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Hello, and good morning. How
are you doing today? I am doing

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very well. How are you today? Loving this because I've been waiting to

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talk with you because I want to
know how you put your imagination inside this

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storyline and what you had to do
when this book came to an end,

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because you really put us into this
storyline as readers, but the author has

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got to live it first. You
know, that is a very interesting question

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and I and that's exactly what I
think My goal is as an author is

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to be so into a story a
place of studying a history myself that that

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is exactly what the reader experiences as
well. And you know, for me,

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it's really just all about taking such
a deep dive into the history of

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a place and really just trying to
reach back and find the reality of the

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human experience that happened during this time. And so you know, I do

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that by listening to people's stories and
interviewing people and reading documents, whatever clues

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you know that I can find to
really understand the reality of a place.

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And sometimes that is a very dark
place to be, and sometimes it's an

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incredible, incredibly joyful place to be
as well doing that research. I mean,

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I'm such a research nut. I
mean, I've got to do it.

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I've got to do it because that's
part of the personality of the final

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performance. And it's like when you
go in there inside World War Two?

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Where did you go to so that
you could envision what everything was looking like?

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Yeah? Well, the first thing
I did for Artifice is I went

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to Amsterdam because I think the city
is almost a character in itself and is

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a bit of a metaphor for you
know, the juxtaposition between the beauty of

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Amsterdam and the real ugliness of the
Nazi occupation. So obviously I wanted to

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go there. But you know,
one of the amazing things that happens when

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you start putting things out into the
world that you can't anticipate is someone had

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said to me, you know,
in my own hometown. They said,

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there's this man he lived through the
Nazi occupation of Amsterdam, and said I'd

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love to talk to him. So
I made an appointment and we chatted,

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and it turned out that he had
known one of the characters that I was

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writing about in the book, Han
von megrin the art Forger, and he

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was able to tell me all these
wonderful things about what his art studio was

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like, and what kind of paintings
were hanging on his walls and what sort

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of man he was? And I
thought, you know, it is so

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incredible. I was getting ready to
go to Amsterdam to find out all of

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these things, and all of this
wealth of information was fifteen minutes from my

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house. And that's what happens when
you just start seeking. You just never

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know what you're going to find.
See. That's what I love about being

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a writer is the fact that you
know, if you allow the energy that's

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around you to just move through you, you're gonna you're gonna find things that

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they're like, we've ignored. We
walk right by him every day, but

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open yourself up as a writer,
and all of a sudden, it's like,

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what what's going on? And you
know, I don't even understand the

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science behind that, except I know
it's true. So I think I think

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it must be mystical somehow, but
it's absolutely true. Well, and here

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here's the thing, Sharon, that
that that I love about this story is

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that my father was in World War
two. I've heard so many stories about

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the artwork in World War two and
and and even sixty minutes and CBS Sunday

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morning and that. But you you
give us a spin on it with the

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forgery, and it's like, oh, of course that was taking place,

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And it's such a fascinating story,
isn't it. I You know, Han

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von Magrin, the forger was absolutely
he was fooling everyone. He had He

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had discovered a way to create what
I could only term as plastic paint,

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paint that could crack be made to
look like a four hundred year old painting,

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and he was taking in everyone museum's
collectors. When the Nazis invaded,

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he just kept right on doing it, and he sold a faked Vermir to

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Hermann Goring, second in command of
the Reich, and that painting hung over

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Goring's desk as the jewel of his
art collection. It's really, it's really

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hoodwinking. The Nazis is always delicious. It's irresistible, you know. But

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I have to say, han von
Magrin, he made what would now be

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the equivalent of twenty three million dollars
selling forgeries, and he was living it

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up while the rest of the Netherlands
starved. Wow. So there's two sides

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to every true story. For sure, the money raised has a higher purpose.

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I mean, was it not about
saving the babies. Yes. Absolutely.

