Coming FALL 2025 "WE WERE PATRIOTS: Legends of the Mohawk Valley"
About
SHORT BIO
My FIRST writing TOOLS
My FIRST writing TOOLS
An unapologetic history nerd, I've been writing stories since my father gave me an old IBM Selectric typewriter when I was thirteen. At the kitchen table, my mother and grandmother brought history to life with old photos of long-dead ancestors and their exploits. Today if I'm not writing or painting, I'm probably playing with my granddaughter, reading, filling bird feeders or doing yoga. We Were Patriots is my first novel.
My FIRST writing TOOLS
My FIRST writing TOOLS
My FIRST writing TOOLS
This old beast was my first typewriter. My father bought one for my sister and one for me for about five dollars each from GM when they were updating their office equipment in the 1970s. I used that typewriter for letters, articles, research papers, short stories and four years writing features for my high school newspaper. My sister, who could fix anything, kept that machine running for me through it all. I spent a lot of allowance money on typewriter ribbons, paper and correction fluid. I was so spoiled by that smooth-operating electric machine, that I barely passed my first high school typing class, where we were forced to use proper finger placement on (gasp!) manual typewriters. When that old Selectric finally died on me right before high school graduation, my parents bought me a new portable, manual Smith Corona typewriter in a molded plastic carrying case to take with me to college and seven years later I bought my first desktop computer with a whopping 50 MB hard drive.
My style
FUN FACTS
FUN FACTS
I can write almost anywhere. I love writing when we are traveling, and as long as I don't need my physical research materials, like old books, maps, etc., I write on my iPad using Google Docs, so my beta readers, editor and I can connect seamlessly.
If I'm in my studio, I write on my laptop with multiple monitors daisy-chained. I am also addicted to those little artsy ruled notebooks that I can just rage-scribble in when I'm waiting impatiently somewhere and just have to get an idea down on paper.
Also addicted to pens that write smoothly and easily.
FUN FACTS
FUN FACTS
FUN FACTS
Favorite Books:
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts
Hannah Fowler by Janice Holt Giles
Surviving Savannah by Patti Callahan
The Secret Book of Flora Lea by Patti Callahan Henry
Anatomy of a Murder by Robert Traver
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare by Kimberly Brock
Runway Zero-Eight by Arthur Hailey and John Castle
Patty Jane’s House of Curl by Lorna Landvik
A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe by Fannie Flagg
Wilderness Empire by Allan W. Eckert
Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
The Girl Who Wrote in Silk by Kelli Estes
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
Favorite Movies:
Last of the Mohicans
The Patriot
A League of Their Own
Moonstruck
Sleepless in Seattle
Notting Hill
Favorite Drink:
Tequila Greyhound
Favorite Time to Sit on the Front Porch:
While a big thunderstorm is rolling in
Favorite Place to Watch the Sunset:
Albufeira, Portugal
Favorite Treat:
I never met a cookie I didn’t like
Research in England
France and Germany
Greece, Portugal and Spain, Again and Again!
Frequently Asked Questions
I guess it was when I was about ten years old. My father, whose motto was always "Remember who you are," handed me a brittle, yellowed genealogy book printed a century before. It traced our family's origins back seven generations to another Schell family who did brave things and had to fight for their survival. From the time I first turned the pages of that book, read those names, I knew I wanted to tell their story someday.
I hope they get a bit lost in the story, that they recognize in the characters someone or something familiar in their own lives. I hope they are reminded that ordinary people can do extraordinary things. That strength is not only evident in glorious, showy battles, but also in the quiet will to continue, to chop wood and carry water, to take care of each other, to never give up hope.
Ooh, I'm not telling! I have quite a few characters and storylines that have been poking at me for a while. My next book is historical fiction, is set in America, and has a strong female protagonist. That's all I have to say about that.
Some of my latest inspirations have come from one line of dialoge I can hear one character speak to another character. The scene plays in my head like a movie, and I'm there, and the story just starts weaving itself around that line of dialog. I've always been drawn to little-known people who did interesting things that have been lost to history. I love to read old newspapers, magazines, diaries, letters, run my hands over moss-covered stones in old cemeteries. I try to listen for the whispers of people who died with a story they always meant to pass to a loved one, but whose time ran out before they could tell it. Every week I drive by the remnants of a crumbling, lonely brick fireplace and chimney on a hill alongside a county road near our home, and I wonder what kind of house it was once attached to. Who tended that fire? What became of the people whose faces were lit by its golden warmth?
I generally write between four and six hours a day, five days a week, or more if I'm trying to finish something on a tight schedule.
Have another question relating to my writing or a particular book? Reach out to me at mariaschellburdenauthor@gmail.com
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