A bit of info on me: I enrolled in university as a high school drop out back in 2001. This was prompted by a work study I did in tourism, during which I had to give a presentation to the whole school on something tourist-like. I picked the Halifax Explosion because a) it was a subject I knew a lot about, and b) I was actually taking the work-study course in a building that had been affected by the blast — actually, Charlie’s school in Shadows May Fall. I had ten minutes to talk. I took thirty. People I didn’t even know came up to me afterward to chat about what I had told them and tell me that they had family members who had died to had been here or there during the disaster. After which, the coordinator of the course pulled me into her office and asked me if I had ever thought of going to university and going into public history.
Long story short, I went to university and got my degree. Sadly, not in history. I couldn’t find an adviser who was willing to champion my interests and the nearest public history course was halfway across the country, so I graduated with a degree in English and went to work.
I’m still a history geek, which is how I sat down to write Shadows May Fall and can happily research its sequels. This is the time period I was interested in studying — early 20th century when the new technology was phones and cars and fancy appliances. I grew up listening to stories my grandmother (who very heavily influenced the character of Dorothy) and grandfather told me, so the period is quite vivid in my head and will creep into the third and fourth books planned for the series.
Being a history geek who has delved into writing history, I can squirm with delight when I see something like this:
Oct 11 1916: 85th Battalion (NS Highlanders) departs Camp Aldershot, NS for Halifax & boards SS Olympic for trans-Atlantic voyage. pic.twitter.com/6tjQBFCJPd
— Bruce F. MacDonald (@brucefmacdonald) October 11, 2016
Ian’s Battalion from Shadows May Fall. Literally 100 years ago today in the timeline of the book, my main character was left alone to shoulder the burden of keeping her family together. It gives me a bit of a shiver, because stepping away from the fictional world it makes me stop and think about all the real women who had their worlds uprooted when their fathers, husbands and sons boarded that ship and went away, and all the young men who had no idea whether they’d ever set foot on Canadian soil again.
Annemarie Hartnett 