A Literal Journey

You Just Keep Going || Rebecca Connolly on Storytelling, Becoming an Author, and Hidden Yellow Stars

• Seth Adam Smith • Season 1 • Episode 7

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In this episode of A LITERAL JOURNEY, I sit down with author Rebecca Connolly to talk about the real path to becoming a writer—one marked by uncertainty, persistence, libraries, and learning by doing. Rebecca shares how taking just one creative writing class shaped her perspective on creative work, how she continued writing without formal training, and how she discovered that sometimes the only way forward is simply to keep going. During the interview, we talk about her books: An Arrangement of Sorts, A Brilliant Night of Stars and Ice, Hidden Yellow Stars, A Carol for Mrs. Dickens, and The Claire Walker Mystery Series.

This conversation is an honest look at storytelling, growth, and what it means to stay committed to the journey—especially when the road isn’t clear.

Whether you’re a reader, writer, parent, teacher, or someone learning to trust the slow work of becoming, I hope this episode encourages you to open a book and embark on your own literal journey.

📚 READ Hidden Yellow Stars: https://amzn.to/4qmUSpg
👀 CHECK OUT Rebecca Connolly’s other books: https://amzn.to/4s8uP6L
🎧 LISTEN to more episodes of A LITERAL JOURNEY: https://aliteraljourney.buzzsprout.com/

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My name is Seth Adam Smith. I’m a husband, father, and author who believes in the power of stories to inspire people forward.

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SPEAKER_00:

But I took one creative writing class in college. That's all I can speak to, one creative writing class. And when we sat down in our desks the first day, Professor said, Over the course of this class, I'm going to do everything in my power to convince you all not to be writers. We all looked at each other like, why are we here? Like, what class have we signed up for? That is not why we're here. But then he followed that up with, if I succeed, shame on you.

SPEAKER_02:

Wow.

SPEAKER_00:

And that landed in a different way.

SPEAKER_01:

So that you can live your own great story. Today's guest is Rebecca Connolly. Rebecca is the author of more than three dozen novels. She calls herself a Midwest girl having lived in Ohio and Indiana. She's always been a bookworm, and her grandma would send her books almost every month so she would never run out. That's a great that is a great grandma. Um, book fairs were her carnival. That's the same, same for me. And libraries are her happy place. She has been creating stories since childhood, and there are home videos to prove it. She received a master's degree from West Virginia University and has and is a hot cocoa addict. Well, okay. I mean, that's I don't know if you really need to get that checked out. That's that that's okay. That's an okay addiction, I would say.

SPEAKER_00:

I think so. I've I've discussed it and no one has any concerns.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, so uh Rebecca, thank you so much for agreeing to be on the interview. It's an honor to have you here. And uh I just give our listeners, our viewers, a bit of background on your story. What what got you into storytelling?

SPEAKER_00:

For me, it's just how my brain works. Um my imagination was always what got me through everything. I mean, my the whole videos we talked about there, I was setting up um teaching my stuffed animals school lessons, despite not being in school and having no idea how that was supposed to go. Um, not that I wanted to be a teacher because I didn't, but it was that was I was a teacher at that moment in my imagination. And it's just always been that way. I was captivated by by movies and books, and that's just how how I was. I never considered being a writer. That always seemed a very intimidating thing because I love books so much, and and writing, whoa, writing a whole book, being a writer, that that's that's something for them. I'm just here to enjoy those things. Um, but then there was also this other side of me that loved creating. And my elementary school had this book press, and despite it being the 90s, um, you would give them your story and they would print it on the various pages, and the pages would be blank so that you could illustrate. That was not my forte illustration. Um, and then you got to go in during free time and pick the cover you wanted, the color binding, the color binding, it was just either black or white. Um, and then they would print your title on it, and they would have an official seal on it. It was all very official. I couldn't tell you how many of those I have. It's probably they're probably in some bin in my parents' garage or something, assuming they haven't been used as like kindling for fires. But um that there was always that other side of me, but the logical side of me never considered that as an actual career path. And even going through university, I did not study writing, I did not study English, I did not study anything of that sort. My degrees are in sports medicine and athletic training.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, which I was very different, very different worlds, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Very, very different, which I was good at and I loved, and I had great experiences. Um and I wrote my first book in college while doing that because that was still how my imagination worked, and I still imagined scenes that way, and I would listen to music, and the the song would occasionally create a scene in my mind. And in my mind, it had full context. I knew how the characters had gotten there and what that moment meant, and that was just it. But then I decided to write a book after some hard things happened in college for you know this young 20-year-old who's trying to figure out what to do with her life. And that was the first book that I'd finished. I'd started things here and there, I'd written stuff in high school, but never with the goal of it being anything. It was just kind of a fun little quirk of mine. But then suddenly I finished this book, and that was really cool. And I thought I was a genius. And so I immediately was like, I'm going to get published. Guess what did not happen? I did not get published. That book did not wow anyone. Um, but I kept writing, and I wrote another book after that, and then I started to write another, and then I was getting ideas for more and more and more. And if I had been paying attention, I would have been a little bit more concerned about the fact that my grades in athletic training and sports medicine were decreasing a little bit, not not dramatically, not dramatically, but enough. And my note-taking was not as good as it could be because those notebooks were now being used for ideas for books and things like that. But it's fine. Um, so I literally fell into storytelling and writing. It's not something that I was supposed to do, it was something that happened.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, a lot of uh authors express something similar to that, where they either say, Um, you know, this story, this idea just came to me, and I felt compelled to write it, or they'll say something like, I had no business writing, I had no training, I had no business doing this, but I just felt compelled, I felt driven to write. Um, and a lot of authors can point to a a story or a book uh that really is like a it's like a doorway into that world, either a a world for their imagination or a world of like I want to create something similar to this. Was there a book or story that really spoke to you that kind of called to you and and made you want to write?

