Up this week is Donna Russo, an internationally best-selling author of 11 multiple award winning historical novels, including “Gilded Dreams” and “Gilded Summers”, a trio of books about Leonardo da Vinci, including “Portrait of a Conspiracy,” “The Competition,” and “The Flames of Florence.” Her newest book, “Vincent’s Women” is just out, and tells the story of everyone's favorite tortured artist through the lens of the women in his life.

(I have to point out Vincent's women managed to get 4. 3 stars on Goodreads, which is not easy to do. Goodreads readers are very sparing with their five star ratings.)

Donna is also an award winning screenwriter, a ghostwriter, and an editor. And she's an actor who appeared in Martin Scorsese's “The Departed,” as well as Showtime's “Brotherhood.” And, she's a painter” I’m so thankful she joined us, because she clearly has a lot of things that take up her time!

We covered:

How reading “Gone with the Wind” and “The Thorn Birds” as a kid sparked a devotion to historical fiction

How a ‘grand pity party’ after yet another bad date led to the idea for “Vincent’s Women”

How meeting Diana Gabaldon (author of The Outlander series and historical fiction OG!) at a conference spurred Donna on

Her first gig as a writer–that happened in sixth grade

How she sold her first book quickly and easily–and pretty much everything since then has been a struggle

The truth about why she does so many different things

The brass tacks of how she writes her book, from which chapter she writes first to how she lays out her computer monitor so that her research is always right at hand

How she wrote her friends into one of her books

The food and drink the fuels her writing

Visit Donna at donnarusso.com.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

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