How do you get inspired to write?
I’ve been writing in one form or another for nearly all of my adult life. I worked as an analyst in the Intelligence Community early in my career and analytical reports were my stock in trade. At the end of the Cold War, I transitioned to the private sector and eventually found myself working in marketing and advertising, writing ad copy, articles, web content, and more. Once again, writing was a major part of my life.
When I retired at the end of 2021, I decided to pursue writing as a creative outlet. My wife had always encouraged me to write, but until I retired, I wrote so many words for other people that I didn’t have any words left for me at the end of the day. But, I stuck with it and my first novel, Grown Men Cry Out at Night, was published in 2022 and my second book, Operation Nightfall: The Web of Spies in 2024.
I definitely prefer “having written” to “I am writing.” Writing is work. There is nothing glamorous or magical about it or the process. The most important thing is to show up each day. You have to punch the clock and put the work in.
With that said, I do find inspiration in other writers. I read and re-read writers such as Shakespeare, Dickens, Yeats, and Hemingway because they speak about universal truths such as love, hate, greed, loyalty, and betrayal. If I wish to be inspired within my genre, I only need to read the works of John Le Carre, Graham Greene, and Len Deighton. Their heroes are imperfect, and they show how spying is a dirty, gritty business. A spy is simultaneously a hero and a traitor, and such moral ambiguity is why I find the genre irresistible and inspiring.
How do you deal with writer’s block?
I do not believe there is such a thing. If you are having trouble writing, working on a deadline where there are real consequences when you don’t hit the deadline is a good cure. Not getting paid because you missed a deadline will definitely disabuse you of the notion of writers block. If you find yourself blocked as a writer, you need to lean in, put your back into it, and get to work.
What mystery in your own life could be a plot for a book?
It isn’t a mystery, but there is one story in my life that comes to mind. When I was six years old, my older sister, with whom I was remarkably close, was killed by a drunk driver in a car accident.
She had been sick earlier in the week leading to the accident, but now it was a Saturday night, and she had a date.My mother didn’t want her to go out. They argued, and I remember my sister telling my mother that she felt well enough to go out. Finally, my mother relented and said it was okay for her to go. As she prepared for her date, I ran into her room and begged her not to go out. I told her I feared I would never see her again. She smiled and hugged me and said that she’d see me in the morning and then she left. “I’ll see you in the morning,” she said.
Not fifteen minutes after she left, we could hear the sirens of police and emergency vehicles. I recall my mother saying, “There must have been a terrible accident or something.” A few minutes later, we received a phone call from the hospital where they had taken my sister. She would live for two more days before finally passing away early on Monday. It was as I feared. I never saw her again.
I often imagine what her life would have been like had she lived and that is a story I often try to create. When I think of her, I fill in all the details of her life. I envision how she went to university; she had received a full scholarship to Oberlin, but her dream of becoming a teacher was denied. But in my story, I imagine her life as a teacher and how her students would have loved her as I had. I imagine how she would have married and had children of her own. I dream of family dinners, celebrations, holidays, birthdays, and time spent together. Most of all, I dream of how I might have been able to convince my sister to stay home that evening. In my happily ever after story, I would give my sister a glimpse of the future. But sadly, that is the plot of a story that only exists in my imagination.
What are you currently working on?
I am working on a third novel. It is historical spy fiction set in East Germany, and it is about a missile crisis that is not well known. In 1959, the Soviets deployed the same missiles to East Germany that they attempted to place in Cuba in 1962. I hope to have a manuscript completed sometime in 2026.
Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?
Several years ago, I underwent physiotherapy treatment for shoulder pain. During one session, the physiotherapist noted I was a veteran, and wishing to pass the time, she asked me when and where I served. I replied I served in the US Army during the end of the Vietnam war and during the Cold War. She continued to administer treatment and then abruptly stopped.
‘The Cold War?’ she said with a puzzled look on her face. ‘Which one was that?’
That was the moment that I decided to write about the Cold War. I hoped my historical spy novels might inspire readers to want to learn more about, arguably, the most significant historical event of the second half of the 20th century.
Operation Nightfall: The Web of Spies is set in Poland and centers around the events of the Polish anti-communist insurgency. I can say with high confidence that most Americans have little or no knowledge of this. Most people do not realize that when the war in Europe ended in May 1945, fighting in Poland continued for another eight years.
So, I chose to write this story to fill in some of the details that answer the question, “The Cold War? Which one was that?”
What kind of research did you do for this novel?
I used a number of sources. They included comprehensive histories such as Janusz Wróbel’s, The Cursed Soldiers: The Polish Underground Resistance After World War II, Tomasz Szarota’s, Poland’s Struggle for Freedom: The Anti Communist Underground, 1944 1956, as well as memoirs and first-person accounts such as The Last Stand: Interviews with Former Cursed Soldiers, edited by Andrzej Żuławski. There is also a considerable amount of source material in Polish and new research is on-going. Unfortunately, I do not read Polish well enough for that to have been useful, but it is gratifying that this period in history is getting attention from scholars.
In general, what emotions do you usually wish to elicit with your writing?
I certainly hope readers will experience the gamut of emotions. However, I hope they feel empathy and compassion. Even the most ruthless characters in my books are worthy of this, because readers are exposed to their backstory, their families, past traumas, and the choices they have had to make. Those intimate glimpses invite readers to feel for the characters, even when they act ruthlessly. And I would also hope readers would feel a sense of melancholy. In the end, the cost of the espionage game becomes starkly apparent—lost lives, broken relationships, and ethical compromises. It is a bittersweet resolution that I hope will prompt readers to contemplate the human toll behind the glamour of spycraft. When you live a filled with lies and deception, it is often difficult to identify what is the truth.
Since I write historical spy fiction, it is quite easy for me to go deep down into the rabbit holes of research. When I first started writing, I would spend so much time researching every last arcane detail, that I had a difficult time getting any writing done. But then I saw an interview with author Amor Towles on CBS News. He said that he prefers to write about subjects he knows well, and that he postpones his research until he finishes his first draft. For me, that was liberating, and while accurate research is still important to me, it should never get in the way of a good story, strong characters, and a tight plot.
What is the weirdest/wildest topic or fact that you’ve had to research or uncovered in your research?
There have been a number of items that I would have to explain if someone looked at my search history. But in Operation Nightfall, I describe how anti-communist insurgents employ a taut wire trap, strung across a forest service road to kill and maim Polish government militia men riding on motorcycles. That’s probably the wildest thing I have researched.
Can you tell us a two-sentence horror story?
He slipped through the thin, rippling veil of the mirror, and confronted the terror that had haunted his nights, only to find himself staring back at a vision of himself that smiled with teeth made of his shattered dreams. As the glass cracked around him, the reflection whispered, “At last, you finally faced me—now we’re both trapped here forever.”
What else would you want readers to know about you? Where can readers find you online?
Readers can connect with me through all the usual suspects on social media, Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, where I am more than willing to engage. They can also visit my website, https://karlwegener.com/.
What I am trying to accomplish most through my writing is to shed light on lesser-known stories of the Cold War era. The Cold War is arguably the most significant historical event of the second half of the twentieth century. Although it technically ended with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the world is still living with the legacy of the Cold War. Although there have been millions of words written about the Cold War, there are still stories to be told.
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