Welcome to the gilt trips podcast. I'm your
host Kendra Lockhart as a goldsmith and gemologist
I'll be speaking 24 karat on all things jewelry
metals and gems Join me plus a few friends to
demystify both materials and designs as your
private jeweler. Let's tune in on these topics
and get golden So the first question that I want
to kick off this interview with is, did you have
any real experiences that shaped this storyline?
Yeah, definitely. On a large level, once I had
already started the story, I was lucky to be
able to spend some time in Italy with my husband.
We took some time off between jobs and... just
visited all the places that I thought might be
interesting to the story as well as other places
that I hadn't known would be important to the
story but ended up becoming so. I had been doing
a ton of research in libraries and online in
New York, see the artwork, see where the relics
were held, how far different churches were apart
from each other. That all played a big part in
the story. COVID. I had been working on this
story already for a number of years before 2020.
And I was pondering how I would set the scene
for the city of Florence that had been mostly
emptied out by the plague except for the few
people who were still there. And then all of
a sudden I was living in Brooklyn during 2020
in an office building in Midtown and somebody
had been exposed. So I find myself like on the
last M train out of Dodge. And I stayed in New
York for most of the pandemic. There were certain
experiences. that I realized were really similar
between the Middle Ages and that we still had
today, things that hadn't changed, things like
social distancing, you know, the best practice
advice from the government and from the medical
community kind of going back and forth, things
like this were shared. So I think I definitely
brought some of that experience into the pages.
And then lastly, this one is a little less direct,
but getting ghosted. So not to have too much
of a spoiler in the story, but, you know, there's
a moment where somebody is let... down by a romantic
interest and I think most of us who've dated
in the modern era, there's those people that
just you think everything's going well and then
all of a sudden you never hear from them again.
So I sort of super dramatized that for elements
of the story. So I think that's something that
unfortunately too many of us can relate to today.
Our next question is, are you willing to share
some of the character creations? There were such
charismatic protagonists in this story. Yeah,
Genevra, the main protagonist, was definitely
the first character that came to me and she was
sort of born out of researching the setting.
I was excited about the idea of this medieval
gem lore that I had come across while researching
a paper on the uses of coral in the Middle Ages.
So I began imagining the sort of healers that
might have done this type of work. I thought
of Genevra and that also was how I came to the
Black Plague as it seemed like a very dramatic
moment for somebody. to test their healing skills.
In the story, she's been marked by the evil eye.
So the evil eye really feeds off of jealousy
and anger and quick tempers and things like this,
you know, traditional folklore. So I knew that
I wanted those to be personality traits that
she struggled with. And that was kind of the
initial thoughts for her. And then as you write
and you explore and see what different scenarios
people are in, you think about how they might
react. The person gets further developed from
there. Her friend Lucia, I wanted sort of a foil
to Genevra. So Genevra grows up very poor and
having to know how to take care of herself in
different situations. And Lucia, while of equal
intelligence, has never, when Genevra meets her,
has never really had an opportunity to stretch
that intelligence and see what she's capable
of. I enjoyed playing with their conversations
and their different approaches to problem solving.
Then the last character I can think of the Inquisitor.
I just loved that, you know, Monty Python's,
nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition and the
Inquisitor is just always the most evil character.
So I thought it would be fun to play with. How's
the Inquisitor really feeling? Like, is he really
just this blank slate of evil? This archetype
is probably rightly portrayed in so many other
tales. So I just wanted to depart from that a
little bit. And then a lot of the other characters.
My book is full of fun people, but we're inspired
by actual historical figures. Actually, and the
Inquisitor from Michele, I don't know about the
actual man, but the name is the real person who
held that role during the Black Plague. Same
with the bishop, although he's a bit fictionalized.
