(bright music) - With a book like "Margaret Fuller," with a character like Margaret Fuller, I have no need to veer from the history, I have no need to make stuff up.

The raw material is just that good.

I'd be crazy to not use it.

(bright music) - Well, hi and welcome to the "PBS Books Readers Club."

- Today, we'll be joined by "New York Times" bestselling author, Allison Pataki.

- We'll discuss her book, "Finding Margaret Fuller," as our feature this month, and if you haven't read it yet, don't worry, there are no spoilers.

In this conversation, we'll just enhance your reading experience.

- This is a perfect book to celebrate Women's History Month and learn more about Margaret Fuller, the amazing trailblazer whose story has gone untold for far too long.

- We will also reveal our pick for next month's read, so stick around for all of that.

Hi, I'm Fred Nahhat, here with Lauren Smith, and with Heather-Marie Montilla, our resident librarian and PBS Books National Director, and Princess Weekes, award-winning video essayist, author, with a Master's Degree in Literary Theory.

- I do what I can (everyone laughing) to contribute to this wonderful table.

(everyone laughing) - And we're happy to be here with you as well.

Please share all your thoughts in the comments, and we hope you'll join the "PBS Books Readers Club" Facebook group to find and share book recommendations, discuss your favorite reads, and really just delight in the company of other book lovers.

And please make sure to share this event.

Do that right now.

Friends do not let friends miss out on great books.

So speaking of friends, welcome back.

- We did it.

We're here again.

- What did you all think of this amazing book, "Finding Margaret Fuller"?

- I really enjoyed it.

It was kind of like "Forrest Gump" thing through, like, all these, like, big, all these, like, major men.

I would see them, I'd be like, "I know this guy.

I know this guy."

And I found myself just really thinking about these moments in time where so many great thinkers sort of organized together and just shift everything, and how those lives can be really long, or in the case of Margaret Fuller, really not as long.

- Not long enough.

- Not long enough.

- Not long enough.

- Not long enough.

- Not long enough.

I loved it.

You all know I love historical fiction.

- Huh?

What?

- I know.

But I also caught myself thinking about even her transport.

Like she was moving so many places, and how hard it was to actually get around?

And how brave she was to go to Italy, to go to England, to go to Europe at that moment, and it just, it was a great read.

I had a lot of fun.

- Yeah, a really great read.

And just to reset, if you haven't read it yet, this book is, it's about Margaret Fuller.

She's a real person, and she was sort of in with all the Transcendentalists.

So Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau, and Poe is a character in the book, which is just so interesting.

I love... - And mean.

- Yeah, so mean to Fuller, Margaret Fuller.

- Yeah.

- So all of these, Nathaniel Hawthorne, these notable writers are characters in this book, and she's interacting with them, and we know all those guys names.

I remember learning about them in ninth grade lit, but I do not remember learning about Margaret Fuller.

And it turns out she was just this amazing trailblazer.

And so this book really tells her story and her contributions, and it's a fascinating read 'cause she has all kinds of good adventures.

- It totally is.

And I will say, from the hop, it reminded me how much I love things that are written in the first person.

It's so intimate.

It's like a one woman show she's having there, the author.

The other thing is, I must say on behalf of my male cohort, is I felt a little flop sweat.

It's just a lot of...

There's just a lot of mansplaining going on, and it is among the great thinkers of the last century, and I'm thinking, you know, it doesn't matter who or when, we've just always been ridiculous.

- And I will say, if you think the dating scene is bad now, it was bad then too.

(everyone laughing) And there's just something very humbling to know even the greatest thinkers of our world can still not communicate well.

- Well, yeah, it is interesting.

And all of these, you know, these powerful men, these big thinkers, they meet Margaret Fuller, and I think that they're sort of shocked by how bright she is.

They're all sort of attracted to her, like, sexy brain.

- You're so articulate.

- And it's like, it's great.

Like I love, yeah, I love that they're interested in her mind, and that's why they really like her, but also like maybe if you would've talked to another woman before, you would've noticed that many of us are clever and have things to say.

- Yeah.

- It was also interesting, I think, the whole essence of money.

Because her father passed away, she had to be a breadwinner for her family too, and yet because she's a woman, no one thinks she deserves a wage in many cases.

And this constant tension, which although it was 200 years ago, women still...

I mean, we've come so far, but have we come far enough?

- I would say no.

- Well, say nothing of the idea that she didn't even get paid for her first two jobs.

I mean, the first two things she was doing... - Infuriating.

- Ah, yeah, I could see.

- Yes.

- Alright, well, listen, (everyone laughing) I gotta get outta this.

There's plenty to discuss with Allison Pataki, she'll be joining us in just a moment, but we wanna invite you to join the "PBS Books Readers Club" too.

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- It is now time to bring in our featured author.

She's the "New York Times" bestselling author of "The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post" and of course, today's feature, "Finding Margaret Fuller."

Allison Pataki, welcome to the "PBS Books Readers Club."

- Thank you so much for having me.

I am thrilled to be here.

And happy March Women's History Month.

- Yes, happy Women's History Month.

This was the perfect book pick for Women's History Month, so we're so happy to feature it.

- So agreed.

So we wanted to start with a question about what inspired you to write this book and why now?

- Absolutely.

So I write historical fiction, "Finding Margaret Fuller" is my 10th book, and what I love doing is digging into the stories of women who have been footnoted or sidelined through history.

Perhaps we know about their eras, we know about their time, but maybe we know the perspectives of the men who were there, and not as much the names or the legacies or impact of the women who were there.

So I was reading this biography, three years ago, called "American Bloomsbury," about this genius cluster that was in Concord, Massachusetts during the 19th century.

And I guarantee we know a lot of the names who were treated in this biography.

There was Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott, Henry David Thoreau, but there was one woman, one character, who leapt off the page for me, Margaret Fuller.

And as I read about her life, as I read about this group of great minds and thinkers who gave us so much of the canon of American literature and culture in the 19th century, I thought, I know about all of these people, but I don't know anything about Margaret Fuller, and to me, she was the most interesting character of them all.

She was who Ralph Waldo Emerson referred to as the radiant genius and fiery heart at the center of this cluster of great characters.

And so I thought, man, the story behind the story here is so good, it is so untold, and I knew that was the story I had to tell was this larger-than-life epic saga of Margaret Fuller.

- Well, not only that, but the Much that always wants More, the best read, the first to, fill in the blank, do you think it was that sidelining you talked about that describes Margaret in a way that maybe she was just never satisfied with how she was moving forward or being accepted?

- Absolutely.

I love that you pulled that out.

The Much that always wanted More was one of the many nicknames that Margaret Fuller got early in life.

She was really this... She never saw a boundary or a barrier, and there were quite a few for women in her age, that she didn't strive to push against and then push through.

Edgar Allan Poe, we can say her frenemy, a rival.

(everyone laughing) There are three categories of humanity.

There are men, women, and there's Margaret Fuller.

She just defied labels and boundaries, and she just kind of was a unique mind and entity under her own.

