I set out to discover who they were, and that was really how it all started.īTW: How much of your novel is based on historical fact, and how did you decide which parts to add or fictionalize? And here they are on this wall, making some huge contribution to history. This was very interesting to me, but what really caught my imagination was that they were from Charleston, the city in which I was living, and yet I had not heard of them. I wasn’t looking for a novel idea at all! I just happened to see the names of these two sisters on the panels outside the exhibit and they were from Charleston, South Carolina, and it said they were early abolitionist women’s rights pioneers. SMK: This book started with me stumbling upon Sarah and Angelina Grimké in the Brooklyn Museum back in 2007 when I visited a Judy Chicago exhibit. Kidd recently spoke to BTW about her writing and researching processes, the challenge of entwining fact and fiction, and the importance of women finding their own voices.īTW: What drew you to the lives of Sarah and her sister Angelina Grimké, and what made you decide to write this book based on their lives? Focusing on Sarah and Hetty “Handful” Grimké, the slave that was gifted to Sarah on her 11th birthday, Kidd goes beyond what has been recorded in history to present their story in its many forms. The Invention of Wings takes place in Charleston, South Carolina, during the 19th century and was inspired by the historic figure of Sarah Grimké, an American abolitionist, writer, and suffragist. Kidd’s second novel, The Mermaid Chair, was a May 2005 Book Sense Pick and the winner of the 2005 Quill Award for general fiction. It was also produced on stage in New York by The American Place Theater and was adapted into a movie by Fox Searchlight.

Her first novel, The Secret Life of Bees, became an international bestseller and was the number one pick for the March/April 2002 Book Sense 76 (the precursor to the Indie Next List) and was voted the winner of a Book Sense Book of the Year Award in paperback in 2004. Prior to becoming a bestselling novelist, Kidd wrote inspirational nonfiction, including three memoirs. Sue Monk Kidd is the author of The Invention of Wings (Viking Adult), booksellers’ top pick for the January 2014 Indie Next List.

The invention of wings author