[bright music]
- Announcer: Proceeds from The Great Wisconsin Quilt Show
support PBS Wisconsin programming.
Your financial gift helps make this event possible.
Thank you.
- Jennifer Chiaverini: Well, hello everyone.
Thank you so much for coming to see me here
at The Great Wisconsin Quilt Show.
I especially want to thank everyone
from PBS Wisconsin and Nancy Zieman Productions
for inviting me back to speak to all of you
on this beautiful autumn day here in Madison, Wisconsin.
How many of you have been to
The Great Wisconsin Quilt Show before?
Oh, wow!
Oh, I should've asked,
how many people is this your first time?
Oh, a handful of you.
Oh, you are going to love it.
This is one of my favorite events of the year.
So much wonderful quilt inspiration,
so many like-minded quilters and quilt enthusiasts.
It's always one of my very favorite places
to come and speak to readers.
Well, today I am here to talk to you about my newest novel.
It's a novel in the Elm Creek Quilt series.
Have any of you read any of the books in the Elm Creek--
Oh, a few of you, a few of you.
Yeah, a handful of you are familiar with the books.
That's good. You're laughing.
All of them, wow!
How many of you have read all of them?
Oh, my goodness.
How many of you have bought all of them,
and you're gonna get to them someday?
[audience laughs] We love you too,
we love you too.
Well, this is--
And I should've counted before I got here.
I think this is, what, the 23rd?
Let me see, is it 23rd or 24th?
See, I write them, like, two years before you get them.
So I'm a few books ahead of you, yeah.
Well, here it says 36 novels overall.
So I'm gonna say, I don't know, 23rd?
I don't know, Marty is giving me a big nod from the back.
Marty, my husband, my entourage, my supporter,
my first reader, husband of 31 years.
So, Marty says 23, so. [applause]
So the new novel in the series is The World's Fair Quilt,
and this is a book that is actually a dual timeline story,
meaning that it takes place in the Elm Creek Quilters
present day, which is 2004.
And then it also goes back into the past in 1933.
So why is it in 2004 and not 2025?
Well, the Elm Creek Quilters timeline operates
a little differently than ours does
because whereas it takes me about two years from start
to finish to write one of the Elm Creek Quilts novels,
in that book,
it's possible that only a year or a summer
or even a long weekend will pass in Elm Creek Quilters time.
So they are still back in 2004 while we're all the way up here.
So if you're wondering why they don't just Google things
or why they're not using GPS on their phones,
or why they're not using Facebook or TikTok,
well, that's why.
Because they didn't have all of those things.
Facebook did exist.
I looked this up just to make sure
because I know my historical reader fans really want me
to be as accurate as possible.
Facebook did exist, but it was called "The Facebook"
and it was only for Harvard students at this time.
So that's why they're not,
you know, Instagramming everything in the books.
So in The World's Fair Quilt, this book,
like so many of my novels,
was inspired by something that came along
when I was researching or writing an earlier book.
So my previous novel was The Museum of Lost Quilts,
and I see a few nods.
I'm glad you're familiar with that.
And in that story, my readers discover
that the Elm Creek quilters have encountered
some unexpected financial difficulties
that are putting Elm Creek Quilts and Elm Creek Quilt Camp,
the future of their businesses, in doubt.
You know, it's, who would have foreseen
that running the country's
most prestigious quilter's retreat
in the middle of a 19th century manor
in rural central Pennsylvania.
Who could have imagined
that this would be an expensive enterprise?
Well, it is.
And eventually, when you have a 19th century manor,
things begin to crumble.
And the 19th century wiring does--
Even the early 20th century wiring doesn't quite live up
to what you need in the 21st century.
So they've been having some financial problems.
Now, I knew everything was gonna turn out okay
a few books later,
but I forgot that my readers can't read my mind
and did not know that.
So that was upsetting to a number of readers
to think that maybe Elm Creek Quilt Camp was going
to go bankrupt and go under, and that would be it.
And so I knew, okay, when I write my next book,
it is going to have to solve that problem
right away, very quickly.
No delaying it a few books.
So spoiler alert,
Elm Creek Quilt Camp is not gonna go bankrupt.
Just to put your minds at ease,
so you can just enjoy the story with a little bit less stress.
I'm not saying it's gonna be quick or easy,
but don't worry, don't worry.
I don't want Elm Creek Manor to close down any more
than any of you do.
So, I thought, "Okay, I need to have a way
"to resolve these financial issues and I need to address it.
"And I wanna show Sylvia dealing with
these unexpected consequences, these unexpected difficulties."
And in some of the books,
I've frequently had my characters, especially Sylvia,
drawing inspiration from the past
to help them face the problems
that they are confronting in their own present.
And sometimes, Sylvia is inspired by something
that happened in her own family history.
Sometimes, she's inspired by something
that just happened in national history,
and then other times, she takes lessons from her own past,
from one of her own past experiences,
that can give her the courage or some kind of insight
to help her face whatever problem she's confronting today.
