Women's History and How to Tell a Different Story
Or, how I turned our current struggles into a historic fiction novel
Women continue to be underpaid and under-platformed. At the rate our rights are dissolving in Congress, it’s hard to believe we’re fully half the population. This is why, yes! We still need to commemorate this month. So, happy Women’s History Month.
Even if the news is grim, we have much to celebrate.
As I like to say, the best revenge is reading well. To that end, I’ve been immersed in books based on real women of history. Books like Lilac Girls by Martha Kelly, Hannah’s War by Jan Eliasberg, The Rose Code by Kate Quinn, The Codebreaker’s Secret by Sara Ackerman, The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray, and the list goes on… Yet the women in these stories aren’t household names.
I believe that this won’t change unless we tell our stories. Or until we see ourselves in the stories of the past. Which makes women’s history month a great time to share some behind-the-scenes info on my forthcoming novel, Florida Girls.
The idea for this book has long been with me, ever since I came across a vintage photograph of women in 1940-era bathing costumes with a caption that detailed a “Poster Girls” competition between Florida and California.
‘Poster Girls’ was going to my original title. But I quickly realized that stitching the novel to a place, Florida, was better.
Having lived in the Sunshine State for a couple of years by the time I saw that pic, I’d already heard a lot about Florida’s tourism industry. My favorite story came from the 1920s, when the mayor’s publicist wrote letters to far flung cities claiming to be scandalized by the teeny tiny bathing suits he was seeing on St. Petersburg beaches. In his letters to editors, he vowed to protect married men from “the wiles of the sea vamp.”
Their plan worked spectacularly, luring tourists to Florida and jump-starting what would become an enduring fascination with St. Petersburg beaches.
With that nugget tucked away, when I came across the poster girls in the newspaper, and saw that it was dated sometime in 1943, I was gobsmacked. We were at war. I couldn’t help but wonder, “What shady dealings were behind a bathing suit competition in the middle of World War II?”
When I began to toy with that story however, I wrote it largely from the perspective of the men. That’s right, this lady supposedly interested in changing who gets to tell stories. I followed the wrong history. The book languished for some time on my computer.
Then the pandemic hit.
It was the perfect time to return to the story, but this time the women started speaking to me. Soon, they took over the narrative.
Maybe it was because, simultaneously, women’s rights were being decimated? I was writing a lot of firey opinion pieces about what was happening, like The Sexual Politics of Population Decline and SCOTUS F*cked Us. All Of Us, but that didn’t feel cathartic. What felt like catharsis was putting women in the driver’s seat of their own stories in an imagined world that makes room for women running the show, the power of friendship, a little bit of the supernatural, and a bit of a love story.
Florida Girls is the result.
Set near the end of WW2, Florida Girls follows Thelma Miles as she turns up in Florida broke, orphaned, and hoping to escape her criminal past. A chance encounter with Kathleen Young results in her decision to join a troupe of touring swimsuit models. When the head of the Tampa underworld offers her everything she never knew she wanted, Thelma must decide if she'll forge a new future or return to the life she knows.
Originally, I envisioned this as a standalone book. At about 86,000 words in, I realized these characters had more they wanted to say. Considering current events, it’s safe to assume that the many issues faced by women aren’t going away. So the story became Book One of the Queenpin Chronicles.
Yes, they’ll all be in print and available at your favorite local bookstore. If you want to know when, follow along here:
For people who sign up, I’ll be sharing giveaways, bonus book material, and first news. If that sounds like a lot of email, I promise it won’t be. I don’t have it in me! Also, you won’t be signed up twice, though the book emails will come directly from me and not Substack. Just click the button and enter your email and you’ll automagically be in on the list.
And now, for freebie corner
Check out these historic fiction freebies:
A few of my favorite recent reads this week
’s Respect for Manthority (warning: it’s a blood boiler)’s I Need an Adult (unbridled quirky fun)’s My Year of Bragging (great cognitive behavior tools)’s What the Taylor Concert Was Really Like (for a shot of joy!)Since you’re here
Have you seen this rant from Lizz Winstead on Instagram? What do you think??
What’s the best thing you’ve read this week?
What are you most looking forward to this spring?