Welcome to May and to an interview with our Lantern of the Month, Kathryn Pritchett.

Kathryn lives a few miles away from me in the Oakland Hills, where she enjoys playing with her six grandchildren, knitting outlandish outerwear, and puttering in her (mostly) deer-resistant garden.

Kathryn and I met about seven years ago at a Historical Novel Society meeting in Northern California and developed our friendship with long chats while driving to other meetings. In 2019, we both helped create Paper Lantern Writers.

On a recent sunny spring afternoon in the Oakland Hills, I got to know Kathryn a little bit better.

And now you can too….

AB: Kathryn, it’s so nice to sit down to chat with you in person! This may be an odd way to start an interview with a writer, but I’ve always been impressed with how much you read. It seems like you’re always reading a new book. I admire that so much, but how do you make that happen?

KP: I always carry a book with me—it’s like a security blanket. And though that’s much easier to do now that I can access my Kindle library on my phone, I prefer a physical copy of a book. Fiction to end the day and often non-fiction to begin.

AB: So, you enjoy fiction and non-fiction?

KP: I do. I used to say I only read fiction, but I’ve grown in my capacities as a non-fiction reader through researching my novels. On a recent trip to Connecticut, I picked up a biography of a 19th century woman architect. Her timeline coincides with that of Maude Adams, the actress featured in my second novel. Reading about how the architect overcomes the restrictions of her Gilded Age life is as exciting to me as reading a thriller.

AB: Is there any type of book you won’t explore?

KP: I’m a wuss when it comes to blood and gore—horror is not my genre. Though I do like a good ghost story.

AB: Do you have a favorite author? Or an author that inspires you?

KP: I just reread Willa Cather’s My Antonia. I came to it with a much different perspective thirty years later but loved it just as much or more.

AB: Five months into 2024, do you have some favorite books to share?

KP: For inventive historical fiction, Daniel Mason’s North Woods; for creative inspiration, Makoto Fujimura’s Art & Faith; and for beautiful writing, Niall Williams This is Happiness. That’s the one I recommended to my book club.

AB: I know you’re a dedicated book club member. How many are in you currently? Are they valuable for you as a reader and writer?

KP: Currently I’m in two that meet in person and then I occasionally participate in online reading groups. The latter filled a need during lockdown. I read War & Peace for the first time through A Public Space’s online book club. It was a lifesaver.

I’ve been meeting with my main book club for thirty-six years—ever since I moved to Oakland. We mostly read current fiction or non-fiction, occasionally a classic. The other is sponsored by my garden club, and we discuss garden or ecology-themed books three times a year.

With all of them, the benefit is taking the time to read something I wouldn’t necessarily read on my own. The downside is—there’s never enough time to read all the things I’d like to read!

AB: Didn’t your love of the landscape and gardening launch your writing career?

KP: It did. I was an English major and always hoped to have a career in writing, but it was through making friends with a newspaper editor at my children’s grade school that I got the chance to do so. I approached her about writing for the paper and she said she’d always been impressed with my home and garden. She wondered if I might write a sample piece for the lifestyle section. Eventually, I became the paper’s main design writer and for fifteen years had my own first-person column called “Things Elemental.” Though many of the newspapers and shelter magazines I wrote for around the country have folded, I still do a lot of garden writing for the Garden Club of America as their Vice-Chair of Communications.

AB: Fiction-wise, you’ve got two historical novels ready for publication. I’ve been fortunate to read your first manuscript, The Casket Maker’s Other Wife, which is the story of your great-great-grandmother’s spiritual and physical journey from late 19th century Protestant Switzerland to early Mormon Utah Territory. Can you talk a little about why you came to write this book?

KP: I wanted to get to the bottom of a family mystery. My great-great-grandmother converted to Mormonism in a small village outside Zurich in 1869. The missionary who converted her helped her immigrate to America and asked her to be his polygamous wife. She agreed and when he brought her home to a remote valley in Utah Territory, his first wife chased them both out of the cabin. She was not amused.

My father found the story of the two women’s fractious first meeting very amusing—see how women just can’t get along! But even as a kid I could see why everyone in that triangle would be fighting. I wanted to understand why my pious great-great-grandmother agreed to become a second wife in a time when that would have been scandalous.

AB: One thing I love about The Casket Maker’s Other Wife was your obvious affection for, and your ability to describe the American West. How did you get to know the West so well?

KP: I grew up on a potato farm in Southeastern Idaho not far from where those polygamous ancestors eventually settled. It’s the landscape I knew first and best. Also, Mormons are very into tracing their genealogical roots and pioneer heritage. So, I was steeped in pioneer/homesteading culture my whole childhood/adolescence. Not that I haven’t had to do a tremendous amount of my own research to make the book feel authentic. I’m glad it felt that way to you.

AB: How did you research? Did most of your research come from family historical resources?

KP: The basic outline of the story came from family sources—though they amount to just a few dozen pages of family history. To write a big historical novel, I’ve read many books on the period and place, traveled to Switzerland and New York City to research the immigrant experience, even took the Queen Mary 2 back from England to see what it was like to travel across the Atlantic Ocean (albeit in much nicer circumstances than my ancestors did.) And then I’ve spent a lot of time in Utah and Idaho small-town libraries and history museums looking at old records.

AB: You’ve also got a short story that incorporates your family history?

KP: Yes, “Stitchwork” in Beneath a Midwinter Moon takes us back to that small Swiss village my ancestor emigrated from and an encounter with her father-in-law, the town’s mayor. Part of the mystery that launched the novel was that his son, her husband, abandoned her when she was pregnant with their third child.

AB: Yikes, what a bounder! But also, what compelling tension to launch a novel with! In addition to “Stitchwork”, you’ve got another story, this one in the PLW UNLOCKED anthology?

KP: Yes, “The Happy Heart” was a delight to write. Set in 1972 Berkeley, California it surprisingly qualifies as historical fiction. I moved to Berkeley straight out of college in 1980 and thought I’d stepped through a portal into a different time and place. “The Happy Heart” was my love letter to my new homeland.

AB: And can you tell me more about your second novel?

KP: To See the Love-Light is a dual-protagonist novel featuring Gilded-Age actress Maude Adams and small-town costumer Early McVay. Maude is the biggest light on Broadway and a muse to J.M. Barrie—she’s the original Peter Pan! Early is a costumer at the Salt Lake Theatre Company thrilled to dress the local girl made good when her touring productions come through town. Both women are haunted by secrets that threaten their livelihood and societal standing—Maude is gay and Early has mixed-race heritage. Their friendship helps them determine whether to step into the limelight or stay hidden in the shadows.

AB: So, when we will all get to read your novels?

KP: Soon, I hope! I haven’t sealed a deal yet, but I’ve had a number of agents and editors interested in both projects. Enough so that I’m still pursuing traditional publishing. I can’t wait to answer a question like this with “it was a long and winding road, but I finally made it!”

AB: How do you sustain your writing enthusiasm when traditional publishing is so hard to break into?

KP: Some days it’s really hard. Especially when I’m fielding the inevitable rejections. But I’m rarely discouraged when I’m writing or revising. I love my characters. I have faith that their stories will eventually be published.

AB: Finally, when I used to interview job candidates in the software industry, I always had a specific final question, and here it comes…Kathryn, is there anything else about yourself that you’d like to tell me?

KP: It sounds corny, but I’m very grateful to be wired as a storyteller. It’s made me curious about different places and periods. And it’s connected me to so many interesting people—both real and imagined. I count the Paper Lantern Writers as some of those lucky connections.

AB: Thanks Kathryn, and how true…a love of story—whether you’re the reader or the writer—can open up the world to you.