Monthly Archives: May 2013

Interview with Historical Novel Society presenter Erika Mailman

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erika-mailman1-269x300I am happy to introduce writer Erika Mailman, author of The Witches Trinity and Woman of Ill Fame. Erika will be co-presenting at the Historical Novel Society Conference: “The Witchcraft Window: Scrying the Past” with writer panelists Kathleen Kent, Mary Sharratt, and Suzy Witten.

Sounds like a bewitching topic and session!  And make sure you visit Erika’s website as she has an interesting story of coincidence to share about her family history and witches…

Do you have a most interesting question or crazy anecdote related to your writing you would like to share?

em_024_175x2641As a child, I was always fascinated by witchcraft and remember reading everything I could get my hands on regarding the topic. I quickly learned it wasn’t pointy hats and riding brooms, but incredible suffering and persecution in part of Europe’s darkest hours. I remember staring at a family tree that hung in our stairwell, penned in some ancestor’s ancient hand, and spotting the name Alvira Cresey. I thought for sure she must be my witchcraft ancestor. It wasn’t until I was an adult, in the middle of writing the book later published as The Witch’s Trinity, that I learned I was the descendant of a woman accused of witchcraft. I received an email from my mother, forwarding one she’d received, that provided a link to information on Mary Bliss Parsons, who underwent trial at least twice and was acquitted. She died of old age. It was supremely uncanny to be working on this novel and learn of my connection to my ancestor of eleven generations ago—the lineage is so direct that my mother bears the Parsons name. She grew up in Southampton, Mass., and Mary Bliss Parsons had lived in nearby Northampton and Springfield (both villages where she was accused). My family had been very proud of its history and, we thought, well-informed, since I remember hearing about Mary’s husband, Cornet Joseph Parsons, a founding father. Yet somehow Cornet’s wife’s dark history had not been similarly passed down.

Is there an era/area that is your favorite to write about? How about to read?

em_011_175x275It’s funny, a friend and I were talking about this recently. Why are we so avidly drawn to some historical periods, and some that we have zero interest in? I personally adore anything from the Victorian era and feel deep affinity to the French Revolution—but am left cold by the 1940s. In fact, one of my all-time favorite authors is Sarah Waters. I love her work and am in awe of her intricate plot mapping. I have read everything of hers and adored it—with the exception of The Night Watch, set in the ‘40s, which I have not been able to bring myself to read. In fact, I recently held it in my hands again recently and considered that I really ought to read it…and gently, lovingly placed it back.

Thank you Erika for the interview and see you at the HNS Conference June 21-13 in St. Petersburg, FL!

Interview with Inspired Mary Sharratt author of ILLUMINATIONS

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI’ ll put this simply: I loved Mary’s novel ILLUMINATIONS.  Loved it, loved it.  A spellbinding chronicle of the life of the German Benedictine abbess, writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary, and polymath Hildegard von Bingen (1098–1179). I adored the subject matter, the story line, the characterizations, the settings, the writing, the pacing, the scenes: everything.  I highly recommend this novel. It is my wish for the world to read it. Compelled, I nearly read it in one sitting, only exhausted eyes and that fact it was 4:00 am forced me to put it down, and I even played hooky from my own novel project the next day to finish it.  Awed, I contacted Mary Sharratt, the author of five other acclaimed books, to let her know how much I loved and valued her work and to see if she would be open to give an interview.

Thank you Mary…

Q: Will you please tell us about your inspiration for the novel ILLUMINATION?  

For twelve years I lived in Germany where Hildegard has long been enshrined as a cultural icon, admired by both secular and spiritual people. In her homeland, Hildegard’s cult as a “popular” saint long predates her official canonization in May 2012. I was particularly struck by the pathos of her story. The youngest of ten children, Hildegard was offered to the Church at the age of eight. She reported having luminous visions since earliest childhood, so perhaps her parents didn’t know what else to do with her.

Illuminations

A Must Read!

According to Guibert of Gembloux’s Vita Sanctae Hildegardis, she was bricked into an anchorage with her mentor, the fourteen-year-old Jutta von Sponheim, and possibly one other young girl. Guibert describes the anchorage in the bleakest terms, using words like “mausoleum” and “prison,” and writes how these girls died to the world to be buried with Christ. As an adult, Hildegard strongly condemned the practice of offering child oblates to monastic life, but as a child she had absolutely no say in the matter.