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The other true story that sort of
balances the story of Han von Megrin

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was another real man who was living
in Amsterdam during the war. His name

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was Johann von Holst, and he
started a baby smuggling ring. Basically,

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he was rescuing Jewish babies and toddlers
that were being held in their own prison

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getting ready to be sent directly to
the gas chambers. So they were taking

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babies and putting them in laundry baskets
and shopping facts and handing them out the

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windows and anything they could do to
spirit these children out of the city,

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make them disappear and give them a
chance at life. They are credited with

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saving at least six hundred Jewish babies
and toddlers during the war, and it

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was probably actually more than that.
Of course, the sad part of the

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stories that could have never been enough
for every child they had to choose to

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save, they had to choose to
leave one behind, and it was absolutely

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heartbreaking. But you know, it's
the difference between these two men that I

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think really fascinated me. They were
about the same age, grew up in

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the same city. I think they
even looked a little bit alike. But

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you could not see two people who
used their time and their talents more differently.

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And all I could think I was
when I knew about these two two

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true stories, is what would have
happened if Yo and von Holst the baby

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Snuggler had had Han von megrin the
forgers twenty three million dollars. I think

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the world would have been a completely
different place. And that's that's the question.

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I really wanted to explore an artifice. See, that's the author and

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you coming out in a way of
planting seeds or even easter eggs in that

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because you'll put things on a page
and you stop for a moment as a

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reader and you google it, you
go, oh my god, and you

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start and you it's like you're educating
us, but in an entertaining way,

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if you know what I mean.
Oh, I hope, so I hope

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it's I hope it's I hope it's
an entertaining way. And I hope it's

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a way that you don't know that
you're being educated, that you're just living

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a world. I really really want
my readers to be able to live the

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world that I'm that I'm showing them. When did you realize that this book

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was going to be authentic? In
other words, I mean it starts off

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as a thought, you kind of
dibble and dabble around, and all of

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a sudden when it starts coming together
and you're shocked as the author of how

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it's coming together. It's like,
where is it coming from? Yeah?

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I think that's that's such an interesting
question because I guess I can't speak for

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every author, but I know for
me that I don't often actually know the

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deeper part of what of what a
story is trying to say, or what

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I am actually going to pull from
my own story until I've finished it.

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And for this one, it was
it was very much about choice. This

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is my third World War two book, and previously I have written about choices

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of courage and sacrifice and humanity over
hate and seeking justice and self transformation.

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That's what those stories mean to me. And it looked back at Art Ofice

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and I realized that this is really
a story about choosing beauty, like choosing

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to preserve what is beautiful in our
world, and how we can choose for

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ourselves to create a world around ourselves
that is that is beautiful. We can

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surround ourselves with what is good,
and we can seek it and choose it

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and build it and rebuild it,
even when the rest of the world is

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a world of real ugliness. And
I think that is so relevant to our

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lives today. You know, we
live in so many ways such an ugly

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world, and there are terrible things
that are happening around us. But that

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choice to choose what is good and
what is beautiful and surround ourselves with that,

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that's a powerful choice, and I
think it's a life changer. I

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really think it can be a world
changer. I can't imagine what your creative

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imagination is going through with all the
research that you've done on all three books,

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with World War Two and then you
get snapshots of what's happening on this

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planet now, there has to be
something that's giving you flashbacks, because I

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mean, you're being creatively sent back
to World War Two, but look at

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the world now, and it's like, oh, it exactly exactly. I

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mean, I think that we could
all agree that the hate that created the

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Holocaust is alive and well in our
world and in many different forms and in

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different forms of genified that are still
you know, taking place today. These

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are very relevant topics, and I
think that sometimes as an author, it's

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very difficult to plumb those deaths,
you know, and realize that we're still

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plumbing the depths of what human beings
are capable of. But what I always

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try to remember, and I think
what I have pulled a lot from my

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own stories and from these histories,
is that there is always the balance,

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There is always the light on the
other side, and there are people who

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have lived and who have made these
choices of courage and sacrifice, and we

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may never know their names, that
they have always always been and that means

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they're here now too, And I
think that actually gives me a lot of

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hope. There's a lot of hope
in these books for our world, while

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at the same time acknowledging that we
have a lot of challenges and that we

