Welcome back to Late Boomers! We’re your hosts, Cathy Worthington and Merry Elkins . In this episode, we dive deep into the world of historical fiction with educator, novelist, and storyteller Dorothy Ward, whose acclaimed novel, Light Which Impresses, beautifully explores themes of identity, resilience, and the enduring strength of women through the lens of history.

If you’re fascinated by stories that connect the past to our present, or if you’re finally ready to write your own narrative, this conversation will both inspire and motivate you.

We’re thrilled to welcome Dorothy Ward to discuss her journey from lifelong educator to published novelist at the age of 71! We explore why historical fiction is more relevant than ever, what inspired the unique structure of Light Which Impresses, and the meticulous research that brings her story to life. Dorothy Ward shares candid insights about recreating early 20th-century El Paso and the Mexican Revolution, crafting powerful women who defy expectations, and how her own background influenced the narrative.

Whether you’re a writer, a lover of history, or someone seeking encouragement to start something new in your own life, you’ll find wisdom and practical advice throughout this episode.

Key Takeaways

• Why Historical Fiction Matters: Dorothy Ward explains how stepping into the past through fiction helps us build empathy and understand today’s challenges, especially around topics like migration and resilience (01:28).
• Inspirations Behind the Novel: The title of Light Which Impresses comes from a 100-year-old Kodak camera manual, a metaphor for memory and the double-edged power of truth (02:54).
• Unique Narrative Structure: The story weaves together interviews with the protagonist as an older woman and her youthful experiences against a backdrop of revolution, making history come alive and personal (05:47).
• Strong, Unconventional Female Characters: Inspired by real women of the Mexican Revolution, Dorothy Ward’s protagonists break the mold and show the unheralded strength of women throughout history (09:08).
• The Research Process: Dorothy Ward reveals how she balanced exhaustive research walking tours, period photography, and vintage vehicles with compelling storytelling (17:30).
• Advice for Aspiring Writers: It’s never too late to start! The most important step? Sitting down and writing, planning and talking about writing won’t get your story on the page (29:02).
• Practical Writing Tips: Embrace rewriting, cut down the excess, and always read your work out loud to catch what doesn’t sound right (30:50).

If today’s conversation sparked your curiosity or your creativity, we encourage you to pick up a copy of Light Which Impresses available at Amazon, Bookshop.org, or wherever you buy books. Connect with Dorothy Ward and learn more about her work at dorothypward.com.

Don’t forget to subscribe to Late Boomers wherever you get your podcasts and on our YouTube channel. Leave us a review and share this episode with friends who love history, literature, and inspiring new beginnings.

Remember, it’s never too late to rethink what’s possible.

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What if the best way to understand today is to step into yesterday? The greatest historical novels don't just tell us what happened, they remind us who we are.

Absolutely. And our guest today has done exactly that.

Welcome to Late Boomers, where we celebrate people who prove it's never too late to create, reinvent, and inspire. I'm Cathy Worthington.

And I'm Mary Elkins. Whether you're discovering a new passion or writing your first novel or simply just looking for stories that move you, you've come to the right place.

Today's guest is educator, novelist, and storyteller Dorothy Ward, author of the acclaimed historical novel Light Which Impresses. Dorothy explores memory, identity, Resilience, and the remarkable strength of women whose lives continue to echo into our own.

Dorothy, welcome to Late Boomers. We're really happy to have you.

Thank you. I'm very excited to be here.

So Dorothy, many readers love historical fiction, including me, because it teaches history in a really engaging way. Why do you think writing and reading historical fiction is so important, especially today?

Well, it allows us to learn about the past, and it allows us to learn about the past in a way where we see how individuals respond to certain situations in which they're placed. And it allows us to experience what they experience vicariously. And so we— I think we gain a little bit of objectivity when we're looking at historical fiction. For example, in the novel Light Which Impresses, One of the things that happens during the Mexican Revolution, and this is set during the Mexican Revolution, most of it is, is that there are a tremendous number of refugees who cross into the United States as a result of the violence in Mexico, the starvation that was taking place, the illness. People were forced into the military.

