Musical Monarchs and Music Distribution During Renaissance Times

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Pictured with Will Sommers- Royal MS. 2 A XVI, Henry VIII’s Psalter, British Library-London.

Pictured with Will Sommers- Royal MS. 2 A XVI, Henry VIII’s Psalter, British Library-London.

Apparently I answer Tudor and Shakespeare questions in way too much depth on Reddit for fun now. I’ve had trouble writing or revising fiction since the pandemic and self-isolation began, but researching and writing about history calms me down in a way nothing else does. And AskHistorians on Reddit has a wonderful supply of various questions that haven’t been answered yet.

So here ya go.

Original source of the question, which had several parts, indicated in italics below.

Christian and Muslim playing lutes in a miniature from Cantigas de Santa Maria of Alfonso X

Christian and Muslim playing lutes in a miniature from Cantigas de Santa Maria of Alfonso X

Was composition an expected skill of a monarch?

Musical knowledge, at least, was an important part of every noble's education in late medieval and renaissance England; royal children would have been given private lessons in various instruments, singing, and musical theory from a fairly early age. All of the Tudors, in particular, were interested in music and were highly trained. There are numerous records of Henry VII and his wife Elizabeth of York purchasing musical instruments both for themselves and their children. Henry VIII's children Mary, Elizabeth, and Edward were all described as excellent musicians during their lives. Mary and Edward were proficient at the lute, while Elizabeth was apparently quite good at playing the virginals.

At least two of the King Henrys were definitely musical composers, as we have some of their surviving music!

-There are two pieces in the collections of the British Library attributed to "Roy Henry"; scholars now seem to think this author was actually Henry V.

-Henry VIII's love of music stood out even among all the music lovers of his family. He played numerous instruments - at one point, records of his property showed that he owned 78 flutes, 76 recorders, 10 trombones, 14 trumpets, and 5 bagpipes! We also know that he played the organ, other keyboard instruments, viols, and lutes.

p 161 of the Old Hall Manuscript, ~1410-1420

p 161 of the Old Hall Manuscript, ~1410-1420

The Henry VIII Songbook from ~1518.

The Henry VIII Songbook from ~1518.

"Twenty songs and thirteen instrumental pieces" attributed to "The Kynge H. viij" were compiled in the 1518 Henry VIII Songbook, which also included 76 pieces from other court musicians. Although some of the songs by Henry were arrangements of previously existing pieces, many of them are originals. 

However, despite popular belief, Henry VIII did NOT write Greensleeves, which was partly based off of a romanesca, an Italian style of musical composition that did not reach England until after Henry VIII's death. 

His daughter Elizabeth I was also a composer, although only one of her songs has survived to this day. This paper explores Henry and Elizabeth's compositions and musical education more in depth. 

Detail of the Ghent Altarpiece, Chapel Cathedral of Saint Bavo, Ghent, Belgium, Hubert and Jan Von Eyck

Detail of the Ghent Altarpiece, Chapel Cathedral of Saint Bavo, Ghent, Belgium, Hubert and Jan Von Eyck

What's more, how did the song become popular? Did the King simply compose it, order every musician to have a copy of the manuscript and play it a certain amount of times a week? How did compositions from the royal court reach the masses?

- Although Henry had at least 60 musicians on his staff when he died, he couldn't possibly have ordered every musician in the country to play it, and the fact that not of all his songs were big hits seems to support this. Based on the information I've already shared about the Henry VIII songbook, it seems likely that "Pastime with Good Company" was distributed around the country in written form. There are records indicating that it was actually popular in Scotland and even long after his death.

Finally, say I am at the median of medieval class society - your average joe - what would have been my likely interaction with this song, if any? Was music mostly an indulgence of the elites at that time?

Everything I've read and referenced throughout this answer so far indicates that music was popular at every level of society, although the level of musical education and the specific form of the music, of course, varied. While "Pastimes" may have been performed in Henry VIII's court by 60 musicians and a choir in four part harmony, it was also likely performed in villages and at fairs by solo minstrels accompanied only by a single instrument or small groups.

In addition, under Henry VIII, with further development of the printing press, more and more printers began to publish music, often in the form of single sheet broadsides that could be sold very cheaply.

 (SIDENOTE: jstor is now offering free accounts that allow you to read up to 100 articles a month, due to COVID-19 shutting down all the libraries. This makes me SO HAPPY)

These single sheets continued in popularity through to Elizabethan times, and even make an appearance in Shakespeare's "Winter's Tale," Act 4, Scene 4 - in which the con artist/minstrel Autolycus touts various ridiculous sounding ballads for sale at a local festival.

And even apart from the printing press, people regularly wrote down any songs they liked and passed them around, much as you might have written down song lyrics to songs you heard on the radio so you and your friends could sing them together later back in the 80s or earlier. :)

FINAL NOTE: The best thing I learned while researching this whole answer was that Henry VIII and Cardinal Wolsey had rival in-house choirs and had a competition to see who had the best one. When Cardinal Wolsey’s choir won, he wisely “gave” one of his best singers to the king for his choir.

Hope y’all enjoyed that!

Did Henry VIII Ever Pull a "Cask of Amontillado" ?

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(If you don’t understand the reference, go read Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado”)

Apparently I answer Tudor and Shakespeare questions in way too much depth on Reddit for fun now. I’ve had trouble writing or revising fiction since the pandemic and self-isolation began, but researching and writing about history calms me down in a way nothing else does. And AskHistorians on Reddit has a wonderful supply of various questions that haven’t been answered yet.

This one was a particularly out of left field one but I had fun figuring out how to answer it!

So here ya go.

Original Question on r/AskHistorians - Is there any evidence of Henry VIII walling his enemies in buildings?

