Candice Millard: Master Storyteller

This article was written by Jack Bowerman and Jerry Weakley

Candice Sue Millard was born June 16, 1967, to Lawrence and Constance (Camp) Millard.  She grew up in Lexington, Ohio a small blue-collar town between Cleveland and Columbus (1970 population 2,972 and 4,848 today).  She grew up in a household with three sisters.  Her entire family were avid readers and one of the highlights of each week was when the family would go to the library over the weekend to pick out books to read.

Candice was active in high school running the 400 and 800-meter hurdles and performing as a cheerleader. Her favorite subjects were English and History with thoughts of becoming a teacher or a librarian because of her love of books. 

Her schooling changed dramatically, however, when her father who had worked for United Telecom was transferred to Sprint in the Kansas City area.  After the move she attended Shawnee Mission Northwest High School going from her previous school in Ohio where she knew most of the 400 students to one that was four times the size and where she knew no one.  Over time, as she acclimated to her new educational environment things improved a little when a teacher encouraged her to write for the school newspaper.

Upon graduation, Candice was faced with the choice of colleges to attend.  Initially, she considered going back to one of the universities in Ohio.   Eventually, however, she was attracted to and enrolled at Baker University because of its small size and its outstanding English department, and in her own words “It just felt like home”.  After enrolling she decided to major in English Education putting her on a potential track of becoming a teacher.

Her favorite professors were Preston and Virginia (Jenny) Fambrough.  She felt they took a sincere interest in her and made her feel special (though they probably did the same for other students). Of professors Preston and Virginia Fambrough, she said “They weren’t married at the time, although we were always trying to hook them up.  They both loved what they did and cared so deeply about the written word, which really came across to their students. Candice modestly claims to this day to have only been an “okay” student but not great.

Outside of her academic pursuits, Candice was active in campus life and joined Alpha Chi Omega where she enjoyed sorority life.  She was nominated by her sorority sisters to represent their house as a homecoming queen candidate. Additionally, she was a member of the staff and wrote articles for the Baker Orange and held a campus work-study position, serving as the English Department’s student assistant.

One of the highlights of her years at Baker was a trip to Vienna, Austria with Professor Alice Ann Callahan Russell.  This Interterm class was Candice’s first opportunity to experience overseas travel. She enjoyed the trips immersion into the art, music, cuisine and culture while touring parts of Austria and Germany.

Upon graduation from Baker, she received a number of job offers for teaching positions, but her Dad encouraged her instead to follow a different career dream that she held.  Belying her claim of being just an “okay student” she received a full ride scholarship to Baylor to study English and pursue a dream of becoming a writer. 

Candice enjoyed her time at Baylor and learned a great deal, but she was not entirely comfortable with the direction the discipline was taking. At that time there was a focus on literary criticism which is the study, evaluation and interpretation of literature. She was instead interested more in developing the skills and ability to become a writer, but not one in being critical of other writers. She received a master’s degree from Baylor but decided not to pursue a PhD.

After leaving Baylor and without a job, she moved back into her parent’s home in Lenexa until she could afford a place of her own.  She literally looked through the yellow pages to find publishers who might have openings for proofreaders, copy editors and writers.  Through the early years of her career, she found work with several different organizations always leaving one job to go to another with increased responsibilities and learning opportunities that additionally offered better compensation and benefits.  One of the companies she worked for was a small start-up called Uhlig Communications which was run by brothers David and Mark Uhlig.  Years later, Mark would become her husband, but she is quick to point out that there was no nepotism involved – as she did not start dating Mark until after she had left the company.

Through all these early years, Candice felt that her ultimate dream job would be with National Geographic where she could combine her love of writing with adventure and travel.  She found herself constantly searching for a job opening there, but nothing ever seemed to workout. Still looking for adventure, she turned to her backup plan – joining the Peace Corps.  She went to Washington D.C. to learn more about opportunities with that organization.  And, in a fortuitous watershed moment, she went to lunch with a friend of a friend who knew someone who worked at National Geographic.  She followed up on a lead she received through that unlikely sequence of events and further learned of an opening for which she was able to apply.    

Having passed a test required of all applicants, she was offered a job as a researcher whereupon her dream had come true!  After a successful period in research, she was offered the opportunity to apply for a position working as a writer of captions for pictorial layouts in the magazine.  This was a prestigious job since most readers of the magazine tend to spend more time looking at the pictures and reading the captions than with the article itself. Even while working in this still new position, she sought to be given an opportunity to be sent on assignments which would involve travel and adventure. 

