Advertise on podcast: History Through Fiction - The Podcast

In this episode of History Through Fiction: The Podcast, host Colin Mustful talks with novelist Randy O’Brien about Ribbon of Dreams, a coming-of-age story set in small-town Tennessee in 1975. Through teenager Skid Beckins’s determination to pursue a screenwriting dream in a country still reckoning with Vietnam, the conversation explores how young people find their way through grief, family strain, and a changing America. O’Brien shares how the novel draws on the period’s social landscape and the struggles of returning Vietnam veterans, including the trauma then described as post-Vietnam or combat syndrome. He also reflects on the autobiographical details behind Skid’s nickname, the influence of his own screenwriting ambitions, and why he lets characters shape a story’s direction. Their conversation moves between the novel’s emotional stakes and the craft of writing with clarity, strong characters, and an ear for language. O’Brien taught narrative fiction for three decades at Middle Tennessee State University and film and screenwriting at Watkins Film School. His years in radio, along with his work as a fiction writer and audiobook reviewer, inform his thoughtful perspective on story, voice, and performance. History Through Fiction brings readers and writers together through historical novels, community, workshops, and events. Discover the catalog and find more stories at https://www.historythroughfiction.com.

In this episode of History Through Fiction: The Podcast, host Colin Mustful talks with novelist Ben Nadler about Prairie Ashes and the little-known Illinois Mine Wars of the 1930s. Together, they explore how labor conflict, family trauma, and buried memory shaped mining communities, and how a young punk rocker begins piecing those histories together decades later. Set across the 1930s and 1980s, Prairie Ashes follows Barb Massey as she grows close to her lonely great-uncle Larry and starts asking what his past has left unspoken. Her search leads into a violent struggle between rival miners’ unions, and into the histories families carry, suppress, and pass down. Nadler shares how family connections, archival research, and Illinois oral histories informed the novel, as well as how zines, radical print culture, and Barb’s punk and feminist perspective shape its form. The conversation also considers why labor history matters now and how fiction can help us ask how the present came to be. Ben Nadler is the author of Prairie Ashes. His research for the novel drew on archival materials and oral histories, including collections at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, bringing a personal and research-driven perspective to this overlooked chapter of Illinois history. At History Through Fiction, we bring readers and writers together around the stories, research, and craft that connect history with the present. Explore our historical fiction catalog, workshops, events, and community at https://www.historythroughfiction.com.

In this episode of History Through Fiction: The Podcast, host Colin Mustful speaks with historian and novelist Steven Leibo about the Taiping Rebellion, a sweeping 19th-century Chinese conflict that unfolded alongside the American Civil War and gave rise to the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace. Leibo explains how he uses documented events and real historical figures as the framework for his Sino-American Tales, weaving fictional characters into a family saga about people navigating Chinese and American worlds. From the Taiping movement to the Chinese Exclusion Act and the birthright citizenship case of Wong Kim Ark, the conversation reveals how lives across the Pacific connect, and why fiction can make complex history feel immediate. Leibo, a historian of Asian-Western relations with five decades of teaching experience, reflects on his research, Chinese American identity, and the power of stories to awaken curiosity. History Through Fiction brings readers and writers into stories rooted in the past. Explore our historical fiction catalog, workshops, events, and community at https://www.historythroughfiction.com.

