Ask the Author: Nicole Galland
Answered Questions (20)
Nicole Galland
Dear Daniel, I am so sorry that I never saw this message! I hope you were able to get your questions answered, and I apologize for what I've since been told was the utterly appalling Hungarian we included in the original...!
Nicole Galland
Oh my gosh, I've been off Goodreads for ages, so sorry I didn't see this earlier. Thank you SO much, Patrick - Neal and I had a lot of fun working on the book together.
You might be interested to know that the sequel (which I wrote, with Neal's blessing, as a solo project) is coming out in February 2021! Hope you enjoy that one too :-)
You might be interested to know that the sequel (which I wrote, with Neal's blessing, as a solo project) is coming out in February 2021! Hope you enjoy that one too :-)
Nicole Galland
It took me a long time to answer this, but I think I know now: I'd like to at least one scene in MACBETH where we see Lady Macbeth go off the rails a bit. She is such a powerful figure early on, inciting Macbeth to assassination and ambition. Then there's one scene in which she is still strong, but perturbed that her husband is halluncinating... then nothing for a bit, then BAM, she's crazy, and then we hear she's dead. I'd like to see her becoming crazy.
Nicole Galland
I think I'd go to the setting of Susan Cooper's series The Dark Is Rising, and be one of Will Stanton's staunch sidekicks. I love the slightly-alternative reality she creates in that story, and I've always had a thing for Arthurian stuff.
Nicole Galland
Hi Carrie... our collaboration was a pretty organic and intuitive one. We didn't have any strict rules of how to go about things, but as a general rule, once we had an outline, I'd "break trail" on a segment and then pass it off to Neal to polish or tweak while I moved on to the next section. Sometimes we would reverse the order - he broke trail (especially if it involved hard science) and I'd follow along after. Ultimately we feel that both of our fingerprints are all over the whole thing.
On the book tour we used to joke that we'd need to make up anecdotes about how hard it was to work together, just to have something interesting to say. There really aren't a lot of anecdotes because - while the book itself was challenging to write - the collaborative process was not challenging. We both enjoyed it.
On the book tour we used to joke that we'd need to make up anecdotes about how hard it was to work together, just to have something interesting to say. There really aren't a lot of anecdotes because - while the book itself was challenging to write - the collaborative process was not challenging. We both enjoyed it.
Nicole Galland
Hello Ariel -
Since my newest book came out about 10 days ago, I currently have no ARCs available. In general, the best way to get an ARC is to reach out to the publisher (in this case, HarperCollins - the PR department, I imagine), tell them who you are and where you'd be reviewing the book, and ask for a copy. I think they are pretty generous about it, since they always want to get the word out. Good luck!
Since my newest book came out about 10 days ago, I currently have no ARCs available. In general, the best way to get an ARC is to reach out to the publisher (in this case, HarperCollins - the PR department, I imagine), tell them who you are and where you'd be reviewing the book, and ask for a copy. I think they are pretty generous about it, since they always want to get the word out. Good luck!
Nicole Galland
Hello Ariel - Sounds like you enjoyed Stepdog, and I'm glad. That novel was sort of an outlier for me. I don't generally write modern novels. If that changes, I'm sure HarperCollins my wonderful publisher will let everyone know about it :-)
Nicole Galland
Hi Bobby, I wish I had a more coherent answer for you, but to be honest it changes with every project. I can't even give you a general overview unless I make something up, and I don't want to mislead you by offering a false model. If it's any help, it took me 14 years and at least 7 failed attempts to get my first novel, The Fool's Tale, completed - so don't give up.
Nicole Galland
Hi Jon - I think you may have heard about a project we are doing with Bound - check it out at getbound.io
This is ancillary material making up some mini-equels (i.e. Not sequels or prequels but rather stories that are contemporaneous with the novel). The material was created by myself and 6 other writer-friends of Neal or me. Enjoy!
This is ancillary material making up some mini-equels (i.e. Not sequels or prequels but rather stories that are contemporaneous with the novel). The material was created by myself and 6 other writer-friends of Neal or me. Enjoy!
Nicole Galland
Hello Ifzal,
Good question. First of all, we can't really make sweeping generalizations about all of history and all historical cultures. There are many eras and many regions, as well as class structures and cultural norms and taboos, and there's no single truism that can be applied everywhere equally.
