Afternoon Tea (6/7/19)

This is fascinating: The Revered Crocodiles of This Island Nation Have Suddenly Started Killing People

Whoa: Phyllis Latour Doyle: The Forgotten Spy Whose Knitting Helped Pave the Way for D-Day

From the Greeks to Instagram: The Secret History of the Flower Crown

Writing My Way Out of the Closet: A Guest Post by These Witches Don’t Burn Author Isabel Sterling

I've never clicked a link so quickly: An Hour-by-Hour Roadmap to Your Most Productive Day Ever

Afternoon Tea (5/1/19)

Visit Auschwitz For The Questions That Follow You Home

This was good but didn't explain the connection between cursive and conservative Christian educational movements strongly enough: Cursive Seemed to Go the Way of Quills and Parchment. Now It’s Coming Back.

The Race to Develop the Moon

A wilder read than you might expect: The Raisin Situation

We Spy 6 Brilliant New Books That Celebrate Our Fascination with Spies

Morning Coffee (4/27/19)

Maria Butina sentenced to 18 months for trying to infiltrate US right and NRA

Of . . . course: Trump Pulls Out of Arms Treaty During Speech at N.R.A. Convention

Joe Biden Expresses Regret to Anita Hill, but She Says ‘I’m Sorry’ Is Not Enough

GOP-led states move the war on voting to a new front: voter registration

Justice Ginsburg schools her conservative colleagues on the meaning of the word ‘consent’

Stephen Moore’s Columns Deriding Women Raise New Questions for Trump Fed Pick

Georgetown students vote overwhelming in favor of $27 fee for slavery reparations

Geraldyn M. Cobb, 88, Who Found a Glass Ceiling in Space, Dies

What an interesting perspective to have available: Diary of explorer David Livingstone's African attendant published

Academy votes not to change Oscar eligibility rules for streaming services in major win for Netflix

Morning Coffee (2/14/19)

Former Air Force Intelligence Agent Charged With Spying for Iran

Inside The Largest And Most Controversial Shelter For Migrant Children In The U.S.

Good: ACLU Sues to Block New Hampshire Voter Residency Requirements

Why Mitch McConnell is holding a vote on the Green New Deal

Hey but some good news from the Senate! The Senate just passed the decade’s biggest public lands package. Here’s what’s in it.

John Roberts Is Not Your Friend

Republicans Keep Admitting Everything They Said About Obama Was a Lie

This is awful: New Bill Aims to Prevent Gender Dysphoria 'Disease' From Spreading to Kids

UGH, MEN: Ryan Adams Dangled Success. Women Say They Paid a Price.

I'M SO SAD: NASA’s Mars Rover Opportunity Concludes a 15-Year Mission

Afternoon Tea (1/23/19)

The Hunt for the Nazi Loot Still Sitting on Library Shelves

The Anxiety of 'Doing Womanhood Correctly' in Academe

We regret to inform you that aliens are probably not trying to talk to us

Bread Makes a Comeback

7 Spy Romance Novels To Pick Up

Morning Coffee (1/21/19)

Me elsewhere: TV news for the week.

I've been wary of this while the GOP has the Senate, but the Atlantic makes an interesting case: Impeach Donald Trump

Trump's war on science: how the US is putting politics above evidence

U.S. to Investigate Discrimination Against Native Students on Montana Reservation

Tony Mendez, ‘Argo’ spy who smuggled U.S. hostages out of Iran during crisis, dies at 78

Pipeline battle puts focus on Canada's disputed right to use indigenous land

Good for her (and the book is great, btw): Michelle Obama's 'Becoming' has the longest run atop Amazon since 'Fifty Shades'

Wow: Bob Costas Says He’s Done With NBC After 40 Years

!!! Gillian Anderson Set To Join ‘The Crown’ Season Four As Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher

I'll admit I've always been suspicious of these, but . . . Twins get some 'mystifying' results when they put 5 DNA ancestry kits to the test

Amazing: Microsoft font gives away forgery in bankruptcy case

Afternoon Tea (12/19/18)

Where Reindeer Are a Way of Life

Daniel Ortberg, magnificent as always: The best $6,250 I ever spent: top surgery

The Yoda of Silicon Valley

Hm, I've read very mixed things about this documentary: Evangelical Writer Kisses An Old Idea Goodbye

