Art In Fiction
Find out what makes great, arts-inspired fiction in a variety of genres, from mysteries to crime novels, historical fiction, thrillers, contemporary fiction, and more. Art In Fiction founder and author Carol M. Cram chats with some of the top novelists featured on Art In Fiction, a curated online database of books inspired by the arts. Discover your next great read and get valuable advice on what it takes to be a successful writer.
Episodes
My guest today is Kerry Chaput, author of The Secret Courtesan, listed in the Visual Arts category on Art In Fiction.
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/fkX-QqvmnQg
- Premise for the novel: how a marble Venetian sculpture, surfacing after 400 years and credited to a male artist, sends Mia, a modern-day arts authenticator looking for the woman she is sure had carved it.
- Kerry found documented women painters of the Ren...
My guest today is Nancy Burkhalter, author of The Education of Delhomme, listed in the Music category on Art In Fiction.
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/RNohgRLMv4c
- Why Chopin needed a piano tuner: how Nancy, tuning pianos herself while listening to Chopin, realized he "had to have" one, and that's how the novel's narrator, Delhomme, was born.
- Blending fact and fiction: the wall-sized timeline, real history on t...
My guest today is Lynn Cullen, author of When We Were Brilliant, listed in the Photography and Film categories on Art In Fiction.
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/86MVn-3LjhY
- Eve Arnold, the only woman Marilyn Monroe ever let photograph her: who she was, why Lynn had never heard of her either, and the shock of discovering that among all of Marilyn's photographers, there were no other women.
- Using Eve's own coffee...
My guest today is Kate Whouley, author of The Maestro and Her Protégé, listed in the Music category on Art In Fiction.
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Fr_fJ9t9G_o
- Nadia Boulanger, the most influential music teacher of the 20th century: who she was, why she matters, and how Kate first encountered her by way of her terrifying theory professor when she was a music student.
- Inventing Hannah Schaefer, a fictional con...
My guest today is Elisabeth Storrs, author of Fables and Lies, listed in the Visual Arts category on Art In Fiction.
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/lCJfOypSQr4
- The genesis of Fables and Lies: how a 30-year obsession with Priam's Gold and its mysterious disappearance after the Russians took it from Berlin led Elisabeth to create Freya, a young German woman working at the Museum of Pre- and Early History in Berl...
My guest today is Caroline Woods, author of The Lunar Housewife, listed in the Visual Arts category on Art In Fiction.
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/0nJmxXJcrQQ
- How Caroline discovered the CIA's secret program to fund and shape American literary culture during the Cold War, including its involvement in the founding of the Paris Review, and why she saw a novel in it.
- The real-life women who inspired Louise: the...
My guest today is Aimie K. Runyan, author of Mademoiselle Eiffel, listed in the Visual Arts category on Art In Fiction.
View the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/_JcFmRQ4PcQ
- Why Aimie chose to write about Claire Eiffel rather than her more famous father, and the surprising role Claire played in running Gustave's household, social life, and business from the age of 14.
- The wax figure of Claire at the top of the Ei...
This week on The Art In Fiction Podcast, I'm doing something a little different: a solo episode about my new novel, The Choir, listed in the Music category on Art In Fiction.
View the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/SHb4USfSeE0
- The family mystery at the heart of the novel: a great-great-grandmother who left her husband with six children in Victorian England and went on to have seven more children with ano...
My guest today is Maryka Biaggio, author of Marjory and Me, listed in the Spiritualism category on Art In Fiction.
View the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/xK3aC6WBKr8
- How Maryka discovered the true story of Margery Crandon, Boston socialite, celebrated medium, and the woman who took on Harry Houdini.
- The bold structural choice to narrate Margery's story through Walter, Margery's dead brother.
- How Walter's ...
My guest today is Herb Williams-Dalgart, author of Jingle Boys listed in the Music category on Art In Fiction.