The anchorage was situated in Disibodenberg, a community of monks. What must it have been like to be among a tiny minority of young girls surrounded by adult men? Disibodenberg Monastery is now in ruins and it’s impossible to say precisely where the anchorage was, but the suggested location if two suffocatingly narrow rooms built on to the back of the church. Hildegard spent thirty years interred in her prison, her release only coming with Jutta’s death.

What amazed me was how she was able to liberate herself and her sisters from such appalling conditions. At the age of forty-two, she underwent a dramatic transformation, from a life of silence and submission to answering the divine call to speak and write about her visions she had kept secret all those years. In the 12th century, it was a radical thing for a nun to set quill to paper and write about weighty theological matters. Her abbot panicked and had her examined for heresy. Yet miraculously this “poor weak figure of a woman,” as Hildegard called herself, triumphed against all odds to become one of the greatest voices of her age.   

Q: And about the research that went into writing the novel? 

I read everything about Hildegard I could get my hands on, in both English and German. Unfortunately I don’t read Medieval Latin! But I read the original sources in translation, from her voluminous letters to here works of visionary theology to her book Physica, dealing with healing, medicine, and the natural world, as well as many secondary sources. While writing, I listened obsessively to her ethereal music. I also went on a research tour to all the Hildegard sites along the Rhine.

You can read about it in my blog: http://marysharratt.blogspot.co.uk/2009/07/research-trip-to-bingen-germany.html

Q: Is the character “Richardis” based on a real historical person?  

Hildegard’s beloved protegee, the nun Richardis von Stade, was a real historical person. Her mother, also named Richardis, was a wealthy aristocratic widow who was instrumental in providing the funding to allow Hildegard to found her abbey at Rupertsberg. Her daughter, Sister Richardis, is mentioned in Hildegard’s Scivias, her first book of visionary theology.

Hildegard says she would not have been able to write about her visions without Richardis’s support. Hildegard also revealed a very human side of herself in the passionate protest letters she wrote to her archbishop, Richardis’s mother, and Richardis herself when Richardis wanted to leave Rupertsberg to take the position of abbess at a Benedictine house in northern Germany. Later she deeply regretted leaving Hildegard, as her brother’s letter to Hildegard revealed. Later she deeply regretted leaving Hildegard, as her brother’s letter to Hildegard revealed.

Q: What parts of the novel were the most difficult to write? And why?

I found it quite intimidating to write about such a religious woman. In the end, I found I had to let Hildegard breathe and reveal herself as human. The passages about Hildegard as a child walled into the anchorage were particularly hard for me to write. I felt claustrophobic as I was writing these scenes and had to follow each writing session with outdoor exercise in nature, something young Hildegard herself would have been forbidden.

Q: Do you feel you grew or changed spiritually from writing this novel?

It definitely made me see my birth religion of Catholicism in a new light.

While writing this book, I kept coming up against the injustice of how women, who are often more devout than men, are condemned to stand at the margins of established religion, even in the 21st century. Women priests and bishops still cause controversy in the Episcopalian Church while the previous Catholic pope, John Paul II, called a moratorium even on the discussion of women priests. Modern women have the choice to wash their hands of organized religion altogether. But Hildegard didn’t even get to choose whether to enter monastic life—she was thrust into an anchorage at the age of eight. The Church of her day could not have been more patriarchal and repressive to women.

Yet her visions moved her to create a faith that was immanent and life-affirming, that can inspire us today. The cornerstone of Hildegard’s spirituality was Viriditas, or greening power, her revelation of the animating life force manifest in the natural world that infuses all creation with moisture and vitality. To her, the divine was manifest in every leaf and blade of grass. Just as a ray of sunlight is the sun, Hildegard believed that a flower or a stone was God, though not the whole of God. Creation revealed the face of the invisible creator. Hildegard’s re-visioning of religion celebrated women and nature and even perceived God as feminine, as Mother. Her vision of the universe was an egg in the womb of God. Hildegard shows how visionary women might transform the most male-dominated faith traditions from within.

Q: What interesting tidbits were you unable to put into the novel, but could share here?

Hildegard’s life was so long and eventful, so filled with drama and conflict, tragedy and ecstasy, that it proved mightily difficult to squeeze the essence of her story into a manageable novel. My original draft was forty-thousand words longer than the current book. I cut out two major subplots.

