Seymour Hamilton, author of the Astreya Trilogy (Fireship Press) and I discuss writing historical fiction, the mind of a pioneer, and the upside/downside of writing characters not of your gender.

Had an absolutely wonderful conversation for a podcast with Seymour Hamilton, author of the Astreya Trilogy.  Here’s the essence of the conversation, which was fun, lively and warm-hearted.  Many thanks to Seymour!  And you can listen to him reading the Astreya Trilogy on the Fireship Press podcast page.  Enchanting!

Listen to the Pocast here.

Q: What attracted you to the Middle Ages?

A: Much is made of it being bleak and dark, dirty, when everyone was down-trodden but I don’t think of it that way.  I see it as a really bright, colorful, natural, simple and vivid time.  Fires, candles, furs, good food, a close community: it actually seems quite appealing to me. I also consider it a watershed era, when the voyages of discovery and inventions were changing the world, a time that was pre-industrial and so pollution wasn’t an issue. 

Q: Christine de Pizan is a real person about whom we know little save that she was undoubtedly unusual for her times.  You chronicle her life up to when she started to write the books that give her a place in history, and you write of her struggle to become the person whose name we know across the centuries.  Great story-telling, filled with moments that had me sharing her frustration, but if you can, “Tell me about how much she is, and isn’t you.”

A: My goal was to include as much of her poetic lines and writings as possible, putting them in a setting that seemed appropriate, especially lines that she wrote that showed her character.  So she says in her writings:
•    She “was reduced to gathering the crumbs of conversation” instead of being able to study.
•    She says “patience: I’ve never possessed you in large measure, and so you are often overtaken in me by great bitterness.”
•    She makes mention of her “immoderate fury.”
•    “I am hot tears and tongue of lead” from Rondeau III
•    And the ending of the piece from The City of Ladies: “use the anvil that was gifted to you. Forge objects of delight, as lasting as iron.”
•    “My grief he does much to assuage, this God of Sleep,” Christine muttered, “for I’d be dead if it were not so; though to weep with rage.”
•    “Charity is rare and a little can easily lead to servitude.”
•    “I am a man by the mutation of Fortune.”
•    “You say it is inappropriate for a woman to be learned because it is so rare but I say it is even less fitting for a man, my brothers, to be ignorant, as it is so common.”

With that said, the central metaphor of a ferocious woman among the docile is something that I struggled with; and writing this book was part of the process of admitting to feeling so much the outsider that I could imagine having lizard skin.

Q: Christine has a pretty terrible time, largely because she is a woman in a rigidly male society.  And by the way, you do a great job of catching how the men -- and women -- just can’t think past their conditioning -- until one of them does.  Christine’s a hard act to follow, which is what the Gong Farmer Doctor has to do in the second story.  In Christine’s case, there was a point in time and in history that you set your sights on, and achieved.  Did you set out to do a study in the doctor’s guilt, or did it emerge as you went along? 

A: This story is the most fantastical thing I’ve ever written and I think it’s a direction I’m going in.  I was inspired by a panel discussion during the 2008 Medieval Congress during which professors discussed sanitation in the Middle Ages; a real eye-opener. And a gong farmer has a lot of the properties of a great character: he moves through the entire city so he can connect characters; he moves unseen. At one point he was a direct character in the Christine story but when I pulled him out I discovered that he was telling a story about love; that if you love according to some standard of what you think is correct, you’re not loving unconditionally; and the rest was just following my imagination.

Q: How much is this bleakness the Middle Ages, and how much is it your view of the universe?  And if it is a fixture of your life, how do you control it between books?

A: Honestly I’m surprised when people tell me that A Slender Tether is a somewhat dark book; it’s so much brighter than The Mandrake Broom, my first historical that dramatizes the fight to save medical knowledge during the Witch Burning times. I’m actually a pretty up-beat, happy person but apparently I have a dark side.

Q: Where did you find out about the fine points of Medieval paper making?  I think I detect a little more than just the fascination of past paper making, because you really get your characters good and messy. 

A: My husband and I traveled through France looking for a medieval paper mill and found the Moulin Pen Mer outside Muzillac, which is on the Western costal area. It’s still operating, though it’s mostly educational; but it was wonderful to see the actual process; you get a lot of detail that you wouldn’t get without being there, like how wet it is; how the process involves so much water that the stone floors are wet all the time and you walk around in boots.

Q: Let’s talk about your long-term favourite writers.  Who are they, and which of them turned you on to the importance of style?