How do books create a community beyond the page? In this episode of History Through Fiction: The Podcast, host Colin Mustful is joined by Jodi Harrison, Melissa Makarewicz, and Robin Henry to explore three ways readers and writers can gather, learn, and keep showing up: a free virtual book festival, The Working Writer online community, and the Novel Whisperer Writing Adventure in Santa Fe. Jodi Harrison, program director of the Fort Myers Literary Society, discusses the first History Through Fiction Virtual Book Festival, taking place Saturday, November 14. The free online event is designed to give readers room to meet authors, join conversations about historical fiction, move between panels and discussion groups, and connect through bookstores and book clubs. The conversation also highlights the community read of Jessica McCann’s All Different Kinds of Free and asks how readers can support authors beyond simply buying books. Melissa Makarewicz introduces The Working Writer, an online community for writers balancing creative work with jobs, families, and the rest of life. Weekly writing sprints, monthly goal setting, focused resources, peer feedback, and the simple act of being noticed when you show up all help turn an overwhelming ambition into steady, intentional progress. Robin Henry, managing editor and acquisitions colleague at History Through Fiction and a book coach through Readerly, previews the Novel Whisperer Writing Adventure in Santa Fe, New Mexico, June 6 to 12, 2027. The small-group retreat will combine protected writing time, individual coaching, shared meals, creative fellowship, and space to think deeply about historical fiction projects in progress. Together, these conversations make a larger point: books do not exist in isolation. They live in the relationships among authors, readers, bookstores, writing groups, and literary communities. Explore the Book Festival at historythroughfiction.com/book-festival, learn about The Working Writer, and find details about the Novel Whisperer Writing Adventure. Discover more stories, workshops, events, and resources at historythroughfiction.com.

In this episode of History Through Fiction: The Podcast, host Colin Mustful talks with Vanessa Miller, author of The Ladies Hall, about three Black women—Mary Church Terrell, Anna Julia Cooper, and Ida Gibbs Hunt—who entered Oberlin College expecting its promise of equality to be real. What they encountered was a place where the doors were open, but the hearts were not. Vanessa explains how their experiences became a story about education, belonging, and the unfinished work of equality. The conversation follows Vanessa’s research into Oberlin’s founding as an interracial college, its abolitionist community, and the Oberlin-Wellington rescue of John Price. She shares why she chose Mary’s and Anna’s perspectives, how she gives her characters room to be young, imperfect, and still becoming, and why historical fiction can connect the past’s struggles to today’s conversations about race, access, and DEI. She also reflects on the calling behind her faith-informed writing, her MFA studies, and the ambitious future she envisions for her work. Guest framing (draft based on episode transcript; please confirm): Vanessa Miller is a historical-fiction author and the writer of The Ladies Hall, a novel about Mary Church Terrell, Anna Julia Cooper, and Ida Gibbs Hunt at Oberlin College. In this conversation, she draws on her research, her experience as a writer, and her commitment to inspirational storytelling to bring their early lives and enduring influence into focus. History Through Fiction is a home for readers and writers who believe the past is full of stories worth recovering—and that the best historical fiction can deepen our understanding of the present. Discover more novels, workshops, events, and community at https://www.historythroughfiction.com.

In this episode of History Through Fiction: The Podcast, host Colin Mustful welcomes author Jane D. Cairns to discuss Exalted Objects, her historical novel about nineteenth-century New Hampshire brothers George and Will Stark. What begins with a strange historical discovery—one brother placing the other in McLean Asylum because the family could no longer stop him from buying elephants—opens into a larger story about reputation, freedom, ambition, and the strange ways love survives rivalry. Jane traces how George, a railroad executive and political candidate, and Will, a poet and traveling lecturer, embody competing ways of seeing the world: order and creativity, structure and whimsy. She shares how she moved from journalism and local history into fiction, learned to write the gaps left by the historical record, and drew on research into railroads, steam power, period newspapers, and a Harper’s Weekly illustration. The conversation also explores the collaborative work behind the audiobook, the role of writing communities and the GrubStreet Novel Incubator, and why careful research—even details that never appear on the page—helps historical fiction feel authentic. Jane D. Cairns is a Massachusetts-based writer, journalist, and grassroots local historian, an active member of GrubStreet in Boston and a graduate of its Novel Incubator program. Her work brings together archival curiosity, social and economic history, and a novelist’s attention to the emotional life behind the facts. History Through Fiction is a home for stories that connect the past to the present through historical novels, conversations, workshops, events, and a community of readers and writers. Discover more at https://www.historythroughfiction.com.

