Karen Cushman asked a number of authors, “My newest book, War and Millie McGonigle, started with a place: South Mission Beach, San Diego, where my husband grew up. You, too, have written books set in a place alive and rich. A number of gracious authors thoughtfully answered these questions. If you haven’t read them yet, please do. Now it’s Karen’s turn to share some insights into place in her own story, War and Millie McGonigle.“

Q: Did you choose the setting first, before characters and plot? Did the story grow from the place or did the place grow from the story?

Cushman: The setting—South Mission Beach, San Diego—inspired the book. For nearly fifty years I’ve heard Phil’s stories about growing up there. It seemed a peaceful and comforting sort of place, so its juxtaposition with the coming war was intriguing.

Q: How/where did you find the details that brought your place to life?

Cushman: A lot of research is how. The publications of the San Diego History Center were invaluable. eBay provided specialty items like an old history of the San Diego Zoo, a 1940(ish) Zoo tour guide, photos of polio patients in iron lungs, and a plane-spotting manual. The internet offered memoirs of the war years by San Diegans, photos of wartime downtown San Diego, and  a wonderful, colorful, 1940s map of the area. While I was writing, Philip and I visited San Diego and walked along the bay with its soft waves and gentle splashing.

Q: Did the place enrich the story, or did it create limitations? Did you have to change details about the place?

Cushman: The place was the heart of the story, and, yes, it did create limitations. It’s a real place with a real history. I couldn’t create a bridge where there wasn’t a bridge in 1941 or sail warships into Mission Bay. I had to change some things about 2020 Mission Bay to make them more accurate or realistic for 1941.

Q: What would you like us to know about the place you chose for your book?

Cushman: The Mission Beach and Mission Bay where Phil grew up don’t exist any more. Since his time, Mission Bay was dredged, redesigned, and developed into a splendid resort with hotels and restaurants and multi-million-dollar houses. And countless tourists. Milly would not recognize it, but the tides still come and go, seagulls still shriek, and the breeze off the ocean can still soften the air and the spirit.

You’ll find a slideshow with photos from Phil’s childhood on South Mission Beach here.

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Avi: The truth is, I’m not particularly good at inventing places. But I love to fill real places with people that come out of my own imaginings. So it is that in recent years I have written three quite different books, all of which share one aspect: all are written about true places. None of the stories are true. 

School of the Dead takes place in a private school in San Francisco. A number of years ago, I was visiting just such a school. It is located in a rather elegant part of the city, Pacific Heights, and had at one time been the mansion of a very wealthy 19th Century woman. The woman was particularly interested in education for girls. So, when she died, she left her home to be used as a school. Over the years it has been enlarged, but the old building still remains as its structural core. 

It was while I was being given a tour of the school by a couple of students, moving about, up and down, and around its maze-like structure, some parts old, some parts new, that it struck me that it was a perfect setting for a ghost story. And so it was, and became, School of the Dead. 

In utter contrast City of Magic takes place in the Italian city of Venice. I don’t think there is any other city like it, consisting as it does of some one-hundred and forty islands, more or less. It is more than a thousand years old, and is ribboned by canals, some wide, some narrow. No cars allowed. To get around you walk or take a boat. 

I had the good fortune to live there for most of one year and came to know it fairly well. That said, I don’t think you can know it very well unless you grow up there. In any case, there is much that is medieval and renaissance still there, and with its often foggy weather, it can seem to be a mysterious place. What better setting for a novel of adventure and intrigue? But, of course, I had to go back for a visit to refresh my memory. Writers can live hard lives. 

The third book, The Secret Sisters tells the tale of Ida Bidson, age fourteen, who, in the fall of 1925, goes off to board in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, so she can attend high school. She will be leaving her very rural home and family high in the mountains. The book is a sequel to The Secret School, about a one- room schoolhouse whose students, principally Ida, keep running so they can finish out the term.  

I spend most of my year living near Steamboat Springs. It is now a ski resort town, but only recently has it changed. The high school, for example, to which Ida goes, is still standing, and functions today as an alternate school. And many of the buildings along Lincoln Avenue—its main street—are still standing just as they did in the nineteen twenties. 

A book I am currently working on takes place in New York City. 1910. I am having some trouble with it. 

Why? Covid restrictions have kept me from visiting. But I’ll get there, and I’ll finish the book. 

