Anne here, introducing Dr Kate Forsyth, who I first met at a Romance Writers of Australia conference, where she was speaking. I hadn't read her, so before the conference I bought one of her books, Rhiannon's Ride, loved it, and immediately glommed everything she'd written. She's a multi-award-winning author who's written for kids, young adults and adults, and is currently writing historical/fantasy fiction inspired by fairytales.
Her book BITTER GREENS, a reworking of the fairy tale, Rapunzel, was awarded the 2015 American Libraries Association prize for Best Historical Fiction, and was listed as Library Journal (US) Best Historical Novel, as well as many other awards. THE WILD GIRL is about Dortchen Wild, who grew up next door to the brothers Grimm and told them some of their most powerful and compelling stories. It's already garnering some wonderful reviews, including a starred review from Booklist.
Juliet Marillier described Bitter Greens as: "one of those books that breaks out of recognized genre moulds – it’s part historical novel, part fairy tale, and part serious examination of gender roles, power and cruelty in 16th and 17th century France and Italy."
Anne: Bitter Greens is a retelling of the Rapunzel story. Why retell such a well known story? And what's new about this retelling for readers?
Kate: Rapunzel is a story that has haunted me since I was a little girl, and I spent a lot of time in hospital after being attacked by a dog as a baby. That was when I first read Grimm's Fairy Tales - the story of a girl locked away in a tower against her will really resonated with me, since I was locked away in a hospital against mine. I’ve loved both fairy tales and retellings of fairy tales ever since, and have long wanted to retell Rapunzel in my own way. But it's a story that is full of challenges, not least of which is writing a compelling and dramatic story about a girl who can only walk a few steps in any direction.
It's also a story that raises a lot of questions. For example, why did the witch want to lock the girl in a tower? Why was Rapunzel’s hair so impossibly long? Why didn’t Rapunzel ask the prince to bring a rope so she could climb down and escape? I wanted to truly engage with these problems, to find answers that would seem real and plausible, rather than simply sidestepping them, as most retellings of the tale seem to do.
I am also - as a writer and storyteller - very interested in the tellers of tales, and so I was fascinated by the life story of Charlotte-Rose de la Force, the woman who wrote the tale as it is best known. I wove together her story with that of her tale she told, to create something new and very different from most fairy tale retellings.
Anne: It's certainly a fresh and fascinating approach. Romance writers and readers still hunger for fairy-tale endings— the happy ones — but these books aren't genre romance and yet they speak to adults of all tastes. Why do you think fairy-tales still have such a strong appeal?
Kate: Fairy tales are stories of true love, triumph and transformation. They arise out of the deepest longings of the human heart, and offer us some hope that these dreams may one day come true. We need dreams, we need to imagine what kind of world we want, we need to have hope that goodness and love can triumph over evil and hatred. Fairy tales both console us and compel us; they give us a star-map for the future and a way of negotiating the dilemmas of the now.
Anne: Beautifully expressed. I was fascinated to realize that both Charlotte-Rose de la Force in Bitter Greens and Dortchen Wild in The Wild Girl were real people and not characters you created. Tell us about them.
Kate: I first discovered Charlotte-Rose de la Force while researching the history of the 'Rapunzel' tale and knew at once I had to tell her story. She was such a strong and fascinating woman, and her life was an absolute gift to a novelist - full of romance and drama. She was cousin to Louis XIV, the Sun King, and maid of honour to the queen; she had affairs with an actor and a wicked marquis; she was implicated in a court scandal involving witches; and she wrote her fairy tale after being banished to a convent for her wicked ways. How could I not write her story?
Originally I planned that Charlotte-Rose's story would be simply a framing device for my primary narrative, the story of the girl and the witch and the tower. But she absolutely took control and insisted that her story was of far more importance, and so ends up being the most important character in the book (and an absolute delight to spend so many years with!)
Similarly, I just stumbled upon the unknown story of the forbidden romance between Wilhelm Grimm and Dortchen Wild. Dortchen grew up next door to the Grimm family, and was best friends with Lotte Grimm, the only girl in the family. She was one of the primary oral sources of the Grimm Brothers' famous fairy tale collection, telling Wilhelm stories such as Hansel & Gretel, The Singing Bone, The Frog King, Six Swans, Rumpelstiltskin, and The Elves & the Shoemaker.
Her father disapproved of the impoverished Grimm brothers and so Dortchen had to meet Wilhelm in secret to tell him her stories - they met in the forest, in the garden, in her sister's summerhouse, at the house of friends - and, of course, feel deeply in love. But marriage was impossible without her father's approval. The story of how they struggled together against poverty, illness, cruelty and the calamitous effects of the Napoleonic War was so deeply moving, I had to tell their story.
Anne: It's a wonderfully moving tale. (That's a drawing of Dortchen, done by Wilhelm ten years before they married. If you'd like to read more about Dortchen Wild, click here. There's also more on Kate's website)
You intensively research your writing, Kate -- tell us a little about some of the more fun/interesting aspects of your research.
Kate: The research for my novels can take a very long time (almost seven years for Bitter Greens!) but it is always fascinating. I find out such strange and marvellous things. For example, did you know that, in Venice, women suspected of being witches were buried with a brick jammed into their jaw, to stop them eating their way out of the grave? And at the royal court of Versailles, women each had their own special page-boy who carried their chamber-pot from ballroom to the gambling tables to the dining hall. Whenever a court lady needed to relieve herself, she would beckon him with her fan and the page-boy would trot up, slide the chamber-pot under her voluminous skirts, and she would do her business there and then, wherever she happened to be (underwear had not yet been invented).
Anne: Extraordinary! Can we have a short excerpt from Bitter Greens please?
Kate: Here is the opening paragraph of Bitter Greens:
“I had always been a great talker and teller of tales. 'You should put a lock on that tongue of yours. It's long enough and sharp enough to slit your own throat,' our guardian warned me, the night before I left home to go to the royal court at Versailles ... I just laughed. 'Don't you know a woman's tongue is her sword? You wouldn't want me to let my only weapon rust, would you?”
You can read the rest of the opening pages here.
Anne: Charlotte-Rose was an amazing character -- fascinating and so strong! Now, changing the subject somewhat, I'm currently tinged a delicate envious green because of where you are at the moment and what you're doing. Tell us about it.
Kate: As I write this, I am in the beautiful Cotswolds in the UK. I run a writers' retreat here every year. The retreat is very unusual in that it is aimed for writers at any stage of their creative journey. Some have never written a word, others have been published but are seeking to re-connect with their creativity. The whole course is aimed to inspire the participants, to fling wide the doors of their unconscious, to help them find joy again.
The mornings are spent in class, talking and laughing and sharing and learning. The afternoons are spent in private guided tours to Oxford, the beautiful secret treasures of the Cotswolds, to Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwick Castle, and Stonehenge. On the final night we have a literary dinner with an amazing Mystery Guest at the most beautiful old manor house set in gardens and parklands (it has its own little church). It really is the most wondrous week - some participants describe it as life-changing - and I feel very blessed to be a part of it.
Anne: It sounds blissful -- maybe some day I'll be lucky enough to join you. Thank you, Kate for joining us on Word Wenches. (If you'd like to read a much more detailed interview with Kate, there's one here.)
Kate: Thank you, Anne, delighted to be here.
Kate will be giving a copy of either Bitter Greens or The Wild Girl to someone who leaves a response to this question: What's your favorite fairy tale?