Christine Trent's addictive mysteries edge into the dark and Gothic – Victorian England through the eyes of Violet Harper, the undertaker heroine of the Lady of Ashes series, or the nightmare of the Crimea as seen by Florence Nightingale.

Hi there, I’m your

host Jenny Wheeler and today Christine talks about the mentor who inspired her

to write, and where’s she’s performing Lady of the Lamp, her one-woman show on

Florence Nightingale’s life..

Six

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

Why Christine says she's been 'lucky' as a writerHow British kindness helped her survive Sept 11 Queen Victoria's role in making mourning "high fashion"Bringing Florence Nightingale to life in books and on stageThe passion she shares with Thomas JeffersonThe best lesson she's learned  as an author

Where to find Christine Trent: 

Website: http://www.christinetrent.com/books.html

Facebook: @ChristineTrentBooks

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: But now, here’s Christine. .  Hello there Christine and welcome to the show, it’s great to have you with us.

Christine:  Thank you for inviting me!

Christine Trent - Mystery author

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?

Christine: Well I actually do have a story like that. I have always been a reader - as a young child, I was a big reader. In fact, my mother used to get so annoyed having to read to me all the time that she taught me to read very early just so I could leave her alone and go and read my own books! But writing had never occurred to me until much later in life.

I had gone to a University book store, and there was a sad little box of books sitting on the floor. It said “any book $1”. Inside that box of books, there was a cover that attracted me. It was very royal, it looked like a palace on the front of it. I picked it out and it was a book called To Dance With Kings by an author going by the name of Rosalind Laker.

It was just a lovely book- it was historical, it was romantic; it was just wonderful. Very few books make me cry, but that book made me cry. I was actually inspired to try and find that author. Fortunately I’ve got a sister in law who works as a librarian, and she tracked down that author’s agent.

As it turned out, she lived in the UK and I wrote to that author - I had never done such a thing in my life. Then the author wrote back to me, and that started a friendship whereby my husband and I travelled to the UK and visited her.

Christine and her mentor, Rosalind Laker

I just got inspired to write by sitting with her and talking with her. She had had a long career herself with probably 25 books; that was actually the inspiration to begin writing myself.

Jenny: What a lovely story! Now from that, you’ve got two historical mystery series, Lady Of Ashes and Florence Nightingale and you’ve got some historical romance “standalones” as well. Why did you choose historical fiction for a start, and then mystery secondly?

Christine:  Well as I mentioned, Rosalind Laker - whose real name was Barbara Ovstedal  - most of her books were historical romance. She did write some modern things, but most of them were historical romance. I adored them. Just from picking up her books,

Mystery author Clara Benson could say - along with Mark Twain - that "reports of her death have been greatly exaggerated" - but she only has herself to blame. She wrote her popular 10-book Angela Marchmont series in the persona of a long-dead 1920s author named - you guessed it - Clara Benson. And when she confessed to her readers that Clara was a pen name and that she was very much alive in the 21st century, just a few of them weren't too pleased. Mostly though, they enjoyed the ruse and begged her stay alive and write more books!

Hi there, I'm your host Jenny Wheeler and today Clara talks about the difficulties of marketing your books when you're "dead" and why she so adores the early 20th century.

Six

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

The personal loss that was the catalyst for her first bookHow impatience worked for her in the early daysWhy she was tempted to play the "dead author" roleThe inspiration of stately homesOn delayed gratification: NOT binge reading her favorite authorWhat she'd do differently second time around

Where to find Clara Benson: 

Website: http://clarabenson.com/

Facebook: @ClaraBensonBooks/

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7047250.Clara_Benson

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: But now, here’s Clara.  Hello there Clara and welcome to the show, it’s great to have you with us.

Clara: Oh thank you for having me.

Jenny: We like to start in a “Once Upon a Time” framework because we are story tellers . . . so was there a "Once Upon a Time" moment when you decided you wanted to write fiction?? And if so when was it?

Clara Benson - Author

Clara:  When was it? I think probably like a lot of writers I always thought I was going to write, but without doing very much writing. I wrote creatively when I was a child but I never completed anything. I tried writing a novel in my twenties which will never see the light of day because it was too appalling. I was listening to your interview with HY Hanna (H.Y. Hanna's Oxford Tearoom Mysteries in the Joys of Binge Reading) and I think I am very similar to her, reaching a certain age and suddenly deciding, I hadn't done anything with my life and if I was going to do anything I had better start.

