Re-arranging History
International Women's Day Q&A with Mary W. Craig
As part of our celebrations for International Women’s Day, we are highlighting some of our female authors through our quick-fire Q&A.
What is a quick-fire Q&A?
We have our interviewee pick a number at random (between 1-42) and we ask them the general question listed next to it. Shortly after we switch to asking book-specific questions (1-22), to give you a brief insight into our wonderful writers and their books.
Today we join Mary W. Craig as she answers our questions about her life and her book Agnes Finnie: The Witch of Potterrowport
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What is your favourite thing about being an author?
I get to rearrange history the way I think it should be. I get to be in charge of everything. I get to create my little world. That's the fun part. Being a history writer, I do have to stick vaguely to the point and vaguely to the facts, but I get to be the creator!
What is the most difficult thing about being an author?
I could say editing because that's very boring. I'm not a very patient person, I will finish a book and want it published instantly. Of course, that doesn't happen. The time lag between writing and publication bothers me. But that's just my personality.
If you could summarize your writing process in five words, what would they be?
Research, reading, writing, rereading, rewriting.
If you could describe yourself in five words, what would they be?
Exploring, interest, difference, reading, foreign travel.
Have you always wanted to be an author?
Yes. I've always made up stories. I told stories to my teddy bear and I wrote stories to my teddy bear. I don't know if they were any good, but teddy bears are great audiences because they don’t give you bad reviews.
What advice would you give to other aspiring authors?
Keep writing.
Everybody's got a voice. Everybody can write. It's a craft. You learn as you go. Keep writing. Keep plugging away even if you don't get published. Publication doesn't matter. Awards don't matter. It’s about a body of work.
If you win awards, that’s fantastic. If you get published, that's great. But it’s the production of the work that matters. Everybody is capable of doing that, and I would encourage them to do so.
Who is your favourite author?
It depends on what mood I’m in. I like Harry Mulisch, Joseph Roth, and Stefan Zweig. It depends on my mood as to who I like at the time.
Did you have a favourite book as a child?
Yes, The Land of the Green Ginger by Noel Langley. It was a story about Aladdin after he got married to the Princess and their life in the land of the Green Ginger. It was supposed to be a children's book but if you read it as an adult it’s laugh-out-loud funny. It's so sarcastic. There's a whole heap of politics in there, which is just hilarious.What attracted you to writing about history?
I like writing about history because I find that academic history books are fantastic – absolutely fantastic – but they are academic. I like writing about history that affects people, and I like writing for people that are interested but are non-academic.
I also like writing about history that is not well-known history. Finding something that affected ordinary people and bringing it to other people's attention – that's what I like to do.
What are your top 3 books?
The House with the Green Shutters, Tortoises, The Hotel Savoy.
If you could hypothetically be any character from any book, who would you be?
Maybe Moley from The Wind in the Willows, because he's small and nobody really notices him. But he's a strong little character. He’s loyal to his friends, he likes home and he likes burrowing about woodlands and things.
Is writer's block ever a problem for you and how do you overcome it?
I've never had writer's block, so I don't know if that means I'm not a very good writer because you hear about all these people who have had it. Maybe it's different if you're a fiction writer. I'm not sure. Although I have written some fiction.
If you could be anywhere right now, where would you be?
Amsterdam. Specifically, the Jordaan in Amsterdam.
What has been the best advice someone has ever given you?
Be wary of people in authority.
What is something you take everywhere with you?
A silver locket with a picture of my mother in it.
What are you reading currently?
I am re-reading a history of the Premonstratensian Order in 13th-century Bohemia.
What was your favourite thing about writing Agnes Finnie?
The fact Agnes Finnie was such an ordinary and understandable character. She wasn't a sweet little lady. I've met people like Agnes – bad-tempered so-and-so's. We’ve all done it, we've all gone into a shop and the shopkeeper’s been really horrible and you think ‘Why do you work in a shop? You don't like people!’ But she was an instantly recognisable character.
Why should people read the book?
Because it throws a light on what was happening in Scotland at that time, the early part of the 17th century, but also on how the political and religious acts of the elite always impinge on the lives of ordinary people. How it impinges on Agnes's life just shows the reality of that and the disregard that the church and the state had for ordinary people.
Are there any particular ways that you would relate to Agnes Finnie yourself and are there particular ways you would not?
I would relate to Agnes in that she is obviously a working woman. She's not got a lot of money. She's struggling to survive in a man's world. She's doing the best she can with what she's got. I wouldn't relate to Agnes in the malevolence, the aggression and the violence that she either perpetrated or certainly was thought to be capable of perpetrating. I can understand where she's coming from and I can understand why she does what she does. But I would not have acted in that way.
Is the finished book what you expected it to be when you first started writing it?
It sort of is, but I didn't realise just how much of the background context I would include. But I'm glad I did because if you don't have the background context of the religious and political chaos and the warfare that was going on, Agnes just comes across as this horrible person whose behaviour just gets increasingly worse. I think when I started writing it, I didn't realize just how much that background material about the war was going to end up in there.