SPEAKER_00:

Um I would have to say it's probably well, there's one for sure, and then there's more of an author. So the book uh is the Scarlet Pimpernel.

SPEAKER_02:

Ah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

That was one of the ones that my grandmother sent me, and it is still to this day a favorite. I actually, if anybody's interested, I have a full screenplay ready to go that I wrote in college during classes that were not about writing. Um, that is a proper adaptation of the Scarlet Pimpernel, because as anybody who has read that book and loves that book knows, there is no accurate depiction of just that book. Anyway, um also my grandmother got me hooked on Jane Austen. And so when I started writing in college, uh that was what I wrote, the Regency Romance. Um, and that that was my that was my happy place, and it's it's still my bread and butter. I've been published for 10 years now, and the bulk of my work is the Regency Romance. Um but you mentioned earlier some authors feeling compelled to write, and that's only happened to me once, and I was already um involved in my writing career. I won't say entrenched because the idea came as I was starting that, um, but it didn't fully form until several years into my career, and that was um the story of the Carpathia, the ship that rescued Titanic survivors. I learned about it when I was on a trip with a friend, and we were in Belfast at the Titanic Museum there. And I learned a little bit about the Carpathia and Captain Arthur Rostran there, and I remember just going, I don't know this story, and I've seen the Titanic movie, and this was not in there. Um, and so when I went home, I looked it up a little bit, um, more to satisfy my curiosity, and I was like, this is a cool story, and it just kind of became something that stuck in my brain that I would just research from time to time, and then once I caught the full scope of it, I was like, I have to write this movie. Why I said movie when I was already a writer, I don't know, but that's what happened. Um, and so I wrote a whole screenplay, got a friend of mine who was who's a screenwriter, and we worked on it, and I researched the heck out of everything, and this took years because I was working full-time. Because remember, I'm an athletic trainer. Um, and I'm also a writer, and so I was writing while I was doing all of these other things, and then it was a few years into the screenplay and the research and all that when I went, wait, why don't I just write a book? And there's no gist about it, but I'm like, I write books, why don't I just write this book? And the the whole process was interesting to me because I had never been captivated like that by a real life story. You know, my my Regency romances are not based on any real experience or real part of history, it's just what I loved and wanted to do. And the book that I wound up writing, A Brilliant Night of Stars and Ice, has zero romance in it. It is a historical fiction, and that was not what I ever thought that I would do. But I was captivated by this story, this real story in history, and felt that I had to tell it. And that has never happened to me before, and that's how I got into historical fiction on top of my Regency romances.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, and I'm looking at it right now on my other screen here, A Brilliant Night of Stars and Ice. I mean, it is dominating. It's one of your more popular titles, and it's it's at the top here. Um, can you tell our listeners anything that's really unique, either about the book, the process of writing a book, or or maybe one of the stories that you came across that you just felt I have to share this particular story?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so when I was originally crafting the story, it was just gonna focus on Captain Arthur Rossman and the Carpathia, but I realized that that would not be fair to the story or to the reader. If you're gonna tell a story that involves a Titanic, you need to use the Titanic. And it also helps with the timeline there. So I um went into the Titanic archives, if you will. There's a database called Encyclopedia Titanica, and that is the rabbit hole of all rabbit holes for the Titanic lover. Um and I found a really, really amazing story in there about um a real life passenger named Kate Connolly, which is my last name. And I was like, wait, are we related? Um, and as far as I can tell, we are not, but we probably are because it's Ireland and we're Connolly's. Um and she survived the uh the disaster, but there was another Kate Connolly on board from a different part of Ireland who did not. Um and there was a bit of a mix-up with their names, and so that was interesting to me. I'm like, did they tell the wrong Kate Connolly's family about surviving and or dying? Like what? Um, and I so I was looking more into her story, and it had the friends that she traveled with and the lifeboat that she was in, and so many details. And I was like, this is an incredible story. And the thing with the Titanic is if you go to pretty much any survivor, there's an incredible story. We could tell a story about any person on the Titanic, really. Um, and it just so happened that this one had my last name. And so A Brilliant Night of Stars and Ice tells the story of Kate Connolly on the Titanic, and then also Captain Arthur Rostrina the Carpathia, and their paths may not have actually crossed, but there was certainly some interweaving because he was the captain of the ship that rescued them. Um, and in doing all of that, I found some incredible stories, just little stories. And one of my favorite things about that book is when they are on the rescue ship, uh, the Carpathia, you can hear various snippets of people looking for children or looking for friends, looking for spouses. And everything that I put in there, every little snippet comes from actual stories, actual people, actual lives that were affected. And it was so emotional, but also as the writer, so rewarding to be able to put so many accurate details into something that is just overheard.

