← Living The Next Chapter: Candid Conversations with Authors and Writers for Readers Searching for a New Read
Living The Next Chapter: Candid Conversations with Authors and Writers for Readers Searching for a New Read
E692 - Sandra Freels - Anneke Jans in the New World - an ordinary woman who lived an extraordinary life
00:47:01
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- [00:03]
A
I hope it is a light, engaging read, but it's also serious. I've, you know, I've stated things that seem like atrocities and were without belaboring what one should think about them. I would like to think this book would appeal to anyone who is interested in history, particularly colonial history. When I was growing up, history was usually taught from the point of view of the leaders, the strong men of the community. And I have told this story from the point of view of a housewife. She was courageous, she was intelligent, but she was not, you know, the one signing the papers, making the decisions, calling the shots. So I would think anyone interested in stories about strong women, anyone interested in thinking about how women lived at a very patriarchal time. It was very different from our time. And I've, you know, I've tried to throw in enough detail details to make it clear that what. What we're reading about is similar to what we know, but it's very different. It was a very, very different time. So my ideal reader would be anyone who's. Who's. Who's interested. Who's interested in history or interested in women's development. A woman's development, and anyone who's. Who's tolerant of ambiguity, because I'm not. I hope I have not spelled out how I want people to think about these things. I have shown them, and I hope the discussion will continue from there.
- [02:04]
B
Welcome back to Living the Next Chapter, the Author podcast. We get to meet amazing authors from around the world. Sandra's here with me today and I'm excited to have her here. The COVID of her book is spectacular. You're gonna love it. Her website's gorgeous and her stories are really, really entertaining and fun and something that's going to bring you in as a reader and really connect with you. So I'm excited to have Sandra on the show. We're going to talk about her journey and what she's learned along the way to help you as an author and as a reader. You just found your next favorite author. So I'm really excited to have Sandra here. Sandra, welcome to the show.
- [02:38]
A
Thank you very much. I'm really glad to be here.
- [02:41]
B
Excellent. Sandra, tell everybody where you are in our big world around here.
- [02:45]
A
I am in Portland, Oregon.
- [02:47]
B
There you go. Okay. What do you love about Portland, Oregon? I've never been there.
- [02:52]
A
Oh, you must visit. You really must. I am now retired, but I was by professor, a teacher of Russian. And when you teach Russian, you go any place in the world you can get a job because there aren't that many of them. And I was infinitely lucky that I was hired by Portland State University. And so this is where I came and this is where I made my home. It's a beautiful, gentle city. It is a lovely city. It is innovative, it is welcoming, it's green. I live 20 minutes from downtown, surrounded by trees. And I love pretty much everything about Portland. You really have to come see, come visit.
- [03:43]
B
Okay. You're on my list.
- [03:46]
A
No, I've just been so lucky I ended up here.
- [03:49]
B
It's great. It sounds like a beautiful place to live.
- [03:51]
A
It is lovely. Just lovely.
- [03:53]
B
Nice. Now, how do you, how do you pick that major in university to go down that path? Like, that's a very. Like in Canada, we say, we say niche here in Canada, but niche, That's a very interesting way to go.
- [04:09]
A
I was, I grew up in Lexington, Kentucky.
- [04:12]
B
Yeah.
- [04:13]
A
And my high school hired a young English teacher who had minored in Russian and she offered an experimental class in Russian that I took as a sophomore in high school and didn't learn much, but I was determined I was going to learn that language. So really, since I was a sophomore in high school, to this good day, I've never done anything else until I took up novel writing. But I started in high school and I was just had my teeth in it and was determined that was what I was going to do with my life and as I said, was lucky enough to get a job, which was not a given.
- [04:56]
B
Wow. Okay, so I'm going to leverage your skills and talents and knowledge because I have listeners in Russia for this show. I have listeners who have left Russia, are now living elsewhere. But to hear someone welcome them to the podcast in a. Typically an English speaking podcast. But, but to have your skills and talents, just to say hello and welcome our audience.
- [05:20]
A
Would you do that?
- [05:28]
B
Wow, it just sounds beautiful. Talk about the Russian language. What do you love so much about the Russian language compared to English, for example?
- [05:38]
A
I like the structure. I studied Latin in high school. The case structure is similar. I like the things that are unexpected. It's just a gorgeous language. I have studied both the language and the literature truly all of my life and have never run out of new and interesting things to think about.