I've never heard of any English monarch pulling a "Cask of Amontillado" before, and I've been obsessively reading about English history between 1400-1620s for several years now. I dug into this a bit more to see if I could find an answer, but I could not find any sources that indicate that there have been any bodies buried in walls in England. However, as we all know, just because there isn't a source saying it DID happen, doesn't mean it definitely /didn't/ happen.

Human bodies are commonly found buried all around London and England in general, but honestly, that's true of most cities with at least a couple hundred years of history under their belts. It's just something that happens when a place has a very long history dating back before modern regulations on where bodies can be buried. If a house was unknowingly built on top of a burial site, the bodies may be found in the cellar You can read more about that in Smithsonian Magazine here: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/dead-beneath-londons-streets-180970385/

I think it's very unlikely that Henry VIII in particular would have engaged in this practice though, for a few specific reasons:

Woodblock by Michael Wolgemut (1434 – 1519) of A Danse Macabre.

Woodblock by Michael Wolgemut (1434 – 1519) of A Danse Macabre.

-Henry VIII was quite notoriously terrified of illness and sickness, and specifically the Sweating Sickness, likely due to his brother Arthur's death from it in 1502 ( https://www.history.com/news/the-mysterious-epidemic-that-terrified-henry-viii ). He studied medicine and tried to make his own potions to protect him against disease. (http://cms.herbalgram.org/herbalgram/issue42/article546.html?ts=1586114679&signature=51f561c9c7014194d1a849cdaac3de68 ) He also founded the Royal College of Physicians in 1518, made improvements to England's public health services, and ushered in legislation regulating the licensing of medical practitioners (Source: Publishing and Medicine in Early Modern England, by Elizabeth Lane Furdell).

At the time, the miasma theory was one of the dominant theories of disease, which basically said that bad smells cause disease ( http://broughttolife.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/techniques/miasmatheory ); decaying corpses, rumor has it, smell pretty foul. Given his obsession with medicine and health, not just for himself, but also for his people, it seems unlikely that Henry would have approved of interring a body into the walls of any building or structure in England.

- He also was a very religious man, who heard mass 3-5 times a day and even wrote a theological argument against some of the teachings of Luther in 1521 ( https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/people/rulers/henry-viii.html ). There were numerous religious rites around death and dying, which require last rites, funeral rites, a vigil for the deceased, and ceremonies by the graveside. Thus, it also seems unlikely that a religious man like Henry VIII would have approved of such mistreatment of a body after death.

"How Accurate Were Shakespeare's Histories?"

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Lithograph depicting a scene from Henry V.

Lithograph depicting a scene from Henry V.

Apparently I answer Tudor and Shakespeare questions in way too much depth on Reddit for fun now. I’ve had trouble writing or revising fiction since the pandemic and self-isolation began, but researching and writing about history calms me down in a way nothing else does. And AskHistorians on Reddit has a wonderful supply of various questions that haven’t been answered yet.

So here ya go.

Original source of the question

“How accurate were Shakespeare’s histories?”

Shakespeare's English history plays were based on a variety of historical sources, so he made /some/ attempt at having /some details/ correct, but he certainly also embellished some facts and highly simplified or deleted other facts to increase drama and simplify plot. His sources themselves were often very biased toward a version of history that supported Tudor legitimacy (although I'm unclear on whether that bias was widely known in Shakespeare's time or not). He also definitely shaded some facts and characters one way or another in order to keep the political leaders and censors of his time happy.

Important Sources for Shakespeare:

Basically every English history play - Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1587 - 2nd edition) - This was a highly dramatized version of English history that is apparently just really inaccurate in a lot of places. I really need to read it someday. [also a source for Macbeth and King Lear]

Richard III - Thomas More's History of King Richard the Thirde (1513) - More's portrayal of Richard III as deformed, to the point of causing his mother a particularly troublesome birth, is probably the most famous bit that Shakespeare took from that source. In actuality, though Richard III's skeleton showed that though he had significant scoliosis and likely had visibly uneven shoulders, he wouldn't have had a hunchback.

Simplification -

Shakespeare HIGHLY simplified a lot of the events of the Wars of the Roses in his Henry VI Parts II and III. And honestly....you can't really blame him. I made a simplified timeline of the main events of the Wars of the Roses in November and it's still incredibly complicated (and honestly, it took forever). You can see it on my blog here - https://www.rachaeldickzen.com/blog/2019/11/11/the-wars-of-the-roses-a-timeline-of-main-events

Examples:

- In Henry VI Part 3, as soon as the Earl of Warwick discovers that his protege Edward IV had secretly married Lady Grey (Elizabeth Woodville) while Warwick is off trying to organize a French alliance and marriage for Edward IV, he joins forces with Margaret of Anjou, marries his daughter Anne to her son Edward, and frees Henry VII. This all happens in the space of two acts.

IN ACTUALITY, Edward married Elizabeth Woodville in 1464, but Warwick didn't rebel against Edward IV until April 1469 (rebellion #1). He joined forces with Edward's brother George, Duke of Clarence, and actually captured Edward IV, but eventually released him when it became clear that Parliament wouldn't cooperate with his plan to rule the country through Edward. He and George/Clarence rebelled AGAIN in July 1470 (rebellion #2), but this one didn’t go so well and their plan quickly falls apart. Warwick flees to France, plots with Margaret of Anjou (rebellion #3), marries his daughter to her son Edward, and goes back to England in October 1470 to put Henry VI back on the throne.

I mean. It's easy to understand why Shakespeare cut out a few rebellions there, just for the sake of time and to keep things from being super confusing.

