Q & A with JoAnn Spears

Six of One: A Tudor Riff by JoAnn Spears

Welcome to On the Tudor Trail JoAnn! There have been countless novels written about Henry VIII and his wives. Could you tell us about your novel, Six of One and what makes it different?

Thank you for the welcome, Natalie, and thank you for asking about Six of One. I think that there are six things that make Six of One different.

1. Six of One gives the reader all six of Henry VIII’s wives in the same place, at the same time.  That never happened in real life, and that’s probably a good thing.  The pyrotechnics would have been too difficult to keep under control.
2. In Six of One, each of the wives gets over on Henry VIII, in some way.  Poor, poor Henry!
3. Six of One gives readers a chance to laugh out loud, with each of Henry’s wives, about an imagined, alternative ‘backstory’.  ‘With’ is the operative word here, and that is important.  The six wives, and their real stories, do not deserve to be laughed ‘at’.
4. In Six of One, the wives—and some other familiar Tudor ladies —get to share their perspectives with a modern woman.
5. Six of One employs a linear, alternative-universe plot device that makes the complicated story of the wives easy to follow for those who are not familiar with it already.
6. Six of One has a happy ending, something not usually associated with Henry VIII’s wives.

You have recently embarked on a change in career, what finally inspired you to give up nursing to become a writer?

A long talk with a friend, in a hot tub, on a cold Vermont evening, started me seriously thinking about taking that plunge.  I will never stop thinking of myself as a nurse, and I still have my nursing license.  It’s just that I always wanted to be a writer, and the stars lined up in just the right way that I could finally pursue that dream.  I am heaven-blessed in that regard, and very grateful for the blessing.

Have you always been interested in Tudor history?

I’ve loved Tudor history ever since I was twelve.  My dad had a store, and he sold paperback books from a small wire rack.  One of those books was Jean Plaidy’s ‘Captive Queen of Scots’, and another was Mary M. Luke’s biography of Katherine of Aragon.  I devoured both books, and was hooked from that point on.

Apart from Henry and his wives, what other Tudor personalities interest you?

Mary Queen of Scots, although technically a Stuart, was a Tudor relation, and always a favorite of mine.  I’ve also loved Elizabeth I ever since I saw Glenda Jackson’s brilliant portrayal of her back in the 1970s.

Tell us a little about the process you followed when researching your novel. What books/resources did you find yourself referring to time and time again?

The Tudor legends are very familiar to me.  My research was primarily about dates and details.  I wanted the alternative history to be plausible.

I got a lot of inspiration from tudorhistory.org’s portrait gallery.  It is quite comprehensive.  There were times when imagination ran out, and I’d go to the gallery and look at those familiar and beloved Holbein portrait faces, and try to read their minds.

I did learn, as I wrote the book, how little I knew about the ins and outs of Tudor costuming.  The Elizabethan Costume Page at http://www.elizabethancostume.net/index.html was a great help with that.

Have you visited places associated with the characters in your books? If so, do you have a favourite location?

Visiting England and Scotland is on my bucket list. The Anne Boleyn tour featured on ‘On the Tudor Trail’ sounds like a dream trip; if there is another one in 2013, I might very well be on it.  I would also love to do a Mary Queen of Scots tour someday.

The closest I’ve physically been to Renaissance royalty in art and history was a half-day I spent in Florence.  A friend I was travelling with, who isn’t interested in the Renaissance at all, was kind enough to go to the Uffizi Gallery with me.  She listened to me ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ at all of the Renaissance portraiture quite patiently.  I owe her big time.

What was one of the most surprising things you learned whilst writing your book?

I learned a lot I didn’t know about Tudor bling!  Elizabeth I’s cameo ring with Ann Boleyn’s portrait, the Drake Jewel, and the Mirror of Naples all feature in Six of One, and each has a fascinating history.  I actually have a reproduction of the cameo ring; I absolutely am obsessed with cameos.  I used to put that ring on when I got writer’s block while writing Six of One, and it always seemed to turn things around.  I was happy to see the ring featured on your website recently–the ring deserves to be more widely recognized for its history as well as its beauty.

Which of Henry’s wives do you most identify with and why?

It’s a dead heat between Ann of Cleves and Katherine Parr.  Ann of Cleves because she was a survivor and pragmatic, and I’ve always suspected that she had a great sense of humor.  Katherine Parr because essentially, she worked as a nurse, what with caring for a succession of sickly husbands, and also because she was ‘bookish’.

Are you presently working on any other books?

I’ve got some ideas in the hopper about the dynamic between Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I.  Even though they never met in real life, I feel quite strongly that there is a book in there, somewhere.  I’d be grateful to the muses if they’d help me to write it.