Here's the awesome interview with Barbara Quick, author of Vivaldi's Virgins.

I am very happy to present to you the interview with a lovely person and writer Barbara Quick. As some of you know I got to virtually meet Barbara via my review of Vivaldi's Virgins and Ms. Quick's comment which I thought to be the most wonderful I have ever gotten from an author. This interview is a fruit of our hopefully growing reader/writer relationship. The answers are, in my honest opinion, absolutely fabulous, Barbara's personality shines through and her talent for writing is obvious in even such a short form. And she is also one of the gems among writers who appreciate bloggers too!

Reading Extravaganza: Thank you so much for this interview. I’m truly honored. I enjoyed Vivaldi’s Virgins and must say that your idea of writing about the music world is great. As is obvious for anyone who read your book, you love classical music just as much as writing. Which came first: your fondness for music or for writing?

Barbara Quick: Thank you, Lilly! I’m so glad that my love of music comes through loud and strong in my novel. I think if I’d been given violin or cello lessons at an early age, I might well have become a musician. As it is, with no formal training to speak of (apart from a year or two of piano and a few months of voice lessons), the closest I can get to music is to listen to it—and, most lately, to write about musicians.

I really felt that I was able to enter into the mind and heart of Anna Maria dal Violin while I was writing Vivaldi’s Virgins. It was an almost mystical experience: I listened endlessly to the music Vivaldi composed for her. In Venice, I pored over actual scores, with Vivaldi’s notes in the margins (and with corrections that Anna Maria—in those days before Wite-out®—actually sewed on from scraps of music paper with her own hands). And even though I had never played an unfretted stringed instrument before, I had the illusion of feeling what it was like for Anna Maria, cloistered inside the Ospedale della Pietà, with music the only outlet for her passion and longing.

Just lately, I’ve become engaged to a violist with the San Francisco Symphony—and he doesn’t even know what a joy it is for me to hear him practice, teach and perform. I talked him into giving me viola lessons, which I just started about a month ago. I practice every day—even though I know there’s no chance that I’ll ever get very good. I’m just happy when I don’t sound really bad!

RE: How difficult was it (if difficult at all) to create Vivaldi’s Virgins?

BQ: It took me three years to do my research and writing. I learned Italian—partly because I’d always meant to, but also because I knew that I’d want to talk to a lot of people, and consult a lot of written sources, that wouldn’t be available to me otherwise.

But I’d never say that it was difficult to “create” Vivaldi’s Virgins. Honestly, after I’d acquainted myself with the historical details and had spent some time in Venice, the novel seemed to write itself. Every day I worked on it was a joy. I cried while I wrote the sad parts, and laughed while I wrote the funny bits. And it was all I could do to write fast enough to get down all the dialogue I heard inside my head.

I wrote the entire novel in longhand, with a fountain pen. There are entire scenes that hardly changed at all from the first draft to the final published version. It was as if the whole book existed inside me before I ever started writing it down.

RE: I believe that writing is an art, just like composing beautiful music. It also involves a lot of work and effort. Could you tell me about your process of writing a novel?

BQ: I believe that the creation of art in any medium must tap the same parts of our brain—and maybe the same parts of what I guess is called the collective unconscious. The process is kind of counter-intuitive: you can’t “work hard” to get to that place where creation happens. You have to do something more akin to what happens when people meditate or pray.
In my process, I try to get quiet enough to become a good antenna—to hear the voices floating around me in the world, inside my head, and even carried on the wings of time (if you’ll excuse the cliché!). I don’t think of time as being linear, with both past and future inaccessible. The Ancient Greeks used to conceptualize the past as being in front of us—we can see it—whereas the future is always sneaking up invisibly from behind us, unknowable.
I think the string theorists are right, if I’m understanding them correctly: all of time exists simultaneously.

True creation, I think, is something that happens in a place of timelessness. We’re all familiar with the notion of “timeless beauty.” That’s what it’s all about, I think: artists step outside of time to do their work—and maybe that’s why it feels more like pleasure than work. I think everyone experiences that sense of timelessness when they’re making love and it’s really going well. You don’t hear anything. You don’t feel the passage of time. But when it’s over, you feel that you’ve partaken, in some small way, of the Divine.