In this episode of History Through Fiction: The Podcast, host Colin Mustful speaks with historian and historical novelist Laura Kamoie, co-author of A Founding Mother, about Abigail Adams—the sharp-minded, outspoken woman whose letters reveal the human stakes behind the American Revolution and the creation of a new nation. Together, they explore what Abigail’s life can teach us about voice, independence, and the ongoing work of building a more perfect union. The conversation begins with a scene from 1814, as Abigail hears that Washington has burned and wonders whether the American experiment is collapsing. From there, Laura discusses Abigail’s surprisingly modern voice, her tart humor and intellectual confidence, and the full force of her appeal to “remember the ladies.” The episode looks beyond the familiar quotation to Abigail’s larger arguments about women’s education, political representation, and financial independence—including the entrepreneurial work and careful planning that allowed her to leave money to the women in her life. Laura also reflects on the craft of historical fiction: how close readings of letters and primary sources become dialogue and interior voice, how historical novels can function as a form of public history, and how she and Stephanie Dray collaborate to create a single, unified character on the page. She shares how her work as a historian and teacher informs her fiction, and why Abigail’s insistence that each generation must do its part remains resonant as the United States approaches the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Laura Kamoie brings together a historian’s care with sources, a novelist’s feel for character, and a deep commitment to telling the stories of people who shaped the past from within the pressures of everyday life. Her connection to Abigail Adams is especially compelling because A Founding Mother joins archival research, narrative craft, and the urgent question of how a nation’s ideals are lived—and revised—over time. At History Through Fiction, the past becomes vivid through story, conversation, and the craft of bringing overlooked lives into focus. Explore the catalog of historical novels, workshops, events, and the wider community at https://www.historythroughfiction.com.

How do you make an elephant disappear? In this episode of History Through Fiction: The Podcast, host Colin Mustful sits down with Tim Schooley, author of The Circus of the Vanishing Elephant, to explore what happens when a circus illusion becomes real—and when a beloved elephant, a fractured family, and a young clown’s search for belonging are all pulled into the same mystery. Set in 1974, Schooley’s novel follows the King Minos Circus after Henrietta, its star elephant, vanishes during a parade. Suspicion falls on Randi, the circus owner’s estranged daughter, and Ainge, a young clown haunted by a painful family history. The conversation explores family, chosen family, loyalty, animal freedom, and belonging, while also opening a window onto the practical realities of a traveling circus: its performers, crews, trains, arenas, ticket sales, and the pressure of keeping a small business alive during recession and rising fuel costs. Schooley shares how his own experience as a Ringling Bros. & Barnum & Bailey clown gave the novel its lived-in sense of spectacle and backstage labor. He also discusses why he chose 1974—a year marked by Watergate, the aftermath of the Vietnam War, political unrest, recession, and long lines at gas stations—and how newspapers, period details, and on-the-ground visits to Portland and Seattle helped him bring that world to life. Tim Schooley began his career as a circus clown before becoming an appellate lawyer, teaching at UC Davis Law School, and serving as managing attorney of the California Court of Appeal in Sacramento. He is the author of The Wool Translator, is active in Sacramento’s literary community, and helped found the Sacramento Book Festival. History Through Fiction is a home for historical novels, the research and craft behind them, and the readers and writers who keep stories in conversation with the past. Discover more books, workshops, events, and community at https://www.historythroughfiction.com.

In this episode of History Through Fiction: The Podcast, host Colin Mustful speaks with Eliza Knight, author of Lost in the Summer of 69, about the music, memory, and family ties behind a grandmother’s daring 1969 road trip. When Eleanor Bell is diagnosed with dementia, the widow and former musician decides to travel west to revisit the concerts and songs that shaped her life—before memory makes them harder to reach. Eleanor’s daughter Leanne and teenage granddaughter Nora set out after her, turning a search into a three-generation journey through the changing sound of the late 1960s. Knight and Colin discuss why Woodstock was only one part of 1969’s concert story; the research required to get artists, dates, roads, gas stations, hotels, and Howard Johnson menus right; and the choices that let historical fiction honor the record while still making room for imagination. They also talk about road-trip rituals, family expectations, and the possibility of beginning again at any age. Knight is an award-winning, USA Today bestselling author of historical fiction, creator of the History Undressed blog, and host of the History, Books and Wine podcast. In the conversation, she shares how she moves among historical fiction, historical romance, and other forms of storytelling—and how an MFA, teaching, and a carefully scheduled creative life help sustain the work. History Through Fiction is a home for stories that bring the past into conversation with the present, connecting readers and writers through historical novels, workshops, events, and community. Discover more at https://www.historythroughfiction.com.