Fra Simone Fidatti, who has kind of a minor role
in the story. He is the patron of Santa Elisabetta
della Convertite, the convent Ginevra stays at
when she first comes to Florence. And he was
a real figure who really did struggle with what
the relationship between the natural sciences
and religion should be. That was based off of
his writings and his biography. Those are how
I came to have a few of those characters. That
sets us up perfectly for the next question is,
what is your relationship or perspective to magic,
the invisible life, or metaphysics? Yes, I like
this question. So it's not something that I would
say I'm an active practitioner of or something
I rely on to make big decisions. So I'm not super
into astrology or contemporary witchcraft or
anything, though I do think it's all very fascinating.
But I would say I'm fully receptive to the idea
that there are realms and planes of the universe
that we know nothing about. When I'm asked this
question, I kind of use the analogy, you know,
we didn't know that germs existed until very
recently in human history, yet they're all over
us and inside of us and everywhere, every moment.
What other discoveries that significant are waiting
to be made? I remain with an open mind. Did you
have challenges in the story arc as far as their
personal experience? Yeah, definitely. So I think
coming at this as a historian and someone without
a creative writing background, but with an academic
background, it was hard at first for me to let
myself depart from reality. So I spent a ton
of time researching. calendars and historic events
and I didn't want anything that actually happened
to be incorrect or out of sync and then eventually
when I got further along I realized this is a
novel and no one cares about that anyway and
there were places where I was bending the plot
to like fit a particular historical reality that
was not central to the story so one example that
I think I pointed out in my author's note there
was a certain astrological prediction put out
by scholars at the University of Paris that explained
where the plague came from. The time that this
announcement it made, the time it would have
taken to travel and be common knowledge in Italy
didn't line up with my plot. And I was, why don't
I just move up the date of this? And that's why
author's notes are a novelist's best friend these
days. Cause you can explain yourself that you
were not making a mistake, but departing on purpose.
So just, I think giving myself permission to
use history as a jumping off point to to inspire
an exciting story and many, many of the details
I have. I did try to create a portrait that was
true to the time, but just knowing that it made
sense to depart for the story I could. The arc
of the villain actually changed quite a bit.
Once I was working with my agent and editor,
I originally had a much more subtle and complicated
crime that I still think is neat, but I got feedback
that basically it wasn't, just didn't have the
stakes and the tension to keep the story moving.
And this is part, again, as somebody who's new
to the art of creative writing, there's a real
craft to having a story that effectively moves
forward. I was really grateful to get good feedback
from people on how to adjust my initial thoughts
to be better about that. That simple comment
meant three months of rewrites, so it's a big
task. What was your writing routine for this
project? I didn't really have one because for
the majority of it, I was working full time,
right? Which is how we know each other. And it
was a really demanding job with a lot of screen
time. At the end of the day, I just didn't have
it in me to sit down. So at the keyboard. So
there's many years of just kind of thinking about
stuff in my head, like almost to the point of
having some scenes fully blocked out and kind
of memorized. Cause I was thinking about them
so much, but not having the bandwidth or the
gumption to actually put it. on the page I mentioned
earlier, there's that trip to Italy we took.
So that was, I took a step back from a job, which
was the sort of job I thought was a dream job.
But the reality of the day -to -day is it just
didn't leave me much bandwidth for the rest of
my life. So I started working freelance and doing,
you know, jewelry appraisals and things like
that, and working on contract. So once I had
more time in my day, then my ideal routine is
I would wake up and I find that I'm most creative
in the morning. whatever I kind of put my brain
to first during the day is getting the best parts
of me. So I would try to write for an hour or
two in the morning, try and get stuff down and
then you know you're online so you end up wasting
as much time as possible on the internet until
you've gone to the very farthest corners of the
internet and there's nothing else you could possibly
read and then you open up your Word document
again and get back to writing. So I kind of just
did that you know weekends, mornings as I was
able to and I also had a writing group. I took
one night school class on writing and made some
friends in it and we formed our little group.
