Last Sunday I was supposed to be giving a talk at the Kensington, Maryland, Day of the Book Festival. As a featured author, I planned to talk about the challenges and surprises of writing historical fiction. Then came the coronavirus, and it was all cancelled. But if I can’t stand on a stage, I can still share my ideas about researching and crafting a story set in a different time. For me, the greatest joy of writing historical fiction is that it lets you avoid writing, for days and weeks at a time. Any excuse to research another question –… 

Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House may be 140 years old but this story of a failed marriage still commands our attention. According to the Center for Ibsen Studies in Oslo, it’s the second most-produced play in the world after Hamlet. A recent sequel play, Doll’s House Part Two, is now playing in regional theaters across the country, many of which are also staging revivals of Ibsen’s play, and several adaptations of A Doll’s House are currently in theaters around the world. What explains the power of this story? I’ve spent the last decade writing my own sequel to A… 

There is something about the unfinished quality of Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House that has been inspiring sequels ever since the play premiered in 1879. Some sequels punish Nora, some send her back home to care for her children, some set her free. I choose to give her a novel and two continents to roam while searching for love, family and her true self. Here’s a sampling of other follow-on works with different outcomes for Nora: There were several sequel plays in England and Europe almost immediately after A Doll’s House premiered in Copenhagen, including one British parody with… 

That’s my dearly departed dog, Rex: a sweet, loyal collie mix who always knew when to cheer me up. Nearly everyone loves dogs, and many people enjoy reading about them and their deep-felt relationships with their owners. Given that, why didn’t I put a dog in my novel Searching for Nora?  It would have been a surefire way of warming up the narrative. A dog could have humanized the humans, led to interesting plot opportunities, and provided Nora with a friend when she desperately needed one. Ah, and therein lies the rub. I had a photography teacher once who banned… 

New Year’s resolutions are as old as the Romans (according to Wikipedia), so it’s likely that Nora Helmer might have considered some self-improvement around this time of the year. The image above is of a New Year’s resolution card from 1915, and I love how it starts with the statement “I will this day try to live a simple, sincere and serene life.” If my character Nora were to adopt a New Year’s resolution, the idea of living a sincere life would be a good place for her to start. Telling the truth is her particular challenge: she’s a quick…