Community, Friendship and the Enriching Power of the Arts in Two Novels by Alyson Richman

Join me as I chat with Alyson Richman, author of 9 novels listed on Art In Fiction, including The Time Keepers listed in the Other category and The Thread Collectors listed in the Textile Arts category.

View the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/vrYzy7mORwc

• Why Alyson likes to write novels inspired by the arts and the role the arts have played in her life
• How her novels answer questions such as "Can the creative spirit be extinguished in very difficult and dark times?" and "Can creativity be a form of resistance?"
• Genesis of The Time Keepers
• The use of watchmaking in The Time Keepers as a metaphor for how we process time, particularly after suffering trauma
• Research into watchmaking
• Why she decided to set her novel during the Vietnam war
• Parallels between events in the novel and current events
• Researching The Time Keepers, particularly talking with people who experienced the Vietnam war
• Prediction that more novels will be written around the Vietnam war now that it's 50 years in the past
• The theme of friendship in The Time Keepers
• Reading from The Time Keepers
• Collaborating with Shaunna J. Edwards to write The Thread Collectors
• The role Alyson's and Shaunna's ancestors played in creating characters for The Thread Collectors
• Parallels between the Civil War setting for The Thread Collectors and civil unrest and racism in our time
• Repurposing cloth and thread in the Black community as inspiration for The Thread Collectors
• One thing Alyson learned from writing this novel that she didn't know before
• Alyson's next novel, coming in October 2025.

Press Play now & be sure to check out all Alyson's novels on Art In Fiction: https://www.artinfiction.com/novels?q=alyson+richman

Alyson Richman's website: https://www.alysonrichman.com

Music Credit
Paganology, performed by The Paul Plimley Trio; composed by Gregg Simpson

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Transcript

Carol Cram

Hello and welcome. I'm Carol Cram, host of The Art in Fiction Podcast. This episode features Alyson Richman, author of 11 novels, all of which relate in some way to the arts with several listed on Art in Fiction. In this episode, we'll be speaking about The Thread Collectors, co-written with Shauna J. Edwards and listed in the Textile Arts category, and Alyson’s newest novel, The Time Keepers, listed in the Other category on Art Fiction at www.artinfiction.com. 

Alyson Richman graduated from Wellesley College with a degree in Art History and Japanese Studies. She is an accomplished painter, and her novels combine her deep love of art, historical research, and travel. Alyson’s novels have been published in 25 languages and have reached the bestseller lists both in the United States and abroad. She lives on Long Island with her husband and two children.

Welcome to The Art In Fiction Podcast, Alyson.

Alyson Richman

Thank you so much for having me.

Carol Cram

It's my pleasure. You and I have a lot in common. Each of your 11 novels has something to do with the arts, and all my novels also are inspired by the arts.

I've got your novels listed in a whole bunch of categories on Art In Fiction: visual arts, decorative arts, dance, textile arts, the list goes on. I'm in awe, actually, of how prolific you have been and how wonderful your novels are. Today we're going to talk mostly about your two latest novels, The Time Keepers and The Thread Collectors.

But first, I want to ask why the arts is your go-to subject for your stories. 

Alyson Richman

That's a wonderful question. So, I'm the daughter of an abstract artist and an electrical engineer. I always say that the electrical engineer with my father really taught me to be intellectually curious and to understand how something works. You need to be able to take apart all the intricate pieces and put them back together, to see how everything works as a whole. 

But my mother, the artist, really taught me to appreciate the world through an artistic lens. From the time I was probably five years old, my mother would really encourage me to appreciate my surroundings and see how the world around me had color and texture and how everything changed with the seasons.

She would take me to museums, and she would tell me to look up at a painting close to see the brushwork, but then to take a few steps away and to see how it changed. And particularly with sculpture, she taught me to look all around the sculpture, from every angle, even like kind of peering upside down to see how something new was revealed with every angle.

