Talking About Women’s History: Three Questions and an Answer with Denise Kiernan
Denise Kiernan is an author, journalist, producer, and host of “CRAFT: Authors in Conversation.” Her forthcoming narrative nonfiction title, Obstinate Daughters: The Rebels, Writers, and Renegade Women Who Ignited the American Revolution arrives June 23, 2026. Her latest young reader’s book, We Gather Together: Stories of Thanksgiving from Then to Now, is a companion title to the popular adult nonfiction book, We Gather Together, and children’s picture book, Giving Thanks. Her book The Last Castle was an instant New York Times bestseller in both hardcover and paperback and was also a Wall Street Journal bestseller. She is also the author of The Girls of Atomic City, which is a New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and NPR bestseller and has been published in multiple languages.[1] She lives in North Carolina.
Take it away, Denise!
Photograph © Beowulf Sheehan
How do you chose the subjects for your works of narrative non-fiction?
I start with—and stick with—curiosity. These books are in my life for a long time and I have to be fascinated by the subject. I keep lists of ideas, moments in history, and the people who shaped them. I try to find a topic or theme that feels familiar and then explore it through underrepresented voices and perspectives.
What was the most surprising thing you’ve found doing historical research for your work?
I am always astounded by the sheer amount of information that remains in archives, libraries, and historical societies that has yet to see the light of day. There are so many stories still to tell.
What work of women’s history have you read lately that you loved? (Or for that matter, what work of women’s history have you loved in any format?)
I LOVE You Can’t Catch Us. Lady Bird Johnson’s Trailblazing 1964 Campaign Train and the Women Who Rode with Her, by Shannon McKenna Schmidt. She’s an amazing author and this is a spectacular read.
A question from Denise: My question for you is a simple one: What first inspired you to undertake this annual Q&A project, and how has conducting it impacted you as a writer?
I can’t take credit for the idea. In 2018, the brilliant Greer Macallister, who writes historical fiction and epic fantasy with a feminist twist, ran a wonderful series on her blog for Women’s History Month titled #WomensHistoryReads. The concept was simple: she asked historians and historical novelists to answer three questions regarding writing and reading about women in history and asked each of us to ask her a question in return. I eagerly awaited each post as it came out. With her blessing, I began running a similar series the following year. Since then it’s taken on a life of its own.
The series has been a good thing for me in many ways, some of them unexpected. Instance, it has forced me to gather up my courage to reach out to people I admire—not that easy for a shy human being. Every year, it causes my To-Be-Read list to explode. But the impact on me as a writer has come from the questions. Writing the questions each year is always thought-provoking because I try to ask some questions that relate directly to the work of each person I’m interviewing. The questions you all ask me in return often make me stop and consider how I do the work and what I believe about the work, something I seldom have time for in the middle of working on a book.
[1] Pamela interjecting: Also one of my favorite books of recent years.
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Want to know more about Denise and her work?
Visit her website: https://www.denisekiernan.com/
Subscribe to her newsletter: https://newsletter.denisekiernan.com/
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Come back tomorrow for three questions and an answer with author Kate Moore.
Talking About Women’s History: Three Questions and an Answer with Shelley Puhak
I am thrilled to have Shelley Puhak back for another round of Three Questions and an Answer. I loved her last book, The Dark Queens: The Bloody Rivalry that Forged the Medieval World and was thrilled when I learned she was writing about the infamous Elizabeth Bathory. (Spoiler: It lived up to my expectations.)
Shelley writes literary nonfiction and poetry informed by rigorous historical research. Her prose has appeared in The Atlantic, Smithsonian, and Virginia Quarterly Review; been anthologized in Best American Travel Writing; and designated as Notable in four editions of Best American Essays. Her nonfiction debut The Dark Queens (Bloomsbury 2022), exploring the little-known queens Brunhild and Fredegund, was a national bestseller and a USA Today Best Books selection, an Amazon Editors’ Pick, and a Goodreads Choice Awards finalist. Her second book The Blood Countess, a reexamination of the notorious Elizabeth Bathory, was released in February 2026.
Shelley is also the author of three award-winning books of poetry. The most recent is Harbinger, a National Poetry Series selection (Ecco/ HarperCollins 2022).
Take it away, Shelley!
You start Blood Countess with a chilling narrative of the story of Elizabeth Bathory, who has been demonized through the centuries as the world’s most prolific female serial killer. Then you bluntly state: “And nearly none of it is true.” What inspired you to unravel Bathory’s story from myth and misinformation?
We’re all witnessing the proliferation of online disinformation, and I couldn’t help but hear echoes of Elizabeth’s time, when another new and unregulated technology enabled conspiracy theories to spread faster and further than ever before.