The catalyst for me was about ten years ago when my Dad sadly was diagnosed with terminal cancer and that is the kind of moment when everything comes home to you. You think 'gosh we aren't going to have him for too much longer and I've never done anything to make him proud.' So I thought I've really got to do something . . .and he was such a reader, so I thought if I am going to write anything, this is really the moment to start. So I did start writing when he got ill, but sadly it never got finished before he died, and so he never got to read it, but he did know I was writing it.

Also there is the thing, selfishly, when these sort of things happen to you, you get an impending sense of your own mortality. It took a few years to finish the book, so he never got to read The Murder At Sissingham Hall, but he did know I was writing so that was pleasing for him.

Book #1 Angela Marchmont series

Jenny: Was he into Golden Age Mysteries?

Clara: Not so much Golden Age mysteries . . he did read mysteries but he was probably more into thrillers, and more modern books. He was always recommending books to me, and he'd get really annoyed if I didn't read them. He'd do the same for my brother, because he writes books as well - science fiction under the name of Anthony James and I think my Dad would be proud of both of us now, but he never got to see that.

Jenny: You’ve now got two historical series under way – the Angela Marchmont mysteries has concluded at ten books - is that correct - and the Freddy Pilkington-Soames adventure series is building up steam.

Mystery author Clara Benson could say - along with Mark Twain - that "reports of her death have been greatly exaggerated" - but she only has herself to blame. She wrote her popular 10-book Angela Marchmont series in the persona of a long-dead 1920s author named - you guessed it - Clara Benson. And when she confessed to her readers that Clara was a pen name and that she was very much alive in the 21st century, just a few of them weren't too pleased. Mostly though, they enjoyed the ruse and begged her stay alive and write more books!

Hi there, I'm your host Jenny Wheeler and today Clara talks about the difficulties of marketing your books when you're "dead" and why she so adores the early 20th century.

Six

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

The personal loss that was the catalyst for her first bookHow impatience worked for her in the early daysWhy she was tempted to play the "dead author" roleThe inspiration of stately homesOn delayed gratification: NOT binge reading her favorite authorWhat she'd do differently second time around

Where to find Clara Benson: 

Website: http://clarabenson.com/

Facebook: @ClaraBensonBooks/

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7047250.Clara_Benson

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: But now, here’s Clara.  Hello there Clara and welcome to the show, it’s great to have you with us.

Clara: Oh thank you for having me.

Jenny: We like to start in a “Once Upon a Time” framework because we are story tellers . . . so was there a "Once Upon a Time" moment when you decided you wanted to write fiction?? And if so when was it?

Clara Benson - Author

Clara:  When was it? I think probably like a lot of writers I always thought I was going to write, but without doing very much writing. I wrote creatively when I was a child but I never completed anything. I tried writing a novel in my twenties which will never see the light of day because it was too appalling. I was listening to your interview with HY Hanna (H.Y. Hanna's Oxford Tearoom Mysteries in the Joys of Binge Reading) and I think I am very similar to her, reaching a certain age and suddenly deciding, I hadn't done anything with my life and if I was going to do anything I had better start.

The catalyst for me was about ten years ago when my Dad sadly was diagnosed with terminal cancer and that is the kind of moment when everything comes home to you. You think 'gosh we aren't going to have him for too much longer and I've never done anything to make him proud.' So I thought I've really got to do something . . .and he was such a reader, so I thought if I am going to write anything, this is really the moment to start. So I did start writing when he got ill, but sadly it never got finished before he died, and so he never got to read it, but he did know I was writing it.

Also there is the thing, selfishly, when these sort of things happen to you, you get an impending sense of your own mortality. It took a few years to finish the book, so he never got to read The Murder At Sissingham Hall, but he did know I was writing so that was pleasing for him.

Book #1 Angela Marchmont series

Jenny: Was he into Golden Age Mysteries?

