[00:00:00] Jane: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Historical Happy Hour, the podcast that explores new and exciting historical fiction novels. I’m your host, Jane Healy, and in today’s episode, we welcome acclaimed author Donna Jones Alward to discuss her latest novel, When the World Fell Silent, a story of loss, hope, and redemption, focused on two survivors of the Halifax explosion and how their lives intersect in a devastating way.
[00:00:28] Jane: It is it’s came out on August 1st. It’s a Canadian bestseller. It’s been on Canadian bestseller lists for five weeks, which is amazing. And it’s been called an impressive and assured historical fiction debut. Welcome Donna. Hi, thanks for having me here. Yeah, thanks so much for coming. So I’m going to give a brief bio about you and then I have a ton of questions.
[00:00:48] Jane: Okay. Since 2006, Donna Jones Allward has enchanted readers with stories of happy endings and homecomings that have won awards and been translated into over a dozen languages. Her historical [00:01:00] fiction tales blend her love of history with characters who step beyond their biggest fears to claim the lives they desire.
[00:01:06] Jane: Donna lives in Nova Scotia. You can often find her near the water, either kayaking on the lake or walking the beaches to refill her creative well again. Welcome. Thank you. So let’s talk about when the world fell silent. I love the novel. And it was, I love, obviously, I’m a historical fiction fan.
[00:01:25] Jane: And I love learning about it. Aspects of history, events in history, and people that I knew about but not really. And so talk about the premise of this novel, the Halifax Explosion, and why you ultimately decided to write a story about it.
[00:01:38] Donna: It’s one of those things that I wasn’t taught in school either, even though I grew up one province away from here.
[00:01:45] Donna: And it boggles my mind that this is not included, or wasn’t at least, in my generation, in social studies and Canadian history curriculum. And I learned about it in grade 12 when [00:02:00] I took an Atlantic literature class and I read Barometer Rising by Hugh MacLennan. And then I realized this was a real thing that happened.
[00:02:07] Donna: So fast forward many years, and I’m living in Halifax now after a long time of being in various parts of the country. And when I started to write this or, thought about doing a historical fiction, it seemed like the perfect It was something that not a lot of people know about. It was a huge disaster in Canadian history.
[00:02:28] Donna: It was the largest man made explosion until the atom bomb. And just, it seemed the perfect backdrop to create a story about two women who have to navigate, what happens after tragedy and when their lives are changed and how they’re going to work their way through that and make their lives whole again.
[00:02:48] Donna: That’s it.
[00:02:49] Jane: Yeah, it’s such an, I feel like it’s such a lesser known disaster in history, and it was so interesting. I am a complete nerd when it comes to author notes, and your author notes were so [00:03:00] extensive and interesting about your research. Oh, thank you. Yeah, they really were. I loved it. And so talk about what your research process was like, and what some of your sources were.
[00:03:11] Jane: Did you come across any surprises, things like that?
[00:03:14] Donna: Sure. Sure. I The first thing I did was I expanded my book budget because there are so many great local books about the explosion. And for those who don’t know, I’ll give a very quick summary of what happened. A munitions ship was coming up from New York and a relief ship was leaving our harbor.
[00:03:38] Donna: The Halifax Harbor was great. For convoys, because it would empty into the Bedford Basin, ships could gather there and then leave, protection in numbers against U boats. So while these, one ship was leaving, the other one was coming in they collided. And, the cargo that the munition ship is carrying is need to know [00:04:00] only it’s wartime.
[00:04:01] Donna: And so nobody realized that when a fire broke out that this was a disaster waiting to happen. And so shortly after nine that morning, the ship exploded. It leveled the whole north end of the city. It killed almost 2, 000, wounded about 9, 000 more, and left about 25, 000 without adequate housing. So that’s in a nutshell what happened the morning of December 6th.
[00:04:24] Donna: The Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in downtown Halifax has An incredible permanent exhibit, so I visited there more than once lots of reading, lots of visiting the library and getting access to some things that were not able to be checked out for various reasons. And so the librarians would, bring them to me and I could do my thing and then I would get them back.