So I would get these rough pages out, submit
it to my group, get their feedback, and then
go back and polish it based on the notes I had
from them. Now I'm working on my second book
and I'm trying to have like a proper routine,
but it was kind of chaotic at first. Here's the
question that has the juice to it. How did you
challenge the age -old dismissal of female authority
before writing this? I think that growing up,
my parents didn't really make me feel like I
was limited because I was a girl, even though
maybe it was was happening and I just, you know,
people are treating you some way and you don't
realize why they're treating you that way. And
then I also, I just coincidentally, a lot of
my bosses have been women that were also dealing
with this. So I had a lot of good role models
gets to somebody's detriment or it's their loss
if they're not going to to take advantage of
what I'm capable of. You know, we would see,
I just work with people who just assumed I didn't
know what I was talking about in the Diamond
District when really I came with a lot of background
from working in a gem lab, from studying art
history. And I would just let them think that
until there's an opportunity to prove them wrong.
Because if someone underestimates you, that's
when, you know, in the Diamond District, it's
all about like wheeling and dealing. So that's
when they are a little bit more casual about
the information they might share around you or
things like. this I remember specifically one
time I was taking a for a job I had I had to
learn about watches right which is a whole separate
discipline from jewelry but this particular role
necessitated I understood watches a bit better
so I signed up just an intro watch movement making
class and I showed up and I was the only woman
in the class another guy there asked like oh
are you his wife because I'd happened to walk
through the door at the same time as another
guy no and and I proceeded to kick of their butts
at putting together my watch movement because
I had... bench jewelry skills. Anyway, so that
was a very obvious and triumphant moment. These
men challenging her because of her lack of inclusion
societally or her exposure to certain academia
or guild and yet was such the expert on what
she was doing. I think that's why it became so
emotional when I'm going through the resolutions.
That was probably the most fun of the read. I
definitely feel lucky. Like I think I came Not
that things are great right now and of course
right now everything's up in the air about which
direction they'll go for women but I think at
the moment I was coming up in my career I was
standing on the shoulders of my grandmothers
and mother and women who had done the real work
so what I was facing was a lot more subtle and
insidious and if I just chose not to accept that
people were putting me in the box they couldn't
really say anything. because you show up and
you do the work. Who is your ideal reader, especially
now that you're going into your second project?
So I don't think my stories fit into a specific
prescribed genre. They have elements of a lot
of different genres. And so I think my ideal
reader is somebody who's open to that and curious
and isn't going to... become frustrated with
the story if it doesn't take them the direction
or tell them the story in the manner that they
expect to be told. Somebody who's ready for something
new, I'm not trying to say I'm like a maverick.
So let me put it this way, I've seen my book
shelved in fantasy, in mystery, in science fiction.
in just regular general fiction at different
bookstores. I've seen people coming to it expecting
it to be a romance. So I think, yeah, just being
open. And then also somebody who likes dark humor.
A curiosity of history. I realized I think I
like taking time periods that we have been assigned
a certain tone in our own time and maybe giving
them a little bit of a different tone than expected.
If you don't have this creative writing training,
but you are a seasoned storyteller, how did you
manage how much you wanted to share? I mean,
I think I did overshare because the manuscript
that I sent out to agents was like 130 ,000 words
long, which is not unheard of for like epic fantasy,
but pretty thick for the genres right again.
And that's where again, I needed those editors
to tell me like, wow, this is a fun adventure
into like construction and 14th century Florence,
but it is more than is needed to set the scene.
and you're just taking a reader on this ride.