- [06:07]
B
Okay.
- [06:08]
A
There's still time. You can learn it.
- [06:09]
B
I can. What's some simple. What's something that's similar from English language structure to Russian language structures or anything common?
- [06:18]
A
Yeah, there are commons. They're both into European languages. So there's, there's certainly some, some vocabulary in common derived words. But Russian uses a case System. So the. The words themselves change to show what they're doing in the sentence, whereas English uses word order. And that can be a bit discombobulating when you start trying to think in Russian, where your. Your direct object can come at the beginning of the sentence rather than the end. Okay, but always fun. Always fun.
- [06:56]
B
All right. Have you had the opportunity to go to Russia and be there? Yeah. Okay. What was that experience like?
- [07:04]
A
I was. I went for the first time as a College student in 1967, and then I lived there when I was working on my dissertation. I lived in Leningrad from 1974-75. And that, of course, was a formative experience to actually live there for that period of time. And then since then, I've taken student groups there. I've gone on teaching exchanges. I've done quite a few program reviews for American organizations who had study abroad programs in Russia. So I've been there a total of 13 times, I think.
- [07:53]
B
Wow.
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A
And still haven't seen enough.
- [07:58]
B
What's a misconception of Russia and that part of the world and the Russian people that maybe needs to be corrected, because I've met some amazing people from that part of the world. They're just. They're just so sweet, and they're just great people. So they are great people. What's something that we can correct together here for the listener that Russia is. And those people are this to you?
- [08:25]
A
Well, you have to remember, my experience with Russia goes a very long way back.
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B
Right.
- [08:31]
A
And at the time when I first started traveling to Russia, I remember I was still a student. One of the neighbors advised my mother that she shouldn't let me go there because there aren't people there. There's just bears. And I went anyway. But at that time, there was quite a lot of fear about the threat of nuclear war. And people going on casual visits to Russia would see nuclear power plants and somehow make the mental leap from there to nuclear weapons and say, oh, those people are just preparing for war now. Again, this was a long time ago. This was in the 60s. I'm not sure people still feel that way. One of my favorite movies, again, from a very long time ago, is the Russians Are Coming. The Russians are Coming, which, again, plays on that fear of Russia. Having said that, there are serious problems today, and I like to think the students I've trained may become part of the solution. But there are serious conflicts that our three countries and others as well need to be working on. I don't want to detract from that at all.
- [10:01]
B
Yeah, yeah. I think when we don't understand a country and we haven't been there, I think, and we only have what's filtered to us from outside, external sources without firsthand knowledge, I think it's really hard to come up with a really good feel of what it's like to. To be there, be from there, to grow up there, and kind of the history as well. Right.
- [10:26]
A
And. And I think it's important, as I said, many of my students have gone into federal service. I think it is important for our specialists to have a knowledge of the language and the culture. There are so many things that can fall between the cracks when you don't really understand what the other person is saying to you. So I feel very strongly about. About that and about the need for language skills among our professionals.
- [10:56]
B
Right. And that and words matter and communication matters and understanding matters. So the fact that you. I'm always kind of enamored by people who can do what you do because I. I speak English fairly well, and that's basically it for me. And I live in a country that has two official languages, French and English.
- [11:16]
A
I know you do.
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B
So my French skills are not the best. So when I see someone like you and come across someone like you who can communicate in different ways and understand culture, understand language and. And be able to communicate like that, I just find that fascinating that. That your brain has the ability to make that switch and just translate and be able to communicate that way. I just think that's beautiful.
- [11:41]
A
So I love it.
- [11:44]
B
Yeah, it's great. It's awesome. Okay, so words matter. So that kind of a nice translation and transition over to writing. We've got authors listening to the show, Sandra, and they're. They're at the beginning. Journey of starting. Right. And they're. They want to. They want to be where you are. They want a published book, they want a website, they want to be on a podcast. They want to do all these things to talk about their journey, but it seems so far away. This doesn't. Almost doesn't seem real that this is even possible to do what you've done. And I'd love to get your feedback and your thoughts to that person, because I want them to not give up. They have a story, and they've got. They've got something to say in this world. And again, words matter. I'd love for you to encourage them on their journey.