So I decided that since I did want the focus of this story
to be on Sylvia,
I thought I would maybe find some kind of conflict
from her past
that she could draw inspiration from to help her deal with what,
you know, the issues facing Elm Creek Quilt Camp today.
So, I was thinking about some of my previous novels in the series
when I remembered something
that had come up in the sixth Elm Creek Quilts novel,
The Master Quilter.
Now, in this novel,
we focus on a lot of the different Elm Creek quilters,
and they each have a turn to share the stage
as they are working on making a special surprise quilt
for Sylvia, Sylvia's bridal sampler.
And when we have Gwen's chapter, Gwen,
as longtime fans of the series will remember,
she is a professor of American Studies
at nearby Waterford College,
and Gwen is trying to come up with a new research idea
that will draw together some of her passions.
And quilting is, of course, one of them.
She's also very interested in women's roles
in American history,
and she likes using various women's art forms or art forms
that women delved into to shed some light
upon some aspect of American history or American culture.
So in this novel, Gwen is wrestling with an idea
that would be really fascinating,
something she could write with.
And then, as so often happens,
Sylvia dropped some wisdom that transforms someone's life,
or at least gives them a way to move forward creatively.
And so, Sylvia was thinking, "Hmm..."
And she said to Gwen, "As you talk about quilting in history,
"that reminds me of when I was a young girl.
"My sister and I collaborated on a quilt
"to submit to the 1933 Sears National Quilt Contest
in honor of the Century of Progress Exposition,"
which was also known as the Chicago World's Fair of 1933.
And Gwen is immediately intrigued,
and Sylvia tells her about this quilt contest,
which, you know, okay,
Gwen probably would've heard about it,
but for the purpose of the novel, this was all new to her.
She was focusing on other things.
So this quilt contest,
as Sylvia started telling Gwen more about it,
Gwen was more and more intrigued.
Because, first of all,
it was the biggest quilt contest ever of its time,
not only up until that point, but ever after.
There were 25,000 participants,
and given the population of the U.S. in 1933,
that meant that 1 of almost every 2,000 women
in the United States submitted a quilt to this contest.
So that's unprecedented in scope.
And the prize money might have had something to do with that.
The prize money...
Well, there were other awards at different levels
of the competition.
What you would want to do if you decided to enter this contest,
would, you would submit your quilt to your local Sears store,
or if you didn't have one near you,
or if you knew that all the quilters in your area
were super, super good
and you maybe want to increase your chances,
you could send it to one of the mail order hubs,
so you had to submit your quilt to the local level.
And winners at that level
would win some dollar prizes like $15, $10.
Really good money in 1933.
I wouldn't turn it down now, but especially good money in 1933.
And then the top three finishers from the mail order hubs
and the local stores would go on to the regional level,
and those would be consolidating several states.
So the competition got a lot more serious there.
But there were also dollar awards for first,
second, and third place there.
And then the top three winners would be sent on
to the grand finals at the World's Fair in Chicago,
where a grand prize winner and runner-ups
would be chosen there too.
So those dollar amounts at the regional
and the local levels were good,
but the grand prize winner would get $1,200,
which I think is pretty good today.
But if you think about in 1933 during the Great Depression,
and I looked this up just to make sure,
but that $1,200 was more than the average
per capita annual income of the time.
So if you can well imagine what it would have been like to be--
If you're a quilt maker,
or if you're just really ambitious
and you're gonna try your first quilt
and enter it in this contest.
And some people did that.
You had to have been thinking about,
you know, making a quilt, submitting it,
and what a difference that would make for your family.
So that might have accounted for the large number of people
who participated.
And then, of course, also bragging rights
and the glory of having your quilt displayed
at the World's Fair,
where tens and tens of thousands of people
would view it in the Sears Pavilion.
And something else that I found really fascinating,
so, I had Gwen find it really fascinating too,
was that they offered,
they wanted to encourage quilt makers
to play up the theme of a Century of Progress
and to incorporate that into their designs.
So if the grand prize-winning quilt
also incorporated the Century of Progress theme
into their design,
then they would win an extra bonus prize of $200.
Now, I think, although they didn't ask me,
I think they should have offered that bonus prize
to just the best theme quilt no matter what,
whether it won the grand prize
or if it came as fifth runner-up.
If it was the best themed quilt,
I think it should have gotten a prize for that,
but they didn't ask me.
Probably because I wasn't born yet.
Otherwise, I'm sure I would've been consulted.
But anyway, that was there too.
So that did encourage quite a few quilt makers
to incorporate that theme of Century of Progress
into their design.
And this was to celebrate not the bicentennial
or the centennial of the U.S.,
but to celebrate 100 years since the founding of Chicago,
the city where it would be held.
So something that I found especially fascinating
was that these themed quilts captured what a great,
a very good number of quilt makers thought of
when they were given the prompt "A Century of Progress."
And in the middle of the Great Depression,
the thought of progress might not have been top of mind
to everyone, just trying to recover,
trying to get out of this national crisis might have been
really what they were thinking about artistically.