But as you said, she was the first to, and you can fill in the blank over and over again.

First woman to study at Harvard, first female full-time foreign war correspondent, considered by many to be the founding mother of the American Women's Rights Movement.

So she did huge things, but she was a woman living in a time that was, by and large, a man's world.

And so, in some ways, she was almost like a century ahead of her time.

But thank goodness for us and for humanity, she was when she was because she really dedicated her life's work and her brilliant mind and her prolific energy to asking the questions, raising the arguments, and moving humanity forward, not only for women, but for all people.

She really got her hands dirty in the work of reform and these big questions that were kind of on the minds of this new republic, this new American democracy, that was only, you know, in it's a few decades old.

- Well, it was so interesting to learn about Margaret Fuller.

I also didn't know a lot about her.

But I also thought it was really fun to read about these other notable literary figures as characters in the book.

You've got Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Poe, her frenemy, as you said, Louisa May Alcott.

I'm curious how you determined their personalities and mannerisms.

Was it based on research, fully imagined?

How did you go about creating and developing those characters?

- Such a cast of colorful characters, right?

And we, obviously, we grow up reading these books by these people.

We read "Moby-Dick," we read "The Scarlet Letter" in school and after school.

But what I hadn't known and what I would venture to guess, is the case for many people, is that they were all friends.

They were all living together.

They were flirting together.

They were following... - A lot of flirting happening.

- Not so much learning.

- Or competing with one another.

They were supporting one another.

You had Thoreau living at the top of the stairs in the Emerson House.

- I had no idea about that.

I didn't know.

It was so fascinating.

- He was their hand, Thoreau was the handyman.

And then you had the Alcotts living right next door.

You had the Hawthornes living right up the street.

And so it was this fascinating moment in time and there's that, there's the human drama behind all the great books that we read.

And so for me, they each came to life with their own energy and spirits.

And the primary, there were two huge pieces in that process.

Number one were their own words.

They were prolific letter writers.

They obviously wrote great works of fiction, but they also wrote to one another.

They wrote journals, they wrote reviews.

So that was really how I was able to hear and then imagine their voices.

And then the other huge piece of it was the research of going to Concord, going into the Emerson home, seeing, this is the office where Emerson wrote, where the door right next door was Margaret's bedroom.

Hmm.

That caused some tension in the Emerson house.

This is Emerson didn't always love that fact.

And then you had the rose alcove at the top of the stairs.

You have Orchard House where Louisa May Alcott famously lived.

So going to their world, soaking up as many of the details and contextual pieces of the puzzle, and then really at a certain point in the process, once I've input enough data and the historical facts of the story, really then they sort of become their own characters.

They come to life in my imagination.

And that's when I know I'm ready to begin writing.

Once I start hearing the voices in my head.

(everyone laughing) - Like every good writer.

- That's right.

- Well, I don't think I'm giving away too much here because it happens at the very beginning of the book, chapter one, Ralph Waldo Emerson devastated to learn from Nathaniel Hawthorne that Margaret Fuller's ship has gone down.

First of all, what an open, throughout the book you allude to this, these nightmares she had about drowning.

Were these premonitions something that you documented or did you imagine them and put them into the narrative?

- That was a chilling piece of the research for me.

Margaret had a fear of water her whole life.

That is fact.

Margaret had recurring nightmares from her young childhood of drowning.

And in fact, she had several moments in her life where she had legitimate scares of water when she was traveling on the water.

And so to have her ending come in such a tragic, dramatic way, to have her life cut short in that way, they, and again, as you said, this isn't a spoiler because it's in the beginning, but Margaret's ship wrecked off the coast of New York, Fire Island, a sandbar, the people on the beach could hear their voices.

They were so close to shore.

Many on the ship made it.

It was a hurricane so the water was incredibly rough.

It is just gutting and devastating, not only the human side of it was Margaret's life and her family, but also just to think about the life cut short.

She was 40.

She had been invited to return to America to preside over the convention of the National Women's Rights Movement that would happen that fall in Worcester, Massachusetts.

We can't know, in the tumultuous decade of the 1850s, with the debates over slavery and the abolitionist movement, and the advancement of the Women's Rights Movement, we can only imagine what her voice might have done.

What an impact she might have been able to have.

And that's the tragedies we'll never know.

So stunning sequence of events and a really, really dramatic ending to a very dramatic and full, though too short, life.

- And a dramatic opening to your book.

- Absolutely.

- Yes, for sure.

- Yeah.

It's like just one of those moments in time, like the Library of Alexandria, like what if it had, you know, survived?

Emerson and Margaret's relationship throughout the book is both so engrossing and so frustrating.

- In every sense of the word.

- It's like time is a flat circle when it comes to dating.

But what made it something that you wanted to keep exploring and return to even as we spent time in the other relationships in Margaret's life?

- Absolutely.

So for many, for a moment in his time, for this really intense period of his time, Emerson saw Margaret Fuller as his muse.

And this book really begins with Margaret arriving to Concord, after the prologue, but chapter one arrives with Margaret, or begins with Margaret arriving at Mr. Emerson's doorstep to answer the invitation.

And really this is a turning point in her life because this is when Margaret finally plugs into a world and a group of colleagues and contemporaries where she has met her intellectual equals.

And when Emerson and Margaret Fuller met, it was this instant connection.

And they thought of it as a connection, kind of in every sense of the word, a mental connection.

There were obviously physical pieces to their chemistry, which I won't spoil, we'll let readers get into that, and also a meeting of their souls.

In some ways they, you know, they were Transcendentalists, they were looking for these rapturous out of body experiences.

They were very in touch with their souls and these spiritual elements of who they were.

I think, as you can see in the book, many of the men were very intrigued by Margaret.

You know, Hawthorne based Hester Prynne off of her.

And when Sophia Hawthorne, the wife of Nathaniel Hawthorne, read her husband's first completed draft of "The Scarlet Letter," she took to bed for the rest of the day with a headache because she knew the book wasn't about her.

It was about the brazen, bold woman- - I did not know that.

- You know, Margaret sparked an international scandal.

You know, the inspiration for "The Scarlet Letter," taking a lover, having a child all out of wedlock.

Margaret was this colorful, bold, brazen, kind of scandalous, kind of dangerous character as was Hester Prynne, and so I think all the men were very intrigued by her.

- Well, listen, I'm sort of taking the position on this panel, which is a touch uncomfortable, I will say though, there was no end to men telling her how smart she was.

She didn't wanna be a muse, but as you mentioned, part of your research was advantaged by the idea of letters and just in conversation, without internet, in conversation, was the way people moved, thought forward, and it seemed as though that plays advantage into your chronicling in this book.

- Exactly.

When Margaret would go away for stints, you know, she always had to work, she always had to provide for herself, that was also something that was different for her life than many of the men there who were living off of family funds or inherited funds from various sources.

Margaret always had to provide for herself and her family.

So when she would come back to Concord for these stays with Emerson, she referred to it as she would enter into a paradise of thought.