In this episode of History Through Fiction: The Podcast, host Colin Mustful speaks with historical novelist Stephanie Dray about two women who helped shape the United States from outside the official centers of power: Abigail Adams, featured in A Founding Mother, and Frances Perkins, the subject of Becoming Madam Secretary. Their stories offer a vivid way into an enduring question: who gets to define freedom, and what does democracy demand from ordinary citizens? The conversation begins with Abigail Adams—wife of John Adams, mother of John Quincy Adams, and a forceful thinker in her own right. Dray describes Abigail raising children, managing a farm, seeking financial independence, and challenging the revolutionary promise of “all men are created equal” with her famous appeal to “remember the ladies.” From there, the episode moves to Frances Perkins, the New Deal architect whose work helped shape Social Security, labor protections, workplace safety, and the nation’s evolving social contract. Dray also reflects on the family history that led her to recognize Perkins’s impact on her own relatives’ lives. A novelist of women whose contributions have often been overlooked, Stephanie Dray brings together archival research, historical imagination, and close attention to voice. She discusses the challenge of transforming letters and public records into emotionally immediate stories, the changing dynamics of co-writing, and the perseverance required to carry a major project through unexpected obstacles. (Draft guest framing based on the episode transcript; please verify final credits before publishing.) At History Through Fiction, the past becomes most vivid through story, conversation, and the craft of imagining lives that official histories have too often left at the margins. Discover the catalog of historical novels, workshops, events, and community at https://www.historythroughfiction.com.

In this episode of History Through Fiction: The Podcast, Colin Mustful speaks with Kerri Maher, author of Summer of Love, about the myths and realities of the 1967 Bay Area counterculture. Through the lens of family, art, addiction, and reinvention, this conversation invites listeners to look beyond flower-crown nostalgia and into the emotional complexity of a turbulent era. Together, they explore Maher’s dual-timeline novel, which follows two sisters pulled in different directions by the cultural upheavals of the late 1960s and a later-generation storyline shaped by questions of sobriety, memory, and healing. The discussion moves from Berkeley and San Francisco to Napa wine country, tracing how place, research, and lived family stories helped Maher create a world that feels both vivid and deeply human. Kerri Maher is the author of Summer of Love and several historical novels, including The Kennedy Debutante. Drawing on her California roots, family stories from the 1960s, and a long, hard-won writing journey, she brings both personal insight and narrative craft to a novel about longing, change, and the search for connection. History Through Fiction is a home for readers, writers, and history lovers who believe the past comes alive through story. Explore more historical novels, discover workshops and events, and join the wider community at https://www.historythroughfiction.com.

In this episode of History Through Fiction: The Podcast, host Colin Mustful welcomes bestselling author Rhys Bowen to discuss her new novel, The Castle in the Glen. Set against the stark beauty and quiet danger of Scotland’s Isle of Skye, this conversation explores how place, memory, and layered storytelling can transform a historical mystery into something haunting and unforgettable. Together, Colin and Rhys dive into the origins of the novel, from Bowen’s early memories of Skye as a place of both beauty and threat to the intricate structure of a story built around a famous novelist, a young writer, and a mystery that may be rooted in real events. They talk about writing across multiple timelines, creating a novel-within-a-novel, and building suspense by slowly peeling back each layer of danger and discovery. Along the way, Rhys also reflects on research, historical authenticity, collaboration, pen names, audiobooks, and the unexpected ways stories can matter deeply in readers’ lives. Rhys Bowen is the internationally bestselling author of numerous historical novels and mysteries, including the Molly Murphy and Royal Spyness series. In this episode, she offers a fascinating look at the craft behind The Castle in the Glen and the creative choices that help bring both landscape and history vividly to life. If you enjoy stories where history, atmosphere, and literary craft come together, this episode is for you. To discover more historical novels, podcast conversations, workshops, and events from the History Through Fiction community, visit https://www.historythroughfiction.com.

