Interview with Writer Leenie Hobbie

A creative late-bloomer who published her first book in her 60s

Last month, author Leenie Hobbie, who writes the Folk Herbalist Journal on Substack, published her first book, Elder Legacies. She described the five-year process that she initiated at age 60 in her announcement, "Pressing Matters Book Release."

Set during World War I, the mystery features a young widow, trained in herbal medicine, as she learns to survive financially in a culture and time when opportunities for women were scarce. Historical fiction, mystery, and herbal medicine made me order the book immediately! I'm a third of the way in, and I already love the characters.

Below is an inspiring email interview that Leenie graciously agreed to do with me.

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Let's start with this: Do you consider yourself a creative late-bloomer? Why or why not?

Absolutely! I’ve been a late bloomer all my life. I love doing things slowly and steadily; I abhor being rushed. At the same time, I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that I have felt creative all my life. I’ve just begun to channel that creativity into writing more actively and intentionally since I turned 60 in 2020.

Describe your creative background and specifically, your interest in writing and historical fiction. Have you taken courses or workshops in writing?

I’ve always loved books and written and spoken words for as long as I can remember. I also always wanted to be a writer. Before I even entered public school, I would write stories and draw pictures to illustrate them. I remember my mother used to “publish” them by taping them up on my bedroom wall. She made a big deal of it, and I would sometimes lie on my bed just staring and marveling at all my “books” hanging there like trophies. That’s a powerful foundational and initiatory memory for me.

I was an English major in college, but I was extremely eclectic in the classes I took, and I was finished with that experience before I completed my senior year. I was always a voracious reader, and sometimes think that I mainly majored in English so I could keep reading. But I took lots of science courses, especially geology, and probably would have switched to botany if I’d attended a college that offered it. My interests were all over the place, and whatever caught my attention became a complete experience and touched all facets of my daily life, from food to clothing to language.

When my husband and I got married, having been best friends for nine years and still in college at the time, we had a dream to hand-build a home in the mountains. We were living near the Atlantic Ocean then in Norfolk, Virginia, but every chance we got, we would pack up our gear and go camping in the mountains along the Blue Ridge. We realized we didn’t really want to live at the beach since we rarely went there unless we had visitors. We would make drawings of the house we were going to build one day…and we did!

We home-birthed and raised 4 children who are all grown and flown, having their own wonderful adventures now. I sometimes wrote and published personal essays for various magazines like Mothering and American Folk Arts. I continued to be deeply interested in plants and nature. I studied intensively with some amazing master herbalists, like Jeanne Rose, Jeannine Parvati Baker, and Rosemary Gladstar. I began leading wild plant identification walks in our community and teaching home apothecary skills classes. Living in the Potomac Highlands in West Virginia, ancestral lands of the Adena peoples and later the Huron, Susquehannock, and Shawnee, of the beautiful and ancient Appalachian Mountain chain, had a huge impact on my creative expression and my entire life.

I’ve taken a couple of brief community writing workshops just for fun. And, of course, there were many writing assignments in college. However, most of what I have learned about writing has come from reading, both fiction and nonfiction. One of our sons is an artist, and we went to art galleries when he was growing up. We’d spend hours in one room or even looking at one painting or sculpture. One thing I learned from him is that asking whether or not I “like” a certain piece of art is not a very useful question. Instead, it’s more instructive to ask how it makes me feel and then try to unpack how the artist accomplished that feeling within me. I think at some point I began thinking that way about the books I read. I began asking how the author created something that made me feel exultant and empowered, or estranged and isolated, or…whatever. That was when I really began looking intensively at the craft of writing.

How has aging impacted or influenced your creative work? How did your life experiences prepare you for the late-life project? What has been the most important practice or belief that sustained your book project?

I think aging is such a profound gift. I’m so thankful to still be here, because I think eldering is one of the best kept secrets. For me, being 60-something is a far richer, happier, and exciting time than being 20-something was. I’m glad I didn’t give up before I got here.

