Show, don’t Tell Writing Podcast Show Notes & Links
- 📰 Sign up for the Inspired Writing Newsletter HERE
- 📝 Submit Your Page for our Show, don’t Tell Coaching Episodes
- 🌟 Leave a Review on Apple Podcasts (Thank you!)
- Intro and Outro Music is Daisy by Zight and used under a CC by 4.0 DEED Attribution 4.0 International license. For more music by Zight visit https://www.youtube.com/zight
This week, Suzy chats with Fulbright Scholar and Author Gigi Berardi about her novel, Bianca’s Cure, and how she came to write this ‘history-driven novel.’
🌟 Grab your spot in Suzy’s Inner Circle at www.suzyvadori.com/innercircle
Podcast Episode Transcript (unedited)
89. Gigi B. Historical Fiction
Suzy Vadori: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Show, don’t Tell Writing Podcast with me, Suzy Vadori, where I peel back the layers of how to wow your readers with your fiction, your nonfiction. Anybody can bang out a first draft, but it takes a little more work to make your book as amazing as it can be. Join me as I share the step by step writing techniques you could apply to your writing right away.
As I host successful writers who share a behind the scenes look at their own [00:00:30] writing lives, and as I live coach writers on their pages giving practical writing examples that will make your own writing stronger. Nobody is born knowing how to write an engaging book. There are real and important skills that you need to learn on this show.
I cut through the noise and get you all the info you need. I can’t wait to see how this information is going to
Gigi B.: transform your writing.
Suzy Vadori: Today on the Show to Tell podcast, we are going to talk [00:01:00] about balancing facts for storytelling through a writer’s lens. When writing historical fiction, Gigi Ardi had pitched me to come on this podcast.
I’m super excited to speak with her because she does a lot of things that I really love about historical fiction. I see in the podcast that it’s my favorite genre to read. It’s actually one of my favorite genres to edit. I don’t write it because I don’t have. The interest in the research, but when you hear Gigi talk about this book that she wrote, you’re gonna get [00:01:30] excited.
You’re gonna see what it takes to actually write historical fiction. The book is Bianca’s Cure and it is set in Florence in 1563 and forbidden from practicing her herbal cures in Venice, the young Noble woman, Bianca Capello. Flees to Florence, where the ruling Medici family practices alchemy, which is an early form of science.
And there she wins herself an invitation to their palace and as well, a path to Duke Regent Francesco’s bed. So [00:02:00] there’s some romance in this one as well. The impassion bond between Francesca de Medici and Bianca is at the core of this fact driven or historically driven, history driven. She talks about this dive into medicine, politics, love, and ultimately death in Renaissance, Florence.
Yee Ardi was so much fun to talk with. I hope you really enjoy this interview. She actually called me. We were on Zoom together from her boat where she lives when she is in Washington off the coast, and she [00:02:30] also spends time in Florence every single year and talks about the Florence behind the scenes.
What is the non touristy Florence. She hails from Hollywood and holds degrees in biology, resources and planning. And dads, she’s a Fulbright Scholar in Italy and a professor at Western Washington University in Bellingham. She also teaches in Florence, Italy. She’s written more than 400 reviews and articles for print media has been featured on an array of podcasts of broadcast media and beyond writing.
Her other [00:03:00] passions include dance, cheese making and travel. Learn more@gigibarardi.com. When we get into this interview, Gigi spends some time giving her background, and I want you to listen carefully because if you. Somebody thinking about writing historical fiction. I’d love, love, love talking with people who came from other walks of life, and she’ll talk about her experience in journalism and how that led her to become a novel writer.
And so listen carefully. Because wherever you are [00:03:30] in life, if this is your dream, you have skills. Even if they’re not writing skills, you’ve got other skills that you are bringing to the table that are gonna make you completely unique. So go do it. This book has already been named, it came out in February of 2026 when we did this interview, and it’s already been named on under the 31 Titles for Women’s History Month by Janice Daley.
Welcome to the podcast, Gigi. So glad to have you here in the [00:04:00] month that you are launching your new book, Bianca Cure. Welcome.
Gigi B.: Thank you. Thank you. Such a pleasure to be here with you.
Suzy Vadori: So this is your first historical fiction novel. You’ve written books before, but this is your very first historical fiction novel.
What made you wanna write this particular book at this particular moment in time?
