By the River is brought to you in part by the University of South Carolina Beaufort, learning in action, discovered, The ETV Endowment of South Carolina, Community Foundation of the Low Country, strengthening community, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at USCB, the Pat Conroy Literary Center.
<Holly> A New York Times bestselling author, Karen White, combines historical fiction and mystery to tell a story of friendship and betrayal.
Her book, Last Night in London follows American journalist, Maddie Warner, and it uncovers a story of friendship, spies, and betrayal.
I'm Holly Jackson.
Join us as we bring you powerful stories from both new and established Southern authors as we sit by the river.
♪ upbeat music ♪ ♪ <Holly> Hi there, it's another beautiful day at our waterfront studio here in Beaufort.
Thank you so much for joining us here for By the River.
I'm Holly Jackson, and I'm pleased that you've tagged along with us today.
You know, this is our love letter to Southern writing, and we're bringing you powerful stories from both new and established South Carolina and Southern authors.
And today we are here with award-winning author of the Tradd Street Series and The Last Night in London, Karen White.
Karen, thank you so much for coming.
I know it's just such a chore to come to Beaufort, isn't it?
>>I know, but somebody has to do it.
<Holly> Right.
So, thank you.
Yes, thank you so much for coming.
We have so much to talk about so let's get right to it.
First, let's talk about your latest book that we have here today.
Why London?
I know there's a story there that started, I believe in your teen years.
So let's get going on that one.
>> Yes, so my father was an executive with Exxon, so we lived all over the place.
Although my family is all from the South, my parents were born and raised in Southern Mississippi.
You don't get much more Southern than that.
But, you know, I lived all over the world and we lived for seven years in London.
And when I was 12 and we moved into our beautiful flat, it was a 1904 building right on Regents Park where Mick Jagger had once lived, where Joan Collins currently lived at the time.
and the porter took us up to our flat.
And he explained that the reason why some of the windows in the flat were plain glass and some were leaded glass was because during The Blitz, during World War II, nearby bombs had shattered them.
And I, you know, I wasn't, I had no plans to be a writer at that time.
It took me a long time to realize that I wanted to be a writer.
And even that I wasn't sure.
But I was a huge reader.
I had a huge, I loved creating stories in my head.
I loved reading and I had an active imagination.
And so many nights I remember sleeping in that bedroom in that flat and just trying to imagine the lives of the people that had not only lived in the building since 1904, but had lived there during The Blitz with, you know, The Blitz was what, almost nine months of nightly bombing.
<Holly> Right.
And I always knew that I wanted to tell that story.
I just was kind of waiting for the perfect characters, and because I'm known for writing Southern fiction, I knew I needed to bring in a Southern faction to it.
So I did, I brought in a Maddie Warner, who, and it's this isn't a sequel, but she's a very Southern character that I had from two of my older books, and when we left her she's 18 years old in After the Rain.
And ever since that book came out almost 10 years ago, people are saying bring back Maddie Warner and the small town of Walton, Georgia.
So, I thought, remembering my mother being a fish out of water with her Mississippi accent, living in London, and like the butcher making fun of her accent, I thought, yes, I need to have a Southern character in this book.
And so that's that, you know, that's how that sort of, that was the genesis of this story and how I bring my Southern fiction into this book, as well as telling a really personal story about this wonderful building that I lived in for seven years.
<Holly> I'm impressed that at 12 years old it seems like you already had that appreciation for where you were in that historical.... <Karen> Yeah, my father was a huge history buff.
And so growing up, you know, we went to Revolutionary War battlefields.
We went to Civil War battlefields.
We went to aircraft carriers.
We went to every museum on the planet.
Because we used to travel a lot.
My dad would pile us into the car, you know, to go visit relatives and then stop off at different places.
So, I grew up with a huge love and appreciation for history.
So, living in this building was amazing.
And, you know, right across the street, there was a plaque on a building that said, you know, "Here on this site stood the home where Charles Dickens lived while writing David Copperfield."
I mean.... <<Holly>> Wow!
...for a reader, and somebody who loves history, that was just like, and I walked by that every day on the way to the tube station to go to school.
It was truly a remarkable experience.
<Holly> That is really neat and bringing Maddie back, was that a plan that you ever had, or was that solely, you know, by popular demand, the readers were asking for it?
>> You know what, I can't write a book about a character I don't care a lot about.
