The Girls of Good Fortune by Kristina McMorris

New York Times bestselling author Kristina McMorris joins Jane Healey again to talk about her latest novel. In The Girls of Good Fortune, set in 1888 Portland, Oregon, Celia—a young woman of mixed Chinese and white heritage—awakens in the city's infamous Shanghai Tunnels, realizing she's been abducted and is on the brink of being shipped off as forced labor. Navigating a society rife with anti-Chinese sentiment, Celia's journey unfolds from her time as a maid entangled in a goldminers' massacre to her desperate quest to escape and protect a child left in peril. This historical novel delves into themes of identity, resilience, and the enduring strength found beneath the surface.

Transcript

Jane: 0:02

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, I welcome New York Times bestselling author Kristina McMorris, back to discuss her latest novel, the Girls of Good Fortune. We were just discover discussing the beautiful cover which releases on May 20th and has been named one of Washington Post. 10 notable books for May. Welcome back, Kristina. Thank

Kristina: 0:26

you. Thanks for having me. You're welcome. I know before we jumped on, I got to tell her that. This is Oregon. Can you believe it? We have Oregon weather. It's like in April. Amazing. I know.

Jane: 0:35

Yeah. Boston's like miserable right now. There's like mushrooms everywhere from the rain. Yeah.

Kristina: 0:41

Yeah. I had to do this outside. I'm like, oh, we're gonna, I'm gonna take you. See, you get to enjoy vicariously.

Jane: 0:47

Lovely, lovely. Okay, I'm gonna do a quick intro on you and then dive into questions. Everyone tell us where you're from in the chat and remember to put questions in the chat or the q and a. Kristina McMorris is a New York Times Wall Street Journal and USA today bestselling author of two No novellas and seven historical novels, including the million copy bestseller sold on a Monday, the recipient of more than 20 national literary awards. She previously hosted weekly TV shows for Warner Brothers and an A b, C affiliate. Kristina lives near Portland, Oregon. Again, welcome. We're here to talk about your lives, which comes out May 20th. And really this is a story that like takes place in your backyard, which I was fascinated. And it was inspired by historical events you discovered close to home. I loved reading your notes about the origins of how you there were so many different connections that made you finally come up with this premise for a story. So talk about how this good the girls of good fortune evolved.

Kristina: 1:44

Absolutely. And by the way, I just wanna say I'm seeing all the popups where everybody is from. That is so much fun. Oh my gosh. It's from everywhere That is. Fantastic. I love it. Fantastic. Oh my gosh. Before we get done, I'll, we'll talk a little bit about tour then.'cause some of these places I'm gonna be, so that's even more fun. Awesome. So how the story came about? Yeah. Yes. In my backyard, like almost literally. Yeah. So Portland, I'm from the Portland area originally. I'm back here again. And and for some reason I somehow missed that there are Shanghai tunnels under downtown Portland concentrated, used to be largely under Chinatown all my life. It was one of those things I've mentioned to a lot of other Oregonians who also hadn't heard of it before. So I don't feel alone is the good news, but it was about a dozen years ago and I think a friend of mine had shared something about the Shanghai tunnels. When I was looking for story ideas, and so I ended up watching a Ghost Hunter show that featured it where we all get our best ideas, of course. And so I had tucked the idea away because I was fascinated by it. For those of you I should share who are not familiar with the Shanghai tunnels, I will say that it was a labyrinth of tunnels that was under like I said, Portland and Chinatown that would lead to the docks. And at the time, from my understanding, the ships were below street level, so it made a lot of sense practically that you could go straight onto the ships and go straight to the tunnels and you would drop off then your goods in basements that were under the saloons, the hotels, the other businesses, I. Now you can imagine in the 18 hundreds that there were other nefarious purposes. Those got used for very quickly. So we know for sure that they used them to escape raids if you were trying to get away from the police or rival tongs, which were Chinese gang members when they raided opium dens and gambling halls. So it was a really easy way to then run through the tunnels and escape into basements and go, go out the doors that way. The other question of how they were used was crimping or what we also call Shanghai. Now, there is nothing documented that says that it was used as a regular network for that. Now the, as far as historians know, but there are a lot of stories that have been passed down that say that there were cells down there that would hold people. It makes a lot of common sense, practical sense to take people from those cells from underground and go straight onto the ships. Either way. Shanghai was absolutely something that did happen in the 18, 18 hundreds. Portland was known as the Shanghai Capital of the world, and for those who don't know what Shanghai is, should mention that we're probably more familiar with that term. People use it as colloquialism for being kidnapped. Someone was Shanghai. If you're wondering where that came from, it's because there would be a sailor or able-bodied man that would come into port that people could miss very easily if they didn't know them. They would drink ale that was drugged. They wake up on a ship and as the story goes, you would wake up on a ship at sea and you were given two choices because that person would've been sold to the shorthanded captain for upwards of$50 a head. Quite a bit of money back then, and at that point he has forced labor. He's already been sold to the captain, so he's two choices. He can either work his way all the way to a destination, they would say as far away as Shanghai, which is a six year round trip at the time, or. A drain on resources, in which case they are just tossed overboard because they're not doing any good for the crew. So that was known as being Shanghai. And when I learned about all of this through my research, of course I needed to write a story about it. So as you well know, Jane, my character starts Celia. She wakes up in an underground cell. She doesn't know how she got there. She realizes she's in the Shanghai tunnels and as her memory start coming back to her, she realizes she has left behind a child in peril. So the stakes become very high very quickly to not only get herself outta the situation, but hopefully get back to her loved ones in time. So hopefully that fills you in a bit. People who are joining today of where the story idea came from.