In this episode of History Through Fiction: The Podcast, Colin Mustful speaks with economist and author Saifedean Ammous about The Gold Standard, a book that blends history, alternate history, and economics into one provocative thought experiment. Together, they explore what might have changed if the world had stayed on the gold standard—and why that question still matters for anyone trying to understand war, inflation, freedom, and modern money. Their conversation moves from the real monetary world of the late nineteenth century into Ammous's imagined turning point of 1914, where faster aviation and entrepreneurial ingenuity create a radically different financial future. Along the way, they discuss World War I, central banking, the Wright brothers, Louis Blériot, the logic behind alternate history, and the connection Ammous draws between gold, Bitcoin, and decentralized control over wealth. Saifedean Ammous is an economist, educator, and author of The Bitcoin Standard, The Fiat Standard, Principles of Economics, and now The Gold Standard, his first work of fiction. A former university professor with a background in engineering and economics, he brings a distinctive perspective to questions of money, history, and human progress. At History Through Fiction, we love conversations that bring the past to life through imagination, research, and bold ideas. Explore more historical storytelling, discover novels and authors, and connect with a wider community of readers and writers at https://www.historythroughfiction.com.

In this episode of History Through Fiction: The Podcast, Colin Mustful welcomes author Dietrich Kalteis to discuss Rust and Bone, a haunting novel set among German settlements in Ukraine as the Second World War collapses around them. Through family memory, deep research, and historical imagination, listeners are invited into a lesser-known story of displacement, endurance, and the fragile hope that survives in the midst of ruin. Together, Colin and Dietrich explore the civilian side of World War II through the intertwined journeys of Jacob, a teenage boy fleeing a village destroyed by Soviet troops, and Frida, a young girl trying to survive the devastation near Berlin. Their conversation moves from the settlement history of Germans in Ukraine to the brutal realities of forced flight, bombed trains, hunger, cold, and uncertainty. Along the way, Dietrich reflects on how oral history from his father and the lived experience of his mother helped shape the novel’s emotional core, and how research allowed him to render trauma, fear, and resilience with both restraint and force. Dietrich Kalteis is a novelist known for crime fiction as well as historical work, including Under the Outlaw Moon and Rust and Bone. In this conversation, he speaks not only as a writer of suspense and atmosphere, but as someone drawing on family stories rooted in wartime Ukraine and Berlin—bringing rare immediacy to a story about survival, memory, and what young people discover when the world they were taught to trust collapses around them. At History Through Fiction, the past becomes most vivid when it is carried through story—through the novels, questions, and human voices that help us feel history as well as learn it. Explore the broader world of historical novels, workshops, events, and community at https://www.historythroughfiction.com.

In this episode of History Through Fiction: The Podcast, host Colin Mustful speaks with Donna Jones Alward, author of Ship of Dreams, about reimagining the Titanic through female friendship, class, courage, and the emotional lives of the women aboard. Listeners will discover how a story everyone thinks they know can feel newly intimate when the focus shifts from spectacle to character. Together, Colin and Donna explore the real-world details that shaped Ship of Dreams: the opulence of first-class life, the strange and haunting atmosphere aboard the brand-new ship, the Halifax connection to the disaster, and the many small conditions that made the tragedy possible. They also talk about why historical fiction works best when history provides the structure but human relationships provide the heart. Donna Jones Alward is the author of Ship of Dreams and When the World Fell Silent. A longtime novelist now writing historical fiction after a career in romance, she brings deep attention to character, research, and the emotional complexity of women’s lives. In this conversation, she reflects on writing female friendship, balancing historical fact with story, and building novels that are both deeply researched and moving. History Through Fiction is more than a podcast. It is a place for readers, writers, and lovers of the past to discover new historical novels, learn from working authors, and explore the craft of storytelling. To find more episodes, books, events, and community offerings, visit https://www.historythroughfiction.com.