On Getting Historical Fiction Right: Interview With Debut Author Dionna Mann and Mama’s Chicken and Dumplings Giveaway

Happy Monday, Everyone! Today I’m thrilled to have debut author here to share about her MG historical Mama’s Chicken and Dumplings. I love the storyline and am curious to learn about the Vinegar Hill neighborhood in Charlottesville, VA, in 1935. I just reserved the book at my library.

Here’s a blurb from Goodreads:

 

Growing up in segregated 1930’s Charlottesville, ten-year-old Allie is determined to find a man for her mama to marry— but not just any man will do! Allie’s life with Mama isn’t bad, but she knows it could be better if Mama would find someone to marry. Allie’s worst enemy, her NOT-friend Gwen, has a daddy, and Allie wants someone like that—someone to fix things when they break, someone who likes to sing, and has a kind-smile. So Allie makes a plan—her super-secret Man-For-Mama plan. She has a list of candidates with a clear top choice, Mr. Johnson, who owns the antique store. Best of all, Mr. Johnson went to school with Mama, and he wants to get reacquainted! The battle’s half won, and Allie is sure that when he tries Mama’s yummy chicken and dumplings, he’ll be head over heels. But someone else is interested in Mama—Mr. Coles, Allie’s band teacher who’s also Gwen’s uncle! Mama can’t marry him—no way is Allie going to be related to Gwen. On top of it all, Allie’s best friend is moving to Chicago; Allie keeps getting in trouble; and everyone seems to think she’s jealous of Gwen, for some reason. Nothing is going how she planned, but Allie is determined to get things back on track toward the life she knows she and Mama both deserve. . . even if Mama doesn’t agree yet.

Hi, Dionna! Thanks so much for joining us.

1. Tell us about yourself and how you became a writer.

Thanks for inviting me! I was born in Chicago, and grew up in the suburbs. I have lived in central Virginia with my husband surrounded by the gorgeous Blue Ridge Mountains for more than three decades. When our three (most-talented) children were little, I really enjoyed volunteering in their classrooms. I began working as a substitute teacher then as a full-time employee. I was a high school secretary and a teacher assistant working with special education students. I clocked in nearly 25 years with the school system, but decided not to return after COVID pandemic restrictions were lifted. My favorite part about working and volunteering within the schools was being able to lead creative writing workshops. I had the kids writing skits, book reviews, poetry, and speeches. When my daughter was in fifth grade, I led a workshop where the kids wrote and illustrated their own picture book, which I submitted to a kid-writing contest sponsored by Scholastic.

Seeing those kids experience the joy of discovering that they could all be writers or poets reminded me of my own discovery when I was in school. Many of my teachers, from elementary school through high school, encouraged creative writing. When I was in eighth grade, for example, my history teacher asked us to write a story as though we had lived through the events surrounding the attack on Pearl Harbor. I decided to write a story from the point of view of a Japanese-American girl who was being relocated from her home to an internment camp. When my teacher returned my assignment, with tears in his eyes he pleaded with me to never stop writing. School experiences like that one made me believe I could be a writer someday. 

2. Where did you get the idea for Mama’s Chicken and Dumplings?

Mama’s Chicken and Dumplings began as a writing assignment I gave myself in 2011. The Moseley Writers’ Group of Charlottesville was hosting a first-pages event to be held during the Virginia Festival of the Book. Attendees could submit 100 words to be judged by a panel of authors. I chose to write a 100-word scene based on a story my mother (who grew up on the South Side of Chicago) told me about her landlord. After collecting the rent, he would throw pennies onto the street just to laugh at the Black children who’d scurry after them. My mother recalled being angry over it, and was proud to report that she never ran after the pennies. After “Pennies” was read, all the panelists (including David Baldacci!) said they’d keep reading! I decided that I should give the little girl of the scene a name, a voice, and a problem to overcome. 

Your Writing Process: Researching for a Historical Novel

3. That’s cool your mom’s story inspired this book. Your book is 208 pages. How did you tell this whole story in a relatively short book? Did you have to cut out parts of it after you wrote your first draft or did it come together as you envisioned it?

This is such a funny question for me! When I completed my first draft, I had no vision for my story. And so when Pennies was complete it was only 14,000 words. (The target for a MG novel is between 25,000 to 50,000 words.) As the rejections from agents came rolling in, I realized I needed to beef up my story. I had given my main character a voice but not a character arc. I didn’t have a narrative arc with its muddy middle and satisfying ending. Pennies was not a story. It took me at least five complete rewrites, remodels if you will, and a gazillion revisions. I wrote version after version that included entire plot changes, additions and deletions of characters, new endings, restructure of scenes, changes to motivation, new dialogue, and setting changes. Each time, the word count grew. 

