Read on for an exclusive interview with award-winning author, Miriam Hastings!
1. You’ve written books and short stories in a few genres though I would say they are all terrifically character-driven – what is your favourite genre to write in? How would you describe your type of writing?
I don’t honestly think in terms of genre, either in my reading or my writing. I read a very wide variety of books and have always written in many different ways.
I think the type of writing I like to read always takes me into an entirely different world, whether in terms of a different historical period, or a very different geographical setting, or a different mental state, or an entirely imaginary place. If I had to describe the type of writing that I do myself, since different stories and books I’ve written cover all the above, I might say it was magic realism, or fantasy, or surreal historical fiction, or a different version of reality, or a unique internal world. But I still wouldn’t be sure that any of those labels can cover the type of writing that I do.
2. Going back to characters, yours are always very memorable. Is it the character who comes to you first or the story idea? What is the process like for you?
That’s a difficult question! It’s very hard to know the answer. In most of my novels there is more than one central character. In The Minotaur Hunt, my first novel, there are three central protagonists who are all very important. I think the first and youngest of them, Rachel, came to me first of all and I began the novel with her.
In Walking Shadow, my first historical novel, Edmund/Rosamond, William Shakespeare’s younger sibling, definitely came to me first; in fact, to begin with I was planning to write a very different novel around that character. The story idea of the gunpowder plot seized me as I did some historical research on Shakespeare’s theatre company, which led me to find out that they really were under suspicion of sympathising and possibly aiding the Catholic conspirators. I think it’s not coincidental that this is one of my only novels to have just one narrator.
The Dowager’s Dream, my second historical (also a magical) novel, originally began with a mermaid. I found an old encyclopaedia of animals, published in 1840, that my partner’s father had bought many years ago in an auction of a dead Methodist minister’s library. At the end of this encyclopaedia there is a section on fabulous animals which includes a description written by the daughter of a minister, describing a mermaid she saw off the north coast in 1809. It was so detailed and matter of fact that I had to find out what was going on at the time. I wanted to know why such a proper and virtuous young woman, who had been brought up in the rigorous Kirk of Scotland, might see a mermaid. So that led to the creation of Mary MacKenzie and to my research on the Highland Clearances which I carried out over several years, spending all my holidays on the north coast of Scotland. It was particularly fascinating that in the process I discovered more about some of my own ancestors, and particularly my great-great-grandmother, Margaret Mackenzie, whose family was a victim of the clearances. The more I discovered, the more I became absorbed in the story of Mary and the mermaid and in the horrific displacement of the Highlanders and the complete destruction of their way of life.
3. Who is your favourite character from one of your books and why?
I don’t honestly know. When I’m writing a novel I become quite obsessed with the characters but after I’ve moved on to another book, I gradually forget about them as I become obsessed with the new ones. I find that if I pick up one of my old books, e.g. The Minotaur Hunt, I have this wonderful feeling of reuniting with old friends as I rediscover the characters. When I revised that novel for Kindle back in 2013, I wrote a short “afterword” revisiting the characters and describing their lives since the events in the story were over. I found I enjoyed writing it a lot more than I had enjoyed writing the original novel!
I suppose I often feel most fond of the characters I’m writing about at the time, but that is a generalisation. I particularly love the characters in The Dowager’s Dream, especially Mary, Kirsty, and the Dowager herself, and I think they are my favourites even though I have completed a further two books since I finished that one.
However, since childhood I’ve always had a passionate love for animal, particularly cats, probably because of spending so much time ill, alone but for my pet cat who always kept me company, so I have a special love for the animal characters in my novels, e.g. Patty cat in The Dowager’s Dream, and Abednego in my latest novel, Hospitality to Strangers.
4. Your last novel, The Dowagers Dream, was set in the early years of the 19th century, what sort of research did you have to do in order for the location and topics covered to be authentic?
Over about 6 years, I stayed on the north coast many times and during different months so as to experience the weather and seasons throughout the year. I also made the most of the clearance museum in the old Kirk at Farr on the north coast, and I’m very grateful to the archivist and librarian there who helped me a lot. I visited the museum in Helmsdale where there is also a library open to visitors and I was able to do some research there too. Then there were word-of-mouth stories as well, e.g., I usually stayed in a cottage owned by a sheep farmer, Joanna MacKay, whose grandfather was carried away as a baby from their homestead during the clearances. Hearing such moving and powerful family stories were an important inspiration.
5. Your novels cover gritty topics such as the divide between rich and poor, mental health, sexuality and more – what drives you to delve into these topics and how hard is it to frame them historically? I’m thinking in particular of Walking Shadow set in 1606 and The Dowagers Dream.
Ever since I was 14 years old I have been deeply concerned about the injustices and corruption in the world. In fact, at that age I became very depressed to the extent of being suicidal, finding it really hard to cope with growing up in a world as terrible as the one around me appeared to be. I had been ill throughout my early life and, spending so much time alone, I had always created vivid fantasy worlds where I spent most of my life. I think being able to control those fantasy worlds made it harder for me to be so helpless and powerless about the suffering I saw in the real one. At 14, I became politically active, joining the School’s Action Union and becoming involved in feminism, black power, and disability rights. My imaginary life, including my writing, has always been a part of my idealism, my belief in the importance of the links that bind us all worldwide, and our personal responsibility to help all those who have less than we do and those who are oppressed and suffering. I have always seen my writing as a form of political activism and my desire has always been to give a voice to the outsider in society. I want to portray characters who are disenfranchised and powerless, whether through their gender, their poverty, their ethnicity, or their religious identity. However, I really want to avoid being too dogmatic and preaching to my readers. Writing historical fiction is a good way of dramatising the evils committed today. History repeats itself and the human race seems incapable of learning lessons from the past. I try to show this in my books.