Yeah.

And so we can look in the distance and see the sort of strife that people were struggling with, which resulted in their coming across to find a safer location. And that's, that's an issue we're dealing with today. So I think being able to see it from a distance increases our empathy for others.

Ah, that's a really good point. Um, the title, Light, comma, Which Impresses, It's so intriguing. What does it mean and why did you choose it?

Well, I am so glad you asked. This is the novel, Light Which Impresses. And if I may read the epigraph, and let me explain, and that's where the title came from. The epigraph was actually a result of my reading a manual, a 100-year-old manual for the Kodak 3A pocket folding camera. And when I— and the protagonist, the main character of this story, is a photographer. And so when I read this sentence in the manual, I thought, first of all, it's beautiful. It's a found poem. And secondly, it so perfectly fit the novel.

So if I may read that one-sentence epigraph.

Please.

Yes.

The first thing to remember Is that the light which impresses the photographic image upon the sensitive film in a fraction of a second when it comes through the lens can destroy the film as quickly as it makes the picture.

Ooh.

And so that's—

that is so much double meaning.

Absolutely.

Oh my gosh. And that's a manual you got with the Kodak in the old days?

Yes. Yes, picture taking with a 3A folding pocket Kodak.

How did you come across that?

I did a tremendous amount of research, and I knew this was the camera of the time and that the, the main character would be using. She was given—

So what year would that be?

That was in 1911, and so she was given the camera by her beau on her 19th And so she begins to learn to use it. And so in order for the protagonist to be able to use the camera, I needed to know about it. So in doing research, I came across a manual for the camera. And when I—

I love that.

I know, I just— it was just perfect.

I love that. It's moving. It's also completely intimidating. Were you a brand new person trying to learn about photography in 1911, that would seem Scare you so much when you read that little blurb.

Or it makes you curious.

It would make you terrified that you're gonna ruin the film and ruin the picture and not get a good pic, you know. You would be so panicked, I think. That's really interesting.

Or you'd work very slow. So, Dorothy, one of the unique features of your novel that I really found interesting is that each section begins with an interview that opens the door to memories unfolding into the main narrative. That's very unusual and super effective, and it's a great storytelling device. What inspired that structure?

Well, I wanted to have the photographer as an older woman looking back and reliving the past. And so she is— she's famed for her photography. Her name is Sarah Delaney. And she's famed for her photography of the Mexican Revolution. She lived in El Paso at the time. And for those individuals who aren't familiar with El Paso, we're on the westernmost tip of Texas and we border New Mexico, but we also border Mexico. And our sister city is Ciudad Juárez.

Mm-hmm.

And we're just a very narrow, shallow river across from each other. And so she was very much involved with the Mexican Revolution and with photography of the Mexican Revolution. And she was known as a bit of a recluse in her older years. She didn't go to museum openings that focused on her photography. She kept to herself, and there was rumor that she may not even be alive, that she was either physically or mentally debilitated, or perhaps she was no longer even alive. But she suddenly reaches out in 1983 when she's 91 years old to 2 professors who are with the Institute of Oral History at the local university, and she invites them into her home to learn about life in El Paso during the Mexican Revolution, about the tumultuous period and the pain and loss and experiences that she had. And when she invites them into her home, she says, we both have something to gain from reopening the past. And so, the way the novel is set, as you mentioned, Mary, is every section is framed starting with the interview in 1983 and then concluding with it.

And the device allows me to do a couple of things. One, it allows me to introduce some of the things that were happening in a sort of a macro way in terms of the Mexican Revolution, And then the center part is the memory of what took place with Sarah. And so then it's the micro. How did those things affect individuals? The writer William Faulkner wrote something to the effect of, the past is never dead. It's not even the past. And so that going back between 1911, 1912, so forth and so on, back up to 1983 illustrates that point, that the past, what happened in the past, is still affecting us in 1983 and still affecting us today. So that was the reason for the framework. I love that.