One involved Hildegard’s relationship with the young apostate and escaped monk, Maximus, whose burial in her churchyard triggered the interdict that left Hildegard and her daughters excommunicated. The other subplot, based on historical fact, was Hildegard’s exorcism of and subsequent friendship with a Cathar woman named Sigewize. Officially only priests were allowed to perform exorcisms, but the monks of Brauweiler Abbey near Cologne didn’t know what to do with this crazy Cathar woman who said that the demons would only leave her body if “Old Schrumpligard” told them to. So the monks dutifully sent Sigewize to the now elderly Hildegard.Hildegard was skeptical about possession and believed that most supposedly possessed people were actually epileptic. But she performed the ceremony, after which Sigewize seemed to experienced a deep peace of mind. Sigewize then became a sister at Rupertsberg.  

Q: Can you share with us what you are working on now?

The Dark Lady’s Masque, my new novel in progress, reveals the star-crossed love affair between William Shakespeare and his Dark Lady, Aemilia Bassano Lanier, the first professional woman poet in Renaissance England.      

 Again, thank you Mary for this exquisite and insightful interview! And please visit Mary’s blog “Viriditas”.

Buy this page-turning novel!

Historical Novel Society Conference presenter Alison McMahan pre-conference Interview

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alison-mcmahanIt is my pleasure to introduce  Alison McMahan a filmmaker and president of Homunculus Productions, LLC and author. She is co-presenting a session on book trailers at the 2013 Historical Novel Society Conference in St. Petersburg, Florida. She has published two non-fiction books, the award-winning book Alice Guy Blaché, Lost Cinematic Visionary (Continuum 2002) (translated to Spanish and optioned for a film) and The Films Of Tim Burton: Animating Live Action In Hollywood (Continuum 2005).  She has just completed her first historical novel, The Road to Santiago, set in tenth-century Spain and on the First Crusade.

I am looking forward to Alison’s  HNS Conference presentation on book trailers, something every author can benefit by: How to best promote our works through video!

Q: What got you first interested in historical fiction?

I always loved reading historical fiction. As a teenager I preferred YA historicals like The Witch of Blackbird Pond and The Door In the Wall.  The first adult novel I read was Georgette Heyer’s Beauvallet. From there I went to T.H. White’s Once and Future King, Mary Renault, Daphne  Du Maurier, Mary Stewart, and more recently, Sharon Kay Penman, Diana Gabaldon,  Guy Gavriel Kay, Anne Perry, and Cecelia Holland. I’m particularly fond of stories set in the middle ages, but I also like Victorian literature and sci-fi, and steampunk and gaslight mysteries.

Q: How do you find the people and topics of your books?

Usually I first get inspired by a place and a time, such as the pilgrimage trail to Santiago in the 10th century or St. Louis in the 19th, and develop a story for that milieu. I like tying together historical trends and current politics; I was inspired to write about a Moorish convert to Christianity who becomes a spy for Raymond de Toulouse on the First Crusade after the U.S. invaded Iraq.

Q: Do you follow a specific writing and/or research process?

Because I grew up in Spain a lot of my writing has something to do with Latin culture. Also, I’m a filmmaker, and that means I have to travel a lot. Often just walking through a place like Cordoba in Spain will make me want to write a story that is set there. Then I do some research until I figure out what kind of story it might be. I probably do too much research, because I really enjoy that phase, especially if it involves looking at art. Right now I’m writing a series of short stories featuring automata in 16th century Spain. The first one is set in Lerma (near Burgos), the second on in Toledo, and the third will be set in Malaga. Walking through a place like the Duke of Lerma’s palace in Lerma, which is now a hotel, gave me this creepy feeling. I did some research and found out that the Duke of Lerma was responsible for the exile and genocide of hundreds of thousands of Moriscos in 1610. That tied in to the novel I just finished so I decided to write a story about that. The challenge is to write about historical figures but still make them into living, breathing genocidists that can still fall in love with an automaton.

Q: For you, what is the line between fiction and fact?

I’m a film historian; my book on the first woman filmmaker, Alice Guy Blaché, Lost Cinematic Visionary (Continuum 2002), put her back in the history books after she had been unjustly forgotten. That was a ten-year odyssey. There was a lot of resistance to my discoveries from male film scholars which meant that I had to be as precise as possible about everything I published. As a result I’m a real stickler for research and precision.

In Santiago, the lead characters are “little people,” a peasant, his children, a squire, the daughter of a Moorish merchant. They interact with characters like Raymond de Toulouse and the Emperor Alexius of Constantinople. I do my best to base those scenes on historical sources. I also research technologies, food, and religious practices. It’s important to be accurate with world building, even while spinning a romance or an epic adventure.