SPEAKER_01:

Backing up a little bit, um, talk to me about your journey of actually getting published. Um, what was the first book you published? What was the reception like? How did that feel? Um, tell me about that experience.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So my first published book ever is called An Arrangement of Sorts. It's a Regency romance. And I wrote that book probably 2010. 2000 probably 2010. Um, and it was just something that I wrote in my spare time. And so I was just right, I had just been writing for myself. And um had a couple of friends that you know would read as I wrote, but didn't try to get published again. Every now and then I would be like, well, maybe I should send it to contests or something and get feedback, if nothing else. Um and you know, so I went to graduate school um as my bio said at West Virginia, and writing was my hobby through that. I didn't have a lot of real free time and not a whole lot of social time. Um with athletic training, it's pretty demanding. But writing was how I got through it. It was my therapy and etc. So by the time I went to my first job out of graduate school, I had five, almost six full manuscripts just from writing for fun. And uh, so I was working my first job out of graduate school. Um, and I happened to be uh, as part of my job, I was doing outreach at high schools, and I had been talking with a friend of mine who had been there for me throughout my entire writing hobby, career. Hobbies aren't necessarily careers, but you know, my entire writing journey up to that point. And I'd said, I think I want to try it at I want to try for publishing again, but I really don't know. I had looked at independent publishing in graduate school, but at that time it was so expensive, and I was on a really tight stipend, and so that was not something that I was in a position to do. Um, but I thought that would be safer for my very sensitive soul. Um, that way I didn't have to get rejected again. Um, but when I told my friend this, she goes, Well, a cousin of mine has um has published before. Um, let me see if I can get his his take on this. Maybe he can, you know, read part of it or tell you about his journey or you know, whatever. And I was like, Yeah, okay. Um, so he agreed to read for me and he um so he did and he said, I actually he's actually thought that the story had merit and that it would do well, um, and that there would be a market for it. Uh and he said, Let me tell you about my publisher. And so he connected me with uh with the publisher who agreed to take me on. And that's how that worked. And I said, Why didn't you tell me that he was connected to that publisher? And she goes, Because I you never would have sent that first email, which is true. Um and so that's how that's how I got connected, which is I would have I would have stressed myself into an ulcer over the email that I sent if I had known how uh how connected he was.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, you know, and I I tell people that whenever I've worked in the publishing industry in various capacities, and I tell people all the time the the best way to get published. It's not it's not exactly nepotism, it's it's it but it is who you know. Sure. Um, and so if you go to writers' conferences, if you meet and network with people, you just have a better chance of knowing someone who knows somebody who can help you get your foot in the door. Uh, because a lot of times it it just does come down to that that ease of that connection, and just it, you know, they they get to have eyeballs on your manuscript if you know if they're not just digging through a huge slush pile of all these different manuscripts.