That sounds like a real good method to get into it. And what's the other— there are 2 remarkable women apparently that this is— that has Your principal characters. So who's the other principal character? And apparently they don't fit the expectations of their time at all. Obviously, if she's a photographer, that would have been very unique to being a woman. But what drew you to creating these unconventional female protagonists?

Well, the second protagonist— the first part of your question— the second protagonist is Catalina. Orcata, and she is a soldadera in the Mexican Revolution. And a soldadera, and this is something I learned, actually what hooked me into the story was in 1983, I actually read a newspaper article about a woman who lived in Ciudad Juárez who said she was a colonel in Pancho Villa's army. And that fascinated me.

Whoa.

Yeah. And I had no idea of the role, women played in the Mexican Revolution. And so I started reading to learn more about it and found out that they played a considerable role. They prepared food, they foraged for supplies, they birthed children and cared for them, they took care of the wounded, but they also picked up guns and fought.

Mm-hmm.

And some of them even led troops. And so Catalina, Cata, is a soldadera, in the Mexican Revolution. Originally, she's there with her family, but eventually she becomes a colonel in Pancho Villa's army. Why strong, unconventional women? Well, I'm drawn to them. I'm fascinated by women, and I think most women are strong. I'm fascinated by the strength that women show, but I'm also fascinated by individuals who are resilient. And these 2 women are very resilient individuals. And I think what interests me will also interest both men and women readers, characters who are strong, who are unconventional, and who are resilient.

Yeah, I mean, I find that really fascinating because people think that women of the past really didn't make a difference, But many did, and it's wonderful that you're writing about them. And so your major characters then were inspired by real figures. How much did you vary from the real truth, or did you actually go absolutely according to fact?

No, I In truth, the woman who was the colonel in Pancho Villa's army, I actually tried to interview her. She— there was an article in the local paper, and so the journalist provided her address. And my father was a history buff and a photographer, and so we went over to Juárez with 2 other individuals to try to interview her. Unfortunately, she had moved since the time she'd been interviewed. And her neighbors, understandably so, would not give her address to us. I mean, they didn't know us. Strangers show up asking for an address. And so I never got to meet her.

So the story is really all fictional. The only part I took from the newspaper article was a woman who was a colonel in Pancho Villa's army. There were, or I should say there was, a woman photographer who was known for her photographs of the Mexican Revolution. She focused on photographing a lot of the women and a lot of the scenes of how the women were working in the revolution. But she is not a character. The other character that I developed, Sarah Delaney, is completely fictional.

Really? You made her sound quite real.

No, she's fictional.

Oh, I love that whole setup. I do.

Was she drawn from your father being photographer?

You know, not intentionally, but probably without thinking I'm doing this because my father was a photographer. It just seemed the way— well, let me just give you a little bit of a background about the story. I actually started writing it in the late '90s, and the soldadera Catalina was the main character, and the journalist wasn't even introduced. I had written about 3 chapters, well over about 120 pages. But I ended up getting a new position, administrative position at the university where I worked, and it was a very demanding position. So I put the book aside and didn't work on it again until I retired.

Wow.

I continued to research, but I didn't write. And so once I retired, I returned to the book and I picked up the pages I had written. And I thought, no, I cannot write from the perspective of a Mexican woman fighting for her country. It's not honest. It's not going to be believable. I didn't feel comfortable with it. And so that's how Sarah Delaney came into being. I decided, well, then I need a strong character in El Paso that I feel That I can, I can understand her and, and understand her emotions and her experiences a little bit better, and the book will be more honest.

And I— and it's not to say that Catalina doesn't tell part of the story. She does. Um, but she doesn't— she's not the, the main character of the story. Sarah Delaney is.

Yeah. Well, um, how old was the Soledad? So, when you were going to interview her?

Oh, she was, she was probably in her 90s, late 80s, early 90s at that time. So she was, she was an older woman.