So, for me, that way of looking and seeing and observing, I try and put into my writing, to change perspective, to look at things from unique and different points of view, multiple perspectives. And then, I also love for my novels to use very sensory rich language where you can feel the color, the texture, even the negative and positive space, of how my character is sort of going through, I don't want to say history, but history unfolding. That there are things that are articulated in observations and things that you have to put your lens as the reader on. But that's like a natural play for me because, I think, from my artistic background. And then as far as choosing subjects that are art-related, you mentioned, I have a painter, I have an actor, I have a dancer. I have someone who does the textile arts. For me, it's extremely interesting to see how an artistic person experiences dramatic periods of history, how they unfold against that historical landscape. 

This question, can the creative spirit be extinguished in very difficult and dark times? Or does an artist still find the means to create? Does creativity… is that a form of resistance? All these things for me, I'm really passionate about bringing into my novels. 

Carol Cram

Oh, I love that about using the artistic sensibility as against the times and what's going on. Yes, because both of your novels do that, and I imagine the other ones do, too. 

Alyson Richman

I think in almost every single one you'll find someone who is creative or has a creative passion and how that either gives them sustenance, emotional sustenance, or helps heal them from their trauma. There's always something that that art does for them that I think is very important.

Carol Cram

Yes, I see that, at least in the two that I have read, and that's a wonderful way of using the arts in novels. So, let's talk a little bit about your newest novel, The Time Keepers. Tell us about the genesis of that novel. 

Alyson Richman 

The Time Keepers’ genesis came in little increments, actually. Often when I have a seed for a novel, it's not quite enough to be a novel. So, I always sort of shelve it in the back of my mind thinking, well, that's very interesting, I wonder if I can use that at a later date. It's almost like I have a Rolodex in my mind. 

So, I had learned that there was a community not far from where I live on Long Island that sponsored several South Vietnamese families. They were called boat people who tried to flee Vietnam right after the fall of Vietnam and the Vietnam War on these makeshift boats, trying to find safety in America.

Most of these South Vietnamese families had a connection to the American allies that caused them great suffering once the new regime was in place. And many of them were Catholic, and so there was an initiative, particularly on Long Island, to bring some of these South Vietnamese refugees who were trying to escape peril to America for a new life.

And I had heard that there was this community on Long Island that had sponsored several families, and that there was a particularly moving story about a young boy who came over after a very dramatic escape and how he came into the fold of this Irish immigrant who had had her own trauma in her past.

This is all true, even though you do find it in the story. And I was very inspired by this beautiful relationship between two people who were not born American, but who found friendship and who found community together and that sense of healing. 

So, it was just, like, in the back of my head. And then I heard, a story about a Vietnam veteran who had lived above—in the original story it was a pizzeria— sort of not letting his family know where he was, wounded and traumatized from the past, and how he comes into the fold, into a community.

And I started to think, well, wouldn't it be interesting to do a novel that explores the aftermath of the Vietnam War and the trauma against the backdrop of a small suburban Long Island community.

And the way I talked about how looking at sculpture from each different point of view to sort of have a spherical way of looking to understand something completely, wouldn't it be very interesting to look at it from the perspective of a Vietnamese refugee who had their own trauma in Vietnam and also a Vietnam veteran who had his particular trauma and could these characters overlap also with this Irish immigrant?

And that's where this idea of the watch store in The Time Keepers, which is really, I believe, sort of an artistic endeavor, this sense of working with watches, trying to metaphorically push the hands of time forward that this watch store that all the characters overlap in and it becomes this sort of beating heart of the novel of community and healing.

Carol Cram

That's what I really enjoyed, is how you tied the watchmaking, which is the arts tie-in in this novel, with organizing all of these characters and then winding in and out with each other. So, watchmaking was a really interesting metaphor for this novel. 

Alyson Richman

Yes, I think it’s a powerful metaphor because what I started to realize is when we've had trauma in our lives, how we process time, that for people who've had great suffering, when they reflect on that suffering, or when it inhabits their body, it's their experiencing in real time in the present.