[00:04:47] Donna: And yeah, so it, There weren’t a whole lot of surprises more just little details. I think that I didn’t expect and just some of the [00:05:00] stories of resilience and not part of my research, but a really interesting story was I had a book event on August 6th at our central library and someone came up to me and said that they had bought a house.
[00:05:13] Donna: Not that long ago, in the North End, and when they were doing landscaping, they were still uncovering so much glass. And this is over a hundred years later. So it’s, to me, that was just like, wow.
[00:05:27] Jane: Yeah.
[00:05:27] Donna: It’s still there.
[00:05:29] Jane: Crazy. Yeah. Yeah. That’s unbelievable. I should mention too, you have an amazing book club guide and also a reading list for some of your, some of the sources that you used for the, for your research.
[00:05:41] Jane: So people always love that stuff too. One thing that was interesting as I was thinking about, this was the kind of catastrophe that changed the country forever on a sort of base level. So things like the way that nurses could do their jobs and support for the blind. [00:06:00] So talk a little bit about those aspects.
[00:06:02] Jane: I thought that was so interesting.
[00:06:04] Donna: The CNIB, so the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, is actually something that’s really close to my heart, because my mom is legally blind. And I didn’t realize that the eye injuries from this event. It was a huge mass blinding event. People were watching from their windows, they were on the waterfront.
[00:06:24] Donna: So the eye injuries were staggering. And then we also had soldiers coming back from the front with different kinds of eye injuries. And so there was a real need for assistance. So that’s how the CNIB was formed, which I thought was a really interesting aspect. And I was really pleased that I got to include that since it is, close to my heart.
[00:06:46] Donna: And the other thing I realized that nurses were not allowed to perform a lot of procedures. And a lot of times they were performing nurturing roles and, [00:07:00] very basic roles. And then as need grew in the war and events such as this, Slowly, they were starting to do more things. So within the story, Nora would not usually be doing stitching, and she’s working in a convalescent hospital as well.
[00:07:17] Donna: So it’s not a primary treatment center, it’s convalescent care. But on this day, it’s all shoulders to the plow. And so she knows how to stitch and she’s never done it before so she begins stitching wounds and you know this it’s a real sense of pride for her because she would actually like to go on and be a doctor someday and that’s not necessarily an avenue that’s very open to her.
[00:07:43] Donna: But the sense of accomplishment and how things changed out of necessity was really interesting to look into.
[00:07:49] Jane: So interesting. Another aspect of this story that we had just talked about I grew up just outside Boston. I’ve lived here my whole life. Every year the Christmas tree for [00:08:00] the Boston City Christmas tree comes from Halifax and I know they’re considered sister cities.
[00:08:05] Jane: And I knew it was vaguely a connection to one of the world wars, but I didn’t know it was this specific event that kind of formed that relationship. Will you tell that a little bit about that?
[00:08:16] Donna: Yeah. So Boston was actually one of the first cities. To offer assistance and the same day that this is happening, the mayor of Boston is calling a meeting about how they’re going to assist and what they can do.
[00:08:30] Donna: So within hours, there’s aid being collected to be sent to Halifax. They also sent a whole medical unit from Harvard, which set up in the downtown and helped with the casualties. It was immediate. It was. on a very large scale. And so we’ve always had a special relationship with Boston since then.
[00:08:53] Donna: Kind of funny, my best friend is also from Boston. Oh, nice. So we keep that going. But but yeah so as a [00:09:00] thank you every year, Nova Scotia sends a tree to Boston to put in the common and it gets lit up and that’s our special connection.
[00:09:07] Jane: Yeah, it’s a big deal every year. I love that. I want to talk about character development.
[00:09:12] Jane: This is told from two perspectives, dual narrative, nurse Nora Cromwell and widow Charlotte Campbell, young widow. How did you develop these two characters and are they composites of the different people you read about in your research? Are they based one to one from anyone in the history that you read?
[00:09:32] Donna: They are mostly fictional. I really didn’t look at pulling pieces of other people and forming a character out of that. I, they’re entirely in my head. But I did want two women with very different experiences during the same time period. Charlotte is very working class. She’s a war widow. She has a young child.
