Award-winning journalist Laura Knoy just released her first novel, “The Shopkeeper of Alsace,” which follows a woman named Sarah who escapes from Poland during World War I.
Sarah settles in the Alsace region of France, opens a clothing store and starts a family, but she never forgets the lessons she learned in the war. As Nazism rises in the 1930s with another war looming, Sarah prepares to do whatever she needs to in order to keep her loved ones safe.
As she unrolls her fiction debut, Knoy shared parts of her writing journey with Around Concord Magazine.
Around Concord: What inspired you to branch into historical fiction?
Laura Knoy: I’ve always loved history. So, for me, there was no question about what type of novel I’d write. It didn’t even occur to me to write a contemporary novel. Perhaps that’s because for decades as a journalist, I was reflecting and reporting on current events. Now, I want to explore the past through storytelling about the people who came before us. We can learn so much from them.
AC: What drew you to this particular time period? Your story spans from 1915 to 1945.
LK: I admit, it’s ambitious! But I’ve always been fascinated by it. While WWII is often explored in American historical fiction, WWI and the inter-war period get much less attention. And yet, those early years of the 20th century were so dramatic and difficult. The Great War, which we now call WWI; a global pandemic, known as “The Spanish Flu”; the Great Depression; the rise of communism and fascism. -In just four decades, people experienced so much change and hardship.
And then, there’s WWII. This year, 2025, marked eighty years since the war ended. And yet, I think many of us are still stunned by the scope of it, by both the savagery and bravery of those who experienced the war. I think in a way, we’re still digesting it. I know I am. Also, many people are still personally connected to the WWII era. My parents were children during WWII. My father-in-law participated in the D-Day invasion. And my friend Annette Seibert, at age eight, had to flee with her family as the Nazis crossed the Rhine River into her home province of Alsace, France. Annette’s mother, Sarah, was a member of that unfortunate generation whose lives were affected by both global conflicts. She was a teenage girl in WWI and a forty-something businesswoman, mom, wife, and devoted daughter and sister during WWII. Sarah is the heroine of my book. She is “The Shopkeeper of Alsace.”
AC: How did you come up with the idea for “The Shopkeeper of Alsace?”
LK: The idea of a novel came to me slowly, over the course of my 35-year friendship with Annette. After she died in 2015, I regretted not probing more, asking more about her own wartime girlhood and her family’s experience. But then in 2018, Annette’s daughter, Brigitte, told me there were cassette tapes on which Annette and her siblings had recorded their memories. Also, she connected me with Annette’s brother, her Uncle Jacques, who, at age 95, still remembered everything. Between my interview with Jacques and the cassettes, a novel was born.
AC: Tell us about your writing journey.
LK: “Journey” is the correct word! It took me seven years, from when I interviewed Jacques in November 2018, to where I am today, a traditionally published author in November 2025.
Part of the reason it took so long is that I was learning as I was writing. I took whatever free or low-cost seminars I could find. I went to conferences, read blogs and articles about fiction writing, talked with established authors, and absorbed everything I could. I submitted my work for conference critique sessions. I showed it to a wide array of people I respect. I don’t have an MFA. I come from a journalism background, which was helpful, but I still had a lot to learn.
Another reason it took so long: I had a whole life, outside of this project! Over those seven years, I wasn’t sitting at my desk, writing 8 hours a day. For the first 3 years, I was still the host of The Exchange on NHPR, including during the pandemic and the 2020 presidential primary and general elections. It was quite demanding. This book is definitely not my “pandemic project.” I was working like crazy during that time. After I left NHPR mid-2021, I launched a consulting business to help pay the bills. I am still working as a podcaster/moderator/narrator, and I’m the director of community engagement for the Rudman Center at UNH-Franklin Pierce School of Law.
And then there’s the personal stuff: over those seven years, we launched one son off to college, we had an exchange student living with us, my mother died, we launched another son from the nest, we moved my father into a nursing home, one son came back to live with us, and my husband had major surgery. Sometimes when I tell people it took me seven years, I can see them thinking, “Wow! That’s an awfully long time…” But I didn’t have the luxury of writing full-time, or even reliably part-time. Far from it.
AC: What were some of your biggest joys and challenges throughout the writing process?