And even their way of speech changes; they start speaking in the present as if the trauma has never left them. So, by using this metaphor of the watch store, of making time move forward, making sure the watch moves correctly, it's this sense of trying to draw the characters out of living in their trauma in real time and into propelling them to think about the future.

Carol Cram

Yeah, it really is wonderful the way you did that. What kind of research did you do to learn about watchmaking? 

Alyson Richman

Yeah, well, there is this store a few towns over from me that actually was the prototype for the Golden Hours in my novel. It repairs watches and timepieces, but it also has all these different clocks from different time periods, whether it's a grandfather clock, a Mora clock from Sweden or a mantle clock.

And when you go in, there are chimes, and on the glass cases, there are different pocket watches and wrist watches. And so, I use that, I think, as the point of inspiration for creating the Golden Hours. 

Carol Cram

That's wonderful. So, did you get to actually go and talk to the people that ran the store?  

Alyson Richman

I did, which was wonderful. I mean, I don't think I could have written the book without some guidance because it really is such an artisan craft or vocation, there's so much that goes into it. Not just the mechanics, but the sensitivity towards these time pieces, and the patience that's involved.

Carol Cram 

And also the beauty of the timepieces because you brought that in at various points in the novel. How Jack gets quite captivated by the beauty of what he's working with. 

Alyson Richman 

Yes. The beauty. And I think there's this rhythm to hearing the minutes pass that is that cadence that is very soothing when you're suffering, to be able to get lost in that rhythm.

Carol Cram 

Yes, I haven't read that many novels set during the Vietnam War. I think there's going to be more and more of them coming out now because it's like 50 years ago. So, I found that very interesting because I didn't know much about it. So, you chose the Vietnam War because you found these stories.

Alyson Richman 

Yes, I did. Every novel, I try and push myself to learn about something that I didn't know before. Having done two or three World War Two books, I didn't want to stay in that particular time period. I mean, I've written books that take place in Meiji period Japan and the Pinochet regime in South America. We'll be talking about The Thread Collectors, which is a Civil War novel. So, I really was excited to write about the Vietnam War because I was too young to have been alive when everything was unfolding in America with all the protests and all the newspaper headlines about the war.

I didn't have it in my high school education or in my college education. So, I really needed to learn about this particular period in history, which I love learning something new because I feel even if the book flops, I've learned something while I was doing it.

And then another thing that was really wonderful about researching this novel is that there were people alive who could share their stories, whether I was meeting with a woman, Maureen Connelly, who is an Irish immigrant from the west coast of Ireland, who has this dramatic story attached to her sister, or meeting several Vietnamese refugees who came over on these makeshift boats and how they escaped and what perils they experienced, to the several Vietnam veterans who really also had never shared their stories, even with their family members, because they came back home to all of this political unrest where there was so much shame attached to the Vietnam War, even though they were just young men serving their country who were used as political pawns for what the government's agenda was. They had never unburdened themselves of the pain that they had sort of buried inside.

So that was extremely moving. And you can't get that with every book. You write a Civil War book, you're not speaking with people who survived the Civil War. So, real life people who share their oral histories with you, it's a phenomenal resource. 

Carol Cram 

Well, I was around during that time. So, I actually do remember the Vietnam War. I was a teenager during the Vietnam War. Well, a young person and then a teenager. So, I really enjoyed it because I remember the boat people. I remember the Vietnam War. I'm Canadian, but I have a lot of friends who were draft dodgers that came up during the war. So, I found it really interesting to have my own recollections of history seen through the lens of these poor guys that went and served their country and then were just forgotten.

I think there's going to be a lot more stories coming out over the next decades.

Alyson Richman

I really hope so. I had a lot of difficulty publishing this book because a lot of publishing houses didn't think that anyone would want to read about the Vietnam War. They felt it wasn't something, they'd had so much success with World War II, they really didn't believe that they could have something like the Vietnam War be a success.

But I think Kristen Hannah really changed that. She broke the ceiling down for that. She showed that people are interested in learning about something they don't know about, and about a period of history that, as I said, comes with a lot of darkness and shame, undeserved shame, but just in general of how people treated the soldiers when they came home.