Gigi B.: There’s a couple ways to answer that question. What is, I would say that I’m a kind of dilettante in writing styles [00:04:30] and I’ve been a faculty member for, I am pretty literate in and capable in an academic writing style. I’ve had four tenure track positions and I’ve mastered that, that academic writing style.
When I was in graduate school, I started writing for the UCLA daily brewer, and the reason I did that was because I could get free press tickets at the last minute, best seats in the house. [00:05:00] And so that was a huge motivator for me to start writing features and criticism, which is completely different than than academic writing.
And I was pretty successful at Vest and wrote for the LA Times and LA Style, and you pitch stories and
Suzy Vadori: amazing.
Gigi B.: So a journalist, a journalistic style is what I’m trying to say. And I only say I’m successful not to show my incredible lack of humility, but to just [00:05:30] suggest that it takes a lot to be able to pitch and be seen and be heard, and to get an assignment.
Suzy Vadori: It ain’t bragging. It ain’t bragging if you don’t, if you didn’t say it and we’ll celebrate it.
Gigi B.: Good job. Yeah, I mean, I guess the motto there also is, or the takeaway practice makes perfect. I would say that my other books are not fiction, but they are creative nonfiction.
Suzy Vadori: Yes.
Gigi B.: Just we’re looking at the bridge here to, to fiction.
More to the point with your question. I guess what really started this foray [00:06:00] into fiction writing was I was pretty disgruntled at my university and it was either write a screenplay, Allah American Horror Story or start fiddling around with fiction. And at that same time, that would’ve been five years into me taking students to Florence each year.
And a friend was walking across the Piazza with me and we were chatting in Italian and she said, look behind you. And there was an open [00:06:30] window. She said, that is the open window. It was the Piazza or the the two fountains or the Holy Enunciation. It’s a very important square in Florence. It doesn’t have a fraction of the tourist that just down the road the Piazza Omo has, which is where the cathedral and the Baptist Street, the museum, all that is the towers.
What I’m also getting to is like hidden Florence, so I’m always about hidden Florence, so [00:07:00] the students and I are not dur. That’s important to me. We’re walking across, I see it, and she says, the spirit of Bianca Capello lives there. And if the window’s closed, she screams. And right kitty corner to that window is the Log de ti, which is Rick.
Steve’s one of Rick Steve’s favorite, the travel writer favorite Florence Hotels Magical. And so I went into there. I was in there a number of [00:07:30] times and asked custodians and others, do you hear a scream? Yes, the, we’ve heard a scream in that same piazza. There’s a big bronze statue of Nando, the cardinal, the nemesis of Bianca Kapalo In my book.
Fafer Nando is looking at that open window at Fafer. Nando is suspect, suspected to have killed Bianca Capo and to have killed Francesco’s brother so that he could stop being a Cardinal and [00:08:00] become Grand Duke of Florence. And he is on his horse looking in that direction. So that was inspirational to me.
And I knew the story of the Metri. I knew that they were occultist. I knew that they were alchemist. Because she could just go on a tour and see their rooms of the occult. And even a century before with a different branch of the Medici, Belli and all these artists had some connection to this kind of alchemy to produce the pigments that they were using for their gorgeous art.[00:08:30]
And that you can see now in, so one other piece to this is that in the DCO Palace. A main tourist attraction. There is a tour you can take of secret rooms, the alchemy room of Cosmo, the father, the alchemy room of Francesco, the son, and the alchemy, and the study of Bianca Capello, the lover, the mistress, and the wife of Francesco.
They’re there. So I am [00:09:00] putting together in terms of historical fiction, a skeleton plus I dived into archival material and I had been to. All the places that Bianca and Francesco had been together just because of my experience in Florence. So now I was really interested in this idea of building out from some kind of skeleton.
I was very concerned, still am, and have been very careful and making sure that everything I say, [00:09:30] everything that happens either did happen or could have happened.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah. And so that’s the balance. And they love, and that’s the balance. Yeah. I love hearing you talk about this because a lot of writers that I work with, myself included, and a lot of writers that come on the show have other careers before they become writers, and so to hear how you transition those skill sets and how you keep challenging yourself because writing a book is very different.[00:10:00]
And also I just see, and the listeners can’t see your face, but I can see you light up as you’re talking about the story and how much fun it was to do the research. And I tell people that like if when you worry is an idea good enough. To write about. The answer is, hey, if it’s keeping you entertained, and it’s, it takes thousands of hours to write a book, and especially if you’re running around Florence researching it, which sounds amazing.