- [12:31]
A
Words matter. And this is new for me, as you know. This is. And it's taken a long time. I became interested in the historical figure that I Wrote about Annika Jans was a real person. I first became interested in her in 2020. I had always said, you have to imagine I admire novelists above all other people in the world. This is simply the most marvelous thing I can imag doing. But I always said I never could do it. But I became interested in Anneke Jans, who is a historical figure. I realized there are different sketches of her available online and elsewhere. Some of them are authoritative, but most of them are pretty fanciful. And I desperately wanted to make her a real person and to tell her story in at least a credible way. I wrote a first draft in 2021, And it was a very long first draft with way too many characters and just was all over the place. So I sent it to a developmental editor who said, you have three novels here. Pick one.
- [14:05]
B
Wow.
- [14:06]
A
So I, you know, so I started with the story of Anneka Jans and tried to narrow it down to a manageable, manageable length manuscript. And then I spent another year trying to decide how to get it into print. I was lucky enough to find she Writes Press. It is a wonderful hybrid press. But they, through their services, provide copy editing. I'm sorry, copyedting. I also contracted for. They provide proofreading and all of the support of their authors to get this book from the manuscript that you love so much into the book that is good, that is going to be released January 6th. It's always been fun for me. I started doing this because I love it. If it stopped being fun, I would have put it down. So I think if I could give one word of advice again, remembering I'm only one step ahead of your beginning author is keep having fun with it. Make sure you're enjoying it.
- [15:24]
B
Yeah.
- [15:25]
A
If it's not fun, not worth doing,
- [15:29]
B
what do you do in the process of writing to make Anika feel like a real person that we would. We can identify with as a reader? Like, how do you make something step off the page for us as readers?
- [15:44]
A
I hope I've succeeded in that. As I said, her name pops up all over the Internet. But she was notorious for the wrong reason. She was notorious because of a scam using her name many years after she died. But the versions that pop up online, she's really kind of a stick figure. And my goodness, she had these incredible experiences when she was a young woman. She got on a rickety sailing ship and spent 65 days traveling to her unknown continent. Of course, it wasn't unknown. There were people living there, but she didn't know where she was going. She had two children with her. They started farmsteading up in what is now Albany, New York. She had two more children there. They moved down to New Amsterdam, which is now New York City. She had a total of 10 children. She lost three of them. One in infancy, one a teenager, and one as a young mother. She had two husbands. One of her husbands was. Her second husband was the minister of the Dutch Reformed Church on Manhattan. It was the only church permitted to openly practice at the time. Although very distinctive about the Dutch colony, other religions were permitted to exist. So she had this incredibly dramatic life. And yet most of the online versions are just a list of names and dates and no one talks about, you know, what did she feel like when her second husband died in a shipwreck? He drowned. And it was very public and spectacular. And in most versions of it, she just went about her business and moved on. She couldn't have. She has to have felt deeply about these things. And that's what I've tried to imagine and what I've tried to convey. It was a remarkable time in history. And again, as a Russianist, I know far more about the 19th and the 20th centuries than I do about the 17th century. But particularly in the Dutch colony of New Netherland, it was a time when Europeans of all different ethnic backgrounds and social backgrounds kind of came together in one place. It was a time of relative religious tolerance after. Remember, in other places, people were getting killed because they had the wrong religion. It was a time when they were interacting with American Indians who lived there. And they were also seeing the very tiniest beginnings of American chattel slavery. And this was all happening at the same time. Oh, and let's not forget they were hunting for beavers. So there was also ecological questions. And all of these things kind of came together in this one time and one place. And she lived through it all, and I simply wanted to make her as real a person as I could. I'm sure I've gotten things wrong. I can't think like a 17th century person. This was 400 years ago. But I've at least tried to imagine a plausible version of what her life must have been like. I've tried.
- [19:35]
B
With your background and teaching and working with students, I'm sure that research is something that you would know pretty well.
- [19:44]
A
So I enjoy research. Yes.
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B
So where's a starting point for you in the. In the writing the book to. To even start to pull together some of the. The stories to craft around stats and dates and names? You're really trying to Add some meat to this. Right?