So, I think now they're probably clamoring to fill the void because two years ago they were saying, no, no, no, no. So, now I do think you're going to see it, but there's probably a little bit of a delay. Alice German wrote Absolution, Kristen Hannah wrote The Women. Hopefully, you'll be seeing some more, and everyone will take a different angle, hopefully.

Carol Cram

Well, I really do think that the fifties and the sixties are the decades that are now starting to get more and more popular. I think we've done with the war for a while. 

Alyson Richman

I think what happens after 50 years and we're approaching the 50th year anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, it becomes like history. Before that, people don't even think of it as being history. But when I was writing The Lost Wife, which was a Holocaust novel, also was 50 years after that happened. So, there's something that shifts, I think, where people start thinking, okay, there's enough perspective now and enough time has passed that we can look at this objectively.

Carol Cram

Well, at the Historical Novel Society, fifty years is the cutoff. So, 1974. Anything prior to 1974 is now history. So, I'm going to have to start writing about my childhood and my teen years.

Alyson Richman 

That's interesting. I'm glad there are guidelines. Okay. Thanks. 

Carol Cram

Yeah, apparently that's what they say anyway.

And on that note, I found The Time Keepers so timely. I mean, yes, it was set 40, 50 years ago, but there were so many parallels between what's happening in the world right now. Were you aware of that as you were writing the novel? 

Alyson Richman

That's a great question. Yes, I definitely think so, particularly with themes of migration and immigrants and those things feel very, very timely and they did when I was writing it. Also, I return to this word community, because I feel that while I was writing it, I wanted to emphasize this sense of how I felt community in my childhood in the late ‘70s. So, we've almost come away from that. And I really wanted to pull back to it because we do live in a time where it's very divisive, which side you're on. And it wasn't necessarily like that.

In my town where I grew up, of course, there were always some things that people are planting their pole in one direction or not, but the divisiveness of the Vietnam War and these boys who really came most of the time from families where their fathers served in World War II, where they were heroes, where they felt that they were serving their country, and then coming home when there's all this political protesting that I think we've seen a lot sweeping through the United States and other countries in the past two years.

Yeah, it feels very timely. 

Carol Cram 

It certainly did, particularly the whole immigration thread, just what these people went through. 

The novel touches on so many themes, but let's talk about friendship, and you just mentioned community, and there's so many threads of friendship in this novel -  you've got between Grace and Anh, Bao and Molly, even Jack and the dog, Hendrix.

I like Hendrix. So, how is this novel a story about friendship? 

Alyson Richman

Well, I love creating novels where you have all these characters who come from different backgrounds, different ages, different experiences, and somehow, they overlap and find this unexpected friendship and that it bolsters them, and they learn from each other.

That's something that I find tremendously gratifying when I'm writing. And so, I love this idea of showing how there's certain forces that be that make us sort of overlap with people. We don't know why Grace was coming down that street when she stumbles on Bao and we don't know why Tom is sitting in the garden when he meets Jack, or all of these different things that have to happen for these characters to meet. 

To me, I find that very life-affirming that we don't know who comes into our life, but they always have some sort of positive reasons. So that's where this unexpected friendship comes, that you have these characters coming from all places in the world, three different parts, and eventually, their paths will overlap. And not only do they find healing and friendship, but the community becomes richer with their presence.

Carol Cram

It’s kind of like, yes, be open to whoever you're going to meet because you never know what wonderful things are going to happen. That's sort of almost a subtheme in a way. 

So, would you like to do a reading from The Time Keepers?

Alyson Richman

Oh, sure. Absolutely.

Soon Bao was riding nearly everywhere on his new bike. He had never experienced such a smooth ride, with the firm black tires rolling beneath him. He rode down to the beach club and met Molly for a game of shuffleboard. He accepted Sister Mary's invitation to have a small basket put on the handlebars, and he began doing errands for the motherhouse in exchange for pocket money, saving every nickel and dime that he earned, except for the occasional pack of gum. 