And so there were two books, Falling Home , you know, she was a 14 year old girl who goes through the loss of her mother.
She's the secondary character in that book.
And then four years later, I wrote After the Rain, she's an 18 year old young woman about to launch her life.
And, again, a secondary character.
But she really spoke to me.
I don't know what it was about her.
I think it's just that her perseverance, despite a background that was very painful.
And, so when readers were, you know, constantly asking me, "What is the rest of Maddie's story?
", I knew I had to find the right book for her.
And this is - she's...28 years old in this book, and she's a freelance journalist and she's hired to interview a woman who's turning 100 years old.
She was a fashion model and lived in Harley House during The Blitz.
And Harley House was the name of my flat building.
And so Maddie comes to interview her thinking it's just, you know, they're doing, she's donated all of her clothes to the London Museum of Fashion.
It's all about fashion in a time of crisis.
And Maddie thinks this is a very simple, straightforward interview and of course it's not.
And she starts peeling back the, they both start peeling back the layers of their past and the things they can't get over.
And so they find a way to heal each other.
But, of course, that's why we go back in time to London during The Blitz and then modern times.
So you do go back and forth in time, which a lot of people love, and I love reading that and I love creating that in my own stories.
>> Now, you were there for seven years, I believe, right, in London?
So, whenever you moved away and grew more, did you keep in touch with some of those people, the relationships you developed while you were there?
And if so, have you connected with them through this book any?
Yes, of course.
So, I went to the American school in London, which meant most of my friends were American.
As a matter of fact, my best friend who I met in London, I married her brother.
So of course we keep in touch.
<Holly> Right.
<Karen> And her husband appears, his name appears in every single one on my book.
So we are very close.
And this book is also about friendship so I get asked that a lot, is there anything that, you use from your friendship with Claire in the book that you put Claire in your life that you put in this book?
And I said, of course, you know, Regent's Park.
We spent a lot of time in Regents Park.
And there's a long story I won't get into here, but there's a reason why I don't like white wine and it has to do with Claire and Regents Park.
But... so as a matter of fact, so I went to the American school in London and they found out that I was writing this book.
And so there they have a book club with...and... because it was a very international school, their members, it's all online and their members are all over the world.
And so they are reading this book for June.
I'm so excited about it.
But, yes, I've reconnected with a lot of my friends that I knew in high school.
And they are all excited about this book and sort of revisiting this world that, you know, we knew so well.
Right.
That's really neat.
And it seems like this was such a personal story and attachment that you had with the story.
Why did you wait so long to tell it?
>> I guess, because I didn't know, I mean I was, I was very happy, and I'm still very happy to write my Southern women's fiction books.
And I kept on having those ideas.
Most of my books are set in the Low Country, you know, of South Carolina, a few in Georgia.
But, you know, I've just had, I just have such an affinity for this area.
And I always had these ideas and these ideas.
So, this idea of just kind of, you know, I didn't, I knew it was there, I just was waiting kind of for the right moment.
<Holly> Right.
>> And then I wrote "All the Ways We Said Goodbye" with Beatrice Williams and Lauren Willie, 'cause I also do collaborations, but you know, in my spare time.
Wrote that with two other authors and who are also my dear, dear friends.
And we wrote All the Ways We Say Goodbye, which is set, well, one of the main third of the book is set in 1964 in London, excuse me, in Paris at The Ritz.
And one of the major characters is a woman named Precious Dubose.
And she had been a former fashion model back during the war in Paris and in London.
And I was, you know, this character kept on eluding to a past during the war.
And we never figure out what that is.
So, this is another thing where the readers kept on saying, "We want more of Precious", you know?
And, and so I asked Beatrice and Lauren, I said, "Hey, could I borrow Precious, put her in this book and make her, you know, it's now 2019, I'm going to make her a hundred years old.
Can I put her in this book and tell what that story is?"
'Cause we didn't know it when we wrote this book.
And they're like, "Oh yeah, definitely."
So then I knew I had both timeframes of the story ready to go.
And I had Maddy, I had Precious, and I had Harley House.
I had London.
In the end of the book, actually, we go back to Walton, Georgia.
So, it's sort of this whole reunion of things, but it's not a sequel.
It's just, if you enjoy this book, you might want to go back and read those others, but it's not necessary.
But it was really fun connecting all these parts, like a puzzle, you know, kind of putting the puzzle pieces.
