Goodreads asked Kelli Estes:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Kelli Estes I got the idea for The Girl Who Wrote in Silk about ten years ago when I was researching the history of the San Juan Islands in WA state and came across a mention of a smuggler who was carrying a boat load of Chinese people. When the revenue cutter got too close, this smuggler needed to get rid of the evidence of his smuggling, so he brought the Chinese people on deck, clubbed them on the head, and threw their bodies overboard. I was horrified and could not stop thinking about it. For years I kept learning more...why the Chinese were being smuggled in the first place (because of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882), and just how rampant the anti-Chinese sentiment was during the late 1800s (extremely). I was horrified, and horrified that I never knew about this time in our country's history. I had to write about it so others knew about it, too.

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