RE: Now, a little something on a personal note. You mentioned to me that you had become engaged to a violist of San Francisco Symphony. My heartfelt congratulations to you and your fiancé! What I’m curious about is how two artists fare together. Does it make it easier as you understand each other’s creative spirits better?

BQ: Well, if he ever reads what I just wrote in answer to your last question, he’s really going to feel embarrassed!
Thank you so much for your congratulations—it seems like such a miracle to me that, after all this time, I’ve finally found my own Mr. Right. Wayne and I have a tremendous sense of mutual understanding. He’s not only a sublime musician, but a wonderful reader and writer as well. We each respect the other’s craft enormously. I love the fact that he’s as passionate about his work as I am about mine. I’ve never felt so well understood by another person. And I’ve never laughed so much with someone else before. We share so many tastes and interests that we’ve been savoring every minute of our time together.

RE: You have a new book, A Golden Web, coming out in spring 2010. Could you tell me and the readers a little bit about this new novel?

BQ: It’s funny, because I was convinced that I could never enjoy researching and writing another novel as much as I enjoyed researching and writing Vivaldi’s Virgins. But I actually had an even better time doing the work for A Golden Web, which takes place in early 14th century Bologna.

I found the story by accident, in the course of looking for some information about a female anatomist who lived in 18th century Bologna. It’s unclear whether the heroine of my novel, Alessandra Giliani, really lived—or whether her story was made up in the 18th century. But the story is so beautiful—and the details of it presented themselves to me so vividly—that it doesn’t really matter. I spent three weeks in and around Bologna in 2007, gathering historical details and local color. And then I wrote the book at what was for me lightning speed: from start to finish, including the research, the whole thing took a year. But the feeling I had while writing it was exactly the feeling I had while writing Vivaldi’s Virgins, except amped up, because of the time factor: every day of writing was a joy for me. I hated it when the book was over, because I had so enjoyed hanging out with the characters every day.

A Golden Web is set in a world where printing has not yet been invented but there’s suddenly a huge demand for books. The University of Bologna, where Alessandra goes to study—disguised, for safety, as a boy—was one of the first universities of Europe, along with Paris and Oxford. It was the birthplace of an information revolution as significant as the one we’ve seen in our lifetimes, with the advent of the Internet. Alessandra has a passion for learning—and will not let anything get in her way as she pursues her goals. She’s an inspiring figure for girls and women of any culture—and her story is filled with adventures and romance and is very satisfying, even though it ends in tragedy.

RE: Vivaldi’s Virgins is set in Venice, A Golden Web will be set in Bologna. Do you have a special connection with Italy? Or do you set your novels in the world of Italy because of the great artists it produced?

BQ: I’d have to say yes to both these questions. I do have a special connection to Italy. Everyone has always thought I was Italian, at least during most of my adult life. And when I started learning Italian, it was as if the language was in my mouth already. Somehow the wavelength of my antenna seems to be set to Italy. And, yes, Italy has produced so many sublime artists and scholars that I think I could spend my whole life and several others besides writing about them without ever running out of wonderful material. Wayne shares my fondness for all things Italian—and we’ve talked about living in Italy someday for an extended period of time.

RE: Is there a question you would love to answer but I didn’t ask?

BQ: I’d like to comment, as a writer, about what a wonderful thing it is that there’s suddenly a public forum for great readers like yourself—and a conduit for readers and writers to communicate directly with each other. Viva the Blogosphere! Publishers are all cutting down on author tours, which used to be one of the primary ways that readers and writers could meet face to face. It’s fantastic that the Internet is allowing readers and writers to stay in contact nonetheless—and maybe in an even more vivid way than before, since letters allow for a lot more detail than a brief face-to-face encounter. I love the letters I’ve gotten from readers—I’ve treasured them.

