A blend of fact and fiction

For Algoma-based author Bret Kissinger, becoming a published writer was not a matter of if, but when.

“I’ve always known I wanted to be a writer… I saw the movie Titanic when I was nine and I just fell in love with mixing fact and fiction in a way that tricked me into learning about something,” Kissinger said. “It just left an invisible mark of wanting to be a creator of some sort and movies were actually my first interest — I wanted to be a screenplay writer. It took me a long time — I’ve been writing since I was like 17 — to take that step of having the confidence to let other people read it.”

His first book was released in December of 2018 and has since been followed up by four additional books with the latest coming out in December of 2024, each one a tale of historical fiction transporting readers to a different era, primarily World War II.

“You have to have an interest yourself because you’re spending so much time researching that time period,” he said. “If you’re not interested in Elizabethan England, that’s probably not something you want to write about. I write a lot of books around World War II. My grandparents had served in World War II and I remember sitting on my grandpa’s lap and him telling the stories of that. I’ve always had an interest in that and I’ve always been drawn to watching documentaries or movies and reading books about that time period, so I had built up a pretty good knowledge base before I even knew I wanted to write about it.”

Even after he’s decided on a topic, Kissinger said stories often come up in his research that go on to serve as inspiration for future books.

“Looking at history on social media or watching documentaries, you just come across stories that kind of seem almost impossible to be true,” he said. “But they’re true and that’s what makes them so enticing. You come across different time periods or different events that are just so fascinating and a lot of times that’s the way it’s worked for my books — researching one book, I’ll stumble across bits of information that aren’t necessarily needed for the book I’m writing but they really spark my next idea.”

Kissinger said one of the most fulfilling aspects of his work is when his books spark the same excitement he holds for history for his readers.

“One of the greatest compliments I get is when people read my books and then tell me that they looked up one of the events that happened in my book or they are more prone to listen to the news when a Holocaust survivor is speaking,” he said. “It’s really neat that my books have helped people be more willing to learn about something that they thought was boring because they read about it in a black-and-white textbook — that’s not how history was for people.”

“Anytime you do anything creative, you’re putting a bit of your soul out there for people to perceive,” Kissinger said. “It’s nerve-wracking, but it’s also really fulfilling to know that you had a dream and stuck with it and you didn’t let it go. Anytime I read a positive review of somebody just loving my book, it’s such an incredible feeling. Or when people get into tears… That’s such a strong goal to incite such emotion from a reader that they’ve got tears. It’s just very rewarding and fulfilling to get that feedback.”

That’s not to say the process of writing a book doesn’t come with challenges, though.

“My first book took probably two years, and a lot of that was the confidence of putting it out there,” Kissinger said. “But it was also the daunting task of, ‘How do I find an editor? How do I get a cover design? How do I publish this?’ There’s just so many bits of information you need to research and nowadays there’s a lot of scams and a lot of bad information. But now, I’ll write a book and I’ll let it sit probably for a week or two and that’s just to step away from the work and be able to look at it with fresh eyes. I like to think of my first draft as pretty skeletal — they have a heart and they have a soul but there’s not a whole lot of muscle or fat on the,. My second and third edit is where I really put the lean muscle on — lean muscle because you don’t want a bloated book… It’s about a year process right now. I try to get the edit out by mid-April or May to my editor and he has it probably four to six weeks and during that time I’m planning and thinking about my next book. Then, once I get my edit back, I switch gears back to that and I go through that a few times. And that’s usually about a whole year — December through December.”

To stick to that timeline, Kissinger said he has learned when to step away and how to manage more than just the writing aspect of authorship.

“I’m definitely someone that doesn’t reread my books, because you get to a point of diminishing returns where you could change this one word continually.

Knowing when the book is ready, I would say, is the hardest part,” he said. “Then, when you’re self-published, you wear every hat. It’s just like running your own business. It’s time consuming and some of the areas you have to spend your time and energy on aren’t necessarily things that you enjoy doing. They’re necessary evils. If I’ve got x amount of minutes in a day, how do I optimize and focus where I spend my energy and my time to make sure it all adds up to doing everything correctly?”

Looking towards the future, Kissinger said he hopes to be able to stick to his book-a-year timeline and maybe even travel to see some of the places he writes about.

“I’m definitely a goal-driven person…” he said. “I want to keep being able to write a book a year while working a full-time job — living a normal life and balancing that. I want to try to travel more and I want to be able to go to some of these European cities. I think it would add a whole new level of gravitas to being able to be in some of the locations where all these events happened. My goal is to just keep writing, keep getting the word out and trying to get more readers.”

You can learn more about Kissinger’s books and upcoming works at bretkissinger.com or signing up for his newsletter.