She would enter into a place where she could spar and debate and think, and as you said, engage in the rigor of thought and debate and study.

And yes, she was a prolific letter writer.

When you read about her days and her daily schedule, she would wake up before dawn, she would write, she would usually often have to travel, often through cold New England weather, to work, whether she was teaching or serving as a governess or whatnot, and then she would come back and she would write some more.

So there is a lot of the written record where you can see.

And you can see her letters, what she thought about her moments with Emerson, the Alcotts, Hawthorne.

And so I was really able to get a sense of her voice, her tone, kind of the color of her life.

And, yes, thank goodness it wasn't all lost like a text message or the internet.

It's there and it's really beautiful.

And it's not probably what a reader in 2024 is looking to read.

So I wanted to make it, you know, written in a style that felt authentic and credible, but also it's a novel that's being read in 2024.

So I was able to take pieces of that and then hopefully write an immersive story based on that.

- Very immersive, no doubt about that.

Going back to these sad wives.

(everyone laughing) From the, you know, from the beginning, we see that Margaret is put on a pedestal by men but then looked at with suspicion by other women, especially the married one.

So I was kind of wondering, as you're crafting the narrative, how that struggle of Margaret to connect with other women is also a big part of her, you know, journey and that emptiness.

'Cause I know, me, I'm a girl's girl.

I like hanging out with my girlfriends, and I think having the absence of girlfriends is so sad for her.

- Yes, absolutely.

And what's also sad or ironic is I would say Margaret is also a girl's girl.

But she was educated like a man.

And she thought like a man.

And her father, from the earliest days, had said, "I'm gonna raise you basically like a man."

And she was speaking, you know, fluent Greek and Latin at the age of five and slacking, getting in trouble from her dad by reading that tawdry riffraff Shakespeare, you know, at the age of five.

It wasn't high enough level reading for her.

So I think that probably made it hard for her to relate to most men as well.

She just sort of existed on a plane largely unto herself.

But where you see her being a girl's girl is when there's this moment in time where she moves to Boston and she decides to start a course for women, a series of conversations.

And it's at that time she has students like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mary Greeley, kind of the creme de la creme of New England High Society.

These were women who, by the standards of that day, had every opportunity.

They were from families that could afford to educate them.

But what was their education?

Their education was sewing and dance, some foreign languages.

But really what they were being prepared for was to come out as debutantes and then become society brides.

And Margaret said, "No way.

Women have brains, every bit as capable and powerful as that of their male counterparts, but the problem is they have no access to education."

And so she could have started like a salon where she had been the speaker, where she had sort of held court, which was the more common model at the time, but she said, "No, I don't wanna be the speaker.

I know how to debate.

I know how to come to a point and then argue that point.

I want these other women to learn how to do the same.

I want these women to know that it's okay to disagree with one another and have different opinions and defend their opinions."

And so Margaret, what I saw was her constantly trying to move the ball forward for women.

And then when you see certain women in her life that cross her path like an Eliza Peabody, or an Elizabeth Barrett Browning, or a George Sand, and you see these women who are sort of her intellectual equals, who have the same sort of powerful life force, you see how quick that connection and that friendship can be.

But not surprisingly, more often than not, she was professionally and personally more on the level of the men who were around her just because of the way she was working and thinking and speaking and writing.

- Well she was, I mean, she was like the OG independent woman, right?

She's incredibly intelligent, talented.

She's also, like you mentioned, trying to earn money to support her mother.

And as she moves from her late twenties into her thirties, she's unmarried, which we know is not, (everyone laughing) which we know not, typical for now process, but not so typical for her time period.

In your research, did you learn anything about her feelings towards marriage?

She seems a little bit conflicted about the whole idea in the book.

- Yes.

She was absolutely conflicted because, number one, she felt that marriage should be a meeting of the souls and a bonding of the souls.

It should only be entered into as an institution and a contract on the basis of true love and equality and connection.

That was not often the case in her time.

Oftentimes, marriages, particularly in the upper crust of society where she was, her family was, they were sort of alliances.

It was a woman's career step, if you will, at that time to become a society bride and to become, then, the wife.

Margaret took issue with that, and she took issue with the fact that once a woman did become a wife, so much of her autonomy and her personal power, her wealth, her property, even her thoughts became the possession of the husband.

Margaret did not agree with that, did not support that, did not want that for herself, did not want that for other women.

So Margaret always said she would only enter into marriage if it was a true meeting of the souls and an equal, contractual, you know, relationship as opposed to some sort of agreement or arrangement.

But you see all along those conflicted thoughts where she sees these marriages all around her, she sees children.

She always wrote very, very vociferously about how much she loved children.

She loved Ralph Waldo Emerson's son, she loved the Greeley's son, she loved the Hawthorne's children, she wanted motherhood for herself.

But she wasn't going to do it unless it was on terms that she could be absolutely comfortable and confident in.

And so we ultimately see how that unfolds.

And it's an interesting chapter in Margaret's life.

Margaret was surprised by what motherhood and marriage meant for her.

You know, her great mind hadn't anticipated some of the developments that happened in her life.

And so it's interesting to watch her grow in that way.

- Well, I think marriage in that way is always interesting to watch how it grows.

And it's funny because I recall that within your book, you talk about stagnation, or Margaret talks about stagnation as one of her fears, and I was like, "Well, maybe that's one of the reasons why she's afraid to marry the wrong person."

- Exactly.

- Because you find that, right?

We wanted to ask you and think about a little bit, what surprised you?

What did you discover about Margaret's life that really you were taken aback by?

And, you know, also was there someone you maybe excluded from the book and why?

- Great questions.

So, initially, what surprised me right off the bat was just that Margaret's life was what it was.

That she had existed.

Because I felt like I was somewhat familiar with the life story of Thoreau, Emerson.

You know, I'm a dork.

I'd gone to Concord, I'd done the Orchard House tour, I'd done, you know, the deep dive of the historical walks of Concord.

But I hadn't known that there was this woman sort of hiding in plain sight in all that rich story.

And so, first, just discovering her, and then discovering the backstory of how interwoven all of these individuals were in their life, in their work.

Louisa May Alcott, when she writes "Little Women," and it's about four sisters, as was somewhat autobiographical, she grew up in a family of four sisters, she changed the name of the eldest daughter from Anna to Margaret as a nod to her mentor, Margaret Fuller.

So that really surprised me.

- I know that.

- The... Yeah.

- I didn't know that.

- That was such a fun book fact.

I love that.

- I know that.

- I have three daughters, I read "Little Women," like I felt like I knew this stuff and yet I was uncovering these little kernels, like the Poe quote about Margaret being her own category of humanity, the friendships she struck up with George Sand and Frederic Chopin and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

All of these things really surprised me.

Did I leave anyone out?

I don't think I left anyone out, but what I would say is I could have dwelt longer with some of these characters.

Margaret goes in England and has this wonderful little aside with Wordsworth, the poet laureate of England.

I could have happily stayed there for longer.

