I am very excited to be working alongside The Coffee Pot Book Club to bring you, dear Reader, some great ideas for your next book to read. Today, I had the pleasure of interviewing Anas Hamshari and Carline Snodgress who are the authors of Anke: The Beginning
Living in the city of Mechelen, just south of once-prosperous Antwerp, in the aftermath of the Thirty Years’ War, Anke Verhaegen, an ambitious nineteen-year-old, is determined to make the most of her life.
When her brother Johan suggests crossing the Atlantic to New Netherland, Anke knows this is her destiny. Together, the two set about attempting to secure passage across the sea.
Before long, their plans are in motion, and hopes are high. Yet, with vengeful enemies, secrecy, and danger on the high sea waiting to be faced, will Anke really be able to secure a better life for herself?
It gives me the warmest of pleasures to introduce you to Anas Hamshari and Carline Snodgress.
Thank you so much for agreeing to this interview, let's begin...!
What inspired you to start writing?
(Caroline) We both have had experience writing for quite a while now. When you spend so much time reading, a lot of the time writing just feels like a very natural next step. I think, too, that we're both just such big fans of historical fiction wherever we can find it—in books, movies, TV shows. And with that kind of interest, you get to a point where you just love the genre so much that you want to be able to add to that body of work and get to create your own story.
Why did you choose to write this book together?
(Caroline) I think that the two of us have very similar interests when it comes to literature, but we also both bring something unique to the table. Anas has a lot of experience with publishing and all of the logistics it takes to get an idea all the way to a finished book. He also has so much inspiration. He really comes up with all the main ideas and gets things started. I, on the other hand, am currently studying literary history and fiction writing, so I have some experience with how to shape the story and get ideas onto the page in a compelling and historically accurate manner. Because we have a similar idea for the kind of stories we love to create, collaborating on them just makes the whole process go so much smoother and allows us to produce a finished story that I really don't think either of us could have truly accomplished on our own.
What was the hardest part about writing this book?
(Caroline) The hardest part was probably making sure all the specifics were correct when it came to historical details. It's such a turbulent time period—what with the Thirty Years War and end of the Dutch War of Independence, the decline of the power of Habsburg Spain, the constant disputes over colonies around the world. There are a lot of shifting borders and a lot of power changing hands. So to suddenly stumble across information like how or when the Dutch provinces split, or the fact that the Scheldt was closed to navigation, it meant re-thinking how we saw this space, and what our characters were free to do within it.
Does one of the main characters hold a special place in your heart? If so, why?
(Anas) Anke, without a doubt. Although the Netherlands was a haven for all sorts of refugees at the time, women still had a lot of challenges in terms of equality issues, especially in the commercial world. I like to think of Anke as a role model for every ambitious person out there, regardless of their gender or ethnic background. In today’s world, the powers that be are trying to squeeze small-to-medium-sized businesses out of our world, and so it is extremely tough to succeed as an SME enterprise, brick-and-mortar or not. In Anke’s world, being a “lady merchant”, as they used to call them in those days, was not uncommon, but it was still challenging because they lived in a male-dominated world. In our world today, I consider corporations as the equivalent of the male domination that stood on Anke’s path to commercial success.
If your book was to be made into a movie, who are the celebrities that would star in it?
(Anas) From the top of our heads, we’d vouch for Jennifer Lawrence to star as Anke, Tchéky Karyo as Gerard (the father), Lucas Till as Johan (the brother), and Eric Stonestreet as Demyon. (the Novgorodian merchant)
What do you hope your readers take away from this book?
(Anas) Although Anke: The Beginning is just the start to a fabulous series that is greatly inspired (but not wholly based on) by the true story of Margaret Hardenbroeck, we hope that readers could perceive the messages “never stop dreaming”, and “ambition has no limits.” Far more disadvantaged and underprivileged folk throughout history have had it much worse than we ever did in our times, so no matter what the challenge is, one should always strive to fulfill their ambitions. While this book aims to inspire women of all sorts, it can also be a wake-up call to all those women that have a (commercial) ambition and are not doing anything about it for a variety of reasons. After all, it is said that women CEOs and CFOs are more effective than men! Allow me to quote an article from CNN:
“A new study from S&P Global Market Intelligence found that public companies with women CEOs or CFOs often were more profitable and produced better stock price performance than many of the companies that had appointed men to those roles.”
- By Jeanne Sahadi, CNN Business (October 16, 2019)
Buy this book
Anas Hamshari
Anas Hamshari is an established businessman residing in the State of Kuwait, and an author of one personal growth book and two historical fiction novels. Anas has been a lifelong writer and first began creating medieval fiction tales and short stories when he was seven years old. In June 2020, Anas formed Exotic Reads, a historical fiction self-publishing division in one of his main businesses, Exotic Flavor. Exotic Reads will be self-publishing a variety of historical fiction novels in the weeks, months, and years to come.
Caroline Snodgress
Caroline Snodgress is a first-time author but a long-time writer and ghostwriter. As an Echols Scholar at the University of Virginia, she is planning to double major in English and History, and is thoroughly enjoying taking as many fiction writing classes as she can fit into her schedule. When not in Charlottesville, she lives with her family just outside of Richmond, reading eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature and watching plenty of period dramas in her spare time.
Social Media Links:
Website, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook
No comments:
Post a Comment