Today it is my absolute pleasure to be talking with author, Marilee Aufdenkamp.
Shortly after Kathryn Scheibel leaves her cigar‑making job in 1917, she enters the Army School of Nursing, a pioneering WWI nurse‑training program that offers the education she’s longed for but couldn’t afford. More than two decades later, her career carries her, as an instructor, into the Cadet Nurse Corps, the federal WWII nursing‑education initiative created to support the war effort. There she sees the same pressures she once felt now directed at students with even fewer protections. When two Black students are treated unfairly, Kathryn must decide how to respond.
Sparrow’s Song is a sweeping, intimate novel about resilience and belonging, rooted in the real history of wartime federal nursing education and the evolving landscape of modern American nursing. At its heart is a young immigrant woman pushing herself toward the advantages she’s convinced education will unlock, even as that drive pulls her away from the people and heritage she loves.
Publication Date: September 18th, 2026
Publisher: Old Fort Press
Pages: 292
Genre: Historical Fiction / WWI Fiction
Interview
What inspired you to start writing?
I’ve been interested in writing most of my adult life. For the longest time I had my nose in the air about fiction. I thought I was interested in writing non-fiction human interest stories. My first byline was an article in Nebraska Trucker, probably in the early 1990s. Some school kids, around that time, were selling magazine subscriptions for a school fundraiser. I already subscribed to every woman’s magazine on the market but I wanted to support them so I ordered Writer’s Digest. In the first issue I received was they’d printed the winning story from their annual short story contest. It was a fabulous story and at the same time I thought, I could write something like that. I was hooked and my nose came right down out of the air at that moment.
What was the hardest part about writing this book?
Probably the hardest part was limiting the amount of my research findings I allowed myself to weave in. I’ve read that quote about only including the interesting bits but to me it was all interesting.
Does one of the main characters hold a special place in your heart? If so, why?
My main character, Kathryn, is important to me but the most fun to write was Uncle Janko, a Slovenian immigrant who embraces his heritage.
If your book was to be made into a movie, who are the celebrities that would star in it?
I always say I avoid the pop culture categories in trivia games because my knowledge gap in that area is so broad. I barely know the name of any current actors or celebrities. The first people who pop into my mind when asked about actors are people like Elizabeth Montgomery, Robert Redford, and Andy Griffith. Even among those actors and their contemporaries, I’m not sure who I’d chose.
What do you hope your readers take away from this book?
How hard it is to be an immigrant.
Buy this Book
Marilee Aufdenkamp
Marilee Aufdenkamp is a retired nurse educator who taught undergraduate nursing for twenty-six years before turning her full time focus to historical fiction. She writes early to mid twentieth century stories grounded in immigrant experience and working class life.
Her debut novel, Sparrow’s Song, was inspired by her early nursing career in Nebraska, where she came to admire the Germans from Russia she cared for at the end of their lives.
Originally from Southern California, she has spent her adult life in Nebraska.
No comments:
Post a Comment