Nicola Pierce

“The thing about writing historical fiction is before I start writing a story, I would have generally spent about three months just purely researching and it becomes very tense between my editor and me, because it’s the whole thing that we can’t get anything wrong, because it will be picked out.“

Today I’m joined by author Nicola Pierce. A native of Dublin, Nicola has built up a reputation for high quality historical fiction. Since her first novel Spirit of the Titanic was published, Nicola has managed to create tales that blend beautifully between fact and fiction while keeping a firm eye on historical accuracy. Her most recent novel Chasing Ghosts is a tale of a doomed Arctic expedition and a child lost between the living and the dead who holds a secret that only her brothers and sisters believe. I was really looking forward to chatting with Nicola and we have a rich conversation that goes many places, so I hope you are sitting comfortably and happy to stay with us.

We kicked off with Nicola giving me a brief outline of her latest novel, Chasing Ghosts, the genesis of the story (03:25), and the differences between Chasing Ghosts and the TV adaptation known as The Terror (05:31). I then asked Nicola about her early life and if writing was a big part of it (10:32), how difficult it was to research articles before we had online access (15:33), and the importance of libraries for source material (16:03). Books are a big part of Nicola’s life and she described to me how many she has at home (17:47). Then we went on to talk about writing historical fiction and how important it is to get the facts as correct as possible (21:25), her unique method of research (23:25) and how her books are bridging the gap between young adult and adult fiction (24:25). Towards the end of the podcast, we discussed TV adaptations of novels (32:01), taking on legend and myth based stores (36:06), how writing was a major source of strength during her cancer diagnosis (38:54), before finishing up with Nicola telling me what she is reading and watching at the moment (49:21).

Show Notes

• Nicola at O’Brien Press
• Nicola on Twitter
• Nicola’s website
• The Terror trailer
• For more, hear my conversation with Mark Piesing, Tristan Hughes and Katja Hoyer

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