I’m very excited to have Sarah Kennedy, author of The Altarpiece, as a guest. The Altarpiece is a wonderful book that depicts Tudor England in a very honest way. For my review follow this link.

1. What inspired you to write The Altarpiece?

A combination of events came together in my mind when the story first occurred to me.  I had heard stories of hidden religious artwork on a trip to Norwich Cathedral when I was studying the medieval mystic Julian, and I was subsequently studying the fates of nuns under Henry VIII.  When I discovered that these women had largely disappeared from the historical record, my imagination began to work.  I wanted to give the nuns of England a voice—and one day the image of Catherine appeared to me and the book had begun!

2. I imagine that you had to do a great deal of research for this book, what did you use for your primary sources? Did you travel for your research?

My primary sources were very few—because there are very few of them.  I have traveled frequently to England, and religious sites are some of my favorite places to go.  The ruins of the great abbeys of the United Kingdom have always seemed almost to speak, as though the stones themselves want to explain what happened there.  I suppose I would say that these places are my best and most resonant sources.

3. Why did you choose this time period for the setting of The Altarpiece?

I am endlessly fascinated with Tudor England.  It was a time of enormous change, primarily in the relationship between the government and the church.  The government and the church became a single entity—until the power was fragmented by the very pillars of that power.  Hereditary monarchy seemed to assure male power . . . except that the king’s surviving children were women.  Protestantism seemed to assure that the church would be unified under the monarch . . . except that once the Bible was made available to people in English, they began to form churches of their own.  These questions—about government and religion, about the roles of men and women, about universal education and universal rights, are still with us.

5. What was the hardest part of writing The Altarpiece?

The hardest part was probably making sure that I got the details of clothing right.  I did update some of that terminology to make the reading easier, though—which wasn’t easy, either!

6. What books have influenced your life the most?

Hmm.  That’s a hard one, since I love to read all sorts of books.  I couldn’t live without Shakespeare, but I also love the crime writers Ian Rankin and Morag Joss.  The poets Thomas Wyatt the Elder, who was one of Henry VIII’s courtiers, and John Donne, who wrote under Elizabeth I and James I, changed my way of thinking about the world when I was a young woman.

7. What book are reading right now?

I just finished Dan Brown’s Inferno.  I’m still mulling over the plot, but you can’t beat the details about Renaissance art and architecture.  It’s a lovely world to get lost in.

8. Where do you like to do the majority of your writing?

OK, confession time.  I like to write in a recliner.  Yes, a recliner.  I have one in my study, which looks out over my side yard, with my favorite bird feeder, and another in my living room, where I write by the fire in the evenings.  My husband is very good about making sure that I have comfortable chairs with cozy quilts in both places!

9.  Who is your favorite author and what is it that really strikes you about their work?

I’m not sure that I have a favorite author.  I may be too moody to have a consistent favorite.  I like authors who combine a great story with wonderful imagery and quirky information, and when I find a new one, I tend to plow through everything I can find.  I love Lee Smith, Daniel Woodrell, Ron Rash, and Benjamin Black (pen name for John Banville.) I rip through whatever Ian Rankin writes, partly because I love Scotland.  I like Hilary Mantel and even Philippa Gregory when I want famous characters from history, though I usually gravitate to more fictional people and a story that can go where the writer’s imagination takes her.

10. Can you tell us about your next novel, City of Ladies?

Well, Catherine cannot be in a convent anymore, so her life has changed.  Ex-nuns are not supposed to get married, but there is always a way around the rules in Tudor England for a savvy and determined woman.  She is still young, and the world is changing.  Catherine is going to have to change with it, but the dangers of an aging, increasingly tyrannical king are very real.  She’s still sympathetic to Mary Tudor, the king’s elder, Catholic daughter, and that’s a dangerous attachment to have.  But it’s a dangerous new world for women in general, and Catherine is going to have to keep her wits about her to navigate it successfully!

Thank you so much Sarah! I can’t wait for City of Ladies and see how Catherine transitions from being a nun to a young woman with very little protection.

About the Author

THE ALTARPIECE, the first title in Sarah Kennedy’s The Cross and the Crown series, is about Catherine Havens, a young nun in Tudor England. She’s waiting at Mount Grace Priory for its closure when the one item of significant value in The Priory, their altarpiece, goes      missing. Immediately, suspicion falls on the nuns.

In addition to this novel, Sarah Kennedy has written seven books of poems, including The Gold Thread, Home Remedies, and A Witch’s Dictionary. A professor of English at Mary Baldwin College, she holds a Ph.D. in Renaissance Literature and an MFA in Creative Writing.  She has received grants from both the National Endowment for the Arts and the Virginia Commission for the Arts and is a contributing editor for Shenandoah. The next title in The Cross and the Crown series, CITY OF LADIES, is due out in October 2014. Her website is http://sarahkennedybooks.wordpress.com/.