You know, have I had thousands of pages, I could have happily stayed with Margaret in Paris for longer and explored George Sand because they had more meetings.

I was only able to write about the one.

Same with Elizabeth Barrett Browning, same with some of the New York City literati.

I mentioned while she's at an event and she's getting into it with Poe, that Walt Whitman is sitting on the other side of the room.

- Yes.

(everyone laughing) - I probably gone into that longer.

So I would've loved to tease out some of the...

But there were so many characters making cameos, I sort of had to pick and choose.

That's what... Had my editor allowed it to be a thousand pages, I could have gone deeper into some of those cameos.

- Come on, editor.

- Right.

- Give us it all.

We want it all.

- Like the second part of "The Gilded Age" mini series.

Well, this is so fascinating, but, like, you mentioned Louisa May Alcott, which will be familiar to most of our viewers, and the early focus on her father, Bronson, for me, really highlighted this parallel between her and Margaret as two daughters of very well-meaning intellectual men but still fail their daughters in sort of preparing them for life outside of intellectualism.

So I was just wondering, what are some of the parallels you found between them, especially as someone being more familiar with Alcott coming into it.

What was that like?

- Yes.

Great question.

Alcott, I will actually say, to go back to your previous question, when stuff gets really weird with Bronson Alcott sort of at the end of her time at his school, I actually had to take out some of that as well, it got even weirder.

But my editor said, Alcott's sort of running away with this a bit, and I'll go off of weird tangent.

This isn't a book about Bronson Alcott and all of his life of fancy.

Yes.

So Margaret's father was, in her own words, exacting, severe, sort of unrelenting, because he recognized this genius he had, and then he tried to mold her brain into this highly functioning machine, almost.

And he wanted her to have the education of a boy, and then I think he went even further.

And, you know, she spoke how, as a child, she had crippling anxiety, she had insomnia.

She could not turn it off at the end of the day.

Almost like he was a drill sergeant, and he was just working her brain too hard.

Alcott is a little bit different because Alcott had these great philosophies of this new Transcendentalist movement.

Alcott wanted to educate girls, he wanted to educate Black, White, Native American, he wanted to sort of think about human rights and the right to education in a much more open, inclusive way.

And so he had these wonderful things about him and yet he had these other things about him that were so incredibly frustrating and just, you know, he didn't think he had to pay Margaret.

He didn't understand why she needed her salary.

He had all these lofty, aspirational, idealistic views, but no practicality, no ability to function in the real world.

Emerson was constantly paying his bills and having to bail him out.

He had to leave town on multiple occasions 'cause he got himself and his family into so much trouble.

So I can imagine it would've been very stressful and difficult to be his daughter.

I think Louisa May, when you read her biographies and you study her life, she always had much more of the practicality of being able to just survive and function, probably in large part from her mother, Abba Alcott, who we have, you know, we know pieces of that from Marmee, who I think Susan Sarandon just played.

And Laura Dern.

You know, so many great Marmees.

But I think Louisa May Alcott, fortunately, wasn't all her father's, you know, dreamer in the clouds, but, you know, had the brilliance but also she really supported and provided for her family throughout much of her adult life.

So they were different.

They both wanted to educate women and girls, and we can applaud that.

But Bronson, in particular, is kind of a controversial figure because what I discovered in my research is people almost sort of love him or hate him.

Like one or the other.

And Margaret was not, in the end, the hugest fan.

She could coexist with him, she could see what, you know, she could appreciate certain things about him.

So I sort of took Margaret's line on things because I'm writing from her perspective, but Emerson was a great friend to him his whole life, and, you know, he certainly had some revolutionary ways of thinking, which were good ways to be following down the road.

- Well, and of course stripping away all of the things that are just ridiculous about men, I think they were sort of- - It's okay, it's okay.

- they were definitely on the same page in the sense that Margaret's father was maybe a generation sooner than Bronson, but what I would also say is the Alcotts were a hot mess.

- They were a hot mess.

That is a good way of putting it.

And, you know, I put them into Orchard House several years earlier than they were in Orchard House because, to your point exactly, they were a hot mess, and they were moving around all over, wherever Emerson could find them a rental, wherever they weren't getting kicked out of for not paying the rent.

So I put them in Orchard House earlier just because I know readers know and love Orchard House, and I'm writing fiction, so I get to fudge that date, and I wanted to give them that sort of iconic piece of their time in Concord, that was their happiest home.

But, yeah, they were all over the place.

They had to flee at times because of creditors or critics.

And that's all true what happens at Alcott school, when Margaret gets entangled with this huge, hot mess.

- Speaking of Margaret Fuller's women's conversations, which were very popular and may have been, in some ways, a catalyst for the larger Women's Rights Movement, I wonder about the historical fiction versus fact and imagined, and could you talk a little bit about the cost?

Because I thought, wow, that was a lot of money back then.

The participants were, you know, how did you, did you construct who came or you had a record?

And then just what about the topics?

I mean, it was intriguing to me just as like reading from, you know, really, did she ask those questions?

Did she really push people to think?

Can you talk a little bit about that?

- So the scenes from the conversations are all taken directly from the history.

I find, with the raw material of Margaret Fuller's life, the stuff is so good, I just don't have to make it up.

The topics are exactly what she covered.

She wanted to teach women the things that men grow up learning.

She wanted them to know about the Roman gods, the Greek gods.

She wanted them to debate philosophy.

She wanted them to debate on concepts like free will and character.

So that was all true.

Margaret was living in a time when women could not be paid for public speaking, although men could be paid for public speaking.

And so Margaret said, "This is not going to be a lecture, this is not going to be a speech.

It's going to be a series of conversations, almost like a class," which was exactly what Ralph Waldo Emerson was doing.

So as I say in the book, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller decide to team up and do it back to back so that the husbands can go to Emerson's class and Margaret Fuller can host the wives and the daughters and the well-educated ladies of the group.

And truly, it filled up, she had a wait list, she had to do multiple series.

- Wow.

- The women who I mentioned coming, you know, the Quincy's, the Adams, the Greeley, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, that's directly from the history.

Those were the women who enrolled in her classes and asked her to continue on and carry on more classes.

She, of course, had to charge less than men because it was, that was the time in which she lived.

But she did, as you said, charge a pretty sum for her time because what she was saying is, "First of all, these women can afford it.

It's about the same amount as what they would pay on a pair of gloves.

And I want these women to know that their brains are an investment worth making."

And so, you know, charge what you're offering.

She was offering a wonderful thing for women, they should pay for it.

And so one piece of that that was fictionalized was I molded or sort of folded all of the pushback and criticism into one character who was (faintly speaking) very about it.

And you'll see, you know, as you read, just that one person embodying or speaking the cynicism or skepticism that many at the time would have felt.

That Margaret was asking women to disagree with their husbands or, you know, not rush in to be the gentler sex that nurtured and reassured the men that it was okay, you know, that they were allowed to have their own opinions and speak up for themselves.

And so there was obviously pushback then, there's pushback now, so I rolled all of that into sort of one lightning rod character so we can just see what Margaret was up against.