By the way, one of the reasons I was bringing you on the show is because I [00:10:30] plan to be in Florence in a couple of months and I’m like, Hey, I wanna talk about this. I’m gonna check on all these. I’m writing down notes like frantically, secret rooms, all coming room study of Bianca Capella and like the two fountains square.
I’m going to all these places maybe, hopefully. And so yeah, I can see some of that excitement, but So right now though, there’s also a wider thing, right? Which is this fact that it’s a woman’s story that was erased. Did that play into you why you chose this particular book to write and [00:11:00] Bianca’s story to tell as well?
Gigi B.: I should say that, yes. But I should say that in the beginning, it wasn’t Bianca’s story, it was Francesco’s story. So I interesting wrote, I first wrote the book from the standpoint of Francesco, his point of view, why her lover. And I think in part because I identified more with him and in part because he is well known.
To have been an introvert [00:11:30] who just wanted to study and do his work, and part of me is that person. So I wrote a hundred thousand words, and after I had written it, the feedback I got is that this reads like a Wikipedia article. Yeah,
Suzy Vadori: a hundred thousand word Wikipedia, publish it. So then what, and this is great.
This is a behind the scenes that we love to talk about Yeah. On this podcast, because it doesn’t come first try all the time. And there’s [00:12:00] some things that you have to write and then you have to let go. So how did that go? What was your thought process like, oh, oh no. What have I done and, and what am I gonna do?
What happened? I think,
Gigi B.: I
Suzy Vadori: think it’s fascinating,
Gigi B.: the stages of grieving. At first, I couldn’t believe it, even to this day, if I lose a paragraph. A maniac ’cause my suit as it happens to all the time and I lose an essay and in the back of my mind, I’m just thinking I would be immediate
Suzy Vadori: devastating
Gigi B.: devastation.
Total devastation.
Suzy Vadori: [00:12:30] Yeah.
Gigi B.: I guess the, what was intriguing was the idea of working with a mentor who I had run into. The San Miguel, the IN Day Writers Conference,
Suzy Vadori: okay.
Gigi B.: Uh, one of those conferences in San Miguel. And she said to me, you need to write this from the standpoint, from the point of view of Bianca, and what about Bianca?
Can you relate to? And now of course, I feel like I am Bianca, [00:13:00] but I don’t, I was not Bianca five years ago or six years ago. One things that got me into writing from her point of view, and in this particular style of the book was to think about tone or attitude. So the character maintains a core personality that does not change, but in any incident, her distillation doesn’t work in a convent for her.
You can get [00:13:30] inside that person and imagine her to be shocked or angry or sad or ashamed. And then you write from that. You write from the ah, tutor tone. It’s very effective. I would say that in terms of writing, that I do love writing the descriptions. The descriptions in the book are pretty rich of things of set
Suzy Vadori: and the setting and the place.
The book building that you did to set us [00:14:00] in that time period in 1563.
Gigi B.: Yeah. Yeah. And then the other thing is this kind of tonal exercise that you, her, ’cause it’s really. All about her and the challenges she has, the inciting incident, but then how she acts on that.
Suzy Vadori: And so how much of that original manuscript written from his point of view were you able to use, if any,
Gigi B.: one sentence.
Suzy Vadori: One sentence. Do you know what it is?
Gigi B.: Yeah, it was, it was in a sick house and where there’s a bunch of [00:14:30] nuns and Bianca ERs and one of the nuns is cleaning a pa. A guy’s open wounds with vinegar.
Suzy Vadori: Oh wow. Okay. So there, okay, so the book centers around Research and discovering a cure for malaria at first, and which was called heat disease.
In that time period it, was there any connection to that particular topic for you, or was that something that you had to learn as you went along?
Gigi B.: There’s two parts to that piece. One is [00:15:00] the cure or the prophylactic treatment, artemesia the herb, and the other is malaria, the disease, right? In terms of what is attracting me.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah.
Gigi B.: My partner had worked in Kenya for at least 20 years on and off. And it had contracted malaria, so he has had malaria. I, myself, from Kenya, have a roundworm parasite, which disgusting, and I knew about the pattern of malaria in that it too [00:15:30] has some cyclic characteristic to it, where every three days or four days, depending on the type of malaria, but one of the more common malarias, there’s a spike in fever as the parasite is manifesting itself and in fact.
Malaria is an Italian term, but it was coined in the 18 hundreds. It means bad air. But before that, at the time that I am writing, it was called, not the heat disease, but the fever or tertiary fever [00:16:00] or urinary fever, meaning that every three days or four days, it spikes. So it’s a thing. I find that it’s a thing in the Renaissance.