She eventually succeeded in getting several such assignments. One of her most memorable and favorites was traveling to Ethiopia to visit the place where the Ark of the Covenant is purportedly stored.  There she had a chance to meet with the Keeper of the Ark. Her article “Keepers of the Faith: The Living Legacy of Aksum” was published in 2001.

Working at National Geographic indeed changed her life as she learned the importance of research and how to access primary source materials as well as seeking out experts in the subject she was studying.  In a 2016 interview with Brian Lamb for C-SPAN, Candice had this to say about her experience: “National Geographic. It was - I will always say it was really my true education because you learn to just dig very, very deeply into a subject, just immerse yourself in it. And most importantly of all, I learned how to find the experts.”

After six years in Washington D.C. Candice left National Geographic, returning to the KC area.  And, after nine years of dating, she married Mark Uhlig in 2001.  Their first daughter was born a year later, and Candice and Mark began raising their family which eventually included three children. Mark has always been supporting of her career choice and as they settled into their marriage, he encouraged her to start writing books. 

Through her early years and career, Candice had accumulated a number of ideas for potential subject matter for books.  In particular, she had a desire to write about the history of events that had not been fully explored. One of the determining factors in choosing an idea to pursue has always been the availability of sufficient primary source materials, such as journals kept by the people involved. Candice has always believed that reading books should be a learning experience and that access to subject matter experts was critical to accomplishing that end result. She also resolved that it was equally important, and almost a requirement, to visit the sites where the events being written about took place.  Throughout her now extensive career this operating procedure alone has taken her deep into the jungles of the Amazon, South Africa, Mozambique, Kenya and Zanzibar.

Her first book, the “River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey” (2005) is about his scientific expedition down the River of Doubt (located in Brazil) which was later renamed Roosevelt River. The book was a New York Times best seller.  In her interview with Brian Lamb, she said “This was a serious scientific expedition that became an extraordinary story of survival. It was a contest of man against nature, man against man, and even man against himself. While Roosevelt and his men were on this river, they lost nearly all of their supplies to rapids. One man drowned. Another man was murdered. The rest of the men including Roosevelt's own son nearly starved. And when the survivors emerged from the rainforest, they were in rags. They were shadowed and attacked by indigenous tribesmen. Roosevelt became gravely ill and he nearly took his own life in an attempt to save the other men.”

Her second book, “Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President” (2011) is about the assassination of James Garfield the 20th President of the United States. The book was also a New York Times best seller and was awarded the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime in 2012. Netflix has announced it has plans to adapt the book into a miniseries. In an interview with David Conrads for Christian Science Monitor in 2011, she said: “I was casting around for another book idea and I wasn’t necessarily interested in writing about another president.  . . . I didn’t know anything about Garfield beyond the fact that he had been assassinated, so I started to research him, and I was just blown away. I couldn’t believe what an extraordinary man this was who has been almost completely forgotten.”

Next, she took on the task of writing about an episode in the life of one of the most famous people in history, Winston Churchill. The book was “Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill.” (2016).  In the Brian Lamb interview, he asked “What made you think that you could write another book about Winston Churchill?”  She responded: “It's audacious, isn't it? I mean as they say there are like 12,000 books written about him. I think more books about him than anyone but Napoleon and Jesus.  And believe me, it felt very daunting to me.  . . . He's an absolutely fascinating character. Not a perfect man by any means, but an extraordinary one.  . . .  I had heard this story that when he was a young man he was captured in South Africa and was a POW and escaped”.

The idea for the book came from her husband and she added: “He was a war correspondent for years. He was with the New York Times. He was a bureau chief in Managua. And he is actually the person who first told me the story about Winston Churchill because he began his career as a journalist in South Africa covering the ANC.”

Candice’s most recent book “River of the Gods: Genius, Courage and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile” (2022) is also a New York Times best seller.  It is the story of Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke and their dangerous expedition into deepest Africa during the mid 19th century.  In a 2022 interview with Cindy Hoedel for IN KC magazine Candice talked about the experience of traveling to complete research for the book: “Like all my books, this took about five years to write, which I know seems like a lot, but it goes pretty fast to me. Early on I went to Scotland, and then to London to do archival research at the National Library of Scotland, the British Library, the Royal Geographical Society, and the Royal Asiatic Society. I also had an incredible trip to Neston Park (an estate in Wiltshire), where Speke died in a hunting accident.”

The trip to East Africa was probably the most harrowing of her career not only because of the dangers of traveling in Africa but because of the impending Covid 19 pandemic. In the Cindy Hoedel interview, she added: “It took me longer to plan my trip to East Africa. My kids were younger then, so I had to find a time when my parents could come stay with them, and when there weren’t big things happening with my kids that I would miss. So, we ended up choosing February and March of 2020. Yeah, obviously when I planned the trip, I had no idea [the pandemic] was going to happen. My husband came with me and when we were leaving in late February, there was a little bit going on in China and it was in Europe a little bit.”