SPEAKER_00:

So but to be fair, I went full slush pile for a brilliant night of stars and ice because it was not a Regency romance, and it was the first time I'd done anything, and I didn't know anybody at um at Shadow Mountain, the publisher that I was submitting to. I didn't know anybody there well enough to say, Hey, you want to put eyes on this? Um, I wanted to see if the manuscript could stand on its own, and I beat the slush pile with that one.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow, wow, yeah, that's amazing. So that that was a Shadow Mountain book then.

SPEAKER_00:

Brilliant Night of Stars and Ice is a Shadow Mountain Slush Pile Victory.

SPEAKER_01:

Slush Pile Victory. That's amazing because they they get, I mean, I know I don't know Shadow Mountain specifically, but I remember where I was working at, I mean, it was like in the thousands that we would get.

SPEAKER_00:

That's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_01:

You just like the opening lines, you gotta if you don't look me there, you're just going through all these different things. And so for yours to be a slush pile victory means that it is, it was it was meaningful, it was destined to be because and it is, it's I mean, it's dominating here. Um so in the journey through life and the journey of publishing and the journey of writing, every good protagonist uh meets resistance.

SPEAKER_04:

Sure.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, it sounds like you encountered quite a bit of resistance um early on. Uh you had a lot of complications. How did you, as you were publishing, how did you overcome any additional resistance? Resistance um because you've obviously published quite a bit. How do you how do you keep pushing forward with with writing, with publishing?

SPEAKER_00:

The thing that I've learned is that you are always going to feel like an imposter. Imposter syndrome is real. And it doesn't matter if you're one year in, ten years in, twenty five years in, there's always that concern that this project is going to flop. And it might not be the one that ruins your career, but they're, you know, you know, you never know. And some people are more prone to it than others. I happen to be quite prone to it. Um, and so one of the biggest things that that I struggled with is myself. Um and life will get in the way regardless of what you're doing. Um, but I took one creative writing class in college. That's that's all I can speak to, one creative writing class. And um when we sat down in our desks the first day, Professor said, Um, over the course of this class, I'm going to do everything in my power to convince you all not to be writers. He went back and we all looked at each other like, why are we here? Like, what class have we signed up for? That is not why we're here. But then he followed that up with, If I succeed, shame on you.

SPEAKER_02:

Wow.

SPEAKER_00:

And that landed in a different way. And as I have gone through my writing career, what I have learned is he was absolutely right. Because everything will is designed to make you stop or to pull you down. You've got the edits that may cut through your most favorite scene or your most favorite joke because it doesn't land for everyone else the way it lands for you. You've got the the struggle of even getting into it. It's a lot easier to do independent publishing now, which is fantastic. It also means there's not as many checkpoints for you. Um, there's the negative reviews that are brutal. Brutal sometimes. I had somebody once ask me for their$1.99 back. Um there's$1.99.$1.99. They wanted it back because they thought that I'd wasted their time and money. I just thanked them for the small fries that they purchased for me with that. Not really. That's what I did in my mind, but I do not respond to the negative comments.

SPEAKER_04:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

Then there's you have to promote yourself, whether it's social media or whether it's ads or things like that, and people respond to those. Depending on how open you are on social media, people can message you directly and tell you exactly how they hated how you did this entire scene or the language that you use or your content or whatever. And because of the world we live in, you can get attacked from all sides. And it's enough to drag anybody down or to make anybody stop because I did not sign up to be attacked when I said I wanted to be a creator. But if we let all of that and everything that is working against us keep us from doing what we want to do, then that's on us. And that doesn't mean that it's ever going to be easier. Um, you build up your armor a little bit more, but there's still chinks. Some things are still gonna get through. It might not sting as badly, but they're still gonna irritate you. Um so it's just a matter of uh deciding you want it more than you're affected by the negativity of it. And that's it's a constant battle.

SPEAKER_01:

I think that is my the my favorite advice that any author has given. I've talked to a lot of authors and far and away, that one that one's landed. I I really like that one. The if I succeed, shame on you. And yeah, every every angle it's going to fight you to be a creator. It's it's much easier to be someone who who's a cynic and tears down and destroys, especially in this culture right now. Our culture right now is is very geared towards the cynic. So to be a creator, uh it takes a lot more energy to build up than it does to destroy. I really like that advice. Talk to me about your book, Hidden Yellow Stars. Give our give our listeners a background on what that is, and then I'll ask you some more questions about it and how the process of writing it.