Q: Do you have an anecdote about a reading or fan interaction you’d like to share?

Before I published my book about Alice Guy Blaché, I gave a talk at a film festival in France.  There was a woman there, Joan Simon, who was also considering writing about Alice Guy, but after hearing my talk she introduced herself to me and became a big supporter of my research. She fought avidly to preserve many Alice Guy films that I had identified and curated a retrospective of Alice Guy’s work at the Whitney Museum in the winter of 2009, a huge accomplishment. It just shows the impact a single reading can have, even if only one person really hears you.

Q: Where do you feel historical fiction is headed as a genre?

Right now it seems that historicals exist mainly as hybrids: historical romances, historical mysteries, historical sci-fi forms like steampunk. I love all of those genres. I’m a big fan of alternative history. But I think that “straight” historicals might be poised for a comeback, because of the complexity of our political situations. Historicals are still popular with the young adult readers. They are  going to want to keep reading historicals as they grow up. However, TV series seem to be filling some of that need, so it’s hard to say.

Q: Is there an era/area that is your favorite to write about? How about to read?

Since I’m an expert in early film technologies and a film historian, the 19th century in France, England, and the U.S. hold a special appeal for me. And because I grew up in Spain, surrounded by beautiful medieval architecture, medieval Spain holds a particular appeal for me as well, both as writer and reader. Lately I’ve become more interested in 16th and 17th century Spain.

Q: What are your favorite reads? Favorite movies? Dominating influences?

In addition to what I listed above, I read a lot of non-fiction. Because I’m fluent in Spanish and French I can read a lot of historical documents from the Middle Ages, as well as novels in Spanish by people like Ildefonso Falcones and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. For a companion book to Santiago, set in Cordoba in the 12th Century, I’m reading Maimonides and other philosophers.

In terms of writing style, I was very influenced by Sigrid Undset’s decision to write her Kristin Lavrandsdatter books using only English words that were derived from Anglo Saxon. That gave her work an authentic sound, it seemed to me, and I tried to do something similar in Santiago: avoid very modern-sounding words and concepts, emphasize words that come to us from Arabic and Latin, for example.  At the same time I really liked the flow of the early Baedeker travel guides and the style of art historians like John Ruskin. They write in English in a way that resembles Spanish, with long, flowing sentences.

As for movies, I liked The Kingdom of Heaven and the mini-series based on Ken Follett’s novel, Cathedral. For years Antonio Banderas has been trying to make a movie about the fall of Granada, the last Moorish Kingdom in Spain, I really wish he could get that made because that would be a wonderful film.

There have been some great historical films recently, like A Royal Affair, the latest Anna Karenina, which are reminiscent of the Merchant-Ivory films I used to love.

I’ll see any movie where Keira Knightly wears a corset. And I love King Arthur films, even movies like The Knight’s Tale. I like historical fantasies like Game of Thrones.

I also enjoy films where they take on more recent history, like the Chilean film No, starring Gael Garcia Bernal, and the series The Americans currently on TV. We need more books and movies that helps us come to terms with some of our recent history.

Q: Is there a writer, living or deceased, you would like to meet?

Alice Guy wrote many of her own films. I would have loved to meet her. I’m really looking forward to hearing Anne Perry speak at the conference. She is a master at showing a real marriage while also spinning a historical mystery yarn around it, it’s impressive. I heard Cecelia Holland speak at Readercon a couple of years ago and I was very inspired. I also studied with David Anthony Durham; he was a great mentor and continues to be a great inspiration to me. On my first day in the afterlife I hope to have tea with Louisa May Alcott and then get drunk with Daphne du Maurier.

Q: What book was the most fun for you to write?

I really enjoyed writing the Road to Santiago, even though I set myself a real challenge with it, as there are two parallel plots and four points of view, in addition to all the research and the need to develop a style that suited the story.

Q: Can you tell us about your latest publication?

I’m working on getting The Road to Santiago published. My latest book is on the work of Tim Burton, and my latest film is Bare Hands and Wooden Limbs, a documentary about a village of landmine survivors in Cambodia, which will soon air on BBC Scotland and is available on Kanopy.

Q: Do you have a most interesting question or crazy anecdote related to your writing you would like to share?