- Richard III portrays Richard marrying Anne Neville immediately before the death of his brother Edward IV and becoming king not too long after. In actuality, Richard and Anne married in spring 1472, Edward IV didn't die until April 1483, and Richard III didn't become king until July 1483.

"Plucking the Red and White Roses in the Old Temple Gardens" after the original 1910 fresco painting by Henry Albert Payne (British, 1868-1940) based upon a scene in Shakespeare's Henry VI.

"Plucking the Red and White Roses in the Old Temple Gardens" after the original 1910 fresco painting by Henry Albert Payne (British, 1868-1940) based upon a scene in Shakespeare's Henry VI.

Dramatic alterations:

Various examples:

- Henry IV Part 1 - Sir Henry Percy (Hotspur) is portrayed as a young man the same age as Prince Hal, but in reality, Hotspur was actually three years older than Hal's dad Henry IV. This increases drama by placing pressure on Hal to behave more like the ambitious leader Hotspur.

- Henry V - In the play, it's stated that the English had fewer than 30 casualities while the French had 10,000! In actuality, about 112-600 of the English and about 6,000 of the French were killed.

- Henry VI Part 1 - The famed "roses" of the Wars of the Roses are a bit of a Tudor invention, which Shakespeare expanded on. Although the Yorks did use the white rose as a symbol from early on in the conflict, the Lancastrian red rose wasn't used until after Henry Tudor defeated Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth. These two roses were combined to form the "Tudor Rose," a symbol of the unity of the two houses.

In addition, it also just isn't accurate to imagine that only one symbol was used by each noble family. Just among the York brothers alone, in addition to the white rose, Edward IV used the sun in splendor, a falcon, a black dragon, and a white lion (among several others), while Richard used a white boar and "a white falcon with a virgin's face holding a white rose." But again, portraying that in a play would make things very confusing (and Shakespeare’s histories are already confusing enough when it comes to names, since he often refers to characters by their titles, which often change!).

- Henry VI Part 2 - Richard of Gloucester (the eventual Richard III), and his brother Edward (eventual Edward IV) are both portrayed as adults at the time of the first battle of St. Albans. Historically, Richard was only 3 years old and Edward was only 13 when this battle occurred.

- In addition, a TON of the events in Richard III are inserted for dramatic effect. There is zero evidence that Richard killed his wife Anne (she probably died of tuberculosis), and he definitely didn't seduce her at the funeral for her father-in-law Henry VI. Henry VI died in May 1471 and Anne and Richard didn't marry until the spring of 1472. There's also good evidence that Richard and Anne actually really had a lovely romance; he was determined to marry her and may have rescued her from his brother Clarence's attempts to hide her away. Anne and Richard were crowned in the first joint coronation in almost 200 years. But this doesn’t suit the Tudor propaganda need to portray Richard as a villain.

George Duke of Clarence is portrayed very sympathetically in Richard III, but in reality, he was kind of a jerk who rebelled against his own brother 2-3 times and continually tried to start up trouble. The play also shows Clarence being murdered by Richard's (hilarious) henchmen, but in actuality, Clarence was put on trial for treason, and privately executed on the order of his brother Edward IV.

The disappearance of the Princes in the Tower was blamed on Richard III at the time, but there's no actual evidence connecting him (or really anyone) to their deaths.

Propaganda Elements:

Shakespeare was writing and producing plays under Queen Elizabeth I and King James I, only a few generations away from the intense violence of the Wars of the Roses, so obviously, he needed to represent Elizabeth's famous ancestors as being on the right side of history. Even after her death, Elizabeth I remained incredibly popular with the people, so Shakespeare had to be careful with portrayals of her ancestors and lineage.

richard+iii+lithograph.jpg

Henry VIII is perhaps the best example of Tudor propaganda. This play covers Henry VIII's break from Catherine of Aragon and joining with Anne Boleyn (Elizabeth's mother) and covers the downfall of Cardinal Wolsey, but strategically ends right at Elizabeth's birth and doesn't discuss, oh, Anne's downfall and beheading, or Henry's four other wives. The play is remarkably stilted and boring compared to all of Shakespeare's other plays, likely because he felt inhibited by the restrictions and expectations of the time (in fact, plenty of people have speculated that Shakespeare didn't write Henry VIII or wrote it with a co-writer because it's so different from his other plays). The play also ends with huge adulation of the baby elizabeth and what a blessing she will be upon her people; as the second daughter of the king who already had a bastard son (Henry Fitzroy) he was in the process of making legitimate, she was not expected to inherit at her birth so this is just obvious propaganda here.

Tudor propaganda elements are also obvious in Richard II, in which John of Gaunt is portrayed very differently than he is in Holinshed's Chronicles, Shakespeare’s primary sources for his histories. Holinshed didn't portray Gaunt in a terribly flattering way, but in Richard II, he's the wisest, most reasonable, and most patriotic character in the play. This is likely because Queen Elizabeth traced her lineage directly back to John of Gaunt. (Gaunt's characterization in the play is much closer to his portrayal in Froissart's Chronicles.)

Richard II is also an interesting play to look at, as it portrays the rebellion against and downfall of a king, who was believed to be divinely anointed by god as the country's leader. That's not the type of idea you want to put in your subjects' heads (The deposition scene in the play is missing from most printed editions of the play until the fourth quarto, well into the reign of James I). But the play is written to make it very clear that Elizabeth's own ancestors disagreed with the rebellion. It's an interesting tightrope to walk- as the next few history plays basically emphasize how awesome Henry IV and Henry V are, and just sort of strategically ignore that the only reason they were in power was because of Henry Bolingbroke's rebellion against the rightful king.