SPEAKER_00:

Sure. Hidden Yellow Stars is a historical fiction that I released a couple years ago, and it all started because my dad sent me an obituary from uh USA Today. And it was an obituary for a woman named Andre Galen, who had passed away at the age of 100, and she lived in Belgium, and in her bio it said that she had been part of a group that had helped, I think it said over 2,000 Jewish children escape from the Gestapo. And I was like, I'm listening. Uh, and so I did some I did some digging, and my dad had sent this to me because he knows how I like I like a good story, especially from history. Um, and so I started doing some digging and I discovered that she had uh she was recruited by this woman named Ida Sterno, who was um a non-practicing Jew from Belgium, who was part of a clandestine organization that was um helping to hide Jewish children from uh from the Gestapo there in in Belgium. Um, and they were hiding the children because it's very hard for an entire family to escape. But once you can get the children to safety, then it's easier for the parents to escape. Um, and so I just dug into this story and it was absolutely incredible. So Andrea Galen was not Jewish, in fact, she was uh a lapse Catholic, but she looked perfectly Aryan, and she was a teacher at this boarding school, and the headmistress at the boarding school was kind of sort of involved with this clandestine group, and they had been kind of hiding Jewish students in and out of the school, and so she facilitated this introduction, and um and off they went. And so Andre is hiding these children walking right past the Nazis because she looks like their preferred human um and they don't even question her. And so it's just this incredible story, and these references that I found about the these hidden children and what they went through, and there's official government documents and depositions from after the war. Um, and it's it was just incredible, but it was also so heartbreaking to read about anything from the Holocaust is beautiful and horrible. Um, because you read these stories of light and strength and heroism, and you read these stories of hatred and darkness and brutality. Um, and it's not all from the Nazis, some of it's from the regular people, some of this horrible stuff. And so I'm reading these experiences of children that are hidden, and some of them are hidden in in um in religious places and having a great experience, and some of them are hidden in religious places and having a terrible experience, some of them are hidden with families and having a horrible experience, and some of them are basically adopted into these families, and it was just this cacophony of experiences, and in my own faith heritage, um my father was um was Catholic um growing up, and his father was Catholic, we are Irish Catholic, um, and his mother was Jewish from Hungary, and so I've got these two very strong religious backgrounds, and this is Belgium, so most of them are Catholic. So I've got this massive faith heritage battle going on, and there's good and bad on both sides. And I I called my dad a lot when I was going through this, and and we started referring to my feelings about the situation as the dementors. Um, and he would have to say, Okay, that's enough dementors for you. And I would have to, and he would say, Go eat some chocolate now. And my dad is not one to tell me to go eat more chocolate, but he was in this case because he knew how hard this was for me. But it was more important to tell the story than it was for me to be safe in my feelings. Um and so what came out of that is this incredible story of these remarkable women. And I don't know how I got lucky enough to be the one to write the novel, uh Hidden Yellow Stars, and tell this story in this way. But it did lead me to this incredible memoir called A Child Without Shadow, written by a man named Shaul Horrell, who lives in Tel Aviv, and he was one of their hidden children. And I was able to get in contact with him about his memoir because I had a very specific question that I needed an answer to. And what it led to was this very bizarre friendship that led to me getting calls every now and then from Tel Aviv uh talking to this lady who had stayed in contact with Andre Galen up until the day she died, um, and giving me some incredible insight that I can't find on any other documents or references or anything like that, um, including one of the scenes that I thought pretty straightforward, and he said, No, that's not how that happened. They actually scaled a building. I was like, What do you mean they scaled a building? And he goes, That's just it. They would not have done it this way, they did it this way. So, one of the more unbelievable scenes in that book is one of the most accurate ones because someone who knew her said, No, it happened this way.

SPEAKER_02:

Wow.

SPEAKER_00:

He read the book for me and uh gave me his take on it. Um, and uh, and that was that was absolutely incredible.

SPEAKER_01:

I was listening to an author, another author, James Farrell. And he was talking, he was giving a seminar, he was talking about all of the writings that have come out of the World War II era. Yeah, and he said, he says, the most remarkable thing about that time period is the writings that we have and the accounts that we have, because it goes to show you that no matter how dark the world can get, there is still a lot of good that can come out. And in some instances, and it's hard to say this in a way that in a way that makes everybody happy, but I mean sometimes it's it's that resistance that actually brings out the greatest good, uh the greatest heroism. So um that's remarkable. Were you able to get in touch with her family and uh if she had descendants or anything?