[00:09:56] Donna: She doesn’t have a lot of options. She’s living with her in laws. Who [00:10:00] don’t actually treat her very well. And then on the other hand, we have Nora who grew up, certainly not rich, but more of a middle class upbringing. And, she doesn’t want to go the family, the marriage and family route.
[00:10:15] Donna: She wants to have a career. And as much as women could have careers in the, beginning of the 20th century, so she goes to Halifax, she grew up a little bit outside of Halifax, she goes to Halifax, boards with her sister and her husband, becomes a nurse, and then when the war is ongoing, she applies into the Canadian Army Medical Corps, and becomes a lieutenant, as a nurse.
[00:10:40] Donna: So she actually has a rank, and as a nursing sister, even though they weren’t nuns, they were called nursing sisters.
[00:10:47] Jane: Yeah, I was confused by that at first. I’m like, Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:10:51] Donna: And so if you’ve heard of bluebird nurses, those are the bluebirds. Yeah.
[00:10:56] Jane: Bluebird nurses. That’s right.
[00:10:58] Donna: Yeah. So I had two very different [00:11:00] women, but also there are a lot of commonalities between them, a love of family and how there’s grief there.
[00:11:10] Donna: A love of the city, there’s so much that they share as, as far as. a common sense of place and community because after this happens, it is just a community trying to pull itself together.
[00:11:28] Jane: Yeah. And did you, I’m always interested, like from the start, did you know it was going to be told from two different female perspectives or did that kind of evolve with the writing?
[00:11:38] Donna: This went through, this actually went through a few iterations before we, we finally decided on. What it was going to be in Charlotte didn’t exist at first and Nora always existed but Charlotte didn’t I had a dual timeline in there for a while. And then I was just like the dual timelines not working. So I ripped that out [00:12:00] and I thought I need a second point of view and so then I basically rethought what the story was going to be.
[00:12:06] Donna: And so then I had the two points of view, but when I wrote it, I wrote Charlotte in first person and Nora in third person. And then when I sent it to my editor, she said, I really love Charlotte, but I just felt like there was this little bit of distance between myself and Nora. And I said I have an idea, but let me do a chapter first and see what I think.
[00:12:30] Donna: And so I changed it to first person and like within two or three pages, I was like, yeah, this is better. So my biggest revision, I think, was actually going through and changing Nora to first person. It’s a lot more comprehensive than you might think.
[00:12:46] Jane: Oh, I know. I had to change my first book, my debut, I had to change the tense of the entire book and it was painful.
[00:12:53] Jane: It was,
[00:12:54] Donna: yeah. And even when I got copy edits back, I was still finding Oh, we’d all missed like certain little [00:13:00] tense verb tenses or pronouns or whatever. And yeah, so it was pretty interesting, I’d never written in first person before either. So it was a whole new experience for me.
[00:13:11] Donna: Yeah.
[00:13:11] Jane: Oh, cool. On that note, I was really, I thought it was so interesting that this is your first, you’ve written a number of romance novels. This is your first foray into historical fiction. It is. And in your notes you say it was a huge departure for you creatively. What made you make the switch or take the shot at historical fiction instead?
[00:13:31] Donna: Insanity? I don’t know. Actually, we were getting, it was just around lockdown back, way back in 2020. And my editor I was familiar with her before and her boss as well. So they reached out to me and asked if I’d be interested in writing either rom com or historical with a Canadian slant.
[00:13:50] Donna: And First, I was really excited, and then I thought, I like to think I’m funny, but I don’t think I can be funny on purpose for 300 pages. That’s a lot
[00:13:59] Jane: [00:14:00] of pages.
[00:14:00] Donna: So I thought rom com might not be for me, but I have always been a huge fan of historical fiction, and the only reason I hadn’t Tried it before now was that I was scared.
[00:14:14] Donna: It’s a lot of work. I was scared of the research, scared of getting things wrong. So I, I had played it safe and I just thought, the universe is trying to tell me something. I was already thinking about trying to do something different just to give myself a new challenge. I was coming up onto a milestone birthday.