Jane: 5:50

Excellent. Yeah. Such an interesting pres. Premise and I didn't even, Shanghai, I never knew the origins of that until now, until this book and I had never heard of the tunnels. I'd never heard of a lot of this history. Another part of the. Historical background of the story. It's inspired by two real life atrocities ma massacres against Chinese immigrants in the American West, one in Wyoming, and one in Oregon. And Celia has a connection to one of them. Without giving too much away, tell us. About these two incidents because this is another lesser known, and you can, we can discuss why it's a lesser known story in American history. There's a lot of different reasons for it, but I hadn't heard of them of either of these incidents before.

Kristina: 6:30

And same for me, and I thought once again, the reason why you and I write the books we do, because we come across something that we think, how did we not know this? But also, how does everybody not know about that? This happened before and everybody should. So I love that. I'm seeing also some comments of somebody seen, knows about tunnels in Massachusetts as well, that smuggled products. I think there were a lot of the port towns that had things like this. So as far as the other things that happened in the story, the atrocities that I was shocked I had never heard about before, especially being that I'm half, half Asian, like my character by the way, which we, I'm sure we'll touch on that as well. But my father is an immigrant from Kyoto, and so even more of a reason why I was. Stunned. I hadn't heard about a lot of the Asian American history that comes up in my story. For good reason. There's a lot of good reasons why they wanted to really brush that under a rug. One of them that you mentioned, the Rock Springs Massacre happened in Rock Springs, Wyoming, and that one, the closest thing shorthand that I compare it to is something similar to the Tulsa massacre and that it was something that we think, how did we not hear about this before? This should be taught in the schools where a mob of 150 people roughly descended in broad daylight. It started with a scuffle over the the mines and a pit that was in high demand there. So there was a quarrel that broke out, and later in the day, it escalated a mob of 150 descended on Chinatown, and they burned it to ashes. Now, along the way, they also murdered a good number of people, a couple dozen people. They also injured in a high number of them, and they threw bodies into flames. It was horrific. At when it was all over. Remember broad daylight, not a single white person would come forward to testify. And at the time, they had passed laws not long before that. That said Chinese people were also not allowed to testify. How convenient. So grand jury couldn't indict and everybody walked away. And then the other one, because of that, I found that, and this is the hundred 40th year anniversary of that massacre actually. So they are going to erect a memorial this year, this summer, which is great that hopefully more people will know that it happened. This led me to another massacre. Goodness. You can just keep going oh my gosh. Here is another one. This one happened in Oregon. So this one of course is one that I thought this one I should have heard about before, called the Hells Canyon Massacre. And there is a remote area in northeastern Oregon called Hells Canyon. They dubbed it, it used to, it was just because it was hard. Very hard to get to, but it became very apt nicknamed because of this happening too. There were about three encampments of Chinese gold dust miners that were mining for gold dust in that area. Very remote area to get down to. It's deeper than in some places than the Grand Canyon. There were seven men and mix of boys, so there was even one schoolboy that was 15 years old. Mostly horse thieves. They were a gang. They heard about them, they learned about them. They decided to surround them over a two day period, and obviously for their gold, because the miners were there for nine months. They figured there had to be in a jackpot. That's why they stayed so long. They surrounded them an over two day period. They slaughtered all of them, mutilated them. It was. Horrifying what they did. Lost the bodies into water stripped, and it goes on and on. What happened is crazy enough compared to the other one months later, one of them came forward and confessed. Could be various reasons. One could be, a guilty conscience, maybe horrible nightmares. Ended up coming forward. The grand jury then indicts the other six. Three of them run off are not seen again, we presume with the gold, but we don't know. The other three who are left behind are put on trial. And what happens over a two day period, really a sham of a trial, is that these three just conveniently and testimony become, oh wait, depositions changed. And now these three are the only ones who did nothing. Innocent bystanders, and the other three that ran away are the guilty ones. So in a two day trial, all of them ended up walking and these court documents got put into a safe in the Wawa County clerk's office for over a hundred years. So they were separate from the archives. They kept them completely apart for obvious reasons, and there were a lot of families of pioneer families of the town that founded the town. There were doctors, judges, teachers that were all tied to these families. So it seemed to be a good reason that they wanted it to disappear. So same thing, they ended up putting it there. They did not know that these documents existed. The public didn't until 1995 and that's when they donated the say to the museum. And when they did that, this all came to light. But again, not many people still know about it yet. And that's why I'm very, I. Eager to share this story. I can't really say excited because it's such a dark topic, but I think it's important.