For example, Walking Shadow is a historical novel with profoundly modern themes: the fear of terrorism, political manipulation of information, and issues of religious fundamentalism and intolerance. As I did my research into the gunpowder plot, I was amazed to find that the language used about Catholics was identical to the language George Bush and Tony Blair used to demonise Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, and that the anti-Islamic phobia following 9/11 was the same as the anti-Catholic feeling in England after the gunpowder plot of November 1605.
Similarly The Dowager’s Dream may be set in the early years of the 19th Century, but I hope the themes of dispossession, genocide and ethnic cleansing will resonate with the contemporary reader.
6. What are you working on next? Tell us about it!
Being quite severely disabled and suffering from chronic pain, I find it hard being an indie author since I want to be writing but I can’t do that as well as market and promote my books. At the moment I have a completed novella, The House of Consolación, waiting to be published, a long novel, Hospitality to Strangers, undergoing a final (I hope!) revision, and a half written novel waiting to be finished.
The House of Consolación is set in an isolated, hidden valley in rural Spain, based on two areas that I know and love. My love affair with Spain and the Spanish began when I was a young woman in a mental hospital. There was only one member of staff who helped me; my occupational therapist, a young Spanish woman called Carmen. She was a talented artist and a wonderful, caring therapist. It must be well over forty-five years ago but whenever I’m going through a bad time, I still remind myself of the wise and compassionate things she said to me. The novella is not a traditional work, the valley itself is one of the characters, and it’s up to the reader to decide whether the book is a collection of linked short stories or a complete work in itself. There are several narrators in the novella, it is their relationships to each other and the unfolding events around them that create the world of the valley.
The completed novel, Hospitality to Strangers, is set in the 1960s and portrays the troubled relationships in the Benedict family. Fred Benedict is a respected elder in the Redemption Hall Christian Fellowship. As the stable, conservative years of the 1950s fade into a more anarchic decade of change, he desperately attempts to protect his family from the worldly dangers he sees threatening them everywhere. However, his wife and three daughters wish to embrace the exciting new opportunities the 1960s have to offer.
While Fred tries to keep them all following the path of the Lord, it is he himself who brings the greatest dangers into the family. First, in the form of his father, Arthur, absent in Nigeria throughout most of Fred’s childhood. Fred longs for a close relationship with his father and so he persuades his wife, Nell, to allow Arthur to live with them in his old age. She only agrees to have him against her better judgement for she senses that Arthur is hiding many dark secrets. It is Deborah, their youngest daughter, who soon becomes Arthur’s prey.
Then Fred and the other elders invite Daniel, a charismatic African American missionary, to visit for a year, working with the Redemption Hall Fellowship. But Daniel brings change of a kind no-one is expecting.
7. What would you say are the highs and lows of being an indie author?
I think I’ve already covered some of the lows and difficulties of being responsible for all aspects of publishing your work, especially if you’re disabled, however, there are also many benefits. As an indie writer, you are in complete control of the process of producing your book so every choice is yours; be it of the title, the cover, the size, the font, where it is marketed and how. My first novel, The Minotaur Hunt, was traditionally published through the Harvester Press and while they were very supportive, being a first-time author and a particularly unconfident one, I felt obliged to go along with all their suggestions and choices.
8. Tell us what drew you to join the Chasing Driftwood Books collective and what hopes/plans do you have for the future?
Following on from my previous answer, the other great thing about being an indie author is the wonderful camaraderie, support and encouragement I have received from other indie authors. It was one of these brilliant writers, Kate Rigby, who invited me to join Chasing Driftwood. I hope that the inspiring example of the other members of the collective will motivate me into marketing my work more effectively.
9. Who are your favourite authors and why?
First of all, I would say that every writer in Chasing Driftwood is an excellent author and I recommend everyone of them. As a child I always loved books that contained magic and fantasy; I first discovered the Narnia books of C.S. Lewis when I was six and loved them, then when I was eight my older sister introduced me to the superb historical fantasies of Violet Needham and Joan Aiken. As an adult, I have always loved magic realism, e.g. the work of Angela Carter and Isabel Allende.
For several years I taught cross-cultural and postcolonial literature to mature students at Birkbeck College; the writers I taught included many outstandingly talented ones, such as Toni Morrison, Bessie Head, Nadeem Aslam, Amitav Gosh, and so many others who have inspired and challenged me as a writer.
Some of my past creative writing students have gone on to publish their work and I would warmly recommend them as well, e.g. Christina Giscombe and Margrethe Alexandroni.
10. What would you say inspires you to write? Or if you prefer, where do your ideas come from?
My desire to change the world for the better, and to help the traumatised and the oppressed to be seen and understood is my main inspiration.
Ideas for stories come from anywhere and everywhere, including my own life, past historical events that shock and move me, overheard conversations, other people’s stories, world events, my own family history.
Ideas are everywhere and anyone can access them, and then transform them into something else, something magical “rich and strange”. That is the glorious thing about being a writer!
A huge thank you for the very talented Miriam Hastings for joining us today! If you would like to find out more about her work and follow her for updates, please see the links below. Also, consider subscribing to our website for future updates on all our author’s books!
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