[00:14:34] Donna: And I thought, if not now, when am I going to do it? And then I just thought, you know what, if it doesn’t work out, if I don’t, if I don’t do it well, then I will I’ll just do something else, but it seems to be turning out okay.
[00:14:47] Jane: Yeah. Five weeks on the bestseller list is more than okay.
[00:14:51] Donna: So I’m, and I’m pretty hooked on it.
[00:14:53] Donna: I really enjoyed writing it. I love being immersed in. The historical fiction world. So I’m pretty happy here. I [00:15:00] think I’m going to stay for a little while.
[00:15:01] Jane: Oh, awesome. Another question that I ask, because I have historical fiction authors on all the time, but I’m curious one of the questions I ask them is, how you strike a balance between fact and fiction in your storytelling, and did you adhere to any strict rules?
[00:15:18] Jane: Like, how did you navigate that since this was a different genre for you?
[00:15:23] Donna: That’s a really great question and it’s something that I’m conscious about on every page. I feel like you can take some liberties with, especially if your characters are fictional, you can take some liberties there. I took some liberties with things like, and I mentioned this in the author’s note, like train schedules.
[00:15:41] Donna: I totally made a train schedule that fit my narrative. I took a minor character and had her in Halifax. A few months before she actually was in Halifax, but she was a minor character with a walk on role in like maybe four lines. So I don’t feel so bad doing [00:16:00] that. But when it came to the actual events that happened, I tried to stay as close to fact as I could.
[00:16:08] Donna: And I think that’s really important because, I will be honest, I love learning about history and historical fiction, and I would feel so betrayed if I didn’t. If I read a book and then realized later that everything that had been written in it was completely revisionist, so I’m, there’s a grace period or, section, I guess that I’m okay with.
[00:16:33] Donna: But when it comes to when it comes to the big things, I think you have to strive to be as accurate as you can. Everybody makes mistakes, and but any creative license I took, I tried to address it in the author’s note so that people would know that I had deviated a little bit.
[00:16:51] Jane: And I think readers really appreciate those notes. People who love historical fiction love the author’s notes at the end to see.
[00:16:57] Donna: I love the author’s notes. And I had to train [00:17:00] myself. I told this story before, but I usually get about halfway through a book and I get so interested in some of the stuff.
[00:17:07] Donna: I’m like, I wonder if she touched on that in the author’s note, and then I’ll go back to it. But I did that once, and I got totally spoiled for the big plot twist. And so now I make myself wait until the end. So that doesn’t happen. I know. I
[00:17:22] Jane: love good author’s note. I know. I’ve also done that more than once.
[00:17:27] Jane: You have been at this for a while. I have some questions. I have some writing questions for you and then after these, I will take some questions from the chat and the Q and A. So just put your questions in there, everybody. What’s your writing process like, plotter or pantser?
[00:17:43] Donna: You had to start with a hard one, didn’t you?
[00:17:44] Donna: I call myself a, I call myself a plantser and I’ll tell you why. In romance, I was a complete pantser, but with historical fiction, I find I can’t do that because there’s a historical backdrop that I need to stay accurate. Okay. [00:18:00] With two and so I plot my arcs based on what’s happening historically So I make sure everything lines up, but as far as my character stories I haven’t I have a pretty good idea what the story is about But I don’t sit down and outline each chapter or figure out, exact beats or anything like that, I let them lead me through the story.
[00:18:23] Donna: And I find that’s where the magic happens a lot of the time. And so I, now that can be a really messy process if you take a wrong turn or you write yourself into a corner. So it’s not necessarily the most efficient process, but it’s mine. So I claim it .
[00:18:41] Jane: I own it, . And if it works. You don’t wanna mess with it.
[00:18:44] Jane: If it works. That’s right. And clearly it works. I also always ask, because I know we have some aspiring authors in the audience. You’ve published a number of books now in different genres. What’s the best advice you can give about getting, about writing and about getting published?[00:19:00]
[00:19:01] Donna: That could be a whole like weekend workshop.