But when you look at these different theme quilts
and all of the different representations
of this idea of progress,
it captures what people were thinking at this time
when progress might have seemed far away.
So to see this spirit of optimism and this reflection,
and to see that even in this serious national crisis,
people were able to say, "As bad as things are,
"we really have made progress along the way.
"We have grown as a nation in these ways.
We have made these accomplishments."
So that's something else
that I particularly find fascinating
about this quilt contest.
And so, Gwen decided that she was fascinated by it too.
You can do that when you're the author.
You can make them feel a certain way.
And that's what I did with Gwen.
And Gwen was so inspired that when she was asked,
not only did she make this her new research topic,
but when she needed to make her block to contribute
to Sylvia's bridal sampler,
she drew a quilt inspired by the 1933 Chicago World's Fair.
One of the symbols of the world's fair
was the star Arcturus, and one of the things about that was,
that I cover in more detail in The World's Fair Quilt
was that, through a series of relays and connections
and magnifiers, on the first day of the fair,
or rather the first evening of the fair,
the fair's midway lights were turned on
by a signal captured from the star Arcturus.
Which it was--
Someone calculated, a physicist or an astronomer
calculated that the light from that star
would have left it during the time
of the previous Chicago World's Fair,
and it would have arrived in 1933.
So they had this different telescopes.
One in Wisconsin.
They amplified this light,
and then it hit a solar detector or a light detector
and then the lights of the fair were illuminated.
And so, Gwen designed her block
inspired by the different artistic representations
of the star Arcturus that were so popular at the fair.
And so, she called her quilt block Sylvia's Shooting Star,
and she made a six-inch version
to put in Sylvia's bridal sampler.
And then this is a 12-inch version too,
because I really like the pattern,
and I wanted to go on
and make a larger quilt in that size.
The Master Quilter came out in 2005,
and I was going around to introduce the story
to readers at quilt shows like this one,
and at libraries and at independent bookstores.
And readers would always ask me, "Was this a real quilt contest?
Did this quilt contest really happen?"
I was very happy to tell them that yes, it did,
and I told them places
where they could find more information.
And I have a bunch of them listed in the back of the book.
If you want to look at some pictures of those quilts,
and if you want to see other resources for other authors
who have written nonfiction accounts of them.
But one I should mention right away was
the book Patchwork Souvenirs
by Merikay Waldvogel and Barbara Brackman.
It is out of print,
but you can still find it in bookstores
and other places online.
Your local library might be able--
your guild library might have a copy,
but if you really want to learn more about it,
then that was a book that really was very useful to me
in my research for the World's Fair quilt.
So when I was going on book tour for this,
there is a line in the book
where Gwen thinks after she's looking at Sylvia's souvenirs
and she's heard Sylvia's stories,
she decides, "This is my new research topic.
There's a book in this story."
So I was doing a book signing at a library here in Wisconsin.
I don't remember which library it was,
but when I was signing books,
a reader came up through the signing line
and she handed me her copy of The Master Quilter
for me to sign, and she said,
"Gwen thinks that there's an entire book
"to be written about the 1933 Sears National Quilt Contest
"and the Century of Progress exposition.
I hope you feel the same." [audience laughs]
And I kind of laughed and said, "Oh, yeah,
"I hope there is too,
"just because otherwise, Gwen's gonna have to come up with
a whole new research topic."
But then we kind of laughed together
and I gave her her signed book, and she kind of walked off,
and she was just kind of giving me this knowing look,
like, you know, "Mm."
And so, that idea stayed with me all that time.
And then, when it came time to write a book
where I knew I wanted to resolve Sylvia's--
help her confront this financial crisis.
I remembered that reader's comment,
and I remembered what she said,
that maybe there was a whole book in this.
And then I thought,
if I want some kind of personal experience that Sylvia had,
that would remind her about resilience and perseverance
and making it through tough times,
especially tough financial times.
Then what could be better than that time
in the Great Depression,
when she and her sister were collaborating on a quilt to,
because they really wanted to win that money
and get that honor and glory
and get that money to help out their family.
And, you know, if you remember Claudia and Sylvia,
they were not exactly what you would call, you know,
close friends, they didn't really have--
They, like, kind of elevated sibling rivalry
to an art form all its own.
And they did not work well together.
In fact, the last time before 1933
that they worked together on a quilt was when
they were helping their mother make the Elms and Lilacs quilt.
So this is an Elms and Lilacs quilt.
It's an original design that I made.
It was appliquéd by June Peace for me,
and it is something that Sylvia and Claudia's mom made,
and she intended it to be as an anniversary gift
for her beloved husband.
But she was in poor health
and it was a lot of work for her to quilt.
So she allowed her daughters to help her with the quilting
because it was very important to her
to finish it by her deadline.
Many of us have been there,
where you've got to finish that quilt by deadline.
Now, Sylvia was younger, but she was the better quilter.
