Paige Bowers
Paige Bowers is the author of THE GENERAL’S NIECE: The Little-Known de Gaulle Who Fought to Free Occupied France. For the past couple of years, she has been working closely with Hidden Figure Raye Montague’s son, David, on the story of how his mother engineered her way out of the Jim Crow South to become the first person to draft a Naval ship design by computer. That book, OVERNIGHT CODE: The Life of Raye Montague, the Woman Who Revolutionized Naval Engineering, will be published on January 12, 2021.
Paige is a nationally published news and features writer whose work has appeared in TIME, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, People, Allure, Thomson Reuters, Glamour, Pregnancy, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Atlanta Magazine and Palm Beach Illustrated.
A lifelong Francophile, Paige earned a master’s degree in Modern European history from Louisiana State University in 2012, and has taught French history classes for LSU Continuing Education. She lives in Atlanta with her husband, 15-year-old daughter and a Yellow Lab who thinks he is a lap dog.
Twitter: @paigebowers
Instagram: @paigebowers
Favorite non-reading activity?
I love going to Atlanta United matches. They are always exciting and the game day experience is out of this world. You can usually find me tailgating in the Home Depot Backyard before games with my husband and some of our friends. About 45 minutes before the game, we head in together, grab some snacks and drinks and then head to our seats to shout and sing for ninety-plus minutes. It’s a really good time!
What’s the oddest thing a reader has ever asked you?
I was speaking at a library about my first book, THE GENERAL’S NIECE, when a gentleman asked me whether I was “one of those bra-burning feminists whose agenda is just to tell stories about women?” There are some situations when the only thing you can do is take a breath and collect yourself before you reply with something you’ll regret later. I was able to do that, and tell the man in question that I was simply a person who liked to find good stories that needed to be told. This one just so happened to be about a woman, but there was always a chance that I’d write about a man at some point too. I’m not sure that he was satisfied with my reply, but I think I was about as diplomatic as I possibly could have been.
Have you ever experienced Imposter Syndrome?
Every. Single. Day.
Do you have an additional artistic outlet in addition to your writing?
A little more than a decade ago, a friend of mine taught me how to knit. For a while, I did what most beginners do and knitted scarves for everyone under the Sun. Scarves are easy, but they’re not always practical, especially here in the Deep South. So because some of my friends and neighbors were having children at the time, I started making stuffed animals to give as gifts. Over the years, I’ve knitted an untold number of elephants, owls, lambs, bunnies, bears, unicorns and the like, and I continue to do so because I like the comfort and joy they bring to the wee recipients. As for me, knitting is a meditative practice. It requires you to shut out noise and drama so you can focus on the stitches and patterns. So it’s very calming and I enjoy that.
Is there another profession you would like to try?
I love to cook and have dabbled in catering, so becoming a chef and restaurateur is something that really appeals to me. There was a point in time when I daydreamed about running a cozy little place similar to N7 in New Orleans. It would have a great wine list and a menu that would change depending on what’s fresh and available, and maybe even its own vegetable, herb and fruit garden outside.
I would also like to do anything that puts me near dolphins and allows me to study them, take care of them, and educate others about them. As a little girl, I was mesmerized by the “Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau” and thought I wanted to grow up and be just like him. That feeling only grew when I saw my first dolphin up close, but I gravitated toward writing about anything that captured my curiosity. Now? Maybe someone would enlist me to work with dolphins and write about the experience? I think I would love that.