Richard III is portrayed as an outright villain in Shakespeare's histories for propaganda reasons as well. Queen Elizabeth's grandfather Henry VII killed Richard on the battlefield at Bosworth and took his crown by right of conquest. Since this was again, a divinely anointed sovereign, Tudor writers really wanted to portray Richard III as just the WORST of the worst to justify the Tudors' actions in overthrowing him. The Tudors' claim to the English throne was not terribly strong, so this propaganda against Richard III was also necessary to increase their own legitimacy.

My New Short Story Publication is Out!

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So I’ll have a nice long proper blog post up here soon, but I’m a bit behind this week because of the production of Richard III I’m stage managing right now - it goes up this weekend, so we’re in Tech Week rehearsals all this week!

In the meantime though, my newest short story is out in Pure Slush’s anthology “The Shitlist.” I’m super excited about this anthology concept and wanted to be part of it the moment I heard of it. Quonsettville’s Chief Librarian Euphoria Rivers has left town for good; as she left, she sent a letter to the local paper with a shitlist of all the people in town who drove her away. This anthology explains how each person got on that list! 

My story features Euphoria Rivers’ battle with Jean-Pierre Pelletier, a newcomer who just bought Quonsettville’s historic tannery and plans to paint flames all over it in honor of his favorite band (Pantera). In her role as vice-president of the town’s historical preservation league, Euphoria simply CANNOT allow this to happen. Shenanigans ensue. The entire story is told by Riley, Pelletier’s teleworking and solitary neighbor who really just wants everyone to stop trying to pull her into the argument.

There are short excerpts from all the stories here, and the anthology itself should be a fast read, since all the stories are 1,500 words or less.

The paperback version is out now and there will be more formats available soon!

I met Philippa Gregory and Margaret George at the National Book Festival!

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So the National Book Festival was in friggin AUGUST and I still haven’t posted these pictures of me with some of my favorite authors up anywhere so here, here they are finally.

I went to see Philippa Gregory really, but I was delighted to realize that I knew the other author on the Historical Fiction panel as well: Margaret George! She wrote a wonderful book called “The Autobiography of Henry VIII” that I read years ago and really loved; it’s one of the very few books I’ve ever read that chronicles Henry’s life from beginning to end and it offered a great POV that I really appreciated. I still often think of it when I’m learning about Henry VIII in different contexts.

It was really inspiring to hear them discuss different aspects of their work; I basically want to be them when I grow up so I’m really happy I got to hear them talk!

Me with Philippa Gregory, getting my Tidelands book signed!

Me with Philippa Gregory, getting my Tidelands book signed!

Various quotes and tidbits: (these are from my notes and are as accurate as possible, but I was taking them rather quickly so there may be some errors)

Research:

Margaret George and Philippa Gregory both said they prefer to visit the places in which the events of their books occurred if possible.

PG: “Research is really just lots of reading. Which is a good thing to say at a book festival. Some people think there’s a secret trick like you go talk to people and they tell you everything but no, it’s really just reading.”

How their books relate to modern issues:

MG said Nero is oddly a modern character. “He wanted to be an artist - but instead he had to be an emperor- so many people had died to make him emperor that he couldn’t really say no, I want to go be an artist.”

PG: “[The presence of modern issues in my books] is not intentional- but I can’t shut the door on it- the whole idea is to have a window onto history - just by reading my book you can tell I’m from Sussex university in the 1980s. You can’t escape your own consciousness…. I try not to be anachronistic in any way, I try not to drag in politics like a cat dragging in a dead bird, like ‘because I’m interested in this you must be in it.’”

MG: you can date movies by the time period they’re filmed in- from their makeup and hair, etc - books are the same.

Moderator: that’s why historiography is so interesting - likes to see what other people on the past thought of their history and how that informed their lives
Interesting things about their characters:

MG: Nero wasn’t even there at the Fire of Rome. But people at the time said he was performing his ode to the fall of Troy (he had a thing about Troy), and they said the backdrop was just too much to resist, so he would go play it there. But it bothered him because the truth was the opposite. The common people loved Nero!

Tacitus said wild improprieties - it was really just chariot riding and acting. Nero couldn’t get an honest judgment at the time whether he was really any good as an artist. So we can’t get an honest answer in modern day either.  

Only 4 lines of his poetry survived. None of his music. Golden house survived but that’s it - it’s the only proof we have of his artistic talent 

PG: The extent of the way women were treated in medieval society - that Henrietta Maria (queen of Charles I) - she was catholic so English schools had taught against her - she was very authoritative and bossy with her . “We don’t like bossy little women, which is a pity, since many of us are.” /laughs, claps/

Has a reputation as a bad adviser. What I didn’t know- she landed in England under cannon fire with her army and marches around England as a queen militant. She was far more courageous and enterprising than history books say. The slight bias of history- how it obscures some really interesting women.

Me with Margaret George, getting my Confessions of Young Nero copy signed!

Me with Margaret George, getting my Confessions of Young Nero copy signed!

Why PG switched from writing about royalty to writing about a commoner (in Tidelands):

I wrote by royalty very much as an accident. What I was interested in was women in history and you can only find out about women in history if they’re around important men. Eg we don’t know Anne Boleyn’s birthday. There are so many women of just such huge interest who played such a big role in English history that we only know about if they’re associated with the king- etc - Elizabeth Woodville (know she’s with the king or pregnant). Mary Boleyn- led to interest in Catherine- to MIL Elizabeth Woodville, And then 20 years later you look up and find yourself an expert on English royalty and I am by character and interest anti-monarchy.