I was in Toledo last November to give a talk at a film festival. One day, walking around the city, I saw there was a street named “Hombre de Palo” which means “The Wooden Man.” I asked around and was told that Toledo had its own automaton legend, a wooden man built by Juanelo Turriano in the 16th century. The crazy thing is, when I went home and did some research, I discovered it isn’t a legend at all; it’s all true. Turriano was an engineer who built water systems for Toledo and Cordoba, among other things, but he also built automatons, and one of them is in the Smithsonian. It still works! So a story that I thought I would write as alternative history will be closer to straight historical.

Thank you for the interview and see you at the HNS Conference!

Snippet Sundays

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stacks of books artHere is week 3 of the Snippet Sundays installments. Visit my latest alluring 6 sentence clip from my novel CUT FROM THE EARTH on my author Facebook page:  byStephanieRenéedosSantos.

Enjoy! Click, read on, leave a comment, and “Like” my writer page!

     READ. PONDER. WONDER.

Interview with International Bestselling author M.J. Rose

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300 MJRBWSome writers’ stories take us by surprise, by storm, author M.J. Rose’s, THE BOOK OF LOST FRAGRANCES, was such a story for me.  I love the things the time-slip mystery thriller brought together:  art, scent, mythology, reincarnation, spirit. I read the novel in two sittings.  And I was so charged up by the story line and psychological characterizations I rushed to posted on M.J. Rose’s Facebook page, letting her know how much I enjoyed the read.  Then I went to her website to investigate more about this author and her works, to find this prolific writer had yet another tantalizing novel within days from being released:  SEDUCTION. Wheels charging in my head, I decided to pursue an interview with this trailblazing novelist: a founding member of International Thriller writers; the first writer to start a marketing company for authors AuthorBuzz.com, and to have her eBook go from being self-published to picked up by a New York mainstream publishing house.

Q: Will you please tell us about the inspiration for the novel THE BOOK OF LOST FRAGRANCES.

Several years ago, I went to a brocante – a flea market  – in Cannes, France. It was a perfect morning to peruse antiques; warm with a little breeze to mingle the scent of fresh flowers with seaside town’s fresh salty air. One table that caught my attention offered an intriguing mix of items laid out as if they were resting on an elegant woman’s vanity.Next to a shagreen jewelry box – opened to reveal strings of pearls, was a pair of fine creamy white kid gloves.  Sunshine glinted off the silver trim of a turquoise cloisonné hair brush set and illuminated the gold lettering on a group of leather-bound books all about mythology.There were also a dozen perfume decanters scattered around. Some were cut crystal with fancy repousee silver caps. Others were intricately sculpted pieces of glass-work  – the kind created by Lalique and Baccarat in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Sadly all the bottles were empty except for one with an inch or so of thick, dark perfume coating the bottom.  It was the least ornate flacon.  A residue of glue was visible to show where a label had once been pasted. It was capped with a green ceramic stopper shaped into a lotus – a flower that I recognized from Ancient Egyptian tomb paintings.

3000 The Book of Lost Fragrances

An engaging suspenseful read! Recommended!

As I daydreamed about the woman who’d owned all these treasures, I picked up the bottle, uncapped it and sniffed. In Remembrance of Things Past, Proust wrote about how the taste and smell of a Madeline returned him to his youth with an immediacy that nothing else ever had. For me it was the scent in that bottle that returned me to a day years before.Suddenly I wasn’t in the square in front of the Hotel De Ville in that French town but was sixteen years old, standing on the hill overlooking Bethesda Fountain in Central Park, talking to a boy who I’d just met. He was telling me about Plato’s theory of soul mates.

And I was falling in love.

The scent in the bottle in the flea market was his scent. He’d worn a cologne – discontinued before he was even born – that he’d found in a house his parents had rented one summer. It had been so long since I’d even smelled it – or even thought of it. But suddenly everything about that meeting – and learning about soul mates- and being sure I’d found one – and the tall boy with sly smile who had sadly long since died– came rushing back in that one inhalation. The Book of Lost Fragrances is a very much a suspense novel weaving history into a tense hunt for an important treasure but the theme for book – an ancient scent that would help people identify their soul mates – came to life that lazy day in the South of France. I bought the bottle from the antique dealer and it sits on a shelf with the rest of my perfume collection. I’ve never opened it again… I don’t want the scent to evaporate any more quickly than nature will insist upon.It’s enough to know that memories lay captured inside and they were strong enough to inspire a novel.

2. The physiological understanding/depiction of your characters is of the highest caliber. How did you achieve this authenticity?

