WHEN AND WHERE WAS B BORN?
January 30, 1947 in Warrington/England.
IS SHE MARRIED? DOES SHE HAVE CHILDREN?
B is married to George...and does not have children.
WHAT JOBS DID B DO BEFORE BEING A FULLTIME WRITER?
well, quite a range: waitress, secretary, switchboard operator, dag walker
WHAT ARE Bs HOBBIES?
reading, needle work, computer games, decorating doll houses, travelling, films, belly dancing
DOES B HAVE PETS?
yes. a cat and a dog (Rottweiler)
HOW DOES B FIND ALL THE INFORMATION OR IDEAS SHE WORKS WITH IN HER BOOKS?
travelling, reading books, papers and magazines, ask experts, interviews
THINGS THAT INSPIRE B
people she talks to, places, news, books. short: LIFE
WHEN DID B BEGIN TO WRITE?
Actually she began when she was a little girl telling stories to her dollies, later drawing picture books and only then started to use written words.
WHO IS B's AGENT?
Harvey Klinger
WHAT WAS HER FIRST PUBLISHED NOVEL?
actually that were three: "Hounds and Jackals", "The Magdalene Scrolls" and "Curse this House" (1976). B was 28 at that time.
INPRIATION FOR DOMINA
I worked for several years in a very busy operating room (Santa Monica Hospital) and I was quite surprised to see the inequality with which the women surgeons were treated -- especially by the nurses! They would automatically address these doctors by their first names, even though permission had not been asked! A female surgeon was "Judy" and not "Dr. Smith" to these nurses, whereas these very same nurses would not dream of addressing a male surgeon by his first name! This was only one example of what I saw as a lack of respect toward women doctors. I wondered if this was a new phenomenon or if it had gone on for years. So I started doing research on the history of women in medicine, and I was amazed by what our great-grandmothers had to go through to become doctors, the extreme prejudice they faced (from patients as well as male doctors) and I felt I must share this discovery with others. The research was immense, and at times I actually got mad! For weeks I didn't even want to speak to male doctors because of the hard time those women had years ago. But I'm over it now. Perhaps writing about it helped.
CILD SONG (parthenogenesis)
What gave me the idea for CHILDSONG was a news article I read in the Los Angeles Times about experimentation with animals on producing offspring just with ova and without the added need of sperm. This got me to wondering: could the same be done with humans? So I did some more research and discussed it with geneticists, and when I found that the answer is YES, I got to thinking about the religious ramifications of such a concept. And that was how CHILDSONG was born. So to speak.
The story of Childsong is based on fact -- that is to say, it is indeed possible for a female (of any species) to become pregnant simply through stimulation of the ovaries. While CHILDSONG is a very simplistic account of what can happen, there is a ton of scientific literature to explain in detail how this is possible. And this what why I wrote the book -- when I read an article about genetic manipulation of ova, how it can be done, and from there I started to wonder about the religious ramifications. Hence: CHILDSONG.
B ABOUT CHINESE PUZZLE BOXES
Chinese puzzle boxes do indeed exist. They range from very simple to very complicated -- and I haven't yet mastered the very simple! I found several at a store in Chinatown in Los Angeles, so I am assuming one can find Chinese puzzle boxes in Asian import shops in any city. They are very challenging!
B ABOUT THE IDEA FOR BUTTERFLY
The idea came from an evening spent with girlfriends -- one of those letting-your-hair-down and airing-grievances evenings that are often so cathartic! One woman in our group, who was single and going through a bad streak in dating, wanted to know why it was so easy for men to obtain sex (she meant prostitutes and bordellos) when there was nothing like that available to us women?
Well, the seed was planted. The idea started rolling around in my head about what if there were such a thing as a bordello for women? What would it be like? Who would the customers be? And best of all, what sort of fantasies would a woman pay for (I somehow doubt it would be straight sex, as I suspect it is for men). Thus the story of BUTTERFLY was born.
ABOUT THE EXISTENCE OF THE SABINA SCROLLS
The Sabina scrolls are fiction. I made them up.
