Noel C. Cilker

One of the most fun and fascinating aspects of researching the story of Ah Toy is finding out what kind of world she lived in. That world was San Francisco in the 1840s and 1850s. It was a very different time. You may think that's a "Captain Obvious" statement, but it really bears thinking about. If I were to get up from my chair in  my upstairs writing studio and climb out onto my roof, I would be able to look across the bay and see a faint outline of San Francisco, its gray skyline silhouetted with the snow-white eastern span of the Bay Bridge cutting across the scene in front. It's a beautiful sight, but it's not the San Francisco I'm writing about. The San Francisco I'm writing about was smaller, wilder, smellier, and more fleeting. "Fleeting"? In the early days, yes. In the thick of the gold rush, in a two and a half year span from 1849 to 1851, San Francisco tried to snuff itself out with six -  six!  - catastrophic fires that destroyed...

In last week’s post I grappled with the choice to write fiction or nonfiction. After I tried writing a novel and, to my abject dismay, realized that I was no J.K. Rowling, I turned my back on the fiction world and turned to historical nonfiction. History, after all, already had the stories. I just needed to pluck them from the lowest branch I could find! This week, my problem is trying to hone history down into a story that makes sense. History, it turns out, isn’t just a bunch of little happenings or events that randomly take place. Ah Toy didn’t see a boat on the Hong Kong harbor one day, say, “Ah, what the hell!” and ship herself to California. Twists, turns, and events big and small both pushed and pulled Ah Toy onto that ship bound for Gold Mountain. She was a part of something bigger. History is full of stories, and they’re more interconnected than we think at first. Ah Toy wouldn’t have arrived on the golden shore if it weren’t for the discovery of gold, which was dis...

I don't know whether or not I should be embarrassed to divulge this, but the Harry Potter  series is one of my favorite collections of books of all time. It's witty, funny, heartbreaking, clever, and has a cast of characters so relatable that I almost expect to see Professor McGonagall when I go to my grandmother's house to visit. As a reader, I eat it up. As an author, I am profoundly jealous. I  want to write the way J.K. Rowling does, as effortlessly and as fun as it is to read! I sat down a few years ago and tried my hand at it. I didn't create any magical worlds or schools, but I invented some characters and attempted to come up with a story that was as witty, funny, sad, and touching as J.K. Rowling's masterpieces. For a while I was very dedicated. I synthesized a plot line, sketched out some characters, and had a killer ending that would leave all my readers crying and clamoring for more. Even the dialog crackled. For example: “Hey!” “Hi Mom!” “You’r...

This will come as a surprise to no one, but researching can be a slog. I like it most of the time and I've found some great material for my Ah Toy story: little snippets, facts, and details that don't often make it into the dry, stuffy history books. For instance, just like the San Francisco of today, the San Francisco of the 1850s had its share of mischief-makers. Some of them were somewhat clever: By February, 1854, the city had converted to gas-lighting. In celebration of the installation of three miles of municipal gas lines and eighty-four streetlamps, 300 citizens gathered at the Oriental Hotel in an illuminated banquet hall ablaze as with tropical sunshine. As Mayor Cornelius Garrison began his speech, a prankster pulled the switch and temporarily plunged the room into darkness. - Doris Muscatine, Old San Francisco   However, most of the time there's a lot of searching and reading for very little reward. A whole book about immigration to California in the 1...