Episode 126: Diane Marie Brown, author of Black Candle Women
Diane Marie Brown talks about her historical novel, Black Candle Women, recently named as “A Read with Jenna Book Club Pick as Seen on the Today Show.”
Jenna Bush Hager says, “If you like Practical Magic… you will love Black Candle Women.” But we dive into what inspired Diane Marie Brown to write this particular story and how her own family history inspired the book.
In addition, Diane Marie Brown shares great advice for writers, the best books she’s read lately, and how she went about researching for the book.
Books Mentioned:
Black Candle Women by Diane Marie Brown (Bookshop.org / Amazon.com )
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (Bookshop.org / Amazon.com )
A Likely Story by Leigh McMullan Abramson (Bookshop.org / Amazon.com )
The Fortunes of Jaded Women by Carolyn Huynh (Bookshop.org / Amazon.com )
Full Disclosure: We are part of the Amazon and bookshop.org affiliate programs, which means Lainey or Ashley get a tiny commission if you buy something after clicking through from link on this website.
Connect with the author:
Transcript:
** Transcript created using AI (so please forgive the typos!) **
Ashley Hasty
Hi Diane I am so happy to have you as a guest on the Best of Women's Fiction podcast. Right out of the gate I have to ask what was it like to learn your book was selected for Jenna Hager's book club and how did you find out?
Diane Marie Brown
Oh my goodness, that was a huge surprise. And I'm still I still I think I'm still in shock. It's still very surreal that it was selected. But I'm very grateful to read with Jenna and the whole team over there. So it's been a long time this past summer, I got an email from my editor who said she wanted to give me a call later on in the day, and she was just trying to find a time with my agent. And so I'm like, Oh, my gosh, what could this be about? I thought it might be something bad. But she said nice news after so I'm like, Okay, I shouldn't be too worried. And she gave me a call and asked, you know, am I sitting down? Did I have any champagne, and then proceeded to tell me the great news. So it was really a big surprise. I was kind of at the point where I was just happy to be done with revisions and was kind of like just taking it easy for a little bit. And so that was really great news to hear.
Ashley Hasty
So you've known for almost almost a year since August, so yeah, we had to keep it under wraps for a while. Yes, yes.
Diane Marie Brown
That was the hardest thing is just not being able to not be able to tell anyone I told my husband.
Ashley Hasty
Did you look great with some champagne?
Diane Marie Brown
I did. I was out of town visiting my my dad, I had already had plans to go out with friends for dinner. And so I just ordered champagne. They didn't, they ordered some too. They didn't know why I wanted champagne. But so yeah, I was able to celebrate. And then I I proceeded to celebrate many, many other things along the ways.
Ashley Hasty
Well, I got a little ahead of myself. But that exciting news. Yeah, so let's take a step back. And how about you tell our listeners what Black Candle Women is about?
Diane Marie Brown
Yes, I'd love to Black Candle Women tells a story of a family of cursed women. So there's several generations of women living in the same house, but they live with under a curse that kills anyone that they fall in love with. And so this is something that they have to deal with head on when the youngest member of the family brings home a love interest for the first time, where we learn about the curses origin put into place by a voodoo sorceress.
Ashley Hasty
Jenna compared it to Practical Magic. And there are some similarities with generations of women and a magical twist. But I want to know what inspired you to write this novel? What was that initial spark that made you think that's the story I want to tell?
Diane Marie Brown
Yeah, so there was a writing prompt in my grad school program that I initially responded to that got the story going, started off as a short story, I wanted to imagine my ancestors, I don't really know, my grandparents. And so I've always just kind of imagined, you know, who they were, what they did, how they live their lives, and just wonder about their influences on me and how, how I live my life, how that will influence my children. So just generational events that happen that make us into the beings that we are, and spending time in New Orleans when I was younger. My parents were both from there. So we would travel and spend time there. I learned about a Marie Laveau, who is known as the Voodoo queen of New Orleans, and I just make up stories. I was just like, well, what if I was related to her? And you know, how might some of her magic and her wisdom and her skills, how would that manifest itself in me generations later, and so that was kind of a curiosity I had, and I wanted to create a story that told something similar. So Marie Laveau is not really in the book. But there's a character that similar that was who was inspired by her.
Ashley Hasty
I love asking authors how they became authors. Rarely do they have a very straightforward path. And I think I read that you started in public health, is that correct?
Diane Marie Brown
That's correct. And I still work in public health. Yes.
Ashley Hasty
Tell me a bit about your journey from public health professional to debut novelist.
Diane Marie Brown
So yes, so I've always loved to tell stories, always written stories in different forms. And I used to work well, I still do at a public health department that was relatively small, but we'd have a lot of fun. There was room for creative projects. And so back in there early, I think 2006 was its 100 year anniversary. And so they wanted to do something big. And so I was on the committee, and this idea just developed to have a play about the 100 year history of the Health Department. And so it kind of took off. So I wrote the play and directed it produced it. It was so much fun. It was so amazing. People enjoyed it. And so I was like, Well, I really want to you know, stoke this creative side of me. And so that's when I made the decision to go to grad At school to work on my craft, and really think about writing as something that I could do as a career. So that's kind of the big step of how it started. I had done some other writing before that, but that I think that's what really compelled me to take writing a lot more seriously.
Ashley Hasty
And how would you compare your experience writing the play to writing a book? Were they similar? was they were they equally fun? Or were there different challenges that you weren't expecting?