A Brief History of Spy Fiction

Morning Coffee (12/11/18)

Theresa May halts Brexit deal vote to avoid defeat, throwing British politics into chaos

And DRAMA: MP causes uproar in parliament by grabbing mace in Brexit protest

To Protect Migrants From Police, a Dutch Church Service Never Ends

Phew: Supreme Court sides with Planned Parenthood, declines to take case

This is an important read: The Hardest Glass Ceiling in Politics

Good riddance to John Kelly

Rosanell Eaton, Fierce Voting Rights Advocate, Dies at 97

Good: YouTube Bans Proud Boys Founder Gavin McInnes

!!! John le Carré’s Next Novel to Land in 2019

Oh no! Change Brewing in Harvard Square: Tealuxe to Close by End of Month

Afternoon Tea (12/6/18)

Jameela Jamil and the Trouble With #NoFilter Feminism

How A Corporation Convinced American Jews To Reach For Crisco

(Not?) Petrarch’s Cat

Opera 101

7 Real-Life Spy Stories for People Obsessed with John le Carré

Morning Coffee (10/23/18)

Let's start with some VERY GOOD AND IMPORTANT local news: Judge blocks SB 3 voting law, saying it imposes 'unreasonable, discriminatory' burdens

Erdogan Says Saudis Planned Khashoggi’s Killing, and Demands Answers

This isn't funny but the phrasing made me laugh: Gorbachev Calls Trump’s Nuclear Treaty Withdrawal ‘Not the Work of a Great Mind’

Trump runs with absurd right-wing media lie about terrorists infiltrating the migrant caravan

Wow: Nation's Only Independent Gov. Drops Re-Election Bid In Alaska And Backs Democrat

GO VOTE: Republicans outpacing Democrats in early voting in key states, NBC News finds

Meanwhile: Uruguay passes law granting rights to trans people

This story is amazing: Joachim Roenneberg, Who Sabotaged Nazis' Nuclear Hopes, Dies At 99

I didn't know much about this groundbreaking female writer in the genre, and now I definitely want to read her: Evelyn Anthony, Writer of Spy Thrillers, Dies at 92

Well, this is a relief: Apple fixes its new bagel emoji with cream cheese and a doughier consistency

Morning Coffee (10/12/18)

TIME FOR FRIDAY HAPPY LINKS.

Eeeeeee: ‘The Little Drummer Girl’ Trailer: Here’s Your First Look At What Could Be The Best TV Series Of The Year

!! Emma Roberts to Star in Netflix Ice Skating Drama 'Spinning Out'

Also !! All-Star ‘Greatest Showman’ Album Entices Pink, Panic!, Sara Bareilles and Others

Aww: "The couple met in 2012 while working on President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign in Chicago, and began dating while working in Brooklyn on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, in 2015."

Between the X-Files ones and now Doctor Who Barbie I... need to buy some Barbies?

Apple Cider Doughnuts Are the Truth

QUIZ: Which Literary Witch Are You?

To start your holiday shopping: nail polish gift sets.

And Nintendo cartridge soap??

And Grinch makeup!

Afternoon Tea (10/9/18)

This is the most delightful thing I have ever read: Daniel Radcliffe and the Art of the Fact-Check

These Stories Are Ours, Too: Writing Black Characters into Fairy Tales

Kate Atkinson Loves a Good Secret (I highly recommend her new book.)

A Mysterious Fossil Points to the Origins of Lizards and Snakes

Here's some fun medieval manuscript history in honor of the new Doctor: A female doctor

Afternoon Tea (10/4/18)

The New Cold Front in Russia’s Information War

Ooh, I've never read him: Eric Ambler: A Crime Reader's Guide to the Classics

The rise of the wholesome internet meme

A Tingling Spine Every Time: Some of classical music’s most sublime moments

The Screenwriting Mystic Who Wanted to Be the American Führer

Afternoon Tea (10/3/18)

The KGB Stalked A Snap-Happy French Tourist For Eight Years. But Was He A Spy?

Useful! The Baker's Pantry: All the Staples You Need to Make Amazing Desserts

The Murderous Playwrights of Elizabethan England

Would Baseball have Become America’s National Pastime Without Baseball Cards?

The Lonely Heath at Twilight

Weekly Rec: The Spy with the Red Balloon + Q&A with Author Katherine Locke!