But the best news was when Anh told him about the possibility of working a few hours each week at the Golden Hours.“Grace says you can help wind the clocks, and maybe also clean the tools and put them back in the drawers.” She went over and tousled Bao's hair. “Jack said he'd be happy to show you how all the time pieces work.”

Bao's shoulders straightened. “I'll work hard.”

“Yes, you will,” Anh agreed. 

“And I'll learn to fix watches, just like Dad fixed radios.”

Anh looked at Bao’s expression. Joy glinted in his eyes. Her nephew never once mentioned the wounds on Jack's face. He only saw the possibility of learning something new from a person willing to share. 

Bao loved having the wind on his back, his bottom lifting off the leather seat, as he perched with his weight forward, coasting down the winding hills toward the center of town. It was a 30-minute ride to the store, but he never felt tired.

When he arrived that first afternoon, Tom had just left for home, and Jack was hunched over his latest repair. He took off his magnifying visor. Beside him, Hendrix got to his feet and trotted over to greet the newest visitor. 

“Hey, welcome,” Jack said, over the hum of his cassette tape. He quickly lowered the volume.

Fleetwood Mac’s Landside faded into the background. “I'm glad you're up to helping us out here.”

Bao smiled and bent down to rub Hendrix's fur. “I want to learn,” he said as his eyes scanned the workshop. 

“Do you remember how to wind the clocks like Molly showed you?” Jack pointed to the doorway that led to the showroom. “Why don't you start in there? That's where Tom started me off before I learned the bigger stuff.”

“Okay,” Bao answered. “I start here.” He gave Hendrix one last pat and then stepped into the next room, where he was greeted by the sound of a dozen minute hands ticking in perfect synchronicity. 

Carol Cram

Wow, and of course we find out that Bao's father used to fix things, right?

Alyson Richman

Right, exactly. He fixed radios for the American allies and that was their connection. 

Carol Cram

Yes, so that's wonderful how then it comes on to Bao. 

Alyson Richman

Yes, the tinkering, the sense that there's certain people who love to work with their hands and fix things. 

Carol Cram

Yeah, and I really love how you worked all of that into this novel that is so compelling, because we really get invested in those characters like Grace and Ahn, and especially Jack.

Well, all of them, actually. Yeah. I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

Alyson Richman 

Thank you. 

Carol Cram

You're welcome. So, let's talk about The Thread Collectors, which I believe is your 10th novel, is that true?

Alyson Richman

I think, if you count all my collaborations, it's probably, yeah, I think my 10th. Yes. 

Carol Cram

Speaking of collaborations, you co-wrote this novel with Shaunna Edwards. So, tell us about how that novel came to be. 

Alyson Richman

Well, I had been dreaming of writing a Civil War novel for some time. I had a personal connection to the Civil War. Growing up, my grandmother, who loved to tell stories, shared with me that her family had come over and emigrated from Germany in the 1830s.

And when the Civil War broke out, allegedly, according to my grandmother, I had two great-great-great uncles who fought on opposite sides of the Civil War. Well, I'm Jewish, so to have Jewish soldiers in your family in the Civil War is kind of unique because at that time, the Jewish population was half a percent in the United States, so it was very, very small. 

But then when you think of these two brothers who fought on opposite sides, who are children of immigrants themselves, that they could take opposing sides on slavery, to me, again, was like the first seed of a novel that I thought would be very interesting to explore. 

And then around 2018, I watched a documentary on PBS called Death in the Civil War that really went into a lot of detail of the impact of Black soldiers in the Union Army and how many of them risked their lives to enlist, to fight.

But instead of being given muskets to fight, they were given pickaxes and hoes and forced to do all sorts of menial work like digging latrines and trenches and also burying the Civil War dead. The documentary also talked about how, because the dead had to be buried so quickly before the battalions moved on to the next fight, often fellow compatriots would sketch out where their fallen brothers had been buried quickly on back of envelopes and their diaries and scraps of paper, hoping that at the end of the war, they could share that with the family of the fallen soldier and somehow find a way to repatriate the remains back to the family plots. 