B ABOUT THE BELIEVES IN "THE DREAMING"
Everything I wrote about the Aborigines was fact, or extrapolated from fact. Since it was Australian government policy in the nineteenth century to totally obliterate the Aboriginal culture, a lot was wiped out and in the ensuing years the tribes and native peoples have been trying to piece together what was lost. I spoke to a lot of Aborigines as well as anthropologists studying the Aboriginal culture, and from what I learned I constructed an Aboriginal culture as I imagine it must have been. Alas, so much is speculation, since so much was indeed lost.
BUTTERFLY AND STARS AND KATHRYN HARVEY
Why I wrote these under a different name? Well, the answer really is quite simple: because they were so different from my other books.
Quite a few authors write under pen names and the public doesn't know it. This is because readers come to expect certain things from a writer: in my case, Barbara Wood books don't contain explicit sex. Kathryn Harvey books, on the other hand, do. It was my publisher's idea that I bring BUTTERFLY and STARS out under a pen name. And the secret has been kept for quite a while, although by now a lot of readers know that Kathryn Harvey is Barbara Wood.
Bs BELIEVES
My personal beliefs change from year to year -- literally! This isn't a cop-out answer (although it might look that way). The fact is that I am constantly reading, researching, seeking, asking questions, and with each new revelation, my beliefs change. I was raised a Roman Catholic, so if you had asked me your question years ago, I would have given you a very definite, orthodox answer. But since then, having met many people and been exposed to many cultures and beliefs, my own views on faith have changed. But one thing has remained constant in all these years: my sincere faith in humankind and that the world is becoming a better place all the time. Studying history has proven to me that we as a species are evolving into higher beings -- what the end result will be I cannot imagine.
DOES B believe in GREAT LOVE?
I do, I do, because I have found it and I believe others can, too.
NEW KATHRYN HARVEY PUBLICATIONS?
To answer this question: At the moment I have no plans to write another Kathryn Harvey book (my contractual obligations to write as Barbara Wood are keeping me pretty busy) but I certainly would like to write another, and one never knows when the inspiration is going to strike. One thing I can tell: if there should be another Kathryn Harvey book in the future, I will definitely announce it here on my website.
FAVOURITE SELF-WRITTEN BOOK
Soul Flame
PROCEDURE OF WRITING AND TIME FOR IT
I write by hand. I do so because I have done this for many years (I only started using a computer a few years ago). I would always write by hand and then transfer my writing to a typewriter. Now I write by hand in the morning and in the afternoon transfer what I have written to my computer. I feel that writing by hand makes the process more personal. I could never compose directly on the keyboard.
Ten hours a day at least to writing and research (they are often intertwined).
B ABOUT BELLY DANCING
I started taking belly dance lessons about twelve years ago. My best friend and I got into it together (she and I had been to Egypt together before we got into the dance thing) and we both found it to be fun, healthful and in many ways cathartic. If you're ever stressed, belly dance for an hour and you will no longer be stressed, I guarantee!
B ABOUT HOW SHE LEARNED HOW TO WRITE
I guess I learned my craft by reading. Also, by writing. I am a very hard critic on myself and I would just write and write and write a story until I enjoyed it. But reading is a big thing, I think, in teaching one how to write. Most writers I know are passionate readers. Maybe if one reads enough it kind of gets imprinted on one's brain, I don't know!
LIST OF BOOKS (ENGLISH TITLES)
Hounds and Jackals
Curse This House
The Magdalene Scrolls
Yesterday's Child
Childsong
The Watchgods
Night Trains
Domina
Vital Signs
Soul Flame
Green City In the Sun
Butterfly
The Dreaming
Stars
Virgins of Paradise
The Prophetess
Perfect Harmony
Sacred Ground
TRUE GODS IN SABINA�S SCOLLS?
However, these are all real and the result of years of research.