And people ask me about royal weddings and such and Reaky, they’re just very boring. I’m interested in tyrants really, the boleyns and the Tudors and the Plantagenets bit when you get to the Windsors, just not really interested 

For her Midwife character: got a lot of records from criminal trials for witchcraft (which aren’t necessarily content-helpful because it’s about men saying why she’s a witch) all the evidence at the trial is truly male sexual fantasy and fiction but it GIVES you information about these women who were tried and then unfortunately burned 

In Tudor Times there were women harvesting gangs that would harvest and drink and it sounds like a good party. Well that had to go away as nobles enclosed more and more of the land. There was growth of the idea that poverty shouldn’t be resolved by individual gifts but in an organized way. You can’t just go knock on your neighbor’s and ask for help now, have to go apply for help- it was very alienating.

Setting- the tides in and out, sets the entire course of the day. Tide mills - operates as a usual mill but it runs based on the tide - used to be hundreds of them. Now there are only 2 - went to one and talked to the miller and had one of the most comical conversations ever in researching a book. “If you were going to put a woman on the wheel to say, drown her, how would you do that?” Looked at her in horror and said “Nobody has ever asked that” “well how would you” “well how heavy is she?” 

MG: Agrippina was a huge driver of Nero’s life. He fell in love with a freedwoman in youth and wanted to marry her, friends his entire life, willed her things, she held Nero’s funeral. In Rome, women had no political office, so they were strong behind the scenes, but they were not allowed in public life.

Compared Nero to The Godfather _ dark side etc (her feelings, not historical record).

3 sides - son of Augustus/young emperor, artistic side, dark side who made the other two possible

Nero’s coinage is really considered super beautiful. The coins show his face changing as he gains weight and gets a double chin 

A lot of the judgment about him was around the time - emperor Hadrian had a lot in common with him and we love him- but that occurred 50-60 years later. MG compares their respective reputations to the way we talk about same sex marriage and race now versus 50-60 years ago.

What do you want readers to come away with?

PG: It makes her happy when readers are inspired to study history after reading her novel. She wants her readers to like the novel and say it’s good really. Some people reflect on their lives and such. But really I want them to think it’s a good book and then buy the next one. 

MG- going for a Shakespearean tragedy feel of “woe and wonder.” 

Q&As:

Is it harder to write dialogue of historical people or composite fictionalized people? 

MG: Finds it easier to do historical, sine you have a record, and know what they might say.

PG: with a known character, it can be lovely to weave their real speech in there if you can. Plus most of what people think they know about historical women is incorrect- she enjoys taking on well known women and being out new sides of them.

MG feels same way 

Queer or LGBT people portrayals? 

MG- Nero dresses up a guy as his dead wife (maybe more of a grief and necrophilia thing) 

PG- there isn’t enough historical research yet on the subject for her to include it in her books. Thankfully it’s being done now. Plus, it’s hard to know what is lesbian behavior in historical books like, women sleeping in the same bed together in Jane Austen. There’s no intercourse- but why is intercourse the standard of a romantic relationship? 

How they respond to critics that say book is historically inaccurate:

MG: tries to use the sources that are most reliable 

PG: if someone tells me I did something wrong, like someone landed in the wrong place- I alter it in next edition. And send them a signed book as a thank you 

If they say it’s wrong and it’s right I just grind my teeth.

Research organization?

MG- uses note cards , once you have a cohesive story line, easier to lay out 

PG- files and books and such. But it’s the stuff that sticks in the mind that makes the story. As a novelist, you shouldn’t gift the reader your hours and hours of tedious study. They can do that if they want. 

Love of history or writing first? 

MG- First did writing.

PG- loves writing but also loves history. “I’m so blessed to be able to work in a genre that combines the two. I can’t imagine having one without the other .”

EWF Unpacking: Polish Your Pitch and Publishing Masterclass

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I’ve been pretty dilatory about posting up these notes, but I’m slowly getting them out there! Here’s some more useful wisdom from the Emerging Writers’ Festival!

I took very few photos at the festival, but I did manage to get this one of my name tag and my awesome shoes.

I took very few photos at the festival, but I did manage to get this one of my name tag and my awesome shoes.

Polish Your Pitch - Class by Jennifer Baker (publishing professional of 16 years, host of the Minorities in Publishing podcast, contributing editor to Electric Literature, essayist)

I have pages and pages of notes from this class taught by Jennifer Baker, including some very specific suggestions she made for a story I’ve been trying to pitch. Here are some of the highlights though:

  • First, follow the rules on pitching. Actually read the publication’s submission guidelines and make sure you know what type of work they’re working for. It’s a waste of your time and theirs if you pitch something that doesn’t follow their guidelines and/or is just totally wrong for their publication.

  • Your article topics need to be specific and interesting. Your goal is to get a “I haven’t heard this before” from the person you’re pitching to. If you’re writing on a common topic, make sure to specify what makes your spin different and unique.

  • If you can’t find a person’s name or can’t figure out how they identify, it’s okay if you just say “Dear Editor.” Just don’t make assumptions!

  • The editor is coming at your piece with a few things in their minds: “Can you do the thing you’re saying you can do?” “Is it worth my time and effort to pay you?” “Is the structure and voice of the piece there?” You want to be able to answer all these questions in your pitch. The more fleshed out and structured the idea, the less work the editor needs to do to get it up to par.

  • If someone rejects your pitch, don’t take it personally! Jennifer said: “As an editor, I have rarely ever NOT taken a pitch because of someone’s bad writing. I don’t believe in bad writing, but I do see unfocused writing.”

Publishing Masterclass - Class by Jane Friedman (20 years of experience in publishing industry, author of The Business of Being a Writer and The Authors Guild Guide to E-Publishing)

I actually had to leave this class 1/3 of the way through to go volunteer for the festival in another location, but I still learned SO MUCH. I’m really glad I got to go for at least that much.