Clara: Not so much Golden Age mysteries . . he did read mysteries but he was probably more into thrillers, and more modern books. He was always recommending books to me,

Ashley Weaver is a mild-mannered Louisiana librarian who enjoys creating mayhem in her Amory Ames mystery series, presenting husband and wife amateur sleuths reminiscent of Agatha Christie’s Poirot - complete with country houses, elegant parties and unexpected death.

Hi there, I’m your host Jenny Wheeler and today Ashley talks about the tricky relationship between Amory and her playboy husband Milo, and gives her take on why cozy murders are so popular.

Six

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

Why she feels she was 'born in the wrong era'Things she's learned in six years of writingWhy in whatever she writes "someone gets murdered."The appeal of the 'Golden Age of Mystery' Her reader's reaction to Amory's "complicated" marriageThe writers she admires the most

Where to find Ashley Weaver: 

Website: https://www.ashley-weaver.com/

Facebook:  @AuthorAshleyWeaver

 Twitter: @AshleyCWeaver

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: And now, here’s Ashley.  Hello there Ashley and welcome to the show.  It’s great to have you with us… 

Ashley: Thank you so much for having me!

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?

Ashley Weaver

Ashley: Well I was always an avid reader growing up. My parents read to me a lot, and took me to the library. I think I was in elementary school, and I don’t remember if it was a little school project but they had us write a story. I remember having a click in my head that I could take ideas from my own brain and put them on paper, and make my own stories. That was kind of the beginning of when I realized I could take a story from my head and put it on pages, and make my own books so to speak. I’ve been kind of writing ever since then.

I wrote my first full novel starting my freshmen year at high school, and it was sort of what I’d call a gangster mystery romance, set in a prohibition area of Chicago. I would write a few pages after school and on weekends, and I’d bring it in for my friends to read. They would read it at the lunch tables during break and give me feedback, so that was kind of my first taste of writing for an audience. Ever since then, I’ve just enjoyed writing stories and putting them down on the page.

Jenny: So you say freshman year - how old would you be for people who aren’t so familiar with the American education system?

Ashley: Around 14, my first year of high school.

Jenny: You’ve now got six historical mysteries published in the Amory Ames series – set in England in the 1930s.   Why choose the mystery genre and this historical period?

Amory Ames #1 Mystery

Ashley: Well for one thing - the time period thing - I've always felt like I was born in the wrong era. I've always enjoyed reading historical books and watching historical shows set in different times and things like that. We were watching a lot of movies from the 30's and 40's, so when I was young I liked that Ginger Rogers aesthetic with the women in the evening gowns and the men in tuxedos, dancing in fancy night clubs.

As I got a little older and learned about the period between the wars, and moving from the older social structure into the more modern 20th century and that push and pull of modern progress, the time period became even more interesting to me. That's why I settled on the 30's.

As far as mystery - I've dabbled in a lot of things, I've tried a few genres but I kind of found that consistently, whatever I wrote and whatever I've written, somebody gets murdered in it! So it was like mystery was sort of my thing. Mystery has always been something I've enjoyed reading from the time I was really young - I read Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys, and then I grew up and got into Agatha Christie.

Ashley Weaver is a mild-mannered Louisiana librarian who enjoys creating mayhem in her Amory Ames mystery series, presenting husband and wife amateur sleuths reminiscent of Agatha Christie’s Poirot - complete with country houses, elegant parties and unexpected death.

Hi there, I’m your host Jenny Wheeler and today Ashley talks about the tricky relationship between Amory and her playboy husband Milo, and gives her take on why cozy murders are so popular.

Six

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

Why she feels she was 'born in the wrong era'Things she's learned in six years of writingWhy in whatever she writes "someone gets murdered."The appeal of the 'Golden Age of Mystery' Her reader's reaction to Amory's "complicated" marriageThe writers she admires the most

Where to find Ashley Weaver: 

Website: https://www.ashley-weaver.com/

Facebook:  @AuthorAshleyWeaver

 Twitter: @AshleyCWeaver

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: And now, here’s Ashley.  Hello there Ashley and welcome to the show.  It’s great to have you with us… 

Ashley: Thank you so much for having me!

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?

Ashley Weaver

Ashley: Well I was always an avid reader growing up. My parents read to me a lot, and took me to the library. I think I was in elementary school, and I don’t remember if it was a little school project but they had us write a story. I remember having a click in my head that I could take ideas from my own brain and put them on paper, and make my own stories. That was kind of the beginning of when I realized I could take a story from my head and put it on pages, and make my own books so to speak. I’ve been kind of writing ever since then.