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Thank you to Avi for this look at the real settings in three of his books.

Learn more about Avi.

Karen Cushman asked Padma Venkatraman “My newest book, War and Millie McGonigle, started with a place: South Mission Beach, San Diego, where my husband grew up. You, too, have written books set in a place alive and rich. Will you share some insights into place in your story, Born Behind Bars?”

Q: Did you choose the setting first, before characters and plot? Did the story grow from the place or did the place grow from the story?

Venkatraman: Unlike my other novels, the idea for Born Behind Bars came from a news report, so the story and place came to me inextricably intertwined. 

Q: How/where did you find the details that brought your place to life?

Venkatraman: I read detailed accounts of prison life, interviewed people who worked in prison systems, watched documentaries and fictional films, visited a prison, and also had the gift of being able to send a draft of my novel to a fellow-author, Dede Fox, who was kind enough to circulate it among incarcerated women with whom she worked, so that I could receive feedback from people who lived in circumstances similar to those in Born Behind Bars.  

Q: Did the place enrich the story, or did it create limitations? Did you have to change details about the place?

Venkatraman: The place absolutely enriched the story. It forced me, and I think perhaps it forces readers, to consider what it means to be locked up, as opposed to experiencing a lock down. Amazing characters came alive to populate the place : like Grandma Knife, who is one of the coolest characters I’ve ever met—although there’s absolutely nothing “cool” about incarceration. Bringing the place to life makes, I hope, readers ask questions about why we lock people up, how we treat people when they make mistakes, and whether we might use our creative minds and compassionate hearts to consider other societal solutions. Most of all, I hope it makes us intensely uncomfortable with the fact that innocent people, even today, in our nation—way too many innocent Blacks are forced to live behind bars; and, yes, babies are born behind bars in our nation, too. 

Q: What would you like us to know about the place you chose for your book?

Venkatraman: I would like to emphasize that prison reform is happening in India, where the book is set—and that in many jails, such as Tihar Jail, conditions have been vastly improved. That said, degrading jails and prisons still exist, all over the world. And, unfortunately, there still are people in India who, like Kabir’s mother in Born Behind Bars, are stuck in prison awaiting trial—not just for hours or days, which is cruel enough, but for years. 

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Thank you to Padma Venkatraman for explaining how she researched a book set in a prison.

Learn more about Padma Venkatraman.

Karen Cushman asked Kirby Larson, “My newest book, War and Millie McGonigle, started with a place: South Mission Beach, San Diego, where my husband grew up. You, too, have written books set in a place alive and rich. Will you share some insights into place in your story, Hattie Big Sky?”

Q: Did you choose the setting first, before characters and plot? Did the story grow from the place or did the place grow from the story?

Larson: The setting grew out of an event that captured my imagination, which was my great-grandmother homesteading by herself in eastern Montana shortly before WWI. The homestead was near Vida, Montana which is where the story takes place.

Q: How/where did you find the details that brought your place to life?

Larson: I began researching the story in 2000, and it was not as easy to access digitized information at that time. I relied on sites like USGenWeb, and any other place I could scrounge up old photos or maps. I am completely indebted to the many historical societies which published early homesteaders’ journals. These diaries provided rich details, including two in particular that ended up in the novel: the incident where Hattie “baptizes” her chicken, and the incident where a hungry wolf chomps off Violet’s tail (she’s Hattie’s “contemptible” cow). At some point in the research project, I bought a $99 Amtrak ticket to Wolf Point, Montana so I could see/smell/experience the place for myself. I was able to locate the site of my great-grandmother’s homestead, as well as unearthing other fabulous details while spending three days in the smoky “morgue” of the Wolf Point Herald newspaper office.

Q: Did the place enrich the story, or did it create limitations? Did you have to change details about the place?

Larson: The place completely enriched and informed the story, along with setting boundaries I was required to work within. One small example: the first draft of the cover showed a charming split rail fence, something that was non-existent in eastern (treeless) Montana. Hattie’s claim was a good distance from town so I had to figure out feasible ways to get her to and fro, without slowing the story down. I did not change any details about the place. Thankfully, my research uncovered maps and photos of the town and of some of the homesteads so I had those to help build the stage for Hattie’s story.  

Q: What would you like us to know about the place you chose for your book?