- [20:01]
A
I'm. I'm trying. I. I first came across Annika Yan's as a historical figure in 2020 pandemic year. So I was not going out a lot. And I learned that the Dutch of New Netherlands were remarkably litigious. They went to court for every single little thing you can imagine. I mean, tiny things. And the miracle is, a great number of those court records have been preserved and they have been made available in English translation on the website of the New Netherland Institute. And I cannot speak too highly of the New Netherland Institute. New Netherland is a completely new area of interest for me. I knew vaguely that it existed. I had heard of it, and that was about all. During Pandemic, I read through those court records as though they were current day gossip columns. And I really got a sense of who the outrageous characters were, who interacted with whom, who was out to get whom. I really felt I had a sense of the place. Again, I'm bound to make mistakes, but I really felt like I knew knew the place. I knew who the colorful characters were. And I also got a sense for the tremendous importance of family networks. I've also read, I don't want to say every history book I could get my hand on, but a fair number of them. And so many of the history books will talk about this topic and whoops, there's that person in this topic. And then they'll talk about another topic, whoops, there's that person again, and there's her sister. And then a third topic, oh, that's her brother in law, without tying them together. So the other thing that was just fascinating, especially from these court records, is this network of the movers and shakers, all being sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, brothers in law. So that is the starting point for anyone interested in New Netherland. There's also been a great deal of excellent research published on New Netherland, and I've benefited from a great deal of it. Russell Shorto is an excellent starting place. I started with his island at the center of the World. And he has just recently released Taking Manhattan about the English takeover of New Amsterdam in 1664. And in both books he makes the argument that I've repeated that it was a place of remarkable diversity and, you know, according to the Times, tolerance that sparked all of this creativity that, that in his telling and my telling, also kind of leads to the ethos of modern New York, but also the ethos of kind of the modern North American, Anglo, European culture that we experience today.
- [23:43]
B
Wow. From those court records as you're reading through, does anything come to mind in the moment, like a story that you remember reading and go, well, wow. Like a little snapshot of life in those days.
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A
There's so many of them. One of them that sticks with me for some reason is Annika's mother. Trinionis was the first midwife on Manhattan.
- [24:11]
B
Wow.
- [24:12]
A
I mean, imagine this. Annika was the daughter of the first midwife. She was the wife of the first permanent minister and the mother in law of the first barber surgeon. But the little tidbit that sticks with me is her mother, Trinh Yonas, going to court because someone had shot her pregnant sow. And you know, that's a. That's a big loss that's worth going to court for, you know, so it's that sort of detail that you don't think of. But these were the sorts of things they were concerned about, that they were. They were, I don't want to say bickering about. It was more than bickering because it was important livelihood. Yeah. But that they were recording. It was those kinds of little glimpses inside. Another one, not from Annika's family, but another family I looked at. There was a lengthy court tussle because someone had borrowed the bolting box of the character I was studying. Now, I bet you don't have a bolting box in your house. No, I certainly don't. But that was what they used when the flour came back from the mill to sift it out and get all the. The grit and rocks and twigs out of it so they could use it for cooking. Someone had borrowed her box ulting box and hadn't given it back, so she went to court for that. I can't tell you how much fun it is to read these things. I would be sitting there laughing out loud in the, you know, the dentist's waiting room and husband say, what are you laughing at? Oh, it's the court records. They're so funny. But they're just great. They're just great.
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B
It's like a time travel in a moment. You go back then and, and see what people needed to survive and how they protected what they needed to just exist. Right.
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A
And so often hear their voices, you know, you hear the quotation. And that's why I really started getting a sense of which of these people has this kind of character.
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B
Interesting.
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A
I keep saying. I kept thinking about them until they became as real to me as characters in a book. But that's of course, taking them from the record and putting them into a
- [26:42]
B
fictional framework when you're writing the book. And as we're celebrating the book coming out soon, who do you have in mind as an ideal reader? Who would you say would really enjoy reading this book?
- [27:00]
A
I hope it is a light, engaging read, but it's also serious. I've, you know, I've stated things that seem like atrocities and were without belaboring what one should think about them. I would like to think this book would appeal to anyone who is interested in history, particularly colonial history. When I was growing up, history was usually taught from the point of view of the leaders, the strong men of the community. And I have told this story from the point of view of a housewife. She was courageous, she was intelligent. But she was not the one signing the papers, making the decisions, calling the shots. So I would think anyone interested in stories about strong women, anyone interested in thinking about how women lived at a very patriarchal time. It was very different from our time. And I've tried to throw in enough details to make it clear that what we're reading about is similar to what we know, but it's very different. It was a very, very different time. So my ideal reader would be anyone who's. Who's. Who's interested. Who's interested in history or interested in women's development. A woman's development, and anyone who's. Who's tolerant of ambiguity. Because I've not. I hope I have not spelled out how I want people to think about these things. I have shown them, and I hope the discussion will continue from there.