...I've never done it before and it was just a real joy to do it.
Now in my own research of learning more about you, I heard something that you said, and I thought it was really interesting.
You said I don't really like the writing process.
I like to have written.
I might be paraphrasing there.
<Karen> Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, no, no.
>>...explain what you mean by that.
<Karen> So, Dorothy Parker said that originally, "I hate writing.
I love having written."
I know a lot of writers, they're just like, "Oh, it's time to write now!"
I might've been like that in the beginning, and now it's my job, you know?
And now my life has, my real life has gotten very complicated with elderly parents, and children, an elderly dog, and it's just, you know.
So the writing, it's like, okay, I got 15 minutes.
I'm going to write.
You know, it's like become, not a chore, but it's like not this leisurely thing that I used to be able to do.
<Holly> It's not a hobby anymore.
>> It's not.. and it's never really been a hobby.
I've always, I've always known that this was my career, but it's just become, you know, a hundred times harder lately.
And so, yeah.
So, getting to the book and shutting off, and the social media.
As much as I - if I didn't have anything else to do, I would love to spend all day making Instagram stories and all the rest of it.
But, you know what, there's a thing called writing that I won't have anything to promote if I don't actually write.
<Holly> Right.
>> So the mental distractions, and I have a 15 year old dog who has dementia who wants to go out every five minutes because he doesn't remember that he's already been out.
It's trying to block that off to write and really get, I just, I can't get to that.
You know, to me, it's like, okay, I have 15 minutes.
My husband's home.
He's can take the dog out and I can do.
...it's very, very hard to get that.
And I miss that.
But, yeah, when I get into that, when I, those rare instances when I escape to our beach house where I can block out longer sections of time.
It's hard to get me sitting in the desk again because I know there are other things that I need to be doing.
But once I get there and I start going with the flow, then that's what I love about writing.
But the best part I love about writing is typing, The End.
<Holly> Yes.
>> ...then going on tour and meeting readers who read the book and who think these characters are as real as I think they are.
And that is like the biggest, most humbling, wonderful thing.
So, yes, having this baby in my hands and knowing it was worth all the blood, sweat, and tears.
But, yeah, you should see me.
This is not what I look like when I'm writing.
It is like, I know.
<Holly> You're pulling your hair out.
I can relate to that from college nights writing a paper that was due, like, in a matter of hours.
No, exactly.
Exactly.
I'm sure the UPS man has many times thought to call the police 'cause there's obviously a squatter living in this house because she's just scary looking and she has this wild look in her eyes when she throws open the door.
That's great.
Oh, my gosh.
Well, it's apparent that you listen to your readers because you've brought back characters because of them.
But, you know, with this social media thing, we've talked about, it's like, you're, you have to kind of always be available, 24/7.
I know.
I know.
Every day of the week.
Which is good and it's bad.
Right, so how do you handle that?
I try to be as disciplined as possible.
Meaning when I wake up, I wake up before the dogs, and my husband, and the rest of the world, so I have an hour.
I don't turn on my phone.
I don't do anything but write.
Because that's when my brain is freshest.
I'm not, I'm not distracted.
And I won't even look at my email, social media, anything, until I've done my workout.
I've had a chance, like to at least write for a couple of hours.
And then normally, so normally around 11 o'clock, that's when I will turn on my phone, and my computer and everything else.
And, but you have to be disciplined about that.
And then you spend X amount of time doing that, and then you shut it all down and you go back to it.
And then, so I mean, I, I schedule things like email.
I have different accounts, you know, I have my business account, I have my personal account, so I can schedule when I do those things.
And because morning is my most creative time, I try not to do any of that in the morning.
That's all like afternoon and evening.
And the social stuff I try to save towards the evening.
Sometimes that doesn't always happen.
Like when you're on, a new book is released, you are expected, and people want to see more of you on social media.
So that's a little more....
Right, they expect that now.
It's a little more time consuming.
Again, I love it.
I love connecting with readers and people I've never met through my books that way, but it is a huge time commitment.
And, yeah, it's, it's, it's hard juggling.
It really is.
I want to make sure I touch on something that I thought was fascinating, and that's you falling in love with a random picture on Pinterest.
I know.
Tell me that story and how this man became part of your writing.
Right.
And I need to post these on my website and I will, And my website is Karen-white.com.