So I am endlessly inspired by these odd historical
facts, and I have the impulse to get them all
on the page. We all need editors, so you really
need help from readers at that point to say,
like, this was interesting. You lost me a little
bit here. I think also there's moments where
you're really inspired to write a scene, but...
have trouble I think very visually like I can
almost imagine like if I was a I say this never
having made a film in my life but I imagine you
know if you're a director or cinematographer
and you're setting up the scene I kind of see
it that way and then when I go to put it on the
paper I just can't translate the grandeur that's
in my head into words right away so at that point
I start with the blocking and just write the
skeleton of it of what happens she's here he's
there they need to say something along these
lines to each other, and you have to work on
it for weeks and months to get what's in your
head onto the page. In terms of writer's block,
since I was laboring in obscurity, I would just
take a long ass break, like weeks or months,
to think about it and do other stuff and not
work on it until inspiration struck again or
I missed working on it and I got back to it.
I don't have that luxury now, so there's a lot
more of just plowing ahead, writing. like a really
crappy version of what you want the story to
be. And then having faith that when I go back
later, I'll be able to whip it up into something.
Magic it. Oh, and exciting. Yes. Bring in the
magic. What is the best lesson from your learning
curve of getting published? From the getting
published portion, I think. So to be traditionally
published, meaning You know, you're with a big
five publishing house and not an independent
publisher or self published. There's a number
of hurdles and you kind of think like, okay,
once I've got over this big hurdle, I've made
it. And then you realize, no, there's just another
one. So, you know, getting an agent is a huge
first step, but then you still have the agent
still has to sell the book. And then you say,
okay, I sold it. And then there's a mountain
of edits and marketing. And the marketing was
probably the biggest curve or the biggest surprise
for me in terms of the amount of effort that
is pretty much standard for authors these days,
you know, unless you're already an established
huge hit. and even if you are sometimes, but
there are so many amazing books that are published
every day. And it is the amount of work that
goes into just making sure interested readers
are even aware that your book exists is huge.
So, you know, I was lucky being at a HarperCollins
imprint. There's like a whole team of people
that are professionals and experts in this. But
you know, in addition to that, you have to do
as much as you can to magnify their efforts.
So, you know, reaching out to your personal network,
getting into social media, of course, is a big
thing. So I think just being prepared to participate
in that. Some authors opt out of it, which I
totally respect. It's not easy and it can feel
kind of invasive, but if you can handle it, you
see the benefits coming back in terms of awareness
of your work. So that was probably for me, like
the biggest facet of this that I was unaware
of before getting into it. As we come to a close,
the last question is for you to put on your mentor
hat and share any words of wisdom for the next
generation of historical fiction authors. Right
now, my mentor hat is an old ass beanie because
it is freezing in Brooklyn today. For historical
fiction authors specifically, I would say, you
know, you have your time period you're passionate
about. So just spend as much time in that time
period as possible exploring the things that
excite you, you know, whether that's reading
and researching, or even like, I don't know,
doing cosplay or whatever your jam is, get into
it, and then keep a note of any odd fact or experience
or something, anything you think is surprising
or interesting or funny. Eventually you'll have
enough of these and you'll realize that they
can, some of them, of course, not everything
you find, they can go together and become an
interesting story and an interesting plot that
is specific to your place and time. so that your
story could only have happened in that place
and in that time. And I think that's what separates
great historical fiction from a fun story that
happens to be in whatever time period. Please
share with your loyal audience as well as future
readers to be discovered. What's next for you?
I'm working on another historical fiction now
that is, it's called The Midnight Diamond. It's
also forthcoming from Park Rope, probably sometime
in 2026. And it follows a cursed diamond through
100 years of New York City history. So beginning
in the Gilded Age and up through the contemporary
Diamond District. And it's inspired by the curse
of the Hope Diamond, the legend of the Hope Diamond
and it's a sister stone that may or may not exist
and may still be out there in the world somewhere.
On behalf of my listeners and your readers, we
wish you nothing but success for not just this
project, but your up and coming one. And I will
drop links as far as where we can find out about
you and anything you're up to in the future.
Thanks again. Thanks so much for having me. Thank
you for listening and learning with me. I would
love you to share this project with people finding
rare beauty in today's world and throughout our
times. Until the next episode, keep your own
story sparkling.