A Conversation About Following the Story and Butterfly Games
Posted on December 26, 2025 in Butterfly Games, Interviews
I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Bryan Nowak for his video podcast All Things Writing, and it turned into one of those conversations that stays with you long after the recording ends. We talked about Butterfly Games, of course—but also about the journey behind the book: passion for your main character, following the research wherever it leads, and the long road from first idea to finished book.
What I appreciate most about Bryan’s approach is his genuine curiosity about process. Not just what you write, but why you keep going when the work stretches on for years. We talked about how Butterfly Games began not with a plot outline, but with a quest—to find the real person inside a woman remembered by history only for her scandals—and how that curiosity slowly grew into a decade-long project that reshaped how I think about storytelling, history, and agency.
Our conversation also touched on my unlikely path to fiction. Before I wrote novels, I spent two decades in a courtroom, learning how people behave under pressure and how stories are shaped by power. That background ended up informing my writing more than I ever expected. Law taught me to interrogate motives, to pay attention to what’s missing, and to understand that the truth is often found in the spaces between official accounts. Those instincts carried straight into my historical research.
We spent time talking about Sweden—about what it means to write convincingly about a place you didn’t grow up in, and how travel and language study changed my understanding of Jacquette Gyldenstolpe’s world. Walking through palaces, standing in archives, and translating her letters word by word brought a physical and emotional reality to the story that simply can’t be replicated from afar. At the same time, it deepened my sense of responsibility: to honor the historical record while allowing imagination to give voice to moments history never preserved.
One of my favorite parts of the conversation was exploring the idea of power. In Butterfly Games, women rarely wield power openly—but they wield it nonetheless, through relationships, information, and social maneuvering. Bryan asked thoughtful questions about how those dynamics resonate with modern readers, and why stories about constrained choices still feel urgent today.
If you’re curious about the behind-the-scenes journey of Butterfly Games—from its earliest spark to the research that shaped it, and the themes that continue into the next book in the series—I hope you’ll watch the interview. It’s a wide-ranging, generous conversation, and I’m grateful to Bryan for creating space for that kind of thoughtful exchange.
📺 Watch the full interview here, and thank you, as always, for reading, watching, and following along on this journey.
