Pine County author Shuey's 'The Day The World Burned' selected for Pine City Reads

At the Pine City Council's Jan. 7 meeting, council member Gina Pettie said the library committee selected Kristina Shuey's novel "The Day The World Burned" for this year's Pine City Reads program.

"We chose a local author, somebody who has been through our school system, and she wrote a novel about the Hinckley fire, and so I think that will be really fun for the community to read together," Pettie explained.

On Monday, Shuey sat down with WCMP to discuss her debut novel, what's coming next in the Pine County Chronicles, and her passion for historical fiction.

'I've always wanted to write a book'

Shuey, a Pine City native, is a 2008 alumna from Pine City High School. After graduating from the University of Minnesota Duluth, she returned for a year to work at the Pine City Elementary School before departing to Indiana for grad school.

"I moved back, lived in the suburbs, worked in St. Paul, got married, and then we moved back here when we wanted to start a family," Shuey said.

Shuey's fiction-writing pursuits dovetailed with a growing family. As a stay-at-home mom, she remembers needing a hobby 'that had nothing to do with children.'

"I've always wanted to write a book," Shuey said. "And an idea came, and it was kind of the right timing. I had a lot of support from my husband to start writing."

That idea — a survival story between two sisters during a fire disaster in a woodsy, rural setting — sparked Shuey's literary muse in 2020.

She brought the idea up to her husband while playing outside with their toddler, who encouraged her to pursue the concept.

"I sat on the idea for a while, and thought about it, and then it clicked that, for me, it made sense to use the Hinckley fire as the background," Shuey said.

Growing up in Pine County, Shuey said she was tangentially familiar with the Great Hinckley Fire of 1894, but didn't have the full scope of the historic blaze.

Shuey said prose exercised a different set of writerly muscles than writing academic reports — "It was challenging, but I enjoyed it a lot" — but an affinity for research put her novel project in motion.

"I started at the library, and kind of went from there," Shuey explained.

Spending 'a full calendar year' writing

Shuey said the research process for "The Day The World Burned" was time-consuming and intensive: She recalls reading every book available in the library system about the fire from cover to cover.

She kept meticulous notes about the timeline of the fire, tracking its movement and which towns felt its impacts.

Shuey followed up with visits to the Hinckley Fire Museum and Minnesota History Center in St. Paul to read first accounts from survivors of the conflagration.

In all, Shuey estimates she spent two years focused on her research endeavors before sitting down to write the novel proper.

The novel situates two entirely fictional protagonists — Anna Andersson and Karl Sundvquist — in the historical context of the Hinckley fire.

"It took two years for research, and then I spent a full calendar year writing," Shuey said. "And then I think it took about another nine months for editing and rewrites. And also during that time, I was researching how to self-publish."

"The Day The World Burned" hit bookshelves in October of 2024.

Shuey said self-publication was the easy part; the tricky part came from selling and promoting her novel.

"I really wanted it available as much as possible in Pine County, everywhere I could try," she said.

Continuing the Pine County Chronicles

Shuey is hard at work on the second installment of the Pine County Chronicles, with a first draft complete.

"Right now, I'm in the self-editing process," she explained. "So I'm rereading it, trying to remember what I wrote over a year ago, and making sure everything flows well. I think I'm on Chapter 13, and I want to say there are 30 or 31."

When she's done, Shuey will send the manuscript to her editor — who's also from Pine City — for revisions. The follow-up to her debut is a sequel, following Anna and Karl from "The Day The World Burned," and takes place about 11 years after the Great Hinckley Fire.

"It's in a new setting in Pine County, and doesn't take place in Hinckley," Shuey said.

Shuey added that her hope is to publish her next book before the end of 2026.

Pine City Reads

As a Pine County resident, Shuey said it "brings up a lot of feelings" for "The Day The World Burned" to be chosen for Pine City Reads.

"It feels really good knowing that other people are interested in my writing, and think it's good enough to be a Pine City Reads book," she said. "And the history buff in me is really excited that everyone is going to learn about the fire."

Shuey said she was "really deliberate" when it comes to streets and locations in her novel, which includes three maps.

"I want people, especially local readers, to understand the history that's in our county," she explained. "It's history at your fingertips, and I wanted people to kind of live through that in the book."

You can learn more about Shuey and "The Day The World Burned" on her website.