, I knew your handle as the Lady Greer and I’m like, Oh, that’s such a cool handle.
[00:29:29] Jane: It’s so much better than like a real name.
[00:29:32] Greer: There are so many Greers now though. It’s so funny because there weren’t and now I’m, I keep reading books with characters named Greer. I’m like, Oh, it’s a thing now.
[00:29:41] Jane: Okay. That’s cool. Audrey Tiedemann asks, are you doing any author talks in the Boston area?
[00:29:48] Jane: As a
[00:29:49] Greer: matter of fact, yes. And we’ll both be there. So that is the 15th at Newtonville books. It’s from two to two to three 30 it’s books and bites. So there’s, there’ll be [00:30:00] refreshments and a cake and good company. And they’ll have in stock, not just the 13th husband and not just Carrie’s latest book.
[00:30:07] Greer: All you have to do is call, but someone for our backlist and it will be a really fun Mingling and and hearing author talk event.
[00:30:15] Jane: Yeah, that’ll be fun. I’m looking forward to that one. Okay, other questions. Oh, since you now reside, Janeline Kosher says, since you now reside in Boston, have you visited any great historical sites and do you have any plans to set a future book in Boston?
[00:30:29] Greer: Never say never. I would definitely I would definitely set a book in Boston if I find the right topic. Somebody beat me to Isabella Stewart Gardner. Emily Franklin. Yes, there’s definitely some great great ones, including the Lioness of Boston. Writing something about the Montelascus flood.
[00:30:44] Greer: I haven’t figured out a, an angle on that yet. But I actually did even before I moved to Boston, I went to college here, I went to Tufts and so I had familiarity with Boston and love Boston. But part of the Arctic Fury is actually set in Boston [00:31:00] because there’s the trip It’s two timelines.
[00:31:02] Greer: There’s a trip that the this expedition goes on to the Arctic. But then the other part of the book, the other timeline takes place a year after the expedition where somebody is on trial for murder because of what happened on the expedition itself. And that trial, the murder trial takes place in Boston.
[00:31:20] Greer: And in fact, she’s As this woman is on trial, she is in prison in what is now a luxury hotel, which I always find very interesting, the Liberty and Clink. So I actually went during my research process, I actually went to that hotel so that I could see, they’ve got the windows, they’ve got the cells they’ve got tons of information about what it was like when it was a prison.
[00:31:44] Greer: And yeah, so that’s my primary piece of Boston that has already made it into one of my books is that that prison.
[00:31:51] Jane: Yeah, we were just at the Liberty Hotel at Scampo for dinner a few weeks ago with a friend who was in town, and if you’re ever in Boston, I highly recommend it because it’s so [00:32:00] cool inside.
[00:32:00] Jane: They kept a lot of the architecture of the prison, and it’s all wide open. It’s a very cool space. Yeah, highly recommend.
[00:32:08] Greer: And it was a very forward thinking prison for the time actually like that big giant atrium the thought was that prisoners would do better with light and space versus, not, which is much more common and still is much more common.
[00:32:22] Greer: And my understanding is that when the city. invited development proposals, they said, you have to keep this stuff. You’re not going to be allowed to just knock the whole thing down and build what you want. This is a piece of history that you have to respect.
[00:32:38] Jane: Yes. Yeah. And they did a great job, I think.
[00:32:40] Jane: Very cool. Chris Mott asks, which husband was the most fun for you to write about?
[00:32:45] Greer: Ooh,
[00:32:46] Jane: I love that
[00:32:47] Greer: question. So she marries a Broadway songwriter partway through the book. I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler because if you read the Wikipedia entry, you know that she marries Jackson. But he was really interesting because they were throwing [00:33:00] parties in New York and supporting the arts and Their marriage is different in a lot of ways than a lot of the other marriages.
[00:33:07] Greer: And I don’t want to say too much about that, but I did I did really enjoy writing Jackson and his relationship with Amy specifically.
[00:33:16] Jane: Courtney Rogers says, I like Jackson too. And she has a question. Are you going to be at the Boston Book Festival in October?
[00:33:23] Greer: I may attend. I’m not on the docket.
[00:33:26] Greer: I will probably attend just as a person who loves the authors and the events that are going on there.
[00:33:32] Jane: Donna Farrin asks, do you write in silence or do you have music? On. Do you go to coffee shops? What’s your writing environment or multiple environments if you have ’em?
[00:33:43] Greer: There are multiple environments.
[00:33:45] Greer: The c, the coffee shop is really my favorite. I do sometimes for those few political to Boston. My family also belongs to the Athena, so I get to write there. Sometimes I’ll write at the library, so sometimes I’m in silence. And then sometimes I met Tate and voices [00:34:00] are going on or all around me.
[00:34:01] Greer: While I’m while I’m writing I use music in my writing, but not. As I’m writing I use it to get me into the mood for writing So I will usually have for most of my books. I will have a a theme song for my protagonist And it doesn’t necessarily have to come from the time i’m writing about but it’s from the time when I was When I had little kids and I had a full time job and I needed to just, even if I only had 15 minutes, I needed to be able to use that 15 minutes for writing.
[00:34:31] Greer: So I’d be driving my, one of my kids home from daycare. I would listen to a specific song in the car on the way home so that when I walked in the door at home, I could sit down and say, okay, now I’m writing about like these two women in an insane asylum, but neither of them is insane. That, that would, it would, Move me into the process of get my head into the right into the right space.
[00:34:55] Jane: Oh, that’s very cool. What was Amy’s song, if you want to share it? [00:35:00] It’s so funny Amy, I
[00:35:01] Greer: Forgot to have one I don’t know I’ll have to think about what her theme song would be, retroactively.
[00:35:09] Jane: Also, too, like you said, if it’s a, I hear you, when you have younger kids if it’s something to help you get in the mode, you probably need it a little less, now than you did back then, I’m sure.
[00:35:19] Greer: Yes.
[00:35:20] Jane: They’re
[00:35:21] Greer: 10 and 12 now. So they’re somewhere in the house, but I don’t have to panic about where they are in the house. I think they’re probably where I left them. So it’s very different from when they’re very little. Yep.
[00:35:31] Jane: Exactly. One last question. Do you Zoom with book clubs?
[00:35:36] Jane: Oh,
[00:35:36] Greer: absolutely. Yes. I love to visit virtually. I do have enough obligations at home that it can be hard for me to get out in person to travel away from home. But the best thing about Zoom is we can do it wherever. If you’re in California or Seattle or Paris or whatever, I can come visit and I bring my own wine,
[00:35:55] Jane: excellent. I know that’s the best thing about Zoom, I think that’s come out of the pandemic is being able [00:36:00] to meet with book clubs all over. That’s, I love it. Yeah. So this has been delightful. Thank you, Greer. I’m so glad we’re going to see each other next week. Thank you for taking the time. Yes, it’s been great.
[00:36:10] Jane: Yeah next up I have Donna Jones Alward next week. Her latest novel is When the World Fell Silent. My husband’s going to put the registration on the website probably tonight. And you’ll, everyone will get a MailChimp invitation soon. But thank you again. This is a beautiful book.
[00:36:25] Jane: Congratulations. I loved it. I think this is one of these women in history that did not get their due and and I’m glad you’re bringing her to light. Thank you again and have a good night everyone. Thanks for coming on. Thanks very much. Take care. Bye bye