YESTERDAY�S CHILD AND REINCARNATION
Is YESTERDAY'S CHILD about reincarnation? Good question. I don't think so. I believe I am dealing more with ghosts than with souls being re-born in new bodies. Mainly, I wanted to express my belief that love transcends death.
"TRUE CHARACTER" SAMANTHA HARGRAVE IS BASED ON
The historical person is Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell (1921-1910) who, although born in England, was the first woman doctor in America. She lived and worked in New York, and it was she upon whom I based my character, Samantha Hargrave, in DOMINA.
GREEN CITY IN THE SUN AND KENYAN HISTORY
Just about everything in this book is true. I mainly wanted to tell the history of Kenya, so all that I really made up were my fictional characters and the house they lived in. All else is quite factual. (Yes, the groups I talk about in the book really did exist).
B ABOUT WOMEN�S POSITION IN SOCIETY
Yes, I am very much interested in the position of women in society, and in fact this is an issue I address in all of my books. What I think of this problem is that after thousands of years of civilization, it is time that women held equal status with men. The time of the ignorant "dark ages" is over.
WRITING: HEART VS COMMERCIALISM
I have done both, I have written strictly from the heart, not thinking of
my readers at all, and the manuscript didn't sell. It was too personal, too
esoteric. I didn't stop to think at all if it could possibly be of
interest to a reader. And then I went to the other extreme when an editor
asked me if I could write a novel on such-and-such a subject (a specific
genre targeting a specific audience) and I said, "Of course! I am woman!"
But it didn't come from my heart at all and this, too, didn't sell. It
was flat and mechanical, my editor said, it read like a homework
assignment, and that's because it felt like a homework assignment when I
wrote it. How does that saying go? No tears in the writer no tears in
the book? All I thought about, with every word I put to paper, was: Is
this what the reader wants? Completely leaving out what *I* wanted.
So there has to be a happy medium somewhere in between, in which the
writer is enjoying what she is writing, that it is coming from the
heart, but at the same time is keeping her readers in mind and
remembering that she has an obligation to entertain them. After all, they
paid their money in the honest expectation of a receiving a certain
"something" (romance, adventure, an entertaining lesson in history,
escape, humor, whatever). So while I am writing about a subject that I
love and feel passionate about, at the same time I am asking myself: Is
this going to be interesting to anybody else, and am I writing it in such
a way that it is?
Now, I have been speaking as an established author, someone who
already has a readership. The situation is somewhat different for an
unpublished author who is just starting out. With the established author
there is the expectation of something, whereas with the new author there is not.
A good example of this is a novel I wrote in a genre totally unlike what I normally write in.
While it was a good book (or so I was told), it would not appeal to my regular readers, and so
I would have to publish it under a pen name. And in fact, ten years ago, I did write a novel that
my editor at Random House feared would shock my regular readers and so we
brought it out under a pen name. (This was "Butterfly" by Kathryn Harvey)
The thing there was, while it came from my heart and certainly ended up a
big hit among readers, it would not have been a big hit among my
established readers - two different targets from the same author (does
this make sense?).
However, an unpublished author facing the same scenario I just
described wouldn't have a problem with the target audience because she
doesn't yet have an established readership. I guess what I am saying is,
that while you can still write from the heart, and still keep a commercial
target in mind, the circumstances are different between the established
and the unpublished author.
I think that ultimately, yes, the two (heart vs commercial) can be
compatible if a balance is struck.
WHO IS ALLOWED TO READ B�s BOOKS BEFORE THEY�RE ACTUALLY PUBLISHED?
Only my husband. Because I trust him. I always caution new writers about letting other people read what they have written because you never know what their own hidden agenda is. If, for example, you have a friend read something you have written, they might tell you it is awful because they are jealous. On the other hand, if you ask your mother to read something you have written, she might say it is the most wonderful thing she has ever read -- simply because you wrote it. The important thing is to choose someone you know will be honest and objective. And this can be very difficult.
I would recommend that, unless you have someone you can trust implicitly, keep hiding what you have written. Oherwise, one negative word and it will kill your creative process. Trust me, I have been there.
|
BACK
