Trinette Olin is a former fifth-grade teacher, farm wife, mother, and grandmother who farms with her husband near Alexis, Illinois. Last fall, she published her first children's novel — and the story behind how it finally got finished is as good as the book itself.
Olin joined Galesburg's Morning News to talk about The Bicentennial Year and the Forgotten Name — a novel told through letters between a fifth-grade girl and her grandmother, set against the backdrop of America's 200th birthday in 1975-76.
Topics covered in this interview:
- What the book is about — a quest for a middle name, a ferocious dog, and a lot of 1970s nostalgia
- Why she chose the epistolary format — letters between a girl and her grandmother
- How her 17 years teaching fifth grade shaped the writing
- The students at Immaculate Conception School in Monmouth who helped her finish it
- The America 250 connection — and why she's glad she didn't finish it sooner
- Where the book is available and what might be coming next
The Bicentennial Year and the Forgotten Name is available on Amazon in paperback, hardback, e-book, and audiobook. It is also available at Prairie Crossroads Mercantile in Viola and at local libraries.
Learn more at trinetteolin.com.