We all enjoy a compelling story about an unrecognized hero who finally gets the affirmation they are due.
Georgia Writers Museum is fortunate to host award-winning, best-selling author Lynn Cullen as its Meet the Author presenter on July 16 at The Plaza Arts Center in Eatonton.
Cullen will present her international best-selling book, The Woman with the Cure, an uplifting story about Dr. Dorothy Horstmann, whose brilliant research led to the development of the polio vaccine.
Cullen recently sat down with GWM to provide a few insights into her book and writing process.
GWM: What most appeals to you about historical fiction?
Cullen: History, to me, is about people. I want to know the story behind historical events and the people who shaped them.
Fiction allows the writer to take knowing the historical individual a step further.
As a historical fiction writer, I look for ways to better understand what the life of a famous person has to say to us now.
GWM: Reviewing the storyline of your books, you focus largely on overlooked or misunderstood historical figures. Is that your writing mission?
Cullen: I’ve always been curious about what’s behind the curtain of history. Who is the real person behind the legend?
I’m particularly interested in the women whose achievements have been overlooked during the legend-making of male counterparts, hence my motto: “Setting her story straight since 2008.”
Actually, I’ve been at it since 2007, but that doesn’t rhyme.
GWM: How has being an author affected your life?
Cullen: Through my books, I’ve met people and gone places this shy girl from Indiana could never have dreamed of.
My most recent book about the race to stop the polio pandemic in the 1950s has taken me to many book clubs. Readers teach me something every time, like the polio nurse who worked with patients in iron lungs.
My research has taken me all over the world, to crazy places, like up in the bell tower of Trinity Church at the end of Wall Street in Manhattan, where I stuck my head out the window to see if the clock hand could strike off my head like in an Edgar Allan Poe story. It didn’t, but I did get to ring the church bell, hanging onto the ropes like Quasimodo.
GWM: What most surprises you about your experience as an author?
Cullen: Each book has allowed me to peek into the vast web of human experience. History doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It all connects, as do all of us – if only we realized how much our individual actions impact everyone else. This reminds me of another good thing about writing fiction vs. nonfiction: the author gets to philosophize.
GWM: Can you provide a sneak preview of your next book?
Cullen: It’s about how the friendship between Marilyn Monroe and the only woman to photograph her, Eve Arnold, extensively changed both of them.
Tickets to hear Lynn Cullen speak about her international best-selling book, The Woman with the Cure, are $40 each, available online through Georgia Writers Museum (georgiawritersmuseum.org). You can also pre-order Cullen’s book for signing at the event, where doors open at 6:30 p.m. for a 7 p.m. program start.