Larson: Put Yellowstone out of your mind! Eastern Montana is flat, flat, flat, with tiny little cacti snuggled in with the prairie grasses — imagine walking on those barefoot as many homesteaders did all summer. 

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Thank you to Kirby Larson for this look at Eastern Montana and Hattie’s homestead.

Learn more about Kirby Larson.

Karen Cushman asked Angela Ahn, “My newest book, War and Millie McGonigle, started with a place: South Mission Beach, San Diego, where my husband grew up. You, too, have written books set in a place alive and rich. Will you share some insights into place in your story, Peter Lee’s Notes from the Field?”

Q: Did you choose the setting first, before characters and plot? Did the story grow from the place or did the place grow from the story?

Ahn: Because the first nugget of Peter Lee’s Notes from the Field was based on a real road trip that my family had done, the setting (starting in Vancouver and then traveling to Drumheller, Alberta) and the plot are tightly woven together. They sort of came as a package in my mind. There are really three main settings: Vancouver, Drumheller, and in the car during the space between driving to the two physical locations. The story definitely grows from the place. Peter cannot experience his ultimate low without the setting and the road trip that brings him to Alberta.

Q: How/where did you find the details that brought your place to life?

Ahn: For Vancouver, that was easy. It’s been my home for more than forty years! I did make up a few details (like the name of a park) but for the most part, the places in Vancouver that I name are real and familiar to me. For the details about Drumheller, I scrolled through my old photos because I’ve been there twice. It was a matter of refreshing my memory. I did double-check everything on the Internet too, of course. One place that I remember from our last trip had closed down, so I made up a name for a place like the one I remembered. The road trip to Drumheller was something that we’ve done as a family, so getting the details right was pretty easy, but my editor made sure that when the family stopped, that the travel time was realistic for a family road trip. 

Q: Did the place enrich the story, or did it create limitations? Did you have to change details about the place?

Ahn: I think in some ways choosing Vancouver for the hometown of the Lee family doesn’t really add anything truly essential to the story. It’s about a Korean-Canadian family and that family could have lived anywhere, but it was and always will be important for me to write stories set on the west coast of Canada because not that many middle grade books are set here (even by Canadian authors!) and I would like to show readers that universally relatable experiences can happen anywhere. Why not in my hometown? I also think I might be a tiny bit lazy and to write stories in other cities would require me to do a lot of research. I’m always able to skip the research and head straight to the details when writing about a place I know intimately. 

In terms of the Drumheller setting, if you haven’t been to any of the Badlands (in the US or Canada) the landscape is really something else. I hope I captured some of the details accurately and vividly. I hope the reader gets to travel with the Lee family and experience just a taste what the family experiences. I didn’t want to change too much about Drumheller because it is a truly marvelous gem of a town and if you are even a tiny bit interested in dinosaurs, it is an excellent place to visit.  

Q: What would you like us to know about the place you chose for your book?

Ahn: When I chose Vancouver for the main setting, you could say that I was being either obstinate or foolish. Canadians have long read countless stories about American and European cities and though we may not have ever been to those places, the settings don’t give us a reason not to read those books. But I think for US publishing gatekeepers, settings like Canada do give them pause. Maybe there’s no panache or anything particularly alluring about Canada to US readers such as a city like Paris or Tokyo, but I didn’t cave into the potential pressure of making the location more accessible to US readers. It’s my home and it’s a lovely city that deserves to be the setting for at least some stories! I knew I was possibly slamming the door shut on ever getting picked up by a US publishing house, but I landed with Tundra and, happily, didn’t have to change anything! 

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Thank you to Angela Ahn for sharing Vancouver and Drumheller with us in Peter Lee’s story.

Learn more about Angela Ahn.

Karen Cushman asked Bill Harley, “My newest book, War and Millie McGonigle, started with a place: South Mission Beach, San Diego, where my husband grew up. You, too, have written books set in a place alive and rich. Will you share some insights into place in your story, Night of the Spadefoot Toads“

Harley: I’ve come to believe that the geography of a story is one of the characters; where someone lives affects how they act. My most recent novel, Now You Say Yes, tells of a road trip across the country by Mari, a fifteen-year old girl and her nine-year-old brother. For that book, I drove across the country, charting the route I thought they would follow, taking notes and pictures along the way to try and capture the geography. But of all my books, the one that most trades on a sense of place is Night of the Spadefoot Toads. I know a lot about where it takes place because it’s my home—southeastern Massachusetts. The book, because of the story and its careful description of the habitats in southeastern New England, has ended up in curriculums across the country.

