Shelly Sanders

Shelly Sanders is the bestselling author of the adult novel Daughters of the Occupation and the acclaimed young adult historical novels The Rachel Trilogy. She began her writing career as a freelance journalist working for major publications, including the Toronto Star, National Post, Maclean’s, Canadian Living, Reader’s Digest, and Today’s Parent. She lives in Ontario.

Sanders's new novel is The Night Sparrow.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

My working title was Red Army Woman, because my novel is about a female Red Army sniper. Still, this is not exactly a gripping title and you can’t assume 2025 readers know what Red Army means. Then, I came across a sniper’s diary entry which reads: “We are but a sparrow’s feather.” This enthralling comparison led me on a tangential search for everything about sparrows. I discovered that these small birds are actually mighty in numbers (like snipers), look identical in their grey and brown feathers (like snipers in uniform), and nest in trees (like snipers in camouflage). I wanted “sparrow” in the title but couldn’t come up with a catchy title. My editor brainstormed the idea with the marketing department, which is hugely involved in choosing the title, and they came up with The Night Sparrow. I like the oblique metaphor which alludes to the story, ignites curiosity, and is memorable. And I do reference sparrows a few times in the narrative, giving readers a chance to ponder its significance within the narrative.

What's in a name?

Elena Bruskina’s name comes from the two real women who inspired this novel, Yelena (Kagan) Rzhevskaya and Masha Bruskina. Yelena, a Jewish Red Army interpreter during the war, witnessed “the long and bloody Rzhev Operation of February 1942-March 1943,” as reported in Yad Vashem’s International Institute for Holocaust Research. “She was shocked by this operation, which historians have called "the Rzhev Meat-Grinder" and took Rzhevskaya as her pen-name.”

In 1945, was chosen for a secretive three-person SMERSH unit. The acronym for SMERSH means, death to spies. She was tasked with translating for German prisoners interrogated by the other two members of her unit. She played a pivotal role towards the end of the war, and after, but became terribly dismayed when she learned the fate of two German civilians who helped fulfill the unit’s mission. Determined to tell the world what really happened during her time with SMERSH, Elena tried for years to get uncensored articles published in the Soviet Union, to no avail. But she didn’t give up and, in 1965, her heavily censored memoir was published. Twenty years later, a much less censored version was published. In Russian, Elena means ‘shining light’, and this is why I kept this name, as her character shines a light on a story that Stalin hid for decades.

Masha Bruskina was a Jewish 15-year-old who was forced into the Minsk ghetto. Restless, she went underground and, as a nurse, helped wounded Red Army soldiers recover so that they could quickly return to the front line. One night, she was caught. A few days later, she was paraded down the street by the Germans, with a sign hanging around her neck, a false statement that she had killed German soldiers. I was so moved by Masha, I decided to weave her story through the narrative and make her Elena’s younger sister.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your novel?

My teenage self would be shocked that I’ve written about a Jewish female sniper! Not only am I a lifetime pacifist who is afraid of guns, my grades were average. I was never singled out by a teacher for a well-written essay. And after decades of criticism about my behavior, due to undiagnosed ADHD, I had a very low opinion of myself compared to others. It took years of writing as a journalist, and the discovery of my Jewish roots, for me to believe in my ability as a writer and to realize I have stories to tell, inspired by history.

Looking back at my favorite novel in high school, Catcher in the Rye, I probably would have said, at the time, that if I were to write a book, it would be one of female teenage angst, written in the style of Catcher in the Rye, set in suburban Chicago where I grew up. There was nothing about female snipers on my radar!

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

I spend hours rewriting the beginning when I start my first draft, as I feel it will be far more visceral as a whole, if the base is as strong as steel. I start in the middle of a scene, with the protagonist interacting with other characters or responding to something within the setting. In The Night Sparrow, the editors had me restructure the novel to balance the war scenes with Elena’s time as an interpreter, which dramatically improved the pace. I thought I would have to rewrite the beginning, but my editor in New York suggested I move an action scene from the middle of the book, to the front. Not only does this throw Elena into action immediately, on the front facing the Germans, it adds urgency to the beginning which draws readers in right away.

The ending is always a long process of revisions, because I want to leave the reader curious about what happens next while staying true to the characters’ emotions. Life is not a series of events that can be resolved easily, and I want my novels to end on a note of uncertainty. I want readers to discuss what they think will happen next, to ruminate over the ending, to feel slightly unsettled when they finish reading.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

I write to make sense of circumstances, places, people, and history, so it’s not surprising that traces of myself slip into my characters. In The Night Sparrow, you’ll find glimpses of me in Elena’s love of language, in Raisa’s persistence and, I must admit, in Zina’s up-and-down moods. This is not intentional yet, as I write, as I dig deep into the characters’ interiority, as I try to figure out how they would respond to obstacles, my own emotions seep through my characters’ skin.

Because I write historical fiction, you would think the characters should be worlds apart from me and my contemporaries, but I don’t think this is necessarily true. I believe characters should be relatable in some way, no matter the genre and, by inserting a dash of modern sensibilities, Elena becomes more true, more diverse, more relevant.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Discovering my furtive maternal ancestry upended my world and changed everything I thought I knew about myself. I didn’t know I was Jewish until I was 18 years old and about to go to college. Eight years ago, I found out my roots were planted in Latvia in the late 1700’s. Then, I discovered 30 relatives who were murdered in the Latvian Holocaust. Standing in front of the mass grave in the Rumbula forest, in Riga, I was resolved to tell my family’s story, to remember the names of relatives seen in dozens of photos with my grandmother. The exploration of what it means to be Latvian-Jewish and the generational trauma perpetuated by secrets are what motivate me to write. My grandmother kept her Judaism and her Latvian-Jewish family a secret, probably because of what she endured as a Jewish girl living under the last Tsar. Her well-meaning decision meant she didn’t live authentically, as a Jewish woman after coming to Canada in 1936. She had to deal with the grief of relatives who vanished during the war, privately. When I began unpacking her story, through photos, research, and interviews with Latvian-Jews, I saw how the threads of antisemitism had gutted my family, once thriving in Latvia as Jews, to one shaky branch devoid of culture and traditions. I stared at the photos of my great-grandmother’s sisters, killed during WWII, along with their husbands and children, and at my great-grandfather’s brother whose entire family was murdered. Something inside me shifted. At that moment, I knew my writing would be shaped by loss, by antisemitism, and by Judaism. I felt as if my purpose, going forward, was to tell the stories of those forgotten and neglected.

Visit Shelly Sanders's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Night Sparrow.

--Marshal Zeringue