Meet Author Diann Boehm!

Step back into early 20th century with Diann Boehm’s Ruby Takes Chicago! Read on to learn more about this author and her character!

1. Ruby Takes Chicago is the sequel to Rise! A Girl’s Struggle for More. 
   How has Ruby grown and changed from the first book to the second?
   That is a wonderful question. Here is some background for our readers who might not have read the first book. Ruby has changed much since leaving her hometown of Oilton and attending Chillicothe College, Missouri. When she returns home after college, she tries to find a job there, but has no luck. However, her parents finally see that she has outgrown her hometown and  encourage her to follow her dream by going to Chicago. Why Chicago? It was modern enough to have employers willing to accept girls with college degrees. When Ruby arrives in Chicago, she is more confident than when she was younger. She is willing to take almost any job to get started, while looking for a job that fits her degree in accounting. So, you see, the problem all new graduates still have was a problem long ago – to get the job you want you need experience, but you can’t get experience until you get hired. Ruby still has a lot to learn in the second book. Tulsa was a big city, but Chicago was more than he could have imagined, with skyscrapers, many more people, and traffic jams. She was confident that she could find a success, but also she was surprised that even in a progressive city like Chicago, women still had to navigate what was in many ways a man’s world.  Ruby grows up in the second book with several love interests, salary differences due to her being a girl, and many more twists and turns. Ruby becomes the strong woman she always knew she could be.
2. Why did you choose that particular time period for your setting?
   I chose the 1920s because my Grandma Ruby came of age then and because it is an exciting time in American history.
   3.What did you find most rewarding writing Ruby Takes Chicago? The most challenging?
   The most rewarding or interesting thing to me was discovering societal changes from the early 1900s to the 1920s. Women wanted more in life, and people were moving to cities to have more opportunities than they could find in the rural communities. Women’s dresses in the 1920s were less modest than their parent’s generation. But of course, by today’s standards, the dresses of the 1920s would be considered modest. The laws were changing, and women wanted to work in jobs that traditionally had been only for men. Technology was providing more time for Americans to enjoy life. There seemed to be money to spare, and the middle class was emerging. I found myself so intrigued by the changes in life that I would sometimes go down research rabbit holes because it was fascinating.  The most challenging aspect was dealing with staying on message. When you look back at history and know what comes next, it is easy to want to bring in elements that are irrelevant to the story.  For example, Prohibition was a huge factor in society. So, I showed that Ruby and her friends work around it. It would have been easy to have made Prohibition a bigger part of the story, but I had to not get distracted. Another example is the women’s rights movement. I easily could have had Ruby marching for women’s rights, but it would not have been true to who she was. Although she was strong for her time, she still had the small girl’s innocence. Ruby had seen and learned a lot living in Chicago, but she also valued what her parents taught her about kindness to others, trying not to pass judgment, and speaking like a lady. 

4. Can we expect a third installment in this series? This is a frequent question. People want to know what happens next. At this moment, I do not see myself writing a third book, even though I have a brother who thinks people would find Ruby’s later life even more exciting. But like I told my mom and brother, I wrote Rise! A Girl’s Struggle for More to inspire young people today to pursue their dreams; to stop and think that if a girl born in a small town in 1904 did not let society decide what she would be, she had just as much right to attend college as any brother of hers; and she was going to go after her dream no matter how long it took her.  Then I wanted to show in the book Ruby Takes Chicago how Ruby matures. Ruby got more; she got the more fulfilling life that she wanted. I feel I made the points I wanted to make in the two books. Besides, this leaves room for each reader to think and dream about what happens to Ruby next.