The genesis of the book was a late-night excursion I took with a naturalist/teacher friend of mine to ponds and vernal pools in my town, Seekonk, and the neighboring town, Rehoboth. On a rainy April night, we waded through muck and wetlands, listening to and catching American toads, spring peepers, wood frogs, and finally, in the middle of a thunderous rainstorm late in the night, the eastern spadefoot toads, an endangered species in our area. Standing in the middle of the shallow vernal pool, the wind whipping the trees, the rain pouring down, and all of nature singing in wild abandon, I decided I need to share what I was feeling and experiencing. I spent the next couple of years traipsing through areas most people would avoid (sometimes illegally) and talking to naturalists, state officials, lawyers, and realtors, trying to understand all the forces that would prevent these little critters from surviving. When the main character, Ben, wanders down a path in the woods behind his house and eventually finds the house of his science teacher, I was writing about walking through the woods from my house to my neighbor’s a mile and a half away.

I hear from people all the time about how the book has affected them, but the biggest beneficiary of the book has been me. Because of writing it, I know where I live much better than before. I track the coming of spring by the appearance of buds and flowers on one tree after another in succession, and the sounds that spring brings—the phoebes and Carolina wrens singing, the reappearance of the red-breasted grosbeak and oriole, and the calls of our amphibians—first the wood frogs, then the peepers, then my little spadefoot toads on one rainy night each year.

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Thank you to Bill Harley for his look at nearby locations; setting a book there taught him more about where he lives.

Learn more about Bill Harley.

Karen Cushman asked Linda Sue Park, “My newest book, War and Millie McGonigle, started with a place: South Mission Beach, San Diego, where my husband grew up. You, too, have written books set in a place alive and rich. Will you share some insights into place in your story, A Long Walk to Water?”

Q: Did you choose the setting first, before characters and plot? Did the story grow from the place or did the place grow from the story?

Park: This book was unusual in that I collaborated with the subject of the story, Salva Dut. So I would have to say that character definitely came first here.

Q: How/where did you find the details that brought your place to life?

Park: The initial details came from Salva himself, of course. He had written down some of his memories; I read those pieces and interviewed him for many hours. I also did the usual research on the internet, viewing endless photos and videos of South Sudan. Hurrah for Googlemaps!

But the most important resource was the trip my husband made in 2007, traveling with Salva to the places in the book. My husband brought home hundreds of photos and hours of video, and I made extensive use of those materials while writing the book. Then Salva read the manuscript and double-checked it for accuracy.

Q: Did the place enrich the story, or did it create limitations? Did you have to change details about the place?

Park: In so many ways, the setting in Long Walk is the story. As a young boy, Salva had to escape from a war and walk for months through hostile lands to reach safety. Because I have not visited South Sudan myself, Salva’s perspective was crucial. We worked together to choose the setting details that would deepen the experience of the story. Whether an island in the Nile besieged by millions of mosquitoes or a stretch of desert inhabited by lions, the exotic settings provide a contrast to the universality of Salva’s emotions, which young readers can easily relate to.

And Nya’s life is circumscribed both literally and figuratively by the place where she lives. She spends her days fetching water for her family’s survival, which means that she has little time for anything else, including education.

Q: What would you like us to know about the place you chose for your book?

Park: Our world is so interconnected. We’ve been shown beyond any doubt that when people in remote parts of the world are suffering from ill health, those misfortunes can eventually march right into our own homes. I’m hoping that young people will grow up learning that nothing is more important than caring for one another and for the planet.

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Thank you to Linda Sue Park for a closer look at this book which has made a difference for so many readers.

Learn more about Linda Sue Park.

Karen Cushman asked Barbara O’Connor, “My newest book, War and Millie McGonigle, started with a place: South Mission Beach, San Diego, where my husband grew up. You, too, have written books set in a place alive and rich. Will you share some insights into place in your story, Wish?”

Q: Did you choose the setting first, before characters and plot? Did the story grow from the place or did the place grow from the story?