- She was up against a lot.

- Yeah, a lot.

- Always, always.

And I don't think she minded it.

- No, she, yeah- - She don't?

no, she was a, I hate the word spitfire, but she kind of was.

- I know.

- I have to admit, if I learned about Margaret Fuller in school, I've long since forgotten about it, but I don't think that she was part of the Transcendentalist Movement unit in ninth grade lit.

- She was not.

- I think I know the answer to this, but do you think that Margaret Fuller should be given equal credit to Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, the other notable figures of her time, and if so, why isn't she?

- Great question.

So, who was Ralph Waldo Emerson's first choice for his first editor of his Transcendentalist journal, "The Dial," "The Dial" press, "The Dial" magazine, it was Margaret Fuller.

- Right.

- Margaret Fuller was like the founding mother of the Transcendentalist Movement.

Margaret Fuller was there taking the walks with Thoreau as he was exploring Walden Pond, and taking the walks with Waldo as he was debating these groundbreaking ideas like self-reliance.

I think that she...

I think her legacy is not as well known as the others for a few reasons.

Number one, she was a woman, and so already she was up against, you know, very serious headwinds.

Number two, she died so young, her life was cut short, and her writing, a lot of her writing was lost.

And a lot of her thinking and leadership was also verbal.

She was a speaker.

She had these conversations, but she was not writing and publishing, let's say, essays the way Ralph Waldo Emerson was because he was traveling the country giving speeches and getting paid for them and then writing them down as essays and getting them published.

Margaret just didn't have those options or those opportunities.

Another piece to it is that Margaret left.

She left Concord.

She said Concord is lacking in discord.

And as she evolved and grew and accepted Greeley's invitation to go work in journalism in New York City, accepted the invitation to sail alone to Europe and live as a woman alone in Rome, she left a lot of the Transcendentalist world and philosophy behind.

She wanted to get her hands dirty.

It wasn't just going to be philosophy and poetry for her.

She wanted to write on and report and visit and cover the prisons.

They were known, at her time, the insane asylums.

She wanted to talk to prostitutes and tell their stories.

She wanted to cover the writings of Frederick Douglass.

So Margaret didn't want simply the walks in the woods and the poetry that was happening in Concord.

When you go to Concord today and you visit Author's Ridge in the cemetery, they're all buried side by side.

And, you know, Emerson and Thoreau, for all of eternity, they're resting together as they did in life.

And I got the sense as I was there walking and visiting the headstones, I thought, the gang is all here except Margaret.

And that was the sense I got, time and again, in life as well.

She was part of the clique, she could think like them, she could, you know, she could hang with them, but she was always a bit of an outsider.

And, again, part of that, I think, comes back to the fact that she was a woman and she wasn't living on some inherited trust fund or money.

She had to work, she wanted to work.

And so her life just took on more color and I think had to expand.

And she wanted to expand and grow and evolve and sort of move locations and continue.

What she always said was she was seeking fresh soil to continue to grow and evolve.

And so in some ways you see her leave the Transcendentalists behind.

And so I think that's a huge piece of it as well.

- Yeah.

I mean, that's kind of the downside of being a muse is that like you are elevated to this inhuman status that seems like, you know, prestige, but really it takes away from what you actually do need as a person to survive, and I think that's such a good point.

I think it's so fascinating talking to you and hearing you illuminate all this information.

What do you want readers to walk away with as their image of Fuller as a woman, as a feminist, as an activist, what do you want us to all see of her by reading this book?

- I would love it if readers encounter and experience this journey alongside Margaret Fuller and come away from it feeling inspired to see the way Margaret applied her brilliance and her energy into making the world a better place for so many.

The way she was an advocate, the way she spoke up and spoke out.

What I love, one of the things I love so much about historical fiction is I think it has an opportunity, and what I love as a reader of historical fiction is we can be educated as we're reading the history but also entertained.

And hopefully that creates an experience where the reader wants to comes away wanting to know more and wanting to learn more about this incredible life.

For her name to be well known, for her to take her rightful spot, center stage, as the leading lady of her own life, not just the supporting character or this footnote when we discuss the Women's Rights Movement, or when we discuss Transcendentalism or American literature, or, you know, the salons she hosted, or her studying at Harvard, the books she put out.

I would like people to know her name because I believe that everybody should know her name.

And we should know that here was a woman who was so far ahead of her time and really took the first steps that so many people could then follow and then continue to move forward, really carrying the banner that she started to carry in so many ways.

- This book, in so many ways, brings such an important story to the forefront.

If you could do a little bit of self-reflection with us and think about what characteristics you have that are like Margaret, because, obviously, even by writing these books, these historical fiction books, you are bringing, and it's Women's History Month, women to the forefront for us to be able to learn about, so... - Oh my goodness.

Oh my goodness.

Okay, that is a really humbling question because Margaret was here.

I was not reading Shakespeare at the age of five.

I was not even reading at the age of five.

I'm not even going to pretend to enter into her plane of thought.

And the other ironic thing is, she was the first woman to study at Harvard, I'm a very proud Yale alum, so I know... (Princess faintly speaking) But I would say, as a mother, as a friend, as a writer, as a human, I am grateful to Margaret and love, and would like to espouse this idea that there should not be anything that a woman looks at and thinks, "I can't do that.

That's only for the boys."

I, you know, Margaret said, there's no such thing as a women's job and a men's job, a woman's feeling and a man's feeling, 'cause that was such a convention of the time.

She said, "Let them be sea captains if that be their calling."

You know, talking about women should be able to pursue their passion because that is what they are meant to do.

I would hope that I would speak similarly, that I would make that apparent to my daughters, to my readers, to anybody with whom I come into contact.

I would hope that we could all carry forward that philosophy that you are here on this world with a particular set of gifts, passions, talents, you must pursue those.

That is sacred.

Your rights as an individual to learn, to grow, to think, to speak, Margaret would say that that is your unique, you know, purpose in life, and I would hope that my life would also testify to that fact.

- That was a great question and a great answer.

Listen, I could talk about this book all day, but I'm also curious to just learn about more about you and your process as a writer.

From the original idea to the research, do you do an outline or you just get in there and start writing?

Tell us a little bit about how your novels come to be.

- Absolutely.

So every single time, it's truly a different process.

It's a totally organic experience each time.

But what I would say is I write stories about forgotten or lesser known women from history.

And each time, I know when I've met my next woman.

I know when I've met the subject of my next book.

I tell my husband, I've been bitten, and the story woman just gets her hooks in me, and I'm obsessed, and it's a compulsion.

I'm thinking about her, I'm ravenous to know as much as I can about her, whether it's Empress Sisi, or Marjorie Post, or now Margaret Fuller.

And so the process begins with sort of this moment of how come I don't know more about this woman?

I need to learn more about this woman, and I need to write about this woman.

And from there, really then it's research.

And that's different for every book.

Depending on where the woman lived, when the woman lived, what is available.

But it's really about just ingesting as much raw material as I can.

