Writer Julia Flynn Siler is the author of two bestselling non-fiction books. Her third book, White Devil’s Daughters, The Women Who Fought Against Slavery in San Francisco’s Chinatown, is just out. A long-time journalist, she has reported from all over the world, these days claiming to prefer her home office and the libraries of her home city to being a globe-trotting foreign correspondent. A long-time writer of non-fiction, this is an author who knows when to stop researching and start writing. We’ll talk to her about that, and so much more, in this episode of QWERTY.
Read along as you listen to this episode of QWERTY, my podcast with co-host David Leite. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes, Spotify or Stitcher. (The following transcript has been edited from the original recording).
Marion: I’m very excited to introduce you, David to Julia Flynn Siler. She’s a two time New York Times bestselling author. She’s a journalist who has reported from a dozen countries. Her new book, which I just finished, is a marvel, it’s called the White Devil’s Daughters, the Women Who Fought Against Slavery in San Francisco’s Chinatown. It was published by Alfred A. Knopf in May of 2019. The New York Times Book Review named it an editor’s choice. She’s also the author of Lost Kingdom, Hawaii’s Last Queen, the Sugar Kings and America’s First Imperial Adventure and The House of Mondavi, the Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty. She’s got a long career that I find very informing as well as reassuring in terms of what young writers might want to know about how to build a writing life that produces work that’s of interest to others. David, let me introduce you to author Julia Flynn Siler.
David: Hello Julia.
Julia: Hey David. Hey Marion. I’m so happy to be here.
Marion: Welcome.
David: Marion, in other words, you’re saying that Julia is a slacker, right? From that introduction. Is that when I spoke to take away from that?
Marion: She has what we call a writing life, David. That’s what it is.
David: Exactly. That’s amazing. Well, Julia, welcome to the show. And one of the things that comes up a lot with nonfiction writers is the comfort of research versus the discomfort of writing. Now to many writers research is a joy. It’s a delight. They dig, they quest, they love the privacy element of it. The feeling that you’re getting somewhere. Now it would be easy, and writers of nonfiction talk about this all the time, to never write. Talk to us a bit about the difference between the research period and the writing period in your writing life. When to stop researching and start writing?
Julia: Well, you put it so well David. I am absolutely guilty of what many writers refer to as research rapture. I fall down that rabbit hole.
David: We’re stealing that one you know.
Julia: A research rapture. If someone would pay me to spend my entire life in archives and elsewhere researching, I would absolutely do that. However, as a matter of practicality and knowing myself well enough, I force myself to research and write almost simultaneously. I will typically write in the morning when I’m freshest and then I’ll do my research in the afternoon because I could just go on all day into the night. And so I really by setting those boundaries and those limits on how far I can research, that seems to work best for me.
Marion: Is there an actual moment when you say, “Okay, I can write this section or I can write this version or I can write this draft.” You say you’re researching and writing simultaneously, but when do you know to start actually typing?
Julia: Well, I tend to be like a train conductor in how I approach a project. And so I will, for example, my latest book, the White Devil’s Daughters, I would give myself a month per chapter and I have writing goals. I would say, “I need to write 500 words this morning.” And as soon as I get those 500 words done, that’s when I get to research, which is what I really love.
Marion: Oh I love that. You paid yourself. This is the Graham Greene theory of 500 words, first of all. And it worked for him. But second of all, you’re paying yourself off with the research rapture. This is fabulous.
David: It’s like eating the pizza before you get the ice cream.
Julia: Exactly. It really, really works. And I tend to research on that chapter. For example, I knew the prologue of my book was set in 1933. It was a very specific two hour period in 1933. Many of the resources for this scene were in the National Archives offices in San Bruno, California. And so I spent a month. I could write and then if I had a question, well did she button up her coat? Well I could go to the archives that afternoon and I could try to find that, in fact that detail is in the archives.
David: Wow.
Marion: Love that.
David: Then talking about working with archives and research, how worried are you? Or should you be at all that someone else might be writing the same book at the same time? Because after all, bestsellers seem to require at least a little bit of knowledge that something is brewing out there in the ethers in that it will be of great interest of people two years down the line. Once you’ve gotten that idea, are you nervous that someone else is going to pick up on it?
Julia: David, the funniest anecdote about exactly that question has to do with my book on Hawaii, on The Last Queen of Hawaii, and I was working in the Hawaii State Archives, which is in downtown Honolulu right across in the palace. And I always check who else’s signed into the archives.
Marion: Oh I love that detail.