So, I instantly envisioned this—wouldn’t it be interesting to have the two brothers’ story, but have the one who fights on the Union Army, maybe for him to have an unexpected friendship with a Black soldier who inevitably buries him and has a map that somehow gets back to his beloved? That was my original idea. That's not what happens in The Thread Collectors, but that was my original idea. 

And Shaunna Edwards and I have been friends for over 15 years and at that time it was probably a decade, and she was always that friend that I shared my ideas with.

We met, actually, in Las Vegas at a lawyer conference because I'm married to a lawyer. She was a practicing lawyer at that time. And from the moment we met, we were talking books. She was a literature major at Harvard. She always dreamt of writing a novel. So, when I told her my original idea, I mean, she is African American and her original reaction was, well, that's a really interesting idea, but you have to remember that a Black soldier would probably not have been able to read or write.

It would have been illegal to have taught him that, so if he's going to make a map, it just has to be rudimentarily sketched out. And then she said, I actually think it'd be interesting if somehow the map got to his beloved and maybe she embroidered it onto something to make it less fragile, and make it so that it was something that could become like an artifact that could be then transported up north eventually after the war.

So that was her original input. I ended up not writing the novel for several years because I felt I wasn't ready to write it. I ended up writing a novel called The Secret of Clouds. But when I returned to the idea in 2020 when COVID hit, and again the world seemed to feel like it was parallel to many of the themes of the Civil War with this divisiveness and all this tension that was happening with the brutal murder of George Floyd and the rise of social activism at that time, I started to think, well, the novel really didn't seem like it was wholly my own anymore, because she had contributed so many interesting ideas into it. And so, I reached out and I said, Shaunna, you've always wanted to write a book. Do you have any interest in maybe collaborating on this with me?

And at first, she was very hesitant. She didn't know if she could, but I was, like, let's try and write 40 pages together. Let's see if we can do that. And we did and we found a way to write together. As you've probably felt when you read The Thread Collectors, it is one seamless voice. We didn't take turns writing one chapter and the other person taking the next.

We would plot out the ideas of the book together. I would take a first pass of sort of writing the first descriptive passages, and then she would go in and embroider into that. She would add dialogue. She would add all sorts of things to make it more nuanced. And then we'd work slowly at a time building another 20 pages, another 20 pages until we got to the end.

Carol Cram

What a wonderful process. 

Alyson Richman

Yeah, it was so nice to be collaborating and working on something and creating art together, really creating a work of art, as a novel. And also, as I mentioned before, we were experiencing history ourselves at that time, living in an unknown world, and having a creative endeavor that gave us sustenance, and then writing about something similar as well, where we have people creating music, writing, creating embroidered maps, all against the backdrop of the Civil War. 

Carol Cram

Yes, because just like in The Time Keepers, there's a lot of parallels. I think even more with The Thread Collectors, with what's happening in the world now. 

So, it's interesting because you were well aware of that as you were writing it.

Alyson Richman

How could you not? How could you not be?

Carol Cram 

Well, unfortunately, racism and intolerance are still very much with us. But on a positive note, one of the things I loved about the novel is the women's work, sewing and embroidery, that is at the heart of the novel. Because sewing and embroidery—women's work—has been traditionally undervalued, hasn't it?

Alyson Richman

It has. And yet, it's really incredible work that's done often with very little resources. I mean, we have our character in The Thread Collectors, Stella, really repurposing every scrap of thread she can harvest in her home, even from her clothes, her hemline, pulling threads from a vest of someone that we won't talk about, but every little thing in order to create, how do we get the materials during times where they're scarce? And make something into it that not only has a sense of purpose, but also is creatively beautiful and gives us a feeling that we are contributing into something with our and in our hearts.

Carol Cram

Yes, exactly. And I thought that was very clever how they got the thread. I presume that's based in fact, that that's how people would get thread if they didn't have it. They would unravel existing things. 

Alyson Richman

Exactly. 

Carol Cram

Never occurred to me. 

