Episode 138: Bestselling author, Emily Bleeker
Bestselling author Emily Bleeker, with six novels under her belt, is a two-time Whitney Award finalist, Wall Street Journal bestseller, Amazon charts topper, and a recent addition to the prestigious list of the top 100 Kindle authors "of all time."
In her latest historical fiction novel, "When We Were Enemies," Emily unveils a compelling narrative featuring two women from different generations thrust into the spotlight. This powerful novel, inspired by her own family history, explores family secrets, devastating choices, and hope for the future.
Books & Links Mentioned:
When We Were Enemies by Emily Bleeker (Bookshop.org / Amazon.com )
Wreckage by Emily Bleeker
The Hint of Light by Kristin Kisska
The Courage To Be Disliked by Fumitake Koga & Ichiro Kishimi
Blood Orange Night by Melissa Bond
Full Disclosure: We are part of the Amazon and bookshop.org affiliate programs, which means Lainey or Ashley get a tiny commission if you buy something after clicking through from a link on this website.
Connect with the author:
Transcript:
** Transcript created using AI (so please forgive the typos!) **
[00:00:00] Ashley Hasty: Hi, Emily, and welcome. I am thrilled to have you as a guest on the Best of Women's Fiction Podcast.
[00:00:07] Emily Bleeker: Thank you.
[00:00:08] Ashley Hasty: I always like to start by having you share your synopsis of the book with our listeners who may not have read When We Were Enemies yet. So could you tell us a bit about what it's about?
[00:00:18] Emily Bleeker: Absolutely. So it's a dual timeline.
[00:00:20] Emily Bleeker: The 1943 timeline is during the summer. Right before Italy switched sides and joined America in the alliance during World War II. And this is why, When We Were Enemies. And our superstar, Vivian Snow. before she became famous. And she's working at an Italian POW camp in the United States.
[00:00:45] Emily Bleeker: And then the present day timeline is her granddaughter who now there's this generation of fame and she wants to be famous, but she runs a PR company and they're doing a [00:01:00] documentary about Vivian's early life. And that documentary, as they often do in these fun stories, starts to reveal some secrets that the whole family doesn't really want revealed.
[00:01:13] Ashley Hasty: I heard that this novel was inspired, at least in part, by your own family history. Could you tell us a little bit more about that and about the initial spark that made you think, that's the story I want to tell?
[00:01:25] Emily Bleeker: Yeah. I think I didn't have any idea. I wanted to tell this story for quite some time. My father just made an offhand comment about how my grandmother worked at an Italian POW camp.
[00:01:38] Emily Bleeker: And I was like, what even is that? And so I didn't realize that during World War II, there were hundreds of POW camps where soldiers that were captured from Italy and from Germany, were held over here in POW camps. And so my grandmother worked in one of these camps as a secretary. And while she was a secretary there, she became friends with an Italian priest and they continued writing to each other for the rest of their lives.
[00:02:09] Emily Bleeker: And he would draw her pictures. That she would keep forever and like little postcards and stuff like that.
[00:02:17] Ashley Hasty: This is your seventh novel, but your first historical fiction novel. What made you decide to venture into this genre?
[00:02:25] Emily Bleeker: Yes. I tiptoed into it with my last book because it was about me, it's always my family.
[00:02:31] Emily Bleeker: They had no idea that I would be writing about them one day. But I wrote a little bit about the twenties last time, and I've always loved history. I have a minor in history. It's always been something that I found fascinating. I love seeing the fact that we're all the same.
[00:02:46] Emily Bleeker: I think that's why I like classic literature for the exact same reason, so there's always those moments that just click into my mind. And I'm like, I want to know more about that. So it's been really fun to explore those things. I love research. Like I was that weird kid that was like, yes, I get to do a research paper, so now I get to do that as my job.
[00:03:07] Ashley Hasty: That's a great segue into my next question, because as our regular listeners know, my favorite part of the writing process is research. And I love hearing about how authors Go about it. So what was your research process like for When We Were Enemies did you have any favorite sources or did you get to travel things like that?
[00:03:25] Emily Bleeker: Yeah, I did travel down to Camp Atterbury. It is Indiana. That's where the POW camp is based. Like the story is based on that POW camp. There's still a camp there, but it's like a training facility. I actually ended up with somebody that I knew had trained there and I posted about and he's like, why are you posting about Camp Atterbury?
