Abby asked Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch:

How do you come up with the story's plot and how do you name the characters?

Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch Thanks for the great questions! The stories I write are all inspired by real people and real history and so the plot is based on what really happened. Sometimes the names are of the real people, for example, in Don't Tell the Nazis, Krystia is based on the real Krystia. Other times I'll choose historically accurate names -- often ones that are family names. For example, Lida in Making Bombs is named after my dear late mother-in-law who was a kid in WWII. She lost half of her classmates to the Lebensborn program and asked me to write the story that ended up being Stolen Girl. The real Lida wasn't an Ostarbeiter like the Lida in Making Bombs, but she was a captive of the Nazis, in her own home. Her house was occupied by Nazi officers and she and her parents were not allowed to leave, but had to cook and clean for them. They were to be exterminated as the war was ending but one of the officers helped them escape. The name Larissa in Stolen Girl is a tribute to my youngest sister, Larissa.

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