Hazel: Tell us about yourself! What are your books/what do you write?
Kate Albus: Hello and thank you so much for inviting me! I’m delighted to be here. My name is Kate Albus, and I write historical fiction for young readers. My first book, A Place to Hang the Moon, is set in England in 1940, and it’s about three orphaned siblings who hope that England’s World War II evacuations will be their chance at a forever home. My second is called Nothing Else But Miracles, and it’s also set during World War II, but this time in New York City. It’s about 12-year-old Dory Byrne, who finds her family an unlikely hideout… a secret, abandoned hotel on the upper floors of a building on the East River waterfront.
H: What is your process of gathering ideas into a book? How long did the outlining take and what method do you use?
K: I’m always a little bit embarrassed to admit that I don’t write from an outline. I’d like to, and I’ve tried! In my non-writing life, I’m very much the sort of a person who likes outlines and all manner of organizational tools. But when it comes to writing, I find that the only way I can do it is to start with a basic premise (‘what if there were three orphaned kids who used England’s WWII evacuations as a chance to find a forever home…’ or ‘what if a kid found out about a secret space in New York City and used it as a hideout…’) and then let the characters tell me where they want to go.
H: What are your tips for young writers?
K: My biggest tip is: read it out loud! My favorite books have always been those that make good read-alouds, and reading to my kids was always my favorite part of being a mom. And I’ve found that reading your own writing that way is hugely helpful. Even though it feels weird to talk to yourself in a room alone, reading something out loud gives you such a clear sense of what’s working and what’s not. Is the dialogue stilted and fake sounding? Are there spots that drag? Spots where you find yourself wanting more information? Spots that make you smile and give you that little thrill that you get from a really well written scene? Reading out loud helps me figure all that stuff out.
H: When did you first start writing?
K: I fell into writing fiction quite late, and quite by accident. I had been a science writer for many years, but never even considered writing stories until I attended a dear friend’s creative writing workshop. I really only went to be nice, but I ended up falling in love with it. I had this idea in my head for a World War II evacuation story, and I just sat down and started writing it… not because I had any notion of anybody other than my own kids actually reading it, but just because I loved doing it. Years went by before the thought of putting my stories out into the world occurred to me, so the fact that they’re now in schools and libraries and bookshops is still a little astonishing to me. Anyway, I suppose the take-home message from that is that you never know when doing something ‘just because you love doing it’ might turn into an actual career!
H: What was your goal behind your books and what did you want readers to get from your books?
K: For me, books are comfort, and so far everything I’ve written reflects that. A Place to Hang the Moon is about the consolation to be found in libraries. And I wrote Nothing Else But Miracles during the darkest part of the pandemic, when so much of what we were all seeing on the news was stories about people not acting in the best interests of their communities. I wanted a story about a community that looked out for its members, and made sacrifices for the greater good. I wanted that comfort. I hope young readers find that comfort in my books.
H: How did you do your research? Do you have any tips?
K: The research is one of my favorite parts! As a former science writer, I suppose it’s deeply ingrained in me. I use every source imaginable. Oral histories. Old newspaper articles (the New York Times, for example, has an online platform called Times Machine, which allows you to see copies of the newspaper, cover to cover, going back to 1851). Odd books I’ve picked up at used book shops. Old memoirs (the ‘ratting’ scene in A Place to Hang the Moon was inspired by a scene in a memoir written by a real-life evacuee). Even vintage catalogues. And the one research tip I’d highlight is that historical experts are often so incredibly generous with their time and knowledge. I’ve always felt shy about approaching strangers, but every time I’ve reached out to an historian or museum curator, they’ve been unfailingly helpful. People are kind!
H: What was something in your two books that ‘wrote itself.’ Aka, something you weren’t expecting to happen but it was just asking to be written.