- [29:02]
B
As you talk about Annika's life and all the things she's experienced, I'm just trying to put that in context of what it was like to live at that time. Like, in my mind, I'm thinking in 20, 25 terms. You know, that's a lot of children to have. There's grief, there's loss, there's struggle for food and sustaining yourself. But we have resources today they didn't have. Absolutely right. So I'm just trying to put myself into that. That time frame. And it's. It's hard to do. How do you. How do you do that as an author? How do you bring us in as readers into that time?
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A
I hope I have done it. For one thing, Annika is always working. In every scene, she's doing something.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And in many of the scenes, she's doing things that we simply wouldn't be doing today. In one scene, she's out straining the morning milk in the farmyard this is a detail I got from studying Dutch paintings of the Golden Age. I saw a picture of some woman straining the milk. So I've tried to incorporate that in a kind of offhand way. This is what she was doing when something else important was happening. This is the introduction of coffee. I depicted an early coffee house in Amsterdam. One of the characters goes to. And then this is not historical, not documented for this character. But I wanted to bring the coffee to New Amsterdam. So I had his wife start serving coffee in her parlor where other women serve beer and rum. And describing at length the 45 minute procedure to boil the coffee and to make the java beans into coffee wine that people could enjoy drinking. So I've tried to work in as much of that as I can. I want it to be familiar, but it's not. 2025, right.
- [31:17]
B
Yeah. I guess you'd have to have some creative license as well to kind of add to that. Absolutely. And fill in some.
- [31:23]
A
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I don't pretend to be a historian. This is a work of imagination. This is a work of fiction. The real Annika Yans, these people, the names are taken from the historical record, but these are all fictional characters. The real Annika Jans might have been nicer, she might have been meaner. I have no way of knowing this. Annika Jans is a fictional character. This is simply my riff on reading those court records the way I imagined her life might have been.
- [32:00]
B
Yeah. Did you have some kind of reference as far as a family tree for her as well, to see, kind of mapping out her children and like, is that part of it?
- [32:09]
A
Yes. This, this, this started in genealogical research, which is how I came across her as a historical figure. I was tracing my own family tree and I believe she is my 11 great grandmother. So 13 generations, really. And.
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B
Wow.
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A
The reason I felt that I had kind of a strong sense of what her community was like is before I got to Annika Yans, I had been researching a good dozen or so more people in that community that I thought I was descended from. I keep saying think because, you know, you can have a lot of non paternity events over 400 years, but I believe these are my ancestors, really. And, you know, because I had researched so, so very many of them, I really felt I had a sense of community, of how they interacted with each other. I would love it when I would come across a court record where, you know, one of my grandmas called another grandma a whore. I thought that was just great. I love that. But no, this, this this started with genealogical research. I hope it does not read like a genealogical novel. My great grandmother did this and that. I hope I have moved beyond that to depict her as a more plausible person. But this all started with a family tree.
- [33:44]
B
Wow. So there's a. There's a personal element to this, a connection to the past. Kind of a rediscovering of stories that you probably have never heard growing up.
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A
Yes. Oh, absolutely.
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B
Absolutely.
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A
Oh, yes. Nobody had any idea we were connected to anyone. Netherland, that's, you know, that's way far. Most, Most families know two or three generations at most. This is going back 13 generations. So no one would have talked about this? No, no, no one would have known about it.
- [34:18]
B
So that's got to be satisfying just to trace it back to that part and go. The likelihood is there that this is true. And do you feel, do you feel more connected then to, to her? Is she still just a character in history or is it family?
- [34:36]
A
No. Oh, it's all. She's a. She's a historical character. She was a real person. She's a fictional character I invented. She's an ancestor, which I think, in a way for me, makes it easier for me to imagine myself in her situation.
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B
Right.
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A
I felt. I felt fine giving her some of, you know, my own reactions, my own experiences. Her daughter, from whom I'm also descended, I believe was an interpreter. I thought that was just fabulous.
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B
Wait a minute.
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A
Yeah. Yeah. Really?
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B
Yeah.