Malaria is a thing even today. Even in parts of Norway, even in Scandinavia, it can happen. That is interesting to me. Then in the back of my mind, I’m thinking Artemesia interesting that Herb is one of herbs that my colleagues at the TUM study. So I have another life, [00:16:30] which is Gerian Science Phenomenology, which is directly opposite of the scientific method.
So in this gerian science that the emphasis is on observation. So I developed this in the book, not on pattern finding.
Suzy Vadori: Okay.
Gigi B.: That perception and observation, science of the method is all about pattern finding in a environment. And you can see that in the book that Bianca. Starts to develop a kind of scientific method where testing [00:17:00] comes in, which is not part of the old ways of looking at the world, but she still has one foot in that world because she’s coming from Venice, which is well known to be a hotbed of alchemy and recipe sharing among women.
So what I’m doing is I am establishing Bianca as a forerunner of a humanistic scientific method, and that comes from my. Decades of work at the tum in door knock Switzerland that [00:17:30] emphasizes T science.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah. And I think there’s practicing science and then there’s the healing and herbal traditions. And you may right from the get go in the book, you differentiate those and show how.
This is different. ’cause that was one of my biggest questions coming into reading it was, okay, how is this different? ’cause there is a long tradition of practicing herbal medicines.
Gigi B.: Mm-hmm.
Suzy Vadori: And I think there’s a, a quote in there, men separate and women blend. Exactly. And I, I just thought that was cool.
’cause it’s used throughout the [00:18:00] book, men separate, women blend. Like it means more than just about medicine.
Gigi B.: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. What I wanted to do was to have Bianca develop this idea of observation into a more mystical realm, into the alchemy part. But when I researched this, I realized that men, that there was there, there were very strong gender structures, and men were in control [00:18:30] of kind of industrial alchemy, which was popular at the time.
So I had to separate Bianca from that because that was their playground and also it’s really not very interesting, and she becomes the prophetess of, as Virginia Wilkes says, trying to get this room of one’s own by getting a space and by getting resources like women fiction writers need.
Suzy Vadori: Exactly, and I think, and it’s actually really interesting, [00:19:00] it’s something that many writers come up against when we’re writing historical female characters, especially is their agency.
Because I think sometimes we forget, and I wanna unpack something else about introversion in a moment that you mentioned earlier, but in terms of agency and women in history, sometimes we forget. Now this book is all about her breaking the mold, but if she was, if it wasn’t about that. Sometimes we forget that just because women in history, their job was to get [00:19:30] married to the best match possible and to have children and to do all these things become a lady.
But what if it wasn’t right? They still need to be well-rounded characters and have some kind of vocation, hobby, interests, natural talents, and this is something. So if you’re writing historical fiction and you’re writing about women. In the past, please don’t forget to give them a well-rounded person because just because they were set in this construct doesn’t mean that they weren’t [00:20:00] interesting.
Now, Bianca, obviously, because she tries to follow that path of vocation, you have that, which is great. It lends itself very well to her agency in the book. Do you have any thoughts on that?
Gigi B.: Oh gosh.
Suzy Vadori: So what he thought
Gigi B.: beautifully said. Yeah. I think you hit the proverbial nail on it on its head. I think when we’re writing historical fiction, and I will say of about females from a female perspective, [00:20:30] because that’s what I know to say, that women didn’t have agency as one sentence.
Suzy Vadori: Yes.
Gigi B.: Very interesting.
Suzy Vadori: No, and it doesn’t, it won’t hold up in a book. Right. I don’t wanna rebo anybody who isn’t trying to affect their own life and making decisions, because then what is that? It’s,
Gigi B.: yeah.
Suzy Vadori: Like I said, it’s a Wikipedia article.
Gigi B.: Yeah, exactly. And we know that. Yeah. Tell us we don’t know and help give us insights into how women [00:21:00] did find and create and act within their own agency.
How did that happen? And I guess I haven’t really gotten this in any reviews or, or interviews, but if anything, I may have been a little bit too glib about poor old Bianca being able to solve every single,
Suzy Vadori: yeah.
Gigi B.: Being able to meet every single challenge. And even talking about witchcraft, which was more of a thing being [00:21:30] killed for, for their practices a little bit farther north.
