Renée Rosen's latest novel is White Collar Girl. From her Q & A with Deborah Kalb:Q: How did you come up with the idea for White Collar Girl, and for your main character, Jordan Walsh?Visit Renée Rosen's website, blog, and Facebook page.
A: After I finished What the Lady Wants, my editor, agent and I started brainstorming on what my next book should be.
We were all intrigued by the idea of the Chicago Tribune and the Daley Machine, but it wasn’t until I met Marion Purcelli, a woman who started at the Tribune in 1949 as a “copyboy,” that the story really began taking shape. Marion took me under her wing, sharing many wonderful stories of her days at the paper.
Jordan Walsh and her mentor Mrs. Angelo are both based on Marion Purcelli, and after meeting her, the book pretty much wrote itself. I really did not know what would happen from one chapter to the next. The characters took the story and ran with it and I was just along for the ride.
Q: You’ve written three historical novels about Chicago. How did the writing and research process compare this time with the previous two?
A: The biggest difference between this book and my previous novels, Dollface, which was set in the 1920s, and What the Lady Wants, set in the Gilded Age, is that ...[read on]
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--Marshal Zeringue