Yeah.

Yeah, that would have been really great if you could have scored that interview.

Oh, I know. I know.

Yeah. Let's talk about your writing process a little bit with us. Are you someone who carefully outlines every chapter before Or do you, do your characters sometimes surprise you and lead you in a different direction?

I am not someone who outlines. I know when I started writing, I knew the beginning of the novel and I knew the end of the novel. But the writer E.L. Doctorow said writing for him was like driving a car at night, that you have your headlights on and you see what's in front of you, but you just see what's in front of you. Yet you ultimately make it to your destination. And that was sort of how it went with the novel. In part, it was developed— I mean, I had my characters, but it was developed organically. And by that, I mean, history drove some of the development of it.

The events that were taking, the historical events that were occurring in El Paso, in the borderland region impacted the individuals. And so the story was driven in part by the, how the individuals are impacted and how they respond to the historical events. So knew the beginning, knew the end, knew most of the characters, but, uh, they, they developed organically.

Yeah.

And so did they surprise you sometimes? Do they like come into a dream and tell you what they're going to say or anything like that?

No, that hadn't occurred.

But I—

what did happen is, as I'm going to sleep, I'm— it's sort of like moving chess pieces. My mind is going through what's, what's going to happen next and who's going to do this and how is this person going to respond. And so there is that. They, they— the characters don't leave me alone sometimes. But, uh, but no, not through a dream.

Do you have to keep a notepad next to the bed?

No.

You can't get to sleep, can you?

Well, that's true. And you're right, I do sometimes get up and jot down notes. Yeah, you're absolutely right.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

Yeah, you kind of have to, otherwise you won't get back to sleep.

True.

Yeah.

Dorothy, we were discussing your research earlier, and obviously it takes enormous research to actually put out an historical novel, but you can't overwhelm the reader. So tell us about the research that you did do, And how you balance the historical accuracy with storytelling.

I did, as you said, a tremendous amount of research. I did a lot of reading. I read memoirs of people who lived in the El Paso region and were involved in the Mexican Revolution. I read novels about the Mexican Revolution. I read newspaper articles from the time. I went to museums. I went to physical locations such as Columbus, New Mexico, which is where Pancho Villa in 1916 attacked the United States at Columbus, New Mexico. I took walking tours with local historians who focused on the Revolution, and so we would walk downtown and they would show the different buildings and what took place in these different locations.

I did a lot of researching things like the camera. There's a 1913 roadster that one of the characters drives. And so I had to learn about how do you drive such a vehicle? Because the throttle, for example, is on the steering column. It's not on the floor like ours is.

Oh, wow.

So learning all those sorts of things as I went along. Um, I looked at photographs. I, um, I, I looked at videos, and a lot of the research I did as I was going along because, for example, that car— suddenly I, I needed to know about the car. And so I, I researched it while I was writing. So a lot of, a lot of work done up front, but a lot continued throughout.

Well, you were uniquely—

Down in research and, and And not write, it can be a problem for writers.

That is, you're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. There's a point where, you know, you have— I'm no expert in the Mexican Revolution, but I knew enough to begin writing. Um, and I knew enough to begin presenting, um, key facts, especially in the El Paso area, which is the area—

Well, I was going to say you were so uniquely positioned. Being there in El Paso, because that kind of researchability wouldn't even exist in other areas. You, you could be in Beverly Hills, you couldn't find anything about it. So, there you are sitting right where it happened, which is, I'm sure, why you were so inspired to do that, right?

Absolutely. It was, it was my love of El Paso, my love of the history and the borderland, region is what interested me. You're right. I have photographs that I've taken of the El Paso Laundry, which still exists today, which is a laundry by the border that people climbed onto the flat roof during the Battle of Juárez so they could watch the fighting.

Oh, God.

There are pockmarks in the side of the building where bullets, stray bullets came across and, and hit the building.