[00:19:04] Jane: I know, honestly. Yeah,
[00:19:05] Donna: but you’re looking for bite size. I would say on the writing front, I would say just write a lot. Your first book might not be the one that sells. Your second book might not be the one that sells. There’s a craft that needs to be learned.
[00:19:21] Donna: And sometimes Learning means practicing sad as that sounds, we all wish, nobody wished more than I did that my first book would have been wonderful and publishable, but I actually sold my 10th. Yeah, it was five years and 10 romances before I finally sold and and but just write it and love it.
[00:19:43] Donna: Because that will get you through if rejections if you’re looking at, you can always publish your own as well. And I would say don’t be in a hurry, because sometimes the writing isn’t ready because you still have to practice, and so don’t be in a [00:20:00] hurry. And when the time comes. Hire a really good editor, this is my, I don’t know, 68th book or something silly like that.
[00:20:09] Donna: Amazing. But I would never release a book without having a professional editor go at it first because sometimes it’s not that you’re not a good writer, it’s that, you’re too close to the story and there’s things that you can’t see. And I’ve never had an editor not make my story better.
[00:20:25] Donna: It’s always better for having that.
[00:20:27] Jane: Absolutely agree with that. And I’m just I think one thing I always say when people ask, advice, I would say publishing is persistence and it’s so inspiring to her that you kept going and it was your 10th that, you finally hit it. I, that’s amazing.
[00:20:41] Donna: I always say that, success happens when preparation meets opportunity. So you just have to keep preparing yourself
[00:20:48] Jane: and,
[00:20:49] Donna: and, Keep working at it and, opportunity will show up.
[00:20:52] Jane: Absolutely. So good. Talk a little bit about your podcast. You have a podcast step into the story with one of your fellow [00:21:00] author friends.
[00:21:00] Donna: Yeah. So Barbara Tanner Wallace and I have a show on YouTube. It’s called Step into the Story, and we do a show twice a month and we also have a Facebook community, so you can post in there, and we’re on Instagram and stuff, but the actual shows are twice a month, we pick we have a book chat once a month where we pick a book, we read it, and then we do just a 30 minute book chat, and then on the, toward the end of the month we have a guest author on, so there are featured author for the month.
[00:21:30] Donna: and we’ll read their book and then have them on and we’ll chat about that. So it’s honestly, it’s really a way for us to totally nerd out about books.
[00:21:39] Jane: And so it’s
[00:21:39] Donna: very casual and fun. And it’s just, authors who are book lovers that get to talk to other authors. Like it’s
[00:21:47] Jane: so great. Yes. Yeah. It’s just a fun understand.
[00:21:49] Jane: What are you working on now? Tell everyone. I am working on another historical fiction for my publisher. It is set aboard [00:22:00] Titanic. It takes place partly on Titanic, partly on the Carpathia, and then it will finish in New York, and then back in Halifax. A lot of people don’t realize that the bodies that were retrieved were brought to Halifax, and so we have large burial ground here with the bodies that weren’t sent.
[00:22:20] Donna: back to the families. And and yeah, so we have some Titanic lore around here. So the book’s going to end here but it’s going to be quite a journey, I think.
[00:22:31] Jane: Oh, sounds great. When is this one slated for?
[00:22:34] Donna: I don’t have a release date yet. Probably the second half of 2025, I think, is what we’re looking at.
[00:22:41] Donna: It’s due the end of October, so it’ll just depend on how publishing schedules, match up and
[00:22:48] Jane: You’re, the manuscript’s due to your publisher the end of October, or is it due It’s due to my editor. To your editor at the end. Okay. Got it. Got it. All right. And what are you reading now?
[00:22:59] Donna: I [00:23:00] am just starting The Briar Club by Kate Quinn.
[00:23:05] Jane: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:23:07] Donna: I I got it when it first came out, but I’ve been so crazy busy that my reading has slowed quite a bit. I just got back from the UK. I was at the Historical Novel Society Conference in
[00:23:19] Jane: Devon.
[00:23:20] Donna: And so I was gone for a week. And did a little touristy things and actually saw Kate Quinn a few times we were on a tour of a castle together and she spoke at the conference and whatnot.
