Note: this is the final installment of my interview with Connie Lapallo, author of Dark Enough to See the Stars in a Jamestown Sky. I’d like to again thank Connie for taking the time to offer such a detailed look into the making of this book.

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What was the most difficult part of writing this story?

Writing it was like working a multi-tiered jigsaw puzzle.  Pieces had to fit historically and genealogically, while keeping the story line moving. I wanted to be true to all three aspects.

Beyond that were the many details I didn’t know.  Some details conflicted—which was right? I had to consider the source carefully or look for additional sources as “tie breakers.” Some details I located in obscure places. Some I thought might be permanently lost to time.

If you can visualize a large floor puzzle with a few missing pieces—the way your eye fills in the gaps—you know could draw those missing pieces if you had to.  As I “drew” missing pieces, I couldn’t know for sure these events did happen, so I had to consider how likely it was that they might have happened?  Or was there anything to prevent them from occurring?  Were they true to the customs and spirit of the times?  Were they logical?  Were they in character? Meanwhile, I would continue hunting the missing pieces, too.

Sometimes, by the time I’d gone through all of that reasoning, even having written around it, a detail would turn up just as I’d guessed it to be.  These were golden moments when lightning struck—often when and where I least expected it. These reassured me that somehow I was “getting it right,” and helped keep the whole project from overwhelming me.

You talk to children about Jamestown during school visits and have participated in homeschool conferences. Do you have any upcoming events that we should know about?

The best place to learn about those is on my website, under “Come See Connie.”

A few things coming up—I’ll be speaking about self-publishing for homeschoolers at the VaHomeschoolers conference in Richmond on July 21. I’ll be at the Mariners’ Museum on April 24 (for Homeschool Day) and will speak there on April 25 when they feature Dark Enough as their April Book of the Month.  I’ll be a guest speaker at John Tyler Community College’s Fool for Art Festival on April 21, and I’ll be at Henricus with the Godspeed on May 19 and 20.

I often speak at museums, historical societies, book clubs, business conferences, schools, homeschool groups, retirement communities, colleges, and festivals. Although I live in Virginia, I’m open to traveling to other states, having just returned from five signings in Houston, Texas, with requests to return to Dallas/Fort Worth and San Antonio.

You are planning a sequel to this story – when can we expect to see it? Can you share a synopsis yet?

Writing and research are my favorite part, and I miss the women at Jamestown! Ironically, the success of Dark Enough makes finding time to write the sequel difficult. But I will do it, because I promised Cecily (the older daughter in the story and my 12^th great-grandmother.) I hope the sequel will be out during 2008.

Bearing in mind that I’m still researching, here’s the way it looks now:

The story will probably open in 1611, with Cecily’s voyage to Virginia. Cecily will face her first loss on ship, though I won’t say what that is yet. She will live first at Jamestown, then be part of the settlement’s westward expansion upriver, moving to Henricus. She’ll probably be present at John Rolfe’s marriage to Pocahontas, since Cecily’s stepfather and Rolfe were close friends and business partners. She’ll be neighbors with John Rolfe a few years later when her sister Jane (Janey) marries Rolfe after Pocahontas dies. (All true.)

Then, history sadly repeats itself, for just as her mother Joan found herself a 20-year-old widow with baby Cecily, Cecily will herself become a widow with a baby girl while still in her teens.

Virginia’s growing and changing world will sweep Cecily with it, as it does all the settlers. She’ll be part of the first self-government in the New World through her husband’s position in the Virginia General Assembly. The Governor will grant her and her husband a point of land that still bears their name today. She’ll find herself entangled in a legal battle with the settlement’s pastor, who tries to force her to marry him. Cecily then becomes embroiled in the first Breach of Promise lawsuit in the New World, a case which will make its way across the ocean. (All of this really happened and is in the court records.) She’ll face the devastating 1622 Indian uprising, which wipes out a large portion of the settlement and “burst the hearts of all the rest.”

In the first book, Cecily shows us her fire and determination. In the second book, she’ll need it.