Thank you. I wish I knew – if I did I’d stress less over it. I agonize while writing to make my characters come alive and never  quite feel I’ve done a good enough job. Whatever works comes from truly being inside the story, caring about the characters passionately and seeing them as real.

3. On your website you have this stamp “Indie Next List” can you tell us more about this seal? What it means to be selected by Indie Booksellers?

Thousands of independent booksellers nominate the books that they think are worthy to be chosen. Twenty books are chosen monthly – a #1 book and then 19 others that are all equal. I’ve been so lucky to have my last five books chosen and consider it one of the most important achievements in my career. I grew up in bookstores and these booksellers hand picking my books is just an amazing honor.

4. Will you share with us about your writing process?

I spend months, sometimes years, reading and researching. Then more months making a journal for my main character – filling it with bits of the things that make him or her real to me: Imagine a scrap-book for an imaginary person.  Then I write a first draft straight through – without re-reading, working 3 -4 hours a day, 6 days a week.

Then the hard part is done and I get to do the joyous part . I love re-writing. So I rewrite the book form 2-5 times.

5. Please tells us about your latest release: SEDUCTION. What inspired you to write this story?

300 Seduction

M.J. Rose’s Latest Release!

In 1843, novelist Victor Hugo suffered a devastating loss when his beloved nineteen-year-old daughter drowned. Ten years later, in a desperate effort to contact her, Hugo began participating in hundreds of séances on the Isle of Jersey where he was exiled. In the process, he claimed to have connected with the likes of Plato, Galileo, Shakespeare, Jesus, and most frighteningly, the Devil, known to Hugo as the Shadow of the Sepulcher. Hugo’s transcriptions of these conversations have all been published—or so it was believed.  And that’s where the novel starts.

Jac L’Etoile is a present day mythologist who’s escaped to the Isle of Jersey in the wake of devastating losses of her own hoping to uncover a secret about the island’s Celtic roots. Invited by an old friend, Theo Gaspard, Jac figures the trip will be a welcome distraction from her private life. But Theo, a troubled soul himself, has secret motives and hopes she will help him discover something much different from the Druid ruins that lured her there—Hugo’s lost conversations with the Shadow of the Sepulcher.

My first ghost story.

As for inspiration. A trip Paris and Victor Hugo’s home there inspired me to read Les Miserables. I became obsessed with Fantine. I kept wondering if someone had inspired Hugo to create her? I started reading more and more about him. I read his poetry. Sought out his watercolors and drawings… But it was coming across a description of his belief in reincarnation and his experimenting with séances that made me decide to write about him… and the woman who might have inspired him to create Fantine.

6. I love your novels book jackets: THE BOOK OF LOST FRAGRANCES and SEDUCTION. Who is the jacket designer? They have done a fabulous job by the way!

My publisher’s art department does the cover with a wonderful and talented artist named Alan Dingman – alandingman.com .

Thank you M.J. Rose for the interview!

To Buy M.J. Rose’s latest in print release: SEDUCTION!

 

Interview with bestselling author Barbara Kyle & an Exclusive clip from Chapter One of her upcoming next novel!

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Barbara_Kyle_Author_PhotoIt is my pleasure to introduce the skilled storyteller  Barbara Kyle, writer of  “The Thornleigh Saga” series, with whom I am honored to be co-leading the week-long 2014 Writing & Yoga Workshop in Brazil. One of the things I love about Barbara’s books is the quality of the writing: she has an extremely broad descriptive vocabulary, making her novels a sheer pleasure to read.  Her dialogue blows me away in its originality and cleverness, along with her ability to bring the Tudor time period into full life.

Barbara: Thanks for the invitation, Stephanie. It’s a pleasure to reach out to your readers.

 Q: How long have you been a novelist and how did you get started writing?

My first novel was published by Penguin in 1994 so it’s been twenty-one years. Since then I’ve had eight more books published, including three thrillers for Warner Books that I wrote under a male pseudonym (Stephen Kyle) and five historical novels, my Tudor-era “Thornleigh” series, for Kensington.

I started the way most writers do, with short stories. They were pretty awful, full of high-flown language and no point! But I learn quickly, and after a year or so I wrote a short story that won a contest. It wasn’t a exalted contest, just one run by the library association in my county, but it meant the world to me, that affirmation that makes you feel, Yes, I’m a writer.

Barabra's latest release!

Barabra’s latest release!

Q: Would you please share with us information about your latest release: BLOOD BETWEEN QUEENS?

