historical fiction

How Malika J. Stevely Came to Write Song of Redemption

October 31, 2022 by Mark West
Categories: Storied Charlotte

Charlotte author Malika J. Stevely recently published a work of historical fiction titled Song of Redemption.  It’s her debut novel, but Malika is not a novice writer.  She has extensive experience as a journalist and communications specialist, and her background in journalism came into play when she set out to write this book. 

Most of the story takes place on a French and English-speaking plantation in Louisiana in the years just before the Civil War, but the opening chapter is set in 1932.  In this chapter, a group of construction workers are fixing up an abandoned plantation mansion when they discover the body of a woman behind one of the walls.  This event actually happened.  When Malika heard about it, she became curious about the story of the woman whose body was discovered.  After doing extensive investigative research, she decided to write a novel based on the life of this woman. 

I contacted Malika and asked her for additional information about how she came to write Song of Redemption.  Here is what she sent to me:

Before serving my community as a newspaper reporter, a favorite pastime of mine was conducting interviews, specifically with seniors. It was, and is, an opportunity to absorb wisdom, and to see how issues within the world may have evolved or remained unresolved. Years ago, a senior family friend shared that her father was a crew member with a construction company in Louisiana in 1932. When he and his team were assigned to refurbish a mansion, he discovered the remains of an enslaved woman behind one of the walls. In addition to the story, the description of the sights and emotions felt decades after the Antebellum era were just a few things that stuck with me.

Usually with oral history, a story runs the risk of dying with the person who told it, unless it is shared with a multitude of people. I remember feeling a sense of responsibility to give the enslaved woman an identity and a voice. Often when we hear about those involved in tragedy, the person becomes defined by the incident. I wanted to humanize her as well as solve the mystery behind the oral history. This could only be done by researching and sharing her story as well as the experiences of other enslaved individuals whose names and accounts were silenced or never told. And in conjunction, it was imperative that there was a rich illustration of culture and languages in the book along with the perspectives of women, Blacks, Creoles and Creoles of color.

While Charlotte is my adopted home, I have ties to Louisiana and sprinkled a little of myself within the pages of the book. In addition to the reappearance of newspapers and advertising featured in the novel, music and medicine (modern and holistic slave remedies) were themes from my own life and lineage that served as inspiration, creating a literary symphony that transformed into Song of Redemption.

For more information about Malika, please click on the following link:  https://www.malikajstevely.com/ 

Readers who would like to talk with Malika about Song of Redemption are in luck, for Malika is one of the featured authors at our next Charlotte Readers Book Club event.  For our third Charlotte Readers Book Club event, Charlotte Readers Podcast and Storied Charlotte are partnering with That’s Novel Books at Hygge at Camp North End.  This event will take place at That’s Novel Books, 330 Camp Road, on Wednesday, November 9, 2022, from 5:30 pm to 6:30 pm.  We will feature Malika’s Song of Redemption and Pamela Grundy’s recently published Legacy: Three Centuries of Black History in Charlotte, North Carolina. You are not required to have read the books to participate in our book club. This will be an open discussion with the authors. Here is the Eventbrite link:  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/charlotte-readers-bookclub-tickets-453351595827

I am looking forward to talking with Malika and Pamela at this upcoming Charlotte Readers Book Club event and learning more about their contributions to Storied Charlotte.

Tags: historical fictionnovel

Joy Callaway’s Historical Novels about Strong Women from America’s Past

August 22, 2022 by Mark West
Categories: Storied Charlotte

I have long been interested in America’s Gilded Age, so when I came across Joy Callaway’s debut novel, The Fifth Avenue Artists Society, I was intrigued by the blurb on the front cover.  The blurb describes the novel as “an engrossing Gilded Age tale of a determined young woman’s pursuit of her art.”  I picked the book up and read the short author bio on the back cover, and that is how I discovered that Joy is from Charlotte.   

I have since learned that Joy is the author of three historical novels, all of which feature strong women characters who chart their own course even when it means going against some of the prevailing expectations that women often faced in the past.  The Fifth Avenue Artists Society, which came out in 2016, is set in New York City in the late nineteenth century.  Ginny, the central character, is an ambitious young woman who is determined to make her mark as a famous novelist. This character is partially based on one of Joy’s ancestors.  Joy’s second novel, Secret Sisters, was published in 2017.  Set in the early 1880s, the story deals with four women college students who set out to establish a women’s fraternity. Although it is a work of fiction, Secret Sisters is based on the founding of America’s first sororities. Joy’s latest historical novel, The Grand Design, just came out this summer.  Much of the story takes place in The Greenbrier, the famous resort in West Virginia.  The central character has much in common with Dorothy Draper, the pioneering interior designer who renovated The Greenbrier after it was used as a make-shift hospital during World War II.  For more information about Joy and her novels, please click on the following link:  https://www.joycallaway.com/

I recently contacted Joy and asked her for more information about The Grand Design. Here is what she sent to me:

The idea for The Grand Design was very organically born out of my love for The Greenbrier, the bright designs of Dorothy Draper, and for West Virginia. My family has been in West Virginia for eight generations (though I grew up in Charlotte) and we’ve gathered for family reunions at The Greenbrier each year for most of my life. I have always loved history, so I would go to the history lectures done by Greenbrier historian, Dr. Bob Conte, during each visit. When I started my writing career, I knew I wanted to write a novel set there, but I wasn’t quite sure which part of The Greenbrier’s history I wanted to focus on. During one of our family reunions, I ended up having a conversation with my grandfathers about the legacies of Dorothy Draper and The Greenbrier and that they couldn’t exist without the other. That was a sort of light-bulb moment for me, and I decided I’d like to explore these two fascinating main characters and how they’d shaped each other over the years.

