Q & A with Katherine Longshore

Welcome to On the Tudor Trail Katherine! Could you share with us a little about yourself and your background?

I spent most of the first half of my life in one place—a little university town in northern California, five hours away from the nearest mall.  I grew up wanting to be an actress, but when I got my first taste of travel, I realized I wanted to see more in life than the inside of a theater.  I worked in coffee bars and boats, travel agencies and hotels, studied journalism and geography and anthropology.  And ended up in Kent, not far from Hever Castle.  I lived there for five years and part of me will forever be English (my kids were born there).

When did you first become interested in Tudor history and what do you think is the lure of this period?

I was introduced to Tudor history when I was four years old and visited the Tower of London for the first time.  My parents bought me a blonde and blue-eyed Anne Boleyn doll.  I didn’t realize how inaccurate she was until I started reading about Henry and his wives many years later.  My true interest came to me through the back door.  I read about Richard III for a few years and moving on to the Tudors seemed like a natural progression.

I think the allure of Tudor history is in its vibrancy.  The Renaissance culture of art and music and humanism.  The quest for knowledge of the stars and the earth and the soul.  The tension between the old religion and the new, between the Middle Ages and the modern world.  And there is the illicit thrill of interest in the blood and brutality, as well.  The historical Game of Thrones. 

Tarnish by Katherine Longshore

Share with us the inspiration behind your novel, Tarnish.

I never thought I’d write a book about Anne Boleyn.  So many others have done it so well before me—I didn’t think I’d have anything to add to that rich canon.  But after I finished GILT (my novel about Catherine Howard), I was asked if I could write more about Henry’s court.  I set to brainstorming on a long drive and about an hour from my destination, a voice came to me.  Not a paranormal sort of voice—no ghosts.  A narrative voice.  The voice of a girl who—because she spent so much of her life in France—feels like an outsider in her own country.  A girl with plenty to say, with a bit of an attitude tempered with warmth and vulnerability.  A girl who can love extravagantly, but who ultimately has to choose herself and her dreams over anyone else.  I had to stop the car and start writing right away.

Your novels feature the historical figures of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard. Why do these women capture your imagination?

I’ve always been a sucker for Cinderella stories—a regular girl, plucked from anonymity, marries the handsome prince, etc. etc.  I think it’s the romantic in me, but the feminist in me sees these particular women making a difference in their lives.  Both of these marriages were for “love”.  How often did a Tudor-era woman get to claim that kind of relationship?

More than that, I’m fascinated by how history has treated these two queens.  Anne is often represented as the manipulative gold digger, Catherine as the innocent and injudicious victim.  I wanted to look at the facts and contemporary accounts and try to build different characters. An Anne who perhaps really was in love with a beautiful, enlightened king.  A Catherine not at all innocent.

Gilt by Katherine Longshore

Why did you decide to write fiction for young adults?

I hope this doesn’t sound trite, but it’s where I belong.  Lots of writers for young adults claim that they never grew up, and I think that’s part of it.  But I see so much hope in writing for teens.  So many books written for adults about teen protagonists are looking backward—this is what happened and why I am the person I am today.  But out of necessity, books written with a teen audience in mind have to look forward.  I loved writing about a teenaged Anne Boleyn because she has a future.  She doesn’t know what it looks like—none of us do when we’re that age.  Because we have hindsight, we all know what happens to her.  But she doesn’t.  In TARNISH, Anne Boleyn has the possibility of a happy ending.

What challenges do novelists face when researching/writing historical fiction?

There are so many!  I often feel limited when I can’t go and read actual manuscripts—see my characters’ handwriting, the slope of the letters and their arrangement on the page.  And because most women were relatively unimportant, there is so little information about some of my characters—where they were and when and what they did and with whom.  Even their birth dates are questionable.

But this can be freeing, as well.  For my story, I give Anne Boleyn the birth year of 1507.  I know many modern historians dismiss this—and they have good evidence to believe she was born in 1501.  But my story is about a teenager newly returned to England, so that’s the date I chose to use.

I also struggle with having to leave some of the history out of a book.  In an early draft of GILT, there is a scene where Catherine Howard and her friends see Anne of Cleves on her triumphant entrance to London.  I loved that scene.  I extracted as much detail as I could from contemporary accounts and I made Anne happy to be there (I have a soft spot for Anne of Cleves).  But because my characters were just observers and not participants, it didn’t move the story forward.  So I had to cut that scene—one of the hardest writing decisions I’ve ever made.

I have read that you love to travel. What are five of your favourite travel destinations?

London!  So much to do and see and eat and listen to and experience.  And every step is a part of history.

The Grand Canyon.  My dad was a geologist, so we spent a lot of time with rocks and deserts when I was a kid, and I still love them both.  There’s something magical about this place.

Florence, Italy.  This has as much to do with the art and the history as with the food.  But also A Room With a View.  I read Forster with a passion when I was a teen.

The Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe.  I stayed in a little guest house settled in the middle of a coffee plantation overlooking Mozambique.  It was so beautiful and so perfect.  It breaks my heart to see what’s happened to the country since.

Home.  I grew up amongst the redwood groves of northern California.  The trees and beaches never fail to make me feel alive.

What are three things that you’d like your readers to know about you?

1. I’m a hopeless romantic and love a happy ending—but I don’t think a happy ending needs to be romantic.

2.  I love castles (doesn’t everyone?).  My favorite is Bodiam in East Sussex—it’s like a sandcastle castle, absolutely perfect.

3.  I want to be Hilary Mantel when I grow up.  But until then, I’ll just write the best I can.

What was one of your most treasured books as a child?

James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl.  Travel, adventure, and the best of friends.

Do you have a favourite historical quote?

“I am just going outside and may be some time.”  Lawrence Oates on the Scott expedition to the South Pole.  Subtle and self-effacing last words.

Thank you for your time Katherine!

Visit Katherine Longshore’s website here.