I found this sweet pupper hanging out in Old Town Alexandria near the festival while walking between events one day. <3

I found this sweet pupper hanging out in Old Town Alexandria near the festival while walking between events one day. <3

  • To submit to publishers, you need:

    • A finished manuscript for a fiction book

    • A book proposal for a nonfiction book

    • For a memoir, you probably should have both a finished manuscript and a book proposal, as some publishers will want one or the other and plenty will want both.

  • Before you submit, you need to make sure your manuscript or proposal is the best you can make it. You need to resolve all the problems or hire someone to do it for you. No one EXPECTS you to hire an editor for revisions, but it’s certainly an option.

  • If you want a large/mid-size publisher, it’s a good idea to get an agent.

  • It’s really important to define the genre of your book so you can find the correct agents and publishers. This can be hard since some book genres are pretty nebulous.

    • For example, “Literary fiction” is sometimes publisher code for “will not sell.” However, once it makes the best seller list, a literary fiction book’s genre tends to magically change to “mainstream fiction.” (There are no particular requirements for either of these genres).

    • You can sometimes get away without picking a genre for your book by comparing it to another work instead, but that doesn’t always work.

  • Hard to sell works: Poetry, collections, multi-genre work, “hard to categorize” books

    • Even if your work is “hard to categorize,” just label it something. People run in the opposite direction at the sound of “hard to categorize.” “If you don’t know, they won’t know either.”

  • Projects that are more commercially viable:

    • Fiction - Genre, commercial, or mainstream narratives of about 80,000 words. You can go as low as 50,000, but that’s as low as you can go. Once you reach 100,000, you’ll get some pushback about it being too long or needing more editing.

    • If you’re trying to get a nonfiction book published by a large publisher, you need a platform. Your visibility and authority can matter as much as the content. They expect you to bring the audience to the publisher, not vice versa.

      • if you’re a journalist or professor or have some sort of career that gives you credibility on a topic, that can help you with your nonfiction author platform.

  • Less commercially viable projects:

    • Narratives that are 120,000+ words.

    • Children’s picture books, cookbooks, travel, short fiction, essay collections, poetry, anthologies of any kind

Emerging Writers Festival Unpacking: Keynote, Fiction Intensive, and Against the Algorithm

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So going over all my notes from the Emerging Writers Festival is helping me recap everything I learned and make sure I put it into practice in my own writing life and practice. In addition, I’m hopeful this might be helpful for others who weren’t able to attend some of the sessions, for whatever reason.

So here are some tidbits and wisdom from the first few sessions I attended at the festival!

Catherine Chung and Tayla Bruney

Catherine Chung and Tayla Bruney

The Keynote with Catherine Chung. She talked about her second novel, The Tenth Muse, with moderator Tayla Burney (a journalist and book reviewer for the Washington Post. She also writes a weekly email newsletter of author events and literary happenings around DC called Get Lit DC; you can subscribe to that here).

  • Cathy said that she had to rewrite her novel several times. “I had to let my narrator have this amazing life. I found sometimes I was the oppressive societal force holding my protagonist back.”

  • She said that she’s had writing retreat experiences where they just feed and house you and you just write all day. “It’s the most quixotic, ecstatic writing experience where you never have to leave the world you’re writing in. It ruins you for life.”

  • At one point, the company she worked for actually did a Christmas skit making fun of her ambition to be a writer. [Isn’t that SO SCREWED UP, seriously??]

  • “Writing rules are silly.” One professor claimed that if you don’t write every day you’re not a writer, but she said that while she was researching for her second novel, there were maybe years where she went without writing. She’s clearly still a writer.

  • For her first novel, she wrote all the time and threw out at least 1,000 pages as part of her process. It seemed like she was just accumulating pages and then throwing them away. But eventually it all came together and she figured out the structure. Her second novel was more structured from the beginning and was a different beast entirely.

  • A friend gave her a headsup before her novel came out: “Every writer gets depressed when their book gets published,” regardless of how well it does in the world or anything. Because you’re going from living entirely in your head to releasing it and waiting to hear what people think of it. Waiting is a terrible feeling. So ahead of her second novel’s release, Cathy decided just not to care.

  • She named the protagonist of her second novel Katherine as a joke, since so many people thought her first novel was an autobiography. However, it kind of backfired because many people still thought her second novel’s protagonist was autobiographical. At one point her wikipedia said that she was a 74-year-old woman; she was kind of sad when it got corrected.

From novelist Catherine Chung’s Fiction Intensive Workshop:

  • Cathy talked a bit about how she found it really interesting to see what people believe and what they don’t believe, as all of fiction is about making things up that people go along with. Sometimes we’re willing to believe the most ridiculous things, and in the current political climate, there’s a constant debate about what is true and false. What determines the stories we believe? What determines the stories we tell and are allowed to tell? (I believe most of the statements in this paragraph are actual quotations from her, but I didn’t notate it well enough in my notes to know for sure, so I’m paraphrasing a bit.)

  • “When you figure out the technical parts of a story, everything else falls into place” – who is the narrator, the audience, what is the shape of the audience.

  • She had us do an exercise where we wrote a letter to someone close to you in which you told them something you’ve never told before. As Cathy said, this premise sets up the central tension of a story from the very beginning. “There’s a reason you haven’t told them this thing before, and there’s a reason you’re telling them now. There’s a potential of how it will change everything.” When there’s an audience member for a story that’s very specific, it puts the tension of the story at the forefront. She pointed out that we don’t usually think about the fact that the speaker in a story is different from the author, and the intended audience and the actual audience are not always the same. Once she started thinking about this, it helped her unlock some things she’d been working on for her first novel.

