Join us for a conversation about “Rumors from Shanghai” by Amy Sommers. Sommers and Everett-based independent historian Marilyn Quincy will explore how the real history of early Puget Sound can inspire fictional stories set here and elsewhere.

Pacific Northwest-born and raised author Amy Sommers drew on her years spent living in China, together with knowledge of early Black, Japanese, and Chinese communities in Puget Sound, to create a thriller set in 1940 in which a Black law graduate leaves Seattle for booming Shanghai. He takes on a senior role managing the Asia operations of a U.S. flour company, a position with responsibility and status rarely available to a Black man in America. In Shanghai, he is introduced to the delights of its vibrant culture and nightlife, which is flourishing despite Japan’s invasion of China three years earlier. Amidst hard work and hard play, he stumbles on a secret Japanese plan to destroy the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. Should he put his idyllic life at risk to sound the alarm for a country that despises him?

Writers Live: Amy Sommers in conversation with Marilyn Quincy