They're watching the fighting from the building, like, kind of a little insane. And was there any particular discovery then during your research that completely surprised you or maybe changed the direction of the novel?

You know, that's a very good question, and right now there's not anything that's coming to mind, but there were a couple of very interesting incidents that I knew about that are built into the novel because they were so important, I thought. One of them was that Pancho Villa, during the fighting, he captured a train between Ciudad Chihuahua and Juárez, and he put a gun to the head of the conductor and he said, you know, wire the headquarters in Juárez and tell them Pancho Villa's in the area and ask him what to do. And so headquarters said, bring the train right on back to Juárez. So Pancho Villa loads up his troops into the train, and they drive them right into the middle of Juárez, and he gets out of the train and takes the city without many shots at all. It was a Trojan horse, essentially.

Yeah.

So that was an interesting—

That's kind of an interesting surprise, isn't it?

Yeah, it is.

I bet that's not in very many history books yet.

If you're reading about the Mexican Revolution, it is. But otherwise, you're right. You don't get a lot. But at the time, it was very well known throughout the United States. It was publicized because it was such a feat that he accomplished.

Truly is a Trojan horse.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. The other piece that I had read about that in a number of places was I mentioned the starvation that was taking place in Mexico. I've read this in numerous memoirs and memories, interviews, in which people talk about children and old men digging through horse manure in Torreón because the Villistas were feeding their horses corn. And if the horses didn't fully digest the corn, then they were getting the corn out of the manure to make tortillas because they were starving and that was how they could get grain. So that's built into the story as well.

And that is quite a story.

Yeah.

So you touched on this earlier, Dorothy, and because your story sounds very relevant today as it did then. What themes do you hope modern readers will recognize in Light Which Impresses?

I, you know, I hope people will recognize that frankly, people are people. There are things that drive individuals to take their lives into their hand and cross borders to try to find safety. We all too often try to identify the other so that we can blame the other for all of our wrongs. And there's a situation in El Paso. There was actually a race riot in El Paso during this period, and it was a result of some engineers going into Mexico because they had been told it was safe to reopen a mine. And so they left from El Paso, to go into Mexico. And in fact, the train was stopped, and it was Villa's troops. And Villa's troops got the Americans off the train and killed all but one who managed to hide in the bushes, had been in the bathroom and managed to hide in the bushes, slip off the train.

And so that information was brought back to El Paso. And when the bodies were returned to El Paso, there began a race riot because these people had attacked Americans, and therefore everybody who was of Mexican descent was guilty. And so the attaching of all the wrongs on somebody you identify as the other, and that's still something we see today. So that's—

Yes.

Those are the kinds of themes that I hope come through, the recognition that people are people and the need for empathy for situations.

Yeah. And also, as we get older, many of us reflect on memory, how it shapes who we are and how we understand our lives. And memory plays such an important role in your novel. What fascinates you about the relationship between memory and and truth?

I think, well, there are a couple of things. I think truth changes with memory. We begin to see things in a different situation or understand them differently, have a, have a better understanding. And I'm— there are a couple of scenes in the book actually where that takes place, and I don't want to disclose them because then it gives away, um, something that I think will be of a surprise in the book, a couple of things. Um, but, but people begin to see the past a little differently as they get older and have more experiences. So I, I think that, that truth changes some with memory.

And of course, if you ask 2 people about the same incident, right, nobody remembers it the same way. Everyone was at a different angle. In the perception of it. That's just a completely different angle. Yeah, that always amazes me how people do not remember the same thing the same way ever.

Never, never. Um, Dorothy, every author stands on the shoulders of writers who came before them. What authors have influenced you, and either you personally, your storytelling, Or just your love of reading and books and literature?

Well, there are so many. E.L. Doctorow, I mentioned him earlier.

Ragtime.

I was absolutely—

Ragtime, The March. Yeah, he was tremendous with historical fiction, and he was tremendous at developing that sense of empathy, sense of empathy, where once you see characters' lives and you see them from a distance, historical distance, you gain that empathy for them. He was also tremendous about weaving actual historical figures into the novel. And in fact, I do that with Thea.