Elizabeth Bathory is accused of torturing and killing hundreds of young girls and bathing in their blood. I was also curious why so many people really want this legend to be true. In the past, the legend gave many repressed men the chance to discuss, imagine, and sketch lots of naked (dead) female bodies, all in the name of pursuing moral or scientific truth. But now, over 400 years later, why does this story still have such a grip on our imaginations? (I have theories!) Its an intriguing historical cold case, but it is also a fascinating case study in who gets to speak, what counts as evidence, and how myths get made.
How does Bathory’s story fit into the larger framework of witch hunting in Europe in the seventeenth century?
Her case unfolds at the beginning of The Great Hunt, the explosion of witchcraft accusations and trials in early modern Europe. The same men who accused and investigated Elizabeth Bathory also oversaw the witch hunts in the area.
So many women in Elizabeth’s family end up accused of witchcraft: her mother-in-law, her aunt, her cousins, and her niece. Elizabeth herself was alleged to use a supernatural pretzel for surveillance, serve bewitched cakes to her enemies, and command an army of invisible demon dogs and cats. She was also known to have kept company with convicted witches: one of Elizabeth’s friends was accused of dabbling in the dark arts, and another was burned at the stake.
What do you find most challenging or most exciting about researching historical woman?
I find it exhilarating to uncover the networks of women of any time period, the overlooked sisters, daughters, cousins, friends and rivals. Intertwined with Elizabeth’s story were women joining rebellions, pitching in as soldiers, operating printing presses, running medical practices, even women trying to become priests. If you go looking for one woman, you always turn up dozens of others, deserving of books of their own.
A question from Shelly: From the nail-biting opening on the streets outside her apartment to the scene of Schultz dodging shrapnel on her way to a broadcast, wartime Berlin is so integral to The Dragon from Chicago. You incorporate subway systems, walking routes, multiple state and bureau buildings, etc. How did you manage to render Berlin so vividly when this version of Berlin ended up reduced to rubble? What tools, tricks, or tips do you have for readers and writers interested in researching places that have been irrevocably altered or no longer exist?
I worked really hard at this, so I’m glad to hear that I succeeded.
I would say that the research skills are much the same, but the questions are different. Here are some the things I found helpful:
1. If you’ve spent anytime following me here on the Margins or on my newsletter, you know that I’m a big fan of maps. In the case of The Dragon From Chicago, maps became even more important than usual. In the course of writing about one of the many small revolts that occurred in Germany during the first months of the Weimar republic, I realized that I needed not only to untangle the events as they occurred day by day, but I also needed to place those events in space to see just how they would have affected Sigrid Schultz.
I had already pinpointed the location of the Schultz apartment thanks to Google maps and a big street map of modern Berlin. Now I began to track her movements and the movements of the battles. That’s when I ran into a problem: some of the streets weren’t on the modern map. The ultimate solution was to locate a map of Berlin between the wars (harder to find than you might think) and work with it in conjunction with my more detailed modern map. I located the location of all the buildings that were important to my story—most of which no longer exist. I also traced the routes Sigrid was most apt to have traveled between them, based in part on her letters. I used Google maps to get an estimate of distance and travel time, which gave me a rough idea of how far apart things were. (It would have been wonderful to do this in person in modern Berlin, but I began working on the book in March, 2020. Travel was not an option,).
This gave me a physical framework on which to set the action
2. Obviously I spent a lot of time looking at photographs, not only of public buildings but also of the streets of Berlin between 1919 and 1941. There were some images that I wanted but never found, or found too late to use. For instance I didn’t find a picture of the Hotel Adlon bar, which was a major location in the book, until The Dragon From Chicago was in copy edits. Luckily Sigrid gave several detailed descriptions, right down to the red leather seats on the chairs.
And speaking of those red leather seats: After a while, I realized that the prevalence of black and white photos was coloring—so to speak—my image of mid-century Berlin. Thinking of the city in shades of gray was metaphorically all too apt for the period. So I began to seek out paintings, drawings, and illustrations from the period that would add color to my mental image. FYI: this is a case where the big names may not be your best bet. Paintings by Otto Dix and George Grosz illustrated the zeitgeist; talented but more conventional artists told me what the streets and store interiors looked like in realistic terms.
3. I combed my sources for sensory details that would bring scenes to life: when I mention the weather it comes from contemporary report. I read every memoir or contemporary account of the period I could get my hands on. Even when they report the same events they see different things.
4. I sought out information about urban planning, transportation, and technology to learn about public transportation, utilities, radio, and information transmission.
In short, find ways to look for the physicality of your setting, not just the events that occurred there.
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Interested in learning more about Shelley and her work?