[00:03:48] Emily Bleeker: But they have a chapel down there, which is part of the story is that the POWs built this chapel because part of the Geneva Convention was that they could prep. their religion in whatever way they seemed, they deemed [00:04:00] fit. And so the Italians came together and they built this tiny little chapel together out of like spare parts, basically.
[00:04:10] Emily Bleeker: And so we went and we visited that chapel, took pictures, talked to the people there, and visited the town. So I think that was probably the highlight of taking my research that I had done through things like resources, books, internet, talking to people and then taking it and really seeing what that looked like.
[00:04:31] Emily Bleeker: It was a nice culmination.
[00:04:33] Ashley Hasty: I want to take a step back for a moment because I love asking authors how they became authors because rarely is the path a direct one. I read that you were first an educator and that maybe a health scare led to you writing and publishing novels. Can you tell us a bit more about your path to becoming a novelist?
[00:04:52] Emily Bleeker: Sure. Yeah. So I never thought I'm some kid growing up and you hear that beautiful story of I knew I wanted to be this and not I. When I was younger in first grade, there was a little girl who had beautiful handwriting and I will confess right here on this podcast that I stole that little girl's pencil because I thought her pencil made it that she had such beautiful handwriting. I named it on the board for it, which then I went in a race in a moment of rebellion.
[00:05:22] Emily Bleeker: Then I got a check mark behind my name. Anyway, that was my life of crime that led me to be a writer. But so I felt like I never would be something like that, but when I was an educator, I taught a writing workshop class for gifted and talented students from third to fifth grade and just seeing their imagination and their courage was really inspiring for me.
[00:05:49] Emily Bleeker: I would write at the same time as them and then we would all share our writing with each other. And I just caught the bug at that point, like wanting to put my words down on paper, but I [00:06:00] never really thought I would share them with anyone. This is a secret, but no longer.
[00:06:04] Emily Bleeker: I did share them on the internet when I wrote Jane Austen fanfic under a fictional name. But I didn't have courage to share it. So then I had a few Children and I had a three month old and a one year old at home and I was diagnosed with cancer and it was an aggressive form of a soft tissue sarcoma and I was given some kind of scary statistics about my chances of turning 30.
[00:06:35] Emily Bleeker: So when I turned 30, I was like, dang, a hundred years ago, I'd be dead. There's no way without medical intervention that I would be here. And so it felt like I'd be given this gift. Ooh, it's making me emotional today. Here are years that you have been given back that really, like maybe weren't yours.
[00:06:54] Emily Bleeker: And so I was like, what am I going to do with this time? So I decided I would make [00:07:00] some goals. My goal was to write a manuscript. Once again, I never thought it would get published. I was like, I just got to write it from beginning to end. I'm just going to write about it. And it just took off from there. It took me three years to write Wreckage, which is my first book.
[00:07:14] Emily Bleeker: And then it took me another year and a half to figure out how to edit it and how to, every step in the process. And that eventually got me here. It's an interesting winding path.
[00:07:27] Ashley Hasty: But a beautiful story, drawing from your personal experience and the journey that led you to where you are now.
[00:07:36] Ashley Hasty: What one piece of advice do you think is most important for writers?
[00:07:40] Emily Bleeker: To just write like you just got to write like we can put it off. We can say, oh, I'll do it when I have more time. I'll do it. My kids are older. I wrote Wreckage while I was nursing my daughter. Like I would just one hand, as much as I could.
[00:07:56] Emily Bleeker: Cause it's the only time I had three little boys and then a little tiny baby, [00:08:00] it was the only time that I had that I could write. And so for me, it was a joy. Like it was the creative energy that brought joy to my life was being able to write. And. I think that there are so many ways that we can convince ourselves that it's not our time yet, and maybe it's not our time yet to publish, but that doesn't mean it's not your time to start, you can start something or you can continue something.
[00:08:28] Emily Bleeker: It doesn't have to be your time to be at the finished product.
[00:08:33] Ashley Hasty: I am a nine month old right now and I am having a very hard time imagining writing while breastfeeding. So that is highly impressive.
[00:08:43] Emily Bleeker: It was my escape. It was really literally the only time I had trained my children to leave me alone during this time.
[00:08:49] Emily Bleeker: So it was like my one quiet time.
[00:08:52] Ashley Hasty: I can see that. Yeah. I think authors always have the best reading suggestions. So I'd love to hear about your reading world. What are you reading right now that you'd recommend?
[00:09:02] Emily Bleeker: Gosh, I am so into nonfiction lately I feel like a rebel as a fiction writer that I am reading a lot of nonfiction, though I did just read Hint of Light by Kristin Kisska, I think is how you say her last name.