LK: I’m glad you asked about joys first, because there have been so many. One has been the
discovery of an incredibly supportive and dynamic writing community here in New Hampshire. Everyone’s been so kind and helpful, and there’s so much talent here.
Another joy was simply exploring the story itself. I had a decent understanding of the early 20th century before I began writing. I knew about the massive political, economic, and social forces that swept Europe at that time. But for the novel, I did deep research, in English and in French. I absorbed giant non-fiction history books. I conducted interviews with leading scholars. I visited museums. I read countless articles, watched videos, especially interviews with people who’d lived in the times I was writing about. I made several trips to the regions featured in the novel and learned more each time. I loved researching this story.
I won’t sugar-coat the challenges. I had no idea, going into this, how ridiculously hard it is to be published. But at some level, perhaps being published should be hard. A good novel should have multiple sets of critical eyes on it. Everyone needs an edit, I always said in my journalism career.
I don’t even know how many people have examined my manuscript over the years. I lost count. Everyone’s feedback has been extremely valuable. That doesn’t mean that every time my manuscript was criticized or rejected, I celebrated and said, “Great! More negative feedback!” The rejections were quite depressing. Over the years, I sent out about 50 submissions to literary agents and acquisitions editors at publishing houses. I
probably met with another five or ten agents and editors at conferences I attended.
Altogether, I guess I’ve had around 60 rejections. But the first 45 rejections I deserved! The novel was not ready, and it took all those rejections to make me realize that, and that I had to keep working on it. So, at some level, I am grateful to those who rejected me. Even though it was awful at the time.
As my manuscript improved, and I continued to reach out to agents and editors, I began to receive more positive comments, and more replies of “maybe” instead of flat-out “no.” I also noticed that small, independent publishers were the most likely to be seeking WWI-WWII stories.
So, about a year ago, I started submitting exclusively to them. It paid off. I received lots of interest from these companies, and came close with several, including two that were still considering my manuscript when I signed on with my current publisher, Bedazzled Ink of Northern California.
AC: How do you best overcome writer’s block?
LK: I don’t struggle with writer’s block because I allow myself to write badly, and then I delete it or revise it later. One of the best pieces of advice I ever heard came from a seminar I attended long ago, while I was still at NPR in D.C. The instructor said, “Feel free to write garbage and fix it later.
Just keep your fingers moving across the keyboard. Even if it’s ‘The Quick Brown Fox Jumped Over the Lazy Dog.’”
AC: What do you hope readers will take away from your novel?
LK: First, I hope they cherish and admire Sarah as much as I do. She’s not the type of heroine you often encounter in WWII novels. She’s not a spy, a code-breaker, a resistance fighter, or a lady-pilot. Don’t get me wrong, I love these heroines. But Sarah appeals to me because she’s none of those. She’s a middle-aged mom, businesswoman, wife, devoted sister, and daughter. She’s flawed, to be sure — impatient, bossy, sometimes unkind. But she has a huge heart, a gift of sharp intuition, and she never lets the powers-that-be frighten her into submission. Best of all, I’ve drawn her character based very much on the real person she was. It’s so inspiring.
Second, I hope readers will fall in love with Alsace. It’s such a fascinating region. Alsace changed political hands many times in the not-too-distant past. Between 1870 to 1945, the province was French, German, French, German, and French again. Plus, it’s just beautiful there — the rolling hills covered with vineyards, the forests of the Vosges Mountains, the tiny medieval villages, the wine and food. Strasbourg, where I was an exchange student, is a magnificent city.
Third, this project reaffirmed something I already knew: words matter. They matter a lot.
As a lifelong journalist, I’ve always paid particular attention to how people use words and their impact. Reading the French press during the inter-war era, you can see the intolerance rising against Jews and foreigners in France. You can see the blame game, for all the political and economic upheaval that the country is going through. You can see the increasing acceptance of words that dehumanize people, calling them bugs, dogs, or leeches. Then, once certain people are no longer defined as fully human, societies feel they have permission to do whatever they want with them.
About the author: Laura Knoy, who grew up in Massachusetts before moving to Keene as a teenager, spent 25 years hosting “The Exchange,” a public radio program she founded. Now a resident of Concord, Knoy works as a narrator, podcaster and public speaker. She previously made her career in newscasting, hosting and reporting for NPR. In her free time, Knoy enjoys reading and getting outside as much as she can.