Welcome to Paper Lantern Writers! What would you like readers to know about you?

I started my novel in the 1990s, but I got sidetracked and put it aside. I then happily taught English as a Second Language to adults for thirteen years. After retiring, I joined a writers’ group, which prompted me to pick up my novel. I was hooked on writing.

Can you tell us what you’ve written?

The Lines Between Us: A Novel, which explores the power and destructive nature of family secrets, along with the struggles of the women involved. I’m interested in imagining the lives of women in unusual situations, with the experiences and perspectives that would never have made it into the history books.

My short story “The Light of Stars” appears in the anthology The Stars from Outrider Press, 2018. The story is the journal of an astrophysicist traveling to Mars in 2116 with her daughter and grandchildren, who are in stasis.

Did you choose historical fiction or did it choose you?

Historical fiction chose me, as I one day started to wonder about the story of a young, seventeenth-century, Spanish woman, who had been violated, and how she would respond to subsequent threats.

Do you have a favorite writing quote, book, or author? 

“We’ve lost too many stories. Historical fiction, undertaken with integrity, is an act of repair. Lives have run through the sieve, but we can catch them in our hands.”

– Rachel Kadish, “Writing the Lives of Forgotten Women,” The Paris Review April 26, 2018.

What brings you great joy as a writer?

I enjoy trying to portray other lives as believable, yet unique. It is also always a satisfying challenge to imagine my way out of a potential plot conundrum. Finally, I love working with the language itself, making sure that there is a certain cadence to it that seems to be mine.

Is there a message in your novels that you want readers to grasp?

I would like readers to imagine with me that people from history could have thought and acted as individuals, apart from the stereotypes that one has of their particular period, gender, race, religion, or class.

Rebecca D’Harlingue’s debut novel, The Lines Between Us, was a finalist in the Best New Fiction category in both the International Book Awards and in American Book Fest’s Best Books Awards in 2020. Her short story, “The Light of Stars,” appeared in 2018 in an anthology,  The Stars.

Rebecca has an MA in Spanish Language and Literature from Washington University in St. Louis, an MBA in health services administration, and a certificate to teach English as a Second Language. After leaving hospital administration, she was privileged to teach ESL to adults from all over the world.

Rebecca shares her love of story with the members of her book club, which she has belonged to for decades. Born and raised in St. Louis, she and her husband have lived in Northern California for over forty years, where they are fortunate to frequently spend time with their children and grandchildren. Find out more at Rebecca’s website.