Get to Know Our Friend, Philippa Gregory!
What would you be if you weren't a writer?
When I was a child I thought I wanted to be a veterinarian and look after animals. Instead, I became a journalist and went to university. It was there that I developed a love of history. During the 1980s, thanks to government cuts, the posts were frozen for historians – so while I was applying for posts, I started writing fiction.
What's the biggest misconception people have about you and your work?
That I have teams of researchers! I do my own research because for me, that’s the most exciting part. And very often, I don’t know what I’m looking for until I find it. Whist I was research for this book, Dawnlands, I was at a museum doing military research on the battle of Sedgemoor, and I learned that thousands of men from the defeated rebel army were shipped as prisoners to indentured service in Barbados. It introduced an entirely new thread to the novel.
Tell us about the first piece of fiction you ever wrote.
I always loved a blank page and a pencil – my mother gave me an empty ledger and I wrote little letters and descriptions of animals. When I was a teenager I wrote terribly imitative short stories – my most unsuccessful phase was Somerset Maugham mash-ups – but my first completed novel, amazingly enough, Wideacre – which was a worldwide success. I wrote it while completing my PhD: a study of popular fiction of the 18th Century circulating libraries. It meant I read the most popular 200 novels at the very invention of the novel. All I really thought about for four years was what made a novel and how it was formed – it was an apprenticeship in fiction.
Do you have any writing rituals?
I learned to write in a busy news room, working for an editor who wasn’t at all interested in my mood, the time of day, or the layout of my desk. One of the great things about that training is that I can write anywhere at any time. There are certain parts of the writing cycle where it’s easier to be in my study, surrounded by my reference books, but mostly, I write on a laptop wherever I find myself.
Is there a particular independent bookstore or library you'd like to shout-out?
I think the only way to become a writer is to read, and libraries and independent bookstores are essential. As a child I visited the library every week, reading one book and borrowing three. They contribute so much to communities, and I’m always delighted when I visit a town and see one flourishing. Libraries are the index of the health of a society and it is terrible when funders cut back on them.
The last book you raved about:
I’m always so predicable. I mostly read non-fiction, or for pleasure, the classics – and there are always too many favourites to pick just one. Henry James, E.M. Forster, Jane Austen…it’s a long list! But for the longest time, George Eliot’s Middlemarch has remained one of my most loved books. Great women characters from one of the greatest women writers.
Tell us about your work-in-progress.
I’m working on a non-fiction book. A history of English women from 1066. It’s a huge project but I’m finding it hugely interesting.
