Former senior marketing executive, speaker, blogger and book reviewer, Joan Fernandez brings to light brilliant women’s courageous deeds in history. Her short story, “A Parisian Daughter,” is published in the award-winning anthology, Feisty Deeds: Historical Fictions of Daring Women. Her debut novel, Saving Vincent, A Novel of Jo van Gogh, will be published in April 2025 by She Writes Press.

Take it away, Joan!

What path led you to Jo van Gogh? And why do you think it is important to tell her story today?

I found out about Jo on a long weekend in Amsterdam. I was with three girlfriends, and we’d carved out a getaway between crammed schedules of kids’ sports and dual parental juggling and hectic work demands. It felt giddy, like we were getting away with some crazy caper, and gloriously indulgent since traveling with friends feels different than traveling with a spouse, when a big chunk of attention includes the other person’s welfare.

So, one of our stops is the Van Gogh Museum. I purchase the audio tour and immerse myself in Vincent van Gogh’s artistic tragic life as I follow the recording from painting to painting. In fact, it’s so engrossing that at the end of the tour there are tears in my eyes. At this moment I’m in front of the final exhibition boards. I notice a small notation about Jo—Vincent’s sister-in-law—and how she was the one who worked for over a decade to promote him. I remember staring at her photo and thinking, “If not for you, none of this would be here.” Like a fishhook, Jo caught my thought. A few years later I retired from my corporate career and decided to write her story.

Even though this year, 2025, will be the hundredth-year anniversary of Jo’s death in 1925, I believe her story is coming out at a crucially relevant time. There’s been a gathering storm of societal pressure against women’s rights and agency, Recent attacks on DEI initiatives is just one example. The fact that Jo prevailed despite her experiences of patriarchal prejudice can give comfort and inspiration to readers today. I think there’s a special impact from reading real women’s stories from the past that can give hope today.

How did you walk the line between historical fact and fiction in Saving Vincent?

I started with research from official biographies and letters, including reading the 101-letter exchange between Jo and Theo and all 902 letters of Vincent van Gogh’s correspondence. The first letter exchange gave me a sense of their relationship and what Jo valued and was curious about. I read Vincent’s correspondence because Jo read and organized Vincent’s letters after his death, getting to know him through his writing since she only met him three times in person.

At this juncture, I applied a storytelling framework: choosing an inciting incident, finding a point of no return, identifying a climactic moment, etc. Then I scoured my factual research to give intentional meaning to Jo’s moments within events, a timeline, art exhibitions and relationships. Overlaying all of it, I wanted to show her personal growth from a timid widow to the strong advocate she became. Finally, I also wanted to include societal pressures of her time, so I personified this headwind by creating a fictional antagonist, who represented pushback against her efforts from the art establishment.

How did your previous career as a marketing executive inform your response to Jo van Gogh, whom you’ve described as the “greatest marketer of the century?”

When reading Jo’s biography, my background in marketing caused Jo’s marketing strategies to leap off the page. I’ve gone back to identify eight specific strategies, many ahead of her time. For example, she was vigilant about protecting Vincent’s “brand”—responding to criticism even though it caused others to scold her publicly. Another tactic: she educated the public about Vincent by publishing excerpts from his letters and drawings in six editions of a prominent Parisian newspaper. These letters created curiosity around Vincent, which in marketing is creating awareness. She reminded me of a genius whose talent is so instinctive that what’s elusive to others feels perfectly natural. This genius transformed a product worth nothing (Vincent’s works) into one worth millions upon millions today. It’s by this measure that I’ve enjoyed calling Jo, the greatest marketer of the century.

A question from Joan: Over the long arc of humankind, you’ve studied and written about there have been shifting worldviews on women—what’s your perspective on the current rhetoric and backlash against women’s rights and agency?

First: I want to know if you people got together this year and said “Let’s ask Pamela hard questions.”

Okay, now that I’ve gotten that off of my chest, let me take a stab at this.

Speaking as a historian: progress is not a continuous upward curve. (The most dramatic version of this in American history is the backlash against the Reconstruction following the Civil War.) Instead, progress comes in fits and starts, whether we are talking civil rights, labor safety or clean air. Certainly in the case of women’s rights and agency, every step forward we have made has been followed by an attempt to push us back that was successful in the short run. (As I have said in previous posts I’m talking about the history of women’s rights because that is what I know best, but it is true of every marginalized group who has fought for equal rights.)

Moreover, progress does not occur evenly across a population. The 19th Amendment gave American women the right to vote, but did not address the rules that were already in place to disenfranchise Black men, and consequently Black women.* There is a reason that intersectionality—the way different forms of inequality overlap and exacerbate each other— is an important part of the discussion.

Just because this isn’t the first backlash we’ve seen against civil rights of the marginalized, doesn’t mean we can just wait for the pendulum to swing again. Advances are made because people fight for equality.

On a personal level, I am really angry and my stomach hurts all the time.

*The role of Black women in the suffrage movement and the racism of many of the leading White suffragists is too big a topic for me to handle here, and painful.  I was shocked when I first learned some of the stories.  I’ve said it before, and I suspect I will say it many times this year: history is hard, and perhaps it should be.

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Want to know more about Joan and her work?

Check out her website at https://www.joanfernandezauthor.com

Read her provocative weekly essays as https://joanfernandez.substack.com

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Come back tomorrow for three questions and an answer with Dr. Shannon Frystak, who studies the lives of historical women in the Deep sosuth.