Jane Kirkpatrick ~ Something Worth Doing

Jane Kirkpatrick, who has won multiple awards and is both a NYT and CBA bestselling author, returns to Novelists Unwind to talk about her latest novel, Something Worth Doing. The story is a fictional biography of Abigail “Jenny” Scott Duniway who was involved in six campaigns to win Oregon women the right to vote.

Beyond that distinction, Abigail was at various times in her life a caregiver, a newspaper columnist, a novelist, and a business owner. For a time, she ran a school from her home. All of this while raising six children and suffering from health issues.

Jane has written several novels based on real-life women from the 19th and early 20th centuries. We talked about the qualities that inspired these seemingly ordinary women to accomplish extraordinary feats despite their social restrictions and personal challenges. I so appreciated Jane’s thoughts on this topic–be sure to listen to the interview to hear what she had to say.

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Purchase Links: Something Worth Doing and Everything She Didn’t Say

Something Worth Doing

In 1853, Abigail Scott was a 19-year-old school teacher in Oregon Territory when she married Ben Duniway. Marriage meant giving up on teaching, but Abigail always believed she was meant to be more than a good wife and mother. When financial mistakes and an injury force Ben to stop working, Abigail becomes the primary breadwinner for her growing family. What she sees as a working woman appalls her, and she devotes her life to fighting for the rights of women, including their right to vote.

Following Abigail as she bears six children, runs a millinery and a private school, helps on the farm, writes novels, gives speeches, and eventually runs a newspaper supporting women’s suffrage, Something Worth Doing explores issues that will resonate strongly with modern women: the pull between career and family, finding one’s place in the public sphere, and dealing with frustrations and prejudices women encounter when they compete in male-dominated spaces. Based on a true story of a pioneer for women’s rights from award-winning author Jane Kirkpatrick will inspire you to believe that some things are worth doing–even when the cost is great.

Everything She Didn’t Say

In 1911, Carrie Strahorn wrote a memoir entitled Fifteen Thousand Miles by Stage, which shared some of the most exciting events of 25 years of traveling and shaping the American West with her husband, Robert Strahorn, a railroad promoter, investor, and writer. That is all fact. Everything She Didn’t Say imagines Carrie nearly ten years later as she decides to write down what was really on her mind during those adventurous nomadic years.

Certain that her husband will not read it, and in fact that it will only be found after her death, Carrie is finally willing to explore the lessons she learned along the way, including the danger a woman faces of losing herself within a relationship with a strong-willed man and the courage it takes to accept her own God-given worth apart from him. Carrie discovers that wealth doesn’t insulate a soul from pain and disappointment, family is essential, pioneering is a challenge, and western landscapes are both demanding and nourishing. Most of all, she discovers that home can be found, even in a rootless life.

With a deft hand, New York Times bestselling author Jane Kirkpatrick draws out the emotions of living–the laughter and pain, the love and loss–to give readers a window not only into the past, but into their own conflicted hearts. Based on a true story.