Jeanette Lynes soars with her new novel, The Paper Birds

Congratulations to Jeanette Lynes, Director of our MFA in Writing program, on the release of her new novel, The Paper Birds (HarperCollins Canada).

Lynes's historical novel follows young Gemma Sullivan, who is unexpectedly recruited into a secret codebreaking unit operating out of a lakeside cottage in Mimico, Ontario. The Paper Birds is a gripping story of love, sisterhood, and the little-known work of Canada’s women codebreakers during WWII.

Recently, Jeanette answered some of our questions about her book and her writing process.

What drew you to tell a story about Canadian women codebreakers—and how did you research this lesser-known part of WWII history?

Women’s work and their lives during times of war have been of interest to me since the 1990s. There were numerous research vectors for The Paper Birds – archived newspapers, etc. – but what helped enormously was a grant I received through SaskArts to travel to England in 2023. I worked in archives that held documents related to World War Two intelligence (Cambridge, Kew) and Bletchley Park. I was also able to tour Bletchley Park.

As a writer who began writing more in the medium of poetry, how did that prepare you for becoming a novelist?

Poetry writing helps me in fiction in many ways. Poetry as the art of compression is engrained in me, so when I’m being overly verbose in fiction, which I tend to be, I think of poetry and scale back on the verbiage. So, poetry writing helps me self-edit. It also aids description, leaning into detail, granularity. As sound, poetry has trained my ear to strive for musicality in writing. Not saying I always achieve this in prose but I’m always aware of it. There are other ways that poetry facilitates fiction writing but I’m growing verbose, here!

The Paper Birds touches on secrecy, sacrifice, and first love. What do you hope readers will carry with them after finishing Gemma’s story?

It’s always hard to predict what readers will take from a story, but from the start, in novels, I’ve been interested in ordinary people doing extraordinary things. I admire ingenuity (when it serves a good cause) and our capacity to be resourceful. I hope readers of The Paper Birds pick up on this spirit.

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