View the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/azuaBStafaI
- Herb's personal origin story behind the novel: named after his grandfather who died in WWII, a man he never knew, which sparked a lifelong fascination with the era.
- How the role of music in wartime, harmony versus the disharmony of war, became...
My guest today is Chanel Cleeton, author of The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes listed in the Literature category on Art In Fiction.
View the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/FN2q5JDLLEk
- Chanel's inspiration for the novel as her love letter to books and a celebration of the power of reading.
- Her passion for exploring more about Cuban American history and her own heritage as the child of Cuban immigrants.
- Use of ...
My guest today is Barbara Stark-Nemon, author of Isabela's Way listed in the Textile Arts category on Art In Fiction.
View the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/R-0wUhdrD00
- How Barbara got the idea to write a novel set in the 17th century during the Inquistion: inspiration resulting from a cycling trip in Portugal.
- History of the Inquistion in Europe and how it was not formally ended until 1837.
- Use of embr...
My guest today is Stephanie Cowell, author of The Man in the Stone Cottage: Novel of the Brontë Sisters listed in the LIterature category on Art In Fiction.
View the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/eYPoIKk9pOk
- Why Stephanie decided to write about the Brontësisters inThe Man in the Stone Cottage; how she first read and loved Wuthering Heights when she was a young girl.
- How the story is told fro...
My guest today is Tea Gudek Šnajdar, author of Following Van Gogh listed in the Visual Arts category on Art In Fiction. Here's a summary of the podcast:
- Inspiration for the novel that combines travel writing with a thriller.
- Fascination with the paintings of Vincent Van Gogh and how his color palette changed as he moved from the Netherlands to Paris to Arles.
- The "what if" that inspired Tea to make a forged paintin...
My guest today is Louis Bayard, author of The Wildes listed in the Literature category on Art In Fiction.
View the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ukomPza-Oh0
- Why write about Oscar Wilde through the lens of his family life?
- Inspiration for the novel from the memoir of Vivian Wilde, the youngest of the two sons of Oscar and Constance.
- Challenges of writing about one of the great wits in the English languag...
My guest today is Alka Joshi, author of four novels listed on Art In Fiction including Six Days in Bombay listed in the Visual Arts category.
View the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/eYPoIKk9pOk
- Inspiration for Six Days of Bombay and its relationship to the real life story of artist Amrita Sher-Gil.
- Background on Amrita Sher-Gil and how her personality and sometimes shocking activities influenced the cre...
My guest today is Christine Ma-Kellams, author of The Band listed in the Music category on Art In Fiction.
View the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ZopqRgR9xG4
- Inspiration for The Band and its relationship to pop music, K-Pop, and popular culture.
- Motivation for writing The Band as a commentary on what may be happening behind the scenes of a successful K-Pop boy band.
- The novel as a scatchi...
I'm speaking today with M. A. McLaughlin, author of The Lost Dresses of Italy listed in the Textile Arts category on Art In Fiction.
View the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/rDe_rXrLC2k
- Overview of the story of The Lost Dresses of Italy as a dual time novel taking place in 1947 and 1864 and inspired by a three-week trip to Italy taken by Victorian poet Christina Rossetti
- Poetry of Christina Rossetti and ...
Join me as I chat with Ana Veciana-Suarez, author of Dulcinea listed in the Literature category on Art In Fiction.
View the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/BKX2HsA43_c
- Overview of the story of Dulcinea as being about a wealthy Barcelona woman called Dolça who is cast as the fictional muse of Miguel Cervantes
- Use of the dual-timeline narrative in the novel
- Ana's family background in Barcelona and its influ...
In this episode, I'm chatting with Mark Baker, author of The Needle of Avocation listed in the Textile Arts category on Art In Fiction.
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/BKX2HsA43_c
- The genesis of The Needle of Avocation as the third book in the Cuthbert series
- Creation of the "It" girl of the 8th century, the heroine of the first two novels in the series, led to the creation of her sister Hilda in The Nee...
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