Morning of a Crescent Moon follows a young nurse-turned-teacher who arrives in an Illinois mining town on the brink of violence and discovers how ordinary lives, relationships, and quiet courage shape history. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

The inspiration for the very beginning and for the aeronaut descending into the town of Virden was to bring the reader down from the twenty-first century into this town in 1898. It’s my metaphor for bridging the distance between what we know from the academic articles and newspaper accounts to what was really going on within the hearts and minds of the people who lived through this event. I recently posted a blog that explains why I chose to write the Battle of Virden as historical fiction. https://njschrock.com/2026/01/13/why-historical-fiction/

The reason I chose the character of Cate Merry and her arrival as the setup is that the reader learns about the town through her experiences rather than me, the author, adding exposition. As Cate learns about the brewing trouble and becomes emotionally entangled with the people and events, so does the reader.

At least a couple of the characters were inspired by my family members. Cate’s Aunt Alice had qualities of my grandmother Mary, a coal miner’s wife, and Harry was based on my father as a young boy.

Why was it important to tell the labor struggle through relationships and daily routines rather than focusing on the events themselves?​

The events themselves can be understood by reading summaries and academic articles. But I wanted readers to really care about this event and these people. I wanted them to become invested in a labor struggle so that they might then empathize with the ongoing labor struggles today.  I wanted this event to be experienced by readers.

What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?

The power of individuals is magnified by unity. If there is an injustice, the way for the populace to bring about change is to unify. Unity is the main way people who are not billionaires can bring about change. One way we do this is to vote. Other ways are to protest, to strike, to communicate. But all of these require people in numbers to be effective.

The interests of capital often are in conflict with the interests of its laborers. Businesses are under constant pressure to maximize profits, and if publicly held, maximize the return to shareholders. They are not obligated to maximize returns to stakeholders, such as employees, the communities in which they operate, or even the United States. I know this firsthand. I worked for twenty-five years at a large corporation and held a management role, serving on business and product development teams. The push by high-level management to acquire cheaper labor in China and India has parallels with the Virden mine operator’s plans to bring in Black workers from Alabama. I could see history repeating, and I felt there were lessons to be learned from the Battle of Virden. I wanted to broaden the public awareness of this historic event.

What do you hope modern readers take away from this period of labor history and its relevance today?​

In Chapter 22, a coal miner and a leader in the 1897 strike, Alexander Bradley, gives a speech that I wrote based on the newspaper accounts of what he told the miners during the 1897 strike and what he says in his memoir. He clarifies for a Virden crowd what the stakes are in their fight: “The battle for workers’ rights, the right to exercise the only power we have, which is the right to organize, will be under threat—again—and again—and again. It’ll be fought in a thousand places: in coal fields, in factories, in railways, in dockyards, and anywhere workers are not paid the living wages they deserve for pouring the hours of their lives into their labors….”

I hope that readers will come to appreciate the sacrifices made by those who came before us and that in some industries, we still face many of the same challenges they faced in 1898. So, we have to “carry the torch,” and work to make this country a place where we want to live. That’s what these miners were fighting for.

Change can be brought about if enough people stand up for what they believe.

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