Jane: 11:18

No, I think it's important. I think it would be great. For a summer reading for schools, like it's so interesting and lesser known. I, which leads me to your research process for this. What was it like I know that you visited the Shanghai tunnels yourself and I know that this research was a departure for 18 hundreds was new for you, so talk about your process and if there's anything surprising along the way.

Kristina: 11:40

Yeah, sure. Yes. Oh my gosh. You and I both like World War ii. Give it to us. We know what we're writing about. And I used to joke that I was going to, grow as a person, as a writer. I was gonna go all the way back to, and then I wrote, an Alcaraz story and. Irish immigrant. So it went all the way back to the 19 teens. I think I got as far back as like 1912. Okay. But I'm like, look, I'm stretching. So for good reason, because this one was harder, you're writing about the 1880s, there's not as much documented in that people today, like the photos are harder to find and there aren't people alive anymore to tell you their stories versus World War ii. The research of course was different of course, reading immigrants letters and watching documentaries, of course, lots of reading. And then I did do some fun things because I always, think a ride on a B 17 bomber was my best day at work writing my World War II stories. In this case I took a sailing class, so that was really fun. Down in San Diego, since I split time, I see somebody who's there. I split time between Portland and San Diego. And did it went out on a good day at work then, and got to learn how to sail. Since that all went into the story, since, as that there are some sailing aspects to the story.

Jane: 12:54

Very cool. And I actually, since it's, this is still not coming out till May 20th, I saw that you have this very cool pre-order promotion that you're doing. Do you wanna talk a little bit about that?'cause it's related to your research?

Kristina: 13:04

Yeah, I would love to because it has to do with the tunnels and so really fun. Anybody that pre-orders the book, then it can go on. My website it's also on my social medias and all that, so you'll see the link there. If you pre-order it, you just could then go onto the page that my publisher put up and enter your info. And what happens is, first of all we're giving away 10 really cool theme party packs to book clubs who at least one person that pre-orders. So we're giving those away during the giveaway. And also we're doing an exclusive because they otherwise do not allow this exclusive virtual highlights tour of the Shanghai tunnels. So during the webinar that we're hosting in June, then I'm, we're gonna do some pre-recording because of wifi being spotty and the rest of it, we're doing live in that. Me and one of the official tour guides will be answering all kinds of questions and telling stories, and you'll actually get to see the tunnels, especially if you're not in Oregon and wherever you are in the comfort of your living room, you'll get to see what the tunnels look like. And and some hear some of the very cool stories, the opium dens, they've got recreations of cells. It's really pretty fun to watch.

Jane: 14:12

Yeah, very. What a great idea for a promotion. Christine Mott just said, I already pre-ordered. She's very excited, so that's awesome. Love it. I wanna talk about fact first fiction in this story because and just balancing the two, this is, this includes some really horrific. Crimes some really interesting history. How did you, how do you balance the fact First fiction in your novels and is there any strict rules you adhere to? Do you have a kind of a process? Do you feel your way along? I.