Julia: Because I’m competitive. I’ve been a reporter for a long time and sure enough there is an extremely famous writer that is on NPR quite a bit. I don’t think I’ll mention her name, but I saw her, my heart sunk when it saw that name and then I went in and I introduced myself, we got to talking. It turns out she’s writing exactly the same book that I’m writing.
David: Oh no.
Julia: And I walked out of the archives and I walked around those grounds, those grassy grounds. Called my agent, called my editor, within five or 10 minutes of leaving the archives to step out and said, “Hey, we’ve got a problem. Someone else’s doing exactly the same story.” And sure enough, she came out about a year ahead of me with her book. It did really, really well. We both obviously had the same kind of thinking because President Obama had been recently elected and his experience in Hawaii or background in Hawaii was very, very interesting. That, but you can’t do anything about it. Likewise with the White Devil’s Daughters, there’s a wonderful, wonderful archivist and writer named Eddie Wong and he was fascinated by this story too. In fact, published a great piece in the National Archives magazine about it. And in that case it worked out quite well because I could help Eddie, Eddie could help me. I thank Eddie in the book and we were both thinking about the same case at the same time, so that was not a competitive situation, it was more of a collaborative situation in some ways.
Marion: Well those are good stories. I like both of those stories very much. And of course the book, the Hawaii book went on to be a bestseller. I’m not worried that that the first famous writer scooped you. And there’s so much about your career that I actually find so encouraging to talk to young writers about. The promise of being able to write about things that matter, for instance. You’ve said in interviews that if there’s a common thread in your three books, it’s women in power. And I think it’s really informing. I speak to a lot of young writers who would like to write about social justice, for instance. I wonder, what encouragement or life lesson can you offer to those who want to craft a career that covers a topic of social concern?
Julia: That’s, first of all, I’m so encouraged that young writers want to focus on social justice. Now more than ever we need those types of stories. That said, I think that the way to get people to read those types of stories is good old fashioned storytelling. Strong characters, a very strong narrative arc that drives the reader through the book and turning those pages. And a very strong setting, an evocative setting. If anything that I, any kind of encouragement or advice I would give young writers is A, read books that are page turners and you can use some of the lessons from how those writers work and apply it to your concerns with social justice. I know that writers, for example, study mystery novels, how to build suspense. Why not apply that same lesson to social justice stories?
Marion: I want to follow up to that question. In your early career, you wrote about everything from biotech to puppy breeding. Does a young writer need to build those muscles and contacts and write whatever she’s invited to write or whatever pops into her head or whatever she can get published? And that’s how we build those storytelling skills.
Julia: I think so. I was very fortunate in that I was a staff writer for magazines and for newspapers for a very long time and I wrote essentially what was assigned to me. I also came up with story ideas, but just exercising the muscle of writing as much as you possibly can and writing on deadline is a really good one. For example, I don’t suffer from writer’s block. I think because I had, I wrote to eat. I wrote to earn a living for so many years. That wasn’t the hard part. The other thing I would say is that keep on learning, you may have a day job writing or working with words, but one of the things that I did that was really helpful was take university extension courses. I took a fiction writing course, which was a very humbling, I’m a terrible fiction writer but I’m glad I did it.
Marion: Me too. Me too.
Julia: Yeah, so that was really good. And I took improv classes, which strangely enough have turned out to be extremely helpful in terms of doing book events and talking about the book because that’s just a different way of storytelling. I would keep on trying to learn as well as keeping that day job and ideally a day job where you’re writing.
David: I’m really curious, now you joined the Wall Street Journal staff while you were stationed in Europe and then when you came back to the States, you wrote a piece about the Mondavi wine empire that ran on the front page, I think 2004, and then a book titled The House of Mondavi followed. And then it became a New York Times bestseller as well as a finalist for the James Beard Award as well as the Gerald Loeb award. Now it’s in its 12th printing, so apparently you’ve got the right formula for choosing good topics. What is your secret?
Julia: Oh my goodness. Well, one thing is setting of course. Who doesn’t want to spend a few days in a place like Napa Valley or Honolulu?
David: Good point.
Julia: Or Chinatown in San Francisco? Those are all very rich, evocative places and the time are all very interesting too. I have a particular kind of fascination with turn of the 20th century, late 19th, early 20th century. For some reason during that gilded era period that really captures my imagination. What was going on there. And it has so much a resonance with our world now in that there was such huge discrepancy between the wealthy and the less fortunate and there was enormous social change during that time. I think that’s a really evocative period to folk. But most important I think is to have a good story involving conflict. The House of Mondavi you had four generations, you had fist fights, you had billion dollar takeovers. What’s not to love about that? It’s basically a soap opera. It’s incredible story.