K: Gosh, this is such a great question. And not one I’ve ever been asked before, I don’t think. I suppose I’d have to say the Christmas scene in A Place to Hang the Moon. Writing that scene was such a joy. After all I put them through, it felt so good to give these three children, whom I love with my whole heart, what they’d been wanting and needing and deserving for so long.
H: What techniques do you use to stay focused and productive?
K: Yikes. This would suggest that I stay focused and productive. I am such a terrible procrastinator, and I am easily distracted. By my dogs… by phone calls from my kids… by the pile of laundry that needs to be folded. But one tip that’s really helped me over the years is to always leave off writing in the middle of a scene, as opposed to the end. That way, when you come back to it in an hour or a day or a week, you’re immediately sucked into the action and the drama, rather than sitting down and thinking, ‘where do I start?’
H: What was the most challenging scene to write?
K: Again, such a great question! It’s clear these are coming from a fellow writer! Honestly, the hardest part for me is re-writing a scene. I’m usually re-writing it because it isn’t quite conveying what I want it to convey in terms of a character’s thought process or emotional evolution, and I find myself endlessly spinning my wheels trying to get it right. The scenes that come to mind are the one where Mrs. Muller tells the children about her husband leaving her in A Place to Hang the Moon, and the (very early) scene where Pop makes the decision to leave his kids alone and go off to war in Nothing Else But Miracles. Both of those felt so emotionally fraught… it took a long time to get them to a place where I felt like they were saying what I wanted them to say. And I’m in the same place in the book I’m working on now… nit-picking some of the more emotional scenes. But it will all come out in the wash eventually!
H: Okay, so now I have some questions that were submitted by my Email List subscribers. The first question is from Marin: Were you inspired by Narnia for A Place to Hang the Moon? (WW2, Evacuation, Edmund etc…)
K: I was! Thank you for picking up on that! It always delights me when a reader makes that connection. It was in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe that I first learned about England’s World War II evacuations as a child, and I’ve been fascinated by them ever since. I couldn’t have imagined leaving my family and going off to live with strangers when I was a kid, and I couldn’t imagine sending my own kids off to live with strangers now, so that historical event is just extraordinary to me. Edmund was my nod to the story that first piqued my interest in the real-world evacuations.
H: How do you stay committed to one story and actually finish it? (Asked by Wyndsor)
K: This is such a great question. I suppose I’d say that if a story doesn’t have your heart at the moment, you don’t have to finish it. And you also don’t have to throw it away. No writing is wasted, and it may well be that a story you set aside today gets picked back up again when you’re in a different place or time.
H: What made you want to be a writer? What inspires you to write stories? (Asked by Phoebe)
K: The number one inspiration for me is always the characters. That’s true for me in both reading and writing. I want to read and write stories with characters I can fall in love with. Characters become kind of like imaginary friends to me, and I love that. I joke with my husband that Anna and Edmund and William and Dory and Fish and Pike are with us at our Thanksgiving dinner table. I think about them all the time, even years after writing ‘the end.’
H: Why do you write MG? (Asked by Britney)
I love middle grade because middle grade stories tend to be inherently hopeful. And I think we could all use a little hope these days.
H: And for the final question: Do you have any tips for writing descriptive, intriguing stories? How do you lure your readers in? (Asked by Emme)
K: As I said in answer to Phoebe’s question above, for me it’s all about characters. And I find that what I really want from characters, and what makes characters most real and intriguing to me, is seeing their vulnerability. What are they afraid of? What are they ashamed of? What do they wish for? What do they yearn for? I like to think of that sort of vulnerability as a character’s ‘soft underbelly,’ and that’s what really hooks me as both a reader and a writer. Find your characters’ soft underbellies, and that will make them leap off the page and into your readers’ hearts and minds.
K: Thank you so much again for having me! What a treat to get such fantastic and writerly questions! Be well, and happy reading and writing, all!
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Thank you so much Kate for answering all the questions and coming on my blog to be interviewed! I loved all of what you had to say!
