PHOTO: Steve Wiegenstein, author with deep ties to the Missouri Ozarks and a voice of profound historical insight.
Exploring The Ozarks, History, And The Lives That Shape Them
Steve Wiegenstein discusses his historical novels, rural narratives, and blending literary authenticity with dramatic tension while shining light on overlooked human dynamics and the history of small communities.
Steve Wiegenstein’s literary craft resonates deeply with those who appreciate the silent yet profound undercurrents of history and human experience. His ability to weave narratives that explore the intersection of personal lives and epochal shifts is a testament to his thoughtful engagement with the past. Raised in the Missouri Ozarks, Wiegenstein’s sense of place enriches his works, allowing them to transcend mere storytelling to become poignant vignettes of rural America, grappling with change and modernity.
In his latest novel, Land of Joys, Wiegenstein transports readers to two contrasting landscapes: the bustling spectacle of the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair and the enduring quiet of Daybreak, a fictional Ozarks village. This duality brims with tension and beauty, as characters confront the collision of tradition and progress, negotiating questions of identity and survival. Wiegenstein’s mastery lies in presenting the intricacies of human relationships—generational bonds, community struggles, and personal reckonings—against the backdrop of sweeping historical forces and cultural shifts.
Whether in sprawling historical novels like Slant of Light and The Language of Trees, or the compact tales of Scattered Lights, Wiegenstein’s prose is marked by an unshakeable respect for the complexities of the “ordinary.” His works remind us that history is shaped as much by the quiet acts of farmers, teachers, and labourers as by generals and kings. Through his narratives, he invites us to reflect on the enduring, timeless essence of human nature: ambition and loyalty, hope and heartbreak, perseverance and love.
Based on Land of Joys’ vivid contrast between rural Ozarks and the 1904 World’s Fair, how did you balance authenticity with dramatic tension in portraying Daybreak’s collision with modernity?
That’s a complicated question, and I think I can only answer it partially. The Ozarks is a region prone to stereotypes, so one challenge I faced was dramatizing that tendency while not embracing it. The Daybreak folks come to the Fair as an amusement for the sophisticated folks of the city, just like the Patagonians, Ainu, Filipinos, and other groups that were brought to the Fair, but they also intend to capitalize on that curiosity. So the tension between the “rustic” and the “modern” is a tricky negotiation in the book.
In Land of Joys, Charlotte Turner faces ‘life of death’ decisions to protect Petey—what informed your depiction of their intergenerational bond under extreme pressure?
I think there haven’t been enough depictions of the grandparent/grandchild relation in fiction! It’s an interesting dynamic, one that many authors overlook because it’s not especially sexy or innately tense. But it’s a deep well of feeling – one party nearing the end of life, the other in the beginning stages – so I wanted to explore it.
Your Daybreak series spans from Slant of Light to Land of Joys—how has your vision for the community’s arc evolved across these four novels?
I’ve had the idea for this series from the very beginning: if you could depict the tribulations of a small rural community well enough, it would cast light on the history of the United States as a whole. I originally thought it would take seven books, but as the series progressed I realised that was too many. Now, with the publication of the fifth book in the series next year, I think the project is complete. I believe historical novelists are seduced sometimes into thinking that only the doings of the “great” – kings and generals and such – are worthy of interest. For me, so-called ordinary people are not really ordinary at all, just constrained in their economic or political power. And their stories can be just as powerful.
In The Language of Trees you examined the rural/urban divide and industrial change—how did that inform the thematic concerns you return to in Land of Joys?
The arc of American life is from agrarian to industrial to technological, and I definitely wanted to track those changes as they moved through history. But equally important to me are the essential elements of human nature that persist throughout these changes. Ambition and betrayal, enduring love, folly, determination, idealism and hope – these things exist in varying proportions everywhere and at all times. So I see my job as placing those eternal things into a specific historical context as believably as possible, and seeing how things turn out from there.
Your background as a newspaper reporter and academic shapes your writing—how have those professional experiences influenced your historical research and narrative voice?
I learned two things from newspaper writing. One is stylistic. I learned that the heart of any piece of prose is the sentence, and the heart of any sentence is the verb. So if you want your work to be memorable, you have to labour over it sentence by sentence, verb by verb. Everything else falls into place from there. The second thing is that your editor is not your enemy. In journalistic writing, being edited is simply part of the work, and you quickly develop a thick skin when people suggest changes in your writing. That’s a very useful attitude to have for a process that takes years to complete.
Academic life taught me the vast difference between research and teaching. We’ve all known in our school careers teachers who knew a lot but couldn’t communicate well, and others who were excellent communicators but had a weak base of knowledge. The challenge is to combine those skills and not let one overbalance the other.
Your essays reflect deep reflections on the 1904 World’s Fair—how did writing those essays feed into the novelistic treatment of the Fair in Land of Joys?
I think it was the other way around. The more I researched the World’s Fair, the more interesting byways opened up, things that didn’t fit into the novel but were fascinating in their own right. So I would spin off that insight into an essay. There’s been a lot of really good research done on the Fair in the last few years, especially with respect to the anthropological elements.
Scattered Lights explores short stories rather than the Daybreak saga—what did writing shorter forms teach you that you carried into your latest historical novel?
They’re such different animals! I’m not sure. I guess the one thing that carries over is something I learned when writing short stories: If you have a character and a problem, you have a story.
What single piece of advice would you offer to aspiring authors hoping to write historically rooted fiction grounded in personal or regional heritage?
Cultivate patience. This is a task that takes a long time, so don’t wait for inspiration. Work every day if you can.