Julia: Likewise, one thing I learned about the book about Hawaii is that the fights were just as emotional and just as important. The stakes were just as high, but a lot of it was more subtle than the Mondavi story. There weren’t fist fights in that case. There were Marines walking through downtown Honolulu, but nobody actually got killed. And it was the stakes of course were the sovereignty of the native Hawaiian people. But it’s a very subtle story in a lot of ways. And so that’s why I turned to this Chinatown story because there was so much action. There were Tang battles on the streets of Chinatown, people were facing bubonic plague. I find that I really like writing action. It’s just fun. And it’s interesting. That was a response to the Hawaii story I wanted more action.
Marion: That brings us to your new book, The White Devil’s Daughters, The Women Who Fought Slavery in San Francisco’s Chinatown. And is the perfect book for now? It covers racial tension, historic legislation to ban some people from this country, how we turn a blind eye to human trafficking, blatant institutionalized racism, the history of women in power and the demonization of immigrants. It’s perfect for now. You must’ve felt something coming. And so again, I just want to talk about that for a second. Did you hear about it? And when did you hear about it? And how did you know that this is the book for right now? And if you forget any part of that question, don’t worry, I’ll remind you.
Julia: Sure. I think like many writers and journalists, so much of this is happening, so much of the thinking goes on in a subconscious level. For example, I had a read a book about sex slavery during the Second World War. It was a fictionalized account of that, and this was while I was researching the book on Hawaii and that book I think I will never forget, never forget. And all of a sudden I started thinking about sex trafficking and noticing it a lot more. And noticing a lot of activity around this area. And then again, there’s actually a quite a practical reason for why I chose the Chinatown story. In addition to it being a story about strong women and about empathy, it also just was plain old practical for me. The key resources for researching this book were all within 20 minutes of where I live. In fact, one of them is at the San Francisco Theological Union that I can ride my bicycle to in 10 minutes.
Marion: I love that.
Julia: And I did learn that in trying to write the Hawaii book that the cost and the time and the difficulty of arranging trips to Honolulu to do that research was just too much. I didn’t want. And I wanted you to do something a lot closer. And I think that was a really good decision because I could run back to the Theological Union’s library and re-look at materials that I had seen two or three years ago and look at them again in the context of what I now knew. I would urge other writers to really think about what’s close to you? And does it make sense to focus on that just in a practice?
Marion: I tell that to the people I teach all the time about start in your own backyard because it makes writing life possible for those of us who have kids or we have involvements in our communities or aging parents or a sick spouse or even a well spouse or a marriage you’d like to have last another year or so. You don’t necessarily want to be flying off. Look around and see what’s in our own backyard. It’s fairly remarkable. I did some research on my house once and found out it was a speakeasy during prohibition. And it’s on my list of things to write about. Speaking of places we spend our time, your online bio speaks of you and your family spending a lot of time in public libraries. My first memory literally is of my public library and my mother flipping through the card catalog to show me something. I always say I was born that moment. And so I wonder what the library system has done for you and your family.
Julia: Oh my gosh. Well first of all, my older son was a big, big reader. He was born in London and he started reading a little earlier than American kids because they start their preschool stuff earlier. And there was a local public librarian when we moved back to California, and she took a real interest in him for some reason. She would find books that she thought he might be interested in. And to this day, he’s now 24, she still writes us holiday cards.
Marion: Oh I love that.
David: Oh that’s sweet.
Julia: She’s just amazing. I like to try to support our libraries. And it also is a place where it’s like the last Democrat bastion. It’s where people of different economic and racial and social kind of places can come together. I just think it’s really important. And I also support the, I support the Bancroft Library at the University of California at Berkeley, which is probably the most important repository of the history of the West. And anybody can go in there and research. It’s amazing.
Marion: That’s wonderful. I wonder in terms of where and how you work, do you work at the library? Do you work at home when you’re writing? Obviously when you’re on the road, you’re writing wherever you have to write, but in this case you were going to Chinatown, going back home to work? Do you have an office in your house? Just a little more on the process.