That said, there are some generalizations that can be safely asserted about "the western world" over the past few centuries. One of these is the rise of pets-qua-pets. In other words, today people are more likely than in the past to own a domesticated animal purely the purpose of companionship and pleasure. Dogs, cats, goldfish, lizards, horses, goats, rabbits, chickens, etc in days of yore would have been chiefly valued for being (a) useful/practical, (b) tasty, and/or (c) implying high status or wealth for their owner in some way. Now they just have to be cute. the domino effect: we often treat the animals differently, which conditions them to behave differently, which further encourages us to treat them differently (i.e. value them for their cuteness), etc. But that's not a universal truth. My Irish husband and I STILL disagree about our collective relationship with our dog - even after I wrote a book about the three of us!
Good question. First of all, we can't really make sweeping generalizations about all of history and all historical cultures. There are many eras and many regions, as well as class structures and cultural norms and taboos, and there's no single truism that can be applied everywhere equally.
That said, there are some generalizations that can be safely asserted about "the western world" over the past few centuries. One of these is the rise of pets-qua-pets. In other words, today people are more likely than in the past to own a domesticated animal purely the purpose of companionship and pleasure. Dogs, cats, goldfish, lizards, horses, goats, rabbits, chickens, etc in days of yore would have been chiefly valued for being (a) useful/practical, (b) tasty, and/or (c) implying high status or wealth for their owner in some way. Now they just have to be cute. the domino effect: we often treat the animals differently, which conditions them to behave differently, which further encourages us to treat them differently (i.e. value them for their cuteness), etc. But that's not a universal truth. My Irish husband and I STILL disagree about our collective relationship with our dog - even after I wrote a book about the three of us!
Nicole Galland
My summer reading list will come into focus as soon as I finish the final draft of current writing project - at the point I will walk into a bookstore and buy whatever appeals to me in the moment. I'm not usually quite that impulsive a reader but it's been that kind of year.
Nicole Galland
Depends what mood I'm in! At present I think the Lyra/Will Parry bond (Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials) is tops on the list...
Nicole Galland
Choosing a favorite one is hard - depends on my mood!
The easy answer is Othello. My novel I, Iago is a retelling of that play. I've helped adapt more than 2 dozen of Shakespeare's works, but Othello is the one I've lived in the deepest. It has such a clean, clear dramatic arc. Shakespeare loved to juggle subplots or change course unexpectedly - yet nearly every syllable in every line of Othello is there to push the story toward its tragic climax. And Iago is a charismatic villain because of how he works the audience - I have a weakness for bad guys with a twinkle in their eye. (Since I married the fellow who played Iago for me, I guess I am a little biased...)
If I'm in a mood for more variation (Othello is like a locomotive that goes from A to B without detouring as many of his plays do), I think I'd choose either Richard III (a tragic history with some terrifically strong women, and Richard, although evil, is at least as charismatic as Iago) or Twelfth Night (which has a wide range of comedic style from highbrow to fart jokes, but also an underlying poignant soulfulness). And when I'm feeling a little ADD, Midsummer Night's Dream is the polar opposite of Othello - it's all over the map - literally, structurally and emotionally.
The easy answer is Othello. My novel I, Iago is a retelling of that play. I've helped adapt more than 2 dozen of Shakespeare's works, but Othello is the one I've lived in the deepest. It has such a clean, clear dramatic arc. Shakespeare loved to juggle subplots or change course unexpectedly - yet nearly every syllable in every line of Othello is there to push the story toward its tragic climax. And Iago is a charismatic villain because of how he works the audience - I have a weakness for bad guys with a twinkle in their eye. (Since I married the fellow who played Iago for me, I guess I am a little biased...)
If I'm in a mood for more variation (Othello is like a locomotive that goes from A to B without detouring as many of his plays do), I think I'd choose either Richard III (a tragic history with some terrifically strong women, and Richard, although evil, is at least as charismatic as Iago) or Twelfth Night (which has a wide range of comedic style from highbrow to fart jokes, but also an underlying poignant soulfulness). And when I'm feeling a little ADD, Midsummer Night's Dream is the polar opposite of Othello - it's all over the map - literally, structurally and emotionally.