With pleasure. BLOOD BETWEEN QUEENS is my fifth “Thornleigh” novel,  a saga that follows the rise of a middle-class English family through three turbulent Tudor reigns.

The story begins when Mary Queen of Scots flees to England to escape her enemies and throws herself on the mercy of her cousin, Queen Elizabeth. Mary, however, has set her sights on the Elizabeth’s throne, and Elizabeth enlists her most trusted subjects to protect it. Justine Thornleigh is delighting in the thrill of Elizabeth’s visit to her family’s estate when the festivities are cut short by Mary’s arrival. To Justine’s surprise, the Thornleighs appoint her to serve as a spy in Mary’s court. But Justine comes to sympathize with Mary, and when Elizabeth holds Mary under house arrest and launches an inquiry into the accusations that she murdered her husband, the crisis splits the Thornleigh family apart.

Like many history lovers I’m fascinated by the deadly rivalry between the two cousin-queens. When Mary arrived in England she could never have suspected that Elizabeth would keep her under house arrest for the next nineteen years, and finally, after Mary’s incessant plotting for Elizabeth’s crown, execute her. For over four hundred years this story has enthralled the world. I have learned that Mary generates high emotions in people – they either love her or hate her. As for my own opinion, I don’t want to give any spoilers so I’ll just say that BLOOD BETWEEN QUEENS takes no prisoners!

Q: I recently read a blog interview with you where you talked about working with “Hinges in History” would you explain to us this working philosophy?

The “hinges of history” is a powerful image, isn’t it? A swinging door: an opening, a closing. What I mean by the phrase is the crucial turning points, the pivotal events in history. Often such events are driven by larger-than-life personalities like Henry VIII and his daughter Elizabeth I. Their actions had a tremendous impact on the people of England and the world. One example is Henry’s extraordinary creation of a national church just so he could divorce his first wife and marry Anne Boleyn. Another is Elizabeth’s decision to put her cousin Mary Queen of Scots under house arrest. I set my “Thornleigh” novels during these pivotal events to test my characters’ mettle as they’re forced to make hard choices about loyalty, duty, family, and love.

Q: Not only are you a successful novelist, you also lead “Masters Writing Workshops” will you share with us about why you choose to help others with the craft of writing?

I really enjoy helping emerging writers. It’s such a pleasure to see a writer have a “light bulb” moment at hearing the principles of writing that I teach. When I started writing years ago I learned a lot from mentors, and I’m happy now to pass along what I’ve learned to others. It’s part of the artistic tradition, whether in writing, painting, music or dance – we all learn from practitioners who’ve had success in their field.

Q: And will you tell us a bit about your workshops and the success of other writers that have taken them?

I give workshops for many writers groups and writers conferences, and I offer my own Master Class twice a year in my home city of Toronto. The Master Class is a full weekend workshop limited to ten people, and during it each writer brings the first thirty pages of their work-in-progress – whether a novel, memoir, or narrative non-fiction – and we critique it in a friendly, supportive atmosphere. By Kafka Comes to Americathe way, writers can also subscribe to my online series of video workshops “Writing Fiction That Sells” – your readers can watch an excerpt of it on my website www.BarbaraKyle.com. Also, I’m looking forward to April 2014 when you and I, Stephanie, will run a week-long combination writing plus yoga workshop in Brazil. That’s going to be a treat!

As for the success of writers who’ve learned from me, many have gone on to have their books published. One that I’m very proud of is KAFKA COMES TO AMERICA, a memoir by Steven T. Wax, a U.S. federal Public Defender for the District of Oregon. It received a starred review in Publishers Weekly.

Q: Can you reveal a snippet of your next novel?

 I’d be glad to. I’ve just finished writing it and have sent the manuscript to my publisher. It’s Book #6 in my “Thornleigh” saga. (By the way, each book in the series stands alone; readers need not have read the previous ones to enjoy the story.) This book brings back a young Scottish woman, Fenella Doorn, who was a minor character in THE QUEEN’S GAMBLE. Her story in that novel was so intriguing I gave her the “starring” role in this new one, set ten years later, in 1572. Here’s how Chapter One starts:

Fenella Doorn watched the unfamiliar wreck of a ship ghosting into her bay. Crippled by cannon fire, she thought. What else could do such damage? The foremast was blown away, as well as half the mainmast where a jury rig clung to the jagged stump, and shot holes tattered the sails on the mizzen. And yet, to Fenella’s experienced eye the vessel had an air of defiance. Demi-cannons hulked in the shadowed gun ports. This ship was a fighter, battered but not beaten. With fight still in her, was she friend or foe?