Alyson Richman

Yes, I mean, Shaunna really opened my eyes about how repurposing cloth and material and threads in the African American community has always happened. With quilting, they would always save dresses that were falling apart, any bit of material, to make quilts that kept them warm, but also had this history.

If you were to go to her house, she has a frame in her bathroom in front of where she puts her makeup on every day that has a piece of material that had been a quilt, but now it's just a portion of the quilt framed. That was her great- great-grandmother's field dress, her grandmother's church dress, her mother's dress, and her and her two sisters each have a fragment of that framed in their homes.

Carol Cram

Wow. So, Shaunna's ancestors are also one of the inspirations for the novel. 

Alyson Richman

Yes, her characters of Amani and Janie, those are even family names that she used. I did learn that one of the brothers was a musician in the Union Army in the 31st Regiment of New York.

And so, I wanted to make sure that I honored that. And that's how you have Jacob being a musician. And we decided to make William a musician because we did want to show how music is another language that helps bond people from different backgrounds. It's like the connective tissue between these two men. How music can be a thread that connects us.

And the part in the book about the other uncle who lives in Satartia, Mississippi and has this mercantile emporium. That's all based on fact too. That's where my other uncle went into Satartia, Mississippi. The house is still called the Kling House. It was used as a hospital during the Battle of Vicksburg when General Grant took it over.

So, there's still a lot of history connected into that town and that house that we were able to use as resources when we're writing the scenes in the novel. 

Carol Cram

Oh, it really worked very, very well. I've so enjoyed how everything all worked together in this novel. 

Alyson Richman

Thank you. 

Carol Cram

One of my goals with The Art In Fiction podcast is to inspire other authors. So, what's one thing you've learned from writing all your novels that you didn't know before you started? 

Alyson Richman

Hmm, I think one thing that I didn't realize was that in the very beginning it seems really overwhelming to write a novel. You think “how am I going to write 350 pages of a story?”. But I don't think you should think of it that way. I think you should think of it as little chapters or little mini canvases at a time that you can sort of sketch out and build and it becomes bigger and bigger, so to take it in sort of these micro increments and not be overwhelmed with the overall total number of pages, but just to feel, every week I'm going to write two pages and that's it. 

Eventually, you will come to the end of your story. And so, you just need to carve out an amount of time and an expectation that is manageable for you, but it doesn't become too overwhelming.

And I think then you'll accomplish your goal.

Carol Cram

Do you outline, or are you what they call a pantster? 

Alyson Richman

I don't outline because when I write, I like to sort of simulate the artistic experience of building, the way a painter does, brushstroke upon brushstroke, to build something out. I like to do sentence upon sentence and not know exactly what's going to happen, but there's a sort of a beautiful organic process that way that I think also leads me to unexpected discoveries along the way. If I outlined everything, I think it would feel a little bit more compartmentalized, that it was all scripted.

I know where I want to end. I usually have an idea of, like, what I want to say, and what the overall theme is but I don't know how I'm going to get there. 

Carol Cram

Yeah, that's very interesting. I think I usually know how I want to end. And I agree. I mean, I think the thing that we love the most, I know that I love the most, about writing is that building sentence by sentence.

That's why, who wants artificial intelligence? I mean, what's the point? That's all about the end product. It's the process that is so compelling, right? Sitting down and word after word. Yeah, I know. It's that process of discovery. It's pretty awesome. 

Alyson Richman

Yeah. 

Carol Cram

So, historical fiction relies on an incredible amount of research. So, what is some advice for authors on research methods? 

Alyson Richman 

Well, there's all different ways that you can do research, right? So, as I mentioned before, if you're writing about a historical time period where people actually are still alive who lived through it, I think first-person narratives are really essential to not only having a sense of history, but also emotional experience during that time. 

