Today I’ve invited debut author Zoe Sivak to chat with us about what restoring history through the lens of fiction means and of course her debut novel Mademoiselle Revolution! I firmly believe that fiction is a very powerful medium to teach people about the world and therefore the work that authors and readers do is actively changing the world. After all, books are art and art is culture.
Zoe has a mission of restoring diversity into historical narratives and I can’t emphasize enough how excited I was to see that. If you’ve been a Bookish Brews reader for a while you know how well Zoe’s goals align with my goals here! The moment I came across Mademoiselle Revolution and Zoe, I knew I had to invite her to chat with us for a bit. So without rambling too much, I’m incredibly humbled and honored to introduce Zoe Sivak to Bookish Brews!
Bookish Brews Snapshot
Mademoiselle Revolution by Zoe Sivak
A powerful, engrossing story of a biracial heiress who escapes to Paris when the Haitian Revolution burns across her island home. But as she works her way into the inner circle of Robespierre and his mistress, she learns that not even oceans can stop the flames of revolution.
🏳️🌈 Bisexual MC 🤔 Thought Provoking 💪 Feminist 🗳️ Political Fiction
- Genre: Historical Fiction
In Conversation with Zoe Sivak
Amanda: Welcome, Zoe! I’m extremely honored to host you here on Bookish Brews today, thank you so much for coming. Before we get started, can you tell us a bit about yourself, your new book, and something you’re excited about?
Zoe Sivak: Amanda! I am delighted to be a part of this amazing platform—thank you for having me!
Well, my name is Zoe Sivak. I’m on the short end of tall and have enormous feet but an even bigger shoe obsession.
I was born and raised in Virginia Beach, Virginia to a little blonde Jewish woman from Pittsburgh. After college, I moved up to Philadelphia for my JD and MPH program which I’m finishing up this summer. My professional passion is maternal and child health, whereas my authorial passion is reinstating diverse, usually feminine, voices to our historical narrative. You’d be surprised by how much crossover there is!
To be honest, I’m just excited about this transition from relative anonymity into being published–with new readers joining Sylvie’s journey every day, as well as deciding what type of author (and all of what that entails) I want to be!
Amanda: Congratulations, I can’t wait to see what happens! I’m obsessed with your authorial passion for restoring history by including diverse voices to our historical narrative. What inspired you to start restoring history through these narratives?
Zoe: I would say that college—or at least specific courses—really changed my view of how history should be perceived. Despite the fact that I was pre-med at the time, I took as many history courses as I could squeeze in: East Asia, Medieval Europe, Antebellum United States, etc. But one specific class had a professor with a background in Caribbean history, and while she also gave me the knowledge I needed regarding the influence of the Haitian Revolution on the United States, she also presented history with the kind of raw emotion of someone who didn’t see the past as simply behind us. She shared primary, personal sources that, while hundreds of years old, triggered the same pain as contemporary examples.
And as I grew older, grew into my womanhood, my queerness, my Blackness, and my awareness of the world, I had an aching pressure to share that lens with readers. History is a treadmill—we retrace the same steps, feelings, and traumas of those that walked it before us—and I wanted to share stories that represented that in as an authentic but intimate way as I could.
Amanda: I think that desire to share history in an authentic and intimate way is absolutely beautiful. What drew you to writing fiction to tell these stories as opposed to becoming a historian, sociologist, or other?
Zoe: That’s an excellent question, one that I don’t think I could have answered without all my years of soul searching.
Firstly, duality is in my nature: I was a hardcore theater-kid, I love languages (français anyone?), I’m a passionate dinosaur enthusiast, an amateur early modern historian, etc. Nonetheless, the healthcare/science-minded part of me won out in the end simply because I love medicine, and women (specifically Black women) need more champions in our broken system.