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need to be challenged by these choices
of yesterday so we can make a stand

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and decide what to do with our
choices today right now. I wish you

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could see my notes, because I
put a note in here while I'm reading

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it and it's and I go,
I want to know who the sharing of

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of the eighty years from today is
going to be writing about because they're going

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to find your book and they're going
to see how you you turned World War

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Two into a subject that we can
talk about long after it happened, because

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it's going to be the forgotten war, just like the Korean War. But

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because you're sharing the stories, you're
keeping it in the conversation, and you

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know, I think that's something that's
actually really really important to me. It's

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important to me to write things that
are timeless in a way because because they

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are important and have deep meaning for
different times of our history. I think

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I've always been a person who's just
really really aware. Since childhood, I've

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been very aware of the idea that
so much of our history, the reality

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of human experience, has been lost. It dies with people's memories. And

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every time I reach back into the
past and I grab one of these stories,

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one of these people, one of
these little bits of our experience,

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and I put it down on a
page, it feels a little bit like

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a rescue to me. And I
find that really satisfying to hopefully have these

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stories live in a timeless way.
You know. I think the war,

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I think the war with Israel right
now will be something that people will be

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writing about I hope that we'll be
writing about the experiences of the pandemic.

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I hope we will be writing about
the things that take place in Africa right

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now. I think there are so
many stories in this world that need to

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be recorded and put on paper in
a way that is not just a fact

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that we learn, but is it
makes us feel these stories, because I

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really believe that the facts will say
from memory. But when we feel,

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when we feel another person's pain,
when we feel their joy, that is

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something that we're never ever going to
forget. And that is what makes a

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story live. And I hope that's
what I can do. Yeah, you

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know where those stories are. They're
being written, but they're in boxes,

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underneath people's beds, they're up in
addics, they're in garages. And because

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people are so afraid to release their
writing, and it takes people like yourself

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to inspire them, just take a
step, Just take a step, get

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it out there. Yeah, one
step at a time, you know,

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I think I think all of us, you know, when we start.

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I know, when I started this
creative journey, if I had known,

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you know, every single step that
it was going to take, what I

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have even started. I don't know. I think the important thing is to

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recognize your own passion, you know, to reach out for that thing that

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is meaningful to you and so important
to you. For me, it's these

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it's these heroes of the past and
these people who took a stand. Find

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whatever that thing is for you,
put it on the page, and and

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then just like you said, take
a step. Yep, yeah, take

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a small step. Put it out
there. Let somebody else read it,

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Let another person read it, Let
another person read it, and let these

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stories have their own life. I
still find it to be a really scary

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thing to do. It's a very
vulnerable thing to do, you know,

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but it also is so worthwhile and
it is so ultimately satisfying. So yeah,

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I would encourage anyone who has that
passion to let that passion lead them

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you sharing that journey that deep.
Let me ask you a question, because

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your last name is Cameron, any
relation to Julia Cameron or have you studied

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you are? No? Oh,
no, I'm not no. I was

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just yeah, I was just thinking
what you said about Cameron, you know,

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because ironically, my last name is
really the whole reason I got into

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writing. I was a musician,
I was a classical pianist for many years,

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and I thought I would do that
forever. But I had been researching

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Cameron's and the Cameron name, which
led me to a little obscure, you

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know, piece of history about what
happened to this one Cameron family during the

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seventy forty five rebellion that happened in
Scotland. And that is really what led

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me to sit down for the first
time in my life and start writing unassigned

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words. And I didn't find out
untill much later, and because of DNA

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projects and that kind of thing,
that everything I had writing about really was

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direct ancestry for my family. So
it made me feel like somehow I was

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doing what I was supposed to do. But it was because of the camera

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named that the whole thing, that
the whole thing started. Wow, you

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got to come back to this show
anytime in the future. The door is

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always going to be open for you. Oh please, I would love to

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walk through that door anytime. Excellent. Will you be brilliant today? Okay,

206
00:16:17,639 --> 00:16:21,240
okay, you too, Thank you
so much. It was really a huge pleasure