Alyson Richman, Shaunna Edwards on 'The Thread Collectors,' their Civil War novel

“I grew up with Newsday,” says Alyson Richman. “It was the first place that published me!”

Born, raised, and still living in Suffolk County, the veteran historical novelist explains: “I did a drawing for Kidsday when I was 9 years old; my dad still has it in his scrapbook of my creative career!”

That career takes a new direction in “The Thread Collectors” (Graydon House, $28.99), a Civil War novel about two Union soldiers — one Black and one Jewish —  and the two women who love them. Richman wrote the book with her longtime friend Shaunna J. Edwards, a former corporate lawyer making her fiction debut.

In a conversation over Zoom, the co-authors explored the pleasures and challenges of their collaboration.

To her credit, she took that with absolute grace, and that is the way we moved through this project. There were things we had to debate, and we had to be able to debate them without working to be polite; I think we all need to have more of those conversations.