Kristina: 14:43

A great question. I know that I'm sure you always ha have that challenge as well and what you include and what you don't. Where do we take liberties?'Cause it always has to serve the story, of course, but I was really I really try to stick to factual history as much as possible. If I do take any liberties, in this case, I did take a liberty with one of the real people. And that one I don't take lightly when it's a real person from history that did live and, giving the dialogue and all of this. But I did feel that it was important in order to convey the story. And all of that, I always put in my author's note, anything I take some liberties with. Other than that, it was, I absolutely thought it was important to include, what really did happen, the court cases, the nice thing is that the depositions that you could find, if you searched enough, you could find their words that they use, which was really nice to be able to use those things. And other than that, of course, my character fictional. We said we were gonna mention Celia as well, and with her, that one I could draw from my own experiences to a certain degree because she is the daughter of a Chinese immigrant. She is half Asian, then she's Asian American, but she's passing as white. So that brings another level of complexity. You've got, guilt and shame involved. Also, pride in not being labeled as Chinese during a time that was very anti-Chinese. And yet, so there's a whole mix of emotions that comes along with that. And when we talk about fact and fiction, for myself being half Asian and not knowing exactly where I fit in, in, in school, back in grade school, really wanted to be the blonde hair, blue eyed girl. Not appreciating my differences until I was much older. And so those things I can relate to plus Paul stories and dialogue accents, all those things from my own experience from my aunties in Japan, and and the way that they speak and their humor, but also an aunt who is a gruff exterior, but really has a softest heart once you get past that. And and so those were ones that I loved incorporating into the story.

Jane: 16:40

Is she who, the one who inspired the character of Marie? Is that Yeah.

Kristina: 16:43

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. She's a madame and a brothel in the story, and she's one of those ones that is pretty tough on the outside, but you know this, she's the teacher that doesn't give a's right. And so when you do get an a, a, you know that you have done well and and that means something. So I love those kind of characters that the ones that are easy to like right from the get go, that are fun and warm, like Letty, who is, an Irish character of my story. And then you've got someone like Marie who is tougher, but is somebody that you know, can surprise you in a lot of ways.

Jane: 17:15

Absolutely. Another question I was, this is a dual narrative timeline that merges and that was that the way you always plan to structure it'cause that, and was that tricky for you? Because I think that would be tricky for me personally. So I thought that was a really interesting way and it totally worked. But I was curious about that.

Kristina: 17:35

Thank you. Yeah. So it does have a dual timeline in that you are getting glimpses of kind of a fast forward. And not that you've got two parallels as much as you've got, where it starts with her in the tunnels and because I'm such a movie buff, I love the movies, that kind of give you that glimpse forward, the action, and then they say six weeks earlier. And you think, how did they get there in six weeks? So in this case, that's kind of it. And I, it was a challenge. I thought, okay, this is new. I haven't done this before. Which they say, that we're supposed to do that with every book. Something that stretches us and makes us row and frustrates us and makes us, just wanna quit our jobs and do something easy like alligator wrestling or something. And so in this case I did do go back to my old standby, which I hadn't done in a couple books, which is the post-It board which is like mini post-Its one for each chapter. And in this case, I had the current day, which was her waking up in a cell which I'm not giving anything away there. That's the very beginning. And then backing up and those little glimpses. Then I had to figure out where do they jump forward? How many pages, how many things happen in between that also leave you hopefully with a bit of a cliffhanger in between as you're waiting and get, and you see another, just a short chapter in between. And then go back again and wonder how do these lines cross and how did her path lead her there? And hopefully questioning which characters are good and bad and which ones led her down that path. Yeah,

Jane: 18:57

The mini cliffhangers that worked really well, I thought. Yeah, definitely.

Kristina: 19:01

Yeah. But it was a challenge, like you said, figuring out how often do you do this? And if you notice, not sure if you notice, but what I ended up deciding to do when I did the Post-It board and started writing was it made more sense to where it starts with kind a bigger gap. And then as it gets closer, the gaps gets shorter and shorter until it finally converges.

Jane: 19:19

Yeah. Yeah. So clever. So I have some more writing related questions and then just to remind everyone to put their, your questions in the chat are the q and a for Kristina. You've had a lot of people have pre-ordered too, which is lovely. So good to see. So good. Love that Suzy and Marsha. Okay, so you have written many novels, your really successful career. What is your writing process like and has it changed at all through the course of your career?