I turned 60 in 2020, and that was a big year for everyone. I’ve always been someone who values my solitude, and so the isolation wasn’t that difficult for me---although the anxiety of so many unknowns was. Turning 60 was the first momentous birthday for me. Turning 30, 40, even 50 never triggered anything for me. It was just another birthday. Honestly, life seemed to improve with each passing year, so I really wasn’t one of those people who regretted my passing youth. But 60 was a significant shift. It was probably enhanced by the fact that I was a late bloomer in this life passage as well. I didn’t officially enter menopause until I was 59. There was a discernible shift physically and hormonally that coincided with turning 60.

Our youngest had graduated and was living on her own. I didn’t have many non-negotiable demands on my time for the first time in 30 years or more. Initially, I dealt with my anxieties about COVID by sewing and sharing masks. While I was sewing hundreds of masks, I had plenty of time to allow my mind to wander. It meandered back to my lifelong love of writing, and I started pondering: “I wonder if I could write an effective mystery?” Once I put away the fabric and stowed the sewing machine, I set about trying to answer that question. So, at an age when many people feel their value and contributions are shrinking, I felt like mine were just beginning to expand. It made turning 60 feel like a liberation rather than a restriction.

I also want to give a nod of appreciation to my grandmother, who was a huge influence in my life. She used to say to me, “Leenie-girl, you were born old. That’s good because when you’re old in your body, you’ll be young in your spirit.” Like those “books” my mother “published” on my bedroom wall when I was young, those words stayed with me, and I sensed the truth and power they held.

Your book is historical fiction. What appeals to you about this genre?

I like this question---because I’m not sure what the answer is. I know what attracts me to the cozy mystery genre. It’s the reminder that despite unexpected, bad things happening, ultimately justice and right prevail, what is hidden is revealed. That is something I have a strong investment in believing.

But historical fiction…that’s a trickier one to identify. I think I have been toying with a cozy mystery protagonist in my head for at least the past 20 years. She turned out to be the one I created in Tommie Dubois, the protagonist in Elder Legacies. I always knew I wanted to write an herbal mystery as another way to share my love of plants, and I thought an herbalist would be an interesting main character. Because I read broadly and always follow my curiosity, I was already rooting around in the history of the last time our country, and indeed the world, had faced a global pandemic like COVID. That was the influenza pandemic (erroneously called ‘Spanish Flu’) of 1918. I became so intrigued by the books I was reading at that time, it felt natural to set Tommie in that era. I could understand what she might have felt because I was feeling and experiencing many of the same things.

That seems to be continuing as I begin work on book two of this series. It’s set in 1920, and I thought it would feel like a relatively calm time after the tumult of World War I and the Influenza Pandemic of 1918. I couldn’t have been more mistaken. Both now and when I was drafting Elder Legacies in 2020, I’m utterly amazed by the parallels between 1920 and 2020, socially, politically, economically, and psychologically. Maybe historical fiction has more potential to help us understand and navigate our own times than I realized when I first started writing this series.

In your Substack post, you describe your writing process and mention that it took you five years from start to finish. How did you sustain your interest, motivation, and energy?

That’s a big question, and the truth is that sometimes I did sustain those things and sometimes I didn’t.

First of all, I love drafting. The initial writing is pure fun for me. It’s exciting because I never know for sure what is going to happen. It feels like I’ve picked up what I think is a tiny piece of thread only to discover it’s attached to everything and if I don’t hang on for the ride, I will be free falling through space. So, the drafting stage is the easy part for me to remain engaged, motivated, and energized by the process. Even revising can be fun because the story still feels alive, open to change, and organic. Line editing is a bit of a chore, but it’s finite and we have a lot of technological tools to help speed that along.