The Spy with the Red Balloon, one of my favorite books of the year, is out today! Siblings Ilse and Wolf Klein have a big secret: they can do magic. And then the government finds out and blackmails them into service, Ilse by helping with the atom bomb project and Wolf by going behind enemy lines to sabotage the German nuclear program. Soon they're both in danger, and have to figure out how to help each other (and fight Nazis) while remaining true to themselves and their beliefs. This book combines so many things I like - it's a World War II spy story, a smart girl story, a sibling story. There's lots of science AND magic, complicated interpersonal dynamics, and big philosophical questions playing themselves out in people's everyday lives. And it features a realistic cross-section of characters of different races and religions and sexualities who are too often left out of historical fiction.

I loved The Spy with the Red Balloon so much that I got author Katherine Locke to come answer all my questions about it. (Disclaimer, I guess: Katherine and I are good friends but I wouldn't tell you I liked a book if I didn't!)

I love math and physics so my first thought is to ask about THE EQUATIONS, but I guess you did not ACTUALLY write magical equations. So instead: how did you decide on that form for your magic?

There was a point where I tried to teach myself math and physics so I could actually invent magical equations. About a month into that, I realized that this was a very bad idea and I needed to just write the book. I did teach myself a limited amount of physics and chemistry so that when Stella and Ilse were speaking, it sounded as legitimate as possible. (I manipulated the Student Handbook and school rules in high school to get out of physics, and trust me, I regret that now!)

I decided on it pretty early when I was writing The Girl with the Red Balloon after doing quite a bit of research on time travel and realizing that magic that moved people through space could, by that very same logic, move them through time. If such an equation could be developed.

I got into the weeds a few times with it when I was working on Girl but it wasn’t until Spy when I had to actually think about how they would have developed and understood this magic. There’s magic in Spy that is very very close to how Ellie gets to East Berlin in Girl, and sometimes I like to think about all of the research work, what was lost, what was found (and by whom), that happens between 1945 at the end of Spy and 1988 in Girl.

This book's companion, The Girl with the Red Balloon, was written/published first but set later. What were some of the challenges involved in fitting this story within the framework you set up in the previous book? Was there anything you established in Girl that turned out to be particularly troublesome when writing Spy?

Hahahahahahaha. Ahahahahahahaha. *catches breath* AHAHAHAHAHA.

Yes. I had to ret-con a lot of my own work. I did not intend to write another book in this world, so I had to go back and look through all the magic that is in normal use by 1988 in Girl and decide where they were in 1945. I’d established in Girl that the magic was pretty new in 1942, so I had a time constraint--if it was very new in 1942 in the war zone where they were using it, then it couldn’t be so well established, widely known and fully realized in 1943 in the US where I set half of Spy. Additionally, I’d pitched a Manhattan Project book to my editor (who is a history nerd in the best of ways, so she was excited about that). I needed to think about the evolution of magic, what would be desired by the US military for the Project, and what would be needed in reality in the ‘field’, so to speak.

Additionally, the magic system had a lot of constraints. So if random people’s blood was magical and caused them or whatever their blood touched to levitate, how did they go undetected? What happened to those who menstruated? How did they draw blood and write without their pens levitating, or the materials levitating as they did so? How did they stop blood from clotting? From going rancid? How long did an equation last?

It was a lot of work.

I often get frustrated with dual narratives because I end up much more interested in one half of the story than the other, but you did a great job here keeping both Ilse's and Wolf's stories interesting and giving them parallel pacing without it seeming contrived. What was your technique for planning that out? Did you make a big combined timeline?

This was also a lot of work! There were times that I felt Wolf’s timeline was naturally more compelling because he felt like he was in the most immediate danger, which tends to build immediate empathy and connection with readers. The book began as Ilse’s book, so I didn’t want to lose her and her voice. She was my entry into the story, and I truly love this character. I wanted to make sure she sang too.

I reverse outlined the book and put them on notecards, taking care to match up arcs. When Wolf gets into [REDACTED TROUBLE], a similar situation happens to Ilse, heightening their tensions and their storylines at the same time. Either they had to match completely, or they had to be the inverse and the reaction had to be devastating. So for example--this isn’t a spoiler because it’s in the cover copy--Ilse’s at a dance when her brother’s plane is shot down. The colonel sends someone to find her, and Ilse’s horrified that while she was having fun (or at least, thinking she could have fun), her brother went missing.