[00:23:33] Donna: So it was really nice to see her and so I’m digging into that one.
[00:23:37] Jane: Yeah, she’s great. Yeah. So I love her. I yeah. And
[00:23:40] Donna: I picked up mistress of Rome because she had it there to be signed it because I haven’t read her Roman books, but like everything since the Alice network on I read, like she’s an auto buy.
[00:23:50] Donna: So yeah, she’s great. She was on
[00:23:52] Jane: here with Janie Chang for the Phoenix crown, which was also such
[00:23:56] Donna: a good book. So good. So good. Loved it. Yeah, I loved and [00:24:00] Janie is so sweet. I thought that book, I thought that book was really well done. And Janie’s Canadian.
[00:24:06] Jane: Janie’s Canadian, did you say? Yeah. Yeah.
[00:24:09] Jane: That’s what I thought. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:24:11] Donna: She’s West Coast. I’m East Coast. She’s West Coast. But yeah. Okay.
[00:24:15] Jane: Now do you, you said you do Zoom with book clubs. And what is the best way for readers to keep in touch with you for a
[00:24:24] Donna: book club or just in general?
[00:24:26] Jane: Yeah. Okay.
[00:24:27] Donna: So I have a website, Donna Jones, all word.
[00:24:30] Donna: com. You can go on there. My socials are there. So if you want to follow me on my socials, the handy dandy buttons are there. There’s, I believe there’s a contact us section. Also I book my book clubs through adventures by the book. So there is also a link there to to schedule me through that way. It doesn’t cost anything you sign up.
[00:24:52] Donna: It’s all free. It’s just a way to manage so I can see where I am at any given time. And and there’s a book [00:25:00] club, a reference guide that you mentioned earlier. That’s on there for download. It’s a PDF. Yeah, you can grab that. It’s got some fun stuff in it.
[00:25:08] Jane: Yeah, I love the I know. I need to do better with the book club reference, guys.
[00:25:11] Jane: Because you had recipes in there, and also great questions, and it’s yeah, it’s so cute. I loved it. Yeah. I had fun
[00:25:17] Donna: putting that together. Yeah. Canva is wonderful. I did it all in Canva. Yeah. Yeah. And saved it all as a PDF. And I loved putting it together.
[00:25:25] Jane: Yeah. Oh, so good. Okay. So questions, anyone has questions, they can put them in the chat or the Q and a Audrey Tiedemann.
[00:25:31] Jane: Hello, Audrey asked, did the women in the story know each other in the novel? I’m sorry, I just had a little blip. Oh no, did the women in the novel, did the two characters know each other? She asks. They do not in the
[00:25:47] Donna: beginning, but they will by the end.
[00:25:51] Jane: No spoilers.
[00:25:54] Donna: I try to keep everything as spoiler free as I can.
[00:25:56] Donna: But basically the choices that they make set them on their [00:26:00] own collision course with each other. That’s, it’s. There’s some pretty devastating consequences that come from that. Yeah, them meeting is actually a pretty pivotal part of the book.
[00:26:11] Jane: Okay, yeah, definitely. Oh, I, one question I missed and please put questions in the chat if you have them.
[00:26:18] Jane: Have you, is there any movie interest and do you have any ideas of who would play? Nora and Charlotte in the book, in the movie ver version. Oh,
[00:26:28] Donna: okay. So no interest yet, feel free to send out good vibes, . That’s right, because that would be fun. And I hadn’t really thought of casting with this one, surprisingly.
[00:26:38] Donna: Actually, I say that, but if any of you watched Call The Midwife and the very first season the one that played Jenny. In the very first season, I kind of picture Nora like her, but not quite as shy. When Jenny first gets there, she’s a little bit timid. Yes. Nora’s not really that [00:27:00] timid, but that same look.
[00:27:01] Donna: Charlotte, I don’t know. But I do have casting for Neil in mind. Oh,
[00:27:08] Jane: who? So that’s one of the romantic interests. I won’t give anything away.