4. Yes, I wasn’t expecting your answer. On your website, you provide extensive information on the history of the Vinegar Hill neighborhood in the 1930s and have a link to download your extensive bibliography. Your research is amazing! Since the neighborhood was razed in the 1960s, you had to rely on historical information and pictures from the 1930s to get the history of your story right. How did you tackle finding all the articles and other resources listed in your bibliography, and how did you know when you’d done enough research?

Thank you for noticing my bibliography. I am very proud of it! I have access to the University of Virginia’s Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, the Albemarle-Charlottesville Historical Society, and the Jefferson Madison Regional Library system. These institutions take great care in preserving and digitizing local African American history. I found hundreds of archival photographs and oral histories, several documentaries, historical maps, a Jefferson school yearbook, local African American newspapers, personal histories, and more in their collections. 

When it comes to “doing enough” research—is that even possible? I don’t think so. To give you an example: after discovering that the 1934 Hill’s Directory of the City of Charlottesville, Virginia, had a “C” beside those businesses owned and operated by persons of color, I compiled a list. Thirty-four of those businesses were located along West Main Street, which is where Allie sets out to find her mama a perfect fix-it man. Compiling the list and recreating a map really helped me describe my main character’s world accurately. But I really wanted to know more about each one of those 34 businesses. How long had each one been in operation? When did the business close? What was the owner’s story? What became of their children? Though I desired to jump down that research rabbit hole, I stopped myself. I didn’t need that much information to complete my story. That said, I did get lost while researching the general store opened in 1890 by George Pinkney Inge at 333 West Main Street. After all, that’s where my main character visits to buy penny candy, and it still stands today. I even uncovered a primary resource treasure when I got to visit with Mr. Inge’s great-grandson and his wife.

5. From readers’ reviews, it sounds like Allie, Jewel, and the other characters are all unique, well-rounded characters. Talk about how you developed them as characters and how the historical times played into their character development.

Honestly, I didn’t start out with character sketches like many writers do. Mainly, I relied on my imagination, and real-life relationships I had while growing up. For example, Allie’s relationship with her same-age cousin Caesar is mirrored after my friendship with my same-age cousin, David. Like Caesar is for Allie, when I was a kid, David was my voice of reason when my emotions became hard to handle. 

To get the historical details of the neighborhood right, I read and listened to oral histories of those who loved in Vinegar Hill. I read every 1936 issue of the Jeffersonian, the student newspaper of those who attended Charlottesville’s Jefferson [Colored] School, as well as every 1933 issue of The Reflector, a local African-American-run newspaper. I made up personalities for those dressed up for their Holsinger Studio portraits. I also had my editor and copy editor ask me great questions about time and place, which ensured I got the details right.

Your Journey to Publication

6. Wow! You’re so dedicated to getting the historical aspects of your story right. Kelly Dyksterhouse and Jacqui Lipton are your agents. How did they become your agents and what was your road to publication like?

In 2019, I queried Jacqui about Mama’s Chicken and Dumplings while she was an agent at Storm Literary. She liked the first pages, and requested to read the full manuscript. Ultimately, she did not offer representation because the story needed a ton of work. But she sent me a lovely personal rejection letter with editorial comments and offered me a chance to resubmit after I had revised. Later, while I was the content editor of the newsletter serving the Mid-Atlantic region of SCBWI, I ended up corresponding with her about an article she was writing for us about getting permissions to use photographs. We really enjoyed ourselves as we worked on the content. Fast forward to well into the pandemic, and I noticed Jacqui was starting her own agency called Raven Quill. (She is now at The Tobias Literary Agency.) I hadn’t revised Mama’s yet, but I decided to query her with a super-silly and fun picture book manuscript. At the very least, I figured it would make her smile during those uncertain times. She immediately reached out to me, and set up a Zoom visit with herself, Kelly, and me. We had a lot of fun chatting, and they offered me representation! We didn’t sell that fun picture book manuscript, but we had fun trying.

To answer your question, how did Mama’s Chicken and Dumplings find its way to publication: Kelly, who is a very editorial agent, read it, and offered quite a few suggestions to help me get it ready to submit to editors. Her comments were similar to Jacqui’s. But in fact I had given up on the manuscript, and was focusing on doing research for a nonfiction picture book project instead. 