Nicole Galland
Hello Tom -
I've been staring at my screen trying to figure out how to answer this ;-) My favorite thing to do, when life allows it, is to go to the British Library (an ocean away from where I live, plus one needs special permission to go into the parts I like), and peruse every book that comes up when I do a specific search (really specific, or obviously it's overwhelming. "12th-century Wales" was a GREAT search, when I wrote The Fool's Tale. If you put in, say, "Othello," you're likely to get slammed.)
For me, the hardest but most interesting thing to know about a time period is the zeitgeist. In a sense we can never really get this, but reading about social history is my favorite way in, rather than collections of facts. Henri Pirenne (I think that's how you spell it) has done some great work about the social history of the Middle Ages - the birds-eye view of how society functioned.
Also for most historical eras, religion was a far more powerful (and less diverse) force in society than it is these days. Knowing what relationship your characters have to the dominant religion(s) is huge. A Puritan has one experience in 1550's England and a very different one in 1650's New England, eg. (caveat: I know diddleysquat about Puritanism, I just threw that in there because I just finished reading Wolf Hall so Puritans have been on my mind.)
I've been staring at my screen trying to figure out how to answer this ;-) My favorite thing to do, when life allows it, is to go to the British Library (an ocean away from where I live, plus one needs special permission to go into the parts I like), and peruse every book that comes up when I do a specific search (really specific, or obviously it's overwhelming. "12th-century Wales" was a GREAT search, when I wrote The Fool's Tale. If you put in, say, "Othello," you're likely to get slammed.)
For me, the hardest but most interesting thing to know about a time period is the zeitgeist. In a sense we can never really get this, but reading about social history is my favorite way in, rather than collections of facts. Henri Pirenne (I think that's how you spell it) has done some great work about the social history of the Middle Ages - the birds-eye view of how society functioned.
Also for most historical eras, religion was a far more powerful (and less diverse) force in society than it is these days. Knowing what relationship your characters have to the dominant religion(s) is huge. A Puritan has one experience in 1550's England and a very different one in 1650's New England, eg. (caveat: I know diddleysquat about Puritanism, I just threw that in there because I just finished reading Wolf Hall so Puritans have been on my mind.)
Nicole Galland
This is a great question, Sam, and there are a lot of ways to approach it, but my immediate reaction is this: all the dysfunctional tendencies in Hamlet's family are sublimated, secretive, repressed; in Lear's family, they don't pull any punches - they just let it all hang out. In Hamlet. Cladius secretly (a) has an affair with his sister-in-law, (b) murders his brother, (c) plots Hamlet's murder, (d) plots Hamlet's murder again, and then (e) just for good measure, has a back-up murder plan. Hamlet, in his turn, secretly (a) plots Claudius's death, (b) plots Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's death, (c) plots Claudius' death and (d) talks to himself in private a lot.
King Lear, in comparison, is filled with more open, overt rage, disgust, plotting, double-crossing, croneyism and betrayal than you'd expect from the average British family.
Of course on the other hand, each play features a secondary family, which is somewhat the inverse of the royal brood: Pollonius, although hiding behind an arras, is otherwise an open book, and his children even more so; while Gloucester, in Lear, has two sons who keep secrets from him, even as he secretly assists Lear to safety from his raging-bitch daughters.
So, it all evens out. Sort of.
King Lear, in comparison, is filled with more open, overt rage, disgust, plotting, double-crossing, croneyism and betrayal than you'd expect from the average British family.
Of course on the other hand, each play features a secondary family, which is somewhat the inverse of the royal brood: Pollonius, although hiding behind an arras, is otherwise an open book, and his children even more so; while Gloucester, in Lear, has two sons who keep secrets from him, even as he secretly assists Lear to safety from his raging-bitch daughters.
So, it all evens out. Sort of.
Nicole Galland
Hi Cynthia, sorry it took me a couple of days to get back to you, I'm sort of an idiot when it comes to technology... thanks for checking in to ask, though :-)
We recently did a 3-play cycle (Richard II and both parts of Henry IV - all in 90 minutes) that my colleague Chelsea McCarthy and I were very proud of. That's a wrap for Shakespeare for the Masses' Playhouse season (we'll start up again in the fall),
BUT:
For the Edgartown Public Library's Shakespeare Festival, we are doing Taming of the Shrew on Friday, April 29, at 7 pm.
