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Janet Fitch on her novel ‘The Revolution of Marina M’

Janet Fitch, author and teacher, sits to chat at the 2019 LA Times Festival of Books.

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Janet Fitch, author and teacher of fiction writing, sat to chat at the Festival of Books about her novel “The Revolution of Marina M,” a story about a poet coming of age during the Russian Revolution. She also revealed a bit about her own coming of age as a young reader and scholar.

“When I was a child, in English class, they would give the boys ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,’ and they would give the girls books like ‘Cherry Ames, Student Nurse.’ I was a terrific reader, and that was not going to do.”

Writing a novel rooted in history also made Fitch more aware of our place in time.

“It becomes more pressing — what it is to live in history. And you’re always looking for clues as to how things will turn out,” she said.

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“People who lived at those times didn’t know what was going to happen any more than we do.”

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