Writing is a lonely business (and not very well paid, for most of us). In my lowest moments, the beautiful, heartfelt letters I’ve gotten from readers have made me feel that all the financial struggle and uncertainty have been utterly worthwhile.
Come visit me at my web site
http://www.barbaraquick.com/

It’s almost completely devoted to Vivaldi’s Virgins now. You can download a podcast of Vivaldi’s music to listen to while reading the novel. And there’s a lot of background material, both in words and pictures, about Venice and the Ospedale della Pietà. I’m in the process of gearing up to work with a web designer to create an exciting interactive portal for A Golden Web, which is being published as a young adult novel.

Please tell your readers to keep buying books! They’re a very cheap way to experience the very best of what the world has to offer: new realms, profound emotions, exquisite landscapes, exotic locales, and even time travel!
Nothing less than civilization itself depends upon the devotion of readers to the books they love. So-called “mid-list” literary novelists like myself may be an endangered species!

Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to talk to your readers, Lilly—and for asking such great questions!
XXX
Barbara

And before I let you all go, here's a photo that Barbara took herself in the Salla della Musica in Venice which I think can help you indentify with the world of Vivaldi's Virgins. It's a fresco by Jacopo Guarana, which was commissioned by girls of the coro contemporaneous with Anna Maria--though from another of the Ospedale--who also modeled for the painting.

Donna Lea Simpson - interview

As promised two days ago, I give you a short interview with Donna Lea Simpson, the author of Lady Anne and the Howl in the Dark. I hope you'll enjoy reading the interview and maybe even consider reading the book (that is, if my review didn't do the job :-) ).

Lady Anne and the Howl in the Dark (Sourcebooks Casablanca – April 2009)
By: Donna Lea Simpson

RE: Lady Anne is quite a character. Did you have anyone specific in mind while creating Anne or did she just take on a life of her own?

DLS: Oddly enough, I was lately reminded of a character from one of my own Regency stories, a spinster named Ariadne Lambert. Ariadne, like Anne, was intelligent, nosy and stubborn. She was also passionate and headstrong. Anne is all those things, as well as independently wealthy (which made her more free to do what she wants) and titled.
I’ve always had a soft spot for heroines who knew their own mind, had indomitable wills, but had a softer, passionate side that only the hero can bring out. Lady Anne sprang almost fully formed into being, and I think she is the very essence of the heroine I always wanted to create!

RE: Do you have any authors that you absolutely love and have any of them had any influence on you writing style?

DLS: Jane Austen inspired me to read Regency romances. Among Regency and historical romance writers, I learned so much from Mary Balogh, Jo Beverley, and Mary Jo Putney. Stephanie Barron is brilliant!
But I have always read widely from authors from the time period, too: Maria Edgeworth, Sir Walter Scott, Charlotte Bronte. I think it is that blend of period writers and modern historical writers that helped me form my style!

RE: Are there going to be more adventures of Lady Anne and Lord Darkefell?

DLS: Oh yes! Lady Anne and the Howl in the Dark, is followed by Lady Anne and the Ghost’s Revenge, (Sourcebooks Casablanca – August 2009) a tale of smugglers and murder on the Cornish coast, and then Lady Anne and the Gypsy Curse, set in Kent, Lady Anne’s home county. Lord Darkefell, of course, follows her around the country, determined to make her take his offer of marriage seriously while they investigate murder and mayhem together!

RE: Your deep interest and knowledge of historical England are quite apparent in Lady Anne and the Howl in the Dark. Are there other countries whose history you're interested in and would like to use for your next novels?

DLS: I love writing about England, of course, and I have begun to get interested in England of the 1300s, a fascinating time period, but I am enthralled by Germany, and have been since taking a German culture course several years ago. It’s the perfect setting for Gothic tales; I think the Teutonic character, with undertones of melancholy (think The Sorrows of Young Werther) is ripe for historic romance. I used it in my last series of paranormal novels, the ‘Awaiting’ series. Interestingly enough, the royal houses of England and Germany have been, historically, closely tied until the events of the First and Second World Wars changed public perception of Germany, and the English monarch distanced themselves.
I’ve recently done some research on Belgium, a gallant little country I find fascinating. Through much of history what we now know as Belgium was tossed back and forth among the Netherlands, France, Germany… anyone who wanted to use it as a pawn. I am setting my fourth ‘Awaiting’ novel there, in the middle of the French invasion of 1795!