Diane Marie Brown
Yes, equally fun. A big difference in my approach was with the book, I wrote everything very isolated, I didn't, I didn't have a writing group, I didn't share the book ahead of time where with the play, I did some research with other people. And then when we would do rehearsal, we would refer whoever was in the play or people that I was working with, it was a group effort. So we would refine things, we would revisit things, and we write things. And so it was very collaborative, which was, which was great. And I think that's why I got such a good reception. And working on the book, I was just, I guess, scared about what other people would say, and which, when you really think about it, you're writing something that you want to share with lots and lots of people, so you can't be scared to maybe show it off to a trusted few. So I think that's was kind of the big difference. But both both equally fun. I would say.
Ashley Hasty
I did the same thing with my first book. I told no one that I was attempting to do it mostly because I was scared, I wouldn't actually do it, or I wouldn't finish it. So I didn't want anyone to know if I had failed. But definitely getting a community around you is can be very helpful. Yes, I would agree. Tell us a little bit about your research, researching that time, or meta Lu VO, what was your search like? And did you have any favorite sources?
Diane Marie Brown
So yes, I did quite a bit of research. After I'd started writing seminar, I realized I wanted to have that they think that these New Orleans elements, so I kind of, I didn't pause my writing. But I really focused a little bit more time on the research. So I found some books on voodoo and hoodoo that had some of that historical component in them. But I also read articles that were written in that time that described what New Orleans looked like what the French Quarter looked like, and felt like the type of music that was being played at that time, because I really wanted to have all my senses be involved in understanding and feeling New Orleans in the 1950s. And there is a woman who writes a lot about voodoo and hoodoo named Denise Alvarado. And so I did some research with some of her references. Also, Zora Neale Hurston, the author did a lot of work on researching or taking down history, doing a lot of anthropological research many years ago. And she's written a few books that have that historical element on hoodoo and voodoo. And so I read one of her books that is related as well. And also just I hadn't visited New Orleans in a long time, but I was able to go back, I think it was in 2016 2017. And just take pictures and just be there and walk around the streets. And so that was helpful as well.
Ashley Hasty
Was there any? Yeah, there
Diane Marie Brown
were a few things I think I am thinking of, I think there was this poem that I really, really liked that I wanted to include that had some elements of a spell that I thought was kind of cool. And just some some types of spell work at first, they didn't have very much and then I added a lot and then I had to ramp things down for word count page count. I learned so much and it was a lot of fun to research to do and to do.
Ashley Hasty
Drawing from your personal experience and the journey that led you to becoming the debut novelist. What one piece of advice do you think is most important for writers?
Diane Marie Brown
I do think going back to what I was saying before about writing in isolation, I think it's incredibly helpful to find a trusted writing community want to have people that will provide great information, advice and support and encouragement you do get a lot of discouraging news or it can be hard to when you get so many noes and you want that support around you. So finding people who understand you and your work I think is really really valuable, something I wish I would have done. If I would have had maybe two or three people that I would have shown my work to before who could have offered some advice or Just some feedback. Luckily, I had a great editor who helped me work through a lot of things. But I think I could have worked through some issues with the manuscript ahead of time had I had a few people read it before it got to the point where it was with an agent and an editor.
Ashley Hasty
Authors always have the best reading suggestions. So I'd love to hear about your reading world. What are you reading right now? And What books should we not pass up?
Speaker 1
Right now I'm really enjoying Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. I am also reading a book called A Likely story by Leigh Abramson. Just came out last week that I'm going to be doing in a chat with her for one of her events. And so that's been a lot of fun. What else? Somebody I met in a debut author chat group, because I felt that I read the description of her book, and I thought it was similar in tone and themes and kind of story to Black Candle woman is The Fortunes of Jaded Women by Carolyn Huynh, that also involves a curse. So I really enjoyed her book as well.
Ashley Hasty
I haven't heard of that one. I'll have to go look that one up. Really. I want to share how people can find you. Will you give us your website and where you like to hang out on social media?
Diane Marie Brown
Sure. My website is DianeMariebrown.com. And I am on Instagram at Diane_murray_Brown and I'm on Twitter and Tik Tok @writerdichick.
Ashley Hasty
And before we wrap up, can you tell us anything about what you're working on now?
Diane Marie Brown
I'm actually in the research phase of a book about a secret potion. I got the idea from watching. One of these reality cooking shows was about cocktails. And they talked about the ingredient chart shows chartreuse, which is. So I just thought that was a an interesting fact that only two people know this, this recipe and so I was inspired to come up with my own kind of secret recipe for something and we'll see. We'll see where it's still in that very early stages. But you know, some bad stuff is going to happen and the secret will get out.
Ashley Hasty
I love that little fact about chartreuse. I had no idea.
Diane Marie Brown
Yeah. fascinating.
Ashley Hasty
And I cannot wait to see how that inspires your next novel. Is there anything else you wanted to talk about that we haven't covered yet?
Diane Marie Brown
For for this book of mine, I started it over 10 years ago. And again, I got a lot of rejections early on. It couldn't get I couldn't find an agent. But I just kept working on it and revising it and trying to make it better because I really was passionate about it. And so I think it's important for people when they are passionate about something, not to give up, keep working at it and get some support and advice from other people writing dreams. They can come true even 10-12 years later, so yes.
Ashley Hasty
Oh, I love hearing that as someone who is as yet unpublished. That's really encouraging. I appreciate it.
Diane Marie Brown
Yes, definitely.
Ashley Hasty
Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast and sharing your book, your experience, your advice as an author with our listeners it was such a pleasure talking to you.
Diane Marie Brown
It was great to talk to you as well, Ashley.