You can see in the very beginning of the book, the entities in the first chapter are very concerned about being accused of witchcraft. Are being accused of, yeah, I would
Suzy Vadori: imagine like
Gigi B.: a disturbance. And the auntie says to Bianca, strong gets noticed. You can’t be, you can’t be strong and
Suzy Vadori: see you against notice.
That sounds to be like, like a rallying trial. I’m gonna be strong getting No, [00:22:00] I know, right. These terms, but then that wasn’t a positive. It’s such a different lens.
Gigi B.: Yeah. And we all, we have the case of Katina Sparta, who actually is Cosmo’s Grandmother Cosmo. Is the father of Francesco Katerina Sforza, the huge feminist.
Militarist Alchemist is the grandmother of Cosmo, so related, related to Francesco the son. So in that time period, a few [00:22:30] generations back is a counselor, a magistrate in Milan, and this is Becau. Her story has become popularized recently because of the opening of the Olympics on February 7th. There was a art exhibit on forgotten women, basically Alchemist and Katerina Swar figures prominently in that.
She is
Suzy Vadori: Oh, how time, how timely for the launch of your book.
Gigi B.: Yeah. So I find
Suzy Vadori: better,
Gigi B.: yeah, if people just go to my website, [00:23:00] gig jibo art.com. Sign up, they can get all of these blogs, which are relevant and like a sequel what’s really happening. But in the Battle of four Lee, she, the enemy was threatening to take her children, or hatter children, depending on who you read.
And she lifted up her skirts and said, I don’t care. I can make more. And so the shrinking wallflower is not really the icon that many of these women had in Venice. I think that as a, a woman working in whatever field. [00:23:30] Who does or does not still have family responsibilities either caretaking for very young people or parents of very old people.
You figure out a way to work within the system and the best way of thinking about that, someone once told me. When I was taking a temporary position in Olympia and they were saying that, you know, this system works like the clock tower shape. The clock tower is really tall, and then the library [00:24:00] is really flat that it rests.
Yeah. And he says, that’s work this way in the system. Find a way to make it happen. So this horizontal, once you start working vertically, once you start asking for something, you’re dead. Water, you need to take it. And because there’s structures that we just,
Suzy Vadori: and that is literally the definition of agency, stop asking somebody else to do it for you and take it.
And what was interesting about what you said earlier when you wrote [00:24:30] that a hundred thousand words from the male point of view and what was attractive to you was the fact that he was an introverted soul. And you, you identified with that. And that’s very common for writers to come with this. Because most spreaders are introverted in terms of wanting to represent introversion.
You talked about that wallflower complex and sometimes it’s associated with women, but it can also be associated with introversion. And sometimes when we write introverts, it can be [00:25:00] very difficult to demonstrate agency because even if you are introverted yourself, you say what Susie? I don’t want my character going out and gregarious, like trying to take things for themselves.
’cause they wouldn’t do that. But we forget that in books we actually have inner thoughts, which is one of the five tools that you’ve got in books that you don’t have in screenplay, that you don’t have in television, that you don’t have in other mediums. And just because Wind River isn’t overtly going around and making orders [00:25:30] doesn’t mean that they’re not making decisions.
Doesn’t mean that they’re not deciding things, doesn’t mean that it’s a decision to stay back. And so to make sure that is incorporated along the way is also really important for agency. But was Bianca more extroverted in your version of her then? Was she going out and like, ’cause you mentioned that one of the things that didn’t work.
Or it was difficult in that first manuscript was how, how that all came together for him.
Gigi B.: So what we knew about Bianca is that she was just like a fabulous beauty, [00:26:00] and people wrote about that. They wrote poems to her. We, I’m
Suzy Vadori: lovely, but they’d rather be known for my mind than that’s probably where I’m gonna end up in B History.
Gigi B.: I mean, the first chapter of the book, Bianca, is saying, mama told me that pretty is just like anything else, something you can use. And when I get what I want, I’m gonna put clay all over my face and cut my hair. So of course, yes. She didn’t care in that sense. We know that and we know she had a study. So was she an extrovert?
[00:26:30] Most likely, yes. Most likely. It was that A CDC where she had this study and then, then she has more than that, that she gets, but she also was a little bit more of a court presence than I wrote in the book. So she probably was. But what I was gonna say in terms of what you had just said before that, in talking about it about introverts, it’s almost like I need, I’m trying to develop another word, a gender.
So not female or male, [00:27:00] like
Suzy Vadori: Yeah.