Or faux friend. Fenella kept her anxious gaze fixed on the vessel as she started down the footpath from the cliff overlooking La Coupée Bay. Old Johan followed her, scuffling to keep up. The English Isle of Sark was the smallest of the four Channel Islands, just a mile long and scarcely a mile and a half wide, so from the cliff top Fenella could see much of the surrounding sea. The few hundred farmers and fishermen who called the island home were never far from the sound of waves smacking the forty miles of rocky coast. Fenella, born a Scot and bred from generations of fishermen, was as familiar with the pulse of the sea as with her own heartbeat.

Delicious! Thank you Barbara for the interview and sharing with us this clip, looking forward to the novel’s release!

 To Buy the Kindle Version of Barbara’s latest release:

Blood Between Queens!

Author Interview with Jeanne MacKin

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The Sweet By and By

The Sweet By and By

For the next month or so, I will be posting author interviews at least once a week. Today, I would like to introduce writer, Jeanne MacKin, author to multiple books in different genres and a speaker at the upcoming Historical Novel Society Conference in St.Petersburg, FL June 21-23, 2013.  I am attending the HNS Writers Conference and I am thrilled to be going, there’s still time to sign up if you haven’t already done so!

Today’s highlight is Jeanne’s  historical novel THE SWEET BY AND BY. I am intrigued by its subject matter and story line: 

“Is death the end? Do ghosts exist? What is faith? Mackin examines these and related issues in a totally nonmacabre manner, telling in tandem two stories that take place about 150 years apart. In 1998, journalist Helen West, while mourning the death of her married lover, Jude, researches the strange life of Maggie Fox, called the Founder of American Spiritualism. Maggie became famous after 1848 when, with her sisters’ help, she developed a large following eager to contact the spirits of dearly departed loved ones. Helen becomes involved with her subject and with the concept of the possibility of returning spirits. Can they comfort those they love? Can one enter a loving relationship with another before finding closure with the deceased, previous loved one? This well-written tale is sympathetically conceived and entertainingly presented. Recommended. DEllen R. Cohen, Rockville, MD Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc” – Goodreads Review

Q:  What got you first interested in historical fiction?

Probably the stories my family used to tell, about my father getting stuck on the train tracks one Christmas eve, how my grandmother was supposed to be a descendant of Lafayette and my great-grandfather the son of a freed slave; how my brother ran away to the circus and was almost stepped on by an elephant.  The stories always moved back in time and I fell truly in love with that movement into a blurry time before I existed.  The stories left me wanting to know more, and to create my own stories.

Q:  Do you have an anecdote about a reading or fan interaction you’d like to share?  

At my very first reading for my first novel, The Frenchwoman,  when my knees were knocking so badly I actually tipped over a large floor-standing vase of flowers, I ended the question and answer session by saying we could never really travel back to the eighteenth century. Someone in the audience raised his hand and said, “Oh yes, we can.  Your chapter took me there.” I was so flattered, because that’s exactly what I want  my fiction to do, to make people feel as if they are actually there, inhabiting the story along with the characters.

Q:  What are your favorite reads? Favorite movies? Dominating influences?

I read the novels of Jean Rhys over and over, especially Wide Sargasso Sea. That first paragraph, when she creates an entire world with so few worlds, just stuns me every time. And when I was a kid, I read and reread everything by Anya Seton and of course Daphne du Maurier. Fabulous, fabulous writers.

Q:  Is there a writer, living or deceased, you would like to meet?

I have always wished I could have partied with Ben Franklin.  He has been kind of sainted by history, along with the other fathers of the nation.  But he had a great sense of humor and fun, was very sociable and enjoyed good wines and wonderful meals.  I think he would have been the perfect dinner party partner, full of flattery, slightly tipsy, and making naughty jokes under his breath.

Q:  What book was the most fun for you to write?

The must fun was the Louisa mysteries, Louisa and the Missing Heiress, The Country Bachelor, and the Crystal Gazer.  To write them I had to work with Louisa’s fascinating psychology, so that the story lines contained events that would have mattered to her – issues about slavery, women’s rights, poverty – but also included some her light-heartedness and humor.   She also had a taste for the gothic and wrote some pretty racy stuff anonymously and under nom-de-plumes so it was interesting to play with that a bit as well.