Check out this interview by Awesome Book Reviews

Featured Interview With Author Candace Simar

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
Candace Simar likes to imagine how things might have been in frontier America. She combines her passion for history with her Scandinavian heritage to create historical novels that wrap history in compelling stories. “It’s a painless history lesson with real history, lots of research, and good stories.”

I was raised on a dairy farm in western Minnesota. My adult life has been spent in Pequot Lakes, Minnesota, where I drove past seven lakes every day on my way to work. My husband Keith and I recently celebrated our 50th Wedding Anniversary. We have three adult children and five grandkids.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
The Laura Ingalls Wilder books caught my attention in second grade. From there, I read Caddie Woodlawn, Nancy Drew, Lois Lenski, and Louisa May Alcott. In young adulthood, I became captivated by a Kentucky writer, Janice Holt Giles. At that time, I was a student, engaged to be married, and working as a nurse. I always said that if I were to write a book, I would pattern it after the books on American settlers by Janice Holt Giles. She’s still my hero, and the only author that I went out of my way to visit her grave.

The writing bug bit in my mid-forties. I joined a poetry group and was mentored by several elderly poets. Because of poetry, I learned to write with all five senses. Positive comments about my use of descriptions are because of my time spent studying poetry. I began writing small newspaper/magazine articles and was published in Chicken Soup for the Soul. I enjoyed writing small pieces and had no intention of delving into novels until a made a foray into family genealogy changed the direction of my life.

I discovered my great-grandfather had driven the stagecoach as a young Norwegian immigrant toward the end of the Civil War, a bit after the Dakota/US War. To my surprise, I discovered that my college-aged children, Minnesota born and educated, knew little about Minnesota’s role in the Civil War or the Indian War. Our son challenged me to write a book about it “if I cared.” I accepted his challenge–but then had to learn how to write a novel.

I attended every writing workshop that I could find. How amazing to study under MFA professors, editors, and Academy Award winners. I made it a personal mission to learn the writing craft. I’m still learning. Like any art form, there is always more to learn about writing.

My “Abercrombie Trail Series” (Abercrombie Trail 2009; Pomme de Terre 2010; Birdie 2011; Blooming Prairie 2012; and Sister Lumberjack 2024) received a Spur Award from the Western Writers of America. Did you know that frontier fiction is an offshoot of the western genre? I consider myself more of an historical novelist because my books take place in Minnesota and Dakota Territory.

I grew up hearing the family stories about the immigration experiences of my Norwegian and Danish great grandparents. Yes, those family stories creep into my the lives of my characters. I also use family names and places.

“Follow Whiskey Creek” is a stand-alone book about Scandinavian settlers finding refuge at Fort Abercrombie during the U.S./Dakota War. Formerly titled, Escape to Fort Abercrombie, it received a Will Rogers Gold Medallion and a Peacemaker Award from the Western Fictioneers.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
Other favorite authors are Leon Uris, Wilhelm Moberg, , Larry McMurtry, CJ Box, Kristin Hannah, Anthony Doerr, Flannery O’Connor, Jaqueline Winspear, and Caryll Houselander. I have fallen in love with the books by Laurie Weinstein set in the 1930s. Marcie Rendon’s mysteries about Native Americans during the Viet Nam war are excellent. I enjoy many genres and read several books at the same time. I love historical novels about World War 2, frontier America, and life in the 1930s. I look for authenticity, character development, and interesting time periods. If I feel I’ve learned something new from a novel, I’m satisfied.

Many historical novels are not sugar-coated. My research tells a different story. Life was very hard, especially for women. I write gritty stories about the struggles of realistic characters who are without language skills, education, family support, conveniences, or money. My books cover topics of Indian wars, immigration struggles, drought, grasshopper plagues, and the early logging days.

Shelterbelts (2015) is my only book set in the 20th century. It takes place in rural Minnesota at the close of WW2. I wrote it because I missed my parents who were married at that time. Though I created fictional characters, my setting is the land and the culture where I grew up, a place and time very much changed from that era. Shelterbelts was a finalist in both the Willa Literary Awards in Historical Fiction and the Midwest Book Awards.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
Sister Lumberjack, my latest book, is about an aging widow forced to take a job cooking for a rough and tough logging camp in 1892 Minnesota. Logging was dangerous work. No safety net existed for injured workers. Sister Lumberjack entwines the stories of a widow, a young lumberjack with “bottle fever,” and a most unusual Benedictine nun (loosely based on a real person) who sought to build hospitals to serve injured men. Their lives intersect at Starkweather Timber, a haywire logging operation where everything goes wrong. 30,000 lumberjacks butchered white pine during Minnesota’s glory days. You’ll meet some of them in Sister Lumberjack.

I began writing and researching Sister Lumberjack in 2018. Sister Lumberjack was slated for publication in 2020, but Covid delayed the process for a year, and then another. When the publisher was finally about to publish it the fall of 2022, the company went out of business, leaving Sister Lumberjack orphaned. It took two more years for it to be released by another publisher. The good news is that I had time for a major revision while seeking a new publisher. Sister Lumberjack is a stronger book because of the delay.

My husband spent forty years working as a forester for the State of Minnesota. He was my go-to for all things lumberjack. I researched the Benedictine health system and its early form of health insurance at monasteries in Minnesota and North Dakota. Solveig, my protagonist, deals with widowhood, being a woman in a man’s world, being a mother to a grown son who breaks promises made to a dying father, and the challenge to start over when you feel too old to do it. I think you’ll enjoy my story and I hope you read it.

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