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A
And my next novel is going to be about the daughter. But this daughter was married to the first barber surgeon on Manhattan. Barber surgeons and physicians were different classes. Physicians went to university. Barber surgeons had internships, and they did the cutting and the external things along with shaving things that involved knives. But he and his brother had fled a siege in Magdeburg. Looking at so many of the people who came to New Netherlands, so many of these European families were fleeing something. In Anneke's case, I believe they were probably economic refugees. I can't prove that. But her first husband was a seaman. They basically came on a four year indenture to work a farm. But every, every one of these families has a story about how they got there. One family came because the island where they were living was flooded. Pretty much the whole island was wiped out. They had nothing left. So, you know, let's. Let's go someplace really strange and try. Try our hand at farming in a new world. It's always fun just, even just to
- [36:53]
B
get here to this continent from where she came from. You said 65 days at sea.
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A
Hers was 65 days at sea and that was relatively fast. It was an average of about three months on really nasty, stinking, horrible condition vessels that weren't guaranteed to arrive at all. Again, her second husband died in a shipwreck. So it was, it was immensely perilous. And that was just before you got here.
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B
Yeah. And to make that trip with your children.
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A
Yeah.
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B
It's like.
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A
Yeah. She had a 2 year old and a 4 year old on that 65 day trip.
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B
And we have, we have parents today complaining about taking their children on an airplane because, you know. Because they can't sit still for five minutes.
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A
Yeah. Handle three hours. Yeah.
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B
65 days at sea. What are you gonna do? Right. It's just a totally different world. Right. And I just, when I, when I hear these stories. And I'm glad you're telling these stories because when I hear these stories, it just makes me realize how brave these people were to take a chance on a new land. That they have no content. Content. No context of no idea.
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A
Yeah.
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B
What it's going to be like. Is it going to be worse? Is it going to. And then they have to start over from scratch.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Like, what can you bring with you? Like, not much.
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A
Right. So not much. Just a few household utensils. View, you know, a change of clothing. That's pretty much it.
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B
Okay, let's stop for a second. 65 days and like one or two changes of clothes in 65 days.
- [38:40]
A
Yeah.
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B
Like I'd be packing for months. Right. Like.
- [38:45]
A
Yeah, yeah. I take more than that for a long weekend. Now that washing, washing the body was not particularly common practice.
- [38:57]
B
No.
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A
If you had clean linen, then you smelled. Okay.
- [39:00]
B
Yeah.
- [39:01]
A
So, you know, a change of clothes for when you arrived and otherwise you lived in what you got on, what you boarded the ship on.
- [39:08]
B
Yeah. And then have children too as well. So anyway, it's just when I, when I hear these stories, I just think we're like, we don't have any real concept of what it was like back then for these people. Right. And the fact that she survived, that she had raised a family, did all these amazing firsts as well.
- [39:30]
A
And, and I think made a contribution. I think she made a. She, she ended up a respected member of the community. She was somebody.
- [39:39]
B
Yeah.
- [39:40]
A
And in that way I think really contributed to our society.
- [39:46]
B
Yeah.
- [39:46]
A
That's.
- [39:48]
B
Wow. So the book comes out in January, you said. What was the date again?
- [39:51]
A
January 6th. January 6th.
- [39:54]
B
What are you doing on January 6th to celebrate the launch of your book?
- [39:58]
A
I am giving a reading that evening At Annie Bloom's bookstore in Portland, Oregon, where I live.
- [40:07]
B
Nice.
- [40:08]
A
You're all invited. I hope you come. And on the morning of that day, I'll be doing an interview on hello Rose City on KGW television.
- [40:20]
B
Beautiful.
- [40:21]
A
Very exciting.
- [40:22]
B
Wow. A long journey. It's coming to completion.
- [40:29]
A
Yeah.
- [40:29]
B
It's exciting for you. I'm really excited.
- [40:31]
A
Exciting. It's very exciting.
- [40:33]
B
Sandra, talk about your website a little bit because I have to. I want one more question. Kind of wrap up here at the end here, but the website's beautiful. I love everything about it.
- [40:41]
A
Thank you. That was designed by Maggie Ruff.
- [40:44]
B
Maggie, well done. I'm seeing on here your book. I see a link for book clubs. Talk a little bit about book clubs. What do you like doing and how do you like being involved in book clubs?
- [40:57]
A
I am happy, as you can tell, to talk to anyone who is willing to talk to me about this book. I would be happy to join book clubs in person if I can get there, or via Zoom if I can't. I did not want to put discussion questions in the book. For one thing. I thought they might change over time. So discussion questions for book clubs are posted on the website and I've tried to make them, you know, open ended questions without suggesting that I think there's any one correct answer. I really want them to be things people can really talk about.
