Jenni L. Walsh is a Philadelphia native and historical novelist with a passion for documenting important women left behind by history. She has written for both adults and younger audiences. I spoke with Walsh about historical fiction and her research process. (This interview has been edited for clarity and length.)
Charlotte Ingram: Your website says that your earliest stories consisted of “Girl meets boy, girl marries boy, girl and boy have baby. That’s it.” Is there anything that inspired you to break out of this mold?
Jenni L. Walsh: Yeah, I mean, when I was younger, I had a very limited scope of life. And when I was writing these stories, I think I was in elementary school, I was a younger child, always wanted a younger sibling. So I think all of my stories were “girl marries boy, girl has babies, they live happily ever after.” As we age and have our own experiences and we learn more and we’re exposed to more, it’s just natural that our stories would develop and grow with us.
CI: And what drew you to historical women’s fiction in particular?
JLW: It’s funny because when I first started writing, I was writing young adult fiction and fantasy, and I couldn’t quite find my thoughts in that genre and that age group. So I was brainstorming with my husband, who is a history buff, and he was talking about some of his passions, and he was like, who from history inspires you? And I threw out some names and I ended up writing a story about Anastasia Romanoff, who has fascinated me since my childhood days of writing stories about girl meets boy, babies, love, happily ever after. And I wrote that story.
Unfortunately, that novel did not get me a literary agent and did not get me published. But I continued down that vein because I realized I loved writing about the people and the places and the things that came before us. And I think it was my fourth novel where I got my first literary agent, and then that one was published. It kind of organically grew from just that interest in the people and places before us.
CI: Who do you try to write for? Not necessarily by age group—I know you do adult and middle grade novels—but in terms of interests and values.
JLW: When I first was writing, my grandparents sat me down and they were like, do not put anything in a book that would make me blush. And of course, I will put whatever into a book that I find entertaining. But whenever I put any, like, curse words in, I always think of my grandmother chastising me even before I had a book published. Now, some of my books do have some profanity, some of my adult books, but I only use profanity or spying or anything that could get people upset if it’s called for in the story. I’m not going to put anything in just for thrill or shock value. So if a character curses, it’s because in that moment, that character who I’m writing about would totally drop that expletive. So I just try to remain true to my characters and the setting and the place and the story.
CI: What are the most important things that you want your audience to take away, especially from your middle grade books?
JLW: I have two children, a nine year old and a six year old, and the one thing that I tell them every single day is just to be kind, be kind to everybody you meet. And I feel like that’s a general theme throughout my stories, as I want people to be open to the world around them, to be welcoming of different backgrounds and values, and just to be kind.
In I Am Defiance there’s Bridget, the main character, who kind of opens her mind to what’s going on during Nazi Germany and has to make her own decisions about what they’re saying, and the same thing happens in Over and Out; my main character has to open her eyes to the world around her and again, make decisions. So I think, especially in middle grade books, kids are experiencing so much on a daily basis that’s different than what they’ve been taught at home or they’re familiar with. And I think teaching kids to have grace and to be understanding that things are different than what they know is really important.
CI: Yeah, definitely. I think some of the middle grade books that I read when I was a kid, they really developed my capacity for empathy. I think I’m a much better person because I read those books.
JLW: Because you were exposed to more than you would have been if you hadn’t picked up those books.
CI: I kind of forgot that middle grade was like a genre. Earlier, I was looking at one of the books I read as a kid and saw that it was defined as middle grade. I was like, oh, I’ve never heard of that before.
JLW: Yeah, there’s so many different categories now. And you start with picture books, obviously, and then there’s early readers, chapter books, middle grade, young adult. So I feel like there’s really been an expansion of the different age groups in elementary school and into high school now, which is great. There’s books for everybody.
CI: You mentioned that your husband is a history buff. When you do research for your books, does he ever help you with it because of his knowledge or, how accurate do you try to keep your books to history?
JLW: I try to keep everything as accurate as possible. Definitely with timelines. I don’t mess with timelines. And there are things where it just doesn’t quite fit into my storyline in specific detail. And I will play with it a little bit. But I always also have an author’s note at the end of my book where I will let the reader know if I ever deviate so they know what was fact and what was fiction. But my husband definitely is very helpful.
There’s often times where I will show him a blurb of something I had just written, and I’m like, Is this accurate? Did I mess anything up here? Or is there any insight that you have that I could add to this? He’s a wealth of information. He watches a lot of documentaries, so it’s great to just have that alternate perspective on what I have written.
CI: I think that’s also amazing that you’re able to share what you write with him so freely and that he’s so supportive.
JLW: Yes, he’s so supportive. Although, I mean, it’s also nerve wracking to show a loved one or a friend anything that I’ve written.
CI: What can we expect from your new book, The Call of the Wrens?
JLW: The Call of the Wrens was such a treat to write. World War II fiction has been done many, many, many times. But with The Call of the Wrens, I had the opportunity to write a novel about a group of women that’s never been written about in a novel before, and that is The WRNS, which is an acronym for the Women’s Royal Naval Service. They’re a group of women who were in the first and the second World War, but many people don’t know their stories. And one of those stories is that they worked as motorcycle dispatch writers. It is incredibly cool to me that they had such a dangerous role in the war.
I was able to take this group of unknown women and have them doing something that was completely unknown. And then I also work in some other elements that we haven’t seen too much in books yet, such as the training and the distribution of homing pigeons to the front line. It was very fun and so intriguing to me to research all of these elements that we haven’t yet seen in the World War II novel.
Readers can learn more about Jenni L. Walsh’s upcoming book, The Call of the Wrens, here.
Charlotte is sophomore at Drexel University pursuing a B.A. in English with a concentration in writing. A former STEM major, she now works towards landing her dream job as a librarian. When not daydreaming about story ideas, you can find her trying to explain her niche interests or spacing out to a video essay.