Nancy E. Turner wrote about her ancestors in these four books based on the Prine family of the Southern Arizona Territory 1880s-early1900s. The full title of her first novel (a Willa Cather Literary Award finalist) is These is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine 1881-1901. The book is based off family memoirs and it details Sarah Prine’s struggles with life and love, and pioneer tragedies of death and loss. Sarah was amazingly courageous in the novels and undeniably in true life.
Ora: Nancy, it’s so kind of you to do this interview!
When reading your books, I was immediately swept into the story of Sarah and was appalled and fascinated as you described those early days of her life.
Tell us a little about yourself and the exact relationship of your main character, Sarah Prine, to yourself.
Nancy: Sarah Agnes Prine is the name of my maternal great-grandmother. I only met her one time I’m told, when I was 2 years old. I remember an elderly lady in a rocking chair with gnarled and bony hands, and being afraid of getting close to her. My mother tells me that later I cried when lifted from Sarah’s lap, because she had won me over and I’d fallen asleep listening to her talk.
Ora: What drove you to think Sarah’s story would make a good novel?
Nancy: I never meant to write a novel at that time. I had an assignment to write a short story for a class in college. It had to be about someone you wished you could know, but the person had already passed away. It was only after some encouragement from a local author who read my short story that I continued the tale until it was 500 pages long. I didn’t tell anyone about it – after all I was a forty-year-old college freshman. What business did I have to write a book? Still, I sent out some queries and ended up with a literary agent in New York, who sold my long, long short story to Harper Collins Publishers.
Ora: Writing about ancestors can help one draw closer to them. Did you come at the story differently knowing you were writing about an ancestor and not a fictitious character?
Nancy: The only things I knew about Sarah came from things I’d heard growing up. She was basically an unknown, but I tried to capture her substance, her strength, and her endurance. Many things about the story came strictly from research and from my own life.
Ora: The nice thing about historical “fiction” is that readers know there are some liberties taken. But did your family members read it as a family history of sorts? What were their reactions?
Nancy: Most people were okay with it. I have discovered dozens of relatives I had never known since it was published. Only one person seemed a bit miffed, stating “those things never happened.” However, I reassure everyone it is a story about a strong woman, using the name of Sarah, it is not a biography.
Ora: What would you like to share about the research? How much research did you do? How long did it take?
Nancy: Writing historical fiction means having 6 active library cards and a working knowledge of the Dewey Decimal system, plus using microfilm, microfiche, maps, historical newspapers, and dozens of diaries. When I began writing the internet did not exist. Textbooks and documents were generally vetted for truth at least as it was known, although of course there are opinionated pieces and inaccuracies in encyclopedias and misconceptions in maps. The hard part now is that the internet does exist, but you can’t trust what you read unless you can find it in several sources. How much research? Until you find the answers. It took most of a year, and I revised the story when I found I’d chased a rabbit down the wrong path. Part of research that I love is being there. You can’t set a story in a place you’ve never been, even if the characters are just passing through. Sometimes you have a bank of knowledge from which to draw, but if you put the wrong weapon in a 19th century Cavalry officer’s hands, someone is going to call you on it.
Ora: Did you have an interest in family history before you wrote These Is My Words, and when you first found out you were a descendant of Sarah’s, how did you feel?
Nancy: I grew up knowing names from the family tree, but not necessarily did we have all the names in the right order until my dad started working on our genealogy. Still, it was a story about a family I never knew, but wished I had, so I gave them all the characteristics I wanted them to have.
Ora: Were you worried you wouldn’t get something right and displease Sarah or another ancestor?
Nancy: Every author needs to own some kind of writer’s legal guide. Sarah passed away the year I was born, and I’ve taken classes in copyright law. Dead people can’t sue you, and at the time I had never met any other relatives, so getting someone’s feathers ruffled never occurred to me.
Ora: Was it hard to decide what to put in the story and what to leave out?
Nancy: My original version was just over 500 pages. The published version is 385, and yes, the editors made cuts. A family of neighbors is gone, as well as the Sing family Sarah met during the wagon train journey. There’s only one small scene I’d put back in the book if I could. The most difficult time of writing and self-editing consisted of staying focused on what Sarah would have known or seen as she put entries in her diary. It’s always tempting to step outside the lines and tell what some other character is thinking, and I watched out for those things with a strict eye. Another important part of the story was to depict her inner growth through the changing dialect and syntax of her writing, making sure she didn’t overpace the concept of having been uneducated but still quite clever. It was the one more academic plan I had for my novel, to depict her education and how it affected her.
Ora: Have you seen Sarah in yourself?
Nancy: I’m sure all the characters are parts of me. I doubt any author could honestly say they have no part in the stories they write.
Ora: Is there still a family homestead in Arizona to visit?
Nancy: No. They had several homestead locations. I never found an exact one, but a reader once wrote me that she lived on land that had been a Prine ranch, located in Pomerene, Arizona. There are Prines buried in Douglas, Arizona, and Prescott, Arizona as well. I used the setting of a ranch owned by a friend of mine. It was the perfect place, a good day’s horseback ride from Tucson, with a year-round stream and trees growing in the desert, and a historic rail road track along one border.
Ora: Have you written any other novels based on ancestors’ lives? Or is there one you’re considering?
Nancy: Originally my intention was to craft a novel based on names of ancestors throughout American history. It has taken much more effort – two to three years – for each novel, and I’m stumped right now by a combination of family health issues that make traveling for research nearly impossible.
Ora: Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with my readers and myself. Is there anything else you’d like to mention?
Nancy: One thing I consistently feel a need to keep straight is that Sarah never left a diary in real life. The story about her is not a biography, nor did I have any writings other than a memoir written by Henry Prine in 1920, that stated where the family had lived and the reasons they ended up in Southern Arizona. Most of his memoir had to do with others in the family, so I created the rest out of imagination. Some people have insisted that I just “found” a diary and published it.
All my novels are purely fiction, based on extensive research and using names found in my family tree. Even Resolute Talbot was an ancestor, and the first Prine on Colonial shores was Roland Perrine, a Huguenot soldier from France who stayed here after the French and Indian War in 1754. On the other side of the family, my dad’s English and Irish ancestors were transported here in the 1720’s for the crime of being Quakers. History is fascinating to me, as is knowing members of my family have been on these shores for so many generations. I could study forever, for we are sadly missing so much that is never taught in schools.
Thank you for taking the time to include me in your newsletter. I have enjoyed these questions and I always love hearing from people who have enjoyed my work.
Ora: I have learned a lot about you and how your novels based on ancestors came to fruition. Thanks so much for taking the time for this interview. Your Prine series is a valuable example of how to write fiction about ancestors.
Read about all of Nancy’s books on her website: https://www.nancyeturner.com/