Gigi B.: What I’m really writing about. Yes. About a woman, but I’m also, especially given every person who is unseen, unheard, challenged, and needs to keep moving. So it’s also true that Francesco was misread. He was also fabulously wealthy, so who cares? But the men, I love
Suzy Vadori: that.
Gigi B.: Yeah.
Many people weren’t. And [00:27:30] what’s interesting, I was doing an interview with feminist broadcaster and she was asking me about so many questions about how do I know what I know and where did I. I find this, why didn’t I write about people who were scientists, many of whom I mentioned that here she was the bastion of structure busting, and that her idea of [00:28:00] knowledge or their idea of knowledge.
How you get knowledge was really patriarchal and I think knowledge is born. I said, it sounds like in your questions to me, you think that maybe there was a, there was something in an archive and I didn’t find it. So knowledge is not something to be found. It is something to be created. We all create that knowledge and whose knowledge is better than [00:28:30] another’s knowledge.
And I was shocked.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah. And I’m sorry that happened to you because it sounds like sometimes when people are wanting to meet with people, they feel like their job is to poke holes in it or something else. We’re here to learn. We’re here to learn. You have, I’m gonna ask you some questions about how long and all these things later, but.
Our listeners who might be thinking about doing historical fiction project, they want the real dirt on what you did. And I’m not gonna point out what you didn’t do. You can’t do [00:29:00] everything in every book. You can’t. It’s impossible. It’s a work of art and you’ve gotta pick and choose what it is that you do.
So my question to you is, how did you decide. This is your choice. By the way. This is not a criticism. I’m not going to blast you if you know for your answer, but how did you decide along the way? Because historical fiction, you as the writer have choices about what you keep the same and what you actually extrapolate or what you invent.
It’s fiction you can invent. [00:29:30] So where was that lying for you in terms of you can’t. Just go to an archive and get the answer. That’s a Wikipedia article. But writing a novel, how did you decide which pieces were going to be like? Absolutely true. And you gave us some insight to that earlier and which pieces you were going to extrapolate.
Gigi B.: So I’d said that there was a skeleton, so the skeleton, what we knew and the dates and where and who was there. Was really important to me, [00:30:00] maybe more important than it might be to another writer. And in fact, in the metadata for the book, I think it had a say, a fact driven novel. And I made them change that to the very boring and uninteresting, but accurate, a history driven novel, which also is not very interesting, but it’s exactly what I’m saying.
It’s a history driven novel. So I had this skeleton that was just super, super important to me. Then I used the tonal exercises for that interior dialogue. The interior [00:30:30] monologue, and then I put myself in the writing cabin that my son built from the wood on our property that he got, and he milled with the little portable sawmill that came from Canada.
So I did all that, but then I did something else. So I mentioned being a Dante with styles of writing. Yep. I’m also a Dante in languages.
Suzy Vadori: Amazing.
Gigi B.: So I have another entre into all of this because I’m in [00:31:00] Florence every year seeing Florence through a hundred different eyes, the 24 different eyes of the students, and then all the people that, all the providers in a very non touristy way, and a few of those people surfaced as my touchstone for could this happen.
So I knew in terms of what’s the writing trick? I would depend on these people and take them to extremely nice dinners in Florence. Non primary.
Suzy Vadori: [00:31:30] I like it.
Gigi B.: Yeah, I
Suzy Vadori: like it.
Gigi B.: Not only that, I would say Saint ETA is actually an amalgam of different places, different nunneries, and by the way, one in eight women were nuns in Florence.
So I would argue that amazing. Those nunneries, those convents, those monasteries were safe places
Suzy Vadori: indeed
Gigi B.: for women to work in and ex and express their agency. But. GI given the structure of the daily hours. Yeah. Um, so he would come, he would say, Gigi, I will show you what, [00:32:00] where this building used to be.
This is where the nuns were. This is how far they walk to get there. There isn’t anything he doesn’t know. And I had several people like that. Not only that, after I had written the first draft, so maybe three or four years ago, I came, it’s said Bach in the Duke Palace and one of the main squares. And it was called Duke in Love.
There was the Italian version. Okay. English. Yeah. Written by a Manano Simi. So I got in touch with, so this [00:32:30] is basically the nonfiction story of what I’ve written. It is, it is the book, except the nonfiction with references.
Suzy Vadori: All the history and historically driven novel.
Gigi B.: Perfect. Yeah. But it’s like creative nonfiction.
I could tell he loved these people.
Suzy Vadori: That’s it’s historical. Historical and not fact based.