  • Cathy said her first and only college writing professor said you have to be absolutely subjective about everyone you write. You have to be able to see it from their side, no matter how horrible they are. But you also have to be absolutely objective about yourself.

Against the Algorithm Panel with Lupita Aquino (co-founder and co-moderator of the LIT on H St Book Club at Solid State Books, instagram book reviewer), Amanda Nelson (executive editor of Book Riot), and Kendra Winchester (co-founder of the Reading Women podcast). My notes from this were scribbled into a tiny notebook I bought last minute at Old Town Books while my laptop was charging, so they may not be as detailed or as…in complete sentences as other notes. :)

Panelists gave some great advice about the dos and don’ts of author marketing:

  • Lupita - Engage with people before asking them for a favor or a review. And pay attention to what types of books people are into.

  • Kendra - She suggests engaging in Middle Reader Thursday or other events designed to bring attention to your books. There are lots of hashtags and discussions out there particular to specific genres. You can even reach specific agents this way sometimes. She also suggests you experiment with your marketing; don’t be afraid to be imperfect.

  • Amanda - Be a community member before you start asking for stuff. Find book writers that write about your genre and reach out to them directly. Writers LOVE to hear from authors.

I basically didn’t take any photos on the Saturday of the writing festival at all except this one.

I basically didn’t take any photos on the Saturday of the writing festival at all except this one.

  • Regarding diversity in publishing and books:

    • Amanda - publishing as an industry is overwhelmingly white women at lower levels and white men at the higher levels. The inherent structure is racist and sexist. Her company has a diversity mandate where 30% of their reviews have to be of works by POC authors. They’re very strict about it

    • Lupita - Online, you notice the diversity issues more. We need the options.

    • Amanda- If you say “I just want a good story,” you're saying you just want to read what’s marketed to you. And those books are by authors who are overwhelmingly white, male, and cisgendered.

    • Kendra- You have to work to find the books sometimes and represent them. We need to see more people with disabilities in them. We need more than just Darcy’s cousin and a woman in the attic. She suggests following amazing women as well to learn from them.

    • Moderator Allison Punch - wants to make a distinction between what’s getting buzz and what’s actually written. People of Color have always been writing; we’re just now hearing about them.

  • What they do to help underrepresented authors

    • Amanda - Donates ad campaigns to some independently published books.

    • Kendra - a snowball effect can really help.

    • Amanda - looks out for debut authors in her marketing and tries to promote them.

    • Kendra - Points out that she thinks it’s unfair to debut authors that we expect them to be perfect. They need room to grow and become better.

  • If you want to become a book reviewer on social media

    • Kendra - be consistent with your postings

    • Amanda - have an interesting angle to it. Don’t just post a photo of fairy lights as your cover picture. Like she follows an instagram that only posts library books - she loves that, as it brings out books that are older. Do something unique.

  • How to support books besides tweeting and reviews:

    • Amanda - pre-orders! for libraries even, creates buzz

    • Kendra - create an evergreen post of a list of books - one of their most popular posts ever still is about Muslim women authors.

    • Lupita - pre-order giveaways

    • Amanda - pre-ordering from independent bookstores

  • Pitching to reviewers

    • Kendra - be specific and complimentary. Show familiarity with the reviewer’s work and guidelines.

  • To avoid drama on social media

    • Lupita - Set boundaries - practice self care

    • Kendra - ignore the drama and go to the people that support you

    • Amanda - Remember your job and ignore the rest. Avoid the petty crap.


The Inaugural Emerging Writers Festival in Old Town Alexandria!!

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The last two weeks or so have been really rough, so I was really excited to attend my first writers festival in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia this past weekend!

It was the inaugural festival and was hosted by Old Town Books, which opened last year and is run by a bunch of really wonderful people with great ambitions and thoughts for the reading and writing communities! (I wrote a while ago about attending my first book club meeting there; the next one is in September and features the book “Coastalegre,” which is loosely based on Peggy Guggenheim and her daughter. As an art lover, I deeply appreciate this.)

This is a photo gallery, so you can click through and look at more than just like, my face and this one panel pic. I actually was so absorbed in all the speakers that I didn’t take nearly as many photos as I thought, but I got a good amount anyway. :)

I had so much fun and I learned a ton! I attended numerous classes and panels and volunteered at two of them. Honestly, I did WAY more than I even realized, once I started writing all these things down. I also met just a ton of wonderful writers at different points in their careers, which was so wonderfully inspiring.

  • Keynote Conversation with Catherine Chung, author of The Tenth Muse

  • Fiction Craft Intensive with Catherine Chung

  • Against the Algorithm Panel with Lupita Aquino, Amanda Nelson, and Kendra Winchester (all bookternet reviewers and leaders)

  • Polish your Pitch with Jennifer Baker (publishing professional of 16 years, host of the Minorities in Publishing podcast, contributing editor to Electric Literature, essayist)

  • Publishing Masterclass with Jane Friedman (20 years of experience in publishing industry, author of The Business of Being a Writer and The Authors Guild Guide to E-Publishing)- I had to leave this early to go volunteer at the merch table, but the first hour was AMAZING and so useful.

  • Talk and signing with Tope Folarin (author of the novel A Particular Kind of Black Man, short story author)

  • Apply Yourself Panel - with Hannah Bae, Jennifer Baker, and Caits Meissner (PEN America’s Prison and Justice Writing Program director, author), Kris Zory-King moderating

  • Writing the Personal Essay with Hannah Bae, journalist and essayist

  • The Path to the Debut Novel with Angie Kim, author of Miracle Creek

I was honestly going to write a whole blog post about ALL the things I learned in ALL the classes, but I just…do not have time fo rthat today. So i think I’m going to spread it out in more bite sized pieces, one or two classes a past for a while. I honestly gained so much useful knowledge

The Vanguard: My Current #WIP and Some Cool Ancient Civilization Facts!

