Author Spotlight: Michelle Wamboldt

Michelle Wamboldt grew up in Truro and now lives on the beautiful South Shore where she watches the waves and walks the beaches every day. She loves to create, whether it’s painting, rug hooking, sewing or writing.  She received her BA in English literature from Dalhousie and then went on to journalism school in Toronto. She did short stints at CTV National News and The Chronicle Herald, but much of her career was in government communications. She has worn many hats over the years but now finds herself comfortably settling into a new role as an author. It is the act of writing, putting words on the page and creating an order from the chaos of thought and ideas that truly gives her pleasure. Birth Road (Nimbus Publishing, 2022) is her first novel, and in the past year she has also had short stories published in The Dalhousie Review and Moose House Publication’s second volume of Blink and You’ll Miss it.

Tell me about the birth of Birth Road. Why did you want to tell Helen’s story?

It was a very slow birth, which took over a decade! I abandoned this story many times over the years, but it would not let me go. It truly haunted me, and I could not rest until I had it out of me.

I wanted to tell my grandmother Helen’s story because she meant so much to me. We were very close, and although she did not share all the details of her life with my family, she did tell us some stories. So, I knew enough – from the things she had told me and things my mother knew. I knew that her younger years had been difficult and challenging. I knew she had faced tragedy and heartache and I marvelled at the strength she must have had to survive.

After she passed away, I started writing short pieces based on stories she had told me. The one story that always stuck with me was how she had walked several miles to the hospital on the day she gave birth to my mother. She walked alone on a hot summer day, wearing a coat to conceal her stomach and carrying a suitcase. That image always stuck with me. So when I decided to expand on the little stories and write a book about her life, I knew she would have to be walking that road, recalling the key moments of her life and letting these memories tell the story of how she came to be pregnant and alone.

So even though I wrote this story as a tribute to my grandmother and the strong woman she was, it was my own mother that I wrote it for.  My only goal was to finish it and place it in my mother’s hands. Having it published was not my motivation, but I’m so glad it happened.

Why did you choose to go the route of historical fiction instead of non-fiction?

When I started out, it was going to be a story based in fact and follow the events of Helen’s life very closely. To be truthful, her real life had so many difficult and tragic circumstances that I was unsure if I would be able to write about them. Through the process of writing and dreaming and visualizing my characters, a new story came to me. Luckily, the cast of characters that eventually appeared helped me to tell a version of her story. They played out like a movie in my mind and I just followed them, and the real Helen became a thread woven between the lines of fiction.

There are so many things in the book that Helen did in her real life – growing up in a logging camp, moving to Boston, working at Stanfield’s, marrying Edgar and many other things. (I don’t want to give away anything for those who haven’t read it yet.) But her story became mine, and my new characters, many of which I had fictionalized based on real relatives, had their own stories to tell. I think this is something we all do when writing – we pull from the well – we gather all the stories and people from or past and stir them all together and see what comes out on the paper.

What were some challenges / favorite things of writing historical fiction?

This may sound funny, but I did not knowingly set out to write historical fiction. In fact, it wasn’t until my editor, Whitney Moran, offered me a publishing contract for what she called my “historical fiction” that I had even thought of my novel as historical fiction. But of course it is!

Looking back now at my writing process, I can say that my favorite thing about writing historical fiction is the research. And this must be my journalism background, but I could happily do research all day. This is where so many great ideas are born, from characters to setting to the tiniest details of a scene. You can also find so many gems going down the rabbit holes. Hours can be happily lost as you learn about an event or person that can lead to interesting ideas for new stories.

I think the main challenge is the pressure I put on myself to ensure accuracy. I wanted to be sure, if I had a song, movie, car, train schedule or war reference in a scene, that it was authentic. I was very careful to ensure all of my historical facts were accurate.

How did your background as a journalist help you in the writing of this book?

It was a great help. The research was second nature due to my background in journalism. Interviewing people and searching out resource material is something I not only enjoy but have been trained to do.

Tell me about your research. Where did it take you?

As I have said, research can lead down so many new roads, and that was the case with my research for Birth Road. I did not write with a detailed outline, only a timeline and an idea of the key moments in Helen’s life that I wanted to convey.

Through my research, I was able to transport myself to a logging camp in the early 20th century and envision daily life for the McNutt family. I thought Stanfield’s would be a small part of the book, but after visiting the Mill and interviewing former employees, I had so many amazing stories and rich visuals that I knew I had to make it a major part of the story and plot. I also was surprised how much the Second World War, the North Novas and Halifax during the war came to be a key component in the story. That had not been my intent, but because of my research and the things I learned about soldiers’ training and substance abuse, I had material to build on and plot twists I could work with.

I enjoyed every part of the research. All of the people I met and everything I read helped in some way to enrich my story. I think research is not only important for ensuring historical accuracy; I think it can be an endless source of inspiration as well.

In your acknowledgements, you mention quite a few other writers. What role did other writers have in your fiction writing journey?

The support and encouragement I received from other writers was invaluable. I struggled with self-doubt and found it almost impossible to make myself sit in the chair and get the work done. (Let’s be honest, even with one novel published, I still struggle.) I could come up with any excuse to not write. I now know it was my fear that kept me from writing, but without the positive feedback from other writers, I would never have been able to overcome that fear on my own.

Also, I can easily admit, I am nothing without a deadline. Throughout the time I worked on this manuscript, I was lucky to have two different periods when I had a mentor who I was accountable to and deadlines I had to meet.  In 2013, it was six months with Donna Morrissey, and in 2019, it was six months with Chris Benjamin.  Without the structure and deadlines, I would never have begun or completed my manuscript. I will forever be grateful to them both for encouraging me and keeping me on track.

I am also lucky to have friends who are writers, such as Renée Hartleib and Sylvia Gunnery, who continued to show interest in my work, year after year, and insisted I keep writing and get Helen’s story out into the world.

What’s your advice to writers who may have a manuscript in a drawer?

Get it out of that drawer! Trust in your voice. We are all full of doubt, so you are not alone. Know that your story matters. Send it out, and if it isn’t accepted, send it again and again.

I would also encourage writers to share their writing with other writers.  I myself am not very good at this – but I do believe it is helpful to boost confidence.

What are you working on now?

I always seem to have a few ideas that are fighting for my attention.  For now, the one I am focusing on is another piece of historical fiction, this time set down here on the south shore in the 1920s – 1930s.