Check out her website: www.shelleypuhak.com
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Come back tomorrow for three questions and an answer with journalist Denise Kieran
Mary Elizabeth Garrett, the “Friday Evening” Group, and Coercive Philanthropy
In the course of researching my last blog post, I discovered Mary Elizabeth Garrett (1854-1915), the woman who founded and led the Women’s Medical Fund Committee, which raised the money that allowed the Johns Hopkins University medical school to open, and forced the school to admit women and to improve the quality of medical education. Groups of women raising money for charitable and civic causes isn’t a new story, though the financial blackmail Garret’s team applied is an interesting twist.[1] But when I went a little deeper into the story, I found Miss Garret entirely too interesting to leave in the footnotes. Her story focuses on two issues that I’m spending a lot of time thinking about these days: women’s education and the power of women working in groups
Mary Elizabeth Garrett was the third child and only daughter of banker and railroad tycoon John Work Garrett. Known as the Railroad King, he was the president of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, which was the first major railroad in the United States, and one of the most influential men in the country. Because she was a woman, no one expected Garrett to play a role in the family’s financial empire, but she showed an acute business sense from an early age. So much so that her father often lamented that she wasn’t a boy because she would have been such an asset to the company. Her father encouraged her to develop her business skills by using her as his private secretary—a position that was typically held by men in late nineteenth century. As “Papa’s secretary,” she accompanied him on business trips, attended meetings with some of the most influential businessmen of the time, and handled his correspondence. She was also exposed from an early age to personal philanthropy as practiced by her father and his friends financier George Peabody, often considered the father of modern philanthropy, and merchant-banker Johns Hopkins.
When her father died in 1884, her brothers took over the family’s financial empire. Her oldest brother became president of the B & O Railroad. Her other brother ran the family’s original business, Robert Garrett and Sons. Garrett inherited nearly $2 million[2] and three large estates, making her one of the wealthiest women in the country, but her role in the family businesses ended. (That “and Sons” sums it up.)
Cut out of the business world, Garrett vowed to use her money to help women by removing some of the obstacles that had stood in her way, helped by a group of women who had been her friends for many years. While in their teens, Garrett and four other young women with progressive leanings— M.Carey Thomas, Mamie Gwin, Elizabeth “Bessie” King and Julie Rogers—began meeting on Friday evenings to discuss art, literature, politics and social issues. They called themselves “the Friday Evening.” All of them were from wealthy families. Most were from Quaker backgrounds. All but Julie Rogers were daughters of Johns Hopkins trustees—a detail that would prove to be important. Over time they came to the conclusion that education was the key to helping women lead more independent lives. They had learned by personal experience that even wealth didn’t open all the doors.
Their first effort in promoting education for women, with Garrett’s financial backing and the “Friday Evening” as the governing board, was the formation of a college preparatory school for women, the Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore[3]. Although some detractors grumbled that the money would have been better spent on a domestic school to teach women to be better housewives and mothers, the Bryn Mawr School became a model for girls’ college prep schools across the country.
Their next contribution to women’s higher education was on a grander scale: the formation of Johns Hopkins Medical School as a co-educational institution. Garrett had offered the university $35,000[4] in 1887 as seed money for a co-educational school of science. The endowment left by Hopkins was going strong and the board of trustees turned her down. Several years later, when the endowment was faltering and the board didn’t have enough money to open the medical school, the Friday Evening saw its opportunity. Because several of their fathers were still on the Johns Hopkins’ board, the women knew just how bad the crisis was. Enlisting support from influential women across the country,[5] they formed the Women’s Medical Fund Committee to raise the needed funds, with the caveat that women be allowed to enroll. They organized fifteen committees in major cities throughout the country, headed by prominent local women. They made sure that newspapers covered their activities. Nonetheless, the committee struggled to raise the entire $500,000 needed. Garrett made up the difference, with the additional caveat that the school be a graduate institution with rigorous entrance requirements. The board of trustees did not take the money or the related conditions laid down by the women easily. (One faculty member quipped that it was a good thing he was already a professor because he would never have gotten in as a student.) But ultimately Johns Hopkins Medical School opened as a graduate level institution, with women in the first class and in every class thereafter.
[1] Introducing me to the term “coercive philanthropy,” in which a donor uses wealth as a weapon to force social change. Garrett was an early and adept practitioner of the art.
[2] My go-to relative value calculator says that would be more than $800 billion today, which would make her worth more than Bill Gates. Even if this is not accurate, it is safe to say that she inherited a LOT of money.
[3] Although the school was named for Bryn Mawr College, which was founded as an all-women’s college in 1885, there was no official relationship between the two.
[4] Roughly $13 billion today. Apparently the trustees really objected to the idea of allowing women to enroll.
[5] Including, among others:
- Frances Louise Morgan, the second wife of J. Piermont Morgan
- Jane Stanford, the wife of Leland Stanford
- First Lady Caroline Harrison
- Bertha Palmer, the queen of Chicago society
- Julia Ward Howe, whose name I assume you recognize
- Novelist Sarah Orne Jewett, whose name came up in a recent blog post
- Dr. Emily Blackwell, who opened the first American hospital staffed by and for women, with her sister Dr Elizabeth Blackwell and Dr. Marie Zakrewzska