SPEAKER_00:

I in the very early stages, I believe that I got in touch with one of her grandsons on Twitter, thanks Twitter. Uh and they weren't particularly interested in participating and or knowing about it, which is which is fine. Um, I'm not writing a memoir. Um and so I just kind of went with it. And then after I after it published, I got a message from a woman named Christine Sternow. And I was like, hello, what's this? And she's um she's from Belgium, and she said that her son was at university and had done a search on Ida for some reason, and who is his father's aunt. And my book had come up in the search results, and so he read through it and sent it to his parents, sent the info to his parents, and they got in touch with me just to let me know who they were and that they were excited to read it.

SPEAKER_01:

Wonderful, wonderful. Well, uh, shifting gears a little bit, you've written some fiction uh titles, quite a few. Um, there are a couple that stand out to me. And I'm I'm assuming, based upon the background right now in your room, uh, it's around Christmas time. That's what I'm I'm picking up those signals. And for those people who are listening to this later, this is actually we're recording a couple of weeks, a week or two before Christmas. Um, and so with that in mind, I'd love to talk to you about your book, A Carol for Mrs. Dickens. And already Charles Dickens is one of my favorite authors, like all time. I assume this is about his wife. Uh correct? Okay. Didn't want to assume, but Dickens is a very unique.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, you're not gonna mention it unless you're getting real close to the mark there.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. So uh so tell me, tell me about that book. What was the inspiration? What's the story about, and what was the inspiration behind it?

SPEAKER_00:

I had been watching the movie Um The Man Who Invented Christmas. Great movie, one of the best depictions of the madness of authors that I've ever seen. And and they're curious. Um and it I was like, oh, they're so on point there. Um, but one time when I was watching it, I was paying attention more to his wife, and she gets rightfully irritated with a couple of things going on in there, and I was watching that and I thought, I wonder if she got tired of him being Charles Dickens, the father of Christmas, and all this stuff. Um, and so I started doing a little digging there, and um, because he had this incredible experience writing this book, and you know, he loved acting out everything. He loved theater and he loved doing readings of his Christmas Carol at Christmas, and I was like, I bet she got sick of that.

SPEAKER_02:

Um and um, and they had a lot of kids.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't know if everybody knows that. They had 10 kids. Um, and he loved a party, he loved to host a party, and when you host a party, the wife is the hostess, especially at that time, and most of the work and such falls on the wife as mistress of the home, and she's not Mrs. Christmas, he is Mr. Christmas, but she's Mrs. Dickens. And I'm like, I wonder if that ever got on her. And I was like, you know what? She deserves her own Christmas experience, and so I started looking into various details, and I found this perfect window of time. Um that was a few years after a Christmas carol had come out, um, and Charles was like in the height of his father of Christmas fervor. Um she was pregnant with their tenth child. Their ninth child had passed away as a toddler, and things were just dark by all accounts, by all biographies, and everything like that. This was a dark time for her. I was like, perfect. What better time to bring a little bit of Christmas magic into her life than this particular window of her life? And it just kind of took off from there. And this is one of those incredible projects that as soon as I got the idea, I had the title. And as soon as I told my team the title, every single person said yes. And I was like, fabulous! And so we started crafting this story where we take a Christmas carol and we twist it enough to make it a poignant experience for this woman who has been dragged along either willingly or unwillingly with her husband as Mr. Christmas to be this perfect counterpart to all things Christmas and literature and life and family, and how exhausted was she. Um, and so it became this project that I just adore, both for her and for everybody that has to deal with the madness of the holidays when all we want is to take a nap, or have someone else do some of the lifting, or when we just can't find the spark of the magic that we once had with it. And so that's kind of what drove it.

SPEAKER_01:

It it already sounds like it could be easily adapted into a play, like uh, like I mean, it's got that vibe to it. Just reading through it right now. I'm like, this could be a great Christmas play.

SPEAKER_00:

From your mouth of those who can.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. Yep. My wife, my wife's an actress, and so she it's it's already like that. Theater is always on the book.

SPEAKER_04:

Sends you a copy.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, you've written another uh book series, one one uh the second of which is coming out in January. Uh, it's the the Claire Walker Mysteries. Could you uh explain the premise to that and then the first book and now the second book coming out?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So I had this really silly idea once. Well, I have silly ideas all the time, but I had this really silly idea once to have um a spin on the great British bake-off, but have it take place at a historic estate and have them do historical bakes because that's fun, and I'm a history nerd. And because I love love, there was going to be the brooding Viscount in the historic estate that hates that this show is happening on his estate, but he has to do it for the money and for the continuation of the estate and whatever else. And of course, he's captivated by this plucky amateur baker. Of course. And it was just going to be that. And I had randomly pitched that idea to my editor just to make her laugh. And a few months later, she writes back and she goes, Remember when you pitched this? And my first response to myself was that wasn't an official pitch, but okay, yes, I recall. And she said, Could you put a dead body in it? Well, sure, but why?