When people reflect back on what it was like, they add another dimension to the research. I love going into different places like the Library of Congress and looking at the photo archives from particular time periods I think when you look at visual artifacts from that time, you can also see so much of how people dress, their family situations, how they interact in certain snapshots like that. And then of course reading is essential, like reading as much nonfiction about the particular time period is really important as well. Film, all those things, things that are visual are always helpful. I like to take it from everywhere I possibly can because you never know where you're going to find some nugget that is really going to open something up in your book. 

Carol Cram

Do you actually research as you go, or do you research first and then write?

Alyson Richman

I do the heavy lifting with the research before I write. I feel like I've exhausted all the research before I write. I like to describe it that way. Then it's all sort of sewn into my skin and I can just work on the narrative. But inevitably there's always something you'll get to, a chapter, and you need something more and you need to do a little research to answer that particular problem that you've run across or the unknown that you didn't expect. 

But for the most part, I spend several months researching, could be six to eight months, before I write a single sentence. With my novel The Lost Wife, it was probably a year and a half of research before I started writing. And I also try and go to the countries that I'm writing back about. 

I did go to Vietnam for The Time Keepers. For The Thread Collectors, even though it was COVID, Shaunna and I did want to go to the Gullah Geechee Islands, which is where William's childhood took place. We wanted to go to Savannah and Charleston. She's from New Orleans. I got to visit New Orleans. For The Lost Wife, I went to Prague. I try and travel to all the places. 

Carol Cram

Yes, I read that your passions are travel and writing and the arts. 

Alyson Richman

Yes, absolutely. 

Carol Cram

We definitely have a lot in common. I know I love to travel. All my novels take place in exotic places that I want to go to. I was thinking I should set something on my island, but it's like, yeah, no, why would I do that? 

So, can you share what you're working on now?

Alyson Richman

Sure. Absolutely. Well, I have a novel that I just finished, called The Missing Pages, which will be published on October 14th in 2025.

And that is a novel about the book collector, Harry Elkins Widener, who was on the Titanic with his parents. He had gone to London to purchase some rare books, including one of Francis Bacon's essays that was so small—it was a 16th century edition of these essays—he could put it in his breast pocket.

And that's it. And the legend that is told at Harvard, because his mother survived the Titanic, he and his father perished, was that there was space in her lifeboat for him to get on. And he said, no, Mother, I have to go back to my cabin to retrieve one of my books. And he was never seen alive again. 

So, I write in The Missing Pages the real story of what happened on the Titanic, whether he did go back to claim this rare edition of Francis Bacon's essays, or was it something else?

But I tell the story of his ghost in his memorial library at Harvard. 

Carol Cram

Oh, wow. So, that's already done and it's coming out next year. 

Alyson Richman

Now I'm dreaming of another book, but I’m not sure. 

Carol Cram

So, you're between books right now. 

Alyson Richman

But I literally just finished The Missing Pages, turned it into my publisher about a week ago. So, it's very fresh off the press, my computer screen. 

Carol Cram

So, you’ve got a bit of time off and now you can start researching the next one. So, do you have a concept yet of the next one?

Alyson Richman

I'm thinking something with another library in the Berkshires that something happens and something with World War I in that particular library, but I'm not a hundred percent convinced.

Carol Cram

Well, so your new one will be in the Literature category on Art In Fiction. 

Alyson Richman

Oh yes, I hope so.

Carol Cram

You're covering just about all the categories, actually. I think you're the only author I have that has managed to do that. 

Alyson Richman

Well, that's wonderful, I hope I get a little crown. 

Carol Cram

Yeah, exactly. So, thank you so much for chatting with me today, Alyson. It's been just great. 

Alyson Richman

Oh, it was a pleasure. And thank you for your wonderful questions. They were so thoughtful and sensitive to the material. I appreciate it so much. And we have so much in common where we both love to write about art. So, thank you. 

Carol Cram

Yes, we do. Thanks. 

I've been speaking with Alyson Richman, author of 11 novels, including The Time Keepers, listed in the Other category on Art In Fiction and The Thread Collectors listed in the Textile Arts category on Art In Fiction at www.artinfiction.com. Be sure to check the show notes for a link to Alyson’s website at www.alysonrichman.com.

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