But I’ve come to realize that for most of my enduring interests, the binding thread is my voice. I gravitated so fiercely toward theater, research, and health advocacy because when I have something to say or a way I want to say it, I can make people listen. Being a historian certainly contributes to our greater narrative, but academia is exclusive and insular by design, so my main objective—sharing deeply held truths to the wider world—wouldn’t be met as fully. Writing, something that I stumbled upon by befriending another author in college, inadvertently satisfied not only my creative and academic drive, but also my core ambition of having a stage.
So, long story short, books are my ideal medium for combining history, drama, and voice!
Amanda: That is truly remarkable, I firmly believe that your writing can do that! What is one (or more!) deeply held truth that you hope to share with the wider world through Mademoiselle Revolution?
Zoe: Probably two things: firstly, that we can be in positions of privilege while still experiencing injustice or discrimination. People are complicated and nuanced, we shouldn’t try to paint any single person with a broad brush. The same goes for historical events—if you can summarize it in a pithy phrase, you’re most likely drinking some watered down version of the truth.
And secondly, I’d say that as the past feels more relevant than ever, it’s vital to humanize history as much as possible. Don’t be an armchair historian: understanding the past isn’t like admiring something in a museum, neatly contained and summarized and distant. People living hundreds or thousands of years ago didn’t have our perfect hindsight or cultural assumptions, our history was their present. It’s hard to conceptualize, but we have been more or less human for around 300,000 years: we laughed the same, bled the same, cried the same, and loved the same. So, engage with history and our ancestors as equals, they both deserve it.
Amanda: Those are both so important! When writing historical fiction, especially considering your efforts in restoring history through fiction, how do you manage to maintain balance between history, fiction, and telling those truths?
Zoe: I definitely struggle with leaving room for creative freedom in regard to timelines—I try to only fit in the “fiction” where it conceivably could have existed. I’m pretty intense about my research and accuracy, but it pays off in authenticity. While certain characters may be fictitious, it gets easier once you have all of that research behind you to have them interact realistically with history.
I will say that every book and time period has its own balance of historical vs fiction, so you have to work through your own assumptions and objectives until you find what works best!
Amanda: You’ve alluded to the idea that history informs our fiction so I have to ask, how do you think that our fiction informs our history?
Zoe: In so many ways, fiction has reshaped and become our history. The past is just a linear series of events on a timeline, history is the narrative built up over generations of dinner tables, classrooms, movies, and other media where humanity adds context and connections that transcend any single moment in time. So, if a lie or half-truth is retold by those in power—or worse, by those who don’t care about the power of the truth—our history becomes rewritten or weaponized.
Fiction breathes life into stories that weren’t told and lives lived without record—making history accessible and resonant. Ethical fiction reveals the truth; it doesn’t obscure it.
Amanda: That is stunning and I totally agree! How can revealing truth through ethical fiction impact our world today and in the future? And what would you say to other writers inspired by your mission?
Zoe: We all remember the colorful, laminated posters dotting the walls of our respective elementary school rooms: “Knowledge is power,” was one of the first ones I can recall clearly. In the context of our youth, knowledge means fractions, the water cycle, and cursive. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to recognize the expression as a rallying cry for democracy. That may seem like a big jump, but in the context of history, knowledge is anthropology, it’s psychology, it’s politics, it’s justice. Sometimes powerful institutions actively conceal or misrepresent facts, though more often than not, indifference is the best destroyer of histories.
But when society respects the power of the past, accountability becomes a formidable weapon. Because when you are armed with truth, mistakes are remembered and promises upheld: you have agency, influence, and sovereignty—moving confidently towards a future informed by what was so you can anticipate what will be.
And historical fiction is an arm of that movement! So read broadly, and write ethically. Not every story has to be a manifesto on human rights, but every story should tell the truth regarding the period it depicts. Research should inform your writing, not assumptions—you’ll be surprised by how much humanity (in all of its diversity) you find.
Amanda: Thank you so much for joining us, Zoe. This entire conversation warmed my heart and I can’t wait for everyone to read Mademoiselle Revolution!
Zoe: Thank you for having me, Amanda!