Thank you for such interesting questions… I’ve enjoyed answering them. If anyone is interested in learning more about the Georgian Era in England, (or my Lady Anne series of novels) I have a page devoted to it on my new website, http://www.donnaleasimpson.com/

Donna, thank you for making an effort to answer my questions. I really appreciate that and I can't wait to be reading more adventures of Lady Anne!

Helen Hollick and how 'The Kingmaking' was written.

If you remember, a couple of days ago I posted a review of a wonderful historical novel, The Kingmaking by Helen Hollick. Today, I am giving you the guest post in which Helen answers a few questions as to how The Kingmaking was created. I hope you'll enjoy it.

1. Why King Arthur and not any other legendary character?

Until I became interested in Arthur I was a science fiction/fantasy fan – this was just before the time of Star Wars first time around! J

I hated history at school. I went to an ordinary all-girl’s school, and was not considered very bright or showing much potential. My school reports all read “Could do better if Helen was to show more interest.” Well, being honest, if the teachers had made their lessons more interesting then maybe the spark would have been lit for me much earlier on! The only lesson I looked forward to was English. Mrs Llewellyn brought passion into the subject, gave us really exciting books to read, and encouraged my writing. She spent an hour one afternoon after school showing me how I could have made one of my essays so much better. Unfortunately the History Mistress was the opposite. Her idea of teaching was to drone from a very boring history book.

I went to work as an assistant in a local library (I live in a North London UK suburb). There, I re-discovered Rosemary Sutcliff’s wonderful novels set in Roman Britain – Eagle of the Ninth, Frontier Wolf, Mark of the Horse Lord etc, and then Mary Stewart’s Hollow Hills Trilogy. And thus I discovered Arthur.

Until then I had disliked the Arthurian stories. I could never accept that the King Arthur of the Medieval tales was such a useless fool! He went to all that trouble to become King, found himself a lovely wife and then cleared off for years to search for the Holy Grail, abandoning everything else. And the dumbest guy could have foreseen the Lancelot/Guinevere scenario! I also detested Lancelot and all those goody-goody knights.

Years later, when I came to write my novel Harold the King (the story of the Battle of Hastings from the English point of view) I discovered the reason why I was so against these stories: they were Norman, based on the Norman way of life, and echoing the Norman call to arms for the Crusades. I am very pro-English and very anti-Norman. I am certain my ancestors were there at Hastings, fighting with Harold II against Duke William of Normandy.

Mary Stewart’s novels had an author’s note in which she said she felt Arthur, if he ever existed, would more than likely have been a post-Roman war lord. I liked that idea and started reading as much about the ‘real’ Arthur as I could.

I was hooked.

2. Did you use any of the Old English classics as an inspiration to write The Kingmaking?

I used the old Welsh classics! In particular the Mabinogian. I also used the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the early Saxon legends of Hengest, Horsa and Cerdic. I mostly read non-fiction work by the then eminent historian Geoffrey Ashe, who put forward some very convincing ideas about Arthur as a post-Roman.

3. You took upon yourself the task of writing about Britain's Dark Ages. Was it difficult to do research, considering that this particular time in history is shrouded in mystery, more legend than fact?
No, in fact it was easier because I had scope to write what I wanted and not be restricted by ‘facts’ getting in the way of my imaginative creativity.

I wanted to break away from the familiar Norman Medieval tales of Arthur – the Knights of the Round Table, the Quest for the Holy Grail, Lancelot, etc., and get back to the early British/Welsh stories about him. I soon discovered that this Arthur of the 4th / 5th Century was a very different man. A man who fought hard to gain power and fought even harder to keep it. This Arthur was not the all-round Christian King putting God before all else; in fact he was probably pagan, or at least teetering on the edge of Christianity. He was very much a war lord, a man of ambition who fought 12 battles in various places around Britain from Cornwall to Scotland. He was respected and loved; there was nothing of him being cuckolded by one of his men, and the early stories tell of him having three sons. None of these tales imply he was betrayed by any of his sons. The reference is “the battle of Camlann, in which Arthur and Medraut fell”. Medraut is Mordred – and they could just as easily have been fighting on the same side! Some of the much loved heroes are there in the early tales – Bedwyr (Bedevere), Cei (Kay) etc. But no Merlin – he was a Norman invention – and no Lady of the Lake. Morgause/Morgaine is there though, and Gwenhwyfar – Guinevere.