Oh, yeah.

And with General John J. Pershing, our characters in the novel, actual people that are woven into the fabric of Sarah Delany's memories because she's interacted with them. So E.L. Doctorow is one. Louise Erdrich is—

Oh yeah, I love her.

Yeah. Yes, she's a tremendous woman, Native American author who looks at both the resilience of a people and resilience of people. And so she's— The Round House and The Sentence, The Night Watchman, those are some of her books, tremendous author. Sandra Cisneros, she wrote The House on Mango Street and Woman Hollering Creek is a collection of short stories. And she looks at strong, resilient women as well throughout her stories. And so she's a very, very fine writer. Alice Walker is another outstanding writer.

Oh, yeah.

So there's just, there's so many. Writers that have, have influenced me.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's great. Well, many of our Late Boomers listeners are finally finding time to write the stories they've carried around for years. So what advice would you give to someone who thinks, maybe it's finally my turn to write?

My advice is that, one, you're never too old to write, so do it. When my book was published, it came out when I was 71 years old. And so, you know, never too late to write.

Yeah.

The other thing I would say is, and I'm gonna lean back on E.L. Doctorow again for his advice, he said, writing is writing. Talking about writing, outlining, researching, Planning to write is not writing. Writing is writing.

Absolutely.

Right, Mary?

Right. You gotta sit down and do it.

Absolutely.

There you go.

There you go.

Well, before we let you go, Dorothy, let's have a little bit of fun. What's your favorite place to write?

I, I write in my room, and that's— I don't, I don't vary it much. That's, that's where I, I, I can get quiet and, and, uh, can concentrate. And so that's, that's my focus. I have a desk in my, in my bedroom.

And no windows?

And cough.

I do have windows. I have windows all around, but I keep my blinds closed because I don't want the distraction.

Yeah. And coffee or tea?

Coffee.

Ah, okay. Morning writer or night owl?

Morning. I'm not an early morning writer. I usually start about midday— mid-morning, excuse me.

Mid-morning. Okay. One historical figure you'd love to have dinner with?

Oh, wow. Probably William Shakespeare.

Oh, wow. Okay.

I love that. And the best writing advice you've ever received?

Well, I think it was that I realized that good writing is rewriting.

Right.

And so you need to get your first draft down, don't expect it to be a masterpiece, and focus then your energy on reshaping and rewriting. And I took months rewriting Light Which Impresses and probably cut 100 pages out of the original because I'd gotten a little too far into the weeds with the history. And so, um, that's a good piece of advice.

Yeah.

The other good piece of advice, um, is to read your writing out loud, uh, because especially the dialogue, because you can hear clumsy spots that you don't see when you're reading silently. So reading out loud is helpful.

Very good advice.

Take it to a reading group.

Yes.

Then you really hear it.

Yes.

Dorothy, thank you so much for sharing this fascinating journey with us and for reminding us that history isn't just something we study, it's something we experience through stories like yours.

Congratulations to you on Light Which Impresses, and we encourage everyone listening to pick up a copy. So Dorothy, tell us, where can our audience find your book and connect with you online?

Well, in terms of my book, it's sold through Amazon, bookshop.org, just about anywhere where you purchase your books, you can purchase it. In terms of contacting me, I have a website that has both links to the book, but it also has a way you can contact me via email. And so the website is dorothypward.com. So d-o-r-o-t-h-y-pward.com.

That's great.

Super.

Thank you. So to our listeners, to our listeners and viewers, if you enjoy today's conversation, please subscribe to Late Boomers wherever you get your podcasts. And we'd especially love it if you'd subscribe to our Late Boomers YouTube channel. Leave us a review and share this episode with friends who love books, history especially, and inspiring conversations.

And until next time, remember what we late boomers always say: it's never too late to rethink what's possible.

Thank you, Dorothy.

Thank you. Thank you both very much.