And the history, and the dates, and the real life events, the real life individuals, that is all going to form the bones of my story.

Once I have taken in as much as I can take in, and once I've gone to the places, I've read the, you know, nonfiction sources, then it's all kind of swirling in my brain and my imagination, and the woman comes to life.

And really that's when I said, that's when I begin to hear her, that's when the historical figure sort of morphs and evolves into this imagined figure who begins to walk and talk and sort of lead me forward.

And I know that's when I'm ready to begin the writing process.

And so I've got the history as my bones, and that's when I really begin to go in and put on the flesh.

So like for an example, Margaret is staying in the Emerson home.

We know that there... We know from the history that this is true, that there's this deliciously awkward family dinner where Emerson's wife, Lidian, asks Margaret if she'll walk with her after the meal, and Margaret says, "I'm terribly sorry, but I already agreed to walk with your husband after the meal," and... (crackling drowns out speaker) You know, we know from their writings and from the history that that happened.

What I then get to do as the writer is put the reader into the scene to experience how it might have looked, what it might have felt like, and to just be the eye witness to these historical moments.

And so as someone who just loves history, and relishes this, and could eat this up, that's what I love about writing is that we then get to create these scenes, inhabit them, imagine them.

And so then obviously, of course, as I'm going, I'm continuing to research on the spot as I go.

You know, what were they eating?

What would they have maybe been eating in the mid 19th century at a meal at this time of the year?

So I'm sort of spot checking with my research as I go.

But there's always a huge push of research upfront, and then an input of data at which point it all begins to swirl, and then I know I'm ready to write.

And really, with a book like Margaret Fuller, with a character like Margaret Fuller, I have no need to veer from the history.

I have no need to make stuff up.

The raw material is just that good.

I'd be crazy to not use it.

And so, so that's where, you know, I really...

I just love it.

It's like I get to play make believe and hopefully give readers a satisfying experience, - A satisfying experience, a world of make-believe, I think accented, at least for me, by the idea of writing it, embodying it in the first person.

And to me that just grabs you right off the hop.

What are the advantages?

I mean, I guess I know the advantages.

It's fantastic.

What a challenge is writing in that style?

- And, you know, that's, I've only done that a few times.

I did it with Margaret Fuller and I did it with Marjorie Post.

And really it was a function of, that's just how the story came to me.

I think it was because I had the opportunity to read so much of her original language, her memories of childhood, her experiences with these people in these places, in these moments, that it came to me with this urgency and this immediacy.

And so I knew I wanted to write it in first person.

And I wrote it in the present tense, which was also new for me because it was, that was just how immediate it felt to me.

I really felt like I had access, you know, to this character.

So I did it.

I put the reader as close as we could possibly get through doing that.

So really, it's different every time.

Each character comes to me in a different way.

The challenge, honestly, one of the like technical challenges is to just remember what I'm doing.

Like I'll write a chapter and be like, "Oh, I wrote this in the past tense, but I wrote that one in the..." Keeping it all together.

But really it felt natural to do it that way.

And so it didn't feel like a friction or a challenge.

I was getting the story in that way and so I went with it.

- So, Allison, I know our time together is almost over, but we did wanna get to know you just a little bit better.

I think we're all interested to just know your story.

How did you become a writer?

What was it like to first hit the "New York Times" bestseller list?

Essentially, how did Allison Pataki become Allison Pataki?

- Oh yeah.

Oh my goodness.

So I have always loved stories.

I've always loved knowing other people's stories, and I've always loved making up stories.

When I was a kid, I would just wander off by myself.

I'm the third of four, so nobody was really looking for me.

(everyone laughing) (crackling drowns out speaker) I grew up in the woods in upstate New York, and I just have these memories of just walking around by myself outside or inside and just making up stories in my head.

And still to this day, I can't go to sleep at night without being lost in a story in my head.

For some reason, that's just where my brain goes.

I've also really, really loved history.

I grew up in the Hudson Valley, and I had the fortune as a child growing up here to be surrounded by history.

This is, you know, the area of the country that George Washington called the key to the continent.

This is area steeped in revolutionary war history and beyond.

So I think that that always really fueled my imagination.

This just sort of rich availability of colorful history.

History was never boring to me.

I don't understand when people think history is boring.

I think that's probably a flaw in the telling of the history.

But so I...

When I was studying in school, in college, I didn't know whether I wanted to pursue English or history because I love both.

And so I thought journalism is probably the perfect blending of the two.

I get to inquire about people, ask their stories, learn from, you know, the events that are unfolding, and then I get to write.

And so my first jobs out of school were in journalism.

My very first job out of school is I went to ABC News, and I was a production assistant there, writing.

But, as you know, writing for journalism is very different than writing, you know, a 300-page fiction novel.

And I quickly discovered after several years that journalism writing was not what I wanted to be doing.

And I realized that, hey, if I'm running home from my shift in the newsroom and I'm taking my nights or my weekends or my vacations and I'm writing fiction on the side as this like dirty little secret side hustle, (everyone laughing) a little bit too insecure as with my imposter syndrome to actually tell people I'm doing, but that, hey, I've got like three finished novels sitting here on my computer- - Oh gosh, that's amazing.

- The dream.

- I'm in the wrong line of work.

I was so unhappy in the newsroom just 'cause it wasn't the right fit, but I was so happy when I was working on these other stories.

And so for me, the huge watershed moment was when I got a literary agent.

So I queried agents, I sent out drafts of what I had, and I got so many rejections, and I finally got one literary agent who was willing to take a chance on this, you know, person who'd never actually written a book before.

She was a new literary agent, Lacy, my agent, building up her own business.

We were about the same age, we were both at the starting line in our careers, and we sort of had the blissful optimism of the innocence together.

And we teamed up, and she's just amazing.

My career is possible because of her, because of the way she has shepherded me and partnered with me.

My first novel that I published was not the first novel I wrote.

As I said, I had these other books sitting on my computer.

Horrible, didn't get taken, but they are all a part of the process, and a part of putting in the hours, and learning what I was doing, and refining what I was doing.

And so my first novel was "The Traitor's Wife."

It's a story of Benedict Arnold's wife, Peggy Shippen, actually inspired by my local history in Hudson Valley and the plot to turn West Point over to the British, which would've ended the American Revolution.

I knew who Benedict Arnold was.

I knew who George Washington was.

I knew who Alexander Hamilton was.

I knew all the male figures and stories from the history.

I had no idea that Benedict Arnold's wife was this fascinating character at the center of it all.

So I told that story first.

That was historical fiction about a woman from history.

That was my first novel.

And at the time, I can't tell you how many times I heard, you know, the Revolutionary War does not sell unless you're David McCullough and you're writing- - Yeah.

- (faintly speaking) Adams.

But Martha Washington is not sexy.

Abigail Adams is not sexy.

- (faintly speaking) I'm telling you.

- Peggy Shippen, she is, yeah, she is sexy.

- Peggy and Arnold is sexy, John Andre is sexy, this treasonous plot.