SPEAKER_01:

Um Yeah, you don't want to you don't want to cook around a dead body. I mean, that's maybe not in the show. That's not yeah, that's not part of the show.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh and so then she explained that they were looking to uh to try some some more cozy mysteries, and she thought that the premise would make a very interesting cozy mystery. And so we kind of crafted my original silly idea into a a cozy a cozy mystery with some romantic elements. Um, and thus uh the crime roule bake-off uh came about, which is book one. And it's still the same thing. There's a baking show taking place on a historic estate, and there's a brooding viscount that doesn't want them there, and he crosses paths with this plucky amateur baker, and then there's a dead body, not in the baking tent, not involved in the way they really lose when they lose.

SPEAKER_01:

They lose real life.

SPEAKER_00:

It was a bad loss. Um so then the two characters, Claire is the baker, and um and Johnny is as the Viscount, and they get pulled into this murder investigation. Um, and hijinks and Sue. Um, there's a lot of baking still going on because the show must go on. Um, but there's also this investigation happening. Uh and so that was just an incredibly fun little circus of a story. And then uh in talking with the with the publisher before it was done, they were like, Oh yeah, this is a series. I said, Is it? Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Amazing news to me. Thank you for bringing me in on this little secret.

SPEAKER_00:

So that's kind of that's kind of how that went. And so I was like, all right, so book two. Um let's let's talk book two. And for whatever reason, I said, let's put it on a train. And they were like, Great, why are we baking on a train? And I said, why not? And so book two, Mayhem on the Marza Pan Express, comes out January 6th, and it set takes place on a steam train through the Highlands of Scotland, loosely based on the um the Jacobin train or Jacobite train, I don't know, remember what it's called, but it's this famous steam train that um goes uh throughout Scotland. And yes, it is the Hogwarts Express for those nerds that know these things. Um it's it's set on there, and there's um there's one or two recurring characters from book one besides Claire and Johnny, but it's a completely separate case, um, different body, different mystery. Uh and it's it's just it's just hilarious. And I can't say that I ever imagined myself writing Cozy Mysteries, but I did grow up reading Nancy Drew, so it's not too far off the mark.

SPEAKER_01:

Not too far. I mean, it's already just the way you described it, it already, I mean, it just sounds charming. Just sounds absolutely charming.

SPEAKER_00:

It is, and um, Claire curses in baking terms.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh uh, could you elaborate on that?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, absolutely. So, Claire, um, in the story, Claire grew up in a pub, but her parents did not want her or her siblings using the language that you might hear in a pub. And so they encourage their children to come up with curse words uh according to their their own wishes. And so Claire, loving baking, swears in baking terms. She says things like crepes alive. Um, she says cakes in a custard. She says things like not at this frosting time. Um it's you know, it's just kind of this thing that happened. Um, because everybody needs something that they say when they're scared or frustrated or whatever. And I just thought she would swear in baking terms. And now I can't get away from it, and it's really entertaining.

SPEAKER_01:

So now do you use those in your day-to-day life now? Because does the character their vernacular rub off on you?

SPEAKER_00:

Only when I hear one uh a new phrase or word that would make a really good one.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, speaking of cursing, uh, I I do hear that you have uh a beef with a certain author uh named Jason F. Wright. Um, he's actually the one who uh got us in for this interview here, so I don't want to be too cruel to him, but I do hear there is uh something of a public dispute between the two of you.

SPEAKER_00:

There is. There is a little bit of a dispute with Jason and I. Um we have we have a rivalry. It's been going on for several years now. Um we happened to release books within, I think, a month of each other, several years ago. And it all started when um someone from our mutual publisher was talking about one of Jason's books in the bookstore and you know, showing them off. And there were um TV monitors that had a nice banner of his book and talking about it and things like that. And then the banner shifted, as banners in bookstores do, to display more than just one person's book. And the next one up happened to be mine, and so this person, in order to match the banner, moved my books on top of Jason's to talk about mine instead. He was not making a statement, Jason, but he was just trying to go with it for the video, and Jason took offense, and now it's a whole thing, and I can't just let attacks on me go. So when he does things, I do things in response.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh and and what what have been uh some of the more memorable uh public disputes? Um, we were talking a little bit before about it, and uh it seems very interesting to me.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, um, he has put my books in an ice cream freezer. Um, he has tried to return my books just for the sake that my name is on it, despite the fact that the cover art is fabulous and that it's a good story, but it's written by me, so he no longer wants it. Um he he had an entire room full of high school boys mock me um and wonder who I was, and it was and and then you know put it on social media for everyone to also ask, who am I? Which, you know, thanks for the publicity because now people are gonna look me up, but it could have been done in a more tasteful manner. Um it's just it's it's just bonkers.