Kristina: 19:48

So I would say that the first book I ever wrote, which became my debut novel, but I caught my first, my 12th book because of how many drafts it went through. I was not that talented. We're that lucky. But the first one, my debut was letters from home. And I will say that was the easiest book ever to write because, and here's what I tell people, it is so easy to write a book when you don't know what you're doing and you think every word is brilliant. So that blissful ignorance, it's such an asset because as with anything I think that we do in our life that it's so worthwhile, but. Hard earned is that we don't know what we're getting ourselves into and we don't realize how clueless we really are, which is good because if we did, we go, oh, that I'm, no, I'm never, I'm not gonna be a neurosurgeon. Like I already know that I'm not gonna be a Navy Seal. I understand my limits there, but I think, oh, I could be a writer. Yeah, sure. How hard could it be? Yeah. Little did I know. So that was good. I don't wanna say I wrote my first one then in four months I just had a quick little outline, one sentence per chapter, and I jumped in, and then it went, oh, you actually have to research World War ii. Okay. That's a whole other thing. So I will say that as the books have gone on, each book is a little bit different, I think, of how I've tackled it. But for the most part, I write an outline to start, I research about four or five months so that I, because they're historical to know even what was possible. Just starting with that nugget that you think, oh, this is fascinating. Like where we talked about last book, knowing that they use monopoly boards to smuggle POW escape tools during World War ii, and you think, oh, that's so cool. How does this make a whole novel then a research, so research four or five months for this one too. I write my outline and then I think sometimes I never even look at the synopsis again. It's just embedded in my mind as a movie. So I see every one of mine as a movie, and then I write the movie down and then I put comment boxes in my Word documents. It is so not advanced. I'm like, I've heard of the steep learning curve, Scribner, and I'm like, no, I don't got time for that. Someday, someday I will be, I will figure that out. For now, I do comment boxes all the way down. What has changed is, I think I used to stop more to research. I don't know this. Okay, go research and go down a rabbit hole for two hours. If I'm lucky, now I've learned because deadline. Comment box, IIT check, fact check. And then the good news is very often I'll restrain myself and then start looking up a bunch of them at once at the end of the day or the next day, and that speeds it up. And then by the time I'm done, I know then the book is done. At least, that draft when all the comment boxes are gone and the margin disappears, I think is very exciting and satisfying. And the post-it notes, I move them down. Because I love to do lists. I love crossing things off. So when I move the little post-its down, that means chapter done. And that feels nice when you get down to the bottom and they've all been moved down. And I think, okay, I did it. And the last thing I'll mention is that'cause I'm sure everybody, every writer's a bit different of how we, how many drafts we go through, how fast we write. I'm a slow writer. I, on a good day, I will write four. Good. I consider good pages four to five at the most. And because I edit so heavily as I go, I think every single word needs to be analyzed and how can I say a whole paragraph in one sentence? And so I do that along the way. Add in the scent, the smells, the, all of the text, the tactile features. And then by the end of the story, when I write the end for the first time, it's about usually about 95% close to what's gonna be on the shelf. After that point with my editor and I, we usually change very little. Oh, that's excellent. I obsess as I go though, it's not fast. Yeah,

Jane: 23:32

it's nice. I love how you have the, like I have those rituals too, of I, I changed the color of a chapter when I'm done with it and it's woo-hoo. Like these little celebrations along the way.

Kristina: 23:42

Yeah, you have to, because for people, I guess they have a to-do list and when you write. Finish the finish, write a book is on your list. That is not something you get to cross off like a year, so Exactly. You have to have the little micro, the micro goal meeting for sure.

Jane: 24:00

Exactly. Exactly. What do you love about writing historical fiction and what do you find the most challenging about it?

Kristina: 24:07

Oh, okay. So what I love about historical fiction, I guess reading and writing it, something that I love is, first of all, writing it and reading, I guess both is how much I learn. So we know, obviously when it's well researched as a reader, I think you and I both right? That's what attracts us. That you think when it's well researched and you get a story at the same time, then you think, oh my God, I learned so much, and you wanna go share it with other people and talk about it. And that of course, is my favorite thing as a writer, then of it too, is. Not only do I as a writer and reader get to step completely into another world and immerse myself in a completely different environment and step back in time than, but also get to learn a ton on the way as I'm researching. So I. I don't know if I ever would've taken a sailing class, or written on a B 17, which was again so fun, these things. And so those experiences coming away are amazing. But the best part, of course is that not just entertaining readers that we always hope, but at the end, which I know you get to, is somebody telling you, oh my gosh I love the book, enjoyed it. But what I really loved was how much I learned. And I went and I shared it with other people and I Googled and I learned even more about it. And I went down rabbit holes and I think, oh my God, what a compliment. That's one of the, my favorite things ever because we're helping keep history alive and I think that during this time of all times is really important.

Jane: 25:24

Not agree more. And it's so amazing. It like, and I'm not talking just about like my books, I, but there's been a few people on social media that have been talking about historical fiction readers and they've been saying like, I'm, I was never into history. I never, I didn't take, I like wasn't into history classes, didn't take a history class in college. But reading historical fiction, I've learned so much about American history, about world history. And I think it does, it gives people an entry point into history in a different way. Which I love.