I said, I was like, it's such Shakespearean.

It has all the human vices and virtues.

And so I believed in it, and I sort of beat the drum loud enough to get a few other people to believe in it too, and "The Traitor's Wife" came out, and I was just, I... You said, how did I feel?

I felt the adage, if you do what you love, you never work a day in your life.

I felt like, how is this my job?

I just, I love that I get to do this and I get to call it my job.

I love sitting down to my computer.

I love making things up in my head and then trying to find a way to write them down in a way that will be compelling to readers.

And I, you know, 10 books in 10 years, I'm clearly a little bit obsessed, so, (faintly speaking).

- (indistinct) is it?

- That productivity, please give us your secret.

- Yeah, for sure.

- Copy.

- Coffee And like Margaret, I'm a morning person.

I'm an early riser, and honestly, I have felt like having my children has forced me to be more productive because my time is so much more squeezed.

- I can relate, I can relate to that.

- If I have my time, I've gotta sit down, and I've gotta make it count.

- All right, Allison, we love to end our "PBS Books Readers Club" conversations with a bit of a lightning round, if you are up for that?

- Absolutely.

- All right, question one, did you always know that you were a writer?

- Yes and no.

Yes, I knew I loved stories, but no, I did not realize it was through writing fiction.

- What's your ideal writing setup?

Are you a morning person, night owl?

Do you like to work in an office, a coffee shop, or do you mix it up?

- It's so good.

Morning person, 100%.

My brain is pretty worthless after 3:00 PM Eastern.

Get up, get the coffee going, while the coffee's pumping through the veins, sit down and be productive, that's my way.

I like to work at home in my office because I like to control the music, I like to control the playlist.

I like classical music where there are no lyrics, 'cause if there are lyrics, I get distracted.

I like to have easy access to tea refills, water refills, coffee.

I like to control the temperature if my feet are getting cold from sitting still too long.

- Same.

- So coffee shops, for all those reasons, don't really work for me if I'm doing the deep creative thinking.

If it's something a little lighter, then I can have that outside noise and distraction.

But usually, morning, classical music on, cup of coffee or hot tea; otherwise, quiet and in the zone.

- Perfect.

It's like we're almost twin flames, except I'm a night person.

(Allison laughing) Book e-reader or audio book?

- Hard copy all the way.

I have so much of my life on a screen or a phone or whatnot.

I don't want my books on screens.

I wanna touch them, I wanna fold them, I wanna smell them.

I love the smell of a good book.

But I also love audio books for if I'm driving or if I'm doing chores around the house, that's another great way.

But if it's a really deep, meaty, fictional experience, I wanna read it.

Audio books are more, for me, like nonfiction, something that I'm consuming almost like news, or something that I'm not gonna need to just like bask in the beauty of the language.

I wanna do that visually and tactilely.

- Yeah.

- So personally, I think that "Finding Margaret Fuller" would make an amazing movie.

I'm trying to imagine who would play Margaret Fuller.

That's, I don't know if you have ideas.

Yeah.

- I have an idea.

- Yeah.

If you at home have ideas, I wanna know what do you think, who should play Margaret Fuller in a movie?

But anyway, I think you'd have to be a pretty accomplished filmmaker to do it proper justice.

In your opinion, Allison, has there ever been a movie that was better than the book?

- Such a good question.

Okay.

I love Tolkien, and I thought that the Peter Jackson trilogy did it justice.

I won't say it's better, but it was worthy.

And that is saying a lot, I think, because I hold those books to a high regard.

And then what... Again, not better, but the "Atonement" film, which we were talking earlier.

- Yeah.

We were referencing, we think that the dress on the cover of your book, it reminds us of that beautiful dress that Keira Knightley wears in "Atonement."

That was a good movie.

♪ Keira Knightley ♪ Keira Knightley - As good.

I wouldn't say better, but I just love that book.

It was so beautiful.

But so I would say as good.

"The Notebook."

I thought that the chemistry between Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling so embodied this character so great.

- (faintly speaking) Ryan Gosling.

- Ryan Gosling just makes anything better.

So maybe I'll say that because... - Okay.

Okay.

- He's just 10, you know?

- I feel like 10.

(everyone laughing) - Well, I would say James Garner makes everything better too, so he was in that film.

Alright.

Favorite book, Allison, from your childhood?

- Oh.

I would say it is a tie.

Can I give a three-way tie?

- Sure.

- Sure.

- If we're going to younger, "The Velveteen Rabbit."

- Aww... - I seen that book.

I just read it again without weeping.

And then as I got a little bit older, I fell in love with "Anne of Green Gables."

- Oh!

- Yes!

- It's your favorite, right?

- That's my favorite.

- That's one of my favorites too.

- And then I have to say, because it appeals to children of all ages, and I still love it, and I'm reading it now with my kids, but I read it, you know, I've read it many, many times, the "Harry Potter" books, I would say, you know.

I didn't read them as a child per se, but they spoke to my inner child as I read them, and now I'm reading them with my children.

- I've reread those a few times too.

I was a Harry Potter nerd as a little youngling.

- What's the best writing advice that you've ever received?

- The best writing advice I've ever received.

Right before I hit send on my final draft for "The Traitor's Wife", my first book, I told my agent I was having a really hard time releasing it, and releasing control, and knowing that it was out of my hands and going out into the world.

And Lacy said, "Well, it's not perfect.

But guess what?

It's never going to be perfect.

There is no such thing as... You could read that a hundred more times and continue to change it.

And maybe some of those changes would be improvements and maybe some of them wouldn't.

At a certain point, we take the leap as artists and we release control.

And we release our book out into the world, and it's like a baby, it goes out and it has its own relationships and its own interactions.

And that's really a beautiful thing, but it's also a frightening thing.

And so I would just say your first draft isn't going to be perfect, your 10th draft isn't going to be perfect, but you do it.

You write, you put the pen to paper, you put in the hours, and you give it your heart and soul, because if you feel this drive inside of yourself to create, then that is sacred and that is powerful.

And that is something to be honored and acted upon."

- That's beautiful.

- Yeah.

- It is.

- It's so good.

Your favorite book that you read in the last year?

Or books.

- I'll go with two.

I really loved "Remarkably Bright Creatures" by Shelby Van Pelt because I just thought it was so original and witting and charming, and I never knew that I would love an octopus as a character so much.

But it was just such a unique book.

And I love the characters becaus they were all so flawed and fractured, but also so compelling and so relatable.

And you just really, they really come to life for you, including the fish and the octopus.

And then the other one I really love is "Everything Happens For A Reason And Other Lies I've Loved" by Kate Bowler.

I just think living as a human in a messy world, it was a really valuable message to hear.

And just, I think her writing is very poignant and heartfelt and moving.

- So Margaret has a lot of love interest, a lot of paramours going on throughout the book.

If you had to choose yourself, personally, between Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne, or we'll even throw Poe in there for a little bit of enemies to lover- - Oh my God!

(faintly speaking).

(everyone laughing) - Which gets the flower, which gets the rose?

