Robin Oliveira got started writing her first book after she saw a ghost – yes - quite literally!

Hi there I’m your host Jenny Wheeler and today Robin talks about the unusual visitation that prompted a lot of questions, and tells what she’d do differently if she was starting out all over again.

Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode:

Why she is obsessed with '19th century glass ceilings'How not listening to the discouragers worked for herThe holy delight of  exploring Civil War archivesThe public and private face of writingThe most common questions readers askThe authors she admires most

Where to find Robin Oliveira: 

Website: http://robinoliveira.com/

Facebook: @AuthorRobinOliviera

What follows is a "near as" transcript of our conversation, not word for word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions.

Jenny:   Beginning at the beginning – was there a “Once Upon a Time” moment when you decided you wanted to write fiction??  And if so what was the catalyst for it?

Author Robin Oliveira

Robin: I don't have a moment that I can put my finger on in terms of thinking that I needed to be a writer, or I wanted to be a writer. I meet a lot of writers that say they absolutely wanted to be a writer from the moment they knew what books were. For me, I was a reader. I loved books. I spent my childhood reading, I spent a lot of my adulthood reading in my private time.

It was after I had my children - I was a registered nurse, and I stayed home when they were young. I thought I could either go back to nursing, or I could try to write a book. When my son went off to kindergarten, that was when I started to try to teach myself how to write. I finally ended up at the community college program and then the University of Washington extension here in Seattle. They have a lovely program for writers. So it was a gradual process, but mostly I became a writer because I loved books.

My Name Is Mary Sutter

Jenny: Yes. And what made you choose historical fiction as your genre? You were attracted to that area obviously?

Robin: I'm very drawn to the 19th century.   I'm very fond of authors like Jane Austen and George Elliott, so that was part of it. But I think the other thing is that I was drawn into historical fiction by the first character I ever wrote. As odd as it sounds, she appeared to me one day. This has never happened to me before or since. But I was dusting my dining room when a woman in a 19th century dress appeared to me. She was seated at a trestle table looking through a microscope, and she had medical books behind her.

I started to investigate what person, what woman of that era would be doing in that. I just learned that women became conditioned out of their experiences in the Civil War. So then my first book was set in 19th century America. I learned so much about the era that I just wanted to learn more, so I kept setting my books there.

American Civil War nurses

Jenny: That's such a remarkable experience that I'd just like to focus on it for a moment. Had you been reading anything about Civil War nurses or had anything particular in your mind related to that when this vision appeared?

Robin: No, absolutely not. I knew very little about the Civil War, but I am a registered nurse so there's that association. But I knew practically nothing about the American Civil War. I knew very little about the 19th century when I started and had that particular moment.

Jenny: Was it a frightening moment?

Robin: No, it's just one of those things - a quick apparition and then it was gone. It led me down this path to write the story of women who became physicians in the Civil War, which is a story that had not yet been told in American history.

Nurse with Civil War wounded

Jenny: Yes, it's marvellous - absolutely marvellous. So your heroine in that first book was Mary Sutter. I'm sure she was a fictional character.