Julia: Absolutely. I tend to like to prefer to write in one place and that is my home office. I look out on redwood trees, I share the office with my husband. I have a stand up desk and I’m very particular. I just like to do it that way. although, from being a journalist I can write on my laptop and that’s no problem, but I just prefer to do it in a very regulated way at home in my office. And I do work in libraries a lot because that’s where so many of the materials that I drew on for this book are. But what I’m doing in libraries is I’m typically using my iPhone and I have an app on it called Turbo Scan. I am scanning documents and then afterwards at home I will go through them and annotate them and mark areas that are particularly…
Marion: Oh that’s so helpful. I love that. And in terms of your husband and you sharing the office, do you mean that you’re actually both writing at the same time? Is it a sort of recreation of the Wall Street Journal newsroom but down to a scale of two?
David: Two?
Julia: Kind of a little bit. I’m looking right now on, I’m looking at his little desk over there and he is a little more sensitive to sound than I am. He’ll wear headsets to, so he doesn’t hear my clicking as I’m writing away. But often actually in the morning I will turn on music and write to the music and he will wait til late afternoon to come in. We often trade off the space.
Marion: That’s great. I love it.
David: Tell us then, you’ve covered all these different topics. Of course the latest one is the White Devil’s Daughters. What’s next? Do you have something coming up?
Julia: Ooh, I haven’t decided yet. I have a long file, which is my tickle list. It’s basically called Book for Ideas and I probably have 24, 36 ideas. I particularly have one story that I am looking into at this point. It has to do with, I would say in a general sense, resistance. About a couple who were resistors in a very powerful way. And there’s a connection to my family and most importantly there’s incredible primary documents associated with this couple that have not gone into public archives yet.
David: Oh my, that’s great.
Julia: As a writer, I’m always looking for primary material that is overlooked or that other people haven’t seen yet that could make for a good story.
Marion: That’s a great idea to base some of the decision on that. I am assuming you based some of the decision on a gut feeling. And then maybe at what point do you talk to your agent and or your editor and see what their interest is or what their gut feeling is? Give us a sense of the percentages in terms of who gets to have the final vote here.
Julia: Sure. My editor gets the final vote because she’s who I’m writing for. And we had lunch about a month ago and I over lunch discussed two different ideas and I thought she was going to go for the first one.
Marion: You did, did you?
Julia: I did, I did. Absolutely. And so I have completely pivoted and that’s the one I’m going to focus on. And kind of psychologically for me because these projects take four to five years, they’re so involved. With this project in particular, I’m thinking, well maybe I’ll start it as a magazine article and see if I can come up with, if it’s a good enough story to then consider for something larger. And that’s just, those little baby steps make it a lot more manageable in my head. And particularly since this is a sort of dark story, I want to make sure that I can live with this subject for four to five years.
Marion: Ah, yes.
David: Yeah. You must fall in love with anything you’re doing book form because it can take so long to complete.
Julia: Yes. And I love The White Devil’s Daughters. I never once got bored.
David: That’s wonderful.
Julia: This subject was so captivating from the first moment that I started it.
Marion: Well it’s captivating all the way through and every word through the manuscript I found myself thinking that depression’s there, the rage that I felt, the understanding that I’m able to bring a bit more to our immigrant issues these days and this boiling rage that some people seem to have about quote, other people. To see it having happened before in my country, having known about it, having known about all the aspects of our history still made it so important to me to get it right. And oh boy. Thank you for that. But I want to just follow up on one thing you just said in terms of that you might do a magazine piece. Are you talking about testing the material on the audience first? Or are you talking about solidifying your own ideas about might go into the book?
Julia: Solidify my own ideas about what might go into the book. And more importantly, testing how I feel about living with very difficult material for that period of time.
Marion: I see.
Julia: It’s really, it’s less about, I know that I can sell this magazine article. That’s not an issue. And I know that readers would find it interesting. It’s more, can I live with it? It’s dark. But that said, one thing I learned about from the latest books set in Chinatown, is that the way I framed the story of fighting against sex trafficking in Chinatown was as an inspirational a story of a few people trying to make social change in their communities, trying to do what is right and fighting racism. And likewise with this new project, that’s how I would try to approach it, which is individuals trying to fight something that’s wrong.
Marion: Well, thank you for every word you’ve written and particularly for these, Julia, we’re just delighted to have you on and really interested in what you’re going to write next. Go get them. Spend some time typing and we’ll be waiting by the bookshop door.
The book is The White Devil’s Daughters, the Women Who Fought Slavery in San Francisco’s Chinatown by Julia Flynn Siler. You can find it wherever books or audio books are sold. Read more about the author and her work at juliaflynnsiler.com. And don’t forget to subscribe QWERTY and listen to us wherever you go.
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