From the 2022 interview with William Padmore a noted on-air host, reporter and producer for Nebraska Public Media, she described the most difficult part of the trip: “When I was in Tanzania, I went to Lake Tanganyika . . . and I was trying to get from one bank to the other . . .  the water is really rough. And we're in an open boat. It's small. It maybe can hold 10 people, and you feel like you're on a storm-tossed sea . . .  the boat was just tipping all the way over – like we're holding on because it's tipping. . .  this is a trip of a couple of hours. And I said to my husband I was honestly really scared. I said: "Look how far the bank is. If we capsize there's no way we can swim that far." He said: "Oh, don't worry about it. The crocodiles will eat us before we get near it."

“By this time, it’s getting later and later into March.  Yes, things were getting worse and worse (with respect to the spread and severity of Covid), and I’m getting a little worried about if we are going to be admitted back into the United States. My kids were concerned, too. They were obviously hearing more than we were. We just made it back in before they shut the doors”.

As we enter 2025, Candice is working on her next book. She has always wanted to write a book about courageous women, and she is in the midst of research about the life of Edith Cavell a British nurse who treated wounded soldiers representing both sides in Belgium during World War I when the Germans occupied Belgium and Northern France. She also helped some 200 allied soldiers escape from Belgium and return to active service.

Edith was assisted in this effort by Marie of Croy, a Belgian aristocrat, and Louise Thuliez, a French school teacher and resistance fighter. Edith was arrested and accused of violating German military law. During her court martial she admitted her guilt knowing that the penalty was death.  Ultimately, she was executed by a German firing squad in 1915.  As a result, there was a strong outpouring of international reaction to her execution including in the United States.  Eventually, the Kaiser decreed that capital punishment of women could only be carried out with his permission.  This new book is highly anticipated and will no doubt be an exciting addition to Candice’s works.

Candice offered some advice for aspiring writers of nonfiction. The first thing to understand that writing is a meritocracy in that it gives everyone a fair shot. It doesn’t matter where you went to school, who your parents are, or what you’ve done in the past. All that matters is your ability to write. The most important thing is to have the idea and that there is a lot of primary sources to draw from. Always outline before you start writing. This the only way that you can plan for foreshadowing (a literary device used by authors to hint at or suggest events that will occur later in the story).  Writing cannot be rushed. It takes Candice five years to write a book because of the amount of planning, research and travel it takes to do it right.  “It takes what it takes”!

From an interview with William Padmore, Candice was further quoted in regard to advice for an aspiring writer: “Well, first of all, believe in yourself. It sounds cliché, but again, I came from this little town in Ohio. I never thought I would be writing books. But I just love to read. I love to write. I love to tell stories. So, I just kept trying and like we were talking about earlier, spend a lot of time on the idea, even if you think this is such a great story. I've had several ideas that I've had to walk away from because I just didn't have enough primary source material. So, if you want to write narrative nonfiction, you have to have that wealth of source material. I also would highly recommend outlining like I said when I talk to high school students, they do not like to hear that but you want to have things like foreshadowing and stuff, and in order to do that, you need to figure out your structure.”

Outside of their professional demands, activities and career, family has always been the top priority for Candice and Mark.  Candice always found time among her varied assignments and writing projects to be fully involved with her young family’s schooling and extra-curricular activities.  For many years their family spent portions of their summers traveling to a rural area of Spain near the Bay of Biscay where they enjoyed the climate, culture and range of activities that suited all the members of their family.

Through the years since her graduation in 1989, Candice has remained close to and continued to hold warm feelings for her time at Baker.   At a 2016 book signing a group of Baker students, faculty and staff approached her table with a crowd of 1,000 people behind them. Upon learning they were from Baker she said “You are all students from Baker?  I love Baker!”  Later she added “I loved Baker because it was small and because of its outstanding academic department of English and my professors, the Fambroughs”.

In 2018, Candice was invited back to Baker to serve as the main speaker to deliver that Spring’s Commencement Address to the assembled graduates.

Sources:

• Interview with David Conrads for Christian Science Monitor October 4, 2011

• Interview with Brian Lamb September 22, 2016, on C-SPAN

• Interview with Baker University December 9, 2016

• Interview with Gina Kaufman April 17, 2017, for National Public Radio

• Interview with Cindy Hoedel May 1, 2022, for In Kansas City magazine

• Interview with William Padmore September 23, 2022, for Nebraska Public Media

• Interview with Jack Bowerman for the Baker History Blog February 19, 2025