[00:09:19] Emily Bleeker: Very wonderful. So that was the last fiction I read, but nonfiction, I read a book a week at least. I just read about The Courage To Be Disliked, which is very interesting. I enjoyed that one. And I just read right after that Blood Orange Night, I think is what it's called. Yeah, one's a memoir and then the other one is just like a philosophy kind of a book.
[00:09:47] Ashley Hasty: Are you working on something right now that you can tell us about?
[00:09:52] Emily Bleeker: I am. Yeah. I think it's okay if I talk about it because it's been official for a while, but we haven't done anything like a big announcement. So we'll just say if you like When We Were Enemies, you're going to have some more from that world coming up soon.
[00:10:07] Ashley Hasty: Intriguing.
[00:10:08] Emily Bleeker: Yeah.
[00:10:09] Ashley Hasty: Too much away, but it gets us curious.
[00:10:11] Emily Bleeker: Yes. Yes. I hope so. I'm really excited. It's the first time that I have done something derivative of another book that I've written. It's definitely a companion piece rather than an exact sequel, but it's been very interesting staying in a world for this long.
[00:10:29] Ashley Hasty: Interesting. So I'm curious, since you've done so many books that are contemporary, and now you're going a bit to the historical fiction side, what are the differences in writing the two?
[00:10:42] Emily Bleeker: Research. You know what I do? And I don't even know if this is a valid method or not if I love old films.
[00:10:50] Emily Bleeker: So the one that I'm writing right now . It goes through multiple different decades. What I've been doing is I will binge tons of old films from that time. YouTube, really, I do that too. I'll go and I'll watch movies from that time period. I'll go and watch actual footage from that time period, and then I'll sit down to write.
[00:11:12] Emily Bleeker: I think the other thing is I've had to be willing to like, I do that thing. I know a lot of writers do it, where when I don't know what I'm going to put in for research, I just put it like a QQQ. So I know to go back later and specify. And for a long time in my writing, I wanted to get the research before I did that. And this book, I've had to just let go and be like, I know I'll get that information. I'm going to write as much as I can and just tell myself, you need to come back here. So trusting myself in that has been huge for me and it has made it so I can write much faster. I can stay in the head of my character and not be like popping out to go Google something, all of the time.
[00:11:57] Ashley Hasty: I am definitely the writer that could stay in the research phase forever.
[00:12:01] Emily Bleeker: Yeah.
[00:12:02] Ashley Hasty: But your love of historical films makes a lot of sense knowing the Hollywood connection in this novel.
[00:12:08] Emily Bleeker: Yes, and that's been very fascinating for me because like I perform so I'm an improviser It's not Hollywood or anywhere close But one thing that I really came to have come to understand doing this week after week and being on stage is like how much it is delightful and creative, like writing, but it's also a job, and so it's been very interesting to delve into that, the multiple layers of that, of like how this looks so glamorous on the outside, but at the end of it, these people are doing their job. This is part of an industry, it's competitive and it's multifaceted. So that's been really fun for me to look into.
[00:12:48] Ashley Hasty: Finally, I want to share how people can find you. What is your website and where do you like to hang out on social media?
[00:12:54] Emily Bleeker: Yeah, I'm just emilybleeker.com and I am on Facebook and Instagram just under Emily Bleeker, and then I'm on TikTok too, so if you wanna see me talk to you more.
[00:13:09] Emily Bleeker: That's where you go.
[00:13:11] Ashley Hasty: Before we wrap up, is there anything else you wanted to talk about that we haven't covered yet?
[00:13:16] Emily Bleeker: Nope. I'm really excited because I'm going to my first conference for a women's fiction conference in a few weeks. I'm really excited about that.
[00:13:25] Ashley Hasty: When you're in Chicago?
[00:13:27] Emily Bleeker: In Chicago, which is where I’m from.
[00:13:30] Ashley Hasty: I'm from Chicago too.
[00:13:31] Ashley Hasty: We're in uptown.
[00:13:32] Emily Bleeker: Okay. Awesome. Okay. So you're right. We're down there all the time. So my husband is down at Piper's Alley quite a bit.
00:13:40] Ashley Hasty: I'll see you at the conference later this month.
[00:13:42] Emily Bleeker: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:13:44] Ashley Hasty: Thank you again for joining us on the podcast and sharing your book and your experience as an author with our listeners.
[00:13:50] Ashley Hasty: It was a real pleasure chatting with you.
[00:13:52] Emily Bleeker: It was wonderful. Thank you for having me.