Gigi B.: Yeah. And so we got together and, and now he has become the last third of my program bringing students into the marma where, which the hotbed of malaria until Mussolini. In the thirties [00:33:00] and got civil engineers out to the swamps of the most southern part of Tuscany.
That’s where he is from. And so now we have a program there where we can take students, but we also became good colleagues and he and I together have walked. Bianca and Francesco’s Way, and we’ve gone to Pono and been in the room where Francesco was supposed to have died. We have done all of that. We
Suzy Vadori: Oh, amazing.
So the Descrip makes the descriptions in the book so incredible.
Gigi B.: And [00:33:30] he also was a touchstone for me. Could this have happened? Could this have happened? Yeah. Not only that, because of the Delante language thing. So now the book is being translated into Italian. An Italian editor had it, but then I had it.
So then I edited the Italian editing and I had to edit it. Throwing a hundred thousand words away is nothing compared to this. I got a sentence at a time, we’re talking about two months ago, so the books virtually out. I had to [00:34:00] edited a sentence at a time, see what translators told me it was, and then compared to what I knew it was, use it Italian Thess.
That really brought me into the novel word by word. ’cause one sentence at a time means then you wait 20 minutes, you’re doing your research, then you do the next sentence, then you do research, then you rewrite. So to do this fiction, I had help. I had people that I could bounce every,
Suzy Vadori: was there anything though that is inaccurate or [00:34:30] that you invented to make the novel work, which is allowed?
Is there anything in there or everything you tried? When. Okay. There’s nothing, because when I, I had the opportunity to hear Philipa Gregory speak, who’s a historical fiction.
Gigi B.: Oh
Suzy Vadori: yeah. Anomalous as well. The attention to detail. Sometimes she would get the tide times and the, and the dates right, and the, the sunset and the sun and historical fiction, just full disclosure is my absolute favorite to edit, my absolute favorite to read.
I do not write it because I do not want to do the [00:35:00] research. I have limited time. I work on about a hundred books a year for other people.
Gigi B.: The donut,
Suzy Vadori: I’m, I’m like, I don’t want to do that for my own novels. I write fantasy. I can make everything up. I love, love. Thank you so much for doing this work because it is like, for those who love it and for us readers who appreciate that hi history, that I know that everything in there has been meticulously researched and I can, I can still read a novel and feel like I’m [00:35:30] learning, so that’s amazing.
It’s gonna help me a lot in my travels to Florence. I definitely want a list of all those sort of back, back, channel, non tourist things to do. I’m excited. Okay, so we’re at the quick fire portion of our interview today, and I just have a couple quick questions for you. You ready?
Gigi B.: I’m ready.
Suzy Vadori: All right. So for your first book that you wrote ever, how long did it take you to write?
Gigi B.: That came from my master’s thesis in dance, so I did that first to [00:36:00] write it. Oh, nine months to a year.
Suzy Vadori: Okay. And how about this book? How long did it take you to write?
Gigi B.: Are we counting the first version? From the very first time
Suzy Vadori: that Absolutely. The first version.
Gigi B.: 10 years.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah, 10 years. I love that. And this is your, yeah.
This is why it’s gonna be so incredible. Okay.
Gigi B.: What
Suzy Vadori: was your first big break in writing books where you’re like, I’m gonna keep doing this. This is, for me,
Gigi B.: I had so many big breaks in writing articles for editors, and it was all about, alright, share
Suzy Vadori: that one. [00:36:30]
Gigi B.: Oh,
Suzy Vadori: what was your big break in becoming a journalist?
That’d be a great one to share.
Gigi B.: It was writing for the Los Angeles Times. It was writing a feature on Dan. Actually, I think I wrote two features. One, the agony of dance is one. And
Suzy Vadori: how did you get that gig?
Gigi B.: So I just wrote a letter. I wrote a, you wrote a letter. Reedit, I wrote a com, A compelling letter to the editor.
Can I just say that in the quick fire, that is not an option today? That is not an option today.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah.
Gigi B.: Because of ai. Um,
Suzy Vadori: and, but I think that’s, I think that’s really important to differentiate, [00:37:00] right? What worked even five or 10 years ago isn’t going to work today.
Gigi B.: No.
Suzy Vadori: And we’ve
Gigi B.: gotta
Suzy Vadori: be creative about that.
Gigi B.: No, absolutely no. I’ve, I’ve tried to do it recently for Bianca’s Cure and everything I write is like the 14 spams. I’m getting a day where’re going into that person’s research and they’re really getting at the guts of that person.