[00:27:12] Donna: And there is a romance thread in there, but it’s a subplot really. Like it’s not the main focus of the novel. But when I was trying to think of the doctor, I was going to have I thought I wanted to be noble and great like Gilbert Blythe, but in my head, I kept picturing I’m a Bridgerton fan. I kept picturing Prince Friedrich, right? Because the blonde on a little bit of curl. Also, just a really good guy. He played the prince, but he was very much a very gracious loser. I just wanted her to be happy, very gentlemanly.
[00:27:52] Donna: And I just thought, so it’s a mashup of the two of them, if he wanted to play Neil. Yeah. Oh yeah. [00:28:00] He’s
[00:28:00] Jane: in that show, he was very earnest and yeah, very, yeah, he was, that would, I could see why that would be a good fit. And I loved Call the Midwife. And that, it was funny when I was reading, I was thinking a little bit of that vibe, yeah that show is so great.
[00:28:15] Donna: I love Call the Midwife.
[00:28:17] Jane: Any questions? We have a shy audience tonight. Let’s see.
[00:28:20] Donna: I did see one in there. Oh, in the Q& A. That asked about Canadian, yeah, asked about Canadian publishers and agents, I think.
[00:28:30] Jane: Oh, yeah, here. Do you want me to read it to you? Sure. A little bit long. I know this is a tough question, but I’m wondering how to open American agents and publishers would be to a historical fiction book set in Canada.
[00:28:41] Jane: And we were just talking about this before we started the chat. I know big names like Kate Quinn set novels in England, etc. But I’m trying to think of a single recent historical fiction novel set in Canada. I’m writing one set in a fictional city without an event that could be set in Canada or the US without much change.
[00:28:58] Jane: And I’m wondering if giving my book the [00:29:00] best chance would mean changing it to the U. S. And you were saying like, the book’s doing very well in Canada. This is a Canadian historical fiction story. I don’t recall reading a recent Canadian historical fiction novel like this. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t any out there.
[00:29:16] Donna: That’s a really good question, because it’s something that I wrestled with when I was writing this one, because, you want your book to appeal to a broad market, and how much push are you going to get from an American publisher, for example, for a Canadian book. And so Canada got, HarperCollins Canada has gotten behind this in such a wonderful way here.
[00:29:43] Donna: And of course, I’m seeing that in the results. I’m not getting the same push in the U. S., I’m also a brand new author. For all intents and purposes, this is a debut. It’s a totally different genre. If I were more experienced with an audience already built up, [00:30:00] maybe I would I, I get more of a push.
[00:30:03] Donna: Part of the reason why the Titanic appealed to me is that I get to do something with a really broad appeal and still bring it back into my home province. And I love that. And so it’s fitting both. So I guess the answer is I don’t know, I think. I think editors and agents outside of Canada would probably say they want something that’s got a little more broad appeal.
[00:30:35] Donna: But that’s not to say you shouldn’t write it set in Canada. There are some really great historical fiction writers here that are setting books here. Genevieve Graham is one. And she has a lot of books out and most of hers are set in Canada. within Canada, or at least with Canadian characters abroad, whatever.
[00:30:57] Jane: And I think that this book is doing, your book [00:31:00] is doing so well in as a Canadian bestseller for the last five weeks. I think that it will have a long tail and be discovered in America as well. It just might take a little more time. Yeah,
[00:31:10] Donna: I
[00:31:11] Jane: think it will.
[00:31:12] Donna: I’m just what it’s going to be is going to be and I, I, for me and Canada, it’s become like the little book that could so I’m just That’s so great.
[00:31:22] Jane: Yeah. And such a lesser known piece of history that it’s one of those stories I feel like more people need to know. There’s a question from Cassandra Powers. How do you tackle recreating dialogue slash cadence? Just how people talk conversed in the past? Do you try to make it sound different? That’s a really good question.
[00:31:44] Donna: I try a little bit. I think there’s an intuitive voice that comes out when you’re putting yourself in that world. There are times when I have to look at certain phrases that I use, certain words that I use, and I think Was that something that was [00:32:00] said, at that time? And so then I’ll have to go check the etymology of the phrase and see if it actually was something that was said at that time, oddly enough, most of the time, when I do that, it predates what I’m thinking by a lot, which is great.