Kristina: 25:52

Yeah, absolutely. And I think, I've told you this before, I've told readers that I could think of histor historical fiction as literary Advil, right? And that you get the sugar coating of a story on the outside and you realize how much good stuff in history you get on the inside. I don't know if we call it good stuff, but it feels good just again, on the inside until it's over, and then you think back wow, I learned a lot too. And I think that is for me too. I'm not usually somebody who. Picks up, a nonfiction book as fast as I do a novel and certainly don't pick up textbooks anymore. Goodness, from the old school days. So I think that I'm, I think that we like to write, what we wanna read is what they say we're supposed to do, right? I like to write the things that, that would attract me to pick up a story is the same thing that I like to put out there.

Jane: 26:31

Totally agree. You mentioned deadlines a couple times. I am, I find I respond better to deadlines, even though it's torture sometimes to go through it. So what is your re when you're on deadline, do you have a routine do you have a time of day you like to write a place you like to, where you enjoy writing most? What's your routine like?

Kristina: 26:50

Every book has been written in a different chair. This is totally true. The joke is that I'm gonna write enough books that like coming up pretty soon that we're gonna have to sell. Like the boys and I are gonna have to sell the house and go find another house.'cause I'm run outta rooms and I'm not going to the bathroom to write a story or my closet. But yeah, no, each place, I think by the time that I get done writing a book in one room. By the time that the year and a half is over, I am so tired of that room that I could not be like in the office anymore. I could not be like on this, on the couch anymore, in that one spot that I think is indented of me. And so I moved around, I think almost every book. I used to be, I'm an empty nester now. Yay. Hence, look at my life now. Look how wonderful it. My kitchen is clean. There's no one to do but mine. So both boys are off at college now and so now it's changed it a bit because this will, my next book will be the first time with both of them out of the house, so that'll be interesting. Before it probably was a bit motivating in that I was on a schedule that they went off to school in the morning and then that's my office hours, so come home, catch up with them. Make sure they got a snack or something. They go do homework. I keep locking down until dinnertime and then, they'd have to shut off for the night. And then I used to really, especially during 2020 when the world was upside down and everyone's home, I dunno about you, but I started writing, I'm a night owl anyway, so I started writing really late into the night where sometimes I think it start writing. It was about four in the morning, or sorry, about four in the afternoon. Very frustrated that I couldn't start till then because of everything else going on. And then I would go and everybody went to sleep. They watch movies, it was quiet, they go to bed. So I started doing that. I would go until about four at night, stop for dinner and go until four in the morning and then go to bed at four in the morning. I, I mask earplugs still how I sleep now. But I go to bed a little bit earlier and but it was quiet and there were no emails coming in. Same reason that I think people were writers that were like writing five in the morning, the 5:00 AM club. The world is asleep, but for me it's at night, at past two in the morning. It's very quiet, so yeah. Yeah. Amazing. That's more me.

Jane: 29:01

What's the best writing advice you've ever received?

Kristina: 29:05

The best advice I would say I. I remember gosh, I actually think it was the first time I met Kristin Hannah, way back when she had come to a writer's chapter, local chapter and spoke, and then she's awesome, of course. And I'm, could not be happier for all her success. So kind and generous. And I remember she came and I think it was her, that, that gave the advice that she said. When it comes to fiction, how it took her time to figure out that fiction is, you could all write the same story. Like we are not like, reinventing the wheel here, that we are. I like to say that every story in some form has been written before, whether it's, Greek mythology or Shakespeare. And so we're not bringing anything I think, completely unique to the table that nobody's ever seen before. But what we are in novels, in our, in fiction is that we're bringing our voice and everyone has a different voice and the but voice being not just how you put your words together, but actually how we view the world. And I re distinctly remember saying that. I thought that was so interesting and it stuck with me. So I love that about novels, which is why anybody comes to me and says I'm thinking about writing a certain write it. It's gonna be so uniquely yours that it makes it beautiful.

Jane: 30:15

That's excellent. And she is, she's so lovely and kind and generous, and that's excellent advice. She also, there was one, another one like Nugget that she had about how historical fiction, it don't, not, don't worry about facts, but just remember you're getting to the truth of the story is what matters the most. And I like remind when I'm obsessing over the little tiny details. I like the truth of the story overall is what I'm, I try to think about that too.

Kristina: 30:38

Absolutely. Yeah. Because we could just obsess over, and I've done that the first, especially the my first couple novels, where you are so obsessed about making sure we're doing justice to history, that we think every single thing is important that we get right. And when you come across discrepancies. From other people telling history. Not everything is exactly the way it happens. A lot of history's written down from a perspective or a memory. And so when you find out, oh no, this person, says it couldn't happen, this person said it happened to them. And then how do we decide on that? And yeah, I think that is really important. So remember also that we're writing fiction, yes. Even though we respect history a lot and wanna do justice to it, we are not writing documentaries. And I think that is something that is a challenge these days because we do feel the weight of that.