Unfortunately, she had some issues
with her sister's inferior quilting, and she did not think
her sister's quilting was quite up to the task.
So naughty Sylvia,
after Claudia put her big stitches in the quilt,
when no one was looking,
Sylvia would take them out and do them over.
I know, and you're like, "Yeah, I would too."
Usually that remark gets a big "Oh!" from the audience,
but you're all like, "Yeah, I get it, I get it.
That was an important quilt."
So after that, when Claudia found out,
the sisters never quilted together again.
And the only reason they quilt together
in the World's Fair quilt
was because there was a tight deadline.
The quilt contest was announced in mid-January,
and the quilts were due at your local Sears by mid-May.
So they had to work very quickly
if they were going to get their quilts turned in.
And so, somehow, they learned either--
and I'm not gonna give you any spoilers--
but they either learn to work together
and put their differences aside to work together,
or they learn to work together despite their differences.
But finish that quilt they did,
and they entered it into the quilt contest.
And history was made for the Bergstrom family.
But I'm not gonna tell you where they finished
in the contest.
I will tell you that when I went on book tour,
when The World's Fair Quilt first came out in April,
at every library I stopped at in Wisconsin,
at least one person in the signing line would say,
"You know, I think that that quilter, the reader,
"I think that was me.
I think I was the person who recommended that to you."
So, I don't know, maybe one of them was,
but they couldn't all have been.
But that's the story behind The World's Fair Quilt.
It was a lot of fun for me to write,
because I love writing about the Elm Creek quilters,
and I also love writing about history.
So, in this novel, I really got to do both of those.
I got to explore both of those interests.
So, let's see.
I think we now are going to switch over to questions,
because that's my whole big backstory
on where I got the idea for The World's Fair Quilt
and why I wrote it, what inspired it.
And now I wanna know, what do you want to know?
Any questions?
We have someone way over here.
- Attendee 1: Yes, Jennifer, you mentioned going back
to one of the previous books.
Do you have to reread them every so often,
or do you just remember with that whole series?
Because your readers will know. [Jennifer laughs]
They'll quote somebody, they'll say,
"But that, on page 27 of that book," right?
- Jennifer: Well, there are, I'm not gonna lie.
There are, I mean, this is--
You've probably noticed many of them yourself.
There are some errors in the books.
We all work so hard, I work hard, my editor works hard,
Marty and my mom who read the books, we all,
the proofreader works so hard.
The copywriter works so hard,
but occasionally an error does slip through.
I take responsibility for all of them,
even though I, even on occasions
when I know it's not my fault, I still take responsibility.
But each book is between 90,000 and say 110,000 words.
So if one is wrong, that's really, really, really good.
However, I know that for you as the reader,
it's also really, really annoying.
So we do try to get them,
we do try to get all of the words right,
all of the characters with the correct name and all of that.
But mistakes do happen.
And I like to say that my books offer something
for every reader.
Some readers really like finding an author's mistakes,
so there's something for them too.
But to answer your question, the actual question,
I do actually go back and review some of my earlier books.
I do keep a master timeline just so that I can remember
when people's birthdays were
and when the important events happened.
But yes, it is also important for me to go back
and review and take notes just so that I can remember,
"Oh, yes, she was doing this at this time.
"Oh, that's right, they had met,
but they had not yet fallen in love," and things like that,
so that I can try to keep it,
so that I can try to keep it free of continuity errors
as much as possible.
But I'm a fallible human being.
So, sometimes things slip by me, but I really--
And if I do, especially like in my historical novels,
the standalone novels,
if I do take some kind of liberty
with the historical record,
in my author's note I will say,
"This is what I did and why I did it."
So, but that's a good question.
Yes.
- Attendee 2: Are you writing a book now?
- Jennifer: Am I writing a book now, like, right now?
- Attendee 2: Yeah.
- Jennifer: You saw me writing right up here.
I am, I am working, I'm always working on a book.
There's always something coming.
This is usually the last question,
and usually my husband has to ask it
because I wanna make sure I get it out there.
But now we're gonna come right up with it
to put everybody's minds at ease.
Now, I am going to have two books out next year.
The first one is going to be coming out in April.
Right now, the publication date is April 14,
and it is going to pick up almost exactly
where The World's Fair Quilt leaves off.
There's a little bit of overlap,
and this quilt is called The Patchwork Players.
And this book, coming out in 2026,
it's going to feature one of my favorite characters.
And she was first introduced in The Cross Country Quilters,
and I liked her so much,
I brought her back in The Museum of Lost Quilts.
And you see her a little bit through phone calls and letters
in The World's Fair Quilt.
But she's gonna be the star of this book,
and her name is Julia Merchaud.
And she is-- I see a nod and grin.
Oh, I'm glad, oh, I'm seeing some more nods and smiles.
Oh, good, because if you all were like,
"Oh, I wanted you to write about Vinnie,"
I would be pretty bummed
'cause the book's already in production.