But these, I'm, I'm very visual, and it was funny because when I was just starting this book and I wanted to know what RAF uniforms looked like.
I was trying to get a good picture so I went to Pinterest, you know, 'cause, or I probably Googled, I probably Googled and I clicked on a link that led me to Pinterest.
I don't know what the, this website was.
It had something to do with, you know, a good looking, good looking military personnel from World War II.
And I was like, okay.
<Holly> And they nailed it with that picture, didn't they?
Oh my gosh!
<Holly> Right, they did.
And the way he's looking, it's so, it was just, I mean, I was like, okay, I don't know who you are and I don't want to know what happened to you.
'Cause you know, he was an R.A.F.
pilot and the mortality rates for R.A.F.
pilots was very high.
And he was very young, probably younger than my son, which is a little frightening, at the time, obviously.
But just, you know, and he sort of embodied everything that I'd read about the R.A.F.
pilots.
How brave, how young, how very, very sure they were of their cause in defeating the Germans.
And he just, but he had that sort of joy of life and that bravado that you expect of a pilot.
And especially at that time when the kill rate was so high.
And I just, I wasn't even sure, I was probably thinking of another branch of the British military, but when I saw him, you know, you know, I was like, there he is.
Okay.
So, yeah.
Very neat story.
Put him in the book.
Well, for someone who says that they, the writing process is so grueling, you sure do you put them out?
I mean.
You could.... You know, again.... You've put out a lot of books and you write fast.
But I don't.
<Holly> You don't?
It's not that I write fast, it's that I write all the time.
Okay.
Seven days a week.
<Holly> And who, who gets the pleasure of reading the first draft?
Well, I have two author friends, Susan Crandall and Wendy Wax, who, we met before any of us were published.
And our first books all came out at about the same time, which 20 years ago, when I was three.
And, but even, you know, before we met at a writer's conference, or we might've met online and then we met in person at a writer's conference in 1998 in Orlando.
And we just realized that we had so much in common, we loved what, you know, we loved our interactions.
So we started sharing chapters with each other.
Um.
So we critique that way, you know, still by just sending everything we write, we send to the other two for a written critique.
And, you know, now you can do it all online.
Before it used to, you know, we'd print them out and then we would just like write all of our comments in the email.
But now you can do it, you know, with a shared document.
And it's wonderful.
I just rely on their opinions.
And they're good because they're good critiquers because they tell you what's good and they'll tell you what needs work.
But they're nice about it, you know, but they're honest and I appreciate their honesty.
Sure.
Now, it seems like you're pulled in all directions.
So, you're writing all the time.
You've got the family, the parents, the dog, the social media, all that.
Do you have time to read anymore?
I make a point of doing that.
I, again, I know I seem like such a nerd, but I do, I schedule everything.
Twenty minutes in the middle of the afternoon and 20 minutes before I go to bed, that's reading time.
And because I, like right now I'm listening to a book on audio.
So when I'm in the car, when I'm folding laundry, when I'm, you know, driving to Pilates, I mean, it's just a 10 minute drive, but I always have and audio book going.
Walking the dogs, and all of that.
Right, okay.
<Holly> ...what genre do you stick, do you stick to a certain one?
Or do you all across the board?
<Karen> ...I try not to listen or read to Southern fiction because it' what I write.
I don't want to be influenced.
Start an influence.
Yeah.
So, I love, um, true crime.
I love domestic thrillers.
I love British World War II.
I'm actually listening to right now, Jennifer Ryan's The Kitchen Front, which is that her, the second book of hers I've read.
The first one, The Chillbury Women's Choir, I just adored.
And, so, I love historicals.
I love narrative nonfiction.
I listened to Larson's The Splendid and the Vile, which was all about Winston Churchill during the war.
So, I have very eclectic tastes in what I listen to.
But, oh, and I love Simone St. James who writes sort of contemporary thrillers with a paranormal twist, you know?
So, whatever I'm not writing is what I love reading about.
Very good.
Or listening to.
Yes.
Well, there's one question that I've kind of fallen into.
It's become one of my favorites.
And it's because I've asked authors about their influences and so many times they go back to like a grade school teacher, and I just think it's the sweetest thing, And sometimes it even gets a little emotional when you're talking about third grade.
<Karen> Right.
>> So, I wanted to ask you that.
Are there any teachers that come to mind that maybe influenced your life that you're living today?