I worked that out physically with notecards first, and then rearranged my book (via Scrivener) to match that, before I exported to Word (my preferred medium to work).

There aren't many WWII novels with Jewish main characters that aren't centered on the Holocaust. Why was it important to you to do that here?

My grandfather was the son of Jewish immigrants (from what is now western Ukraine but was then Poland), and he fought in WWII. His unit helped liberate Dachau II, a sub-camp of Dachau. From what we’ve been able to track, some of our relatives died at Dachau. None of my relatives who stayed in Europe survived the Holocaust. Dozens of Jewish boys who escaped Germany before 1942 made it to the US, and enlisted to go home and fight the Nazis. Jewish-American soldiers fought in WWII, and they fought at even higher risk than Christian-American soldiers. If they were captured, they were often killed or sent to concentration camps like Berga.

I really wanted to explore that time period through a different lens, through the lens of American Jews who know what’s happening over there, are pacifists, struggle with the blindness of patriotism, and have a great deal to lose: they are Jewish, they are American, they are queer, and they do magic.

I also really really want to see more historical fantasy and historical novels where Jewish people are heroes without being victims in the same breath. The Klein siblings go through a lot in Spy, but they’re never victims.

This book is fantasy but obviously it's very grounded in real history. What was your research process like, and specifically what kinds of resources did you use to help you tell the stories of people who are so often overlooked in history and historical fiction, like people of color and queer characters?

I traveled to Oak Ridge, Tennessee and went on the tour of the nuclear facilities and town there, as well as visiting the museum. I read a lot of books and watched movies. I had a pretty good background on nuclear weapons as I worked in nuclear weapons abolition activism for a year after college, but I knew more about the work on the Gadget at Los Alamos than I did about Oak Ridge. I read a lot of books about spies during WWII, the Manhattan Project, the women on the Manhattan Project, the Nazi science programs, etc. I listed all the books I read, and included my author’s note and photos from my trip here on my website.

I also read Manhattan Project Voices, where there are interviews and oral histories with women who worked on the Project. I am immensely grateful for the historians who’ve taken the time to collect those stories.

On the whole, WWII must be one of the most well documented and well researched times in history, from every angle. I wanted to include Stella after reading about how Dr. J. Ernest Wilkins was excluded from the Manhattan Project in Tennessee because of Jim Crow laws. I knew both Klein siblings were queer (Ilse is bi, Wolf is demisexual/ace-spectrum), and I did research around that. (Contrary to what some may believe, queerness is not an invention of the last fifty years.) Queer people and Black people and disabled people and Jewish people and Christian people and depressed people and anxiety people and neurodiverse people and young people and old people all participated in the war effort. It is disingenuous to write books that do not reflect that.

Will you ever write a female character without an L in her name? Ilse, Polly, Stella, Lola, Lily. Ellie and Aly in previous books. Surely you're almost out of names. (Okay, I guess that's not a real question. Hahaha.)

It turns out, I am not out of L names.
(I am trying.)
(but not very hard.)

If you could pick any (real or magical) job/assignment to have had during World War II, what would it be? (I want to be a Bletchley codebreaker, personally.)

You would be a great codebreaker. I would be very bad at it.
I would like to be Lily (from Spy) though. I think I would have been good at keeping boys in line and punching Nazis.

You write across a lot of different genres/audiences - is it hard switching back and forth? Are there themes you find yourself returning to across different projects?

I definitely write a lot of Jewish characters! I also write a lot of Jewish characters/characters in general struggling with trying to do good in seemingly impossible situations. I love writing siblings, so I frequently come back to that. I am really interested in the ways that times of high conflict make someone realize that they’ve always had the tools to survive. They didn’t gain them through the struggle, they’ve always had them. If that makes sense. So conflict as a way of illuminating our resilience as people and individuals.

As for switching, I don’t find it difficult. I try not to write two YA books at the same time, but I can write a YA contemporary and a MG fantasy at the same time. They’re different books for me, and they keep me interested and thinking. I like the puzzle aspect of stories and I have a short attention span. Jumping around and trying to challenge myself with every new manuscript keeps me happy.

In addition to writing you have a full time dayjob and freelance. Any favorite tips for finding the time/energy for writing or other creative work while still paying the bills?