Jane: 31:21

Absolutely. Are speaking of it, so are you ready to share what you're working on next or is it still under wraps?

Kristina: 31:27

Oh my gosh. So I took a break for a moment. It is the first time I don't just hang out here all day. By the way,

Jane: 31:35

this is just for

Kristina: 31:35

this me a few days. I know. I should now sit there. I'm like, I should come out here every day and have breakfast. No. So I was on. I've been writing for since 2007. I think my first novel came out in 2009, so I've been writing since then. I've always been on deadline. And the last couple year, last eight years, I juggled between one and three contracts at a time. Always riding on airplanes, right? Trying to write hotel rooms. Crazy. Writing till four in the morning. And so now with the Boy Scout, I finished the book and I actually went, you know what? I'm just gonna take a breather for a moment. And it's been amazing just to

Jane: 32:09

Oh, good for you. Get

Kristina: 32:09

life back in order and. Go on the, bucket list trips with friends and send Instagram reels. Like we all do this right to our besties that we're like, oh my gosh, look at this trip. Look at this trip. And having some come back and be like, are we going? I'm like, when are you free? Two weeks I can go and doing those New York trips and

Jane: 32:27

Oh, amazing.

Kristina: 32:28

So lovely. When I think we, when we have help that we can need to appreciate when, when it's still easy to walk and and to jump on a plane and carry our luggage yes, I've been doing that and now I finally think, okay, I'm ready to write the next one. And I run it past my agent loves it. And so yeah. I've got the one sheet ready. So I think I'm gonna be diving back in here and probably after tour. For the next few months. And then the goal is, to probably start writing. Adulting, get back to school, start September and hopefully be done by June so that you have summer break.

Jane: 33:00

Good plan. I know. I always try to, that's funny, the last two books, I've tried to time it exactly that. So in, in the good weather, I can get outside a little more and not be hiding in my cave. Yeah,

Kristina: 33:10

that's the hope, that's the goal, right? But then life. But still, exactly.

Jane: 33:15

So you mentioned your tour and there's pe, there's readers and fans from all over on the webinar tonight. Ta talk about where they can find you in tour and the best way to keep in touch with you.

Kristina: 33:24

Absolutely. So tour, I can't wait. I'm, we're still finalizing some of the schedule, but a lot of the cities have been locked in, so it will be on my website for sure. I'm, as soon as we get off here, I'm gonna be posting too at least the May, which is all West Coast. So hitting for sure. Oregon, Washington, California, lots of Southern California. Actually hitting those next week, so leaving on Friday to do some a API month panels and stuff before the book comes out. So that is really exciting to get to talk about it already. And so I'll be hitting Southern Cal several times and then come June, it'll be a lot in the southeast. So for those of you, I saw some of them are down there. There's Florida, I think, new Georgia, South Carolina. North Carolina. So hitting that, it should be so lovely and not humid or hot at all in, in June, right? Oh my

Jane: 34:10

gosh. It's gonna be great.

Kristina: 34:11

It's gonna be great. Air conditioning, thank goodness. Air conditioning. And then if that's, not bad enough weather-wise, but. So fun to see people there. Is going to be the Midwest in July, so that one will be hitting Minnesota. Minnesota as we say. I think Wisconsin and yeah, just several other, I think there's some New England states in there too, hitting Maryland and oh, okay. Keep an eye

Jane: 34:31

out. Yeah. Come up this way if you need a moderator or like a, in conversation up here for sure.

Kristina: 34:36

Absolutely.

Jane: 34:37

Thank you. I would love that. I know you already read the book. All your homework is done. There you go. Yeah. So we have a couple questions from the audience. I know I don't wanna keep you too much longer. This is a really good question from Christine Mott. How hard was it to write a book with Ariel Lahan and Suzanne? Susan when he had wings? The novel was amazing. Yeah, I've always wondered that too. I've never, it's such a writing feels so, such a solitary thing for me. I can't imagine partnering with not just one, but two other writers on a