AND
This summer in the Amphitheatre, my friend and fellow Bardophile is directing Much Ado About Nothing. If you're on the Vineyard do come see it!
The whole thing is such great fun, I honestly couldn't tell you what's best. It all feels best. I feel very lucky to work with such great talent.
We recently did a 3-play cycle (Richard II and both parts of Henry IV - all in 90 minutes) that my colleague Chelsea McCarthy and I were very proud of. That's a wrap for Shakespeare for the Masses' Playhouse season (we'll start up again in the fall),
BUT:
For the Edgartown Public Library's Shakespeare Festival, we are doing Taming of the Shrew on Friday, April 29, at 7 pm.
AND
This summer in the Amphitheatre, my friend and fellow Bardophile is directing Much Ado About Nothing. If you're on the Vineyard do come see it!
The whole thing is such great fun, I honestly couldn't tell you what's best. It all feels best. I feel very lucky to work with such great talent.
Nicole Galland
I'm writing a novel with Neal Stephenson, whose work I am dazzled by, so it's a pretty thrilling ride.
Nicole Galland
My most recent book, STEPDOG, was inspired by my real-life surprise romance with my Irish-actor friend Billy. Because of his immigration status, we decided to get married immediately - which meant he was suddenly living with me and my dog-from-my-first-marriage, to whom I was extremely (extremely) attached. Our life then became so merrily chaotic that I didn't have the luxury of hunkering down into another time period, as I do with my historical fiction. It felt like we were living a semi-comic novel... so I decided to write it.
That's just the set-up of the novel of course. The second part goes off in an extremely different, entirely fictional, direction!
That's just the set-up of the novel of course. The second part goes off in an extremely different, entirely fictional, direction!
Nicole Galland
I often have terrible writers block, and I've found it helps to walk away from what you're doing, and instead do something that (a) uses a completely different part of your brain and/or (b) requires physical exertion. For me, walking or yoga help, as does anything involving music, especially choral singing (more on that in a moment) and sewing or crocheting. Or (c) if you feel that you MUST be writing, just write something else!
Geraldine Brooks once cured me of writer's block by telling me to watch Barton Fink. I highly recommend this.
Choral singing: I just recently had the opportunity to sing in a chorus, which I'd had no experience of. I found that in every possible way, the experience was the opposite extreme of writing, and just like a good counter-pose in yoga, it helped immensely. It required me to be extremely present in my body, to get out of my intellectual head, to pay attention to my surroundings, to focus outward rather than inward, and to give myself over to the whole, instead of having to play Solitary God. My job was to blend instead of being distinctive. It's also a physically invigorating activity when you do it right. It felt fantastic. And it neutralized so many of the things that make writing a challenge for me.
Geraldine Brooks once cured me of writer's block by telling me to watch Barton Fink. I highly recommend this.
Choral singing: I just recently had the opportunity to sing in a chorus, which I'd had no experience of. I found that in every possible way, the experience was the opposite extreme of writing, and just like a good counter-pose in yoga, it helped immensely. It required me to be extremely present in my body, to get out of my intellectual head, to pay attention to my surroundings, to focus outward rather than inward, and to give myself over to the whole, instead of having to play Solitary God. My job was to blend instead of being distinctive. It's also a physically invigorating activity when you do it right. It felt fantastic. And it neutralized so many of the things that make writing a challenge for me.
Nicole Galland
I'll just to quote Stephen King on this one: "Read a lot and write a lot."
I would also add that writing in a variety of different forms and styles is a good exercise in finding your own individual voice, instead of just settling into a genre or patterns learned in childhood. For one year, I made it a practice of writing one haiku a day. (I'm a lousy poet.) Rewired some things, shifted how I view the world and language. I recommend it.
I would also add that writing in a variety of different forms and styles is a good exercise in finding your own individual voice, instead of just settling into a genre or patterns learned in childhood. For one year, I made it a practice of writing one haiku a day. (I'm a lousy poet.) Rewired some things, shifted how I view the world and language. I recommend it.
About Goodreads Q&A
Ask and answer questions about books!
You can pose questions to the Goodreads community with Reader Q&A, or ask your favorite author a question with Ask the Author.
See Featured Authors Answering Questions
Learn more