It was also really different from the research for my first novel, which was set in 17 th century Holland. The delight of piecing together locations and stories from the fragments in Milly’s archives was half the fun. Still though, I had to learn about Moscow in the 1930s, so I relied on contemporary memoirs, articles, academic research, and of course photographs and movies. Milly was a prolific and inspired writer, and she put more delicious details in her letters and notes than I could use. What research did you undertake when writing Salt the Snow?Ĭarrie: This novel is closely based on Milly’s life, as recorded in hundreds of her letters, archived in the Hoover Institution Library & Archives at Stanford. She fled a broken heart by traveling halfway around the world – twice! The second time brought her to work for a newspaper in Moscow, and she always tried to balance her hope for a better future with her honesty about the difficulties she saw in human society at the moment.Ĭlarissa: I loved Milly’s honesty: you depicted all the complexities of her character so well. But as I researched Milly’s life, I was awed by her bravery and her vulnerability. I interviewed Carrie when she published her debut novel A Light of Her Own, and I’m delighted that she took the time to talk to me again, this time about Salt the Snow, despite her busy book launch month!Ĭlarissa: What inspired you to write Salt the Snow?Ĭarrie: I came across Milly Bennett while researching a different project, in which she was going to be a secondary character. I had the honour of reading an early version of this novel and couldn’t be happier that it’s now available to the public.

This month my friend Carrie Callahan released her second historical novel, Salt the Snow, the fascinating story of American journalist Milly Bennett, who lived in Russia in the 1930’s.

A Light of Her Own by Carrie Callaghan