Kristina: 35:06

novel. Absolutely. Yes.'cause it, and we really this was interesting because yeah.'cause Harper Cols had asked us to write a novel together and we're already friends, so we said yes. Said it was like the oceans of love of literary and you're like, you wanna pay us to hang out together? That sounds like a great job. So yeah. With Susan Eisner and er, Lahan and all historicals that we, and we'd done a lot of World War II in the past too, among other things. So we, it was interesting because we came together very fast on it. I think one of them, and maybe it was Ariel that had said, or or Susan, but one of'em had said, what about these, these, they, we knew they wanted us to write World War ii and that's it. The rest was up to us. I think she Googled, women heroic women from World War ii, not written about much or something, and unknown. And what came up were nurses that served in the Philippines that basically, where the Philippines were hit the day after Pearl Harbor's attack. They were hit in much the same way. And this beautiful paradise like Pearl Harbor became an overnight hill escapee. So they had all these nurses that then went through that. And there were navy nurses, army nurses that were Americans, and then there were Filipino nurses. And when we figured that out, watched a quick documentary. Within 10 minutes, we just said, what about these. I'll take this one. You, I'll of course take the Asian one. I'll take the Filipino nurse. Because I grew up with all Filipino best friends. Easy. And so we split'em up and each one had a tie to one of the kind one Army and Susan had ties to the Navy, so it was too easy in that way. Then we decided, we outlined it, we agreed on it really fast. It somehow, it wasn't that hard. What became challenging was we wrote it, right around 2020 or 2021, and it was a challenge. We're all in three different states. And then we thought, how do we, so we were all on different weird schedules because our deadlines being pushed and and so we couldn't really all write at the same time. We were gonna do our sections. So this is where. The, it became really creative and that Susan said I have an opening of my schedule. I'll write mine first. So she wrote hers and what changed was she was supposed to write block one. Ariel was gonna write block two, but like later in time. And then I was going to be, basic, the caboose, it's what they said. I was supposed to lay on the plane and I really knew then for the end of the war what my story was by the T. When Susan did it, she said, okay, I finished mine, but here's the problem. I really think. That we need to interweave instead. I don't think it's gonna work as well to do block. It won't feel as much as a cohesive novel. Now, while I completely agree with that, that brings up a whole other set of challenges. Oh yeah. That just writing your part is like writing your own short story, your own novel like Novelette and so yeah. So then we're like, oh my gosh. Okay. Yeah. That means moving things all around. Can we do it? Yeah, we can make it work. And we put it in a Google doc, so we could share it. Ariel said, I have time in my schedule now. She wrote hers and she worked it in and out, and we only had to have Susan change like one or two chapters to make it work. Wow. And then they handed it to me and I had just finished my novel and I went, okay, now I have time. I think I had six weeks until it was due. I thought I had write third of a novel in that time and they gave it to me, land the plane and we joke now land the plane on a runway that is completely moved facing the other way, no lights. And I'm like, okay, that was not the runway I was supposed to get. So right. Weaving between the other two stories. Trying to leave cliffhangers that then pick back up eight months later. It was very tricky. Yeah. I solved a lot of problems taking the hot showers where I do all my best quiet thinking, thank

Jane: 38:36

God for that. Yeah.

Kristina: 38:38

Quiet. I'm like, how do I solve this? And, but looked at it as like a challenge. I think of it as like Apollo. Apollo is Apollo 13, that I was about to say, Apollo 11, Apollo 13. In the movie anyway, right? Where they put all of the equipment on the table and they say, this is all they have, make it work. Turn the coffee maker, into a contraption to get'em home. And that's how I felt. I'm like, okay, this is the challenge in this book. I have all of this. How do I make this work and make it seem like it was always supposed to be this way? So I was, we were really proud of it. And and then of course touring together with friends, was made it that much more fun. So

Jane: 39:14

that was fun. And you have a lot of fans of that book. Maria Lou and Mindy Elrich, Susie Baldwin yeah. That's amazing. And. I, yeah, I don't know how you did it, but, and it's a beautiful story. So I don't wanna keep you much longer. So again, this is out May 20th. This was delightful. I hope we get to meet in person someday. I always love talking to you, Kristina. It's weird that we don't know each other yet,

Kristina: 39:37

like I know, and I will, because I do wanna show you, since people haven't quite seen this yet, the real thing, so this Oh yeah. Is the finished version? Yes. Oh my goodness. It's like this is the deluxe version. It's got all the gold on the sides. And this is all shiny gold and raised and beautiful. It's so pretty beautiful. I'm just petting it. I'm listening to, I did see somebody ask about, I keep saying go to my website for all my info and not sharing what that is, so it is Oh yeah. Super easy. It's my name, Kristina mick morris.com. Yeah.

Jane: 40:03

Oh, I'm glad you caught that. Yeah, I was gonna say, I think it's just Kristina mcmorris.com, but but yeah, thank you again. And next up is Alka Joshi on May 20th. So you can register online on my website, jane healey.com for that. She, her latest book is Six Days in Bombay. And I wish you so much. The, you don't even need luck for this one. I wish you all the best. It's gonna be good fortune. Amazing fortune. I wish Fortune and have a wonderful tour and good luck with everything. Yeah. Thank you so much Jane, and thanks everybody for joining.