Where I stalled out a bit was when it was time to consider paths to publication. At one point I became so depressed about the whole thing that I printed out the entire manuscript and put it in a box, backed up and saved the Word.doc file and didn’t even look at it or think about it for a year. I think it probably would have remained there forever if it hadn’t been for a friend who was working on a manuscript and asked if I would like to be critique partners. We spent 9 months meeting virtually each week for a couple of hours. We would exchange chapters or scenes and give each other one or two specific things we wanted feedback on. For example, I was often asking about the dialogue because my friend has a theater background and writes believable dialogue. Sometimes, we’d be looking at pacing or a certain character. I think that whole experience was helpful to us both. She really got me back into the heart and soul of my story and reminded me that I cared about these characters and their story and I wanted to share it with others. A good critique partner is a boon to a writer who works most of the time in a solitary way.

When I finally had a finished, in the sense of revised and edited, manuscript I was ready to tackle the big, scary world of modern publishing.

Did you experience moments of self-doubt? How did you talk yourself through it?

Absolutely, especially once I started navigating the formatting and publishing stage. So. Much. Self-doubt. Honestly, I don’t really know how to answer that question in a concise way. There are so many different ways to publish now and I looked into ALL of them. In some sense, I even “tried” all of them---at least a little. Because I don’t have a MFA or an agent or an impressive tear sheet (is that even a relevant term anymore?) or… Well, I could go on and on listing all the reasons why I’m not worthy to be a published author. But they’re all made up. I wanted to write and publish (share my work) in the same way that a bird wants to wake up and sing. It is a worthwhile undertaking, and I decided I was worthy of the adventure, even if I do struggle with self-doubt sometimes.

Part of coming to terms with those feelings included starting to follow other writers on Substack and reading a lot more self-published work in a wide variety of genres and formats. Just like in 2020, when so many people found themselves with a lot of free time on their hands and learned to play instruments, bake sourdough bread from scratch, learn languages, paint, create all kinds of textile arts, and write books, I was reminded that humans are innately creative. Some even have a genius, more than I would have suspected prior to 2020. And many of them never become famous or even recognized. Still, they continue to sing, or dance, or write, or whatever their inner drive calls them to do. That was so freeing for me, and I realized that self-publishing and creating as few barriers between myself and the readers who might enjoy my book was the right path for me. That barely scratches the surface of that final year of formatting and publishing, but it gives you some idea.

In some sense, every book I ever read was a “mentor” or inspiration. Specifically, I am a huge Agatha Christie fan and have been since I read Murder on the Orient Express when I was in the third grade. It was my first chapter book, and I just found it in a public library and liked the cover. I still reread my favorite Agatha Christie books sometimes. As one of my Christie fan friends said, “Agatha Christie always did it first, and if she didn’t do it first, she did it best!”

I was also inspired by Susan Wittig Albert’s China Bayles herbal mystery series. In fact, when I signed up on Substack, she was the first writer I searched for and I began reading her newsletters. Although I read that series starting back in the 1990s, I have been rereading them for the past few years and taking a closer look at how she structured them, her voice, etc. More recently, I’ve also been reading her Hidden Women series and the utterly delightful Cottage Tales series. Susan is truly an amazing researcher and has introduced me to so many facets of the herb world that I never would have discovered without her books.

Has your book project changed the way you view nature, our culture, people, etc?

Excellent question. Yes, I believe that it has changed how I view life. I realize so much more clearly now that we’re all like ‘The Fool’ in a tarot deck. We set off on our grand adventures, whatever they may be, with boundless optimism and are clueless about what we will need or how we will ever arrive at our destination. If we’re fortunate, we have a companion or loyal friend along for the adventure. We encounter all sorts of surprises and plot twists, and these include many setbacks and discouragements. We learn a lot in the process, but maybe the most important thing we learn is that we really do have everything we need if we hold onto our ability to learn and adapt as we go.

