Suzanne Feldman, a recipient of the Missouri Review Editors’ Prize and a finalist for the Bakeless Prize in fiction, holds an MA in fiction from Johns Hopkins University and a BFA in art from the Maryland Institute College of Art. Her short fiction has appeared in Narrative, The Missouri Review, Gargoyle, and other literary journals.
Inspired by real women, Sisters of the Great War tells the story of two unconventional American sisters who volunteer at the front during World War I. We chat with author Suzanne Feldman about her latest release, writing, book recommendations, and more!
Hi, Suzanne! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hi, fellow Nerds!
For most of my working career I was a high school art teacher. I taught all day and then hammered out my novels after many cups of coffee and handfuls of chocolate. I loved my job, but I retired after almost thirty years, and that was in 2016. I’ve gotten a lot more writing done since then. My last novel, Absalom’s Daughters (Holt 2016), took about ten years to write. Sisters of the Great War took four.
I’ve happily married and have been for (drum roll!) forty years! We live in delightful Frederick, MD, and we have a wonderful dog named Meeka. I also draw and paint (see above, art teacher) and if anyone would like to see my visual work, check out my Instagram!
Writing and art compete to be my first loves.
When did you first discover your love for writing?
I was a very small child when I started telling stories—waaay before I could write. I have this memory of telling my Pre-School class the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff while standing on a tiny chair. I’m sure I looked very authoritative.
Quick lightning round! Tell us the first book you ever remember reading, the one that made you want to become an author, and one that you can’t stop thinking about!
I was reading Science Fiction at a young age, and frankly, it explains a LOT about me 😊 I remember reading Ursula K. LeGuin when I was in Middle School, and that really gave me a different perspective on life, love, and the meaning of everything. In High School, I read Samuel R. Delany’s Dahlgren again and again until I almost knew it by heart. That introduced me to the idea that stories don’t have to be linear—Dahlgren is a narrative that goes in a circle. As an adult, I fell in love with Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and One Hundred Years of Solitude is a book I go back to for inspiration. I can’t leave out Tracks, by Louise Erdrich, who, in my humble opinion, is one of the finest writers on the planet.
Your new novel, Sisters of the Great War, is out October 26th 2021! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
WOMEN FIGHT ALL THE FIGHTS!
What can readers expect?
There’s something for everyone. If you like romance, there’s plenty of that. If you want to know more about the nitty gritty of WW1, there’s plenty of that, too. If you have an interest in how medicine was practiced between the battles of the Civil War and WW2, you can read about that in my book as well. But really, it’s a story about four different people who fall in love.
Where did the inspiration for Sisters of the Great War come from?
There are SO MANY novels about WW2, I really wanted to step outside that box and write about WW1. It’s hard to write about the Great War because you really can’t top ‘All Quiet on the Western Front.’ Plus, writing about the soldiers gets you bogged down in trench warfare, which was endless, hopeless and deadly. I love writing about women breaking out of their established roles, and the early decades of the 20th century are really ripe with that. Women got the vote, women began working outside the home. Women went to war. I wanted to write about those women, to get inside their heads, and find out what drove them to make such incredible, life-changing choices.
Can you tell us about any challenges you faced while writing and how you were able to overcome them?
I was an art kid, not a history kid, and so the history of anything (besides art history) is a challenge for me. Starting research on Sisters of the Great War was quite the challenge. There was a tremendous amount of information to sift through, and not a lot of it was about the way women worked their way into the war itself. It sounds silly, but for me, a picture really is worth a thousand words, and one of my most valuable resources were the Time-Life books about WW1. They have tons of photos, and for me, each one could have been a chapter.
Were there any favourite moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I loved writing about Elise, the gay girl who drives an ambulance from the front lines to the makeshift hospitals in the war zone. When her lover’s ambulance rolls and pins her girlfriend underneath, Elise performs heroically, and I love that about her. She really came into her own in those scenes.
What draws you to the historical fiction genre?
I used to write Science Fiction, and I had three novels and a short story collection published in the late ‘90’s under my pen name, Severna Park. I loved SF because you could do almost anything with a theme, worldbuilding and compelling characters. Those are the things I really love about Historical Fiction. I also love the challenge of fitting my own characters into the past, whether it be a hundred years ago, or thirty. There’s also a whole world of forgotten women in the past, which writers are currently mining for some amazing stories.
What’s next for you?
I have a second short story collection I’m putting together, and I’m working on a novel about (surprise) art school girls in the mid-seventies. There’s a lot of sex, drugs, and punk rock. I’m having a lot of fun with this one, and no, it’s not autobiographical…much
Lastly, do you have any book recommendations for our readers?
Well, I hope everyone will read Sisters of the Great War! Other than that, I would recommend Circe, by Madeline Miller, which I very much enjoyed, pretty much anything by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and of course, Louise Erdrich, who has written some truly excellent novels.
Thanks so much!
You can find Suzanne on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, along with at her website.
