life in london « Women, History, Sex, and Power

August 28th, 2011

The Writing Process: Peter Ackroyd gives permission

“Well, I think it’s male, a great age, unpredictable, it’s diseased, it’s impatient, it’s energetic… that’s it.”

This is how one of my living literary heroes Peter Ackroyd describes London. I’ve just taken an hour-long walk under that city’s ominous gray skies, heavy with the answer to London’s daily mystery: will it rain? And like the cantankerous old man Ackroyd says London is, it would not give an answer.

April 15th, 2009

The Highgate Cemetery: In search of the Highgate Vampire

I was moved by the monument of the Victorian boxer Thomas Sayers, who wanted his faithful dog, Tim, commemorated as well. Though boxing was illegal in the 19th century, Sayers was enormously popular, and his funeral was attended by 10,000 people—a larger funeral than the Duke of Wellington’s. “The Victorians had very small weddings and very big funerals.”Thus said our cheery guide by way of explaining the elaborate monuments

March 22nd, 2009

Two Historical Novelists on Deadline Discuss Challenges of the Present and Challenging the Past

Two Historical Novelists Tackling our Deadlines (on the right, Katie Hickman)

Last summer Katie Hickman and I found ourselves doing a joint reading at the Margaret Mitchell House in Atlanta. We were both on book tour—Katie for The Aviary Gate, and me for Stealing Athena. We didn’t know each other, but I’d been wanting to meet her. Her best-selling book, Daughters of Britannia: the Lives and Times of Diplomatic

March 16th, 2009

Into the light: contrasting life early and late Victorian London; girls learn and unlearn posture; and some fun stuff to do in the city

The Thames used to be both a source of drinking water and a sewage system.

One of my challenges in writing the next book is to refrain from falling into stereotypical “Dickensian” images and ideas of the Victorian period. Because mine is a Gothic novel, the darker imagery of the period would suit so well. However, by 1890, the world looked much different than it had forty or fifty years prior. As someone who works hard to create as vivid and realistic an environment

March 10th, 2009

It’s never too early to get the party started.

I’ve settled into a fantastic flat in London’s Pimlico district. The new novel takes place at the end of the 19th century, so I’m renting a place that was built in 1880. It’s got lots of the original décor, including lovely tall French windows from which one can watch gloomy clouds and perennial rain, and a high ceiling in the parlor. A much better ambiance to write a Gothic novel