I wrote my first full novel starting my freshmen year at high school, and it was sort of what I’d call a gangster mystery romance, set in a prohibition area of Chicago. I would write a few pages after school and on weekends, and I’d bring it in for my friends to read. They would read it at the lunch tables during break and give me feedback, so that was kind of my first taste of writing for an audience. Ever since then, I’ve just enjoyed writing stories and putting them down on the page.

Jenny: So you say freshman year - how old would you be for people who aren’t so familiar with the American education system?

Ashley: Around 14, my first year of high school.

Jenny: You’ve now got six historical mysteries published in the Amory Ames series – set in England in the 1930s.   Why choose the mystery genre and this historical period?

Amory Ames #1 Mystery

Ashley: Well for one thing - the time period thing - I've always felt like I was born in the wrong era. I've always enjoyed reading historical books and watching historical shows set in different times and things like that. We were watching a lot of movies from the 30's and 40's, so when I was young I liked that Ginger Rogers aesthetic with the women in the evening gowns and the men in tuxedos, dancing in fancy night clubs.

As I got a little older and learned about the period between the wars, and moving from the older social structure into the more modern 20th century and that push and pull of modern progress,

The inspiration for

Annie Seaton’s first fiction was a love letter she received from a teenage boyfriend

– written on mauve toilet paper and so long that it took up pretty well the

whole roll . . .

Fast forward to

today and Annie’s a recognised brand in Australian fiction, with nearly 40 romances,

time travel and rural fiction titles to her credit.

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

Living the 'perfect life' in the WhitsundaysWhy Aussie rural fiction is so popularHow being a Type A personality drives her workHow she's now both indie and trad publishedThe writers she admires mostWhat's coming next for this super productive writer

Where to find Annie Seaton: 

Website:http://www.annieseaton.net/

Facebook: @AnnieSeatonAuthor

 Twitter: @annieseaton26

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

Jenny: And now, here’s Annie.  Hello there Annie and welcome to the show.  It’s great to have you with us…

Annie: Hi there Jenny It's great to be talking to you from "across the ditch" - and I know I say that word differently from how your New Zealand listeners say it. . . It's lovely to be talking to you.

Jenny: Yes and I think you are talking to us from Nambucca Heads?

Annie: Yes that's right. Nambucca Heads is halfway between Sydney and Brisbane and I'm lucky enough to be right on the coast - well when I say that I am actually five houses back from the beach but I can see the ocean from my kitchen window. It's very lovely.

Jenny: When you started out - was there a "Once Upon a Time" moment when you decided you wanted to write fiction, and what was the catalyst for it.

Annie:The catalyst for me being an author happened when I was four years old, would you believe! I was born in Brisbane, and I lived there until I was about 12 years old. From about the age of four my mum took me to the library every Thursday. (I can still remember that little detail all these years later!) I fell in love with books, and I always wanted to write stories. When I was 11, I wrote a book and it was all stapled together. I can still remember the first line of the first chapter. It was "Julia stopped hopping abruptly." - Breaks every grammatical rule. That little book actually went missing when we moved to Newcastle in the late 60’s - and then education, career, marriage and children all intervened. The desire was there, but they all took precedence as life does. When I was 33 we had our sea change and moved to Nambucca Heads, and I had given up an academic career at Newcastle University and I thought "I can going to join the local writer's group. And my first story was published in their inaugural anthology called Estuary - because we have a beautiful estuary here on our river.

Annie Seaton author

I remember it was a short story romance, based on something that had happened to me in my teens, when one of my early boyfriends wrote me a really long letter onto mauve toilet paper. It took almost the whole roll! So that was the first writing I did at 33. Then moving back here of course, I wanted to get into the academic world so I did a Master' degree. I retrained as a teacher, and I became a head teacher, a high school principal and a grandmother. Of course, writing again was placed on the back burner.

In 2010, I had an awful experience when I was teaching. I looked at the stress my position was causing me, and I thought- I’m not enjoying this anymore. I don’t want to do this anymore. So I decided to retire. A lovely friend said to me, "what are you going to do with your day? You’ve been a principal 24/7". I replied to her that I was going to write that book I wanted to write for over 50 years!

