It’s my pleasure to welcome back Gail Kittleson, an historical fiction author with a fun reading history. Gail, welcome back!

What was the first adult novel that you read?

How Green Was My Valley. Pretty heavy stuff for a young teen, but the sweeping literary descriptions SWEPT me off my feet. I liked it. A lot. Maybe because it described a grown-up world where things didn’t go right, weren’t at all ‘pretty,’ and I could relate from my own life.

What was the first book you read that you couldn’t put down?

Gone with the Wind. One of the reasons I did so poorly in ninth grade algebra class…or was it geometry? This tale definitely took me to another world, another time. My friend and I acted out the staircase scene with Scarlett and Rhett so many times…I always wanted to change the way the plot turned out.

That’s another question, but I had so many if onlys with this story. If only Scarlett hadn’t been so blasted stubborn. If only Sherman wouldn’t have . . . If only little Bonnie had not taken that fateful horse ride…

What was the last book you read that you couldn’t put down?

It was a novel I’m helping edit for someone. A debut novel, so I won’t let anything out. But oh my! So much happening…so many twists and turns…so much grief and loss characters are dealing with, and so many varieties of loss, too. This one’s a winner, for sure. (In my book, anyhow.) What’s interesting is that it’s contemporary and also suspense. Neither genre is one I normally read.

The main reason I couldn’t put this down was the heroine. She had so many reasons to despair, but I wanted to see her come through it all and realize how wonderful she was/is. She blamed herself for some nasty occurrences—I wanted to see her free from that shackle.

If you could be part of any fictional family, which would you pick?

It seems too easy to say the Waltons, but here’s a family with struggles—living in the Depression era and experiencing World War I, to name two—anything but idealistic. But I’d still like to be part of their family.

Also, John Boy is so cool! But aside from that, this family centers on a strong mother and father. They take time for their children. They listen. They commiserate. They’re approachable. And neither of them plays a victim role. They’re in this through thick and thin, and this attitude makes a difference for their children.

If you could visit any fictional place, where would you go?

I want to ask, does fictional have to mean make-believe? I’d like to visit the Auvergne in World War II, or London during the Blitz. Both of these places, quite real, make fabulous settings for historical fiction during WWII.

The Auvergne offers danger, intrigue, and rare sorts of courage, with OES agents parachuting in the dark of night. They risk being met by Nazis in the form of the ruthless Gestapo. The entire scenario, gorgeous geographically, full of forests and rivers and rocky cliff hideaways, lends itself to fiction.

And London. I’m not a big-city person, but London during the Blitz was something else. Old Blighty’s citizens worked together, an all-out effort to thwart an inconceivably harsh enemy. They’d never known such widespread aerial warfare. They’d never had to send their children away before. They’d never experienced such hunger due to rationing.

I’m hungry to take in what it was like for a massive city that lost 70,000 of its inhabitants to gather up their “pluck” and keep trying. Something about this kind of united effort strikes me as irreplaceable, to be envied and copied.

If you could change the ending of any story, what would you change? Why?

I’d still go back and change Gone with the Wind. Scarlett would learn from her mistakes and develop a keener ability to judge human character. Rhett wouldn’t give up on her. They’d live happily ever after (well, as close as they could during the post-Civil War carpetbagger South.)

If you could mash any two books together, which books would you pick? How would you do it?

What if we mashed together Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving? It wouldn’t be easy because the two stories are thematically different. But they do address universal human qualities: hypocrisy, superstition and delving in the supernatural. I’d mesh these stories with back-and-forth chapters, I think. Kind of makes me weary to think of actually doing this because it would really require some deep thought and navigating.

A Hill Country Christmas – Hope for Hardscrabble Times provides a great mix of novellas and short stories from various Texas Hill Country communities. This release, co-authored with Texan Lynn Dean and several others, will provide hours of leisure reading chock-full of history, plus comfort and joy.

Just what we need right now . . . peace on earth in the midst of strife.

Dare To Bloom, Gail’s website, comes by its name honestly. After teaching ESL and college writing courses, this late bloomer finally put her writing “out there.” But acquiring the self-confidence and courage to do so took decades. Eventually, her memoir developed, which led to writing World War II fiction.

Her Women of the Heartland brand honors the era’s make-do women and men, and includes nine novels, two novellas, and three non-fiction books. Despite daunting trials, her heroines and heroes contribute to the war effort and reveal the determination, loyalty, faith and tenacity so needed in our society today.

Gail enjoys encouraging other writers (and readers) through facilitating workshops and retreats. She and her retired Army chaplain husband enjoy grandchildren, tending a Northern Iowa cottage garden, and Arizona’s Mogollon Rim in winter

 

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