SPEAKER_01:

And and throughout this whole thing, you're just an innocent victim. You've never done it.

SPEAKER_00:

I am absolutely innocent, you know. I all I'm doing is matching his energy.

SPEAKER_01:

Exactly. Yeah, and that's you know, that's fair. That's totally fair.

SPEAKER_00:

So I'm not gonna take this lying down. I will not instigate, but I will answer.

SPEAKER_01:

That's good, that's good. Yeah, I mean, I like we were talking about before, uh, he's got some Achilles heels, he's got some things uh on his name that that are easy, easy points of attack. But you know, I'll bring that up with him in in the interview I get. Uh, I'll see if he's got a rebuttal, if he's got any any sort of response to this piece, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

He's horrifying attack. You know, randomly say, Hey, I'm putting you on a podcast and that it's somehow gonna make things worse for me, but I deliver. So thanks, Jason.

SPEAKER_01:

So um, you have uh just a prolific writing career, lots of titles over numerous genres. Um, I guess the the the final question I would ask before asking how people can can follow you and follow what you're doing, is it it has to do with why I named the show a literal journey. Um life is a literal journey, and depending on what story you believe about your life is is where you end up. I've seen that happen time and time again with young readers, but also in a lot of work that I do in addiction recovery, people who believe one story about their lives uh will generally follow that story and they'll they'll end up in in places that are sometimes very dark and difficult. And when they hit rock bottom, I've seen it time and time again that they'll say, you know, I don't want to believe this story anymore. I want to believe a different story. And once they believe a different story, nothing else has to change. They change and they move forward in their literal journey once they believe a different story. And so for my part, I like highlighting authors who write good stories, who who write stories with a message about hope or or anything along those lines, because if you're sharing good stories, other people will pick them up and maybe they'll believe a different story. As people read your stories, any of the stories, the historical fiction, the cozy mysteries, um, as people read your stories, what is it that you really hope they come away with uh and learn?

SPEAKER_00:

There's always a story uh that strikes us for one reason or another at different points in our lives. And every character in every story has an arc. And sometimes the characters don't understand why they are where they are, why these things are happening to them, why they aren't where they thought they should be. And as the writer, we know why. We know what this particular event is going to do for them and how it is going to get them to the ending that we the writer have envisioned, and that's true for any genre, um, and it's true for us as well, except we aren't the writers. We like to think we are, we like to think that we have the pen. And in some cases we do. But our character arc is not always what we think it should be. If my character arc were the way that I thought it would be, I would not be a published writer right now. Um I would be married with six kids. Uh, and I am neither of those things. Uh, instead, I am a career woman who's trying to figure out what the heck is going on with her life, and my character arc is way off the rails from what I had planned, but I'm not the writer, and this is the arc that is that is for me wherever it leads. And the writer knows what they're doing with me, even if I don't. And we are not breaking the fourth wall many times here. But um, but when you're reading the work that that I put out, I want people to to see the the light and the hope and the fun in it, whether you're reading for an escape or whether you're reading for understanding or knowledge. Um there's there's always good, there's always light, and there's always a reason to to smile or laugh. I write because I love it. Well, okay, I tell stories because I love it. I write because that's how you tell a story. Um and it's it's become part of who I am, and that was also not part of my plan for me. It was but it was part of the character arc that I am in. And so this is this is how I express myself. This is how I get through my character arc. And it's it's fun to be able to give a moment of reflection or joy or escape to those that are reading it.

SPEAKER_01:

For people who want to to follow you or or read your stories, where where can they find you?

SPEAKER_00:

Um, I am on Instagram, author.rebecca Connolly. Uh Rebecca.connelly. Thanks, Instagram. Um, I am on Facebook, author Rebecca Connolly. Um, my website, Rebecca Connolly.com. You can probably follow Jason F. Wright and he tags me and things. Um you'll find it.

SPEAKER_01:

That was very generous of you.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, if you want to follow him, you can see what I do to him as well because we tag each other. Um, and I have to give him some kudos because he did put me on this podcast today. Um, but that's where I am probably most active.