In March 2011, I started writing. Fast forward seven and a half years, and I now have four books in book stores, another three contracted with Harper Collins and thirty or so books self published.

The inspiration for

Annie Seaton’s first fiction was a love letter she received from a teenage boyfriend

– written on mauve toilet paper and so long that it took up pretty well the

whole roll . . .

Fast forward to

today and Annie’s a recognised brand in Australian fiction, with nearly 40 romances,

time travel and rural fiction titles to her credit.

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

Living the 'perfect life' in the WhitsundaysWhy Aussie rural fiction is so popularHow being a Type A personality drives her workHow she's now both indie and trad publishedThe writers she admires mostWhat's coming next for this super productive writer

Where to find Annie Seaton: 

Website:http://www.annieseaton.net/

Facebook: @AnnieSeatonAuthor

 Twitter: @annieseaton26

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

Jenny: And now, here’s Annie.  Hello there Annie and welcome to the show.  It’s great to have you with us…

Annie: Hi there Jenny It's great to be talking to you from "across the ditch" - and I know I say that word differently from how your New Zealand listeners say it. . . It's lovely to be talking to you.

Jenny: Yes and I think you are talking to us from Nambucca Heads?

Annie: Yes that's right. Nambucca Heads is halfway between Sydney and Brisbane and I'm lucky enough to be right on the coast - well when I say that I am actually five houses back from the beach but I can see the ocean from my kitchen window. It's very lovely.

Jenny: When you started out - was there a "Once Upon a Time" moment when you decided you wanted to write fiction, and what was the catalyst for it.

Annie:The catalyst for me being an author happened when I was four years old, would you believe! I was born in Brisbane, and I lived there until I was about 12 years old. From about the age of four my mum took me to the library every Thursday. (I can still remember that little detail all these years later!) I fell in love with books, and I always wanted to write stories. When I was 11, I wrote a book and it was all stapled together. I can still remember the first line of the first chapter. It was "Julia stopped hopping abruptly." - Breaks every grammatical rule. That little book actually went missing when we moved to Newcastle in the late 60’s - and then education, career, marriage and children all intervened. The desire was there, but they all took precedence as life does. When I was 33 we had our sea change and moved to Nambucca Heads, and I had given up an academic career at Newcastle University and I thought "I can going to join the local writer's group. And my first story was published in their inaugural anthology called Estuary - because we have a beautiful estuary here on our river.

Annie Seaton author

I remember it was a short story romance, based on something that had happened to me in my teens, when one of my early boyfriends wrote me a really long letter onto mauve toilet paper. It took almost the whole roll! So that was the first writing I did at 33. Then moving back here of course, I wanted to get into the academic world so I did a Master' degree. I retrained as a teacher, and I became a head teacher, a high school principal and a grandmother. Of course, writing again was placed on the back burner.

In 2010, I had an awful experience when I was teaching. I looked at the stress my position was causing me, and I thought- I’m not enjoying this anymore.

Camille Di Maio found inspiration for her first best selling historical fiction in a Beatles song - and then had the good fortune to meet the song's composer and tell him about it!

Hi there, I'm your host Jenny Wheeler and today Camille talks about how history found her - rather than the other way round - and her latest book, based around the Marilyn Monroe classic Some Like It Hot and with another the ghost in story - the ghost in the Hotel Coronado!

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

Her fascination with the 1950'sHow Marilyn Monroe features in her new bookWhy she's set her next book in Rome Balancing writing and family life with four childrenThe surprising number of books she's read in 2018Who she's binge reading now

Where to find Camille Di Maio: 

Website:https://camilledimaio.com/

Facebook: @camilledimaio.author/

 Twitter:http://@CamilleDiMaio

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/camilledimaio__author/

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

Jenny: But now, here’s Camille . . Hello there Camille and welcome to the show, it’s great to have you with us.

Camille Di Maio - author

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?

Camille: In grade school, I spent a lot of recesses in the school library. I read through a lot of the Nancy Drews, and the Trixie Beldens. I was just captivated by getting into these stories and interested in who the authors were. This was way before the internet and social media, so the authors were especially mysterious people. They were just names on these books, so that really intrigued me. I had the idea of wanting to be like them some day.

