Q & A with Michelle Diener

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

Thank you for having me, Natalie. It’s lovely to be here. I’m a student of languages. I read English literature, French and German at university, and went on to study a Masters of Arts degree in translation at Wits University in Johannesburg, South Africa. I was born in London, but grew up in Kwa-Zulu Natal, on the east coast of South Africa. After working in publishing for a few years, and at the same time getting another degree, this time in information systems and business management, I went into the IT field. A couple of years ago, my family and I moved to Australia. I’m one of those people who always wrote and told stories, from when I was very small, and can’t really imagine my life without it.

In A Treacherous Court by Michelle Diener

Your debut novel, In a Treacherous Court, is set in the court of Henry VIII. When did you first become interested in this period of history?

It has always interested me, since I can remember being aware of it. And I LOVED reading novels like the Shardlake series by C.J. Sansom and THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL and THE QUEEN’S FOOL by Philippa Gregory. The inspiration for my starting a novel of my own set in this period came about when I found a reference to Susanna Horenbout in a work of historical reference. Something about her interested me deeply, and I started digging deeper into the facts available for her. My story grew from there.

Your novel features the real historical figures of Susanna Horenbout and John Parker. Why did these people capture your imagination?

For a start, I knew a bit about the period and I’d never heard of Susanna Horenbout before. Yet Albrecht Durer praised her work, and she was called a ‘master of illumination’ by a number of Italian masters on her death. I was immediately intrigued. It also seemed that she’d been very much overlooked by art historians in favour of her brother and father, but records showed she had been at Henry’s court well before Gerard and Lucas Horenbout got there.  A mystery! And a delicious one at that!

There is almost nothing on John Parker. It was one of the most frustrating and time-consuming parts of my research, finding anything on him at all. So much of what I learned of him was through the details art historians Lorne Campbell and Susan Foister of the National Portrait Museum in London had found out due to his status as Susanna’s husband. I had to come at my research on his position at court and his status from very oblique angles.

It’s safe to say Susanna was my inspiration for the book, but Parker grew and developed into an equally strong and vital character, as I was writing the story. But more than that, I wrote the kind of story I love to read, a thriller with a romantic element but one that was true to the historical facts.

Could you tell us about The Courtier by Count Baldessar Castillo and how you utilised some of the ‘rules’ in your novel?

I like to read as much primary source material as I can when I’m researching a period, because it gives me wonderful insight into thought-processes, social mores, cadence of speech and turns of phrase. I started looking for material, and came across Thomas Hoby’s 1561 translation of THE COURTIER, and loved it so much I wanted to use it in IN A TREACHEROUS COURT. I had the idea to take some of the ‘rules’ of courtly behaviour which the Count summarizes at the beginning of the book to give the reader a sense of the language of the time as well as the unwritten laws that governed behaviour at court. Each chapter starts with a rule for a courtier, and a rule for a lady-in-waiting, and sometimes I was lucky enough to match the quote to what was happening in the chapter, which was fun.

Are there any other Tudor personalities that fascinate you?

There are plenty. The more I study the period, the deeper I dig, the more interesting people I discover, although I’m certain that’s true of any time period. Wolsey is especially interesting to me, and he takes a bigger and bigger role in the series as I go. Another character for which this is also true is Will Somers, Henry’s Fool. I find him endlessly fascinating, and he gets more and more of a role as the series continues, as well.

Your novel has been described as capturing the feel of Tudor England and ‘richly detailed’. Could you tell us about the process you undertook when researching it? Where do you begin?

I started with Susanna Horenbout, and her family, and Parker, and when I had a firm grasp of their movements, and knew when and how I was going to fashion my story, I then researched the Tudor court and Henry in particular in as much detail as I could. I used a number of reference works, but ended up using Alison Weir’s HENRY VIII, THE KING AND HIS COURT as my go-to reference to check things. Her work is so comprehensive. As time went on, and I understood more about what I was looking for, I also began to make heavy use of LETTERS AND PAPERS as well. LETTERS AND PAPERS, FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC, OF THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII is an invaluable primary resource of all the known correspondence associated with Henry’s court. I also researched the art of illumination very thoroughly, although I didn’t get to use much of my research in the first book. I managed to use more of it in the second, though.

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

I have visited many of the places. I was born in London and have returned to the city many, many times over my life. But not since I wrote the book. I did use my familiarity with London to orientate myself while I was writing. I have a feeling it would be even better now to visit some of the places with Susanna and Parker in mind. I’m going on a trip to visit my family in London next year, and I’m really looking forward to revisiting some of the places in a new light. I would love to have been able to see London Bridge as it was in Susanna and Parker’s time, and the bridge features almost as a character in its own right in the second book in the series. Knowing that the only work of Susanna’s that probably still survives is a brass plaque in All Saint’s Church in Fulham will definitely see me visiting the church, which I’ve never been to before. My sister-in-law very kindly went along there and took some photos of the church and the plaque for my website, though.

Do you have any rituals that you follow when writing?

I like to have peace and quiet, so I’ll turn off the radio or any music that’s playing. But that’s about it.

Could you share with us a little about the second book in the series, Keeper of the King’s Secrets?

I’m really excited about the second book in the series, which is due to be released on February 14th, 2012. I just sent the copy edits in a week ago, and I’ve seen the cover, which is even lovelier than the first one. In this book, Susanna and Parker get pulled into trouble by a friend of Susanna’s father’s, and it involves the pricelss piece of jewelry, the Mirror of Naples, which Henry’s sister Mary more or less stole from the French Crown Jewels when she returned to England after being widowed as the Queen of France. With a diamond the size of a man’s finger and a massive pearl hanging below, it was no mere bauble. The story includes a French assassin who is one of the most interesting characters I’ve ever written, who is set on reclaiming the Mirror. Add in to the mix court politics and in-fighting as two major rivals for the King’s influence play dangerous games in order to bring each other down, and in the process, almost pull England into war, and you’ve got THE KEEPER OF THE KING’S SECRETS.

I enjoy hearing from people of the past in their own words. Letters reveal so much about the writer and the time in which they lived. Do you have a favourite historical quote?

I love this one by Churchill about history: History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days.  ~Winston Churchill

I think if he’d written ‘Historical fiction’ rather than ‘History’ he’d have got it in one.

Visit Michelle’s official website here.