So she is the acclaimed Emmy-winning actress,
Emmy, and she's even won a Grammy for an audiobook.
She's done all kinds of things, and she is now, actually,
it's interesting that PBS Wisconsin is taping us
because she is currently starring
in the hit PBS historical drama A Patchwork Life.
See, I knew the right channel to pick
for a high-quality fiction
and high-quality material about quilts.
I knew it, even back then when I wrote that.
That would have come out in 2005.
So, unfortunately, no fault of PBS,
some actors in the show have decided
that they are going to move on to other creative endeavors.
And so, her series is going to end.
Not the fault of PBS, definitely not the fault of PBS Wisconsin,
because we know and we support them.
So, she has decided that she has to figure out a way
to convince everyone to stay with A Patchwork Life.
And so, she remembers how when she went to quilt camp
the first time, she met her friends,
the four wonderful friends, then they became this group
called the Cross Country Quilters,
and their friendship just meant so much to each of them.
It was such a profound and lasting relationships,
that they always reunite
every year back at Elm Creek Manor
for another wonderful week of quilt camp,
and they keep in touch the whole year through.
She becomes convinced--
She comes up with this brilliant scheme
that if she can get a bunch of the cast and crew together,
they will go and have a week of Elm Creek Quilt Camp
devoted just to their small group.
And they will have such a wonderful bonding experience
of time spent together and learning to quilt
or improving their quilting skills, that all of her friends
who are planning to go onto other projects,
they will decide to cancel those contracts
and stay with A Patchwork Life.
However, if it happened the way Julia wanted,
it would be a very short and very dull book.
So, soon after arriving at Elm Creek Quilt Camp, things--
Well, Julia discovers
that her brilliant plan is not as brilliant
as she thought it was,
and things go disastrously awry or comically awry,
depending upon whether you are Julia
or somebody reading about Julia, then you can enjoy it.
So that will be coming out in April of 2026.
I had to remember what year it is,
but in July, and I thought I saw Sara here...
Did I see Sara?
I do see--
You're right there in the front.
Sorry, I don't have my glasses on,
but I should-- And I know the jacket.
I should have recognized the jacket.
Sara Stoltman, who also is teaching at the show,
you might have already-- I saw a nod.
Someone is already aware of that.
I am going to be doing a new pattern book with C&T,
and when I proposed the idea to them in January,
they love the idea for this book.
I'll give you the title: Elm Creek Quilts Christmas.
They love the idea.
They loved it so much, they wanted me
to get everything to them in July,
rather than the year and a half that I thought I would have.
So they agreed to make four of the quilts,
and then I threw myself upon the mercy,
first of my mother and then Sara Stoltman,
the incredible quilter, quilting artist.
You name it, she's done it.
Visit her website and see all her beautiful artwork,
and you will understand
how thrilled I was that she agreed
to help me finish those last--
Oh, no, and you also quilted my mom's top.
So she helped me with half of the quilts.
So, you'll see her beautiful, beautiful work
in this pattern book.
She took my humble tops with the wobbly border,
the wavy borders, and got it all straightened out perfectly.
So it's beautiful.
And, oh, her artistry is amazing.
And when you see the photos,
you'll just be absolutely thrilled.
So, Elm Creek Quilts Christmas
is scheduled to come out in June,
because apparently that's when everybody starts
wanting to get their Christmas stuff ready for December.
So that will be coming out,
and I hope you will look for that too.
I'll thank you and Sara will thank you.
And I see a question way in the back.
Not to make my microphone person run.
Maybe Marty can hand it over or...
Yeah, okay, then we have a question way in the back.
- Attendee 3: You have such a rich style
with folding in history and local events and characters.
Would you describe your writing process?
- Jennifer: My writing process?
Well, it kind of depends
upon whether I'm doing a straight historical novel.
One of my standalones like Resistance Women
or Canary Girls or Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker,
or if I'm doing an Elm Creek Quilts novel,
because I think that was--
There was a question over here asked, you know,
do I have to go back and read all of them,
and not all of them,
but I do have to go back and review previous books.
But usually, I first get the idea for a new book
based upon something that was sparked from an earlier novel
that I wrote, such as in the case of The World's Fair Quilt,
or it's based upon a--
or it's inspired by a historical event,
or person, or a group of people
that I discover while researching
and writing about another historical novel.
Like, I discovered or I learned about Elizabeth Keckley,
Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker,
when I was researching it and writing The Union Quilters,
one of the Elm Creek Quilts novels.
And I decided, oh, she should have her own book.
And since that story wouldn't really fit
into the Elm Creek Quilts novels,
that it wouldn't fit into the series,
I wrote Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker
as a standalone book.
When I was writing Switchboard Soldiers,
although my characters were American
and some of them were French people
living in the United States,
when they were traveling to be telephone operators
with the U.S. Army Signal Corps in World War I,
when they were traveling from the U.S. to France,
they did stop over in the UK.
So I needed to do a lot of research
to write those chapters describing
my telephone operator's experiences
in the British Isles.