Jenny: Yes, that sounds great. You mention spending time in the library at play time - I know you've talked a little about how you naturally are an introvert, but you've done a lot of very extroverted things - we'll get onto that. Being a Real Estate Agent for one is not something you'd think an introvert would take kindly to. But you've obviously managed to straddle the personality spectrum. 

Camille: Definitely. I like to think I'm the person who steps up to do what they need to do. The introvert side of me definitely recharges from coming home and being quiet and reading especially. I'm a very avid reader; I think I'm up to 105 books for 2018, so that is really where I get my energy back and then I'm ready to go and do whatever I need to do. 

Jenny: Fantastic. You’ve chosen historical fiction as your genre – what attracted you to it? 

Camille: When I look back on a lot of my reading, especially in my young adult life, I was really interested in historical fiction without really even realising that it was a genre. It just seems to be what I look back and find what I was reading. Historical fiction really found me as a writer, because the particular story idea I had for my debut book The Memory of Us, had to take place in a historical period, and that's the story I wanted to tell. So it more sprang from that. 

The Memory of Us - Camille's first.

Once I wrote that book, I found that I enjoyed the research process so much, especially the historical research that every new book idea that came to me just happened to be historical in nature. So here I am. I'm working on book five that way right now. 

Jenny: Your books focus on recent history – the 40s and 50s.  Is there something about that era that especially interests you?

Camille:Yes, I like that that era is not so very different from where we are now. I mean they had automobiles, they had telephones- not as regularly as we do now, but it’s not a completely foreign concept. I live in an area in Virginia that goes back to the 1600’s and people always ask me if I’m interested in writing about that era,

Camille Di Maio found inspiration for her first best selling historical fiction in a Beatles song - and then had the good fortune to meet the song's composer and tell him about it!

Hi there, I'm your host Jenny Wheeler and today Camille talks about how history found her - rather than the other way round - and her latest book, based around the Marilyn Monroe classic Some Like It Hot and with another the ghost in story - the ghost in the Hotel Coronado!

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

Her fascination with the 1950'sHow Marilyn Monroe features in her new bookWhy she's set her next book in Rome Balancing writing and family life with four childrenThe surprising number of books she's read in 2018Who she's binge reading now

Where to find Camille Di Maio: 

Website:https://camilledimaio.com/

Facebook: @camilledimaio.author/

 Twitter:http://@CamilleDiMaio

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/camilledimaio__author/

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

Jenny: But now, here’s Camille . . Hello there Camille and welcome to the show, it’s great to have you with us.

Camille Di Maio - author

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?

Camille: In grade school, I spent a lot of recesses in the school library. I read through a lot of the Nancy Drews, and the Trixie Beldens. I was just captivated by getting into these stories and interested in who the authors were. This was way before the internet and social media, so the authors were especially mysterious people. They were just names on these books, so that really intrigued me. I had the idea of wanting to be like them some day.

Jenny: Yes, that sounds great. You mention spending time in the library at play time - I know you've talked a little about how you naturally are an introvert, but you've done a lot of very extroverted things - we'll get onto that. Being a Real Estate Agent for one is not something you'd think an introvert would take kindly to. But you've obviously managed to straddle the personality spectrum. 

Camille: Definitely. I like to think I'm the person who steps up to do what they need to do. The introvert side of me definitely recharges from coming home and being quiet and reading especially. I'm a very avid reader; I think I'm up to 105 books for 2018, so that is really where I get my energy back and then I'm ready to go and do whatever I need to do. 

Jenny: Fantastic. You’ve chosen historical fiction as your genre – what attracted you to it? 

Camille: When I look back on a lot of my reading, especially in my young adult life, I was really interested in historical fiction without really even realising that it was a genre. It just seems to be what I look back and find what I was reading. Historical fiction really found me as a writer, because the particular story idea I had for my debut book The Memory of Us, had to take place in a historical period, and that's the story I wanted to tell. So it more sprang from that. 

The Memory of Us - Camille's first.

Once I wrote that book, I found that I enjoyed the research process so much, especially the historical research that every new book idea that came to me just happened to be historical in nature. So here I am. I'm working on book five that way right now. 

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.