Yeah, absolutely.
So, Mrs. Anderson, she was an elderly lady when she taught me and she was my sixth grade teacher.
And she was the one.
So, we were about to move to London and she was so excited for me.
And I...hated to write.
It was so hard for me, because at the time I didn't type.
So she would assign a story and I would be like so excited about the idea and I'd be trying to write it, and my story idea would be on, you know, the next chapter and my handwriting would be on the first sentence and I would forget all that cool stuff and I would just lose it.
And I would just, I found writing so frustrating.
I didn't learn to really appreciate storytelling and how I could do it typing until I was in 10th grade and I learned how to type.
On one of those things, those old thing.
Yeah, yeah.
And but Mrs. Anderson, she said, she told me, she said, "This is an amazing adventure.
You are going to be a writer.
You were so talented.
I know you don't like writing, but I think you will find as you get older that is what you should be doing."
And she said, "I want...." Wow, she saw it in you in at sixth grade.
She did.
And even my messy, like she would always give me A plus for content and an F for handwriting.
(both laughing) So, you know, I only got like C'S, you know.
But she didn't mean to discourage me, you know, but she wanted me to work on my handwriting.
But I couldn't, right?
<Holly> 'Cause you're the one(indistinct).
Your mind's a disaster.
I know.
Exactly.
And she told me to keep a journal of, of my, what I was doing in London because she knew I would use it one day.
And, I'm sorry, Mrs. Anderson, I didn't journal because I hated to write that much.
The only, the only journal I kept while living in London, this is high school, okay, 80s, was a journal to.... <Holly> Which boy you liked at the time?
>> No, no, worse.
What I wore to school each day so I wouldn't repeat an outfit.
(both laughing) <Holly> I love it.
I didn't say that.
Did anybody hear that?
(both laughing) But, Mrs. Anderson, I did remember you encouraging me to be a writer, and that I, I tried to reach out to her after my first book came out and she had already passed at that point, which, which was sad.
But I think she knows.
I think she knows.
That's really beautiful.
And I think we need to credit teachers more because.... <Karen> Absolutely.
<Holly The influence they have on our lives.
It's just, it's just really....
Especially teachers like Mrs. Anderson who was just so passionate about what she taught.
She passed that passion onto people who probably never would have picked up a book to read, you know.
I was an avid reader at that point.
She forgave me when I'd be reading, like, you know, War and Peace on my lap while she was trying to teach, you know, she was very forgiving about it.
You know, but she was very passionate of others.
Hey, I even loved algebra because I had an amazing algebra teacher.
<Holly> Yeah.
They are big influencers.
Well, I have so many questions here on my little app pad that we could just keep going and going and going.
But unfortunately the clock says it's time to wrap.
<Karen> I'm so sorry.
>> So, but we, I've had such a pleasure talking to you.
<Karen> Me too, Holly.
<Holly> And I just appreciate the conversation, I appreciate the humor, appreciate the honesty about a lot of things you gave us today.
So, I'm really happy for you.
Thank you.
Thank you and thanks for having me today.
Absolutely.
And thank you, everybody, for joining us again for By the River.
We love having you around and we love hearing from you.
Just as Karen hears from her readers, we love hearing from our viewers.
So, thanks for that.
And now we're going to leave you with a little bit of our Poet's Corner.
Thanks so much for watching.
I'm Holly Jackson, and you're watching By the River.
(upbeat music) <Jeyda> The Dark Night of My Soul I wish you could see the dark night of my soul.
Not the night flowers or nocturnal beasts.
Not the beautiful moon or the golden owl.
The demons, and fog, and the bleeding trees.
I wish you could feel the pain in my heart that's enough to make one reel.
That is enough to make one beg to depart from a world that none can fully heal.
I wish you could know how hard it is to carry on through the freezing rivers that quickly flow, through the grassy blades that I rest upon, dried up roots that lay below.
You might never comprehend the world that I stumble and crawl through, but if you will just smile that lovely smile I think I'll survive the night.
(upbeat music) By the River is brought to you in part by the University of Southern Carolina Beaufort, learning in action, discovered, the ETV Endowment of South Carolina, Community Foundation of the Low Country, strengthening community, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at USCB, The Pat Conroy Literary Center.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7sa7SZ6arn1%2BrtqWxzmiimqqVo3q4tMitnGaZpaq7osCO