And when I was writing, when I was researching that,
I discovered the munitionettes,
the British women or the women from the UK
who worked in the munitions industry to build the bombs,
the airplanes, all of the ammunition,
and all of the armaments for the Tommies
who were fighting, for the British soldiers
who were fighting over in Europe.
And when I discovered them,
I thought, oh, I've got to write a book about these amazing women
and all the risks they took and everything they went to,
because they really saw this dangerous,
essential work as their wartime service.
So, that's usually how I come up with the idea.
And then, I usually do my research reading,
whether it's back through The Elm Creek Quilts series
or if it's into newspaper articles
or other primary documents, biographies, memoirs, letters,
all of those kind of different primary documents
centered around the historical era and the people
and the events I want to write about.
And I construct a timeline
just so that I have the major historical events in the order.
And then, after I have that timeline,
then I kind of see, well,
where do these things that I wanna talk about,
where do they break down kind of naturally into chapters?
And from that, I make an outline,
but it's not an outline like the ones we learned in school.
It's more of a chapter one,
this is the time period it covers,
these are the people involved,
and this is what needs to happen.
And then, once I have that timeline, or my outline,
then I begin writing the first draft of the book,
and then the book will go through multiple revisions.
I will give it to my first readers to get through it
and let me know if they find anything
that doesn't make sense or anything that's incorrect.
And then when I've polished it enough,
then I send it on to my editor, and then she will go through it,
and then there will be the same kind of back and forth process
until it's where we feel it ought to be.
And then, it goes into the production process
where they start designing a cover,
finalizing the title, deciding what font to use,
what kind of page layout to use, and all of that other stuff
that I mostly just observe from a distance
while they're all hard at work on it.
And while they're doing that,
then I start writing another book.
That's why, when I said
it takes me two years from start to finish, roughly.
That's why there is only one year usually between books,
rather than two years between books,
because once I'm done and I've passed it on,
then I can start the next project.
So...
- Attendee 4: I was curious, what determined
you placing the manor in central Pennsylvania?
- Jennifer: Why not Wisconsin, right?
- Attendee 4: Yeah. - Jennifer: Right.
When I wrote, I started writing The Quilter's Apprentice--
Well, it wasn't titled that yet,
but I started writing my first novel in 1996
when I was living in central Pennsylvania.
I was teaching at Penn State.
I was teaching for the English department,
I was teaching writing,
while my husband was working on his PhD at--
And we were at the University Park campus.
So I was living in Pennsylvania,
that's where I learned how to quilt,
and I never knew that I was going to be moving to Wisconsin
or I would have set it here, I promise.
So it was where,
that's where I was living at the time.
That's where, when I wrote the book,
I thought I would be living there for a while longer.
I actually was only there another year and a half
before I moved to Wisconsin.
And that's why I talk about Sewickley and Ambridge.
Marty is from Sewickley, Pennsylvania.
That's a frequent question I get via email wanting to know,
you know, why do I write about that area so much?
Because they live there, or they used to live there.
And that's the answer.
It's because it was Marty's childhood home,
and his parents and extended family still live there.
So that's why Pennsylvania, and not Wisconsin.
However, I did send one of the Elm Creek quilters
on a road trip to Madison in Round Robin.
So, there's that.
And also, there are a lot of Wisconsin people
in one of my standalone historicals, Resistance Women.
And I'm seeing a lot of nods about that book too.
Oh, and even applause, oh, thank you.
Oh, and two thumbs up.
Wow, you really love that book.
I'm so glad.
And she's not even related to me.
That book is about Mildred Fish-Harnack,
a Milwaukee native who lived in Madison for a number of years,
and she was a graduate of UW-Madison.
She has the unfortunate distinction
of being the only American woman
expressly ordered to be executed on Adolf Hitler's orders.
So she came from here in Wisconsin.
She married a German, and they went back to Berlin.
She went to Berlin.
And because that's where his family all was,
and she and her husband and a lot of their acquaintances,
they had a, they formed a resistance network in Berlin.
And they were people from all different walks of life.
You had people involved in the local theater community.
You had a woman who worked in the film industry.
Her husband, Arvid, was,
he worked for the Ministry of Economics.
Mildred herself was a teacher of English and a writer.
So they weren't trained spies.
They weren't, you know, MI6 agents.
I don't even know if MI6 was around yet.
They weren't trained spies
who were brought in behind enemy lines.
They were people who were in this city,
and they saw terrible things happening
to the country they loved.
And they decided to use the skills that they had,
their personal characteristics,
their professional skills, to do what they could
to try to bring down the Nazi regime from within.
And I was just so fascinated by that
because it showed me
that you don't have to be a trained spy
to make a difference when you see wrongdoing happening.
You don't have to have those special skills.
You use the skills you have
to confront the problems you're facing.
And also, just the thought
that this lovely young woman from Wisconsin
went over there and became someone
that Hitler had a particular antipathy for,
I was so fascinated by her that I wanted to write her story,
and those of the other women
that worked with her in her network.