Set aside one day a week where you don’t do work (which...I admittedly did not do this week) because you need to refill that well. Daydreaming about stories, or going to plays or art museums or walking around a park or talking to friends is refilling the well and that is creative space, even if it doesn’t feel like it at the time.

Get up early before work, if you can, and write while your brain is the freshest. I edit at night because I can do that after work, but I can’t make new words after I work all day. So I do those in the morning. Figure out when and where you work best, and commit to it. I’m bad at writing for just 15 mins here and there, while I have friends who write whole novels that way. I need at least two hours straight through. And I work typically 20 minutes on, 5-10 minutes off, 20 minutes on again.

And sleep. Seriously. Your brain needs time to rest and repair.

Which of your cats would be the best spy?

Okay. I’ve been thinking about this the entire interview while I worked on the other questions. I think the important thing to remember here is that there are many types of spies and they all work in different ways. So I think all of my cats would be great spies, but for different things.

But the dream team would be Cora and Pilot. Cora is very loud and you would think she’d be a bad spy, but she’s really good at climbing on top of you and distracting you, while yelling at you, so you may not see Pilot going to work in the background. He’s very quiet, and very light and small, and very sneaky. They’re a good team.

[Note: If you'd like this question/answer to make more sense, go follow Katherine on Instagram. There's lots of good cat content.]

The Spy with the Red Balloon is out now! Go read it! And if you'd like to read its companion The Girl with the Red Balloon via your library, check out the Big Library Read.

More about the author:

Katherine Locke lives and writes in Philadelphia, PA where they're ruled by their feline overlords and their addiction to chai lattes. Their debut YA The Girl with the Red Balloon was a 2018 Sydney Taylor Honor Book and a 2018 Carolyn W. Field Honor Book. They secretly believe most stories are fairytales in disguise. You can find them online at KatherineLockeBooks.com and @bibliogato on Instagram and Twitter.

Afternoon Tea (10/1/18)

A journalist researched the true story behind a rape allegation that occurred at her high school when she was a student, and the result is fascinating and heartbreaking: What Do We Owe Her Now?

This fits well with our current national mood: RANKED: 10 Paintings of Judith Beheading Holofernes

Photos Document What Remains of a Soviet Atomic City

The Women Spies of Historical Crime Fiction

Walking in Benjamin Britten's footsteps, Suffolk

Afternoon Tea (8/24/18)

I loved this essay by a YA author marrying a politician: A good mayor is hard to find

If you're interesting in figure skating, this interview with choreographer Sam Chouinard is fascinating.

A New Vision of a John le Carré Classic

How to Dress Like Lara Jean Covey From “To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before”

10 Romances That’ll Have You Wishing You Were Back In College

Morning Coffee (8/4/18)

I'm glad our state party immediately called for him to resign: State Sen. Jeff Woodburn Arrested On Domestic Violence, Assault Charges

Myanmar Official Line: Rohingya Are Returning. But Cracks in That Story Abound.

Suspected Russian spy found working at US embassy in Moscow

This story has a GREAT lede: Beto O’Rourke Is Officially Making Ted Cruz Sweat

Good for him: Pope Francis Declares Death Penalty Unacceptable in All Cases

WHAT A PITY: The NRA Says It’s in Deep Financial Trouble, May Be ‘Unable to Exist’

Spotify removes Alex Jones’s podcasts, citing policy on ‘hate content’ (Really, they've removed specific episodes that were flagged by users, which is... a step but not enough.)

Apple Is Worth $1,000,000,000,000. Two Decades Ago, It Was Almost Bankrupt.

This saga is so terrible: Agent Danielle Smith’s Former Clients Speak Out

Oh no: Fields Medal Is Stolen Minutes After It’s Given in Brazil

Afternoon Tea (7/30/18)

This is wild: The Spy Who Drove Me

Alone in the Dark: Why we need more children’s books about suicide and severe depression.

Japan’s Fiery Toyohashi Gion Festival

The Strange Stories of Soldiers Who Fought for Both Sides in World War Two

The Artist Whose Rural Dystopian Scenes Inspired an Amazon Series

Afternoon Tea (6/29/18)

The Tumblr bloggers building a canon of asexual history

Spying Doesn’t Pay — Unless You’re Really Good At It

One Crime Novel for Every Country in the World Cup

America’s First Female Mapmaker

Interview with A Mongolian Cheesemaker