O’Connor: The story grew from the place. That’s the first time that has ever happened for me. I always set my stories in the South and that setting is always ever present. But those beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains are particularly special to me. I knew that’s where my story would be set … even before I had a story.

Q: How/where did you find the details that brought your place to life?

O’Connor: I grew up near the Blue Ridge and Smokey Mountains and spent a lot of time there. I went to summer camp in those mountains as a child. I remember so vividly the cool nights, the smoky haze in the mornings, the ferns and moss … all of it. After college, I moved far away, first to California, then to Boston. Seven years ago, I returned to those mountains so my memories have become my reality.

Q: Did the place enrich the story, or did it create limitations? Did you have to change details about the place?

O’Connor: Yes, I think the place enriched the story … and, no limitations. I didn’t change any details about the place. I confess I did have to research to find the names of some of the trees and shrubs, but everything stayed true to my experience.

Q: What would you like us to know about the place you chose for your book?

O’Connor: I’d like you to know that these glorious mountains are beautiful and lush and good for your soul. You can find waterfalls and ferns and blackberries and black bears and maybe a stray dog. (Reference to Wish … so you’ll have to read the book. haha)

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Thank you to Barbara O’Connor for bringing us closer to the Blue Ridge and Smokey Mountains.

Learn more about Barbara O’Connor.

Learn more about Wish, including a video interview with Barbara.

Karen Cushman asked Gennifer Choldenko, “My newest book, War and Millie McGonigle, started with a place: South Mission Beach, San Diego, where my husband grew up. You, too, have written books set in a place alive and rich. Will you share some insights into place in your story, Al Capone Does My Shirts?”

Q: Did you choose the setting first, before characters and plot? Did the story grow from the place or did the place grow from the story?

Choldenko: It was an intriguing fact about the setting, which launched the series Tales from Alcatraz beginning with the book Al Capone Does My Shirts. What happened was I read a newspaper article about kids who grew up on Alcatraz when there was a working penitentiary on the island. As soon as I read that article, I knew I wanted to “be” one of those kids. The way I get to “be” someone other than myself is to read a book about someone else or write a book about someone else. And since there were no middle grade novels about kids who lived on Alcatraz because their fathers were guard at the prison up top, I got to work.

Q: How/where did you find the details that brought your place to life?

Choldenko: The research which brought the series to life came from a myriad of sources. I volunteered to work as a docent on the island, read handwritten accounts of life on Alcatraz from a hole in the wall library on Alcatraz, scoured the National archives for information, spent weeks in the personal archives of Chuck Stucker, who grew up on the island. I interviewed dozens of guards who worked on the island, convicts who had been incarcerated on Alcatraz, adults who had grown up on the island because their fathers were guards, and GGNRA rangers who had spent years or sometimes decades researching Alcatraz. And then I read every book I could get my hands on about the place.

Q: Did the place enrich the story, or did it create limitations? Did you have to change details about the place?

Choldenko: The Alcatraz setting enriched the story beyond my wildest dreams. There is a virtual treasure trove of curious and intriguing information about Alcatraz. There was no need to fictionalize when the truth itself was so fascinating, so I tried to stick closely to the facts. That said, there were occasions – especially in the later books in the series – where I took creative license.

Q: What would you like us to know about the place you chose for your book?

Choldenko: I love when I get reader letters like the one I received a few days ago:

I am a 70-year-old grandmother who loves your Tales from Alcatraz. I introduced the first book to our 12-year-old granddaughter, and she was hooked immediately! She quickly devoured the entire series. At age 12, our grandchildren get to choose a place to visit in the U.S. and we take them there on a special trip, just the three of us. Because of her love for your books, she has chosen Alcatraz!

When I read Karen Cushman’s book Catherine, Called Birdy I believed I lived in the Middle Ages in an intensely visceral way. And that experience made me fascinated by that time frame in a way I had not been before. Perhaps I flatter myself here, but I hope this alchemy might happen for the girl whose grandmother is taking her to Alcatraz. So, what do I want my readers to understand about Alcatraz Island? History is riveting and historical fiction can bring it to life in your mind’s eye.

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Thank you to Gennifer Choldenko for this close-up look at the unique setting for her Tales from Alcatraz books!

Learn more about Gennifer Choldenko.

Learn more about The Tales from Alcatraz.