My protagonist starts out thinking her life is going to go a certain way. She makes choices and decisions that seem wise and reasonable to the culture and times in which she is living. Then a world war comes along, and she is widowed and alone, a woman in a world designed for men. I won’t say more because I don’t want to give any spoilers. But she takes the skills of her hands, the wit of her mind, and the resources she has at hand to craft a life for herself. A lot happens, and she is changed over the course of the book. I changed in similar ways during the writing process. I, too, came to terms with the restrictions that define my life according to my culture, and then I pushed beyond them to rewrite my life story on my own terms.

This sounds like defiance, but the experience has been one of adapting to the realities as they are, even while forging ahead in new ways. Tommie’s world told her that she needed a man (a father, a husband) to validate and define her, but she questions that. My world tells me that I need at least an MFA, an agent, and a book contract with a Big 4 publisher to be a success. I question that, just as I question and define success for myself. I think Tommie taught me a lot about making my own way.

What do you enjoy most about your creative work? Least favorite?

I started to say ‘drafting’ again, and that’s true, but I realized that drafting, which is what I am doing right now for book two, includes a lot of research. I’m mostly reading books, watching videos, reading old newspaper headlines and articles (all from 1920), and scribbling lots of notes and ideas. That’s part of drafting for me. I did the same thing with Elder Legacies. I like reading my notes even from a day or two ago, because it amazes me how my ideas and inspirations are so all-over-the-place. I read one this morning from a week or two ago, and already I’d forgotten it, and all the ideas that have been jotted down between then and now would make that spark impossible to fit into the story arc. But who knows, maybe later it will fit perfectly with a revised version.

But she takes the skills of her hands, the wit of her mind, and the resources she has at hand to craft a life for herself. A lot happens, and she is changed over the course of the book. I changed in similar ways during the writing process. I, too, came to terms with the restrictions that define my life according to my culture, then I pushed beyond them to rewrite my life story on my own terms.

My least favorite part is easy: formatting or anything to do with wrestling with my computer. I forced myself to do that for my first book. I had some crazy idea that I needed to do everything myself. Now, at least I know that I can do it if I absolutely must, but that is a step that I will gleefully pay to have done. Really, I wasted far too much time (months!) struggling to accomplish even very simple things setting margins and making chapter breaks. Someone skilled and experienced with those formatting tools and programs could probably have done it in a day, stress-free. And I could have spent them reading and writing! That’s what aging, at its best, brings: self-knowledge and self-acceptance and the wisdom to know what is mine to do and when it’s best to ask for help.

Thanks so much, Leenie, for sharing your thoughts as a newly published book author.

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Publisher’s Description for Elder Legacies by Leenie Hobbie

ELDER LEGACIES, book one of a planned series, is an adult mystery set in 1918 America. This whodunit will resonate with readers of Susan Wittig Albert's China Bayles herbal mysteries, especially QUEEN ANNE'S LACE, and MRS. JEFFRIES VICTORIAN MYSTERY series by Emily Brightwell.

Originally from Scotland, Thomasina 'Tommie' Dubois at 24 finds herself a WWI widow. With the assistance of her 16-year-old African American apprentice, Nell Fisher, Tommie owns and runs a tearoom and apothecary in her inherited Victorian home. The bedroom community of New Babylon, situated near the nation's capital, appears to be a sleepy village, but it holds dark secrets harking back to the days of slavery, as Tommie discovers when her boarder, Clarence Patterson, is found dead in his room. Has the deadly influenza raging across the globe struck, as the doctor hastily declared? This appears likely--- until Nell is abducted. A reluctant and inexperienced sleuth, Tommie rises to the challenge.

Initially, Tommie's greatest wish is to be mistress of a traditional home filled with family and homemaking modeled after MRS. BEETON'S BOOK OF HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT, a Victorian Martha Stewart. Tommie clings to the book's promises of orderly habits resulting in guaranteed happiness despite all evidence to the contrary. Ever optimistic and sometimes comically naïve, Tommie tries to make her way in a man's world and finds she may have more in common with the rabble-rousing suffragists than with Mrs. Beeton.

Leenie’s book is available to purchase online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Bookshop.

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