I thoroughly enjoyed taking the early legends and weaving them into a coherent and plausibly believable story. It was a challenge that resulted in my first three adult novels and the character of Arthur becoming a very real person to me.

4. While creating Gwenhwyfar, did you think of Boudica as another very strong, passionate and independent woman?
Oh yes, Boudica is one of my heroines! Legend says she died not far from where I live – very possible as I live North East of London on the Essex border, which is very close to her Iceni territory.
I have often been asked if I would write about Boudica, but I think there are several authors far more talented than myself, who have written her story so beautifully that I would not have the courage to try and do better. One version I adore is Rosemary Sutcliff’s Song for a Dark Queen. It was written for teenagers, but how could I possibly improve upon such wonderful writing?
There are many forgotten women in early British history, most of them ignored because history was written down by the monks – men! Æthelflæd, eldest daughter of King Alfred, for instance. She became the Lady of Mercia, built fortresses, led her army against the Vikings – and would have been remembered were it not for her jealous brother, Edward, who stole her kingdom after her death. And Queen Emma, who was wife to two Kings – Æthelred (the Unready) and Cnut (Canute) and mother to two Kings, the second of which was Edward the Confessor. Emma was a remarkable woman who chose to keep her crown and position as Queen when her first husband died during the Danish raids of the early 11th century. She ruled as regent for Cnut, and was possibly the first woman outside of any religious house to have her biography written. I wrote her story in my novel, A Hollow Crown.
As for Gwenhwyfar (the Welsh spelling for Guinevere) – when I began writing my first tentative ideas for a novel about Arthur I attempted Gwenhwyfar’s story. This came about because I had read Marion Zimmer Bradley’s novel, The Mists of Avalon. Although an intriguing novel I took instant dislike to her Guinevere. At one point I threw the book across the room, shouting, “Oh pull yourself together woman – you are Arthur’s Queen!” That was it for me. No other novel could satisfy what I felt the story of Gwenhwyfar and Arthur should be - so I decided to get on with it and write my own. I saw them as two very passionate people – in thought, deed and romance. Arthur was a war lord, a bit of a rogue (and occasionally a right ba*tard)—a man who knew what he wanted and set out to get it. A real king. The woman he adored he had loved since childhood – Gwenhwyfar, the daughter of a Welsh Prince, Cunedda of Gwynedd. As with any people who have their own ambitions and possess a volatile temper however, their life together was to vary from intense love to deep hatred. My Arthur was not going to be a mild-mannered Christian King cuckolded by some chap in a tin-suit. My Arthur was fierce and dangerous – and very much the hero. My Gwenhwyfar was feisty, she knew her own mind, had a sword and knew how to use it.
I soon discovered, however, that Arthur was too strong a character to take a back seat. My first attempts at writing all went in the bin. It was only later when I altered course and decided to have Arthur as my lead character that the novel began to work. I also made the decision to have no myth, magic or fantasy whatsoever in my story. There is no Merlin, no questing beasts or holy grails. No Lancelot, stone-built, turreted castles or knights in armour going on various magical quests.
Instead, you get battles, conflict, love and passion. You also witness the end of Roman Britain and the coming of the Saxons, along with the confusion that resulted from that intense shift in power. I also had a great time learning about and incorporating the early Welsh legends into the narrative – of Arthur stealing cattle from a monastery, of Gwenhwyfar throwing her comb at him after a bitter quarrel. The Kingmaking is the first of the Pendragon’s Banner Trilogy – it is the story of King Arthur as it might have really happened.

Helen Hollick