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My current work in progress (WIP)is “The Vanguard: The Cats that Conquered Egypt.” This is about the Battle of Pelusium, which took place in 525 BCE between the Ancient Egyptians and Persians. Legend has it that the Persians put cats (and other animals, although this part gets left out of a lot of retellings) on the battlefield before them in order to discourage the Egyptians from attacking; the Egyptians at that time held cats sacred and actually put to death anyone who killed a cat, even if it was by accident.

When Cambyses attacked Pelusium, which guarded the entrance into Egypt, the Egyptians defended it with great resolution. They advanced formidable engines against the besiegers, and hurled missiles, stones, and fire at them from their catapults. To counter this destructive barrage, Cambyses ranged before his front line dogs, sheep, cats, ibises, and whatever other animals the Egyptians hold sacred. The Egyptians immediately stopped their operations, out of fear of hurting the animals, which they hold in great veneration. Cambyses captured Pelusium, and thereby opened up for himself the route into Egypt.

Polyaenus - Strategems, VII.9 (Published 163 A.D.)

Realistically, this almost certainly didn’t happen and if anything like it DID happen, the Persians probably just painted cats and/or Egyptian gods on their shields. But it’s a great story, and I do love my cat legends.

This is the African Wildcat. From what I’ve been reading, this is probably what ancient Egyptian cats looked like. Honestly, it’s probably what ALL cats looked like at that time. But for the sake of differentiating them in my head, I’ve been envisio…

This is the African Wildcat. From what I’ve been reading, this is probably what ancient Egyptian cats looked like. Honestly, it’s probably what ALL cats looked like at that time. But for the sake of differentiating them in my head, I’ve been envisioning just Bahadur (Persian cat) as an African wildcat (i haven’t been able to find ANY descriptions of cats in ancient Persia because than I just pull up “Persian cats,” which probably didn’t develop until like, the 1700s).

The story starts about a year or so before the battle and tells the background leading up to the battle from the point of view of two cats. One cat, Bahadur (this is Farsi for “fighter”), lives in the royal palace kitchens in Persepolis, Persia, and ends up befriending an Egyptian woman who is sent to the Persian King as a decoy wife (he had asked for the current pharaoh’s daughter in marriage; he actually sent the PREVIOUS pharoah’s daughter instead, which Cambyses took as a grave insult). The other cat, Nedjem (which actually just means “sweetie” - Egyptian cats weren’t usually given individual names), is the in-house cat in the Department for the Protection of Cats (Upper Egypt branch) in Thebes. This government agency (which actually existed, although we have no idea what it was actually called or how exactly it functioned) existed to prevent the exportation of cats out of Egypt. I’ve also put them in charge of punishing people who hurt or kill cats, as it makes sense to me, but I have no actual evidence that this was the case.

I had planned on publishing this on Amazon in July but it’s actually still not finished, for a few reasons. The primary reason is that my face and head have hurt for most of the last month, which made it harder for me to like, concentrate on anything, and I’ve had to spend a lot more time at various doctors’ offices lately than I’d like. Ends up I have a deviated septum which is causing all the problems and I’m getting a septoplasty next Wednesday for it. Yay. PLUS, this story has honestly just been a lot more complicated and interesting and difficult than I thought it would be. It’s turned from a short story into more of a novella, as it’s over 14,000 words now and I still have a few more chapters to write.

So since the story itself isn’t quite out yet, I thought I’d share a few of my favorite tidbits I’ve learned in my research.

It’s unlikely that cats in ancient Egypt actually looked like an Egyptian Mau looks like now, but they’re so pretty, and I love them, so I’m imagining Nedjem as a Mau. :)

It’s unlikely that cats in ancient Egypt actually looked like an Egyptian Mau looks like now, but they’re so pretty, and I love them, so I’m imagining Nedjem as a Mau. :)

Egypt:

There’s evidence that every cat in Ancient Egypt was considered a demi-god. Mere humans couldn’t own a cat, and all cats were under the guardianship of the pharaoh.

Diodorus Siculus wrote “Whoever kills a cat in Egypt is condemned to death, whether he committed this crime deliberately or not. The people gather and kill him. An unfortunate Roman, who accidentally killed a cat, could not be saved, either by King Ptolemy of Egypt or by the fear which Rome inspired.”

Instructions for the deceased were written on the inside of sarcophagi. These would remind the soul of who they’d been in life and what to do in the afterlife.

Persia:

Ancient Persians practiced Zoroastrianism, the world’s oldest monotheistic religion. Zoroastrians consider both water and fire life-sustaining, so they generally pray in the presence of some form of fire. They did not build temples, altars, or statues of their god. As they conquered numerous other countries, they allowed them to keep their temples and practice their religions, but did not build any new ones. It’s believed that the tenets of Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) were all shaped by Zoroastrianism, as it established the idea of one god, heaven, hell, and a judgment day. It’s still practiced today, particularly in India.

Oh fun fact - “Magi” literally refers to priests of zoroastrianism. So the three Magi were three…priests of zoroastrianism. I thought all this time it was just a fancy word for “wise men.” That must be a thing they just tell you at church.

Zoroastrians didn’t really like cats - it was sad they were created by an evil spirit and there were numerous supersitions against them- but plenty of ancient Persians kept cats as pets anyway. At one point, there was a prince who loved his cat so much that petitioners would write out their requests and tie them to the cat’s collar so he’d have to see them!