Researching Dorothy Draper and The Greenbrier was a blast. I, of course, leaned on the expert knowledge of Dr. Conte for all things Greenbrier and dug into Mr. Carleton Varney’s books about Dorothy Draper. I also explored extensive newspaper archives and magazine articles and letters—really anything I could get my hands on to grasp the spirit of Dorothy and The Greenbrier. Though I write fiction, it is always my absolute goal to make sure I get as close to the soul of my main characters as I can in my work and to honor them that way—along with, of course, staying as close to the actual fact pattern of their lives as I can manage.

In all of Joy’s historical novels, spirited female characters defy the odds and make things happen, but they are still believable in part because they are based on real people.  Joy knows how to tell a compelling story, but she also knows how to do historical research.  Her historical novels ring true because she gets her details right.  I am convinced that Joy has a long career ahead of her, but with the success of the three novels that she has published to date, she has already established herself as one of Storied Charlotte’s leading authors of historical fiction. 

Tags: female charactershistorical fictionThe Greenbrier

Experiencing New York’s 19th-Century Theater Scene with Paula Martinac

December 05, 2021 by Mark West
Categories: Storied Charlotte

Novelist Paula Martinac has established herself as one of Charlotte’s leading lesbian writers, but she is also known for her well-researched historical fiction.  Over the course of her career, she has written several novels set during the middle decades of the 20th century, such as Testimony, a novel about a professor who teaches at a private college for women in rural Virginia in the early 1960s.  However, Paula’s most recent novel, Dear Miss Cushman (Bywater Books), is her first work of historical fiction that is set during the 19th century.  

Dear Miss Cushman takes place in New York City during the 1850s.  It is told from the point of view of Georgiana “Georgie” Cartwright, a young woman who aspires to be a professional actress.  Georgie’s role model is Charlotte Cushman, who was a real 19th-century American actress.  In Paula’s novel, Georgie initiates correspondence with Charlotte Cushman, which explains the title of the novel.  In many ways, this novel is a coming-of-age story in which a young woman forges an identity that transcends the confines of traditional, 19th-century gender roles.  It is also, however, an immersion into the colorful theater scene as it existed in antebellum America.

For more information about this novel, please click on the following link:  https://www.bywaterbooks.com/product/dear-miss-cushman-by-paula-martinac/  For readers who would like to learn more about Paula and her publications, please click on the following link:  http://paulamartinac.com/ 

I contacted Paula and asked her how she went about researching and writing Dear Miss Cushman.  Here is what she sent to me:

Dear Miss Cushman grew out of my awe for people of the distant past who pursued same-sex relationships or presented as physically different from the sex assigned them at birth—even though there wasn’t any queer identity as we now know it. The self-awareness and self-reliance they must have had amazes me. For example, real-life American actress Charlotte Cushman (1816-1876) not only forged her career playing roles written for men, like Romeo and Hamlet, but engaged in long-term romantic relationships with equally accomplished women. How were these women able to discover who they were?

I’ve always loved theater and I’ve had some plays produced, so Cushman seemed like a ripe topic for my fiction. Even so, I didn’t want to be confined by her biography. When I read that she had a following of adoring young female fans, including aspiring actresses, my character Georgiana “Georgie” Cartwright was born, along with the idea that Georgie might write Cushman letters asking for advice.

I’d never written a novel set in the 19th century, and it required a daunting amount of research. As I wrote, I kept having to go back and do even more research, digging up little details to make Georgie’s world feel real. Still, the process went quickly and was a lot of fun, aided by a 2019-2020 Creative Renewal Fellowship from the Arts and Science Council. The fellowship allowed me to turn down a few teaching gigs, giving me time to devote to the project. I was also able to make a research trip to Wilmington to visit Thalian Hall, one of the only remaining mid-19th-century theaters in the country, which still has its original painted curtain and a “thunder roll” once used to simulate storms. Standing center stage, I could imagine what Georgie saw and felt when she looked out over the footlights and that added texture to the book.

Toward the beginning of Dear Miss Cushman, Georgie writes her first letter to Charlotte Cushman.  In her letter, she writes, “I had the pleasure of accompanying my uncle to The Broadway last night to see your performance of Romeo.  All I can say is thank you, thank you, thank you!”  Well, following Georgie’s lead, all I can say to Paula is thank you, thank you, thank you for the memorable contributions to Storied Charlotte’s ever-expanding library.

Tags: 19th centuryhistorical fictionlesbian writers