[00:32:14] Donna: Oh, that’s good. But sometimes it doesn’t. So I’m like, Oh, that’s too modern sounding. And I have to pull it out. And so I think a lot of times what I do as well as I read it out loud
[00:32:26] Jane: and if
[00:32:26] Donna: it sounds too modern to them, then I change it. But having the ear for it is a little different than reading it on the page.
[00:32:35] Jane: I think that’s true, that one of my first editors gave me that advice about dialogue, reading it out loud really helps you, you can really under if you can know, if you can get a sense of it, whether it’s authentic, feels authentic, organic, yeah, totally agree. Jean Garino asks, I recently learned about the French British issues in the 1700s, and how the French British French were transported to the continent and some French escaped to [00:33:00] the Quebec area.
[00:33:01] Jane: I have family history on both sides from the Nova Scotia, New Brunswick area. I’m still trying to learn about it, maybe subject for a book. So that’s another idea for you.
[00:33:10] Donna: Yeah. So that’s the expulsion of the Acadians and it’s one of those events that just sometimes when you read about it, it’s like, how did that even happen here?
[00:33:26] Donna: It’s a little earlier than I like to write when we’re looking at 1750s. But again, I just mentioned Genevieve Graham and the title escapes me at the moment, but one of her earlier books is actually about the expulsion. So you might want to check out Genevieve Graham to have a look at her list.
[00:33:44] Donna: I know she’s got a book there about it.
[00:33:47] Jane: Oh, amazing. Okay. Do you have, can you hold up a picture of the cover? Do you have any handy? Sure. Yes. People were asking and I love the cover and yeah. Do you have a say in your covers?
[00:33:57] Donna: It surprised me that yes, I did.
[00:33:59] Jane: [00:34:00] Nice.
[00:34:00] Donna: So they sent me the, a couple of mock ups and they were both lovely.
[00:34:05] Donna: There was one I liked a little bit better, but they still weren’t hitting me like a hundred percent right. And so I was talking to my editor about it and she said here’s the site that we use to look at a lot of our backdrops and photography and stuff and so go have a look. And if there’s something that you really like, I can always take it to the art department.
[00:34:24] Donna: Like they were very open. For that. So I went and the photos were gorgeous. And so I found that picture and I sent it. And I said, I’m just telling you that I love this one. And she was like, I love it too. Let’s see what the art department will do. And that’s what ended up being the cover. So that’s unusual.
[00:34:45] Jane: Yeah. Yeah. That’s amazing. Yeah. So thank you so much for coming on. I have a couple pieces of news before I sign off. But this is amazing. Everyone should read this book and check out your website and your awesome book club question packet that I’m like jealous of. I need to [00:35:00] get on Canva. Like I’m so impressed.
[00:35:02] Jane: There’s like recipes. Yeah. I already said the recipes, but it’s just very impressive. So two pieces of news. My next novel’s official title as of two days ago is The Women of Arlington Hall. It’s my first Cold War story, and it’s about the, yeah, it’s about the women codebreakers involved in the top secret program to track down Russian spies in the U.
[00:35:24] Jane: S. And that pub date is tentatively July 2025, but we all know how that can go. I haven’t gotten a definite one yet. So I’m very excited about that. I’ll have more news about that soon. On September 17th, Crystal King, the author of In the Garden of Monsters is coming on. You can register, my husband, God bless him, put all, put the registrations up this weekend.
[00:35:47] Jane: And Donna, this was so lovely. Thank you for coming on. Congrats on your success. I just, Oh, thank you. I love the book and I loved learning about this disaster and the people around it and the sense of community and family. It was great. [00:36:00] And I just wish you all the best.
[00:36:01] Donna: Oh, thank you so much.
[00:36:02] Donna: It was so fun to be here. I’m sorry I didn’t get, Okay. So if anyone had questions that didn’t get answered. Just go, just email me. I’ll answer anything. Yeah. Yeah,
[00:36:11] Jane: absolutely. Yeah. They’ll find you. Thank you again. And have a great night, everybody. Thank you. Bye bye.