So that book has a lot of Wisconsin connections,
and some of it is set here in Madison.
If you want books that are especially important
to those of us from this state
or who at least who live here now.
I'm not originally from Wisconsin,
but it's my adopted state.
I've actually lived in Wisconsin longer
than I've lived in any other state.
Eventually, I'm gonna get around to all the states.
I've got Hawaii down, I've got New York, D.C., D.C...
So, let's see.
I don't think-- California, a lot in California.
We haven't had a question from over here.
So does anybody over here?
Oh, this fellow right here has a question.
- Attendee 5: I love your standalone books.
- Jennifer: Thank you.
- Attendee 5: They were very historic
and I learned a lot from them.
Do you have any...
- Jennifer: Do I have any-- - Attendee 5: ...coming up?
- Jennifer: I do, I'm so glad you asked.
This is scheduled for 2027.
And it is a book that is still in progress.
And this is a novel--
Now, this is before, the marketing department
might want to change it.
They know what sells and what doesn't.
My title for the book is The Rational Dress Society,
and it is set in the UK and it is in the 1880s,
and one of the characters, one of the historical figures
that I use as a--
One of the historical figures that I use
as a fictional character is the Viscountess Lady Harberton.
And this book is about an organization
she helped found called the Rational Dress Society.
And they were for women's dress reform.
So instead of being squeezed into these corsets
and in these skirts that you can't really move,
she was an avid bicyclist.
This is when bicycles were really taking off
and new inventions were making--
You didn't have to sit on top of that big wheel,
precariously balanced on a penny-farthing anymore.
And she was, she loved bicycling,
and she was especially in favor of rational dress
so that women could get out and ride bikes.
But as you can imagine, there was a lot of pushback
because women were not supposed to be out
and be independent and move around unchaperoned
wherever they wanted.
And when women had bicycles,
they were discovering they could move fast,
they could be vigorous, they could exercise,
they could go someplace with just their friend,
and they could do all these wonderful things.
And some women found this exhilarating.
Some people thought it was the most horrible thing,
and it would destroy civilization as they knew it.
So this book is about her,
and it focuses on a fictional character as my main character.
Just because I wanted the freedom to do whatever I wanted
with my main character.
And it's based upon, you know,
there's women's suffrage issues tied into it,
and there are, you know,
women wanting to control what they wore
and to be able to dress reasonably.
And there were issues with women's dresses
causing terrible accidents,
whether they were in the workplace or riding a bike or,
I mean, there were a lot of ballerinas
having untimely deaths due to fire
because of the outfits they wore.
I'm not gonna go into that in my book.
It's not going to be a gruesome story,
but there is, you know,
there was real issues involved in women's health,
their activity, their mobility,
their autonomy, being controlled by what they wore.
So, this is about women who in the 1880s, were really pushing
for women to be able to wear something that made sense.
Something that is practical and it makes sense.
And yet, it also still looks lovely because that's important.
You know, that's also very important.
So that will be coming out in 2027.
After that, I don't know.
We'll see.
I don't want to work too far ahead
because I got to finish this book first.
And The Patchwork Players is in the production stage.
And so, that one's off,
and my publisher is working diligently on that.
Same goes for the pattern book.
C&T is working diligently on that one.
And then, after we're done with the Quilt Show today,
I have to get home
and work diligently on The Rational Dress Society
because I didn't do any--
Oh, I shouldn't say this.
I will not admit to this.
Another author would not have done much work on it
in the beginning of the year
because she was busy working on a pattern book, but not I.
I work diligently all the time. [audience laughs]
That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
Yes, thank you.
And I think we have time for maybe a couple more questions.
Is there anybody else over here who had one?
Or you're just content to sit and know
that the backs of your heads are gonna be on TV.
You're good with that.
Yeah, there you go.
- Attendee 6: When you were writing
about the quilt book that-- the book about the quilts
that were entered in the Chicago World's Fair,
in that book, does it show a photograph of the original?
That's what I wanna see, 'cause I--
- Jennifer: You wanna see pictures?
Of course you do.
That's why I brought some quilts for you.
There is no photo available for Sylvia and Claudia's quilt
because it's really complicated
and I have not been able to make it yet.
I have part of it drawn.
But I was doing novels and pattern books
and traveling on book tour and everything else.
I did really wanna have a picture.
And you just went like this.
Excuses, excuses, yeah, I know.
Come on.
I should've just had AI do it for me.
No, no, no.
Ooh, I heard-- Ooh, my goodness.
Okay, we will not be doing that.
No, I don't think, so far, it can't make quilts.
So, yeah, I know, excuses, excuses.
I am going to get that drawing at least made
and post it on my website sometime soon.
But sometimes, my quilt--
My characters are more able quilters than I am,
so sometimes I write a really, really elaborate,
gorgeous, beautiful quilt that I myself cannot actually make.
In which case, I can design it and draw it.
But then I have to give it to someone who's much more capable.