- You don't know?

My favorite.

I always just had such a soft spot for Thoreau.

I would just go live in a cabin in the woods listening to the loons on Walden Pond.

He was so sweet.

He literally made those leather shoes for Lidian's chickens so that they wouldn't carve up the grass and the vegetable beds, as I said in the book.

He was so thoughtful and quirky and such a wild woodsman.

I think I'd go Thoreau.

- I think that's Thoreau.

That's a good choice.

Good answer, right?

- That's the right answer.

- Go Thoreau!

Go Thoreau.

(everyone laughing) - Finally, Allison, is there anything that you'd like to say to your readers?

- Thank you.

Thank you for being on this journey with me.

Thank you for being willing to read what I write so that I can continue to write.

I love and appreciate every single one of you.

I know, as a reader myself, it's no small thing to pick up a book and invest your money and your time, hours of your life.

When you give that to an author, it's an incredibly meaningful, generous thing.

And so I am just beyond grateful every single day of my life that people are willing to read my books.

And as long as you keep reading them, I'll keep writing them, so thank you.

And I also really love hearing from readers.

I love hearing from them on social media or through my website.

I love connecting.

As a reader myself, I think there's nothing cooler than connecting with an author that I love after a book that I've really enjoyed, so.

I love book clubs.

I love just hearing from people, and I hope to hear from readers with "Finding Margaret Fuller" too.

- Well, it has been a delight hearing from you, Allison Pataki.

Thanks so much for joining us.

We are grateful for the time.

- Thank you for having me.

Happy March.

- Happy March.

Oh, so good.

- Happy March.

- Well she is delightful.

- So cute.

I loved hearing everything she had to say.

You can tell that she really loved the subject, the research.

It was perfect.

- I loved hearing about her creative process, and how she really gets into the character, and how she does research and research, and then she knows, like the character speaks to her.

- Yeah - She can hear the voice.

I love that, hearing the voices.

- I have to say, from the conversation, when asked who y'all would marry, (everyone laughing) y'all said Thoreau, who was the manly man, roughly human, woodsman- - I didn't say that.

- But he was cute.

- I didn't say that.

- He was kind.

- Kind.

Who did you pick?

- I want Melville, 'cause he has a nice beard, but he's a one-liner character in this.

But I'm Team Melville.

(everyone laughing) - Okay, well, I'm sure "Finding Margaret Fuller" is at the top of your reading list, and you can pick up a copy at your local library or bookstore, download the ebook when you support your local PBS station.

- [Lauren] We're going to reveal our next "PBS Books Readers Club" pick in just a moment, so stay with us, but first, remember that as a member of your local station, you'll also get access to PBS Passport, where you can stream more amazing PBS shows that celebrate other trailblazing women.

If you loved reading "Finding Margaret Fuller", you might enjoy streaming "Fly With Me."

This is an amazing American experience story about the pioneering women who became flight attendants at a time when single women were unable to order a drink, eat alone in a restaurant, own a credit card, or get a prescription for birth control.

These women were on the front lines of the battle to assert gender equality and transform the workplace.

- Another binge worthy PBS staple featuring trailblazing women is "Call The Midwife."

A fan favorite drama based on the bestselling memoirs of the late Jennifer Worth that tells the colorful stories of midwifery and families in London's East End.

Let's take a quick look at what's happening on season 13 of "Call The Midwife."

(phone ringing) - In hospital, you deal with cases.

On the district, you're dealing with people.

(bright music) When mothers come to us, they bring everything they are with them.

- There's nothing nicer than a fresh start.

- You have done your best.

Sometimes our best must be enough.

- We are gonna take good care of you.

(baby crying) (mother laughing) - We are with you now.

- "Call The Midwife."

Stream episodes early with Passport on the PBS app.

- Full seasons of "Call The Midwife" and so many amazing shows are available to stream on Passport.

Just $5 a month makes you a member of your local PBS station, giving you access to all of the amazing shows in Passport, including the extended edition of this Allison Pataki interview.

- Yeah, we had a good long conversation with her.

Lots of extra questions that we didn't have time to squeeze in here.

So make sure that you're a Passport member so you can see the full conversation.

And don't forget your PBS stickers.

And you can get your ebook download of "Finding Margaret Fuller" or any of our featured reads.

Just click the link in the description or visit pbsbooks.org/donate.

You'll be taken right to your local PBS station's giving page.

After you complete your donation, you'll get an email from your station with a special code to download your ebook.

- Okay, so every station's donation page is just a little bit different.

So you may need to search just a little bit to find the PBS Books gifts, but stick with us because your support makes this Reader's Club possible.

- And hey, if you're not in a position to donate, you can still help by sharing this video and leaving us a comment, like, or love.

And now, friends, it is time to reveal our "PBS Books Readers Club" selection for next month.

Princess, you do the honors this month, please.

- Indeed, I shall.

So... (everyone laughing) I don't know why I'm talking like this.

The Transcendentalism is in me.

Our next pick is "The Other Valley" by Scott Alexander Howard.

This book is a page turner that imagines what seems to be an ordinary town, except that the same town exists to the east, 20 years in the future, and to the west, 20 years in the past.

So- - Ooh.

Juicy.

- [Princess] A juicy nostalgia trip, I'm sure.

- Why, and the borders between the past and the future are heavily guarded, and it raises so many interesting questions like, would you want to know your future and what would you risk in order to change it?

This program perfectly pairs with the upcoming PBS series, "Brief History of the Future," a six-part PBS documentary series about our futures and how we can reimagine them.

Hosted by renowned futurists, Ari Wallach, the show invites viewers on a journey around the world filled with discovery, hope, and possibility about where we find ourselves and what could come next.

- Very exciting.

That program premieres on PBS, April 3rd.

We're looking forward to that.

And we can't wait for author Scott Alexander Howard to join the "PBS Books Readers Club" for our next episode on April 24th.

And we have that ebook available for you to download right now.

So if you make your donation now, you can go download it as soon as you get that email from your local PBS station with that special code.

- [Heather] For now, it's time to get reading.

And be sure to submit your questions for Scott Alexander Howard by joining the "PBS Books Readers Club" Facebook group, and they could be answered on our next episode.

- [Princess] We'll also have more book recommendations in the PBS Books e-newsletter, so visit pbsbooks.org/subscribe.

- [Fred] We are so glad to have you as part of the "PBS Books Readers Club."

If you love this conversation, please consider making a donation to your local PBS station so we can keep our book club going.

Click the link in the description or visit pbsbooks.org/donate.

- Remember, you can get your removable PBS Books stickers, oh, there they are, for your laptop, phone, whatever you'd like, to show off your love for books and for PBS.

And you can also get an ebook download of one of our PBS books features.

- And everyone can help by sharing this video with all of your friends, giving us a like or a love, and subscribing to the PBS Books e-newsletter at pbsbooks.org/subscribe.

- Thanks for reading along with "PBS Books Readers Club."

- Read hard.

(everyone laughing) It's my turn.

(bright music)