Suzy Vadori: I know I get all these re quote unquote reviews right now in my inbox.
So this is actually a good PSA public service announcement if you’re getting. [00:37:30] I’m getting reviews on books that I wrote 10 years ago where they’re, I can help you promote this. And I felt the themes and the fountain was blah, blah blah blah. And I’m like, it’s just ai. Right. And so don’t be flattered by it actually.
Yeah, quite by it. ’cause it fills my
Gigi B.: inbox.
Suzy Vadori: AI is not like a mechanical tell, like people talking about an M dashes or whatever the phrasing is. It’s actually that. I can read it and it says nothing. It’s not interesting. It we’re on the show. Don’t tell podcast. If you are using specifics from your world, [00:38:00] nobody else can do that, and AI will not do that because they are literally taking the lowest common denominator.
What is the most common phrasing? All of those things. So it’s literally dumbing it down to the point that it’s not interesting. There’s nothing wrong with it. I can’t edit it ’cause it’s perfect, but it’s so perfect that it actually isn’t interesting. So yeah, if you’re writing those letters, if you’re doing a pitch or a proposal to get on somebody’s podcast, like your right, like your PR agent did to come on here and for me.
There was a number of [00:38:30] things that were really interesting and the connection to Florence was really interesting. And also the connection to your publisher and the connection to you. There was a lot of things that were interesting and I was like, yes, I wanna talk to Gigi and I wanna read this book. So what is your best advice, Gigi, to writers who are just starting out there and thinking about writing historical fiction?
Gigi B.: What I’m supposed to say is read. Read as much historical fiction as you can.
Suzy Vadori: No, not what you’re supposed to say. What do you wish you’d known when you started that you didn’t know?
Gigi B.: Oh, I would just say I, I can only speak to those people who [00:39:00] have a love and a passion for what it is that they wanna write about.
I don’t know about starting cold, and so I would say go to that place as much as you can. Maybe you’re not gonna be able to travel. Go to that place. As much as possible with from social media to YouTube videos, whatever, travel logs and or go to a similar place. If you are lucky enough to go to that place, then talk to people.
I would [00:39:30] say learn the language and just talk to people and find friends. This is not so weird. I would even, I guess there’s all sorts of conversation partner platforms. Where you, someone wants to learn English and you wanna learn German, well, that’s what I’m working on now. But anyway, you wanna, whatever the language and that person will also have insights into their country, their place, that place, or know themselves how to get in.
So it’s all this kind of [00:40:00] snowballing that you have to do first. And how exciting is that? Because, no, it’s super
Suzy Vadori: exciting. You would be very surprised, dear writers out there, if you tell people that you are writing a book. They will help you. We’re always afraid to tell people, but talk about it because they will help you.
They will
Gigi B.: help you. And if they see your passion like Gigi’s talking about, they’ll get excited about it to you.
Suzy Vadori: Thank you so much. Enjoy the launch month. So excited for you and when I’m in Florence in a couple of months, I will [00:40:30] be cheering you on. It looks like I’m gonna miss your Italian debut by a couple of weeks, which is frustrating.
I wish I could have been there for the launch, but we’ll be cheering you on from here.
Gigi B.: Susie, just Channel. Bianca Channel.
Suzy Vadori: Channel Bianca.
Gigi B.: Channel. Bianca, such a pleasure. Thank you for having me on your podcast today. Really. Thank you.
Suzy Vadori: Thanks for tuning into the show. Don’t Tell Writing podcast with me, [00:41:00] Susie Vadori. It is my absolute honor to bring you the straight goods for that book you’re writing or the book that you’re planning to write. Please help me keep the podcast going by helping people find us. You could subscribe to the podcast and leave a review on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever else you’re listening.
To show the show. That’s how other listeners will find us. Also, visit susie Vadori.com/newsletter to hop on my weekly inspired writing newsletter list [00:41:30] where you’ll stay inspired and be the first to know about all the upcoming training events and writing courses that happen in my community. Want my eyes on your writing, submit a page in your current draft for a chance to come on the podcast at the link in the show notes.
I’d love to chat with you about your writing in my always positive, incredibly supportive way so that you can make great strides towards your writing goals. I’m here to cheer you are. Remember that book you’re writing is gonna open doors that you [00:42:00] haven’t even thought of yet, and I can’t wait to help you make that it the absolute best it can be.
See you again right here next week.