- [41:38]
B
Okay. And the one tab that I like almost, maybe the most, Cats. Why is there a button that says cats? I love this. They're beautiful. Come on.
- [41:52]
A
When Maggie was designing this site, she said, give me some examples of sites you really like. And I had just read the author W's latest book and I loved her website for its simplicity. And she had a tab that said dog. And you pull it down and there's a picture of her dog. And she said, yes, I have a dog. And I said to Maggie, joking, I love the whimsy of this. I can send you a few pictures of cats if you want any borrowed interest. She said, love it. Send them. So those are my shelter kittens. They sit on my lap or actually they try to distract me from writing, but they're, they're part of the process.
- [42:43]
B
All right, there you go. They're beautiful.
- [42:45]
A
Ginger and Louise.
- [42:46]
B
There you go. Ginger and Louise. Well done. You too. Yeah. I'm glad that they made it onto your site. That's. That's a nice touch. I think it's a great idea for people as well to, to add some of you to, to your site to who you are and how you show up. I think that's great.
- [43:03]
A
I said it's not original, but I
- [43:05]
B
was happy to steal it. I like it. It's good. It's y. There you. You're borrowing with. With flair. I like that. Let's talk before we go about the COVID of the book. It's beautiful. How much input did you have on the COVID of the book? And I just. I love looking at on your website. It just pulls you in. So talk a little bit about the COVID design.
- [43:26]
A
Thank you very much. This is one of the few images of New Netherland that is available in public domain. So you will see this on the COVID of other books. It's actually the same image as used on the COVID of Russell Shorto's Taking Manhattan. So you will see it other places. I think so highly of. She writes press and one of the things they do so very well is cover design. And I sent them my ideas and they sent back. I think it was eight, maybe it was ten possible cover designs. Two of them were using this image and this was the one I selected. I didn't request any changes. I said, gosh, that's gorgeous. Can I have that one?
- [44:23]
B
It's beautiful. It's nice when you work with people who know what they're doing.
- [44:27]
A
Yeah, no, they. I really. I can't speak too highly of them.
- [44:31]
B
Yeah, yeah. Excellent. Excellent. Sandra, thank you so much for doing this. Congratulations in advance. We're recording in November and January is right around the corner. So it is exciting for you to see this released and out in the world. I hope that everyone comes and. And purchases a copy, leaves a great review as well as readers so that more people will fall in love with it as well. And thank you for keeping somebody's story alive for us to enjoy. I think that's. It's more than a name on a website. It's. There's a story now that we can connect with. Right.
- [45:06]
A
It's been a joy.
- [45:07]
B
Yeah, it's. It's a great idea. It's a great. It's a great read that. I'm looking forward to having a copy myself. And I would encourage every. Encourage everyone to go to Sandra's website. It's in the show notes, as always. And reach out to Sandra. I know she'd love to hear your comments as well.
- [45:23]
A
I would. I would indeed. Thank you so much.
- [45:25]
B
Sandra, any last comment before we leave for the readers?
- [45:28]
A
Just. Thank you so much. I've enjoyed talking to you. I would love to meet with book clubs and always happy to talk about this. Book or about Annika Yan's.
- [45:38]
B
There you go. Excellent. Thank you, Sandra, so much.
- [45:41]
A
Thank you. Bye Bye.
- [45:46]
B
Hey, thank you so much again for pressing play. As you've heard, great guests on the show and one thing you didn't hear in this conversation is what? What did you not hear? Think about it for a second. That's right. Not a single solitary commercial for a mattress or a supplement or whatever you call it. No. Why? Because we don't want to break up the conversation with commercials. So the fact that you're still here means that you are a fan of the show, I'm assuming. So if you want to help to keep the podcast going and to make me feel really happy, all I really care about is coffee. Okay. I just got to be honest. I love coffee. I'm drinking one right now. Starting to get cold. I need to warm it up. Helping us with our Buy me a coffee link over at Living the next chapter.com and also in the show notes helps kind of keep the lights on around here. Remember, I'm doing this for free. I. I'm paying for everything, so I would love to have a little coffee donation. You know, even five bucks kind of fills up my cup. And I would love to enjoy a coffee from you. So if you're interested, again, thank you for listening, but you can use our Buy me a coffee link and fill up the cup. Thanks for being here.