Be that June Peace, or be that Sara Stoltman or my mom.
My mom has also made quilts for my books as well.
So yes, I could design this and write about it,
but I needed someone really, really skilled at appliqué
to make this beautiful quilt for me.
And thus, that is the problem
that I run into with Sylvia and Claudia's quilt.
It's really elaborate and gorgeous,
and it's beyond my abilities at this point,
but I am going to do it.
I am going to make it.
It might take me another 20 years.
We will be here celebrating, what,
the 50th anniversary of the Quilt Show or something.
That's a little further along.
But I do mean to get that done one of these days.
And we have a question up here too.
- Attendee 7: Yes, I was wondering
if you'd ever considered going through
and having someone make up a booklet
of all the different quilts
and the ways you can make them into a book?
- Jennifer: Well, that's a very interesting question.
You mean like a pattern book?
- Attendee 7: Yeah, a pattern book
for the Elm Creek quilt. - Jennifer: Yes, I do have...
Oh, the pattern book that I mentioned earlier
is actually my eighth pattern book.
So I do have seven earlier pattern books
that do offer patterns for many of the quilts
that are mentioned in the Elm Creek Quilts novels.
Not all of the quilts,
because that would be a lot of pattern books.
But there are books.
There are seven books already made,
including, I see you're holding the Aloha quilt.
- Attendee 7: Yeah. - The two quilts,
the Aloha quilt and Pineapple Patch,
patterns for those are available in some
of my earlier pattern books,
and I have all of those titles listed on my website,
along with which quilts are in which book.
And if you can't find them, a lot of them,
they're going back a few years.
If they aren't in your library or your quilt guild library,
you could probably, you can get some actual hard copy versions
from C&T publishing. - Attendee 7: Okay.
- And they also have electronic versions.
So, and I think Marty's actually bringing it up for you already.
See how good he is?
See how essential he is to the entire operation?
- Attendee 7: Okay. - Jennifer: Yeah, so, yeah.
So if you're interested in any of those,
just not Sylvia and Claudia's chain of progress,
because that is still a work in progress
for this particular quilter.
But other things are available.
So, and let's see.
I'm not sure, what, I think where we have until...
I can take one more question,
and then I'll have a couple of announcements.
So we have someone right here in front
or right here in the, on the aisle here.
- Attendee 8: Okay, back to the dress reform.
- Jennifer: Yes. - Attendee 8: Was Coco Chanel
any part of an inspiration for you?
- She was not.
This is focused in the UK and it's in the 1880s,
so I'm mostly focusing on Lady Harberton.
Another person who was very influential in this time
was Amelia Bloomer.
She was a little bit earlier, and she was in the U.S.,
but, you know, so that kind of prefigures
what Lady Harberton was most interested in.
So Coco Chanel, not so much, but there is--
I think there might even be two--
I know there is a recent historical novel
about the Chanel sisters that just came out.
The name escapes me at the moment, but...
And the author does too, but, yeah,
she certainly had so much going on in the world of fashion.
And the books I'm thinking of are more in the 20th century
rather than the late 19th.
But I know another author has covered a lot of that,
which would be really, really interesting.
So, I have two announcements.
First, is if you want me to sign books for you,
we cannot do it here because another amazing,
wonderful speaker is going, I don't know who,
but I know they're amazing and wonderful
because this is The Great Wisconsin Quilt Show.
So, someone else will be coming in here.
So, I need to break down the set and make room,
as you know, to be courteous to that person.
But I will be in booth 801 from the time
it takes me to get from here to over there until 3:00.
So I will be there until 3 o'clock.
And I will also be back there, if you can't get there today,
I will be back there on Friday and Saturday.
Same time, same booth.
Also, if you look beneath your chairs,
some of you have a book beneath your chairs,
and if you do, that's just a little souvenir
for you to take home.
They are already signed.
If you want them personalized,
I would be happy to personalize them for you.
If you want them unsigned, you're out of luck.
I already wrote in 'em.
If you don't like your book,
feel free to swap with someone else.
You're very welcome.
So those will be there for you.
And so, I just want to thank you all again for coming to, well--
Oh, you're all so excited about your books.
Oh, wow. [audience applauds]
I was asking for you to quiet down, not to clap.
No, no, no, I'm just teasing you.
I just wanted to get out my thank-yous once more
to Nancy Zieman Productions and Deanna Springer
and everyone at PBS Wisconsin.
Both of them are such wonderful, wonderful resources,
and we need to support the things we care about
if we want them to be there for us
when we want to enjoy wonderful programming,
great quilt products, or this fantastic show
that brings us together every year to discuss this art form
that we all love so much.
Thank you, in particular, I know there are so many other shows.
I'm so happy that you came to see me,
and I hope you enjoy the show, and happy quilting!
Thank you.
[audience applauding]
- Announcer: Proceeds from The Great Wisconsin Quilt Show
support PBS Wisconsin programming.
Your financial gift helps make this event possible.
Thank you.
[bright music]