I had forgotten that while I was unagented I had sent Mama’s to Margaret Ferguson right after she moved to Holiday House in 2017. Unbeknownst to me, my manuscript had been plucked from the Holiday House’s slush pile and was sitting on Margaret’s desk throughout the pandemic. When Margaret returned to her office after COVID-19 restrictions lifted, she began reading my manuscript and saw promise. She reached out to me via email, asking if it had already been acquired. When I said it hadn’t, she said she was interested in reading it through. I let her know I now had agents, and a few months later, she said she wanted to acquire the manuscript, though I had to agree to work on that thing called plot. Of course, I became willing to revise—again—and Mama’s Chicken and Dumplings found its home with an extraordinaire editor and her fantabulous publishing house!

7. You’ve also had about 16 books-for-hire published. Tell us how you got into writing work-for-hire books and how the experience helped you after you got your publishing contract for Mama’s Chicken and Dumplings.

My first work-for-hire project was a nonfiction book about orcas published with Scholastic in 2019. I got that assignment because an SCBWI friend of the pen referred me to the acquiring editor. Also in 2019, I attended an SCBWI webinar with Carol Hinz at Lerner. Afterward, I sent her writing samples. She passed my information on, and I ended up writing four NF titles for them. My projects with Capstone and Little, Brown came through my agents. A local educational publisher reached out after she got my name from one of her writers, another one of my SCBWI friends of the pen. I’ve written three biographies for them. Yet another acquiring WFH editor reached out through my website after she read my nonfiction piece about a whale-snot-collecting drone in Spider.

Did my WFH projects help me after Mama’s was acquired? I’d have to say yes! With WFH, you have to outline the narrative and character arcs in your fictional stories before you start writing. Working with my editors at this outline stage helped me understand much about what makes a story work for the reader.

Promoting Your Book

8. Mama’s Chicken and Dumplings was released on August 6, 2024. How have you been promoting it? What future plans do you have for marketing your book?

To create buzz, I sent in my good news to my region of SCBWI and to the Children’s Book Guild of DC. I also sent out an email preorder campaign using Constant Contact. To advertise my book launch, I sent out 250 postcards and put up flyers at Starbucks, schools, and local libraries. (Sadly, many of my postcards were not delivered.) Upcoming, I have two other author events planned for two different cities—Richmond and Reston. Next up will be figuring out how to have a successful school visit. 

9. What advice do you have for other writers on developing a marketing plan and a social media platform?

Haha! You’re asking the wrong person about that. I’m not on social media. But I will say I highly recommend using Canva to design and print your marketing materials, which look great on your website or blog. The platform is super easy to use, and produces very professional looking stuff.

10. Thanks for the Canva tip. What are you working on now?

Catching my breath! No seriously, catching my breath.

Thanks for sharing all your advice, Dionna. 

You’re more than welcome! It’s an honor to be here!

You can find Dionna at https://www.dionnalmann.com/, and blogging all things kidlit at https://www.dionnalmann.com/interviews-blog-parties--more.

Giveaway Details

Dionna’s publisher is generously offering a hardback of Mama’s Chicken and Dumplings for a giveaway. To enter, all you need to do is be a follower of my blog (via the follower gadget, email, or bloglovin’ on the right sidebar) and leave a comment by October 5th. If your email is not on your Google Profile, you must leave it in the comments to enter the contest. Please be sure I have your email address.

If you mention this contest on Twitter, Facebook, or your blog and/or follow me on Twitter or Dionna on her social media sites, mention this in the comments and I'll give you an extra entry for each. You must be 13 years old or older to enter. This book giveaway is U.S.

Marvelous Middle Grade Monday is hosted by Greg Pattridge. You can find the participating blogs on his blog.

Upcoming Interviews, Guest Posts, and Blog Hops

Wednesday, September 25^th I have an agent spotlight interview with Amy Thrall Flynn and a query critique giveaway

Tuesday, October 1st I’m participating in the Scaredy Cat Giveaway Hop

Wednesday, October 2nd I have a guest post by author Tracy Bilen and a giveaway of her YA thriller Thirty Seconds at a Time and my IWSG post

Saturday, October 5th I’m participating in the Howl-O-Ween Giveaway Hop

Monday, October 7th I have an agent spotlight interview with Leslie Zampetti and a query critique giveaway

Monday, October 14th I have an interview with debut author Adrian So and a giveaway of his MG chapter book The Groundworld Heroes. He’s only 14 years old and a debut author so please stop by and leave him a comment to support him in accomplishing such a big goal at such a young age.

Wednesday, October 16th I have an agent spotlight interview with Samantha Wekstein and a query critique giveaway

Friday, October 18th I’m participating in the Silly Pumpkin Giveaway Hop

Monday, October 28th I have a guest post by author Abbi Lee and a giveaway of her MG Ghost Town Treasure Hunt

I hope to see you on Wednesday!